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Roz shed the flirty, fun outfit she’d worn to brunch with Lora and donned a severe black pencil skirt coupled with a pale blue long-sleeved blouse that screamed “serious banker.” She twisted her long hair into a chignon, fought with the few escaped strands and finally left them because Hendrix had already put her behind for the day. Her afternoon was booked solid with the endless tasks associated with the new charity she’d founded.
She arrived at the small storefront her father’s admin had helped her rent, evaluating the layout for the fourteenth time. There was no sign yet. That was one of the many details she needed to work through this week as she got Clown-Around off the ground. It was an endeavor of the heart. And maybe a form of therapy.
Clowns still scared her, not that she’d admit to having formed a phobia during the long hours she’d sat at her mother’s hospital bedside, and honestly, she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone, so she didn’t. The curious only needed to know that Rosalind Carpenter had started a charity that trained clowns to work in children’s hospitals. Period.
The desk she’d had delivered dwarfed her, but she’d taken a page from her father’s book and procured the largest piece she could find in the Carpenter warehouse near the airport. He’d always said to buy furniture for the circumstances you want, not the ones you have. Buy quality so it will last until you make your dreams a reality. It was a philosophy that had served Carpenter Furniture well and she liked the sentiment. So she’d bought a desk that made her feel like the head of a successful charity.
She attacked the mountain of paperwork with gusto, cheerfully filling out forms and ordering supplies. There was an enormous amount of overhead that went along with running a charity and when you had zero income to use in hiring help, there was only one person to do the work—the founder.
Before she’d barely dug into the task, the lady from the first hospital Roz had called her back.
“Ms. Smith, so happy to speak with you,” Roz began smoothly. “I’d like to see what your requirements are for getting Clown-Around on the approved list of organizations available to work with the children at your hospital.”
“I could have saved you some time, Ms. Carpenter,” the liaison replied and her tone could only be described as frosty. “We already have an approved group we work with. No need for any additional ones.”
That threw Roz for a loop. “Oh. Well, we’d be happy to go on the backup list. You know, in case the other group cancels unexpectedly.”
“That’s okay,” she cut in quickly. “That almost never happens and it’s not like we have scheduled times. The clowns come in on a pretty casual basis.”
This was not a good conversation. Unease prickled at the back of Roz’s neck and she did not like the feeling. “I’m having a hard time believing that you can’t use extra cheer in the children’s ward. We’re talking about sick kids who don’t want to be in the hospital. Surely if your current clowns come and go at will, you can add some of mine to the rotation. A clown is a clown, right?”
The long pause boded badly. Roz braced for the next part.
“To be frank, Ms. Carpenter, the hospital board would not appreciate any association with a charity you helm,” Ms. Smith stated bluntly. “We are required to disclose any contact a patient has with outside parties, particularly when the patients are minors. The clowns must have accreditation and thorough vetting to ensure we’re not exposing patients to...unseemly influences.”
Roz went hot and then cold as the woman’s meaning flashed through her. The reputation of the charity’s founder preceded her apparently. “I take it I qualify as an unseemly influence. Then may I be as frank and ask why you bothered to call me back?”
“Strictly in deference to your father. One of his vice presidents is on the board, if you’re not aware,” she replied tightly. “If we’ve reached an understanding...”
“We have. Thank you for your candor.” Roz stabbed the end call button and let her cell phone drop to the desk of a successful charity head. Too bad
that wasn’t who was sitting at it.
Wow. Her hands were shaking.
And because her day hadn’t been crappy enough, the door she’d forgotten to lock behind her opened to the street and Hendrix Harris walked into her nightmare.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped, too off-kilter to find some manners when she’d already told him to step off once today. “This is private property. How did you find me?”
Not one perfect brown hair out of place, the man waltzed right in and glanced around her bare-bones operation with unabashed curiosity. “I followed you, naturally. But I didn’t want to interrupt your phone call, so I waited.”
“Bless your heart,” she shot back and snatched up her phone to call the cops. “You have two seconds to vacate or I’m going to lodge a trespassing complaint.”
Instead of hightailing it out the door—which was what he should have done—Hendrix didn’t hesitate to round the desk, crowd into her space without even a cursory nod to boundaries and pluck the phone from her hand. “Now, why would you do a thing like that? We’re all friends here.”
Something that felt perilously close to tears pricked beneath her lashes. “We’re not friends.”
Tears. In front of Hendrix. It was inexcusable.
“We could be friends,” he announced quietly, without an ounce of flirt. Somehow that was exactly the right tone to burn off the moisture. “Friends who help each other. You didn’t give me much of a chance to tell you how earlier.”
Help. That was something she needed. Not that he needed to know that, or how grateful she was that he’d found a way to put her back on even footing. She didn’t for an instant believe he’d missed her brief flash of vulnerability and his deft handling of it made all the difference.
The attitude of the hospital lady still chilled her. But she wasn’t in danger of falling apart any longer, thank God.
“Because I have a zone of crazy around me.” She nodded to the floor, near his feet. “There’s the perimeter and you’re four feet over the line.”
Problem being that she liked him where he was—one lean hip cocked against her desk and all his good stuff at eye level. Naked, the man rivaled mythical gods in the perfection department. She could stare at his bare body for hours and never get tired of finding new ways to appreciate his deliciousness.
