When You Dare - Lori Foster [46]
Dare looked over her casual clothes and agreed. “I suppose you do.”
“I think she looks comfortable,” Chris said. “Sort of sloppy-cute.”
“That’s because you have the fashion sense of a goat.”
Glad that he’d led Dare into that one, Chris said, “So you don’t think she’s cute?”
“Excuse me?” Molly looked at each of them with clear censure. “Do you think we could use your account to do some online shopping? I know my credit-card numbers and can charge it to myself but have it delivered here overnight. I don’t need much, because once we get to my apartment, I can grab my own things.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Chris said before Dare could. “I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Oh, no.” Opposed to that idea, she shook her head. “You were ready to go to bed. Really, I can do it.”
But Chris was already back on the computer. “Do you have a favorite place to shop and an idea of what you want? We can get it done right now.”
Dare didn’t hide his exasperation. “I wanted to talk to her about her disgruntled readers.”
“I multitask, as you know. Once she tells me what she wants, I can take care of most of it.” He went back to the computer. “Where do you shop?”
Deflated and probably overwhelmed, Molly gave in and told him.
Dare set her plate and a tall glass of water in front of her. “Eat up. And be sure to stay hydrated.” Ever so briefly, he touched her cheek. “I know you feel better, but you aren’t fully recovered yet.”
She smiled, then inhaled the fragrance of real food. “It smells fantastic.”
“Told you he was a good cook,” Chris said, amused by that telling exchange. “Okay, got it. Where to first? Slacks, tops, dresses or jeans? I’d put an outfit together for you, but as Dare already told you, I’m a fashion disaster. So, what are you thinking?”
Molly gave him direction in between eating.
Dare kept nudging the water at her until she drank half the glass.
Pulling up certain brands she’d suggested, Chris found that she was very easy to please. With little fanfare she chose dark designer jeans, black ankle boots, a simple white blouse and a thick charcoal pullover sweater with a self-tie belt.
“Here’s a nice corduroy blazer that’d go with it. What do you think?”
“That’ll work, but get it a size larger so it’ll fit over the sweater. Maybe a scarf, too?”
“Not a problem.” When he was ready to check her out, she came over and, leaning around him, typed in her credit-card numbers.
“To stay on the safe side, I’ll have it delivered to our post-office box in town. But don’t worry. I can go pick it up as soon as it arrives.”
“You make an amazing assistant.”
Dare gave a rude sound over that. “He’s a pain in the ass, but I tolerate him.”
Grinning, Chris turned on the stool toward him. “I’d like to say that you’d be lost without me, but that would be a lie. However, I know for a fact that I make your life more comfortable.”
Lifting his glass, Dare saluted him. “Yeah, I’ll give you that one.”
Chris accepted his due with a nod. To Molly, he said, “Dare has many areas of expertise, only one of them being organization and a certain finesse at details. But I excel at comfort—my own and others’.”
Molly smiled. “Comfort is high on my list of priorities, too. It’s one reason I’m a writer. I can write from my own home, in my jammies, drinking hot cocoa and listening to the music of my choice.”
“A dream job. If only I had the talent to write…”
“But you don’t, so you’re stuck with me.” Dare focused on Molly. “Tell me why you think a reader could be responsible for your abduction.”
She waved off his question. “I didn’t really mean that. I was just being snarky.”
They both waited for an explanation of that.
She pushed away her mostly empty plate. “Well, the thing is, my last book garnered a lot of controversy. There was a vocal group of readers who really…” She looked from Dare to Chris, and shrugged. “They were really pissed off with a certain twist in the plot.