Truth or Dare, page 1
TRUTH OR DARE
by
Janis Reams Hudson
Digital/Electronic Copyright October 2012 by Janis Reams Hudson
Original Copyright May 1993 by Janis Reams Hudson
(Originally published by Bantam Loveswept, May 1993.)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any form or by any manner without express written consent of the author, expect for brief excerpts used in reviews.
The Judy Lisenby,
for giving me the idea. Thanks, friend.
CHAPTER ONE
Jared Morgan tapped his pencil against his desk pad, his irritation growing along with the number of little pencil marks on the white paper. After a while, he switched ends and tapped the eraser instead of the lead, cursing softly while he waited for the next applicant.
He'd been through four interviews this morning, and a more unqualified lot of applicants he'd never seen. Was he going to end the week without finding a new secretary?
Somewhere out there in the world there had to be a good executive secretary who wanted to work for a living and could type a cool hundred words a minute. A dedicated, highly intelligent, college educated career secretary.
Jared rose reluctantly to greet his last applicant before lunch. The rush of hope he felt as the woman firmly shook his hand transformed his scowl of frustration into a smile. The smile some claimed had melted the hearts of countless women faltered somewhat as he realized it had little or no effect on the woman before him.
But that was good! Great, in fact!
She wore flat shoes, like the ones his twelve–year–old daughter wore; her skirt was too long to be attractive and hung loosely on her shapeless hips. She had no breasts to speak of, but it was hard to tell because of the way her suit jacket hung limply from her shoulders. No makeup at all, and her straight, black hair, cut even with her jawline, swung forward and covered half her face. Long thick bangs nearly obscured the most hideous pair of glasses he'd ever seen. They had thick, square black frames, and the lenses, not quite dark enough for sunglasses, were tinted slightly green. They cast a greenish pallor over her entire face, with a little help from the fluorescent lighting and the pea–soup color of her suit.
The word nerd came to mind, but it seemed a shade too masculine for the woman before him. Female nerd?
Naw. Too cumbersome. Nerdette. That was her.
And she wasn't the least impressed with his most devastating smile. His dream secretary come to life. With a twist. This one reminded him of the old maid librarians from his childhood. Those fierce, intimidating women mentally and emotionally equipped to keep small children in line with one hand and command entire armies with the other. Rachel Fredrick looked absolutely perfect. Now . . . if only she could type.
"Please have a seat, Ms. Fredrick," Jared offered.
"Thank you." The woman seated herself primly on the edge of the chair in front of his desk, laid her purse in her lap, and folded her hands and rested them precisely in the middle of her patent leather handbag.
Patent leather. As far as he could remember, the only times he'd seen a woman with a patent leather purse were at church on Easter Sunday, and at funerals.
He flipped through the papers she handed him. The application was neat and clean, and the letters from the employment agency regarding her qualifications were impressive, to say the least. He was familiar with that particular agency, had used them before, and they seldom, if ever, went to the trouble to write letters of recommendation. If she was half as good as things looked on the surface, his troubles were over.
"It says here you've just recently moved to Oklahoma City, Rachel. May I call you Rachel?" At her nod of acquiescence, he continued. "What made you choose to leave St. Louis? I don't mean to pry—I'm just curious."
"That's quite all right, Mr. Morgan."
"Jared, please," he interrupted. That voice. How could a nerdette have the sexiest voice he'd ever heard?
"Jared," she acknowledged. "I moved here to be near family."
"Then you plan to stay in the area?" He certainly didn't want to hire anyone who was just passing through. But then the firm set to her mouth told him she probably would never admit to that if she wanted this job. And she sure looked eager enough.
Out the corner of his eye Jared noted The Morning Movie fading to black on one of the monitors mounted on the wall over Rachel Fredrick's left shoulder. Time to pay the bills, he thought as he subconsciously waited for the commercial to begin.
"Yes," she answered. "I've made Oklahoma City my home."
"Have you ever worked in a television station before?"
Jared had been General Manager of Channel 3 for the past two years and was proud of his station's standing in the community. The last thing he wanted was a secretary who thought she could either become a star or meet celebrities by working in broadcasting. But this woman looked like she had entirely too much common sense to be bothered with any sort of celebrity status—her own or anyone else's.
"No, I haven't. Is that a problem, Mr. Morgan?"
"Jared."
"Jared. Is that a problem?"
"No." He glanced at the wall again and noticed the Channel 3 monitor was still black. He frowned. It had to have been longer than ten seconds by now, and ten seconds of black had better mean the master control operator had just suffered a heart attack, as far as Jared was concerned. Two seconds, three maximum. That's all there should ever be.
"Excuse me a minute, Rachel." He reached for the phone to call and ask what the devil was going on, but then thought better of the idea. If there was a problem, which there obviously was, the last thing the engineers in the control room needed was a ringing telephone. And if they stopped in the middle of a crisis to answer the phone, he'd probably fire the lot of them.
He kept his eyes on the black screen and hesitated. They were good people in the control room. What ever was wrong, they were undoubtedly working on it. He'd only be in the way if he went back there right now.
But there had better be a damned good reason for so much black on the air.
An instant later, Jared would have loved to have seen that black again. The screen on the wall went from black to snow. Channel 3 was off the air.
"Damn." Jared jumped to his feet and ran for the door. "Excuse me," he called back to Rachel as he left her alone in his office.
Rachel Fredrick frowned and watched him leave. His departure was accompanied by a shout from somewhere down the hall. She wondered what was going on. Surely he wouldn't be long.
She sat still for fifteen minutes, gripping the edge of her purse until her fingers went numb. Was he ever coming back? He had to come back. This seemed to be the only decent–paying job available in the entire city, and she was determined to have it. She knew she was more than qualified, and if Jared Morgan had met anyone whom he really wanted to hire, he would have already hired the person, and Rachel's interview would have been canceled. That had already happened to her once.
In fact, this was the first actual interview she'd had since she started searching for a job last week. And she was determined to nail this job.
The desk before her was neat and clean in the middle, but the outer edges were piled haphazardly with papers, ledgers and books of all sorts. The same was true of the credenza on the far wall and the sofa behind her. This man needed help. Correction—he needed her help.
Now, how to convince him.
As if in answer to her question, the phone on Jared Morgan's desk started buzzing and three lights flashed. At the same time, she could hear the phone in the outer office, presumably the secretary's. If she was going to answer those calls, it wouldn't seem quite so presumptuous if she at least did it from the secretary's desk.
* * * *
"No, I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't know how long he'll be . . . I'll be sure to tell him." Rachel looked up from what seemed like the ninetieth phone call to see a boy leaning against the door frame leading to the hall and grinning. She guessed his age at about nineteen. She nodded at him and returned his smile while she wrote down the caller's phone number. "Yes ma'am," she said into the phone. "Just as soon as he returns."
"Hi," the boy at the door said when she hung up the phone. "You Rachel?" At her nod he thrust his hands into his hip pockets. "Boss wanted me to make sure you were still here. He said to tell you he shouldn't be too much longer, if you can wait. I'm Bobby Johnson. I'm the page."
"The page?" she asked. "What does a page do?"
"Oh, you know," the boy answered with a shrug. "I take care of the mail, run around town delivering and picking up things, that sort of stuff. I guess you could say I'm the station gofer."
Rachel had learned years ago that first impressions weren't always to be trusted, but still, she liked this boy with the friendly smile. "Do you enjoy what you do?"
"It'll do for now." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I studied film at a special course they had at the University of Central Oklahoma last summer. What I really want to do is be a film editor. But there haven't been any openings, so I took this job to sort of get my foot in the door."
A disembodied female voice came over the intercom: "Bobby Johnson, come to the mail room. Bobby Johnson, to the mail room, please."
Bobby straightened and took his hands from his pockets. "That's me. Gotta run. Boss said he'd like you to wait for him if you have time. See ya." With a short, two–fingered wave, he took off down the hall at a trot.
* * * *
When Jared steppe d from the hall into his outer office, he took a quick double take and stopped dead in his tracks. When he'd left this room forty–five minutes ago it had looked a lot like his own office, with stacks of papers all over the desk.
Now the desk was neat and uncluttered. The paperwork had been moved to the top of the low, lateral file cabinets along the back wall, the overflowing wastebasket had been emptied, the empty coffee cups were gone, and unless he missed his guess, that was a fresh pot of coffee he smelled.
He followed the coffee aroma through the room and stepped into his own inner office. The only changes here were the missing dirty cups and two neat stacks of papers in the center of his desk. The rest of the piles were, thankfully, just as he'd left them.
The two new stacks were as much a puzzle as the neat appearance of his nonexistent secretary's office. One pile was a stack of pink "while–you–were–out" messages. The other appeared to be letters, printed on his own company stationery.
Someone had definitely been busy. But who?
A tinkling of glass and the sound of running water, and the ever-enticing aroma of fresh coffee, led him to the small kitchen off the back of his office.
There stood his fantasy secretary at his sink, obviously engrossed in cleaning up the dirty glasses and week–old coffee dregs on the countertop. The woman who normally cleaned up at night had been sick for days. Jared hadn't realized what a mess the place was in, but he certainly didn't expect his secretary—much less an applicant—to do this sort of work. "What are you doing?"
At the sound of his voice Rachel's heart gave a little flip. She nearly dropped the cup she was rinsing. "Oh! You startled me." She closed her eyes briefly to regain her composure. "I didn't hear you come in." She placed the cup in the sink and dried her hands on a dish towel. "I just thought I'd make myself useful while I waited. I hope you don't mind," she added, a bit uncertain of his reaction.
When he'd left the room earlier, his charcoal suit and burgundy tie had been neat and crisp. Now his jacket was gone, his shirt was wrinkled and dirty, and his tie hung loosely from his fingers. "I made fresh coffee. You'll pardon me if I say you look like you could use some."
Jared chuckled ruefully and ran a hand through his thick wavy hair. "I sure could."
She poured him a cup.
He took it and thanked her. "Pour yourself one and come back to the office."
Rachel declined the coffee. The shape her stomach was in, coffee was the last thing she needed. She preceded him out of the kitchen, wondering what he'd say about everything she'd done. Wondering if he would hire her.
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh, then sipped the coffee. "Someone's been busy. What's all this?" he asked, indicating the stacks of letters and messages on his desk.
"I hope you don't think it too presumptuous of me," Rachel said, "but the phone kept ringing, and no one seemed to be around. I just took a few messages, that's all." She made a conscious effort to keep from fidgeting. What she'd actually done in his absence was take over his office, but she hoped he wouldn't see it that way.
He eyed her carefully. "And these letters?"
"I'm sorry if I overstepped, but it just looked like an awful lot needed to be done. I didn't mind helping out. And please don't feel obligated to hire me because of this." She nearly choked on the words. Obligated was exactly how she wanted him to feel. Obligated enough to hire her.
"You don't want the job?"
She swallowed a knot of panic. "Of course I want the job."
He studied her a moment longer, then reached for his phone—which had miraculously stopped ringing as soon as he'd come back to the office—and punched in a three–digit number.
"Mark, this is Jared. Put a Ms. Rachel Fredrick on the payroll as of an hour ago. You can have her fill out the necessary paperwork Monday. She's going to be too busy today. Thanks."
Rachel nearly wilted with relief. "Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Jared. You won't regret it."
"I'm sure I won't, Rachel. I just hope you don't. You've got your work cut out for you."
* * * *
"Ooo, Mother, what happened to your hair? Yuk."
"Caroline, is that any way for a twelve–year–old to talk to her mother?" Rachel asked with a raised eyebrow and a quirk on her lips. "Yuk, indeed. This happens to be a wig."
"But . . . why? You look so . . . so . . . like a . . ."
"I think what Caro is trying to say," Mike offered, "is that you look like a bag lady. Please tell us you didn't go on your job interview looking like that."
"I most certainly did," Rachel replied calmly as she looked up at her seventeen–year–old son. He was several inches taller than she. He had his father's height, but not his looks, thank God. She wouldn't have been able to bear it if either of her children even remotely resembled Hank. A coldness poured through her at the mere thought of her ex–husband.
"What did you do that for?" Mike demanded. "And those clothes!"
"I did it so I wouldn't look like me. And I got the job. So there."
"Well, you oughtta be able to keep this job." Caroline giggled behind her hand. "It's for sure nobody's gonna recognize you when you look like that."
"That, my darling children, is the entire idea."
"Where are you working? What kind of place is it?" Mike wanted to know.
"I'll tell you all about it, but first, let me get out of this costume."
Mike and Caroline both laughed at her strange appearance as Rachel went down the hall toward her bedroom.
"Love the wig, Mom," Mike called after her.
Caroline's squeal of laughter accompanied his words. "The glasses are my favorite."
Rachel closed the door to her room and kicked off the tacky flat shoes. She rushed to rid herself of the layers of clothing as quickly as possible. How long would it take her to get used to wearing clothes so loose they threatened to fall off every time she moved?
Except for the bra. It had the opposite problem in that she'd purposely bought it two sizes too small, to flatten her chest. It wasn't all that uncomfortable after the first hour or so, but getting it off was certainly a relief.
But the clothes concealed her figure, and that's what she wanted.
With the offending garments in a heap at her feet, she reached to pull the pins from her scalp. The black wig landed like a dead thing on her dresser. She shook out her hair until it hung down her back in curls that fell halfway to her waist.
"Ah." It felt so good to be out of the disguise. But the wig and ill–fitting clothes had served her well. She had the job, and she intended to keep it. So she'd just better get used to the idea of wearing those awful clothes and that hideous wig.
When she rejoined her children, Mike said, "Now you look like the mother we know and love."
Rachel had to admit she certainly felt more like herself in her snug fitting jeans and loose T–shirt. "The bag lady is no more . . . until Monday morning. Now, tell me how your day went. How are you two making out at your new schools?"
Mike complained about being forced to read A Tale of Two Cities. Rachel laughed at the face he made, and promised to buy him two new Louis L'Amours if he got a good grade on his book report.
"I had a great day," Caroline said. "I signed up for a girl's softball team."
"That's wonderful," Rachel said with enthusiasm. She knew Caroline had worried she might not get to play this year. "Tell us about it."
"I don't know much, really. Except that my new friend, Debbie, you remember hearing about her. Well, her dad's the coach, and she says they've already started practice, but that they need a good short stop. And that's me! It's some sort of inner–city league and they play nearly all summer. And you don't have to worry about how to get me to the games. If Mike can't take me, Debbie says there's always a bunch of carpools going on with the parents."
"Sounds like you're settling in at school pretty fast," Rachel observed.
"Well," Caroline said. "I miss all my old friends, but I'm making new ones."
"I'm glad, sweetie. You both know I hated to uproot you, especially in the middle of a school year, but I didn't have much choice. Now that I've got a job, things'll be fine, you'll see."
Mike laughed and shook his head. "You mean, now that the bag lady has a job."
