Anything You Can Do(4)
"My time?" she gasped, not sure she'd heard right. "Yes," Paula assured her, "forty-two minutes, seven seconds."
Suddenly it didn't matter quite so much that Austin had beaten her because she'd just beaten herself, turned in a personal best. As soon as she was physically able, she planned to shout to the heavens.
Paula grabbed two oranges from a refreshment table and began peeling as they walked. "I see you came in with that gorgeous lawyer," she said, offering a half skinned fruit to Bailey. "Do you have something to tell me?"
Bailey gulped down a piece of orange, greedy for the sugar and liquid to nourish her exhausted system. "Gordon's friend," she gasped. "Thought you weren't interested in lawyers."
"I can admire a thing of beauty while having no desire to mate with it. Anyway, he passed me by with a wave. I think he's interested in you."
Even though it sent her into coughing, gasping spasms, Bailey burst into laughter at the idea. Men like Austin Travers reserved their interest for beautiful women with soft voices and bust line measurements that exceeded their IQs.
On the other side of the path, Austin held his side to ease the stitch and walked around the sidelines, fighting the nausea of overexertion, trying to cool down slowly. Across the crowd, he caught a glimpse of the woman who'd almost killed him.
He studied her for a moment, watched her accept an orange from her friend. When he'd first seen her before the race, stretching her long, sleek muscles, she'd seemed a regal gazelle. She enhanced that image when she ran with long, graceful strides, hair sparking red in the sunlight. Now, however, he knew her to be a tiger, a force to be reckoned with.
If he could just manage to catch his breath, he'd go over and congratulate her on a race well run. Not to mention that she'd pushed him into his best time since the high school track team.
But by the time he got back in control, ready to face her, she and her friend had disappeared into the crowd.
Feeling oddly disappointed, he got a cold soda and wandered through the throng.
"Austin! Over here!"
Austin turned at the welcome sound of Gordon's voice and saw him standing under a large tree, waving. Beside Gordon, Bailey and her friend lounged on the grass. Sunlight dappled Bailey's smooth, sweat-shiny skin and blazed in her hair. However, her gaze was cool and green as she watched him approach.
The combination of fire and ice was daunting and tantalizing. He'd probably be wise to keep on running. Instead he sank to the ground beside her.
"Bailey's trying to make me take up some exhausting sport," Gordon complained as Austin sank to the cool grass, "and Paula Duvall, whom you haven't met and probably don't want to, thinks I should find a decent job."
"Make something of yourself," Paula supplied, laughing, looking up at Gordon. "Better yourself. Become a janitor, wash dishes, dig ditches."
"But Bailey's a lawyer, and you like her," Gordon objected.
Paula sighed heavily, lowering her eyes in mock shame. "I'm partially to blame for her sorry lot in life. From the time we were in third grade, I encouraged her to go to law school. I blame it all on too many Perry Mason reruns."
"What is this?" Austin asked, laughing. "Are we trashing attorneys?"
"Why not?" Paula quipped. "Can you think of anybody who deserves it more?"
"I asked her to marry me," Gordon declared, leaning lazily back against the tree trunk. "She told Bailey I showed good sense in not running or indulging in those other activities that make you sweat, so naturally I asked her to marry me. That's when she said I'd have to get a decent job."
The sound of Bailey's throaty laughter drew Austin's attention to her. She was leaning back on her arms, long legs stretched in front of her, the corners of her full mouth tilted upward. Once again she was the sleek, sensuous woman he'd noticed earlier rather than the tiger he'd almost lost the race to.
But then she turned toward him, eyes narrowing, smile challenging. "Jump in, Austin," she dared him, sitting upright, pulling her knees to her chest and leaning her chin on them. "Defend your chosen profession."
Austin cleared his throat, suddenly at a loss for words, inexplicably feeling eighteen years old again with the task of proving himself still looming ahead. "What exactly don't you like about lawyers?" he asked.
"I've been a legal secretary for twelve years," Paula answered. "Need I say more?"