Mixed Messages

Mixed Messeges

New York Times Bestselling Author

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Carly Barnett’s lifelong dream was to be a journalist—tracking down leads, interviewing important people, making a difference. A job offer at Portland’s Oregonian Times seemed like an ideal place to start, until she learned exactly what she’d be doing. Writing an advice column for lonely hearts wasn’t quite what she’d envisioned, but it was a beginning.

Mark Holbrook did nothing to disguise his disdain for the new staff reporter—if you could call Carly’s column “reporting.” Still, he couldn’t deny his attraction to her. But that didn’t mean he’d take her advice—not even if she held the key to his own lonely heart.

For our Wild Irish Rose, with love

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

1

He was a legend, and he was sitting right across the aisle from Carly Barnett. She wondered if she should speak to him and immediately began rehearsing possible scenarios in her mind.

First, she’d sort of bend toward him, then she’d lightly touch his arm. Excuse me, she would say, but I’ve been following your career since high school and I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your work. It’s partly because of you that I decided to become a journalist.

Too sappy, she concluded.

She could always look with dismay at the dinner on her fold-down tray and utter, I beg your pardon, but would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?

That idea wasn’t exactly spectacular, either. Carly hoped she’d be more imaginative once she was working at her new job with Portland’s Oregonian Times.

Covertly she studied Mark Holbrook as he wrote furiously on a yellow legal pad with his left hand, while ignoring the food the flight attendant had served earlier. He was tall, and younger than Carly would have expected, considering all his accomplishments—he was probably around thirty-two or thirty-three. He had nice brown hair and could have used a shave. Once he glanced at her, revealing expressive brown eyes, but he didn’t seem to see Carly at all. He was thinking.

Carly was deflated. After all, she’d been in the limelight herself, though in a very different way from Mr. Holbrook, and men usually noticed her.

She cleared her throat, and instantly his choirboy eyes focused on her.

“Hello,” he said with a megawatt smile that made the pit of Carly’s stomach jiggle.

She, who was used to being asked things like what she would do if she could run the world for a day, came up with nothing more impressive than, “Hi. Don’t you like the food?”

His eyes danced as he lifted the hard roll from his tray and took a deliberate bite.

Carly blushed slightly and thought to herself, Why didn’t I just lean across the aisle and cut his meat for him?

He had the temerity to laugh at her expression, and that brought the focus of her blue-green eyes back to his face. He was extending his hand. “Mark Holbrook,” he said cordially.

Carly had been schooled in deportment all her life, and she couldn’t overlook an offered hand. She shook it politely, a little stiffly, and said, “Carly Barnett.”

He was squinting at her. “You look sort of familiar. Are you an actress or something?”

Carly relaxed a bit. If she was going to recoil every time someone did something outrageous, she wouldn’t last long in the newspaper business. She gave him the smile that had stood her in such good stead during the pageant and afterward. “I was Miss United States four years ago.”

“That isn’t it,” Holbrook replied, dismissing the achievement so briskly that Carly was a little injured. “Have you been in a shaving-cream commercial or something?”

“I don’t shave, as a general rule,” Carly replied sweetly.

Holbrook chuckled, and it was a nice sound, masculine and easy. “So,” he said, “you’re a beauty queen.”

Carly’s smile faded, and she tossed her head in annoyance, making her chin-length blond curls bounce. “I’m a reporter,” she corrected him coolly. “Or at least I will be, as of Monday morning.”

He nodded. “On TV, of course.”

Carly heartily resented the inference that any job she might land would have to hinge on her looks. After all, she’d graduated from college with honors back in Kansas, and she’d even written a weekly column for her hometown newspaper. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have qualifications. “No,” she answered. “I’ve been hired by the Oregonian Times.”

Mr. Holbrook’s eyes were still dancing, even though his mouth had settled into a circumspect line. “I see. Well, that’s one of the best newspapers on the West Coast.”

“I know,” Carly informed him. “I understand it’s a rival to your paper.” The instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted letting on that she knew who he was, but it was too late, so she just sat there, trying to look remote.

Holbrook’s grin flashed again. “You’re behind on your homework, Ms. Barnett,” he informed her. “I went to work for the Times two years ago.”

They’d be working together, if only for the same paper. While Carly was absorbing that discovery, the flight attendant came and collected their trays, and then they were separated by the beverage cart. When it rolled on by, Carly saw that Mr. Holbrook had an amber-colored drink in one hand.

She felt slightly superior with her tomato juice, but the sensation lasted only until she remembered that Holbrook had a Pulitzer to his credit, that he’d interviewed presidents and kings and some of the greatest movie stars who’d ever graced the silver screen. Because she held him in such high esteem, she was willing to allow for his arrogance.

He’d forgotten all about her, anyway. Now that his dinner tray was out of the way, he was writing on the yellow legal pad in earnest.

The plane began its descent into Portland soon after, and Carly obediently put her tray into the upright position and fastened her seat belt. She was nervous about flying in general and taking off and landing in particular, and she gripped the armrests so tightly that her knuckles ached. Even though she’d flown a lot, Carly had never gotten used to it, and she doubted that she ever would.

When the plane touched down and then bumped and jostled along the runway, moving at a furious pace, Carly closed her eyes tightly and awaited death.

“It’s going to be okay,” she heard a voice say, and she was startled into opening her eyes again.

Mark Holbrook was watching her with gentle amusement, and he reached across the aisle to grip her hand.

Carly felt foolish, and she forced a shaky smile. But she had to grimace when the engines of the big plane were thrust into reverse and the sound of air rushing past the wings filled the cabin.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a staticky voice said over the sound system, “we’d like to welcome you to Portland, Oregon. There’s a light spring rain falling today, and the temperature is in the mid-forties. Thank you for choosing our airline, and we hope you’ll fly with us again soon. Please remain in your seats until we’ve come to a complete stop at the gate…”

Mark was obviously one of those people who never listened to such requests. He released Carly’s hand after giving it a squeeze, and stood to rummage through the overhead compartment for his carry-on luggage.

“Need a lift somewhere?” he asked, smiling down at Carly.

For a moment she almost regretted that her friend Janet would be waiting for her inside the terminal. She shook her head. “Thanks, but someone will be picking me up.”

He produced a business card from the pocket of his rumpled tweed coat and extended it. “Here,” he said with mischief in his eyes. “If you need any help learning the ropes, just call my extension.”

She beamed at him and replied in the same teasing tone of voice, “I think I’ll be able to master my job on my own, Mr. Holbrook.”

He chuckled and moved out of the plane with the rest of the mob, glancing back at Carly once to give her a brazen wink and another knee-dissolving grin.

Ten minutes later, when the crowd had thinned, Carly walked off the plane carrying her beauty case and purse. Her best friend from college, Janet McClain, was waiting eagerly at the gate, as promised.

“I thought you’d missed your flight,” Janet fussed as she and Carly hugged. Janet was an attractive brunette with dark eyes, and she’d been working in Portland as a buyer for a major department store ever since graduating from college. She’d been the one to suggest that Carly leave home once and for all and make a life for herself on the coast.

“I didn’t want to be in the crush,” Carly answered. “Is my apartment ready?”

Janet shook her head. “The paint’s still wet, but don’t worry about it. You can spend a few days at my place—you need to wait for your furniture to arrive anyway.”

Carly nodded. In the distance she caught a glimpse of the back of Mark Holbrook’s head. She wished she could see if he was walking with anyone, but even at her height of five feet seven inches the effort was fruitless.

“Who are you staring at?” Janet demanded, sensing drama. “Did you meet somebody on the plane?”

“Sort of,” Carly admitted. “I was sitting across the aisle from Mark Holbrook.”

Janet looked suitably impressed. “The journalist? What was he doing in coach?”

Carly laughed. “Slumming, I guess.”

Janet’s cheeks turned pink. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her raincoat. “Did you actually talk to him?”

“Oh, yes,” Carly answered. “He condescended to say a few words.”

“Did he ask you out?”

Carly sighed. She wished he had and, at the same time, was glad he hadn’t. But she wasn’t prepared to admit to such confusion—reporters were supposed to be decisive, with clear-cut opinions on everything. “He gave me his card.”

After that, Janet let the subject drop even though, these days, judging by her letters and phone calls, she was fixated on the man-woman relationship. She’d developed a penchant to get married and have a child.

They picked up Carly’s luggage and had a porter carry it to Janet’s car, which was in a far corner of the parking lot. The May sky glowered overhead.

“Well, Monday’s the big day,” Janet remarked when they had put Carly’s bags in the trunk and Janet’s stylish car was jetting sleekly into heavy afternoon traffic. “Are you excited?”

Carly nodded, but she couldn’t help thinking of home. It was later there; her dad would be leaving his filling station for the day and going home. Since his daughter wasn’t there to look after him, he’d probably buy fast food for supper and drive his cholesterol count sky high.

“You’re pretty quiet,” Janet observed. “Having second thoughts?”

Carly shook her head resolutely. She’d dreamed of working on a big-city newspaper all her life, and she had no real regrets. “I was just thinking of my dad. With me gone, there’s nobody there to take care of him.”

“Good grief, Carly,” Janet immediately retorted, “you make him sound ancient. How old is he—forty-five?”

Carly sighed. “Fifty. And he doesn’t eat right.”

Janet tossed her an impish grin. “With his old-maid daughter out of the way, your dad will probably fall madly in love with some sexy widow or divorcée and have a wild affair. Or maybe he’ll get married again and father a passel of kids.”

Carly grinned and shook her head, but as she looked out at the rain-misted Oregon terrain, her expression turned wistful. Here was her chance to live out her dreams and really be somebody besides a beauty queen.

She hoped she had what it took to succeed in the real world.

Carly’s new apartment was in Janet’s building, and it was a simple one-bedroom unit painted white throughout. Since the walls were still wet, it smelled of chemical fumes.

The carpets, freshly cleaned, were a toasty beige color, and there was a fireplace, fronted with fake white marble, in the living room. Carly looked forward to reading beside a crackling wood fire in her favorite chenille bathrobe.

“What do you think?” Janet asked, spreading her arms as though she’d conjured the whole place, like a modern-day Merlin.

Carly smiled, wishing the paint were dry and her furniture had arrived. It would have been nice to settle in and start getting used to her new home. “It’s great. Thanks for taking the time to find it for me, Janet.”

“It wasn’t any big deal, considering that I live in this building. Come on, we’ll change our clothes, get some supper out and take in a movie.”

“You’re sure you don’t have a date?” Carly asked, following her friend out of the apartment. They had already taken the suitcases to Janet’s place.

“He’ll keep,” Janet answered with a mysterious smile.

Carly thought of Reggie, her erstwhile fiancé, and wondered what he was doing at that very moment. Making rounds at the hospital, probably. Or swimming at the country club. She seriously doubted that he missed her; his career was the real priority in his life. “Are you in love?”

They were all the way to Janet’s door before she answered. “I don’t really know. Tom is good-looking and nice, and he has a good job. Maybe those things are enough—maybe love is just a figment of some poet’s imagination.”

Carly shook her head as she followed her friend into an apartment that was virtually a duplicate of the one they’d just left, except for the carpet. Here, it was forest green. “I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you,” she warned. “There might just be something to this love business.”

“Yeah,” Janet agreed, tossing her purse onto the sofa and shrugging out of her raincoat. “Bruised hearts and insomnia.”

After that, Carly stopped trying to win her friend over to her point of view. She didn’t know the first thing about love herself, except that she’d never been in it, not even with Reggie.

“An advice column?” Carly’s voice echoed in her cramped corner office the following Monday morning. “But I thought I was going to be a reporter….”

Carly’s new boss, Allison Courtney, stood tall and tweedy in the doorway. She was a no-nonsense type, with alert gray eyes, sleek blond hair pulled tightly into a bun and impeccable make-up. “When we hired you, Carly, we thought you were a team player,” she scolded cordially.

“Of course I am, but—”

“A lot of people would kill for a job like this, you know. I mean, think of it. You’re getting paid to tell other people what to do, for heaven’s sake!”

Carly had pictured herself interviewing senators and homeless people, covering trials and stand-offs between the police and the underworld. She knew the advice column was a plum, but it had never occurred to her that she’d be asked to serve in that capacity, and she was frankly disappointed. Calling upon years of training, she assumed a cheerful expression. “Where do I start?”

Allison returned Carly’s smile, pleased. “Someone will bring you this week’s batch of mail. You’ll find all the experts you need listed in the Rolodex. Oh, and between letters you might help out with clerical work and such. Welcome aboard.” With that, she stepped out, closing the office door behind her.

Carly set the box down on her desk with a clunk and sank into her chair. “Clerical work?” she echoed, tossing a glance at the computer system perched at her elbow. “Good grief. Did I come all the way to Oregon just to be a glorified secretary?”

As if in answer, the telephone on her desk buzzed.

“Carly Barnett,” she said into the receiver, after pushing four different buttons in order to get the right line.

“Just seeing if it works,” replied a bright female voice. “I’m Emmeline Rogers, and I’m sort of your secretary.”

Carly felt a little better, until she remembered that she was probably going to spend as much time doing office work as writing. Maybe more. “Hi,” she said shyly.

“Want some coffee or something?”

Carly definitely felt better. “Thanks. That would be great.”

Moments later, Emmeline appeared with coffee. She was small, with plain brown hair, green eyes and a ready smile. “I brought pink sugar, in case you wanted it.”

Carly thanked the woman again and stirred half a packet of sweetener into the hot, strong coffee. “There are supposed to be some letters floating around here somewhere. Do you know where they are?”

Emmeline nodded and then glanced at her watch. Maybe she was one of those people who took an early lunch, Carly thought. “I’ll bring them in.”

“Great,” Carly answered. “Thanks.”

Emmeline slipped out and returned five minutes later with a mailbag the size of Santa’s sack. In fact, Carly was reminded of the courtroom scene in Miracle On 34th Street when the secretary spilled letters all over her desk.

By the time Emmeline had emptied the bag, Carly couldn’t even see over the pile. She would have to unearth her computer and telephone before she could start working.

“I couldn’t think of a way to break it to you gently,” Emmeline said.

Carly took a steadying sip of her coffee and muttered, “Allison said I’d be helping out with clerical work during slack times.”

Emmeline smiled. “Allison thinks she has a sense of humor. The rest of us know better.”

Carly chuckled and shoved the fingers of her left hand through her hair. Until two weeks ago, when she’d made the final decision to break off with Reggie and come to Oregon, she’d worn it long. The new cut, reaching just a couple of inches below her earlobes, had been a statement of sorts; she was starting over fresh.

Emmeline left her with a little shrug and a sympathetic smile. “Buzz me if you need anything.”

Carly was beginning to sort the letters into stacks. “If there’s another avalanche,” she responded, “send in a search party.”

Her telephone and computer had both reappeared by the time a brisk knock sounded at her office door. Mark poked his head around it before she had time to call out a “Come in” or even wonder why Emmeline hadn’t buzzed to announce a visitor.

“Hi,” he said, assessing the mountain of letters with barely concealed amusement. He was probably off to interview the governor or some astronaut.

Carly gave him a dour look. “Hi,” she responded.

He stepped into the tiny office and closed the door. “Your secretary’s on a break,” he said. He was wearing jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and a tan corduroy jacket.

“What I need is a moat stocked with crocodiles,” Carly retorted with a saucy smile. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this man—he produced an odd tangle of reactions that weren’t easy to unravel and define. The impact of his presence was almost overwhelming—he seemed to fill the room, leaving no space for her—and Carly was both intrigued and frightened.

She was at once attracted to him, and defensive about her lack of experience as a journalist.

Mark drew up the only extra chair, turned it around backward and sat astraddle of it, resting his arms across the back. “What are they going to call this column now? ‘Dear Miss Congeniality’?”

“I wasn’t Miss Congeniality,” Carly pointed out, arching her eyebrows and deliberately widening her eyes.

“Little wonder,” he replied philosophically.

Carly leaned forward in her chair and did her best to glower. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Yes. I’d like you to go to dinner with me tonight.”

Carly was putting rubber bands around batches of letters and stacking them on her credenza. A little thrill pirouetted up her spine and then did a triple flip to the pit of her stomach. Even though every instinct she possessed demanded that she refuse, she found herself nodding. “I’d enjoy that.”

“We could take in a movie afterward, if you want.”

Carly looked at the abundance of letters awaiting her attention. “That would be stretching it. Maybe some other time.”

Idly Mark picked up one of the letters and opened it. His handsome brow furrowed as he read. “This one’s from a teenage girl,” he said, extending the missive to Carly. “What are you going to tell her?”

Carly took the page of lined notebook paper and scanned it. The young lady who’d written it was still in high school, and she was being pressured by the boy she dated to “go all the way.” She wanted to know how she could refuse without losing her boyfriend.

“I think she should stand her ground,” Carly said. “If the boy really cares about her, he’ll understand why she wants to wait.”

Mark nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, nobody expects you to reply to every letter,” he mused.

Carly sensed disapproval in his tone, though it was well masked. “What’s wrong with my answer?” she demanded.

“It’s a little simplistic, that’s all.” His guileless brown eyes revealed no recriminations.

Without understanding why, Carly was on the defensive. “I suppose you could come up with something better?”

He sighed. “No, just more extensive. I would tell her to talk to a counselor at school, or a clergyman, or maybe a doctor. Things are complex as hell out there, Carly. Kids have a lot more to worry about than making cheerleader or getting on the football team.”

Carly sat back in her hair and folded her arms. “Could it be, Mr. Holbrook,” she began evenly, “that you think I’m shallow just because I was Miss United States?”

He grinned. “Would I have asked you out to dinner if I thought you were shallow?”

“Probably.”

Mark shrugged and spread his hands. “I’m sure you mean well,” he conceded generously. “You’re just inexperienced, that’s all.”

She took up a packet of envelopes and switched on her computer. The printer beside it hummed efficiently at the flip of another switch. “I won’t ever have any experience,” she responded, “if you hang around my office for the rest of your life, picking my qualifications apart.”

He stood up. “I assume you have a degree in psychology?”

“You know better.”

Mark was at the door now, his hand on the knob. “True. I looked you up in the Reader’s Digest book of Beauty Queens. You majored in—”

“Journalism,” Carly interrupted.

Although his expression was chagrined, his eyes twinkled as he offered her a quick salute. “See you at dinner,” he said, and then he was gone.

Thoroughly unsettled, Carly turned her attention back to the letters she was expected to deal with.

Resolutely she opened an envelope, took out the folded page and began to read.

By lunchtime, Carly’s head was spinning. She was certainly no Pollyanna, but she’d never dreamed there were so many people out there leading lives of quiet desperation.

Slipping on her raincoat and reaching for her purse and umbrella, she left the Times offices and made her way to a cozy little delicatessen on the corner. She ordered chicken salad and a diet cola, then sat down at one of the round metal tables and stared out at the people hurrying past the rain-beaded window.

After a morning spent reading about other people’s problems, she was completely depressed. This was a state of mind that just naturally conjured up thoughts of Reggie.

Carly lifted her soft drink and took a sip. Maybe she’d done the wrong thing, breaking her engagement and leaving Kansas to start a whole new life. After all, Reggie was an honest-to-God doctor. He was already making over six figures a year, and he owned his sprawling brick house outright.

Glumly Carly picked up her plastic fork and took a bite of her salad. Perhaps Janet was right, and love was about bruised hearts and insomnia. Maybe it was some kind of neurotic compulsion.

Hell, maybe it didn’t exist at all.

At the end of her lunch hour, Carly returned to her office to find a note propped against her computer screen. It was written on the back of one of the envelopes, in firm black letters that slanted slightly to the right. This guy needs professional help. Re: dinner—meet me downstairs in the lobby at seven. Mark.

Carly shook her head and smiled as she took the letter out of the envelope. Her teeth sunk into her lower lip as she read about the plight of a man who was in love with his Aunt Gertrude. Nothing in journalism school, or in a year’s reign as Miss United States, had prepared her for dealing with things like this.

She set the letter aside and opened another one.

Allison popped in at five minutes before five. “Hello,” she chimed. “How are things going?”

Carly worked up a smile. “Until today,” she replied, “I had real hope for humanity.”

Allison gestured toward the Rolodex on the credenza. “I trust you’re making good use of Madeline’s files. She made some excellent contacts in the professional community while she was here.”

Madeline, of course, was Carly’s predecessor, who had left her job to join her professor husband on a sabbatical overseas. “I haven’t gotten that far,” Carly responded. “I’m still in the sorting process.”

Allison shook a finger at Carly, assuming a stance and manner that made her resemble an elementary school librarian. “Now remember, you have deadlines, just like everyone else at this paper.”

Carly nodded. She was well aware that she was expected to turn in a column before quitting time on Wednesday. “I’ll be ready,” she said, and she was relieved when Allison left it at that and disappeared again.

She was stuffing packets of letters into her briefcase when Janet arrived to collect her.

“So how was it?” Janet asked, pushing a button on the elevator panel. The doors whisked shut.

“Grueling,” Carly answered, patting her briefcase with the palm of one hand. “Talk about experience. I’m expected to deal with everything from the heartbreak of psoriasis to nuclear war.”

Janet smiled. “You’ll get the hang of it,” she teased. “God did.”

Carly rolled her eyes and chuckled. “I think he divided the overflow between Abigail Van Buren, Ann Landers and me.”

In the lobby the doors swished open, and Carly found herself face-to-face with Mark Holbrook. Perhaps because she was unprepared for the encounter, she felt as though the floor had just dissolved beneath her feet.

Janet nudged her hard in the ribs.

“M-Mark, this is Janet McClain,” Carly stammered with all the social grace of a nervous ninth grader. “We went to high school and college together.”

Carly begrudged the grin Mark tossed in Janet’s direction. “Hello,” he said suavely, and Carly thought, just fleetingly, of Cary Grant.

Mark’s warm brown eyes moved to Carly. “Remember—we’re supposed to meet at seven for dinner.”

Carly was still oddly star struck, and she managed nothing more than a nod in response.

“I take back every jaded remark I’ve ever made about love,” Janet whispered as she and Carly walked away. “I’ve just become a believer.”

Carly was shaken, but for some reason she needed to put on a front. “Take it from me, Janet,” she said cynically, “Mark Holbrook may look like a prize, but he’s too arrogant to make a good husband.”

“Umm,” said Janet.

“I mean, it’s not like every dinner date has to be marriage material—”

“Of course not,” Janet readily agreed.

A brisk and misty wind met them as they stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the Times building, and Carly’s cheeks colored in a blush. She averted her eyes. “I know he’s the wrong kind of man for me—with all he’s accomplished, he must be driven, like Reggie, but—”

“But?” Janet prompted.

“When he asked me out for dinner, I meant to say no,” Carly confessed, “but somehow it came out yes.”