by Linda Turner
Her chin set at a stubborn angle, she marched into the living room to tell him just that, only to discover that he’d left a note for her on his desk while she was asleep, saying he’d gone to the grocery store. He didn’t expect to be gone long, but even if it turned out to be only ten minutes, that was long enough for her to get started on some of the paperwork she’d had to let slide when Becky was sick. Sinking down into the chair at her work area, she went to work.
She had organized the sketches she’d made for the remodeling of the attic and was going through the notes she’d made on three of the city’s best contractors when she heard Mitch’s key in the door, then his muttered curse as he stepped into the apartment and saw her working. Even from fifteen feet away, she could feel his disapproval.
But it wasn’t his displeasure that had her heart doing wheelies in her chest. It was the memory of that almostkiss earlier, when he’d scooped her up to carry her to bed, that still had the power to make her breathless. She thought she’d dismissed it from her mind, but the second her eyes met his, she felt as if she was right back in his arms, her lips parted for a kiss she had no business wanting.
Later, she never knew where she found the nerve to coolly look him in the eye when her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he could hear it. “I made some sketches of the attic while you were in Dallas that I’d like you to take a look at when you get a chance. If you like the designs, I’ll fax them to the architect. I’ve checked out contractors, and Kurt Elkins seems to be the best, but Tim Brown and Jason Kidd also have good reputations. Any one of them will do a good job, so just tell me who you want to go with and I’ll set it up. We need to get started if the job’s going to be finished by Christmas.”
“I thought you were going to take a nap,” he said accusingly.
“I did,” she said simply. “Now I’m awake. Can you look at these now?”
Daring to hold the sketches out to him, she gave him no choice but to take them. He wasn’t, however, happy about it. Muttering a curse about stubborn women under his breath, he snatched them out of her hand. “I don’t even know why you’re worrying about this today,” he grumbled to himself. “You’ve got no business being out of bed—”
That was as far as he got. Glancing down at the beautifully detailed drawings she’d done, Mitch lifted narrowed eyes to hers. “You did these?”
At his sharp tone, Phoebe felt her spirits sink. She didn’t often share her artwork with anyone but family and close friends, especially when it was unsolicited, and Mitch had certainly never asked her to submit her own ideas for the attic. Her job was to coordinate the remodeling, nothing more, and she’d have done well to remember that.
Reminding herself not to take his criticism personally—everyone had a right to their own likes and dislikes—she forced a weak smile and tried to take the sketches from him. “I know you wanted the architect to submit some designs, but I thought it would save time if I could give him an idea of what I thought you were looking for. Obviously, I was wrong—”
“Wrong?” he repeated, scowling. “What the devil are you talking about? These are great!”
Surprised, she blinked. “You like them?”
Taken aback that she even had to ask, he retorted, “Like them? Of course I like them! This is just the kind of thing Alice and I have been talking about doing for years. Something open and modern, but still somehow Victorian. How did you know? We never discussed it.”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I went upstairs with my sketch pad the other day, and suddenly I could just see this wonderful apartment. The next thing I knew, my pencil was flying across the page.”
Mitch didn’t know why he was surprised. For years, Alice had entertained him and the rest of the family with tales of ghosts and visions and soul mates who inexplicably found each other at the Social Club, long after they’d sworn off love. The stories were as fanciful and whimsical as the house itself, the kind that diehard romantics gobbled up with a spoon. He’d always enjoyed them, but he’d never put much stock in the house having any kind of special powers. If Phoebe was on his wavelength about the remodeling it was simply because, when she was in the attic, she’d been inspired by the setting. It certainly had nothing to do with any kind of mystical connection between them.
Not that she would believe that, of course. He’d read Professor Rat, and that single story of hers had told him everything about her he needed to know. She believed in chivalry and romance, white knights and the poetry of the soul. Given the choice, she would choose enchantment over logic any day of the week.
Which was just one more reason why he had to fight the attraction that she stirred in him just by breathing, he reminded himself grimly. Because a woman like Phoebe would always want the fairy tale, and it was his experience that it wasn’t really the prince that Cinderella wanted; it was the security of the castle and all the treasures that went with it. He really should have put some distance between the two of them and insisted she take it easy for the rest of the day. But she had to be sick of lying in bed, and she did look better than she had earlier. What would it hurt to let her stay up a little longer, if that would eventually help her get back on her feet?
“This place has a way of inspiring people,” he said, returning his attention to her sketches. “You did a good job. Alice is going to love these. Go ahead and fax them to the architect. And don’t worry about getting bids. If Kurt Elkins is the best, then go ahead and contact him to see when he can do the work. Oh, and fax another set of the sketches out to L.A. so Alice can see them. The last couple of weeks have been pretty rough on her emotionally, and this’ll help take her mind off Glen’s condition for a while.”
He found his cousin Emily’s fax number in Alice’s private telephone directory, then left Phoebe to that task. He settled at his desk with the pile of mail that had accumulated while he was in Dallas. The first letter he picked up was from an old college friend who had a business proposal for him. Caught up in the details, he didn’t notice that Phoebe had completed the faxes, and called Kurt Elkins’s office. She was setting up an appointment to meet with him when her low-pitched words finally caught Mitch’s attention.
“This afternoon would be great, Mr. Elkins, if you don’t mind the short notice,” she said into the phone. “How about four o’clock? Just buzz the office when you get here and I’ll let you in. I hope it’s not going to be a problem that the architect hasn’t drawn up the plans yet, but I can show you sketches of what Mr. Ryan wants.”
Stunned, Mitch couldn’t believe his ears. Four o’clock! She was talking about this afternoon! “What the hell!” She hardly had the energy to walk from one room to the next, and she was making appointments, as if she was strong as a horse!
His jaw rigid, he reached over and snatched the receiver from her before she could guess his intentions. When she gasped and made a move to grab it right back, he shot her a narrow-eyed look that warned her not to even think about it, and said pleasantly into the phone, “Mr. Elkins? This is Mitch Ryan. I apologize for interrupting your conversation with Phoebe, but something’s come up and she’s not going to be able to see you this afternoon. Could we postpone your meeting until tomorrow at the same time? Good. She’ll see you then. Thanks.”
The second he hung up, Phoebe shot up out of her chair like she’d been launched from a rocket. It was a mistake, of course. She was still weak and her knees didn’t want to support the sudden move, but she stiffened them anyway and glared down at him in outrage. “How dare you! You had no right to do that!”
“The hell I didn’t,” he retorted, and pushed to his feet to give her back glare for glare. “In case you’ve forgotten, you work for me, lady, which means I give the orders around here. I let you do a little bit of paperwork because I knew you were tired of being in bed, but I draw the line at you meeting with a contractor and traipsing up to the attic when you can barely stand up. As of now, you’re on sick leave until I say you’re well enough to go back to wor
k, so you might as well go back to bed. You’re through for the day.”
“You can’t do that!”
She knew the second the words left her mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. He was a man who relished a challenge and she’d all but waved a red flag in his face. “Watch me,” he growled, and grabbed her hand to lead her back to the bedroom like she was a wayward two-year-old.
“Mitch! Damn you, let go of me!”
“The hell I will. You’re going to bed even if I have to put you there myself.”
If she’d been thinking clearer, she wouldn’t have given him the satisfaction of a struggle. But her pulse was racing, her heart in her throat, and neither condition had anything to do with the fact that they were arguing. It was just him...his closeness, the feel of his fingers wrapped around hers, the rightness of his touch. It thrilled her and overwhelmed her and made her want to run for her life, and at the same time she wanted to cling to him and never let go.
“No!” she snapped, tugging at her hand. “I’m not a child to be sent off to bed just because you think that’s where I should be. Let go!”
Her energy quickly deserting her, she gave one last tug against his hold and almost broke free. Swearing, he tightened his fingers and jerked back, and in the process, almost accidentally, pulled her off her feet. Suddenly they were hip to hip and chest to chest. Startled, their mouths just inches apart and their breathing ragged, they froze.
Move! a voice cried inside her head, as her heart began to slam against her ribs. But she was caught in the trap of his eyes and her own need, and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Not this time. “Mitch...”
That was all she could manage in protest, just his name, and then she hardly recognized the soft, sultry voice as her own. What had he done to her? “You know we can’t do this,” she protested weakly. “You agreed.”
He didn’t deny it. “No touching, no kissing, no hanky-panky,” he quoted in a rough growl. Slipping his arms around her, he drew her up on her toes and intimately close. “Have I left anything out?”
Her throat dry, she wanted to say, “And no needing,” but it was already too late for that and they both knew it. Desperately, she searched her mind for another reason why they couldn’t do this and blurted out in relief, “The kids! School’s going to be out in fifteen minutes. I need to go get them.”
“I’ll do it,” he promised. “In a minute. After I break rule number two. That’s the one about kissing,” he informed her with a wicked glint in his eyes, then covered her mouth with his.
She expected him to tease, to flirt, to slowly drive her out of her mind, but the second his lips touched hers, he was deadly serious. His hands tangled in her hair, a low groan ripped from his throat, and suddenly he was kissing her like a man at the end of his patience who had waited a lifetime to get her in his arms. Desire grabbed him, his control shattered, and hunger raged like a living thing, threatening to devour them both.
Whimpering, Phoebe couldn’t have protested if her life had depended on it. With a single-minded determination that nearly destroyed her, he kissed her fiercely with lips and teeth and tongue, holding nothing back. And she loved it. Her mind clouded, rules, the kids, everything fading from her thoughts. She crowded closer and moved against him, murmuring his name, needing him more than she needed her next breath.
With a groan of approval, he drew her tightly against him and let his hands roam over her, loving the feel of her and how she fit in his arms in a way no other woman ever had. Every time he touched her, he found it harder to walk away. With a will of their own, his hands measured the slimness of her waist, the curve of her hips, the perfect roundness of her breasts. He wanted her naked, skin to skin, stretched out under him on his bed. It seemed to him now that he had wanted that from the day he’d first met her.
And he could have her now, a voice whispered in his head. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her—he could feel it, taste it. And for once, the conditions were right. She was feeling better, and there was no one to interrupt them. It couldn’t be the slow loving he’d promised himself, but they had a few minutes before he had to go pick up the kids at school—
Abruptly brought back to earth with a bone-jarring thud, he froze at the thought, cursing himself. What the hell was he doing? She was barely recovered from the flu and all he could think about was getting her in bed before the kids came home. Was he out of his mind? Not twenty minutes ago, he’d gone over all the reasons why he had no business touching her, then the first chance he got, he’d kissed her like he was starving for the taste of her. And he was, dammit! She was under his skin, in his blood, driving him crazy. If he didn’t get a grip on his emotions, he was going to rush her off to bed before he even realized what he was doing, and then the fat really would be in the fire.
His gut fisted with need, he determinedly put her from him, but even then, he had to take a step back to keep from reaching for her again when she swayed toward him. “My mother always said I was going to get burned one of these days if I didn’t quit breaking the rules,” he said hoarsely. “Looks like she was right. Go back to bed, Phoebe. I’m going to pick up the kids at school.”
She could have stopped him with a word. It shook him to admit it, but that was all it would have taken to destroy his good intentions. Just one word from her. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she stood where he left her, a hand pressed to her mouth—whether to capture the heat of the kiss they’d just shared or to hold back a plea for him to stay, he couldn’t say—and watched him head for the door. He walked out of the apartment and shut the door behind him, and she never said a word. He should have been relieved. He wasn’t.
Her knees weak, her body hot with a fever that had nothing to do with the flu, Phoebe hugged herself and watched the door shut behind him. She couldn’t, she told herself, deny any longer that she was in serious trouble where that man was concerned. He’d come close to breaking every rule she’d laid down before she’d agreed to move in with him, and what had she done? She’d whimpered in pleasure and all but begged for more.
And it had to stop. Before she lost her head completely and gave her heart to a man who really didn’t want it. She would talk to him, explain that she couldn’t be intimate with him without falling in love with him, and he would agree that it would be better for both of them if there were no more touchy-feely scenes like the one they’d just shared. Then nobody would get hurt.
But when the kids came flying through the front door twenty minutes later, with Mitch right behind them, she saw that she might have already waited too long. Robby and Becky had, in the past, always been open and friendly with people, but since the death of their parents they’d become much more reserved with anyone who wasn’t family. They hadn’t yet dropped their guard with Mitch...or at least they hadn’t before Phoebe had gotten sick. But now it was obvious that things had changed.
“We’re having a Thanksgiving program next Wednesday, then we get Thursday and Friday off,” Becky told Mitch excitedly. “I’m an Indian. I get to wear feathers and beads and everything. Are you going to come?”
“Well, I don’t know about that, little bit,” he teased. “Do I have to play the turkey?”
“No, you get to eat turkey,” Robby explained, grinning. “We have the program in the morning and everyone gets to stay for lunch.”
Not blinking an eye, Mitch nodded. “Sounds doable to me, sport. Just tell me the time and I’ll be there.”
“Then Thursday’s Thanksgiving, and Friday there’s a parade on the river when all the Christmas lights get lit, and Santa’s going to be there!” Becky said in one long breath, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. “We can stand right on the back porch and wave to him!”
“You sure can,” Mitch said, chuckling at her enthusiasm. “Then maybe on Saturday we can go to the mall and you can tell him what you want him to bring you. Of course, it’s so early, you may not have even thought about that yet—”
“I want a mountain bike!”
“And a computer—”
“With lots of games!”
Chattering eagerly, they named toys that Phoebe hadn’t even heard of, then told Mitch all about Christmas in New Orleans with their parents, and how once they even heard the reindeer on the roof. Their eyes were lit with memories and excitement, their smiles wide, and when Mitch sat down on the couch and they gathered around him, Becky climbed right up in his lap.
Stunned, Phoebe couldn’t believe it. Somehow, while she was sick, the kids had come to trust Mitch and accept him in their lives. She didn’t know how it had happened; she just knew it worried her to death. They’d already lost enough people that they cared about. She couldn’t stand by and let them make friends with Mitch, then be hurt when he went back to Dallas for good.
Chapter 9
She meant to discuss the situation with him the first chance she got, but she could hardly do that in front of the kids. So she held her tongue and bided her time and waited until bedtime, only to receive another shock.
It was a nightly ritual, checking under the bed and in the closet for monsters that might have snuck in when no one was looking. From the first night the kids had come to live with her, it had been Phoebe’s job to rout out all the mythical beasts and cyclopes from their hiding places and slay them dead. It was a charge she dearly loved, one that always had her fighting back a smile. But when bedtime rolled around, she wasn’t the one the kids turned to to help them fight their fears.
Surprised, Mitch glanced quickly at Phoebe and had to see the hurt she couldn’t quite hide. “I don’t know, guys,” he said, hanging back when they tried to tug him into their room to search for things that go bump in the night. “Your Aunt Phoebe’s the dragon-slayer around here. I just helped out last night because she was off her feed, but she’s feeling much better now. You’d better ask her.”
