“He musta decided the same thing if he brought you over here. Lately he’s been real careful about lettin’ people know where he lives.”
“He told me that.” Natalie stacked the dishes and dried her hands on a towel threaded through the refrigerator handle. “I guess he’s had some loony women after him.”
“Begging your pardon, but that’s what we figured you were, biddin’ all that money just to go out with him.”
“I can understand why you’d think that.” She replaced the towel and turned to him. “But I’m not crazy.”
Pete nodded. “I don’t think so, either.” He folded his arms. “So here’s the way I have it figured. Your sweetheart was killed in the Persian Gulf, and it just so happened he looked like Jonah. So when Jonah shows up to save your puppy, you think maybe it’s your sweetheart’s spirit, coming to life in this other person, sort of like them time-travel stories. It’s worth all that money to be with him and find out if he’s your dead sweetheart come back to you. Am I right?”
Natalie grinned. “You’re dead wrong. But it’s a great concept.” She couldn’t help thinking that her mother would have a wonderful time talking to a man with Pete’s imagination. Then an unfamiliar thought came to her. What if she introduced her mother to Pete? No, it was probably too soon. But, still…
“I’m wrong? Well, damn. Looks like I won’t win the pool, then.”
His strange comment chopped right into her thoughts. “Pool?”
“Everybody in the building who knows Jonah, and that’s about all of them, wrote up their guess as to why you bid on him at the auction.” He edged closer. “If you tell me, I won’t tell anybody else. And I can’t change my answer, because we put those in a sealed envelope and mailed it back to ourselves. It’ll show up Monday.”
“What’ll show up Monday?” Jonah asked as he came into the kitchen.
Pete jumped. “Uh, Leo’s plunger, most likely. That’s when his daughter’s supposed to bring it back. Is Mrs. Sanchez okay?” He looked nervous as he glanced at Natalie.
She returned his glance with a slight shake of her head. He obviously didn’t want her to tell Jonah the whole apartment was betting on why this evening had taken place.
“She seems okay,” Jonah said, eyeing both of them as if he suspected something was going on. “I checked her pulse and it’s strong and steady. She’s already asleep.”
“Good.” Pete frowned. “You don’t s’pose she made that up about being dizzy just to get you over here, do you?”
Jonah’s expression remained serious, but there was a sparkle in his dark eyes. “No more than you deliberately mislaid your plunger, Pete. Now let’s go get mine.”
8
ON THE WAY BACK to his apartment Jonah wondered how long his neighbors intended to play this little game. He would have been further ahead just to hold a reception for Natalie the minute they’d arrived in the building. But he couldn’t be upset with them, no matter how frustrated he got. They weren’t just curious, although that was part of it. Mostly they were trying to protect him by checking Natalie out.
They’d seen him make a mistake with Cynthia, and this woman from Central Park West seemed like an even bigger gamble. Funny how she’d managed to fit right in, though. As they approached his door she chatted away with Pete as if she’d known the guy forever.
They walked into the apartment where two glasses of warm, flat beer and an open can of peanuts sat on the coffee table. Jonah noticed a handful of peanuts dribbled on the floor next to the couch and remembered the moment Natalie had let them trickle out of her hand. The memory made it tough to draw a steady breath. He needed to find that damn plunger and send Pete on his way to the Sullivans’.
“So you checked the broom closet?” Jonah asked Pete.
“Sure did.”
Jonah glanced at Natalie. “Excuse me a minute while I find the darn thing.”
“Want me to help you look?” Her gray eyes teased him.
He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks. I’ll handle it.” He tore through the apartment in record time while Natalie and Pete continued their chummy conversation in the living room. He gathered they were talking about movies, and he was a little surprised to hear Pete’s favorites were mostly sentimental stories. Natalie was bringing out a side of Pete that Jonah hadn’t known existed.
Finally he found the plunger way in the back of his bedroom closet. Strange that it would be there, because he usually put things back more carefully than that. But he’d been pretty distracted lately, so anything was possible.
As he pulled the plunger out, it thumped against a small object on the floor of the closet. Then he remembered that’s where he’d thrown the box of glow-in-the-dark condoms the guys at the station had given him. Just his luck they were the only ones he had, too.
Crouched in front of the closet, he stared at the box for a while and finally came to a decision. Only a fool would miss out on the chance to make love to Natalie because he was being choosy about condom style. Picking up the box, he opened it and put a condom in his pocket. Then he tossed the box into his bedside-table drawer before grabbing the plunger from the closet.
Before he left the bedroom, he glanced at the bed and pictured Natalie stretched out on it with the same teasing light in her eyes that had been there just a few minutes ago when she’d asked if he’d like some help looking for the plunger. His breath caught in his throat and his body tightened in anticipation. Once Pete was out the door…
“Hey, you found it,” Pete said as Jonah walked into the room.
“Yep.” Jonah handed it to him. “It’s all yours.”
Pete didn’t reach to take the plunger. “Uh, Jonah, I—”
“Now what? Don’t tell me. Beth’s sink isn’t really stopped up.”
“Yeah, it’s really stopped up. I don’t even think she did it on purpose.” He looked sheepish. “But I know she’s hoping I’ll show up with you and Natalie.”
Jonah sighed.
“I promise she’s the last one who wants to meet her,” Pete said. “A lot of people are out tonight, it being Saturday and all. But Beth hasn’t been talking about anything else for the past three days, and when she found out you and Natalie were in the building, she flipped. You know how it is, Jonah. She’s stuck at home most of the time these days with them three babies, and your bachelor-auction date is like something out of a soap opera. Could you and Natalie come down for maybe a couple of minutes, just to say hello?”
Jonah was about to give in when he noticed the uneasy expression on Natalie’s face. “It’s up to you,” he said.
“How old are these triplets?” Natalie asked, a definite hesitation in her voice.
“Four months,” Jonah said. “They’re probably asleep, anyway.” Her reluctance surprised him after the way she’d been so eager to help the other people in the building. Maybe she didn’t like babies. The minute that occurred to him, he discovered he wanted very much to know that about her. “I’m sure we won’t even have to see them, if you’d don’t want to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to see them. I…don’t know anything about babies.”
Pete chuckled. “I’ll bet you could catch on quick. These little guys are real cute. I—”
“I don’t think she’s interested, Pete.” Jonah’s comment sounded harsher than he’d intended, and he realized with a shock that he was deeply disappointed in Natalie’s reaction to seeing the triplets. She wasn’t hesitating because she wanted to be alone with him instead, which would have suited him fine. She was hesitating because babies weren’t her thing. That shouldn’t mean squat to him, unless he’d begun spinning dreams about Natalie that he had no business spinning. The fact that he was crazy about kids and she wasn’t meant nothing. Nothing at all.
Natalie sent him an assessing glance. “I think we should go.”
“Look, you really don’t have to. I’m sure you didn’t pay good money so that you could—”
“I paid to be with you.
” Her gaze was steady. “So if you’re going down to the Sullivans’ apartment, so am I.”
“You make it sound like you’re heading off to an execution.”
Pete glanced from one to the other. “She just said she wasn’t used to babies, Jonah. That ain’t no crime.”
Jonah realized he was overreacting. It wasn’t as if Natalie would ever be more than an interesting episode in his life. He really didn’t care what she thought of babies. “You’re right, Pete.” He gave Natalie an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
He could kick himself. She looked troubled, and he’d been a jerk to make such a big deal about nothing. “It’s not okay, and I’ll make it up to you. But first we need to get this out of the way. Let’s go.”
After the three of them filed out of his apartment, Jonah locked the door. Pete took the lead as they started down the hall and Jonah fell in beside Natalie.
“I get a little defensive about those triplets, I guess,” Jonah said. “One of them is my godchild.”
Pete glanced over his shoulder. “And Beth would sure appreciate it if you’d remember which one,” he said with a chuckle.
“Hey, I can pick Matthew out.”
“Two out of three tries. Half the time you think he’s Michael or John.”
“Are you saying you do better with yours? And Leo’s hopeless. Last time he stood there saying eenie, meenie, minie, moe.”
“Each of you is a godfather to one of the triplets?” Natalie asked.
“Yep,” Pete said. “You shoulda seen the night they were born. Sully was workin’, as usual, so Leo drove Beth to the hospital with me in the back seat, tryin’ to keep her calm. Jonah begged for his chief’s car to clear the way for Leo. With something like triplets, you don’t want to take no chances.”
“You sure don’t.” Jonah remembered he’d wanted to get an ambulance involved, but Beth had refused, so he’d done the next best thing and talked the chief out of his car.
“There are twins on my dad’s side of the family,” Natalie said. “My mother thinks I could have twins, but I just can’t imagine it. And triplets…wow. It boggles my mind.”
No doubt about it, Jonah thought. The woman wasn’t yearning for motherhood anytime soon. That was good, in a way. If she’d been more open to the idea, he might have started thinking along really stupid lines. Just because he was physically attracted to her and she was cute and funny, he might have allowed himself to fall a little in love, which would lead naturally into imagining her as the mother of their children. At least that seemed to be the progression of his thoughts these days.
Until Beth’s triplets had arrived, he hadn’t considered kids, but that event seemed to have tripped a lever in his mind and now he thought about them a lot. He’d begun to envy his brother and two sisters because they all had families. A guy in that frame of mind could make a huge mistake if he let himself build dreams around the wrong woman. And for that kind of dream, Natalie was definitely the wrong woman.
As they neared the Sullivans’ door, Jonah heard the unmistakable sound of Matthew, Michael and John all howling. Jonah had learned in the past four months that if one triplet started crying, the other two would soon follow. He glanced at Natalie. Her little frown of concern told him she wasn’t looking forward to this.
“Sounds like the triplets aren’t asleep, after all,” she said.
“Want to go back up to the apartment and wait for me?” Jonah asked. “I’ll be glad to give you the key.”
“No.” Her chin lifted. “I’ll stay.”
Jonah smiled at the resolution in her expression. She was so damn pretty in her red dress that he’d be content to stand there looking at her forever. He wanted to reach out and brush his thumb over her smooth cheek, but now wasn’t the time for such things.
“Those babies will settle down once they see their uncle Pete and uncle Jonah.” Pete pushed the doorbell, leaving his finger on the button so the sound would carry over the babies’ wailing.
Beth flung open the door. Her long curly hair was haphazardly caught back with a butterfly clip and she held a red-faced, screaming baby. “Thank God,” she said, thrusting the baby at Pete. “Hold Michael while I get John and Matthew out of their cribs. The neighbors must be going crazy.” She hurried out of the room.
“Is the clog in the kitchen?” Jonah called after her.
“Yeah! Have at it!” she called back.
Jonah headed for the kitchen where water stood three inches deep in the sink. He pushed up his sleeves and went to work with the plunger as the sound of crying babies continued. He felt sorry for Beth, who was very conscious of disturbing the young couple who had just moved into the apartment right above hers.
He also doubted she’d envisioned a scene like this when she talked Pete into bringing him down here with Natalie. At the time, the kids had probably been sound asleep and she was so eager to get a glimpse of his date for the night that she’d told herself the triplets would stay asleep until her longed-for company had left.
The clog was a stubborn one. He’d finally loosened it when he became aware that the babies weren’t crying anymore. He heard footsteps and turned as Beth came into the kitchen with Matthew. At least he thought it was Matthew. Could have been John. Each of the babies had the same curly dark hair, the same blue eyes, the same cute baby stare.
“Looks like you got it loose,” Beth said. “Thanks, Jonah.”
“No problem.” Yep, he was pretty sure she was holding Matthew, who had a cowlick the other two didn’t. That left John unaccounted for. “Did you put John back to bed?”
Beth chuckled. “This is John.”
“Curses, foiled again.” He turned back to the sink and gave the drain a couple of extra pumps. “So where’s Matthew?”
“Natalie has him. You know, she’s not anything like I thought she’d be.”
He swiveled back to her so abruptly he almost hit his nose on the plunger handle. “Natalie has Matthew?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“She seemed sort of worried about coming in contact with triplets.”
Beth laughed. “Everybody is worried about coming in contact with triplets. They’re intimidating. They—pull your hair! Hey, kid, let go.” She paused to loosen John’s grip on a lock of her hair. “I can tell she hasn’t been around babies much, but once I plopped Matthew in her lap she did fine.”
“No kidding?”
Beth gazed at him. “No kidding. I like her, Jonah. She can’t help it if she’s rich, you know. And she did just give a chunk of it away at the bachelor auction, so she’s not as rich as she was a week ago.”
Jonah grimaced. “I have a feeling it was a drop in the bucket.” He shook water off the plunger and tore off a paper towel from a roll by the sink. “I like her, too.” That was a whopper of an understatement, he thought, considering how desperately he wanted her. “But I have a hard time getting around that whole business of the auction. How can I possibly have something in common with a woman who would throw around that kind of money?”
Beth transferred John to her other hip. “Don’t forget, it wasn’t just to spend the weekend with you. The proceeds went to literacy, and I know you support that. There’s something you have in common—helping everyone learn to read.”
They had much more in common than an interest in literacy, Jonah thought. When Natalie was in his arms, they seemed to be created for each other, at least physically. “I keep thinking this is just a one-time thrill for her,” he said.
“Maybe, but from the short time I’ve been around her, I don’t see her that way. I say give her a chance. Don’t be prejudiced against her just because she has money.”
Jonah grinned at her as he finished drying off the plunger. “Seems to me only yesterday you warned me about getting too involved with some crazy rich woman.”
Beth smiled back at him. “That was before she started cooing over Matthew.”
“Uh-huh.” This Jonah had
to see. In the meantime, John was straining toward Jonah and holding out his little arms. Jonah held the plunger toward Beth. “Here. I’ll trade you.”
“Gladly. These guys are getting to be heavyweights.”
“That’s their job.” Jonah gathered the little boy into his arms with a sigh of contentment. “Hey, John. How’s the world treating you, tiger?”
John patted Jonah’s cheeks and made little gurgling sounds as he bounced in Jonah’s arms.
“That good, huh? Give me five.” He tapped his hand against the baby’s palm. “Atta boy.”
“Jonah, how much longer are you going to deprive yourself of kids?” Beth said. “Guys with no talent for being a father are reproducing like crazy, and here you are still single and childless.”
“Blame Natalie.” Jonah tickled John under the chin and the baby laughed.
“Natalie?”
“If she hadn’t lost her dog in the lake, I’d be seriously dating some wonderful woman by now. Instead, I’ve been forced into hiding. I don’t dare even smile at a girl on the subway, let alone ask somebody out.”
“You have a date tonight.”
“Yeah, with the woman who caused all the trouble, a woman who can buy and sell me. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what she did.”
Beth leaned toward him and brushed her hand over his shoulder.
“What? Am I shedding?”
She gazed at him. “No, I was just trying to get that big chip off.”
Jonah rolled his eyes at her.
“Now, come on in the living room and see how sweet she looks holding Matthew.”
“Yes, ma’am.” As he followed Beth through the small dining area and into the living room, he wondered if she might be right about his attitude. Natalie didn’t ask to be rich, and to her credit she’d donated a chunk of her money to a worthy cause. Maybe she wasn’t crazy at all, and she’d needed the tax deduction. Maybe she’d thought a special weekend would be a nice chance to thank him for saving her dog.
Single, Sexy...And Sold! Page 9
