"There's no need to report a loss."
She blinked, startled, and looked up from her humiliated stare at the lockbox.
Joey's eyebrows rose over his patrician nose as she gaped.
"But I lost your money." She heard the shame in her voice, but could do nothing about it. "I wasn't paying attention and carelessly..."
Joey shook his head as she sputtered. His hair feathered against the push of the wind.
"And keep the receipt. All I want is dinner with you." Sudden worry lines wrinkled his forehead. "That is, unless you have other plans?"
The answer fell from her lips before she could think about it. "No, no other plans."
His eyebrows rose. "You'll have dinner with me, then?"
Good Lord, how could this be actually happening?
She squeaked a question. "Don't you have other plans?"
"I wouldn't be here asking you to go with me if I did."
That brilliant, toothy smile spread across his face.
She stood for a moment, mesmerized by his smile and by the surreal situation. Joey was here, after all the long years apart. Her Joey. And he wanted to take her to dinner. This was...well, weird. She frowned.
"How did you find me? And why?"
He tucked his thumbs through the belt loops of the worn, comfortable-looking jeans, the action drawing her gaze to the well-formed masculine thighs. The whisper of how one had felt between her legs brushed her memory. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
"I didn't." One of those monumental shoulders shrugged, causing the sweater to shift across his impressive chest. "In fact, I nearly swallowed my tongue when I saw you. So, dinner?"
The oddity of the situation struggled against the temptation of the past. Things like this only happened in the romance novels she loved and Stewart had despised. Waste of money.
Joey's eyebrows lifted again, and he smirked. The expression affected her now as it had back then with a burning urge to kiss it away.
"It's me, Kelly," he coaxed. "It's Joey. The same guy I was fifteen years ago, but for a few more kilos. You're safe with me. Just dinner between old friends."
A little more than friends, she reminded herself. Well, for her. Clearly, he hadn't grieved the way she'd grieved when he'd moved away. His letters had been warm and frequent at first, then they'd tapered away. She didn't need help reading between the lines. He'd made new friends, and, no doubt, girlfriends. He'd always been popular with girls.
He'd built a new life. Hell, she'd done the same thing. Eventually.
She pushed aside the old pain and contemplated the man standing before her.
"Just a few kilos? More muscle than anything else from what I can see." And what I felt, she added to herself.
He winked. She felt her caution waver, vanishing like a plume of smoke, and sighed. Hell, she'd never been able to resist him, so why try now? She smiled her surrender and jiggled the lockbox at her elbow. It clanked merrily.
"Okay, you're on, but first I have to drop this off."
His smile broadened, if such a thing was even possible.
"Ma'am? You all right?"
Startled by the unexpected interruption, she spun toward the voice and flattened her hands across her chest, as if to hold in her accelerated breath. A police officer stood close by. His eyes flicked between her and Joey. Had she done something wrong?
Pioneer Square had cleared considerably since they'd started their chat. The sun was setting fast, throwing lengthening shadows across the decorative cement landscape and surrounding buildings. Had she held up the breakdown crew?
"Ah, yes. I'm fine. Um, why?" she answered, confused.
The cop watched them with a cautious, careful air.
"You and him and the lockbox." The cop nodded his capped head at the item on the front table. "Your safety is our concern."
Shame scorches her cheeks. Again.
"Of course. I'm so sorry. He's a blast from the past. I got distracted. Oh, I'm so stupid. I didn't mean to--" She broke off when she realized she was babbling.
Joey fished out his wallet, extracted an identification card, and handed it to the cop--who passed the information on to someone at the other end of a radio communication.
Good Lord, they were running his ID!
"Is that really necessary, officer?" She sounded puny and small, which was exactly how she felt.
"Best to be careful," said Joey, looking and sounding unfazed.
The cop sent an assessing gaze across her booth, her face, and Joey's as he listened to whatever came his way from the other side of the radio conversation.
"I really am sorry," Kelly said again and fidgeted.
Thankfully, the policeman did nothing but return Joey's identification.
"Thank you, sir."
"And thank you, officer. A woman alone with a lockbox of cash is always a concern." Gracious as always, Joey replaced the card and his wallet. "Unless you have more questions for us, we'll be on our way?"
"Have a safe night." With a finger to the brim of his cap, the police officer moved off.
Joey picked up the lock box, snagged her backpack, and pulled her down jacket from the back of her chair.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Not far. The Outreach HQ has an office on Sixth and..." She dropped the rest of the sentence since he was already nodding and looking toward the indicated direction.
"Away we go, then," he said and started off.
Dazzled, Kelly followed, wondering how and when he'd taken charge. She took the jacket from him and pulled it on, careful not to worsen the tear in the inner lining as she did, then shrugged into the backpack's straps. The weight settled on her back and shoulders. She put her hands into the pockets of her jeans and touched the lockbox key and her car keys.
Everything was normal, except for the man who walked beside her and the lockbox carrying donations for the Keep Portland's Mounted Patrol fund.
Together, they crossed Pioneer Square and merged with the pedestrian traffic. Cars eased through the festive traffic, navigating walking celebrants as they crossed the street. A soft mist began. Tourists opened up their umbrellas.
He shifted the lockbox in his grip. Coins thumped as they shifted inside the metal.
Guilt caused her stomach to twitch. "I should be carrying that."
Joey gave her a look of confusion, his brows furrowed. "The lockbox? Why?"
"It's kinda heavy." She hedged, not wanting to demonstrate her controlling--er, her responsible--side at this point.
"All the more reason for me to carry it."
She may as well say it. "I'm responsible for it."
"Then I'll be sure to chuck it into your arms if we get mugged."
A soft chuff of laughter escaped her. Joey hadn't grown out of his charming ways, not even a little bit.
Chapter 3
* * *
A comfortable silence fell between Joey and Kelly as they walked up Sixth Avenue. It had always been that way with them. On the street beside them, cars eased northward, wipers swishing an easy tempo. People dressed in festive green, wearing party hats and face paint, slipped between the rain-spattered vehicles and scurried for the protection of the light rail's nearby terminal.
There was no need to rush, so they stopped at the corner. Instead of jaywalking across the car-logged street, they waited for the Walk signal. Purring cars lined up with the red light. Other homebound folks crowded the sidewalk corner, waiting.
The mist shifted into a drizzle.
Kelly tugged up her hood and pulled up the coat's zipper to her chin. Beside her, Joey showed no reaction to the weather's change. Droplets of rain gleam against his dark hair like starlight and beaded on his cabled sweater. A rogue drop or two settled on the overlong fan of his lashes.
He noticed her staring at him and offered up a smile. "What?"
Busted. She tried to play off the blush of embarrassment warming her cheeks. "I guess you're used to rain."
"Because of Ireland?"
"Doesn't it rain a lot there?"
He nodded. "Fairly often, so, yes, I'm used to it. Besides, it's only a drizzle."
The crosswalk light turned green and he offered his arm to steady her as she stepped off the curb and into a small puddle. A crowd tromped across the intersection, heading both north and south. Cars, galvanized by their green light, progressed through the intersection and up the street.
Kelly examined the lowering clouds and judged the pattern of raindrops that danced across the road. "Well, yes, a drizzle even by our standards," she agreed. "Is there heavy rainfall on the island?"
He cupped her elbow and helped her up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the intersection. "Nation."
Of course it isn't called an island, genius.
Joey resumed his answer. "Ireland's a sovereign nation, even if it's viewed by the world as part of the United Kingdom. And water's the only way I know how to keep the land green. Fortunately, rain's free."
An eastbound light rail train crossed to their rear with a rattle of steel-on-steel and the hiss of its electric cables. Behind them, the horn of the northbound train hooted a warning to pedestrians and vehicles. The crowd of people huddled beneath the passenger platform shelter reacted to the sound by turning toward it. Pale, moon-round faces reflected the advancing train's headlights.
"What's Ireland like?" she asked.
"Cold and wet with moments and places of intense beauty."
She sighed. "I've seen pictures. Breathtaking."
Actually, she thought it looked like a magical fairyland.
"Did you make lots of friends there?"
"Sure."
She couldn't seem to stop the question from falling from her mouth. "Girlfriends?"
He grinned. "Other than the female sheep?"
She stumbled, startled. Joey's hand caught her elbow again. The twist of humor on his now-so-manly-and-sexy lips told its own story. He was having a joke on her. Laughter bubbled from her chest. His merriment joined her and danced into the rising dusk.
"Oh, stop," she managed to gasp before dissolving into another spell of hilarity.
The train swished past them and came to a stop at the platform. Hydraulic doors opened. Passengers pushed on. Joey caught her hand, and they rushed for the train, managing to slip on moments before the doors closed and sealed. With a prattle of information from the ceiling speakers, it started off.
"Oh, shoot, we didn't get tickets."
He shrugged those impressive shoulders again.
"We'll get them when we exit. Settle our account, so to speak."
She worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
"But what if the transit police conduct a ticket search and we don't have tickets? That's a costly ticket and one I can't afford." She surveyed the bodies that filled the carriage. No sign of the train cops, but that could change at the next stop...or the next one.
"Then we'll do what we did when we were kids. Run like hell."
Their renewed laughter chased away her worries. With Joey, that had always been the way. With him, there had always been constant laughter and no fears about the future...or the present, for that matter.
The years fell away. She didn't fight the rock and sway of the train and found her balance against the strength of his body. It felt natural. Normal. He adjusted his hold on the overhead handhold loop to accommodate her body against his. It wasn't much surprise when she realized she still fit nicely into the niche created by his upraised arm.
His smile carved wicked grooves into his cheeks and crinkled the skin at the corner of his eyes. His eyes gleamed as they watched her. Intelligence. Awareness, even a touch of masculine heat, if she wasn't mistaken. And he smelled good. She tucked her nose into his armpit and made a comically long sniff.
"Ahh, the scent of an Irish spring."
He barked a laugh. "Of course."
Life had become so lonely since Stewart's death. Even his non-stop grumbles and complaints were better than the cold austerity now common in her tiny apartment. But here, with Joey, life was good.
It was a treat to rest against a man who didn't smell of medicine and despair and who she wholly trusted--now as she did back then. Not that Stewart had ever smelled of clean sunshine and spice the way Joey did, even before the illness had struck. Nor had he ever felt the way Joey did against her body. She recalled the work-roughened hands and the too-careful way Stewart ran them across her skin as he'd used her body during their marriage.
She shivered.
"You cold, Kelly?"
Wrapped and hooded in her coat, her back protected from the biting outside chill by an industrial-sized backpack, and he wondered if she was cold? Maybe she could say yes and he'd pull her closer and she could imagine safety. But Joey needed one arm to hold them steady inside the train and one hand to carry the lockbox.
"No, just the temperature change."
It was an honest answer. Although the temperature change she mentioned was brought about by the heat he generated and not by the industrial heaters in the train, she'd probably do well to not mention that.
"It's a cold wind outside." He nodded. "I'd forgotten how nippy it could get here on spring evenings."
"Suck it up. I'll bet Ireland's much colder." She chuckled.
"You'd be right. We've still got snow on the ground."
"Snow? Really?"
"Fifteen centimeters of it."
"How much is that?" That crazy European math. She was never good at making the adjustment to inches or feet, let alone miles to kilos.
"About six inches," he told her. "It'll be gone by the middle of April."
"The middle of April?" she squeaked again. Sure, Portland got the occasional March dusting of white powder, but inches of it on the ground until April?
"No worries. The pubs are open late."
"Pubs?" she echoed.
"For a warm beer and a peat fire."
"Peat fire?" When had she turned into a parrot?
He chuckled. "Well, it is Irish countryside."
She looked up into his face. He wore a thoughtful expression as he gazed outside the windows at the passing cityscape.
"Sounds rural. You don't live in the city?"
He must have felt her eyes on him because he turned his attention to her and smiled. "Da has a house outside the smallish town of Longford. He commuted to and from the office until the Internet went stable in that area. Now he stays in his home office and complains about the cold."
A sigh of longing escaped her. It sounded so magical. Emerald green fields and peat fires at a friendly local pub...how glorious it would be. She drifted through the visions she crafted in her mind. "I'd love to see Ireland one day."
"Umm," he murmured in reply "She'd be honored to host you."
Omigoodness, Joey was such a charmer! Blushing, she asked the first question that came to mind. "Any castles near by?"
"Three in the county."
"How fabulous," she yearned. Habit caused her to check outside the train's oblong windows, and she snapped back into the now. "Oh, this is our stop."
They moved for the door, exited, belatedly purchased the tickets, and stepped from beneath the terminal's overhang into an energetic rain. He had no jacket, no hood, and neither of them had an umbrella.
"Oh, no." She groaned. "You're gonna get drenched."
"I won't melt." Joey shifted the lockbox in his grip, moving it from one arm to the other one, and contemplated her with a critical eye. "You've become a worrier. When did that happen?"
It had happened in her twenty-second year, when Stewart had fallen critically ill. However, that wasn't something she wanted to share. "Sorry. The office is this way."
They hustled through the rain and the puddles to the office, a converted Victorian-style house. Portland's ideal of architectural beautification of dow
ntown. The garage had been converted and expanded into a covered, industrial shelter for the use of employees. She'd been allowed to park inside it today.
At least her irritable car would be dry.
Kelly trotted up the flight of stairs leading to the entrance and was breathless at the top, but he didn't show the smallest sign of exertion as he lunged up, taking stairs two at a time. As she'd speculated down in Pioneer Square, Joey appeared to be in excellent shape.
"Good cardio work-out if you work here. A nice power walk from the train, then jogging up the stars. That'll wake someone up in the morning." She struggled not to pant.
"And they say American companies don't offer meaningful perks."
Unfortunately, the doors were both closed and locked. The inside lights were dimmed. She'd been locked out by her own irresponsible delay. "Crap."
She knocked and knocked, with no response, and finally resorted to making binoculars out of her hands and huddling close to the rain-spotted windows to try to see inside. Light shone from one office room where someone worked late. Maybe that person would open the door and accept the lockbox.
"The receptionist told me she wouldn't leave until we came back with the proceeds. She must still be there somewhere, right? I can see a light." Worry filled her voice.
"Here. Let me try."
He crowded her aside and hammered on the door with an easy fist. After a moment, the entry lights turned on.
"Here we go," he said and stepped back from the doors.
A figure could be seen approaching from the lighted office. It didn't look like the receptionist, though. This guy wore what looked like a tailored suit.
The newcomer unlocked the doors and shoved them open. He stepped aside and allowed them room to come in from the rain. Kelly stamped her shoes and then stepped inside. She brushed back her hood and tried to blink the moisture from her eyelashes. Droplets of water kissed her face and neck. Joey looked equally soggy.
Gorgeous, though, while she probably looked like a half-drowned cat.
The other man stood before them, and he didn't look friendly.
Ides Of March Page 2
