“Not talking about your back, baby.” Naomi paused, then said softly, “How’s the job search going?”
“Oh, trust me, you’ll be the first to know if anything happens on that front. Why?” Roxie said, smiling. “You anxious to get rid of me?”
“Not hardly. In fact—being purely selfish, here—I dread the day when you tell me you’re leaving. Even though I know you will someday, because you’ve got way bigger fish to fry than temping behind a reception desk. But…” The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not it, either, is it?”
When Roxie looked over, the words “I’m fine” ready to jump out of her mouth, Naomi raised one graying eyebrow over her rimless glasses. Roxie sighed. At least Noah—and the confused, almost hurt look in his eyes—would be gone by the time she got back to the house. One less thing to fret about. But if her uncle wasn’t there, she’d worry. Then again, if he was, she’d have to listen to “Eden said this” and “Eden said that” the rest of the evening. Gack.
And then there was Jeff.
“Just lots of stuff going on,” she finally mumbled, yanking her jacket out of the closet and giving her back something else to screech about. At Naomi’s pointed silence, she figured she might pick through the many bones and toss her one. “My ex keeps calling me,” she said, because she didn’t have the energy to discuss the Charley stuff, and she didn’t understand the Noah stuff enough to talk about it with anybody.
“I see. And saying what?”
“Nothing, actually. Since I haven’t answered the phone.”
Her heavy sweater slipped on over her standard office attire of jeans and a baggy sweater, Naomi frowned. “Not like you to be chicken.”
“Goes to show how little you know me,” Roxie said with a wan smile. “And anyway, he hasn’t left a message, either, so how important could it be?”
“You forgiven him yet?”
In a rare, weak moment, shortly after Roxie started working for the doctor, Roxie had told her the details behind the breakup. Because God knows she couldn’t tell Charley, and having made the mistake of making her life all Jeff, all the time, she didn’t even have a girlfriend to talk to. Which naturally led to her thinking about that aborted conversation with Noah earlier in the day, halted not because she didn’t want to confide in him, but because she did.
And how much sense did that make?
Realizing she hadn’t answered her boss, Roxie wrapped her lacy scarf around her neck and headed toward the door, and the bracing night air beyond it, which she fervently hoped would clear her addled brain.
“I think so,” she finally said, after they were both outside the pseudo Territorial-style, flat-roofed building clinging to Tierra Rosa’s outskirts. In the weak circle of light from the single lamp by the door, her breath puffed white in the rapidly dropping temperature.
“Meaning?” Naomi carefully prodded.
“Meaning, once I finally accepted I was with Jeff for the wrong reasons, I found my peace. Enough peace, anyway. Not that what he did was right, but after a lot of soul-searching I realized there were things I’d refused to see. That the breakup ultimately was as much my fault as his.”
Her brow furrowed, Naomi reached for Roxie’s ungloved hand. “Be careful where you go with that, honey. It’s one thing to own up to our mistakes. Another thing entirely to own somebody else’s.”
Smiling, Roxie squeezed Naomi’s hand, then let go to hug herself. “I’m not doing that, I promise.”
“So he really can’t make you unhappy anymore?”
“Nope,” she said after a moment’s contemplation. “He really can’t.”
“Then why aren’t you answering his calls?”
“Because I have nothing to say to him?”
“I understand that. But maybe he has something to say to you. And maybe, if you let him do that, you’ll find the rest of your peace. Just a thought,” Naomi said, turning toward her SUV, parked at the other end of the small lot. Then she pivoted back. “You know you can call me, right? If you want someone to talk to, whatever. Since heaven knows my own girls don’t need me anymore,” she said with the laugh of a proud mom whose grown kids were doing pretty darn well for themselves, thank you.
“I know,” Roxie said, even though she probably never would. “Night.”
After Naomi drove off, Roxie leaned against the hood of her middle-aged Prius, staring up into the navy sky, dotted with a billion benignly twinkling stars. Even after all these months of being away from the city, it was hard to wrap her head around the absolute stillness out here, save for the whispering of a nearby stand of pines, the distant yap-yap-yap of somebody’s dog—
Her phone rang; her stomach jumped. Not Jeff, though— Noah. Not exactly better.
“Everything okay?” she said, climbing behind the wheel.
“Depends on how you define that.” He paused. “But thought you’d like some warning.”
Her stomach fisted again. “About…?”
Noah lowered his voice. “I was about to finish up here when your uncle arrived. With Eden.”
“O-oh?”
“And enough pizza for an army. Figured you probably didn’t want to walk into that unprepared.”
“Depends on what kind of pizza it is,” she muttered, then pushed out a breath. “Thanks—”
“And Eden insisted I stay.”
Roxie closed her eyes. “I see.”
“Hey. If it’d been up to me, I’d’ve begged off, but far be it from me to break the poor gal’s heart. Besides, I’ll be doing you a favor. By sticking around.”
“And…how is that?”
“Trust me. You do not want to face the pair of them alone.”
“Bad?”
“Times ten.”
Grrreeeaaaat. Her back tensing even more, Roxie drummed her fingertips on the wheel, considering her options. Which all sucked.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” she said wearily as she put the car into gear, so, so wishing she could rewind her life to, like, the beginning.
Chapter Five
Unfortunately, Noah had not been exaggerating.
Not that Roxie had anything against bright colors, she thought as she nibbled at a mozzarella-draped mushroom across the dining room table from the happy couple. Or jewelry. Or belly laughs. Or even, in theory, crazy older ladies, who generally seemed happy enough in their own little worlds.
Except Eden Fiorelli was no sweet, dotty thing who talked to her ten cats and imagined herself the heroine of an Agatha Christie novel. The Real Housewives of New Jersey, maybe. If there was, you know, a postmenopausal edition.
Bad Roxie, bad, she thought, almost tilting her head in an attempt to see what her uncle saw. And heard. Because who was she to judge?
“So Charley tells me,” Noah said, sitting at right angles to Roxie at the table, “you used to be on Broadway?”
“Ohmigod, a million years ago,” Eden said with a blush—Roxie thought, hard to tell underneath all the makeup—and a quick hitch of her low-cut blouse. “But yeah, I was a gypsy. In the chorus,” she said in explanation to whoever might not know the term. “Until I married Sal when I was twenty-one. Can you imagine? God, I was a baby.”
Then Roxie jumped when Eden, waving her half-eaten piece of pizza, spontaneously burst into some show number in a gutsy contralto that wouldn’t have been half bad in, say, a football stadium. Noah tried to hide his grin. Sooo glad he was getting a kick out of this. Which was exactly what he was going to get if he didn’t stop encouraging the woman.
Honestly, Roxie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Whether to be grateful for Noah’s presence or mad at herself for being glad he was there. To be pleased for her uncle—he certainly seemed to be having a blast, go figure—or worried that he was in way over his head.
Because Eden couldn’t have been more different from Mae if she’d been from another galaxy.
The impromptu performance over—followed by applause from both males—Eden grinned at Roxie, her arm possess
ively linked around Charley’s, her generous, albeit wrinkled, bosom so close to the man’s face Roxie could tell he was seriously thinking of laying his cheek on it.
“You must think we’re crazy, huh?” she said with a throaty chuckle, then planted a big kiss on said cheek without waiting for Roxie’s reply. Another laugh preceded her taking a hot pink-tipped finger to the lipstick smudge. “Good thing your wife’s not around,” she said, “or we’d both be in big trouble.”
Roxie nearly choked on her pepperoni—partly due to Eden’s remark, partly to her uncle’s guffaw in response and partly due to Noah’s briefly squeezing her knee underneath the table. Her eyeballs were having an existential crisis, not knowing who to gape at first. What the hell was wrong with everybody?
Eden grabbed another piece of pizza—the woman definitely did not eat like a bird—her mirror-spangled angel sleeve about to drag in the sauce.
“Oh! Your sleeve—”
Another laugh as she jerked the sleeve to safety. “Thanks, doll! I am such a slob, it’s ridiculous. So whaddya think of this fabric, isn’t it gorgeous? And I’ll let you in on a secret—” the bosoms puddled on the table when she leaned forward “—it’s a drapery remnant!”
“Oh. That’s…amazing.”
“I know, right? I got it for dirt cheap two, three years ago. I make all my own clothes, did Charley tell you? You should see my itty-bitty apartment, it’s like the size of this room, right, Charley? One whole side of the living room—” dramatic sweep “—is nothing but shelves for my sewing and crafts and sh—stuff. Swear to God, Diva and I barely have room to think in there.”
“Diva?”
“My Chihuahua. Sal gave her to me when we first moved out here. To help get me used to being in New Mexico, he said.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Roxie saw Noah’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Creep.
Then he cleared his throat. “So your place is small?”
“Like a postage stamp,” Charley said, apparently emerging enough from his besottedness to comment. Which got a shrug from his beloved.
“Yeah,” Eden said. “Couldn’t afford anything bigger after Sal passed away.”
Uh—boy. “When was this?”
“A year ago,” Charley put in, his gaze suddenly sharp. Challenging.
“Sorry to hear that,” Noah said.
“It’s okay, he’d been sick a long time,” Eden said, her gaze tangling with Charley’s for a long, borderline-embarrassing moment before he entwined his fingers with hers. Her eyes returned to Roxie’s. “It was hard, but you gotta move on, right?”
Another pointed look from her uncle. Nothing like being hoisted on your own petard.
“Of course—”
“I’m really glad to hear you say that, since, you know—” Eden grinned at Charley. Again. “—we’re gettin’ kinda serious and all.”
“Serious?” Roxie directed to her uncle as Noah’s hand landed on her knee again. Somehow, this time, she didn’t mind. “You’ve known each other a week!”
Charley’s shoulders bumped. “And a half.” At her pointed look, he said, sounding an awful lot like the bosomy broad beside him, “Hey. This was your idea, after all.”
“My idea—?”
“Okay,” Eden said, clearly sensing she’d gone too far. “Maybe ‘serious’ isn’t the right word—”
“It’s exactly the right word,” Charley said, looping an arm around Eden’s drapery-shirred shoulder and again lancing Roxie with his gaze, a move which definitely got him an adoring look from the redhead. Loosely interpreted though that may have been.
Then Eden tore her eyes away from Charley to face Roxie. “Maybe this isn’t what you had in mind for your uncle. Rather, I’m not exactly what you had in mind. But us Jersey girls, we learn early how to go after what we want.”
Breathe, girl. Breathe. “And why, exactly,” she said evenly, “do you want my uncle?”
“This a trick question?” Her dyed brows lifted, Eden seemed genuinely surprised. “Only because he’s the sweetest thing going!”
“And I’m alive,” Charley said with a shrug.
“Okay, that too,” Eden added with another booming laugh. Then, to Roxie, “Hey, if you’re not gonna eat your crust, can I have it?”
Unable to shake the sensation of tumbling head-over-heels down a steep hill, Roxie got to her feet and headed toward the kitchen, muttering, “Go right ahead, take whatever you want—”
“Where are you going?” Charley said with a steely note to his voice.
“I’m…done,” she said, wishing more than anything she could shake off either the small-mindedness or protectiveness—and right now, she honestly could not tell the difference—preventing her from rejoicing in what Charley clearly saw as his unbelievably good fortune.
Or maybe that’s envy, cupcake—
“Yeah, so are we,” Eden said, either oblivious to Roxie’s discomfort or putting her former stage skills to good use. “That flick starts in forty-five minutes, we better get going.” Then she swooped around the table to give her, then Noah, hugs. “This was fun! We should do it more often!”
Just kill her now.
Noah watched Roxie stomp around the dusty, wrecked kitchen, slamming things into the fridge, looking like she’d slam cabinet doors, too, if there’d been any to slam. Instead, she yanked a broom out of a doorless cupboard and stomped into the living room, where she came to a dead stop in front of the new picture window.
“The crew already cleaned up?”
“Yeah, I know,” Noah said behind her. “Can’t count on anybody these days.”
She flicked him a glance and stomped back into the kitchen, swearing when the replaced broom apparently clattered onto the floor, then returned to the living room where she dropped into a squishy floral armchair, her arms tightly crossed.
“Show’s over,” she said through gritted teeth. “You can leave now.”
Yeah, he could. Then again, it occurred to him, if he wanted people to stop treating him like a kid, he needed to start acting like an adult. And not only when it suited his purpose.
“I’m thinking…no.” When she glowered up at him, the curls a blur around her thundercloud face, Noah said, “You need to vent.”
“What I need is somebody, or something, to punch.”
He spread his arms. “Have at it. But you’d probably hurt your hand.”
On a gurgling growl, she grabbed the throw pillow beside her; Noah braced for the slam, but all she did was strangle it to her middle.
“Although,” Noah said quietly, “if you really want me to go, I will.”
When several seconds passed without a response, he thought, Fine, I tried, then returned to the kitchen to get his jacket, nearly jumping out of his skin when he turned to find Roxie standing in the doorway.
“I don’t get it. Why you’re here.”
“I told you. Because Eden asked me—”
“Bull. If you hadn’t wanted to stay, you wouldn’t’ve. So what’s in it for you?”
Irritation spiked through him. But with himself, not her. “Cynical, much?”
Her eyes burned into his. “Damn straight. Well?”
Noah felt one side of his mouth pull up. Did this gal get his juices going, or what? “Maybe I just want you to feel like—” He gave his head a sharp shake, hoping to jar loose the right words. “Like you could talk to me. Like I’d be somebody you could talk to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, dammit. Jeebus, why do women have to analyze everything to death? Something comes to me, I either roll with it or I don’t. I don’t pick at it until it bleeds, for god’s sake.”
He thought he might have seen the hint of a smile. “You want to be my…friend?”
Uncharted territory though that might have been. Noah couldn’t even remember his last platonic relationship, his brothers’ wives/girlfriends excepted. And yet, if he thought about it, the idea held a certain appeal, not the least of which was—
since it was obvious for many reasons nothing would ever happen between them—maybe focusing on Roxie as a friend would finally quash the pointless sexual attraction.
Okay, maybe that was a stretch. However…
“Believe it or not, I don’t have a lot of those. Brothers, yeah. Up the wazoo. But somebody I can talk to who won’t go rat me out to my mother? Not really.”
Her mouth twitched. “You’d trust me that much?”
Even though the barely suppressed chuckle behind her words was at his expense, warmth spread through his chest, that he’d goosed her out of her bad mood. Even if it had been unintentional. “Yeah. I would.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment before her eyes narrowed. “What about your female…companions?”
“Don’t pick them for their conversational skills. And that doesn’t mean what you think,” he said, actually blushing when she laughed. “It means—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, clearly enjoying the heck out of his discomfort. “Really. But I still don’t understand—”
“Because I can talk to you,” he said, the truth tumbling out of nowhere, rolling right past the fear. The absurdity. “And I like it. That’s never happened before. No, I don’t suppose we have a whole lot in common—other than fathers and uncles driving us off the deep end—but for some reason, that doesn’t seem to matter. And for another thing…”
Noah swung his jacket over his shoulder, shoving his other hand in his pocket. Because, yeah, maybe there was an ulterior motive. One that dovetailed nicely with that acting like a grown-up thing. “Being totally up front here…but my dad—well, everybody, frankly—expects me to come on to you. Like I wouldn’t be able to help myself, or something, just because you’re hot and I’m…me. Not that it’s not tempting, because you are hot and I am me, but you’re not…”
He pushed out a breath. “You’re not the kind of gal I usually hook up with. And obviously I’m not what you’re looking for, either. But I’m getting off track here. The thing is, I know Dad loves me, but I don’t think he’s particularly proud of me. And if I think about it from his perspective, I can sort of understand that. I don’t like it, but I’m thinking maybe some changes are in order.”
Husband Under Construction Page 7
