“He’s a little more than that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Uh-huh, sure.”
Cindy didn’t dare glance at Beth. She didn’t want to see the knowing expression on her friend’s face. Beth had brought up an interesting point. Why was Cindy helping Mike out?
She was doing it for the reasons she’d told Beth and for one other. She was doing it because she liked pretending it was real. She liked the closeness they shared, she liked him touching her and being able to touch him back. Being with him made her remember all the good parts about being married. Being with him made her feel alive. It was the safest way to get what she wanted. Mike was leaving. She knew that in advance. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to give her heart away, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting it broken.
“So, have you seen him naked?” Beth asked teasingly.
Cindy had known the question was coming. She’d even prepared a witty answer. But instead of saying that, she slapped her hands down on the table. “Dammit, there’s more to a relationship than sex.”
Beth stared at her, then took a sip of tea. “Honey, you’re not falling for him, are you?”
She’d surprised herself with her outburst. “Of course not. That would be crazy. We’re just friends. Mike is...”
“Handsome?” Beth offered helpfully.
“Well, yes.”
“Funny?”
She smiled. “Very.”
“Charming?”
“When he wants to be.”
“Single?”
“Obviously.” Cindy frowned. “What’s your point?”
“I don’t have one.” Beth folded the empty sweetener packet in half. “As long as you’re sure you’re not falling for him. It seems to me it would be very easy for this game of pretend to get out of hand.”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” Cindy said. “He’s not my type.”
“In the two years you’ve been single, you haven’t had one date. I don’t think you’re qualified to know what your type is.”
“Maybe not, but whatever my type is, Mike isn’t it. The man can fit his belongings into two duffel bags. I want someone who’s going to stick around. Someone stable. With roots.”
“You had that with Nelson, and he still left you.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
Beth leaned forward. Her blue eyes darkened with sympathy. “You know what I’m saying. You thought Nelson would be a sure thing, and he wasn’t. You assume Mike is wrong for you. Maybe he is wrong. And just maybe he’s Mr. Right. You can handle this any way you like. But like I said, this game of pretending to have a relationship could get out of hand. What if you stop pretending, but he still thinks it’s a game? I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“That won’t happen. I’d be crazy to fall for a guy like him.”
Beth stood up. “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me,” she said, then left.
Cindy sat at the kitchen table a long time. She thought about what her friend had said. It was a risk. She would be the first to admit that something about Mike got to her. It wasn’t just his good looks. It was the way he took the time to be with her kids, and his kindness. Okay, and maybe it was the way he turned her on.
The back door opened. Five sweaty children and one sweaty adult spilled into the kitchen.
“We’re thirsty,” Jonathan said.
She pulled out a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge as her son set out plastic glasses. Mike limped over to the kitchen table and sat down. “They’re thirsty. I’m going to have a heart attack. Do you know how hot it is out there?”
The five boys collected their cups and started to leave. “You coming, Mike?” Jonathan asked.
“No,” he gasped, and leaned back in the chair. “I can’t keep up.”
Jonathan laughed and closed the door behind him.
“You have to be careful in this heat,” Cindy told him, eyeing his damp T-shirt.
“I know. I still don’t have my endurance. The leg is healing, but it’s going to be a while.”
He took the glass she offered and downed the lemonade in three big gulps. As he handed it back to her, he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and raised it to wipe his face. She had a brief glimpse of his hard, muscled belly and chest. His bare skin gleamed from sweat. She’d seen his chest several times while he’d been sick. She’d always admired it, but it was only recently that the sight of it sent her heart into overdrive. She supposed it was because when he was a patient, she’d thought of him as someone she had to take care of and now she thought of him as a man.
She poured him another glass of lemonade. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I can’t help it. I’m discovering a whole new species of humans. Kids are pretty cool.”
“Don’t let them fool you,” she said. “They can be a real pain sometimes.”
“I know that.” He took a drink, then set the glass on the table.
“You’d be a good father,” she said, putting the now-empty pitcher in the sink.
She glanced at Mike. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“You don’t agree?” she asked.
“No. I would be pretty good being a part-time parent, but I doubt if I could be there for the long haul. Besides, I’m just a beat-up, scarred, slightly over-the-hill bodyguard. Who would want me?”
He took another drink and closed his eyes as if not really expecting an answer. Cindy thought about how he made her feel when he held her, and how good he was with the kids. She rinsed out the pitcher and started to make another batch of lemonade, all the while the answer to his question echoing silently inside her head.
Who would want a beat-up, scarred, slightly over-the-hill bodyguard? She might.
Chapter Nine
The crash of thunder echoed through the house. Mike sat upstairs in the game room, watching the bolts of lightning filling the sky. Rain pounded against the windows. According to the weather channel on television, the storm was going to be a bad one, lasting most of the afternoon. He stretched out on the sofa, propped his feet on the coffee table and prepared to enjoy the show.
The wound in this thigh had almost healed. He’d been working out regularly at the country club, but never on weekends. His strength was returning, although his endurance was going to take a little longer to reach one hundred percent. It was a slow process, but he was improving daily. That’s what he’d come to Sugar Land to do.
He glanced at the clock above the entertainment center. It was late Saturday afternoon. He’d begun to measure his life in two-week increments. The beginning and ending of each time period was Jonathan and Allison spending the weekend with their father. They’d left that morning.
He didn’t see them every day, but he still missed them when they were gone. At least every other day, they came over and invited him to play in the greenbelt or go to lunch or a movie with them. The invitations rarely came from Cindy and he wasn’t sure if she liked his tagging along or not. She always seemed pleased to see him. If she’d been one of his usual women, he would have known exactly what she was thinking. If she’d been one of his usual women, he wouldn’t have cared as much.
In the last few weeks, he’d begun depending on her less. The grocery store was no longer strange. He’d gotten used to everyone’s knowing who he was. Since word had spread that he and Cindy were an item, the illicit invitations had slowed. He was grateful, but he sometimes wondered what would happen to Cindy when he was gone. Would everyone assume she’d been dumped? He hadn’t thought that far ahead when he’d asked her to pretend to be involved with him. She hadn’t mentioned it, but that didn’t mean there weren’t ramifications for her.
A bolt of lightning hit the ground close to the house. The instantaneous explosion of thunder shook the windows. He rose to his feet and walked downstairs. His limp was barely noticeable. He crossed the kitchen and
stared out the window at Cindy’s house. From this side he couldn’t see anything but her fence and front yard. For all he knew, she was gone. Or entertaining.
He grimaced, not wanting to think about her being with another man. Why wouldn’t she be? She was bright, pretty, sexy as hell. Unless all the single men in the area were blind, someone had to have noticed her.
With her pretending to be involved with him, he knew it was illogical to assume she had a man in her house, but once the thought was planted, he couldn’t let it go. He wanted to walk over and find out, but he couldn’t think of a good enough excuse.
Besides, it wasn’t his business. She was just a friend, nothing more. What she did with her personal life was her business. And even if it were his business, he didn’t want to get involved. Bad enough that he was already attached to her kids; he wasn’t going to make it worse by becoming attached to the lady herself.
That decided, he opened the refrigerator. It was too early for dinner, but maybe he could figure out what he was going to have. He’d finished his stash of frozen dinners. He could go to the market again. Or maybe a movie. He needed to get out.
The next bolt of lightning didn’t hit close to the house, nor was the accompanying thunder particularly loud, but even as the sound rumbled through the afternoon, the lights in the house faded and the air conditioner stopped.
He stood in the center of the kitchen waiting for the electricity to be restored. It often went out for a few seconds during storms. After two minutes, he figured it wasn’t going to be coming back on anytime soon. Maybe he should go and make sure Cindy was all right.
It was, he acknowledged as he dashed through the rain, a flimsy excuse. Cindy had been surviving storms long before he arrived in town. But it was the best he could come up with under the circumstances. Admitting that he simply wanted to see her wasn’t an option.
He ran across her lawn and down the driveway. Once under the protection of the breezeway, he slowed, then stopped in front of her back door and knocked.
“Come in,” she called.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
Her house was cool, dark and silent. There were no lights, no hum of the air conditioner or ceiling fans. “Where are you?” he asked.
“In the living room.”
He crossed the family room floor and entered the large open living area. The ceiling was two stories high, the windows nearly that tall. Outside, bushes and crepe myrtle trees swayed in the wind. Cindy was sitting in one corner of the sofa that faced the window. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest. Her shoulder-length hair was loose around her face.
He stopped in front of her and glared. “You shouldn’t leave your back door open and you shouldn’t just call `Come in.’ What if I’d been a burglar?”
She glanced up at him. Her eyes were a mossy green in the dark gray of the afternoon light, her face pale and devoid of makeup. She wore a white short-sleeved shirt that buttoned up the front and pull-on shorts.
“Only my friends use the back door,” she said. “Burglars don’t knock and strangers come to the front.”
“You should be more careful.”
“Yes, Mike. I’ll do my best.” She leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“The electricity is out. I came by to make sure everything was all right.”
“Couldn’t be better. I love summer storms.” She waved one arm toward the far end of the sofa. “Have a seat. Do you want some wine?”
“Sure.”
He moved around the light oak coffee table and sat down. Lightning lit the sky like a strobe light. Thunder was one long continuous boom. Cindy rose to her feet and collected a few fat candles from the mantel. She set them on the coffee table and lit them. The flickering lights added a soft glow to the room.
When she returned from the kitchen, she was carrying a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew and two glasses. Mike took the bottle from her and opened it. She settled on the sofa, staying in the far corner, but angling toward him.
“To summer,” she said, taking the glass he offered.
“To summer.” Their voices were quiet in the still room, the sound of the clinking glass unnaturally loud.
She sipped the dark liquid, then sighed. “Lovely. I hope the electricity stays out for another hour. Just long enough for us to enjoy the quiet, but not so long that the frozen foods spoil.”
Mike grinned. “Ever practical.”
“I’m a mother. I have to be.”
She took another drink, then leaned forward and set the glass on the table. The front of her blouse gaped slightly. He had a brief impression of pale curves and white lace, then she straightened.
“I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” she said. “What have you been doing?”
“Working out. I seem to be collecting a smaller audience each time.”
“But you still have that core group of devoted fans.”
“Don’t remind me.” He took a drink of his wine. The taste was smooth with a hint of a bite. Very nice. “I’ve been catching up on my reading. Trying to avoid television. Do you know what’s on during the day?” He shuddered. “I can’t believe people go on talk shows and admit all these personal problems to millions of viewers. And the soaps. Thank God for CNN.”
“And sports.”
“That, too.”
The wind shifted so the rain pelted the tall windows. There were three across the back of the living room. Two slender windows on either side of a wide one in the center. The curtains had been drawn back, the lace sheers pushed aside.
Cindy leaned forward. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes.” He watched jagged flashes cut through the gray clouds. “I didn’t realize the weather changed so much here in Houston.”
“It’s never boring, that’s for sure.” She gave him a quick smile, then turned her attention back to the storm. “Fronts come through quickly. In the winter it can go from sixty-five to below forty degrees in about fifteen minutes. You can run the air conditioner in the morning and the heater that night.”
“I can’t believe you ever use the heater,” he said.
“It is a little warm right now.”
“Warm? I’ve been in saunas that are cooler than this.”
“It will be cool right now, in the rain, but as soon as the storm passes, it will get muggy. But it gets hot back East and in Los Angeles in the summer.”
“Not like this.” He took another sip of wine, then leaned back on the sofa, resting the glass on his belly. “L.A. is a dry heat and it comes and goes in cycles. New York has humidity, but nothing like this. I spent some time in Singapore during the summer. Now that’s heat.”
She turned toward him. “Where else have you been?”
He shrugged. “Everywhere. It all blurs after a while. You traveled a lot, too, when you were a kid.”
“Not like that. It was military bases and mostly in the States. We never went anywhere fun. That might have made up for moving all the time. If I had my wish, I would never move again.”
He glanced around the room. “It’s very nice here.”
“Thanks. I like it. When I was growing up, I used to think about the house I would buy when I was an adult. I used to plan the rooms and how I would decorate them.”
“How close did you come?”
She picked up her wine and chuckled. “Fortunately, I modified my plans as I got older. I can’t remember what I would have chosen when I was Allison’s age, but I’m sure it would have been awful.” She took a sip, then continued, “I always wanted my home to be welcoming. The sort of place someone would want to stay.”
“Then you’ve accomplished your goal.” He’d felt welcome in her house from the first moment he regained consciousness. Now, with a storm raging outside, the house felt like a haven.
“Thanks. I’d like to redo this room.” She patted the floral-print sofa. “Maybe get rid of those
drapes. I don’t like the gray. It’s a little cold for me, but Nelson liked it. I’ve changed the bedroom since he left and I’d like to do more, but it has to be slow. I’m still trying to make it on a teacher’s salary.”
She leaned toward the coffee table and set down her wine. As she shifted back in place, she moved closer. Mike told himself it was a completely unconscious action. Cindy considered him a friend. She was relaxed around him. She wasn’t coming on to him.
But his body didn’t want to listen to logic. From the moment he’d first seen her, he’d thought she was attractive. If he recalled those first few foggy minutes correctly, he’d thought she was a naked angel sent to him from heaven. Now he knew she was even better than that, she was a flesh-and-blood woman. And he wanted her.
He rested his head on the sofa and sipped his wine, all the while listening to her plans about wallpaper and new carpeting. He enjoyed the sound of her voice. It nearly blocked out the blood roaring through his veins. His skin was hot, his groin hard. Just being with her turned him on. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if they actually touched. Or kissed. Or made love.
He had a bad feeling it would be pretty damn good—and a complete disaster. He wasn’t into commitments and Cindy didn’t know any other way to do it. So they would be friends, and when he left here late this afternoon, he would take a cold shower and think pure thoughts.
“Mike! You’re not listening to me.”
“Sorry. Men are genetically predisposed not to be able to talk about decorating.”
“That’s not true.” She gave him a mocking glare. “Men very much want to live in a nice house, but many of them don’t want to be bothered with doing any of the work required to get it that way.”
“That, too,” he admitted. He finished his wine and sat up to put the empty glass on the table. When he settled on the sofa again, he turned toward her. They were definitely closer to each other now. Each of them had about eight inches of space behind them, and less than that between them. Cindy was shaking her head. She hadn’t noticed. He wondered if she would.
The Bodyguard and Ms. Jones Page 12
