by Lisa Plumley
What if he didn’t believe her at all? She’d lose her best friend. End of story. Finito.
Aaack. The whole thing was too muddled to deal with. With a helpless groan, Chloe flipped down the toilet seat and sat on it. Chin in hand, she stared at the pregnancy test. It grew bigger in her imagination, pulsing on the vanity like an atomic experiment from one of Nick’s Godzilla movies.
She was losing it.
Get a grip, she commanded herself. Then her front door swooshed open, Nick’s voice called to her from the living room, and Chloe nearly jumped out of her skin. The pregnancy test box clunked hollowly to the linoleum, punctuating the sound of the other shoe dropping into her life. Could she face Nick and still not tell him the truth?
She’d have to.
And, if necessary, she could always tell him the truth later. If the test was positive. No point worrying him for no reason, right?
“Chloe?”
His voice got louder, echoing down the hallway. Coming closer. She leaped out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her, just in time to collide with Nick.
“Ooof!”
“Hi!” she said with an overly-chipper smile, taking in his rumpled khaki shorts and Cardinals T-shirt with an appreciative glance born of knowing exactly what kind of fine-tuned body he kept beneath them. “You surprised me.”
“Your front door was open.” He stepped backward, straightened his glasses, and gave her a quick once-over. “Oversleep again? Come on, Chloe. You’re never going to convince that old coot Griggs to give you your loan if you can’t even make it to your appointment on time. You know that. You—”
His gaze stopped on her purple-dotted boxers. “—You, you, you’ve been in business long en … .” He stopped. “Do you always sleep in those?”
His eyebrows furrowed beneath his glasses rims. His fingertip raised to his lips, tapping in the way that always showed he was deep in thought about an experiment, or a new invention … or the night he thought they’d never spent together.
Chloe slapped her hands over her boxers and neon green T-shirt like an old-maid aunt. “These?” she cried, trying to look horrified at being caught undressed. “Just got ‘em yesterday. Big sale down at Bevick’s department store. You know, the one down on Main Street with the, um, wedding dresses in the window and the cute little slingback crocodile shoes with the bows on the toes?”
Her monologue ran out of breath and she ran out of lies, but that was okay—Nick’s eyes had already glazed over at the mention of shopping. Thank God he never paid attention to everyday details like clothes.
“I’d better go change,” she muttered, and made her escape.
At her entrance into her bedroom, Moe meowed and then tried slipping through the opened door. It gave her an idea. She scooped him up, grazed her chin across his soft furred head, then leaned into the hallway.
“Moe’s really missed you.” Rapidly, she slipped her armful of orange tabby into his hands before he could object. “He hates it when you work so much. We can’t wait until your growth-accelerator proposal is done.”
That ought to hold him for a while, Chloe decided as she snicked the door shut again, trying not to hear Nick’s grumbling on the other side. It was beyond her why he didn’t want pets of his own—all of hers obviously loved him.
Maybe he’d like something simple. Something small. A hamster like Curly, or a goldfish, or … no. The poor thing would probably keel over from neglect the next time Nick’s inventing bug struck. A commitment-phobe like him was strictly the faux pet type. Maybe this Christmas she’d buy him one of those videotapes that made it look like your television housed a whole aquarium full of exotic fish. That was just about Nick’s speed.
No commitment. No obligations.
No risk.
No change in plans.
Sighing, Chloe made herself quit mentally matchmaking Nick. She had an appointment to get ready for, and it didn’t involve the wild kingdom—not unless Effram Griggs’ toupee counted as a life form of its own. Whipping off her T-shirt, she whirled to fling it into the hamper, then slid open her mirrored closet doors.
Moe yowled outside and her bedroom door opened. Nick’s head emerged around the edge of it. “Something’s buzzing in your bathroom. Are you cooking up another batch of punk rock haircolor, or what?”
Chloe flung her arms across her naked chest. He didn’t even blink. She might as well have waved her arms in the air and tap-danced, for as much attention as he paid to her appearance. Keeping her arms tight over her chest, she slowly turned to face him. His expression didn’t change one iota.
Not even half an iota.
Her body felt as heated as a toaster glowing red, just before it turned the toast to a slab of coal. That would be her heart if she wasn’t careful. Ruined and crumbly.
“Fun-ny,” she said. “It was only that one time I tried those red stripes, and that was years ago. Now I’m sticking with my natural hair color.”
Nick looked at her expensively-streaked layered cut. “Uh-huh. That’s you, nature girl,” he deadpanned. “Do you want me to turn off the timer for you?”
He was utterly, completely, oblivious, Chloe realized with a sinking feeling. Even half-naked she couldn’t dredge up any non-platonic interest from him.
Any child they might have created together deserved more than a lovestruck mama and an indifferent daddy. She’d already been around that block—wearing the kid’s diapers herself. She couldn’t let history repeat itself.
Knowing Nick, he’d feel obligated to ‘do the right thing,’ no matter what his feelings were for her. She really couldn’t tell him the truth.
“The timer?” he asked again.
“Timer?” She fought the urge to drop her arms and flash him, just to get some sort of reaction. “Oh! The timer! No, thanks. It’ll turn off by itself in a minute.”
He shrugged. “Okay. You’d better hurry up, or Mr. Griggs will reschedule you again. I don’t know why you don’t just go to one of the bigger banks in Phoenix or—”
“I’ll be ready,” Chloe interrupted, hoping to forestall the inevitable, familiar avalanche of financial advice. Turning, she concentrated on pulling one of the few suits she owned from her closet without giving Nick a thirty-four B-sized eyeful in the process.
“—or Tucson for your loan.” His gaze flicked over the red suit and matching pumps she threw on the bed, then he crossed his arms and added, “You know, Red and Jerry would probably let you make payments directly to them for a while if that’s what it takes. I’ll bet—”
“No favors.” She added a halter-cut, pale-colored bodysuit to the pile. Arizona in April demanded the coolest clothes possible.
“Chloe—”
“And no help, either.” She turned her back to Nick while she sorted through the beads and bangles and multi-hued earrings jumbled together in her jewelry box. “I can do this on my own. There’s no point involving Red and Jerry before I know I’ve got the bank behind me. I don’t want to get their hopes up—”
“—And then disappoint them,” Nick finished. “I know, I know.”
Holding a gold hoop to one ear and a faux ruby-and-pearl stud to the other, Chloe turned. “Which do you think looks best?”
His mouth dropped open.
Wowsers, that was some kind of reaction to a pair of earrings. Note to myself: ask Nick for jewelry opinions more often.
Wait a minute … his gaze was a whole lot lower than her ears. In fact, now that she looked closer, she realized he wasn’t even in the above-the-neck neighborhood. His dark-eyed gaze was aimed lower than that, closer to her … omigod, her naked breasts! Shrieking, Chloe hugged her arms over her chest, barely registering the cold kiss of the earrings still in her hands.
Nick whipped sideways, hiding his face by propping his arm on the door jamb. “Uh, they both look great to me.”
Both what? Both breasts or both earrings?
Scratch that—she probably didn’t really want to know the answer to th
at one.
“I meant the earrings,” Nick added.
“I figured.”
Sheesh! What had she been thinking? This pregnancy thing was turning her mind to mush. Her face burning, Chloe threw the earrings in her jewelry box and slammed the lid shut, then snatched up her suit and clutched it, hanger and all, in front of her.
“But, uh, that’s really a nice pair of umm, umm …” His arm churned, trying to crank something smart to his brain. “I mean, the rest of you is really—dammit, Chloe! Put some clothes on, will you?”
“You’re blushing, Nick.”
“Like hell.”
“Your face is redder than my suit.”
“Nothing’s redder than that suit.”
He ducked his head and chanced a look from beneath his elbow. She could almost pinpoint the exact moment he realized she’d safely covered her ‘nice pair’ from view, because his grin returned.
“But you might get faster action on your loan if you tried the earring trick on Mr. Griggs.”
“Har, har.”
He came closer. She must have imagined that blush on his face, because now Nick looked as composed as ever. Not to mention as miserably unaffected by her—as a woman—as he ever had.
“Anyway,” she continued with a teasing smile, “I already tried that.”
“And?”
“And the man has no taste when it comes to earrings. He actually picked a rhinestone pair.”
She laughed at the look on his face, then met him halfway around the side of the bed, tucking her chin into her chest to secure the suit and hanger while she moved. “I’m kidding, you Neanderthal! What kind of woman do you think I am?”
“I think you’re a big old softie,” Nick said, “worrying over Red and Jerry like you do.”
He reached to help her hold up the curved metal hanger top, and his knuckle brushed warm against her chin. At the feel of his skin touching hers, Chloe’s knees went weak. The hanger wobbled in her hand, making her suit flutter in front of her.
“I think you’re going to get that loan of yours, or die trying,” Nick went on. “And I think—” He smiled and touched one shoulder-pad-bolstered edge of her suit jacket. “—you’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up and shimmy into this thing.”
“Shimmy?”
He headed for the door, tapping a beat along the footboard of her sleigh bed.
“You think I ‘shimmy’?”
Nick shrugged and stepped into the hallway.
He thought she shimmied!
Officially, of course, she was incredibly offended. But—he thought she shimmied! Chloe grinned, just as Nick stuck his head around the doorjamb again.
“And one more thing,” he said.
She put on a straight face.
“If things don’t work out with the bank today, you can always count on me.”
“I can’t ask you for help, Nick.”
“Sure, you can. The rest of us deserve a chance to play hero sometimes, too, you know.”
Sure. Chloe sighed and sank onto her bed as he closed the door, leaving her alone. Would Nick really see instant unplanned fatherhood as an opportunity to be heroic? Or were those just so many words, words that were easy to say but hard to live up to?
There was only one way to find out.
She got dressed and ducked into the bathroom for one quick look at her destiny before leaving.
The blonde emerged from Saguaro Vista Cattleman’s Bank just as Nick glanced up from his hydroponics research notes. Her long legs flashed beneath her thigh-high red business suit as she clicked toward him with the kind of hip-swaying, high-heeled strides that destroyed brain cells in men everywhere. Halfway across the city center’s saltillo-tiled courtyard, she shrugged out of her matching suit jacket and flipped it over her shoulder, trailing it by her fingertips over her back.
Her naked back. Her pert, perfect breasts bounced in the sunlight as she strolled through the mist given off by the tinkling courtyard fountain and came toward him. Whaaa … ? his brain asked, but his body already had the upper hand. Come on down, it said.
He blinked, and the vision in red transformed itself into Chloe. Fully-clothed, jacket-wearing, non-bouncing, just-pals Chloe.
This had to stop. Chloe was his friend, his best friend, not a potential between-inventions playmate. The women he dated weren’t like Chloe. She was e.e. cummings; they were Thoreau. She was mercury; they were iron. Chloe was bare feet and ring-dings and touch football; they were designer shoes and haute cuisine and PTA fundraisers. She was the sizzle; they were the steak.
And Nick was the overworked inventor who obviously needed to get out more.
No wonder Chloe’s dual-earring nudist impression had affected him so strongly this morning. The sight of her standing there with jewels in her hands and nothing but bare, silky skin below had brought every part of him to attention. It didn’t take a genius to realize he needed a break, and his brain had obviously been forced to take drastic measures to shove the message through.
Cool it, he commanded himself. Chloe’s your friend, not your fantasy woman.
His non-fantasy woman stopped in front of him, grabbed his sleeve, and thunked her forehead onto his shoulder. “Let’s go,” she mumbled into his chest.
Nick’s other concerns vanished. When Chloe did the shoulder clunk, it meant she needed him. “Awww, Chloe. What happened?”
She mumbled something into his T-shirt. He got as far as, “Effram Griggs is a shirt-tidied, misery grist beanie outback,” before interrupting.
“What was that part about his beanie?”
She beat her fist softly against his shoulder and made a frustrated sound. “I said,” Chloe told him, turning her head just enough to make her words heard, “that Effram Griggs is a short-sighted, misogynist weenie-throwback with delusions of grandeur and cigar stubs for brains.”
“He turned down your loan application again?”
“Again.” Miserably, Chloe nodded against his shoulder, giving him a mouthful of jagged-cut blonde hair.
He blew it away and hugged her one-handed, careful to keep his notebook wedged between his chest and her … curvy parts. Not even three inches of his chicken-scratched notes could block the alluring tropical scents of her shampoo and perfume, though. Too bad.
“I thought I’d start to wear him down by now!” She wriggled against him as though her frustration just had to have an outlet. “You know, third time’s the charm, and all that?”
“There’s always next month,” he murmured. After her second loan attempt, Griggs had refused to consider any applications she made with less than one month’s time between them.
The arbitrary, power-hungry jerk.
“I can’t wait another month!” she wailed.
“Looks like you don’t have much choice.” Nick squeezed her a little closer. “In the meantime, it’s my job to cheer you up. What you need is Kahlúa and coffee and sympathy.”
Chloe stiffened in his arms. A sniffle sound came from somewhere near his collarbone, followed by something that sounded like, “Kahlúa hurts.”
Which didn’t make any sense at all. Taking over Red’s pet shop must have meant more to her than she’d let on. Why else would Chloe reject their time-tested cheer-up remedy?
“Ice cream?” Nick suggested. “A movie? A racquetball game? You can pretend the ball is Effram Grigg’s greasy gray toupee-wearing head.”
Another sniffle, but hard on its heels came a choked laugh. “Now there’s an idea.”
“Wait, I take it back,” he said with a grin. “With motivation like that, you’d probably cream me. I wouldn’t be able to hold up my head in public.”
Chloe laughed outright at that. “Wouldn’t be the first time, you welsher.” She twisted her fingers in his T-shirt sleeve, then nestled closer and pressed her cheek against his chest, soaking up comfort as easily as she walloped a racquetball. “You still owe me a dinner from your last crushing defeat, remember?”
“I remem
ber. One of these days, I swear I’m revoking that ‘do-over’ rule of yours.”
“Bully.”
“Cheater.”
“Pushover.”
Nailed, Nick admitted. If anyone could turn him into an easy mark, it was Chloe. “Maybe,” he said aloud, “but Effram Griggs isn’t. Running the only bank in town went straight to his head fifteen years ago, and it’s only gotten worse since.”
She sniffled and raised her head, staring over his shoulder at the Cattleman’s Bank. If looks could burn, hers would’ve set fire to the building’s rustic southwestern façade—preferably with Griggs still inside. Then she took a step back and shook her head.
“I guess the good old boy network still stands tough in Saguaro Vista,” she croaked. “And since I’m not a man or, worse, not one of Griggs’s poker buddies,” she added, swiping her hand across her eyes, “it looks like it’s back to the old drawing board.”
“Hey …” Nick thumbed her chin higher and examined her face. “Are you crying?”
She jerked her head sideways. “Who, me?” she asked, brushing intently at something on his shoulder—a smudge of her candy-apple red lipstick, probably. “You know me. I never cry.”
“I know. That’s why I—”
“And I’m not now.” She frowned up at him, then slung her purse higher on her shoulder and took a deep breath. “Look, buying Red’s pet shop was just an idea, okay? Nobody knows about it but you. Nobody knows, nobody’s disappointed, and things go on like before.” Her voice cracked. “It’s no big deal.”
“You’re acting like it’s a big deal,” he persisted. And Chloe wasn’t the type to get worked up over nothing. She wanted that loan to buy Red’s pet shop. It was important to her—mysteriously important, given her hedging and hawing yesterday over keeping her loan appointment—and Nick wanted to know the reason why. There was definitely more going on here than met the eye.
“It doesn’t add up,” he went on, looking closely at her. “What’s special about getting this loan, this time? About getting it now?”
