by Nancy Warren
“Six-thirty.”
“Do you have a meeting or something?”
“No. I need to get home and shower, that’s all.” In truth, she’d set her alarm deliberately early so she could avoid any morning awkwardness.
He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her back into the warmth of his embrace, his sleep-warmed skin cocooning her. “You could shower here,” he said, kissing the back of her shoulders. “I’ll wash your back for you.”
She was tempted. Yet she knew she’d done the right thing in making such a big deal of only spending one night together. He was too sexy, too wonderful for her not to fall for him. And the last thing she wanted in her life was a wandering man.
She’d promised herself from the time she could understand why they moved all the time that she’d never get involved with a man who didn’t stay in one place. By that very simple standard Rob was about the last man she should ever date.
So, reluctantly, she moved away, showed him a smiling face when she turned to him, kissed him once and then resolutely put her feet onto the floor. The hardwood was cold against her bare feet, and as she rose, she shivered. The sooner she got out of here the better.
“Will I see you later?” he asked sleepily.
“I’m not sure,” she said in what she hoped was a businesslike tone. “I have a showing here tomorrow. I’ll let you know for sure. As for today, unless somebody calls and wants a showing, I probably won’t see you.”
“You’re really serious about this one-night thing, aren’t you?” She heard disbelief in his voice. After the astonishing night they’d spent together she could understand how he thought she must be crazy. As she scrambled into her clothes she knew in her heart she’d be crazy to continue. Only pain would result if she ever let herself fall for a man like Rob.
“I have to, Rob. Don’t you see? You’re a rolling stone.” He didn’t argue with her, merely nodded slowly, a bleakness in his eyes she didn’t want to see.
As she left the room, she said softly to herself, “And I’m moss.”
12
ROB SCOWLED AT HIS COFFEE. It was his third cup of the day and it didn’t seem to be doing the usual job of waking him up and energizing him.
After a night like last night he should be skipping and jumping like some guy in a Viagra commercial. Instead he felt the way he had done right after he found out his grandmother was dead. Bereft. As though something vital to his happiness had been ripped from him.
“Get a grip,” he snarled to the French press, sitting on the counter with nothing but a sludge of pressed grounds in its glass bottom. That was kind of how he felt. As if someone, namely Hailey, had crushed every last drop of flavor and vitality out of him and left nothing but a squeezed-out lump of sludge behind.
He wasn’t big on self-reflection, but for some reason she’d slipped under his skin and made him see himself in a light that wasn’t entirely flattering.
Hailey had made it clear that she could never take a man like him seriously.
No. Not a man like him.
Him.
In her view, as a potential mate he didn’t cut it. Not that he wanted to cut it, but it was galling to know that she wouldn’t sleep with him again because of that.
And she was right, damn it, he thought savagely as he tossed the dregs of his coffee down the sink. He wasn’t mate material. Not for a woman like her, with plans for the future—and husband, kids and a family van written all over her. Probably he was irked simply because she’d decreed there’d be no more sex.
He thought of that sweet body convulsing around him, of the intensity of their night together, and he thought it was a crime, a class-B felony at least, to deny both of them pleasure like that simply because he wasn’t a stay-at-home kind of guy.
Well, he wasn’t a stay-at-home guy. The reason he was brooding, he suspected, was because he was bored and that made him twitchy. He needed to get back to work where he belonged and out of Fremont where he so clearly didn’t.
He hobbled upstairs to his grandmother’s bedroom and put on athletic shorts, sneakers and a workout shirt.
He’d been here for four weeks already. It was time he quit lounging and started working out. Once geared up, he headed out to the local running track. A mile in six. Trust Gary to punish him while he was on leave.
When he got to the track, there were only three other joggers. An overweight middle-aged woman shuffling along with earbuds hanging and two younger women who were chatting as they ran.
He started slowly, walking once around the track, trying to pretend there was no pain in his left thigh. Even though Hailey had—in her own sweet way—tried to keep from hurting him there was no way a man could have athletic sex and not use his thigh muscles. So he was sore.
Big deal. It had been so worth it.
He broke into a jog. Making almost a circuit of the track before sweat broke out on his brow and his leg felt as if shards of glass were being shoved into his thigh each time his foot hit the ground.
The obese woman passed him, huffing and wheezing, but outpacing him.
He made it another half a circuit by sheer grit before limping off the field cursing all the way home.
* * *
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?” Doc Greene demanded to know when he showed up for his appointment—an appointment it had almost killed him to make.
“I went jogging.”
“Are you insane? It’s been four weeks. I told you no running before six weeks.”
“I’m a fast healer.” He scowled. “Look, I lost the scrip for painkillers you gave me.” He’d chucked it out but he didn’t feel like sharing that information. “I need a new one, that’s all.”
Doc Greene glared at him from over his bifocals. “This injury involves an eight- to ten-week recovery. You are not in the condition to run.”
Rob gritted his teeth. “I need to run a mile in six minutes before my boss will take me back.”
“Pushing it too soon will only hold you back.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“What you want is physiotherapy.”
It just got worse and worse. “Physiotherapy? I didn’t put my back out. I got shot.”
“I know. And your muscles need rebuilding. A good physio can get you back on the road sooner than you will by running yourself into the ground.”
Rob couldn’t describe the turmoil swirling around his gut. He didn’t mean to speak, yet he blurted, “I need to get out of this town.”
“Why?” Doc gave him a penetrating look that made him feel as though he should be reclining on a couch reciting all the ills done to him in childhood.
He wasn’t going to tell a septuagenarian doctor that a confusing mix of hot sex and no future with one stunning Realtor was driving him away so he said, “I don’t belong here.”
“Of course you do. You’ve lived most of your life here. People are proud of you. And you’re the only living connection with your grandmother. She wanted you to stay. Why do you think she left you the house? It’s not like you need the money with that fancy job of yours.”
He’d never even thought about why Gran had left him Bellamy House. He’d assumed it was because he was her closest relative.
“What if I don’t want to stay? What if I can’t?”
“There are charities your grandmother supported who would love to get that house.”
A light bulb went on inside his head. He wasn’t rich, as Doc Greene seemed to be suggesting, but he did fine. Maybe that’s what he’d do. Give the place to some deserving charity his grandmother had supported. That would take away this weird feeling he had that he had to choose the next owners, that the property should go to someone his grandmother would have approved of. If he gave the place away it would also sever his relationship with Hailey. He’d make sure she still got her commission for the sale. He owed her that. However, if he gifted the property to charity, he wouldn’t be forced to see Hailey several times a week and relive their single nigh
t together like a particularly hot erotic movie that looped endlessly in his head.
Doc scribbled on a pad, ripped it off and handed him the page. “That’s for the painkillers.” Then he scribbled on another page. “And that’s for a physio who is also a personal trainer. She’ll get you doing your mile in six.” He gave him a sharp look. “When your body is ready.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
He limped out. While he waited for his prescription to be filled downstairs in the pharmacy he noticed that the latest issue of World Week was on the stands.
He bought it along with the pills. Not wanting to go home, he headed to the friendly café down the road. Maybe a professional could brew him a coffee that would taste better than what he’d made himself this morning.
When he entered Beananza he had the place almost to himself. He’d missed the lunch rush and whatever rush was next hadn’t started yet. He ordered an Americano.
“You’re the guy who inherited Bellamy House,” the barista said.
“That’s right.”
The guy wore a shirt that read Grounds for Divorce, and featured a cartoon of a woman in a business suit pouring coffee from a pot that was empty, while her suit-clad spouse sipped from a full mug.
“Why is it always the guys who are depicted as selfish morons?” He wondered aloud, pointing at the shirt.
The barista looked down as though he didn’t remember what shirt he’d put on that morning. “Maybe because they so often are.”
He grunted. He’d like to get a shirt that said Men Should Stand Up for Each Other!
“Hailey and Julia are both friends of mine,” the guy in the offensive shirt added. “They sure have been thrilled about showcasing that house.”
“They’ve done a great job,” Rob said. Because they had. Hailey had also done a great job messing with his head and ruining his day. That, however, was nobody’s business but his.
He took his coffee to a spot where he felt he’d be least likely to be disturbed. After popping a couple of the pain pills, he opened World Week.
Things were heating up in a Baltic state, one he’d been to before and knew well. The photographer Gary had sent had done an okay job, but he knew he could have done better.
The knowledge irked.
Famine in Africa. And the same obvious photos. The same tired stories. He was convinced he could have found something fresh in this latest heart-wrenching human tragedy.
Disasters were occurring all over the world and other people were reporting it, other cameras were capturing it. He felt like banging his mug down on the counter in frustration.
He flipped through the domestic news. Politics, more home foreclosures, the religious right—some days he wanted to crawl under the Aurora Bridge and live with the troll.
He left the magazine on the counter and went home. His cell phone rang. He saw it was Hailey and in his eagerness to answer he fumbled the phone. His bad mood and the pain in his leg vanished.
“Hi,” he said. “And yes, I’m free tonight.”
There was a tiny pause.
“Hello, Rob. I’ve got a new client who is very interested in Bellamy House. I’d like to bring him around tomorrow around eleven.”
Okay, she was putting on her professional act and he got it. She’d done the same this morning though she hadn’t seemed quite so professional when she was naked. Still, with every article of clothing she’d donned he’d felt the warm, passionate lover easing away from him and Hailey the Realtor taking her place.
Well? He’d taken the deal, hadn’t he? Agreed to just one night. How could he have imagined that one perfect night could mess with him so badly? And now he had to see her on a regular basis? Pretend they were only business acquaintances?
He couldn’t do it. He’d find a worthy charity to take the house. And then he’d leave. So, he couldn’t run a mile in six. Or sixty the way he felt. But he could convalesce in a hundred different places around the globe, not one of which was full of memories. And where there’d be no Hailey making him feel that he wasn’t enough of a man for her.
He made himself focus on the conversation.
“Him? A single guy? What does a single guy want with Bellamy House?”
“Maybe he’s planning to settle down and have a family,” she said, all neutral, as though she weren’t sticking a knife into him.
“Eleven is fine,” he said. He didn’t like the sound of a single guy buying the property. He’d give Bellamy House to a charity first. He wasn’t about to share that with Hailey just yet. He needed to do some research first.
He also didn’t like the tone she’d used with him. Oh, it was professional and friendly enough. That was exactly the problem. He didn’t want professional and friendly. He wanted sexy and intimate. She’d warned him up front how it would be; all the same it hurt to go from client to lover and back again within twelve hours. In fact it sucked.
He said goodbye, and, for the first time since they’d started working together, he determined to be far away from his own house for tomorrow’s showing.
He’d thought his day couldn’t get any worse, his mood any blacker when his cell phone rang again. He didn’t recognize the local number.
“Robert Klassen?” a cool female voice inquired.
“Yes.” Nobody called him Robert unless they were trying to sell him something and whatever it was, he wasn’t buying.
“This is Keystone Funeral Home calling—”
“Thanks anyway but I don’t plan to die for a while.”
Weren’t there enough deaths in the world? Did they have to troll for business among the young and healthy? He looked at his leg. Maybe this was targeted marketing after all.
“Mr. Klassen, I’m calling about Agnes Neeson. Your grandmother, I believe.”
“Oh.” Funeral home. Gran. He hated thinking of them together. He needed to end this call. “Didn’t your bill get paid? Her lawyer took care of all the bills.”
“Yes, payment was received. We’ve got her ashes. Mr. Klassen, you can come by anytime during office hours to pick them up.”
“Her ashes? My grandmother’s ashes?” He knew there’d been a celebration of her life shortly after she died. He’d never thought there were ashes somewhere waiting for a home. “What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Whatever you’d like, sir. We do have a memorial field. Your grandmother’s ashes would be buried under a tasteful plaque. We’d be happy to discuss placing your loved one in our memorial garden at your leisure.”
A plaque in a field? He couldn’t imagine anything worse. His grandmother wasn’t going to end up in the middle of a lawn in a row of similar plaques, the last resting place of those with no imagination or a family who couldn’t be bothered to scatter the ashes somewhere meaningful.
“Thanks. I’ll pick them up.”
His first instinct was to call Hailey and talk to her about the ashes. How had she done this to him? Turned him from an independent man who made his own decisions to someone who wanted to ask her where he should put his grandmother’s remains? A woman she’d never even met?
The bizarre thing was that he was certain she’d have the right idea.
13
JULIA SPENT A MISERABLE evening deleting every single one of the emails from the guy she now referred to as her scammer.
Inevitably she couldn’t simply delete the emails, not without reading each message over again. Nor could she put his photos in her computer’s trash bin, not without gazing longingly at the man she’d believed was writing to her.
In the time since she’d discovered she’d been scammed she’d done research on the internet, something she should have done earlier, and learned there was an entire industry based on men creating fake personas to lure unwary women—such as herself—into sending them money.
The horror stories she’d read had practically made her hair stand up. Women had sold jewelry, antiques and family heirlooms to send more and more money to these men who professed love and made promises f
or the future if only they could send another thousand dollars for airfare or five thousand to pay for urgent medical attention—or some other bogus reason.
Once they’d taken the initial bait these women often went into debt to keep their dream alive. It was ludicrous, these seemingly rational women sending their life savings off to men who didn’t exist. How could they be so stupid? Now she knew.
Julia understood two things. One: there is no escaping the foolishness a woman will stoop to if she believes she’s in love. And two: she, Julia, had to accept she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.
She knew in her deepest heart that there’d been a moment when she’d actually considered sending him the money, so deeply had she bought into the fantasy of him and of them together. That’s probably what made her the maddest, knowing she’d been manipulated in the most humiliating manner and by someone who operated on the other side of the world and was virtually untouchable. All she could do was report her story to the internet dating site and admit to being one more fool for love.
Even as she accepted that she was a dupe, still she reread all the emails. Now that she knew the truth, she could see there was a certain generic tone to them. He’d been awfully quick to profess his affection for someone he’d never met.
And, gritting her teeth, she realized she’d been even quicker to accept his professions as genuine.
And those photos!
The guy whose pictures were so hot she worried he would be too good-looking for her, they were photos of a model, the likeness stolen and used to lure her.
She knew she should rip the Band-Aid off, chuck the emails and the photos and empty her computer’s trash bin.
She knew that.
Still, she tortured herself going through it all again. It was like looking at photos of a great vacation or studying pictures of someone you’ve loved who’s died. That’s how she felt. She experienced the bittersweet sadness of remembering past happiness. Because she had been happy. She’d already written the story in her head. Their first date, the first kiss.
How many idle moments had she spent wondering when they’d first make love and where it would happen?
