Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

“Hey, I can enjoy the classics as much as the next guy.” He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the nearest pizza shop from memory. “Extra large meat-lovers okay with you?”

  “With jalapenos,” Jim added. “And one of those Dutch apple dessert things.”

  “You got it.”

  Hours later, they’d made their way through the pizza, a considerable amount of liquor—Jim more than Mike—and several Star Trek episodes.

  “You know,” Jim said from his end of the sofa, where he’d slouched down deep into the cushions, “I sure as hell don’t get it. A man busts his butt all day to give his wife a good home, and what does he get for his efforts? Nothing but grief.”

  “Exactly.” Mike propped his feet on the coffee table and let his head rest against the back cushion. He hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights as night descended, so the only light in the room came from the TV and the blue glow from the swimming pool beyond the balcony. Half listening to the sound of Mr. Spock’s Vulcan fiancée explaining why she didn’t want to marry him, Mike watched the squiggly blue lines play across the ceiling.

  “Too bad we weren’t born on Vulcan,” Jim said.

  “Hmm?” Mike turned his head to focus on Jim.

  The burly contractor gestured toward the screen with his highball glass. “At least there the women are logical.”

  “Yeah,” Mike snorted, “and a man only gets laid what, every seven years? At least here a guy gets some compensation for his grief.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Jim mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “I said, speak for yourself.” Jim glared at him, as if daring him to laugh.

  Mike frowned. “Wait a second. Are you telling me your wife’s already holding out on you?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “But—” Mike shook his head in an effort to clear away his own woes. “I thought Kate said Linda’s only in her sixth month.”

  Jim shrugged one shoulder, not meeting his eye.

  “She is holding out, isn’t she?”

  “It’s not that.” Jim started to take a drink and found his glass empty. “It’s just that…” He raised his gaze to meet Mike’s. “You’ve seen my wife. She’s so… tiny.”

  Mike laughed. “Last time I saw her, she was huge!” Leaning forward, he grabbed the bottle of bourbon and refilled Jim’s glass. He’d already decided to offer the man the use of the one spare bedroom that actually had a bed.

  “Now, maybe. Since I got her pregnant.” Jim wagged his head slowly. “Before that, though, she was skinny as a toothpick.” He held up one of his thick, callused hands. “Do you know how easily I could snap a toothpick?”

  Mike hesitated before setting the bottle back on the coffee table. Maybe he should change the subject to something safe, like sports. Looking at Jim, though, he saw a man who had problems weighing heavily on his mind. With a sigh, he pushed his discomfort aside. “You want to talk about it?”

  “Hell, no.” Jim took another drink and settled his shoulders deeper into the cushions. Several minutes passed in which neither of them spoke. “It’s just… weird, that’s all,” Jim said at last. “I mean, I had a hard enough time getting over the size thing when we first met. But I got over it, and everything was fine. Then, all of a sudden, she’s pregnant, and she starts blowing up like a balloon. And I look at her and think, holy shit, I did that to her. What if something happens? What if the baby’s too big, or she’s too small? What if it tears her up inside? Or…” He looked away, his voice dropping. “What if it kills her?”

  “Hey, man.” Mike shifted. “She’ll be all right. I mean, that’s what doctors are for, right?”

  Jim snorted, and took another drink. “Things still happen. I should know. My sister’s a labor and delivery nurse. The stories she tells would make Stephen King read like Mother Goose.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not with every delivery,” Mike said.

  “It’s enough, believe me—enough to keep me up at night.”

  Mike tried to think of something reassuring to say, but what did he know about having babies other than sitting in a room down the hall, waiting to celebrate the arrival of his newest niece or nephew? “Have you tried talking to Linda about this?”

  “Are you crazy?” Jim glared at him. “You think I want to fill her head with all this? I figure I’m losing enough sleep for the both of us.”

  “I take it she’s not scared about it, then?”

  “Who, Linda?” Jim snorted. “The pint-sized Wonder Woman? Not hardly. Besides, she’s too busy being pissed off at me for not touching her for us to have a civil conversation about why.”

  “Then maybe you should, you know, touch her.”

  “Yeah.” Jim scrubbed a hand over his face. “But that’s the problem. I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to. Trust me, I do! And God help me whenever she touches me, which she seems to do all the time now. I mean, where the hell were all these offers to give me back rubs before she got pregnant?”

  Mike gave his head another shake. “I’m not sure I get the problem here.”

  “I’m telling you, I can’t. No matter how badly I want her, the minute we start to do anything… well, never mind.”

  Mike considered the problem as objectively as possible. Since there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with Jim physically, the problem had to be mental. “You know,” he said, “not touching her isn’t going to make her not pregnant. Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. The question is, are you going to waste the next few months worrying about something you can’t change, or enjoying what should be one of the best times in your life? I mean, shit, a baby! That’s got to be cool.”

  Jim frowned as he mulled that over. After a moment, the crease between his brows cleared, and his eyes widened. “You know, you’re right.” Laughter rumbled from his chest. “I mean, it’s not like I can make her any more pregnant than she already is, right?”

  “There, see, problem solved.” Mike toasted him. “Now you can go home and make love to your wife.”

  The smile dropped from Jim’s face. “I wish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She didn’t just kick me out because I wouldn’t make love to her. She kicked me out because of all the time I spend out in the workshop. She’s convinced I’m avoiding her—which I guess I was some—but she thinks it’s because I don’t want the baby.”

  “Which is another thing I don’t understand.” Mike refilled his own drink. “If you’re spending all that time making a crib for the kid, why does she think you don’t want it?”

  Jim gave a shrug, his voice barely above a grumble. “Maybe because she doesn’t know about the crib… yet.”

  “Excuse me?” Mike leaned forward. “Come again with that.”

  Jim flashed him a defiant look. “I said, she doesn’t know about the crib.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because…” Jim exhaled in a rush. “It’s a surprise, all right? I can’t show it to her till it’s finished.”

  Mike sat back to gape at him. “Are you nuts?”

  Jim didn’t answer.

  “Here you could solve half your problems just by showing her the crib, and you won’t do it?”

  “I told you, it’s not finished yet.”

  “So?”

  Jim hesitated. “You really think I should?”

  “I think you better, unless you want to be sleeping in the thing instead of your own bed for the rest of your life.”

  A thoughtful expression crossed Jim’s face. “You’re right.” He set his glass down with a thud. “I will. I’ll go home and do it right now.” He hefted himself up and teetered sideways.

  “Wait.” Mike climbed to his own steadier feet. “I’ll go with you.”

  “What for?”

  “To be sure you do it right.” Plus, no way would he let Jim drive. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the movies, it’s that women like the make-up scene to be a big product
ion.”

  “Yeah,” Jim nodded. “Kate’s always saying stuff like that in her columns. She says women are suckers for romantic gestures, so even when it makes a guy feel stupid, that’s what you got to give ’em. Especially when they’re mad at you.” Jim scratched his head, causing his hair to stand up at an odd angle. “So, what sort of stupid gesture do you think would work?”

  Mike forced his brain to work, then snapped his fingers. “I’ve got just the thing.”

  ***

  “YOU DON’T THINK he took me seriously, do you?” Linda asked.

  “About what?” Kate squinted in concentration as she applied a layer of Primrose Pink nail polish to Linda’s toes. Only another woman who’d had a baby could fully understand the frustration of not being able to paint one’s own toenails.

  “About not coming home.”

  Kate blinked at her. “Well, you certainly sounded serious. Which is why I agreed to stay the night, in spite of the fact that it’s a school night, and Dylan should be curled up in his own bed, not sacked out in your guest room.”

  “I know. And I’m glad you stayed.” Linda reached toward her, but couldn’t make contact over her swollen belly. “I’d be going crazy here by myself.”

  Kate refrained from pointing out that Linda wouldn’t be faced with this problem if she hadn’t succumbed to a fit of hormone-driven emotions earlier. Instead, she wiped off her hand and reached for a strawberry to dip into the chocolate fondue.

  “Here.” She held the strawberry out to Linda. “Have some more chocolate. And remember that the whole point of this particular girls’ night is to not talk about men.”

  “You’re right.” Linda nodded, then sank her teeth into the chocolate-covered fruit. “Mmm. God, that’s good. Do you think a person can actually die from chocolate overdose?”

  “Never,” Kate said as she dredged another strawberry though the fondue, then savored the taste as it melted in her mouth. “But what a way to go.”

  Linda sighed as she dropped the leafy stem on a plate where it joined at least a dozen more. “You know, Jim really is sweet most of the time.”

  “I know.” Kate smiled at her friend’s wistful expression.

  “It’s just that other times, he makes me so mad.”

  “I know that, too.” Kate smiled as she thought about how Mike could make her laugh even when she wanted to strangle him.

  “I wonder where he is.” Linda’s gaze drifted toward the window.

  “Linda,” Kate said patiently, “he’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

  “Maybe I should call his sister again. He could have shown up there.”

  “In the last five minutes?” Kate studied her friend, debating the wisdom of interfering. “You want my advice?”

  “Of course I do.” Linda reached for her again, and this time managed to snag her hand.

  “If you’re sure.” Kate hesitated. “Because I know you probably get tired of me playing Dear Cupid.”

  “Ka-ate!” Linda gave her an exasperated look. “Don’t be ridiculous, I need your help. This isn’t like Jim and me. You know we never fight. Well, not much since he got over that nonsense while we were dating.”

  “Okay.” Kate squeezed her friend’s hand, then let it go. “Dear Cupid’s tip of the day is this: Never let the little cracks grow into big ones, or pretty soon your whole house will fall down around you.”

  “A house analogy?” Linda rolled her eyes. “I ask you for advice about my marriage, and you give me a house analogy?”

  “It seemed appropriate.”

  “For Jim, maybe.”

  “For anyone,” Kate insisted. “Fortunately, you and Jim have a pretty strong foundation. Even so, you have to patch the little cracks while they’re still little.”

  “But that’s the problem. I’ve been trying to patch this problem for weeks, as well you know.”

  “Are you telling me Jim still refuses to make love?”

  “Something like that.” Linda’s mouth pursed into a pout. “And before you say one word, be forewarned that your advice about seducing him isn’t working this time. In fact, I think it’s making things worse.”

  “You’re kidding.” Kate frowned. “What does he say, when you talk about it?”

  “Talk about it?” Linda laughed. “You mean, as in get him to open up and be honest about his feelings? Yeah, right.”

  “Linda!” Kate scolded. “I’m serious. You know that talking things over should always be the first course of action.”

  “Trust me, Kate. Jim doesn’t talk about his emotions, not even to me.”

  “Well, he’s got to talk to someone,” Kate insisted. “Sometimes, merely voicing our fears out loud makes them less frightening. For example, you’ve read Dylan’s book A Fly Went By, right?”

  “About a thousand times,” Linda acknowledged.

  “Remember how all those animals are running in terror, the fly from the frog, the frog from the cat, the cat from the dog, and on and on. Only none of them are actually chasing the other, because they’re all too busy trying to escape their own fear. In the end, they all realize they’re running from nothing more than a poor frightened calf who’s gotten a hoof stuck in a bucket. The only reason she’s chasing the others is to search for help.”

  “And your moral of the story would be…?” Linda asked.

  “That real-life fears are no different. Sometimes all we have to do is stop running scared, turn around, and take a good, hard look at what it is that has us so terrified. When we do, suddenly those fears don’t seem so bad after all. In fact, sometimes they seem downright silly.”

  The minute the words left Kate’s mouth, she froze. Was that what she’d been doing with Mike, running from some imagined terror? No, the things she feared were all too real, and if she didn’t watch her step, she’d make the same mistake she’d made with Edward, and wind up living through the same gut-wrenching heartache.

  She still couldn’t believe he’d deceived her in such a calculated way. Like Edward, he’d decided he needed a wife and she happened to be handy, so what the heck, why not her?

  When had he made that decision, though? She had trouble believing his claim that he’d wanted to marry her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Maybe Linda’s business card had given him the idea. He might have seen the words wife for hire and decided, hey, I need one of those. Like a lot of men, he probably thought having a wife to take care of the house, buy the groceries, and do the laundry would make life easier. So he could spend even more time working. She’d already taken on the first item on that list, so he’d probably decided to go the expedient route and propose to her. After all, why bother finding a woman he’d have to date when he could just make his “Wife for Hire” a wife for real?

  The thought had anger bubbling inside her. She didn’t want to be anybody’s what-the-heck. She’d been there and knew how much it hurt.

  So, why did she still want to cry every time she thought about never seeing Mike again?

  “Kate?” Linda said in a small, frightened voice, jarring her from her thoughts. “What am I going to do if I’m right, and Jim really has changed his mind about having a baby?”

  “Oh, Linda.” Her own worry vanished as she looked at her friend’s anxious face. “I truly don’t think he’s changed his mind. That’s why you need to talk to him and ask. I mean it, come right out and ask him, point blank, how he feels about the baby.”

  Moisture pooled along Linda’s lashes making her eyes look very blue. “What if I don’t like the answer?”

  “Then, at least you’ll know the truth and can decide how to move forward. Right now, you’re letting fear eat at you without any idea if that fear has any basis in reality.”

  “It’s just scary.” Linda blinked.

  “I know.”

  Linda started to say more, but went suddenly still, listening. “What was that noise?”

  Kate listened as well. “I don’t hear anything.” Her heart picked up speed as
Linda padded over to the window, her toes curled upward to protect her wet polish. “Is something out there?”

  “I don’t know…” Linda peered more intently into the darkness. “For a moment, I thought I heard something.” She shook her head. “Probably just some deer.”

  Kate relaxed. “Yeah, heading down to eat my flowers again, no doubt.”

  Linda laughed as she hobbled back to the couch. “Honestly, I don’t know why you keep planting the things.”

  “Because I’m a hopeless optimist?” Kate grabbed another strawberry and dipped it into the chocolate.

  “True,” Linda agreed as she followed suit, then held her chocolate-covered berry up in a toast. “Here’s to all the optimists.”

  “May we all die of chocolate overdose, and enjoy every bite,” Kate added.

  “Hear, hear!”

  ***

  “SHIT, THAT WAS close,” Jim whispered. “For a second I thought she’d spotted us.”

  “Is she gone?” Mike asked, trying to peer through the tangle of wild yaupon bushes they’d ducked behind when Linda had appeared in the window a mere ten feet away.

  Jim rose up enough to see inside the house. “Yeah. It’s all clear.”

  Mike reached out and grabbed Jim’s arm before the man could blunder forward and spoil their surprise. “Quietly this time, okay?”

  “Hey, I’m being quiet,” Jim insisted, even though he’d been the one to stumble and crash through the shrubbery with all the subtlety of an ox.

  Rather than argue, Mike hefted one of the two projection units they’d brought onto his hip.

  “This way,” Jim called in a loud stage whisper, then hunched forward and dashed across the clearing toward the workshop. Mike followed, cursing the nearly full moon that washed the area in pale blue light. “Watch out for the workbench,” Jim cautioned once they ducked inside.

  “Shit,” Mike swore as his shin banged a hard edge.” I think I just found it.” With his free hand, he felt the bench and considered it as a possible surface for the projector. “Is there an outlet near here?”

  “Yeah. Over here.” Jim’s dark silhouette moved through the pale moonlight coming through a window. “Want me to plug it in?”