Jane nodded as she smiled. “You’re at least in the right religion, but Elijah is not planning to become a rabbi. Dad was going to be one when he was young, but then he met Mom and changed his mind. He said having a family and pursuing that calling full time were too much for him to contemplate. And now that he has Lydia. . .”
She shrugged away the inference and the complication. Her dad hadn’t talked about being a rabbi in years anyway. “Life goals change, I guess. Elijah might be considering such a leadership role in our faith, but he hasn’t said.”
Walter nodded to let her know he had heard and was taking it all in. The ability to carry on a serious conversation was one of the things he liked most about Jane. Every moment with her counted, even if they were only talking about each other’s families. He wanted Jane Fox and he liked her. She was the combination of female traits that just completely worked for him. Now he just needed to find a way to convince her of that fact.
“So what is your brother studying at seminary, if not to become a rabbi?” Walter asked, hoping to distract himself from wanting to wrestle her arms down and find out what secrets her crossed arms were hiding from him.
Jane slowed her steps as she considered the question. “I think Elijah is trying to figure out how to get over his broken heart. His fiancée broke up with him around the same time my marriage ended. He left for seminary the week after and hasn’t been home since.”
“Tough break for both of you,” Walter said quietly, thinking about what he would do if Jane were to try to marry someone other than him. As much as he wanted her, it would probably be something that would get him arrested, or at the very least disowned by his conservative parents. Regardless, he would do whatever necessary to stop it from happening.
“Yes, it was a tough break. His breakup was worse than my divorce in some ways. Even though Mom and Dad set a good example for us, Eli and I just haven’t been as lucky in love as they were,” Jane said.
“Not lucky until now, you mean,” Walter corrected. “You’ve found the perfect pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with me, Jane. I’m going to make you a great husband.”
“Do you have any idea how much you sound like one of Harrison’s crazy schemes when you talk like that? Give it up, Walter. I haven’t gotten any younger since the last time you flirted so hard with me. There’s no audience for the joke, and we’ve had this discussion too many times,” Jane said wearily.
Sure, a few months ago she had joked with Lydia’s daughter and her friends about becoming a cougar, but inside. . .inside Jane knew she was not equipped to date someone as young as Walter. She just wasn’t the same kind of woman as Alexa Ranger. Her self-esteem wasn’t strong enough to deal with the difference in their ages. . . or their bodies.
Thirty-nine was around the corner. Turning forty next year was an even stronger motivation to keep her distance. She was already going soft in the waist. When the lines and wrinkles started owning the rest of her body’s real estate, she didn’t want to see pity in some younger man’s gaze every day. No matter how outstanding Walter might be as a sexy guy, she preferred to avoid the inevitable crash and burn that any smart older woman would see coming from involvement with someone as young as him.
Her ex had found her lacking when she was young and at her best—perpetually perky breasts included. Maybe Walter was a very different sort of man, but could a woman really tell with a man under thirty? Too bad she hadn’t met Walter before she had married Nathan. Things might have been different when she was still young and optimistic herself.
Well, except that Walter would have been a teenager and she’d have been put in jail for molesting a kid. Jane rolled her eyes and shook her head at that particularly awful thought.
“Jane. . .” Walter said her name loudly, hoping to interrupt whatever thoughts were making her frown so hard. What the hell was it going to take to convince her that he had a serious admiration for her, as well as chronic lust? If the words existed, he hadn’t found them yet.
“No matter what you say Jane, I’m not giving up on us,” he insisted, despite hearing Jane sighing over his statement. Maybe it had not been the most erudite declaration he’d ever made to her, but at least the determination in his tone matched what he was feeling. Jane’s adamant rejections of his overtures always shook his faith a little, but not enough to quit.
“Walter, you need to stop teasing me,” Jane ordered.
“Oh, I am definitely not teasing. Have you found an older guy who turns you on as much as I do yet?” he asked.
Jane huffed out a breath. She wasn’t sexually stupid, and neither was the man beside her. Walter wanted her sexually. And there was plenty of chemistry between them to make that potentiality appealing to her too. He’d already gotten her to admit it once. Maybe if they weren’t practically living in each other’s pockets with their families so close. . .but no. She just couldn’t go there either. Not even in her imagination.
It was better to keep her relationship to Walter like it was. Innocent. Friendly. Familial.
“I’m hungry. Aren’t you? I think I’ll go help Lydia set up lunch,” she said, hoping she sounded casual and undisturbed, despite her rapid, excited pulse proving otherwise.
Picking up her pace, she headed toward the picnic table where a repentant, restrained JD played with his toys under his grandparents’ watchful eyes. It was always tough to turn her back on the attraction that drew her to the man following slowly behind her.
If her dating life didn’t start to improve soon, it was going to get much harder to do, especially if Walter kept talking about babies every time he saw her. Not that she wanted babies with Walter. Babies just made her think about how they were made, a process she would definitely like to explore with him.
“I’m hungry too, Jane. Starved in fact,” Walter called loudly, not missing Jane’s stumble as she heard his words. It made him grin to see she hadn’t become immune to him yet, no matter how much his pursuit of her warred with her logic. Why was the woman fighting the attraction between them so hard? If he ever got her in bed, he was going to make sure that Jane stopped thinking of him as a kid.
Shaking his head over his carnal thoughts of how he could prove himself, Walter let his gaze follow Jane’s shapely rear to the picnic area. Her shorts showed off her muscular, attractive legs to perfection. Her streamlined thighs and toned calves offered convincing evidence that she worked out to achieve them. Admiration filled him, along with visions of Jane in a gym. She’d be sweaty, but her eyes would be twinkling. Her mouth would be firmed as she worked. Her seriousness was a constant challenge to him. It was also one of the things that turned him on most. Would he ever discover anything about the older woman that he didn’t like? Somehow he doubted it.
But obviously, he needed a better plan for finding out.
Chapter 2
“Thank you all for volunteering. You need to lose your shirts and see Megan in the kitchen to get oiled. Mr. January you’re up first, so head to the front of the line please.”
Walter grinned at the shock on some of the firefighters’ faces. Then he watched the photographer adjust his camera on the tripod, grinning harder when the man looked up with a frown.
“Can somebody not in the calendar please go stand by the fire engine? We’ll get through this faster if I can preset the height for the shots. I’d like to get these done before you all have to take a call.”
Glad he had opted out of the list of guys posing for the calendar, Walter dipped his head and grinned at the black soot smear on his white t-shirt. He had been tasked with collecting the heavy but apparently un-photogenic water hoses from the side of the newly washed engine to move them out of the camera’s sight.
Besides, his parents would kill him if he ended up bare-chested and shiny for all of Falls Church to see. Leland and April Graham still hated to see their only son wearing his regulation uniform even for parades and festivals.
And Harrison? Harrison would have a massive stroke laughing his ass o
ff at a bare-chested photo of him in a cheesy beefcake calendar.
“Hey—tall guy in the dirty t-shirt.”
Grinning about his grandfather’s keen sense of irony, Walter stopped and pointed to his chest, grinning more when the photographer nodded.
“Do you mind helping me?” the man asked.
Accompanied by a chorus of jokes thrown his way about how cute and photogenic he was in his dirty clothes, Walter walked to the fire engine and stood where the man requested. He watched as the photographer bent, looked through the lens, then stood and glanced around.
“We need something to fill out the space. Got a jacket? Or maybe a hat and an axe? A big axe? Biggest thing you got,” the photographer said.
Snickering like a kid in middle school over the man’s unintentional innuendo, Walter lifted the door of one of the boxes on the side of the engine behind him. He took out a hat, and then pulled the giant fire axe they used to break through walls from its hanger. Hefting it without grunting was the reason he’d been lifting weights for years. He closed the box with a bang that brought all eyes to him as he turned back.
“Will these do?” Walter asked, mouth twisted in a smirk despite the little voice in his head lecturing him to act mature.
“Yes. Great. Can you stand the axe handle down, but blade up, without it cutting you?” the photographer asked.
Walter nodded and laughed as he complied.
“Excellent. I wish all guys were as sharp as you. Now perch the hat on the side of the axe—yes, just like that. That’s fantastic. Now lean it out just a bit to your right,” the photographer ordered, leaning down to the lens again. “Now hold it. . .yes, right there. Perfect.”
Fascinated with the un-glamorous pose the guy was orchestrating, Walter smirked again as he heard the camera clicking away. Someone yelled “My, Walter, what a big axe you have” which caused him to belly laugh as he raised his head to look for the culprit. The photographer said nothing about his movement, just kept snapping away. Walter chuckled at several of his now oiled up fellow firemen rubbing their chests and making kissing motions to him as they looked on.
“Laugh all you want, dudes. I’m not the one covered in cooking oil. And I still have on all my clothes.” Walter thumped his chest with his fist and swept a hand down over his t-shirt, cackling when several oily middle fingers were raised in his direction.
His smile was wide with amusement as he struck a model pose with the axe to heckle them, sliding the edge of his shirt halfway up his stomach as they whooped and hollered for him to take it all the way off.
“Are you kidding? None of you guys are pretty enough to see me naked,” Walter declared, lowering his shirt as he gave his full attention back to the photographer. “Need me anymore?”
The photographer shook his head from side-to-side. “Thanks for the help. What’s your name? You’re not on my calendar roster, are you?”
Walter snickered again as he shook his head. “No. My parents would kill me if I posed for the calendar.”
The photographer laughed and pulled a business card out of his pocket. “How would they feel if you wore suits instead? Modeling can be quite lucrative with looks like yours.”
“If that’s a come on, don’t bother, dude. I’m straight,” Walter said easily. He shrugged and grinned when the guy’s laugh echoed off the walls.
“So am I, Mr. . . are you going to tell me your name?”
The photographer was smiling wickedly now. Thinking the guy had to be gay regardless of what he said, Walter wasn’t keen on giving up his name, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t handle the attention. His family had excelled at being in the public eye, even though his mother often lamented his tendency to just say what he thought. Discretion was hard for him and he didn’t see that it ever helped matters much.
“The name is Graham. Walter Graham. I’m not interested in being a model, Mr. . .” Walter paused and looked down at the business card in his fingers, “. . .Ames. I’m working on my MBA and just recently bought a business. Between that and firefighting, I’m completely booked for work.”
He tried to hand the business card back, but Marcus Ames, Artistic Photographer—whatever that meant, shook his head and held up a hand.
“Keep it, kid. You never know when you’ll need extra cash,” Ames said, saluting. “Thanks for helping me set up the shoot.”
Walter watched Ames look around the firehouse until his gaze landed on the growing group of oiled, grinning men waiting for their turn in front of the camera.
“Mr. January? I’m ready for you,” Ames yelled.
Still questioning the man’s sexual leanings, Walter snorted and tucked the guy’s card into his pocket. At least helping Ames would be a good story to tell Harrison over dinner that evening.
***
“You should be proud of me, Harrison. Today I turned down a chance to be in the fundraising calendar. I was feeling pretty righteous until I realized I had also passed up a chance to let the photographer’s cute assistant rub oil on my chest. That wouldn’t have happened a few months ago. Maybe I should just move on like Jane says.”
Walter frowned at his own story, remembering the twenty-something woman who had slipped her phone number into his pocket right next to her employer’s business card. The handwritten note about what she had in mind for their hookup was certainly creative. She had been very cute too. But neither her nor her wicked suggestion had made him twitchy enough to follow up.
And it was all Jane Fox’s fault. Her and her tight skirts. Or baggy work pants covering hips that swayed when she walked. Or those shorts she wore to the picnic in the park that showed the sleekest, most inviting thighs he had ever seen on a woman. He’d do just about anything for a single slide between them just to see if they were as nice as they looked. He would slowly, very slowly lift her legs behind her knees and wrap all that silkiness around his waist.
“If you did that, Leland and April would probably kill you, even if you are their only child,” Harrison said, sipping his half ounce of cognac as he fought not to laugh at his grandson’s guilty flush.
“What? How would they. . .” Walter stopped, rubbing his chin stubble as he remembered what they had been discussing. Wow. His mind had certainly taken a side trip from the original conversation. Jane’s thighs were highly distracting. “You mean the calendar? Yeah. . .you’re right. Mom and Dad would have a fit if I posed for it.”
“What did you think I was talking about?” Harrison demanded on a laugh. “Wine going to your head, Walter?”
“No.” Walter closed his eyes, but all he saw was the woman that he couldn’t get to give him a freaking chance. “Sorry I’m so distracted tonight. It’s not the company. I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately.”
Harrison waved away Walter’s apology. At his age, it was the little things in life that made it worth staying alive. Having his grandson’s company at dinner was one of the best ones. Of course, some great-grandchildren with genius IQs might be nice too.
He smiled when Walter’s loud sigh of frustration drowned out Tchaikovsky’s violins in the background. Only one thing was going to soothe the boy. Only one woman had the power. God, how well he remembered that feeling. Probably a hundred women had passed through his life, but memories of only one woman would follow him to the grave.
“What’s upsetting you, Walter? Jane still holding out on you?” he asked.
“Yes. And I think I’m obsessed. There’s been no woman in my life for months, but I didn’t jump at the chance to change that today when I could have. Worse, I wasn’t even tempted. All I can think about is Jane, but I know she’s dating other men. Why am I not dating other women? What’s wrong with this picture?” Walter complained, laughing as he pounded his forehead. He picked up his half-finished wine and took another sip.
Smiling into his own glass, Harrison sipped his cognac slowly, savoring every drop. “You’ve got a hereditary disease, Walter Graham. I was a little bit older than you when it happened to me. I dated a
nd dated and dated, but my dick just wasn’t interested. It wanted your grandmother. There were no substitutes.”
After his initial shock had morphed into mortification, Walter laughed at Harrison’s crude explanation, fighting not to choke on his discomfort. His face flamed at the ludicrous idea, but inside there was a tiny voice asking if such a thing could be the truth. His face flushed harder at Harrison’s low laughter. Maybe he was starting to understand all the warnings his dad kept giving him about his grandfather’s crazy theories.
“I don’t think I’m old enough to be having this conversation, Harrison. Get back to me when I’m forty,” Walter said, setting down his wine. He’d obviously had enough to drink for one evening. Maybe he wasn’t hearing correctly. It had been a discouraging day all around.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you would scoff at the possibility, Walter. Since your father was a scientist, he didn’t believe me at first either. Leland even went to a doctor to be checked. They ran all kinds of tests, and of course came back with nothing physically wrong with his equipment. Hell, Leland had chased girls since he was thirteen. Your grandmother and I lived in fear that he was going to forget protection one day. When I finally figured out what was going on, April was already engaged to someone else. All his fancy degrees didn’t help him see his problem. I love him dearly, but Leland was never all that smart about practical things.”
Walter laughed and rubbed his face. “Is there a point to this story? And can you explain it without a description of Dad’s potentially defective man parts?”
Harrison shook his head, grinning at Walter’s discomfort. “It’s a Graham physical failing, Walter. Only one we really have. I call it one-woman-dick-itis.”
Walter laughed out loud at the term. Really there was nothing else to do. Harrison had told him some crazy things over the years, but this one was near the top of the unbelievable list. Maybe at eighty, all it took was a swallow or two of cognac to make you stupid drunk. That had to be Harrison’s excuse for the zany story. Nothing else explained it. But he bit anyway, as he always did with Harrison.
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