by Lori Wilde
Sophia switched off her phone and put it on the charger. She turned off the bedside lamp and lay spread-eagle across the bedspread. She tried the deep breathing again, but she wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Relax,” she silently chanted with each breath.
Before she knew it, she was floating on an invisible cloud. She closed her eyes, and in her mind, she saw Mike. Her heartbeat quickened.
He smiled at her.
Then poof, he morphed into Rex.
Who did she want? Mike with his ready grin, sexy body, and fun personality or Rex with his good business sense, sensuous phone voice, and strong work ethic?
Listen to your heart, a voice in the back of her mind whispered.
What did she want?
It wasn’t money she craved. Not really. Rather it was knowing she’d never have to struggle for money. She didn’t care if Mike was rich or not. What she wanted was a man she could count on. A man she could trust. One that wouldn’t abandon her the way her father had. One who wouldn’t lie to her.
As long as Mike could take responsibility and stop playing Peter Pan, he was the one she truly wanted.
But she couldn’t bank on him changing for her.
Still, he stirred something deep and primordial within her. It felt right when she was with him, but could she truly trust her feelings?
“Sophia?” Her mother called out in the darkness.
Sighing, Sophia opened her eyes and got off the bed. She padded into her mother’s bedroom, guided by the nightlight. She found Jannette sitting up in bed, her hair in disarray. “Are you all right?”
“I had a bad dream.”
Sophia slipped between the covers and curled up next to her mother. “What was it about?”
“I dreamed you left me.”
“Mother, I’ll never leave you.”
“You will get married someday.” Her mother squeezed Sophia’s hand. “I’m scared.”
“Shh. Even if I get married, I’ll still be around.”
“Will you?” Jannette sounded like a lost child.
“Of course.”
“What if you ran off with that Mike character?”
“Oh, Mother.”
“You like him. I can tell.”
“Yes,” Sophia admitted. “I like him.”
“He’s no good for you,” her mother whispered. “He’ll only get you into trouble. I know about lust. I know what can happen.”
“Mom, we’ve had this discussion a million times.”
“You were with him tonight, weren’t you? That’s why you were late coming home.”
Sophia was tempted to deny it, but she didn’t like lying to her mother. Jannette had always taught her that honesty was the best policy, and that advice rarely steered her wrong. “Yes.”
“I knew it!”
“Relax, Mom. I can handle Mike.”
Her mother clutched the tail of Sophia’s pajama top in her hand. “How can I relax? I need you to understand how important it is that you don’t let the wrong guy ruin your life. I thought I loved your father. I thought he loved me. But it was just sex! For him at least. I rebelled against my parents because they told me I couldn’t date him. I thought I knew best. I was wrong.”
“That was so long ago.”
“Almost thirty years. But when your father left me, I found out he was already married! He lied to me. Then he told me to have an abortion! Can you believe that? Later, when I heard he was killed in a car crash, I couldn’t even mourn. My parents were so ashamed that I’d gotten pregnant—it was a bigger deal in those days to have a baby out of wedlock—they sent me away. I didn’t blame them. I had been such a silly little fool, following my heart, believing the words of a liar.”
“But things were different for you, Mom. You were only sixteen. A child.”
“Maybe I was too young to have a baby, but I kept you and I raised you on my own. I worked two jobs to survive. I cut coupons; I traded baby-sitting services with my friends. I made do with what I had, but it was hard, Sophia. So very hard.”
“But you did a wonderful job.” Sophia gently kissed her mother’s cheek. And she had. Jannette was a loving parent, if sometimes misguided.
The truly sad part was that her mother had never forgiven her father. She’d never gotten past the old hurt and anger. She refused to let herself care about any man, ever again. She’d allowed resentment to build inside her to where she developed high blood pressure.
Jannette had never spent money on herself, always putting Sophia’s needs first. She didn’t go to the doctor even when the headaches had gotten progressively worse.
Then, at age thirty-seven, Jannette had suffered a devastating stroke so severe, it rendered her left arm and leg permanently crippled.
“Please, baby,” her mother begged. “Please don’t let Mike fool you. You like him too much. I can see it in your face. It’s the same way I felt about your father.”
Was it true? Was she that easy to read?
“Shh.” Sophia gathered her mother into her arms and gently rocked her back and forth like a child. “It’s all right. I’m always here for you, just like you were always there for me. Now close your eyes and just rest.”
Several minutes passed. Jannette’s breathing deepened. Finally, Sophia slipped out from under the covers. She thought she heard a noise outside the house. Like the idling of a motorcycle engine.
Curious, Sophia returned to her room, plucked her bathrobe from a hook in the closet, and went to the living room window. She raised the curtain and peered out.
Moonlight bathed the street in a soft glow, but the road lay empty. No cars. No motorcycles. She must have imagined it.
Sophia dropped the curtain and moved to unlatch the front door. She stepped out onto the porch. A slight breeze blew. She cinched the belt of her robe tighter, inhaling the scent of lemons in the air from the lemon trees.
Crickets chirped from the cholla garden. Moths circled the street lamp, hungry for the flame. In the distance, a dog barked. Shu-Shu rubbed against her leg. Bending, Sophia picked up the cat and held her to her chest. In moments like this, she could forget how run down her neighborhood was.
An ugly reminder from her childhood flashed through Sophia’s mind, resurrecting an old hurt. She had been nine years old and in the fourth grade when the most popular girl in school, Alice Anne Aubrey, had announced in class that everyone was invited to her birthday party. Sophia had been so happy and excited. Jannette had driven across town to Walmart to buy a gift for Alice Anne.
Sophia had insisted on a special edition Barbie doll even though it was out of their budget. But she had wanted so badly to be Alice Anne’s friend that her mother had said if they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner for a week, she could buy the Barbie.
They’d wrapped the doll in brightly colored paper, and her mother dyed one of Sophia’s old dresses so that it would look new for the party.
For the first time in her life, a popular kid invited her to an event. She’d been so nervous, so eager to do everything right.
The appointed day arrived, and Jannette drove her to the Aubreys’ house in Windover Heights, an exclusive area in Rascal. To Sophia, the house was a mansion with a swimming pool and a tennis court. Brightly colored balloons and streamers decorated the driveway.
Sophia walked up the stone pathway, the gift clutched in her hand, her heart thudding with anticipation. Perhaps now Alice Anne would be nice to her and stop pulling her hair on the playground. Nervously, she rang the doorbell.
Alice Anne answered the door wearing a beautiful white lace and pink satin party dress, her usual entourage assembled around her.
“What are you doing here?” Alice Anne sniffed, curling up her nose with disdain.
Sophia extended the gift and offered a smile. “I’m coming to your party.”
“No one invited you.” Alice Anne sneered.
Sophia gulped back tears. Her knees felt watery. “But…but…you got up in front of the w
hole class and said everyone was invited.”
“Everyone except bastards.”
“But I brought you a present,” Sophia whispered, the awful word Alice Anne had uttered cutting her like a knife. “A really nice present.”
“You don’t belong here,” Alice Anne said, roughly snatching the present away from her. “Go away.”
“Why?” Sophia had cried. “Why don’t I belong?”
“Look at you.” Alice Anne swept a disdainful hand at Sophia’s homemade dress. “You look like a ragpicker.”
“Ragpicker, ragpicker,” the other children behind Alice Anne chorused.
“And you don’t even have a daddy. I bet you were so ugly when you were born, your daddy ran off and left you for the crows to pluck your eyes out.”
“No!” Sophia cried.
“But even the crows wouldn’t peck you.” Alice Anne giggled.
“Yeah,” the other children jeered. “Even the crows wouldn’t peck you.”
Tears streaming down her face, Sophia fled down the steps and ran, the children’s derisive laughter ringing in her ears. She’d gone back to the road and sat there for two hours waiting for Jannette to return to pick her up.
It had been the most humiliating event in Sophia’s young life. She was a bastard. That meant she didn’t have a daddy. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked, vowing when she had kids, she would make sure they had a daddy, so no one could ever make fun of them. A rich daddy who would buy them all the Barbies they wanted, and they would never ever have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.
“This,” Jannette had said, afterward, trying her best to console Sophia, “is why you must never ever let a boy talk you into his bed until you’re married. Do you understand?”
Sophia nodded.
“Your father lied to me. He made promises he couldn’t keep, and then he left us.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Jannette had said bitterly.
“Did he think I was ugly?”
“Oh, sweetie, he never even saw you. You’re not to blame. Not at all. But you must promise me one thing, Sophia.”
“What thing, Mama?”
“When you grow up, you must marry a rich man who can take care of you. If you marry a man with lots of money, people like Alice Anne Aubrey won’t make fun of you anymore. You will have a big house of your own, and you can throw all the lavish birthday parties you want. Promise me that, Sophia.”
“I promise, Mommy.”
Shu-Shu meowed to get down, and the memory slid away. Tears dampened the corner of her eyes, and she brushed them away. The sound of a motorcycle engine rumbled close by.
She glanced across the road.
A Harley-Davidson pulled to a stop outside her front gate.
Sophia held her breath. Stared.
It was Mike.
Their gazes met. Held.
Her heart slowed curiously.
He looked like a black knight on a black charger sitting there in the moonlight, enticing her to come play, to be a bad girl.
No. Not now. Not ever.
Sophia.
He never opened his mouth, and yet he called to her, his eyes beseeching her to cross the yard and join him. She could hear him mentally beckoning her.
She could not. She would not go to him. She owed it to herself, to her mother, and to the child she once had been to never lose sight of her goals. She wouldn’t allow the lust to destroy her. She would marry a man who could provide her with all the things she never had.
One way or the other, she would win Rex’s heart. She simply could not allow Mike, with his sexy smile and irresponsible ways, to sway her. Gulping against the pain tightening her chest, Sophia turned her back on him and disappeared inside the house.
9
Why had he gone to Sophia’s house? What had he hoped to gain from appearing outside her gate at midnight? Had he secretly fantasized that, overjoyed to see him, Sophia would fling her body on the back of his motorcycle and tell him to ride like the wind?
Had he imagined a repeat performance of what had happened between them in her office? Had he been hoping, at least in some small corner of his heart, that she would declare her undying love and renounce her infatuation with Rex?
No. His motivation had been much simpler than that.
He’d been unable to stop himself from going to her. She’d dominated his mind, eclipsed his good sense, shattered his self-control.
Helplessly, Mike had been drawn to Sophia’s house. It was as if Cupid himself had spirited the Harley to Sand Mesa Heights.
But obviously Cupid was on a futile mission. Sophia was not interested in pursuing him.
He knew she’d seen him. No mistaking it. When he’d driven up to find her standing on the porch staring at him, his pulse had thudded in his throat, excited by the sight of her in those thin white cotton pajamas and robe.
For one magical instant, Mike had believed that she would walk up the stone path, push open the gate, and step out into the street.
He’d held his breath.
Their eyes had met.
Then Sophia had made a conscious decision. She’d purposefully turned her back on him and walked away.
Not one word of greeting, not a wave, not a smile. Instead, she’d offered a cold shoulder.
He hadn’t mistaken the message. His stomach snarled into a knot more tangled than the deception he’d been weaving since he went undercover in his own company as Mike the handyman.
How could he hold Sophia accountable? He’d gotten himself into this fix.
Sighing, Mike drove up the driveway of the small townhouse he’d rented as part of his handyman deception. He depressed the button on his garage door opener and then rolled the motorcycle inside. He had no choice. If he wanted to find out what was truly in Sophia’s heart, he had to step back and give her breathing room. To withdraw and give her time to think things through. Mike could be patient.
He had all the time in the world.
During the next week, Mike never mentioned his midnight motorcycle ride to her house. Nor did he speak of the sizzling kisses they’d shared in her office.
In fact, he barely spoke to her at all. If he passed her in the hallway or saw her in the break room, he mumbled a brief hello and left as quickly as possible.
Good, Sophia thought to herself. He was giving her space. Very good.
If it was so good, why did she feel so crummy?
Mike had gotten the hint she wasn’t interested. But was that the truth?
Sophia stared out her window at desert stretching about into the oil fields beyond the town and drew in a sharp breath. Absentmindedly, she tapped a pencil against her desk. It was for the best. Her mother did not want her involved with Mike.
What do you want, Sophia? A voice whispered at the back of her head.
She shoved the voice aside. Concentrate on your boss. Rex would arrive in Rascal by the end of the month. She was so excited to meet him in person.
Strangely enough, her boss hadn’t called or texted or even emailed since last Friday, the same day she’d kissed Mike. It was as if both men were avoiding her.
A nagging thought kept digging at her. What if Rex wasn’t attracted to her once they met? Or what if it turned out that she wasn’t physically attracted to him?
Before her close encounter of the erotic kind with Mike the handyman, Sophia would have dismissed sexual compatibility as unimportant.
But since last Friday, when Mike’s gentle hands and hot mouth had taught her the true meaning of arousal, she could no longer deny that chemistry was an essential ingredient.
Amber was right.
Now that Sophia had gotten a taste of it, there was no going back. Her list of necessary requirements for a husband was growing longer and more difficult to fulfill.
But she refused to give up hope. In every other way, Rex was the perfect man. She’d know soon enough if they could pass the sexual compatibility hurdle.
Sophia flipped her desk calendar over and marked through today’s date. Ten more days until the company picnic. Ten more days before Rex came home. Ten more days until she knew for sure. Could he make her feel as sexy as Mike did?
In the meantime, she was grateful that Mike avoided her. It made things so much easier.
The phone rang.
Sighing, Sophia reached for it. “Rex Barrington’s office. Sophia Shepherd speaking. How may I help you?”
The deep chuckle on the other end of the line set her heart thumping.
“You sound awfully serious this morning. Is something wrong, Sophia?”
“Mr. Barrington,” she exclaimed.
“Wait, a minute. What did you just call me?”
“Rex.” She grinned and felt her cheeks heat.
“I’m calling to bring you up to speed on the Rodrigo site. Are you ready to take notes?”
“Ready,” Sophia assured him, amazed at how quickly her gloomy mood lifted.
He launched into the details of their latest geological find in Brazil while she furiously took notes. They conducted business for several minutes, then when she sensed a lull in the conversation, she broached the question that had been on her mind all week.
“Have you cemented your plans for the company picnic? Are you still planning to be here by next Saturday?”
“Got the plane tickets.”
“Do you?” She inhaled sharply. “Really?”
“Really.” He chuckled again. The sound heated her bones, melted her heart.
“Are you coming to meet everyone at the office before the picnic?” she asked.
“No time. My plane doesn’t get in until late Friday night.”
“But,” Sophia protested, “I won’t know what you look like in person.”
“I’ll still be a mystery then.” He sounded pleased by that.
“How will I recognize you?”
“I’ll wear blue shorts and a white T-shirt,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll be watching for you.”
“You’re not eager to meet me in person, are you? You sound anxious.”
“A little,” she confessed. “And nervous, too.”
“There’s nothing to be nervous about. Unless you’re hiding something from me. Are you hiding something from me, Sophia?” His voice deepened, but he sounded amused.
