by Maggie Wells
James glanced at the stairs, not even slightly tempted to picture the woman behind the closed bathroom door naked. He’d been there and had the battle scars to prove it. Sighing, he looked down at the boys kneeling on their chairs and wondered for the millionth time how anyone could walk away from them. Jamie was coloring a picture of a block of cheese pale pea-green. Jeffrey had the same page, but his cheese was a nice, fresh cheddar-y orange.
Smiling, James ran his hand over the cowlick that differentiated Jeff from his minutes-older twin. Jeff was definitely the more low-key but dreamy of the two. Something James was sure would give him fits later on, but now, the boys’ flights of fancy gave him fits of the warm fuzzies.
“I have no idea, squirt,” James replied.
His forehead furrowed as he realized what he’d said was true. He had no clue what the mother of his children liked or didn’t like outside of the bedroom. Their relationship had been mostly sexual, highly combustible, and nothing more than physical from the start. Megan had no more desire to be tied down than he had. At the time, he thought their mutual apathy made them a perfect match.
Boy, had he been wrong. “We’ll ask her when she gets out of the shower.”
A skillet brimming with one-pan meal noodles and broth simmered over low heat. If Megan didn’t quit trying to drain Lake Michigan in the next two minutes, he and the boys were going to eat without her.
“Kellon Wilson shoved his peanut up his nose an’ almost died,” Jamie reported earnestly. “They hadda call the wambulance.”
James paused mid-stir. Kellon Wilson had been at the birthday party they’d all attended at Trampland Trampoline Park. A chubby boy with perpetually rosy cheeks and hair the color and consistency of straw, Kellon had a mischievous streak James admired. The thought of the exuberant boy strapped to a gurney made his heartbeat slow to a dull thud.
“What? How?”
“He’s ’llergic,” Jeff supplied helpfully.
James stared at his boys in disbelief. Given the prevalence of peanut allergies these days, the daycare the boys attended twice a week had a strict no-peanut policy. He had to ask the question. “How? Where did he get the peanut?”
“Julie Joyce brings ’em. She says they’re her favorite, but she’ll let you have some if you let her use the blue slide first. She says the first slide is the best.” Jamie added an authoritative nod.
“Kellon was first in line, so she gave him some of her peanuts,” Jeff explained.
James set the wooden spoon aside and turned his full attention to his kids. Contraband on the playground. In preschool. The details were a bit much to wrap his head around after the day he’d had. “But doesn’t he know he’s allergic to them?”
Jamie blinked owlishly. “He di’ent eat ’em.”
His jaw dropped, but he quickly recovered. “He shoved one up his nose?”
“Right,” Jeff confirmed, seemingly pleased to discover his father wasn’t a total moron.
“Do the teachers know about Julie Joyce and her secret stash?” he asked, dividing a look between them.
“Yep.” Jamie nodded hard enough to make James’s neck hurt in sympathy. “They called her mom on her an’ everything.”
“I bet they did.”
“We were wondering if Mommy likes peanuts,” Jeff concluded. His tiny forehead puckered into a frown as a new thought occurred to him. “Or is she ’llergic like Kellon.”
James turned the stove off and wiped his hands on a paper towel. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out real quick here.”
Oblivious to the undertone, the twins returned to their coloring as he strode from the room. He could hear water running in the shower still and shook his head. He knew the capacity of his water tank, and there was no way the water wasn’t ice-cold. Approaching the bathroom, he turned his fist on its side and pounded the door with the meat of his hand. There was no way Megan would hear a polite rap of knuckles over the din coming from within.
“Hey! You staying in there all night?”
There was no verbal reply, but within a few seconds the shower shut off and the sound of rushing water slowed to a trickle. Moving slowly, subtly, he tested the doorknob to see if the door was locked. It was. Thank God. The last thing he needed was the boys barging in on a naked lady, even if the lady in question was their mother. There were some questions he simply wasn’t ready to field.
“Megan?” he called through the hollow-paneled door. “We’re about to eat without you.”
He heard some shuffling, and what might have been snuffling, but what he didn’t hear was the metallic squeal of shower curtain rings sliding along the rail. Closing his eyes, he braced his hands on either side of the bathroom door and prayed they weren’t about to embark on a fresh round of dramatics. He’d had his fill earlier in the day.
“Meg, come on, the boys are hungry.” His attitude was a lot more controlled than he felt at the moment, but his patience was wearing thin.
Another long pause. Finally, she muttered, “Go ahead. I’m not eating.”
Exhaling his exasperation, he rattled the doorknob. “Nope. Not gonna wash. They’re asking questions. You’re the one who showed up here claiming you needed to spend more time with them, you can damn well get out here and tell them whether or not you like peanuts.”
This time, the silence stretched long enough to worry him a bit. Dropping his voice, he leaned into the doorframe. “Megan, are you okay? Do I need to come in there?”
“No.”
Her answer came fast enough. “Fine, then you get out here. I didn’t offer to let you crash here. You blackmailed your way into this.”
When she didn’t answer, he stepped back and eyeballed the door. Being the father of two fairly troublesome boys, he’d replaced all the knobs in the house with those he could pop open with a jiggle of wire coat hanger. He didn’t want to start off on iffy footing with Megan, but he would if he had to. He was about to head for the hall closet and his handy-dandy homemade slim jim lock popper when she spoke again.
“I’m scared.”
He ran a tired hand over his jaw, straightened his glasses. “Of what?”
The question came out more harshly than intended, but Jesus, who could blame him for being on edge? His baby mama had been back in town less than a week and had already stirred up a fresh batch of shit worthy of a horse pasture. His best friends thought he was nuts to take her in. Even Mike refused, and Megan was his sister. And then there was Rosie.
God, Rosie.
What the hell was he going to do about Rosie?
“What if they don’t like me?”
Megan’s voice was uncharacteristically small and carried a disturbing quaver, but he stood firm in his resolve. He was not buying one ounce of the manure she’d been shoveling since the minute she’d pushed her way into their lives with her snide, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’
“Too late to worry about whether they like you or not now.”
He counted down from ten in his head. By the time he hit four, the lock snicked and she twisted the knob enough to loosen the catch. But he was no fool. He’d fallen for her vulnerable artist schtick before; he wasn’t about to go there again. She wasn’t a kid bouncing from art program to art program anymore. And he wasn’t the same guy, either. He had two boys he loved more than he ever thought possible sitting in the other room. Somehow, he had to figure out how to do what was best for them.
Even if doing the best thing for them damaged everyone and everything around him.
Heaving a sigh, he stepped back from the door. “Time to eat,” he announced, interjecting a note of “this discussion is over” into his voice.
Megan’s surprised face appeared in the crack of the doorway, and James smirked. He had an official no-nonsense voice now, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. Particularly not on the woman he considered a squatter.
&nb
sp; “I’m not messing with you, Meg. I’m not your boyfriend, and I’m certainly not your patsy,” he said quietly but firmly. “I suggest you spend your time away from the boys looking for your next victim, because the clock is ticking on this arrangement. You wanna stay in town and see the kids, good job on boxing me in, but you won’t be living here indefinitely.”
“But—”
“No buts. I owe you nothing.” He lifted a hand to stave off further protests. “You have two weeks to sort yourself out.”
“Two weeks?” she cried, incredulously.
Her blue eyes blazed as she swung the door wide. She was winding up to blast him with both barrels, but James couldn’t care less. He was more concerned about what he saw. She’d wrapped a bleach-spotted green towel around her body, thank Christ, but her hair streamed over her shoulders in waves. He should have been distracted by her lack of clothing, or those sunshine golden waves. At one time he definitely would have been. But all he could see was that her hair was dry as a bone. So was her skin and the towel she wore. But the mirror wasn’t fogged and no billows of steam rolled out of the room. In fact, her cheeks were the only part of her even slightly damp.
Once upon a time, he would have been moved by the sight, but he’d wised up a lot since then. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glared at her, then stared pointedly at the dripping shower head. “I suppose I should thank you for being considerate enough to run the cold water and not the hot. You’re all heart.”
Chapter 3
If it weren’t for a client presentation he had to prep for, James would have ditched going into the office altogether. As director of sales, he often spent days out “in the trade,” schmoozing existing customers, developing leads into customers, and prospecting for new leads as if they were made out of gold. Which they were, in a way. When one is a partner in a small business, one does everything possible to keep the cash flow fluid. But he couldn’t duck the office every day.
Not today of all days.
He hadn’t wanted to say yes to Megan staying with him. He sure as shit hadn’t expected her to respond to his snark about the hot water by dropping her damn towel. Talk about your proverbial rocks and hard places. Then again, he’d been wedged in a crevice from the moment she’d knocked on his door.
A brisk rap on the office door brought his head up. Before he could say, “Come in,” Rosie breezed into his office, dropped a stack of neatly labeled files in his tray, then sashayed back out again without a word.
He groaned long and loud the second the door snicked shut behind her. Spinning his chair away from the computer on his desk, he closed his eyes and tried to do some of the deep breathing people liked to claim made them calm. Frankly, gulping air like a guppy only made him feel full and stupid and ache to explode.
Rosie.
It was a kiss. One little kiss. An accidental kiss. Surely they could get past the awkwardness. Eventually.
But he hadn’t gotten past the kiss yet. How the hell could he expect Rosie to? The woman wore her heart on her sleeve. Always had, always would. Her openness was one of the things he admired most about her. When Rosie loved, she loved with everything she was. His partners had warned him off on his first day, and he’d been more than willing to agree. His personal life had been jammed with complications. The last thing he wanted was to mess things up at the day job.
Another sharp knock jolted him from his thoughts. When the door didn’t swing open right away, he knew Mike had to be standing on the other side. Swallowing the lump of dread tangled in his throat, he croaked, “Come in.”
The door swung inward, and sure enough, his best friend and ersatz brother-in-law stood framed in the doorway.
“Did you check the numbers on the Telcore account?” he asked without preamble.
James nodded. “Yeah, I’ll re-run them with a 24–7 monitoring service added in.”
“Good.”
Mike reached for the door handle, but James couldn’t let him go without trying to explain. Again. “Hey, listen—”
He got the palm. “No. I don’t want to talk about Megan.”
“Come on, man,” James argued, rising from his chair. “What the hell was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t let her stay, she told me she couldn’t stay with your folks anymore. The boys were…” He sighed and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “They want her there.”
Mike snorted. “They don’t know any better.”
“Of course they don’t,” James snapped. “They’re four.”
Mike held up both hands in surrender. “I get you. But I can’t talk about this right now.”
Sinking back in his seat, James blew out a frustrated whoosh of air. He understood. Mike was torn. And angry. Lord knows, James was well acquainted with both feelings. But Mike was also Megan’s brother. Mike and Megan had once been close, however, Megan’s inability to commit to her children had driven a wedge between the siblings. James felt keenly responsible for the rift.
Most days James wished he’d never gone there. But he had. He’d blurred the line between friendship and family, and he had no one to blame but himself. If he hadn’t, he never would have had Jamie and Jeff. And if he’d never had his kids, who would he be? Certainly not the man he was today.
“Be careful, man.”
James ran his hand over his face, then across his mouth as he met Mike’s gaze and nodded mutely.
Mike grasped the doorknob. “Did you know Rosie stormed into Getta Piece and chowed down on a bunch of dicks?”
“Shit,” James said.
“She told Georgie you kissed her.”
“Fuck.” James had been reduced to words with no more than four letters.
Mike didn’t turn around. “She didn’t say anything about fucking, but I will remind you if you do anything to make Rosie even think about leaving us, Colm and I will be stuffing your dick into your mouth. Got me?”
“Got you.”
James pushed off with one foot and let his chair swivel away from the door as Mike left his office. Closing his eyes, he did his best not to allow the words “Rosie,” “kiss,” “fuck,” or “dick” to form a common thread in his brain. He failed. Thinking about anything other than Rosie had become increasingly difficult in the past few weeks.
But, as his friend Colm would say, it was what it was. Deal.
And deal, he would. Grabbing the files Rosie had dumped on his desk and his laptop, he tucked them under his arm and stood. He thought about leaving the messenger bag filled with half-eaten snacks and broken toys where it lay, but he’d picked up enough single-parent knowledge to be sure he’d need to excavate something from its depths if he dared to leave the bag behind. Looping the strap over his shoulder, he tucked the files against his ribcage and made a beeline for the door.
Rosie didn’t look up as he stepped out. A sure sign she was pissed. He ducked his head and hurried past. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember the last time Rosie failed to greet him with her usual over-friendly enthusiasm. He didn’t like her newfound coolness.
“I’m out in the field the rest of the day.” He pressed his shoulder to the exterior.
She didn’t call out one of her usual phrases of encouragement. No, “Go get ’em” or “Reel in a big one. Mama wants new shoes.”
She responded with only the steady clickety-clack of her fingernails on the keyboard and a brusque, “Noted.”
He rushed from the office, the soles of his shoes slipping on the crumbling asphalt of the parking lot. With one single word, Rosie had made one thing excruciatingly clear: He was screwed. And not in the way a guy liked to be screwed.
* * * *
Rosie exhaled the moment the door closed behind him. She’d prayed he’d stay away from the office today. Thank goodness her mother didn’t know she was wasting prayers on self-preservation. Maria Herrera was prone to what she and her sisters
liked to call catechismic fits. The last thing Rosie needed were extra lectures on the sanctity of prayer. Most everything her mother had ever taught her had sunk in—to a certain extent. Sure, she’d given her virginity up to Marco Rodriguez on prom night, but lots of the girls she knew ditched theirs not long after their quinceañera. She’d held out almost three more years.
And in the decade since, there’d only been two other lovers. Sadly, she’d only dated one man in the years since she first laid eyes on James. Paul Ferro was handsome, successful, and clearly smitten with her. She’d tried hard to love him; wanted to with every fiber of her being. Endured endless reminders from her mother and sisters about how she wasn’t getting any younger. And they were right. Paul was practically perfect. But Practically Perfect Paul wasn’t James. When jokes about rings and mortgages became attempts at serious discussion, she’d had to end the relationship.
Her family had been livid. For his part, Paul was more resigned. He’d even gone as far as making a crack about her being married to her work, but they both knew she didn’t stay on at Trident because she was dedicated to the databases she’d painstakingly built.
And though she would be suitably appalled by the heresy, Maria Herrera would also have been heartbroken if she had been privy to her daughter’s most fervent prayers. She didn’t want to love James Harper anymore. Deep down, she wanted to convince herself he was undeserving, though she knew he was intrinsically a good, if somewhat insensitive, man. She was tired of being overlooked. Her battered ego yearned to be impervious to his casual remarks about his love life. Every night she closed her eyes and prayed she’d awaken and magically be cured. Her prayers were never answered. She’d even entertained the idea of taking her mother on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. There she had a chance of falling head over heels for a handsome Frenchman.
An impossible love of the long distance variety had to beat the crap out of having to see the one you love, day in and day out, and not be able to have him.
