Harlequin - Jennifer Greene

by Hot to the Touch

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  She persisted quietly, firmly. “There’s a fear that a woman ‘like that’ won’t be faithful. That if she’s a great lover, she won’t make a steady wife. I know, I know, we allsay differently out loud. Alansaid differently, too. But that’s how he felt deep down. The more times we slept together, the more he pulled away, the less he trusted me, less he shared with me. Oh, for God’s sake. Let’s head back to the car and get out of this ridiculous rain before we both catch our death.”

  “Wait a minute—” He hooked her arm, not roughly, but determined to spin her around to face him.

  She faced him, but she also shook her head. “I really don’t want to talk anymore about this. I know Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

  what you’ll say. That it’s all wrong. That he was a creep. That of course a guy wants a hot woman. I mean, come on, we’re not kids.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t going to say any of that.”

  “Oh, yeah, you were.” She lifted her face, ardently wanting to kiss him—wanting to be kissed. Actually wanting anything but to still be talking about this. “But I don’t need logic or that kind of reassurance, Fox.

  I was just trying to tell you what happened. How it made me feel. How it affected me.”

  “You moved away. Gave up regular physical therapy completely. Concentrated on work with babies.”

  He added, “I understand it took you a while to get over him. But it’s been a while. Youhave to know it isn’t that way with me. I can’t believe you’d paint me with the same brush as that jerk.”

  “It’s not about painting you with the same brush.” She knew it’d be impossible to explain. Even to Fox.

  Especially to Fox. “It’s about…feeling different about myself. I grew up thinking that sensuality was a good quality in myself. He…crippled that.”

  “You let him cripple that.”

  She felt stung. “Come on, that’s not fair. When you knife someone where they’re the most vulnerable, it’s pretty hard to just…go on…as if your life hadn’t been seriously changed.”

  Fergus touched her cheek, whispered, “You think I don’t know that?”

  His voice—his words—struck her with the surprise of a slap. Hedid know that. As totally unalike as their problems were, it wasn’t being physically injured that had crippled Fox. It was being hit in the heart, because it was a child who’d injured him, and it was children where his whole self-image—as a man, as a leader and teacher and a role model—was founded. She’d always understood. When a child betrayed him, he felt as if he’d betrayed the child, as well.

  And now she saw the parallel. When her innermost nature betrayed her, she’d felt as if she had become her own worst enemy. How do you recover when something you had believed was totally good in yourself turned out to hurt you?

  Fox looked at her. Rain had soaked through his sweatshirt. It dripped from his brows, had turned his hair dark. “Is that where you want to leave it, red? You can do what I did. I gave up teaching, my life.”

  “I didn’t give up sex. I made love with you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did. Which is really fascinating, when you think about it. You took on a man who was running straight to loserdom. No job. No future. Wallowing in self-pity, hiding in dark shadows. So what the hell were you doing, sleeping with me?”

  “That’s completely different, because you were never a loser. You were never at fault for what happened to you, even if you thought you were. None of that was who you were. You were just…hurt.

  You just needed time to heal.”

  “Maybe that’s true—but you couldn’t have known that. You took a chance on me. You took a huge risk with me. But now…you just want to walk away?”

  She frowned, fiercely confused, sick to her stomach. Darn it, he was deliberately rattling her. “Fox, I Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

  never said that.”

  “Well, I want you to think about it. Because I’m not disappearing, red…unless you send me away. I’m not positive where I’m going, but I won’t be hiding in the shadows anymore. I am sure of that. And I want to be sure of what you want from me.”

  She heard an implicit ultimatum in his voice. Not a threat. Just a fish-or-cut-bait warning—the same one she’d been waiting for weeks now. “I can’t be, Fox! You don’t understand!”

  “Oh, yeah,” he murmured. “I understand.” And he turned away from her and stalked back to his car.

  Eleven

  Fox, standing at the stove in his mother’s kitchen, pointed the royal finger at his mom. “No. Sit. You are not to help. You are supposed to sit there and drink wine and let me do the work.”

  “You’re treating me like a dog,” Georgia complained. “Sit. Stay. What kind of language is that to use with your mother?”

  “Down, girl,” Fox repeated when she tried to stand up again. “This is my night to cook for you, remember? You said you wanted to do this exercise of Phoebe’s. That means you’re supposed to put your feet up and I’m supposed to do the dinner. That’s the deal.”

  “Something is very scary about you lately,” Georgia said darkly. “At least when you were sick, I could order you around. You still didn’t obey much, but you didn’t give me all this lip.”

  “I think we always gave you a ton of lip, Mom.” Before he could stop her, she’d sprinted out of the chair—carrying her wine—and was trying to see over his shoulder at the progress of the sizzling food on the stove.

  “That isn’t remotely related to beef Stroganoff,” she announced.

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “I bought all the ingredients for your favorites. Beef Stroganoff. Double blueberry pie. Waldorf sa—”

  “Sit.”

  Muttering ominous threats, Georgia retreated as far as the counter stool, but she still looked at him with nosy, suspicious eyes. Mother eyes. “What’s going on,” she said finally, flatly. She didn’t make it a question.

  Fox deserted the stove long enough to set the table—at least, his version of setting the table. He scooped up some forks and knives from the silverware drawer, added a couple of plates, then tossed some napkins on the middle of the table. He wasn’t sure everything was going to be ready at the same time, but whatever. He could cook well enough not to starve. Putting together a complete dinner—especially the dinner he was trying to create tonight—was impossibly tricky.

  “Fergus Lockwood, answer me,” his mother said firmly.

  “What’s ‘going on’ is that this is the last dinner you have to put up with, as far as risking life and limb on Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

  something I cooked. I’m at the end of Phoebe’s crazy program.”

  “The whole family loved the program, Fox. It made all of us feel we were doing something for you, instead of just sitting back and watching you hurt. That was awful.”

  “Well, I’m not admitting it out loud—at least to Phoebe—but I’ve liked it, too. What can I say? I’ve got a helluva great family. But there’s just no need for it now. I’m better. Really better.” Since he was stuck talking about sticky stuff, he eased into another little matter. “It’s time I moved out of the bachelor house.”

  “Why?” she demanded instantly. “I’ve loved having you so close! And the house is just sitting there.

  There’s no reason on earth—”

  “I know. You’d like all of us close. And weare close, but I need to get my own life back together. You know the property up on Spruce Mountain? I want to build a house up there.”

  “Oh. That’s not too far.” Georgia took a sip of wine, looking relieved. “Fergus. You put the knife on the right of the plate, not the left. That’s a beautiful site up there. Still in the school district…in case a body ever wanted kids…but peaceful and quiet and all.”

  He motioned her to the table and started serving dishes. �
�So, here’s the plan. You’re hearing it before anyone else. I’m going to spend the year building a house up there. And next fall I’ll be teaching again.”

  “Not this year?”

  “Not this year. I’m going to coach the basketball team. Keep my hand in with the kids. Work with some of the liners.” The “liners” was the term he and the principal created for kids who were on the line between failing and making it—those who could fall the wrong way if something didn’t happen to pull them out of a slump. “I talked with Morgan about it two days ago. It’s a done deal.”

  “You really are putting it back together,” his mom said quietly, and then looked at the dishes in front of her. “Fox, since when did these become your favorite foods? What’s this?”

  “Chicken with cilantro.”

  “And this…well, I can see this is the holiday potato dish—”

  “Yup. And dessert is a marshmallow sundae with chocolate ice cream.” He added kindly, “You can have the sundae with dinner, if you want. This isn’t like growing up. I won’t tell if you have dessert first.”

  His mother lifted a fork, then put it down and just stared at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s Phoebe, isn’t it.”

  She didn’t phrase it like a question, just like she almost never phrased things like questions when she already had a mom sense about the answers. So Fox didn’t try to balk or duck.

  “Yeah, it’s Phoebe,” he said quietly. “But don’t start counting on grandchildren, Mom, because the truth is…I think I lost her.”

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  “Oh, Fox, you—”

  “No.” This time his voice turned firm. Not disrespectful. Just firm. “You want the secret side of stuff, I’ll give it to you. I love her. Completely. Totally. Enough so that she’s the only thing in my head, the only woman I can even imagine spending my life with. But she’s not seeing me the same way. I can’t open a door she wants locked. And that’s all I’m willing to say. Besides, this dinner is supposed to be about you. I want to hear how the bridge club’s going, what’s new with the neighborhood crowd, how your arthritis is.”

  “But, Fox, I—”

  “This is the deal. No dessert if you keep asking questions.” He added, “This is between her and me.

  There’s no one else in the universe but her and me. Not as far as our private lives go.”

  And he couldn’t talk any more about it. Not without panic climbing a sharp ladder up his spine. She hadn’t even blinked when he’d talked about building the house for the two of them, much less given him even a tiny sign that she might be willing to build that home with him. And as far as the whole rotten thing her ex-fiancé had pulled on her…hell.

  Fox just couldn’t see how to make any move without making the situation worse. If he tried to make love to her, she’d think he wanted her for sex. If he didn’t try, she’d think he’d stopped wanting her.

  That jerk had done a number on her from the inside, and Fox couldn’t remember feeling more frustrated.

  That someone could twist Phoebe’s sensual, loving, nurturing and, you bet, sexy nature against her made him see red. Bull red. But short of finding the guy and beating him up, there was little Fox could do—and besides, that would only make him happy.

  He wasn’t used to feeling impotent.

  In fact, he’d never felt the sensation before.

  But if Phoebe needed to know how much he respected her, he’d already shown her how much he did…by reaching out to her. By revealing his most vulnerable side. By sharing his weaknesses with her the way he’d been unable and unwilling to share with anyone else.

  Fox didn’t just respect her in theory; he respected her with his heart. The more critical problem was Phoebe herself. The jerk had dented her self-respect. And that was something he had no way of fixing for her.

  He looked down at Phoebe’s cilantro chicken and the infamous holiday potatoes—the potato dish no man had been able to resist since the beginning of time. And suddenly he couldn’t eat.

  He had one more occasion to see her, but he doubted it would help. He’d lost her.

  And he knew it.

  Exhausted and frazzled, Phoebe opened the van door and let Mop and Duster leap up on the seat. They faced the window and determinedly ignored her.

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  “Look, guys. Everybody has to have shots. The vet loves you. The nurse loves you. You hurt their feelings when you treat them like they were torturers, did you ever think of that?”

  Neither pup bothered to turn around. She’d pay all day for taking them to the vet. Probably have to feed them steak. Take them for extra walks. Suck up for hours. She knew what to expect. They’d been through this before.

  Phoebe drove straight home, relieved it was Saturday, because she’d lost all her usual energy. She didn’t want to work, didn’t want to see people, didn’t want to do anything. As soon as she got home, she was inclined to lock all the doors and mope in peace with the dogs.

  At the base of her driveway, she stopped at the mailbox, picked up three bills, five catalogs and a reminder that she needed to renew her physical therapist’s license this coming fall. She was still shuffling through envelopes when she glanced up and realized that there was already a vehicle in her driveway. A white RX 330.

  Fox’s car.

  The pups noticed it at the same time she did and, turncoats that they were, promptly commenced a barking frenzy until she braked and let them out. They zoomed for the door, Mop quivering with excitement, Duster’s tail swishing the ground in equally ardent fervor. “What is it about him,” Phoebe muttered, but it was a silly question, when she already knew what it was about Fox that inspired the female of the species to fall totally and irrevocably in love.

  She shouldn’t have been that surprised he was here, because she’d given him a house key weeks before. It just made sense. He tried to work on the waterfall when she didn’t have clients and he wasn’t in her way. Usually, though, he didn’t show up early on Saturday mornings, because she often had neighbors over…and, besides, this Saturday she’d just thought he wouldn’t come.

  He hadn’t called or been around since their walk in the rain.

  She knew she was to blame, which ached all the more—because she’d only told him the truth. She couldn’t seem to get past what Alan had done to her—how to get past the whole feeling that she wasn’t…good. That the sensual and sexual part of her nature was a flaw instead of something good and natural. The thing was, when a girl got down and naked with a man and then he crushed her for it, it did something to her spirit. Her heart. Her self-respect.

  And Phoebe believed she’d had no choice but to be frank with Fox…until she’d gotten home that day, walked into her bedroom, peeled down for a shower and started crying her eyes out.

  Maybe she’d told him the truth…but she suddenly realized there were other truths. She kept remembering what he’d said at the house site—how he wanted to build a deck off the kitchen, a place to sit outside, eat grapefruit in the morning.…

  Grapefruit. Her vice, not his. Her goofy favorite food, not his. He’d been talking about living in that house withher. Building that house forthem.

  And until that grapefruit word poked in her mind and stabbed her sharply, she just hadn’t realized that Fox was thinking about her seriously. Not as a lover. But as a wife. Not as a red-hot mama when he needed healing.

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  But as the kind of woman he might be willing to share a grapefruit with when they first got up in the morning.

  Now she took a gulping huge breath. From the sound of the pups barking, they’d already located Fergus in the back room. She peeled off her fleece jacket, stashed her bag and mail on the kitchen counter, pushed off her shoes and tried to think how to handle seeing him, greetin
g him.

  No magical or brilliant ideas occurred. She shook her hair loose, took a big breath and then walked to the doorway of her therapy room—then stopped, still.

  The waterfall was done. Or it sure looked that way.

  Fox was crouched down with the dogs, making a fuss, rubbing tummies and baby talking to them. There was still a mountain of trash and debris that he’d obviously just started to clean up, but the waterfall itself took her breath away.

  It was her dream. The backdrop wall and sides were mortared in river stone. There were steps, as if you were in nature and really walking from shallow water into a deeper pool before you stepped under the waterfall. The tall windows above had the effect of skylights. You could lie in the pool, look up and see sunlight or stars, be secluded from the rest of the massage room environment. Lighting had been built into the lower pool. The outside steps had places to set ferns and plants.

  “Oh, Fox,” she whispered hopelessly. “It’s so, so perfect.”

  He spun around at the sound of her voice and immediately stood up. If the light hadn’t been straight behind him, she might have perceived his expression, but as it was, she caught his dusty knees, his rough-brushed hair, but his eyes were in shadow. “You’re here just in time.”

  “In time for what?” she asked, and then shook her head for asking such a silly question. “Obviously in time to help clean up—”

  “No. That’ll wait. I need a victim, an experimentee. Translate that to mean ‘sucker.’ Your waterfall’s done, ready to test. I know itworks, but I don’t want to put everything away until I’m positive we’ve got it all the way you want—height of the hidden shower head, water pressure, water temperature and all that stuff. I don’t think we’ll have to make any major plumbing adjustments—please God—but I still want to test the details.”

  “Sure. What do you want me to do?”

  “Just use it the way you’d use it. Close the drain. Turn it on. Fill up the pool the way you would if you were using it with a client. Just make sure everything’s the way you expected, then we’ll drain it and call it quits. I’ll keep cleaning up in the meantime.”