Out on a Limb

by Lauren Giordano

  "Your boobs are amazing," she continued as though MaryJo hadn't interrupted her. "When was the last time you went bra shopping? Let’s take these girls out for a spin."

  She tried not to squirm. "Guys—it’s just dinner. I’m not expecting miracles. I know what I look like." She glanced over her shoulder at them—her two gorgeous, confident, fashionable friends who didn't seem to realize what she was working with. "Besides—he looked like he wanted to barf when he asked me out. I'm sure this is a guilt date." And why was she so damn happy about it? When all signs were pointing to disaster? "He needs me to play in his brother's tournament in two weeks."

  "He doesn't give a shit about basketball." Alyssa frowned in the mirror. "Despite those granny panties, he wants to have sex with you." She shook her head at Jules. "Good Lord—we've seriously got to take her shopping."

  "Mojo, you are your own worst enemy. You're beautiful and smart." Juliet spoke to her reflection in the mirror. "When Travis dicked you around, you called him on it. And what did he do? He came back for more. Stop selling yourself short," she ordered.

  Staring at herself in the full-length mirror, MaryJo admitted they were right about a couple things. Travis did seem to like her—most of the time. She was going to enjoy the hell out of their date, no matter what happened after it ended. "Okay—show me what you brought. I’ll try a few things on."

  A FEW HOURS LATER, the doubt returned. "Is everything okay, Travis? You seem distracted. We can cut this short . . . if you need to get back to work-" The restaurant he'd chosen was beautiful. Elegant. A special occasion place that made MaryJo feel both refined and nervous at the same time. It was not the sort of place Sean Mullaney would have frequented with his daughter. But, it was one she'd always longed to experience. With the right person. One who would have her back if she attempted to use the wrong fork. Hopefully, Travis was that person.

  "Why would you think that?" Pouring his beer into a glass, MaryJo watched him take a sip. Such a large man, sipping from a glass—when instinct told her he'd prefer to just swig it from the bottle like he had the night they'd made chili. But everything about Travis seemed different tonight. The impeccable cut of the expensive suit he wore. The sexy, stubbled cheekbones indicating a long work day, despite it being Sunday. The troubling smudges under his eyes confirmed he was completely stressed out over his software project. He was devastatingly handsome, his beautiful, blue eyes focused solely on her. It should have left her breathless with anticipation of the rest of their evening. Yet, she felt unsettled. Though he was just across the table, Travis seemed distant . . . despite his saying all the right things. All the . . . expected things. But tonight, he was more removed from her than if he'd been a total stranger.

  "Tell me about Tiberius," she suggested. "Is it named after the Roman Emperor, or Captain James T. Kirk?" She smiled, secretly hoping he was a Trekkie, too. But, that would be too perfect. A charming, sexy geek was too much to ask for. And Travis’ aura spoke more of isolated rebel than AV club president.

  He did a double-take. "You like Star Trek?"

  "The old stuff," she admitted.

  When he smiled, a dimple winked fleetingly, making him appear less cynical. She wondered what Travis would be like without all the stress and worries of running his company. "Tiberius is from Captain Kirk," he confirmed. "Not many people catch that."

  She sensed he'd chosen this crazy expensive place to prove a point. Maybe to show he'd made an effort. But, she hadn't wanted him spending a ton of money on dinner. She was just ridiculously happy to see him again. When he’d surprised her the day before—returning, not only to ask her out, but admitting he liked her, his sexy voice had crawled through her system like a drug she hadn't known she was addicted to. And despite all the warning signs, she'd eagerly counted the hours since. Technically, tonight would be their first 'official' date—dressed up, flirting over drinks instead of falling from trees or eating homemade chili or freezing to death at a stakeout. Or making pizza with his brother. This night would be special.

  "I don't want to talk about work, MaryJo. Let's concentrate on you," he suggested deftly. Again—not so Travis-like. Saying the right words . . . but not in the laid-back, smiling manner she'd grown familiar with. "You look so beautiful tonight."

  "Thank you." Her pulse leaped, the admiration in his eyes making her face heat. When she'd spied him across the room earlier, his expression had bordered on shock. A normal woman likely would have been insulted. MaryJo had been thrilled. And a little terrified.

  Julie and Alyssa had outdone themselves. She actually looked—beautiful. Exotic, even. Before leaving the house, she'd stared into the hall mirror, uncertain who the stranger staring back was. Lyss had done her makeup in a dramatic way that made her eyes appear huge . . . and pretty. Jules’ borrowed dress showed her curves like she’d never seen them before—seeming to hide her flaws and accentuate the good stuff. She'd sensed several stares following her as she met Travis in the lounge. The way she felt in her borrowed dress was—foreign. Empowering, to be sure. Exciting, but also a bit strange. MaryJo wasn't sure she could carry it off on a regular basis.

  "Tell me something about you I don't already know."

  Their date was starting to feel more like a job interview, she decided. Travis was in a strange mood this evening. First, he'd called to say he was running late. Could she meet him at the restaurant? Not a big deal. Except there’d been something in his voice. . . something that had sent a frisson of warning through her. A guardedness. Even over the phone, she'd picked up on his—distance. His usual friendliness . . . was missing. Assuming he was having trouble getting away from work, she'd offered to postpone. Though Travis rarely spoke of it, she knew he was pulling long, stressful hours at his job. But, he'd been insistent about not cancelling.

  "Are you referring to my weakness for vagabond cats—or my violently competitive streak on the basketball court" Dismissing her concern, MaryJo quieted the ever-present nag of doubt in her head—always wanting to ruin things for her. They were dressed up, in a romantic restaurant for their first real date. Where did she get off, thinking she could read him?

  "I'd like to hear more about this seven-date-rule."

  Her face heating with a blush, MaryJo wished she'd never mentioned it, but with hours to kill in a dark, chilly car, she'd covered a multitude of silly topics the night of the stakeout. "It's just . . . a guideline I have for myself." She glanced away from fiercely blue eyes that suddenly seemed to examine her. Was she imagining it?

  "So—you're admitting you make a guy wait seven dates before-"

  "Sleeping with him? Yes." She cradled her wine glass, acknowledging an urge to take a sip as fortification. Travis made it sound as though she'd revealed a serious flaw. As though she were somehow guilty of misleading potential dates—forcing them to endure her presence longer than she was worth waiting for. "Sometimes I make them wait even longer," she added, her skin suddenly prickly with the urge to defend herself. Resentment seeping into the perfect evening was not what she'd envisioned. But, there was no excuse for treating her as though she'd stepped off an alien space ship.

  "I'm curious, MaryJo." His expression remained slightly amused, but the tilt of his head suggested a touch of condescension. "What purpose does that serve?"

  "I didn't realize it required one." How about because I'm worth it? Feigning a light-hearted shrug, she held his gaze with effort. Travis was likely teasing—but he'd inadvertently touched on a sensitive subject. Cutting him a little slack, she tempered her annoyance with the tone of his question. The trouble was—it didn't feel like teasing. "Don't we all have rules for ourselves?"

  "You need rules for sleeping with someone?"

  "I don't stamp them on my forehead—although, maybe that's what you're suggesting? So the poor guy doesn't waste his time when he could score faster elsewhere?" Olive branch forgotten, MaryJo was forced to acknowledge his questioning was deliberate. And insulting. "Maybe you're one of those guys who think I shouldn't h
ave the right to decide? That it's pretty much owed at the end of the evening?"

  Setting his beer down, he took his time about answering. "I feel as though I need to pick some sort of right answer here."

  Her heart sinking, she wondered how it had all gone wrong so fast. Where had the real Travis gone? The one who'd been kind? Thoughtful. She'd actually wanted to sleep with that guy—in spite of her stupid rule. This was not the same man—acting petulant, as though he'd invested more than enough time and energy and there'd better be results at the end of the night.

  "Ultimately, I'm a business man, MaryJo. I typically go with tried and true methods. Whatever is easiest. Whatever works fast," he admitted. "That's usually dinner. Sometimes all it takes are drinks." His mouth quirked with cynical amusement.

  For the first time, she sensed a remote emptiness in his expression that made her shiver. Frozen to her chair, she forced a calm she was no longer feeling. How could she have misjudged him so badly? How could Travis have morphed into a complete stranger? "I'm sorry I wasted your time." She shrugged, attempting a nonchalance that didn't match her painfully thudding heart. "Unfortunately—for me, dinner doesn't equal sex."

  "It only equals what? Date number three?" His expression quizzical, he finally smiled, but there was little warmth to it. "Out of curiosity, how's your system working for you, MaryJo?"

  Eyes narrowing as her humiliation intensified, she forced herself to forget that she'd really, really liked this man. Because at the moment, he was acting very much like the jerks she'd worked so hard to avoid. Travis was trying to embarrass her—to manipulate her into believing she thought too highly of herself. That she couldn't possibly be worth that sort of effort. Hell—apparently she wasn't worth any effort. He was mocking her. Because he might not get exactly what he wanted. When he wanted it. "Since my goal isn't to have sex with every guy I meet, I'd say it's working pretty well."

  "You don't seem to want to have it at all," he muttered.

  "What I want apparently doesn't matter." Her stomach knotting with anguish, she wondered what signal she'd missed. What she had done to deserve being the brunt of this ugly change in his personality? Though color rose in his face, his eyes remained impassive. "Perhaps if you'd spelled it out for me-"

  He raised his glass to her, taking his time before answering. One eyebrow lifted. "Spelled it out?"

  "That you were only interested in sex," she answered, surprising herself with the calm that descended, despite her sadness. "I could have let you know sooner—so you wouldn't have wasted your time on this." Her wave acknowledged their romantic surroundings. "I'm a pretty cheap date, Travis. You didn't need to impress me with a fancy restaurant. I thought we were having fun together. I thought—you wanted to get to know me better—like I did you."

  "I do want that," he said, a little too detached for her liking. "I just like knowing how much of an investment I'm going to be making-"

  "Investment?" Her fingers suddenly clammy around the stem of her wineglass, MaryJo resisted the impulse to hurl the contents in his face. But, the damned drink probably cost ten dollars. "I guess you probably should have cut your losses after that first night. You didn't have to help me-"

  "Don't twist this into something ugly." His eyes flashed with annoyance, the first visible sign that his impenetrable armor had been breached. He was actually feeling some sort of emotion under the robotic exterior. "I never would've left you out there. You know that." He examined his beer bottle, seeming to search for the right words. "I just wouldn't have pursued you—if you'd been up front about this ridiculous rule thing."

  "Now, I'm ridiculous?" Surprised she wasn't deflecting sparks, she was as close to detonation as she'd ever been in her life. What an idiot she'd been. Misreading him completely. "I'm finally at a place where I care more about what I want—instead of pleasing everyone else." Rising from her chair, MaryJo allowed fury to overtake her. "You know what, Travis? I-I like me. I'm comfortable with who I am." Tears burned in her throat, yet with a strength borne of desperation, they remained hidden. "Somehow, I don’t get the feeling you can say that about yourself."

  Tossing her napkin to her chair, she remembered her purse on the floor. Unearthing her wallet, she tossed a ten on the table. "That's for my drink." Brushing past him, she fleetingly registered his stunned expression. Dangerously close to tears, she managed to pull off a sarcastic smile. "At least you didn't invest any money on dinner."

  "CHRIST, PATRICE, CAN you give it a rest?" Travis sat in the darkened room, staring at his computer screen, yet not seeing anything. Though he never would have imagined it possible, his life had plummeted to a new low. "It's nine o'clock. Do you ever stop working?" When she cut him off, he released an aggravated sigh. Why the hell had he answered his phone? "I'm aware we have problems, Patrice. Your getting hysterical won't solve them any faster." That triggered it. She exploded on the other end of the line. Insinuating Patrice Reynolds held any female qualities was always a stretch, but hinting at a weakness was akin to throwing chum in shark-infested waters. He'd used exactly the right word to send her into a frenzy. "I've got four programmers working on the problem—including myself."

  Problems, he mentally corrected as he hung up on what promised to be another long-winded cataloguing of his failures. Problems. Virtually nothing about this software release had gone right. He was nearly convinced he should just call the whole thing off. Take a break. Try to regain his focus. Come back to it in a few months when he'd cleared his head.

  The blow-up with MaryJo hadn't helped his concentration. For three days, he'd replayed his despicable actions at the restaurant, trying to understand them. And for three days, he'd utterly failed. To grasp how he could be such a bastard—how he could be so unbelievably cruel to her. When he liked her so damn much.

  He'd tried to convince himself their argument had been about sex. About the withholding of it. As though MaryJo was somehow trying to control him—forcing him to keep seeing her. "What? Against your will?" He laughed, breaking the claustrophobic silence in the darkened room. Even to a brain as cynical as his—that accusation didn't ring true. Aside from being held at gunpoint, no person in the world could make him do anything.

  Hell, yeah—he wanted to sleep with her. But—he also liked her. He liked the way he felt when he was around her. Happier. Lighter. Time spent with her held a surreal quality—as though he were an actor in a play . . . about someone else's life. Because none of it felt real. None of it felt as though it should be happening to him. None of it felt as though it could actually last. The play would end and he'd be left standing there. Alone. She was too kind. Too normal. And Travis didn't fare well in situations that called for other peoples' version of normal.

  'Normal' to him was—detached. It was surface interactions with the people around him. 'Normal' was impersonal. It was how he'd learned to conduct himself over the last decade. It was why he was great in stressful situations. On the rescue squad, he was known to be unflappable, regardless of the nightmare situations they were called to. At work, he could immerse himself in code—and not emerge until the problem was solved.

  With MaryJo, he found himself relaxing his guard. Talking himself out of the rules he’d established more than a decade earlier. He'd caught himself wanting. To talk with her. Confide in her. Without ever knowing it, she stirred him to think—about his actions. His beliefs. She had him questioning how he handled problems. How he made decisions. Being with her seemed to provide something he . . . needed. But—other than sex—what else could he possibly need from a woman? Love? Companionship? All the touchy-feely excuses women used to lure men into the trap of a lifetime. Even if he'd wanted to be trapped, and he sure as hell didn't—he wasn't capable of emotion. He wasn't capable of feeling . . . anything.

  Except this thing with MaryJo that seemed to have taken over his frontal lobe. That he couldn’t dismiss. Or stop thinking about. There was something about her he—craved. "Her outlook," he muttered. He'd been working so hard for so long
he no longer trusted his own. She was an outlet. An escape. From the pressure building within him. From the increasing frustration with the way his life was playing out.

  "How would she react?" His skeptical voice broke the cloying stillness. If he ever lost his mind and spilled all the ugliness? All the truth hidden inside him. The tortured, dysfunctional nightmare he'd escaped. Under the layers of numbness and detachment, the glue holding him together was a wafer-thin sheen of arrogant confidence and just enough charm to get by. How would she respond to meeting the real him? She'd caught a glimpse a few nights ago. And she'd run from it.

  Three nights earlier, he'd glanced up as she'd entered the restaurant—awareness prickling across his skin. Before he'd even glimpsed her, he'd known MaryJo was there. As though the air had shifted. As though he could sense her. She'd been unbelievably beautiful. Her smile so genuine. Happy—to see him. For an entire minute, he'd enjoyed it. The pull of attraction. The—joy . . . of just seeing her. Until out of nowhere, he'd been blindsided. By a terrifying rush of buoyancy—a sick eagerness to be in her presence. To ask about her day. To share how awful his had been. He'd wanted . . . to hear her voice. He'd needed her smile. He’d wanted to touch her hand across the table . . . almost sensing that he might gain strength or endurance, or some damn thing . . . just by being with her. And it had scared the absolute hell out of him.

  So, he'd proceeded to ruin it. To crush the uncomfortable sensation. To wrestle his weakness back into a box where he could manage it. To do that, he'd insulted her. He'd hurt her. Deliberately. He'd hurt a woman who would never harm anyone. Even as he'd offended her, Travis sensed she could see beyond his veneer. She'd reminded him she was happy with her life. With who she was. Comfortable. Had he ever felt that way? In his entire life . . . he traced back over the years. Had he ever been happy?

  Despite his offensive behavior, MaryJo had stood her ground—an expression of disbelief on her face. Proud and beautiful, she'd left him, her head held high. Thus far, Mariela wasn't allowing him to apologize. He’d tried flowers. He'd tried calling. Several times. But, she wasn't picking up—at least not for him. Checking his watch, he wondered whether it was too late to simply drive over there. Wait for her to open the door—then suck it up and apologize. "She's too nice to hold a grudge." She'd forgive him. And then she'd smile-