His hands curled into fists, but he refrained from hitting the desk. Just barely. “What I want to do is take her over my knee and spank her.”
“Isn’t that a little excessive for taking three days off?” Kathy asked mildly, not bothering to hide her knowing grin. She hadn’t been blind to what had been happening between her boss and the classy blonde he had hired. As far as she was concerned, it was about time someone rattled his cage. Kathy Connors firmly believed that everyone be-longed married with children of their own. That was true equality as far as she was concerned.
Joshua made a few quick calculations. “Kathy, can you hold down the fort for a while?”
“Haven’t I always?”
He kissed her cheek quickly. “Atta girl.”
Kathy ran her fingers along her cheek. “Do that again and I’ll forget I’m a married woman.”
He was already out the door, but he spared her a moment. “Why are the best ones always taken?”
“Ha!” She waved him out the door. “Go get her!” she ordered.
“I’m going to try, Kathy.” He closed the door behind him and stepped out into the street. “I’m damn well going to try.”
He tried the loft first.
Two minutes worth of ringing and calling her name had him bringing out the spare key that Elton had left with him before he went to Europe. It was to be used in emergencies and this, as far as Joshua was concerned, was a full-fledged emergency.
The loft was empty. And her suitcases, the ones he teased her about dragging all around the world, he thought bitterly, were gone. Though a few things remained in the loft, most notably the carved hope chest she kept by the window, he had the sinking feeling that she was gone for good.
He sat down on the white sofa, his hands clenched into fists.
Not again, he thought. Not again.
“Jo, what are you doing here?”
“Hi, Dad, can we come in?” Johanna asked, offering a weak smile. James Lindsey, a small, spare man with kindly eyes and a gentle smile, threw open the door and then his arms. Though they were all practically the same height, he drew both his daughter and granddaughter into the circle of his arms.
“God, it’s so good to see my girls again.” He allowed himself a moment just to drink in the sight of the two of them. Jocelyn had gotten taller, prettier, a lot like her mother. Johanna was thinner than he liked seeing her, but the worn look he had expected to see wasn’t there. Just a certain leeriness in her eyes. “What a wonderful surprise.”
“Are you going to work, Grandpa?” Jocelyn let her suitcase drop on the hardwood floor that bore the indelible scuff marks of three young girls growing up.
“Oh.” He looked down at the white smock that peeked out from beneath his dark topcoat. “That’s right. I am.” He drew in his shallow cheeks as he thought the situation through. This was Wednesday. The young assistant pharmacist who had been with him since late July didn’t work on Wednesdays.
Johanna touched her father’s downy smooth cheek fondly. She knew he was thinking of the drugstore, of his responsibility. He was very predictable. And very dear. “We’ll be here when you get back. You need a home-cooked meal.”
The store could wait a few minutes. He closed the door behind Jocelyn. “You didn’t come all this way because you were worried about my stomach, Joey.” He effectively turned so that Jocelyn was cut off and couldn’t hear his next sentence. She was already roaming about the cozy family room and out of earshot. “Some kind of trouble because of Harry?”
“In a way.”
The answer was too evasive. “In what way?”
Johanna patted his shoulder as she opened the door. “We’ll talk when you come home. It’s nothing that won’t keep,” she assured him.
Reluctantly, and only because there was no one to take his place today, James Lindsey left. A thirty-five-year-old habit was a hard thing to turn your back on. But he worried. That was his right as a father. As a father, he also knew that Johanna would tell him things when she was ready to and not before.
As soon as her father was gone, Johanna turned to Jocelyn. She tried to sound breezy. “C’mon.” She picked up a suitcase. “We’ll use my old room.” Johanna led the way to the staircase.
Jocelyn trudged behind her, dragging one of the suitcases. “I love Grandpa, Mom, but I still don’t see why we had to come here all of a sudden. My teacher—“
“I’ll write a note to Mrs. Olsen,” Johanna promised. “I just had to get away, honey, to think.” She stopped at the landing. Her room was the first on the left. The door was opened. For a moment, as she stepped inside, she felt seventeen again. Young and alive. The world was full of promise.
Just the way it was when she had laid in Joshua’s arms.
“About the crackerjack prize?” Jocelyn asked quietly.
Johanna smiled sadly, turning around. “About the crackerjack prize,” she echoed, tugging at a strand of her daughter’s hair. “How d’you get to be so smart?”
“I got it from my mother,” Jocelyn answered off-handedly as she pulled her suitcase further into the room. Then she looked over her shoulder at Johanna and grinned broadly.
Johanna laughed. “Go, get settled in.”
“How about you?” Jocelyn asked.
“I’m going out behind the house.”
The back of the house faced a wooded area. The first fifty feet constituted her father’s backyard, the rest belonged to Connecticut, but she and her sisters had always thought of it as permanently on loan to them. They had played many games of hide-and-seek, had breathtaking adventures and had shared long, lazy summer days there.
The weather-beaten swing still hung from a branch of the old sycamore tree. She felt a pang when she saw it. She used to sit and swing for hours, daydreaming. The distance from those days to now was almost insurmountable. And yet it could be crossed by just a few steps. If only she could take them, dare to take them.
Johanna went to the swing to sit, to remember, to look for an answer.
Most of all, to look for peace.
Life had been so much simpler when she used to swing here, she thought, gingerly dropping her weight onto the wooden board. It creaked and groaned, but held. She wrapped her hands around the rough hemp that tied the swing to the tree. The cold air made her cheeks red and nipped at her hands, but she refused to put her gloves on. She wanted to feel things, at least these things.
Other things, she was afraid to feel. She knew it and was ashamed. Joshua would make a wonderful father for Jocelyn. The girl was so taken with him. And in her heart, Johanna felt—no, knew—that he wouldn’t fail her, wouldn’t fail either one of them, not the way Harry had.
And yet. . . .
And yet, she couldn’t make herself take that long, frightening final step. What if it all went sour again?
From the recesses of her mind, an image of the Foggertys came to her, old, stooped, still holding hands. Still living and in love. Sometimes things worked. Sometimes, she thought, a kernel of hope beginning to form, love did win out and stay.
Johanna leaned her head against one of the ropes of the swing and let out a soft sigh.
“If you wanted to swing, there was a park not far from the gallery.”
She jumped to her feet as she swung around. “Joshua! How did you get here?” How could he have gotten here so fast?
“By driving like a bat out of hell for the last two hours. I’ve had two hours to get over being angry.” He took a measured step toward her. “Two hours isn’t enough.”
She looked at the ground, unable to meet the accusation in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Joshua crossed the sloped distance that separated them. He had been watching her for a few minutes. “I could ask you the same thing. You were supposed to come into work today.”
Overhead she heard geese calling to one another, flying in formation. They were late, she thought. But determined. “I called Kathy.”
He came and stood next to her. The s
wing separated them. It wasn’t the only thing. “She told me.”
The formation faded to a speck in the sky, their sound fading with them. She looked into his face, seeing things that made her feel guilty. “But I didn’t tell her where I was going. How did you—?”
“I have a great ally in your sister. She thought you might be here.” He took hold of one of the ropes. It was either that, or touch her. And this last bit of distance she had to cross herself. He had come as far as he could. The rest was up to her. “She also thinks you should have your head examined for passing me up. Modesty not withstanding, so do I.”
“Joshua, I don’t know—“
“Yes, you do know and that’s what frightened the hell out of you.” He wound his fingers around the cords. “Do you honestly think I’d force you to do something against your will?”
“No.”
“You love me,” he said, his voice softening. “I’ve seen it in your eyes, felt it in your kiss. Why won’t you marry me?”
“I don’t want to ruin it.” The excuse sounded so feeble. But it was also true. What she had with Joshua was precious, but it was the “before” stage. Marriage changed people, changed promises. She didn’t want him to change. She thought of the Foggertys again and felt torn.
“That’s a bad joke, Johanna.”
“My marriage was a bad joke.”
“And are you trying to tell me that on the basis of that one mistake, you’re ready to rule out love from your life forever?”
“It’s not that simple,” she argued, but even as she did, something within her was gaining strength, rising up against her and uniting with Joshua.
“It is that simple. I’m not offering you paradise or a perfect world, but I damn well know that I can love you a hell of a lot better than that neurotic, cocaine-snorting freak.”
“He wasn’t always that way.” But in her heart, she knew Joshua was right.
“No, but he was weak. He was always weak.”
“I—“
“If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have given in so quickly. And he’d have never let you go.”
Joshua deserved the truth. “He didn’t know I was divorcing him.”
She tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let her. She was through turning from him, he thought, taking hold of her shoulders. “I’m not talking about the divorce. I’m talking about years before. He let go of something precious, of your love, because of his lust for acclaim. Well, I don’t need anyone telling me I’m great. I’m happy with what and who I am. There’s only one thing missing in my life.” Johanna opened her eyes wide, waiting. “You,” he whispered.
Her resistance was dissipating, crumbling to dust. And subconsciously, she was glad. Without realizing it, she pulled the swing aside and stepped forward. “Oh Joshua, I want so much—“
“Then do it, Johanna. Do it. For me. For Jocelyn. For us.” He took her into his arms. “I promised you I’d never hurt you and I won’t. But damn it, I can’t let you out of my life twice, Johanna. It’s not fair. You can’t do that to me.”
She turned her face up to his. “You love me.” It was as simple as that.
“No, I collect women whose first initial matches mine. Yes, I love you, you idiot. I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. And, though I tried to bury you after you left, to forget you ever existed, I’ve loved you all these years. That’s why there’s never been any other woman who mattered in my life. None of them were ever you.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and framed her face. “Marry me, Johanna. Marry me and you’ll never regret it. At least not for the first hundred years. After that, we’ll see.”
She’d been a fool, running all this time from the past. The scars she bore would only heal if she let them. That meant not picking at them, not remembering. And she knew Joshua could make her forget. He was already doing it. “You do make me laugh.”
“Not all the time, I hope.” His lips were so close to hers she could taste them, but he didn’t kiss her. He waited.
She thought of the last time he had made love to her. Too long. It was too long ago. Suddenly, she ached for him with such fierceness, she was afraid she couldn’t control it. “No, not all the time.”
The low, whispered reply told him everything he needed to know. “Then you’ll marry me?” Before she could answer, he kissed her, long and hard until they were both breathless and desperate for air, desperate for each other.
She dug her fingers into the soft leather of the jacket he wore, leaving imprints. “Do I have a choice?”
He grinned, then nuzzled her throat. He felt her pulse leap up. For him. Only for him. “Yes. But it doesn’t count if it’s the wrong one.”
She pretended to sigh, then laughed, feeling free, really free. It was as if everything that had hurt had been suddenly washed away, as if it hadn’t existed. It mystified her, but she wouldn’t examine it. She had been examining life far too long and not living it to the fullest. That was going to stop as of this moment. “Then I guess there’s no use fighting it.”
“Nope,” he teased her lips with his own, bending her body into his, “none at all.”
The sun came out just before he kissed her again, bathing them both in its light. Johanna snatched up the covenant and held on with both hands.
This time, she knew, it would be forever.
Marie Ferrarella
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The Women's Contemporary Originals from Marie Ferrarella--Read them all!
SAPPHIRE AND SHADOW
"A look at the grit beneath the glitz and one woman's triumph over both"--Nora Roberts
SAPPHIRE AND SHADOW is a vivid and compelling story of heart break and betrayal, of facing the death of dreams you've built your life on, of picking up the pieces and learning to live again. Johanna Whitney somehow draws from deep inside to find the strength to triumph in the end.
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Shanna Brady has spent her whole life living in the shadow of her family, from her mother the socialite to her father the senator to her husband the aspiring politician. When she finds her husband in bed with his secretary, she vows to stand on her own. But a brilliant speech writer desperately wants to stand beside her. .
FLASH AND FIRE
She's smart, she's tough, she's beautiful. But can she type?
Never mind. Amanda knows what she's doing and she doesn't need the incredibly annoying Pierce Alexander, who thinks he's the world's gift to women, trying out his latest seduction techniques at every turn. But there he is, getting under her skin, being adorable with her baby, befriending her nanny, and ambushing her at the supermarket. She gives in--just a little--only to find him taking over her job when her main antagonist at the television station where she's an anchor sets her up for dismissal. Can she fight them all on her own?
Just watch her!
Marie's Originals
USA Today and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author Marie Ferrarella is releasing her three hard-to-find women's contemporary novels written in the tradition of Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts and Debbie Macomber. Finally available again, these heart-tugging stories explore the tangled emotional lives of three women. Buy them now.
Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) Page 31