by Cindy Gerard
“Ever see that old Demi Moore movie Ghost?” he asked, sitting down behind her. The inside of his thighs were warm and hard against the outside of hers. His bare arms were encompassing and strong as he wrapped them around her midriff, pulled her back and against him and lowered his head to nuzzle her neck.
Oh, yeah. She’d seen it. In fact, she’d bought her potter’s wheel shortly after seeing the film.
“No,” she lied and leaned back against him, loving the feel of his warm, naked chest against her back, the cocooning warmth of his arms around her. “Any particular reason that I should have?”
She felt his smile against the curve where her neck met her shoulder and knew that he knew she was lying. “Oh, there’s this one scene…I’ve always had this fantasy about playing it out.”
“Well, far be it from me to kill a man’s fantasies.”
There wasn’t much talking after that. But there was a lot of soaping and rinsing and soaping again after they’d made randy love and stumbled to the shower to wash away the mess they’d made of each other.
When he left her at her door early Monday morning with a lingering kiss, Phoebe couldn’t imagine what her life had been like before Daniel. Just as she could no longer imagine it without him.
Daniel was shaving when his doorbell rang. Snagging his jeans and quickly tugging them on, he slung a towel over his shoulder.
“Hey, come on in,” he said, grinning as he swung open the door to his sister Emily and her fiancé, Shane Cummings, whom he had finally met at Karen’s welcome party. “Want some coffee?” he asked after he’d excused himself to pull on a shirt.
“No thanks, we’ve only got a minute,” Emily said. “But we want to ask you something. It was so crowded at Karen’s party we didn’t get a chance to corner you then.”
“Or catch up with you since,” Shane, whom Daniel had liked immediately, added with a grin. “You’re one busy man.”
Busy? No. Wrapped up in Phoebe? Yes. And he had to do some serious thinking about that.
“So what’s up?” he asked as the thought niggled away in the back of his mind.
“Well,” Emily began with a smiling glance at Shane, “we want to ask you if you’ll stand up with us at the wedding.”
“I’d be honored,” he said, pleased for both of them. “As a matter of fact, I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t asked.”
Shane extended his hand. “That’s great. Thanks.”
“Maybe Shane will be able to return the favor soon?”
Emily’s expectant grin froze Daniel’s smile. “Return the favor?”
“You and Phoebe. You looked so great together at the party. I liked her, Daniel. I liked her a lot. Everyone did.”
“Whoa.” He held up a hand as an almost suffocating pressure expanded in his chest. “You know me better than that. Phoebe— Well, she’s very special, but marriage? No.”
His sister took his hands in hers. “Why not marriage? Why not with Phoebe?”
Because he didn’t do commitment, that was why. Because there wasn’t a woman in the world—even Phoebe—who could put up with his lifestyle. And because there wasn’t a woman in the world he’d give it up for.
Even Phoebe.
Panic raced through his blood.
Is that what everyone thought? That he was ready to settle down? Ready to commit to someone who would depend on him to be there? Someone who would want to make babies with him, to tuck those babies in at night and be there when they woke up in the morning?
More important, was that what Phoebe thought? Yes, he realized with a horrible sinking sensation in his chest. That was exactly what she thought.
“Um, I think maybe we’d better be going, Em,” Shane said and Daniel realized he must have zoned out on them completely. He was still only half there as he walked them to the door, smiled the requisite smile and exchanged goodbyes.
He leaned back against the door, stared hard at the floor. Wasn’t that always the way it was? It took someone on the outside looking in to draw the picture, flesh it out and jar things into perspective.
Things had gotten out of hand. Things that he’d known better than to start in the first place because he didn’t have it in him to finish them. And yet he’d done it anyway.
He wiped a hand over his jaw. It was going to be hard. Really hard. But he knew what he had to do. And he knew he had to do it today. The longer he stayed, the more he would hurt her. And hurting Phoebe was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do.
“Nice job, hotshot,” he muttered as he pushed away from the door.
Phoebe looked up from her desk at the library when a soft rap sounded at her door. “It’s open.
“Daniel.” She broke into a smile when he poked his head inside. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said and stepped all the way into the room.
That was when she saw the flight bag slung over his shoulder.
Later she would remember exactly how her body reacted to the conclusion her mind had so quickly and accurately drawn. The dizzying rush. The sense of absolute sorrow. It was like being swept away by a wave of loss and longing. Like the blood in her head had narrowed and drained, down her cheeks and past her throat, then sucked the warmth from her fingers as it converged to the pit of her stomach and left her heart empty.
She stood up slowly, amazed that her legs could support her. “You’re…you’re leaving.”
He drew in a breath, let it out. And he wouldn’t look at her. “Yeah. Something’s come up.”
She waited for him to meet her eyes. When he finally did, she understood. He wasn’t just leaving, he was running away. From her. From them.
“There’s this dive.” He rolled a shoulder, walked to the bookshelf, fingered a leather binding. “It’s off the coast of Tahiti. Something I’ve been wanting to get in on for a couple of years now.”
She watched him in silence, feeling vulnerable and confused and suddenly angry.
She shouldn’t ask. “When will you be back?”
He was slow to turn around and face her. When he did, she understood why. He wasn’t coming back. Not to her.
“Phoebe, what we’ve had together…I’ll never forget it. You are an incredible woman. Any man would be lucky to have you. But, Phoebe, I never should have gotten involved with you. I was being selfish. I knew going into this that it was temporary. I guess I’d hoped we both did.”
He stopped, swore under his breath. “God, tell me to shut up. I’m botching this. I sound like every creep who’s ever—”
“—dumped someone?” she concluded and saw by the guilt clouding his eyes, that was exactly what he’d been trying not to say.
“Phoebe, I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Please understand that.”
“I don’t think you’re asking for understanding, Daniel,” she said, beyond pain for the moment. It was temporary, she knew. It would be back, but right now she was numb. And she was angry. “I think you’re asking for forgiveness. And the funny thing is, a week ago I would have given you both.
“A week ago I would have been willing to take whatever you gave me until you left. Well, guess what? I’m not the same woman I was a week ago. I hadn’t been loved by you then. And you hadn’t been loved by me.”
It was surprising how calm she felt. Amazing how sure. “Once I was afraid to experience life and you taught me how to overcome that fear. Interesting how that worked out. Now you’re the one who’s afraid.”
He worked his jaw, looked away. If denial had a name, it was, in this moment, Daniel Barone. His inability to look at her told her how desperate he was to get away from the truth. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could say to make him see it. When he only repeated, “I never meant to hurt you,” she knew he was as good as lost to her.
“So you said. You never meant to fall in love with me either,” she added with a sadness that left her empty, “but you did.” Of that she was sure. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. “And now you’re
running scared.” She actually managed a smile then. “It’s kind of funny, really. Once, I didn’t think I was woman enough for you.”
It was a challenge. Prove to me that you’re man enough for me. Stay.
But of course, he didn’t.
She closed her eyes when he came to her, touched a hand to her hair then let it slowly fall away. “Be safe, Phoebe. Remember what I taught you.”
“Oh, I’ll remember.” He didn’t see the single tear trail down her cheek. He was already out the door. “I’ll always remember.”
Falling in love was awfully simple. Falling out of love was simply awful.
During the next week, Phoebe understood those words as she never had before. Her emotions ran the gamut from anger to understanding to grief. She was angry with Daniel for his sudden retreat and his inability to admit his feelings for her. But it made her realize that she wasn’t the only one who was sometimes afraid. Did she forgive him for leaving her? No. But she did try her best to understand.
Claudia Barone didn’t understand. She’d shown up at the library on the Friday after he’d left, just as Leslie and Carol were set on dragging her off to a bar to drown her sorrows.
That had been five hours ago and Phoebe had had enough.
“Don’t go home, Phoebe, not yet. We just got started.”
Above the vibrating beat of a bass guitar and the heavy metal licks slamming out of the jukebox, Claudia and Leslie echoed Carol’s protest with an enthusiastic, “Yeah, don’t go!”
“Do you know how long it’s been since this old woman has had a girls’ night out?” Leslie whined, although Phoebe knew she was fussing for her benefit.
When they continued to make noises about her staying, Phoebe held a hand in the air to quiet them down. “Come on, guys. I have to work tomorrow.”
And I have to get out of here, she said to herself.
The Tycoon—or any bar, for that matter—wasn’t her scene. But the three women had insisted. They meant well. She hadn’t known how to put them off without hurting their feelings, but she’d made more than an appearance and now it was time to beg off.
“I’ve gotta go,” she persisted to their round of good-natured boos.
“But it’s ladies’ night,” Carol reminded her with a turn of her head that encompassed the bar packed with nine-to-fivers ducking in out of the heat, looking for some wind-down time or a little action at the end of long workweek. “Who knows. You might get lucky.”
Phoebe snorted. “Lucky is a relative term.”
“They’re not all like Jason.” Carol’s expression was sympathetic but firm when Phoebe stood to go. “Or Daniel. No offense, Claudia, I know he’s your brother but—”
“None taken,” Claudia agreed.
“It’s okay.” Phoebe dug into her purse for some tip money for the waitress. She nodded toward the crowded bar. “They’re all yours, ladies, and I use the term loosely,” she added with a grin. “If you find one, kiss a prince for me, okay, ’cause lately, all I’ve bumped up against are frogs.”
“I thought you said that guy you went out with Wednesday night was a leprechaun,” Leslie said, referring to Sam Spalding who had been after Phoebe for months. In a weak and defiant moment, she’d finally agreed.
“Leprechaun. Frog. Same difference. They’re both tiny, they’re both green and neither qualify as princes.”
“Not that he necessarily has to be a prince,” Leslie and Carol chimed in, then laughed as they finished their standing joke together. “A white knight’ll do.”
White knight. Yeah, well, white knights weren’t all they were cracked up to be either, Phoebe thought as she waved goodbye.
Smoke-stale air and the rocking sounds of Sheryl Crow followed her outside into the hot Boston night. She’d just reached her car, which she’d parked a couple blocks from the Tycoon under a streetlight that she hadn’t noticed was burned out, when she realized she was no longer alone.
She turned quickly. And there was Jason, looking angry and mean and more than a little drunk. A sickening sense of déjà vu washed over her as he walked toward her.
“I’ve been looking for you, Mouse.”
It surprised her to realize she didn’t feel fear. What she felt was unmitigated, undeniable anger. And what she knew was that she was done being his victim.
“Go away, Jason.” She dismissed him and started digging in her purse for her keys.
“Don’t turn your back on me.”
When his hand clamped on her shoulder, she didn’t think. She just reacted. She whirled around, slammed the flat of her hand into his face and hiked her knee into his chest. He made a surprised “Oomph” and wobbled off balance, and when he doubled over, she went in for the kill. She drove her foot into his diaphragm and sent him sprawling on his back.
Before he’d even realized she’d knocked him flat, she had her pepper spray in her hand and her foot on his throat.
“What the hell… Hey, Mouse,” he whined.
“That’s Mighty Mouse to you.” Filled with a stunning sense of pride that she’d been able to defend herself against Jason’s bullying, she let him have it. “And this is the last time you’re going to bother me.”
“But I miss you. I need you.”
“You need help, Jason.” She dug into her purse again, searching for her cell phone so she could call 911. “You need help,” she said more kindly, then frowned when she couldn’t come up with her phone.
“Looking for this?”
The deep voice came from behind her. She didn’t have to see the man to recognize the source. She’d know that voice anywhere. In the dark, in the light, at eleven thousand feet whispering encouragement in her ear.
Slowly, she looked down to the cell phone that lay in the palm of Daniel Barone’s hand.
“It flew out when you put the moves on him.”
For a moment, all she could do was stare at his hand. It took more courage to look up than it had taken to drop Jason to his back.
“So, guess you don’t need me to save you anymore, huh?”
Her heart flipped, tripped, stumbled and fell at the caress in his voice. She met his eyes with hope and longing and just enough uncertainty to undercut it all.
“No,” she said carefully, “I guess I don’t.”
“I might be good for other things, though.” He watched her face with those intense blue eyes that she’d dreamed about every night since she’d met him.
“Such as?”
“Well, for starters, such as showing up at the right place, at the right time and dialing 911?”
Eleven
Phoebe had to drive down to the police station to press charges. Since she now had the proof she needed, she also filed a restraining order against Jason. Before she left, however, she asked to see him. She felt minimally relieved when she finally extracted a promise from him to get involved with some kind of program to help with his problem.
Daniel never left her side. She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Just as she wasn’t sure what to make of him following her home, or his explanation that he just happened to be driving by when he saw her.
“So how was Tahiti?” she asked when time had stretched taut and the sound of Arthur purring on her lap was the only thing interrupting the tentative silence of her living room.
“Tahiti?” He lifted a shoulder and met her eyes from the sofa where he’d settled. “Never quite made it.”
Could a heart actually survive all the thumping it had undergone tonight? she wondered. Could he see it, slamming against her breast? Could he see the nervousness in her eyes as she sat across from him and by the slimmest thread of pride kept from dropping to her knees and begging him to love her?
“About those other things…”
Through the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside her, she heard but didn’t comprehend his statement. “Other things?”
“You know, those other things that I might be good for—since you don’t need me to protect you anymore.”
&n
bsp; “Oh.” She must have squeezed Arthur a little too hard because he jumped off her lap with an indignant snap of his tail. “Did…did you, um, want to…elaborate?”
He clasped his hands between his splayed knees and stared at the steeple he’d made of his thumbs. “Well, I might be good at being your friend.”
When he looked up, she willed herself not to cry. She’d already been there. They’d already done that. She couldn’t be his buddy again. It hurt that much more to think he’d shown up like this, given her hope and then expected her to—
“I’ve missed you, Phoebe.” The gruff sincerity in his voice brought the tears she’d worked so hard to keep from forming. They misted her eyes and she tried desperately to blink them back. “I’ve missed my friend. I know it’s been less than a week, but I’ve missed you every day. Every hour. I’ve missed the woman I could talk to, the woman I could laugh with and who never asked me to be something I didn’t want to be.”
He was pouring his heart out because he needed her to be the one thing she couldn’t be. And he was killing her.
“I’ve missed the woman I made love to. The woman I fell in love with.”
It was another one of those moments that she knew she’d remember as long as she lived.
The woman I fell in love with.
She covered her mouth with her hand and begged him on a choked whisper, “Please. Don’t…don’t do this. Don’t say this if you don’t plan to stay.”
Through a blur of tears, she watched him drop to his knees in front of her.
He gathered her hands in his, pressed his lips to her ice-cold knuckles. “I do love you, Phoebe. I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you.”
The sob broke then as she looked down on his dark head bending over her hands.
“I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t going to let it. But I think I was a goner the first time I saw you wearing that hot-red toenail polish and grinning over a vanilla ice cream cone.”
She stopped fighting, stopped denying that she’d heard him wrong, that she would wake up and find this was just another one of her dreams. His eyes, when he lifted his head and met hers, told her how very real this was. He loved her. She threw herself into his arms, hung on for her life.