by Lisa Plumley
“Oh!” She reached for him, crooning whatever comforting things came to mind as she tried to examine him for headboard-induced injuries. Yanking his head out of reach, grimacing at the movement, he scrambled higher onto the pillows. Obviously, Nick wasn’t an early riser.
Or at least his whole body wasn’t. She wouldn’t have guessed that about him.
“Are you all right?” How could she have known he’d wake up so grumpy? She’d never slept with him before.
Frowning, he pushed himself up on his elbows, and her gaze drifted to his bare chest and stomach. Grumpy or not, Nick did keep a surprisingly attention-getting body hidden beneath that stupid white lab coat he was always wearing. Who’d have guessed?
He saw her ogling and jerked the sheets higher. What was the matter with him? Why, a person would think he hadn’t … that they hadn’t …
Oh, God.
His expression matched her thoughts.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Nick blinked harder. His mouth straightened, then gaped open again as Chloe crawled all the way out of the covers and sat up. His gaze went straight to her sheer orange bra. “You—you—you’re not even dressed!”
He glanced around him, looking increasingly incredulous. “Is this your bedroom?”
Chloe handed him his eyeglasses.
“It is your bedroom!”
She wouldn’t have thought things could get worse—until they did. Shock made her nipples perk tight against her wispy bra, drawing his attention in the only way she had absolutely no control over. Feeling her face heat, Chloe drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them.
Nick’s gaze dropped to her snug purple-dotted silk boxers, and something akin to pain flashed across his face. “Aww, hell.”
This time she recognized that gruffness in his tone for what it was—the remnants of a massive hangover from the Kahlúa, coffee, and sympathy she’d served him last night.
“Tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Chloe.”
Hurt stole her breath. His pleading glance finished her off. He didn’t remember.
“Tell me I didn’t take advantage of you last night,” Nick went on. His hand fisted in the sheets, but she imagined it caressing her cheek instead, pretended he’d smile and tell her he’d been kidding. Just a little morning-after humor, ha ha.
“I—” Her voice cracked and faltered. She frowned briefly and tried again. “Well, I, uhh—”
He must’ve sensed something was wrong, because he stopped her with a touch and curled his fingers beneath her chin. He tilted her face upward, looking at her carefully with that analytical scientist’s expression of his. It wasn’t a cheek caress, but it was near enough to tenderness that Chloe closed her eyes to savor it.
“I couldn’t stand it if I thought I’d hurt you,” Nick said. “I know how it feels to be used, remember?”
She remembered, all right. He meant what’shername. The one who’d decided her ticking biological clock couldn’t handle Nick Steadman standard time any longer. The one who’d broken his heart and sent him straight to Chloe’s door for solace.
“Chloe?”
There was nothing else to do. She loved him too much to tell him a truth he so obviously didn’t want to hear. So she opened her eyes and gave him a choked little laugh.
“Who, me? And you?” She rolled her eyes at the notion. “Nah, don’t flatter yourself, genius. Nothing happened here last night except too much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way too much sympathy.” She put her hand to his forehead and tried out a wobbly-feeling smile. “I think it’s gone to your head.”
“But—”
“Your virtue’s safe with me.” Chloe levered herself off the mattress and inadvertently treated him to a full-on cleavage shot. Geez. Maybe he’d think she always dressed this way to sleep.
“Your virtue’s safe, but your body,” she added to distract him, “… well, that’s another story.”
She bounced off the bed and shrugged into the lab coat he’d left on her bedroom doorknob last night, giving herself double bonus points for hiding the tears in her eyes and getting herself covered up all at the same time.
“My body?”
“Yeah—your hangover. Sorry about that.”
The bed creaked. Chloe, busy swabbing surreptitiously at her burning eyelids, didn’t dare look to see what Nick was doing.
“It’s not your fault.” His voice was muted, hoarse with hangover mouth and leftover sleepiness. “I brought it all on myself. I knew me and—”
“What’shername?”
“—weren’t headed in the same direction. I wanted hot sex—”
“I’m not listening,” she sang out, putting her hands over her ears.
“Yes, you are. I see your pinkies lifting. And anyway, you must’ve heard worse last night.”
“You don’t remember?” Her voice sounded as hoarse as his—but for different reasons. Funny that grief and Kahlúa would have the same disastrous side effects.
“After the fourth cup of your demon Kahlúa and coffee, it’s all kind of a blur,” Nick admitted.
The admission made her heart twist. The most life-changing night of her life, and he couldn’t remember a minute of it.
She heard the sheets rustle, and pretended to button the lab jacket she had on as an excuse not to face him. Why torture herself with ogling what she couldn’t have?
He mumbled something about missing underwear, then, “… What was I saying?”
“Hot sex.”
“Oh, yeah.” The bed creaked again. “I wanted hot sex, and she wanted two-point-four kids and a dog. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Not that he seemed too broken-up over it this morning. Chloe guessed the worst had passed.
Maybe he was getting used to it. Eventually, every relationship he had smashed to smithereens over the same issues: setting down, getting married, having kids. With Nick, his inventions and the work that subsidized them came first. To his credit, he was always perfectly up-front about it.
Unfortunately, most women he dated didn’t believe him. They took one look at that smile, those shoulders, and the wit behind those baby blues … and decided they’d be the one to reform him.
Ha.
“Good thing I have you to pick up the pieces of my mangled love life, Chloe.”
“What are friends for?” she choked out, giving him an offhanded wave.
“Drinking beer, watching football, and cruising for chicks,” Nick said.
The mattress groaned, the bedcovers rustled, then came the sound of denim being dragged across the carpet. She pictured him naked, stepping into his jeans and snugging them up over
his …
“Not necessarily in that order,” he finished one zip later.
“Ha, ha. Chicks, huh?” How could he banter with her like this? If she didn’t get away from him soon, she’d be a bawling mess of tears and confessions. “That’s really evolved of you, Nick.”
The familiar, beloved sound of his laughter made Chloe feel warm all over. No one could turn her to mush faster than Nick could. No one could … stop it! She took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. If he didn’t want what had happened to have happened, then she’d be the last person to break the news. Nick might be a straight shooter at heart, but this was one little white lie she felt sure he’d forgive.
Besides, it hurt no one but herself. That, she could deal with.
“Thanks for being there last night.” He put his hand to her shoulder, turning her to face him. “You’re a pal, Chloe.”
He tousled her hair and grinned. All it lacked was for him to slug her on the arm like Wally and the Beaver. Chloe felt more miserable than ever.
“I’m the pal who gave you the hangover from hell, remember? You need my patented hangover cure.” She pointed to the coffee and donuts, then edged toward the doorway. “I’ll just, umm, go grab the, uh, newspaper.”
She escaped the bedroom on legs too wobbly to carry her all the way to the kitchen and
flattened against the striped wallpapered hallway. Clutching the ends of Nick’s lab coat with trembling fingers—it was too big on her, but comforting all the same—Chloe peered toward her bedroom, half-expecting Nick to follow her. He didn’t.
Darn it.
It looked like she’d pulled it off. She’d convinced him their platonic-ness remained intact as ever. He wouldn’t suspect she loved him, wouldn’t bolt with terror at the thought she might want his kids, his ring, his undying love and a white picket fence to match. Wouldn’t consign her to the ex-girlfriend pile a month from now. Wouldn’t think of her as anything more than his old pal Chloe, keeper of Kahlúa and bolsterer of bruised hearts.
What was she, crazy?
No, she answered herself. Just a girl who wants to keep her best friend.
In the bedroom, Moe issued a feline yowl. “Uh, Chloe?” yelled Nick. “Can you call off your psychotic cat, please? I think he’s trying to mate with my shoe.”
Chapter Two
Six weeks later
He was almost there. He could feel it.
Frowning with concentration, Nick Steadman typed a few more variables into the inventor’s journal he kept on his computer, then rolled his office chair across the pitted oak floor of his spare bedroom-turned laboratory. His gaze swept the long table filled with precisely-arranged test tubes and beakers, computer printouts and heat lamps, wires and solution bottles and the varying plants that were the focus of his current research.
God, what he wouldn’t give to see the results of his research put in production. Just once, to know that someone believed in him enough to invest cold cash in his ideas.
Just invent a pet rock, or something, his sisters said. You’ll make millions in no time. They didn’t understand it wasn’t the money that mattered to him.
Still with the dreaming, Nicky? his mother always asked. You’ve got a good job. Stick with that. But she didn’t understand, either. His engineering work at BrylCorp kept him busy and kept him in supplies for his inventions, but it wasn’t security he was looking for.
You want to sell that thing? his brothers-in-law said. Finance it yourself! You’re rolling in dough. But they didn’t understand that having the money wasn’t the real goal. Interesting a bona fide investor was. Once Nick did that, once he’d set his work into production, then he’d know he’d really done it.
Somehow, he’d convince his old man that all those years of taking apart every appliance, every clock, every TV in the house had paid off. He’d prove himself, to himself, and finally make his dad proud of his only son.
Three generations of Steadman men had put their dreams last and their families first. They’d traded their hopes and plans, abandoned their talents, for the sake of mouths to feed and growing kids to clothe and five-bedroom mortgages to pay.
That particular family tradition was about to crumble, and Nick meant to be the first to bring it down.
With one last glance at his computer screen, Nick picked up the next ingredient in the solution he was preparing and measured it into the nearest beaker. He had to get busy. One of the investors he’d approached for past projects was interested in his current research, and he wanted a working prototype to present to his board of directors—in California—at their next meeting in December.
Eight months away.
It wasn’t much time to check the variables, to run tests, to re-formulate if necessary. Especially when Nick’s inventing happened at night and on the weekends, sandwiched between cubicle-cramped stints at BrylCorp and what remained of his social life. But that didn’t matter.
Come hell or high water, this time he meant to see one of his inventions in production. If he handled it right, this could be a very merry Christmas.
“Ho, ho, ho,” he muttered, holding the beaker to the light.
“It’s not even Easter yet, Uncle Nick.”
“I know, Danny.” He looked up at his houseguest for the day—his seven-year-old, sticky-fingered nephew. “I’m planning ahead.”
“Oh. Is that how come you’re not gonna hunt Easter eggs with us this year? ‘Cause you’re already starting on Christmas?”
A pang shot through Nick. He’d missed so many Easter egg hunts, so many birthdays and Halloween pumpkin-carvings and Fourth of July picnics. Danny was just a kid. Commitment was only a word on a second-grade spelling test to him.
Once this invention’s off the ground, Nick promised himself, all that will change.
“Maybe I can make it this year.” His own father—not to mention numerous Steadman uncles and aunts—had crowded into every track meet, school play, basketball game and science fair Nick had ever taken part in. Now, as an uncle himself, didn’t he owe the same things to his nephew? “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”
“You can do it, Uncle Nick!” Danny grinned, all gap-toothed innocence and enthusiasm. “My mom says you’re always trying to do stuff. Even totally impossible stuff.”
Impossible stuff—like his inventions, he assumed. Nice job, Naomi. If she wasn’t his sister, he’d invent a way to keep her opinions to herself.
On the other hand, he did have three other sisters waiting in the wings … .
Nick grinned at his nephew. “Somebody’s got to try the impossible stuff, Danny. It might as well be me.”
“Or me!”
“When you’re older, hotshot. For now, you probably ought to concentrate on not landing a permanent place on the Timeout Stool.”
Danny made a face and squirmed atop his stool near the window. It was, his nephew had informed him, Uncle Nick’s Timeout Stool.
Nick wasn’t quite sure what that was. Until today, he hadn’t even known he owned one. But his sister Naomi had apparently established them all over town, and Danny knew how to use one. He’d sent himself there after nearly singing off his eyebrows with the Bunsen burner while conducting a melting experiment on one of Nick’s Charlie Parker CDs.
Danny nodded toward the beaker in Nick’s hand. “So, what’s that stuff?”
“It’s my best shot at getting a big pile of moola for inventing stuff.” Nick waved him closer to watch. “Wanna see?”
Danny took the bait and scuttled down from kiddie Siberia. He edged up to Nick’s elbow and poked him. “You mean somebody’s gonna give you money just for mixing up goop?” he asked, wide-eyed. “Cool!”
Nick grinned, feeling his uncle stock soar up a few points.
Danny frowned. “But Uncle Nick, my dad says your inventions never work.”
His uncle stock plummeted.
“That’s the nature of inventing.” He swirled the solution and peered inside the beaker. “You keep trying out ideas until one of them works.”
“Oh.” Danny backed up, eyeballing the solution as though it might blow him out of his Reeboks any second. “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Whatever you say, Uncle Nick.”
“That’s what I say.” Nick held up the beaker and got ready to pour. “Cross your fingers, Danny. This is it.”
Danny covered his ears and closed his eyes instead.
The element eased into the solution in a swirl of blue. Perfect. Not an explosion in sight.
“Booorring,” Danny muttered. “I’m going outside.”
“I’ll be out in a couple of minutes. We can play catch or something.”
“Cool.”
After the back door closed behind Danny, Nick spread his hand across the tabletop, pulled a potted ivy closer, and held the beaker of finished solution aloft. Time to test his theory.
Time to … duck! Something squawked and beat its way into the room on a blur of wings and a flash of green. What the hell was that?
Dodging reflexively, Nick juggled the beaker and just managed to get it upright without spilling any of the solution. The thing shrieked like something straight out of a Hitchcock move, then arrowed to the top of the fluorescent fixture he’d hung from the ceiling and perched there, making the light sway and flash over his equipment.
A bird. A big, ugl
y, lab-destroying bird.
And he had a pretty good idea which animal-loving, pet-store-managing softie next door it belonged to.
“Where’s your keeper, Igor?” Nick asked it.
The bird cocked its head at him and shuffled with tiny click-clicks of its claws across the metal fixture. It looked at him the way it probably eyed a bowl of bird kibble. Great—a bird evil and stupid enough to think it might snack on something twenty times its size.
At least he’d saved the solution. Trying to ignore the bird, which seemed happy enough cha-cha-ing across his light fixture for the time being, Nick raised the beaker. He checked his calculations again, started to pour … and from the front of the house, his screen door slammed shut. His hand jerked sideways, narrowly missing spilling his morning’s work.
“Nick? You home?”
Chloe’s warm, husky voice came toward him, followed by a clunk and slide down his hallway. A second later, her head popped into view around the doorjamb. Her green-gloved hands came next as she grabbed hold and arced into the room without letting go, dressed in short denim overalls, a very Chloe-worthy hot pink tank top, and enough silver bangle bracelets to make his eyes hurt.
If her pet store customers could see her now, they’d never recognize her as the same no-nonsense woman who dished out kibble and flea spray from nine to five. Nick couldn’t understand having a Chloe-style dichotomy between professional and personal lives. But for her, somehow, it seemed to work.
“Hi!” she said brightly. “Sorry I couldn’t get here quicker. I had a little trouble getting over the living room rug in these things.”
She lifted her foot in explanation, showing him the in-line skates she’d used to zoom into his house and down the hall. His gaze traveled from her purple and turquoise skates to her green protective knee pads, slid upward past her shapely thighs and vibrant clothes, and settled on her head. Amongst her jumble of artfully-cropped blonde hair, she’d knotted a twisted headband of purple and turquoise bandana.
Nick nodded toward it. “Nice bandage. Nobody would ever guess about the lobotomy.”
She made a face. “Nice try, genius, but I don’t have time to sling insults today. Have you seen—”