In Like Flynn

by Dorien Kelly

  After a sip, Annie got down to business. “I feel rotten. I’m so sorry for not noticing how unhappy you’ve been about your job.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s not like anyone else has noticed, either. Life as the Invisible Donovan can be a grind.”

  Annie laughed. “Invisible? Not quite.”

  Sasha shrugged. “I am in all the ways that matter. No one ever asks for my input. I think it’s mostly because Dad and Grandpa are afraid I’m as irresponsible as my uncle Rob. Not that I can blame them much, given my record.”

  Since it was tough to refute the accuracy of Sasha’s assessment, Annie remained silent.

  “So,” Sasha said, “here’s my plan… I’ve signed up for one of those test review courses, then I’m going to take the GRE.” Annie must have looked as lost as she felt because Sasha added, “You know, the Graduate Record Exam.”

  “Yeah, I knew that, but what are you planning to do?”

  “I’ve decided to get my master’s in social work.”

  This conversation was a case of serial déjà vu. “Um…okay. Sure.”

  “Annie, I mean it. This isn’t like the time I went to culinary school or my shot at a philosophy degree. I’m serious about this.”

  “Do you even have your bachelor’s degree?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Annie frowned. “I don’t remember a graduation party.”

  “No one’s very festive when you take seven years to graduate, okay?” Sasha said after dipping a chip into her margarita, then chowing it.

  “Good point.”

  “I need a change. I want a job where I feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life.” She laughed. “Actually, at this point I’d settle for a job where they just notice whether I show up.”

  “So you’re going to leave Donovan’s…”

  “Not right away. I’m going to ask for a part-time schedule that will fit around my classes.”

  “It sounds like a great plan.”

  Sasha smiled. “Do you really think so? You’ve always had your head on so straight about career stuff that I figured if this idea got past you, it had to be good.”

  Okay, this was the moment when Annie admitted that she was a total fraud, that she had no idea what she wanted to do and that she wished she could come up with a career goal half as solid as Sasha’s. Of course, that would totally wipe out Sasha’s growing happiness over her big change.

  Annie made some inane, perky comment, opened the menu and contemplated ordering one of everything just to keep her mouth shut. Friendship could be a calorie-laden thing.

  IT WAS CREEPING UP on eleven when Annie pulled onto Cobblestone Court. Instead of heading straight home, she drove past Daniel’s town house. Lights still shone inside, drawing her. She looped to the end of the block, then slowly drove back.

  Near the end of her dinner with Sasha, she’d finally broached the subject of a fling with Daniel. Instead of getting the Sasha stamp of approval, she had shot down the idea.

  “Annie, you’re incapable of a real fling. You get too attached,” she’d said. “I mean, look at the collections of stuff in your condo. You can’t keep Daniel Flynn. He’ll leave, and you’ll be a mess.”

  Sasha was right. Annie couldn’t even count Garth as a fling. Worse yet, she hadn’t liked him enough for their relationship to even qualify as buddy sex. She’d talked herself into being attracted to him out of convenience. The guy had fit into her schedule.

  So was Daniel Flynn convenient? Annie seriously doubted it. His arrival hadn’t been easy and his departure would no doubt spawn an eating binge sufficient to sweep clean the cookie shelves at the corner market. Yes, she’d become attached to him. What other reason could she possibly have for sleeping with a Space Needle salt-and-pepper set on her nightstand?

  Annie sighed. Life would be so easy if she were, well, just a little easier herself.

  She stopped just above his driveway. If she had any willpower, she’d keep going. But since she and willpower weren’t even passing acquaintances, she parked in front of his garage and walked up the steps. Daniel came to the door only seconds after she rang the bell.

  He was barefoot, wearing jeans and an old T-shirt from a bar in Munich. He looked scruffy, disreputable and still the hottest guy she’d ever seen.

  “Hi,” she said.

  His smile grew. “Hi.”

  “I’m not bothering you, am I?” she asked over the pounding of her heart.

  “Never.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I was just writing a bit. I’ve an outline due to my publisher, but it’s not as though they’re expecting it tonight.”

  “I could always…” She finished the offer that she hoped he wouldn’t take by gesturing at the darkness behind her.

  “Come in, love.”

  As she stepped over the threshold, the sense of ease Annie had been chasing all day finally came to her. She felt at home.

  13

  “MUCH TO MY REGRET, I’m not here for sex,” Annie announced as she stepped inside. “And I’m not feeling especially witty, wise or beautiful tonight, either.” She hesitated and then added, “Okay…maybe just a little beautiful.”

  Daniel considered himself no expert when it came to the female mind. After years of dealing first with his mam and then his girlfriends, he was, however, skilled at treading carefully.

  “Should I ask what you are besides beautiful, then?”

  “Tired. Missing you. In need of a hug.”

  And he felt in need of holding her. Daniel drew Annie into his arms. His heart seemed to grow warmer, easier, as she nearly melted into him.

  “This feels so good,” she murmured, her head against his chest. “Maybe we could just stay here all night.”

  As his sole pieces of rental furniture were a bedroom set and a kitchen table, the idea had some merit. Despite her words, though, Annie too soon drew away. She walked into his empty living room.

  “Love what you’ve done with the place,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “We’re definitely the yin and yang of home décor.”

  “I’ve a kitchen table, if that’s any help.”

  She sighed. “What I want is one of those overstuffed recliners. You know, where you pull the lever, your feet fly to the ceiling and you’re stuck until someone comes along to haul you out?”

  He laughed. “I saw a few in the rental catalog, but managed to resist.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, Flynn. So are you still sleeping on the floor?” she asked as she wandered toward the bedroom.

  He knew a moment’s thanks that he’d picked up his dirty clothes, if not made his bed.

  “Guess not,” she said, raising her brows at his king-size bed. She tested the mattress with her hands. “Firm, just the way I like it. Do you mind if I…”

  “Not at all.”

  She slipped off her shoes. “Don’t get the wrong idea. This is all about comfort. You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine, okay?”

  Daniel knew it was as good as he’d be getting tonight, so he stretched out and watched as Ms. Annie settled in.

  “It’s been one of those days, you know?” she said.

  “It has,” he agreed.

  They lay in companionable silence. It came as a total gobsmack to Daniel to realize that while he’d like to poach on Annie’s side of the bed and see about bending her rules a bit, he was happy—for the moment, at least—just being with her.

  “All the craziness at work got me thinking tonight,” she eventually said. “We need to talk about this note you want from me.”

  “We do?”

  She rolled onto her side, facing him, and propped her head on her left hand. “How much longer are you going to be in town?”

  He wasn’t sure what bearing this had on lovemaking, but he was willing to explore the connection.

  “Seven weeks, more or less.” Definitely less, if he considered the time he’d be devoting to Hal and his hospital issue next week.

  �
�And do you think we’ll ever see each other again once you’ve left?”

  The hungry, prowling part of him wanted to lie, but Annie deserved better. “With you wanting Manhattan and me wandering about, it’s unlikely, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Here’s the problem…I’m not good at letting go of things I care about, Daniel. Clocks, salt shakers, jobs…and especially people. And I care about you. Really care about you. As it is, I keep thinking about what it’s going to be like after you leave. Will you call or e-mail? Should I send you a Christmas card?”

  “Annie, it’s possible that you’ve been thinking too hard about all of this.”

  “No, I’m thinking just hard enough.” She resettled and gazed up at the ceiling for a few moments. “Some women are good at grabbing happiness…stronger women than I am right now.”

  Violating the boundary between them, he reached out to smooth a wild lock of her hair. She relaxed under his touch and her eyes slipped closed. He wondered if she could feel how much he cared for her, how much he wanted to see her happy.

  “Give me the time to work on my confidence, okay?” she said. “Once I’m sure I have this witty and wise thing down—and I’m getting close—it’ll be a lot easier for me to step into something I know is guaranteed to end.”

  Much to his regret, Annie was already a wise, wise woman, and Daniel was damned to be a gentleman.

  AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL smelled much the same as an Irish one—unpleasant. Perhaps this wasn’t the sharpest observation that Daniel had ever made, but it wasn’t bad for one made not much past dawn. He sat with Hal in a cardiac catheterization lab’s waiting room nearly fifty minutes’ drive from Ann Arbor.

  “Don’t you think you’re carrying this secrecy a bit far?” he asked Hal. “It’s not as though the U of M Hospital couldn’t have swallowed you without anyone noticing.”

  Hal set aside the anglers’ magazine he’d been pretending to read. “It had to be here. Back home, Richard would have found out, and he’s a damn rottweiler. Now that he’s sunk his teeth into the idea of forcing me out of the CEO’s chair, he’ll never let go.”

  Daniel took a sip of coffee to hide his smile over the deranged Donovan dynamics. Hal had sounded nearly proud of his son, who had made no secret of his consultations with lawyers over the past week.

  “And have you made excuses for your absence?” Daniel asked.

  Hal waved the magazine he’d brought along. “I’m at a private fishing lodge in northern Ontario. Rumor has it I’m having a hell of a good time.”

  Daniel smiled. “Grand. Now what are the rest of your plans?”

  “The cardiologist says I should be released tomorrow morning. You’ll take me back to the office, and—”

  “I’ll be taking you straight home.”

  The older man set his jaw at a bulldog angle. “Then Eva will take me back to the office.”

  Daniel laughed. “Right. We both know she’ll have you home, wrapped in a blanket and coddled to death.”

  Hal responded with a grumpy “huh,” then glanced up at the desk where a clerk was flipping through files, preparing to call another group of patients.

  “I should be going back there soon,” he said. “I lied to Eva and told her that I wasn’t scheduled until eleven…didn’t want her fussing over me.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Well, see if you can calm her down by the time I’m in recovery.”

  “Eric Nagel,” the clerk called. “Roberta Tokarski…Hal Donovan.”

  Hal stood. “Guess my number’s up,” he said in what Daniel recognized as gallows humor.

  Daniel rose, feeling bloody insufficient in the role of Hal’s family. He wanted to give the man comfort, but the best he could summon was a handshake and a hearty, “You’ll do fine.”

  Hal looked over his shoulder once before walking with the others through a set of double doors. Daniel was sure he’d carry that lonely sight with him the rest of his life.

  After riffling through the anglers’ magazine in five seconds or less, he pulled his laptop case from beneath his seat and looked about the large room. In the far corner, to the right of a broad bank of windows, sat a workstation. He slung his bag over his shoulder, picked up his coffee and took it over.

  His first thought was to call Annie. In the eight days since she’d arrived at his front door, they had been together every workday, and unless one or the other of them had another obligation, every night, too. And he wasn’t weary of her company, either—a bloody first in the life of Daniel Flynn.

  No, she’d not yet given him in writing what he knew they both wanted—to the point of sleeplessness and odd lapses of attention. She’d captured his interest completely.

  Annie was well-read, lovely and had a fine wit. Of course, she still turned that wit on herself more than he’d like to hear, but it seemed to happen less each day. Another miracle, considering that just now, Donovan’s offices were as tense and ugly a place to work as Daniel could imagine.

  She’d be at her desk soon, sugary coffee drink and a stack of papers in front of her. Daniel pulled out his cell phone and was about to hit the autodial button when the clerk at the desk began calling out more names. Now, that background noise would be hard to explain away.

  He set down his phone, leaving it switched off, and instead plugged his laptop into the communications port so kindly provided by the hospital. In moments, he was on the Internet and sending his Annie a greeting.

  DANIEL HAD GONE missing in action. Oh, he’d told her last night that he’d be on the road today. No specifics, of course. The guy could sidestep questions with a skill that Annie found both admirable and annoying.

  As she walked to her office, frozen mocha in one hand and briefcase over her shoulder, she began to realize how much she counted on him to cut the tension at work. Even Sasha, who had already informed her grandpa, uncles and dad of her plans and thus was the happiest person in the building, didn’t have the same effect as Daniel’s smiles and jests. Of course, Sasha didn’t look at her in quite the same sexy, it’s-gonna-besooo-good way that Daniel did, either.

  Annie had become addicted to the thought of making love to her Irishman. She also accepted that when it happened—maybe even tonight—it would be no mindless fling and that she’d pay a major emotional price for taking this next step. Still, as far as risk/reward analyses went, she knew she’d come out ahead.

  Humming to herself, she turned the corner and nearly collided with Rachel. Since they didn’t bother speaking anymore, they traded glares. Their allegiances in the Donovan battle of the titans were clear and opposing. Annie wondered if Evil Queen Rachel had been fitted for the consort’s crown, just in case Richard actually managed to boot his father to the curb. She hoped like hell Rachel would hold out for real diamonds. It would take a boatload of carats—and a really tight and favorable prenuptial agreement—to make up for bedtime with hair-flapping Richie.

  Once she’d settled in at her desk, Annie checked her business e-mail. She found some stuff from the benefits department, a few follow-up answers from the design team she was meeting with today and about twenty too many forwarded jokes and chain letters. She moved on over to her private account. There, she hit double gold: an e-mail from Daniel and one from Paul Housden, Elizabeth’s New York contact.

  Saving pleasure for last, Annie opened the e-mail from the corporate recruiter.

  “Holy…”

  She couldn’t even think holy what. She’d sent the guy her résumé last Wednesday, after getting Lizzie’s blessing. Housden had already shopped her, and wondered if she’d be available the week of July twelfth—three weeks from now—for initial interviews. At least now she knew she didn’t need the additional glamour of having set up the international franchise agreement to get her foot in the door. Buffing her résumé to a hard, glossy shine appeared to have been enough.

  Though Housden didn’t give company names, one interview would be with a brokerage house, working as an analyst specializ
ing in the food services industry. It seemed a little dry for Annie’s taste, but dry might not be so bad after living through World War Donovan.

  The next potential spot was in-house for a restaurant conglomerate, which Annie figured was ripe with the potential of seeing her current unhappiness amplified. The final interview the recruiter mentioned was the Holy Grail of jobs, as consultant to an accounting firm’s food services and franchise clients.

  She knew that an initial interview was far from an offer, but at least she was now a woman with possibilities. Best yet, each potential job was sexy enough that even her overachieving family would have to take notice. Grinning like an idiot, Annie printed the e-mail, then deleted it from the company’s system. She’d call Housden from home at lunchtime—after she shopped for a new interview suit that didn’t smack of suburbia.

  Annie tucked the e-mail into her purse, then started to prepare for her early afternoon meeting with the Ars/Ullman design team. Damn, but life was getting good again.

  BY TEN IN THE MORNING, Daniel had checked his e-mail a dozen times and still had nothing back from Annie. He felt so bloody caged and cut off from civilization.

  Even Eva’s early arrival had done little to pacify him. She’d tried her best, bringing muffins and such from the local bakery. She’d also had the sense to mostly leave him alone, instead badgering the reception clerk for any updates on Hal.

  Just past noon, a doctor in drab green scrubs entered the waiting room. “Family of Hal Donovan.”

  Eva and Daniel rose. After a quick introduction and recap regarding Hal’s new stent, the doctor said, “It’s doubtful that we’ll be letting Mr. Donovan go in the morning. He’s running a higher fever than we’d expect to see after a procedure like this.”

  “Do you know how much longer he’ll be here?” Eva asked.

  “A guess is the best I can do. We’ll be watching closely, but you can figure that Mr. Donovan will be here until some time late Thursday.”

  Eva frowned. “Can we see him soon?”