11
FROM INSIDE THE CLUBHOUSE, Julie looked out at the slashing rain. Behind her was a big plastic bag brimming with party debris from Friday night. You have the party, you clean up the mess. That was the rule. Dressed in her favorite pink sweats and white long-john shirt, she held her broom in both hands and just stared at the tennis courts as if they contained the answers to her problems. She turned her head, catching sight of two mighty oaks, draped in Spanish moss and fighting against the wind. To Julie, they looked like stout, gray-haired old ladies caught outside without their headscarves. Well, the weather was certainly appropriate for the first day of March.
She nearly crumpled in a pitying, whining heap. Oh, sure, now you keep up with the dates. By counting backward on her calendar, she’d realized her period started Friday the thirteenth, the day she met Mike. How many times had she scurried to the toilet today—less than forty-eight hours after “the incident,” for crying out loud—to see if she’d started yet?
Get over it, girl. Clean up this pit and get back to your apartment. There’s hot chocolate and a book waiting for you. Despite everything plaguing her, Julie smiled and indulged in a cozy little shiver. She’d picked up a new romance by her favorite author yesterday at the mall and couldn’t wait to get to it.
See? Life goes on. Right in the middle of disasters, life goes on. Heartened some, Julie gave in to the seventies melody that spilled out of her portable CD player. She began sweeping with renewed vigor. So where were her friends and family now when there was a mess here to be dealt with? She harrumphed out loud. Like I want to see any of them yet, after what had happened Friday night. Tomorrow was soon enough to be humiliated, thank you.
She was glad she was alone. She needed to plot one Mike DeAngelo’s death. The wiener. If he were here right now-Julie hoisted the broom as if it were a fencing weapon and made a few lunging stabs at the empty space she thereby designated as Mike. “En garde, monsieur,” she told the air in a bad French accent as she parried and thrust her way across the large room. “Defend yourself, or prepare to die. Ha! Take that. And that.”
“And that!” a masculine voice behind her challenged as she was grabbed by the waist and swung up into the air. Her broom went flying, and she screamed out loud, clutching at the hands that held her prisoner.
“Put me down! Who—?” But she knew who. The only who who’d dare—the evil villain, Mike DeAngelo. She was spun dizzily again. Into her line of vision came the villain’s sidekick, the giggling Aaron the Cute, who was clapping his hands gleefully and jumping up and down. “Put me down!”
“Okay.” He put her down—with bone-jarring, teethclattering abruptness. And then spun her around to face him, holding her shoulders. “Did you miss me?”
When the three Mikes became one and her heart had gone from “racing” to “deliriously happy to see him,” Julie found her voice. “Miss you? I haven’t even tried to hit you yet. However, if you’ll go stand out in front of my car, I’ll—”
That was as far as Mike let her get before he grabbed her to him in a huge bear hug and covered her face with kisses, much to Julie’s sputtering consternation and Aaron’s screeching delight.
The little guy immediately attached himself to her legs, and rested his head on her tush. “I miss-ded you, Julie. I was at my ‘nother grandma’s house in ‘Lanta.”
Pinioned in place as effectively as any Oreo middle stuff, Julie could move nothing but her head. “I missed you, too, Aaron. Did you have a nice time?” She twisted as best she could, trying to dodge Mike’s continued kisses.
“Yeah. We had fun. An’ my mommy was there. But hers gone now. She went to.um.” He reached around Julie to pull on his father’s jacket. “Where did her go?”
“Mountain climbing in Monaco.”
Julie pulled back to stare in disbelief at Mike. “Do you make this stuff up? Mountain climbing in Monaco?”
Mike grinned down at her, as if she were a particularly wonderful Christmas package he’d just opened. “Swear to God, that’s where she is.”
“Uh-huh. Let me go, please.” She wriggled in his grasp to prove she was serious. But Aaron was the only one who did as she asked. Julie twisted to see him scamper off and pick up a party hat she’d overlooked. When Mike loosened his grip, she looked up at him expectantly. But still he stared down at her, grinning. Julie cocked her head at him. “What is so funny?”
“You are. Was that me you were stabbing with your broom?”
Her gaze flitted around the room, settling everywhere but on him. “No.”
“Liar.”
She snapped her attention back to him. “I am not a liar.”
“You’re gonna go to hell if you keeping stacking ‘em up, girl.”
She renewed her struggles. “See you there, then. Now, let me go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And then he opened his arms with a grinning suddenness that sent Julie stumbling over her own feet. Mike stopped her fall with a hand on her arm.
Julie wrenched free and swiped her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Mike raised an eyebrow and then looked around the room. “I live here.”
She suddenly remembered a certain conversation in the rest room at Nana’s party. “Not here, Mike. And don’t start that. I mean, what are you doing here…with me?”
He grew serious. This particular expression of his somehow always emphasized the lean hollows under his high cheekbones. And made his eyes seem darker. He shoved his hands into his back pockets and shifted his weight. “I can’t be anywhere but where you are, Julie.”
She swallowed hard, feeling her blood course through her veins at a carnival-ride pace. If she weren’t careful, he’d sweep her right off her feet. She looked down, and then over at Aaron by the back doors. He was wearing the party hat and sitting cross-legged on the floor, humming to himself and flipping through a magazine. She looked back up at Mike. “How’s.how’s Caroline?”
Mike studied her a moment and then nodded. “Caroline is fine. Turns out the butler did it.”
“What? The butler?”
“I’m just kidding. I’ve always wanted to say that. But it turns out she loves her personal assistant. Remember Reginald—?”
Julie shoved at his chest. “Get out! Caroline and Reginald? Are you making this up? Because I swear if you are—”
Laughing, Mike grabbed her hands. “I’m not. How could I make up some soap-opera thing like that? Oh, by the way, she sends you her love. And says congratulations.”
Julie frowned. “What? Congratulations? What for—? Oh, you mean on my promotion?”
Now Mike looked serious. He let go of her and snapped his fingers. “Damn. I forgot to tell her about that.”
Julie thought she could still feel his strong grip around her wrists. “Then what for?”
Now he grinned. “For us.”
“Congratulations for us? What are you talking about? We haven’t done anything—” her face exploded in red-hot heat “—well, we have, but surely you didn’t tell her.”
Mike made a contradictory noise at the back of his throat. “Hardly. No, she said congratulations on.well, winning me, I suppose.”
“Winning you? She said congratulations on winning you? Excuse me, I need my broom.” She stalked around Mike and picked up her make-believe fencing sword.
“Hey, you’re not going to use that on an unarmed man, are you?”
Julie hefted her weapon of choice until its weight felt right in her hand. “Oh, yes. I am. I most certainly am. Winning you—ha! I never heard such self-centered conceit. Prepare to defend yourself, sir.”
Mike laughed and took one giant step toward her, handily disarming her. “I knew it was me you were killing. How come?”
Julie folded her arms under her breasts. “On principle, mainly.”
Mike absently twirled the broom between his hands, watching its motion. “And that principle would be.?”
Julie took a big breath and let it out. “Making me lov
e you.”
The broom clattered to the tile floor. She had Mike’s full attention. “Why is that so awful?”
Julie shook her head, feeling bested, somehow. She glanced over at Aaron. He was rolling around on one of the brightly upholstered couches, lost in some imaginary game. She looked back to the boy’s father. “Because…because we’re not right for each other, Mike.”
He narrowed his eyes. “How the hell do you figure that?”
Julie made an imploring gesture. “You don’t want a woman with a career, Mike. And I won’t give mine up.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“Come on, Mike. It’s not that easy. Look, I’m not sure I want to do this.this you and me thing, okay? You may be sure, or think you are, but I’m not sure that you’re sure. Does that make any sense?”
“No. But, look, Julie, I haven’t asked you to marry me. All I’m asking is for you to give us a chance. I agree with what you said a few days ago. I need to be alone to figure out what’s going on inside me. Just don’t decide anything right now.” He stopped, looking at her as if he expected her to say something.
Julie couldn’t.
He nodded in resignation and went on. “All right. I did a lot of thinking on the airplane. And I realized that all you and I do is fight or make love, or both. We’ve never tried just getting to know each other. We jumped right into being lovers. Don’t get me wrong—that part is great.” He grinned at her, devastating Julie’s defenses, if he only knew it. “But what I want most right now is for us to be friends—friends who happen to love each other. I’ve never had that with a woman. And twice in forty-eight hours I’ve had two different women tell me love isn’t enough. I want to see what else there is.”
My God, what a beautiful speech. Julie was lost in his wonderfulness. Then why in the heck are you saying no to this man? He was the one she would love for all her life. She knew that. Just as she knew she would sacrifice her career, her apartment, her car, her clothes, her dignity, her freedom, her heart, her soul—you name it, for him. And now he wanted to be friends.
As her love life flashed before her eyes, Julie nodded. Now that she’d got what she wanted, what else could she do? “You’re right, Mike. On all counts.” She held out her hand. “Friends?”
He gave her that white-teethed, dimple-cheeked, dazzling, sexy grin of his that unhinged her knees…and then took her hand. Raising it to his lips, he kissed it. “Friends.”
“FRIENDS? YOU’RE freakin’ friends with Julie now? I ain’t lyin’ here, DeAngelo, I can’t keep up. You axed your wedding to Caroline four days ago for this girl. I thought you loved her.”
Mike held his steak sandwich up in both hands and looked at Sal. “I do. Friends can love each other.” He took a bite, laid it back on the plate in front of him, and then picked up his glass of iced tea.
Sal watched him chew. Then, eyebrows raised, he gave Mike a sidelong glance over the top of his meatball sandwich. “We’re friends, Mikey. So, do you love me, or what?”
Mike thumped his glass down on the table and swallowed with great difficulty. “Don’t make me slap you, Pomerantz.”
Unoffended, Sal shrugged and took a huge bite. Wiping at his mouth with a paper napkin, he said, “Just checkin’.”
“I’ll give you something to check.”
Sal’s huge chest shook with suppressed laughter. But then he sat up straight. “Hey, this means Julie can wear my ring now, seein’ as how you two’s just friends and all.”
Mike rested his forearms against the wooden edge of the table and leaned over the booth as far as he could. “Your ring, Sal? Your ring? You gave Julie a ring? What the hell are you talking about?”
Sal smirked. “She didn’t tell you about that? That means it must mean something to her. Go figure, eh, Mikey? A good-lookin’ guy like you, and I’m the one she—”
“Explain the ring, Pomerantz.”
Sal grinned like a bulldog eating briars and took another bite of his sandwich, chewed it thoroughly, wiped at his mouth several times and kept a steady, cheerful gaze on his partner.
Five more seconds, Mike thought, and then I’ll kill him, right here in the restaurant.
Finally, Sal swallowed and leaned toward him. “Excuse me, Mr. Federal Agent, but you’re scarin’ me with that face of yours.” Then he sat back, waving away Mike’s intensity. “It’s nothin’. I’m yankin’ your chain. Me and Julie’s just friends. Like you and Julie. But unlike you, I bought her a ring—a gumball ring. That’s all. It made her feel better.”
“A gumball ring? What the hell’s a—? When?”
“That day she came to the office, and you made her cry.
“Son of a bitch.” But Mike wasn’t talking to Sal. He was looking down at his plate, his appetite gone. His curse was self-directed.
“Yeah. I thought so, too. So’d she.”
Mike looked up. Sal apparently still thought so. “What the hell am I going to do, Sal?”
Sal’s bushy eyebrows went up. “What do I look like here—Ann Landers? All of a sudden I know so much about women. It ain’t like I’m your mother or nothin’. Hey, where you going?”
Mike stopped in his headlong flight out of the small diner to turn back to Sal. “Pay the bill, buddy. I’ll get it next time. I gotta go make a call.”
His completely baffled partner gestured at him, obviously forgetting he still held his sandwich. A saucy meatball went airborne into the next booth and onto a startled woman’s lap. Sal never missed a beat as he leaned over to the lady. “Sorry, ma’am. Official government business. Send Uncle Sam your cleanin’ bill.” He turned back to Mike. “Who you callin’?”
“Julie’s mother!”
“OKAY, HERE’S WHAT WE’RE going to do.”
She was like a general on the battlefield, Mike mused as he stared in open admiration at Ida Cochran. She sat hunched over a legal pad and a calendar at her dining room table in Sun City Center that evening. She scrutinized her work, made a face, scratched out what she’d just written and started over.
“Okay. We need an excuse for the party. A theme or something. Got any ideas?”
Mike thought a moment, staring at her hands. She had a ring on almost every finger. “No. Nothing. Unless you count the Ides of March, when Caesar was killed. That’s in less than two weeks.”
She consulted her calendar, wrote that date down, stared at it and then scratched it out. “No. It’s too…serious. Besides, Jack looks terrible in a toga.”
Despite himself, Mike began to get a mental image of bandy-legged, paunch-bellied Jack Cochran in a toga. “I see what you mean. But now I’m stumped.”
“Me, too. Let’s get Jack in here. He’s overdue for a good idea.”
Mike bit back a grin as she called her short, squat husband into her presence. Jack came in with Aaron. They each held Lego creations of their own. “Jack, honey, we need to celebrate something.”
Jack fitted a tiny Lego onto his.thing he’d made, showed it to a very impressed Aaron, and then raised his blue-eyed gaze to his wife and Mike. “Yeah? Like what?”
Ida made a noise. “That’s what I’m asking you.”
Jack’s expression slipped. “What? Did I forget something? It’s not our anniversary, is it?”
Ida gave Mike a will-you-look-at-what-I-have-to-dealwith-here look. Mike clamped down hard on his back teeth to keep from laughing. She then turned to her husband. “No, it isn’t, and you didn’t forget anything.”
“Good.” Jack then inspected Aaron’s conglomeration of plastic blocks. “That’s pretty good, little fella. But I think you need a specialized gazinta piece. It gazinta this right here.” He pointed out Aaron’s engineering mistake to him. As the concerned little guy jetted off to amend his oversight, Jack turned to his wife. “So what do you want from me?”
“Jack, don’t make me snatch out the last blond hair on your head. I’m trying to help Mike here with Julie. You know that.”
“I do. Which is why I’m entertaining Aar
on in the other room.” His expression then sobered as he turned to Mike. “And I’m hoping that this celebration has something to do with a future wedding. Especially after last Friday night’s performance. Never again do I want to slink out of a party, along with a room full of amused strangers, because my single daughter’s in a public rest room with a man and they’re…you know.”
Ida threw her hands up. “For Pete’s sake, Jack, get with it. This is the nineties. Did you think Julie’d get to age thirty and still be a virgin?”
Mike’s eyes widened. Julie would die if she heard this. He wasn’t too sure he’d live through this conversation, himself.
Jack smacked his hand down on the polished table. “I know the times, Ida. But I’m talking to the young man here.” He turned to Mike. “I’m asking you, so I can sleep at night. Until your wedding night, don’t lay a hand, or anything else, on my daughter. You make that solemn vow to me, I’ll help you. You break that vow, I’ll break you. We got an understanding?”
Ida shook her head. “Now you’re going to break him. He’s got thirty years and fifty pounds on you. But all of a sudden, you’re a Mafia don.”
Keep his hands off Julie? Impossible. Several really hot and steamy images of her sweet, naked little body and of the two of them entwined in bed flared like fireworks through his libido. But wait—wasn’t that exactly what he and she had decided last Sunday between themselves? Friends. No lovemaking. No fighting. Just getting to know each other. He refocused on Jack Cochran. The fireworks fizzled. “I promise, Mr. Cochran. I won’t lay a hand on her until her last name is DeAngelo. If she’ll have me.”
Jack thought about that and finally uncompressed his lips. “She’ll have you. You just have to convince her. I know my daughter loves you, or we wouldn’t be having this talk. But I also know she takes after her mother. Stubborn? Let me tell you! The girl just wants you to woo her, like I had to do with Ida. So, I’m saying I’ve been there.” He pulled out a mahogany chair and sat down. “All right, what about Melba’s kid’s birthday on the twenty-third?”
A Man In Demand Page 15