by Cindy Gerard
“I am not like him. Whoever he was, I am not like him. Give me the chance to show you that. Give me the chance to show you how good it could be between us. That’s all I want, the chance to show you something good.”
She wasn’t having any of it. Not tonight. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, and he could tell by the slight trembling she was working so hard to conceal that she was holding herself together by a very thin thread.
One of the hardest things he’d ever done was leaving her like that and walking out the door.
“Did you know he has a dog?”
“Leonard has a dog?” January asked, glancing up from her salad and meeting Helen’s eyes. They were sharing a late lunch at January’s desk. Helen had been recounting her previous night’s date with Leonard.
“Oh, goodness no.” Helen laughed around the folds of a paper napkin and carefully patted her mouth so that her lip gloss—the color, she’d informed January with a wicked grin, was Passionate Pumpkin—wouldn’t smear. “Leonard can hardly take care of himself, let alone a dog. Michael. Michael has a dog. A big bushy hound named George. George the Bush. Get it? Don’t ya just love it?”
January sighed and speared a crouton with her fork. It had been this way for over a week now. Since the night Michael had left her cowering like a whipped dog in the rain, he’d been dropping by the office to “chat” with Helen. Helen, in turn, never missed an opportunity to work some of her newfound information about her “suitor elect” into conversations with January.
“His cat’s name is Fluffy,” Helen added.
January set aside her fork, fighting the picture that came to mind. Slowly removing her glasses, she studied Helen suspiciously. “Michael has a cat named Fluffy?”
“No, dear. Leonard. Leonard has a cat named Fluffy, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why he gave it that name. Mangy critter has less hair than Leonard. I truly don’t know why he keeps it around. Cats are so independent, they don’t really need anyone to take care of them. Well, there, I guess I answered my own question, didn’t I?” She giggled. Ignoring January’s narrowed eyes, she busied herself stirring artificial sweetener into her tea and saturating her salad in French dressing. “Now a horse, there’s an animal that requires a lot of care.”
January sighed, regretting her question even as she asked it. “Who has a horse?”
Helen stared thoughtfully into space, her Sizzling Strawberry eye shadow giving her an otherworldly look. Finally she shrugged and said, “Oh, nobody I can think of, sweetie, but Michael could certainly have one if he wanted to. What with his family owning a cabin up in the mountains and all.”
She’d had to reach quite a way for that one, but January gave Helen credit. She was a craftsman. January felt like she was watching Helen piece together a patchwork quilt called “The Life and Times of Michael Hayward.” So now she knew that Michael had a dog and a cabin in the mountains. A couple more squares to add to the quilt Helen had been working on all week. January already knew far more about Michael Hayward than she wanted to. She knew enough to make him seem too human, too real . . . too nice.
She knew, for instance, that Michael owned a co-op apartment in New York City. Now that he was back in Boulder, though, he intended to sell the apartment and make Boulder his permanent residence. She also knew why he had gravitated to Boulder in the first place. Boulder was his birthplace. When she had met up with him eighteen years ago, he’d been living in Chicago. Evidently his work had taken him there, and since then it had taken him a little bit of everywhere. His family had remained settled in the Boulder area, and Michael, according to Helen, was a family-oriented man. His younger brother, Rob, was an engineer for the city development committee in nearby Longmont, and his sister, Gretchen, was married and lived in Boulder with her husband and two children. Finally, both of Michael’s parents were retired and living in Denver. He wanted to be closer to all of them.
“Doesn’t it sound romantic?” Helen’s dreamy voice broke into January’s thoughts. “A mountain retreat. Just imagine, moonlight on a fresh snowfall, a crackling fire in a huge stone hearth—”
“Helen . . .” January warned, but Helen went on like she hadn’t heard.
“My Jack took me to a place like that for our honeymoon. It was one of the happiest times of my life.”
The protest January was about to issue died on her lips when she saw the faraway and poignant expression in Helen’s eyes. Blinking hard, Helen met January’s gaze. “You are blowing a very good thing here, sweetie.”
January shook her head. “Helen, please—”
“January,” Helen interrupted sternly, “I’m telling you, you are making the mistake of your life. This man is a special man. And despite the fact that you’ve done everything but kick him in the teeth, he keeps coming back. Do you have any idea what an unusual trait that is in a man as strong as he is? When are you going to get wise to the fact that he is no threat to you? That excuse he trumped up about wanting to do an article was only that, an excuse to find a way to meet you. All he wants from you is a chance to be with you.”
January lost her appetite for her salad. “Helen, you know my reasons.”
“Honey, I know. And I understand. But Jan, you can’t judge all men by your father. And you can’t live your entire life through your work. It’s not healthy. It’s not even wise. You have so much courage. Show some of it now and take a chance on finding a little happiness, on having—heaven forbid—a little fun. Honey, you’re entitled.”
Entitled. That was a term January had never even vaguely associated with herself. Entitled. She rolled the thought around in her mind, but it drifted away in the wake of a still-vivid, still-terrifying childhood memory.
“Jan?”
She snapped her gaze to Helen’s with a start.
“Honey, where were you? You looked like you were a million miles away.”
January fought back unexpected threatening tears. She hadn’t cried since she was a little girl. “I was,” she said quietly. “I was a million miles away.”
The sympathetic expression on Helen’s face compelled January to confide something she’d never told another living soul. “My name was Elaine January Griffin,” she said slowly. “Elaine, for my mother’s sister. January, because my father took one look at me when I was born and said I was the spitting image of my mom. And since my mom was the coldest bitch he’d ever known, he wanted me named for the month that was as cold as she was.” She thought of Michael comparing her kisses to cold beer and smiled tightly. “Some legacy, huh?”
“Oh, baby.”
“What if I’m just like her, Helen?” She let the older woman see a weakness she’d never dared reveal, and it scared the hell out of her. “What if I can’t respond to a man the way he needs a woman to respond to him? Maybe my father had a reason to drink. Maybe my mother’s coldness drove him to it.”
“And maybe your father’s drinking was the reason your mother couldn’t respond. In any event, you are not your mother. Despite everything you’ve been through, you’re a warm, loving individual. Give yourself a chance to find out that you are also a warm, loving woman. Don’t hide behind your fears any longer. Give Michael a chance.”
She shook her head. “He scares me, Helen.”
“Of course he does. He’s the first man who’s had a hide thick enough to take all the dirt you dish out and not tuck his tail between his legs and run away. Honey, you shouldn’t let his persistence intimidate you. Let it lift you. He’s one gorgeous hunk of man. Enjoy him.”
“Enjoy him?”
“Yes, enjoy him. You do understand the term ‘enjoy,’ don’t you? It’s a bold new concept, I know, but rumor has it that it’s catching on. Why, I understand some people actually work just five days a week now and take the other two days—I believe they call it a weekend—to relax and do fun things like date. Whoops, there’s another new term for you.
I’ll explain—”
“Enough.” January laughed. “I get the picture.”
“We can only hope.”
January smiled warmly. “You are a wild and wonderful woman.” It was the closest she could come to an admission of love.
Helen flashed her a Cheshire cat grin. “So Leonard was saying last night.”
As if on cue, the phone rang. Helen pounced on it.
“Good afternoon, January Stewart’s office, how may I help you?” A wide, saucy grin split her face. “You make that request one more time, sweet thing, and I just might take you up on it.”
January knew immediately that Michael was on the other end of the line. She felt her heart stutter, then slide into a deep, heavy cadence.
“How’s my favorite flirt today?” Helen asked, then laughed wickedly. “I’ll just bet you are.” She giggled again, then listened. “January?” Helen raised a hopeful brow her way.
She came close, she really did, but in the end she couldn’t make herself do it. Almost painfully, January shook her head.
Helen smiled sadly and turned back to the phone. “No, I’m sorry, Michael. She’s not . . .” Helen paused, then finally finished, “. . . available. No, I couldn’t say when. What? Oh, sure. I’ll give her the message. You, too, you big rascal.”
She hung up and said flatly, “Michael says hello.”
January fixed her concentration on the cherry tomato she’d been chasing around her salad bowl for the past five minutes and waited for the lecture she knew would follow. It didn’t come. Instead, Helen gathered the remains of her lunch and, clucking like a chicken, flapped her way out of the room.
January tossed her salad in the trash and crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m not chicken!” she shouted above Helen’s noisy exit. “I’m just cautious. Is there any crime in that?”
Helen responded with several insistent clucks.
January grinned in spite of her irritation. “As long as you’re in the mood,” she yelled, “I could use a dozen eggs.”
Four
January liked autumn best. The colors, the scents, the clean, crisp zip in the air. She shoved the sleeves of her heavy gray sweatshirt up to her elbows and dug a little deeper for the run up the hill. By the time she reached the summit she was gasping for air and clutching her aching sides. She’d pushed too hard—nothing new—and now she had to pay the piper.
Veering off the jogging path at a slow, cooldown trot, she ducked under some low-hanging branches and followed a little-used trail through the thickest part of the woods, heading toward the creek. This time of day, early on a Saturday morning and in full sunlight, she didn’t worry about the isolation or the vulnerability of being a woman alone. She welcomed the solitude and the peace that came with it.
When she reached the creek, she sat down on the carpet of dried maple and aspen leaves and listened to the gurgle of water tripping over the stony creek bed. Slowly her breathing returned to normal and the ache eased out of her side.
Complacent in a way that only the afterburn of physical exertion could make her, she flopped down on her back and indulged in some rare and basic laziness. Feeling like a kid playing hooky, she watched through the lacework of bare tree limbs as china-white clouds cruised against the backdrop of the blue Colorado sky.
And she thought of Michael.
Michael, and the way he’d tasted when he kissed her the night he’d brought her home in the rain. Michael, and the way he’d caressed her with his eyes and made her insides go all zingy and weak. Michael, and the way he’d looked like a little lost boy when she’d slammed the door in his face. She flinched just thinking about what she’d done to him, then felt a hollow ache of guilt remembering the anguish in his eyes when he’d realized she had prepared herself for a blow.
She still didn’t know where that reaction had come from. She’d known he wouldn’t physically hurt her, but another kind of fear had muddled things up. She was afraid she was beginning to care about him. The emotions he stirred inside her were so powerful, yet the memories he brought with him were so painful.
How could one man represent both threat and promise? He made her feel as out of control as runaway fireworks on the Fourth of July. She’d never known a man who had the power to dominate her thoughts this way, who made her consider her personal priorities over her professional ones. The children had always come first, and yet now, because of Michael, she wanted that number one spot for herself.
Pulling her knees up until they were pointing skyward, she flung an arm over her eyes and tried to analyze why she reacted to him that way.
The only thing she ended up analyzing was how he’d looked in those biker boots and bun-hugging jeans, then in banker flannel and a crisply knotted tie. She groaned and became so lost in the tummy-tightening images, it was a moment before she realized she was no longer alone.
She sat up, alert to the brittle snap of dry tree limbs and the crunch of running footsteps over fallen leaves and pine needles. Before she had a chance to register alarm or the presence of mind to rise to her feet, two huge, furry paws hit her full in the chest and shoved her to her back again.
“Dammit, George! Come back here!”
With a disjointed sense of relief, she recognized his voice. Michael was clearly irritated, and his curse rose above the deep-throated barking of what appeared to be one hundred pounds of dog in a teddy bear suit.
Ignoring his master, the bushy critter pinned her to the ground and exuberantly washed every inch of her face with a huge pink tongue.
“Get off her, you big oaf!”
As quickly as her canine admirer had arrived, he was gone, not of his own volition, but because Michael had forcefully dragged him away. Still battling the excited dog, Michael knelt by her side.
“January?” He had the audacity to look surprised when he realized it was her. “Oh, Lord, January. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She sat up slowly. “But as approaches go, I’ve got to tell you, this one lacks your usual finesse.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, well, what George lacks in finesse, he makes up for in sheer animal magnetism. Not that it’ll cut any weight right now, but you should feel honored that he attacked you. He only does that to people he truly likes.”
“Likes?” Charmed but not wanting to be, she gave George a forgiving scratch under his chin. “As in affection, or as in for dinner?”
Michael’s grin became a full-fledged smile. “As in affection. Our taste in ladies is very similar.”
It struck January then that she didn’t want to be angry at Michael for invading her solitude. Once she accepted that, it was less difficult to admit that she was glad to see him. From the look in his eyes and the sudden quiet between them, it would seem he, too, sensed the change in her attitude.
Apparently he didn’t quite know how to react to it either, because he busied himself with quick, absent pats to George’s back. “If you can behave,” he finally said, directing his comment to George, “I’ll let you go play.”
George’s response was an enthusiastic attempt to peel the skin off Michael’s face with one huge, scraping stroke of his tongue.
“Where’s the squirrel, George?” Michael asked in staged excitement. George bounced up and down like a little kid looking for Santa. “Go get him! Go get the squirrel.”
George charged away, his nose to the ground, searching diligently for a scent.
Michael grinned. “Works every time. It should keep him busy and out of your hair for a while.”
Feeling suddenly like their chaperone had exited stage left, January tried to direct her attention toward the creek and away from Michael. Tried and failed. Without her permission, her gaze strayed back to his devastating smile.
She looked at him uncertainly, telling herself there wasn’t a reason in the world for her to find him so attractive today. Gone
were both the biker and the businessman. In their place was a reject from a soup kitchen.
Knotted string and athletic tape held a pair of grungy jogging shoes together. His dingy gray sweatpants had holes in both knees, and the sweatshirt that used to boast the letters U.S.C. but now showed just an outline was frayed at the neck. The sleeves appeared to have been chewed off just above his elbows. A crimson sweatband held his unruly black hair away from his face and provided the only splash of color, except, of course, for the multifaceted diamond that glittered intriguingly in his left ear.
Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of, she thought, and not exactly a threat either. “Nice outfit, Hayward. What’d you do, roll a bum on the way over and swipe his clothes?”
He pretended to scowl. “This from a woman with leaves in her hair and paw prints on her . . . um, shirt.”
She looked down, felt herself redden, then brushed self-consciously at the dark marks imprinted over each breast.
When she raised her eyes, Michael was sitting back on his heels, studying her as if trying to gauge her mood. “I don’t suppose,” he began as he gently tugged a leaf from her hair, “that it would do any good to tell you it really is an accident that George and I stumbled onto you today.”
Something in his expression made her want to believe him. A long-nurtured resistance to trust, however, wouldn’t let her. “It does seem a little strange that I’ve never seen you here before.”
He shifted his weight until he was sitting beside her. Linking his wrists over upraised knees, he looked speculatively at her. “You mean you run here often?”
Seeing his genuine surprise, she realized he was telling the truth. “Not as often as I should,” she admitted, feeling an unsolicited sting of disappointment that their meeting was coincidental. Afraid he’d read her thoughts through her eyes, she diverted her gaze to the creek. “I rarely stray off the main path. But it’s so pretty up here, I couldn’t resist today.”
“It is pretty,” he agreed. “This is George’s favorite spot in the park. I think he pretends he’s a frontier dog making the wilderness safe for new settlers.”