by Jenny Jacobs
“Sure,” he said, giving a casual shrug that she was sure was not in the least casual. “She and Mr. M basically adopted me when my mother died.”
She tried to imagine Michael’s mother and Ian co-existing under the same roof. “Wow,” she said softly. She had never looked past the brash exterior or thought of how it might have come to be. But just like her, he’d once been a scared kid.
The stadium lights went dark and she flinched in surprise, but instead of saying, “We should leave,” she put a hand on his arm and cleared her throat. “Well. Mrs. M should be proud of how you turned out.”
In the moonlight near the almost deserted stands, she could see his smile. “Did you just say something nice to me?”
Now it was her turn to smile. That was definitely the Ian she knew. “I’ll try to restrain myself in future,” she said. That broadened the smile on his lips. Emboldened, not at all sure why she was doing it, or if she should, she took a step closer to him. He didn’t move, just stood there, looking at her, strong and steady, keeping his hands in his pockets instead of reaching for her. Letting her take the step, be the one in control. She reached up and touched her lips to his, putting her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He didn’t say anything as she lifted her head and looked up at him. His breath tickled her cheek. She brushed her thumb along his lower lip. He kept perfectly still. He’d taken his hands out of his pockets, but he made no sudden moves. She touched her mouth to his again. Then somehow he was kissing her back — and she wanted — she wanted —
She pulled away. He started at her reaction, and looked surprised when she pushed him a step back. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked. “I didn’t meant to do anything — I’m sorry if — ”
“Of course not,” she cut in on his obvious agitation. “Ian. We talked about fun. I was thinking, you know, fun. That was something else.”
“You can say that again,” Ian said, raking his hand though his hair. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry. Greta, I — ”
“I’m ready to go home, Ian.”
Chapter Twelve
“So what you’re telling me is that you got her to go along with you,” Tess said, sipping one of her disgusting chocolate coffees and sizing him up. “And she had fun.”
“Yes,” Ian said cautiously.
They were at one of the small marble-topped tables at La Prima Tazza, the coffee shop Tess frequented, and Ian was trying to figure out how he’d gotten here. No, he knew how he’d gotten here. Greta wouldn’t even take his calls, either turning them over to Tess or letting voicemail pick up, and he couldn’t leave well enough alone. No. He had created the problem and now he had to fix it.
“So then you — what? Had a heart-felt conversation, which inspired her to trust you enough to kiss you.” Tess was ticking the points off on her fingers like a school principal chastising a pupil. He squirmed in his chair.
“Uh,” he said.
“And then you went and messed it up,” she finished.
“I — ”
She held up a hand. “I do not want details of what you did or did not do during the kiss.”
He gave her a disgusted look. “Trust me, I wasn’t about to divulge any of that information. But I didn’t mess it up.”
She nodded and leaned back in her chair. “Okay. Then to sum up: you were making excellent progress and then — bam! — it’s over.”
He winced. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, drinking his cup of Colombian black. Strong, rich, a little bitter. Full flavored, not doctored up with sugar and cream. He eyed Tess’s cup of mocha skeptically. He knew that Michael also drank chocolate coffee, just like Tess did. How did a man go up to the kid at the counter and order a thing like mocha coffee? With skim milk? He’d heard Michael say that: “with skim, no whipped cream.” A man shouldn’t have to specify “no whipped cream” on his coffee.
Even so, while drinking chocolate coffee, Michael had managed to get hold of Tess. And Ian was drinking black coffee and making the girls run away. It was almost enough to make a man break down and order a latte. He snuck a glance at the drink menu. Maybe next time.
“All right,” Tess said. “It wasn’t like that. How was it, then?”
“You know, I’m generally regarded as a smooth operator,” he said.
“Just not by Greta.”
“What is wrong with her?” he demanded. “We’re both adults, we like each other, we’ve got this sparky thing going.”
“Sparky?” She lifted a brow. “Sparky?”
“I’m a man, I don’t know how to explain emotions,” Ian grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. Just like a balky third-grader. He moved his elbows to the table and dropped his head in his hands.
“You have got it bad,” Tess said.
“Haven’t I been telling you?” he said, not looking up because she would probably be smirking at him. “What do I do?” he groaned, knowing he was pathetic and still letting Tess see the depths of his patheticness. It was actually kinda cathartic. He was starting to understand why women liked sharing their emotions.
“First, let’s start by not saying there’s something wrong with Greta,” Tess said. “That phrase irritates me. Most people have good reasons for doing what they do, if we could just all be patient enough to pause and figure that out.”
Ian, remembering that Tess’s daughter Belinda was cognitively impaired, mentally kicked himself for using a phrase Tess had no doubt heard one too many times. What’s wrong with her?
“Sorry,” he said, straightening in his chair. He should probably have asked, “What’s wrong with me?” Since meeting Greta that first time, he’d become a walking coil of frustration and it was starting to annoy him. On the other hand, Tess would probably have objected to that, too. Let’s not focus on what’s wrong with people, he encouraged himself. Let’s focus on solving the problem.
“Second,” Tess lectured — she was ticking her comments off on her fingers again and he listened like a good student — “let’s not assume that just because Greta doesn’t want to do what you want to do that you’re right and she’s wrong.”
Ouch.
“I thought you were on my side.” He dropped his head into his hands again. Could he be more pathetic?
Tess leaned across the table and patted his shoulder in a pitying way. That was enough for him to get a grip. He might be pathetic but he didn’t need to act like it. It was just so frustrating. He was not a man who bore frustration well.
“What do I do?” he asked her, squaring his shoulders. He was a man, a warrior. There was no task too difficult he could not do it, no goal too distant that he could not achieve it.
She grinned at him. It was very demoralizing. He could see the twinkle in her eyes. “You have come to the right place.”
“The coffee shop?” he asked disagreeably.
“And you wonder why Greta finds you so irritating,” she remarked, but she gave him another grin. Sure. Tess liked him fine. “Look,” she said. “Greta had a really bad marriage a couple of years ago — ”
“Yes, but — ”
“Don’t interrupt.” She wasn’t career military but she’d certainly developed the art of giving commands just fine. He didn’t interrupt, just picked up his coffee and gave her his full attention. “This is her story to tell and if you make me think too hard about telling it, I won’t,” she warned him. She gave him a look, and he opened his mouth to protest, then realized she was testing him and clamped his lips. When she was assured he understood the rules, which he demonstrated by remaining quiet for a full thirty seconds, she continued. “Greta worked really hard to get through school. She always had her eye on the goal, you know? Nothing was going to stop her from getting ahead. But in her last year of college, she met a man and fell really hard fo
r him.” Tess paused.
Though Ian was dying for details — she met a man and fell really hard for him didn’t say anything he needed to know and couldn’t have figured out for himself — he didn’t push. He didn’t even speak.
Satisfied that he was keeping his end of the bargain, Tess went on. “The man she married was an Army officer.”
Things were suddenly getting much clearer.
“And he was abusive to her,” Tess said, her eyes catching his, gazing intently at him, judging his reaction. “Not just calling her nasty names, you know?”
Ian’s stomach churned. He shoved his coffee cup aside, even knowing it wasn’t the cause of the sour taste in his mouth. How could any man hurt Greta? She was bright and intelligent and lovely and sparky. She might be argumentative and positive she was right, even when she wasn’t, but that didn’t mean you could hit her just to get her to stop.
“Jeez,” he said, completely inadequate. “You know I’d never — ”
“This isn’t about you,” Tess pointed out, and he nodded and reminded himself to shut up before she changed her mind about talking to him about this. “She couldn’t get anyone on base to help her.”
Now anger bit. Dammit, there were programs. There were things that were supposed to be done, avenues women were supposed to be able to take, people to help out. But he knew the military didn’t always operate the way it was supposed to.
With an effort he unclenched his fists. Anger didn’t help. Wanting to punch someone — yeah, he noted that irony — didn’t help.
“And?” he said.
“Eventually she got away,” Tess said. Of course it hadn’t been as simple as that. He understood, though, that Tess didn’t think it was her story to tell, and he respected the reasons why she was unwilling to go into details. Someday, when Greta trusted him more, she could tell him. But only what she was willing to share. Maybe that wouldn’t be very many details, either. But he didn’t need details. He just needed to figure out how to get to the point where she’d trust him.
“So that’s why she doesn’t trust men?” Ian asked. That was understandable. “And she especially doesn’t trust Army men?” That was unfortunate, because even though he was retired, undoubtedly she thought of him that way. He remembered his first meeting with her, during one of his last days in uniform. First impressions were very powerful. He could wear jeans or khaki dress pants for the rest of his life and that first impression would still exist.
“That’s why I told you to let her initiate the — err — ”
“The kissing,” Ian said. All right. He rubbed his palms on his pants. There was an explanation for Greta’s behavior. Nothing he could do about the past. He could accept that truth. But he was a man of action and he wanted to know what to do now.
“Yes.”
“I did let her initiate the — err. Then she invited me to join in. I mean, she didn’t actually say anything like ‘please kiss me back,’ but, you know, she meant it. So I did. Umm. Kiss her back, I mean.” Jeez. This was harder than talking about his emotions. He rubbed a hand over his face and took another slug of coffee. “Then she ran away. I can’t see where I did anything wrong.”
“You didn’t,” Tess said, a worried expression on her face. “I mean, what you’re describing sounds perfectly natural. I don’t know what went wrong.”
“What?” he demanded. “I thought you said I’d come to the right place. Answers, Tess! I need answers.”
She took a distracted sip of coffee. “She invited you to join in? You’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure,” he shot back. “I didn’t misunderstand a thing like that.”
“Okay.” The worried expression on her face did not leave. That was not reassuring. He had a sudden image of Greta’s face last night after she’d kissed him: serious, even a little scared. What had happened to all the cheerful brunettes he used to hang out with? He’d never had to worry about them. “Then what?” she asked.
“Then what?”
“What happened after you kissed her back? Specifically? I mean, if she just said, ‘Good night,’ that’s one thing but if she called a security guard to escort her to her car, that’s another.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Or are you saying you kissed her back when you really mean something else?”
“I’m a gentleman,” he said, outraged at her insinuation. He knew she was protective of everyone she cared about, but she didn’t really think he’d lie about a thing like that, did she?
“Okay,” she said, sounding skeptical as she swallowed the last of her coffee. She glanced up at the clock above the door. “I’ve got to go in a minute. Tell me what happened.”
He sighed. “She took a step back, pushed me away, and said, ‘That wasn’t fun.’”
“She said it wasn’t fun?” Tess asked, clearly puzzled. “Greta hasn’t ever insisted that anything be fun.”
Ian shifted in his chair, which had suddenly grown even more uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Uh. See, we agreed that we were both just going to have fun. Nothing serious, you know?”
“You agreed to have fun?” She sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and stared at him. “Ian, how can I help you if you don’t tell me the whole story?”
“I am telling you the whole story.”
“Not very coherently.”
“If I were in full possession of my faculties, would I be sitting here discussing my love life with you?”
“That’s a good point,” she said. She sighed and turned her attention to a man on the sidewalk just outside the window, walking a Jack Russell terrier on a leash. The sudden smile on Tess’s face was for the dog. Michael wasn’t ever going to have to worry about Tess finding other men attractive. He was, however, going to have to deal with her dog fixation for the rest of his life, which made Ian feel somewhat better about his own situation. After the dog and his owner turned the corner, Tess returned her attention to Ian and said, “So you agreed that you were both in it for fun and then you kissed her.”
He didn’t like the way she said that. “Look,” he protested. “There was nothing wrong with the kiss. The kiss was fine. It was just fine.” At her skeptical glance, he said. “It was better than fine! It was terrific. Will you stop criticizing the kiss? I know how to kiss a woman.” He knew that wasn’t quite fair because Tess wasn’t exactly criticizing his kissing skills, but it certainly felt like it. He took a deep breath. This had not been one of his smarter ideas.
“If you’re so smooth, tell me again, why is Greta avoiding you?” Tess asked impudently.
He cracked. “If you want to know why the Chiefs went for the two point conversion in the first half against the Raiders last week, I can give you a couple of perfectly good explanations. But no man can say why a woman does anything.”
Tess snorted inelegantly. “And it is with this attitude you want to persuade Greta to have more fun with you?”
“I don’t want to have fun with Greta,” he said, in what was almost a shout. He controlled himself. If Greta didn’t think kissing qualified as fun, then he didn’t want fun, he wanted — well, what did he want? That was exactly the question Tess posed next:
“Then what do you want?”
He didn’t know how to answer it. What he wanted was to kiss Greta and not make her run away. Oh, boy. He was in trouble.
A vision of her standing at his side, welcoming guests to a party he was hosting, wearing that blue dress he liked so well, the one she’d worn to Tess’s wedding, the one she’d made out of fabric he’d brought home from India. He tried to think if he’d ever had a favorite dress before.
Oh, boy. He was in deep, deep trouble.
Surely there was a cheerful brunette in this town somewhere, one who wouldn’t have to have the concept of fun explained to her, who actually thought kissing was fun —
/> An image of Greta, hands on hips, glaring at him, calling him insufferable at Michael’s wedding. Another image of her, the wind pulling tendrils of hair loose from the pile on her head, daintily eating a hot dog and getting sticky fingers, pulling his hat over his eyes, smiling up at him —
Greta giving him a hug when she got home from work. Now he’d entered the realm of fantasy. He’d be outside grilling steaks. She’d make the salad or whatever kind of food she’d insist on making in order to maintain a healthy diet. Or maybe she’d grill the steaks while he set the table and poured the root beer. Nothing wrong with a fair division of labor. Now he just had to get her to agree with the program —
He shook his head sharply to clear it. Tess was giving him a sympathetic look. Maybe he didn’t need Tess. Maybe he could figure out how he could get Greta to pick up the phone when he called without Tess’s help. Maybe he should just go over to her house. Bring flowers, ring the doorbell, hope she wasn’t packing heat. Throw rocks at her bedroom window. Well, she’d probably call the cops and he’d have to explain himself.
“I want to be with her,” he said.
“Not just for fun,” Tess said.
“Nope.” He swallowed more coffee. “Not just for fun.”
Tess considered him for a moment. “Her usual workout time is nine A.M.”
• • •
It was nine A.M. Ian was at the gym, on the treadmill, hoping Greta would show up, feeling sort of like he was in high school again. Surely there were easier women to get to know. He glanced around. The gym was full of women. One of them would probably be susceptible to him. The world was large, and full of potential.
What if she didn’t show up? Or what if she left the minute she saw him? Focus on the treadmill, he told himself, increasing the speed until he was sweating as hard as he was breathing. Good. For a few minutes, all he could think about was not falling off the treadmill. Good. Perfect. Okay, a little too fast. Nothing wrong with going a little slower. Besides, he’d gotten his warm-up in. Time to lift some weights. The guys lifting in the weight room would talk about football. They could argue over the Chiefs’ two point conversion attempt.