Enlisted by Love

by Jenny Jacobs

  He slowed the treadmill, climbed off, wiped it down, then slung his towel across his neck and went to get a drink of water. The front door to the club opened and in came a passel of kids, probably from the university, and then … Greta. He had just successfully managed to put her out of his mind for a full two minutes. Of course she would show up now.

  He straightened. She caught sight of him, her eyes going wide. Then her mouth set in a grim line and she looked away from him. She signed in at the desk, showed her membership card, then walked over to the bank of treadmills, giving him a wide berth.

  “Hi, Greta,” he said, catching up with her, feeling ridiculously happy to see her, even if she was frowning at him.

  “Hello, Mr. Blake,” she said in freezing tones. He should have known they’d end up back at “Mr. Blake.” Like that could prevent the sparky thing between them from taking root and becoming something real. He couldn’t help the way the smile deepened on his face. She was adorable. Although he knew it was more than his life was worth to say a thing like that to her. But she was.

  He watched her stiff back for a moment as she climbed onto one of the treadmills, then caught himself. She and the stairclimbing woman would probably call the manager over and have him thrown out if he stayed here staring at Greta.

  Fine. He just needed to stick with his original plan. He walked to the weight room and talked to a personal trainer he knew for a minute as he stretched before starting to lift. Then the trainer’s client came in and Ian contented himself with finding a comfortable bench and starting on some biceps curls.

  A few minutes later, warmed up and gleaming slightly from the exertion, Greta came into the room. She studiously ignored him. He grinned again. There were only three other people in the room, so it wasn’t like she just hadn’t seen him in the crowd.

  She went to the leg press, moved the pin, adjusted the seat. Taking his time putting the weights back on the rack, he covertly watched her actions. Obviously she’d done this often enough not to need anyone’s help with the equipment, so there went his idea of striking up a conversation with her by offering to give her a hand. He considered his options. Well, maybe he could offer to help her anyway and if that didn’t work, ask her to help him. Then he could subtly move the conversation onto the subject of when their next date should be. He could be smooth. He knew it.

  “Hey, Greta,” he said, approaching her at a slow saunter. Nothing messed up a man’s mojo like appearing to be in too much of a hurry. She glanced up, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling in time with her moves, her face a little tense from the effort. Or maybe it was him that was making her tense. Nah, it had to be the leg presses.

  “Be happy to spot for you,” he said, remembering his carefully planned course of action.

  “I don’t use free weights.” The words were perfectly polite but the subtext of Go away, you bother me was perfectly clear.

  But he wasn’t that easy to dismiss. Luck — in the guise of Tess giving him a couple of strong hints — had offered him an opportunity to talk to Greta, and he fully intended to seize the opportunity.

  “Free weights are great,” he said. “They work all of the — ”

  “Mr. Blake.” Here came those freezing tones again. He was so far gone that he liked the freezing tones. He’d bet good money that she didn’t bother using freezing tones on men like the lawyer. That meant Ian was special to her. He was also, obviously, insane.

  “I consult with a physical therapist who helps me decide on the appropriate course of physical activity,” she explained, enunciating so clearly that he would have understood the sentence even if the only language he knew was Farsi.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He waited a respectful moment, then asked, “Would you mind spotting for me?”

  “Yes, I would mind.” That was one thing you could trust about Greta. She was always clear and direct. A man couldn’t misinterpret her if he tried. “I would like to get my workout finished as soon as possible,” she added, so either she was softening towards him or she’d just remembered that he was still a client and she couldn’t be quite as rude as she undoubtedly wanted to be. “I injured my knee earlier this year, and want to keep it strong. I simply do what needs to be done and then go home.”

  Impulsively, Ian reached out and touched her bare shoulder. “You’ve got beautiful definition in your deltoids,” he said, then wanted to smack himself on the forehead. Beautiful deltoids? Yeah, that was smooth. He tried to recover. “So you must do an upper body workout too.”

  “On Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she snapped. Then, as she remembered the whole he-was-still-a-client consideration, she added more graciously, “Working only part of your body creates a lack of balance.”

  “Well, congratulations on creating such a good balance,” he said and refrained from complimenting her on her triceps.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

  She finished the last press and leaned back against the seat, taking a deep breath. He looked into her bottomless blue eyes and forgot what he was going to say, which was something along the lines of “me, either.”

  • • •

  “So how was your workout today?” Tess asked. Greta gave her sister a sharp glance. Tess’s round face seemed innocent of malice or complicity but she never asked Greta how her workouts went. She knew exactly how Greta felt about working out because Greta had on previous occasions expressed herself forcibly on the subject. Besides, wasn’t asking about one’s workout sort of like asking, “So how was the oil change?”

  “Ian was there,” she said, studying her sister’s face.

  “Oh?”

  Much too innocent, Greta decided. People who wore their emotions so close to the surface shouldn’t try to dissemble. She dropped the gym bag on the bed and unzipped it, pulling out the sweaty clothes and tossing them into the wicker hamper. She’d already had her shower at the gym, and was dressed for the afternoon’s work. But Tess was waiting for something.

  “What?” she asked warily, plumping a pillow, then sitting down and stretching her legs out on the mattress. She relaxed into the pillows. This was much better than leg presses.

  “Ian,” Tess said. “How was he?”

  Tess had sent him. That was the only explanation for her curiosity. When Greta regained her strength from the exertion of working out, she’d have a thing or two to say about that. In the meantime, she merely commented, “He was his usual annoying self,” and, opening her laptop, booted it up.

  “Oh?” Tess said again. Did she look disappointed? What was she up to? That was a silly question. It was clear what she was up to. The real question was, Why? “He’s not so bad,” Tess added.

  “He’s arrogant and opinionated.”

  “You forgot insufferable and obnoxious.”

  Greta ignored her. She frowned at her followup schedule, updating it with notes she’d made in her day planner and in her brain. Whenever she worked out, she ended up with tons of great ideas and she had to write them down before she forgot them. Tess had suggested that she get a smartphone or a pad so she could write them down as she had them, but she had seen people trying to multitask while working out, and when they did, they ended up doing none of the tasks well. Look at Ian. Perfect example. He should not have tried flirting with her — or whatever it was he’d been attempting to do — while working out. He should have —

  He shouldn’t have done anything. Good heavens, why was she even sparing a single thought about him? She was putting him out of her mind. When he had kissed her, she had felt herself falling into him, falling for him. She had wanted to throw caution to the wind and hand herself over, just like that. Take me, I’m yours. It was unsettling. No. Not unsettling. It was terrifying.

  “Ian likes you,” Tess persisted.

  “Many people like me,” Greta sa
id, not looking up from her laptop because she didn’t really want to have this conversation, and if she made eye contact with her sister, then she’d have to.

  “But not like he does.”

  “Just because a man likes me, romantically speaking, doesn’t mean I have to date him.”

  “That’s very true. But if he likes you, romantically speaking, and you like him, romantically speaking, which you do, that seems promising. If you’d let it be.”

  “I do not like him,” Greta said, feeling as if she’d suddenly been transported back to high school. Next she’d be passing notes and giggling behind her locker door. No. She’d never giggled behind a locker door in her life and she wasn’t going to start now.

  “Do, too,” Tess said with a smile. “You just wish you didn’t.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Greta said with asperity. She indicated her laptop. “I’m trying to get some work done.”

  “He really does like you,” Tess said.

  “I know,” Greta said, softening a little. “I’m just not — he’s not my type.”

  Tess turned away as if she might be hiding a smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Greta gave Renee a friendly smile and a polite wave — the shop assistant was on the phone and mouthed a “hello” to her — then made her way to the back of the showroom. She pushed through the double doors and walked into Michael’s workshop. It was unusually quiet and she saw that no one was in the main work area, not even Jimmy, Michael’s erstwhile carpenter’s assistant.

  She took a moment to look at some of the pieces Michael was working on, then went to see if he was in his office. He wasn’t, but she finally tracked him down in the finish room, where he was attaching hardware to a cabinet door. She recognized the design at once and she said delightedly, “Michael, that’s beautiful.”

  The cabinet was a large, free-standing unit, an unexpected juxtaposition of ebony in a traditional country design. When Michael had first proposed it in response to her problem — “They want exotic country, whatever that means” — she hadn’t been entirely convinced he could pull it off. But Tess had been sure he could, and talked Greta into agreeing to it. And he had pulled it off. Why had she ever doubted?

  Michael looked up and said, “Hey, Greta. How’s it going?” He set aside his tools and wiped his hands on the cloth he always kept in his back pocket. She’d never had the heart to point out that half the time the cloth was dirtier than his hands.

  “The Mansfields are going to love this,” she said, running her fingers along the side of the cabinet. “It’s incredible. I hate that entire house but it’s going to be an amazing place when we’re done.”

  “You hate it? I think it’s going to be one of your signature designs.”

  “It’s not my taste,” she said. “You know I’m a European antiques junkie.”

  “You go for the romantic look,” Michael agreed, opening a drawer in a metal organizer behind him and picking through it, probably looking for the rest of the hardware he’d purchased for the cabinet.

  Romantic? She considered the command center. It was attractively furnished, of course, but —

  “Which is funny,” Michael went on, lifting out a silver knob and its matching screw and closing the drawer. “Because you’re not really a romantic person.”

  Greta blinked at him, unaccountably hurt by his remark. What did that mean? It was funny to think she might have romantic notions or tendencies? Maybe she didn’t wear them on her sleeve, but was it really so impossible to believe they might exist a layer or two below the surface? Did she seem so cold and remote that no one could imagine her being romantic? She was like any woman. Wasn’t she? She wanted a little kindness, a little tenderness, a little candlelight and caring.

  Just like Donald provided. Donald understood that she liked a little romance, that she had a little romance in her soul. And just because Donald was boring didn’t mean that he was the wrong man for her. She could learn to overlook his boringness. She had learned to overlook a lot in her life.

  “How’s the dining room furniture for Ian coming along?” she asked briskly. There was no need to bring her personal life into this.

  “Getting there,” he said, marking the knob placement on the cabinet door. “It requires more thought than this and I haven’t had much time to concentrate lately.”

  “Yeah, Tess’ll distract anyone,” Greta agreed. She watched him for a minute. He picked up his eye protection and slipped it on, then turned on the drill and made a hole for the knob. He switched the tool off and set it and the protective glasses aside. He brushed the sawdust from the hole and inserted the screw and the knob and twisted it into place. He stepped back and eyed the door, then gave a quick nod of satisfaction.

  “Does the silver work?” he asked casually, though he had to wonder why she was still standing there, her feet apparently glued to the floor.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. She could make design decisions even when she wasn’t paying full attention. She hesitated and then said, “How did you know you wanted to be with Tess? I guess I mean, when? Was it after you two had the big fight about your late wife?”

  Michael looked over his shoulder at her, looking startled. Greta knew it was the kind of question Tess would ask, not Greta, and that he was surprised Greta would ask it. But she didn’t apologize and she didn’t withdraw the question. She wanted to know. She wasn’t sure why.

  He turned around to face her, propping a hip on the worktable. “I knew the first time she walked in here,” he said, his voice soft, a reminiscent look in his eyes. “She looked like she’d come to tell my fortune. But I already knew what the crystal ball had to say.”

  “That soon?” Greta asked. “You sure put up a fight.”

  He laughed. “When I found out she was your sister, I knew exactly why you never let her spend any time with me.”

  “You weren’t ready,” she said softly. “I knew she’d hit you like a freight train.”

  “I would never have been ready if Tess hadn’t come along,” he said. “Although it did feel a lot like getting hit by a train.”

  “Tess knew right from the start, too,” Greta said, remembering what her sister had told her. “I wish — ” She stopped.

  Michael said, “You’ve been my friend for a long time, Greta. So has Ian. I was, I don’t know, nine or ten when Ian’s mother died. He was fifteen or so. My parents were members of the church that originally sponsored Ian and his mother. You know he was born in Thailand?”

  “He told me.”

  “So my parents — my mother, really — took him in so he could finish high school. Then he joined the Army.”

  Ian had told her about living with the Mannings, but hadn’t offered many details. Hearing Michael’s side of the story intrigued her. “Were your families close, then?”

  Michael shook his head. “No, not at all. We didn’t have any special relationship beyond what people going to the same church might have. But after his mother died, Ian came to my mother. He wanted to barter work around the house or anything she needed to have done for the chance to live in the basement and finish high school.”

  “I see,” Greta said. “Or rather, I don’t. I know you’re telling me this for a reason, I’m just not sure what it is.”

  Michael nodded, but instead of telling her the reason, he continued with the story. “My mother told Ian she would take him, though not as a laborer in exchange for room and board. She told him he had to contribute like a member of the family did, and beyond that he had to do well in his studies and stay out of trouble, and if he could manage that, she and my father would be happy to provide for him.”

  “That was very generous,” Greta said, though she still couldn’t see what Michael was trying to say.

  “She told Ian she wasn’t going to do
it out of some sense of obligation or duty to a woman she barely knew.”

  “Your mother is not a sentimental person.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “She told Ian, ‘I am taking you in because beneath that brash exterior, I know a good man exists. See you do not disappoint me, young man.’ And he never has, Greta. He never has.”

  “Considering the rest of us are a dead loss to her, that’s surely saying something,” Greta agreed and finally understood what he was trying to say.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Donald gave her an adoring look. Ordinarily, Greta appreciated adoring looks, even felt they were her due. Unfortunately, when she gazed into his eyes, all she could think was, Hello, anyone home? It was vexing. She wanted very much to like Donald. They had a great deal in common. In addition, he was attractive and employed, both plusses in her book. He was a good dancer — and didn’t require her to dance the Texas two-step. He enjoyed courting her — taking her places he thought she’d like, flattering her with compliments, sending flowers regularly, and bringing her little gifts. These exemplary qualities had the effect of making him only somewhat more tolerable than Tess’s mutt Rufus.

  There was no reason she should not enjoy Donald’s company. He was always decorous and polite, never demanding or bossy. This had the effect of leaving her cold from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

  She’d been optimistic that with patience he would grow on her — until tonight. He had taken her to Zen Zero again, with the vacuous remark that it was “their” place and their one month anniversary.

  Anniversary of what? she wondered. There was nothing between them to celebrate, so what was she doing, sitting here bored out of her mind? Waiting for Donald to become something he wasn’t? That was a bad bargain for both of them.