Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  “Up here,” Linda called back.

  Kate went up the half flight of stairs to the main level of the house. The large open area that combined the living room, dining room, and kitchen offered a view of the Hill Country and Lake Travis. She found Dylan already dressed for church and eating breakfast with Linda and Jim.

  “There’s my best boy,” she said, and kissed his sticky cheek. “Mmm, maple syrup. My favorite.”

  “Want some?” he asked, holding up a forkful of pancake.

  “Maybe I’ll just have you instead.” He giggled when she made gobbling noises against his cheek. Just being near her son filled her heart with joy. “I missed you last night.”

  He bobbed his head in agreement, his cheeks bulging as he filled his mouth with pancake.

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Linda said. “And plenty of pancakes if you want some.”

  “I’ll take you up on the coffee.” Kate sighed, and headed for the cabinet to get down a mug. Even though she and Mike hadn’t stayed out that late, she’d spent the remainder of the night staring into the dark, remembering that kiss, trying to ignore the ripples of need that wouldn’t go away.

  “Did you have fun last night?” Linda asked from the table with enough innuendo to let Kate know she was asking about Mike, not the party.

  Kate’s hand tightened on the coffeepot before she forced it to relax. “The party was great. They had live music, tons of food, and the people! I’ve never seen such an eclectic crowd. You’d have loved it, Linda.”

  “Only I would have loved it alone. Jim hates parties.” Linda made a face at her husband.

  Smiling over her coffee mug, Kate watched Jim as she said, “Rachel Lee was there.”

  “Oh, yeah?” His eyes lit up. “As in the actual Rachel Lee?”

  “The genuine article,” Kate confirmed.

  “Now, that’s one party I wouldn’t have minded going to.”

  “Jim Davis!” Linda batted her husband playfully on the shoulder. “Why don’t you and Dylan finish getting ready for church?”

  “In other words,” Jim said to Dylan, “why don’t you men get lost so we women can talk.” Dylan giggled as Jim took both their plates to the sink. “Come on, partner,” Jim said. “Let’s go get the present you made for your mom.”

  “You made me a present?” Kate asked, delighted.

  “Uh-huh. A wooden paperweight.” Dylan nodded, his eyes wide. She gave silent thanks that he’d told her what the gift was, since some of them were difficult to figure out. “It’s out in the shop,” he said. “So you have to wait here while I go get it.”

  She smiled as her son dashed from the room with Jim lumbering slowly in his wake.

  “That shop,” Linda grumbled, clearing away the last of the dishes. “I swear I should get a case of dynamite and blow the thing to smithereens. Then Jim would have to spend some time with me.”

  “I take it your evening didn’t go as planned?” Kate asked, concerned.

  With angry jerks, Linda piled the dishes by the sink and turned on the water. “After we put Dylan to bed, Jim went right back out to that stupid shop. He stayed there so long, I fell asleep. So much for seduction.”

  “There’s always tonight.” Kate leaned her hip against the counter, sipping coffee as her friend loaded the dishwasher. “Speaking of Dylan, did Jim talk to him?”

  “Of course he talked to him.” Linda attacked the sticky plates with a dish scrubber. “All he did last night was talk to your son, which saved him from having to talk to me.” She stopped abruptly and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound like a complaint against Dylan.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m just sorry you and Jim are having problems.” Lord, if Linda and Jim couldn’t be happy together, there really wasn’t any hope left for romance. Did all men ignore their wives to a certain extent? Maybe she expected too much.

  No, she assured herself. Jim spending a bit of time in the shop didn’t come close to Edward practically forgetting she existed.

  “I’m sorry too.” Linda’s quiet voice alarmed Kate more than any burst of anger. “To answer your question, yes, Jim found out what’s bothering Dylan.”

  “Oh?” Kate felt a skitter of nerves.

  “You know the talent show the school puts on every spring?”

  “Yes?”

  “Apparently, Jason Haynie talked his dad into doing some sort of father-son routine.”

  “Oh.” Understanding fell heavy on Kate’s shoulders. “So now I suppose Dylan wants his dad to do a skit with him.”

  Linda gave her a sympathetic look. “He asked Jim for advice on how to talk Edward into it.”

  Kate’s shoulders sagged. “We both know the chances of Edward agreeing are nil. Or worse, he’ll agree, and then promptly forget about it, which will hurt Dylan far more.”

  “Or…” Linda began. “Jim could offer to do a skit with him.”

  “Jim? On a stage? In front of an audience?” Kate laughed at the image that sprang to mind. “The man would die of stage fright.”

  “But he’d do it. For Dylan.”

  “Yes, he would.” Kate sighed, grateful for Jim’s interest in her son, but concerned about the relationship becoming awkward. What would happen when the baby came? Would Jim still be as willing to play surrogate dad to a friend’s child when he had a child of his own? “I don’t know. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Linda nodded in understanding, then her eyes lit. “So, tell me about last night.”

  “I already did.” Kate smiled, even as her stomach tightened.

  “Details, Kate. I want details.”

  Kate gave in, but strictly avoided any mention of her dance with Mike by the pool, or the heated kiss they’d shared. Or the fact that she’d lain awake all night wondering what to do about it. Even now, in the morning light, fantasies of what could have happened warmed her skin. Worst of all, the same question kept repeating in her mind: Could she have the physical relationship without the commitment of marriage? Would that satisfy either of them?

  At least she’d have a day’s reprieve before she had to see him again.

  ***

  ON MONDAY, THE rain started just as Kate returned from taking Dylan to school. With the sound of it drumming against the roof, she booted up her computer and settled in to get some work done. She’d had an inspiration during the night for her next column: “Party Flirting: How to Keep it Platonic.”

  With every sentence she typed, she felt more and more as if she were lecturing herself rather than offering advice to others. In hindsight, she saw a dozen ways she could have handled the situation with Mike differently right from the beginning. The question now was, how should she proceed from here? If only she had somewhere to turn for advice like her readers did.

  The thought stopped her midsentence. “All right,” she said. “So, what advice would Dear Cupid give to someone in this pickle?”

  Before she could come up with any words of wisdom, the phone rang. She answered it absently, her mind still focused inward.

  “Kate! Have you seen that thing on your page?” the caller demanded.

  “What?” She frowned, recognizing Gwen’s voice. “What thing?”

  “That flying Cupid.” Anxiety crackled over the line like static electricity. “What is that doing on your page?”

  As Gwen went off on a tangent about changes to the site being made without her approval, Kate clicked on the bookmark that took her straight to the Dear Cupid page on Gwen’s site. Why was Gwen calling her about something the tech team had done? Not that she minded being a sympathetic ear to a friend, but in recent years, Gwen had stopped calling on her for that. Could this be a sign that her trip to L.A. had reestablished their friendship?

  When the page finished loading, Kate stared in wonder at the new, animated banner on her page: a beautiful, charming, whimsical graphic. Since she couldn’t imagine anyone at Gwendolyn’s Garden doing something without Gwen’s approval, she wondered if they’d
merely jumped the gun uploading it. Or maybe Gwen wasn’t happy with how it looked. Well, Kate loved it! Rather than the stationary cupid stuck above the curlicue script, now it fluttered playfully around and through the letters. She laughed in delight; the cupid looked even more like her than the original art.

  “And just what do you think is so funny?” Gwen demanded.

  “It’s wonderful,” Kate breathed. If Gwen had gone to the trouble of having her banner animated, then surely her job was once again on sure footing. “Oh, Gwen, I love it. Don’t you?”

  “No! I want to know who did this. So I can have them arrested.”

  “Arrested?” Kate frowned. “Gwen, what are you talking about?”

  “Some hacker broke into my website during the night and changed your banner. Do you know what this means? Someone out there might have copied all the files in our database, our business records, our client lists. For all we know, they left behind some time-bomb virus that could explode any second and wipe everything out.”

  “I don’t understand.” Kate tried to focus as her thoughts whirled. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Obviously someone who knows you, or at least knows what you look like. Which is another thing that worries me. God, Kate, for all we know, there’s some wacko out there who’s formed an attachment to you.”

  Kate felt a jolt of alarm at the thought of a cyber stalker. Until she looked at the cupid again. Not only did it resemble her, the animation was top-notch professional. “Mike,” she breathed in disbelief.

  “Who?” Gwen asked. “Are you saying you know who did this?”

  “I have a suspicion.” And if it’s true, I’m going to kill him. This was the last thing she needed when her job hung by a thread.

  “Well, find out, for God’s sake.”

  “I will, I assure you.” She gave the cartoon one last look, her heart breaking at the thought that it had to go. “And I’ll tell him to take it down immediately.”

  “No!” Gwen shouted. “Tell your friend to stay the hell out of my website.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell him that.” And a whole lot more.

  Chapter 13

  *

  A VOLLEY OF thunder shook the windows of Mike’s workroom. He glanced up briefly, distracted by the drama of black clouds hurling lightning and rain at the hills and lake. In the background, the radio he’d tuned in to the weather station offered a steady stream of alarming updates. He’d learned soon after moving to Texas that tornadoes could be as deadly and unpredictable as the earthquakes he’d left behind in L.A. With weather like this, he had a sinking feeling he wouldn’t see Kate, or anyone else, that day.

  He turned back to the computer screen and tried once more to concentrate on work. He’d finished creating the 3-D robot, and had begun the tedious task of assigning keystroke commands for every movement of the hands, arms, legs, and head. Though time-consuming, the process required little concentration, which allowed his mind too much freedom to wander.

  For the hundredth time, his thoughts went back to the scene by the pool. He never should have let the kiss get out of hand. From the beginning, he’d known he had to approach Kate cautiously. She’d obviously been hurt, and badly, for her to act so skittish.

  He remembered how she’d been at the airport in L.A., feisty, sexy, confident. That, he suspected, was the real Kate—the Kate he’d fallen in love with the moment he’d met her. The question was, how to get past the wounded Kate to the real woman she kept so carefully guarded? Did he push harder, or back off?

  Over the low hum of the radio, he thought he heard the doorbell ring. He cocked his head, wondering if he’d imagined the sound. Who in their right mind would venture out in the midst of a major thunderstorm? The sound came again, this time in a long insistent series of rings that demanded attention.

  He hit the command to save his file and dashed up the stairs. He found Kate standing in the protection of the overhang with her arms wrapped around her middle, her body shivering. Rain poured off the roof like a gray curtain behind her while droplets glistened in her hair and darkened the shoulders of her tangerine-colored T-shirt. Even so, the sight of her knocked the air from his lungs, as it always did.

  “What are you doing driving in this weather?” he said, pulling her inside.

  “What am I doing? The question is what are you doing?” She shook her head, scattering raindrops over him and the tile floor. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

  “Do you realize there’s a tornado watch in effect?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mike, it’s springtime in Texas. Of course there’s a tornado watch in effect. When they issue a tornado warning, then I’ll worry. Now will you answer my question?”

  “What question?”

  “What did you think you were doing, putting that animation on my web page?”

  “Saw it, did you?” He grinned. Even though the animation was relatively simple, he’d spent an entire day and half the night creating it for her. Time he couldn’t really afford, but it was his form of an apology, he supposed, for the scene by the pool.

  “Yes, I saw it!” she snapped. “So did Gwen, the woman who owns the online magazine that hosts my site. Do you have any idea how furious she is?”

  “Why?” He frowned. “Because I gave you a present that would normally cost a few grand?”

  “A few… grand?” Her face paled for an instant before anger had the color flooding back. “Are you crazy? I didn’t ask you to give me anything. Especially not something so, so—”

  “Personal?”

  “Outrageous!” Her hands flew, adding emphasis to every word. Her fire and energy completely enthralled him. “You hacked into Gwen’s website. For all she knows you corrupted her files, stole data, planted a virus.”

  “I didn’t hack into her site,” he said defensively. “I hacked into yours and did some badly needed sprucing up.”

  “It’s not my site, Mike.”

  “It’s a completely different web address than the magazine.”

  “But it’s owned by Gwendolyn’s Garden.”

  “Oh man.” He cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. As for Gwen’s accusations, I hope you know me better than to think I’d steal or destroy anything.”

  “Of course I do. But she doesn’t.” Kate placed a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe you did this to me. Do you realize I could get fired over something like this?”

  “Seriously? I’m sorry. I had no idea. I thought it was your site.”

  “I don’t care! I resent your arrogant assumption that I would want you to go in and spruce it up, whether it needed it or not. God!” She strode away from him. “You’re no better than Edward, thinking I’m too stupid or inept to take care of my own business.”

  “Wait a second.” He followed her but stopped when she whirled on him.

  “Well, I have news for you, Michael Cameron. I’m doing just fine on my own, and I don’t need any interference from you!”

  “All right.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Do you think we could sit down and discuss this rationally?”

  “I don’t feel like being rational. I feel like throwing something!”

  “I have some old dishes in the kitchen,” he offered. “Since they’re mismatched, you’ll probably want to throw them out anyway. So, what do you say? Wanna throw my plates in the fireplace? I’ll even help, if you like.”

  She stared at him a moment, then shook her head in amazement. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me so mad one minute, then make me want to laugh the next?”

  “Family trait. Comes with the name. Now, why don’t you sit down while I get you a towel?”

  He left her long enough to duck into the master bathroom. As he rummaged through the cabinet for a clean towel, he muttered to himself. “Great, Cameron, just great. Do you think you could possibly do anything else to screw up your chances here?”

  When he returned to the living ro
om, he found her seated in the armchair rather than on the sofa, which denied him the chance to sit beside her. Not to be daunted, he knelt at her feet. “Here,” he said, dabbing her cheek with the towel. “You’re all wet.”

  “Mike,” she complained, stilling his hand with her own. “Would you stop? I can take care of myself.”

  “Of course you can.” He relinquished the towel but remained where he was, just to be near her.

  “I don’t think you understand what you did to me.” She dried her forehead. “Being Dear Cupid is the only thing I’ve ever done on my own. Even if other people don’t take it seriously, it’s important to me. It’s everything to me. If I lose it… If Gwen cancels me…”

  “Do you really think she’d cancel your column because of what I did?”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s…”

  “What?” He took her hands in his to get her attention. “Talk to me, Kate.”

  She hesitated a long moment, then heaved a sigh. “Since the day I realized my marriage was truly over, I’ve found it difficult to be upbeat in my advice to others. That’s something I’m working on, though, and the main reason I…”

  “What?” He ducked his head to meet her gaze.

  “Flirted with you in L.A.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Mike…” Pulling her hands free, she slicked her hair back, only to have it spring forward again in rebellious wet curls. “Before I married Edward, I had such a rosy-eyed view about romance, love, marriage. On my wedding day, I had absolutely no doubts or second thoughts.” Rising, she moved toward the window and stood staring at the gray landscape through the rain-splattered glass. “In my mind my marriage would follow the same course my parents’ had, with years of mutual love and support. I was…” He watched helplessly as she blinked back tears. “So. Wrong. Edward married me expecting me to stay in the background making it easier for him to focus on work, work, and nothing but work. Anytime I interfered with that plan, he became increasingly belligerent. For me to make such a huge mistake…” Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “It shattered my confidence and left me very bitter.”