“Now, if you had a pretty thing like that at home, we could understand why you might not come up for air for a while.”
The other men laughed, and tipped their beers, and Jack just shook his head.
“Do you ever get your mind out of the gutter, Greg? No, don’t answer, I already know. But if you got laid as much as you talked about it, we’d all be a lot happier.”
A howl of laugher went up, and Greg took the jibe in good humor, shrugging and taking a swig of beer before sending one back Jack’s way.
“Sounds like maybe I hit a nerve there. Did you get back together with Marley? Or did you meet another honey who dumped you out on your keister—again?”
Jack winced inwardly, Greg’s comment hitting the target spot on, but he wasn’t about to share that with these guys. And besides, tonight was not about women, past or present. He was happy to be out with his friends, having his evenings back, playing darts, drinking beer, talking trash.
“Yeah, well, part of why Marley dumped me, as you so eloquently put it, is because, as you know, she hated me spending one minute out with the guys—that would mean you.”
They clinked bottles and talked about the usual things, which was good with him. But if he was dead honest with himself, he felt restless. He was missing Nilla—the nightly conversations, the sense of connection. And he was pissed at Raine. It messed him up to both want and miss and be furious with the one person at the same time. He took another swig of beer, and listened to the voices that surrounded him, trying to enjoy himself.
The nice thing about talking with the guys was that they didn’t complicate anything. The conversation rolled over weather, politics, sports, women and work. He finished his beer, and joined in for a bit, but his heart wasn’t in it. Standing up, he said his goodbyes, and headed home.
However, he didn’t really feel like going home. It was early, and he was too jumpy to be banging around the house alone. Driving into the parking lot near the office, he decided to catch up on a little work. Neal had closed the gap in the security program. The kid had done a good job. But that morning, there were problems again. Jack just couldn’t figure it.
He could shut down the computer, and then, when he rebooted, the problem would just show back up again. There appeared to be a simple glitch in the programming, but it wouldn’t patch. The bug just kept reappearing. He supposed it was nothing earth-shattering, but it was annoying, and it gave him something to focus on instead of thinking about Raine.
Hours later, his head was aching, and his stomach finally would not be ignored. He had missed lunch, not really wanting to admit that if he went to the second-floor kitchen or to the cafeteria, he might run into Raine. He wasn’t hiding, not exactly. He was avoiding. It was a different thing entirely. He grabbed his coat and headed out.
It was late. The building felt hollow as he walked through it to the exit. On his way past the offices on the first floor, he heard a noise over past the desks, and stopped for a moment to listen again. Someone working late? He heard something hit the floor in a solid clunk and decided to take a look.
Rounding the corner of the main desk, he was surprised to find a couple in a passionate clinch, and his eyes narrowed as he thought he recognized the profile of one of his men. It was Neal. Wrapped around, as far as he could tell, the woman who had been in Raine’s office the day he had been in there. And here he thought Neal was all work and no play.
Trying to retrace his steps and make a quiet exit, he misjudged his step and stumbled over a trash bin, cursing. Too late to be inconspicuous. The two lovebirds heard the clatter and were now looking at him in surprise, while he set the bin upright and tried to look apologetic.
Neal turned red up to his ears, and his friend—Raine’s friend—seemed a little less concerned as she grinned, then laughed, tugging down her lacy, skintight shirt. Her voice was full of mischief, and Jack couldn’t resist smiling a little.
“Oops, caught in the act, Neal, and by your boss.”
Neal did not look as amused, from what Jack could tell, and he tried to put him at ease as much as possible.
“Sorry to interrupt, folks. Just heard a noise and didn’t suspect, ah…”
“Sorry, sir, um, Jack.” Neal seemed to relax a little when he realized he wasn’t going to get chewed out. “I just bumped into Gwen on my way out, and we got talking, and…”
Jack held a hand up. “No need to explain to me, Neal. It’s after hours. But you might want to take the party elsewhere.”
Gwen grinned and threw her arms around Neal, smiling at Jack. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, sure. Neal, find me in the morning, that bug is popping up again.”
Neal just nodded as Jack waved and walked away. It wasn’t hard to see that the woman, Gwen, would be a handful. Very pretty, and probably more than a little wild—definitely not a woman he would have pegged as Neal’s type. But what the heck did he know?
Jack sighed, feeling a little old as he walked out of the building. It had been a long time since he had felt as carefree and crazy as Neal and Gwen. It seemed that as you got older, there were always more complications, and romance meant something else entirely than it did before. It all became more serious, and so…adult.
As he emerged outside, the cold slapped him, and he breathed it in. He liked the cold; it freshened him. Shaking off his mood, he headed down the street to a local café where he knew he could find something decent for dinner. He felt like being around people, even though he suspected that that would not ease the blues that were settling around him.
7
RAINE GOT an early start, plunging through the bitter cold to get to the office so that she could take care of the problem with her accounting and not get too far behind in her work. Her car didn’t have time to heat up, and she still had to walk from the parking lot. She shivered all the way in and wondered why she hadn’t requested a transfer to the Miami office.
A few hours later, discouraged and frustrated beyond reason, she hung up the phone from the last call. The story was the same across the board. As far as the records said—their records, not hers—her credit and loan accounts, and her parking ticket, were all paid up, and she was not required to send any more payments. Something was wrong, but no one would believe her. In fact, it was quite clear they all thought she was nuts.
She took pride in keeping her finances together on her own, not overspending and sticking to a budget that she planned. She did not take or ask for one cent of her father’s money, and she liked looking after her own affairs. He wasn’t really her father anyway, he was just the man who had adopted her. They certainly didn’t have anything even resembling a relationship you could call familial.
She heard Gwen’s laughter echoing down the hall, and looked up to see her friend in the doorway, attached to a tall, thin, dark-haired and serious-looking young man who blushed furiously though his smile as Gwen squeezed his butt, not realizing Raine was able to see them through her partially open door. Raine cleared her throat, and Gwen turned her head, laughing.
“Oh, Raine, I’d hoped you weren’t too busy. I wanted you to meet Neal!” She stepped into the office, dragging Neal behind her. “Neal, this is my good friend Raine Covington, and Raine, this is Neal Scott. Neal works downstairs in the IT department.”
Neal smiled at Gwen, and held out his hand to Raine, closing cool, dry fingers over hers.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Covington.”
Raine smiled. “Hi, Neal. Nice to finally meet you.”
Gwen looked up at Neal brightly. “Isn’t he just adorable, Raine?”
Raine smiled as she watched the color deepen in poor Neal’s cheeks. He obviously was not used to being publicly adored. He’d better get used to it fast if he wanted to be with Gwen. So, this was the man who could kiss for hours on end? The contrast between him and Gwen was a stark one, but the opposites-attracted rule held fast. She smiled at him.
“So what do you do, Neal?”
He shifted a little, and dis
engaged himself from Gwen. “I mostly do C-Sharp application development and Solaris network administration. You know, troubleshooting.”
Raine nodded as if she had some idea what he was talking about, though she hadn’t a clue.
“Sounds interesting.” She smiled pleasantly and turned her attention to Gwen. “Um, Gwen, I wondered if you had a minute sometime today?”
Gwen nodded. “Sure. Neal has to get back down to the Batcave anyway—isn’t that a riot, they call it that? So maybe you are Bruce Wayne, eh?”
Neal blushed again and smiled at Gwen, looking just slightly relieved to make his exit. “Uh, okay. I do have to go. Mr. Harris—Jack—has something he needs me to look at.”
Raine smiled and nodded, feeling a slight twinge at the mention of Jack. “It was nice to meet you, Neal.”
He nodded and left, offering Gwen a fleeting smile. Raine watched him leave, and frowned.
“You could break that boy if you handle him too roughly, Gwen.”
Gwen just giggled and sat back. “You’d think so, but there’s a lot more there than meets the eye. When he takes off those glasses he is just so yum. And he is very gentle, and shy, and then bam! He’s hotter than hot. I mean, he was all over me last night…”
Raine held up her hand. “TMI, Gwen—too much information, that’s okay. I’ll take your word for it.”
Gwen smiled widely. “Ha, no such thing. But, what did you need me for?”
Raine smiled, taking a moment to consider the beautiful and energetic woman sitting on the other side of the desk, before gathering up some papers. Gwen was a bundle of unpredictability. She could probably crook her finger and have any guy she wanted, but she chose Neal. Raine hoped he knew how lucky he was.
“I was hoping I could get some help on editing a few of these freelance articles. I am so behind, and I’ve just spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out a financial mess that I can’t figure out, and now I am even more behind.”
Gwen nodded. “Sure, I can do some edits. No problem. What’s the financial thing? Do you need to borrow some cash?”
Gwen was just too sweet. Just like that, without so much as a blink, she would help. That made Raine feel more wealthy than her father’s millions ever had. She smiled warmly.
“No, just the opposite.” She told Gwen about the refunds, and sighed. “I just hope I can get someone to listen and figure out the problem.”
“Well, if you can’t, bank the money and thank your gift horse.”
“It’s not that easy, Gwen. There must be a computer glitch somewhere, and when they find it, I could get, well, screwed. I want them to find it now.”
Gwen nodded. “Well, at least they didn’t mess up in the opposite way. They could be telling you that you owe them millions or something.”
Raine smiled and shook her head; leave it to Gwen to always find the upside. She glanced at her computer as it made the little sound that alerted her she had new mail. Looking at the screen, she didn’t recognize the e-mail address, and there was no subject line. Opening it, it only said:
You’re so beautiful.
And that was that. No signature. Raine spoke almost to herself. “Nice message—too bad the person it was for didn’t get it.”
“What’s that?”
Raine gestured to the computer screen. “Oh someone just sent a nice note telling someone she’s beautiful, but it isn’t signed and there isn’t an e-mail address I recognize, so it must have gotten misdirected.”
“Well, you are beautiful.”
Raine smiled. “Thanks, but compliments won’t get you out of work. You can take care of these, and send them along later?” She pushed the pile of edits across the desk. Gwen took them and sharply tapped them on the desktop.
“No problem, I have time today. See ya later.”
BY SEVEN, Raine’s concentration was fading, though she had gotten an immense amount of work done. Her new column was all but done and ready to submit for the first round of edits. The Internet-relationships column had been a difficult one to handle. There were lots of issues to be dealt with: safety, honesty, and what to do when you meet someone whom you’ve only known on the Internet.
She thought she had kept her objective viewpoint fairly tightly in line. She had created a neat sidebar containing safety tips for romance on the Net, and emphasized that while her brief experience had not worked out, the fact remained that lots of people were finding happiness through online relationships. Regardless of her own experience, it was her job to report the facts for her readers, although now she could supplement them with a healthy bit of informed opinion.
In the current day and age, the Net was just one more place to meet, no more no less. That’s how she pitched it. It didn’t matter if you met someone on the Net, or at, say, the park. The same relationship issues existed.
Part of the problem, she wrote, was that people developed unrealistic expectations when they met online. Unrealistic expectations were a problem in many kinds of relationships, but the online universe seemed to multiply them. Or maybe relationships in general just never lived up to what we wanted them to be.
She needed to wrap it up, but for the most part, the article was done. It made her feel as if she could lock one more door on that chapter of her life. The chapter where Jack had played a part. She checked her e-mail once more before getting ready to go, and when she did, she was shocked. She had several more messages just like the one she had received earlier. At least fifty of them!
She read through them quickly. There wasn’t anything lewd or threatening in them, but Raine felt a tiny shiver run up her spine. It was definitely weird. Maybe one of those funky Internet viruses or something.
She was being paranoid, and decided she should probably just e-mail the person back and let them know. So, she hit the reply button, and typed out a neat and impersonal message informing the sender that they had mistakenly sent several personal e-mails to the wrong address, and that they should probably check their address book.
“There, that should do it.” She shut down her computer and stared out the window. It was snowing again. She crossed her arms over herself and hugged. She hated the cold, even more so when she felt so alone. This time of year, the days were getting shorter, but the winter seemed so long. And the nights lasted forever.
She had considered asking Gwen over for supper, but when she had popped back in to say good-night, she was clearly looking forward to seeing Neal at the end of the day. Raine wished it would go well for her. Gwen was exuberant and open, and dated all the time, but Raine couldn’t remember the last time she had seen someone as steadily as she was seeing Neal. Maybe it was because they were together in the same office, so it was easier to make plans, harder to avoid each other.
She frowned. Not that Jack had any problems with avoidance. She had not seen him in over a week, since Sunday morning when he left her. She knew he must come in to work, and she caught herself looking for him when she left her office to get coffee, or go to the bathroom. He was never there.
She wondered how it was she could still feel the touch of his hands on her skin, and the heat of his breath mingled with hers. Unconsciously, she squeezed her legs together remembering the pleasure he brought her, and a swirl of heat settled in her core that made her forget the cold outside.
The office was silent, most everyone had left an hour or so ago. Suddenly she felt strange, vulnerable, being there all alone. She stood quickly, grabbed her jacket and briefcase, and headed out. She’d put in a long day and felt edgy and unreasonably agitated. She needed food, a couple glasses of wine and a long soak in a hot bath. Feeling good about that plan, she turned the corner to the exit, and saw him.
Jack.
He had just gone through the door a moment before her, and was walking across the street to the parking lot. She moved closer to the door, placing her hand on the glass, and watched him. He was a graceful man, slow-moving and sexy. Sexy as all hell. Her knees wobbled a bit as she pushed through the doo
r, unable to keep her eyes off him.
Even at a distance, she could see his hair being whipped around by the wind, and she curled her hand into a fist, her nails biting into her palm, as she remembered how it had felt to sink her fingers into those silky, burnished-copper waves.
Then he stopped, and turned, and she felt the heat rush into her face. Suddenly the cold dropped away. She should have turned and left, but it was too late, he saw her, his gaze locking in on her like a hawk on its prey. All the need and unanswered questions tumbled between them, and then he turned away.
She heard the door slam, the engine start. He drove out of the lot and disappeared down the road. Shaken for reasons she couldn’t even imagine, she crossed over to the lot as well, finding her own car. She got in, and sat, seriously rattled.
God help her, she wanted him.
THE WINE AND THE BATH had been a very good idea, in theory. Except that as she sank into the relaxing effects of the merlot and hot water, she also sank helplessly into fantasies of Jack that tortured her until she had relied on her own hands, all the while thinking of his mouth on her, to find some release from the tension that was addling her brain.
It hadn’t worked, but instead had brought all the memories of their night back to her full force, and she had gone to bed thinking she could detect his scent on the sheets, even though they had been washed days before. After a night of tossing and turning, trying to block erotic images from her mind, when she awoke she was in no mood to think about romance.
But romance was exactly what was blooming all over her desk when she walked into her office. The bouquet of roses was so large that the spray of flowers practically obscured the top of her desk, their crimson petals eerily resembling blood on snow in the stark winter sunlight shining through the window. Raine stopped in her doorway for several minutes, staring at them until Gwen came up behind.
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