“This may sound funny,” he said, “but I’m really going to miss her.”
“Me, too,” Gretchen replied softly. She dropped her arm and turned to face him.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that she pretty much had me wrapped around her little finger.”
He smiled. “I could tell.”
Gretchen gave him a pointed look. “She had you wrapped, too, Marco.”
If he wasn’t careful, Gretchen would have him wrapped even tighter than Kristen did. His stomach started churning again.
“Yes, I suppose she did.”
Gretchen brushed an errant strand of hair from her eyes. “Well,” she said, sounding awkward, “I guess it’s time for me to go home, too.”
“I guess so,” he said.
She turned and made her way up the sidewalk and onto the porch. Marco followed her, unable to take his eyes off the length of her legs and the gentle sway of her hips.
At her door she turned to face him. “Was it as awful as you thought it would be?”
“What?”
“Your brief stint at fatherhood.”
“It’s not fatherhood I object to, Gretchen.”
She held up a hand. “It’s marriage. I know. Believe me, Marco, I know.”
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I guess I’ve mentioned that a time or two.”
“Over the past two days I’ve heard about twenty variations on that theme.”
“Sorry.”
She tilted her head to study him. “To tell you the truth, you do seem a little paranoid about it.”
Defensiveness straightened his spine before he relaxed and gave her a weak smile. “Maybe I am.”
“Why?” She sounded genuinely curious.
Why was he so paranoid about it? Usually, with every other woman, he had the confirmed-bachelor discussion once, and that was it. But with Gretchen, he felt bound to bring it up every other second.
She’d been honest enough to tell him about the promises that had shaped her life. Wasn’t it time he was honest with her, as well as with himself?
“Something my brother said at brunch pretty much sums it up.”
“Which brother?” she asked. “As I recall, you have five of them.”
His lips twisted. “Carlo. When he said that I might already have found the woman who would end my confirmed-bachelor status, it was easy for me to picture you in that role.”
She let out a long breath. “And you’ve never pictured anyone else in that role before?”
“Only once.”
“Your former fiancée.”
“Yes.”
“So I was right,” she murmured.
“About what?”
Her gaze met his. “You do have feelings for me.”
His heart gave a jolt before settling into an irregular beat. He should have expected that she wouldn’t evade the issue.
“The same way you have feelings for me,” he replied.
She nodded, then bit her lip. “But you haven’t changed your mind about remaining a confirmed bachelor.”
“No,” he said, his gaze unwavering from hers.
“And you’re not going to.”
“The same way you’re not going to stop searching for this person with whom you’ll have a wild, crazy affair. A person who isn’t me.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth.
“That’s why you walked away last night, when I woke up and found you watching me.”
Her words took him back to that moment, and the same emotions of longing and wanting washed over him. He swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
“And why you’re going to let me go home right now.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes seemed to peer into the depths of his soul. “And the real reason you didn’t sleep with me when I propositioned you.”
For the first time, he understood the truth of that statement. “Yes.”
“Well,” she said, flashing him a quick smile and sticking out her hand, “I guess it’s goodbye, then. If Brian and Val go away for another weekend, you know who to call.”
She really was like no other woman, he thought. No protestations. No use of her feminine wiles to get him to change his mind.
“Yes, I do.”
He took her outstretched hand in his. Instead of shaking it, he turned it upward so that her palm faced the sky. Without even realizing he intended on doing so, he began swirling his thumb across the soft skin of her palm. He could tell the effect the motion had on her by the way her remarkable brown eyes darkened and the tenor of her breathing increased.
“Thank you, Gretchen, for all your help. I appreciate your giving up all your free time for me this weekend.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied in a husky voice. “But I didn’t give it all up.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I still have a lot of free time left. I took next week off from work.”
He stared at her. “You’re on vacation? You mean I ruined your vacation plans?”
Her smile was understanding. “You just modified them a little. I would have had to modify them, anyway, because of the weather. Remember the promise I made to my mother when I was diagnosed with asthma?”
He nodded.
“Well, this week I’m going to make up for a lot of lost time. For the next seven days, weather permitting, I’m going to do everything I didn’t get to do when I was a kid. I’m going to have an adventure.”
“Sounds like fun,” he said.
“I really should go, Marco.” She looked pointedly at the hand he still held captive.
“I know.”
Instead of releasing his hold on her as she so obviously wished, with his gaze fixed firmly on hers, he slowly drew her palm to his mouth and pressed his lips to the soft skin. To Marco, the gesture felt more intimate than if he had taken her mouth. With great reluctance he let go of her hand.
“Have a good adventure, Gretchen.”
“Have a good week off.” Her voice sounded as shaken as he felt.
At her door she turned and waved one last time before disappearing inside.
When Marco walked into his apartment, it had never seemed so quiet. Or so lonely.
It was the perfect day for an adventure. Not too hot. Low humidity. An occasional passing cloud. Birds singing in the trees and crickets chirping from the bushes.
Filled with a sense of anticipation, and with her backpack settled squarely on her shoulders, Gretchen walked out onto her porch shortly after eight o’clock. She crossed to the railing, wrapped her hands around the wood, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Immediately her senses swirled with the aromas of roses and wildflowers and newly mown grass.
This was what summer smelled like, she told herself, tucking the scent memory away. She raised her face to the warmth of the sun.
Opening her eyes, she released her hold on the railing, turned toward the steps…and found herself staring straight into Marco Garibaldi’s amused brown eyes. Clad in a pair of navy blue shorts, a striped polo shirt and tennis shoes, he leaned against a pillar, legs crossed at the ankles, a steaming mug of coffee cradled in his hands.
“G-g-good morning,” she stammered.
“Good morning,” he replied.
She didn’t know whether her heart beat so fast because he’d taken her by surprise or because he looked so wonderful.
“You startled me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“And I didn’t expect to see you out here so early.”
“Actually,” he replied, “I was waiting for you.”
She blinked. “You were?”
“Yes, Gretchen, I was.”
After their discussion last evening, she’d assumed their relationship would revert to the status quo, meaning they would only occasionally cross paths.
“Why?”
“I’m in the mood for a little adventure myself,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I joined you on yours.”
“You want to join me?” she echoed dumbly.
Uncrossing his legs, he straightened to his full height. “I used to think that you were the serious one. But I’m the one who’s taken everything too seriously for far too long. Myself. My work. My family. The world. It’s been ages since I’ve taken the time to enjoy each day for the wonder it brings. To look at it the way a child would. I need to loosen up. I need to play, Gretchen. And since, coincidentally, I also have this week off…” He gazed at her expectantly.
“You decided to play with me,” she finished, then felt a rush of heat to her cheeks. She’d be darned, though, if she’d give him the satisfaction of explaining that she didn’t mean those words the way they sounded.
His lips twitched. “Yes.”
He’d said it was a coincidence that they both had this week off, but was it really? She’d been aware of his work schedule for some time now. Had she subconsciously chosen this week for her adventure, knowing that it was also Marco’s week off? Had she hoped that, being around the duplex at the same time he was, she would get to see him more often?
If he accompanied her on her adventure, she’d be seeing a lot of him. That realization was enough to make her mouth go dry.
She licked her lips. “I thought we decided last night that we wouldn’t be spending any more time together.”
“We did,” he agreed. “But I thought, since we’re both on vacation, we could treat each other like two strangers with the same itinerary who just happened to meet.”
She should have known better than to hope he might have changed his mind about them. “And who just happen to keep running into each other,” she said.
He nodded. “For just this week, Gretchen, let’s forget about all our promises, except the first one you made to Jill. Let’s live in the moment, enjoy whatever comes our way and take whatever happens at face value.”
What a seductive idea. What a seductive man.
“And at the end of the week?”
“We go on with our lives, the way we always have.”
Was it wise? Already, after just one weekend with Marco, Gretchen cared for him more than she thought possible. Could she spend a week with him and just walk away with her heart still intact?
On the other hand it sure would be nice to have some company.
Uncertain whether or not she was deluding herself, or setting herself up for the biggest fall of her life, she shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
Marco set his coffee mug on the porch and gave her a smile that threatened to knock her socks off. “Great. What are we going to do first?”
She didn’t know about him, but her first order of business was to restore her wildly galloping heartbeat to normal. “We’re going to climb a tree.”
His smile died. Something flickered in his eyes, an emotion she couldn’t define. Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight, but she could swear he paled.
She took a step toward him. “Are you okay?”
He drew a deep breath and summoned another smile. It wasn’t quite as bright as the first one, but it still packed a heck of a wallop.
“I’m just fine, Gretchen. Lead the way.”
Chapter 9
When they drew even with the Japanese maple at the edge of Gretchen’s yard, Marco came to a halt.
“This looks like a good climbing tree,” he said, patting the trunk and trying to force some enthusiasm into his voice.
Gretchen barely spared it, or him, a glance. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too short. The highest we could climb would be about ten feet off the ground.”
Ten feet sounded plenty high to him. “What’s the matter with that?”
She settled her hands on her waist and shook her head reprovingly at him. “The word for the week is adventure, remember? You can’t have an adventure when you’re only ten feet off the ground.”
“Is that so?” he challenged. He lowered his voice seductively. “I guarantee you, Gretchen, that we could have one doozy of an adventure if we were under this tree, flat on our backs.”
For a second or two her eyes turned slumbrous. Then she gave him a look that said she should have expected such a comment from him.
“Do men think only about sex?” she asked.
“Do women think only about marriage?” he countered.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” she replied, “since we agreed last night that both sex and marriage are out of the question where we’re concerned.”
That wasn’t exactly the way he recalled it. Gretchen made it sound as if they were totally indifferent to each other, which they both very well knew was not the case.
“We agreed that marriage was not for me, and that indiscriminate affairs were not your style.”
She spread her arms. “There you have it. You’re not about to marry me, and I’m not about to have sex with you.”
He knew he should have kept his mouth shut. “We could still have quite an adventure in that tree, if we put our minds to it,” he insisted.
“You know how it feels, Marco, when you’re on a Ferris wheel and you stop at the very top?”
He hadn’t ridden a Ferris wheel in years, but he had no problem recalling that nauseating feeling. His stomach plunged as he nodded.
“Well,” she said, “that’s how I want to feel when I climb a tree. I want to look down and have my breath catch in my throat at the wonders laid out before me.”
If his breath caught any further in his throat, he’d pass out from lack of oxygen.
Gretchen set off down the street, and Marco realized he had two choices. He could either follow her, or he could climb back into bed and pull the covers up over his head. While the latter sounded more than appealing, he didn’t think he was up to the inevitable questions that would follow if he carried out that impulse. He was, after all, the one who had insisted on joining her. Besides, when he looked into her eyes, he saw a light of expectation that he hadn’t seen in his own for so very long now. He didn’t want to do anything to extinguish it.
Not that he thought she’d be devastated if he changed his mind about accompanying her.
“Do you have a particular tree in mind?” he asked when he caught up with her.
She nodded. “In the park. In the middle. Near the swings.”
Marco hadn’t thought it possible, but his stomach plunged even further. He knew exactly which tree she had in mind. At least one hundred years old, it had twisted and gnarled branches that seemed to stretch a thousand feet into the sky. He knew the tree couldn’t be that tall, but it seemed that way to him, whenever he looked at it.
He tried to remain calm. He was going to climb a tree. He, Marco Alonzo Garibaldi, was really going to climb a tree. A big tree. What had he been thinking?
It had all seemed so clear last night, when he was lying awake in bed. All he’d been able to think about were Brian and Val and their troubles, and everything at work that had been getting him down lately. Not to mention Gretchen and the unsettling way she made him feel.
That was when he realized he couldn’t go on the way he had been. He needed a break, not just from the stresses of his job, but from his old, repetitive ways of thinking and behaving. He needed to find something to do that would free his mind from the cares and worries that had weighed so heavily on him recently. It didn’t matter what that something was, only that it resulted in him refilling his well.
Gretchen was planning on doing that very thing, his tired brain had whispered. Why not join her? Of course, he could refill his well all by himself. But, he figured, since she already had everything planned out, why not play Jack to her Jill?
The bonus was she knew how things had to be between them, and she accepted that. Without complaint. It wouldn’t be a problem.
Funny how when he’d told himself that palling around with her would be a great way to relieve his stress, he’d failed to take into consideration that some of the items on her itinerary might involve heights. And he had a t
hing about heights.
He could always tell her the truth, but a man had his pride. Besides, how hard could it be to climb one little tree? Okay, one big tree. With any luck, Gretchen would go up a branch or two, look down, decide she’d seen enough, and they could move on to bigger and better land-locked things.
When they reached the tree, Marco had to tilt his head way back to see the top. He swallowed hard. At least the branches looked sturdy enough. They weren’t likely to break under his weight. He thought.
“Ready?” she asked.
Without waiting for his response, which she seemed to take for granted, Gretchen wrapped her arms around an overhead branch, braced one foot against the trunk and glanced at him over her shoulder. “Would you mind giving me a boost?”
The pose reminded him of everything he’d forgotten since her startling announcement: how long, slender and graceful her arms and legs were, how the fabric of her shorts molded to the curve of her backside. Maybe if he concentrated solely on Gretchen and the way the sight of those long legs and that curvy body of hers made him feel, he just might make it through this ordeal.
Maybe.
Grasping her around the waist, he gave her a boost.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile when she was crouched atop the branch. “See you at the top. Last one up is a rotten egg.”
For someone who’d never climbed a tree before, her movements were fast and surefooted, even with the backpack strapped to her back. Gretchen grasped each branch with the eagerness of a mountain climber approaching the top of Mt. Everest for the first time. There was an unmistakable athleticism in her every move that gave Marco a regretful pause. What, he wondered, could she have accomplished had she not made that promise to her mother?
Before he could refill his lungs with the air that had suddenly rushed out of them, she had already disappeared into the far reaches of the tree, blocked from his view by the proliferation of leaves. Gritting his teeth and praying they didn’t both break their fool necks, Marco followed.
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