He was closer now.
She had one minute to make a decision.
Leaving would be easy.
Staying would be fraught with—
“Hello, Jenny.” His long strides quickly covered the last few yards between them.
“Hello, Mitch,” she offered evenly.
His glance went to the big tray of chocolate cupcakes sitting on the table. “The boys’ll like those.”
“Maria made them.”
He nodded. “So you did decide to stay at Cole’s?”
“He didn’t tell you?” That surprised Jenny. Cole and Mitch were very close friends.
“I don’t believe he’s speaking to me at the moment.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. Emily and Cole hadn’t overheard Mitch’s entire kiss-off speech, thank goodness, but they’d heard enough to be very angry with Mitch. Still, she couldn’t help hoping the incident wouldn’t drive a wedge between the two men.
“I’m, uh, sorry,” she tried.
“You’re sorry?”
“That Cole’s angry with you.”
“He’ll get over it.” Mitch paused. “And you?”
“Me?” Was he asking if she’d get over being angry with him for not wanting a relationship with her? It sounded quite petty when she thought about it that way. It was entirely Mitch’s business who he chose to date or not to date. If he wasn’t interested, he wasn’t interested. That surely wasn’t his fault.
Still, she couldn’t seem to find a coherent answer to his question, and the silence stretched between them.
He was the one to break it. “Are you going to quit, Jenny?”
She drew a breath. Mostly, she thought no. But in the dark of night, when Mitch’s words ran around and around inside her head, she sometimes felt like she had to make a clean break, if only to save her sanity.
“Let me be the one to quit,” he put in before she could answer.
“What? No.” She shook her head firmly in denial. “You can’t quit.” She gestured to the field. “The boys, the members, everyone depends on you. I’m completely expendable.”
He took a step closer. “You’ve got it backward. I’m a figurehead. You’re the one who’s indispensable.”
It wasn’t true, but the earnestness in his eyes suddenly brought home the humor of the conversation. “Is it just me,” she asked him, “or is our mutual admiration society a little nauseating?”
Mitch broke into a familiar grin, and a wave of relief coursed through Jenny’s stomach. He stage whispered, “I’ll keep it a secret if you do.”
“Definitely.”
His expression sobered again. “And I’ll stay if you will.”
Jenny gathered her courage. “Okay. I’ll stay.” She risked another joke. “But you have to promise to keep your hands to yourself.”
“You’re a pistol, Jenny.”
“I’m a survivor, Mitch.”
A funny expression crossed his face. “You don’t have to survive the TCC, Jenny. You’re fantastic at your job. Don’t worry so much about being careful and meticulous. Relax a little. You can make mistakes and mess things up. Nobody will die.”
She understood what he was saying. She didn’t have to be perfect for him. For some reason, his words made her eyes sting.
She blinked quickly to get rid of the sensation. “Does that sound like me? Messing things up?”
“I don’t know,” he said with sincerity. “But I’d like to find out.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jenny saw the boys making a move for the cupcakes. “Tell you what,” she said to Mitch, knowing they’d be overrun in a matter of moments. “I’ll stop organizing the whiteboard pens in the order of the color spectrum.”
He lifted a hand to his chin and pretended to ponder. “I don’t know, Jenny. Loosening the color spectrum rules? Can anarchy be far behind?”
The first of the teenage boys reached the table. “Hey, Mr. H. Jenny. Those look fantastic!”
“Help yourself, Scott.” She gestured to the thick-frosted, color-sprinkled cupcakes.
“Awesome,” came another boy’s voice.
“You’re the best!” shouted Terry.
Jenny took a step backward to avoid the fray. She could feel Mitch’s gaze on her, but kept herself from looking back at him again as she headed toward the clubhouse. They’d ended their conversation on a joke. It was a lot more than she’d hoped for today.
“I can’t believe things are moving along so fast,” Jenny said to Emily as she peered down at several sets of house plans spread out across the glass-topped table in Cole’s formal dining room.
Cole was off to one side, sprawled out in an armchair next to the open French doors, typing away on his laptop. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, and his tie loosened. “If there’s going to be a change in the foundation footprint, they might as well know about it while the loaders are on site.” He glanced up. “It’ll save money in the long run.”
“You know something about construction?” asked Emily, an edge to her voice.
“A little.”
“Is there anything you don’t know about?” She stared back at him with what Jenny had come to recognize as her clash-of-wills expression.
Cole paused in what looked like contemplation. “Women,” he finally answered. “Specifically, you.”
Jenny couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re a nerd,” Emily accused.
“Yeah? Well, you’re dating me.”
“Not after Saturday night.”
“We’ll see.” Cole smiled confidently, going back to his work on the laptop. “You may find 12:01 comes around pretty fast. And then you’ll also be dating me on Sunday.”
“Conceited,” Emily muttered under her breath.
“I think he’s cute,” Jenny whispered back.
Emily kept her voice low, leaning her head close to Jenny’s. “I don’t want to sleep with cute.”
“Why not?” Jenny whispered back, giving Cole a surreptitious once-over. He was a very attractive man. He was in excellent physical shape. He was smart, successful, had a good sense of humor. And he was definitely one of the few males on the planet who could hold his own against Emily.
“I’m looking to get pregnant, remember?”
Ah, yes. The linebacker factor. “Would you rather sleep with Emilio?”
“Huh?”
“He’s tall, brawny, definite football genes in that guy’s DNA.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe. But he’s kind of…I don’t know. Do you think he’s sexy?”
“It’s not what I think that matters.” Jenny thought Mitch was the one who was sexy, and look how far that had gotten her. “Who do you find sexy?”
Emily shot a fleeting, telltale glance at Cole who was typing away on his laptop. “I’m still looking,” she whispered with a thread of determination.
“You two do realize I can hear you,” Cole drawled.
Emily’s face flushed red as she straightened in her chair. “We’re not talking about you,” she snapped.
“I know. You’re talking about Emilio.” Cole looked up again, his gaze boring deep into Emily’s this time, anger lurking in the sapphire depths of his eyes.
As the tension thickened in the room, Jenny started to rise from her chair. “Why don’t I just leave you two—”
“No!” Emily snapped. “Sit down. We’re choosing your new house. This one.” She pointed to a set of plans. “I like the contemporary hardwood floors, and all that glass.”
Jenny turned her attention to the blueprints for the two-thousand square foot single-story custom house. The floor plan looked very elegant, ultramodern, with lots of planes and angles, and great circulation space between the bedrooms, kitchen and a glassed-in deck which could overlook the lake.
The front doorbell sounded, and Cole rose swiftly from his chair. Since any one of his staff members would answer, Jenny assumed it was his excuse to leave. She also didn’t expect him to come back.
“Look at all those built-in closets.” Emily spoke with what sounded like false cheer. “You’d have tons of room for the new wardrobe. I can picture it now, entertaining, dinner parties.”
“Emily—” Jenny began.
“What?”
“This thing with Cole. Are you feeling—”
“I’m fine.”
“But—”
The front door banged shut, and footsteps sounded down the hallway.
“He’s coming back,” said Emily. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle Cole.”
“…only if she’s not too busy,” came the sound of Mitch’s voice.
Jenny stilled, her stomach clenching.
“She’s in the dining room,” Cole responded, and Jenny met Emily’s eyes.
Emily reached out and squeezed her hand. “Are you okay?”
Jenny gave a determined nod, ignoring the butterflies circling in the pit of her stomach. “I can handle it. We spoke a few times at the office today. It was fine. I’m doing fine.”
“Emily?” came Cole’s voice as he appeared in the arched doorway. “Mitch needs to talk to Jenny.”
Emily pivoted in her chair. “I’m not going to—”
“Emily,” Cole growled. He jerked his thumb toward the hallway. “Now.”
She opened her mouth, obviously about to refuse his command, but then something in his expression seemed to stop her.
“Fine,” she ground out, bringing her hands down on the glass surface of the table as she rose from her chair. “But I’m not going out of earshot.” She gave Jenny a significant glance. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” Jenny fought a smile. She was warmed by Emily’s protective instincts. Not that they’d be remotely necessary.
Then, head held high, Emily crossed the room to Cole. Jenny noted that he put his hand on the small of her back as he ushered her out of the room.
Mitch immediately filled the empty doorway, tall, broad-shouldered, magnificently handsome as ever. She sure wished her chest wouldn’t do that little hitch whenever he entered the room.
She needed to strive for equanimity. She had to stop being attracted to him. Then again, being angry with him was only marginally better. It was just as emotionally unsettling.
“Jenny.” He nodded, his deep voice impacting her even more than his appearance. “Sorry to bother you after working hours.”
“No problem,” she automatically responded, her attention piqued. Had something gone wrong at TCC?
His gaze stopped on the paperwork in front of her.
“We were just looking at house plans,” she explained.
“Pick something yet?”
Jenny shook her head. “Is everything okay at TCC?”
Mitch strode into the room, taking the chair Emily had vacated. That put him right next to Jenny, making her body respond to whatever male pheromones radiated from his pores. Her skin tingled, and her palms began to sweat.
So much for equanimity.
“I was looking for the letter to the senator. The one on the subsidies from last week.”
“You couldn’t find it in the directory? It should be under federal government, financial issues, political support.” Jenny hated the thought that she might have misfiled something.
“Oh.” He nodded. “Political support. I’ll look there.”
“Did you need it tonight? I can log in and get it for you. Cole probably won’t mind if I use his laptop.”
But Mitch was shaking his head. “I can get it in the morning.”
“Okay,” she agreed. But his words surprised her. If it could wait until morning, why had he gone to all the trouble to come over here?
Eight
Mitch hadn’t lost the letter to the senator. He couldn’t careless about the letter to the senator. All he was looking for was an excuse to come and see Jenny. She’d seemed like she was doing okay at work today, but he was still guilt-ridden over the way he’d treated her. His instinct was to apologize again. But he didn’t want to belabor the issue. He supposed he wanted the best of both worlds, for Jenny to understand why they couldn’t have a relationship, but for her to still like him.
Now he glanced down at the three sets of building plans. “Which way are you leaning?” he asked in an effort to keep the conversation going.
“You sure you don’t need me to—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waved away her question. “Tell me about your house plans.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She reflexively glanced down at the three drawings on the table.
Mitch swiveled the pages to face him, finding the contrast among the three designs fascinating. It was as if completely different people had picked them out.
The first was an ultramodern contemporary, plenty of glass and sharp angles, long rooms, with sleek storage systems and display cases for art. The second was attractive, but practical. Two stories, it had three bedrooms on the top floor, a nice-sized ensuite in the master bedroom and a small balcony off the bedroom that would overlook the lake. The kitchen and dining room were L-shaped, while the living room boasted a big stone fireplace. With the exception of the skylight in the entry hall, there wasn’t a lot to distinguish it from thousands of other practical houses in thousands of other residential neighborhoods around the state.
It was the third set of plans that had Mitch pondering. It was all arches and detail, softness and whimsy. It seemed to have a French provincial influence, and the demo pictures showed deep carpets, scrollwork on the wood and etching on the glass. The ceilings were high, with open beams, many of the walls were on forty-five degree angles, keeping the rooms from sitting square, while little wrought-iron balconies and bay windows gave the interior a wealth of nooks and crannies and the exterior complex detail.
He lifted one of the large sheets of blue line paper. “Did Emily pick this one?”
“Emily picked the contemporary. That one’s really a token plan. You know, included so we can have three distinct choices.”
“Did you pick it?”
“I did,” she acknowledged.
Now Mitch was even more curious. This plan was very unlike Jenny. Well, unlike the Jenny he thought he’d known for the past year.
“Why?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, out of all the thousands of house plans in all the world, why choose this one as a top three pick?”
There was a definite note of defensiveness in Jenny’s tone as she responded. “I wanted to look at something completely different.”
“I like it,” he said.
“I find it impractical.” She pointed to the living room, the dining room and one of the bedrooms. “How could you possibly arrange furniture in there?”
“I guess you’d turn it on an angle. Or have something custom designed.” He pointed to an alcove in the kitchen. “You could put a half-octagonal breakfast nook in there. Or a window seat and a planter. There are a thousand things—”
“I don’t know why I even added it to the list.” Her lips compressed into a line, and she folded her hands primly in her lap.
He covered her hands with his own. “I’m not your mother, Jenny.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She pulled herself free.
“It means, you’re allowed to like something, just because you like it. You don’t need an excuse, and it doesn’t always need to be functional, practical and utilitarian.”
“I’m not about to build an impractical house.”
“I would,” said Mitch, meaning it. He’d build whatever house struck his fancy. And he’d build it in the blink of an eye if Jenny wanted it.
He gave his head a shake, chasing away that ridiculous thought. Jenny’s taste was irrelevant when it came to his house.
“Those bay windows all add cost,” she told him. “They’ll be a pain to clean, and I can’t afford custom furniture.”
“You’ll have the insurance settlement to spend.”
&
nbsp; She gave him a sharp glance. “You know what I mean.”
“What if you had an unlimited budget?”
“I don’t.”
“Play along with me for a second. If you had an unlimited budget?”
She mulishly set her jaw.
But he waited her out.
“Fine,” she capitulated, pointing to the French country plans. “If I had an unlimited budget, I’d add a big deck out back overlooking the lake, and a turret up front.” She moved her finger. “Right there. With a round room on the top floor that had window seating all round. I’d buy dozens of pillows and curtains with ruffles, in a floral pattern that looked like a country garden. It would have deep, cushy seats, and a thick green carpet.”
“Green?”
“Like grass. And everything would be soft.”
He took in her rosy cheeks, the pout of her mouth, the moss green of her eyes and the way her dark lashes slowly stroked with each blink. “Soft is nice.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know how you talked me into daydreaming.” She shook her head, moving back, appearing to physically distance herself from the whimsical house plans.
He continued to study her expression. As usual, his desire for her battled its way to the surface. But it was tempered this time, tempered by something warm, something soft and protective. His voice went husky. “It’s not ridiculous to have dreams.”
She twisted her head to look at him. “A person should stay away from dreams that have no hope of coming true.”
On impulse, he smoothed a stray lock of her hair back, tucking it behind one ear. “Those are the only kind worth having.”
She rubbed her cheek where his hand had touched it. “Really? So, what are your dreams, Mitch?”
It was impossible for him to answer. Because right then, he was toying with a dream that involved Jenny and forever.
He took a safe answer. “I want to play professional football.”
But she shook her head. “Come on, Mitch. That’s not a dream. That was already your reality. We’re playing a game. You have to come up with something you could never have in a million years.”
An After-Hours Affair Page 10