Hers for the Weekend
Tanya Michaels
She wanted a temporary arrangement…Piper Jamieson needs a man. And not just any man. She needs someone to play her significant other when she heads home for her family reunion. Thanks to a self-imposed period of celibacy, she has no prospects…except for her sexy best friend, Josh Weber. \ Since there's nothing between them, kissing him will be a breeze, right?But he wanted her permanently!Spending an entire weekend with Piper sounds perfect to Josh…ifs the whole family thing that doesn't. Lately his dates haven't been as exciting as they used to be, and he knows why. His best friend's been on his mind–day and night. But Piper has made it clear she's not looking for a relationship. Luckily he's hers for the weekend, and he has three full nights to change her mind!
“Is there still something between you and your ex?”
“Are you kidding?” Piper’s grimace, complete with eyes rounded in horror, did Josh’s heart good. “He’s one of the reasons I need boyfriend camouflage this weekend.”
“Oh.” Josh glanced at the doorway, noting that he and Piper were visible to anyone in the dining room. “And your grandmother’s fondest dream is to see you in the arms of a good man, right?” Don’t do it.
“Right.”
He took a step toward her. Maybe he shouldn’t do this, but how could just once hurt? “I have an idea that should make your grandmother ecstatic.”
Piper’s ocean-colored eyes grew so wide he could drown in them. She stood on tiptoe to meet him, and then his lips were on hers.
Fire raced in his blood. Too late he realized that the reality of kissing her was far more devastating to his senses than the fantasy, and his assumption that he could walk away from “just one” kiss unaffected had been foolish.
Still, as long as he was making the mistake, he should make the most of it.
Dear Reader,
One of the fun parts of my job is exploring the different ways two people can end up together. As much as I love stories about a man and a woman who make an instant connection, I’m a sucker for stories about people who start out as friends. People who don’t immediately realize (or want to admit) what’s right in front of them, so they try in vain to fight the attraction. But the sexual tension and emotional undercurrent can’t be ignored.
At least, that’s the case for my heroine, Piper Jamieson, and her best friend, Josh Weber. Career-driven Piper has no time for romance in her life, especially not with a heartbreaker like Josh. When she needs a date for the weekend, though, her sexy best friend fills in—with unexpected results.
Piper and Josh are very special to me, maybe because I married my own best friend, maybe because they were just so much fun to write. I hope you enjoy their story and will check out the information about my other books and my story-themed giveaways at www.mindspring.com/~tjmic.
Happy reading!
Tanya
Books by Tanya Michaels
HARLEQUIN DUETS
96—THE MAID OF DISHONOR
HARLEQUIN FLIPSIDE
6—WHO NEEDS DECAF?
Hers for the Weekend
Tanya Michaels
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u975a9483-1543-5a52-8d95-4845a95e89d3)
Chapter 2 (#u981fc7ea-83c2-53bb-b9a6-51e7b9ed9404)
Chapter 3 (#u70bc5670-143b-526c-9358-bd8b69a2c252)
Chapter 4 (#ud8bf6501-ae27-52bd-afe5-303d6b418b7d)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
PIPER JAMIESON SAGGED against the sofa cushions and rolled her eyes at the phone receiver. It could have been a wrong number, a pushy telephone solicitor, an obscene caller even, but nooo, it was her mother. Piper loved her mom, but all their conversations boiled down to the same argument—Piper’s love life.
She started to put her feet up on the oval coffee table, but stopped suddenly, as though her mother could see through the phone line and into her apartment. “So, how’ve you been doing, Mom?”
“Never mind that. I’m more concerned with how you are,” her mother said. “You don’t feel acute appendicitis coming on, right? You aren’t going to call us tomorrow with a severe case of forty-eight-hour east Brazilian mumps or something?”
Piper groaned. Although she’d bailed out on all of the family reunions in recent years, she’d used legitimate work-related excuses, never fictional medical ones. But this year she’d made a promise to her grandmother.
This year, there would be no reprieve.
“I’ll be there,” she assured her mother. “And I’m looking forward to seeing you all.” Mostly.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you, too, honey. Especially Nana. When I went to visit her at the hospital last week—”
“Hospital?” Piper’s chest tightened. She adored her grandmother, even if Nana did stubbornly insist women needed husbands. “Daphne told me she was under the weather, but no one said anything about the hospital.” As Nana advanced in years, Piper couldn’t help worrying over her grandmother’s health.
A worry her mother was not above exploiting. “You know what would help your Nana? If she knew you had a good man to take care of you.”
Ah, yes—here came the Good Man Speech. Piper knew it well.
“You’ve always been independent,” her mother was saying, “but there’s such a thing as being too stubborn. Before you know it, you’ll wake up fifty, without anyone to share your life….”
Knowing from experience that it did no good to point out she was decades away from turning fifty, Piper stretched across the maroon-and-black-plaid couch. Might as well be comfy while she waited for her mother to wind down.
Though she’d escaped her small hometown of Rebecca, Texas, and now lived in Houston, Piper couldn’t escape her family’s shared belief that a woman’s purpose in life was to get married. Piper’s sole brush with matrimony had been a broken engagement that still left her with a sense of dazed relief—how had she come so close to spending her life with a man who’d wanted her to be someone different? When her sister, Daphne, had married, Piper thought the pressure would ease, that their mother would be happy to finally have a married daughter. Instead, Mrs. Jamieson was scandalized that her youngest was married, now pregnant, while her oldest didn’t even date.
As her mom continued to wax ominous about the downfalls of growing old alone, Piper stared vacantly at the dead ficus tree in the corner of her living room. I should water that poor thing. Although, at this point, it was probably more in need of a dirge than H2O.
“Piper! Are you even listening to me?”
“Y—mostly.”
“I asked if that bagel man was still giving you trouble.”
Mercifully, her mother had moved on to the next topic. Too bad Piper had no idea what that topic was. “Bagel?”
Then realization dawned. Her mother must mean Stanley Kagle, vice president of Callahan, Kagle and Munroe, the architectural firm where Piper worked as the only female draftsman. Make that draftswoman. In Kagle’s unvoiced opinion, Piper’s job description should be brewing coffee and answering phones with Ginger and Maria, the two secretaries who had been with the firm since it opened. Luckily, Callahan and Munroe held more liberated views.
“You mean Mr. Kagle, Mom?”
“Whichever one is always hassling you at work.” She paused. “You know, you wouldn’t have to work at all if you’d find a nice man and raise some babies.”
Piper could actually hear her blood pressure rising. One of only a handful of female students in her degree program at Texas A&M, she’d busted her butt to excel in her drafting and detailing courses, and was now working even harder to prove herself amid her male colleagues. Why couldn’t her family be proud of that? Proud of her?
“Mom, I like my job. I like my life. I wish you’d just accept that I’m happy.”
“How happy could you be? Daphne says you’re underappreciated and that one of your bosses has it in for you.”
And thank you so much, Daphne, for passing on that information.
“Daph caught me after a rough week, and I was just venting,” Piper said. “I love the actual drafting part.” And loved the feeling she got when she was in the middle of a drawing and knew it was damn good, the pride of passing a building downtown and seeing one of her suspended walkways. If things continued to go well, Piper was hoping her next review with Callahan would lead to her first project as a team leader.
But better to argue her point in a language her mom could understand. “I’ll admit to occasional work-related stress, but are you trying to tell me that marriage and motherhood are stress-free?”
Silence stretched across the phone line.
Aha! I have you there.
Then Mrs. Jamieson sighed as though this conversation epitomized her motherhood stress. “Honey, you aren’t getting any younger, and women can’t—”
Recognizing the introductory phrase of her Don’t You Hear Your Biological Clock Ticking Speech, Piper interrupted. “I’d love to chat more Mom, but…” She thought fast, determined to rescue herself from this black hole of a conversation. “I have to run because I have dinner plans.”
“You have a dinner date! With a man?”
Did she really want to lie to her mother? Piper gnawed at her lower lip. She’d already told one white lie. Besides, if it would save her from another round of “you’d be such a pretty girl if you just fixed yourself up,” why not? Her imaginary person might as well be an imaginary man.
“Yes.” Guilt over the uncharacteristic fib immediately niggled at her, but she pressed forward. “It’s a man.”
“Good heavens. I can’t believe you let me go on all this time and didn’t say anything about having a boyfriend!”
Boyfriend? She’d only meant to allude to a dinner date to buy herself some peace and quiet, not invent a full-blown relationship. “Wait, I—”
“What does your young man look like, dear?”
Piper blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Tall, dark and handsome.” Oh, very original! “Dark-haired with green eyes,” she elaborated.
“And you’ll bring him home with you for the reunion, right?”
“Well, no, I—”
“We can’t wait to meet him. I was hoping this weekend would give you the chance to get reacquainted with Charlie, but I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
“Charlie?” Piper would invent a dozen fake boyfriends before she let herself go down that road again. “Mom, I don’t want to see Charlie.”
Her mother’s uneasy silence made it clear that it was too late for Piper to avoid her ex-fiancé.
“You’ve invited him for dinner or something, haven’t you?” What did it take to convince people that she and Charlie were over? Not over in the-timing-just-wasn’t-right, maybe-later kind of way. Over in the stone-cold, do-not-resuscitate, rest-in-peace kind of way.
“Piper, he’s like one of the family.”
More so than she was, it would seem.
“And I don’t know why you sound so appalled whenever you mention him,” her mother continued. “Charlie Conway is a good man, and he’s the most eligible bachelor in the entire county.”
That was probably true. Handsome, funny and smart, Charlie Conway had been a fellow Rebecca native and A&M student. He’d been so sought after in high school that Piper had been surprised when he pursued her in college. He’d claimed to love her because she was so refreshingly different from the girls they’d grown up with, and he’d eventually proposed. Their engagement had been strained, however, by his decision to return to Rebecca and carry on the Conway mayoral tradition, and Piper had returned the heirloom diamond ring when she realized that the allure of “refreshingly different” had faded. The longer she’d been with Charlie, the more he’d tried to change her.
“Mom, I don’t care how eligible he is. He’s not right for me.” She’d tried to explain this before, but since she was rejecting the very lifestyle most of her family and childhood friends had chosen, they didn’t quite understand. Piper knew they were fond of Charlie—she had been, too, at one point—but she hadn’t liked the person she’d become when she was with him. “Promise me you’re not going to spend the weekend trying to throw us together.”
“Well, of course not, dear—not with this new young man in your life. We can’t wait to meet him!” her mother repeated.
“I’ll, um, see if he’s available.” Piper hated the blatant dishonesty, but not as much as she hated the thought of an entire weekend explaining why the county’s most eligible bachelor wasn’t good enough for her.
“This is so exciting,” her mom said. “I can’t wait to call everyone and let them know. Oh, and honey, if you’re going out tonight, I hope you’ll think about wearing a dress for a ch—”
Ding dong!
Piper jumped at the unexpected pealing of her doorbell. “Who—” Remembering that she was supposedly expecting a date, she swallowed the last of her question. “Gotta go now, see you this weekend. Love to Dad.”
The doorbell shrilled again as she hung up, and a familiar male voice called through the door, “Piper? You home?”
Josh. Thank goodness, because a day like she’d had called for one of two things: venting to her best friend or a Chocomel, a chocolate-covered bar of caramel-and-nougat-filled nirvana. Talking to Josh was calorie-free.
“Hey,” she greeted him as she opened the door. Joshua Weber was a co-worker who’d become her best friend after moving into her downtown Houston apartment building two years ago. “Did we have plans tonight and I forgot? I’m sorry, it’s been a horrible day, and—”
“Relax, darlin’.” His lips curved into the sexy smile that had no doubt been instrumental in seducing many women. Luckily for Piper, seduction wasn’t high on her priority list. “We didn’t have plans. I just wanted to see if you were interested in going with me for a bite to eat.”
“What, no date tonight?”
Women flocked to Josh in droves. With his long lean build, square jaw, lionlike green-gold eyes and thick hair the color of rich chocolate, he was easily the best-looking man in the apartment complex. Maybe the zip code. Or the state.
“Dating can be exhausting.” He leaned casually against the doorjamb, his posture matching his informal attire of a faded Astros shirt and jeans going threadbare at the knees. “Sometimes a guy just needs a little peace and quiet.”
“So why not enjoy dinner alone in your apartment?” Piper asked.
It was what she’d planned to do. If she had any groceries. She’d been working so many late nights that she’d once again neglected shopping. Other women in her family were prizewinning cooks; Piper barely remembered to keep her fridge stocked.
“Being with you is even better,” Josh said. “I don’t have to be by myself, but I don’t have to be ‘on,’ either. Besides,” he added sheepishly, “I burned the nice dinner I was supposed to be having alone in my apartment right now.”
She laughed. “Let me grab my purse and put my shoes back on.” As she turned, she patted her French braid to make sure it was still presentable. A few strands fell around her face, but all in all, the braid had survived the day intact.
Good thing she hadn’t yet changed from her tailored blue pantsuit into her comfy sweats. Josh probably wouldn’t think anything of going out in public wearing a sweatsuit, but the casual look worked for him. For instance, Josh’s hair always looked as though it had just outgrown that popular short and gelled style that was slightly spiky on top. Though it was still short, his hair was pleasantly rumpled with no trace of gel. Undeniably handsome when he dressed up for work or an occasionally formal date, he was somehow even more appealing in the rugged laid-back uniform of worn jeans and T-shirts.
The injustice of life. Piper in her oldest jeans was grunge personified, whereas Josh effortlessly resembled a female’s fantasy come to life in any clothes. Probably looks even more like a walking fantasy in no clothes at all.
She blinked. Thoughts like that were trouble she didn’t need, she reminded herself, sliding her feet into a pair of high-heeled navy slingbacks. The shoes were arguably the most feminine part of her wardrobe, but at barely five foot three, she’d take all the help she could get. Especially next to Josh’s six foot one.
Grabbing her apartment keys off the coffee table, she stole a look at her tall, platonic friend. Emphasis on the platonic. She was perfectly happy without a guy in her life, and she’d watched Josh back away from enough relationships to know he didn’t want a woman in his life. Not long-term, anyway.
And short-term’s out of the question. Maybe hot flings with no future worked for some people, but the one impulsive time Piper had flung, she’d found the experience to be more embarrassing than pleasurable. She couldn’t begin to fathom how awkward it would be if she constantly saw the flingee at the office.
Shoes on her feet, purse in her hand and lustful thoughts relegated to the dark mental cellar where they belonged, she strolled back to where Josh was waiting. “All set.”
Once they’d reached the apartment’s parking garage, she turned to ask, “Who’s driving?” But she didn’t know why she bothered.
He’d already pulled out his keys and was striding toward his two-door sports car.
“It’s just as well,” she admitted. “I got another ticket today.”
“Speeding again?” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you manage to even get up to the speed limit with traffic as bad as it is, much less exceed it. Do the other cars just magically part for you?”
She climbed into the passenger side. “Hey, you’re supposed to be sympathetic about my bad day.”
“That’s right. You said it was horrible.” His low voice was full of teasing mischief as he turned the key in the ignition. “There are ways I could help take your mind off your troubles, sweetheart. You just say the word.”
Piper’s breath caught, a quiver of expectation in her abdomen. Josh’s flirting was nothing new—it was his default mode—but tonight, after her earlier wayward thoughts, there was a split second where she forgot that he meant nothing by it.
Then he spoke again, his tone genuinely sympathetic. “Kagle being a chauvinistic creep?”
Although Stanley Kagle was too business-savvy to do or say anything overt she could formally complain about, his attitude was a constant reminder that she was the youngest and shortest on the drafting team. And the only one with ovaries, which he apparently viewed as some sort of handicap. Thank God for Callahan and Munroe to counter his presence, or she might actually have to brave the job market.
Piper sighed. “No, it’s not one of our bosses making me crazy, it’s one of our colleagues. If Smith doesn’t get me those dimensions for the Fuqua building, my blueprints will be late, and you know who Kagle will blame. Then, of course, the traffic ticket on my way home today. And on top of everything, my mother called and…”
She’d been about to say that her mother was driving her nuts, but it seemed insensitive to complain. At least she had a mom. Josh’s mother and father had both been killed in a car accident when he was very young. He didn’t discuss his past much, but Piper knew it involved a lot of foster homes and very little stability.
“Grazzio’s okay with you?” Josh’s rhetorical question was an unnecessary formality. Even as he asked, he was steering his car into the parking lot of their favorite pizzeria.
They ate here an average of five times a month. On nice days, it was close enough to walk the few blocks between Grazzio’s and their apartment complex, but on this rainy October night, she was glad for the warm shelter of the car. They hurried through the falling rain to the restaurant, where Josh held the door open for her.
Inside, the leggy brunette hostess greeted them by name, with a special smile for Josh. “Hey, handsome, when are we going out again?”
Josh winked at the woman he’d taken on a couple of dates back in August. “Ah, Nancy, I’d like nothing more than to sweep you off your feet here and now. But you know George from the sports bar is crazy in love with you. I just can’t break the poor guy’s heart like that.”
The hostess shook her head, laughing. “Well, if you change your mind about being noble, you have my number.”
Piper thought Nancy would be wise to give up on Josh and give George, the bartender at Touchdown, a call. All over Houston, from the corner sports bar to the Astros’ stadium, Piper and Josh ran into women who had briefly been part of his life and wanted to repeat the experience. Piper had been on the receiving end of more than a few envious glares from women, who, unlike Nancy, didn’t know Piper had no interest in dating.
Her last relationship, the only one worth counting since Charlie, had ended when her boyfriend gently complained that her work was more of a priority than he was. She suspected that his intent had been for her to change that, but she’d encouraged him to find someone who would focus on him the way he deserved.
Piper and Josh were shown to an elevated booth with blue padded seats, and she stepped up to slide in across from him. An olive-skinned waiter with a mustache and faint accent took their drink orders and left them with a basket of warm bread. The buttery smell reminded her of her mother’s kitchen, where something was always baking, and the upcoming weekend. Piper should be thinking of a way to get out of her impulsive lie, but the more she considered it, the more she liked the idea of a human buffer between her and Charlie. Piper knew from her sister that Charlie had most recently dated the town librarian, but he’d broken things off a few months ago, apparently deciding he wanted a more outspoken woman. Specifically Piper, the outspoken woman he hadn’t valued enough when he’d been with her.
On her last birthday, he’d sent her jewelry that was too expensive to be justified by their growing up together. She’d returned the gift, but he’d still called her a few weeks later to let her know he was going to be in Houston. She’d told him truthfully that she was too busy trying to meet a project deadline to meet him for dinner and had hoped the reminder of her nontraditional priorities would dissuade him. If it hadn’t, she could be in for a very long weekend.
Josh grabbed a roll. “I’m starving.”
Lost in her own troubles, she barely heard him. She needed to be ready for her family, and she could think of only one way to do that. “Josh, I need a man.”
2
PIPER’S DECLARATION was met with immediate choking on Josh’s part. It wasn’t often she had the satisfaction of catching him so off guard. Quite the contrary, he normally delighted in shocking her.
He recovered quickly, his grin suggestive. “Why didn’t you say so back at your place? Forget the pizza, we—”
She laughed. “That’s not what I was talking about.”
Having decided that balancing the irritation of dating with her more important career wasn’t worth the time and effort, Piper was pretty much living a life of celibacy. Josh’s full knowledge of that was probably why he felt safe enough to flirt with her in the first place. No way would he ever actually go out with her. From what she’d observed, he liked to keep women at a certain distance, and he and Piper had passed that point already.
Though she admired plenty of things about Josh, his love life tended toward the…well, shallow seemed unkind, but the truth was some of his relationships made mud puddles look deep by comparison. Interestingly few of his dates complained, so Piper supposed it was none of her business. Josh didn’t lecture her on her non-dating habits, and she didn’t lecture him on the fact that he had the staying power of a—Actually, from the way ex-lovers swooned when they saw him, Piper suspected he had very impressive staying power.
She gulped down some water. “You know I’m going out of town for a few days, right?”
“Yeah. A family reunion.” He smiled. “See? I listen.”
“Well, I need a guy to go with me.” She exhaled a gusty sigh that ruffled her bangs. “I sort of let my mother think I was dating someone, and she’s expecting me to bring him home.”
His expression turned blank, his mind obviously blown at trying to imagine Piper with a man in her life. “But you aren’t seeing anyone.”
“Thank you, Columbo. Nothing gets by you, does it?”
“Hey, watch the sarcasm,” he said as the waiter returned. “You’ll give me indigestion.”
“Ready to order?” the waiter asked.
Piper and Josh exchanged guilty glances. Her “need a man” statement had distracted both of them from even opening their menus. As the waiter stood by, they debated what kind of pizza to get.
“We can split it,” Josh proposed. “Get half of the pizza made one way and something different on the other half.”
“No deal, Weber. Last time we did that, you tried the Jamaican chicken pizza, didn’t like it and ate all of my half. Besides, I might just get pasta.”
“Pasta?” Josh echoed. “Come on, this is the best pizzeria in Houston. You’re going to come here and not get pizza? That makes as much sense as…you having a love life.”
The impatient waiter clearing his throat stopped her from snapping a comeback.
“Perhaps I return in a few minutes?” the man offered.
Glancing from his menu to Piper, Josh said, “I know how much you like the Sicilian specialty. Want to just get that?”
Piper nodded, and the waiter shuffled off, appeased.
Josh immediately returned to the subject of her faux love life. “I don’t get it. What made you lie to your mom? You never lie. Having witnessed you turn away persistent men at Touchdown, I would even say that you’re sometimes painfully honest.”
Lowering her gaze to the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, she mumbled, “I didn’t set out to lie, exactly. I just exaggerated.”
“Piper, when was the last time you had a date?”
“Okay, fine, I lied. I had to get off the phone! She called to remind me that I’m the unmarried shame of the family, and I cracked. I told her I had to run because I was meeting someone for dinner.”
“And based on a supposed dinner date, she’s now booking a church and auditioning caterers.”
“For a guy who’s never met my mother, you have a very clear understanding of her.”
“You paint a vivid picture.”
Piper bit her lower lip. “I have a real problem here.”
“Nah, this isn’t serious. A problem was Michelle. I can’t believe she honestly expected me to remember her cat’s birthday. And stalking me for two weeks like that after the breakup—”
“Maybe if you took the time to get to know some of these women before you went out with them, you’d pick up on little things like personality disorders.” Piper hadn’t meant to sound so snippy, but it annoyed her sometimes to watch Josh waste himself on a string of superficial relationships. Didn’t he realize he had more to offer than that?
“Piper, people go out in order to get to know each other, and I’m not sure I want dating advice from a girl who hasn’t been on one since the Nixon administration.”
“Ha-ha. As if my family encouraged me to date as an infant.” Though they probably would have if they’d known then how difficult it would be to marry her off.
“What I was saying,” he continued, “is that I don’t see why this is a serious problem. Let your mom think whatever she wants. Tell them he couldn’t make it this weekend. Or that you broke up with the guy. Problem solved.”
If only it were that easy. “I would, but Mom said it would really benefit Nana to see me with—” she groaned inwardly, “—‘a good man.”’
His gaze locked with hers. “How is your grandmother?”
“Hanging in there, but…apparently not doing so well.” She swallowed. “Last time we spoke, I argued with her. She was giving me more well-meaning advice on how to live my life, and I told her I was an adult and didn’t need or want her interference. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Josh reached his hand across the table, and it hovered over hers. At the last minute he grabbed the bread basket as though that had been his intention all along.
She wasn’t surprised that he shied away. Typical Josh. Weird that he dated and kissed and she-didn’t-want-to-know-what-else with so many women, yet simple touches made him uncomfortable. Piper had grown up in a hug-oriented family herself, but she tried to respect the personal perimeter he maintained.
Though she had no trouble telling Josh about the familial reasons for needing a stand-in date, Piper didn’t mention Charlie. Josh knew that she’d once dated Rebecca’s current mayor, but Piper had downplayed the seriousness of the relationship. She was embarrassed that she, a modern independent woman, had been slowly altering everything from her work schedule to the way she wore her hair. It wasn’t something she liked to think about, let alone discuss.
“So.” Josh cleared his throat. “You’re really going to take some guy home with you?”
“If I can find one,” she said as the waiter approached. He set their pizza on the table, and Josh distributed the first cheesy slices. They ate in silence, mulling over her situation. At least, she was mulling. For all she knew, Josh was checking out a cute waitress.
To some, asking Josh to accompany her might seem an obvious answer. He’d certainly been willing to do her favors in the past—from free labor on her car to late-night assassinations of Texas-size spiders in her apartment. But this was different. While Josh came across as a people person who could shoot the breeze with anyone, he was intensely private. Piper had watched more than one woman lose him after pressuring him to “open up.” A few days of Piper’s meddling relatives interrogating him would doubtless be his idea of hell. Besides, how insensitive would she have to be to invite a man who’d never had a real family to a large family reunion?
So, with Josh out of the question, who was she going to ask? Instead of eating with her usual gusto, she nibbled her food, thinking out loud. “Most of the men I know are from work, and I can’t ask any of them.”
Josh nodded. “They might misconstrue the invitation, and you’d be in violation of the company’s fraternization policy.”
Plus she couldn’t ask any of them for a huge favor when she wasn’t exactly Ms. Popular at the office. She couldn’t afford to chat in the break room when she was determined to prove herself, to get ahead in a field dominated by men. And she deliberately minimized any feminine assets, which some people had interpreted to mean she was aloof and hard. Though she and Josh had always gotten along professionally, they hadn’t truly become friends until they’d run into each other in their building’s laundry room.
“You know any nice guys?” she asked.
“I keep in touch with a few frat brothers from college, but I’m having trouble picturing you with anyone I once watched do a keg stand, then throw up on the front steps.”
“What about that guy you coach softball with every spring? Adam?”
Josh worked with kids from underprivileged neighborhoods from March to June, and Piper had met Josh’s co-coach during last year’s district playoffs. Good-looking man, but she and Josh had agreed never to date each other’s friends after an awkward situation when he’d broken up with one of Piper’s former college classmates—another casualty of the Joshua Weber charm. Piper really pitied those women.
An unexpected thought struck her. Sure, she pitied them now, but how would she feel toward his dates if he ever showed a real attachment to one of them? Her stomach churned, but she told herself it was just the stress of her reunion predicament, nothing more.
“Adam would actually be a great choice for you to take to your parents,” Josh agreed, “but he’s in Vancouver on an extended business trip until after Halloween. Besides, what would I say? ‘You remember my friend Piper—she needs a fake boyfriend.”’
“I have to find someone.” She sat back, staring blankly across the table.
What would happen if she just told her family the truth—that she was single and liked it that way? You know what would happen. Charlie. The man had blond, all-American good looks and had been born into Rebecca’s top social level. Granted, Rebecca wasn’t big enough to have many levels, but the point was, he was used to getting his way. He’d seemed more bemused than upset when she’d broken their engagement, and she got the impression he was waiting for her to come to her senses.
Josh swallowed nervously. “Exactly why are you looking at me like that?”
Blinking, she chuckled at his wary tone. “Relax. I’m not asking you to come with me. I just needed a sympathetic ear.”
He quickly replaced his guarded expression with a smile meant to be casual, but his relief was so palpable it was practically a third person in the booth. “Hey, here’s an idea, what about a man from the gym? You’re there every other morning. You’ve gotta know some guys.”
“No, I spend most of my time with Gina. Or working out alone. I avoid eye contact with men so I don’t end up trapped on the treadmill, fending off unoriginal lines like, ‘Come here often?”’
“I can’t help but notice you avoid men most everywhere you go.”
“The last thing I expected from you is the Piper-needs-a-man speech.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I get it from plenty of other people.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. You definitely don’t ‘need’ a guy. You’re the most together woman I know.” He flashed a wicked smile. “And I know lots of women.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Give me something to work with,” he prompted. “What did you tell your mom about this mystery man?”
“I told her he had dark hair—”
“Good. Thousands of guys must have dark hair.”
“—and that he was tall—”
He laughed. “Compared to you, everyone’s tall.”
“—and I said he had green eyes.” As the words left her mouth, she realized Josh had green eyes. Deep, forest-green with flecks of shimmering gold.
Not that she’d paid much attention.
Hating the sudden warmth in her cheeks, she blurted, “I think green naturally sprang to mind because my own eyes are green.”
“Yours are blue.”
“Blue-green.” She ducked her head. “Close enough.”
Okay, maybe she had subconsciously described a man who bore a slight, vague, infinitesimal resemblance to Josh. Made sense. He was the only guy she spent much time with.
It didn’t mean anything. Yet her pulse refused to resume its normal rate. She almost pressed a hand over her rapidly beating heart, willing it to slow. After two years of observation, Piper knew that any woman foolish enough to let Josh affect her heart ended up with a broken one.
JOSH WALKED ACROSS the nondescript industrial carpet of the main workroom at Callahan, Kagle & Munroe, absently acknowledging greetings from a couple of draftsmen at their respective drawing stations. But his attention this Wednesday morning wasn’t really on any of his co-workers—at least none of the male ones. He hadn’t been able to focus his attention on work, either, which was why he’d decided to get a soda from the vending machine, motivated more by the chance to stretch his legs than by thirst.
As he approached the break room in the back, he glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window that boasted an impressive view of Houston’s skyline. Of course, it would be even more impressive without the ubiquitous road crews and bright yellow machinery below and the gray blanket of smog overhead.
Not smog, just cloud cover. He hoped his cranky mood was due to this being the third consecutive day of autumn drizzle. Because the only other explanation for the irritability that had plagued him since seeing Piper home last night was her dating dilemma.
Her dilemma, he reminded himself. She’d said flat out that she wasn’t asking him to go with her, thank God. After the last twenty years of being on his own, Josh wasn’t sure he could stomach a weekend of parents and cousins, aunts and uncles all wanting to get to know the man in Piper’s life.
Piper would figure out something. She was a determined, resourceful woman. Too bad she was gorgeous, as well. Her intelligence and sense of humor made her entirely too likable, and when combined with the incredible body she tried to hide under severe work attire and baggy weekend clothes—
Incredible body? He was not going there. Not now, not ever.
Except that lately, he had been. A lot. In the beginning of their unexpected friendship, her no-men oath and his own contrastingly busy love life had been a sufficient buffer, guaranteeing that neither of them would get any ideas about messing up their perfectly safe relationship. So what had changed? She still wasn’t interested in romance in any form or fashion, and he still…Come to think of it, he hadn’t been on as many dates lately. When had he slowed down?
He’d never intentionally set out to break Houston dating records, but it had only taken him a couple of breakups to realize he wasn’t cut out for long-term relationships. The emotional distance that had helped protect him while being shuttled from one foster home to another didn’t work well in romances, but the loner attitude that had been years in the making hadn’t magically expired at age eighteen along with the state’s wardship.
Though women might be attracted to him, more than one had decided he wasn’t worth sticking around for; he was too used to keeping his own counsel, too guarded for “real intimacy.” Maybe he’d been hurt once or twice when a woman walked out on him, but he wasn’t complaining about the way his life had turned out. As long as he kept his relationships casual enough that no one heard wedding bells, he could have plenty of fun.
But that “fun” did not and would never include Piper. Their friendship had sort of crept up on him, originally built on a few chance meetings at their apartment complex, some venting about work and a shared affection for baseball and action movies. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their friendship—like hit on her.
Entering the break room, he reached for the spare change in his pants’ pocket, but froze when he realized he wasn’t alone. Clearly, the universe was testing him. Piper stood in the otherwise empty room, bent at the waist and peering into a cabinet below the sink. The short caramel-colored jacket she wore had risen above her hips, and the matching slacks hugged her curves in a taunting way that left him struggling not to look at her caramel-covered backside.
Poor choice of words. The color she was wearing didn’t really resemble a sweet, sticky dessert topping, he told himself. It was more…well, hell. Women always seemed to have twelve words to describe one color, but he couldn’t think of anything but caramel and the thick, sugary taste it left on his tongue.
He wasn’t sure if he made a sound or if she’d just experienced that I’m-not-alone-anymore feeling, but she straightened suddenly, glancing over her shoulder.
“Josh! I didn’t realize anyone was standing there. Hey, you don’t happen to know where the extra coffee filters are, do you? I could have sworn they were in here.”
“Uh…coffee filters? No. No idea.” No alternate locations sprang to his hormone-impaired mind, but he needed something to distract her from resuming her under-the-sink search. Lord help him if she bent over again. “So, any new thoughts on how you’re going to solve your problem?”
She leaned against the counter, her smile rueful. “You mean this weekend? Maybe. I think when I get home tonight, I’ll call a few of the guys I’ve dated here in the city. I might not leave a relationship with your finesse and have them come back begging for more, but I think I’m still on speaking terms with everyone.”
“Oh.” Even though he knew Piper had dated, the thought of her with a guy jolted him. “Well, that’s…great.”
“If one of them actually says yes,” she said. “I just hope it isn’t Chase. I figure I might get desperate enough to ask him, but I won’t be brokenhearted if he says no.”
“Chase?” The only ex Josh remembered was Bobby. Or maybe it had been Rob. Definitely something in the Robert family.
“Yeah, Chase is one of those people with a strangely apt name. He spent the duration of our very brief relationship trying to get in my—” Suddenly, Piper’s expression changed. If he didn’t know her and her forthright nature better, he’d say she looked almost self-conscious. “Well, you know what I mean.”
Josh’s eyes met hers, and he hoped like hell his expression held no sign of the thoughts he’d been having so recently. “Yeah. I know.”
Neither of them seemed to have anything to add then, so they stood without speaking, gazes still locked. Though probably not even a full minute passed, the silence stretched on too long to be entirely comfortable.
Piper looked away, glancing at the empty coffeepot on the counter. “I think I’m just gonna grab a soda and get back to work.”
He pulled the forgotten change out of his pocket. “Me, too.”
They both stepped toward the vending machine, then drew up short. Josh motioned with his hand, indicating that she should go first—mostly because it gave him a chance to regain his composure.
He was glad she was going away for the weekend. Maybe he’d just been spending too much time with her lately. Maybe his dry spell had boggled his thinking and was the logical explanation for the effect Piper was having on him. Sure, that was probably it. And once he found a date for this weekend, and Piper spent some time out of town, Josh would be fine.
He just wished his jaw didn’t clench involuntarily every time he thought about Piper spending those days cuddled up to some faceless guy from her past.
3
PIPER WAS DOOMED.
After several fruitless phone calls and a long shower Wednesday evening, she was ready to concede defeat. As she’d rinsed shampoo from her hair, she’d mentally cast about for a last-minute possibility, but the truth was, she’d exhausted all her options. One ex hadn’t remembered her, which had been a big ouch to the ego. Chase was busy this weekend, but seemed to think they should get together sometime soon and have sex. Robbie, her last hope and most amicable breakup, had happily informed her he was engaged. Apparently his fiancée would frown on the idea of his running away for the weekend with an old flame. Go figure.
I can’t believe he’s getting married next month. Has it really been that long since we split up?
Piper pulled on a pair of sweatpants, assuring herself that she didn’t mind that her last date had been eons ago. She wasn’t one for wasting time, and when you weren’t actually looking for a relationship, dating was pointless. Why should she suffer through those pauses in conversation, those realizations that the person seated across from her was never really going to “get” her, when she’d rather be at home with her laptop and computer-assisted drafting software, getting ahead in her chosen career?
She supposed some people dated for companionship, but she had friends she could call on for company. Others might want dating for sex, but her experiences had left her convinced the whole thing was overrated. Pleasant, sure, but worth neither the awkwardness and risks of a casual affair nor the changes to her life to accommodate a relationship.
Maybe it was the guys she’d been with. Maybe a more experienced guy who knew women better, like, for instance, J—
“I do not need sex,” she informed her empty apartment and dead ficus tree.
And she didn’t need a man, either, she thought grumpily as she towel-dried her hair, then skimmed it back into a ponytail. Maybe she should just stick to her guns this weekend. Tell her family there’d been a misunderstanding—okay, a colossal deception—but that she was single and perfectly happy to stay that way. Of course, they were more likely to believe she was alone because she was pining for Charlie.
She strode across her living room and dug through her rolltop desk for the comfort of a Chocomel candy bar, but came up empty. A knock at her front door ended the sugar search. Given her current luck, it was probably the landlord with eviction papers. She considered her damp ponytail and heather-gray sweatsuit. Wouldn’t win any fashion awards, but it covered all the necessary body parts.
When she opened the door, she found Josh, not the landlord. Josh’s face was so grim that perhaps he’d just been evicted.
“I’ve been thinking, Piper.”
Normally she would have made some joke at his expense, but his scowl discouraged it. “About?”
“You. Your situation, I mean.”
He stepped inside, and she backed away with an alacrity she hoped he didn’t notice. Earlier, when they’d been in the break room at work, she’d experienced a strange hypersensitivity to his nearness. Now, in the privacy of her apartment, it was magnified. Did he have any idea how good he smelled? A dizzying anticipation fluttered inside her, as if every part of her body was just waiting for the moment when his skin might accidentally touch hers. And she couldn’t tell if she was nervous about it or looking forward to it.
Neither. Get a grip on yourself. She gestured toward the living room. It wasn’t big, but the square footage there made it a lot safer than the small foyer. “Why don’t you come in, have a seat?”
“Sure.” He made his way to the plaid sofa. “Did you, uh, did you call any of the guys you used to date?”
Piper perched on the arm of the couch, pleased with the compromise between sitting with him and noticeably avoiding him. “Practically all of them, but then, my list wasn’t that extensive.”
“Any luck?”
“None whatsoever.”
His posture sagged. For a second, his relaxed stance almost suggested relief, but then she realized his slumped shoulders must indicate disappointment for her.
He sucked in a jagged breath. “I’ve come to voluntarily enlist.”
Josh wanted to go with her? She struggled to find her voice. “You’re kidding.”
“I might kid you about a lot of things, darlin’, but this isn’t one of them.”
The familiar endearment stood out today, his warm, husky tone causing her stomach to turn a slow somersault. Her initial surprise and gratitude over his offer gave way to a momentary uncertainty about pretending to be romantically involved with him all weekend. The pretense would involve touching and—and…well, her mind was pretty much stuck on the touching. Her gaze slid involuntarily over his body.
“Unless you’ve come up with another solution?” he asked hopefully.
“Huh?” Piper blinked. “Oh. No. But are you sure? You sound like a man about to be martyred. You don’t have to do this.”
Which is why I offered, Josh thought. If she’d asked, he would have said no reflexively. Having no family of his own was almost tolerable as long as he wasn’t around someone else’s, reminded of everything lacking in his life. But she’d respected his space, reminding him again that she was the best friend he had. The reminder had relentlessly niggled at him, finally goading him into this decision.
His offer had nothing to do with the way he felt whenever he imagined some other man holding her or kissing her, whether the kisses were pretend or not.
“I never had a grandmother to take care of me,” he heard himself say. “But you have one you love very much, and this would make her happy. Besides,” he added with a smile, “I’ve never been one to turn down free food. What’s a road trip between pals? I mean, it’s not like anyone expects us to share a bedroom or anything.”
She jumped up from where she’d been sitting, chuckling nervously. “Perish the thought. If we shared a room, Dad would pull out his Winchester and march you down to the courthouse, where your options would be marriage to me or the hanging tree.”
“Hanging tree?”
“Sure, the big oak in the town square. They haven’t used it in about a hundred years, but they’d happily make an exception for an outsider.”
Josh peered up at her. “Gee, you make it sound like such a fun place, how could I not want to go?”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He knew she’d never do that again if she realized it lured a man’s gaze to her mouth, to her full bottom lip and the sweet curve of her upper lip. Piper didn’t seek out men’s attention. She wore her hair back, mostly skipped makeup and probably didn’t even own a skirt, but her red-gold hair and turquoise eyes would attract a man even if she wore sackcloth. She applied the same determination at the gym as she did in all other areas of life, and the resulting figure would make any man’s mouth water.
Any man’s but mine.
With too few people in his life he cared about or trusted, Josh refused to throw away his friendship with Piper on sex. Not even hot and sweaty, mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex with the most delicious woman he’d ever seen. Which would never happen, anyway, because Piper would flatten him with one of her Tae-Bo moves if he ever suggested they hit the sheets.
When he sighed, Piper sat next to him, frowning. “You regret volunteering already.”
“What? Oh, no. I was just…making a mental list of the stuff I should pack.”
“What about work?” she asked doubtfully.
“I’ll call in sick tomorrow and Friday. Don’t feel guilty, I haven’t taken a sick day all year and I’ll lose them if I don’t take them in the next two months.” And it wasn’t as though anyone from the office would guess he was with Piper. Though people knew they were friends, Josh’s active dating life was common knowledge.
“You’ll really do this?”
“You can count on me.” Words that were as ironic as they were true. He’d never encouraged a woman to depend on him because the last thing he wanted was to lead one on. Why pretend he might stick around when goodbye was inevitable?
He’d been left too many times, and it was safer if he did the leaving, early enough that no one truly got hurt.
“I know I can count on you. Thanks, Josh.” The poignant expression in her aquamarine gaze made him look away.
He stood. “If I’m going to pack, I should do laundry.”
“Need any quarters?” She sounded uncharacteristically shy. “I did mine last night and still have some change.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
She rose then, hesitating briefly before throwing her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.”
Awkwardly, he returned the embrace, immediately recalling the last time she’d been this close to him. A few months ago, at a baseball game. They’d both jumped up, cheering as the Astros battled their way from a tie to a win. At the end of the game, Piper had turned to impulsively hug him.
The clean citrusy fragrance of her shampoo was exactly as he remembered. And the underlying womanly scent of her was the same, too.
He released her abruptly.
Piper shuffled back, her expression apologetic. “I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate this. I owe you.”
“How about a lifetime supply of those chocolate chip pancakes you make?” He shrugged off her gratitude with a smile. “It’s not that big a deal, really. How bad can one family reunion be?”
“You don’t know my family.”
“I’m not worried,” he said. “And now you don’t have to worry about this anymore. This weekend, I’m all yours.”
SINCE ALL THE TREADMILLS were taken Thursday morning, Piper began a brisk lap around the indoor track surrounding the mirrored free-weight area. She supposed it was silly to be here so bright and early—okay, pitch-dark and early—on a vacation day, but she hadn’t been able to sleep much after Josh’s visit last night. Even after hours to get used to the idea, she was still surprised by his generosity.
On the surface, his favor might seem like a fairly simple thing. It was only a few days, after all, and a few harmless white lies to people who would never see him again. But Piper knew Josh better than that, realized what this would cost him. He’d heard her talk about her relatives enough to know what to expect—a convergence of people demanding to know his intentions and dragging out the details of the life story he hated discussing.
Knowing that she’d apparently underestimated him left her feeling both guilty and curious. If he was more capable of opening himself up to others than she’d given him credit for, was it possible that—
You’re getting way ahead of yourself.
This was one weekend, nothing more. And Josh’s relationship potential was none of her business, anyway, especially considering she didn’t want a relationship. What she wanted was to prove to the people of her hometown that there was more than one type of success in life. Not having a ring on your finger or a significant other to fill your Friday nights didn’t mean you were a failure.
As she finished her first quarter-mile, Piper spotted Gina Sanchez off to the side, stretching. A pretty woman with long black hair, a habitually wry smile and a collection of colorful T-shirts—including the one she currently wore that said Lawyers Do It Pro Bono—Gina was Piper’s closest female friend. They frequently worked out together and sometimes caught a movie or dinner, but Piper generally turned down her friend’s clubbing invitations to popular Houston hot spots.
Piper slowed her pace. “Morning.”
“What are you doing here?” Gina stepped onto the track. “I thought you were leaving to go see your folks today.”
“Not for another few hours.”
Her friend shook her head, sending her dark ponytail swinging. “Ever heard of the concept of sleeping in?”
“Well, in the town I’ll be visiting, the closest thing they have to a gym are the three machines in the high school weight room, only two of which ever work at the same time. And eating my mother’s cooking for the next few days, I’m sure to come back ten pounds heavier. I figured one last workout would be good for me.”
“You’re so disciplined.”
Piper raised her eyebrows. How was she any more disciplined than her friend, who attended the gym with the same regularity? “You’re here most mornings at six, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I want to look good so I can find Mr. Right.”
Piper just didn’t get it. Her cousins she could maybe understand, since they’d been raised in such an old-fashioned setting where their peers aspired to good marriages shortly after high school. Gina’s life was more contemporary than that. An attractive, self-reliant attorney, she nonetheless spent a lot of weekend nights with dates who didn’t deserve her, only to agonize the following week over why they hadn’t called and whether she would ever meet someone.
Piper knew that with her friend, it was more a case of wanting a relationship, not buying into the myth that women needed a man to take care of them. But honestly, why did Gina want something so much when it was usually a one-sided effort that left her grumbling about how there were no good men available?
Friends who’d known Piper post-Charlie had teased her, only half kiddingly, about her militant feminist streak. Maybe she was being too cynical, she thought as she pumped her arms in rhythm with her stride. After all, what was wrong with healthy equal partnerships?
Nothing, if they exist.
At first, Piper had thought that’s what she had with Charlie, until his little manipulations had added up to one big picture. Never complaining that she preferred jeans to a more traditional feminine look, but buying her skirts for her birthday; insisting that children could wait while she built her career, yet managing to make sure she was holding some cute baby at every possible opportunity, hinting that she’d make a wonderful mother.
Charlie was just one example, true, but she didn’t see a lot of counterexamples in the people around her. Gina’s attempts to find a fulfilling partnership had yet to yield any convincing successes, and Piper’s other closest friend, Josh, actively shunned emotional involvement.
Then there were Piper’s relatives, the people she’d grown up watching. One could argue that her mother was happily married, but how happy could a woman really be while doing her husband’s laundry and fixing his dinner and voting the way he voted? Personally, Piper would probably gnaw off her own arm to escape that kind of relationship. Her cousin Stella, divorced three times, obviously hadn’t found the magic formula for true happiness, either.
Even Daphne, who in the past had echoed Piper’s resolve not to end up like their mother, was now married and living in Rebecca, pregnant with twins. True, Daphne taught school instead of following their mom’s homemaker path, but what had happened to Daphne’s plans to travel and see the world? Her husband, Blaine, had apparently convinced her that staying in town so he could run his family’s ranch was more important.
Frustration fueled Piper’s gait, and neither she nor Gina spoke as they concentrated on their workout. It was only as they slowed to do one final cooldown lap that Piper caught her breath enough to relay the story of her mother’s phone call and the resulting situation.
“You can imagine how shocked I was when Josh volunteered to go with me,” she concluded.
Gina regarded her strangely. “Why is it shocking? You spend almost all your free time with the guy already. Is it even stretching the truth that much to hint you’re a couple?”
Piper stopped so suddenly she almost tripped over her own sneakers. “Of course it is! You know our relationship is nothing like that.”
Stepping off the track toward the free weights, Gina teased, “What I know is that you’re close to a gorgeous straight man who has steady employment, yet you refuse to set me up with him.”
Gina and Josh? They were all wrong for each other. They…they…actually, they were two attractive, intelligent people with a compatible sense of humor and similar career drives. Nonetheless, Piper had to restrain herself from snapping a warning that Josh was off-limits.
But she couldn’t resist a quick reminder. “I’ve told you, we promised not to date each other’s friends.”
“From the way you make him sound and from the glimpses I’ve caught of him, I might be willing to ditch you as a friend.” Gina grinned.
Piper halfheartedly returned the smile. Trying to atone for her inner snarkiness, she said, “It may not seem like it, but I’m doing you a favor not setting you up with him. Josh is a lot of fun, but he’s hell on female hearts. You know how many women I’ve seen him break up with?”
“Maybe because he hasn’t met the right one.”
“Won’t matter. Josh isn’t going to let himself find the right one.”
If the right woman dropped into his lap, he’d be too busy running the other way to notice. Not that Piper entirely blamed him for his behavior. With her close-knit—sometimes suffocatingly so—family, she didn’t pretend to understand what it must have been like to grow up being bounced between foster homes. People coming and going through Josh’s life as if it had some sort of invisible revolving door had probably become the norm for him. His dating habits now simply reflected the pattern.
“So this string of broken hearts, is that the reason you’ve never gone for him yourself?” Gina asked, surprisingly stubborn this morning. Normally all it took was one of Piper’s we’re-just-friends pronouncements to change the subject.
“I don’t need a reason not to go for him. I’m not looking for romance, remember?”
Gina sighed. “And yet you’re the one going away for the weekend with the sexy guy.”
Yeah. Piper would love to laugh off her friend’s comment—except the fact that she was going away for the weekend with a sexy guy was what had kept her awake all last night. How far would she and Josh need to go to convince others they were a couple? The man stiffened whenever she casually hugged him, and lately, she was no better. Yesterday, her entire body had tensed whenever he got close to her. So what would happen if he actually had to, say, kiss her?
And why didn’t she believe her own self-assurances that she wasn’t secretly dying to find out?
4
JOSH FOUND PIPER in the parking garage. She was loading the trunk of her car and glanced up with a smile when he called out a hello.
“Hi.” She took his duffel from him, then unlocked the back door of the car to hang up his garment bag. Shutting the car door, she turned expectantly toward him. “Didn’t you bring anything else?”
“Nope. I have everything I need.”
“In a garment bag and one small duffel?”
Nodding, he peered through the car window at Piper’s luggage. It appeared she’d packed the entire contents of her apartment. Maybe to avoid being robbed while she was out of town.
“I noticed the car was sagging,” he kidded her, “but I thought we just needed to fill up the tires before we hit the freeway.”
“I have presents to take home for the kids in the family, plus a gift for my sister, who’s pregnant, another for my cousin who got engaged, one—”
His laugh cut her off. “It’s your car. Bring as much as you want.”
She slid in the driver’s side and reached across to unlock his door.
Soon they were zooming down the road and Josh was clenching his fists in his lap. Usually, whenever he and Piper went somewhere, he drove or he took his car and met her there. Or he walked, or did whatever else was necessary to avoid riding with her when she was behind the wheel.
It wasn’t just her tendency to drive at warp speed that bothered him; he detested being in situations where someone else was in control. He was a lousy passenger and he knew it. People disliked “backseat drivers,” especially stubborn, independent people like Piper who hated to be told what to do.
I am going to keep my mouth shut, he told himself. As far as he knew, Piper had never had a single accident. She didn’t need him to tell her how to drive.
His well-intended resolution lasted for about five minutes. Piper’s head was nodding in time to the fast-paced song on the radio, her braid bobbing against the collar of her pale yellow shirt, and with each chorus, the car accelerated a little more.
“So,” he blurted, “what’s the speed limit on this road, anyway? We shot past the sign so fast I couldn’t tell.”
She glanced at the speedometer and immediately slowed the vehicle down.
He couldn’t repress a sigh of relief. It was irrational to get nervous when he was in someone else’s car, but for the first eighteen years of his life, he’d had no control whatsoever. He hated not being in charge of a situation. Usually, he managed to project an easygoing image, but his heart pounded every time he had to fly on a plane or ride with another driver.
For a while, his irrational feelings had even affected his job history, driving him to quit voluntarily before something beyond his power might force him to go. A few months ago, he’d started freelancing his services and it had started to pick up. He was regularly approached with jobs that were big enough to keep him busy, but too small for firms like C, K and M to expend energy on. Lately, he’d had to turn down as many assignments as he accepted, but he never backed too far away from his freelancing—and not because he needed the money. Life had taught him that little was permanent. Not jobs, not families, not lovers. Why get attached to people? Why give someone else the opportunity to leave him? He’d lost enough already.
First his parents, although he’d been so young that he remembered them mostly as faces in the photographs he owned. There’d been a string of foster families he’d stayed with only long enough to start caring before being yanked away and sent elsewhere. Living with the Wakefields had been the last time he’d really dared to hope for a family. After they’d moved, he’d decided becoming close to people was just an invitation to get hurt. He’d once dated a woman, Dana, who had tempted him to try to let someone in. He’d wanted to, he really had, but he’d never been able to adjust to the level of intimacy she’d needed. So she’d become just one more person to walk out of his life without looking back.
Piper zoomed beyond Houston’s city limits, and for a moment he silently applauded her speed. Too bad he couldn’t outrun the bitterness of his past with the same ease.
Maybe conversation would help alleviate his tension. “Is there anything in particular I should know about you?”
“What?” She sounded perplexed. “You know me pretty well already.”
“Well, yeah, but is there something more personal, like you have a birthmark the shape of the state of Louisiana?”
“I do not have any weird birthmarks.”
No doubt her skin was as creamy and flawless as her curves were intoxicating. “Okay, then some other obscure detail. Your favorite brand of bubble bath?”
“I’m more the hot shower type.”
Her words erased the image he’d been conjuring up of thin, foamy bubbles barely covering her. But the shower comment only made him think of two people intertwined in a steamy tile stall—two very specific people who had no business being naked and wet together.
“Is there any reason you’re trying to make me sound like a Playboy centerfold?” she challenged teasingly.
“Centerfold?” Cursing his exemplary visualization skills, he battled back an image of Piper scantily clad and provocatively posed.
“You know, those ridiculous interview bios.” She adopted a higher-than-normal airheaded tone. “My name’s Piper, and I enjoy champagne and bubble baths.”
“Maybe my examples stunk. All I meant was, are there little things people might expect me to know about you? Things a lover would know?”
Her gaze shot from the road to Josh, and the word lover hung between them like an unfulfilled promise. Or a warning.
After a second, she shook her head. “Convincing my family we’re involved is one thing, but trying to convince them we’re having a scorching affair would be more complicated, not to mention a little creepy. These are my parents, after all. Besides, people may think I’m dating, but I never hinted that the relationship was serious. We just need to take small steps to make it look real. You might have to, um, hold my hand or put your arm around me or something.”
“I can do that.” Despite all the times he’d deliberately avoided those exact, seemingly simple, things.
“And…” She swallowed. “It might not hurt if they see you kiss me once.”
“Kiss you.” Her summery citrus scent teased him, and for the second time in as many days he wondered what she’d taste like. Oranges? Sweet? Tangy?
“Just a quick peck or something,” she said. “No need for a major kiss.”
Showed what she knew about him. If he was going to do it, he would do it right.
“We got off track here,” she said a bit breathlessly.
He’d have to take her word for it. His thoughts had strayed so far afield that he didn’t even remember the original conversation.
“You were worried about personal trivia,” she reminded him. “But no one’s gonna quiz you about me. They’ll want to know all about you.”
His least favorite topic. “Hope I don’t disappoint them. I’m not a very interesting guy.”
She shot him such a knowing look, he added, “But if there’s anything you think you should know to make this more believable, feel free to ask. I don’t mind.” He ignored her snort of disbelief.
Relief pooled inside him when she didn’t call his bluff.
Instead, they lapsed into silence, the kind he would feel obligated to fill with any other woman. But Piper didn’t expect him to be witty or charming. She didn’t mind when he was obnoxious and cranky, and she could be obnoxious in return. Gradually relaxing, he leaned his seat back and closed his eyes, letting Piper’s humming and the motion of the car lull his nerves.
He didn’t wake up until he heard the sirens behind them.
PIPER’S GAZE FLEW to her rearview mirror, and her heart sank. Ignoring Josh’s muffled laughter at her colorful language, she pulled the car over.
She’d been stopped twice in one week! “My insurance company is going to send a guy to break my kneecaps.” She rolled down her window, looking up to meet the steel-gray eyes of a very tall patrolwoman.
With her platinum-blond hair and high supermodel cheekbones, the officer was probably a Nordic goddess when she smiled. At the moment, though, she was scowling. “License and proof of insurance, please. Do you know how fast you were going?”
Piper didn’t think it would look very good if she admitted she had no idea. Before she could say anything at all, Josh leaned across her, addressing the officer.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said, exaggerating his normal Texas drawl. “I just wanted to apologize. I’m the one who’s got to be somewhere, and my sister was hurrying for me. I shouldn’t have encouraged her to drive so fast.” He flashed a full-voltage smile. “You should give me the ticket.”
Piper mentally rolled her eyes. He was only going to irritate her. And what was he going to say when she asked where they had to be in such a hurry?
But the woman didn’t ask. Instead, her cold gaze turned smoky, and she smiled. “I don’t think there’s a need for anyone to get a ticket today. Your sister just needs to slow down.”
Josh’s voice was pure honey. “Thanks so much, Officer—?”
“Blake. Julie Blake.”
“I suppose it would be too forward to ask if you’re in the Houston phone book, Julie Blake?”
Unbelievable! The previously stone-faced officer actually blushed.
If they’d been in Josh’s car instead of hers, Piper would have tossed her cookies right there on the dashboard.
After Officer Julie assured them she had a listed number, wished them a good day and sashayed back to her own vehicle, Piper let Josh have it. “What is wrong with you? Are you just one giant gland?”
“Hey, I appreciate the gratitude, but don’t get all mushy or anything.”
“Gratitude?” She forced herself to drive away slowly. “For what—the lesson in flirting? Thanks, but I’ve caught the Josh Weber seminar plenty of times.”
“I wasn’t fl—Okay, I was, but only to try and help save your kneecaps.”
“What if your charm hadn’t worked? What if you’d just made her mad?”
Josh stared at her. “Have you ever seen my charm fail?”
The question would have smacked of arrogance were it not for one thing: she never had seen his charm fail. Women adored him. Even she, who should know better, had been forced to admit lately that she wasn’t completely impervious to his flirtations.
“I think you’re jealous,” he said, a smirk in his voice.
Exasperated, she almost threw her hands in the air, but decided not to, in the interests of steering. “Jealous? Of the Scandinavian patrolwoman?”
“I don’t think ‘Blake’ is Scandinavian.”
“I couldn’t care less who you throw yourself at. You and Miss Swedish Cheekbones could—”
“I meant,” Josh interjected, “jealous because I’m so much better with the opposite sex than you are. Face it, you’re no expert on catching men.”
“You make guys sound like fish. Or, more appropriately, a disease. For your information, and my mother’s, my sister’s and the entire population of Rebecca, Texas, I don’t even want a man! So why would I work toward catching one?” Gee, don’t hold back, Piper.
Though she’d surprised herself with her vehement response, Josh took her overreaction pretty well, simply shaking his head. “You know what? You’re right, and I’m sorry.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Oh, great. Apologize and make it completely impossible for me to stay mad at you.”
“I do my best. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I’d say anything about you finding a guy when…”
“When what?”
“Nothing.”
Piper risked glancing up from the road, but Josh’s face gave nothing away. His eyes were shuttered, his mouth neither scowling nor even hinting at his usual flirtatious smile. In fact, it was almost eerie how expressionless his gaze was. Not vacant, but flat…as though he had no emotions at all.
Well, this trip was off to a fabulous start so far.
She pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. Silence reigned. Even if she’d known what to say, the very set of his shoulders deflected conversation. Not for the first time, she wondered what it must be like to love someone who could shut you out so completely with an instant, invisible wall.
But what must it be like for Josh, trapped on the other side of that wall?
Piper smiled at the ridiculous thought. He lived the life most bachelors dreamed of, and seemed perfectly content with it.
As she slid her credit card through the slot at the gas pump, Josh got out of the car. He crossed the parking lot, and Piper watched a group of college-age girls gape in open admiration. The man couldn’t help his own appeal. She shouldn’t have called him a giant gland when he was doing her a huge favor.
She was just a little on edge. This was her first trip home in years, and though she’d never admit it out loud, a herd of butterflies was stampeding in her stomach. The idea of pretending to be involved with Josh for the next few days was hardly steadying her nerves.
Still, she couldn’t let him know the effect he had on her. Best case scenario, he’d tease her mercilessly until she had to kill him and hide his body on some deserted Texas road. Worst case, she’d make him uncomfortable and ruin their friendship.
She’d just finished filling the car when Josh appeared at her side, a brown paper bag in his hand.
“How about I drive for a while?” he offered. “And before you bite my head off, my offer has nothing to do with you going Mach 10. You know how antsy I get when other people are behind the wheel, and this way you don’t have to do the whole trip yourself.”
She surrendered her keys, knowing she probably shouldn’t drive, anyway, when she was so preoccupied with her dubious homecoming. As she slid into the car and fastened her seat belt, he thrust the bag in her direction.
“I got these for you,” he said. “I thought you might need them this weekend.”
The paper crinkled as she unfolded the top and looked inside. Half-a-dozen Chocomels.
Piper grinned, the earlier tension between them gone. “You are the greatest, Joshua Weber.” She savored the first bite of chocolate. “You know, I got to thinking about what you said earlier. You were wondering if we should know trivial facts about each other.”
“Yeah, but you said they weren’t important.”
“They aren’t. Not the trivial ones, anyway. But there are other things that might be. I hardly know anything about your childhood, and my family might think that’s odd.”
Okay, using her relatives as an excuse to pry was both flimsy and obvious. Luckily, Piper was curious enough not to be picky.
“You know where I grew up. You know I’ve lived in Texas all my life and went to the University of Texas on scholarship.”
She folded her arms over her chest and waited, unwilling to be put off with vague answers.
He sighed. “How specific did you want me to be?”
“Maybe something a little more personal than the state you lived in.”
“I didn’t expect this from you,” he said quietly, the very softness of his tone making her feel as though she’d betrayed him.
Perhaps she had. She’d known beforehand how he’d feel about this.
“Fair enough.” She relented. “You don’t want to talk, we don’t have to. But my family’s going to ask you questions this weekend. I’ll support however you want to handle them, but you should probably give the matter some advance thought.”
A few minutes of silence passed, and Piper turned to watch the flat autumn landscape roll by outside her window.
She almost jumped in her seat when Josh unexpectedly volunteered, “I lived in a total of six foster homes. The last family, the Wakefields, actually looked into adopting me. But they got transferred to Europe before the legal stuff could take place, so I stayed in an orphanage until college. A fraternity contact led me to a job in Houston, and you know the important stuff from there.”
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