Breaking the Silence (4 page)

A hint of red darkened those amazing cheekbones. “It came that way,” he muttered, his eyes brushing to the side. “I’m going to paint it next summer.”

“Oh.” Jenny was a little disappointed. The purple was definitely part of the crazy-grandma feel the house gave off but it seemed a little anticlimactic to go from wild violet to standard white or some other generic color. “You don’t like the purple?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just…” His eyes dropped from hers again, almost as if—

Jenny looked at him sharply as an idea occurred to her. Could the Nordic god be
shy
?

“It’s kind of a girl color, don’t you think?” He was watching her again. Jenny shook off her distraction and made herself concentrate on the conversation. But shyness from this hot, hot man! It was too adorable.

“Not really.” Jenny held her ground for only about a second and a half. “Okay, maybe it is a
bit
girly. It’s just that purple seems to fit. It’s a great house, by the way.”

“Thanks.” And then he smiled. It was such a sweet, unexpected smile that Jenny found she was grinning back at him like an idiot. A freezing-cold idiot, now that she thought about it. His large form was a great wind block but he must be almost frozen too, Jenny figured—he didn’t even have a hat on.

As reluctant as she was to end this odd but entrancing encounter, Jenny couldn’t feel her fingers. “I’d better get going—it was nice to meet you, Mr. Purple-House-Owner.”

“My name’s William. William Jackson.”

“Jenny Fitzgerald.” She stuck out her frozen hand and he hesitated a moment before taking it. Her mitten completely disappeared in his bare hand and, even through the fuzzy knit, Jenny could feel the incredible heat of him. She wanted to leave her hand in his forever—and that thought made her panic enough to pull free from his grip.

“Nice to meet you, William. You’d better get inside before your ears freeze off.” She started back toward home, as it was too cold by now to finish their usual loop. Besides, twilight was creeping in and she was in such a dreamy, brainless mode from meeting William the Hot that Jenny didn’t feel like she should be wandering around in the dark.

“Nice to meet you…Jenny.” He watched her until she was out of sight.

He had done it. He had actually met her, talked to her, touched her.

Will was prowling his house, unable to sit or work or do anything except roam from room to room, his stomach flip-flopping with excitement and nerves and leftover adrenaline. He strode over to the living room window and twisted the blinds up, peering out through the snow at the silent path as if she would appear again, even though it was almost midnight. He had been pacing the house for hours, thinking about her—no, thinking about
Jenny
.

He actually knew her name now. He also knew how she smelled—good—and that her mouth looked even better up close and that she was amazing—nice and funny and she actually seemed to like him.

A thrill shot through him again. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually had the nerve to leave the house and walk the few steps from his yard to the path when he saw her blue-hatted figure approaching. Once she had gotten close and saw him, his brain had shut down and he had frozen, unable to say anything or do anything except stare at her like an idiot, but it didn’t matter—she had talked to him and laughed and said that she liked his house.

Will took another turn around the living room before stopping at the window again. She had also given him a raging hard-on. He grimaced, adjusting his jeans.

He had to do something. Maybe a workout would help. As he took the stairs three at a time, heading to his room, Will couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from twitching upward, crumbling the edges of his habitual stoicism. He threw off his jeans and sweater and yanked on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt before jamming his feet into his running shoes. Earlier today, he had stood helplessly at his closet for almost an hour trying to figure out what to wear.

Like a teenage girl
, he thought, shaking his head in self-disgust. The shirt he had finally picked had been covered up by his coat anyway, so it hadn’t even mattered.

Will was glad of the weight bench and treadmill that he had set up in his basement as soon as he had moved in. His only other option would be running through the snowy streets, a sappy grin plastered on his face, and that would make the neighbors think he was even crazier than they had already decided he was.

He headed downstairs and hopped onto the treadmill, pushing the start button and arrowing up the speed. As his feet fell into the easy rhythm of practice, his mind repeated her name with every stride.
Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…

Jenny tried again to concentrate on water piping and drain clean outs, without much luck. She had been sitting at her desk at home for hours, staring blindly at the plumbing drawings that she still had to finish, computer mouse motionless under her fingers.

It was his fault, William’s, for breaking her concentration. If he hadn’t been so hot and intriguing and, well, gorgeous, she would be happily working and not gazing off into space. The whole walk home, her stomach had fizzed with the sensation that something exciting and big and life changing had just happened, and all because she had met some guy who probably wasn’t even interested in her.

Jenny frowned, trying to bring the whole encounter back into perspective. Just because she’d met some halfway-attractive man and talked with him for five minutes did not mean that anything was going to come of it. In fact, this was probably one of those meet-once-and-never-see-again situations.

Or
, Jenny thought with dawning horror,
I’ll see him in the spring on one of Rosie’s walks and he’ll be painting his house with his wife!
With their
kids
running around! He would wave casually to her and put one of his muscled arms around his gorgeous,
skinny
wife—

Jenny slammed her laptop shut and went to bed. It was a long time before she fell asleep.

At work the next morning, Jenny hadn’t even booted up her computer when Carrie’s head appeared over the cubicle wall.

“Jenny, you skank, I thought we were friends!”

“What?” Jenny asked, startled out of her early morning daze by Carrie’s accusing tone.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me!” Carrie’s voice was muffled as her head disappeared. Jenny heard the sound of chair wheels scooting across the floor and Carrie reappeared in the cube opening. Jenny sighed, racking her brain for some offense she had committed against the usually cheery Carrie.

“How can you be dating the
love
of your
life
, be practically
engaged
, be having
sex
with a
man
and not tell me about it? Do you know who I heard it from?
Do you
?”

Oh that.
For a sleep-deprived second, Jenny had forgotten about her Evan-evasion tactics.

“Mary!” Carrie continued without waiting for a response. “Mary is telling me that you, my
friend
, who should tell me everything, have not only broken your non-dating streak but have found ‘the
one
’!” Carrie crossed her thin, freckled arms over her baby-enhanced chest and glared at Jenny. “I’ve been married for seven years, you know. I have a baby. I have a minivan, for God’s sake. You know that the only thrills I get are vicarious ones! I mean, I understand keeping this from the rest of the office but why didn’t you tell
me
?” Carrie’s tirade ended in a wail.

“Chill, Carrie, chill!” Jenny couldn’t hold back a grin. Even Carrie’s hair looked outraged, springing from her head in angry, carroty corkscrews. “I didn’t tell you because he doesn’t exist.”

“I bet you told Christian all about him. I bet he knows all the details—” Carrie broke off and looked confused. “Wait—what?”

Jenny scooted closer to Carrie and lowered her voice. “I made him up. Evan finally asked me out and—”

“Yeah, I heard. You would have thought the little asshole could have waited two more days.”

“Huh?” Jenny looked confused.

“I picked tomorrow as the ask-out day in the betting pool.” Carrie waved her hand in dismissal. “Quit changing the subject. Who is this guy and why did you make him up?”

“As I was
saying
,” Jenny shot Carrie a reprimanding look, which Carrie ignored as she made a “hurry up” gesture. “Evan asked me out yesterday and all I could think of was the ‘I’m seeing someone else’ excuse. Well,
that
and the ‘I’m a lesbian’ but—”

“That never works,” Carrie said, cutting her off again. “So this guy is just made up. There’s no boyfriend.”

“Nope.”

“No engagement.”

“Not even close.”

“No sex?” Carrie’s tone was disappointed and a little wistful.

“
Nada
.”

“Oh.” Carrie was silent for a moment. “Sorry I called you a skank.”

“That’s okay—that part’s probably true.” Jenny looked at Carrie thoughtfully. She was dying to tell someone about her encounter with William yesterday and Carrie looked so sad that she wasn’t going to hear any juicy sex-related details.

“Actually, I did meet someone…”

Carrie’s face lit up at that and she leaned forward. “So there
is
sex!”

“No!” Jenny eyed Carrie with exasperation. “Get your mind out of the gutter, woman. I just met him yesterday.”

“Fine, fine—no sex. Tell me the rest.”

“Well—”

“Did I hear someone mention sex?” The two women’s heads, bent close together, jerked up at Christian’s interruption. He was peering over the partition at them.

“I should have known,” Jenny said. “You can smell gossip a mile away, Chris.”

Carrie waved at him impatiently. “Get your ass over here if you want in on this. You’re holding up the show.”

Christian scooted around and jammed his chair next to Carrie’s. She shoved back and they battled for position for a moment while Jenny watched, tapping her hand against her leg impatiently. The two settled down and both looked at Jenny expectantly. She laughed.

“You guys look like Rosie when she’s about to get a treat.”

“Forget your dog for a moment,” Christian said. “Spill. Who are you having sex with?”

“For the last time, I’m not having sex with anyone.” Okay, that was a little loud. Jenny lowered her voice. “I just met a guy last night.”

Two pairs of eyes, one brown and one green, fixed on her, unblinking. Jenny was almost sorry she’d started this. There was so little to tell.

“I was walking Rosie and I almost crashed into this guy on the path. It was snowing, so I had my head down and wasn’t looking where—”

Christian gave Jenny the exact same “hurry up” gesture that Carrie had given her a few minutes before.

“Anyway…” Jenny stretched out the word, glaring at Christian. “We talked and then…well, then I went home.”

“And…” Carrie prompted.

“Well,” Jenny admitted, squirming a little. “That was pretty much it.”

Christian and Carrie both sat back with identical disappointed expressions.

“I can’t believe I just missed ‘Celebrity Trash Talk’ on the radio for this lame tale,” Christian complained. “Was he at least hot?”

Jenny nodded, blushing a little. She couldn’t stop a small smile from pulling the corners of her mouth up when she thought about William. “Very hot. Big.”

That sparked a little more interest in her audience. “Uh-huh. And?” Christian prompted.

“And blond, with these incredible cheekbones and these slanted light, light blue eyes.” Jenny flexed her arms in a mock bodybuilder stance. “Lots of muscles.”

Carrie looked at Christian. “She’s talking about his cheekbones. I think the girl’s in love.” She turned back to Jenny. “Did he ask you out?”

“No,” Jenny sighed. “But he lives in one of the houses on the path, so I’m sure I’ll see him again.” Although she hadn’t seen him before yesterday. “Well, pretty sure.”

Carrie and Christian just looked at her.

“Kind of sure?”

“Girl, that was the most pathetic non-sex story I’ve heard in a long time,” Christian stated. Carrie nodded her head in agreement. They both started giggling.

Jenny laughed and threw the first missile she could grab off her desk—a red felt pen. “Out, beasts!” She grabbed for something else to throw, came up with the stapler and threatened the two laughing fiends. “Get out and let me get some work done.”

Carrie and Christian backed their chairs out of the entrance. “Like we’re scared of you,” Christian mocked. “You throw like a girl.”

Jenny just turned around and gave him the finger over her shoulder. She shook her head at their silliness but her smile faded. It
did
sound like nothing when she said it out loud. She talked to a guy for a few minutes. Big deal. Was she going to start having fantasies about every guy who said two words to her now? The bank teller maybe? Or the gas station attendant?

Jenny sighed, booting up her computer. She was letting her sex-starved hormones take over her brain and she needed to get some work done. She was thinking way too much about a stranger who probably hadn’t given her another thought.

Late that afternoon, Jenny was torn. Should she take her usual path, hoping to bump into William, or should she go in another direction?

She had been thinking all day about walking by the purple house, possibly even seeing the Nordic god again. Even while working frantically to make her deadline, Jenny had found herself drifting off, inventing conversations that she would have with him the next time she saw him.

As she stood planted, still dithering about which direction to go, Rosie gave an impatient whine and started walking, jerking Jenny in the direction of the path.

“We’re just going where the dog wants to go,” Jenny said under her breath, her stomach starting to flutter with nerves and excitement. “I’m not a desperate, sex-starved person—I’m just a kind dog owner. Right, Rosie?” Her dog just twitched an ear back for a second at her name, not even pausing in her energetic bounce, pulling Jenny toward the path and the possibility of William. An older couple walking in the opposite direction gave her a cautious look and a wide berth as they passed her.

“Great. Now I’m the crazy lady who talks to her dog. Oh and now I’m doing it again.” Jenny clamped her unruly mouth shut to stop her rambling and followed Rosie.

After anguishing about whether to walk by his house or not, it was anticlimactic when she drew closer and closer to the purple house and there was still no sign of him. She slowed her steps, to Rosie’s dismay, and peered at the back of his house, still hoping that he would appear and walk up to her. She wanted to talk with him again—she had been practicing, damn it! Kicking at the light layer of new snow, she allowed Rosie to tow her past the purple house.

“Fine,” she muttered sulkily. “I didn’t want to see you anyway, Mr. I’m-So-Hot!” Jenny had to laugh—she sounded like a cranky five-year-old. She knew that yesterday’s encounter had been nothing, had told herself over and over not to blow it out of proportion, but the excitement had crept in uninvited.

“Oh well,” she sighed, glancing back for one last look at William’s house before they moved around the bend and it was lost to sight. “It was good for a few daydreams.”

She would be walking by his house right now.

Will heard a rumbling noise and realized that it was coming from him. He was actually growling in frustration.

“Mr.—ah, William—did you say something?” Even though Josh was his boss, he always stumbled over Will’s name, as if he’d be more comfortable calling him Mr. Jackson.

“No,” Will bit off, irritated at Josh’s condescending tone.
Great.
Everyone sitting around the conference table was staring at him now.

“Are you sure?”

Will tapped his pen on the table and debated telling Josh what was really on his mind—that he could be talking to the woman of his literal dreams right now, except that a pompous asshole wanted to flaunt his tiny bit of power by calling an unnecessary meeting and insisting that Will attend.

The thought of actually saying the words out loud made Will smile grimly. Better not. He actually liked his job—most of the time. “Positive.”

Giving Will a suspicious look, Josh finally nodded. “As I was saying…”

Blocking out the drone of the other man’s words, Will slouched in his chair, stifling a bored sigh. He noticed that Natasha, who had been inching her chair closer to him for the past hour, was now almost in his lap. With an annoyed grunt, he shifted to his left, regaining a fraction of his personal space.

He didn’t care for Natasha. She had a predatory gleam in her eye, as if she would tear off his head and eat it for dinner if he let her get too close. Despite his best efforts to avoid her, she always found a way to sit next to him in meetings, subtly elbowing her coworkers aside to snag the chair next to his.

Glancing up, Will saw one of the other programmers, Charlie, grimacing in what Will assumed to be sympathy, either for the length of the meeting or Natasha’s stalking, he wasn’t sure. Will squeezed his eyes closed, as if he were in agony, and opened them to see Charlie smothering a laugh with his palm. An odd warmth sparked in Will’s chest at the exchange. It had been almost…friendly.

While he had been distracted by Charlie, Natasha had closed the gap between their chairs again. Rolling his eyes, Will scooted a few inches farther away. With a little space between him and Natasha’s ever-advancing chair, he could tune out Josh and think about
her
again. He felt his mouth turn up at the corners.

Jenny…

The next afternoon, Jenny didn’t let herself slow down by the purple house. Enough of this silliness. She was not going to find a gorgeous blond man by the side of the path. She marched on, eyes resolutely forward.

No looking
, she commanded herself sternly.
No look—

“Jenny.”

Yes!
Okay, so maybe she
was
going to find a gorgeous blond man by the side of the path. Jenny, with enormous self-control, restrained the urge to jump up and down like a game show contestant and turned as nonchalantly as possible toward that deep, deep voice. Her happy smile couldn’t be held back by any force of will, however. Jenny knew she was grinning like an insane monkey as she looked at William, who, she noticed, had not gotten any less beautiful over the past two days.

“Hi.”
For Pete’s sake
, Jenny thought. Once again he had reduced her to ditzy-cheerleader-speaking skills. Nothing against cheerleaders, of course—although she didn’t mention it to most people, she had been one herself back in high school.

Will nodded. Her conversational skills might be a bit scattered but his were nonexistent.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you…” Jenny grabbed at the first topic that came to mind. “If you weren’t walking on the path the other day, what were you doing here?” She winced. That had come out more rudely than she’d intended.

The severe edges of his cheekbones reddened and his eyes slid away until he was looking at the toe of his boot.

“Sorry. You don’t have to answer that—it’s not really any of my business.” Jenny tried to backtrack.