Breaking the Silence (5 page)

Sure
, she thought, exasperated.
I meet the guy of my dreams and then I grill him about why he’s exactly where I want him to be.
She shook her head a little—
whoa, I confused myself with that one.

“It’s okay,” Will said. Jenny jerked her attention away from her non-grammatical internal dialogue and focused on Will. He was still looking at his boot. “I see you sometimes.”

“Walking Rosie, you mean?” Jenny asked, a little confused.

“Yeah. From the house.”

“And…” she prodded, still baffled.

Will paused. In the silence, Rosie’s panting sounded loud. The dog was sitting, surprisingly, and waiting patiently, which was even more of a shock.

“And I wanted to meet you,” Will said, rushing out the words so that they all ran together, without ever looking up from his boot.

Jenny stared at him, bewildered. This man, who looked like he had stepped right out of an action movie, had walked from his house on that cold, snowy afternoon just because he saw her on the path and wanted to meet her? Things like that did not happen to her. She went to work, walked her dog, put on her jammies and went to bed. It seemed surreal.

Will moved as if to turn away, just a flinch really, and Jenny realized that she had been staring at him with her mouth hanging open—quite unattractively, she was sure.

“Sorry, I was just surprised. That you would notice me, I mean.” Jenny frowned a little—that had come out a little more self-deprecating than she’d planned. “I’m glad you introduced yourself though.”

At that, Will’s shoulders lowered a little, as if he had been holding his breath. Jenny was struck again by the contrast between his attractiveness and his shyness. It was endearing.

Their stilted conversation was interrupted by Rosie, who had exhausted her short supply of patience and decided to continue on their walk, pulling an unprepared Jenny off balance.

“Wait—Rosie, hold your horses for a sec, would you? Do you have time to walk with us?” Jenny asked over her shoulder, emboldened by Will’s self-conscious admission. She would be stupid not to grab what was offered to her on a hunky blond platter, now wouldn’t she?

Will looked a little startled by the invitation but nodded and caught up to Jenny easily. He reached over and took Rosie’s leash. Jenny released it, surprised by the confidence of the gesture. Shy one minute, old-fashioned and manly the next—he was an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a something-or-another, however that saying went. Jenny stopped trying to figure it out and just enjoyed the freedom of walking without the hindrance of a tugging dog. She watched Will out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t even seem to feel Rosie’s pull but held the leash with all the nonchalance of someone walking a Chihuahua.

“You do that like a pro—do you have a dog?” Jenny asked.

“No. It’s not hard. Just hold the leash and walk.”

Jenny couldn’t decide whether he was kidding or not—he really had that deadpan thing down—but she laughed anyway. “Hey, don’t knock the skill—it’s one of the few I possess. I’m a black belt in dog walking.”

Will glanced at her. Probably his turn to decide whether she was kidding or not.

“What do you do?” Jenny asked.

“You mean…hobbies?” He sounded a little horrified at the thought.

“Actually, I meant what do you do job-wise but you’re welcome to tell me about your hobbies too,” she said sweetly. “Do you collect pinecones for wreaths, perhaps?”

He gave her that sideways look again.

“Macramé?”

She got a half smile out of him at that.

“I’m a programmer.”

“Ah, one of those.”

“‘Those’?”

“I mean that in the most positive way—I have the utmost respect for your people.”

“
My
people?”

“Yeah. I think I’m missing that extra chunk of brain that allows a person to be a programmer. I’ve never learned to speak computer very well—just enough to write up a very shaky truce with my laptop. We agreed that if it doesn’t crash on me two hours before a deadline, then I won’t throw it out a window. Oh and I know enough to fix Christian’s e-mail when he mucks it up.”

“Christian?”

Jenny might have been shaky on computer languages but she was starting to understand Will’s monosyllabic one a little better and, if she wasn’t mistaken, that last word had definite jealous undertones. This made her happy.

“He’s a friend from work. He drags me out with him sometimes to the gay clubs in the Twin Cities.”

Will nodded. “Work?”

“Anderson Engineering. We do mechanical engineering—HVAC and plumbing.”

“Like it?”

Jenny thought about it for a minute. “Usually. I had a bad week.”

Will lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“Oh just the usual—annoying coworker, gossip, that sort of thing,” Jenny summarized. Will looked at her blankly.

“Don’t you have that one person in the office who gets on everyone’s nerves and asks you out even though you’ve made it perfectly clear that you aren’t interested?” Jenny asked. She meant it as a joke but she could actually picture Will walking around the office, trailing lovesick coworkers, male
and
female, oblivious to the heartbreak he left in his wake.

“No. I mean, I mostly work at home.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t like my boss much,” Will offered.

Jenny appreciated the effort. “Why—what’s he like? Or she?”

“He likes meetings.”

“Ugh. Say no more. Does he make you go to meetings for hours and hours that get absolutely nothing accomplished and then get mad if you fold up your notes into a paper football and try to flick a field goal across the table?”

“Yes.” Will paused. “Except for the football part. Haven’t tried that.”

“I see that I’ll have to teach you the finer points of paper football and Skittle-hockey. If you do well with those, you can work your way up to boss hand puppets. You have a long way to go, Grasshopper, but I will be your Sensei.” Jenny put her hands together and gave him a little bow.

Will gave her the sideways look and half smile. So cute.

Jenny was startled to see her turnoff up ahead. She hadn’t realized that so much time had passed. She was just two blocks from her house. For a one-word guy, Will was surprisingly easy to talk to. And look at.

“Here’s my turn.” Jenny pointed and reached for Rosie’s leash.

“I’ll walk you home.” Will had the macho tone again. Jenny just shrugged and dropped her hand but she was secretly pleased, both at the manliness and the fact that their walk wasn’t over yet.

“I was wondering—” Jenny spoke before thinking and then broke off. Did she really have the balls, so to speak, to ask him? Oh well, what would it hurt? “Would you want to—I mean, we have this work reception a week from tomorrow, boring I’m sure, but it would be a little less boring—I mean, a lot less boring—if you would want to, I mean, if you aren’t doing anything—” She broke off abruptly when a nasty thought occurred to her. “You’re not married, are you?”

“No.”

“Engaged?”

“No.”

“Otherwise entangled with a violent and jealous woman who collects weapons as her hobby?”

“No.”

“How about a violent and jealous man?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Jenny blew out a relieved breath. “So, would you like to?”

He looked completely lost. “What?”

“Go to the work reception thingy. With me.” Jenny patted his arm. “Keep up, would you?”

“Me?”

“Well, I’d bring Rosie but you should see what she does to buffet tables. Also, she always drinks too much and tells the boss off. Lots of damage control the next day, you know.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you know or yes, you’ll go?”

“Both.”

“Cool.”

Jenny and Will smiled at each other.

“That’s my place,” Jenny said reluctantly. She put her hand out for the leash. Will handed it to her, wrapping his hand around hers in the process. Jenny shivered. His hands were just so…big. And warm. And made her think of how it would feel to really be wrapped in him, surrounded by his strength and his heat.

“You’re cold. Better go in.” He leaned toward her just a tiny bit and Jenny froze. Was he going to kiss her? Panicked pre-kiss thoughts ran through her head in an instant. How was her breath? Were her lips chapped? Should she meet him halfway or just wait for it?

Nope, false alarm. Will was stepping back.

“Should I pick you up next Friday?” Jenny asked, disappointed over the non-kiss. She reluctantly pulled her hand out of his and started up her front walk.

“I’ll drive,” he offered.

“Okay.” She was on her front porch now, her keys in her hand. Will was waiting on the street. “Thanks for the walk.”

Will nodded.

“See you on the path tomorrow maybe?” The moment the words were out, she wanted to suck them back in. How desperate could she be? “Never mind! Forget I said that. You don’t even have to look out the window as we walk by. In fact, we’ll just go the other way so we don’t bother you at all.”

At Will’s smile, she stopped babbling and stared at him. Really, it wasn’t right that he should be that hot.

“Tomorrow. I’ll be waiting,” he promised, the remains of his smile lingering around the corners of his mouth.

It was Jenny’s turn to dig desperately for words. Nothing came to her, so she settled for an awkward wave with the hand holding her keys. He nodded, face serious again, and waited until Jenny had unlocked her front door, fumbling a little with the key, and both she and Rosie were safely inside. Jenny looked out of the swirled window next to the door and saw Will’s wavy figure, distorted by the pattern in the narrow pane of glass. He watched her house for another moment before turning and walking away.

Jenny slumped against the door, her legs suddenly wobbly. She blew out a breath and Rosie eyed her questioningly.

“I’m going on a date with him,” Jenny told her dog. “An actual date with the Nordic god! I
so
have to call Christian!”

He was waiting for her the next day. Jenny hadn’t let herself believe that he’d actually be there until she saw Will’s bulky figure on the path ahead. She grinned, wanting nothing more than to run up and wrap her arms around him in an excited hug.

Rosie whined, pulling at the leash and straining toward Will.

“Tell me about it,” Jenny muttered under her breath, close enough now to see his face lit with a happy smile. “How are we supposed to resist that?”

“Hi,” he greeted her, patting a wiggly, ecstatic Rosie as he took the leash from Jenny’s hand.

“Hi. How was your day?”

Will shrugged. “Didn’t get much done.”

“Same here.” She didn’t mention that he was the reason she had stared blankly at her computer screen for eight hours straight without accomplishing a single thing. “Big plans for the weekend?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Just more work.”

“Ugh.” She threw him a sympathetic glance. “Slave driver of a boss, huh?”

“Not really. Work is just…all I do.” He flushed. “That sounds so boring.”

Jenny grinned. “What happened to creating the pinecone wreaths?”

He snorted. “That’d be even worse.”

“Or you could collect butterflies—talk about creepy hobbies.” She made a face.

“Or be one of those birthday party clowns.”

Clapping her hands over her eyes, Jenny groaned. “Anything but a clown.” Lowering her hands from her face, she gave a full-body shudder. “Clowns freak me out.”

“Well
yeah
.” His voice was so disgusted that Jenny had to laugh. They both hated clowns. It was a good place to start.

The next day was Saturday, so they walked earlier in the afternoon than usual.

“Not that it’s much warmer,” Jenny grumped, hugging herself as the biting wind found tiny gaps in her coat zipper and through the knit of her scarf. “I can’t wait ’til spring.”

“I like winter,” Will admitted.

“Are you nuts?” She slanted him a look from beneath her red plaid hat. Will had grinned at her when he first saw the cap, fleece-lined earflaps and all, which had made Jenny very glad she had worn it. She hadn’t cared if he’d been laughing with her or at her—she’d just been happy he was smiling.

Now he shrugged. “When it’s really cold, it feels so clean. Everything’s so still and quiet and the sun gets those rainbow things on both sides—what are they called?”

“Sun devils,” Jenny told him, still not convinced. “What’s so clean about your nose freezing shut when you try to breathe?”

Giving a huff of laughter, he protested, “But it’s beautiful. I always feel like I should be quiet when I’m outside on days like that—as if everything’s so cold it’ll shatter if I make a noise. Even the air would break like glass.”

“Listen to you, Mr. Poet. Maybe you should’ve been a writer instead of a programmer.”

“I
do
write.” He slanted a teasing look her way. “Code.”