The Driven Snowe (10 page)

“What about…let's see, two months or so from now? I know you're busy with work and whatnot, but check your calendar.”

“I don't know…” Josh scrolled through even more
dates, stopping on an entry that had a flashing reminder note. “Whoops. Dad's birthday.”

“Whoops, indeed.” His mother chuckled at him. “Honestly. I figured you might have forgotten. How such a brilliant businessman can't keep his family's birthdays straight is beyond me. I think it's a male thing. I honestly do.”

It was a familiar tirade. Josh just smiled at it. “What can I say. We're inconsiderate scum.”

“So you'll come, then? We're having the whole family over for a party.”

Josh thought about it.
That's one weekend away from Angela.
Despite his problems with the way their relationship was going, he valued every minute he got to spend with her. He didn't know how much time he was going to get before she decided she'd had enough. That was a whole other problem, frankly.

Still, this was his family. Nothing was more important than his family. “I'll be there,” he said.

“Good. It'll mean so much to your father. You know he's not going to want to face that sugar-free carrot cake alone.”

Josh's tone became more concerned. “How's he doing, anyway? With the diabetes?”

“Oh, you know your father,” she said. “It's hard on him, but he'll never let on. Stubborn as a mule, charming as the devil. This is one problem he can't attack head-on. He can't talk his way out of it, or plan his way out of it. At least he can control it by diet—he's not doing the insulin route.”

Josh nodded in agreement. “He'd hate that.”

“He still feels like his body is betraying him, though. The man in control of everything can't even keep his own
blood sugar in line. It's an indignity.” She sighed. “But he's learning to live with it. Naturally, I'm helping.”

“Naturally,” Josh said, smiling again. “Where would he be if he didn't have you?”

“Probably in jail or the loony bin,” his mother said firmly, causing him to laugh. “Well, somebody has to take care of the man before he runs himself into the ground. Good heavens. And now I'm going to have both my girls and my son, all under the same roof!”

She obviously sounded delighted by the prospect. “Don't know how you stand it, Mom.”

“Oh, I don't know, either,” his mother said, and he could almost picture the gentle smile on her rounded face. “You four are pretty tough to take.”

His mother lived for her husband and her kids, and he knew it. “I'll make it up to you, I swear.”

“Try giving me some more grandkids,” she suggested. “Then I'll have more people to focus my attention on instead of bothering my only son.”

This, too, was familiar ground. “I just haven't met…” he started, then stopped, thinking. “Just out of curiosity, what would you say if I brought somebody home for Dad's birthday?”

His mother was quiet for a second. “I'd say, honey, go get the first aid kit, I think I've keeled over.”

“Cute, Mom,” Josh noted. “No, really. How would you feel?”

“You've met someone, then?”

Josh cleared his throat. “I didn't say that.”

“What did I tell you before? I'm your mother. You can't con me.” She sounded triumphant, and excited. “So, what's she like? What's her family like? And how did you meet her?”

He was
not
telling his mother how he met Angela. “Well, she's sort of hard to describe,” he hedged. “She's very special.”

“She's got to be, if you're considering bringing her here. Where is she from?”

Josh frowned. “I don't know, really.”

His mother paused again. “You don't
know?
”

“Well, she used to live in New York.”

“When?”

What difference did it make? But these were Mom-type questions. He should have been used to them by now. “Well, she lived in New York before she lived here,” he said. “She used to live in Manzanita. We went to high school together.”

“Was she one of your friends, then?”

“Um, no. I didn't really know her.”

“Was she born there?”

Josh rubbed his temples. “It hasn't come up.”

“Josh, for someone who's about to bring a girl home to meet his parents, you sound like you're picking up a stranger from the bus station.”

Josh didn't have a ready argument for that one.

“Honestly. How long have you known the girl, anyway?” she asked, her voice thick with suspicion.

“I don't know. Two months, I guess. Maybe three.” Three sounded better, and he didn't like his mom's tone.

“Three months, and you don't know anything about her? What in the world have you been doing?” She paused. “Wait a minute. Don't answer that.”

“Wasn't planning to,” he responded. He saw Jackie from marketing making an impatient motion at his doorway before disappearing down the hall. “Listen, I've got
to go into a meeting. Say hi to Dad for me, and tell the girls I'll be there for his party.”

“Sure will. I love you, son.”

“Love you, too, Mom.” He hung up the phone.

Like you're picking up a stranger from the bus station.

He went into a meeting to see the new ad spots their agency had been working on. As the marketing people squabbled over the report he'd read over, he thought about his mother's words.

He didn't know anything about Angela, he realized—at least, nothing that mattered to Angela. It was just like their first “date.” He had been trying so hard to work out an “arrangement” with her, of romancing her and seducing her, he hadn't even considered getting to know her better. He had to admit, he had wanted to impress her and win her over—his consideration hadn't gone further than securing their six-month arrangement. He felt a little uneasy knot in his stomach that felt suspiciously like guilt.

He'd never had to worry about women opening up to him in the past. Women with marriage on their minds always wanted to become your best friend—they told you stories of their childhood, their entire relationship history, all in the hopes that you'd break down and do the same. Then, if you did drop any stories, they'd start trying to wear you down further, with china patterns and children's names next on the list.

Angela hadn't been like that. She wouldn't be like that—from what he knew about her, opening up was not something that came easily to her. And for the first time in his life, he might actually want her to try.

He would stop by her house tonight. Not for their
usual seduction, or varied and exotic sex. Tonight, he was going to really delve into the mystery that was Angela Snowe. And maybe, just maybe, their “arrangement” would turn into something much more.

 

A
NGELA FLOPPED ON
her couch. She was tired. It had been an unusually crazy day at the library, with two very irate patrons, one missing book shipment, and an on-the-spot employee resignation. She glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. She was supposed to be over at Josh's at seven-thirty. Maybe she should cancel—she was a little too exhausted to be up for their usual weekend antics.

She stretched a little, rubbing at her neck. She hadn't thought she would ever say that. It certainly wasn't that she didn't enjoy the sex. If anything, every time she was with him made her seem to want him even more than before. But something wasn't quite right, and she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

Maybe I've just been too tired.
Classes four nights a week, on top of her forty hours of work, and yoga bright and early Saturday mornings was beginning to wear her down.

The doorbell rang before she could pick up the phone. Frowning, she got to her feet, moaning lightly—her feet were killing her. She didn't want to deal with solicitors. At this point, somebody with a million-dollar check could be waiting at her front door, and she wouldn't care. She'd tell him to take a hike, then call tonight off.

She glanced through the peephole. To her surprise, she recognized the man's features in the fish-eye lens. She opened the door slowly. “Josh?”

He grinned, and she smelled the delicious aroma of take-out…Chinese, maybe? “Hi there,” he said, and
came in while she was still too surprised to do anything. “I thought you'd be tired. I brought movies and some Thai food.”

She held the door for a minute, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She'd been hesitant to have him come to her house, preferring to have their arrangement take place at his house so she wasn't constantly reminded of it when she was home. But the food smelled delicious, and she'd been figuring on just having a sandwich or maybe oatmeal for dinner, anyway. And he looked so
comforting,
standing there with his hands full of packages. “You can put all that stuff down on the kitchen table,” she finally said, closing the door and locking it.

He set up everything in a matter of minutes. “How was your day? You look exhausted.”

She hadn't really talked about her job before. Part of it was her habit of not sharing a lot…she didn't want to bore him, and besides, it didn't seem particularly applicable when it came to, well, what they
did
on weekends. That had been her choice, and his as well, she rationalized. Just because she'd had a rough day…

“Angela?” Josh walked up to where she was sitting, and put a broad, warm hand on her forehead. “Honey, you're not getting sick, are you?”

The gesture was so sweet. It reminded her of when her mother used to do the same thing, checking for fever. She smiled at him. “Just beat. Had a tough day at work.” Words just seemed to tumble out of her, and before she knew it, she was relaying the scene in bits and pieces. “So there I am, standing between two old men who were in a shouting match about whether or not the
Kama Sutra
should be allowed in a public institution,
one yelling that it's smut and the other all but singing the national anthem and quoting the constitution, and Linda just throws up her hands and says, ‘That's it—I quit' and walks out. It was a wretched afternoon.” She rubbed at her temples, then jumped slightly as she felt his hands on the back of her neck. She relaxed almost immediately as his fingers gently massaged her neck and shoulder blades. “Mmm. That feels great,” she said, leaning back slightly.
It's just a back rub. That's still physical, not emotional, right?

“Man. You really did have a day, huh?”

“It's better now,” she said.

They ate the Thai food, and he cleared away the dishes. “Just relax on the couch,” he had said, shuffling her back to her living room. So all she could do was sit there and relax while he handled everything. She was touched, but she was also sort of disconcerted. He seemed to be looking at everything. Maybe she was being paranoid.

“Wow,” he said, as he was rinsing dishes before loading them in the dishwasher's wire racks. “Lots of recipes you've got around here.”

She glanced around the kitchen, trying to see where he was looking. “I'm taking a cooking course,” she explained, slightly embarrassed. “I might have mentioned it.”

“You said you had classes all week,” Josh said. “You've never said what they were in, exactly. So… Chinese cooking, huh?”

“Um, yes.”

He read over one of the recipes she had posted to the refrigerator, and another few on a book rest. “Lots of chopped vegetables involved here, huh?”

She laughed. “Yeah, that's been the only drawback. After a long day of work, the last thing you want to do is chop up a bunch of carrots and greens and bok choy and things.”

“This is pretty,” he said, switching gears.

“What is?” She craned her neck to see what he was referring to, but the pinching pain there stopped her.

“This little stained glass thing in your window. It looks unusual.”

She felt herself blushing. “Another class. I'm taking stained glass making. That's one of my early attempts,” she said, surprised at how embarrassed she was. “It's not that good.”

“You made this?” He dried off his hands, then came over to the couch, bringing the movies from the kitchen table. “It's really good. I like the way it looks sort of like a rose, but in a more modern style.”

“There's this architect that made roses sort of similar to that,” she explained. “Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He's one of my favorites. My mom was really into architecture…”
That sounds so boring!
What was she doing, anyway? He was there for hot sex with her, not a lesson in the Arts and Crafts movement! She tried shifting gears. “Anyway. We're just staying in, right?” She started to halfheartedly stroke the back of his neck, wondering where she'd get the energy to seduce him. She was just getting comfortable, too.

He kissed her with a very gentle tenderness, then looked in her eyes. She was surprised to see the seriousness in his sapphire gaze. “I had a little bit of a rough day, too,” he said. “Tough day at work, and a call from my mom. She's doing fine, asked about you.”

Before Angela could feel one way or another about that remark, he continued.

“My dad's health could be better, though. He has adult onset diabetes—just got diagnosed with it a few months ago. It's been pretty hard on him.”

“Oh, Josh,” Angela said, rubbing his back sympathetically. “Is he going to be all right?”

“It's not that bad, really. There's a lot they can do if you catch it early enough, and I think that in this case, they've got a good jump on it,” he said, and she could sense the tension running through him. He laughed, a sort of ironic chuckle. “Still, you'd have to know my dad. This is going to drive him nuts. He likes being in control of things—he's completely and utterly driven. He likes having things his way. The fact that his body is now calling the shots, and that he has to stop doing things that he likes, is really going to drive him up the wall. Retirement was bad enough.”