Within Reach (11 page)

“Easily fixed—we swap cars for the day. You get my heap of crap, and I get your lovely Audi.”

She offered her keys along with a cheeky smile.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin your day.”

“It’s fine. I’m ahead on everything for once. Half an hour to drop off the kids is neither here nor there.”

The tight expression left Michael’s face. “Thanks, Angie.”

She waved off his gratitude. Michael grabbed his briefcase as Eva entered, socks in one hand, shoes in the other.

“Almost ready,” she said. “Have you made my lunch yet?”

“Damn,” Michael said.

Angie shooed him toward the door. “Go. I’ve got it covered.”

He shot her a grateful look and stooped to kiss Eva and Charlie goodbye. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?” Then he turned toward her. “I owe you.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. Big-time.”

He surprised her then by stepping close and dropping a kiss on her cheek. His lips were warm and firm against her skin and she sucked in a big lungful of his leather-and-sandalwood aftershave before he moved away from her.

“Have a good one,” he said as he left.

Angie fought the absurd, teenage urge to press her fingers to her cheek where he had kissed her. No way was she indulging herself like that. No way.

A few seconds later she gave herself a mental shake and surveyed her two charges.

“Okay. One of you has to go to school today. Remind me again which one of you that is?”

Eva giggled. “You’re silly, Auntie Angie.”

“Indeed I am. Now, what shall we pack you for lunch?”

She dropped Eva at school and Charlie at day care and dived into the day’s work. She was locking up the house to collect Eva and Charlie at the other end of the day when Michael called.

“Hey, there,” she said. “Have you schmoozed your clients into submission?”

“I have no idea if I sold them the project or not.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah. Listen, Angie, there’s a problem. My flight has been delayed.”

“By how long?”

“At the moment, they’re saying half an hour. But they’re also not saying what the issue is.”

“Ah. I love it when they do that.”

“Tell me about it. I’m really sorry, Angie.”

“What for? So you’ll be half an hour later than you were supposed to be. It’s no skin off my nose.”

“I’ll keep you posted. Hopefully it won’t be a big deal.”

But it was.

Michael called again at four-thirty to tell her that the airline was still being cagey about the status of his flight. At five he let her know the flight had finally been officially cancelled and passengers were being redirected as availability allowed. Given that Michael’s plane had been full, as were most of the other Sydney-to-Melbourne flights, he had been warned it might take some time.

She told him not to worry and made the kids nachos for dinner. She was washing the dishes afterward when Michael called to say he’d been shuffled onto the last plane of the day at eleven o’clock. He was understandably furious and frustrated and Angie did her best to keep things light once he’d finished updating her.

“Look on the bright side—there’s all that fantastic airport food to keep you going,” she said.

“Remind me never to fly again.”

“I’ll put a note on the fridge.”

“Angie—”

“Michael, if you say you owe me one more time, I’m going to punch you in the face when I see you. It’s not a problem. Okay? It’s not like I had other plans for the evening, and in case you hadn’t noticed, I like your kids.”

“I know.” He sounded troubled and weary.

“Here’s a deal for you—if I ever feel as though you’re treating me like your bitch, I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Okay, deal.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Will you put Eva on so I can tell her what’s going on?”

“Sure thing.”

Angie handed the phone to Eva and listened as she peppered her father with questions before holding the receiver to Charlie’s ear so he could say good-night.

By nine o’clock the children were both fast asleep. Angie cleaned up the kitchen and folded some laundry and then dropped onto the couch to watch TV. There was nothing on that interested her and she stood and went in search of a book. Billie had never been a big reader, something Angie had never been able to fathom. Books had been her closest friends when she was growing up, a secret portal through which she escaped to magical worlds and far-off places. As an adult, she read for entertainment and inspiration, leaning toward biographies and fantasy.

Feeling a little as though she was invading Michael’s private space, she ducked her head into his study. She’d never spent a lot of time in here, since it had always been very much a working study rather than the kind that simply housed a computer and a few household files. Her gaze ran over the deep, wide desk made from a piece of highly figured timber—Blackwood Box, if she had to guess—and the angled lines of a drafting table. One wall was lined with shelves filled with books, while the wall beside the door was home to an old, squishy-looking leather couch. It was a very masculine space, dark wood and chocolate-brown leather dominating, with a red-toned Turkish rug providing a counterpoint. It was very Michael, too—understated, comfortable, serious yet not unwelcoming.

She crossed to the bookshelf and was pleased to discover that as well as a wide selection of architecture and design books and manuals, Michael had also devoted a couple of shelves to biographies and crime thrillers.

Five minutes later, she had three books in her arms as she turned to go. Her gaze slid across Michael’s desk and got caught on the small framed photograph he kept there. It had been hidden by the computer monitor when she first entered, but she had a clear view from here.

It was of Billie, naturally. A candid shot taken at the beach. It had clearly been a very windy day and Billie’s hair was flying around her face, her dress billowing. She held her hair back with one hand, while the other fought to keep her skirt down. Far from being dismayed by her dilemma, she was delighted, her mouth wide with laughter, her eyes sparkling with energy.

Angie hadn’t seen the picture before but judging by the length of Billie’s hair it had been taken about three years ago. She smiled at her friend’s exuberance, but the picture made her sad, too. All that life was gone now. Buried six feet under.

And now you’re making goo-goo eyes at her husband, like the
very
best of friends.

She didn’t know what nasty, vindictive corner of her mind the thought came from but it made her take an instinctive, jerky step backward.

She wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at Michael. She never had. She’d become aware of him lately, and she’d been honest enough to admit she was attracted to him. But she would never even consider acting on that attraction.

She glanced at the books in her arms. She shouldn’t have come in here. This was Michael’s space, and she shouldn’t be helping herself as though she had a right. Guilt gnawing at her, she reshelved the books.

The ring of her phone interrupted her retreat from the room.

“Guess who?” Michael said as she took the call. He sounded resigned and more than a little tired.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been delayed again?”

“Electrical storm. They’ve grounded everything until it passes through, but things are going to be backed up. Am I the luckiest guy alive or what?”

“You definitely shouldn’t waste money on a lottery ticket today.”

“So my ETA is now sometime after midnight, which means I won’t be home till the small hours.”

“No worries. The kids are in bed here so I’ll bunk on the couch again.”

“At the risk of inviting a punch in the nose, I have to say you’re a godsend.”

“Have you had something to eat?”

“I’m about to grab something now.”

“Hang tough. By hook or by crook you’ll get home.”

“So they keep telling me. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Sure.”

She made her way to the living room. Even though the television was offering nothing but pap, she turned it on and settled in for the duration. A couple of hours later she collected the bedding from the hall cupboard and set herself up for the night. Her skinny jeans were too tight to sleep in so she stripped down to her tank top and panties and slid beneath the quilt and let the late-night TV drowse her to sleep.

And every time her thoughts turned to Michael, she sent them somewhere else. Because she was not going to be that woman. She refused to be.

* * *

M
ICHAEL
WAS
BONE
TIRED
by the time he pulled into the garage at one-thirty in the morning. The moment his flight had hit the ground he’d headed for the short-term parking lot, thoroughly pissed at the world. He was so tired he’d walked past Angie’s green SUV three times looking for his Audi before he remembered that they had swapped cars. He’d driven home with the windows open in order to keep himself awake.

Now he grabbed his briefcase and headed for the house. The kids’ rooms were adjacent the entrance and he tried to keep the noise to a minimum as he let himself in. He could hear the faint sound of the TV from the living room meaning Angie must still be up.

He set down his briefcase and went to check on the kids, tugging Charlie’s blanket a little higher on his shoulders and easing a book from Eva’s lax hand. Trust his little night owl to fight off sleep for as long as she could.

He made his way to the main area. He expected to see Angie pop up from the couch but the only action was on the TV where a sockless Don Johnson was chasing a criminal down a pastel-tinted Miami street.

He moved closer and saw that Angie was out, her body curled into the couch, her dark hair fanned across the pillow and her shoulder. Like Eva, she’d fallen asleep with the remote control in her hand. Smiling, he leaned down and gently slid the remote from her grasp. She didn’t stir as he clicked off the TV and tiptoed out of the room.

He would have to do something nice for her. Maybe shout her to a facial or massage or one of those other day-spa type activities that women always seemed to relish. Or maybe he could take her out for dinner, somewhere fancy to let her know how much he appreciated her. It would be nice to eat at a plush and lush place for a change and talk without interruption.

He brushed his teeth on autopilot and was about to undress and crawl into bed when he remembered that he’d promised he’d email some figures to his clients. He knew absolutely that if he didn’t do it now, he’d forget in the morning. Rubbing his eyes, he headed for the study where a five-minute job became a twenty-minute job when he saw that he had two new emails from other clients.

Finally he switched the computer off and headed for bed. It was a testament to how weary he was that he didn’t register the light from the open refrigerator door until he was halfway across the kitchen. Then the door swung shut and he found himself staring at Angie.

“Oh! You’re back. I didn’t realize,” she said, eyes wide in the dim half light.

He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out. She was wearing only a pair of black panties and a pale pink tank top. A little patch of belly was visible between the two and her legs were long and bare and seemed to go on forever. The pink fabric of her tank top stretched over her full, round breasts, the color pale enough that he could see the dark shadow of her nipples.

She looked soft and warm and leggy and utterly feminine and the male instincts that had lain dormant within him for the past year came roaring to life with a vengeance.

Heat rushed south, his pulse picked up, every muscle went tense and within seconds he was hard, his body making ready for an act that was never going to happen. Appalled at himself and the shocking insistence of his body’s reaction, he lashed out.

“What do you think you’re doing? What will the kids think if they catch you running around the house like that?”

The smile froze on Angie’s face. She blinked, then color flowed up her chest and neck and onto her face.

“I was thirsty,” she said. “Anyway, I doubt the kids would even notice. They see a million times more on the beach every summer.”

“We’re not at the beach. This is my home. I don’t want people getting ideas.”

Again she blinked at his harsh tone. He knew he was out of line—way out of line, off the planet—but he was hanging on to his self-control by the slenderest of threads.

He’d slept alone for over a year. He hadn’t so much as smelled another woman’s perfume and suddenly Angie was standing here, sexy as hell, nearly naked, and his body was making a lie of his pretense that he could spend the rest of his life denying himself to preserve his memories of Billie.

This was Billie’s best friend. He should not be feeling this way about her. It was wrong on every level.

Without saying another word, Angie stalked toward the living room. He told himself not to look after her but his gaze was already locked onto her ass and thighs. He stared long enough to imprint the image on his mind before dragging his gaze away and fixing it on the fruit basket on the counter. A few seconds later he heard the unmistakable sound of jeans being zipped, then the sound of Angie’s booted feet as she stood.

“I need my car keys,” she said.

He could hear the shock and hurt in her voice. He told himself to apologize but he was too afraid of what might happen, of how his body might betray him if he looked at her again.

So instead, he placed the keys on the kitchen counter. She moved close enough to scoop them up before heading for the door.

Jesus, he was an asshole. An out-of-control, sleazy, desperate, guilt-ridden asshole.

“Angie,” he called, but either he didn’t speak loudly enough or she chose not to hear him because the next sound he heard was the front door closing.

He swore. He couldn’t believe what had just happened—that she’d looked so good to him, that he’d reacted so vehemently, that he’d said the things that he’d said. God only knew what she was thinking right now. She’d given up her whole day to help him. She’d been patient and kind and incredibly generous for months on end. And he’d repaid her by behaving like an outraged family morals campaigner.