HAPPINESS always made Jo feel as if she could be a poet. So many sensations, everything felt different. Even the air she breathed. She mentioned this to Matt about a microsecond after he woke up, and he rolled his eyes, then rubbed them and yawned. “Of course the air is different. We’re up in the mountains instead of in a polluted city.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “Everything’s different when you’re happy. The colors, the wind, the sounds you hear—everything.”
“You are a dreamer after all,” Matt said indulgently, but there was so much warmth in his eyes that she didn’t care that he’d all but given her a pat on the head.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Romantic, I promise I won’t write you a sonnet,” she said with a tiny pout, and he laughed.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Jo.”
“Are you?”
He kissed her temple and pulled her closer. “Yes. I’m happy too. And I’d be even more happy if you’d allow me to sleep for another hour.”
“Sleep? You want to sleep?”
“Well, you woke me up this early,” he complained.
“It’s ten o’clock!”
“You kept me up all night, remember?”
Jo pretended to sulk. “The little boy on the Rollerblades was right. You’re old.”
“It’s just been far too long since I’ve slept with you in my arms. I want more of it.”
“Smooth talker.”
“Of course, if you keep rubbing yourself against me like that…”
She burrowed even closer. “Yes? Then what?”
“Then I might have to take action.”
“We have to go back tonight,” she said, sighing. “Our weekend is almost over.”
Matt propped his head up on an elbow and automatically reached up in a familiar gesture—but there was no long strand of hair for him to play with. “We have a lot of talking to do, don’t we? And we need to plan some rotten trick to pay Esther back. And then there’s work. Will you come back and work for us?”
Jo hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
Disappointment clouded Matt’s eyes, then resignation. “Okay. I understand that you have to think about it. Are you happy in your new job?”
She nodded. “More or less. It’s nowhere near as interesting as what I was doing with you—” She slapped his arm. “Stop grinning. I don’t mean that. I mean the work I did for your company.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything else.”
She ignored that blatant lie. “But my assignments now are probably what I would be doing anyway, if you hadn’t taken me on and then given me that promotion. So, I can’t complain. I was very lucky Mr. Hastings hired me. Not many companies would have without references.”
“You know references weren’t a problem.”
Anger flashed for a moment, but the fire was banked, and the agonizing sting that had used to come with the memory wasn’t there. It was over—it was not a shadow that would haunt them forever. “I know. At the time I didn’t want them.”
“We all want you to come back.”
“All? Even your father?”
“Especially my father.” Matt grinned at her. “You see, he’s afraid you’ll sue.”
She shook her head. “I see. He’ll forgive you for consorting with the enemy then. No doubt he’ll be pleased with the lengths you’ve gone to in order to ensure my cooperation in this matter.”
“Does that mean you’ll come back?”
She paused for a heartbeat. “Yes. I think it does. I’ll have to talk with Mr. Hastings, of course, maybe work a few more months while they find a replacement—but I’d like to come back.”
There was a light of relief in Matt’s eyes, but the tension of his body remained. “There’s a catch, of course.”
“What?”
“You can’t date the boss.”
Her heart contracted. “Right.”
“But there’s nothing to say you can’t be married to the boss.”
“Matt…?”
He tightened his grasp on her hand, as if he were afraid she would run away. “Marry me again?”
“Just so I can work for you?”
“Yeah. It’s my new employment strategy.” She started frowning and he touched her face, trying to smooth out the frown. “Bad joke. Of course not. Because I don’t want to lose you again.”
She stared intently into his eyes. It wasn’t that important to hear the stupid words, was it? Some people just had trouble saying them. Maybe he was afraid to be the first to say it. Maybe it was just women who obsessed about these things. He wouldn’t be asking her to marry him if he didn’t love her, would he? But why didn’t he say it?
Should she say it? Anxiety boiled in her stomach at the thought—and the words stuck in her throat, even though she opened her mouth. No. She didn’t dare. Not yet. But that didn’t mean that the feelings weren’t there—and there was plenty of emotion in Matt’s eyes too.
There would be time enough later for silly rituals like saying I love you.
“Well?” Matt was frowning now, a deep look of worry in his eyes. “You’re about to say no, aren’t you?” He reached for his jeans and pulled a piece of white material from a pocket.
A ribbon?
“It’s your hair ribbon from when you were small,” Matt explained when he saw her questioning gaze.
“My silk one? I loved that one! I didn’t know it still existed. Where did you get it?”
“From your bridal bouquet. It was tied around the stems, remember?”
Jo shook her head. “Grandma made the bouquet. I didn’t know. Why did you keep it?”
Matt took her hand again and wrapped it around her ring finger. It was bulky, looking more like a bandage than an engagement ring, but she appreciated the gesture anyway. “Because I’m a sentimental idiot. Don’t tell anyone. You’re not going to say no, are you?”
How could she say no, now that he’d wrapped one of her childhood hair ribbons around her ring finger and called himself a sentimental idiot? It was impossible. She loved him. She wanted to marry him—he wanted to marry her. Was she going to let the absence of three small words interfere with their happiness?
She shook her head. “No. I mean, no, I’m not about to say no.”
“Watch it, my heart can’t take this kind of pressure,” Matt joked, but there was strain in his voice. “Well…? What’s the verdict?”
She inched from under the sheet. “Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
She looked back and grinned at him. “I want to brush my teeth before I say yes.”
Matt’s victory shout echoed in the mountains through the open window.
The first thing Jo did when she got back to work after the weekend was discuss termination with Mr. Hastings. He cooperated, and Jo could leave her job with just a month’s notice.
“Does this have anything to do with your husband?” Mr. Hastings asked, and Jo smiled, feeling for the first time that Matt really was her husband—even though it would probably be a while before they’d make it legal. She curled her hand to better feel the light touch of her fake wedding ring. This time she hadn’t removed it before coming to work. Soon she’d have a real one to replace it.
“Yes. We’ve agreed I’ll work in the family firm.”
“Wonderful.” Mr. Hastings was beaming. “Not that I like losing you, but I’m glad it’s to your husband, and not to a competitor.” He chuckled. “I was surprised when Matt called to arrange for your day off, but I had my suspicions about the two of you already when I talked to Matt about you coming to work here.”
Jo’s world came to a halt. She stared at her boss, then tried to speak, but found her vocal chords uncooperative. “What…”
Mr. Hastings looked surprised, then uncomfortable. “I thought you’d know by now…”
“He asked you to give me a job.”
“He supplied references, verbally…”
“I got the job because he asked you to hire me,” Jo said tonelessly.
“That’s not exactly true. We would have hired you anyway…”
“Would you?”
“Probably…Of course, you didn’t have much experience, but with those references…”
Jo rested her head in her hands, feeling tired. “Mr. Hastings, I’d like to withdraw my resignation, if you don’t mind.”
In a rare display of tactfulness, Mr. Hastings didn’t ask any questions. He just whispered quietly, “Of course,” and left her alone.
She glanced at her watch. Matt would be picking her up in half an hour. He probably had plans to exchange sly glances and winks with Mr. Hastings behind her back.
She decided to wait in the lobby and spare herself at least that humiliation.
Matt was early, and being deep in thought she didn’t even notice his approach before she’d been kissed, pulled out of her chair and was halfway to the car, his arm tight around her shoulders. He was chatting, but she had no idea what he was saying and didn’t care. She waited until they were in the car, fastened her seat belt and then turned to him before he could start the car.
“You got me that job.”
Matt’s face flashed from surprise to annoyance, and then settled in an unreadable expression, but she suspected guilt. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Matt.” She tried to keep her voice level, but she could hear that it trembled with anger. Much as her body did. “Mr. Hastings mentioned he’d suspected something about us when you called him about my job.”
Matt shook his head. “It’s not that black and white, Jo. You got the job on your own merits. You’re more than qualified, more than capable. All I did was…”
“Pull some strings?” Betrayal, something was screaming inside, and she could barely see Matt through the red haze of fury. “How could you? You knew I didn’t want the job you tried to plant me in. You knew I didn’t want anything from you after what happened. You knew I wanted to do things on my own. How could you go behind my back like this?”
“What’s the big deal here? You needed a job, Jo, and you wouldn’t let me help. It’s a tough market and you had only a few months’ experience.”
“You didn’t believe I could get a job on my own.”
“I knew it would be difficult. I knew you might be unemployed for weeks or months, and too proud to accept any assistance. I didn’t do anything wrong, I did not ‘get you the job’—I simply told Carl you’d make a good addition to his team.”
“And made him promise not to tell me you’d had anything to do with it.”
Matt winced. “I didn’t ask him not to tell you. I just mentioned that you wouldn’t be too pleased to know we’d talked, that you were very independent.”
“Hastings hired me as a favor to you. Not because I’m a good architect, not because of my qualifications, but because you asked him to.”
“I wouldn’t have recommended you unless I knew you would be an asset to him, Jo. You’re being ridiculous.”
“You planted me in a job—without telling me.”
“No.” He leaned toward her, somehow managing to loom over her from the other side of the car. “That’s not how it happened. You’ve got some wires crossed somewhere. I was listed on your résumé as your previous boss, right?”
“Right.”
“Carl called me—as anyone would call the former boss of someone he was hiring. I told him the truth about what sort of an employee you were. That’s it. I knew it was more than you wanted me to do—that’s why I asked him not to mention that we’d talked—but it was not anything more than I’d do for anyone else. I would not call it ‘pulling strings’.”
Jo sagged in her seat, her heart daring her to believe him, but her mind suspicious. Could it be as innocent as that?
“That’s it?”
“I promise you, Jo, that was it. I told him you were a good employee and that I was sorry to lose you, but I did not pull any strings to place you in that position. I respected your wishes. You didn’t want my help—so I did only what I would have done for any other good employee—gave you excellent references when asked. Because you deserved it.”
There was something else in his face, and she recognized it because it was an emotion she’d felt often enough herself. Bitterness—because she hadn’t trusted him. Again.
He hadn’t betrayed her trust. Not this time.
But he had before—and he read the thought on her face.
“Don’t go back, Jo,” he said, his voice low. “We’ve been over that.”
“I’m furious, Matt!” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore.
“I know. You’re still hurt. Are you going to let that pride destroy what we have—again? We could have done things better—both of us. I make mistakes. So do you. We’re going to be making mistakes our entire lifetime. The only question is whether we want to make them together or separately.”
He was talking about spending their lives together, about trust and mistakes and promises—and he still hadn’t said he loved her.
Just one little I love you, and she wouldn’t have needed that entire speech—but her former certainty that he did love her was wavering now.
“I don’t know, Matt—maybe this was just another of our mistakes.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Remember before?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice even. “You never hugged me in public. Never kissed me if anyone could see us, not even a kiss on the cheek. When you took me ice-skating, you made sure it was on the other side of the city so nobody we knew would see us! I’m not sure you really want to go through with this, Matt. You haven’t shown it.”
“You want me to kiss you in public to prove that I love you?”
This wasn’t exactly the love declaration she’d been hoping for, especially not in that incredulous, exasperated tone.
“Take me home, please,” she said, folding her arms and staring straight forward.
Matt leaned back and started the car, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll talk about this later. Where is home? Esther’s house or your apartment?”
“Grandma’s. It’s time to tell her everything’s off.”
Matt was silent on the way, then parked the car and accompanied her inside. She didn’t comment. Fine. He could explain things to Esther while she tried to figure out how many times she was going to let him break her heart. She said hello to her grandmother, sitting in the living room with her friends, and then excused herself and headed for the stairs. She’d come back down when Matt was gone.
She didn’t make it. Halfway there, still in clear sight of the four old ladies, Matt grabbed her, his hands firmly curled around her upper arms. He pulled her toward him, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her until she completely forgot they had an audience.
Their titters reminded her as soon as he let her go again.
“What the hell are you doing, Matt?” she shrieked as soon as she came to her senses and could breathe again. Barely. He was still holding her so tightly she could feel his heartbeat. It was fast and his body was warm, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be let go.
“Showing a public display of affection,” he growled, one of his hands sliding up into her hair to cup her head. He kissed her again, quick and hard, and she knew she didn’t want him to release her at all. “In front of Esther and her bridge partners. It doesn’t get any more public than that, does it? You wanted a public display of attention, there you are.”
“Pretending doesn’t count.”
“What pretending? Wasn’t that a real kiss between a husband and a wife? And aren’t we finally having a real fight?”
She didn’t care anymore who was listening. “Everything’s pretend, Matt. Remember? This whole marriage is pretend. You’re not my husband. I’m not your wife. Our honeymoon was pretend too, more pretend than I even thought at the time.”
“Our honeymoon was the most wonderful weekend of my life, and it’ll always be a real one to me. And my ‘affections’ aren’t pretend, Jo. They never were, and they never changed.”
Her eyes filled with tears again. From the way she punched his chest with both fists, hard enough to make him wince, and then pulled out of his arms and ran up the stairs, he gathered they weren’t happy tears.
So much for professing his love.
He turned to leave, and found four white and gray heads bobbing in a crowd behind him.
“Go after her!” a voice whispered. “Don’t blow it! This is your chance!”
“Yes. Now. Don’t be so dense, boy. Go.”
“We’ll be waiting down here with tea and cookies when you two have made up.”
“Don’t fail us, Matt. We’ve been terribly disappointed in you so far, but this wasn’t too bad.”
“That’s the trouble with men today. They’re so busy being liberated that they forget all about being macho.”
Matt turned his head to send them one seething look, and the four ladies turned on their heels and disappeared into the kitchen, though not without sending him a few more well-chosen words of advice.
He ran upstairs to Jo’s bedroom door, hesitated a moment, then gingerly turned Jo’s doorknob—just checking, he told himself.
It wasn’t locked, and that stopped him.
She trusted him not to violate her space.
What the hell. He’d already betrayed her trust. He opened the door, entered and closed it behind him.
Jo was lying face down on her bed, her face buried in a pillow. She glanced up quickly, her eyes red and puffed. “What are you doing in here?” She threw a pillow at him and he caught it. “Go away!”
“No.” He crossed the room and sat at her side, tossing down the pillow. “This has gone on long enough.”
“Let me guess,” she sniffed, grabbing the pillow and burying her face in it again. “We need to talk.”
“No. We’ve talked too much about a subject that’s not going to change. We were unlucky and circumstances managed to push us apart. We made mistakes when dealing with those circumstances. We’re sorry. We’re moving on. It’s time to stop wallowing in the past. No more talking.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m going to hold you down and kiss some sense into you, then drag you out tonight and show passionate public displays of affection all over the city whether you like it or not.”
Her shoulders stiffened, then shook slightly in reluctant laughter. “I see. Did Grandma give you her Bring Back Macho Men speech?”
She was mumbling into her remaining pillow and he sat down on the edge of her bed, grasped her shoulders and turned her over. He touched her tear-stained cheek. “Maybe. One of them did. They shouted their abuse from afar. What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Macho men.”
“There are pros and cons,” she muttered. “Probably like chocolate, wonderful in moderation, painful in large doses.”
Matt’s hand shot out to grab her wrist. “So, if I hold you down and kiss you until you promise to give me a chance…would that be macho in moderation, or too macho?”
“I don’t know. Would you stop at a kiss?”
“I suppose that would depend on your response.”
“It might take a lot more than a kiss to make me want to give you a chance.”
“Oh, really? And just what’s wrong with my kisses?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes softened and she was staring at his mouth. “Absolutely nothing.”
He lowered his head and touched her lips with his, just barely. “But they’re not enough?”
“I believe you,” she muttered against his mouth. “That you didn’t interfere with my job with Mr. Hastings. Not much, anyway. Not on purpose.”
“Thank you.”
She raised a hand to his cheek, confident now about his love, but needing to hear it. “I do need something more, Matt.”
“What is it?”
“An eloquent speech about those affections you said you had for me.”
His lips moved against hers, but there was no sound.
“Matt? I can’t read lips.”
He grinned—she could read that easily enough. “Maybe it’s time you learned. Why do you have to ask? Do you really think I’d let you torture me like this if I didn’t love you?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He closed his eyes and grimaced. “You’re not going to believe this. You’re not going to like it either.”
“What?”
“I thought I had told you.”
“No, you didn’t! You never did!”
“I’m sorry. I meant to. I thought it. I said I loved your hair, didn’t I?”
“Yes. You said you loved my hair and my eyes and my calves and my—well, quite a few places in between actually, but you never said you loved me.”
“Isn’t it the same thing?”
“No!”
“I love you.”
She held her breath for a heartbeat, then nodded regally and looked away. “Well, thanks, that’s good to know.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Yes. You’re still in the doghouse for messing with my heart for all this time.”
“I see. How long is my sentence?”
“Hmm…. I don’t know. Until my hair has grown back, maybe?”
“That’s an awfully long time. Will you bring me a bone every now and then?”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide the grin. “Men! You’re hopeless.”
He leaned closer, and, as a result, she fell backward on the bed. He took quick advantage of that, leaning over her and continuing with his macho man campaign. “But you love us anyway, don’t you?”
She took his face between her hands and kissed him fiercely. “Matt…I love you.”