“MUCH TO MY REGRET, I’m not here for sex,” Annie announced as she stepped inside. “And I’m not feeling especially witty, wise or beautiful tonight, either.” She hesitated and then added, “Okay…maybe just a little beautiful.”
Daniel considered himself no expert when it came to the female mind. After years of dealing first with his mam and then his girlfriends, he was, however, skilled at treading carefully.
“Should I ask what you are besides beautiful, then?”
“Tired. Missing you. In need of a hug.”
And he felt in need of holding her. Daniel drew Annie into his arms. His heart seemed to grow warmer, easier, as she nearly melted into him.
“This feels so good,” she murmured, her head against his chest. “Maybe we could just stay here all night.”
As his sole pieces of rental furniture were a bedroom set and a kitchen table, the idea had some merit. Despite her words, though, Annie too soon drew away. She walked into his empty living room.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “We’re definitely the yin and yang of home décor.”
“I’ve a kitchen table, if that’s any help.”
She sighed. “What I want is one of those overstuffed recliners. You know, where you pull the lever, your feet fly to the ceiling and you’re stuck until someone comes along to haul you out?”
He laughed. “I saw a few in the rental catalog, but managed to resist.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Flynn. So are you still sleeping on the floor?” she asked as she wandered toward the bedroom.
He knew a moment’s thanks that he’d picked up his dirty clothes, if not made his bed.
“Guess not,” she said, raising her brows at his king-size bed. She tested the mattress with her hands. “Firm, just the way I like it. Do you mind if I…”
“Not at all.”
She slipped off her shoes. “Don’t get the wrong idea. This is all about comfort. You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine, okay?”
Daniel knew it was as good as he’d be getting tonight, so he stretched out and watched as Ms. Annie settled in.
“It’s been one of those days, you know?” she said.
“It has,” he agreed.
They lay in companionable silence. It came as a total gobsmack to Daniel to realize that while he’d like to poach on Annie’s side of the bed and see about bending her rules a bit, he was happy—for the moment, at least—just being with her.
“All the craziness at work got me thinking tonight,” she eventually said. “We need to talk about this note you want from me.”
“We do?”
She rolled onto her side, facing him, and propped her head on her left hand. “How much longer are you going to be in town?”
He wasn’t sure what bearing this had on lovemaking, but he was willing to explore the connection.
“Seven weeks, more or less.” Definitely less, if he considered the time he’d be devoting to Hal and his hospital issue next week.
“And do you think we’ll ever see each other again once you’ve left?”
The hungry, prowling part of him wanted to lie, but Annie deserved better. “With you wanting Manhattan and me wandering about, it’s unlikely, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Here’s the problem…I’m not good at letting go of things I care about, Daniel. Clocks, salt shakers, jobs…and especially people. And I care about you. Really care about you. As it is, I keep thinking about what it’s going to be like after you leave. Will you call or e-mail? Should I send you a Christmas card?”
“Annie, it’s possible that you’ve been thinking too hard about all of this.”
“No, I’m thinking just hard enough.” She resettled and gazed up at the ceiling for a few moments. “Some women are good at grabbing happiness…stronger women than I am right now.”
Violating the boundary between them, he reached out to smooth a wild lock of her hair. She relaxed under his touch and her eyes slipped closed. He wondered if she could feel how much he cared for her, how much he wanted to see her happy.
“Give me the time to work on my confidence, okay?” she said. “Once I’m sure I have this witty and wise thing down—and I’m getting close—it’ll be a lot easier for me to step into something I know is guaranteed to end.”
Much to his regret, Annie was already a wise, wise woman, and Daniel was damned to be a gentleman.
AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL smelled much the same as an Irish one—unpleasant. Perhaps this wasn’t the sharpest observation that Daniel had ever made, but it wasn’t bad for one made not much past dawn. He sat with Hal in a cardiac catheterization lab’s waiting room nearly fifty minutes’ drive from Ann Arbor.
“Don’t you think you’re carrying this secrecy a bit far?” he asked Hal. “It’s not as though the U of M Hospital couldn’t have swallowed you without anyone noticing.”
Hal set aside the anglers’ magazine he’d been pretending to read. “It had to be here. Back home, Richard would have found out, and he’s a damn rottweiler. Now that he’s sunk his teeth into the idea of forcing me out of the CEO’s chair, he’ll never let go.”
Daniel took a sip of coffee to hide his smile over the deranged Donovan dynamics. Hal had sounded nearly proud of his son, who had made no secret of his consultations with lawyers over the past week.
“And have you made excuses for your absence?” Daniel asked.
Hal waved the magazine he’d brought along. “I’m at a private fishing lodge in northern Ontario. Rumor has it I’m having a hell of a good time.”
Daniel smiled. “Grand. Now what are the rest of your plans?”
“The cardiologist says I should be released tomorrow morning. You’ll take me back to the office, and—”
“I’ll be taking you straight home.”
The older man set his jaw at a bulldog angle. “Then Eva will take me back to the office.”
Daniel laughed. “Right. We both know she’ll have you home, wrapped in a blanket and coddled to death.”
Hal responded with a grumpy “huh,” then glanced up at the desk where a clerk was flipping through files, preparing to call another group of patients.
“I should be going back there soon,” he said. “I lied to Eva and told her that I wasn’t scheduled until eleven…didn’t want her fussing over me.”
“My point exactly.”
“Well, see if you can calm her down by the time I’m in recovery.”
“Eric Nagel,” the clerk called. “Roberta Tokarski…Hal Donovan.”
Hal stood. “Guess my number’s up,” he said in what Daniel recognized as gallows humor.
Daniel rose, feeling bloody insufficient in the role of Hal’s family. He wanted to give the man comfort, but the best he could summon was a handshake and a hearty, “You’ll do fine.”
Hal looked over his shoulder once before walking with the others through a set of double doors. Daniel was sure he’d carry that lonely sight with him the rest of his life.
After riffling through the anglers’ magazine in five seconds or less, he pulled his laptop case from beneath his seat and looked about the large room. In the far corner, to the right of a broad bank of windows, sat a workstation. He slung his bag over his shoulder, picked up his coffee and took it over.
His first thought was to call Annie. In the eight days since she’d arrived at his front door, they had been together every workday, and unless one or the other of them had another obligation, every night, too. And he wasn’t weary of her company, either—a bloody first in the life of Daniel Flynn.
No, she’d not yet given him in writing what he knew they both wanted—to the point of sleeplessness and odd lapses of attention. She’d captured his interest completely.
Annie was well-read, lovely and had a fine wit. Of course, she still turned that wit on herself more than he’d like to hear, but it seemed to happen less each day. Another miracle, considering that just now, Donovan’s offices were as tense and ugly a place to work as Daniel could imagine.
She’d be at her desk soon, sugary coffee drink and a stack of papers in front of her. Daniel pulled out his cell phone and was about to hit the autodial button when the clerk at the desk began calling out more names. Now, that background noise would be hard to explain away.
He set down his phone, leaving it switched off, and instead plugged his laptop into the communications port so kindly provided by the hospital. In moments, he was on the Internet and sending his Annie a greeting.
DANIEL HAD GONE missing in action. Oh, he’d told her last night that he’d be on the road today. No specifics, of course. The guy could sidestep questions with a skill that Annie found both admirable and annoying.
As she walked to her office, frozen mocha in one hand and briefcase over her shoulder, she began to realize how much she counted on him to cut the tension at work. Even Sasha, who had already informed her grandpa, uncles and dad of her plans and thus was the happiest person in the building, didn’t have the same effect as Daniel’s smiles and jests. Of course, Sasha didn’t look at her in quite the same sexy, it’s-gonna-besooo-good way that Daniel did, either.
Annie had become addicted to the thought of making love to her Irishman. She also accepted that when it happened—maybe even tonight—it would be no mindless fling and that she’d pay a major emotional price for taking this next step. Still, as far as risk/reward analyses went, she knew she’d come out ahead.
Humming to herself, she turned the corner and nearly collided with Rachel. Since they didn’t bother speaking anymore, they traded glares. Their allegiances in the Donovan battle of the titans were clear and opposing. Annie wondered if Evil Queen Rachel had been fitted for the consort’s crown, just in case Richard actually managed to boot his father to the curb. She hoped like hell Rachel would hold out for real diamonds. It would take a boatload of carats—and a really tight and favorable prenuptial agreement—to make up for bedtime with hair-flapping Richie.
Once she’d settled in at her desk, Annie checked her business e-mail. She found some stuff from the benefits department, a few follow-up answers from the design team she was meeting with today and about twenty too many forwarded jokes and chain letters. She moved on over to her private account. There, she hit double gold: an e-mail from Daniel and one from Paul Housden, Elizabeth’s New York contact.
Saving pleasure for last, Annie opened the e-mail from the corporate recruiter.
“Holy…”
She couldn’t even think holy what. She’d sent the guy her résumé last Wednesday, after getting Lizzie’s blessing. Housden had already shopped her, and wondered if she’d be available the week of July twelfth—three weeks from now—for initial interviews. At least now she knew she didn’t need the additional glamour of having set up the international franchise agreement to get her foot in the door. Buffing her résumé to a hard, glossy shine appeared to have been enough.
Though Housden didn’t give company names, one interview would be with a brokerage house, working as an analyst specializing in the food services industry. It seemed a little dry for Annie’s taste, but dry might not be so bad after living through World War Donovan.
The next potential spot was in-house for a restaurant conglomerate, which Annie figured was ripe with the potential of seeing her current unhappiness amplified. The final interview the recruiter mentioned was the Holy Grail of jobs, as consultant to an accounting firm’s food services and franchise clients.
She knew that an initial interview was far from an offer, but at least she was now a woman with possibilities. Best yet, each potential job was sexy enough that even her overachieving family would have to take notice. Grinning like an idiot, Annie printed the e-mail, then deleted it from the company’s system. She’d call Housden from home at lunchtime—after she shopped for a new interview suit that didn’t smack of suburbia.
Annie tucked the e-mail into her purse, then started to prepare for her early afternoon meeting with the Ars/Ullman design team. Damn, but life was getting good again.
BY TEN IN THE MORNING, Daniel had checked his e-mail a dozen times and still had nothing back from Annie. He felt so bloody caged and cut off from civilization.
Even Eva’s early arrival had done little to pacify him. She’d tried her best, bringing muffins and such from the local bakery. She’d also had the sense to mostly leave him alone, instead badgering the reception clerk for any updates on Hal.
Just past noon, a doctor in drab green scrubs entered the waiting room. “Family of Hal Donovan.”
Eva and Daniel rose. After a quick introduction and recap regarding Hal’s new stent, the doctor said, “It’s doubtful that we’ll be letting Mr. Donovan go in the morning. He’s running a higher fever than we’d expect to see after a procedure like this.”
“Do you know how much longer he’ll be here?” Eva asked.
“A guess is the best I can do. We’ll be watching closely, but you can figure that Mr. Donovan will be here until some time late Thursday.”
Eva frowned. “Can we see him soon?”
“A nurse will come get you.”
They thanked the doctor, who quickly left. Daniel returned to his computer.
Two more days. Being dishonest with Annie hadn’t sat well in the first place, and now it was damn near choking him. His grand plan had been to drive home tonight, then back to the hospital in the morning. Living two doors down from Annie posed a problem. If Hal was to be delayed, Daniel could hardly keep slinking in and out of town under the cover of darkness.
“Eva,” he said to Hal’s secretary and likely lover, “do you know anything about hotels in this area? I’m thinking I need one.”
AT THEIR PARENTS’ last-minute request—which was actually more of a demand—Annie and Elizabeth returned to the family home for a special dinner that night. Somewhere along the line, Annie’s mom had gotten it in her head that Annie loved katsu don, which was essentially the Japanese version of breaded and fried pork cutlets plopped on a bed of rice.
Annie actually viewed the dish as fat-coated lead on a big bed of naptime, especially the way her mom prepared it. But since it was nice of her mom to think of her at all, she had learned to stomach the meal in silence, then go home and sleep off the results.
Tonight’s katsu don wasn’t the only bomb settled on the Rutherford sisters. Annie and Elizabeth had barely slipped off their shoes and sat in their parents’ tatami room when Max and Alison announced that they’d both decided to retire at the end of the next academic year. They were chasing their dream and moving full-time to Kyoto.
“So far?” Annie winced at just how whiny she sounded. She might be kissing thirty, but a needy nineyear-old still lurked beneath the surface.
“With everybody’s schedules, it’s not as though we see much of each other anyway,” her father said. “We’ll just have to learn to keep in touch by e-mail. Your brother does a fine job of it, you know.”
E-mail! Damn. She’d never gone back to her personal account to read Daniel’s message. Between coming to an agreement with the Ars/Ullman pub design team, visiting the corporate kitchen to see how her chef was faring with menu ideas and spending every unfilled minute angsting over even the potential of New York interviews, she’d totally forgotten that the note waited.
With luck, Daniel would have explained why he’d turned off his phone for the day, forwarding all calls to voice mail. She’d left two messages after leaving the office for the day, mostly for the thrill of hearing the cadence of his voice while listening to his “away” recording. Yes, she was totally obsessed.
“Annie…Annie?”
“Um, yes?” It seemed that her family’s conversation had moved on without her.
“Elizabeth says you’ll be traveling to New York soon to interview for a new job,” her father prompted.
“That’s the general plan,” she replied, then took a cautious sip of her sake.
“But New York? You don’t like New York,” her mother said.
“Just like the T-shirt says, I heart New York, Mom.” It’s katsu don I can’t stand.
“Darling, you can’t tolerate the place. Do you remember how you cried at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?”
At least she’d pinned the memory to the right offspring. “I was seven and lost, okay?”
“Regardless. Have you been there since then?”
“Of course I have.” No need to mention that it had been a theater trip during her sophomore year of college. She’d researched plenty since then and knew what she was doing. “These are incredible opportunities. I’m lucky to even get the interviews.”
Her father shook his head. “I have my doubts, Annie. That city seems awfully large for you.”
Annie pushed back her plate and set her chopsticks on their rest. “Dad, I’m nearly thirty and haven’t exactly been living in a vacuum. Do you think that for once, you and Mom could just be happy for me?”
“The question, Annie, is whether you’re happy for yourself.”
Score one for parental profundity. Annie tossed back the rest of her thimbleful of sake and tuned out for the duration.
Once she was sprung from her parents’ place, Annie headed straight home and to her computer. While she’d been receiving lectures, one e-mail from Daniel had grown to two. The first was the miss-you kind of stuff that made her smile. The second erased that smile in a nanosecond.
Daniel was joining Hal for three days of fishing in the wilds of northern Ontario. His cell phone would be out of range for all but bear and moose. He promised to e-mail from the closest town, if he could, and think of her often.
Nice, but Annie could read between the lines. She’d been abandoned for a string of fish.
DANIEL DIDN’T KNOW a donkey’s arse about fishing, except that he likely could have caught a legion of the buggers in the nearly-a-week he’d had to keep extending the excuse to cover Hal’s hospital stay. He supposed he was lucky that Hal had chosen a fictional locale from which Annie wouldn’t be expecting a souvenir. And Hal was lucky that it was no more than a nasty virus on top of too many years of cigars that had held him in the hospital’s care. One thing was for certain, Daniel was off cigarettes for good.
Saturday night, he’d stayed with Hal at his house not far from the club where they’d had breakfast a few weeks back. This morning, he’d left him in Eva’s capable hands and borrowed Hal’s car. It was a lazy Sunday morning as he drove Hal’s Mercedes toward Cobblestone Court. The driving was going well, too. He was nearly accustomed to this wrong-side-of-the-road nonsense.
Tucked in the back seat was the dartboard sent by Seán. He’d also talked to his brother yesterday. James was back home. It seemed the dispute between Da and James had centered on whether James Joyce had been a wordy old bastard in need of a good editing, as James claimed, or a master of prose, as Da asserted. Daniel laughed just thinking of the insanity of it all. Only in the Flynn family…
Instead of pulling into his drive, Daniel parked in Annie’s. He couldn’t wait a second longer to see her. He bounded up the steps, rang the bell and waited, then waited some more.
The door opened to the town house the next stoop over, and scruffy-looking Garth, whom Daniel had crossed paths with once or twice, stepped out.
“She’s not home,” the man said.
“So I’d noticed.”
“She left earlier.”
“I see,” Daniel replied, wondering just how many ways one could state the same thing. “Thanks, then.”
Garth shifted from one grotty sandal to the next, looking as though he wanted to say something else. Daniel didn’t give him the chance, instead heading down the steps and over to his own stoop.
Inside, the answering machine on his otherwise bare kitchen counter was blinking. Daniel pushed the button.
“Hi, it’s me, and it’s Sunday morning.” He smiled at the sound of Annie’s voice. “If your plane hasn’t been delayed or the pilot cornered by a bear or whatever you have left to hold you up today, you’ll find me at Hal’s pub-to-be. Come see me, okay?”
Daniel turned heel and returned to his car. He intended to see every last bit of Annie Rutherford.
ANNIE HAD CAUGHT episodes of Monster House and Monster Garage while getting her reality TV fix, but now she was living “Monster Bar.” She had to admit that it gave her kind of a rush, seeing how much had changed. Only a few days had passed since the State Street Donovan’s had been shuttered, and already the place was gutted. Carpets and tile had been ripped up and clean new sub-floor laid. Walls were stripped to the studs in some places and to bare drywall in the rest.
She was about to check out the kitchen when the sound of the front door opening stopped her. The glare of the incoming sun concealed the visitor’s features, but Annie knew by the man’s height and lean shape—not to mention the pounding of her heart—that it was Daniel. She pulled together a casual attitude to mask the fact that she’d happily tackle him to the bare floor.
“Catch a lot of fish?” she asked as he strolled closer. He carried a pretty sizeable flat package under one arm.
“Enough,” he replied.
Annie hazarded a step closer, which was about as much as she could risk without flinging herself at him. She knew she should give him some grief over his disappearing act, but it was hard to stay ticked at a guy who wrote e-mails filled with talk of passion and touching and all the good things she’d been craving for so long.
“So what’s in the box?” she asked. “Not the fish, is it?”
“An early pub-warming gift.” He walked to the bar, which was still intact, if empty, and set down the box. Annie came over and watched as he used a key to cut the tape sealing the package.
“It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?” he asked once he’d pulled back the box’s flaps.
“It’s…um…a dartboard.” A very, very used dartboard, to be more exact. Daniel apparently fell on the frugal side when it came to pub-warming gifts.
“The finest dartboard ever,” he said. “I bought it when I was eighteen and it’s been hanging in Flynn’s ever since.”
“So what’s it doing here?”
His smile was brief but definitely not lacking in impact. “I was feeling the need to see a piece of home.” He began to walk the perimeter of the naked room. “This will do,” he said, then hung the board from a nail that was protruding just far enough. He walked back to the bar and unwrapped two sets of darts from the paper they’d been rolled in.
“Ever played?” he asked.
“No, but I get the general idea of the game.”
“Good, then. First we play for a kiss.” He handed her three red darts and kept three blue. They were heavier in Annie’s hand than she’d imagined. If she wasn’t careful, she could do some real damage with these babies.
Daniel walked three paces from the board, then appeared to measure his distance.
“Close enough,” he said. “Come stand by me and line yourself up.”
The standing-by-him part sounded good.
“Now focus on the middle of the board and let one sail.”
How hard could this be? Annie closed her left eye and aimed for the center of the board. Her dart, however, had another location in mind. It bounced off the wall and landed on the floor.
“Again, but this time get more snap to your wrist and point to where you want the dart to go as you release.”
This time at least she hit the board, even if the dart didn’t stick.
“Better.”
The third time was the charm, more or less. Annie gave a hoot as the third dart landed in the outermost ring.
“Grand, love,” Daniel said. “Now watch.”
He’d thrown his darts before Annie could even blink. All three were far inside the spot of Annie’s piddly dart.
“Show-off,” she said.
“Just trying to impress.”
She laughed. “Consider the job done. Now here’s your kiss.” She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss against his cheek.
“That’s it?”
She hadn’t seen such a look of deprivation since booting Garth off the nookie-train. “There’s the possibility that I’m a poor loser.” Or that she’d just thought of a better game.
“That there is,” he said as he gathered the darts, including Annie’s strays.
She walked back to the bar, where she’d earlier unrolled a set of schematics for the new pub. Next to them was a pad of yellow sticky-notes that she’d been using to mark her questions on the drawings.
“So have you any plans for the day?” Daniel asked, all casual-guy charm.
She glanced over at him. “I have an idea or two.”He sent a dart flying then asked, “Anything that might involve, say, a written request?”
She was thinking more in terms of a demand. Annie peeled the protective back sheet from the sticky-notes and set it aside. On the first square beneath, she wrote two words just under the exposed adhesive backing—my bed.
“Writing me a note, are you?”
“Go play, Flynn. Your game might be slipping.”
“Now don’t be angry because I beat you. Practice, Annie, that’s all you need.”
Oh, she intended to get some practice.
“Just keep playing,” she said, jotting on the backs of each of the little yellow squares. She glanced over and caught him spying. “No cheating, either.” She cupped her free hand so that it barricaded the notepad from prying Irish eyes.
“You’re a hard woman, Annie Rutherford.”
He sent a dart flying. It landed just a smidgen outside the outer ring of the bull’s-eye.
“I’m learning,” she replied.
Annie concentrated on finishing off the last of the notes. She heard two more darts hit the board, each making an authoritative thump. On she wrote. When she was done, she joined Daniel.
“You’re the sporting type, right?”
“It depends on the wager,” he replied.
“Oh, this one you’ll like…guaranteed.” She strolled to the dartboard and plucked the three darts he’d thrown and handed them to him. Then she returned to the board and began sticking the yellow squares of paper to it. “On the back of one, and only one, of these notes you’ll find that written demand you’ve been asking me for.”
“Will I now? And what would I be finding on the rest?”
“Nothing nearly so entertaining, I’m sorry to say.” Satisfied that the board was covered, she pocketed the rest of the notes. “So here’s the deal…hit the right note and we spend the day together in my bed. Hit the wrong one, and…” Annie finished with a regretful shrug.
“Make that a brutally hard woman,” he complained, but Annie saw the light of competition in his eyes. Giving first the board and then her a considering look, he hefted a dart in his hand. “So you’re telling me that on the back of only one of those dozens of papers are the words my bed, and I’ve three tries to find it?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m to trust this grand event to luck?”
“Right again.”
“Damn good thing I’m Irish, then, isn’t it?”
“Ooh, good point. I hadn’t figured that into the equation.” Annie moved in front of him and settled her hands on his shoulders. “Turn around.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to make this too easy on you.”
“You’re not. You have my word on it.”
“Backing down from a challenge, Flynn?”
He laughed. “More like turning away from it.” He reversed his position and Annie followed. “Here we go…three over my right shoulder.”
One…two…three. Annie watched as the darts flew in rapid succession. When he was done, she released the breath she hadn’t quite realized she’d been holding.
“Let’s have a look,” he said, strolling to the board. “Which do you think I should pull first?” he asked in a conversational tone, as though they were discussing the range of color for the slate floor in front of the bar.
“Move it along, Flynn.”
“I’m betting you’d have chosen a spot away from the middle. After all, you’ve got plenty to gain from this wager, too.” He reached for a dart in the lower right quadrant of the board, but then paused at the last instant. “But you know I’m good, don’t you, Annie?”
She suspected that he was going to prove to be beyond good. “Do you plan to pull one before morning comes?”
Daniel plucked the dart closest to the center of the board, bringing with it the slip of paper it had pierced. He read it and his smile grew.
“Your bed, Ms. Annie.”
“Impossible.” She held out her hand for the note. “You’re bluffing.”
But he’d been honest. The slip truly read my bed. He’d hit a one-in-two-dozen shot. She tucked the note into the back pocket of her shorts. She’d never kept a scrapbook…until now.
Daniel settled his hands on her arms and looked down at her. Annie could see the beginnings of concern in his expression.
“Only if you’re ready,” he said.
She went up on tiptoe and settled a fast kiss on his mouth. “Beyond ready. How about you?”
In answer, he took her hand and hurried to the door.
After Annie and Daniel left, one of the remaining yellow notes parted from the dartboard and lazily fluttered to the ground, leaving the message your bed facing up. Coincidentally, those words could be found on the back of each paper still clinging to the board.
Annie Rutherford was no fool, except for love.