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He returned to his seat, managing not to look in Joss’s direction again, but her features were already etched on his memory. She was wearing her hair back tonight, but he preferred it down, softly framing an oval face with a stubborn chin. Her slim nose and high forehead added classic elegance, but her smoky jade eyes and full mouth promised untamed sensuality.
If her face had left an indelible print on his mind, it was nothing compared to the impression her body had left on his. Joss could be as cool and tart as iced lemonade when she wanted to be, but he knew from the three glorious weeks he’d spent in her bed that the woman burned like living flame. Unfortunately for him, her passion also led to grudges, and when he’d won the account she’d been eyeing—and the resulting promotion—she’d refused to forgive him.
Her uncompromising stance was a prime example of her taking something personally. He’d been doing his job! Sure, she’d been interested in the account, but her pitches hadn’t accomplished anything, and rivalry had always been part of their relationship. He certainly wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed if the situation had been reversed. He wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed for selling state secrets to foreign governments.
More recently, Kristine Dillinger, a woman from his neighborhood, occasionally shared Hugh’s bed. Athletic and easygoing, Kristine was always up for a great weekend, whether it was going to a bed-and-breakfast in the country with early-morning hiking, or pizza and a leisurely night at his place. As long as they were both single, they got together when they felt like it and owed each other no phone calls or explanations in between. Their friendship was as comfortable as it was casual.
No where-did-he-see-himself-in-five-years, what-kind-of-provider-would-he-be analysis. He hated dates that felt like job interviews. Maybe she didn’t set off the internal bells and whistles that Joss had, but time spent with Kristine was a helluva lot more relaxing. He would have invited her tonight, but she would have been bored. He was bored by now, and he was one of the evening’s honorees.
A few months ago, he might’ve taken tonight more seriously, but he’d learned to loosen up. Unlike some people.
When the awards presentation ended, he found himself trapped in conversation with a gregarious copywriter from WOW Concepts. Hugh nodded at the copywriter’s predictions about the Dallas economy, but his focus was really on Joss as she moved through the throng of well-wishers. She’d taken off the scarlet-and-gold jacket she’d worn earlier, and the smooth curves of her exposed shoulders left him wanting to see more. His body hummed with awareness as she drew closer.
And what’s another word for that awareness? Tension. Joss was often intense, or tense, period. He didn’t need that in his life.
But needing and wanting were different. He knew from firsthand experience that, in the right circumstances, her intense focus was pretty damn hot.
Having abandoned all pretense of being involved in the conversation, Hugh glanced back at the copywriter. “I’m sorry, I just noticed an old friend trying to get my attention. Would you excuse me?”
He freed himself, but hadn’t taken two steps in Joss’s direction before she reached him.
“Hugh.” Her expression, both regal and grimly determined, called to mind heroic martyrs of bygone eras. Joss of Arc. “I just wanted to say congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He spared her the condescending crap about how, win or lose, it was an honor to be nominated and how her campaign had been deserving, too.
“Well.” She shifted her weight. “Guess I’ll see you again next year.”
The Dallas advertising community wasn’t so big that they never ran into each other, but she certainly didn’t seek him out. She was only speaking to him now because she felt obligated, the way football rivals shook hands after the game. Over her shoulder, Hugh noticed her boss, Wyatt Allen, shaking hands with Robert Kimmerman Sr. Graciously accepting second place must be in Vision’s mission statement.
Having fulfilled her obligation, Joss turned to go, but Hugh found he didn’t want to give her up yet. She’d always sparked something inside him, for better or worse, and he’d forgotten just how alive he felt around her.
“Wait…I never did buy you that drink.” Even as the words left his mouth, he wondered what he was doing. The woman detested him.
So you have nothing to lose. Besides, she might surprise him. Nostalgic interludes between ex-lovers happened all the time, and if she recalled their three weeks together with the same—
She narrowed her eyes in a scowl that brought his happy train of thought to a screeching halt. “You have got to be kidding me, Brannon.”
“What? A drink’s harmless.”
“Harmless, my butt.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re getting that look. Don’t even try to deny it.”
It had been worth a shot. “I seem to recall your liking ‘that look,’” he said with an unrepentant grin.
“I was young and stupid.”
“You were twenty-six. You’re barely twenty-eight now. And, Jocelyn, you’ve never been stupid.”
For a fleeting victorious moment, he had her speechless. But nothing good lasted forever.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” she quipped. “You were just an easy way to meet my quota.”
“You wound me.”
“I try.”
Didn’t he know it. Whether it was taking Southwestern cooking classes, futile attempts to train her cat or fleecing everyone else at the table in high-stakes poker, she exerted the same level of effort. Why couldn’t she have unproductive noncompetitive fun once in awhile?
And what degree of control-freak insanity did it take for someone to try to train a cat?
Hugh sighed. It wasn’t that he had no work ethic, it was just that his brother Craig’s heart attack had been a startling wake-up call. “Take care of yourself, J.”
“I…You, too.” She regarded him curiously, then shook her head. Within moments, she’d merged into the crowd, a flash of red among less colorful individuals.
As he drove home later, Hugh told himself it was best Joss hadn’t taken him up on his offer of a nightcap. Given their history, they would have ended up trying to outdrink one another, and alcohol poisoning was not his idea of a good time. Hugh may have gained new perspective since the collapse of his older brother, the attorney, this summer, but he still had a competitive nature thirty years in the making.
Growing up, he and his two brothers had competed over everything from athletics to academics to attention from their parents. There had been some friction—particularly between Hugh, to whom many things came easily, and Craig, who resented “losing” to someone three years his junior—but most of the brothers’ fighting had been of the short-lived let’s-just-deck-each-other-then-go-for-beer variety. Overall, the pressure they put on one another had spurred them to higher achievements. Since college, no one had challenged Hugh quite like that.
Until he’d met Joss.
Both ambitious junior execs on the fast-track to success, they’d been natural rivals for each other. Everyone said opposites attracted, but he and Joss mirrored each other, and he’d never wanted a woman more. In some ways, he’d been in peak form when working with her, but his time with Joss had also made him more like his workaholic brother Craig.
Hugh had once thought he and Joss brought out the best in each other. It was equally possible they brought out the worst.
DESPITE A BRIGHT NOONDAY SUN, the breeze that carried mist from the fountain in Williams Square was enough to chill Joss’s skin.
Emily, however, didn’t seem to mind. She nudged Joss off the sidewalk, toward the nine bronze mustangs caught in a frozen gallop across the plaza. The fountain sculpture was one of Emily’s favorite places, and they walked by anytime they had lunch in Las Colinas. Today, they’d shared stromboli at an Italian café overlooking Mandalay Canal. Joss had filled her friend in on the details of last night, and Emily had told her about the good book she’d read after Simon blew off their date for a “networking opportunity” with one of the college deans.
“Aren’t you cold?” Joss demanded. She had on a long-sleeved henley, while her brunette friend wore short sleeves.
“No, why?”
Why, indeed. Joss freely admitted that, of the two of them, Emily was warmer—inside and out. Which was why she deserved someone who fully appreciated her.
“Hey, Em…do you ever think about what it would be like to be with someone besides Simon?”
Emily’s eyes widened. “You mean like cheating on him?”
“No, I meant if things didn’t work out. Hypothetically.”
“Why wouldn’t they? Do you think I’m doing something wrong?”
“Of course not! Like I said, it was strictly a hypothetical question. I didn’t mean to alarm you.” Seeking divine assistance, Joss rolled her eyes heavenward. “Simon’s lucky to have you. Don’t let him make you feel inferior.”
“He’s not ‘making’ me feel anything. You know how I am, Joss.” With a sigh, Emily sat on a shadowed ledge near the fountain. “We aren’t all born with your self-confidence.”
Born with confidence…or just born to a very determined mother?
A memory surfaced of an elementary-school choir recital—Joss had loved to sing, despite tentative pitch, and she’d been looking forward to the concert. But when all the parents had filed into the auditorium, her knees had started knocking in time to the pianist’s metronome. Her voice squeaky with nerves, she’d still managed to warble through her stage fright.
She’d been filled with a huge sense of accomplishment and renewed confidence…until her mother announced on the drive home that she wasn’t about to let her daughter make such a public fool of herself again. If Jocelyn wanted to sing, Vivian would help her do it well. A week later, Joss had begun private voice lessons, with her mother’s full support.
The kind of support that ensured job security for therapists.
Giving up the sun that hadn’t been keeping her warm anyway, Joss sat next to her friend in the shade. “Trust me, Em, there are plenty of things I’m bad at. And you’re selling yourself short. Not everyone can teach. Or write.”
“Sure.” Emily pitched a penny into the softly gurgling water, and Joss wondered what today’s wish had been. “Put me on the other side of a piece of paper, or in front of a whole class, I’m fine. It’s one-on-one interactions that make me nervous.”
This came as no surprise to Joss. The two women had met when Mitman did some publicity work for the university, and though they’d hit it off pretty quickly, Emily was shy. The middle child between two boisterous brothers, Em was known for being quiet and accommodating—qualities that had led to her being hurt more than once, but also made her a soothing person to be around. Joss, at the other end of the spectrum, knew she wasn’t exactly lowkey, and appreciated the balance her friend helped provide. When Joss had first met David, she’d hoped he might be the romantic equivalent of a male Emily.
He’d been more the romantic equivalent of a brick.
What business did she really have trying to push Em to the realization that Simon was all wrong for her? Joss hadn’t had any more lasting success in her love life than her friend, whose pre-Simon relationships had included a compulsive liar and a man who waffled weekly between Em and his ex-wife, but was at least honest about it.
Thankfully, Emily changed the subject away from men entirely. “I was impressed with the improvements on the house, by the way. I went over to feed Dulcie, expecting a certified disaster, but it wasn’t as bad as you made it sound. I think maybe you’re just expecting too much too soon.”
“Who, me?”
The new house—rather, the seventy-year-old house she’d recently purchased—was either her pride and joy, or the albatross mortgaged around her neck for the next three decades. Depending on what day you asked.
She’d been en route to a subdivision of shinier modern homes with programmable digital thermostats and updated appliances when she’d driven by the neglected two-story for sale. It hadn’t been what she was looking for, but it had stood out among the houses she’d seen, with their cookie-cutter floor plans and treeless postage-stamp-size yards. Ultimately, the urge to perfect had been irresistible—she could buy the house at a bargain and reshape its raw appeal into her dream home.
Of course, recent business demands had thus far impeded her brilliant renovation schemes. And the “bargain” was costing her a fortune.
Emily’s continued reassurance was cheering. “The refinished dining-room floor looks terrific—I don’t understand why anyone carpeted over that hardwood in the first place!”
“Thanks. I plan to put hardwood in the foyer, too.” It was on her ever-growing to-do list.
“And I was really impressed with the progress on the wraparound porch. I made it all the way to the door without once worrying I was going to crash through rotting steps.”
Progress was being made, but the porch would have been done by now if the man Joss had hired didn’t have all manner of excuses for delaying. Weather, supplies, an emergency across town, his astrologist telling him Jupiter was in the wrong house for him to handle nails that day…Patience, she reminded herself. Rome wasn’t build in a day.
Maybe Caesar couldn’t find a decent contractor, either.
“All right, I suppose I am a little impatient. I just can’t wait to see what everything will look like once it all comes together.” Whatever century that was. “I’ve got to get a new water heater, though. And I still haven’t decided on colors for the downstairs bathroom or my bedroom.”
Emily laughed. “I would’ve decorated the bedroom first and let everything else sit for months.”
“I don’t think ‘sitting’ is an option for the water heater. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and I haven’t finished my room because I just haven’t seen anything truly perfect yet. And then there’s that hideous kitchen…”
Joss was in the middle of painstakingly stripping the current wallpaper. Current only in the sense that it happened to be on the wall, not that it bore any resemblance to something presently fashionable. She’d been pleased with how easy it was to peel off the busy vertigo-inducing pattern, but then discovered the reason she’d been able to remove the paper so quickly was because it hadn’t actually been attached to the wall. Instead, there was a second print—less busy, just as ugly—beneath.
She’d now uncovered three strata left by previous generations. My kitchen, the suburban archeological dig. Joss was investigating interesting sociological issues, such as how the hell had avocado and gold become so popular in the first place?
Mercifully, the third layer of paper, a lovely shade of bordello red, appeared to be the last. Joss didn’t expect any more prints to pop up like never-ending clowns out of one of those little circus cars. The bad news, however, was that older wallpapers were considerably more difficult to remove than what was being manufactured these days, especially if the paper turned out to be “nonporous,” as her call-girl crimson was.
Now that Joss was back in town after her unsuccessful meeting with Neely-Richards, she needed to buy a puncturing roller and rent a wallpaper steamer. Probably not today, though. She already had a list of errands that might well take her into middle age, including Dulcie’s annual vaccinations this afternoon. The fact that the veterinarian was a great-looking guy helped compensate for the Siamese’s weeklong grudges after clinic visits. Joss glanced at her watch with a sigh.
“Lunch was great,” she said, “but I’m afraid I need to run. I’ve got to take Dulcie to see the cute vet at three, and I should get around to looking at tile samples for that downstairs bathroom. You don’t, by any chance, want to come with me and help narrow down a color scheme, do you?”
“Actually, I have to get going, too.” Emily stood. “I’ve got some work to do before Simon picks me up. We’re having an early dinner and catching a movie at that art house he likes.”
“He likes?”
“I like it, too.” Emily’s mumbled response didn’t change the fact that she went to most of the movies on her “must-see” list with Joss, then reportedly spent her dates with Simon squinting at foreign-film subtitles. “And he’s right about me—my horizons could use some broadening.”
All right, that did it! There was nothing wrong with Emily. Or her horizons. If Simon couldn’t appreciate her, Joss just might have to help her find someone who would.
Hmm, come to think of it, Dan Morris, the cute vet, was single. Joss would have dated him herself, but Dan was a dog person. She was allergic.
“Joss?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Should I be worried?” Emily asked as they turned toward the sidewalk that would lead them back to their respective cars. “For a second there, you had that same look of psychotic determination as when you peeled off the second layer of wallpaper and we found the third. Everything okay?”
Joss smiled, thinking what adorable kids Em and Dr. Dan could have. “Absolutely perfect.”
3
AFTER DISCOVERING Dr. Dan had recently started seeing someone and then spending a fruitless hour studying color samples, Joss arrived home Saturday evening with a taupe-tan-rosy-beige migraine and a hissing Siamese who harbored plans to lacerate her while she slept.
Despite the imminent kitty threat, she retired to bed early after a salad and a TV movie. It had been an exhausting week, and she needed rest before she tackled any of the formidable redecorating. She snuggled under the duvet and crashed hard, waking Sunday to a feeling of invigorated well-being…that lasted three and a half seconds.
Then she winced in uncomfortable realization. Damn, she thought as she reached in her nightstand drawer for the plastic aspirin bottle, it was that time of the month.
Brunch with her mother.
Amazing how quickly headache threatened at the thought of seeing Vivian. Joss was tempted to cancel, saying she was under the weather, but mothers didn’t fall for that sort of thing—a lesson she’d learned when she’d claimed appendicitis in a fifth-grade attempt to gain more study time for a math test. Of course, she might’ve been more convincing if she’d been clutching her right side.
She stomped toward the shower, wondering what kind of mood the schizophrenic water heater would be in today, and ignored Dulcie’s feline smirk from the foot of the bed. The vengeful Siamese, a Christmas present from Vivian three years ago, obviously sensed that Joss’s day would be an experience comparable to yesterday’s shots. Though Joss and her mother lived in the same urban area, they only saw each other on the first Sunday of each month, meeting for strained brunches. Maybe it was an odd tradition, considering their busy schedules and the lack of effusive affection between them, but they were each all the family the other had.
Today was likely to be even less pleasant than usual, Joss thought as she washed her hair. Vivian had made her mark in the city as a high-end real estate agent, and she hadn’t been amused when her only daughter bought a house without once picking up the phone to consult her. You’d think she would applaud my self-sufficiency. After all, it was Vivian who had always endorsed striving for excellence and relying only on yourself. Viv’s motto was an adjusted version of the army’s—Be All You Can Be…because you can’t depend on anyone else. A cynical creed, perhaps, but one that had helped her raise a child by herself, while not only holding a job, but becoming something of a local expert in her field. Vivian never accepted anything short of excellence.
Still, Joss thought as she went to her closet and debated what to wear, just once, it might be nice if she and her mother went somewhere casual, where they could relax and catch up and…wait, she must be thinking of someone else’s mom. Normally, their monthly brunches were held at a French bistro near Vivian’s condominium, but there had recently been a change in chefs. Joss’s mother refused to set foot in the place until “culinary integrity” was restored.
Instead, Vivian had picked out the Well-Fed Waif, a place downtown that consistently garnered rave reviews. Joss could attest to the excellent service and food, but these days, she rarely visited the restaurant where she’d once been a regular. Located around the corner from where the Mitman offices had been, the Waif had been a favorite of hers and Hugh’s.
It would be heavenly to enjoy the restaurant’s eggs Florentine again, she thought as she pulled on a lightweight turtleneck. Of course, since it had been a place she and Hugh had visited often and since she’d seen him so recently, he was bound to cross her mind. But that just made today the perfect opportunity for an emotional exorcism. What better way to drive out lingering memories of intimate working dinners and shared glances over morning mimosas than a few hours with her mother?
“IF I’VE DONE SOMETHING to offend you,” Joss muttered, “just turn me into a dung beetle and get it over with.”
Vivian paused in her small talk with the Versace-clad hostess standing behind a stained-wood podium. “Who are you talking to, Jocelyn?”
The universe. “Nobody.”
“Mumbling isn’t very well-bred,” her mother reprimanded.
Neither was the four-letter word that had sprung to Joss’s mind when she’d entered the Well-Fed Waif and spotted Hugh Brannon. He sat at a corner table near the decorative fireplace, across from a gentleman who looked about Vivian’s age. Obviously the cosmos was having a little joke at Joss’s expense.
