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It took a moment for her stunned double take to announce that she’d recognized him. He pasted a grin on his face, offered a cheery wave. Even though she was at least fifty feet away, he saw her brows furrow in a suspicious frown.
Initially he’d planned to jog alongside her, try to engage her in conversation. The look in her eye made him rethink that option. Instead, he simply called out, “Nice day for a workout, isn’t it?”
She simply stared at him.
Rick felt his jaw slacken. He’d never in his life had to work so hard to win a woman’s interest. Nor had he ever been so determined to do so.
Clearly she was not approachable at the moment, so Rick decided to carry his charade a bit further by emulating the warm-up exercises he’d just watched her perform. Placing his hands on his hips, he twisted his upper body several times. A glance out of the corner of his eye confirmed that she was watching him. Emboldened, he flashed another of his winning smiles, then stretched out one leg as she’d done, and flung his torso forward, planning to touch his forehead to his knee.
Something popped in back.
His spine went numb. He could no longer feel the outstretched leg, and the one on which he was supporting his weight began to quiver madly.
The horror of his situation dawned on him a fraction of a second before he toppled sideways into a clumsy heap. The moment he hit the ground, his left calf went into spasms. He let out a howl, grabbed his leg, and writhed like a clumsy snake, oblivious to the startled stares of passersby.
By the time he’d kneaded the knots out of his muscles, the path beside the forest-green park bench was empty. Catrina was gone.
Rick limped back to the office, daunted but determined. Whether Catrina Jordan realized it or not, she’d thrown down a gauntlet of challenge.
Pain shot from his lower back to his shoulder blades. Rick sucked a breath, listening to the shower sounds emanating from the women’s locker room. He’d guessed that she’d use the health club on the top floor of their office building to change clothes and shower after her lunchtime jog, and the familiar battered duffel left on one of the workout benches confirmed his assumption.
He also presumed that she had witnessed his clumsy tumble in the park and had no doubt been mightily amused by it. Ego wouldn’t allow him to let her believe that he was inept enough to have actually hurt himself, so he’d dragged himself up here to put on yet another show of machismo.
She would no doubt appreciate the effort. Women always appreciated a cunning display of male physical prowess. And Rick appreciated their appreciation. Even if it was undeserved.
Slowly, painfully, he lowered himself onto a weight bench, which supported his torso as he planted his feet on the floor. A tubular rack above his head held an iron bar affixed to a set of iron discs. The past ten years had not been the most athletic of his life, but in college Rick could bench press one hundred pounds without breaking a sweat, so it didn’t occur to him to double-check the weight of the unit. Besides, he didn’t want to move again until he absolutely had to. A lack of routine exercise was revealed in the tremor of his strained muscles.
He was already panting like a whipped dog, his back was killing him, but the sound of running water in the women’s locker room had just been replaced by the whir of a hair dryer so it was nearly show time.
He sucked a breath, curled his fingers around the bar over his head and waited.
Within a matter of minutes, Catrina emerged from the locker room wearing street clothes, and carrying her jogging ensemble under her arm. He noticed that her ruined nylons had been removed, leaving her legs bare and pale and exquisitely attractive.
She didn’t spare him a glance. Instead she stuffed her sweatsuit into the open duffel, grabbed her worn-out shoes from beneath the bench and tied them to the bag handle.
She was clearly preoccupied. Her lips pursed in a sensual pout, her pale brows puckered with appealing concentration. Her skin was slightly flushed from the shower, a pink glow from cheek to jaw that imparted an appealing radiance to her creamy complexion.
Rick thought she was just about the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.
He cleared his throat. “Hello, again.”
She spun around, touched her throat in a gesture of vulnerability that he found strangely enticing.
“Our paths just keep crossing.” He flexed his fingers around the weight bar, fought a grimace as his back issued a protest. “Uncanny, isn’t it?”
Tilting her head, she regarded him. “Yes, uncanny.”
“I would have joined you at the park, but I didn’t want you to feel bad if you couldn’t keep up.”
She smiled then, a brief flutter of lips that was absolutely devastating. “I’m sure you would have left me in the dust. Presuming, of course, you had stayed on your feet in the first place.”
Well, at least she’d been watching him. He took some small consolation in that. “A minor mishap. Have you never gotten a pebble in your shoe?”
“A pebble?”
“Sharp little devil. Poked itself right into my instep. You know how it goes.”
A flash of tooth scraped her lower lip, as if she was biting back a smile. “Of course.”
“So other than jogging, what else do you do to buff up?”
“‘Buff up’?”
“You know, tone the old quads, beef up the biceps.”
“Oh. Well, I enjoy tennis. Or I used to. There’s little time for it any more.”
A clue. He pounced on it. “This is truly amazing. Tennis is absolutely my game.” Grab a ball, hit it with a racket. How hard could it be? “Maybe we could share a court some time.”
“Maybe.”
She was softening, he could see it in her eyes. “You ought to try working with the weights, too. It’s great for the cardiovascular system.” To prove the point, he hoisted the bar with a macho grunt and felt something give at the base of his spine. His arms collapsed like wet noodles, and the bar came down on his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs with a humiliating whoosh.
Catrina widened her eyes. “Are you all right?”
He opened his mouth, sucked a wheezing breath. “I meant…” a peculiar hiss emanating from somewhere deep inside “…to do that.”
She blinked. “Why?”
It took a few seconds before he could speak again. “Lower weights—” he wheezed “—then lift them.” He wheezed again. “That’s how…it works.”
“I see,” she murmured, clearly unconvinced. “Well, I’ll leave you to your workout.”
Rick smiled, managed a painful nod. “If you see Frank Glasgow, could you…send him up?”
“Of course.” She glanced once more in his direction, then scooped up her duffel and left.
After what seemed a small eternity, Frank poked his head into the gym. “What can I do for you?”
“You can get this…damned thing off.” Rick gritted his teeth. “Then drive me to the hospital…I think I broke a rib.”
“I tell you, Gracie, it’s absolutely eerie. Every time I turn around, there he is. And he’s sending me presents.”
“Presents?” Gracie’s eyes popped. “You mean like diamonds and perfume and furs?”
“Well, no.” Catrina cleared her throat, glanced away. “Er, a case of panty hose.” Expensive panty hose, attached to a dozen colorful helium-filled balloons and shuttled to her apartment door by a uniformed courier who was most unhappy when she refused to accept the delivery.
Gracie blinked rapidly. “Oh, my, that does sound a bit personal.”
“Actually, it was kind of a private joke. You see, I dropped some coins at the coffee shop and ripped the knee out of my—” Blushing furiously, Catrina clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed by Gracie’s knowing grin. “Never mind. The point is, I think he’s stalking me.”
“Stalking you?” Gracie chuckled. “Perhaps he’s just interested in you. After all, you’re a very attractive young lady.”
“Well, I’m not interested in him.”
She quirked a brow. “Not even a little?”
Catrina shrugged, shifted Heather on her hip as she tossed a handful of pasta into a pot of boiling water. “I’ll admit he’s an appealing man, but that isn’t the point. I’m not interested in any man, appealing or not.”
“You prefer women?”
“Gracie!” Catrina laughed, shook her head. “You know what I mean. I’ve just extricated myself from one bad relationship. I certainly am not going to fling myself into another one.”
“Then how about flinging yourself into a good relationship?”
Catrina’s smile faded. “There’s no such thing,” she said firmly, and meant it. “My mother suffered through two terrible marriages. Two men used her, abused her then walked out on her. My eldest sister divorced a man so shallow and narcissistic that he ran off to Europe rather than support the child he had fathered, and I ended up with a fellow who thought women should have been born with scrub brushes instead of fingers, and a built-in beer cooler on their backs. Heather and I are better off alone, thank you very much.”
“Not all men are adolescent control freaks.”
“Of course not. Just the ones I know.” Sighing, she slipped Heather into the high chair, handing her a spouted cup of juice to placate her until dinner was ready. “I understand that it’s not fair to judge an entire gender by the behavior of a few, but the point is that I can’t afford another mistake. I have a child to think about, a child who means the world to me. I won’t risk having her hurt, her trust broken by yet another daddy who will disappoint and abandon her.”
“There are good men out there, Catrina, men who are worthy of your love and respect.”
A slow throb worked its way around her temples. “Then why couldn’t you find one?” The minute the words emerged, Catrina regretted them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you did.” Paling visibly, Gracie nonetheless attempted a smile. “I’m the first to admit that when it came to choosing husbands, I wasn’t the brightest porch light on the block.”
“Gracie—”
“No, no, you’re right. I’m hardly an authority on relationships.” She shifted her gaze, stirred the pot of spaghetti sauce bubbling on Catrina’s stove. “Just because you invite me for dinner once a week doesn’t give me license to tell you how to live your life.” A sly glance bounced so quickly that Catrina nearly missed it. “I’m sure you’re not the least bit interested in my silly musings.”
“Of course I’m interested,” Catrina assured her. “If I didn’t want your opinion, I wouldn’t have brought the subject up in the first place.”
Gracie laid the saucy spoon on the counter, wiped her hands on a tea towel. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude—”
“Gracie! Tell me what you think I should do.”
The older woman’s face spread into a wreath of smile lines. “Well, since you’ve asked, I think you should continue doing exactly what you’ve been doing.”
“I’ve been ignoring and avoiding him.”
“Exactly.”
Catrina frowned. For some reason, she’d had the impression that Gracie thought she should give the persistent Rick Blaine a chance. “So far, it hasn’t exactly chilled his enthusiasm.”
“Give it time. Just keep pretending you’re not interested and—”
“ Pretending? Gracie, I don’t have to pretend. Haven’t you been listening? I am not interested in Rick Blaine. Not, not, not!”
“Of course, dear, I understand.” The woman chuckled, swished her hand as if waving away a pesky fly. “Anyway, you just keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing, and sooner or later you’ll get exactly what you want.”
“Exactly what I want,” Catrina repeated. The words rolled around her tongue with a smooth feel, a unique flavor. “That would be lovely, of course, if I knew what I wanted in the first place. The truth is I haven’t a clue. Does that make me insane?”
“No dear,” Gracie said with a chuckle. “It simply makes you human.”
Chapter Three
“It’s about time you answered. I’ve been calling for two hours.” Rick shifted the tiny cell phone, touched the brake and cruised to a stop at the light. “You missed a terrific steak dinner.”
“I wasn’t aware we had a date.”
“We didn’t, but we would have if you’d answered your phone two hours ago.”
The familiar feminine chuckle on the other end of the line never ceased to make him smile. “I suppose I should be flattered that a handsome scalawag like yourself would waste a perfectly good Friday night on an old woman.”
“You are not old. You have simply blossomed fully.”
“Such a silver-tongued lad! No wonder you have to beat women off with a stick.” Her chuckle rolled into a tinkling laugh that warmed him from nape to spine. “I’m thinking you must have whacked a tad too hard if you’ve a free weekend. Either that or the young woman at the office who has taken your fancy must not be as easily persuaded by your charms as you’d hoped.”
“Can’t a fellow hold a Friday night open for a date with his favorite Mom without being taunted and abused?”
“She turned you down, did she?”
“Not at all.” An impatient honk from behind startled him. He touched the accelerator to join the thrumming rush of vehicles across the intersection. “I’m sure if I’d invited her to dinner, she’d have leaped at the opportunity.”
A gleeful whoop made him grimace. “Aha! She slammed the door in your face, didn’t she?”
“Not literally.” Although Rick had little doubt that if he’d had the chutzpah to appear on her porch, the seemingly unattainable and undeniably gorgeous Catrina Jordan would have done just that. “The subject never came up, that’s all.”
“Yes, well it’s difficult to ask someone out on a date if they won’t give you the time of day to begin with.”
Rick found himself giving the cell phone a wry stare. “Thank you for the maternal support and encouragement.”
“Why should I encourage you to break another woman’s heart?”
The allegation stunned him. “I’ve never broken any woman’s heart. Every woman I’ve ever dated has become a lifelong friend.”
“Your charm is both a curse and a blessing, dear. People are drawn to you like a magnet, but just as one side attracts, the other propels those who would move too close a safe distance away.” Her sigh was poignant, heavy with a sadness that Rick understood, although he wished he didn’t. “It seems that we always most desperately want that which we cannot have.”
“Mom, please. Don’t start.”
“Don’t start on what? The fact that I will be laid in my grave without a grandchild to grieve my passing?”
He whipped the steering wheel, pulled into a drive that sloped sharply below street level, and stopped at a striped gate. “We’ve been over this before.”
