Her Best Laid Plans

And now it appeared Jared had followed The Best Friend Code to the letter and confessed to Mikey.

Unreasonably annoyed all over again, she really would have preferred Jared to have ignored his sense of honour in favour of returning any one of her phone calls.

Sinking back against the solid wood of the door, she needed the warmth of the room to permeate and help soothe her rattled nerves. ‘Mikey, I’m cold and I’m tired, do we really have to get into this now?’ She couldn’t quite look at him and in the interests of hiding the guilt and confusion she knew had to be shining out of her like a beacon, her eyes strayed to the winter coat slung casually over the banister. ‘Hey, how did my coat get there?’

‘How do you think? Jared dropped it off when he came to tell me my sister had taken leave of her senses.’

‘That wasn’t quite how I put it,’ Jared declared as he walked out of the kitchen and came to stand in the hallway.

Heat radiated from Amanda’s cheeks. Tempted to fight fire with fire she wanted to demand he tell her exactly how he had put it. But under the spell of his quiet regard, she had second, third and fourth thoughts. Crazily, she wondered if she was limber enough to vault the banister, slip on her coat and high-tail it out of the house before Mikey had a chance to whizz his wheelchair around and stop her.

Her need to escape must have shown in her face, because her brother directed a ‘Don’t even think about it,’ at her before looking from her to Jared and back again. Swearing softly under his breath, he said, ‘You two obviously have some talking to do,’ and wheeled himself off down the hallway.

Talk? Interesting concept. Since Jared had walked away from her she’d walked, stomped and marched for miles; all the while wavering between needing to apologise for her part in whatever it was that had gone on between them earlier and, wanting to instigate round two of whatever it was that had gone on between them earlier. In the end, knowing it had all started with the kiss, the kiss she’d initiated, she’d sucked it up and left countless messages of apology. Now, facing him, that incredible kiss was front and centre and all her stupid tongue seemed capable of doing was cleaving to the roof of her mouth.

‘I bought pastries from Luigi’s,’ Jared offered up patiently. ‘Coffee would seem appropriate.’

Slowly, she pushed away from the door to pass him and head into the kitchen. Jared reached for her at the last moment and swung her gently to face him. ‘I got your messages. Don’t worry about it. Seriously,’ he pressed when she turned remorseful eyes on him. ‘I was in a weird place and I was way too hard on you. It didn’t even register until later that you hadn’t known about Mikey and Janey getting engaged.’

For some reason his trying to let her off the hook for kissing him brought an ache to her chest. She settled on the other hurt. ‘I can’t believe he hasn’t told me,’ she whispered.

‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’ He ran a reassuring hand gently down her arm. She looked down at his hand at her wrist, felt a strong rush of need and hated herself for feeling it. She saw Jared frown uncomfortably at his action, before removing his hand and gesturing for her to precede him into the kitchen. ‘Mikey knows you’ll be happy for him, he just thought you’d been acting a little differently lately—thought maybe he should wait a while.’

The interviews.

She had been acting differently. Or at least trying to. Ever since she’d opened her eyes and really looked at her brother’s new life.

For Mikey, she’d thought ahead.

She’d taken a good hard look at her own life and fought the apprehension that came with putting plans into place.

She’d been hoping the fact that it was New Year, when everyone made plans and lists and promises, would make it look as though changing things wasn’t a big deal for her but she obviously hadn’t succeeded. She was going to have to try harder.

She set her bag down on a kitchen counter top and reached over to retrieve a couple of small plates from the old oak dresser. Setting mugs out while coffee brewed, she asked, ‘What have you done with your sister?’

‘She’s at a hotel. She was tired after her flight.’

Amanda wanted to know why Nora wasn’t sharing his four-bedroom penthouse apartment, but instead of prying she turned and walked over to the island unit where he’d pulled out a bar stool to sit down on. She passed him a plate, a mug of coffee and shoved the pastry box towards him before pulling out her own seat at the opposite end of the unit.

‘She seems nice,’ she ventured.

Jared shrugged and said nothing for a moment. ‘So, what was your interview for?’

Amanda nibbled away at her pastry and pretended to have great interest in stirring her coffee. In the same way it appeared Jared was disinclined to talk about his sister, she felt disinclined to talk about her interview.

Glancing up she caught him focusing on her lips. Heat flooded her, warming her better than any hot drink could have done and in a bid to steer their focus elsewhere, she said, ‘Tell me about Nora and I’ll tell you about my interview.’

Jared smiled briefly and lowered his mug to the granite work surface. ‘There’s nothing much to tell. Apart from the obvious shock of seeing her,’ he paused, as if debating how much he should say. ‘We’ve not been in touch for some years.’

Baffled, Amanda wondered how and why a person went about losing contact with their family. But one look at his face and, okay, she knew she was going to have to leave it alone, lest she spook him back into silence.

‘Your interview?’ he prompted.

She reached out to trace a sparkle in the granite. ‘There’s nothing much to tell,’ she mimicked and then sighed, ‘It was for a PA at an art gallery, but I think I was over-reaching somewhat.’

‘You don’t think you might be doing yourself a bit of a disservice?’

‘Jared, I work three days a week as a barista,’ she looked at him as if that explained everything and when he merely politely stared back at her she added, ‘I never re-started my degree after Mikey’s rehabilitation,’ she looked down at her hands. ‘I’ve coasted. You practically said so yourself earlier.’

‘I should never have said anything. I was … out of sorts. I’m slightly concerned you feel unworthy of something I have every faith you can get, though. Why do you think I offered you a job in the first place?’

Her throat clogged with instant emotion and it seemed a good time to go back to tracing the fascinating patterns in the work surface. ‘You offered me a job because of Mikey.’

‘I offered you a job because I’ve seen what you’ve achieved around this place. I’ve seen you juggle working part time with a difficult renovation and what has seemed like endless filling out of insurance forms and grants for Mikey’s rehabilitation. I offered you a job because you seemed ready,’ he paused. ‘But maybe I was wrong.’

‘You? Wrong? Not possible!’ She looked into knowing eyes and felt her shoulders slump. ‘I need to show Mikey I can do this.’

‘The only person you need to prove anything to—is yourself.’

‘Sure. That’s what I meant.’ She took a deep breath and fixed him with her best can-do expression. ‘It’s why you can relax about having to offer me employment. The interview this morning was just a blip on an otherwise fail-safe plan.’

‘Wait, you have a plan? You do?’

‘What? It’s not beyond the realms of possibility.’

‘It kind of is, actually. You have many skills, but putting together a Life Plan?’ Jared gave a mock shudder and Amanda regretted seating herself so far away because it meant landing a swift left hook was currently outside her physical scope. But, darn it, he was right. Again. She knew she gave every impression of abhorring making plans. Life had this way of sneaking up and upsetting any she made, so it made total sense to her to avoid making them.

Avoid disappointment. Avoid upset.

Going with the flow was a perfectly acceptable lifestyle choice and, perversely, made her feel in control. Of course, if she could just get Life to stop throwing her curveballs in the first place she’d be more willing to make nice with The Planning Gremlins.

‘Maybe I should take a look at this plan for you, check it’s not really more of a list, because,’ Jared broke off and glanced towards her bag, suddenly emitting noise. ‘You want to answer your phone?’

Amanda shook her head. So much for hoping he’d politely ignore the fact that her phone was ringing with all the subtlety of the clanging chimes of doom.

‘It could be about your interview.’

It was definitely going to be about the interview. Her luck said it was the agency ringing her with a ‘no’. A word she suddenly didn’t want to hear. Not after owning up to her plan. Not if it would make her look as if she’d fallen at the first hurdle. Not if it made her wish she’d accepted Jared’s job offer in the first place.

A job offer that was now completely off the table.

On account of the whole sizzling kissing thing.

With leaden feet she crossed to her bag and rummaged for her phone. Answering it she turned her back on Jared and listened to the agency telling her the gallery owner had decided to go with someone with more experience.

As she felt her head drop she determinedly set her shoulders. This was not the end of the world. This was a new year, a new her. So she’d line up some more interviews. Pursue her plan.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.