Anything for Her Marriage

Rod shifted in his chair, caught himself. “Marketing’s what I do.”

“What you do, huh? Not…what you love?”

A beat, then: “You don’t have to love something to be good at it.”

“Fine. Then come on board with the foundation, put your skills to good use for something you actually believe in. Something close to your heart.”

“They get my money, Arlen,” he said quietly. “That’s enough.”

The ghosts hovered on the edges of the conversation, taunting. After a moment, Arlen let out a sigh. “Dammit, Rod. For years, I watched you bust your butt to please your father—”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Arlen—”

“Then we won’t. But growing up in that house…” He shook his head, his mouth taut with disgust. “That you turned out as well as you did is a testament to the human spirit.” He hooked Rod’s gaze in his own, obviously expecting a reply. When there was none, he rose from his chair, circled around to ease one hip up on the front edge of his desk. “Your parents have been gone for twenty years, Rod. You don’t have to play it safe anymore, you know.”

Rod stood, slipping his hands in his pant pockets. Breezy. Nonchalant. Far more shaken than he dared let on. “I really do need to be going—”

Arlen stood as well. Eye to eye, he thrust one finger in Rod’s face. “You don’t want to talk, I can’t make you. But let me tell you something—keep up this pretense of everything being fine, ignoring the fact that you’re one of the most miserable bastards I’ve ever met, and you’re headed straight to cardiovascular hell. You have no life, Rod.” He backed up a millimeter, crossed his arms. Grinned. “For that matter, when’s the last time you had sex?”

Shards of tension shot up the back of his neck, as Nancy’s laughter and tenderness and sweet, lush scent slammed into his consciousness. “None of your business.”

Arlen grinned more widely, misinterpreting. “That’s what I thought. Well, here’s a news flash, son—unless you want to shrivel up into something putrid and unrecognizable, you need female companionship from time to time.” He pointed that damned finger at him again. “In your case, more than from time to time. And next time, I suggest you try marrying a woman you love.”

That got a hollow laugh. “Oh, no. Not after—”

“Screwing up twice already? So what? Took me four trips to the altar to work the bugs out. But work out they did.” His eyes narrowed. “Might for you, too, if you stopped trying to choose the kind of woman you think you’re supposed to marry and pick one you want to marry.”

“No such woman exists, Arlen,” he said mildly, ignoring the hair bristling on the back of his neck, “because I’m not getting married again. And if you value our friendship, you’ll kindly remove that nose of yours from my business.”

He turned to leave, but Arlen grabbed him before he’d gone three feet. Concern simmered in those blue eyes, concern Rod had seen many times before. “You don’t have to listen to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Not this time. Not like I did before.”

“Your concern is duly noted,” Rod said through the ghosts. Through the ever-present pain. “But I’m fine, Arlen. Really. Everything’s under control, okay?”

Out in the hall, the polished steel elevator doors shushed open as he heard from ten feet away, “And who the hell d’you think you’re kidding?”

Without answering, Rod stepped inside the elevator, let the doors close.

Chapter 4

Nancy knew it was crazy to still be ruminating about her whatever-it-was with Rod after nearly three weeks. You’d think, with all the practice she’d had at getting over men, this would have been a piece of cake.

Work, she told herself, forcing bleary eyes back to the Sheldons’ contract. Selling one house and buying another concurrently was always a pain. Now that they’d gotten a decent offer on their old one, she had to find them new living space as quickly as possible. God, she was tired….

Okay, girl—listen up: One cup of coffee and one night of hot sex do not a relationship make, got it? Except that one night of sex put the dribs and drabs of her previous experiences to shame. Maybe Rod wasn’t burned into her soul or anything romantic and profound like that, but he sure was burned into her body. Yowsa—she twirled her string of garnet beads around one finger—a week with the man would probably hold her for the next forty years.

Again, she stared at the paperwork in front of her, grabbing a handful of hair and tugging at it, as if trying to let more air into her brain. He’d done her a kindness, she told herself. Man had more baggage than an airline.

Her stomach growled, as if she needed reminding. What was with this, anyway? She’d been hungrier than a bear all this week—

“Oooh, don’t we look serious this morning.”

Nancy looked up, forced the muscles between her brows to relax, then waved Guy into her office while she filled in three more lines in the contract. Elizabeth’s husband plopped himself in the gray upholstered chair in front of her desk, munching onion rings from a cardboard container.

She glanced up, chuckled. Salivated at the onion rings. “Mmm…nice tie.”

Brilliant blue eyes sparkled in the clear winter light pouring from the shadeless window behind her, thanks to a truckers’ strike that had delayed delivery of the miniblinds for Millennium Realty’s new offices. Guy plucked the tie, festooned with Mickey Mouses, off his plaid-shirted chest, and grinned. “Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” He let it drop, held out the onion rings. “Kids gave it to me. Want one?”

She started. Oh. An onion ring. Not a kid. She gratefully accepted, then flipped the page, fighting a slight wave of dizziness. “Didn’t figure Elizabeth had. So,” she said as she munched, “what’s up?”

Her peripheral vision caught the nervous shift in the chair before he laced his hands over his stomach, almost immediately lifting one to scratch behind a gold-studded ear. He wore his hair shorter than when Nancy had first met him, longish in back but neatly layered on top and front. On Guy, it worked. “Actually, I—we—need a favor. See, Elizabeth’s been a little cranky lately—”

“Our Elizabeth?” Nancy said in mock amazement, sparing him a smile as she wrote. “Cranky?”

“Well, that’s the kindest word I can think of at the moment. In any case, I got tickets to the Detroit Symphony concert tonight, aaand…” his face scrunched up into a please-don’t-hit-me grimace “I wondered if you could sit?”

Nancy leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed over her velour tunic. “It’s Saturday, Guy. What if I had plans?”

His face fell. “Do you?”

She sighed. “I wish. Yeah, I suppose I can sit tonight—”

“And I’ve made reservations to spend the night someplace fancy, expensive and childless,” he added in a rush.

Look at that face, wouldja? No wonder he had Elizabeth eating out of his hand. “Anybody ever tell you you’re devious?”

“Most of my clients, actually, but let’s not go there.”

She laughed. “Fine. I can spend the night, no problem. But I assume I was second choice?” Elizabeth’s mother was besotted with her new step-grandchildren, ready to baby-sit at a moment’s notice.

Guy got up, peered out the office door, then came back, leaning over Nancy’s desk. “Maureen backed out on us,” he whispered. “Hugh asked her to go away for the weekend.”

Nancy’s brows shot up. “Really?” For several months, Nancy’s widowed mother had been dating Hugh Farentino, the developer of the planned community that had been primarily responsible for the agency’s sudden boom in business. “You think things are getting serious, then?”

“Let’s just say Elizabeth and I are taking bets on whether we have a baby or a wedding first.”

Nancy fixed a smile to her face, refusing to let this good news get to her. It really did seem at times as if she was the only woman in the world destined to remain single.

“Hey, baby!” Cora Jenkins swept into the office, her bright purple cape in full sail, plunked a white bag reeking of something gloriously greasy on Nancy’s desk, then turned to Guy. “There you are,” she said to Guy. “The Reinharts are here, honey. Said you were supposed to show them houses this afternoon. Whoa, Nancy—you okay?”

She’d stood to walk to her file, found herself clutching the open drawer to keep from losing her balance. The dizziness passed in a second, but she looked up to find two pairs of eyes trained on her like bird dogs.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” She straightened up, brushed a curl off her cheek.

Guy tossed the empty onion-ring container in her garbage can. “There’s that nasty flu going around,” he said to whoever was listening as he made his way to the door. “All three kids had it last week. My mom even came down to help out, otherwise Elizabeth might have gotten it, too.”

Nancy smiled at the love in Guy’s voice. She didn’t know all the details of why his first marriage had failed, but Elizabeth had confided that Guy sometimes still had to fend off vestiges of guilt about his wife’s walking out on him and their three children when the youngest was barely six months old.

His first wife had been one clueless woman, that was for sure.