The Hang Up (First Impressions) (12 page)

“Why do you guys keep looking at each other like that?” Henry asked.

Miriam blinked as the spell broke between them. “Like what?”

“You know…” Henry said, his voice five-year-old singsong. “Like you’re a dog and he’s got a bone you really want.”

Miriam felt her cheeks go crimson. She was working so hard to stifle a laugh that she had tears pooling in her eyes. Behind her, Jason was making no such effort. He was laughing so hard the canoe began to rock.

“You’re a real romantic, sport,” he said. “Now turn around and tell me where we’re going.”

…

“So this was fun,” Jason said as he reached up to tuck a stray curl behind Miriam’s ear.

Not like she couldn’t fix her own hair, but his need to touch her was so all-consuming that he couldn’t help himself. He let his finger graze the edge of her ear, savoring the soft warmth of her skin and the way her bare knee brushed his.

They were sitting close together in a patch of sunshine on a picnic blanket, the remains of their lunch spread out between them. On a far corner of the blanket, Henry snoozed in the shade, his little boy body curled tight like a potato bug.

“It
was
fun,” Miriam agreed, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think it would be.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“No, really.” She plucked at a blade of grass near the edge of the blanket. “I mean I grew up occasionally doing outdoorsy things with my dad, but never canoeing. And as I got older, I stopped getting to do those things with him.”

“How come?”

She shrugged and began to shred the thick blade of grass. “My folks split up when I was ten, and I spent most of my time with my mother after that.”

“I take it she wasn’t an outdoor enthusiast?”

Miriam laughed. “My mother makes me look like Davy Crocket. She always saw herself as more of a cross between Martha Stewart and one of the Real Housewives.”

“Quite a combination,” he said, catching one of her hands in his. “Does she live around here?”

“No. After the divorce, she moved back east on a quest to become a New York City socialite. I lived with her until I graduated from high school, but came back out here after college.”

“And here you stayed,” he said, then planted a lazy kiss across her knuckles.

“Yep. I’m more of a West Coast socialite, minus the actual social scene.”

He grinned and began tracing the outline of her hand against the picnic blanket, his fingertip dipping and trailing between her digits. “So your folks were pretty opposite?”

She nodded and looked up to meet his eyes for the first time since the conversation had started. “Yes. So it’s probably no surprise that didn’t work out.”

The words hung there between them for a moment, casting a dark shadow over an otherwise perfect afternoon. Jason tried to think of the right thing to say, but he couldn’t come up with something clever.

His parents may have died young, but they’d always loved each other. Even when he was seventeen and rolling his eyes over their need to hold hands at the dinner table, he appreciated how much his mother and father cared for each other.

He had no idea what it was like to come from a broken home.

He glanced at Henry, who was still sleeping peacefully, his little body twitching the way it sometimes did when he was deep in dreamland. What was it like not knowing his dad? For all intents and purposes, not having a father at all.

You’re the father he doesn’t have. It’s your job to make sure he’s happy and well adjusted and safe and loved.

“He looks so much like you.”

Jason glanced up to see Miriam watching him. She smiled and nodded at the boy. “Henry, I mean. The resemblance is strong. It’s no wonder I thought he might be your son.”

“We get that a lot,” he said, and he heard the tinge of pride in his own words. “How old are you?”

Miriam laughed and shook her head. “Anyone ever tell you that’s not a polite question to ask a woman?”

“No.”

“Well, it isn’t. It’s much too intimate.”

“Honey,” he said, lowering his voice even though Henry was the soundest sleeper in the universe. “I’ve been buried deep inside you while you screamed my name. I think we’re well beyond the point of intimate.”

Miriam’s cheeks turned pink, but the faint smile on her face told him she remembered it as fondly as he did. She opened her mouth to say something—maybe that she wanted to do it again?—then closed it again.

She glanced away for a moment, then looked back at him. “I’m thirty-one. How old are you?”

“Thirty-four. So can I ask you another personal question?”

“Fire away,” she said, throwing an arm up. “Might as well keep going while you’re on a roll.”

She looked more amused than annoyed, so Jason pressed on. “How come you’re not married?”

“Jeez.” She grabbed a potato chip from the bag between them and chomped down on it. He watched her jaw move as she chewed, taking her time with the question. “I guess the simple answer is that I never found the right guy.”

“What does the right guy look like?”

“Looks aren’t the important thing,” she said a little haughtily, though he noticed she shot a glance at his pecs when she said it. “The right guy has to be smart. Passionate. Funny. Successful. Sexy as hell.”

“Sexy? I thought you said looks weren’t important.”

“I said they’re not
as
important. Besides, sexy isn’t about looks. It’s about chemistry.”

“Got it,” he said, not entirely sure why it mattered to him, but pretty sure they had enough chemistry bubbling between them to power a Bunsen burner. “So where do you plan to find this smart, passionate, funny, successful, sexy-as-hell husband?”

“Maybe I’m not looking,” she said, glancing away. “Maybe I stopped looking altogether.”

He nodded, his gaze locked on her face. He sensed there was more to the story than that, and was deciding whether to push for it when she turned back to look him right in the eye.

“So how about you?” she asked. “You seem like a good family man. You’re obviously devoted and love kids. Why aren’t you shackled to a wife with a house in the suburbs and a dog in your backyard?”

Jason shrugged and let his gaze dart to Henry before he returned his attention to Miriam. “I guess I feel like I already have a family. No real need to do anything different.”

“Huh.” She nibbled another chip. “Think you’ll ever get hitched?”

“Kind of a heavy subject for a third date.”

“This isn’t a date, and you’re the one who brought it up, remember?”

“Good point. Okay, I guess I’m not sure. I mean, it’s not a priority for me. I know how much time and attention and devotion it takes to keep a family safe and protected and happy. I can’t afford to divert any attention away from the family already entrusted to me.”

She was silent a moment, but her gaze was still locked with his. He had the disconcerting sensation she could look right through his eyeballs and into the back of his skull. Like she could read his mind. “I can see that,” she said at last, and he had a hunch she really could.

Something crackled in the air between them. Something warm and electric and delicious. A flash in her eyes told him she felt it, too. That it wasn’t just his imagination.

He was halfway to closing the distance between them before he even realized he’d moved. One minute he was sitting in his own quiet spot on the picnic blanket, minding his own business, and the next he was leaning close to kiss her.

Miriam had a dazed look in her eyes, and Jason wondered if he had the same expression. She was drifting toward him the same way he was moving toward her, almost as though they had magnets in their foreheads, drawing them together.

When his lips touched hers, it was the most natural thing in the world. He kissed her softly, taking his time, marveling at the softness of her mouth against his. This was nothing like the kiss in the cave, or like the passionate fuck on her dining room table.

This was something different altogether.

He knew she felt it, too, as her fingers stroked the back of his neck, gentle instead of insistent this time. Her kiss was gentler, too, and there was something so deliciously sweet it made his chest ache.

“Whoopsie!”

Jason jerked away and dropped his hand from the back of Miriam’s neck. He blinked at the edge of the woods where an older couple wearing matching cargo shorts stood grinning at them.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said the woman, smiling as she brushed her salt-and-pepper hair back from her face. She shot a nostalgic look at the man beside her, then touched the wedding band on her finger. “We remember exactly what it’s like trying to get a little alone time with a little one in the house,” she whispered with a knowing smile.

“Gotta get creative, that’s for sure,” the man chimed in, smiling at Jason. “Take it from me, son—keep on kissing your wife just like that and you’ll have lots of happy years ahead of you.”

“And a little brother or sister for
him
.” The woman beamed at Henry. “How old?”

“Five,” Jason said automatically, not bothering to correct their notion that they’d interrupted a stolen romantic moment between a mom and dad watching over their sleeping child. “Henry turned five in February.”

“Such a cutie,” the woman said. “Looks just like his daddy.”

“That’s what I always say,” Miriam said as she shot Jason a private smile. “Lucky for me, I married into a good gene pool.”

The word “married” made Jason’s heart clench in his chest, and he couldn’t figure out if it was terror or fondness that gripped him.

But he was sure about one thing.

He was dangerously close to falling for Miriam Ashley.

Chapter Ten

“Uncle Jason, I’ve gotta dump some apple juice!”

Miriam glanced in the rearview mirror at Henry, who didn’t appear to be holding any sort of beverage. She looked at Jason in the driver’s seat. “Apple juice?” she murmured, reaching for her purse. “I think I might have some sparkling water left in my bag—”

“No, that’s his word for relieving himself,” Jason said, turning off the highway on the exit that led toward their neighborhood. “We had to give him an alternative to announcing to everyone that he had to drain his penis.”

“I can see how that would be better,” Miriam said, glancing again in the rearview mirror. “How badly do you have to go, little man?”

“Bad!” Henry announced, crossing his legs. “
Real
bad.”

Jason glanced over at Miriam. “You mind if we take him home first? I know it’s just a couple of blocks from your place, but a couple of blocks can make all the difference with a five-year-old who’s still mastering the fine art of bladder control.”

“By all means,” Miriam said as she shot Henry a teasing look. “If you’re worried about your upholstery, I can just hold him by the ankles and hang him out the window.”

“Whoa!” Henry beamed. “That’d be cool!”

“Maybe next time,” Jason called. “We’re almost home, buddy. Think you can hold it ’til then?”

“Uh-huh.”

Miriam watched in the rearview mirror as the little boy took the suggestion quite literally, and was now gallantly “holding it.” She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her own laughter.

“Just a few more blocks,” Miriam offered, not sure if Henry even knew what a block was, but hoping it sounded helpful anyway. “Can you think about something else to take your mind off it? Bubble gum or baseball or gummy bears?”

“Yeah,” Henry said, his little face looking a bit less pinched as he pictured whatever it was that gave him the most joy.

“Here we are,” Jason announced as he pulled up to the curb like a pizza delivery guy running ten minutes late.

“Out you go.” Jason scrambled out of the car and helped his nephew with the buckles on his car seat. “You’ve got this, big guy. Just a few quick steps.”

Miriam got out of the car, careful to give them a wide berth. “I can just walk home from here.”

“Actually, would you mind grabbing that bag?” Jason called as he hustled his nephew up the walkway. “It has Henry’s medications in it, and he’s due to take a pill right now.”

“Of course,” Miriam said, secretly relieved not to have to say good-bye so abruptly. She grabbed the little blue backpack from the backseat and pushed the car door closed, following close behind as Jason and Henry hustled toward the house.

Jason pushed the door open and ushered Henry ahead of him, while Miriam followed, admiring the careful way Jason guided the little boy toward the house without pushing or growing impatient. “There you go, buddy. Use the powder room right there. Atta boy!”

Miriam trailed Jason into the living room, smiling as Ellie came walking through a door wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“You made it back.” She grinned at her brother before turning to Miriam and sticking out her hand. “Allow me to introduce myself properly this time. I’m Ellie, and I’m definitely
not
this dork’s wife.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” Miriam said, returning the handshake that was surprisingly hearty. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. I should have been clearer right from the start. How was the canoeing?”

“Wonderful,” Miriam said. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, this was a quick one. I used to get migraines so bad they’d leave me incapacitated for days, but I got my meds on board fast with this one, and it passed in just a couple hours.”

“Is that your lasagna I smell?” Jason asked as he made his way toward the door Ellie had just come through.

“It is,” she said. “I figured I owed you something for bailing on you at the last minute.”

“You don’t owe me a damn thing, but I’ll take it,” Jason called over his shoulder as he headed into the kitchen. “We had a great time without you.”

“I’m sure you did.” Ellie smiled at Miriam in a way that made it clear she knew exactly what was going on between them.

Well, maybe not
exactly.
Hell, Miriam wasn’t even sure about that.

“So, Miriam, Jason tells me you’d never been canoeing before,” Ellie said. “Did you fall in?”

“Nope!” she said, feeling a little proud. “Actually, I loved it. Even better than the spelunking. If I’d known how much fun it was, I’d have picked up a paddle years ago.”

“You should try kayaking then,” she said. “Personally, I think that’s a lot more fun, plus you can do it all by yourself without needing another person along to help lug the boat off the car.”

“A kayak, huh?” She thought about the bright yellow one she’d seen on the Urban Trax website, then pictured herself gliding through the water with effortless precision. She was amazed to realize she rather liked the image. “Maybe I’ll look into renting one sometime.”

“Thanks, El,” Jason muttered, grinning as he walked back into the room munching a piece of French bread. “You just rendered me unnecessary to the girl I’ve been flirting with.”

“I’ll render you unnecessary if you don’t quit eating my bread.” Ellie swatted him with her dish towel. “I’m using that to make garlic bread for dinner.”

“There’s still plenty left to go with the lasagna.”

“Lasagna!” Henry said, bursting out of the bathroom. “We’re having lasagna for dinner?”

“We sure are.” Ellie beamed at her son as she tousled his hair. “I’m so glad your appetite is back. Remember how icky you felt during chemo?”

“Yeah,” the little boy said solemnly, looking at Miriam. “Sometimes I got milkshakes for dinner.”

“Protein shakes,” Ellie told Miriam. “It was the only thing he could keep down sometimes.”

“That must have been hard,” Miriam said, not sure what else to offer.

“This little guy is quite the fighter.” She smiled at her son. “The heart of a lion. Takes after Uncle Jason.”

“I like lions,” Henry said. “Remember that one time we went to the zoo and the boy elephant had a great big, huge, ginormous—”

“We remember,” Jason said, grinning. “You can spare us the elephant anatomy lesson. Did you wash your hands, buddy?”

“I did. Can Miriam stay for dinner? I promise she won’t eat too much and I’ll let her sit next to me.”

“Oh, that’s very sweet.” Miriam ruffled Henry’s hair, then glanced at her watch. “I don’t want to impose, and I really should get home.”

“Please stay,” Ellie insisted. “Feeding you is the least I can do after you bailed out my stupid brother this morning. Besides, I’ve got a killer Chianti to go with the lasagna.”

Jason smiled at Miriam. “Odds are good you’ll get more than your share of the wine, since she tends to go easy on it after a migraine.”

“That’s very tempting, but I really shouldn’t—”

“Please stay?” Henry pleaded. “I’ll bet Mom will even let you lick your plate, even though we’re not supposed to.”

Miriam glanced at Jason, not sure if she should accept the invitation or call it a day. After all, they’d been together since early this morning, and maybe he could use a break from her.

But the smile he gave her wasn’t the smile of a man eager to see her headed out the door, and when he slung his arm around her shoulders, it wiped away any doubt she might have had about whether he wanted her to stick around.

Okay, so they’d agreed they weren’t interested in a relationship, but maybe this friends-with-benefits thing could work.

“Please stay,” Jason murmured in her ear, his voice deep and rich like melted chocolate. “I’ll bet you’ll let me lick your plate, even though we’re not supposed to.”

Miriam shivered with desire, and glanced over at Ellie and Henry to make sure they hadn’t heard. Henry was busy showing Ellie how his dinosaur could do the backstroke, so the boy was blessedly oblivious to the dirty things his uncle was whispering in the houseguest’s ear.

But Ellie glanced over and grinned. “Come on, buddy,” she told Henry as she caught her son by the hand. “I think Uncle Jason’s powers of persuasion might work best without us in the room.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Miriam murmured, not needing any persuasion at all.

…

Jason leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head as he stretched out his legs and resisted the urge to undo the top button on his shorts.

“Amazing dinner, El,” he said, feeling warm all over. “You’re going to need to roll me out the door to get back to my place.”

“Please,” Jason’s sister said as she kicked his foot under the table, then turned to Miriam. “Honestly, the guy eats like a starving water buffalo and never gains an ounce. It’s so unfair.”

“I hear you.” Miriam took her last bite of lasagna and chewed carefully before setting her fork down. She stood up and began to gather their empty plates. “If I even
look
at a second helping, it goes straight to my hips.”

Jason reached across the table for his sister’s empty salad bowl, then stacked it in his own before reaching for Henry’s. The boy had already headed off to bed after clearing away his own dinner plate, but he’d left behind the bowl and a juice glass.

“All right, ladies,” Jason said. “This isn’t going to turn into one of those conversations where I have to reassure you both you’re beautiful and fabulous and don’t need to lose a pound, is it?”

“Definitely not,” Miriam said, grinning at Ellie. “We already know we’re beautiful and fabulous, so we don’t need you to tell us.”

“And the only pounds I want to talk about right now are British ones.”

Miriam gave her a perplexed look. “Are you planning a trip to England?”

“No, I have this e-commerce site I’ve been trying to set up for my new business,” Ellie said as she pushed her blond hair back off her forehead. “I’ve spent the last couple days fighting with the currency conversion for the online sales portal, and I’m about ready to tear my hair out. If I didn’t have such a strong interest from the UK, I probably wouldn’t even bother with overseas sales.”

“Maybe I can help,” Miriam said as she carted the stack of plates to the kitchen and set them beside the sink. She returned to the dining room and picked up the salad bowls Jason had stacked. “I’ve done quite a bit of Web design in the past. I’d be happy to take a look.”

“Thanks, but I’m running on a pretty shoestring budget,” she said. “I don’t really have the money to hire a PR firm, but I appreciate the offer.”

“You already paid me in lasagna,” Miriam said. “Besides, it sounds like you’ve already got most of it set up. What are you selling?”

Ellie glanced down the hall toward Henry’s bedroom door, which was closed tight. The grown-ups had already doled out hugs and kisses, and Jason noticed Miriam had earned an extra pair from the little boy. At Henry’s urging, she’d even taken a turn reading a page from his favorite bedtime story about dinosaurs and underpants, and it had taken every ounce of self-control Jason possessed not to let his libido surge each time she spoke the word “underpants.”

Watching his nephew throw his arms around Miriam’s neck had left Jason feeling warm all over. It was almost a shame they’d agreed not to let things get too serious between them.

You don’t have the bandwidth for that.

He shook his head and tipped his chair back on two legs, trying to focus on the conversation between his sister and Ellie. It was nice seeing how quickly the two had clicked. Ellie hadn’t gotten the chance to make many friends since they’d moved, and he knew she’d been eager for some girl time.

His sister was still talking, and he realized he’d missed part of the conversation.

“…and they have the largest selection of vibrators in the entire—”

“Wait, what?” Jason felt the legs of his chair hit the floor. “How’d you end up talking about sex toys?”

Ellie rolled her eyes at him. “Because that’s what I’m selling, Jason. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Apparently not,” he said, not sure how he felt about his baby sister peddling dildos. Okay, fine. She wasn’t exactly a baby, and had in fact welcomed her own baby a couple years before she turned thirty. Still.

“Sex toys,” Miriam said, giving Ellie a nod of approval as she kicked Jason under the table. “Terrific choice for a home-based business. Very high demand.”

Jason frowned. “Wait, when you told me you were starting an online business, I figured it was candles or Tupperware or something.”

“You figured wrong,” Ellie said. “This is much more fun.”

“But what about Henry?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “What about Henry? I’m not having him upload images of nipple clamps or take inventory of dildos. I do all my work when he’s napping or after he’s gone to bed.”

“Sensible,” Miriam said, giving Jason a look. It either translated as,
shut up and be supportive
or maybe
you have spinach in your teeth
. Women were hard to read.

“I’ve been very discreet,” Ellie assured them. “Everything’s set up under a pseudonym, so they can’t trace anything back to my big brother the CEO.”

Jason knew he was probably being an overprotective dumbass, but he still found himself glancing around the room, half expecting to see a paddle sticking out from under the couch. Not the canoeing kind, either.

“You don’t have the sex toys here, do you? Where Henry can find them, I mean?”

“Of course not,” Ellie said. “Not that there’d be anything wrong with it if I did. Why are you being such a prude all of a sudden?”

“I’m not,” he insisted, trying not to look at Miriam while talking with his sister about sex toys. “I’m just worried about Henry.”

“Henry sounds like he’s more familiar with human anatomy than most grown-ups,” Miriam pointed out. “I doubt he’d be too traumatized by the sight of a rubber penis.”

“Which he won’t see because there aren’t any here anyway,” Ellie said. “They’re all in the storage area at your place.”

“My place?” Jason said. “You stuffed my closet with dildos?”

“And lube. And vibrators. And—”

“Wait, what’s the difference between a dildo and a vibrator?” Jason asked, not sure he wanted the answer.