Sharon had introduced her to Michael Dunnigan that Friday night before Labor Day, Sharon hadn’t told her he was a firefighter. If she had, Josie would likely not have said more than a brief hello to him—that’s how adamant she was about steering clear of anyone who was into anything high-risk.
But as it was, Josie hadn’t learned what Michael did for a living until late in their weekend together. And the moment she’d discovered it, their encounter had turned temporary in her mind. Because if there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that she didn’t want any permanent connection to anyone who did things that could be life-threatening.
Attachment issues—that’s what a psychologist she’d once dated had said about her—that she had attachment issues.
But Josie liked to think of it as independence. She was proud of how self-sufficient she was. She certainly didn’t see anything wrong with maintaining that independence and self-sufficiency.
And if she was particularly adamant about steering clear of anyone who put themselves, their entire life, on the line every day? She considered that a lesson life had taught her at a young age.
“So you and I are only going to be friends, Michael Dunnigan,” she said out loud, as if that would make it an irrefutable fact.
Pip went from angling his blunt black nose up at the small gap she’d left in the window so he could enjoy the smells along the way, to looking at her as if he wasn’t buying that for a minute.
“I mean it,” she said decisively to convince him. “Friends. Roommates. That’s it.”
And if she already knew that wasn’t going to be an easy thing to pull off because the man had hardly been out of her thoughts at all in the two weeks since they’d parted ways?
Well, she liked a challenge, too.
Maybe not quite as much as she liked Michael Dunnigan, but still…
“I should probably be grateful if he has a dragon lady for a mother,” she said to Pip. “Maybe it’ll help cool me off to him.”
But dragon lady or no dragon lady, Josie really was bent on being nothing but friends and roommates with Michael Dunnigan. No matter what it took.
Because even if she wasn’t determined to remain unattached to any one person, even if she wasn’t fiercely protective of her independence, any man whose job put her in a position where, on the turn of a dime, she might be abandoned again the way her parents’ deaths had abandoned her, was not the man for her. No matter what.
And since the closer she got to Michael’s house, the closer she got to Michael, the more butterflies took wing in her stomach and the more eager she felt, she thought that maybe it would be a good thing if his mother really was a dragon lady.
Because she just might need all the help she could get to turn herself off to Michael Dunnigan.
It was dusk by the time Josie arrived at Michael’s brownstone. Luckily she found a parking spot right across the street so she didn’t have to double park to unload her car.
But once she’d maneuvered the sedan between the truck and the station wagon at the curb and turned off the engine, she didn’t rush out of the vehicle. Instead she sat there and studied the place she remembered from the last time she’d been here.
Ten steps edged by a black wrought-iron railing led up to the double-door entrance of the stately two-story brown brick building. The entrance was sheltered by an arched overhang decorated with pilasters that ran along either side and ended at two ornate brackets that connected each pilaster to the frieze.
There were twin carriage lamps on the pilasters and another inside the uppermost curve of the arch. All of them were lit to welcome her and more light shone through the ovals of beveled glass in the center of each dark walnut door.
To the right of the entrance was a large bay window that Josie remembered well. Both the front door and the window were in the living room. She and Michael hadn’t been able to contain themselves long enough to get to his bedroom the first time they’d made love so they’d ended up barely getting through the door and onto the floor just below that bay window.
The memory flooded through Josie’s mind unexpectedly and caught her off guard. The memory of tearing each other’s clothes off while mouths clung together. Of urgent, exploring hands. Of bodies colliding in hungry need…
Not a good thing to think about, she knew, and she worked to block the memory, the images, the recollection of sensations and feelings and things that made her crave reliving it all.
Then Pip offered a distraction by whining to let her know he wanted out of the car now that it was no longer moving.
Josie took a deep breath, sighed and said, “Okay. I guess you’re right. We’re home. For better or worse.”
She attached Pip’s leash to the metal loop on his harness but left him sitting there as she got out of her side of the car. Then she went around to the passenger door to let Pip out that way.
With his blunt nose to the ground, Josie led the bull mastiff across the street that ran in front of the row of nearly identical homes. As if he’d been there before, Pip promptly climbed the ten steps to Michael’s brownstone.
Michael must have been watching for them because before Josie could ring the bell, the door opened and there he was.
“Oh. Hi,” she said a bit dimly.
Even though he hadn’t dressed up for her arrival he was freshly shaved. The heady smell of clean mountain-air-scented aftershave drifted to her nostrils as she took in the sight of him in a plain white T-shirt that was tight enough to hug his chest, shoulders and biceps and the sweatpants that let her know there were muscular thighs hidden inside them.
In fact, not only couldn’t she keep from taking in the sight, one look at him made her heart skip a beat and she thought that it might have been better if he had dressed up. Maybe slacks and a shirt would have hidden more and given her a break. But as it was, his clothes seemed like a scant barrier between her and that body she remembered all too well.
“Welcome to your new home,” he said in response to her greeting, stepping aside to allow her and the dog inside.
But Josie hesitated.
Somehow she hadn’t thought that being there again, with him, would bring so much to the surface. But suddenly she was having difficulty not thinking about Labor Day weekend. About repeating it…
Roommates, she reminded herself. Nothing but roommates…
Roommates who usually provided their own annoyances. Like stinky tennis shoes. Cupboard doors left open. Drinking out of the milk carton. Dirty dishes in the sink. The toilet seat left up.
Those were all things that made roommates unappealing. So maybe if every time she started to notice what she shouldn’t be noticing about Michael, she thought about the grossest, most disgusting thing a roommate had ever done, it would turn her off to even him…
Toenail clippings on the coffee table—that had been the worst. So that was what she would think about.
Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings…
It
