have to be witnessed—”
“So I’ll have them witnessed!”
The dial tone snarled in his ear; his father had hung up on him, shutting C.J. off, and out, as he always had. Always would.
C.J. slapped the phone shut. From two thousand miles away, he felt the burning look of disapproval etched into his father’s overlarge features, the disappointment shadowing blue eyes like C.J.’s own. He’d never understood why, nor had he ever felt compelled to dig around for answers he wasn’t sure he wanted, anyway. The basics were simple enough: his father had denied him nothing, except himself.
And while C.J. would never intentionally treat another human being as dismissively as his father had him, his well didn’t exactly run deep, either, judging from his lack of any real connection with the women he’d dated over the years. Clearly, he’d inherited his father’s factory-defective heart.
But Dana’s different, came the thought, as unexpected and unwelcome as a bee sting.
Followed immediately by Don’t go there, Turner.
Not a problem, he thought with a rueful grin. Not after all he’d gone through to reach a place where he was finally as much in control of his life as was humanly possible. And blissfully, gloriously free—free from the pressure to be someone he wasn’t, free from either his own or anyone else’s expectations.
At his feet, the cat meowed, a tiny interrogative eeerk.
Almost nobody, anyway.
The microwave beeped. In a daze, C.J. popped open the door, grabbing his dinner with his bare hand. He cursed, dropping the hot tray with a great clatter.
Free, he mused, to make a fool of himself without witnesses.
He let the cat out back, then followed, his meal and drink in tow, to sink into one of the pricey, thickly padded patio chairs the decorator had picked out. The sky had gone a deep, soothing blue; C.J. took another pull of his beer, then let his head loll back against the cushion. Overhead, the first stars had begun to twinkle. And if he wanted to sit here for the next two hours watching them, he could. If he wanted to turn the volume up all the way on the sound system, he could. If he wanted to leave the toilet seat up, or his towels on the floor, or two weeks’ worth of clothes piled on his chair, he could.
It was as close to heaven as any man could wish for, he thought, forking in a bite of tasteless … something.
“Such a shame you have to go out in this heat to look at more properties today,” Mercy said from her perch on the counter beside the cash register, dunking a donut into her coffee.
Squatting in front of a display of infant toys, Dana lifted her eyes, caught the smirk. “Uh, yeah. You look real broken up about it.”
“Oh, come on,” Mercy mumbled around the last bite of donut, then dusted off her hands. A geranium-pink tank top emblazoned with a rhinestone heart set off her ebony curls, today caught up in a series of clips studded with even more rhinestones. Subtle was not one of Mercy’s strong suits. “I can think of a lot worse things than tootling around the city with a good-looking guy.”
“Whom you haven’t even met, so how do you know how good-looking he is?” Dana stood, moving over to a rack of toddler dresses to yank out a 3T that had gotten wedged in with the 2s. “And you have powdered sugar on your chin.”
The brunette rubbed at the spot. “Did I get it?” Dana glanced at her, nodded. “And I trust Cass’s taste in men. So …” Mercy slithered off the counter, tugging at the hem of her short white skirt, then knotted her hands around the top of the chrome rack, chin propped on knuckles. “How hot are we talking, exactly?”
Her just-try-it-on initiative about C.J. notwithstanding, Dana wasn’t about to give her partners any ammunition toward the cause. This was one uphill battle she intended to tackle on her own, thank you. So she shrugged and said, “He’s okay, I suppose. If you like that type.”
“Type as in gorgeous?”
“No. Type as in ‘I-don’t-do-serious’.”
“Oh, that.” Mercy batted the air. “Not a problem.”
Dana couldn’t help the laugh. “And you’re saying this because …?”
“Yeah, yeah—I know what you’re getting at. But I’m still single not because I don’t think there’s a man alive who doesn’t, deep down, want to come home to the same woman every night, but because I’m … particular.” She flounced over to the door, peered out at the still-empty parking lot. In this heat, it was unlikely they’d get many customers. “A girl’s gotta have standards, you know.”
Dana eyed the leftover donuts still on the counter, forced herself to look away. “And one of mine is that the sight of children and wedding rings doesn’t make the guy puke.”
Mercy pff’ed her disdain through glossed red lips, then tented her hand over her eyes. “Speaking of standards … badass vehicle at three o’clock. Yowsa.”
Dana glanced over to see the familiar silver sedan glide into a parking space. “Oh, no! I was supposed to meet him, at the agency,” she said over a pounding heart, suddenly not at all sure she was ready to put her new resolve to the test. Especially before her second cup of coffee. “What on earth …?”
Both women stood, transfixed, as C.J. got out of the car, slipped on his suit coat. Poor guy, dressed for a board meeting in this weather. Still, that first glimpse of tall, handsome man in a charcoal suit was enough to make anyone’s heart stutter. Including Mercy’s, apparently.
“He’s okay?” she said, eyes wide. “Hey, you don’t want him, toss him this way. I got no problem with leftovers.”
“What happened to your standards?”
“Trust me, chica. He meets them.”
The door swung open, and he was in. And smiling. “Morning, ladies,” he said, his voice still holding a hint of just-out-of-bed roughness that made Dana swallow. Hard.
Then she smiled, thinking, Okay, toots. You can do this.
Damn.
The Dana Malone smiling broadly for C.J. from across the store was not the same Dana Malone he’d left three days ago. Where was the nervousness, the shyness, the insecurity, that had—C.J. was pained to admit—made it much easier to blow her off as any kind of a threat to his hard-won autonomy?
You are man, he reminded himself. Strong. Above temptation. Impervious to … smiles.
While he stood there, thinking about how strong and above temptation he was, the curly-haired dynamo standing beside Dana jutted out a slender, long-nailed hand. “Hi! I’m Mercedes Zamora. Partner Number Three.”
“Oh! I’m sorry!” Dana said. “Mercy, this is C. J. Turner—”
“I know who the man is, honey,” Mercy said with a warm—very warm—smile. Out of the corner of his eye, C.J. caught Dana’s glare. The phone rang. Nobody moved.
“Merce?”
