Built to Last (Harlequin Heartwarming) (5 page)

Jo had begun to feel uncomfortable again. Did he think she was criticizing his sister, that he had to explain her?

“I like Kathleen,” she said, not sure if it was true, but feeling obligated.

They were heading south on Roosevelt, a busy one-way street, almost to the University district, which she had yet to explore at any length.

Ryan didn’t seem to read anything into her slightly prickly comment. “I like her, too. Most of the time. I admire her. Sometimes she bugs me.”

He turned right a couple of blocks and into a parking lot across the street from a restaurant called Pagliacci’s. A big multiplex movie theater was next door.

“Eaten here?” he asked.

Jo shook her head. “I’ve grabbed lunch a couple of times at places farther down University. Thai or Mongolian.”

“Pagliacci’s has good pizza. For pasta, my favorite is Stella’s over by the Metro or Trattoria Mitchelli’s, down near Pioneer Square. Owned by the same people, I hear.”

“I love pizza,” she confessed. “I haven’t tried to find a good place yet in Seattle.”

As they waited on the sidewalk for a cluster of college students to exit, Ryan asked, “Why Seattle?”

“The UW has a great graduate program in librarianship. It’s supposed to be one of the best. That’s what I wanted.”

He gave her a teasing grin. “You sound like Kathleen.”

“I’m ambitious, too,” Jo admitted. “Just not…”

When she hesitated, he finished for her, “Compulsive?”

“Neat.” Jo laughed up at him as he held open the door for her. “Does that scare you?”

“Would I have to wade across your room?”

She let him steer her to the counter, his hand at her waist.

“Maybe,” she confessed, before slanting a
sidelong look at him. “Assuming you had any reason to be walking across my room.”

“Touché,” he murmured, head bent, his breath warm on her ear. “What do you want?”

A kiss…
Oh, no, how close she came to saying that out loud! She was especially embarrassed when she realized he’d effortlessly shifted gears from flirtation and was asking what kind of pizza she wanted to order.

“I like plain cheese, veggie or everything. You decide.”

“Veggie is good.” He bought a pitcher of beer and they found a table up a step toward the back, where the space was quieter, more intimate.

Talking to him was easy, listening easier yet. With that voice, he should have been a DJ.

He talked about his business, the personalities among his crews, the irritations of dealing with homeowners who changed their minds every five minutes and couldn’t seem to remember to pay bills.

“But, hey,” he said finally, with a grin, “they let me play with their houses, so who am I to complain?”

Jo could just imagine how Kathleen would
react to that attitude. “A man who has bills of his own to pay?” she suggested.

“There is that.” He was silent for a moment, hand cradling a pint of beer. “Why are you aiming to be a librarian?”

“Because I already am one.” She let out a huff of breath. “But without the graduate degree, I wasn’t paid like one, and couldn’t keep advancing.” She told him about starting as a page shelving books, about working nights as a clerk while getting her college degree, about stepping in as acting branch librarian. “Library budgets are always tight. Somehow they just let me stay. I did the job, they saved money. After a while, I resented that. And openings would come up that might have interested me—in outreach, or reference at headquarters, or the step above me, the librarian who oversaw branches—and I, of course, wasn’t eligible. I decided I could stew, or do something about it.”

“How long is the program?”

He listened in turn and encouraged her to talk about her classes, her need for a part-time job and her decision to rent a room at his sister’s rather than look for an apartment on her own.

“Are you glad? Sorry?” he asked.

“Undecided,” Jo admitted. “They’re both nice women, but I hadn’t bargained for the kids, and I’m used to more privacy than I have now.”

His attention never wavered. “You didn’t have a roommate? Or a significant other?”

She shook her head. “I owned my own condo. I’m afraid the equity is financing my tuition.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Nobody serious.” She didn’t tell him “serious” wasn’t in her game plan. “You?”

Ryan shook his head in turn. “I’ve been divorced less than two years. Most of my spare time until a few months ago was spent with my kids.” A ripple of emotion passed through his eyes. “My ex remarried and this summer they moved to Denver.”

“Can she do that?”

“Regrettably, yeah.” He abruptly stood. “That’s us.”

Us? Jarred, she realized their pizza was ready.

Once they started dishing up and eating, Jo didn’t ask any more about his kids. Obviously, he missed them. But because they lived half a country away, she wouldn’t have to have anything to do with them. Good thing—she
couldn’t see herself pretending to have great fun taking someone else’s children to the zoo or the water slides. Maybe this relationship had more promise than she’d feared.

As though tacitly agreeing to avoid subjects too personal, Ryan started in on local politics and the resultant taxes on a small business like his, grumbling about years ago having to help pay for SafeCo Field for the Mariners. “Blowing up the King Dome.” He shook his head. “Can you believe it? Perfectly good stadium.”

“Aren’t you a baseball fan?”

“Yeah, sure I am.” He grinned. “I even like SafeCo Field. It’s cool that they can roll back the roof on a sunny day. But they just keep piling on the taxes, and I can’t afford it. I sure don’t make any more money when the Mariners are successful.”

Corralling a long strand of cheese, she said, “No, I suppose not.”

“Hey.” He set down his mug. “Want to go to a Mariners game someday?”

Jo couldn’t help laughing. “I’d love to. Although, the Mariners… I don’t know. Maybe they’re an acquired taste. Now, me, I’m an Oakland A’s fan.”

He pretended shock, and they bandied mild insults along with a few stats.

Enjoying herself, Jo was also aware of feeling more self-conscious than she normally would on a casual date like this. It was Ryan, of course, who was responsible for her nervousness. He was the most handsome man she’d seen in a long time—okay, forever. Excitement ran through her, just a tingle that occasionally made her shiver. But she was disquieted by her powerful reaction to him.

Women did dumb things when they fell too hard for a man.

The pizza they hadn’t eaten grew cold on the table while they continued to talk. He was a reader, too, she discovered, and had even written poetry when he was in high school.

“Romantic, tragic garbage,” he said with a laugh. His tone became smug. “Girls loved it, though.”

“I’ll bet they did,” Jo said with feeling. “
My
boyfriend in high school sometimes got really romantic and told me that making it with me would be as good as hitting a homer. A real high, he said.”

Ryan threw his head back and gave a hearty laugh. “Did you punch him?”

“Yeah, actually, I think I did.” Jo chuckled,
too. “I still remember the look of complete bewilderment on his face. He didn’t understand why I wasn’t clasping my hand to my heart to bestill its pitty-pats.”

Eyes still laughing, Ryan said, “Yeah, well, he’s probably long-married and his wife is lucky if once in a while he tells her she’s put on weight but she still has a pretty smile.”

Jo made a face. “If there’s any justice, she grabs his big belly and tells him it doesn’t ripple like it used to, but she doesn’t mind love handles.”

“You think he has one?”

“Yeah. He was kind of beefy. A jock, you know. Sure,” she nodded, “he’d have gone to seed. How about your high school girlfriend?”

A certain wryness entered his voice. “Want to know the truth?”

Jo cocked her head to one side. “Yeah.”

“I married her. She still looks good.”

“You
married
right out of high school?”

Ryan dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Big mistake, but, yeah. I did.”

“Did Kathleen like your wife?”

“Hated her. The feeling was mutual,” he added. “Kathleen said Wendy was self-centered and shallow.” His mouth twisted.
“She was right. Isn’t it awful, when your big sister is always right?”

“Is she?” Jo asked quietly.

He made a sound low in his throat. “I used to think she was. I think
she
thought her life was pretty close to a state of perfection.” There was that word again. “But you know the saying.”

“Pride goeth before the fall?”

“That’s it. Her pride is taking a real battering.”

Jo asked about their parents, and learned that their mother was dead of cancer and their father was still on-again, off-again employed, living in a run-down little place in West Seattle. “Likes to go to the bars. He was plenty mad when Emerald Downs closed.” Seeing her confusion, Ryan added, “The horse racing track.”

“Ah.”

“Dad’s your classic blue-collar, uneducated guy. He’s happy with what he is. Which,” Ryan’s grin was wicked, “irritates Kathleen no end. She’s spent a lifetime trying to improve him.”

“She hasn’t started trying to improve me yet,” Jo said thoughtfully.

“Oh, I’m making her sound worse than she
is.” The skin beside his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “But here’s a piece of advice. Don’t leave dirty dishes on the counter.”

Jo didn’t admit that she already had one morning, when she hit the snooze button and overslept. They’d been washed, dried and put away when she got home. At dinner, she’d thanked whoever picked up after her. Kathleen had smiled and said, “We all have those mornings occasionally.”

Oh, no, she wouldn’t feel guilty! She was working off any sins of commission or omission. Jo hadn’t expected the remodeling job to be as all-consuming as it had turned out to be.

“Did you really think the tile looked okay?” she asked.

“Better than okay. Hey!” He pushed away the half-full pitcher of beer. “Want to work for me sometimes?”

“Are you serious?” Both flattered and startled, she felt an annoying frisson of excitement. He liked her. Well, he liked the way she used bullnose tiles.

How easily she was pleased.

“Yeah.” He seemed surprised. “Yeah, I am. We have a guy we call for tiling, but he’s
been unreliable. I’ve considered looking for someone else.”

“I’m a complete amateur!”

“Job you did in there didn’t look amateur.”

Her cheeks were turning pink. “Thank you. It wasn’t just me, though.”

“Wasn’t it?” Ryan asked shrewdly.

“Helen did most of the cutting.”

“Could you learn?”

“Well, sure.” Jo frowned. “Are you saying your sister is lazy?”

“Lazy?” She’d earned raised brows. “No. Just…used to the peons doing the work. It’s actually why I’ve been skeptical about her determination to be independent. Make sure she does her share.”

Jo nodded. “I will. Um…how often do you need someone to tile?”

After he gave her an idea what kind of hours and pay she could expect, she promised to think about whether she’d want to work for him, and they left it at that.

On the way out, they briefly discussed seeing a movie, but decided they had to get up too early in the morning. “Maybe Friday night?” Ryan asked.

“Sure.” Jo enjoyed the feeling of his hand
on her lower back as he opened the outside door.

On the short drive home, Ryan asked out of the blue, “Here’s my profound question for the night. What do you want out of life?”

An audible hint of defensiveness crept into her voice. “A satisfying job, a nice home and good friends.”

In the darkness between street lights, she felt as much as saw his head turn. “Marriage? Kids?”

She wouldn’t lie. “Neither are for me.”

He was quiet for a moment, until he had to brake at a stop sign. “Why?”

“How many happy marriages have you ever seen?” she asked bluntly. “You and your sister are zero for two. My parents should never have married. My friends are in and out of relationships and marriages. If by some wild chance you are happy, then you face grief like Helen’s feeling now. What’s the upside?”

Pulling to the curb in front of his sister’s brick house, he set the hand brake. “Having it all.”

“Can’t you do that without getting married?”

“No desire for children?”

Jo shook her head firmly. “I’m not maternal.”

“Until you have them…”

“You don’t know? Uh-uh. Haven’t you noticed how many people stink at being parents? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and I sure don’t want to be a failure at something I never intended to do in the first place.”

“You’re a hard woman.”

Did he mean it? “No. Just…cynical.”

“But you haven’t sworn off dating altogether?”

“No, I like companionship. Just so the man understands I’m not interested in forever.”

“Aren’t I the one who should be saying that?”

“That is traditional, I believe.”

“I don’t mind breaking tradition.” He bent toward her. “If you don’t.”

“It seems to come naturally to me,” she whispered, just before he kissed her.

Oh, so softly, his lips brushed hers. She sighed. He took his sweet time and let her take hers. She was boneless by the time he lifted his head.

“You are a very beautiful woman, Jo Dubray,” he murmured, nuzzled her ear.

“Me?”

“Oh, yeah.” He seemed to be enjoying the texture of her hair as he ran his fingers through it. “Definitely you.”

“You’re, um, not so bad yourself.”

She loved the rumble in his chest when he laughed. “Am I something like a good book?”

Jo tried to sound dignified. “Isn’t that better than a home run?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head doubtfully, the grooves in his cheeks betraying his amusement. “I think we need to work on how to give compliments.”

It never had been her strong suit. Her mother, she didn’t remember that well. Her father had never said anything more than, “Looks good,” or “That’s fine.” Never once had he beamed with pride in a small accomplishment of hers, or lavished her with praise. How did you learn to say, You’re wonderful, if you’d never heard it?