You can’t imagine how much I needed a smile. Things could be better here…
“What are you doing?” Julia asked, back in the room and looking at him in disbelief.
Douglas lifted his eyes to her.
“Who’s Joe?” he asked in return.
Her eyes went from his to her computer and they narrowed.
Then Julia flew to the laptop and slammed the top shut before looking back at him and demanding, “Are you reading my e-mail?”
“Who’s Joe?” Douglas asked again.
“You’re impossible,” she announced in a voice that said, eloquently, that she meant it.
It was his turn to raise an eyebrow but he did this instead of throwing the laptop across the room, which was, for some absurd reason, precisely what he wished to do.
“Joe,” she started, exuding wounded patience when she realised he wouldn’t let it go, “is a friend. An assistant coach for the Indianapolis Colts who was instrumental in getting a number of players to do a fundraiser for us last year.”
“And what is he to you?” Douglas asked, his voice very level, so level it had an edge.
“I told you, he’s my friend,” she retorted.
“What kind of friend?” That edge was now dangerous.
Julia threw up her hands in exasperation.
“The kind of friend who helped me offer more scholarship money to students from disadvantaged backgrounds who wanted to be nurses!” she replied, angrily. “The kind of friend who also happens to be married to my best friend from high school, Molly, since he got her pregnant at eighteen when the condom broke. The kind of friend who didn’t realise he was in love with his wife and family until their son was diagnosed with leukaemia and I spent six months making lasagne and tuna casseroles for them so they’d remember to eat while their boy had treatment. The kind of friend who paid me back by helping me score a major point at work by convincing a bunch of big jocks to use their big hearts to help some aspiring nurses rather than the kids they preferred to raise money for. That kind of friend. Would you like to know more? I don’t know his shoe size but I could ask Molly.”
Douglas immediately relaxed and then tensed again as he contemplated his reaction.
Julia was staring at him, her expression brooding.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she finally admitted.
“I think I’ve explained quite clearly what you can make of me and what my intentions are of making you. There’ll be no ‘Joes’ in your future,” Douglas declared. He knew he was being irrational but he was in no mood to be anything else and, furthermore, he didn’t bloody well care.
At that announcement, she gaped at him, a study of angry astonishment, just as there was a tap on the door.
“Yes?” he called as he moved around her and toward his folded clothes on the bed.
Carter looked around the edge of the door.
“Sir?” Carter asked.
“Give me a minute to dress,” Douglas ordered and Carter retreated, closing the door.
His hand went to the waistband of his jeans and Julia cried, “You aren’t changing in here!”
Douglas carried on with what he was doing because he knew if he didn’t get dressed and out of that room he might not be responsible for what he did do.
And this was even more absurd. It had been so long that he’d been in complete control of his thoughts and actions that he found it inconceivable that now, he was not.
Nevertheless, he was not.
She watched him, eyes wide, for only a brief moment before she forced out an exaggerated sigh, stomped to the dressing room and slammed the door.
And he was left with a mental list of things not to think about and not a clue how to get his own bloody shirt on.