stay?”
“I told you, I told you. All night, if you need me to. Any time.”
“Well…how’s Angel?”
“Just like her namesake.”
“Being good?”
“Happy as a clam.”
Winona’s worry nerves detangled. “Well, the thing is, I just caught up with Justin and he’s really whipped. What I’d like to do is take him home and make sure he gets some rest, but I know he won’t go along if I tell him that plan. I can’t believe I’m going to be at his place for very long, but I just can’t give you an exact time when I’ll be home.”
“So this is easy. I know where you are, I’ll call you if I need you. Otherwise, take the evening off, mom. Go play. If you’re not back by the time I get tired, I’ll just bunk down in the spare bedroom and leave the door cracked so I can hear the baby. Now, do you have a key?”
Winona blinked at the phone. Even her foster mothers had never asked if she’d had a key. Myrt was like having an honorary mother-whether she wanted one or not.
But her humor suffered a fadeout when she pulled up behind Justin in his drive. Her house was only a couple miles from here, but it might as well be another universe. His place was white stucco with a Spanish red-tile roof, two stories tall with pillars framing the front door. A covered patio stepped down in layers to water gardens. Her yard had a clothesline. His had a marble fountain and a jetted pool.
When he unlocked the door, he ushered her in first. Possibly it was the sudden silence that made her so oddly nervous. She scuffed off her jacket, pushed off her shoes, tried to brazen past her nerves with some normal conversation. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been upstairs-how many rooms up there?”
“Four bedrooms and three baths, I think-but I can’t swear to that,” he said wryly. “I haven’t been up there myself since I can remember.”
She shot him a bemused smile. “And that’s another question I never got around to asking you before-why on earth did you buy such a big house?” The downstairs alone was a maze of room choices. Past the dining and living areas were a den and office, a sunroom and game room, and somewhere on the first floor was the master bedroom as well.
“Beats me. At the time, it seemed to make sense. I wanted a house in town, close to the hospital and my office. But I didn’t want a place in the same neighborhood as my parents-I love ’em, but that’d be too close. And as much as I’m crazy about my grandparents’ ranch, I couldn’t see living in the country. It’s just too far from my work.”
“But you didn’t need anything this monster size!”
“Well, I know. But Myrt and the gardener both came with this place. And the closed staircase made it easy to shut off the upstairs, so I have all that extra space for company, but it doesn’t get dirty or messed up if I just stay out of it. I really do like the room, though. And that brothers and sisters and family can pile in here over the holidays.”
She took a breath, but Hell’s bells…there was no way to get a question answered if you didn’t ask it. “Were you thinking about a house big enough for a family when you bought it?”
His head shot up. For a moment, she forgot how tired he was. The look of awareness kindling in his eyes seemed as electric and wide-awake as a charge of lightning. “If you’re asking if I can imagine you and our kids living here-yes, I can. And yes, I have been. Although imagining you and I practicing how to make those kids is mostly what’s been on my mind.”
She was a cop. Too old and too life-smart to blush, but blast the man if she didn’t feel warmth surging up her cheeks. No matter how close they’d become-no matter that there was a marriage proposal between them. She still couldn’t seem to believe that he wanted her. Or that she hadn’t realized how much fire had been simmering between them for so many years without her knowing. “Justin, I wasn’t asking about us-”
He grinned, but he also quit teasing. “Yeah, I know, you were asking me why I bought the house. But the truth is…I don’t know, Win. At the time, I just liked the place. It wasn’t that practical a decision. I fell for the two fireplaces and the unbeatable pool table in the game room. And the two trees in here.”
There were. The two fringey trees in his great room stretched at least ten feet tall. He flipped on switches as they walked through. Recessed lighting immediately softened the darkness, illuminating the picture windows and vaulted ceiling, the hardwood floor, the giant furniture-couches, chairs, cushions-all upholstered in a thick, white cotton duck. Most of the color in the room came from true-life greens-not just the trees, but also bushy plants in tubs.
Her gaze swept from the plants and white furniture to the occasional splashes of contemporary art on the walls. “Did you choose all this yourself?”
“Are you kidding? Mostly the house came this way. All I had to do was water the plants and pick out some stuff for the walls.”
“Men,” she murmured dryly.
“Hey.” Still headed for the kitchen, he pushed on more switches. A gas fire suddenly sizzled in the great-room hearth, adding warmth and light. They passed a hall table heaped with mail. A door opening onto his office. The downstairs bathroom looked more like a sitting room for a sultan than a practical john. She only caught a fast glimpse of the lapis lazuli tile, the square tub with whirlpool, the blanket-size towels in cobalt.
“I’ve got that color blue, too, but somehow it doesn’t look quite the same at my budget level.”
“I keep telling you to marry me, don’t I? Then you could get your hands on all my money. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Getting her hands on him sounded good. Too good. Particularly for a woman who had never considered herself sex-obsessed before-but just then she had other priorities. Justin was barely walking straight. He was weaving- tired, groggy-voiced tired, his teasing even sounding slurred.
When they passed by the game room-right before the kitchen-she flipped on the light switch herself, because she strongly suspected they’d end up in there. It was so obviously Justin’s nest. Between floor-to-ceiling windows were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, all crammed to the gills with dog-eared volumes. The pool table sat in the room’s center, and the hearth in here wasn’t gas, but had real wood stashed in bins by the side. The old Oriental rug under the table was as thick as a sponge, and the far couch was red leather, a dark cranberry, as warm as the lantern lamps on the mantel top.
The look of that room lingered in her mind as she walked into the kitchen. Without giving Justin a chance to start talking, she promptly pushed her sleeves up and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, you, it’s your lucky day. While you get a chance to shower and put your feet up, I’m volunteering to cook. I’ll make anything you want-as long as it’s no tougher than melted cheese sandwiches and potato chips. No, no, don’t thank me. I realize you’re used to Myrt making you riff-raff gourmet stuff, but out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll even add Oreos for dessert-”
“Um, could I change my mind about loaning you Myrt and get her back?”
“Did I know you were this domineering and abusive before?” he asked plaintively-but he obeyed and left, even if she did hear him chuckling all the way down the hall.
She prowled his kitchen for the ingredients for their makeshift dinner. By the time he emerged from the shower, rubbing a towel in his hair, barefoot, wearing clean jeans and a loose, long-sleeved T-shirt, she had a tray of food set up in the game room. A small fire hissed and snapped in the stone hearth. She’d lit the lanterns on the mantel, and the glow shone on the cheese-and-bacon sandwiches and chips.
“Hell. This is almost as good as fast food. Myrt’s always making me eat nutritional kind of stuff.”
“I had a feeling that you really suffered regularly with her cooking.”
“She bosses me around worse than…” he yawned as he plopped down on the leather couch, “…my mom.” He glanced at her with an owlish expression. “Man, I’m sorry, Win. I should probably make some coffee. I know I’m lousy company.”
“Forget the coffee,” she said gently, thinking that if he made a move toward caffeine, she just might have to sit
