Tame An Older Man

By Sunday morning he'd almost put the episode into some kind of perspective. That was before he ran into Phoebe in the Mesa Blue weight room. He'd just finished a morning run, and he'd decided to visit the well-appointed weight room for some resistance training, which he'd been neglecting of late. He found Elise, Daisy and Phoebe working out to an aerobics videotape.

'Oh, hi, Wyatt!' Elise said cheerfully, while Phoebe studied an interesting spot on the ceiling. 'Want to do flex- aerobics with us?'

'Ah, no thanks,' he said, sitting down on the bench at one of the weight stations. He couldn't just leave; it would be too obvious that Phoebe got to him. So he sat there and endured seeing her in a neon-green leotard. It was a perfectly modest garment. But it revealed every one of her delicious curves, and when she jumped and stretched to the peppy music, she jiggled in all the right places.

Wyatt had to force himself to keep his eyes on the wall in front of him.

He moved to the bench press, where he could lie on his back and look up. He loaded enough weights onto the thing that he would really have to focus to lift it, then concentrated on his reps. Five… ten… His muscles burned, and sweat dripped off his face. Twelve…

Gradually he became aware that the music had stopped. So had the feminine chatter. Thank God. He'd outlasted them. He sat up and wiped the sweat off his face, then almost fell off the bench. Phoebe sat not five feet away, solemnly watching him.

'What are you doing here?' he blurted out, as if she didn't have a perfect right to be in the weight room.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.' She had her hair pulled back, and her skin glowed with a thin sheen of perspiration from her workout. Her cheeks were a healthy pink, her eyes bright and fiercely blue this morning, and every muscle looked firm and well-toned.

Unfortunately, he recalled exactly how that skin and those firm muscles had felt pressed against him.

He casually dropped his towel into his lap. 'Are you waiting for the machine?'

'I was waiting for you to finish so we could talk.'

He'd been afraid of that.

'Okay.'

'Thanks for breakfast yesterday.'

'No problem,' he murmured. God, she would have to bring that up.

'I also wanted to apologize for leaving in the middle of the night,' she said in a rush. 'It wasn't very polite. I did it for you, though.'

'For me?'

'I thought you'd prefer it that way. We both know that anything… long-term between us is completely unworkable.'

'Agreed,' he said quickly. This conversation made him feel distinctly like he was getting dumped, and he wanted to make sure it didn't end up that way.

'I thought leaving you a cheery note would save us from awkward goodbyes. We wouldn't have to mumble things about getting together again or calling or whatever.'

Her explanation made perfect sense.

'I never meant to snub you or blow you off, though.' She smiled slightly. 'What we did might have been foolish, but I enjoyed our night together.'

He wished she wouldn't look at him like that. He'd been about to master the hormones surging through his body-until she'd looked at him with remembered passion, her blue eyes dreamy, her tongue darting out unconsciously to moisten her lips. He would have to leave his towel in his lap the rest of his life.

'Me, too,' he said simply. He guessed this wasn't the time to tell her how disappointed-no, crushed-he'd been to wake up alone yesterday.

'But when you brought over the French toast-'

'I made too much, and I didn't want it to go to waste, okay? Don't read anything into it.'

'I won't,' she said softly, sounding a bit hurt, making him regret his harshness. 'I was just going to say I enjoyed it. I'm not a big breakfast eater normally, but I wolfed down every piece of that toast.'

'Good.'

'But it also made me realize I should have stayed and shared breakfast with you, like a proper, civilized overnight guest. Just because we aren't madly in love and planning to spend the rest of our lives together doesn't mean we can't enjoy each other's company once in a while.'

Was she saying what he thought she was saying? For a few marvelous seconds, he thought she was suggesting they could make love on a regular basis. But she quickly disabused him of that notion.

'I didn't mean that the way it sounded,' she blurted out rather desperately, her face turning even pinker. 'Our… time together was great, and I won't forget it, but I don't think it's something we should repeat. I just meant that I don't want us to be uncomfortable with each other. I want us to be friends. I like you, we work together every day, I adore your grandparents, and for us to be anything less… or more… than friends is just completely unbearable. My life plans don't involve happily-ever-after, at least not in a domestic sense. And you aren't some starry-eyed kid with dreams of marrying the TV star.'

He gave her a pointed stare. 'You really are hung up on this age thing, aren't you.'

'I wasn't referring to your age! I was referring to emotional maturity.'

He realized he was nitpicking, trying to find fault with her argument when he knew damn well it was a perfectly good argument.

He sighed. 'Is there something I'm supposed to say here? You seem to have all the answers.'

'You don't have to say anything. Unless you disagree with me.'

Did he? Of course not. What she'd said made sense. They should be friends, no more, no less. But he couldn't quite get the words out to agree with her. He just wasn't very good at personal conversations. He was a guy, after all.

'Good,' she said briskly. 'I'm glad we got this settled. I couldn't sleep last night, worrying if I'd offended you.'

'Consider me non-offended.'

'Then I think I'll soak in the hot tub for a while. Want to join me?'

'Ah, no,' he said quickly. The last thing he needed was to be confined to an intimate hot tub with Phoebe in a swimsuit, her skin slick and wet.

'Okay, then. I'll see you tomorrow.'

She got up and walked away without the slightest notion that she was leaving behind a wreck of a man. The woman tied him up in more knots than one of his grandmother's macrame plant hangers.

What did he want from her? Just what the hell did he want?

He did not want to be involved with her, physically or emotionally. That much was certain. If anything could deflect him from his crusade to make 'Heads Up' the number-one-rated daytime talk show in the country, Phoebe Lane could, and he absolutely couldn't risk it. Too many people were depending on his single-minded leadership.

Then, why couldn't he just look her in the eye and say, Phoebe, you are completely right. We had a good time, but that's over and done with, and from now on you are nothing to me but my employee and my temporary neighbor.

Maybe it was because every time he looked her in the eye, he couldn't help seeing the rest of her. And the rest of her did crazy things to him. That wasn't going to change, whether he took her to bed a hundred times, or pledged a hundred times to treat her as just another coworker.

* * *

Phoebe felt her muscles relaxing one by one as she soaked in the hot, bubbly water in the hot tub. The worst was over now. She'd rehearsed her speech to Wyatt over and over so it would sound natural, and thank God she was a good actress. Once or twice she'd choked, forgotten her lines, but all in all she'd managed to assume a light tone. She'd done what she needed to do-put things right with Wyatt so they could continue working and living in close proximity without Friday night standing between them.

He'd wasted no time agreeing with her, she'd noticed. Though it might bruise her ego a bit, that was the result