“Hell, I’m old enough to be her father.”
“Age is irrelevant in a situation like this. Young women who’ve had absent or abusive fathers often think they’re in love with older men who are like the idealized fathers they never had.”
He got up and started pacing. The movement only seemed to increase his agitation. Finally he sank down in a chair and ran his fingers through his hair. Ann was making a sort of twisted kind of sense, but he was convinced she was way off base. He wasn’t that insensitive. He would have known if Tracy had a crush on him.
“You’re wrong, Annie. She’s thinking of me as her father. I’m sure that’s all it is.”
“Maybe. Just be careful. Whatever her feelings, if she begins to depend on you too much, she’s going to be devastated when you leave.”
“Who says I’m leaving?”
“Hank, be realistic,” she said impatiently. “The job will be over sooner or later. You’ll go back to Miami. We may all run into one another occasionally on holidays at Liz and Todd’s but that will be the extent of it.”
He studied her closely. Her expression was determinedly unemotional, her tone flat. Still, he had a feeling she was voicing her own fears now. “Is it Tracy you’re worried about now or yourself?”
She flushed. “Leave me out of this. I’m an adult. I can handle it.”
“Can you really? Look what happened last night.”
“Nothing happened,” she pointed out with a touch of wry humor.
“I was referring to how upset you got, but let’s put that aside for a minute and deal with what’s really bothering you. You know perfectly well that I stopped making love to you for all the reasons you’re talking about. I probably will go back to Miami in a few months and when I go, I don’t want you on my conscience.”
“How very noble!” she said, her blue eyes flashing fire. “Don’t do me any favors, mister.”
Troubled by the hurt behind her remark, Hank tried to sort through the mess they seemed to be in. “Do you want me to move out now? Maybe it would be better for everyone if I went before the attachments got any deeper.” That went for him as well as them, though he wasn’t willing to admit it.
“Maybe it would be,” Ann said in a voice that was surprisingly weak considering her angry state only moments earlier.
There was a sharp ache in his gut, but Hank nodded and got to his feet. “I’ll pack my things.”
He was halfway across the room when he heard what sounded like a muffled sob. When he turned, Ann was hastily wiping the tears from her cheeks. He was beside her in an instant. Kneeling again, he took her hands in his. “Annie, is this really what you want?”
The broken sound she uttered was part laugh, part sob. “I don’t seem to know what I want,” she confessed. “For the first time in a very long time I don’t have the vaguest idea what’s right.”
“Then I guess we’re in the same boat. I don’t seem to be sure of anything anymore, either. Liz and Todd seem to have this crazy idea we’re meant for each other. They set us up, you know.”
She nodded and smiled ruefully. “Think we should wring their necks?”
“It’s crossed my mind. On the other hand, they are our best friends. They know us pretty well.”
“What are you saying?”
“Maybe we should stay right where we are and play out this hand like a couple of grown-ups.”
“Now that’s a risky notion,” she joked feebly. Tears trembled on the ends of her lashes, then spilled down her cheeks.
“Hey, I’m a gambling man, remember?”
“Maybe so, but I’ve never gambled on anything in my life.”
With the pad of his thumb, he rubbed away her tears. “Who knows,” he said. “Maybe you’ll have beginner’s luck.”
The only trouble with this new game plan was that they didn’t seem to know how to begin. For the next few days, they were both so wary Ann thought she would scream in frustration. Every time Hank so much as brushed accidentally against her, he apologized profusely and bolted. She was rapidly reaching the end of her patience.
Nor was she one bit sure how she felt about Hank’s decision to insinuate himself into their lives more completely than ever. From her point of view, particularly after their talk about Tracy, she still thought a little caution was called for. When she told him exactly that one night after dinner, he snapped back, “You can’t have it both ways. I can’t stay here and back off at the same time.”
“I don’t see why not,” she said stubbornly.
He simply stared at her.
“Okay, so it’s not logical,” she admitted finally. “I’m not feeling very rational.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m being ripped in two.”
“Me, too.”
Suddenly she started laughing. The whole thing was utterly absurd. They were two supposedly mature, rational adults with advanced college degrees. Between them, surely they had sufficient brainpower to come up with a solution.
“I’m not sure I see what’s so funny,” Hank growled. “We’ve got a problem here.”
“Exactly. Would you care to define it?”
“We’re…” He fumbled for an explanation.
“Horny,” she provided.
“Annie!” Shock registered on his face, though she could see from the look in his eyes that she’d hit the nail on the head. Hank was not a man used to going for long without a woman in his life. Ironically, he was probably equally adept at avoiding emotional intimacy. In their current situation, the tables had been turned on him.
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? If I were any other woman, you’d have taken me to bed days ago, wouldn’t you?”
“You are not any other woman.”
“I suppose I should thank you for that,” she said dryly. “But at the moment I’m not one bit grateful.”
He chuckled. “I see your point.”
They sat there staring at each other. “We could go to a movie,” he suggested finally.
“It is nearly ten o’clock at night.”
“We could rent one.”
“And sit side by side, curled
