Tame An Older Man

Chapter 8

Wyatt awoke feeling incredibly well-rested. He hadn't slept that soundly, or that long, in months. Sun streamed through the window, a novelty for him, given that he usually was out of bed before dawn.

Then he remembered the reason for his sense of well-being. In a word, Phoebe.

He reached out to her but encountered nothing but empty space where she ought to be.

Coming more fully awake, he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. But that didn't help. The bed was still empty beside him.

"Phoebe?" he called out.

No answer.

Then he saw the note. Hell. A note was bad news. A note meant he'd been kissed off. Unless she'd run out to get bagels or something-but he didn't hold his breath.

He forced himself to read the damn note:

Dear Wyatt:

Thanks for a wonderful evening. I have an early morning appointment, so I let myself out. See you Monday.

Phoebe

Hell. An early appointment? Doing what? With whom? In a fit of unreasoning anger, Wyatt tore up the note. Immediately regretting his fit of pique, he found the bit of paper that had Phoebe's name on it and clenched it in his fist. This was the only tangible evidence that she'd been here.

A note. A damn note.

He ought to be grateful, he thought as he dragged himself out of bed. He'd been wondering what came next, and she answered that question for him. Nothing. Their lovemaking had obviously had little impact on her. She expected them to just go about their lives as they had before.

Wasn't that what he wanted, too? Of course it was. No complications, no recriminations, no clinging female reading unintended meaning into every word, every gesture.

But, damn it, he'd wanted to make French toast for her.

Phoebe sat on her balcony, sipping coffee and reading the paper. Some appointment. But she'd thought it would sound nicer if she had an excuse for leaving in the middle of the night. Better if it didn't look like she was running scared.

And she was, she realized. She was downright terrified by what she'd done. She'd broken one of her unbreakable rules by sleeping with her boss. It might have felt right at the time, but now the regrets just piled one on top of the other.

What if they found it too uncomfortable to work together anymore? What if Rolland and Helen found out? She'd never be able to look them in the eye again. The warm, familial relationship they'd developed over the years would disintegrate. The Madisons might love her, but their first loyalty was to Wyatt, and they wouldn't be quick to forgive her if they perceived that she'd slighted him in any way.

She was grateful for only one thing. Since Wyatt had gone off on the tangent of believing she was spending her days at the university looking for potential husbands, he never got around to asking her the real reason she'd been at ASU.

Maybe he wouldn't.

The phone interrupted her grim musings. She'd left the balcony door open to bring some fresh air into her apartment, so all she had to do was step inside to grab the receiver. The thought briefly crossed her mind that Wyatt might be calling her, and a silly giddiness gripped her heart-until she realized it was her mother on the line.

"Addy. You didn't call me back," Olga Phelps said in her odd accent, which held Danish overtones generously imbued with the results of thirty years of living in New Jersey.

"Oh, Mama, I'm sorry. I got in too late last night to call, then this morning I completely-"

"Did you have a date?" Olga asked breathlessly, Phoebe's transgression forgotten.

Phoebe decided it wouldn't hurt to tell Olga the truth, or at least some portion of it. She would never meet Wyatt, and her fondest wish was for her daughter to meet and marry a nice man-since the movie star thing hadn't worked out.

"I got together with a neighbor," Phoebe said, sounding deliberately cagey.

"Who? What neighbor?"

"Wyatt Madison. You know, I've told you about Rolland and Helen Madison?"

"The nice older couple."

"Right. Wyatt's their grandson."

"How old is he?" Olga immediately asked.

"Oh, about thirty-eight or thirty-nine, I think."

Phoebe thought her mother would declare that was too old, and then Phoebe could reassure her that nothing was going to come of their "date." But Olga surprised her.

"That's perfect. Old enough to be settled, and to know how to treat a lady. What does he do?"

Phoebe didn't dare tell her. If her mother discovered Phoebe knew a TV producer, Olga's dreams for Phoebe's show business career would revive in a heartbeat. "He works in, um, public relations," she said, which was almost true. Certainly he dealt with the public.

"And the date went well?" Olga asked, the question dripping with insinuation.

"He's very nice, but I don't think we'll be seeing each other socially anymore. He's a workaholic, and my life is pretty full-"

"Oh, that reminds me why I called in the first place. Adelaide Phelps, how could you keep your new job a secret from your own mother?"

Phoebe cringed. She'd been hoping she could indefinitely postpone telling Olga about "Heads Up." Now Olga would be after Phoebe to get herself back into the limelight, to use this window of opportunity to revive her dead acting career. She'd always viewed Phoebe's move to Phoenix and her job at the spa as a stopgap measure, a brief respite until she landed another TV or movie role.

"How did you…?" Phoebe began.

"I was watching 'Heads Up,' and I saw your name in the credits. How long have you been doing that?"

"Just a few days. It was only temporary at first-I didn't think it was worth mentioning. But now I've got the job permanently. I was going to tell you about it." In five or six years.

"So what's it like? Do you get to meet movie stars?"

"So far, just Taylor Shad, and it wasn't very pleasant." She shuddered at that memory.

"Do you have much sway with the producer?"

Now there was a loaded question, Phoebe thought. "Could you get booked onto the show as a guest?" Olga went on, more and more excited. "You are a TV star, after all."

"'Heads Up' is about trends. They book hot people, not has-been actresses from third-rate TV programs. Anyway, I'm not interested. I just want to do makeup."

"That's a real ambitious career you got there."

Phoebe sighed. They'd been through this argument before. She had once told her mother about going to college, but Olga had laughed at Phoebe's lofty career plans. "Addy, honey, you're whistling into the wind," she'd said. "No one born with your face and body should waste it on bio-whatever." So Phoebe hadn't mentioned it again, and she wouldn't, not until she had the diploma in her hand. Maybe not until she'd started her company and had a product on the market with her name on it, something Olga could show to her friends. Now that Olga would understand.

"If you don't want to be on the show," Olga said, "that's your choice. But what about me? Could you get me on 'Heads Up'?"

Now it was Phoebe's turn to laugh. "Mama, the show is about cutting-edge trends. What could you possibly do that would qualify?"

"Well, I don't know. I've been making these wreaths, you know, for your front door? I custom design them. I even made one for a man-he wanted troll dolls all over it."

Phoebe didn't want to demean her mother's handiwork. Olga did do some beautiful crafts. But that was hardly newsworthy. "I'm sure it was wonderful," Phoebe said. "How come you haven't made one for me?"

"Just wait your turn, young lady. You have a birthday coming up, and I've got some ideas."

Phoebe actually looked forward to receiving her mother's gift. The wreath would be one-of-a-kind and memorable, she was sure.

A terse knock on her door startled her. "Oh, Mama, there's someone at the door."

"The neighbor man? What's his name again?"

"Wyatt. I'm sure it's not him," Phoebe said as she headed for the door.

"I'll let you go, honey. We'll talk next week. I want you to tell me all about that TV show. And I want you to talk to the producer about my wreaths."

Phoebe stifled a groan as she ended the call. Once Olga got her teeth into something like this, she wouldn't let it go. Phoebe could just imagine Wyatt's reaction if she asked him to put her mother's wreaths on 'Heads Up'!

She pulled open the door, expecting to see Elise or Daisy or Frannie. They usually got together on the weekend for some type of exercise session. No one else she knew would pop in unannounced- Except Wyatt, apparently. She looked down at her ratty bathrobe and bunny slippers, then at him in his sweatpants and T-shirt, his face unshaved, his hair still mussed from sleep-from her running her fingers through it. They could have been poster children for the Rumpled Saturday Morning disease.

Then she saw the plate he was holding, which was heaped with something that smelled awfully good.

Her stomach rumbled.

He thrust the plate at her. "I made French toast, and I had some left over."

Reflexively she took the plate, but she was too surprised to respond. Without another word, he turned and tromped back to his apartment.

For a few moments, Phoebe just stared. What was that all about?

She retreated into her kitchen and, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, poured some syrup over the French toast and ate it. It was fantastic. Who'd have thought Wyatt could cook? Although, she did remember the Madisons saying something about their grandson being a whiz in the kitchen.

He'd seemed a little angry. Of course, when he'd seen her in her bathrobe he would have realized she didn't have an appointment He'd caught her in her little white lie.

Was he insulted? Had she hurt his feelings by leaving in the middle of the night? She had a hard time picturing that. Still, she thought back to her checkered past. Once or twice a guy she'd thought she cared something for had slipped off into the night without a backward glance. And yes, it had hurt, briefly.

But those were guys she'd naively thought she might have some sort of future with. Surely Wyatt didn't have any such illusions about the two of them.

Still, now she felt bad. She'd been trying to protect them both from any further involvement, which might lead to more discomfort, heartache, disillusionment. And instead, she'd somehow angered or otherwise disappointed a man she very much wanted to remain on good terms with.

Wyatt felt like an idiot. He had no idea why he'd marched over to Phoebe's with that plate full of French toast. It had seemed important at the time that he make her understand she'd disappointed him by sneaking off in the night. A man who did something like that would be considered a tomcat of the worst order.

After he gave her the toast, though, he realized he'd been acting like a lovesick nut. Neither of them had made any promises. In fact, each had taken pains to make it clear to the other that they weren't looking for long-term anything, which pretty much relegated their lovemaking to one-night-stand status.

So why had it felt so different from other instances of casual, noncommittal sex in Wyatt's past?

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 macramé 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 she'd been hoping for, right? Maybe now that they'd cleared the air, they could be more comfortable around each other. Maybe by making love one time, they'd dissipated the tension that had plagued them since day one.

And maybe California was going to drop into the ocean, making Mesa Blue beachfront property.

She heard the door to the wet area open. She tensed, thinking for one illogical moment that it might be Wyatt, that he'd changed his mind about joining her in the hot tub. She'd have died if he'd joined her. She would have had to sit on her hands.

Thankfully, it was Frannie who flapped into the wet area in her cat swimsuit. She smiled when she spotted Phoebe.

"Oh, I'm glad someone's in here," Frannie said, kicking off her thongs. "Every joint in my body is sore, and I know I need to soak, but I hate sitting in here alone."

"Me, too," Phoebe said, pleased to see anybody other than Wyatt. "Slide on in. Why are you so sore? You don't have arthritis, do you?"

"No, no, I'm just out of shape." Frannie eased herself into the steamy water, wincing at first, then smiling as she settled onto the seat and closed her eyes. "I went bowling with Bill last night. I haven't bowled in years, and I think I overdid it."

"Sounds like things are going okay for you and Bill."

Frannie grinned. "Great, as a matter of fact. That Jane Jasmine is so smart. Now, I'm a great bowler. I used to bowl three times a week. The old Frannie probably would have hidden that fact from Bill. I would have pretended not to know how to bowl so he could play the big strong man and show me how to do it, and then I would have let him win."

"But you didn't do that?"

"Heck, no. I told Bill I was going to give him a run for his money, pulled out my custom-made, monogrammed pink bowling ball, and beat the pants off him."

Phoebe gasped. "You're kidding!"

"Jane's book says to never hide or underplay your talents. So I didn't. And you know what?"

"What?" Inwardly, Phoebe cringed. Wasn't that exactly what she was doing with Wyatt, with practically the whole world? She was smart, she was on the dean's list, making almost straight A's in a tough field at a good university-and she was afraid to tell anybody.

"Bill loved it. He was so excited when I got two strikes in a row, he was crowing like a rooster. And when the last game was over and I'd won, he gave me a big hug and a kiss-and we went to dinner afterwards with some friends of his, and he bragged on me all through dinner."

"Well, of course. Men these days want to be with competent, capable, smart women." Unless the woman is Phoebe Lane, in which case they don't care.

"I know that's what 2001 Ways to Wed says, but I didn't really believe it until I saw it for myself. From now on, I'm going to get out there and strut my stuff. No more false modesty. And you know what? I look great in a bathing suit."

Phoebe laughed. She was truly happy for Frannie and Bill, two of the nicest people she'd ever met. She only wished she could capture a fraction of Frannie's current self-confidence.

What would happen if she marched up to Wyatt and said, I'll tell you why I spend so much time at the university, and it's not so I can chase premed students. I'm more than halfway to a degree in biochemistry, I'm planning to graduate summa cum laude, and then I'm going to get a loan and start my own all-natural cosmetics company.

He would laugh. The whole thing still sounded ridiculous, even though she'd carried this dream around for years. She wished she didn't care what he thought, but she did.

Damn it, she did.