Taking a Chance. Janice Johnson Kay
Enjoying herself, Jo was also aware of feeling more self-conscious than she normally would on a casual date like this. It was Ryan, of course, who was responsible for her nervousness. Darn it, he was the sexiest man she’d seen in a long time—okay, forever. Excitement ran under her skin like an electric current, just a tingle that occasionally made her shiver. But she was disquieted by her powerful reaction to him.
Women did dumb things when they fell too hard for a man.
The pizza they hadn’t eaten grew cold on the table while they continued to talk. He was a reader, too, she discovered, and had even written poetry when he was in high school.
“Romantic, tragic crap,” he said with a laugh. His tone became smug. “Girls loved it, though.”
“I’ll bet they did,” Jo said with feeling. “My boyfriend in high school sometimes got really romantic and told me that making it with me was as good as hitting a homer. A real high, he said.”
Ryan threw his head back and gave a hearty laugh. “Did you punch him?”
“Yeah, actually, I think I did.” Jo chuckled, too. “I still remember the look of complete bewilderment on his face. He didn’t understand why I wasn’t clasping my hand to my heart to bestill its pitty-pats.”
Eyes still laughing, Ryan said, “Yeah, well, he’s probably long-married and his wife is damn lucky if once in a while he tells her she’s put on weight but she still has a good ass.”
Jo made a face. “If there’s any justice, she grabs his beer belly and tells him it doesn’t ripple like it used to, but she doesn’t mind love handles.”
“You think he has one?”
“Yeah. He was kind of beefy. A jock, you know. Sure,” she nodded, “he’d have gone to seed. How about your high school girlfriend?”
A certain wryness entered his voice. “Want to know the truth?”
Jo cocked her head to one side. “Yeah.”
“I married her. She still looks good.”
“You married right out of high school?”
Ryan dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Big mistake, but, yeah. I did.”
“Did Kathleen like your wife?”
“Hated her. The feeling was mutual,” he added. “Kathleen said Wendy was self-centered and shallow.” His mouth twisted. “She was right. Isn’t it a bitch, when your big sister is always right?”
“Is she?” Jo asked quietly.
He made a sound low in his throat. “I used to think she was. Hell, I think she thought her life was pretty damn close to a state of perfection.” There was that word again. “But you know the saying.”
“Pride goeth before the fall?”
“That’s it. Her pride is taking a real battering.”
Jo asked about their parents, and learned that their mother was dead of cancer and their father was still on-again, off-again employed, living in a run-down little place in West Seattle. “Likes to go to the bars. He was plenty mad when Emerald Downs closed.” Seeing her confusion, Ryan added, “The horse racing track.”
“Ah.”
“Dad’s your classic blue-collar, uneducated guy. He’s happy with what he is. Which,” Ryan’s grin was wicked, “irritates Kathleen no end. She’s spent a lifetime trying to improve him.”
“She hasn’t started trying to improve me yet,” Jo said thoughtfully.
“Oh, I’m making her sound worse than she is.” The skin beside his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “But here’s a piece of advice. Don’t leave dirty dishes on the counter.”
Jo didn’t admit that she already had one morning, when she hit the snooze button and overslept. They’d been washed, dried and put away when she got home. At dinner, she’d thanked whoever picked up after her. Kathleen had smiled and said, “We all have those mornings occasionally.”
Damn it, she wouldn’t feel guilty! She was working off any sins of commission or omission. Jo hadn’t expected the remodeling job to be as all-consuming as it had turned out to be.
“Did you really think the tile looked okay?” she asked.
“Better than okay. Hey!” He pushed away the half-full pitcher of beer. “Want to work for me sometimes?”
“Are you serious?” Both flattered and startled, she felt an annoying frisson of excitement. He liked her. Well, he liked the way she used bullnose tiles.
How easily she was pleased.
“Yeah.” He seemed surprised. “Yeah, I am. We have a guy we call for tiling, but he’s been unreliable. I’ve considered looking for someone else.”
“I’m a complete amateur!”
“Job you did in there didn’t look amateur.”
Darned if her cheeks weren’t turning pink. “Thank you. It wasn’t just me, though.”
“Wasn’t it?” Ryan asked shrewdly.
“Helen did most of the cutting.”
“Could you learn?”
“Well, sure.” Jo frowned. “Are you saying your sister is lazy?”
“Lazy?” She’d earned raised brows. “No. Just…used to the peons doing the work. It’s actually why I’ve been skeptical about her determination to be independent. Make sure she does her share.”
Jo nodded. “I will. Um…how often do you need someone to tile?”
After he gave her an idea what kind of hours and pay she could expect, she promised to think about whether she’d want to work for him, and they left it at that.
On the way out, they briefly discussed seeing a movie, but decided they had to get up too early in the morning. “Maybe Friday night?” Ryan asked.
“Sure.” Jo enjoyed the feeling of his hand on her lower back as he opened the outside door.
On the short drive home, Ryan asked out of the blue, “Here’s my profound question for the night. What do you want out of life?”
An audible hint of defensiveness crept into her voice. “A satisfying job, a nice home and good friends.”
In the darkness between street lights, she felt as much as saw his head turn. “Marriage? Kids?”
She wouldn’t lie. “Neither are for me.”
He was quiet for a moment, until he had to brake at a stop sign. “Why?”
“How many happy marriages have you ever seen?” she asked bluntly. “You and your sister are zero for two. My parents should never have married. My friends are in and out of relationships and marriages. If by some wild chance you are happy, then you face grief like Helen’s feeling now. What’s the upside?”
Pulling to the curb in front of his sister’s brick house, he set the hand brake. “Getting lucky. Having it all.”
“Can’t you do that without getting married?”
“No desire for children?”
Jo shook her head firmly. “I’m not maternal.”
“Until you have them…”
“You don’t know? Uh-uh. Haven’t you noticed how many people suck at being parents? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and I sure don’t want to be a failure at something I never intended to do in the first place.”
“You’re a hard woman.”
Did he mean it?
“No.