Mr. Imperfect(9)

"Dumb ass." Shaking his head, Tim hauled himself to his feet. "Well, wish me luck."

"Good luck." To both of us. Joe watched as his roommate lumbered over to  the pay phone, laboriously fed in the right number of coins and stabbed  in the number. And his heart began thumping against his ribs. Your turn  next. Your turn next. A cold sweat beaded his brow and he couldn't keep  his hands still. "Not too long now, hey?"

Tim grunted in a noncommittal way. Giving up all pretence of  indifference, Joe began pacing. It gave the adrenaline somewhere to go,  stopped it pooling in the pit of his stomach. Mentally he began  practicing what he was going to say.

Hi, it's me. I know you haven't heard from me in months, but there's a good reason for that.

"Don't do this to me, baby." The anguish in Tim's deep bass broke Joe's  concentration. Wanting to respect the other man's privacy, skittish  enough already without someone else's emotional baggage, he moved  farther away, but Tim's voice followed him. "Give me another chance,  Ellie, I'm begging you."

Joe swallowed hard. His back still to Tim, he wiped his palms on his  T-shirt, then began walking again. Fast. He got to the end of the  corridor, changed his mind, spun around and headed back. He wasn't going  to chicken out this time. This time he'd make that call. If Tim could  beg, so could he.

Tim had already hung up. Shoulders hunched, one hand pressed to his  forehead, he was staring down at his shoes. He straightened as Joe  approached. "The kids." He shrugged helplessly. "How can I fight her  when she's doing what's best for the kids?"

Joe's resolve evaporated, replaced by self-loathing. What the hell do I  think I'm doing? He put a hand on Tim's shoulder. "You can't."

The two men fell into step. "Hey!" Tim stopped, confusion on his broad face. "Weren't you waiting to use the phone?"

"The urge passed."

Tim wouldn't have it. "C'mon, what've you got left to lose?"

"Hope," said Joe, and kept on walking. "Another day of hope."



DAWN WAS KEZIA'S FAVORITE TIME to run, especially on a cool summer  morning when the dew released the scent of pasture and pine. She also  discovered, on their first run together, she could relax her guard when  Christian's gaze was on the road ahead and all that Kelly charisma has  space to dissipate.

In the four days since his arrival, he'd taken to flirting with her in a  lazy teasing way that was clearly second nature to him, but which  alerted Kezia to the differences in their worlds. She'd spent her  adulthood dating governable men, she realized. Managing a wolfish  ex-lover-even one she'd gotten over-was a hell of a lot more  challenging.

The pace quickened; Christian was waking up.

"Had another thought," she said, panting. "Community hall … too big for smaller groups. Could … hire out club lounge."

Their running shoes pounded in unison on the blacktop road while he  thought about it. "I like it. You come up with some great ideas."

They brainstormed the conversion details, Christian fluently, Kezia  truncating sentences between gasps. "Damn your … fitness … I haven't  got … breath to … argue," she huffed when he challenged her on a key point.

"No kidding." At the smugness in his voice, she reached out and shoved  him. He laughed. Around the bend, meandering cows blocked the road.  Kezia shambled to a grateful halt.

She'd just managed to lower her heart rate when Christian stripped off  his T-shirt and used it to towel down. Kezia's mouth went even drier and  she averted her gaze, but as he mopped his face, her curiosity won. She  wouldn't call it temptation.

Once she'd known Christian's body intimately, but it wasn't the body he  had now. He was taller, broader, with muscle hardened over a powerful  frame. If the boy had been liquid grace, the man was hewn rock.                       
       
           



       

Her appraisal picked up other differences-a smattering of silky hair on  his chest and belly where none had been before and the sort of muscle  definition that called to a woman's hands. Made a woman want to start at  the smooth, taut pectorals and slide her palms slowly down over the  masculine planes and angles, down the flat stomach, all the way down.

"Your body's changed, too."

Kezia started as though she'd been shot.

Casually, Christian made his own inspection, scanning her curves in a  male appraisal that set Kezia's teeth on edge. "It's more … womanly." His  gaze lifted and she saw it was nowhere near as dispassionate as his  tone. "Your breasts-" he began huskily before she found her voice.

"Don't."

"Don't what? Look? Wonder?"

"Anything!" The last of the cattle passed, flanked by two border  collies. A man on a farm bike tooted his thanks and Kezia waved, glad  the tension was broken. "Don't flirt with me," she said, and started  running.

Christian caught up effortlessly. "Why? Do you have a jealous lover?"

The loaded question shocked her into mistiming her stride. Christian put  out a hand to steady her but she shook it off. "That's my business!"

"I thought not," was his cryptic reply.

She stopped short and stared after his retreating back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Christian turned and started running backward. "You act like a woman who isn't getting any."

She put her hands on her hips. "And how is that?"

He halted to think about it. "Uptight. Orderly in an obsessive way.  Eating too much chocolate. Practical clothes and plain underwear."

Kezia didn't know where to start, she was so furious. "For your  information, all my underwear is scarlet lace," she retorted, then  remembered the clothesline was under his window.

"But mainly … " He turned for home.

"Oh, yes?" She powered up behind him.

"Mainly … " He turned suddenly and she fell back. "You're jumpy as hell  around me. Either we still have chemistry or you're out of practice.  Which is it?"

She forced herself to bridge the distance and run alongside him.  "Definitely not the chemistry thing. Definitely," she repeated. "I'm out  of practice." She really didn't want to be telling him this but he had  to believe she wasn't attracted to him. "Like you, I'm between lovers.  Unlike you, discrimination governs my sex life, which means I get a dry  spell occasionally." You mean a drought. "I happen to be in one."

They jogged around the hotel to the fire escape leading to the top floor.

"Well, I guess I'm wrong then."

"You are," she said emphatically, and headed up the fire escape before her nose started to grow.

She was halfway up when he called, "Let me know if you want to practice."



CHRISTIAN GOT THE PHONE CALL late that afternoon when he and Kezia were  on their hands and knees pulling out the last of the carpet tacks. He  picked up his mobile and talked into it, sitting dirty and disheveled on  a roll of discarded and moth-eaten carpet.

Kezia hid a smile, wondering if London, Toronto or Japan-or whoever it  was this time-realized they were doing business with someone covered in  carpet fluff. She removed a piece from her mouth and tried not to  listen, but when Christian swore loud and long, she sat back on her  heels and frowned.

He cut the call short and with deadly accuracy hurled the phone across  the room and through the open window. Kezia had grown so accustomed to  his unshakeable sangfroid that she could only stare at him.

"Sorry." He didn't sound it. "I'm being played for a fool and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

"What's the problem?"

"I've got a spoilt heiress who's refusing to sign an  eight-million-dollar deal her father and I negotiated because I'm not at  a meeting in Auckland. In three hours, she's flying to Europe for four  months."

Christian began pacing. "Meanwhile, thanks to one crazy old lady, I'm  stuck in Hicksville pulling out carpet tacks to save a few hundred lousy  dollars! Her lawyers will have no trouble sinking the deal." He looked  around for something else to throw and Kezia hid the hammer.

"I think I can fix it," she said calmly as she went downstairs to retrieve his phone from the flower bed. It still worked.

Upstairs, Christian leaned out the window. "You're kidding."

She lifted a hand. "Hi, Bruce, this is Kezia. I hoped it would be too  windy for crop-dusting today. Listen, I've got a guy who needs to get to  Auckland within the hour. Can you do it? Oh yeah, I think you can  charge him plenty. He'll be there in thirty minutes. 'Bye."