“Oh God,” Cooper said. “You just cleaned in here.”
Gently he took what was left of the bag away from Ben.
“Cleaned?” Josie said. “Me? Get real, Coop. All
I
did was dial the telephone and ask the cleaning service to send someone out. I may have come home early, but I haven’t
totally
lost my mind.”
She picked up Ben. “You take care of
this
mess,” she said, handing the baby to Cooper, “and Lucy and I’ll handle the floor.”
“Deal,” Cooper said.
“Catastrophic thinking,” Josie said, looking at Cooper over the top of her glass of wine.
They were eating dinner at the kitchen table.
Ben had fallen asleep in his high chair and Cooper had managed to carry him into his bedroom without waking him. Lucy was in the living room watching a videotape. Josie and Cooper were actually enjoying a quiet dinner. They were actually able to have an uninterrupted conversation.
“Catastrophic what?” Cooper asked.
“It’s what I do,” Josie said. “It’s a fancy name for worrying too much. I always imagine the worst case scenario—you know that. And apparently worrying that way—to a level in which it disrupts my life—is called catastrophic thinking.” She smiled at Cooper. “That’s what my shrink says.”
“Your
what
?” As soon as he asked, he realized what Josie had said. Her
shrink.
As in her psychologist. As in, she’d actually gone and sought professional help. “Hot damn,” he said. “You finally went.”
He reached across the table and took Josie’s hand.
She smiled at him shakily. “I realized on Sunday how way out of hand everything had gotten,” she said quietly. “How way out of hand
I’ve
gotten. My doctor recommended a stress management specialist more than a year ago, and I still had her phone number. I called her on Sunday, and she happened to have a cancellation that same evening.”
Josie took a sip of her wine. “This isn’t going to be easy, Cooper,” she warned. “This doctor—her name’s Rosa Santana—she wants me to leave work every night by five-thirty. She wants me to leave my briefcase and all my files behind, at the office. She doesn’t want me to go in at all on weekends.”
“Halleujah,” Cooper said. He lifted his glass into the air. “Here’s to Dr. Santana and her infinite wisdom. Next time you see her, tell her if she ever decides to run for president, she’s got
my
vote.”
“Yeah, but it’s one thing for her to tell me that, another for me to be able to do it,” Josie argued.
“You did it tonight,” Cooper pointed out. “You seem to be handling it okay. In fact, it’s been ages since I’ve seen you so happy.”
“The only reason I’m not running to the phone to call the office is because we’re about two weeks ahead of schedule,” she said.
“The
only
reason . . . ?”
Josie met his gaze, momentarily losing herself in the blueness of his eyes. Lord, she’d actually forgotten about the intense feelings of satisfaction she could get merely from looking into this man’s eyes. She’d forgotten that he could make her feel so utterly desired and loved with one simple look in her direction.
“No,” she said, smiling at him. “You know that’s not true. In fact, I worked at home all afternoon because I wanted to be here when you got back.”
Cooper tugged on Josie’s hand. “Come over here and sit on my lap, woman,” he said, his voice thickened with emotion.
She stood up and walked around the table toward him.
“God, I love you,” Cooper said, pulling her down onto his lap and kissing her. “I’m really glad you’re doing this. When’s your next appointment with the amazing and talented Dr. Santana?”
“Day after tomorrow,” Josie said, snuggling against him.
“Tell me more about this catastrophic thinking stuff,” he said.
“I do it,” she said simply. “Whenever I think about Taylor-Made Software, my brain spins off these horrible scenarios. It’s not rational, it’s not logical, but—it’s easier to explain if I give you an example. Okay. Here’s the kind of thing I might think. I go into work tomorrow, and I find out that overnight, every single one of our clients has called, saying that when our contracted agreements run out, they’re taking their business somewhere else.
“Now, realistically, rationally, I know that this is probably not going to happen. No, not probably. It’s
not
going to happen. It’s crazy to think that it might. But there’s a part of me that still believes that there’s a monster under the bed, and that part of me runs with this scenario. It plays itself out, right down to massive layoffs of the staff, right down to bankruptcy court.
“And every time that catastrophe, or any other one, runs through my mind, I experience all of the negative emotions—the fear, the disappointment, the pain. It’s all in my head, it hasn’t happened, but emotionally, I actually live through the disaster.
“As Dr. Santana says, life serves up enough brussel sprouts. Why order them when they’re not even on the menu?” Josie said.
Cooper laughed. “I love this woman,” he said.
“She also said that living through countless catastrophes day in and day out can be pretty draining,” Josie said.
Cooper thoughtfully ran his fingers through her curls. “You probably do less of this kind of catastrophic thinking when you’re at the office,” he said. “If you’re there, there’s fewer disasters you can imagine, right?”
“Yeah. And if I’m there, at work,” Josie agreed, “and something terrible
does
happen, I feel like there’s at least a chance that I’ll be able to
do
something. You know, like, if the building catches fire, I can make sure the backup copies of our work get carried to safety. I can make sure all of my employees get out, too.”
“If the
building
catches fire . . . ?” Cooper couldn’t hide his smile. “You’ve got one hell of a hardworking imagination, babe.”
Josie laughed ruefully. “I know.”
“So what do you do now?” he asked. “You’ve identified part of the problem—catastrophic thinking. What do you do about it?”
“Well, for a while I’m supposed to work on recognizing when I’m actually doing it,” Josie said. “Dr. Santana wants me to pay attention, and actually keep a written log over the next few weeks. I’m supposed to record when it is that I find myself playing out disasters, and what exactly those disasters are.”
“Then what?” Cooper prompted.
“Then I work with Dr. Santana and try to figure out a way to stop doing it.”
“Just tell me if there’s anything I can do to help,” Cooper said.
“There is,” Josie said, pulling back slightly to look into his eyes. “You can start looking for a bigger place to live. Something with a playroom, something big enough so that I can have a room to relax in that
isn’t
wall to wall toys.”
“Ben and Lucy love the Connecticut house,” Cooper said. “That place is big enough for us to have two more kids and still have enough room.”
“Oh, Cooper, it’s so far away,” she said with dismay.
“People commute to the city from Connecticut all the time,” Cooper said. “There’s a train, babe. And if you don’t want to take the train, shoot, we can afford to hire a driver.” He kissed her lightly to stop her protesting. “Don’t say no right away. Think about it.”
Josie sighed. “All right.”
He smiled at her, and as their eyes met and she smiled back, the rest of the world seemed to fade and then vanish. Nothing mattered but here and now. There was only Josie, his beautiful Josie.
“Te quiero,”
he murmured, then realized he had somehow switched into Spanish. “I love you,” he said again, this time in English.
She kissed him.
It started out sweetly, a gentle, tender kiss, a confirmation of their enduring love. But when she would have pulled back, Cooper didn’t release her.
He kissed her again, harder this time, rearranging her on his lap so that she was straddling him. She pressed against him, responding to his kisses with an eagerness that made him dizzy with need, and he pulled her even closer, wishing their clothes would magically vanish.
He yanked the tail of her shirt from her jeans, running one hand underneath it, up the smooth silkiness of her back and then around to the front. Still kissing her, he deftly unfastened the front clasp of her bra, and then he was cupping her breasts in his hand, first one, then the other. He heard himself groan with pleasure, felt his pulse kick up even higher as his blood surged through his veins, making him nearly shake with desire.
God, he hadn’t felt this out of control since way back, since early in his relationship with Josie, when he’d meet her in her office after work, planning to go out to dinner. But she’d kiss him in the elevator and get him so turned on that they’d end up skipping dinner and going back to her place to make love. Frantic, crazy, wild, unrestrained love . . .
“God, Joze,” he breathed now. “It’s been so long—”
“Can I have a cookie?”
They sprang apart, Josie jumping off of Cooper’s lap as if she’d been fired from a cannon.
Lucy was standing in the doorway, looking at them. “The movie’s over,” she announced.
“No cookies now,” Cooper managed to say. “It’s too late for a cookie. You need to go wash up and brush your teeth.”
“Will you come, too?”
“I’ll be there in a sec,” Cooper said. “Go on. Get started.”
Lucy turned and went down the hall to the bathroom.
Josie had her arms folded across her chest in an attempt to hide the fact that her bra had been opened and many of the buttons on her shirt unfastened. She met Cooper’s eyes and smiled ruefully.
“This reminds me of when I was in high school,” she said. “My father always used to come out and knock on the window of my boyfriend’s truck when I was being kissed good night. I always knew my father would be coming, but still, he never failed to surprise me.”
“This is much better than high school,” Cooper said. “Because I’m going to go put our little chaperone to bed, and after that, we’re on our own.”
“
If
she goes to bed,” Josie said.
“She’ll go,” Cooper said. “Tonight, she’s gonna go without a fuss.”
Six o’clock the next evening, Cooper gave the kids their dinner.
Both Ben and Lucy were exhausted. Cooper had woken them both up early, taken them out to a playground and run them hard, purposely getting them good and tired.
He and Josie had made love last night, but it had been rushed, hurried. Ben had started fussing in his sleep—his whimpers not loud enough to wake Lucy—but an unhappy baby didn’t rate very highly on Cooper’s list of romantic background noises.
Tonight, he wanted to make sure both kids slept soundly, at least for the beginning of the evening. The way he planned it, Josie would be home by six-thirty, Ben and Lucy would be unconscious by seven, and by 7:01 Cooper would be taking off Josie’s clothes.
Slowly.
Ben’s head sagged down toward his bowl of mashed peas.
“Ho there!” Cooper said loudly, and the baby’s head snapped back up. “Oh, no you don’t,
chico.
If you sleep now, you won’t sleep later. And if you don’t
eat
now, you’ll sleep even less later. You’ll wake up hungry and screaming, and trust me, we don’t want that. Not tonight,
niñito.
”
Ben blinked sleepily at Cooper, who poked him, tickling him underneath his arms. The baby giggled, trying to squirm away.
“Someday you’ll understand why I’m torturing you this way,” Cooper told him. “Someday
you’ll
have a beautiful, wonderful wife and you’ll know
exactly
what I’m talking about.”
“How ’bout me?” Lucy asked. “I want a beautiful, wonderful wife, too.”
“Boys get wives,” Cooper explained. “Girls get husbands. Strong, handsome husbands.”
Lucy thought about that. “No,” she said. “I want a beautiful, wonderful husband.”
“Fair enough,” Cooper said with a laugh.
“Are you Josie’s husband?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, I am.” Ben’s head was starting to droop again, so Cooper poked him. He giggled sleepily.
“I thought maybe you were Josie’s brother,” Lucy said.
Cooper looked up at Lucy. He’d long since learned not to be surprised by anything she said, but this one made him really curious. “Why’s that, Luce?”
“She never kissed or hugged you the way Mommy kissed Daddy,” Lucy said. “ ‘Cept yesterday.” She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “I saw you kissin’.”
Cooper was floored. Lucy had hit him with a double whammy this time. Not only was the content of her words surprising—she’d thought he and Josie were brother and sister! God, what a thought—but this was the first mention she’d ever made of her mother and father since they had died. “Mommy kissed Daddy and we got Ben,” Lucy continued. “Are we gonna get another baby now?”
“Um,” Cooper said. “No, Luce. No new babies. At least not right now.”
“But I saw you kissin’,” Lucy insisted.
Cooper took a deep breath. “It takes more than kissing to make a baby,” he said.
“I saw you hugging, too,” she said, almost accusingly. “Mommy told me that she kissed and hugged Daddy and made Ben.”
“Well,” Cooper said carefully. “It takes a
special
kind of hugging to make a baby.”
“Grown-up hugging,” Lucy said. “Yeah, that’s what Mommy said, too.”
“Your mom was pretty smart, huh?” Cooper said, smoothing Lucy’s hair back from her face.
Lucy nodded. “Is she happy in heaven?” she asked.
God, what a question. “I think she must be,” Cooper answered slowly. “I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard that it’s a pretty nice place.”
“Does she miss me?” Lucy asked. “Does she know how much I miss her?”
Cooper swallowed. “I think she probably does,” he said.
“Then how could she be happy?” the little girl asked.
Oh, shit. He’d walked right into
that
one. “Well,” he said, stalling for time, trying to think his way out of this. “Even though she misses you and knows that you miss her, she’s happy because she knows how much Josie and I love you. She knows that we’ll take care of you and always be there for you.”
Lucy nodded. “Can I have dessert?”