The Laws of Attraction (6 page)

Josh doubted it, but he lifted his glass. “To relaxation,” he toasted one more time.

They’d no sooner taken a sip than his cell phone rang. He could have sworn he’d left it turned off on his dresser, but apparently it had been stuck in the pocket of his jacket.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Ashley asked.

He debated the wisdom of it, then finally reached for his jacket and grabbed it out of the pocket. “Yes?”

“Have you lost your mind, Madison?”

“Mr. Williams,” he said, barely containing a sigh.

“I’ve spoken to Stephanie,” his boss said. “She tells me the two of you have called off your engagement.”

Josh barely clung to his temper. “We were never engaged, sir.”

“Semantics. We all knew you were headed in that direction.”

“You were the only one who really believed that,” Josh corrected. “Fortunately Stephanie and I realized before it was too late that it would be a mistake. Look, sir, this isn’t really a good time. Perhaps we can discuss this later.”

“Now’s good for me,” Creighton Williams insisted. “You realize what this is going to do to your future here at Brevard, Williams and Davenport, don’t you?”

“I assume it’s over. If so, that’s fine.”

His ready acceptance of the end of his career clearly caught his boss off guard. “Now let’s not be hasty, Madison. You’re a good lawyer. This might get you off that fast track, but I don’t want to lose you over this. Besides,
Stephanie made it clear she’d be furious if I fired you. We’ll work something out when you get back.”

“That’s very generous of you, sir, but I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“What the devil are you saying?”

He finally risked a look at Ashley and noted that she was listening avidly to every word. “I’m saying that I’m on vacation. We’ll discuss it another time. Thanks for calling. I mean that, sir. It was very gracious of you.”

He shut the phone off completely and barely resisted the urge to toss it out the back door. He waited for the litany of questions to begin.

“Go ahead, ask,” he said finally.

She grinned. “That was about work, right?”

He nodded, uncertain where she was going. It didn’t seem to be in the direction he’d expected.

Ashley held up a slip of paper with little marks on it. “I counted half a dozen references to work, minimum. That’s six dollars in your pot, please.”

Josh fought a laugh. “You counted that conversation in our bet?”

“Of course. We had a deal. We sealed it with a toast before the phone rang.”

“Oh, brother, you must be hell on wheels in a courtroom.”

She grinned. “That’s another one. Seven dollars.”

He frowned at her. “Dammit, I was referring to
your
work, not mine.”

“Did we differentiate?” she inquired sweetly.

He sighed. “No, we did not differentiate. This is going to be a lot trickier than I expected.”

“Which means we should probably change the sub
ject, even though I’m winning,” Ashley conceded with a magnanimous air. “Do you know anything about baseball? I’m a Red Sox fan myself.”

Josh stared at her, not entirely sure if she was serious. “Really? When was the last time you went to a baseball game?”

She faltered a bit at that. “I don’t actually go to the games,” she confessed eventually. “That doesn’t mean I don’t follow the team.”

“Then you watch them on TV?”

“Not really.”

“Read the sports pages?” he asked, his amusement growing.

“Okay, okay, I don’t know a damn thing about baseball,” she finally said. “But people in the office mention it. Obviously it’s something some people care about. I thought you might be one of them. I was just trying to make conversation.”

Josh grinned and held out his hand. “I’ll take a dollar, please. You mentioned your office.”

She stared at him with apparent dismay. “That doesn’t count.”

“Of course it does. Office, work, it’s all the same thing.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” she muttered, as she dug in her purse and tossed a dollar onto the table. “I’m still winning.”

“And we have a week to go. Don’t get overly confident, sweetheart. It’s unbecoming.”

She frowned at him. “Seen any good movies lately?”

“Not a one. You?”

“No.”

“Read any good books?” he asked, fully expecting her to slip up and make some reference to a law journal.

Her expression brightened. “Actually, I read a great one yesterday afternoon. It almost made me late for dinner.”

“Would I like it?”

“I doubt it. It was a love story.”

“Hey, I’m all in favor of love.”

She regarded him with blatant skepticism. “You want to read this?”

“Sure, why not? The fish was very good, by the way. You follow directions well.”

She seemed startled by the praise. Her gaze shifted to his clean plate, then to her own. “I do, don’t I? Maybe I’ll learn to cook while I’m here.”

“I’d be happy to be your guinea pig,” he offered. “I have a cast-iron stomach. I have to, given how lousy I am in the kitchen.”

“Maybe Maggie could give us both lessons,” she suggested. “That could be fun.”

“Even relaxing,” he retorted. “As long as you don’t turn it into some sort of competition.”

“Not everything has to be a competition with me,” she insisted.

“Really? I’ll bet by the time you were three, you wanted to know if your hands were the cleanest when you came to the supper table.”

“I did not,” she said, but there was a spark of recognition in her eyes that suggested she saw herself in his comment just the same.

Josh wondered if a woman who obviously thrived on challenges would ever be content with a slower, less
stressful pace, or if she would always need to be in the thick of some battle. It was something he needed to decide about himself, as well.

He’d come down here to simplify his life, to cut through the clutter of being on the fast track and see if he wanted to get off entirely. He suspected Ashley wasn’t in the same place at all. If anything, she was probably champing at the bit to get back on that fast track. It might be the kind of complication that meant they were doomed, but it was hardly something that needed to be resolved tonight.

Tonight it was enough to be with a woman who stirred his blood and kept him on his toes mentally. At some point during the evening, he’d gotten past the triumph of being invited to Rose Cottage by one of the unattainable D’Angelo sisters. Now it was all about being with a woman who intrigued him, a woman with strengths and vulnerabilities he wanted to understand, a woman whose bed he wanted to share.

When that thought cavorted through his head, he immediately slammed on the brakes. He was getting ahead of himself, way ahead of himself.

He glanced across the table and saw Ashley studying him intently. There was an unmistakable and totally unexpected hunger in her eyes. He told himself it had to be for the chocolate.

“Ready for dessert?” he asked, his voice thick and unsteady.

She nodded, her gaze never leaving his.

“Cake?”

She shook her head.

“A brownie?”

Again, that subtle shake.

Josh swallowed hard. “Eclair?”

“Not right now.”

“What do you want?”

“You,” she said quietly.

Amazement flooded through him. “But—”

“No questions, no doubts, unless you don’t want me,” she said.

“That is definitely not the issue,” he admitted.

Her lips curved slightly. “Then why are you still sitting there?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” he said, trying to ignore the way his pulse was racing with anticipation. He
was
a nice guy, dammit, and she was vulnerable. He would not take advantage of her.

She stared at him for an eternity. “You’re saying no?”

He nodded. “I don’t know what brought you down here, but having sex with me isn’t the answer.”

“It could be the answer tonight,” she said lightly.

He smiled at that. “Indeed, it could be spectacular, but when you and I get together for the first time—and we will, Ashley—then I want it to be because it’s inevitable, not because it’s convenient.”

Patches of red flared in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m the idiot,” she said, instantly stiff and unapproachable again.

“Don’t you dare say that,” he chided. “You have no idea how flattered I am that you suggested this or how hard it was for me to say no. We’ll get around to making love, make no mistake about that.”

“I’m only here for three weeks,” she reminded him, as if to define the urgency.

He grinned. “Which means we still have twenty days
left. Since we barely got through one without tumbling straight into your bed, I suspect we won’t waste too many.”

She stared at him quizzically, as if she were trying to discover if he was making fun of her. Apparently she recognized just how serious he was, because she laughed. The tension evaporated.

But Josh knew that thanks to his noble gesture, sleep was going to be a very long time coming.

A
shley still felt like a first-class idiot in the morning. Josh had been amazingly gracious when she’d hit on him, but she’d clearly misread all the signals. She’d thought all those sparks were going to lead to something that would help her to forget her problems. Fishing, pleasant as it had been, sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. A steamy, meaningless affair might have.

Oh, well, no one died of acute humiliation. She simply wouldn’t make that mistake again. For all she knew, Josh wouldn’t even set foot on the grounds at Rose Cottage again, despite all those pretty words and promises.

She was still beating herself up as she lingered over her second cup of coffee when someone knocked on the kitchen door, then walked right in. She glanced up, fully expecting it to be her sisters, only to find Josh
there in another pair of faded shorts and another of those equally disreputable T-shirts. He looked incredible. Her resolve to forget about an affair sizzled and died.

Without saying a word, he walked over to the table, leaned down and kissed her. The first touch of his lips on hers was a shock. She had a hunch he’d meant it to be nothing more than a casual, good-morning kind of kiss, but it set off enough heat to boil eggs. Her head was spinning, and she was pretty sure her eyes had to be crossed by the time he pulled away. If he’d been trying to prove that he’d meant what he said the night before, he’d accomplished that and then some.

“I thought you might be over here beating yourself up about trying to seduce me last night,” he said as he casually turned to the coffeepot and poured himself the last cup. She’d drunk all the rest of the coffee herself.

Indignation flared at his comment, even though he’d guessed exactly right. “So what? You decided to come over and toss me a consolation prize?”

He laughed. “No, I came over to prove that you have nothing to worry about. A couple more kisses like that one and I won’t be able to resist you. My noble intentions will fly right out the window.”

She frowned at him. “Was that my mistake last night—not grabbing you and kissing you right off the bat?”

“You didn’t make any mistakes last night,” he assured her. “Aside from being a little premature.” He surveyed her. “Why aren’t you dressed for fishing?”

“I didn’t know we were going fishing,” she said, her tone still peevish. He’d thrown her completely off-kilter yet again. It was getting to be an annoying habit. The
men she liked were predictable. None of them would have turned down her offer of uncomplicated sex.

And, she was forced to admit, none of them would have been back here this morning suggesting a fishing trip.

“You have something else planned?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Then let’s get a move on. Those fish won’t wait forever.”

She grinned despite herself. “I thought the object was to relax, that actually catching a fish didn’t really matter.”

“It doesn’t to me,” he said indifferently, then winked. “But you seem to need immediate gratification.”

“Is that an insult?”

He laughed. “Nope, just an observation. We’re going to work on that.”

“What if I don’t want to change?” she asked curiously.

“Then it will be more of a struggle than I’m expecting,” he said easily. “Go, put on a swimsuit under your clothes. Maybe I’ll let you race me to the dock later.”

“Will you let me win?”

“Not a chance.”

Ashley laughed. “Now you’ve really made it interesting. I’ll be right back.”

Upstairs, she pulled on her prim, one-piece bathing suit, then added a T-shirt, shorts and a pair of dingy sneakers she hadn’t worn since college. She grabbed her cap from the day before and a bottle of suntan lotion. She hesitated in the bedroom doorway as if she were forgetting something, then realized that going fishing didn’t require a tenth of the paraphernalia she took with her to work each day. It was actually a relief to go downstairs without a purse or briefcase weighing her down.

She took the keys from a peg on the wall, then announced, “I’m ready.”

Josh grinned. “Love the shoes. They make a statement.”

She glanced pointedly at his faded and misshapen boat shoes. “It’s not as if you just stepped out of a designer shoe showroom.”

“Hey, don’t you dare insult these old things. They’re just getting comfortable.”

They’d barely stepped out the back door, still bantering, when Melanie and Maggie rounded the corner of the house. Ashley’s good humor vanished in a heartbeat. She muttered a curse, ruing the day she’d ever interfered in her sisters’ lives, since they now seemed to feel totally free to butt into hers.

“We heard that,” Maggie scolded. “Is that any way to welcome your loving sisters who’ve come to check on you?”

“As if that’s why you’re here,” she retorted. “You’re here to spy.”

“Which would hardly matter if you have nothing to hide,” Melanie commented, her gaze on Josh. “Been here long?” she asked him.

“A few minutes,” Ashley responded emphatically.

“Then this is like a second date or something,” Maggie said. “Fascinating.”

“It’s not a date,” Ashley said automatically. “We’re going fishing.”

“Oh, yes, fishing,” Maggie repeated, amusement threading through her voice. “I forgot that doesn’t count. If it did, that would actually make this the third date, since you went fishing yesterday, too, isn’t that right, Josh?”

He regarded her with undisguised reluctance. “Don’t
ask me. I’m staying out of this one. You ladies work it out. Me, I’m not much on labels. I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.”

Ashley frowned at him. “You are not. Otherwise—”

He interrupted, grinning at her. “Do you really want to go there?”

Ashley sighed and shut up.

“Smart and handsome,” Melanie said with approval.

“A dead man,” Ashley commented, scowling at him. “You were supposed to back me up. We’re not dating.”

“Oh, I must have missed that memo.” He dutifully turned to her sisters. “We’re not dating.”

“Then what are you doing?” Maggie inquired sweetly. “Besides kissing, that is?”

“Kissing?” Ashley asked. “Where would you get an idea like that?”

“The clues are everywhere,” Maggie said blithely. “Those telltale traces of lipstick on Josh’s face, for instance, and the fact that your lipstick is the exact same shade…What’s left of it, anyway.”

Ashley felt her cheeks flaming. She turned to Josh. “Have I mentioned that my sisters are a couple of obnoxious meddlers?”

“I think it’s sweet,” he said.

“Sweet?” she echoed incredulously. “What’s sweet about them barging in here and making you uncomfortable?”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

She stared at him. He did seem perfectly at ease. She was the only one about to jump out of her skin. “Oh, forget it. I’m going fishing. The rest of you can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

“Sorry, ladies,” Josh said. “I think that’s my cue. Have a nice day.”

They were in the boat before Ashley finally risked a look into his eyes. They were sparkling with amusement.

“You thought that was funny, didn’t you?” she demanded irritably.

“I don’t know about funny, but it wasn’t quite the big deal you want to turn it into.”

“Just wait,” she muttered direly. “Just you wait.”

She was going to take a certain amount of perverse pleasure in watching Josh squirm when her sisters decided he was exactly the right catch and set out to reel him in for her.

Josh recalled Ashley’s warning when he was sitting in a booth at a café later that afternoon with a cappuccino and the Richmond paper and he spotted Maggie and Melanie about to descend on him. They looked as thrilled as if they’d just noticed an especially plump turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner.

“Hello again,” Maggie said, sliding into the booth opposite him.

Melanie slipped in beside him, so there would be no escape. “Where’s Ashley?”

“I dropped her back at Rose Cottage about an hour ago.”

“Catch any fish today?” Maggie asked.

“Not a one,” he admitted, recalling just how frustrating that had been to Ashley. She hadn’t quite gotten the knack of appreciating the process more than the outcome. She’d been very irritable when he’d left her at Rose Cottage.

Melanie laughed. “Uh-oh, that must have driven Ashley up a wall. She probably took it as a personal affront.”

“Pretty much,” he agreed. In fact, she’d made such a commotion, it was little wonder the fish had taken off. He hadn’t had the nerve to point out to her that fish tended to flee when humans made too much racket.

Maggie’s gaze narrowed. “Did that make you run for cover?”

“No, it made me run home to change into clean clothes so I could meet her here for coffee.”

“Oh,” Maggie said, obviously deflated.

“Do you honestly want to be here cross-examining me when she gets here?” he inquired.

The two women exchanged a look. “Probably a bad idea,” Melanie admitted.

“She’ll think we’re spying again,” Maggie agreed. “But we have our eyes on you, Madison. Don’t forget that.”

Josh laughed. “Not for a minute,” he promised.

Maggie gave him one last considering look. “You could be good for her.”

“Thank you.”

“Has she told you why she’s hiding out down here?”

“No.”

“Make her tell you,” she urged. “She needs to talk about it.”

“Maybe what she needs is to put it behind her,” Josh suggested. “Sometimes you can talk a thing to death.”

“Nice theory, but talking things to death is how Ashley handles a crisis,” Maggie informed him. “This time she’s clammed up. It’s not healthy.”

“I don’t suppose you want to share a little information with me, maybe tell me what it is I’m supposed to get her to talk about,” he suggested.

“Sorry,” Maggie said. “She’d kill us if we told.”

“Does it have something to do with work?”

They exchanged a look, then nodded.

“Then we have a problem. She and I have agreed to avoid the subject of work at all costs. In fact we have a bet going about who can do the best job of steering clear of the topic.”

“Great, that’s just great,” Maggie said in obvious disgust, oblivious to the suddenly frantic signals Melanie was trying to send her.

“Actually it
is
great,” Ashley chimed in, startling Maggie. “Work is not a topic I care to get into with anyone right now, including the two of you. Go away.” She frowned at Josh. “Didn’t I warn you about them?”

“Hey, I was sitting here minding my own business and they turned up. It’s not like I invited them to join us.”

Maggie’s expression brightened. “What a good idea! We’d love to.”

“It is
not
a good idea,” Ashley said emphatically. “Go away. If you don’t, I will.”

“Okay, fine,” Maggie said as she and Melanie stood up. “We’ll leave you in Josh’s capable hands.” She turned to him. “Remember our advice. And forget about that stupid bet.”

Ashley stood watching them until they were out the door. Then she sat down opposite him. “What advice did they give you?”

“They think I need to ask you about what drove you down here,” he said. He searched her face, watching for
a reaction. She managed to keep her expression totally neutral. “Do I?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to talk about it,” she said fiercely.

He sighed. “Which tells me it is exactly what we need to discuss.”

She regarded him plaintively. “Why?”

“Because it’s apparently the key to getting to know who you are.”

“You know who I am.”

“I know what you’ve allowed me to see. It’s all pretty superficial, Ashley.”

She gave him a sour look. “Am I boring you?”

“Hardly.”

“Then think of it this way—there are layers and layers yet to be peeled away. One of these days I may let you get started on that, but not now, okay?”

“You can’t solve problems if you hide from them,” he commented. Not that he was a sterling example of someone who paid attention to that particular advice. Wasn’t he as guilty of avoiding things at the moment as she was? He hadn’t given one moment’s thought to his future once he’d resolved things with Stephanie. He was letting it all percolate on the back burner in the hope that things would work themselves out eventually without any effort on his part.

Ashley frowned at the unsolicited advice. “I can only learn one new trick at a time. I’m still having trouble with the relaxation thing. This other business would pretty much set me back by a month.”

Josh laughed. “Okay, okay. We’ll stick to relaxing for now. And speaking of that, what would you like? I could
use another cappuccino. I’ll go up to the counter and order.”

“A cappuccino sounds good,” she said. “I’ll look at the paper till you get back.”

It didn’t take Josh more than five minutes to order their coffee and take the drinks back to the table, but something had obviously happened while he was away. Every bit of color had washed out of Ashley’s face, and she was clutching a balled up chunk of newsprint in her fist.

“Ashley?” he asked, scooting into the booth next to her. “What is it?”

She shook her head, looking dazed.

Josh tried to pry the paper from her hand, but she refused to release it. He racked his brain trying to recall anything that had been in the paper that might have had this obviously devastating effect on her, but nothing came to him. Besides, she had no ties to Richmond that he knew of.

“Talk to me, sweetheart. Something’s obviously upset you.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, her voice choked. “Let me out of here. I think I’m going to be sick.”

She ran from the café with Josh hard on her heels. He caught her at the corner. She was bending over, holding her stomach, gasping for breath. He rubbed her back, murmuring soothing nonsense, until she finally shuddered and turned to him, burying her face against his shoulder. He’d never before in his life seen anyone with such a stricken look in their eyes. It made him want to kill whoever was responsible for putting it there.

“Tell me, please,” he pleaded. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Can we take a break from the bet?” she asked.