When Somebody Loves You by Cindy Gerard Page A

herself do it. Almost painfully, January shook her head.
    Helen smiled sadly and turned back to the phone. “No, I’m sorry, Michael. She’s not . . .” Helen paused, then finally finished, “. . . available. No, I couldn’t say when. What? Oh, sure. I’ll give her the message. You, too, you big rascal.”
    She hung up and said flatly, “Michael says hello.”
    January fixed her concentration on the cherry tomato she’d been chasing around her salad bowl for the past five minutes and waited for the lecture she knew would follow. It didn’t come. Instead, Helen gathered the remains of her lunch and, clucking like a chicken, flapped her way out of the room.
    January tossed her salad in the trash and crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m not chicken!” she shouted above Helen’s noisy exit. “I’m just cautious. Is there any crime in that?”
    Helen responded with several insistent clucks.
    January grinned in spite of her irritation. “As long as you’re in the mood,” she yelled, “I could use a dozen eggs.”

Four
    January liked autumn best. The colors, the scents, the clean, crisp zip in the air. She shoved the sleeves of her heavy gray sweatshirt up to her elbows and dug a little deeper for the run up the hill. By the time she reached the summit she was gasping for air and clutching her aching sides. She’d pushed too hard—nothing new—and now she had to pay the piper.
    Veering off the jogging path at a slow, cooldown trot, she ducked under some low-hanging branches and followed a little-used trail through the thickest part of the woods, heading toward the creek. This time of day, early on a Saturday morning and in full sunlight, she didn’t worry about the isolation or the vulnerability of being a woman alone. She welcomed the solitude and the peace that came with it.
    When she reached the creek, she sat down on the carpet of dried maple and aspen leaves and listened to the gurgle of water tripping over the stony creek bed. Slowly her breathing returned to normal and the ache eased out of her side.
    Complacent in a way that only the afterburn of physical exertion could make her, she flopped down on her back and indulged in some rare and basic laziness. Feeling like a kid playing hooky, she watched through the lacework of bare tree limbs as china-white clouds cruised against the backdrop of the blue Colorado sky.
    And she thought of Michael.
    Michael, and the way he’d tasted when he kissed her the night he’d brought her home in the rain. Michael, and the way he’d caressed her with his eyes and made her insides go all zingy and weak. Michael, and the way he’d looked like a little lost boy when she’d slammed the door in his face. She flinched just thinking about what she’d done to him, then felt a hollow ache of guilt remembering the anguish in his eyes when he’d realized she had prepared herself for a blow.
    She still didn’t know where that reaction had come from. She’d known he wouldn’t physically hurt her, but another kind of fear had muddled things up. She was afraid she was beginning to care about him. The emotions he stirred inside her were so powerful, yet the memories he brought with him were so painful.
    How could one man represent both threat and promise? He made her feel as out of control as runaway fireworks on the Fourth of July. She’d never known a man who had the power to dominate her thoughts this way, who made her consider her personal priorities over her professional ones. The children had always come first, and yet now, because of Michael, she wanted that number one spot for herself.
    Pulling her knees up until they were pointing skyward, she flung an arm over her eyes and tried to analyze why she reacted to him that way.
    The only thing she ended up analyzing was how he’d looked in those biker boots and bun-hugging jeans, then in banker flannel and a crisply knotted tie. She groaned and became so lost in the tummy-tightening images, it was a moment