Be My Baby Tonight (14 page)

She wouldn’t look at him. Not that she’d been
looking at him so far, but now she was
really
not looking at
him. “Suze? Are you going to answer me?”

“When you speak to me in that tone of voice?
I don’t think so.”

He stabbed his fingers through his hair.
“Again with the tone of voice? What’s wrong with my tone of
voice?”

She slammed the ceramic roasting pan onto the
countertop. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with your tone, what was
wrong with it last night. I... I don’t like it, that’s what.”

“Oh, well, that helped,” Tim said, pretty
sure he was using “that” tone again.

She left the roasting pan where it was—which
was probably a good thing—and walked over to him. “Last night you
blamed me for not telling you I’m not on the pill. Like I’m
trapping you into something, or something like that. Just in case
you figured out that maybe marrying me was a crazy idea and I
wanted to make sure you couldn’t get out of it again so easily if
things didn’t work out.”

“Cripes. When did I say that? I never said
that.”

“You didn’t have to,” she said, poking him in
his bare chest. “I know what you meant.”

“Then you’re one up on me, babe, because I
sure didn’t know it.”

“Don’t... call... me...
babe,”
she
said, poking at him some more. “I am not one of your babes. I’m
your wife.”

“Fine,” he said, getting angry. Really angry.
“I’ll call you ridiculous. It fits. What makes you think I want to
make sure I’m keeping a door open out of this marriage?”

She stepped back a little. “Why else would
you be asking me about Sean?”

“Blackthorne?” Tim shook his head. “Oh, wait
a minute. Now you think I’m accusing you of having some sort of
affair with your boss? I wasn’t—”

“We dated, all right. Twice. Met at
restaurants after work, drove home separately. He gave me Margo
when he decided he couldn’t keep her, that he had enough breeders.
There was nothing else, Tim.
Nothing.”

“You dated him?” Tim felt his temperature
rising before remembering that he’d done his share of dating
himself. “Okay, so you dated him. And now you’re married. So why’s
he in Saint Louis with you? You told me this was a one-person job.
That’s what you said, Suze.”

She rubbed her hands together. “I don’t know.
Maybe he was checking up on my performance. Maybe he was hoping to
sell Forrester and Sons more software.”

“And maybe he was hitting on you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, but she
still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“He tried to hit on you, didn’t he?”

“Oh, all right, all right. He tried to hit on
me. Just a little. I don’t know why. We hadn’t dated in at least
six months. But I told him no, and he went away.”

Then she lifted her head, glared at him. “And
that’s not the point. The point, Tim, is that you
thought
something was going on.”

“It was. He was freaking hitting on you. You
admitted it.”

“I can’t control what other people do. Not
even you, when you’re making an ass out of yourself. But I can
expect you to trust me, Tim. The way I trust you when you’re on the
road.”

“Big deal. I sleep in the same room with
Dusty. What’s not to trust?”

Suzanna held up her hands. “We’re not having
this conversation. We’re just not. There’s no time. I’ve got to
go.”

“Go see Sean,” Tim said, damn sure now he was
using “that” tone.

“Go to hell, Tim,” she said as she picked up
her purse and briefcase and stormed out of the house.

Tim sat down, tried to recapture their
conversation. Suzanna thought he was having second thoughts. That
was clear.

What wasn’t clear was—was
she
having
second thoughts? Why else would she think he was?

He looked down to see Margo brushing at his
leg.

“She’s going to be very upset with you, you
know,” he told the cat, lifting her up, taking a quick,
surreptitious look at the cat’s belly. “But she’s going to kill
me.”

But, he thought, she wouldn’t toss Margo out
on her rump. He wouldn’t toss Suzanna out if she were to get
pregnant.

No, he didn’t think the timing was right, not
now. They got along really well—okay, so most of the time they got
along well—but obviously not well enough, not yet. There were still
some bugs to work out in this marriage.

So a baby wouldn’t be a good idea. Not at
all. Not right now.

Except, maybe it would be.

He’d have to think about that. Right after he
just happened to drop in at Suzanna’s office later today, to take
her to lunch before heading to the ballpark... and size up Sean
Blackthorne. Maybe flex his muscles a little.

Right after he stopped off somewhere to pick
up a big box of candy with a red bow. And some roses. His dad had
always brought home roses.

* * *

“Suzanna, can you stay a moment, please?”

Suzanna stopped, her back to the slowly
emptying conference room, and turned around, returned to the table
littered with Styrofoam coffee cups and boxes of doughnuts. “Sure,
Sean. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he said, motioning for her to
retake her chair.

He then sat down beside her.

Sean Blackthorne was a good-looking man.
Tall, dark-haired, with a perpetual tan that came courtesy of a
tanning salon, not from walking a sunny golf course or other
outside activity. He should take up some sport. Sean was forty, she
thought, and beginning to go a little soft. But he was still
handsome, and he was sitting entirely too close to her.

“I want to apologize,” he said, and she
blinked, surprised.

“That... That’s okay,” she said, knowing she
was lying, because it hadn’t been okay. The guy had hit on her.
Toasted her success with Forrester and Sons with diet soda over
dinner, slipped his arm around her waist as they had walked through
the hotel foyer to the elevators, and then asked if he could come
up to her room for a nightcap, some talk.

Okay, so he hadn’t attacked her in the
elevator or anything, but she’d known what he was asking. And he’d
known what he was asking.

Not so subtle was the kiss he’d forced on her
just as the elevator doors opened on her floor. He’d aimed for her
mouth, but she’d quickly turned her head, so that his kiss had
landed on her cheek.

Still, he had kissed her.

“No, Suzanna, it’s not all right. I know that
you’re married to that ballplayer. I guess... I guess I just didn’t
want to believe it. I was way out of line.”

Suzanna nodded. There wasn’t a lot a person
could say to a statement like that one.

“And you’re still here, you know? I thought
you’d resign, after the wedding. It’s not as if you have to work to
support yourself anymore. I finally convinced myself that you’d
begun to think you’d made a mistake, eloping to Vegas like that
with an old high school sweetheart you hadn’t seen in years, and
maybe it was time for me to step in, let you know that I was... I
was still interested.”

I’m... very happy in marriage, Sean,” Suzanna
said, carefully banishing the argument of this morning to the far
recesses of her mind. “So, although I’m flattered, I really think
you should know that—”

“That it’s hands-off. I understand. I just
wanted you to know that I do understand, and that nothing like that
will ever happen again. Don’t leave, Suzanna. You’re a real asset
to the company.”

“I have no intention of leaving, Sean,” she
said, getting to her feet once more. “Tim understands that.”

Sean stood with her. “So he doesn’t mind that
you travel a lot? I mean, you’re not even married for two months,
and you’ve been to Saint Louis, New Orleans, and back to
Pittsburgh. That’s a lot of traveling.”

“And Tim’s been to California and Arizona,
Sean, some of that time while I was here, not on the road myself.
It’s not optimum, I agree, but we’re handling it.”

He gave a small shake of his head. “I
couldn’t handle it, not if you were my wife. I’d want you where I
could see you.”

“Oh, marvelous,” Suzanna said, hefting her
purse back on her shoulder. “You men, you’re all alike.”

He followed after her as she headed out of
the conference room, toward her office. “Meaning? I thought you
said your husband was okay with this traveling stuff? Look,
Suzanna, if it’s going to become a problem, I can make some
changes. Send Gloria out more, keep you here in the office. I think
she’s ready to solo.”

Suzanna stopped in her tracks. “We could do
that?”

“Sure, why not? Gloria’s single, and you’re
married now. It’s not like I’m saying married employees can’t
travel—or like I’m saying anything else that could get me in
trouble with labor laws or anything—but if it’s easier for you to
stick closer to the home office, I’m willing to arrange it.”

“Well, thank you, Sean. Tell you what. I’ll
get back to you on Monday, after I talk to Tim, all right? He’s got
a really important four-game series with the Mets starting tonight,
so I don’t know when we’ll be able to sit down and talk.”

“Sure. Anything you want. And I am sorry,
Suzanna. I think I kicked myself all the way back here from Saint
Louis.”

She went up on tiptoe, kissed his cheek.
“Don’t be silly. I was sort of flattered.”

“Let me take a wild guess here. You’d be Sean
Blackthorne?”

Tim?
Suzanna froze, her lips pressed
to Sean’s cheek as she sort of swiveled her eyes to the left.

Oh, yeah. Tim.

Suzanna jumped away from Sean as if she’d
been scalded. “Tim. What are you doing here?”

“Nothing. Just thought I’d stop by, see where
my
wife
works. I’ve got to leave for the stadium in an hour.
Sam’s called a lunch meeting.”

Sure he has,
Suzanna thought, trying
not to grimace. Breakfast meeting, lunch meeting. If she could have
one, he could have the other. Oh, Tim was a real scream, wasn’t he?
She should be laughing... if she wasn’t contemplating homicide.

“I’m Sean Blackthorne,” Sean said, as if Tim
hadn’t already mentioned it, sticking out his hand. “And you’re Tim
Trehan. Nice to meet you.”

Put out your hand, Trehan, or prepare to
have it hacked off,
Suzanna shot at him mentally.

“Nice to meet you,” Tim said, shaking Sean’s
hand. Okay, she’d let him keep his hand. He might need it.

“I don’t want to jump the gun here or
anything,” Sean went on, just as Suzanna was beginning to believe
she just might make it through this meeting without having Tim
punch her boss, “but I was just telling Suzanna that she doesn’t
have to travel anymore. I can make other arrangements, keep her
here in the office.”

“Really,” Tim said, looking at Suzanna. “Keep
her close, huh, Sean?”

“Exactly,” Sean said, and Suzanna’s
estimation of the man’s near genius dropped a couple of notches.
“Close to
you
, Tim,” she said, walking over to stand beside
him. “I was... I was just thanking Sean for the offer when you got
here.”

“You can really do that? That would be great,
Suze. No more travel?”

“No more travel,” Suzanna agreed, since she’d
been cornered so neatly. “Sean? I guess I don’t need until Monday
to give you my answer. Thank you, and I accept. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’d like to walk Tim back out, say goodbye, since I’m
not going to the game with him tonight. Come on, Tim,” she said,
grabbing his arm.

Once outside the low red-brick building, Tim
took her hand as he led her over to his sports car parked in the
lot. “I’ve got something for you. I would have brought it inside,
but I always feel kind of dumb, doing stuff like this. Not that I
do it, did it. I’m just doing it now.”

Suzanna looked up at him. The man was
nervous. Actually stumbling over his tongue.

“What don’t you do that you’re doing now,
Tim?”

“Apologize,” he said, quickly ducking his
head into the passenger side of the car and coming back out holding
a box of candy in one hand and a bunch of paper-wrapped yellow
roses in the other. He sort of shoved them at her. “Here you go,
Suze. I apologize.”

She could skin him alive. He said the dumbest
things, and she still didn’t know if he’d meant any of them. And
then he shows up at her job, calling her his
wife
in that
same
tone,
and shakes Sean’s hand with a grip that probably
would bring most men to their knees.

Rough around the edges, for all the tutoring
in manners he and Jack had gotten from their poor, beleaguered
mother, Tim was still such a kid. Playing ball, chewing bubble
gum.

But he was so cute. So absolutely
adorable.

Look at him, standing here, jiggling from
one foot to the other as if his underwear was suddenly too tight,
his expression pretty close to hangdog.

“Oh, Tim, you’re an idiot,” she said, and
stepped into his embrace. “We’re both idiots.”

* * *

Friday’s game was a night game, and Suzanna
had driven down with Tim to have an early spaghetti dinner at his
favorite restaurant before heading to the stadium.

They were back to where they had begun.
Friends again. Lovers again.

And as long as he could keep badgering Mrs.
B. into keeping Margo at her apartment, they would be doing all
right.

As if picking up on his thoughts, Suzanna
said on the drive to the stadium, “You know, I think Margo’s
deserted me for Mrs. B. She’s always at the garage apartment. I
think I’m jealous.”

“You’ve always got Lucky. He’s crazy about
you,” Tim said, inwardly wincing as he put in a good word for the
feline Lothario. Once she knew the truth about Lucky, that damn
randy cat would be “lucky” to get fed, let alone petted.

“You mean, like the cats got traded? Margo
traded to Mrs. B., with me getting Lucky in return?”

“Along with two minor league cats to be named
later, yeah,” Tim said, pulling into his reserved parking spot.