Embraced by Love (20 page)

“I love you more.” He leaned against the kitchen counter, watching her. How much do you love me? What will you give up for me? He didn’t say those words aloud. He didn’t have to.

She started to speak, stopped, started again, but turned away without saying anything, shaking her head.

“Josie, come on,” Cooper said, a hint of desperation in his voice. “What’s the worst-case scenario if you work fewer hours? Taylor-Made Software goes bankrupt, right? Because you don’t meet the terms of your agreement with Fenderson, and
all
of your clients leave after they find out. Right?”

Josie shook her head again. “I know it’s ridiculous to worry about that but—”

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous,” Cooper agreed. “So stop worrying.”

“I can’t—”

“Sure you can—”

“Cooper—”

“Here’s the big question,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do!”

“I’ve said this before,” Cooper said. “And I’ll say it again and again—as many times as I need to until you believe me. Josie, I’m not going to let you starve.”

“I want to believe you,” Josie said.

“If you want to, then
do,
” he urged her. “Believe me.
Trust
me.
Please.”

She steadied herself against the back of a chair and took a deep breath. When she finally spoke, her voice was low. “Cooper, it’ll only be seven months.”

He was silent. He said nothing. He didn’t even move for so long that Josie finally turned around, thinking he’d somehow left the room. But he was still standing there, leaning against the counter, staring out the sliding glass doors with tears in his eyes.

He must have seen her movement out of the corner of his eye because he cleared his throat. “I guess there’s nothing left to say,” he said quietly. He didn’t meet her gaze. “I’ve got to take a shower and get Ben cleaned up, but after that, I’ll give you a ride back to the city.”

He headed for the door.

“Cooper, what’s going to happen?”

Josie’s words stopped him, but he didn’t turn around. “In a few days—” his voice broke, but he took a deep breath and went on “—you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

He walked out of the kitchen, leaving Josie alone.

Alone.

Without Cooper.

Quite possibly for the rest of her life.

“Josie?”

Josie looked up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table to find Lucy watching her apprehensively.

“Cooper said I shouldn’t bother you,” the little girl said. “Am I bothering you?”

Josie shook her head “no.” She felt numb from Cooper’s pronouncement. He was going to call a lawyer. He was going to file for divorce. He was actually going to do it.

She remembered the way Cooper had smiled at the women he’d danced with at the playground. She’d watched as he’d held other women in his arms, and she could still taste the jealousy. The thought of him finding a woman to replace her was unbearable. Still, she couldn’t keep from thinking about it. She could imagine how he’d hold this other woman when they danced. She knew the exact look he’d have in his eyes right before they’d kiss.

Lord, the thought of Cooper spending the rest of his life with another woman was
awful.
It was a nightmare, a bad dream from which Josie would never wake up.

How could she just let him go?

But the alternative was to put her company at risk. She couldn’t overcome the fear. She couldn’t handle that.

But how could she handle losing Cooper?

Josie felt immobilized, paralyzed, scared to death. She was being tested again—and was in the process of failing. Again.

She knew she should chase after Cooper and beg him for forgiveness, beg him to take her back, make every concession he asked for and then some.

She wanted Cooper. She wanted to be able to laugh again. She wanted her life back.

But she needed to keep the commitment she’d made to Fenderson when she signed that contract.

Didn’t she?

But what about the commitment she’d made to Cooper on their wedding day? Didn’t she need to honor that, too?

“Do you need a hug?” Lucy asked.

Josie looked up in surprise. She’d forgotten Lucy was standing next to her, watching her.

“Sometimes when I’m sad,” Lucy explained, “Cooper gives me a hug and then I feel a little better.”

Josie pulled Lucy up onto her lap. The little girl wrapped her arms tightly around her neck and squeezed. Then she sat back and looked at Josie.

“It didn’t work, did it?” she said. “Maybe you need one of Cooper’s hugs. Sometimes I think Cooper’s hugs are magic.”

Josie couldn’t say a word.

“Pam says her mom is magic,” Lucy said, unaware of the sudden tears in Josie’s eyes. “She says her mom casts a magic spell on her whenever they take a long ride in the car, because Pam always falls asleep.”

Lucy slid down off Josie’s lap and climbed up onto the kitchen chair that held her booster seat. “I’m going to draw a picture of Pam,” she said, flipping through a stack of papers until she found a fresh, unused sheet.

Lucy was quiet as she drew, and Josie folded her arms on the table and rested her head on top of her arms.

Was this going to be the last time she’d be in this kitchen? Was this going to be it?

When she said good-bye to Cooper this afternoon, when she climbed out of his car in front of their Greenwich Village apartment, was she going to be climbing out of his life?

When would she see him again? And if she did see him, would he hold her in his arms and kiss her? Would he smile that smile that told her she alone owned his heart?

Josie knew the answers to those questions, and she didn’t like them one bit.

She also knew with Cooper out of the picture, she could easily fill her days and nights with her work. She knew that over the next seven months she’d have no choice about it. But after the Fenderson project was completed, what then? Would she spend the rest of her life working overtime, winning one big contract after the next, never stopping to dance or laugh or be loved?

Suddenly, vividly, Josie could picture herself sixty-five years old, rich beyond belief, sure, but also worn-out and alone.

It was not a pretty picture.

But it was the direction her life would take if she let Cooper go.

“Here’s Pam,” Lucy announced, pushing the picture toward her.

Josie lifted her head to see the picture, then sat up all the way, picking it up off the table to get a closer look. She stared at the little girl. “You drew this?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lucy was already hard at work, drawing another picture.

“This is fabulous,” Josie said.

“I was at Pam’s house yesterday,” Lucy explained. “That’s why I can draw her so well today. I really remember what she looks like.”

Pam. Lucy had mentioned her before, when they were at the playground. Pam had been there, too. And Pam’s mother, no doubt. Was Pam’s mother one of the women Cooper had been dancing with?

“Do you guys go over to Pam’s house often?” Josie asked Lucy, then immediately cursed herself out. What was she doing, pumping a four-year-old for information about who her soon-to-be exhusband spent his time with?

“Sometimes I go when Cooper and Ben want to do boy things,” Lucy said, drawing an amazingly life-like bird. “You know, like when they want to go grocery shopping.”

“Wait a minute,” Josie said.
“You
go to your friend’s house, and
Cooper
goes shopping?” This was the little girl who only a few weeks ago couldn’t bear to be separated from Cooper for any length of time. This was the child who suffered so severely from separation anxiety that she couldn’t spend more than a few minutes in a different room from Cooper without checking on him regularly. “Lucy, I’m so proud of you.”

Lucy smiled shyly. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Cooper is, too. First time, I didn’t want to do it, but Cooper wanted me to, so I did. Pam and her mom and me waited in front of Pam’s house while Cooper and Ben drove ’round the block.”

Josie swallowed. “You must’ve been very scared.”

Lucy nodded seriously. “Yes, ma’am. But Pam was there. She held my hand. And afterwards, Cooper was so happy and we went out for pizza without the cheese. Pam came, too. She’s my best friend.”

The little girl went back to her drawing. “Cooper’s
your
best friend, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Josie said.

“Does he hold
your
hand when you’re scared?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah,” Josie said. “Yeah, he does.”

“You’re lucky,” Lucy said. “I’m not scared of anything when Cooper holds
my
hand. When I get married, I’m going to marry Cooper, too.”

Suddenly, vividly, in amazing technicolor, Josie could picture Lucy’s wedding day, twenty-plus years from now. She could see Cooper, still outrageously handsome at age sixty, walking Lucy down the aisle, delivering her, his adopted daughter, into the arms of an as-yet-unknown eager young man. She could picture Cooper then joining her, the mother of the bride. She could imagine him standing next to her in the church. He would turn to take her hand, glancing down at her with tears of happiness and love in his eyes.

This
was the future that she wanted.

And it was a future she could have.

The choice was hers and hers alone.

“You can’t marry Cooper,” Josie said, touching Lucy gently on the nose. Suddenly, miraculously, Josie felt nine million pounds lighter. “He’s mine.”

Josie stood up so quickly the chair she was sitting in nearly tipped over.

“Where are you going?” Lucy asked, scrambling to follow Josie as she walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and down the hall.

The bedroom door was ajar, and Josie pushed it open the rest of the way.

Cooper was wearing a pair of red briefs and a towel around his neck. He eyed Josie warily, as if he wasn’t sure what she was doing in there.

“I have to make a phone call,” Josie said to Lucy.

“Isn’t the phone in the kitchen working?” Cooper asked, puzzled, as he reached up and rubbed his wet hair with the towel.

“It’s a really scary phone call,” Josie said, still talking to Lucy. Her voice shook slightly, and she cleared her throat. “Do you think, if I said please, Cooper would hold my hand while I made the call?”

Wide-eyed, aware of the undercurrent of tension in the room, Lucy nodded.

Even Ben watched in silence from where he sat on the floor playing with a plastic truck.

Josie could see from Cooper’s eyes that he wasn’t allowing himself to hope that whatever she was doing, she was doing for him—for
them.
Still, when she turned to him, he held out his hand to her without hesitating.

“Gee, I didn’t even have to say please,” Josie said to Lucy with a tremulous smile.

But when she looked back at Cooper, her smile faded.

“What’s this about?” he asked, still holding out his hand to her.

Josie shook her head. “No,” she said. “I have to do this now. If I wait too long, I’ll chicken out.”

She took his hand.

It was clean and warm, and so big. His hand engulfed hers, surrounded it, his grip strong and confident. And Josie knew right from that instant that she wasn’t going to chicken out.

She was scared. There was no denying that. But she wasn’t alone.

She sat down on the bed, with Cooper next to her, still holding her hand. She picked up the phone and dialed.

It was a New York City exchange. She knew the number by heart.

The front desk receptionist answered after only one ring. “Fenderson Company, Incorporated. How may I help you?”

“This is Josie Taylor,” Josie said. “Is Ted Saunders in?”

“One moment, please,” the receptionist said.

Josie didn’t look up at Cooper as she waited, but his grip on her hand had tightened.

“Josie!” Saunders said. “Ted here. It’s not time for another progress report already, is it?”

“No, sir,” Josie said. She took a deep breath. “I’m calling because . . . there’s been a problem. A serious problem.” She explained about the computer virus, about how they’d lost the three months worth of work. “I feel really awful about this,” she continued. “But I just don’t see how we’ll be able to meet your deadline. My staff is working more than their share of overtime as it is.”

“What are we talking about here?” Saunders asked. “Adding another three months to the delivery date?”

“Yes, sir.”

Saunders was silent, but Josie could hear the sound of pages turning, as if he were flipping through a calendar. “Well,” he said. “This makes it ten months instead of seven.” He sighed. “I was looking forward to having the new system up and running. I suppose I’ll simply have to look forward to it a little bit longer.”

“I
am
sorry,” Josie said. Cooper squeezed her hand.

“These things happen,” Saunders said. “I appreciate your telling me about it this far in advance. At least this way we have enough time to change our plans—keep our old system on line a few months longer. Keep in touch. Let me know how it’s going.”

“Yes, sir,” Josie said.

Saunders hung up and the dial tone buzzed in Josie’s ear. She slowly placed the receiver in the cradle. She’d done it! She’d called Fenderson, and what do you know? The world wasn’t coming to an end, the sky wasn’t falling in on her. There were no bolts of lightning from the heavens, no sudden tornados, no dark angels of business death swooping towards her.

Cooper pulled her into his arms.

“You did it,” he said breathlessly. “God, Josie, you really did it!”

“There’s one more call,” she said. “I have to make one more call.”

This number was on the telephone’s speed dial. Josie punched in the code, and again the line was ringing. She leaned back against Cooper. His arms were around her, and she knew this was where she wanted to be. She’d made her choice, and it was the right one.

“Taylor-Made Software.” David had picked up the phone. He must have been sitting at her desk, appropriately enough.

“David, it’s Josie,” she said. “I called Fenderson, got us a three-month extension to our deadline. I need you to call that headhunter who found us Annie and Frank. We need two more assistants.”