The Driven Snowe Read online

  “Because that would constitute a relationship.” She said matter-of-factly, shaking her head. “That won’t work.”

  “Maybe I don’t have as many problems with relationships as you think,” he said. Then he blinked. Did I say that?

  “Maybe you don’t,” she said. He caught the slight Mona Lisa smile she gave him, both sad and mysterious, before she turned away from him. “But either way, I’m afraid that I do.”

  3

  “ARE YOU HAVING a good time?”

  Angela smiled at Ginny, who had yelled the question to her over the booming bass of the loudspeakers. “Just great,” Angela said. Ginny smiled back encouragingly. Tanya and May, two of her other co-workers, were dancing with different men on the crowded dance floor. Ginny wandered back to them, motioning Angela to join her. Angela pointed to the bar, pantomiming getting a drink. All three women nodded back at her.

  Actually, she wasn’t having a great time, or even a good time. The music was literally loud enough to reverberate through her chest, making her ribs rattle like a xylophone. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top, and felt like she might as well have been wearing a suit of armor next to the skimpy little nothings that the younger women were wearing.

  Angela had approached them Monday, as soon as she walked into the library. After some small talk, she said to Ginny, “I was wondering…don’t you guys usually go out dancing on Friday nights? To some club?”

  Ginny looked at her, grinning. “Every Friday, rain or shine. All of the single girls, anyway, and some of the marrieds when they can get away.” She winked at May, who nodded emphatically. “It’s a lot of fun. Want to come?”

  “Yes,” Angela said, then looked at their faces. “If it’s okay, I mean.”

  “Of course!” Ginny grinned at her encouragingly.

  “We’d have asked you before,” Tanya explained, pouring Angela a cup of coffee, “but you always seemed so…well, you never really seemed interested when we mentioned it.”

  “I’m planning on going out a lot more from now on,” Angela said, a point she reiterated when she went out to lunch with them. She promised she’d go out with them more often. If the club was half as fun as their lunch outings, Angela felt she would have definite plans almost every Friday night.

  Of course, now that she was actually at the club, she realized it wasn’t her scene. For one thing, she liked dancing, but she was used to doing it while dusting her living room—not moving in a thick crowd of people who stepped on her toes or spilled drinks on her. Angela dodged to one side as a long-haired woman narrowly missed hitting her with her long ponytail. The woman didn’t even turn or apologize.

  So maybe dance clubs aren’t my thing. Still, she was out, she was doing something different. It was definitely a step in the right direction.

  A young guy stepped in front of Angela, preventing her from reaching the bar. “Hey, gorgeous,” he yelled, his voice faint over the music. “Want to dance?”

  “I’m here with my friends,” she yelled back, pointing to them.

  “They look like they’re doing fine,” he said, and proceeded to dance in front of her. After a second, she gave up, swaying a little, trying to figure out what rhythm he was dancing to. She saw her co-workers looking at her encouragingly. When in Rome, Angela thought, suppressing a little sigh. The man was good-looking, she guessed, in a blond, surfer sort of way. Maybe she wasn’t giving him a chance.

  She danced, but after a second or two he started to move in on her, getting uncomfortably close. He was trying to grind on her, she realized, taking a hasty step back and promptly getting smacked by the ponytail. She glared at the woman, who was still dancing blithely away. Surfer-boy kept moving in. Angela raised her hand, putting it on his chest and moving him back with a none-too-gentle shove.

  He grinned. “Just dancing,” he said.

  She didn’t like it, or him. “I think I’m tired,” she said, glaring at him and still trying to keep a watchful eye on the flailing ponytail. “I’m going to sit the rest of this one out.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?” He fell into step with her, and she groaned.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…I’m…” She racked her brain for some kind of polite answer, and quickly gave up. “You’re not my type.”

  He frowned, but obviously wasn’t dissuaded. “What is your type?”

  “Tall, dark and handsome,” she said glibly. “Sorry.” She quickly dodged through an opening in the crowd and left him there. When she finally made it to the bar, she looked back. He seemed to have focused in on the ponytail girl, like a heat-seeking missile. More power to you, she thought. She ordered another bottled water, and leaned against the bar, dabbing at her forehead with a napkin.

  Maybe it was the atmosphere, but she couldn’t help but notice the vast variety of men that swarmed through the place. She had observed men previous to this, but it was somehow different tonight. She was more alert, for one thing, and she picked up on different details. She noticed everything from different heights to eye colors to varying scents of cologne. She seemed to be testing for something—weighing each man on some indefinable scale. Without fail, each man seemed to come up wanting. Had she always done this, and just started to recognize it tonight? Or was it something she had just started doing?

  Tall, dark and handsome. Maybe she was being more truthful than she realized. The blond men were definitely leaving her cold, obviously. It was as if her body were humming with a low, repeating message: Not a match…not a match…not a match…

  She looked around the room. At the end of the bar was a man who was easily six foot two, with jet-black hair and broad shoulders. Her heart rate picked up a little, and she walked over to him slowly, like a cat approaching a mouse. She took a deep breath.

  He turned, then noticed her and smiled.

  Not a match.

  She let the breath out with disappointment.

  His eyes lit up as he gave her a once-over. She fought the urge to squirm. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Er, no, thanks.” She made a quick wave of her hand. “I thought you were somebody else.” She hastily retreated, moving back to her end of the bar. What in the world had she been thinking?

  Angela frowned at herself. Tall, black hair, broad shoulders. Everything but the blue eyes.

  You know exactly who you were thinking of.

  She sighed, moving back out to the dance floor with her friends. She moved into step with May. “Are you having a good time?” May asked, echoing Ginny’s question.

  “Great,” Angela said. “Just great.”

  “HEY, JOSH.” The bartender, a hulking giant whose idea of a smile usually struck fear in grown men, sent him an appraising look. “Business must be doing good. Haven’t seen you in months.”

  Josh shook the bartender’s beefy hand. “I know, Danny. Been a long time.”

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  “I’ll just have a soda.”

  Danny’s eyes narrowed curiously, but he poured Josh a Coke. “Lot of honeys out,” Danny said, gesturing to the crowded floor. “If you’re looking for some companionship, you picked the right night.”

  Josh took a sip of his soda and immediately spotted who he was looking for. She was dancing with a group of people, wearing a snug pair of black jeans and a black tank top, her hair in her customary ponytail, no glasses. He smiled.

  There was only one “honey” he had eyes for tonight.

  “Thanks, Danny.” Josh took his soda, and retreated to a shadowed corner, to figure out his next move.

  Ordinarily, he would be out there, having a good time, blowing off steam—possibly with a date, or maybe just for fun. Not tonight. He wasn’t there to dance, to party, to close the place down. He was there to convince. Specifically, to convince Angela that she hadn’t quite made the right decision.

  What you’re doing is stalking the poor girl.

  Josh shook aside the thought. He’d b
een grilling himself since he walked out of the library, dazed and amused by the fact that she’d turned him down and walked away from him for the second time in three days. The amusement had worn thin in a short period of time. The desire he felt for her had not diminished in the slightest.

  It wasn’t that he was trying to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do, he reasoned. Of all the men he knew, he was one of the biggest supporters of the “no means no” concept when it came to women. If Angela had told him that she didn’t want to ever see him again, that she had no interest in him, then he would have shrugged it off and moved on with his life.

  But she hadn’t said that. She had given him one of the most gracious kiss-offs he’d ever received in his entire dating career. She hadn’t been playing games, trying to make herself a challenge in order to pique his interest. She’d been honest and disarming, and…and wonderful, he realized. Consequently, she had piqued his interest considerably. Furthermore, she hadn’t said that she didn’t want him. In fact, it seemed that on some level at least, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. It was relationships, she’d explained in that cute and earnest tone. She just didn’t want to get involved.

  What she didn’t seem to realize was that her very disinterest in trapping the male of the species made her perfect for him.

  He saw a man scoot up behind Angela, a predatory gleam in his eyes as he moved to press his body against hers. Josh felt his blood pulse as his muscles tensed in anger. He put his drink down with a muted clank on the nearest table.

  Before he could walk over to where they were, Angela had already spun, and given the man a stern frown and a little half shove, like someone reprimanding an overly frisky puppy. The man was not amused. Josh, however, couldn’t stop grinning.

  Damn if he didn’t enjoy that woman. And damn if he wasn’t going to show her how much she could be enjoying him, too, if she’d just recognize that she wasn’t in danger of getting into a relationship with him.

  Angela was looking tired and uncomfortable. He guessed she didn’t go clubbing that often. She leaned over to her friends, speaking slowly, her eyes apologetic. The other women were nodding with understanding, pointing slightly to the door. Angela was shaking her head, smiling, then distributed those women-type goodbye hugs.

  She’s leaving.

  He saw his opportunity, and walked with purpose toward the door.

  “I’m going home,” Angela told Ginny.

  Ginny looked at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Just a little tired. It’s been a while since I’ve been out.” She smiled gamely, but her mind felt numb. She wanted out of this whole atmosphere of sexual availability, scoping out and being scoped. “I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

  “Okay, Angela,” Tanya said, giving her a little half hug. “Are you going to be all right, going out to your car on your own?”

  “I’m parked close,” Angela assured them, then hugged Ginny and May, and walked away.

  She needed to get back to the comfort of her small apartment. She didn’t realize until she was out in this crowd of hungry single people, with the music beating through her body like some tribal aphrodisiac, that she had woken up to the sexual world. Worse, she realized that her body now refused to be relegated back to its hibernation.

  The biggest problem was, it was not a general sexual hunger that coursed through her. Apparently her body craved one person only. She glanced at every black-haired man she walked past, and felt increasingly impatient with herself.

  You’re developing an unhealthy obsession with Josh Montgomery.

  She had understood that there would be fallout from Friday night, especially once she no longer had the looming specter of cancer keeping her mind occupied. She thought she’d been rather successful at keeping thoughts of him at bay, especially after he had surprised her by showing up at the library. She’d been busy with the new classes she’d signed up for, she’d been hanging out with her co-workers. But the nights…she’d woken up from feverish dreams, feeling frustrated to the point of madness.

  At least there was one good thing that came from all of this. She knew that if she continued seeing Josh, that she would definitely have done something foolish like getting involved with him—or getting attached to him. She’d just gotten to the point where she had the courage and the momentum to expand her horizons. How far was she going to go if she wound up spending her time mooning over a gorgeous love-god in a denim shirt and khakis? Better to concentrate on herself—on her own personal growth.

  Of course, that’s not going to keep you from waking up with a jolt, hyperventilating and sweating.

  No, she told herself sternly. She didn’t need the complication. She’d made the right decision.

  Angela had not gone more than ten feet when she felt a hand on her arm. She sighed. “I’m going home,” she said firmly, then turned and gasped.

  Josh smiled at her. “But it’s so early,” he said close to her ear. The brush of breath against her earlobe and neck made her shiver, and she put a hand on his arm to steady herself. He took her hand. “I’d hoped I could talk to you. Stay a little while longer?”

  She tried to think logically, but it was hard to override the continuous loop of her body, all but screaming Match!… Match!… Match!

  “I’m sort of tired,” she stammered, but didn’t take her hand away.

  “I can see that. Maybe it’s the heat,” he suggested, tugging her toward a dance floor that was closed off, the lack of strobe lights and empty bar showing that it was not in use. He steered her toward a darkened corner. “Maybe you just need to sit down for a second.”

  She ought to pull her hand away. She really ought to leave, go home, get out of the way of temptation.

  I wouldn’t want to be rude. She knew it was a lie before she even finished the thought. Besides, I really ought to find out what he wants to say.

  JOSH FIGURED HE’D be a lot more capable of persuading this woman in a logical and compelling fashion if she’d just stop turning him on like a floodlight every time he talked to her. He wanted her in his bed, now.

  “I just want to talk with you, if you’re amenable,” he began carefully. He continued to lead her over to where some couches had been pushed pell-mell. He was in luck—no one else was hiding out in the deserted area. “To start, I wanted to apologize for our conversation on Monday.”

  Her eyes widened…he clearly had her attention. Now he just had to see how long he could keep it.

  “You’ve got no reason to apologize,” she said, with obvious surprise. “I’ve already told you…I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You shouldn’t thank me, Angela. I should be thanking you.” They sat down on one of the couches. He noticed she sat as far away from him as possible, and stiffened slightly when he moved a little closer. “Friday night was incredible.”

  She smiled, her doe eyes large and thoughtful. “I know.” She seemed to sit up straighter. “I appreciated your help, believe me.”

  He laughed. She made it sound as if he’d helped her do her taxes. “So I guess you had a good time?” He lowered his voice, leaning even closer. “I didn’t hurt you too much?”

  “Oh, no,” she assured him, also lowering her voice and moving closer toward him, as he’d planned.

  “Since I didn’t have time to ask you the next day,” he said, “I worried.”

  Her gaze warmed, and she put a consoling hand on his arm. “You didn’t hurt me at all,” she repeated. “At least, not really. It hurt a little, at first, but then…” He saw her eyes dilate, and her pulse beat a little harder in her throat. She stared at him for a second. It was all he could do not to yank her in his arms and kiss her senseless right there. “Then it didn’t,” she murmured.

  “I should have asked you that on Monday, but I was too wrapped up in the fact that you left without a word. And more than that, I really wanted to see you again. I just approached it all wrong.” He studied her. “Or was I all wrong, period? Would you really
rather not make love to me again?”

  She nibbled on her pouty lower lip, a gesture that almost had him groaning. “It’s…complicated.”

  He grinned. “It almost always is.”

  She glanced around, probably wondering if her friends were watching. Then she leaned as close to him as she could. He could smell her perfume. He’d been smelling it on the pillow she’d used since she left. He blamed the amazingly vivid dreams he’d been having on that fact and refused to do anything about it. “I…it’s just the fact that I haven’t done—that—before,” she said slowly. He wondered if she was trying to convince him, or herself. “So it’s natural that it will take time to get used to all this.”

  “‘All this’ being what?”

  She swallowed hard. “Wanting you,” she said. His body tensed at the words.

  “You could maybe get used to it gradually…” he suggested, but she interrupted him.

  “The thing is, I know it’s just my body doing all the thinking, and if I don’t get a grip on it now…who knows what it’s going to convince me to do.”

  He didn’t think that sounded like that terrible a demise. Abruptly, he realized the whole reason he was on this quest to convince Angela was a result of his body—at least at first. Now, he didn’t want to think about exactly why he was doing what he was doing. “I actually can understand that,” he said. “Still, I think you’re making a little mistake here.”

  Her eyes widened, obviously insulted. “Okay. Maybe not mistake,” he corrected. “Just…a little flawed reasoning. You’re afraid that if you and I enjoyed some more time together, that we would get involved.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Are we involved now?”

  She looked at him, warily. “I don’t think so.”

  “It wouldn’t be much different, Angela. In fact, I think that spending more time with me would make it easier to get used to what your body is putting you through. It’s like…” He racked his brain for an analogy that would convince her. “It’s like dieting.”