May 24, 2010 by admin
Filed under Contemporary Romance, Looking for Home, Nan Donahue
Go to Page 1 or Previous Installment
“Wow, that’s gorgeous. Whose house is that?”
Jonathan’s pulse leapt up and took off. He hadn’t heard her return.
Angry at himself—at the world—he snapped, “Nobody’s.” He rolled the design up, snapped the elastic back, and shoved the lot back in the drawer.
Taking a steadying breath, he took her laptop from her hands. “Have a seat. This will just take a few minutes.”
He caught a glance of his monitor as he sat back down, his design mocking him. Click. All gone.
Em didn’t heed his suggestion, but started to prowl around his office. She didn’t touch, or even seem to look at anything, but her movement—her very presence—kept him on edge.
She was going to drive him insane.
Focus. Just focus.
He dug out his ISP’s manual and looked up the settings. In less than a minute, he had her laptop logged on to the internet.
“Here you go. Happy surfing. When you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk.” He knew he sounded like a jerk. Although he didn’t voice the words, the tone of his voice clearly indicated he wanted her gone.
Fortunately, she wasn’t a dummy. She took the hint, grabbed her laptop, threw a curt, “Thanks,” over her shoulder, and left his office.
Not my type, not my type, not my type.
Maybe if he repeated it enough times it would sink in, and he’d take heed. Em—damn, he needed to know her name. Using a diminutive suggested a closeness he shied away from. He had to kill whatever emotions Em stirred in him. Hmm. Embalm! Ha! How about a little word association? Kill, dead, Em, Embalm. Maybe if used that name in his head, his brain would keep on the right track. One that headed in the opposite direction of her.
Come on. Strategize. That’s what you do.
He needed reinforcements, that’s what he needed.
He reached for the phone. Before Em…balm blew into his life and stirred up a whirlwind, he’d already decided to move things forward with Deirdre. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d kept their relationship in a holding pattern. She was exactly the kind of woman he wanted for a wife. She… fit.
Well, there was no time like the present. He knew he wanted to provide a stable home for his sister. She’d never had a mother, and now she didn’t have a father either. Maybe between him and Deirdre they could put together a semblance of a normal family.
As far as these thoughts and feelings about Embalm went, they were nothing but a transient aberration. Maybe he was having some sort of early midlife crisis. If so, he just needed to get his thinking back in line with his master plan. He’d made it this far. He wasn’t about to let his life fall apart now.
Besides, this was likely nothing more than some weird chemical reaction. He didn’t need to be a shrink to know that she was against this—whatever this was—just as much as he was. They were both adults, not teenagers ruled by their hormones.
He’d promised to help her and he would. And if Alicia formed an attachment with her he was happy to let Em stay until she got her business off the ground and found herself a place to live.
Until then, he’d behave like her employer. Nothing more. He had a great relationship with his executive assistant. If he could have a pure business relationship with someone as smart and gorgeous as Brenda, surely he could do the same with Em.
Okay, he didn’t live with Brenda, and since he’d been working from home most of their conversations took place on the phone or online, but still. She was the type of woman he’d be more inclined to be attracted to, but she did nothing for him. Zip, zilch, nadda.
So what was it about Em? Why did she stir things long dead to life?
Dead? Word association. Embalm, Embalm, Embalm.
He dialled Deirdre’s number.
Chapter Seven
Over the next few days M struggled with an almost overwhelming sense of discouragement.
Why had she thought she could do this? Sure, she frequently picked up and moved. And while others may think she did it without forethought, that wasn’t the case. She always had some idea of where she’d be working. Occasionally she’d hear something through the grapevine about a job opening somewhere, make a few phone calls, then just do it.
Her resume and references testified to her work ethic and experience, so she rarely had a problem landing the job she wanted. Being easy to please made finding a place to live no problem either.
Her current situation was proving to be vastly different. She’d desperately needed to leave Edmonton, so this time she’d acted rashly. Oh, she had a plan, but she’d jumped into this without any real thought. Based on her sister’s passing comment about ever needing a place to stay, and a line of thinking that led her to believe if she started her own business she wouldn’t need to look for a job, she’d quickly put Edmonton, and more importantly, Stephen and his family behind her.
Funny how reality could often turn out to be nothing more than a hard smack upside the head.
After doing a few days of research, she wasn’t so sure she could pull this off. Everything Jonathan said about the restaurant business was backed up by a lot of data. Even people with money and a sound business plan behind them failed in this industry. A lot of them.
Well, okay, she just wanted to start a small catering business. People hired caterers all the time. Enter M, who could cook circles around almost anyone. A match made in heaven, right? Wrong. There were all kinds of details she’d never considered. Now she had to deal with them marching back and forth in her brain and taunting her.
Being a caterer didn’t just mean she cooked and someone paid her for it.
While she’d been right to some extent—catering could be a lucrative home based business—her contemplation on the matter hadn’t progressed any farther than that.
Now she’d done nothing but contemplate the matter for the last two days.
And it wasn’t only tangible issues she’d have a problem with. She’d read something about the necessity of interpersonal skills in the catering business.
She snorted. “Oh, yeah. No problem. Let’s get cosy and make nice with the rich. The very people that looked down their noses at me when I was a kid. Like I was sub-human or something.”
How could she look and act like a competent business woman while waiting for someone to find fault with her?
And where would she do her cooking? Most caterers did a lot of their prep work elsewhere. She didn’t have a kitchen of her own. And she’d need help of some sort, but how could she pay anyone? Minimum wage in Ontario was eight dollars an hour. She couldn’t afford that. She also didn’t have the kind of vehicle she’d need.
“Hah! I don’t have a vehicle at all!”
What about all the other things she’d possibly need? Serving equipment. Utensils. Linens. Tables. China. The list went on and on.
Keeping a positive attitude in the face of these realities turned into an almost impossible task.
Want to read the entire story now?
Buy it using PayPal for $2.50
Canadian buyers will be charged 5% GST
OR
Complete ONE free survey, and download a PDF of the full length version of Looking for Home!
Thanks to Nan Donahue for sharing one of her manuscripts.
