Sensual Winds. Carmen Green

was so cool about everything, but she needed to sever these evening talks. All of her friends had said so. Doreen took her hand off the camera and stood up, the nonverbal cue that a meeting was over. “No harm except to my ego,” she admitted. “Have a good night, Lucas.”

      “Hey, don’t go. We’re cool, okay? I still haven’t gotten my furniture yet.”

      He didn’t want to hang up. Damn Emma!

      Doreen shook her head, locking her knees, making herself remain standing. “You have lawn chairs. Bring them inside and watch your too-big television and eat off paper plates.”

      “Now you’re being cruel. They’re reinforced cardboard or something.”

      “Only the best for you,” she said, the marquee down the street flashing the start time of The Color Purple.

      “I need to speak to Emma. Is she around?”

      Doreen looked over her shoulder to her boss’s closed door and shook her head. “No, she’s in a meeting. I’ll leave a note for her to call you, okay?”

      “Doreen, I hope I didn’t offend you earlier.”

      “No. I have guy friends and they tease me all the time.” Liar. She straightened her already-tidy desk, willing her legs to relax before she got a charley horse.

      “Good,” he said, unaware of the lingering pain she felt at not having a man for herself. But that wasn’t his business. “Emma knew I was calling, right?”

      She felt as if he was right next to her. “Yes, I gave her your message this morning.”

      “And her schedule was clear at that time.”

      Doreen bit her lip, saying nothing. As big as her crush was, she couldn’t tell him that Emma had reviewed the message on her computer and deleted it within seconds. Doreen couldn’t say that. She wished he couldn’t even see her.

      “I need to speak to her right now. I need to know what time to pick her up from the airport tomorrow.” He said it as if it were a challenge she could promptly rise to meet.

      Doreen’s fingers quickly flew across the keyboard, accessing Emma’s schedule. She hadn’t known anything about Emma going to Florida this weekend. As far as she knew, her boss was scheduled to go to the annual sales meeting in the Poconos.

      “Lucas, can I have her call you back? I can’t disturb her right now. In fact, I was just leaving.”

      Lying to him wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she didn’t want to get fired for crossing the line of professionalism.

      In truth, she’d been waiting for Emma to discuss the new job listing of director of special events that had just been posted. They’d talked about it months ago, when they’d gotten word that the position was being created, but Emma had been tight-lipped lately. Doreen hadn’t minded being her assistant when Emma was the director of promotions, but she’d just been promoted to vice president, and her new position would take her to the corporate office where an administrative assistant would be provided, so Doreen would have to make the adjustment to a new boss or become a boss herself.

      If she hadn’t already been doing the job, maybe she wouldn’t have felt so strongly about applying, but she knew everything it entailed and she was up for the challenge.

      No, now was not the time to go where this conversation with Lucas was heading. Lately his discontent was becoming more apparent, and Doreen didn’t want to be in the middle of his crumbling relationship with Emma. Neither seemed to be aware of the direction it was heading in, and Doreen didn’t want to play marriage counselor. She was single for a reason.

      “It’s nearly seven-thirty, and you’re still there, Dorie.” Calling her by the nickname he’d coined ratcheted up her guilt like a crane with a bar of girded steel. Doreen felt caught in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel, except she didn’t know what the fight was about.

      “Lucas, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening here.”

      “I’ve left messages and she hasn’t returned my calls. We make plans for the house and she doesn’t follow through. Since I can’t get her on the phone—” He paused and Doreen waited a beat too long.

      “This may be the last message you have to deliver. Tell Emma if she doesn’t come to Florida tomorrow, I’ll consider us over.” Then he hung up.

      Chapter 2

      Lucas could have kicked himself before he fully pushed the disconnect button.

      “Doreen? Doreen?” Why had he involved Doreen in his and Emma’s relationship problems? It wasn’t her fault that he was a failure at having—or not having—a fiancée.

      Before he made another mistake, he tried to think things through. In the past he’d been quick to think the worst of women when they didn’t call, or if they called too much; if they didn’t stay, or if they wanted to stay. If they drank, or if they didn’t drink.

      During the past five years, he’d just about driven himself crazy wondering what women wanted from men. And then he started listening to his DJ friend Terrence. As crazy as he had been in the past with his off-the-wall ideas about relationships, the brother now made sense, and Lucas tuned in to his radio show whenever he had the chance.

      According to Terrence, women wanted good men who treated them like they were worth something. But a man had to be selective, too. He had to choose carefully, because there were some crazy ladies out there.

      Lucas thought about how he’d found Emma in New York. His company had won the contract to renovate three floors of the office building she worked in. He’d seen her for a couple weeks going to her boss’s office for a meeting, and then one day he approached her. They’d dated happily for months, and then he accepted another renovation project in Key West, his mother’s hometown.

      Emma had assured him dating long distance wouldn’t be a problem, as long as they were committed. She’d been all for it for the first two years, but in these last eight months, their relationship had all but evaporated like some of the local lakes.

      He’d ignored the signs, and his fading love for her, hoping she’d come around and still want to move to Key West like she’d promised, so they could be together and rekindle their true feelings for each other. This weekend was the test. If she came, he’d told himself, they’d live happily ever after.

      If she didn’t show up, they’d go their separate ways.

      The next day, Lucas hammered nails into the roof.

      Terrence was right. When a woman didn’t call you back, somebody else was probably occupying her mind and her time.

      Lucas descended from the roof to check on his foreman, Mo, who was installing granite flooring in the foyer and lower bathroom. He stayed outside on the porch, his hands on the white siding as he leaned into the house. Only Mo and Rog were allowed to enter through the front door while the granite was being installed. The materials were too expensive and delicate.

      Mo looked up and followed a carefully laid path of crisscrossed boards that never touched the foyer floor.

      Lucas grasped his foreman’s hand and pulled him out of the house. “How’s it coming?”

      They leaned in like spies. “Good,” Mo replied. “This needs to dry for four more hours, and then we’ll come back and redo any areas that show unevenness. Everything is cut to perfection, even the corners. Looks easy, doesn’t it?”

      Mo was a big Mexican man who’d been born in America. He knew how to build a house better than anyone Lucas had ever met. More than that, he knew great craftsmanship.

      Lucas nodded. “It does, but will it be ready in time?”

      As they talked, Rog never stopped working. The Italian craftsman had been in the country for six months, working with an outfit that had suddenly gone out of business, stranding