“Who is it?” Brittany hissed behind him.
He tossed her his shirt, raising one knee to hide his raging boner. “It’s just Anne,” he said. “Rob’s kid.”
Always hanging around, watching him with big green eyes, getting in the way. A construction site was no place for a kid. You’d think Rob would look out for her better. She could step on a nail. Be hit by falling debris.
“Sneak,” Brittany said.
“Iwasn’tsneaking,” Anne said indignantly. “I was…”
“Spying?” Joe suggested.
She turned bright red. Joe glanced down at his shorts and then eyed the cold water. He might have to go in for a swim after all.
“It was the book,” she blurted. “I wanted to be like Harriet.”
Who the hell is Harriet?The bushes rustled again. She probably had her friend with her, the black-haired girl from the gift shop.
“Joe,” Brittany whined.
Right. Joe figured he could probably stand now without giving the kid an eyeful. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Beat it.” Anne’s mouth trembled. Hell. “Unless you were hoping to learn something,” he added.
Anne’s chin jerked up. “You’re disgusting.”
Good. At least she wasn’t sniveling. “And yet you’re watching.” Behind him, Brittany was finally pulling his T-shirt over herself. Joe held his arms out wide, teasing. Distracting. “Take a good look.”
Anne glared. “You are a jerk.”
He grinned. “And you’re a pest.”
Which was pretty much how it went for the next six years or so.
5
Anne
Then
I didn’t go home thesummer Joe got married. I rented a room in a house with four other people and worked as a nanny until classes started. But that fall, after a long day of student teaching, I was meeting my mentor, Sarah, for a drink. I’d pulled out my book to wait. And there, in an underground bar on the north side of Chicago Avenue, love found me.
I’d noticed him when I came in. He was standing by the foosball table with some other professional types, guys dressed in khakis with their ties loosened or stashed in their shirt pockets. He was tall, blond, and handsome. Straight, I thought as he crossed the bar toward me, or at least into me.
“Good book?” he asked.
“The best.” My new housemates were no substitute for Daanis. Sometimes I felt my books were the only companions I could count on. Not that I was blurting that out to a stranger in a bar. “Plus, it keeps the creepers away.”
He angled his head to see the cover. “Anne of Green Gables,” he read out loud and gazed into my eyes, and, yep, that was a definite tingle. “Is it working?”
I grinned. “Maybe.”
His smile was white and even. Good genes there. Or braces.
I didn’t learn until later that he was a resident—pediatric oncology!—at nearby Children’s Memorial Hospital, but even in those first moments I could see he had hazel eyes.
Just like Gilbert Blythe.
I’d never had a real boyfriend before. I’d certainly never dated anyone like Chris: financially stable, emotionally secure, dedicated to his career. He was close to his parents, Dr.and Dr.Harris. (His father was an orthopedic surgeon, his mother a dermatologist in Kenilworth.) He took care of sick children. Plus, there was that square jaw, that tousled blond hair…Basically, he was a prince out of a fairy tale.
Sure, he was frequently preoccupied or wiped out from long shifts at the hospital. Sometimes he canceled plans or fell asleep on my couch. Some weeks I only saw him on random nights for sex or Sunday mornings for brunch. But Daniel and Mei-Ling, my closest friends in the house, had started hooking up, hanging out without me, and I was grateful to have Chris, someone to walk with in the park occasionally and talk to at the end of the day. Spending the night at his cushy white-and-gray condo (a gift from his parents when he’d graduated from med school) felt like a vacation from my own life, my own place, where the hot water ran out in the shower before I’d rinsed my hair, where the sounds of sex came through the walls, where the living room always smelled like weed.
