A Regular Joe: A Regular Joe / Mr. Right Under Her Nose. Carol Finch

the hot chocolate is ready.”

      He pivoted to see her smiling at him, and he just couldn’t bear to be alone with her until he pulled himself together, got these spinning emotions under control. If he didn’t leave now, the feelings squeezing at his heart, and this abrupt sense of desperation, were going to overpower him. He might do something stupid—like appease the sense of vulnerability that had overcome him by seducing Mattie, right here, right this minute. He just couldn’t do that to her, not after he promised he would give her time to make her choice.

      “I gotta go,” he said as he whizzed past her, refusing to glance at her.

      “Joe? What’s wrong?” she called as he made fast tracks toward the front door. “Are you feeling okay?”

      “No, definitely not.” He was feeling too much, too fast, too intensely…and it scared the hell out of him. He had to sit himself down and think. He would go to his apartment, park himself in front of that gigantic mural of towering pines and sky-scraping mountains, and stare at them until he pulled himself together.

      “Joe?”

      Mattie’s shoulders slumped when the door closed on his heels. Damn, he’d been in a strange mood. Curious, Mattie retraced her steps to the bedroom and stood where he’d stood, peering at the painting of an old homestead and family. Is that what had shaken him up?

      “Why on earth…?” Mattie’s voice evaporated when she remembered what had compelled her to paint this picture. This was the family she decided she was never going to have, after she gave up on meeting the man of her dreams, a man who shared her need and desire for a loving family, shared her appreciation for art and crafts.

      Had this painting reminded Joe of what he didn’t have?

      Mattie couldn’t answer that question, because Joe had only confided bits and pieces of his past to her. Oh yes, he told her that his parents had taken off, much as hers had. Told her that his grandparents had raised him. But she didn’t know where he’d worked during the years in between. Didn’t know who had come and gone and influenced his life. Obviously something was bothering him, something he hadn’t confided in her.

      “Give it up, Mattie. Dr. Freud you’re not,” she told herself as she ambled to the living room to sip the two cups of hot chocolate. “This is your life, and you liked it well enough until Joe showed up. Just be thankful for what you have and don’t dwell on what you don’t have.”

      Having given herself that sound advice, Mattie flicked on the TV news broadcast and lounged in her chair.

      There was no sense wasting time trying to figure out Joe, when she couldn’t even diagnose what caused this restless, edgy feeling that was thrumming through her. Must be the caffeine in two cups of cocoa, she tried to convince herself. But deep down, Mattie had the unshakable feeling that the affliction ailing her went by the name of Joe Gray. She was becoming emotionally involved with him, whether that was a good idea or not. She sensed that he was only going to be a temporary resident in Fox Hollow, considering what he’d told her tonight. If she let herself fall in love with the man she would get her naive heart broken.

      Take a few risks, Shortcake. You’ll always regret the opportunities missed.

      Mattie vaulted to her feet, shut off the TV, the lights, then went to bed. The last thing she needed right now was Pops’s devil-may-care philosophies spinning in her head. What she needed most of all was a good night’s sleep.

      5

      SITTING IN THE DILAPIDATED recliner, Joe stared at the large mural of pines, a crystal-clear lake and towering mountains. A sense of peace stole over him—as long as he concentrated on the lifelike scenery. He still wasn’t sure why the painting hanging over Mattie’s bed had shaken him so badly. He hadn’t spent much time dwelling on what lay in his future, or regretting his past, just worked to build the company until it exploded into a multimillion-dollar business. But that painting represented a circle of family he’d never had as a kid and probably wouldn’t have as an adult. He’d programmed himself to be satisfied with the life he led—until he just couldn’t take it anymore.

      “God, listen to you,” Joe muttered at himself. “There are people all over the planet who would like to be in your shoes.”

      On impulse, Joe bounded up to retrieve his cell phone, then punched in his grandfather’s number. The phone rang three times before J. D. Grayson picked up.

      “Hello?”

      “Gramps, it’s me.”

      “D.J., where the hell are you? I’ve tried to reach your cell phone, but all I get is voice mail,” J.D. said. “Your junior executives have been calling and leaving messages all week, wondering where to reach you so you can tell them what to do.”

      “That’s why I skipped town,” Joe replied. “It was time to force the whole lot of them to earn their salaries and stop depending on me to make every decision.”

      J.D. obviously noted the undertone of bitterness and frustration in Joe’s voice, because he chuckled. “Told you that you’d spoon-fed them too long. They definitely need weaning, but it’s not like you to just take off to parts unknown without leaving a forwarding address. So where the devil are you, D.J.?”

      “First you have to promise you won’t disclose my whereabouts,” Joe requested.

      “Me? Shoot, no. I won’t tell those candy-ass executives where you are if you don’t want me to.”

      “I’m in Fox Hollow, working incognito as hired assistant at the local Hobby Hut.”

      “What the blazes are you doing that for?” Gramps crowed.

      How to explain without sounding like the irresponsible, self-serving father who had bailed out to follow his own rainbows. It was a touchy subject with Gramps. “Because I needed to get back in touch with the reason you and I started designing and constructing crafts and knickknacks in our garage workshop,” he said finally.

      Dead silence.

      “Gramps?” Joe prompted.

      “Tell me you’re not turning into your father or your social butterfly of a mother,” J.D. said, then scowled.

      Joe was afraid Gramps would get the wrong impression. Sure enough. “No, I’m not my father, Gramps. I just needed to take the off-ramp from the fast lane of life and wander the backroads to recapture the enthusiasm the business held for me when it was just the two of us pitching our woodcraft creations to other companies.”