by Thea Devine
She’d been a Longford’s about a week and already she had found some real satisfaction in setting up some basic office systems and procedures. It was instant gratification. Mr. Longford said either no or yes and the thing was done. She had forgotten the world could work that way.
By the sixth day, she had cleared all the extraneous papers from the desk and either filed them or entered the information on a spreadsheet, and she was working on a payroll spreadsheet for Mrs. Longford. And she was also helping out in the store, and she found a certain enjoyment in that too.
She learned that the Heaths were putting a two-story addition on their house with a bath, they said, and Truck was going to do the plumbing; and that Mr. Emberly had a chronic sink problem, but Mr. Longford said he only came in because he wanted company. She met Maria Bonnell, the carpenter, and Junie de Longo, the artist who designed custom-made frames.
She heard Mrs. Williams was ailing—Al the tile man couldn’t get into her house to finish up her porch floor; and that the Hillmans were retiring and selling their summer home for the kind of money that hadn’t been dreamed of in this town before and Eddie Gerardo was handling the sale.
At one time or another, a whole range of townspeople came in that door looking for a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, a glue gun, advice on how to hang wallpaper, or fix a door that squeaked.
And to chat. Carrie was amazed that customers had time to stand around and chat, to ask after someone’s family, to give some details about their own. To talk about what was going on in town, in local politics, in Washington, and the world. And sometimes, someone would talk to her about her mother. Then after the social chat was all over, there was still time to get back to work. She’d never done business that way, and was surprised by how much she liked it.
People knew her now. They waved when she came out of the store at noon, and as she roared up Main Street on her way home. They greeted her in the supermarket and at the post office where those sorry-we-found-another-candidate-more-qualified-than-you letters kept dribbling in.
There wasn’t going to be a call from New York, she thought, or Boston or L.A., and she began distancing herself from the disappointment those letters brought her.
What she had here and now was enough, she thought; she could build from there.
TRUCK CAME to Longford’s a day later to pick up some adhesive Old Man had special-ordered. It was about fifteen minutes before noon. The store was quiet, Henry Longford was going over some papers, and he motioned Truck to the back of the store.
Truck hadn’t seen Carrie since the weekend, hadn’t had time for anything but work and the gnawing yearning that was his constant companion whenever he thought about her. He was damn intrigued by the daily reports Old Man was giving him about how she had taken over Longford’s back room, and he was curious to see Carrie in her new realm.
She was checking a printout against some handwritten numbers as he came to the door. And she looked fabulous, dressed in a classy cobalt-blue silk dress, accented with chunky silver jewelry.
Carrie could feel him there, looming, sending her senses into a tailspin. Why today, why now? She looked up, girding herself to be calm and collected, the sexy-lady way. “Hi, Truck.”
She was good, he had to give her that. He didn’t know any other woman who could maintain that disdainful tone in the face of all the heat they had generated. But a warrior princess had to have a cool head especially when she was trapped. Especially when they generated sparks just by looking at each other.
So Truck didn’t waste words. He had more potent weapons. “That adhesive Old Man ordered?”
“It’s in,” she said coolly, wholly aware of the heat and tension between them. Instant on, like the flick of a remote. “In the back. Jerry will know.”
What was it about him? she thought, unable to keep her eyes off him. It was easier to think that Truck was the sum of his parts—the tight jeans, the cotton shirt slung casually over the black T-shirt, those knowing eyes, those wicked workman’s hands...
Don’t go there—
“Put it on my account.”
An insanely unsatisfactory conversation.
“Done,” she murmured. If that’s how he wants things to be...
“Thanks.” The ball was in her court, Truck thought, his body tight with desire. She could not mistake that he wanted her, that right now, this instant he wanted her. But she was so damn determined to have it all her way, to hide, suppress and deny everything that was between them. What else could a warrior princess do when she was backed against the wall?
Carrie had turned her attention back to the pages she’d been scanning and he gazed at her for one long moment more before he turned and walked out the door.
He was almost at the store warehouse when he heard the long low sound of her faltering whistle.
NOW WHAT?
Carrie was shaking at her audacity. After this many days, after there had been no contact, after he’d said he was willing and then he practically ignored her, what did a woman do?
She whistled.
...so you never have to be seen with me, you never have to talk to me...
Taking her at her word. Giving her exactly what she’d said she wanted.
And it was so damn unsatisfactory she wanted to scream.
What did she want?
The phone rang. She jumped.
Jeannie. Lunch.
“Not today,” Carrie said, swallowing hard. “I have some stuff to get done today.”
Stuff. Truck was now relegated to the bin labeled stuff.
...I’m willing—tonight and any night...a hot body in the dark and no contact during the day...I’m willing—
If he had heard her. If he even still wanted her.
I’m willing, she thought, a stifling excitement catching her breath. Anywhere. Anytime. Her body went liquid just thinking about it, just imagining it.
It didn’t matter where. It didn’t matter when.
What did you call that?
What name did you put to this hot need that could only be filled by him?
Carrie wanted him and she’d asked. When he came, she’d be waiting.
TRUCK CAUGHT UP with her before she left town on her cycle, running her down near the supermarket parking lot.
“Park that thing and get in here.”
Her throat went dry; she grabbed the first space she saw, and a minute later, she climbed in beside him.
He was in a fury, edgy, sexy, slightly out of control.
“Don’t say a word. I have no time today, none. I’ve got twenty minutes. Yes or no?”
She felt a thrill go down her spine. “Yes,” she whispered.
He gunned his way down Route 30 toward the Pond Road at an obscene speed. “There’s no time, no goddamn time...” He swerved down the track to her house, jammed on the brake and cut the engine.
“Get over here.” He pulled her to him. His kiss was raw with need. He pushed the seat backward, as far as it would go, and he plundered her mouth, his left hand cupping her breast, feeling for the taut point of her nipple.
Immediately, her body eased as the familiar molten sensation streamed from that pleasure point and pooled between her legs.
She needed this, she wanted this. She couldn’t live without this, without him.
Without him?
Had it come to that—already?
“Let’s go in the house.”
Carrie could barely move, her knees were so weak, her body so aroused. She barely made it into the bedroom before he had off his jeans. Her excitement escalated. He was so big, so thick, so there. Her hands shook as she took off her dress and underthings.
“I’ve been like this all morning. I can’t wait.” He reached over for her.
She sank onto the bed, and he came after her.
Pushing, pushing, pushing, rocking against her, murmuring against her ear, her mouth, yes, yes, yes...taking her mouth again as she yielded everything to him and his ferocious need.
&nbs
p; “You’re so hot, you’re always so hot”
“For you,” she whispered.
He caught his breath at the words. She knew it, she knew it, thank God, she knew it.
“Good,” he whispered back, slowing down his rush to completion. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t want to think,” she murmured. “I can’t think...”
Words to drive him crazy, drive her crazy. It would be so easy to let go, right now, to give in to his overwhelming need to drown himself in her, just as he had intended when he’d intercepted her. Suddenly he didn’t want to; suddenly he wanted to forget everything he had to do today, and just stay with her all day and all night long.
Too much, too soon. It wasn’t enough. It was starting not to be nearly enough.
So what did you call that? What would she?
Or did they have to define this powerful connection at all?
Truck shifted his weight. This was all the definition he needed: his body imprinted on hers, as close as a man could get, no mistaking what he wanted and what he felt, and with that thought he came, his body jolting against hers, and wished it was forever.
OLD MRS. SWANSON DIED, and Carrie went to the funeral. Jerry, the gangly teenager who worked the front of the store, was headed off to college, so Carrie took over some of his duties.
Mrs. Longford got sick. Carrie did the payroll. She learned the stock. She modified the ad that Longford’s ran in the local paper. She rearranged the front of the store.
She lunched with Jeannie frequently, and sometimes with Jeannie’s friends. They went to the movies, out to dinner, or shopping at the outlet malls. She went to the theater, to concerts, and museums.
She painted her living room and bedroom, rearranged the furniture, bought a new coffeemaker and priced a used car.
But when she found herself considering an evening course at the high school in the fall, she knew something had changed.
She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know why, but suddenly it seemed as if she really was planning to stay.
The second week after her Longford’s ad ran in the paper, Tom came to the store to ask if she would design an ad for him.
She was already working on the chamber of commerce project, and she suddenly felt as if she was flexing her creative muscles for the first time in a long time.
“But you’re not going to leave us.” Mr. Longford had said when she’d told him about doing the ad for Tom as an outgrowth of what she’d done for the store.
“No. I’m enjoying it too much.” She had heard herself say the words, she had been shocked she said the words, realizing that she really meant them.
“Well, the place grows on you,” Jeannie had said when Carrie related the conversation to her over the phone that evening. “Maybe you have to grow up to appreciate it.”
“Maybe you have to grow up altogether,” Carrie had said wryly. “Maybe the years in New York were my teenage years.”
“So what about your teenage crush?” Jeannie had murmured. “Don’t deny it. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Carrie had groaned. “Maybe I’ll know it’s serious when he brings me home to Old Man.”
All she could think about was Truck as she sat at the kitchen table, trying to come up with a snappy ad for Tom’s vet service. But Truck hadn’t made a move to ask her, even after Old Man’s prodding. He was a thief in the night, stealing her heart, her soul, drugging her up with his prowess and his passion.
This is what you want...just whistle—
Was it what she wanted? It was so much easier this way. He gave her everything she could handle and more. But she couldn’t have his nights, and she couldn’t have his days. And when they met on the street, he was courteous and noncommittal.
So you never have to be seen with me, you never have to talk to me, you never have to make a commitment to me—
She was greedy for him, and wary of his power.
And she chafed against her self-imposed restrictions, knowing in her heart she wanted more, more and more.
But if she gave in to her deepest emotions, she knew exactly what the end would be, and as much as she hated it, she knew she wanted her freedom more.
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE voted to accept her proposal for a promotion piece extolling the trilake area of Segers, Paradise and Hunter Cove that would be distributed to travel agents and run as an insert in papers all over the country the following June.
Now she was really busy and brimming with ideas.
“Carrie doesn’t have time now for her old friends,” Jeannie teased her one night when they were out to dinner with some of Jeannie’s friends.
“And where is Eddie tonight?” one of the women asked.
“Making a sale,” another one commented, and everyone laughed.
Jeannie laughed. “Hey, some of those working couples can’t come to see a house except at night.”
“Yeah, but Eddie,” a woman named Mavis said. She turned to Carrie. “We’ve telling her for years to dump the guy. And now that she’s looking sharp and sexy, what does she decide to do? Give him another chance.”
“Jeannie knows what she’s doing,” Carrie said staunchly. But did she? This whole sexy-lady business had turned everything inside out for Jeannie who was still covering up her heartbreak. If Eddie was doing anything untoward, no one knew about it, but obviously these friends did.
“He’s selling a house,” Jeannie said.
“Okay, okay.” Mavis threw up her hands. “He’s selling a house.”
“Or he may not be,” Jeannie said later as she drove Carrie home. “Maybe he’s not. Chances are he isn’t. So what does that make me, after all these years?”
“Loving. Trusting. Faithful. Loyal.” Trapped. And Carrie felt disloyal thinking that. But hadn’t she been feeling that way too? “What are you going to do?”
She didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t know,” Jeannie said. “I think he blames you for what he calls my liberated tendencies. He thinks I’ve had a brainstorm or something.”
“He was never the brightest guy,” Carrie said tentatively. “What does he expect?”
“That marriages last forever.”
“That’s pie in the sky.”
“Mom’s apple pie. His parents have been together fifty years, if you can imagine it He can’t picture anything less, as long as anything goes for him.”
“I’m sorry, Jeannie.”
“It’s okay. It was going on long before you came back. Everybody knows.” She pulled into the track down to the house. “Here we are. See you tomorrow.”
“Take care.” Oh, but how did you take care of a situation like Eddie? How did Jeannie stand it? How did any woman?
Never, Carrie vowed. It was just that kind of thing that made her so wary. Never. No man would ever trap her like that.
And then she walked into her house to find Truck, naked, waiting in her bedroom.
I HAVE TO COOL THIS DOWN. This is going nowhere. I don’t want it to go anywhere. I have to cool this down.
Carrie sat at her desk in Longford’s, drawing circles all over the blank page of a pad. Jeannie’s situation was driving her crazy. And her own was driving her mad.
She was not in love with Truck. She wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t.
Actually, I thought it was love...
Those words had torn her up. What did he think it was now? Lust. No, that wasn’t right. She was the one who didn’t want to get involved.
And she didn’t want to remember the pleasure of looking at him, being with him last night.
Why couldn’t things be simple, without emotions getting in the way?
She had to end this...this “thing” with Truck. It was doing neither of them any good. And it wasn’t as if Truck hadn’t known from the outset how she felt about things.
The problem was more didn’t equal less. Having more just made her want more. But more of what? She didn’t want to answer that question, because she would hav
e to give away too much.
Therefore, she would give up Truck.
All right. That was point number one on her list of things to do.
Number two—work. Tom’s ad; the mock-up of the presentation piece for the chamber of commerce. She was a day or two behind on that.
Number three—Jeannie. She should check on Jeannie and make sure she was okay.
Number four—end this thing with Truck.
Number five—end it, and then make sure she would be okay.
“EDDIE WAS,” Jeannie said. “He was with a client.”
“And you know this—how?” Carrie said, impatiently twirling the phone cord as she sat at her desk at Longford’s.
“I saw them. I went by the office—I don’t normally do that anymore, but I did. After I left you, I went by the office, and he was there, with them. So he didn’t lie.”
“You’re sure?”
Jeannie sighed. “Look, you know the worst of it now, so why would I cover for him?”
“Because you’re so used to doing it,” Carrie said.
“Not anymore,” Jeannie said. “Never anymore.”
So that was that. For today. But why oh why couldn’t Eddie be the husband that Jeannie wanted? Carrie wondered, finding it hard to concentrate after talking to Jeannie. Why wasn’t anything in life clear-cut?
She would never understand men like that; but it was also true that she knew nothing of the dynamics of their marriage. Nothing about how they related to each other.
Nothing about anything, even my life.
Even so, her life seemed to be going more smoothly than she anticipated. In mid-August, she finished the final version of the trilake proposal, and two more local businesses recruited her to expand their statewide advertising on the basis of the ads she’d done for Longford’s.
She was beginning to think she might make a little career here.
And she’d still done nothing about Truck.
No, not so. She had allowed herself to drift along. That was what she’d done about Truck. She’d just plain left things the way they were.
Time for a change.
