Lucia threw herself back into her chair, as dramatic as any old movie heroine, and the conversation went on around them. With the withdrawal of her adamant refusals, the entire discussion became a round table of comparative…shopping so to speak. “My Earl has very large hands, and let me say, that man’s endowment isn’t relative to the size of his church donations.”
“Earl’s a tight-ass,” Ryhan whispered to Lanie and Nat. “He owns the Pickle Palace.” She nodded. “It’s not dirty. They actually sell pickles. Dills, gherkins, those sweet ones, ooh, and the garlic flavored.” Her eyes rolled back in what Nat could only assume was ecstasy. “Oh my God, and the bread and butter ones.” She moaned a little. “What were we talking about pickles for anyway?” Pickles forgotten, she motioned for them to lean in close. “You girls want to head to the Rusty Hinge after this?”
“Yes.” Nat couldn’t answer fast enough. Although she wanted to get home to start her own investigational study of Jacob’s body, after this tea, she needed a real drink, something best served with lime and salt maybe. “Is now too soon?”
Lucia sighed. “Not for me.”
She stood as the women continued going around the table sharing their…data while Clara tabulated the results in a flip notebook that seemed to materialize from nowhere. Nat was never going to be able to face another man in this town.
* * *
CLARA MILLER: After Lucia snuck out with her little friends, I collected all the data, even some pictures for my article.
The old woman held up a picture—eight by ten, full-color—that the network hadn’t blurred yet, and Nat’s mouth dropped open.
CLARA MILLER: That Lucia Gilden was always jealous of my…prowess with the gentlemen. That’s why she left the tea with her little friends. She had no data to share.
4
Since Jacob and Nat’s television premiere had overshadowed town meeting night, at every fade to black where the network would insert a commercial, Rangers End citizens were invited to share concerns or bring up whatever issue they believed should be addressed. There was a lawn mowing complaint against Stanley Garta. He was blowing his clipping into Mrs. O’Neal’s yard. Jane Carlin objected to the stop sign posted at the end of Three Rivers Lane, and the movie for next week’s movie night was going to be some cartoon that pitted sister against sister. Angela Jacobi thought it sent a bad message and threatened to stand outside and boycott.
Nat rinsed her coffee cup. Leaving Rangers End wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought. Of course, she hadn’t known then, when she made her plan, what she knew now. And of course, she hadn’t fallen for Jacob yet back then, hadn’t joined the Ladies Guild, hadn’t…done a lot of things. She closed her eyes as the lights dimmed.
Jacob’s breath tickled her ear, made her tingle in ways she hadn’t in a while. “You ready?”
Say no. Tell him. Now. Instead, she nodded. “I guess so.”
He gave her shoulders a little squeeze. “Okay, then.”
But she wasn’t ready. She needed to tell him how she felt, what he meant to her.
She nodded her head. Before this night was over, she would take his hands in hers—his very proportionate hands, by the way—and look into his eyes and tell him everything. Everything.
* * *
358 Days Ago
* * *
Jacob was in a mood. He didn’t snap at her or yell, or even slam a door, but there was a shortness to his words—simple one syllable answers—that told her something had upset him. What it didn’t tell her was if she was the cause.
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“How’s the chicken?” She’d spent the last two afternoons with Lucia and her housekeeper, learning to cook for her husband.
“Good.”
She hadn’t expected rave reviews since most of the pieces were much darker than they’d been when Maryanne cooked, but ‘good’ somehow just didn’t cut it for her. Enough was enough. “Jacob, is there a problem?”
He set his fork down, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “No. No problem.”
He was the worst liar she’d ever seen. The good ones did it without the red, flushed cheeks and without requiring such a thorough examination of the dinner napkin in his lap. And damned if she was going to live the next twelve months with a grumpy Gus. She made a show of wiping her mouth, standing, and pushing her chair in. Mustering all the strength she had—and anger gave her a few extra pounds per square inch—she shoved his chair back and settled into his lap. “I’m not moving, and you’re not moving until we talk this out.”
“It’s my problem, not yours.”
Damned if he was getting by with that. She lifted his arms and put them around her waist, held them there until he clasped his hands. “Your problems are my problems. I think I remember reading that in the contract.” If not, she’d get her pen and write it in. “Now, what’s this issue?” She wiggled her behind over his crotch, felt him respond almost immediately. Experience taught her that, as a man, if he didn’t have oxygen flowing through to his brain, he wouldn’t be able to lie.
“Nat…” Her name was his soft sigh. “Do you know that since our wedding we haven’t even kissed?” He shook his head, wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I just thought…I don’t know. I thought there might be at least some…tenderness. It’s just…I sleep with you every night and hold you, and…not even a goodnight kiss.” And until he looked up at her, he wasn’t getting one either, goodnight, goodbye or otherwise. “I mean, I know you…oh, God this is hard…You went out with guys before.”
“I have a reputation, you mean?” That stung.
“No…well, yeah.” He still wouldn’t look at her. And now it hurt.
She didn’t move. She’d wanted to talk this out. Her. It wasn’t his fault if she didn’t like the whole of the conversation. “And you thought along with your marriage contract you’d be getting lucky?”
Lord, the cameraman was getting his money’s worth today.
“No. I didn’t think that.” Now he looked at her, his blue eyes clouded by hurt or disbelief or something, and she wanted to make it disappear. What did that say about her? “Please, Nat, can we just forget I said anything?”
She shook her head, pursed her lips. “No. It’s out there now. Let’s just deal with it.”
“Come on, Nat. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did. You shouldn’t have to pretend you don’t think what you think. So let’s talk.” He closed his eyes, and she prayed for the strength not to cry her way out of this conversation. “Look, Doc, we have to live together for the next year. And we should be able to work things out like adults. Not bottle everything up until we can’t stand each other anymore.” When he sat quietly, unmoving, maybe not even breathing, she wrapped her arms around his neck, toyed with the curls at the back where his hair grazed his collar. “Okay, I’ll start.” Boy, could she use a cigarette right about then. Because she really didn’t have an excuse for holding him off except she didn’t want to ruin their budding friendship. “It’s your bed.” What?
“What?”
“It’s your bed. Well, not just your bed.” She swallowed hard. In for a penny…. “Even when you kissed me at our wedding, when I didn’t know you from a tree stump, I wanted you.” He smiled. “Don’t get cocky. Kissing does that to me. If all those people hadn’t been there, oh my God.” Her eyes went wide and she nodded. “To be honest, I considered it even with all those people there.” And the real Natasha arrived in the room then walked right back out while this one continued spewing her bull. “But, I wanted to know you first. Then there was the moonshine, and I didn’t want you to think I was only doing it—well, doing you, because I was drinking.” She started sliding—maybe on purpose, maybe not—and he pulled her closer. “Then when we got here…it’s your bed. Seriously.”
“My bed.”
She stood and held out her hand. “Come on.” It really was an ugly bed, and that saved her from having to ment
ion her fears, her insecurities. What if he didn’t find her attractive in bed? What if he didn’t like…the things she liked? Still, she dragged him down the hallway.
Halfway to the door, he tugged her to a stop. “Not like this, Nat.”
He thought she was bringing him to the bedroom for a quickie? “Shut up and come on.” She walked backward the rest of the way. She wanted, maybe needed, to see his face as she delivered the rest of her lie. “Now I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt.” Thank God for all those years she’d been in training for this moment. This almost didn’t feel like deception. She popped open the bedroom door. “But this is the ugliest bed I’ve ever seen.” It wasn’t that big a lie. The bed was all dark wood, and what was with the hideous, and kind of scary dragon carving over the center of the headboard?
“It was my great grandfather’s bed.”
“And two hundred years ago, I bet it was the epitome of a love nest, but a bed should say lay on me and all your fantasies are going to come true this one says something like Thou shalt not screw here.”
He ran his hand down the fluted poster column. “Really? So, all these years, it’s been my bed?” He considered her out of the corner of his eye. “But you sleep in it?”
“I do, because you’re my husband, and where you put your head, I’m putting mine right next to it. I just can’t get busy in here.”
“And that’s the truth?”
Nope. “Well, mostly. I wanted to know you first, start this off on the right foot without sex making it all complicated for you.” Honesty? Now? Really?
“For me?”
She hardened her voice. “I’m easy, remember? To me, sex is just two bodies satisfying a need. But you’re the kind of guy who expects a morning-after.” Saying these things didn’t make her feel any better about herself. “I wanted to make sure we had morning after potential.”
“And do we?”
She swallowed hard as his hand cupped her cheek. “Not in that bed.” But Lord, if he kept stroking her jaw, looking at her like she was the whipped cream on his sundae, bed be damned.
“There is a guest room bed. A counter top, a kitchen table. Trusty old sofa.”
“Ugly old sofa.” She shook her head. “And I don’t want our first time to be on your kitchen table.” Oh yes, she did. She’d fantasized about it even that morning. “Maybe the second time.”
He grinned and kissed her forehead. “Then let’s go shopping.”
NAT: It wasn’t so much about the bed. I knew my reputation made it to our wedding before I even had my dress on, and I didn’t want him thinking that was the only reason. Waiting made sense, and kept it honest. It was about attraction by then, about the way he looked at me and talked to me. The way he walked me into a room with his hand on my back, and the way he sighed in his sleep like he was happy. I would have given in sooner if he’d asked. Probably.
No. He was not buying a white metal frame that looked like it had barely survived a world war. Chipped paint. Scuff marks. Did they dig this thing out of the dumpster? And three thousand dollars? “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Listen up, stud muffin. After I’m gone, you’re still going to want to get laid. Am I right?” After she was gone? That was a long time away. And not for nothing, but Jacob didn’t especially want to think about that. “This is a bed any woman would be comfortable getting her freak on in. Look, silk neck tie around one of these babies”—she ran a hand around one of the metal swirls—“and you don’t even need a red room of pain.”
“A what?”
She shook her head. “We’ll stream the video.” She ran her hand over the bed frame once more. “Yay or nay on this one?”
“Nay.”
“I heard a maybe in there.”
He moved to a dark cherry wood sleigh bed. “What about this one?”
She sighed and dropped a hand on his shoulder. Everywhere she touched and every inch below it tingled with need and want and almost desperate desire. “Look, Doc, do you even want to have a hope of doing the nasty with the chicks from the block after we’ve both signed on the dotted divorce line?” In the interest of ratings, they’d had to agree to at least fake a sexual relationship and were forbidden from filing for an annulment after their year ended. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be faking it much longer. Please, God.
But he chuckled anyway. She had a way of saying things that disarmed him, made him forget everything he’d been nervous about. “The chicks from my neighborhood are all about fifty years old.”
“Don’t knock experience, big boy. There’s probably a lot of air left in all those old tires.” He raised his eyebrows and ran his hand over the smooth, hard wood. “This is not the bed that says come get me, big fella. Try again.”
She motioned with a sweeping arm to a fabric covered—was that fur?—headboard, and after a firm no, he pointed out a mahogany canopy bed. She tapped her chin with her index finger. “That one could work. If we draped some sheers from the sides.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Sexy.”
“Yeah?”
“I think you might have a winner, there, Doc.” After a minute of staring at him—and dare he hope smoldering—she ran her hands down the legs of her jeans. “Now, about that crotch, erm I mean crotch…Oh Lord, couch. Couch.” But she grinned.
Shopping with Natasha was a little like taking a six year old to a candy store. She had to touch everything, try everything. She led him to another section of the store, but on the way sat in every recliner, the vibrating ones twice, before they ever made it to the sofas. She kicked off her shoes threw her legs out and jumped, landing on her back on an overstuffed micro-suede in a pale shade of gray with vibrant yellow pillows. “Nat, they’re gonna kick us out of here.”
“Have you never shopped for furniture before? You have to try it out. They want you to. It helps keep return numbers down. Now, come on.” She turned on her side and patted the spot next to her. “Has to be comfy, good for cuddling up to watch a movie without suffocating each other, and…you know, good for…” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “S-E-X.”
Well, when she put it like that. He stepped out of his own shoes and settled in beside her. “How’s that?”
“Roomy enough, I guess if we throw the pillows off.” Which she did. “But now, there’s a board in my back.”
He moved his arms to provide a cushion. “That is hard.” And only part of him was talking about the sofa support.
“Mmm.” She slipped her hand up his arm, under his sleeve and massaged the muscles there, squeezing and rolling his flesh in her grip. There were a number of laws he would break right then in exchange for a blanket and a little privacy.
Teetering on the edge of embarrassing them both and not caring one bit, he tucked her hair behind her ear. “Maybe we should try something else?” And again with the falsetto.
She blew out a sigh. “Yeah.” She sat up and almost knocked him onto the ground. “Sorry.”
The vein in her throat twitched and throbbed as if it was hooked up to high voltage electricity. Good. At least he wasn’t the only suffering. “How about something leather? You know, manly?”
“You ever sweat on leather? You stick to it.” Her eyes glazed and she shook her head. “You have to think functional, Doc.”
“I don’t plan on running marathons with it.”
“I’m talking an entirely different kind of hot and sweaty, you goofball.”
The eye wiggle was overkill. He knew what she meant, was busy envisioning it, and circled her waist as she stood. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m thinking about lots of functions, right now.”
She blew out slow and stood on her tiptoes to whisper, “If I was you, I’d also be thinking on next day delivery.”
“Do they have same day?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna ask.” She kissed his neck, then pulled away. “Just pick one. I’m going to find a salesman.”
Yeah. This was a woman he could see spending the rest of his life loving.
SALESMAN: At home Fashions on Main we aim to please and generally let customers roam the two acre showroom on their own. Of course, I thought we might have to get the hose out for these two.
5
“So what do you think, Nat? Is this a pretty accurate depiction of our time together?” Jacob couldn’t stop staring at her. God he loved her so much, wanted her to stay more than he wanted to draw his next breath. Why the hell couldn’t he just ask her? What was stopping him?
She might say no. Oh yeah. His brain had all the answers his heart didn’t want to hear.
After the last few months, he couldn’t say for sure what she thought. She’d taken to keeping her feelings to herself. He couldn’t believe, even as locked down as she kept her emotions, that she would wreck their family just to get out of this town. Would she…The Nat he first met wouldn’t. That one had been all heart. But she’d changed. Life in Rangers End had changed her.
“I don’t know. I guess so.” She blinked and anything he thought he might have seen in her eyes—regret, anger, dare he believe love—vanished. He guided her back to their seats. His hand fit at the small of her back. Everything about them fit together. Why couldn’t she see that?
JACOB: Not inviting my mom wasn’t about hurting her. It was about…it wasn’t about hurting her. That’s all I have to say about it.
* * *
357 Days Earlier
* * *
“Jacob, it’s your mother.”
Like he wouldn’t know her voice. Like it didn’t zap the horny right from his pants, probably, with his luck, never to return. All morning, he’d been thinking of the moment the new bed arrived, taking Natasha in his arms, kissing her with eight days’ worth of pent up sexual tension. And in one sentence spoken in that nasally tone of reproach, all the desire drained from his body.
The Wedding Plan Page 4
