No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Jennifer Greene

  “I like it.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “If you weren’t still sick,” he said firmly.

  “I’m not ill anymore,” she assured him.

  “So you think. But you haven’t tried to get out of bed yet.”

  “The last thing I want to do is get out of bed.”

  “Caro…” Alan suddenly wasn’t smiling. He released her hands and leaned over her, pushing back her hair, studying her forehead and eyes and eyebrows and temples and cheeks, savoring, loving. “Once you’re well, once I seriously get you in bed,” he said quietly, “I may never let you out of it. Know that.”

  A lump formed in her throat. She reached up to touch his bearded cheek. “I love you, Alan.”

  “And I love you. More than I can ever seem to find the words to tell you.”

  She shook her head. “I never needed words. But I needed—” she hesitated “—to be sure.”

  “Of me?”

  “Maybe of myself, of us.” She made her tone deceptively light. “I always wanted to be one of those assertive women who blithely jump into bed whenever they feel like it, who don’t hesitate to express their own sexual needs and feelings. There’s only a thin line between those women and me. I’d like to tell you that line has something to do with high standards, but in truth it has more to do with cowardice.”

  “Cowardice?” Alan echoed.

  She snuggled closer. “First times, darn it. First times aren’t fun. First times are made up of worrying that things won’t go well and worrying about what your partner thinks of your body, and worrying about doing the right things, saying the right things…”

  For a moment, Alan was quiet; then he probed gently. “He hurt you, didn’t he, Caro?”

  “Who?”

  “A man. Sometime. Your first?”

  She closed her eyes, feeling oddly shy. “It was years ago, and shouldn’t matter anymore, but ever since then… Love’s supposed to take away the inhibitions, but for me it makes them worse. It isn’t sex that scares me, Alan; it’s just that I worry about the first time. I just…didn’t want you to walk away.”

  “Caro, look at me.” He gently nudged her chin up with his hand. “First times for a man are made of worrying he won’t perform to the lady’s needs and satisfaction. Worrying she’ll discover his paunch. Worrying he won’t find those particular things that turn her on, those things that happen so naturally between lovers who know each other.”

  She waited a moment, absorbed what he had told her, realized that it was the same for him as it was for her. “You don’t,” she ventured finally, “have a paunch. And I wouldn’t care if you had.”

  “And you have a beautiful body, woman.”

  “You haven’t seen it yet,” she reminded him.

  “I saw it last night.”

  “You weren’t even looking then. You were busy bullying me into wearing this horrible nightgown—”

  “You have to be joking,” he said dryly. “You have a tiny mole just under your right breast.” His lips brushed her cheek. “A faint scar on your lower abdomen, less than an inch, the size of a sliver.” He kissed her throat, then traced a line of kisses up into her hair. “The tips of your breasts are a dusky rose, not brown. Tiny nipples. And on the inside of your left thigh…”

  “Alan.” Color was rising in her cheeks faster than a river in a flood.

  “It’s going to be fine between us, Caro.” He leaned back again and possessively tucked the covers around her. “If I’d known that was all you were worried about, we would have been in bed long before this.”

  It wasn’t all. Carroll touched his cheek, remembering fears that the sexual spark wasn’t strong enough between them, wanting some kind of guarantee that what they had was enough to last for a lifetime, and yes, wanting something more than a love that had happened so easily.

  The spark was there, hot enough to burn her. The compatibility and honesty were there; she could never have shared feelings like this with another man. And for weeks now she’d suffered that agony-ecstasy of being in love—a feeling she’d been afraid she’d never experience. “What about you?” she asked quietly. “Alan, you must have had doubts about me, about what we are together.”

  “A few in the beginning—but you won me over awfully fast,” he teased lightly, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. A fear of first times might have been part of the reason she’d shied away from intimacy with him. He knew that wasn’t all. All along, he’d suspected that her strongest hesitations had to do with doubts about him and about her feelings for him. Now would be the best of times to coax her to talk about these feelings…except that the lady tucked so neatly beneath him still had ashen skin and eyes with a lingering fever brightness. “I hate to say this,” he drawled.

  “What?”

  He kissed her nose. “I have a date with little Susie’s adenoids in two hours. And you’re going to eat breakfast before I leave, which means…”

  “You want me to let you up.” Her arms tightened firmly around him.

  “And after I bring you breakfast in bed—” he gave her a playful tap on her behind “—we’re going to see how sassy you are when you try to walk. Two bits says you can’t make it to the bathroom and back without wobbling. And once I go, you have strict orders to stay in bed all day, doing nothing but sleeping and drinking fluids and taking aspirin. Caro, if I find you dressed when I come back at dinnertime, you’re going to be in big trouble.”

  “You’ve been threatening me with big trouble ever since you came in last night,” she remarked with total unconcern. One eyebrow lifted suddenly. “Alan, you did come in that window.”

  Alan slid out of bed and reached for his clothes. “We’re back to that again? Grown men do not come in windows.”

  “I know the door was locked. And maybe I was a little muzzy-headed…”

  “You were more than muzzy-headed. You thought you could fly.”

  Carroll propped the pillows up behind her, never taking her eyes from his face. “You know,” she said slowly, “that was probably the most romantic dream I’ve ever had…a dark stranger suddenly appearing at my window on a black night.” She motioned him silent with her hand. “Yes, yes, I know. I just imagined it was you. And I guess I was pretty out of it, because I remember the strangest sensations. This incredible delight that a tall dark stranger would go to so much trouble. And this thrilling, breathless anticipation of being ravished, of not feeling the least bit threatened. Actually, maybe that’s not so strange. I mean, only a tall, dark stranger who loved me very much—who was capable of an incredible amount of love—could think up such a…” She smiled at his expression. “Never mind, never mind. I know it wasn’t you.”

  Alan tugged his dark sweater on, shaking his head as he walked to the door. “I swear, Caro, you have a vivid imagination. You’ll do anything to keep me out of the kitchen, won’t you? I can handle scrambled eggs, I swear it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Furthermore, you should have storms put on those windows.”

  “Yes.”

  “A burglar could easily reach you by climbing that tree.”

  “Yes.”

  “And as for a nice, demure woman having dreams like that…” He shook his head in despair. “You’ve shocked me. Seriously shocked me.”

  “Sorry,” she said gravely. “Better wipe that grin off your face, Alan.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  But she heard his burst of laughter all the way from the kitchen.

  She survived Tuesday, joined the living on Wednesday, and felt unquestionably human by Thursday…having little choice in the matter. Her momentum to get well arose from a man solicitously feeding her gourmet Vietnamese, Hungarian and Peruvian specialties. Not only was her kitchen never going to recover, but Carroll came back to life out of sheer hunger.

  Just home from school on Friday, still wearing her coat, she grabbed a carrot stick from the refrigerator and munched on it as she dialed the number of Alan’s
office. She’d already tried to reach him twice from work. Both times he’d been with patients.

  The man deserved to be paid back for the care he’d given her for the past three nights. Her refrigerator was still stocked with more citrus juices than she could drink in a lifetime. He’d brought her daffodils. He’d bullied her into staying in bed as if she were some kind of invalid; then he’d beaten her at Scrabble. And if he hadn’t stayed with her those nights, at least he’d stayed until she fell asleep…and if she didn’t fall asleep at an hour early enough to suit him, he’d read her medical journals, the content of which was enough to cure the most hardened insomniac.

  There wasn’t the slimmest chance she would let him know if she ever caught a sniffle again. Safer yet, she’d just stay permanently healthy. In the meantime, she had in mind repaying him by blowing her month’s budget on the most expensive dinner in town…as soon as she caught up with the man.

  “I’m afraid he took off for the hospital,” June Goodman told her wearily. “That man is harder to track down than a roadrunner in the desert.”

  “Are you expecting him back this afternoon?” Carroll asked.

  “No, he canceled his last afternoon appointment before he went to the hospital—this was an emergency.” June paused. “Carroll?”

  “Yes?” Her lips were already tugging into a smile. Alan’s nurse was irrepressible.

  “I figured by now you’d have exerted some influence and gotten him to shave off that beard.”

  Carroll chuckled, still munching on her carrot. “I keep thinking he’ll get tired of it.”

  “Well, unfortunately, he’s decided that you like it. I told him if he was going to skate on ice that thin, he’d better be prepared to walk on water. Listen, you need any help from me, you just say so. I’ve been managing that man for six years now. The trick is nagging him, pure and simple. He can’t stand it.”

  Carroll laughed again. “I never did perfect the fine art of nagging.”

  “I know. That’s why he loves you. All right, now…I’ll leave him a message you called just in case he does come back here.”

  Hanging up, Carroll decided to catch Alan at dinnertime. For an hour or two, it didn’t matter anyway. The apartment was begging for a vacuuming, and clothes were piled up in the hamper. She’d let things go while she had the flu.

  Two hours later, the apartment was clean, and Carroll was blissfully luxuriating in a hot shower when the phone rang. Grabbing a towel, she hustled for the phone.

  The caller was a man with a baritone so gloomy and distracted that she didn’t initially recognize it as Alan’s. “Sorry I missed you earlier, kitten.”

  Abruptly, she stopped rubbing her wet hair with a towel. “Rough day?”

  “Fine.”

  He didn’t sound as if he’d had a fine day; he sounded as if he’d been in the front lines of a war. All the more reason, Carroll concluded, to take him out for a quiet dinner. But when she voiced the invitation, there was an unexpected hesitation at the other end.

  “Caro, there’s nothing I’d like more…but I’m honestly beat. Will tomorrow be all right?”

  “Of course,” she said warmly.

  But it wasn’t. The minute she hung up the phone, she knew it wasn’t. Alan was entitled to time to himself, and he was also entitled to be tired, but the tone of his voice hadn’t been just weary or preoccupied. He’d sounded seriously depressed, and Alan wasn’t a moody man.

  In her bedroom, she pulled on old jeans and a sweatshirt, then reached for a hair dryer. He’s entitled to a low day, too, just like the rest of the human race, she mentally informed herself, but fifteen minutes later she was picking up her car keys. If he’d wanted to talk something out, he would have said so. Haven’t you ever simply wanted to be alone? Of course you have.

  She picked up her purse. Carroll, he’s seen you for three days running and given you every free minute he’s had. Give the man a break.

  Actually, she had every intention of giving him a break. She’d back out lickety-split if he showed the first sign of simply wanting solitude, but she had to see him. She had a very distressing picture in her head of Alan sitting alone in a dark apartment through the long hours of the night, needing someone and with no one there. The picture wouldn’t go away.

  Besides, there was the question of health. His health. Alone with only his own cooking talents, there was no telling what he’d feed himself. On the way, she picked up some food from a takeout Chinese restaurant.

  Balancing two bags filled with white cartons, Carroll rapped on the door of Alan’s ground-floor apartment and waited. When there was no answer, she turned around and again identified Alan’s red sportscar in the lot. He was definitely home. Frowning, she cocked her head to look through his living room bay window, but the view from the steps revealed only that all the lights were off and that his favorite recliner was unoccupied.

  After knocking one more time, she tried the doorknob and pushed. The door wasn’t locked. Inside, she found only dusky darkness and total silence. “Alan?” she called softly, and stepped in.

  Adjusting the packages in her arms, she switched on a lamp to dispel the late evening gloom, then continued to the kitchen. From the doorway, she saw him, his elbows on the kitchen table and his face in his hands.

  Her heart ached as if she were the despairing one. Loving him made his hurt hers. She didn’t need to know the nature of the problem. Actually, she didn’t need to know anything at all. “Hey, you,” she said softly.

  His head jerked up instantly. His shoulders squared, exhaustion was banished from his features, and an almost-smile touched his mouth as he stood up. She could have kicked him. More than that, she could have kicked herself, for so belatedly realizing how often and successfully he hid his real feelings.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” Alan said.

  “Of course you didn’t hear me. I was tiptoeing—and don’t worry that I’m going to stay. You said you were tired—so am I,” she lied. “Which was when it occurred to me that you might not feel like fixing a meal. So…” She motioned to the bags full of Chinese food. “I’ll get the plates and silverware. Beer?”

  He shook his head. “I’m out. I think there’s some milk.”

  “That’ll do. Want to eat in front of the TV?”

  He hesitated. He honestly wanted no one anywhere around him, least of all Carroll. He wasn’t in a romantic mood. He felt as exciting as yesterday’s newspaper, and he doubted he could follow a conversation, much less be the kind of man any woman would want for company.

  In that short time he’d hesitated, though, Carroll had whisked past him. She turned on the lamps in the living room and tuned in to the news on TV. Then she pushed aside the coffee table and dragged the huge pillows in front of the couch to serve as footrests.

  Five minutes later, she was stealing war sui gui from his plate. It was the first chance he’d taken to really look at her. Her legs were curled under her, and she wasn’t wearing a trace of makeup. Her hair was freshly washed, and soft little spikes wisped around her face. “I’m leaving right after the news,” she promised him.

  When the news was over, she mentioned that she was leaving right after the rerun of a favorite movie. But when that was over, she was busy rinsing the dishes in his kitchen. She returned to the living room carrying his mail and the paper. Handing him the front page and sports section along with the mail, she took the women’s section and crossword and flopped down in his recliner.

  “I’m leaving right after this,” she told him.

  By then, he knew well enough that she wasn’t leaving. She didn’t say a word, his brown-eyed witch, just lay in that chair with her legs dangling over the side and scratched on the puzzle.

  At ten she made popcorn—unhealthily, lavishly slathered with butter, exactly the way he liked it—and propped herself against a pillow at his feet, frequently lifting the popcorn bowl so he could reach it. Some dumb blood and guts movie was on TV. The hero hadn’t changed from the fi
rst airing. He remained unwashed, misunderstood and macho.

  “Caro…” Alan said finally.

  She shushed him, bringing the first smile to his face in hours. Not that she didn’t have a right to enjoy the movie, but she was staring in fascination at the commercial for a deodorant. Such a maneuvering woman. And as if he’d invited her there, she suddenly stood up, stretched and made it look perfectly logical for her then to resettle next to him on the couch. Her fanny close to his pelvis, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Her eyes never once left the screen.

  He found himself playing with her hair, a strand at a time. It smelled like spring and felt like silk. Her skin was warm when he tucked her to his side, her head on his chest, her thighs close to his. Her breathing was as even and regular as a ticking clock.

  He closed his eyes, suddenly needing her next to him the way he needed air, water, food. Her being there didn’t change anything. He still felt grief well up in him like a flood, like a cold, dark wall too high to climb. He needed to deal with those feelings alone, the way he’d always dealt with them, but if Carroll had tried to leave, he knew he would have stopped her.

  She didn’t try to leave. In time, she simply reached for his remote control switch and turned off the sound. The climax of the picture was a streak of color and action, undoubtedly a tribute to misunderstood macho men everywhere. He barely noticed, wasn’t even aware she’d turned off the sound.

  “I delivered a little boy around five years ago,” he said quietly, just as if they’d been having a conversation.

  Carroll didn’t turn around to face him. “You’re not usually involved in obstetrics, are you?”

  “No, this was an emergency. I can still remember the day this scrawny little man bolted into my office as if demons were after him, claiming his wife was in labor and there wasn’t time to get her to the hospital. They lived right across the street, and the hospital isn’t that far from here—I tried to tell him to calm him down, but he wasn’t listening. He couldn’t listen; he was coming apart at the seams. And he was right, she’d been in labor for hours but had thought it was another false alarm—the contractions were irregular, Caro; there wasn’t time.”