I’m the only one who missed the fun and the sharks. I had my own little shark swim going on after Miss Hazel called. It seems she had company in her house, company who wanted to talk to me. Again. Damn it all to hell. I stood on the back porch and slammed my own kitchen door after I sent the other three on down south to observe those fish without me.
Rhett had flown to Tulsa, of course, and he had taken a taxi to my mom’s house. She was bringing him across town to see our new old house.
“He sure wants you two to get back together,” Miss Hazel murmured before she hung up.
CHAPTER 10
After Joe, Joe Junior and Audi left, I sat out on the steps where Joe and I had been sitting when Rhett had called from Texas. That had made Joe fairly angry. What would be his reaction to actually meeting my ex? Now that Miss Hazel was bringing Rhett to the house. I was pretty sure she would be pleased if Rhett and I got back together because she thinks divorce to be an abomination, although she agrees that it is sometimes necessary.
I knew she’d stand by me, whatever I decided. Rhett must really be missing us to have flown all this way to Tulsa during his vacation time. Apparently he was alone. Or at least, Miss Hazel hadn’t said anything about anyone being with him. I hoped to hell that I would not be required to entertain my replacement.
Audie had asked to stay home to see her dad but I’d told her I needed to see him alone, and that he would still be in Tulsa when their trip to the Aquarium was finished.
“I want you to remember everything, so you can tell me more than I ever wanted to know about the sharks, I’m just sick about missing the trip with youall.”
I could tell she was torn. She wanted to see her dad, but even more she wanted to go to the new aquarium with Joe Junior, or J.J., as she had begun calling him. It wasn’t hard to persuade her to go on with the Caseys.
Joe kissed me again before they left and he did it right in front of the two kids.
“Think about this,” he’d said when he’d pulled me to him, “When you’re chatting with your ex.” I wanted to hang on to him. His words and his mouth on mine promised me there would be more to come. Much, much more. What I needed to do was focus on the discussion and the decisions which were to be laid out before me by my ex, rather than making a fool of myself over a kiss. A kiss! A kiss was nothing. Right? Yet his kiss, Joe’s kiss, haunted me. I wanted more.
I felt like crying out when they walked toward Joe’s pickup but I controlled the impulse to call Joe back.
What was wrong with me? What was disturbing me? Not Rhett, I thought. What was twisting me in the wind? I knew I could answer that question with a single word, one word alone. Joe. I wanted more than a kiss from the man. He’d moved into my life with a kiss or two and a very caring attitude, something I’d longed for for years. I wanted to feel loved, needed and important to the man in my life.
When Rhett stepped out of mom’s brown Chevrolet he was a bit of a shock even though I’d been expecting him. I’d almost forgotten the “Rhett Prideaux Charisma.” He did look awfully good. He wore a handsome tan Armani suit which his tall, slim, wide shouldered figure displayed very well, and he carried a small leather overnight bag with him. Mother didn’t stay but she did give me a look that meant, “I’ll stay if you want me to, Lori.” Or maybe she meant, “Do you need your mommy?”
I smiled reassurance, shook my head slightly, and thanked her for bringing the man to me. I kept my voice low. “We have to come to terms, Miss Hazel, and it’s better if we do it with just the two of us here.” She nodded and got back into her car and drove back down the alleyway and turned toward home. We both stood silently watching until she appeared on the road below.
Rhett walked from the parking space to stand at the bottom of the kitchen steps where he paused for a moment to look around. He talked as he gave everything in the neighborhood the once over. I tried to force my mind onto what he was saying but my thoughts were really with the three who were viewing the new aquarium. I wondered whether they were missing me.
“Not a very good part of town.” He smiled as he said it but I knew he meant every word.
“Audie and I like it.”
“Well, you have a great looking wall; all that hand laid golden stone, and the house sitting on a hill by itself with plenty of yardspace. I suppose something could be done with the place. How many lots do you have?”
“Three full lots and two half lots.” What the hell did he care how big my yard was? “Want to go inside, Rhett?”
He nodded and took the ten concrete steps two at a time, as if he were hurrying toward something important. I followed him up, opened the old fashioned screen door for him and motioned him inside, then followed him in.
He seemed somewhat bemused by the large almost empty dining room where the couch sat on one side of the desk and our only chair sat on the other. He took in the totally empty living room after he skidded through the galley-like kitchen. In the kitchen we had a stove and a refrigerator and the old fashioned white painted wooden cabinets which stretched all across the north wall of the room. One of the things I truly loved in the house was the butcher block counter tops. No formica or any other plastic here at all. Never had been, I believed. A large oblong porcelain sink centered the butcher block expanse under the room’s only window but that whole lovely, old fashioned, wood and porcelain layout wasn’t what interested my ex-husband. He was busily checking out our living conditions…specifically our lack of furniture. And he wasn’t impressed.
“God, Lori, youall are living in an empty house?”
“Well, it’s a nice clean, newly painted, empty house.” I answered.
“Do you sleep here?”
“Yes, indeed. We live here, dear.” I moved ahead of him into the hallway that separated the two bedrooms with the bathroom in between.
“Mattresses? On the floor? I don’t want my family sleeping on the floor.”
“Well, okay, only half of the people here are your family, but you’re welcome to buy and have delivered beds or any other kind of furniture you’d care to purchase.” I smiled sweetly at him. “We girls have spent our $200 each, several months ago.”
I must say, he had the grace to let his gaze drop. He knew he’d made the wrong accusation.
“I thought you’d be working. I figured you’d have a job by now, Lori.”
“I am working. I have a contract job with a professor at TU and I won’t get money until the job is done. Your daughter and I and several others have also been working on this house, with Miss Hazel making our house payments so far…that good little woman.”
“How much is your house payment?”
“$290.00 per month. That’s why we chose this area. We, that is, my mother, can afford that much, at least for awhile. Of course, I’ll pay her back the instant I can. She has already made two payments for us, and she put up the $2000.00 I used for a down payment and cosigned the note for me so I could buy the place.”
“You two don’t need to live like this.”
“Are you willing to cough up some money, Rhett, or is this just ‘he-man prattle’ for your own benefit?”
The flash of rage in his eyes was quickly extinguished. He’d decided anger wouldn’t serve his purpose here. I knew him well. I could still read the man with very little effort. He’d have a great deal more to say, no doubt. This was a man who was the soul of generosity if he cared about you or wanted you but he was selfish to the bone if he felt no love for you. Yeah. I knew the man. After my comment his next move would be to the money clip in his right hand trouser pocket.
“Not much here, Lori. About $300 or so.” He pulled out bills held by his 18 karat gold dollar sign money clip. I knew the weight of the gold because that had been my Christmas gift to him a few years earlier. “But I think it will help a bit until we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“And what sort of agreement might that be?”
“I don’t know, Lori,” He looked at me, openly exasperated. ”We need to com
e to some kind of meeting of the minds.”
“Our minds did meet, Rhett, back in Manila. Remember? You wanted a new household, which you have now installed in the house where we lived together, I suppose, and I wanted to be in Oklahoma, which I am. So what do we need to talk about?” I reached for the money and put it into the pocket of my shorts, money clip and all. He owed his daughter this, and a good deal more.
“My money clip?”
“I’ll just keep that for Audie.”
His turquoise eyes glittered but not with anger, with something else. I think he appreciated my boldness. I knew he had more money than the bills he’d taken from his pocket.
“Let me take your jacket, dear.” Can you believe I was dropping back into the ‘wifey speech’ groove. “It’s a bit warm this afternoon. We can sit here and talk. Audie should be home before too long. She wants to spend some time with you.” I stood behind him to receive the coat and yeah, I could see it, the folder of traveler’s checks in his back pocket where he usually carried them.
I took the proffered jacket to hang it on a wire hangar in the closet in my bedroom. Well, maybe I hadn’t fallen too far into the ‘wifey’ mode. Never in all the years past would I ever have put his suit coat on a plain wire hanger. Of course, that’s all I had to offer in this house but I didn’t even care. I would have used the wire hanger if I’d had a dozen padded suit hangers available. Sneaky and ugly I was but satisfied at being so, I dropped his bag on the floor of the closet.
“Let’s sit at the desk, Rhett. Audie and I are using the poor thing as our dining room table just now. You can have the couch or the chair.”
“I hate to see youall living like this.”
“We’re okay. How about you? When do you go back to the P.I.? How is your marriage going? And the baby? When is the baby due?”
“Anytime now. The baby, I mean. I left Nan at the company guest house in Lubbock. Easier on her.” He touched the back of my hand with one finger. “Listen. I want you and Audie to go back home with me.”
“Now there’s a picture. You, me, your pregnant Filipino wife and your teenaged daughter from your first marriage. Now, that is one Norman Rockwell family portrait, for sure.”
He traced a line on the back of my hand. “I’ll send her back.” He paused for one beat. “Nan, I mean. The baby too.”
I stared at him. My heart went completely cold. The little boy had gotten all the candy he wanted. Now he wanted to shove the candy dish away and forget about it until he was ready for candy again.
“You can talk to Audie about going back with you. I know she’d love to be in Manila again. She misses it.” I glanced out the window. “They’ll be home fairly soon, I think. They were only going to Jenks to see the new aquarium.”
“Who were those two guys?”
“Our handy man and his son.”
“Socializing with the help, Lori?”
“Yes.” I said nothing else. I didn’t need to justify my behavior. I didn’t owe the man a thing, not even an explanation.
“Are you having a thing with the guy?”
“None of your business, darling. Now, anything else you want to talk about?”
He looked around the empty dining room and then into the really empty living room. “You wouldn’t have much to pack.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’ll see.”
For the next half hour Rhett filled me in on the people we had known, how the job was going and he gave me greetings from our housekeeper, Dionisia, and from Audie’s Yaya. I was at ease. He seemed nervous. It was hard to believe that I could sit and talk with my former husband and feel nothing, nothing at all, even a bit bored. I was thrilled when that bit of knowledge floated through my mind. I was over him! Completely.
When J.J. and his father came into the house with Audie, I let her make the introductions. Joe’s warm hand on my shoulder made me smile while Audie told her dad about shark behavior. Joe’s hand on my shoulder made the muscles in Rhett’s arms bunch up under the sleeves of his white linen shirt. His mouth thinned.
Finally, I suggested that Joe, J.J. and I step outside so Audie could talk with her dad by herself.
“No need,” Rhett put up his hand as if he were a traffic cop holding back a string of automobiles. “I’ll just spend the night and we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
“Sorry, dear heart, you aren’t spending the night here. We aren’t set up for guests just now. Joe can take you to a hotel, or we’ll call a taxi for you.”
“Lori!” Rhett’s voice cracked like a teenager’s first attempt at sounding like a man.
“I don’t need the aggravation, Rhett. In fact, I’ll make that call now.” I opened the cell phone, the taxi number at my fingertips. I’d used that cab company several times when we still had a few dollars.
“Never mind. I’ll take him wherever he wants to go.” Joe’s voice was a low growl.
Rhett looked at me in disbelief, then when he realized I was not going to relent, he asked, “My coat? My bag?”
“I’ll get them.” I turned to Audie. “You want to go to the hotel with your dad? He’ll get a suite so you can each have a room and that’ll give you two time to talk.”
She nodded.
“Get your toothbrush and your p.j.s.” She came out of her room in seconds and I stayed on the porch as they all walked toward the pickup in back. I felt as if I could see the dark clouds of anger emanating from the two men as they walked away. I hoped they wouldn’t hit each other in front of Audie. Joe Junior walked hand-in-hand with my sweet girl. He just looked baffled by the obvious electrical storm that seemed to be brewing between his father and this stranger.
I heard Joe’s pickup coming up the alley about half an hour after they’d gone. I listened as he gave instructions to his son, then Joe Junior drove away and Joe walked across the yard to come up the kitchen steps and into the backdoor without knocking.
“I left your ex and your girl at the Adams-Mark and I told my boy to pick me up here in the morning,” he said, and he grinned with triumph!
Men! Don’t you love ‘em?
CHAPTER 11
Joe and I became very well acquainted that night. I must report that Aunt Bea had been right. Here, for fourteen years I’d been thinking that I had won the prize in the sexual lottery, that Rhett was the ultimate answer to any question one might have in the bed… if he was in the mood, of course.
Now I have the distinct impression with Joe that should I ever find myself in the mood when he is not, he would very shortly come around to my way of thinking. Wow. No more deprivation in bed if I hung around with this guy. Nice to know. Not just nice but really, really good to know.
I had seen his golden chest hair during our labors together. In my bedroom I found out that he was gold sprinkled from head to toe with a sweet little golden bouquet nestled in the groin area. Not too much, not too little, just enough to show that he was of the masculine persuasion. But do you want to hear about all that we did? In detail?
I loved the shape of him, the huge body like a nest of security when he drew me to him. I know I am a tiny person even though I feel quite large when I consider my size. In any gathering I usually feel as though I am a large person. And my high-heeled leather ankle boots make me feel really tall. Anyway, maybe it’s my voice? But with Joe, I melted into his largeness, his hardness, his muscularity with the realization that I was tiny and that he could embrace me with Joeness all around me. I gasped whenever he released me from a kiss. I didn’t care to be released. His hands learned the shape of me as I burrowed into his arms. It has been a terribly long time since I’d stood in the middle of a room kissing and being kissed by a very large, very interested male. One might even say that for the last few years of my marriage I had been a deprived wife, although not entirely. And my last few weeks with Rhett had been quite sexually charged. But this was something else. This was a lover scooping me as close to his heart as he was able. I was totally engulfed by th
e man. He seemed to fill the whole empty dining room with his presence.
And he smelled good. He smelled just a bit like newly sawed wood and something else. Something specifically Joe Casey in fragrance. Not Joe Junior’s perfume. No. This was the very personal aroma of an aroused, well washed, clean limbed, mature human male who had been out in the warm Oklahoma sun for an afternoon. And underlying all the lovely natural odors, there was just the barest trace of some sort of petroleum, or perhaps gasoline. Certainly nothing offensive and maybe I was the only person who could ever ferret out such a thing. I’ve been told that with my strong sense of smell and my acute hearing, I could have been a successful detective or perhaps a forensics expert had I wanted to do such a thing. He smelled marvelous. I breathed him in with the perfect intent of savoring his masculine bouquet for later remembrance. Maybe I’m in for a lifetime of being sexually turned on each time I go to the convenience store to fill my car with gasoline?
“All I have to offer is a mattress on the floor.” I murmured into his chest.
“I’m sure glad I brought those things over,” he answered and chuckled, I loved hearing the rumble against my cheek. “Hard wood floors are sure good to look at but I suspect they could be awfully hard on backs and knees, especially for we kids over forty.”
We walked arm in arm into the bedroom.
Before he took me into his arms again he stepped away from me. “I’m a pretty big guy,” he explained. “I’ll go get Audie’s mattress and then we can sink into foam rubber comfort.” I looked down. The freebie mobile home mattress on the floor with my mother’s sheet wrapped around it got my five star approval. My big Joe could not only talk the talk, he could walk the walk.
He carried Audie’s folded mattress with no more strain than if he were carrying the daily newspaper. He spread her bedding under mine, smoothed the sheet back on and beckoned to me. I went to the floor. The sun had almost set but I didn’t turn on the bedroom light. The streetlight on First Street, just below my house on the hill, would give us enough light to enjoy our closeness but not so much as to embarrass us since this was a get-acquainted session. I wanted him to kiss me again but he had other plans.
Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens Page 12
