Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

  The band, who had been murdering an 'N Sync medley, paused long enough for Mick and Caroline to step onto the floor before they burst into the opening bars of Sweet Caroline. Even the other two couples on the floor moved farther toward the edges so that they could take center stage.

  "You've passed the acid test," Mick whispered and drew her close, swaying slowly to the melody rather than in time with it.

  "The what?"

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  "D'you think it was by accident that you were invited to sit with the Vatican Council?"

  She stopped swaying and pulled back. "What are you talking about?"

  Mick slowly spun her away, twirled her under his arm and pulled her back, until they were both facing Sheila and Annie. The two women sheepishly looked away. "My mother and Annie are about as subtle as sledge hammers." Caroline smiled, reading in Mick's eyes that as sour as his words sounded, he was pleased that an important part of his family approved of her. "Maybe we ought to be dancing at arm's length," she said. "Before they go for a second ballot."

  "No chance. I've been waiting for this all night. All week, in fact." With that he pulled her close against him, until every inch of their bodies touched.

  Caroline's heart hammered and her mind went into overdrive. What message was Mick trying to send, and to whom? The green-eyed women who watched, mentally flexing their claws? His mother and aunt? Or to her? If so, she heard it loud and clear.

  The monsignor had not been the only one tossing back a shot or two of straight rye, she realized. Mick was certainly not drunk, but he was relaxed and comfortable enough that if they kept swaying as they were now he'd soon be sending up a very private flag.

  "Mick, it's really hot." She started to squirm out of his grip but he held fast.

  "Take your jacket off, lass. Everyone else has."

  "I can't."

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  "Why not?" He slid a finger under the first button, which immediately opened under his urging. "Just loosen a button or two," he said, "Like this ... glory be!" The neckline on Caroline's dress dipped from tiny straps into a deep wide V, leaving little to the imagination, especially with the enhancements of a sewn-in bra that pushed everything together and way, way up high.

  "Sweet mother." He groaned and pulled her closer still. If he had been a fourteen-year-old, his body could not have responded quicker. Murmuring something in Gaelic, he ran his hands along her arms and guided them until they circled his neck. Without thinking, she threaded her fingertips through the soft curls that brushed his collar.

  Arms wrapped around her waist, in slow deliberate steps he led her away from the center of the floor, toward the far side and the path that led into the vineyards, now dark except for the dim glow of the kerosene lamps.

  "Mick, what are you doing?" she whispered, trembling as her alarm grew.

  "Shh."

  His breath tickled the edge of her ear. "Mick, we can't do this. Your mom's—"

  "Relax, lass. We're only dancin'." By then they'd danced to the edge of the floor, only a few inches from the path. The song ended almost on cue, and the strobes that had been flashing during the faster music, dimmed to near darkness for a slower song, enough that if anyone watched, they never saw them leave the floor.

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  "Mick, where are we going?" Caroline tried to keep her voice low, although she heard an edge of panic. A trek down a dark path with Mick held so many possibilities she grew weak thinking about them. The dangers were equally great. Her purse, with the postcard and birth certificates lay atop the table, next to the monsignor's elbow.

  * * * *

  MICK WALKED BEHIND Caroline, his hands encircling her waist while he propelled her forward. The kerosene lamps stopped a few yards ahead, plunging the path into darkness except for the light of the moon. She still heard the music, but Mick's, "Shh, my sweet Caroline, just trust me," drowned out everything but her desire.

  "Mick, wait ... we can't."

  He stepped around her, took her hand and urged her toward a small abandoned gazebo. Three of the sides were boarded up, and only a slice of moonlight filtered in through a broken slat in the ceiling.

  Two steps led up to the entrance. Mick took them in one stride. Caroline hung back until he tugged on her hand.

  "Please, Caroline," he said, "please."

  * * * *

  IGNORING THE WARNING in her brain that said over and again, Don't do it, Caroline! the urgency in his voice propelled her forward. She tried to say, "No, we can't," but her words and her resolve were melting. Heaven help me. She gave him her other hand, too, and followed him into the darkness. 238

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  They kissed as soon as they stepped inside the sagging structure, ravaging each other's mouths with the frustration and longing of the days and hours they'd waited for this moment. Without breaking apart, Mick steered them toward the shaft of moonlight, and in seconds, with Caroline's help, he unbuttoned her jacket and flung it behind him.

  * * * *

  BATHED IN THE pale light, Caroline looked like a goddess to Mick. Perfect, unblemished skin, as soft and creamy as the silk of her dress, and as yielding to his touch as a gossamer kiss.

  "Lovely, lovely, lovely," he said in a hoarse whisper, every fiber crying out to touch her but afraid that if he did, she might disappear and vanish into the night.

  "Kiss me, Mick," she whispered. "Everywhere." She slid her hand up the front of his shirt, reveling in hard muscle against her fingertips and the even greater hardness pressing against her thigh, urging her legs to part. She locked her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoes and drew the inside of her calf along the outside of his leg. Instinctively, he bent his knee until he caught her leg and deftly hooked it over his thigh.

  * * * *

  "CAROLINE, CAROLINE," He said again and again. The thin straps of her dress gave way, freeing the breasts his mouth longed to taste. Tiny breasts, warm in his palm, and taut enough for him to taste their sweetness.

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  Groaning, he ground himself against her while his hands searched for the hem of her dress. In seconds, it was bunched around her waist, allowing him the freedom to slip his fingers inside the waistband of panties, to kneed her tight bottom and slide along satiny soft lips until he thought he would go mad.

  Somehow Caroline had managed to slip his arms out of his suspenders and toss his cummerbund aside. Only his trousers and a swatch of silk separated them. "Touch me," he cried. She hesitated long enough that he took her hand and guided it home. "Touch me."

  * * * *

  BREATHLESS, SHE RAN her hand the length of him. No man she'd ever been with felt harder, nor larger, nor more ready to take her to places she'd only dreamed of going before. Her heart was shouting, Go for it! With trembling fingers, she began to unzip his fly. That's when good sense took over. One minute she was pliant and ready, the next she went rigid in his arms. "No, Mick, no, we can't," she said, fighting to catch her breath. "Not here, not like this. Not the first time."

  "No, Caroline, no," he pleaded but he'd already loosened his grip and let the hem of her skirt waft to her knees.

  "Caroline, you want to, you know you do." He cradled her face in his hands. "I won't hurt you, I swear I won't."

  "Oh, Mick, I'm not afraid." She placed her hand over his and drew it to her lips, where she pressed a kiss into his 240

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  palm. "I want you to make love to me. You touched me, you know how much."

  In the moonlight, she saw the frustration in his eyes lessen.

  "How much?" There was a trace of roguishness and challenge in his voice, but when she looked away from him, he slipped the straps of her dress ont
o her shoulders. Very lightly, he slid his fingertips across her breasts before he tucked them back inside her dress. Then he pulled her close, and despite the heat of the evening, he felt the gooseflesh standing on her arms and the painful awareness that his erection still thrummed against her.

  "Stay with me tonight, Caroline. Promise me you will."

  "I promise," she said, but like the moonlight and all things ephemeral, she'd lied.

  Leaving Mick in the gazebo, Caroline hurried along the dark path, anxious to put distance between Mick and her. She hadn't even stopped to button up, but her fingers flew along the front of her jacket just as her feet flew along the path. A few yards from the turn, where the kerosene lamps would again light her way, Caroline ran smack into Gabrielle—

  Gabby—one of Mick's sisters and one of the twins.

  "Oh, Caroline, we wondered what happened to you," Gabby greeted her. "Have you seen Mick?" Even as she asked the question, Caroline noticed Gabby's gaze returning twice to Caroline's mouth, and what must have been smears of lipstick.

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  "He's—he's..." Her voice trailed off as she raised a hand and pointed a finger behind her while she covered her lips with her other hand.

  "Out in the vineyards?" Gabby looked over Caroline's shoulder into the dark.

  "I-I think he wanted to clear his head a little. He should be along in a minute."

  "Well, good." Gabby looped her arm through Caroline's.

  "We'll be doing the bridal dance in about ten minutes. He and Marina are the first couple up." They started walking together. "I'm sorry we haven't had time to visit tonight. I hope Mick brings you back to the ranch soon." Caroline kept a brave smile that could fool neither her heart nor her head. She'd wait until the wedding dance started then she'd walk away and take with her any chance that she and Mick would ever be together.

  * * * *

  TEN MINUTES LATER, almost to the second, Mick rounded the corner from the path and walked across the dance floor. The wedding party had already lined up for their grand entrance. Marina, looking like a snake had just bitten her, stood in the lead, holding Mick's jacket.

  Out the corner of his eye, he saw Caroline standing beside the table where his cleric cousins still sat. He didn't dare turn and look or heaven only knew what his body would do next. He had never wanted a woman as much he wanted Caroline. Maybe because he'd never found a woman before who fit him so perfectly, physically, and stood an intellectual giant among 242

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  her peers. An intoxicating combination, and as if he'd been drugged, Mick felt powerless to combat the effect she had on him. Tonight would surely be one of the greatest nights of his life.

  "Here I am, darlin'," he said to Marina, who grudgingly smiled and helped him with his jacket. "Right on time."

  * * * *

  CAROLINE WAITED UNTIL the single women had lined up to vie for Ramona's bouquet. In the chaos of happy screaming and flailing arms, she ducked away.

  A few minutes later, she turned onto the Gravenstine Highway and headed home, knowing how Cinderella felt. At the stroke of midnight, her gilded coach, too, had turned back into a pumpkin, and she'd left her Prince Charming behind. 243

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  Chapter Eighteen

  "DANG IT!" CAROLINE cried out in frustration and pounded her balled fists against the tangled sheets. It was 3:45 a.m., and she'd been lying awake every second of the night. What had she expected? That Mick would come after her?

  Beg her to return and hold her close, reassure her that someone had simply played a mean trick on her, that their height, the color of their eyes, and their undeniable simpatico were only coincidences and not the result of kinship? Or that he'd climb on his white charger and rescue her from the evil gods of shared DNA?

  He'd done neither. Mick was not a man to wear rejection gracefully. As soon as he realized Caroline had broken her promise, she knew he'd find solace in the arms of the lovely dark-haired Marina.

  "Dang it!" she cried again, tossed the covers aside, and turned on cable TV. She'd never stayed awake through an entire Perry Mason episode before. Hopefully, he'd once again provide the surcease from pain that roiled in her stomach and tore at her heart.

  Somewhere around four, she drifted off, and what seemed like only minutes later, awakened to a thundering roar.

  "CAROLINE SPRING, OPEN THIS BLEEDIN' DOOR OR I'LL

  BREAK IT DOWN!"

  She sat up and looked around. The television droned on, with a seasoned newsman mechanically rehashing yesterday's 244

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  headlines. It was 7:17 a.m., and brilliant sunlight streamed through the blinds.

  "CAROLINE!!!!"

  Don't answer it. Make a clean break.

  Except that Mick had a master key. If he didn't use that, she had no doubt he'd simply put his size sixteen boot right through the door.

  "CAROLINE, I'M COUNTIN' TO THREE THEN I'M COMING

  IN. ONE..."

  "Mick, stop it! I'm coming," she shouted. Barefoot, she stomped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open.

  "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" an unshaven, blearyeyed Mick shouted in her face. "You promised me. Twice you said you'd spend the night. You snuck out like a coward the minute I turned my back. Somehow, Caroline, I never figured you for that. If you didn't want to be with me, you only had to say no."

  His hair was mussed, and he still wore the formal pleated dress shirt and trousers that were a part of his tux, although like Caroline, he stood barefoot. A dark rust shadow covered his cheeks. One fist clutched the top of the door and crushed in the crook of his other arm, he carried his jacket and cummerbund. His formal dress shoes lie askew across the hall, as if he'd flung them against the door of his apartment before he started pounding on Caroline's.

  "Come in, Mick," she said softly. "It's time I explained." She'd never seen him looking worse—or better. How easy it would be to go into his arms and beg him to make 245

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  everything right, but there was still so much to say and so many consequences to think about.

  "Caroline, the time for teasin' is over." He'd quieted down but the force and urgency in his words left no room for misunderstanding. "I've got feelin's for you, lass, but you skirt 'round the truth every time I ask a question. We're not kids, Caroline. It's time we dealt with each other like adults."

  "You're right, Mick, you're absolutely right. Now come inside, please."

  "If you can't be honest with me, I want you to pack your things and move out. You can't have it both ways." His voice was stiff, profound pain written in his face. Caroline barely found the breath to answer. She knew the look of that pain, had seen it in the mirror last night when she came home. Her heart was breaking, and Mick's was, too. I've got feelin's for you, lass. Not the most poetic phrase she'd ever heard, but it had come from his heart, and no sonnet by Browning could match its sincerity.

  "Mick, I don't want it both ways." She reached for his hand.

  He snapped it away, out of reach. "Tell me what you're doin' then. Don't keep me dangling like a bleedin' puppet."

  "You're right." She locked her hands behind her back. Maybe that was best. If their hands touched, she knew they'd forge blindly ahead, driven by an undeniable force rather than reason.

  After a long, long minute Mick cleared his throat and walked past her and into the living room. With legs spread wide apart, arms folded tightly across his chest, he stood in 246

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  the middle of her living room, a thundering Zeus in rumpled formal wear. "All right. I'm ready." Caroline had tossed her sequin handbag on her bed. "I have something to show you that will explain everything. Now, please, sit down." He did as told while she disappeared into t
he bedroom and returned in less than the count of five. In her right hand she carried the postcard, in her left the two birth certificates. "Here." She handed them to him. "I haven't told you the truth, Mick, because I don't know it." Looking at her with suspicion and distrust, Mick took the documents. She heard him draw a long breath. He turned the postcard to the picture side. Without a word, he walked to the window, where the light was better. "What's this about?" he muttered, bringing it close to his eyes. Surprised, Caroline saw he was incredibly myopic, that he'd obviously been wearing contacts, which she'd never noticed. As though reading her mind, he turned to her, sour-faced and defensive. "I'm color blind, too, okay?" Caroline remembered the way his clothes had hung and marked in his closet. Why hadn't she thought of that? But so what? At least fifty percent of all men had problems seeing true colors, and there was certainly no shame in being nearsighted.

  "Mick, I..."

  "What does this mean?" He turned the face of the postcard toward her. "Why did you do that?"

  "I didn't do that. Someone sent it to me. Look at the birth certificates. One is mine and one is for a baby girl born a couple of days before I was, in another state." 247

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  He shrugged, not connecting the threads that seemed so clear to Caroline. "So what?"

  "Since I was a teenager I've been receiving invitations to Mahoney family reunions. All of them but that one were mailed from a small town in New York. If you look at the Smith birth certificate, you'll see she was born in that small town in New York, not in Dallas where I was supposedly born."

  He continued staring at the papers with no sign of recognition of the truth.

  "All of them were sent to the address where I grew up. I didn't find the postcards or the Smith birth certificate until after my mother died. Don't you see what that's saying to me—to us?"

  The truth finally dawned. Mick dropped the papers like they'd been set afire in his hands. "Bloody hell, Caroline, you're not tellin' me—"

  "Oh, yes I am, Mick. I think those documents were sent to tell me that I'm a Mahoney. Don't you see why I have to stay away from you? I might be your sister." Silence hung between them so long and so loud Caroline thought she might burst into tears out of sheer frustration. Mick never moved. He stood there, staring at the papers at his feet. She saw the vein in his temple jump, and just as she was about to beg him to say something, he stooped down, swept them up and tossed them carelessly atop the coffee table. He wore an unsettled expression, a mixture of disbelief, hope and frustration. "Damn it, Caroline," he spat out while he turned in a circle, searching for something. 248