Ms. Simon Says

by Mary McBride

  Something fell on his chest, and Mick jackknifed up in bed only to discover that he wasn’t sleeping alone and it was his bedmate’s hand that had startled him awake. He fell back onto the mattress with a soft curse.

  He’d fallen asleep on her last night. Way to go, bozo. You had the most incredible sex in your entire life, then rolled over and went to sleep. Christ. He probably snored like a ripsaw, too. Julie used to wear earplugs.

  And here she was again—his late, great wife—right in bed with him. Mick closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. Maybe it made sense that he’d think about her now. After all, it was the first time he’d slept beside a woman since he’d last slept beside Julie in their bed. Other than that, though, the two women had almost nothing in common.

  He turned his head to study Shelby’s face, not that he hadn’t already memorized it. A strand of her long brown hair curved over her cheek and fell across her mouth. Mick reached to gently brush it back, half expecting her eyes to open and then react to his presence in her bed. Would she be happy? Would her bourbon-colored eyes sparkle with joy and the remnants of their lovemaking? Or would the color of her eyes be closer to sour mash and her expression full of misgivings and regrets, a bit like a bad hangover?

  He would’ve been crazy about her even if the sex hadn’t been great. Or maybe it only seemed great because he was so accustomed to Julie’s get-it-over-with-I’vegot-early-rounds-tomorrow attitude and her bone-deep fear of getting pregnant. Hell, with their killer schedules—his when he went undercover, hers when she began an ER residency—they hadn’t even slept together in what turned out to be the final three months of their marriage. Funny thing was, he hadn’t missed it. Instead, it was a relief not to have to beg.

  “Uh-oh.” Shelby’s voice was husky with sleep. “You look like a man suffering from recriminations.”

  He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t seen her eyes open. They were searching his now, all warm and worried.

  “Actually,” he said, “you just caught me wondering whether or not I had any little soldiers, other than the Trojan I used last night.”

  “Do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Too bad for you, Callahan,” she said. Her eyes took on a topaz sparkle as she nestled against him. “I guess you’ll just have to talk to me now.”

  It wasn’t exactly like pulling teeth, Shelby thought, although it was pretty damn close. Mick Callahan didn’t like to talk about himself at all, at least not at any length. But his reticence struck her less as a guy thing than a secret thing. She had the sense that there were some really dark and painful events in his past that he didn’t want to bring out into the light.

  She was, however, undaunted.

  Even as he’d told her all the places his mother had moved to and from when he was a kid, he still managed to tell her very little about the woman herself.

  “She must’ve been beautiful,” she said, “to have had so many men just want to take her along with them.”

  “Beautiful? Yeah, I guess. I was just a kid. What did I know from beautiful?”

  “Well, I always thought my mother was beautiful, even when I was in kindergarten.” Shelby chuckled. “Actually, she looks pretty much the same as she did then.”

  “She is beautiful.” He ran his palm along Shelby’s naked flank. “So’s her daughter.”

  It wasn’t as if Shelby had never heard that before, but she never knew how to respond because—even though she was relatively comfortable with her appearance—she never felt beautiful. Attractive, maybe. Certainly not a bowser. But with a mother who looked like Linda and a blue-eyed, honey-blond sister like Beth, Shelby had always felt that she came in a distant third in the looks department. It had never really mattered to her, but suddenly she wondered just how important a woman’s appearance was to this incredibly good-looking man.

  “I’m okay,” she said with a little lift of her shoulders. “So, tell me about your wife. Was she absolutely gorgeous?”

  Uh-oh. Judging from the instantaneous scowl on his face, it was obvious that she’d hit a nerve.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just curious.” Sensing that their little interlude had come to an abrupt end, Shelby started to move away, but Callahan’s arm tightened around her.

  “No, I’m sorry. I...uh... I’m just not all that comfortable talking about Julie.” He sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “I guess it would be after being married so many years,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He reached for her hand, brought it to his lips for a warm and lingering kiss. “I’m not being evasive here, Shelby. Trust me. It’s just...”

  She put her fingertips to his mouth, stilling whatever explanation he was struggling with. “I do,” she said. “Trust you. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

  A little storm cloud seemed to have moved directly over the bed. In an effort to banish it, she grinned and said, “Speaking of ready... Maybe we should drive into town for...um... latex.”

  The light in his eyes rekindled. It was like warm hazel sunshine. “That’s some pretty good advice, Ms. Simon.”

  “I thought so.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Afew hours later, after finishing Linda Simon’s world’s-best omelet brunch and Harry’s world’s-best-and-stiffest Bloody Marys, both Mick and Shelby were ready for a Sunday afternoon nap. But first there was the little matter of protection.

  Because it was a Sunday, the little burg of Shelbyville was locked up tight, including the closet-sized pharmacy, so they drove another eight miles to Mecklin, the bustling county seat, where the parking lot of DrugWorld was packed. Mick didn’t say so, but he was grateful for the relative anonymity offered by the larger drugstore.

  They roamed the aisles for a while. It had been years since Mick had done any recreational shopping. His shopping strategy lately had been simple. Get in and get it and get out. But now he found himself smiling as he trailed after Shelby in the cosmetics aisle.

  She picked up a cologne bottle, studied it, sniffed it, then sprayed it lavishly on her neck. “What do you think?” she asked him, tilting her head to expose her pale throat.

  “I think I vant to suck your blood,” he replied in his best vampire accent, which Mick thought was pretty funny for a guy who was known more for his bad moods than his sense of humor.

  She laughed, thank God.

  The cologne was light and lemony, beckoning him, and it was all Mick could do not to wrap his arms around Shelby right then and there, and to start licking her lovely, long, lemony neck.

  But apparently they were done in the cosmetics aisle. He followed her next to the large rack of paperback books, where she pulled one from its pocket, squinted at the blurb on the back, then opened her handbag. For one bleak second, Mick thought she was going to boost the book, and that he’d have to turn a blind eye to the crime, maybe even protect her from some overaggressive house dick. Yeah. Okay. He could flash his badge and tell the store detective he’d been following Shelby all the way from Chicago and now he’d caught her red-handed.

  But, then, instead of dropping the book discreetly into her bag, she wedged the paperback under her arm while she fished in the leather depths of her purse and came up with a pair of glasses.

  “Oh, damn,” she said. “They’re broken.”

  Mick offered a quick, silent prayer of thanks that she wasn’t a klepto, then said, “Come with me, little blind girl.” He took her hand, led her to the revolving eyeglasses display, and happily watched her try on at least forty pairs as she consulted the dinky little mirror, consulted him, once even stopped another shopper for an onthe-spot, unbiased opinion of a pair of tortoiseshell specs. The guy liked them. Yeah. Well, who wouldn’t on that lovely face?

  He never knew a drugstore could be so damn much fun, comparable to an amusement park, and he wondered all of a sudden what his life would be like without Shelby Simon right in the center of it and how it was possible that after a mere three days
she seemed indispensable. It was then that Mick figured he was in really big trouble, heartwise.

  Wearing her chosen glasses with the price tag draped over her nose, Shelby grabbed his hand. “On to the important stuff,” she said, pulling him along.

  And there it was, on the wall next to the prescription window—the world’s largest, most stupefying display of condoms.

  He just stared, his arms crossed, his eyes nearly crossed, too. The few times he’d purchased rubbers in the past two years, he’d fed a handful of coins into a machine in a rest room and taken whatever the machine spit out.

  “Any suggestions?” he asked.

  “Well . . .” She peered over the top rims of the glasses. “First off, let’s say nothing turquoise.”

  That narrowed it down somewhat.

  Then she added, “And nothing with a helmet on the package. That’s really offensive.”

  “Okay.”

  “No flavors,” she said, leaning a little closer in order to read better. “And no—omigod!—no glow in the dark.”

  Mick continued to ponder the multicolored display, wondering vaguely about the advertised promises of extended pleasure and heightened feelings on several packages. What was that all about?

  “Ribbed?” he murmured.

  “Hm...”

  While she was thinking that over, he asked, “How many?”

  Shelby laughed and her glasses slipped down her nose. “A lot.”

  On the drive back to the lake, Shelby was peeking into the DrugWorld bag, reading the various claims and cautions about latex on the box of three dozen, and wondering how quickly they might need to make another run for the rubber, when a sharp jolt of reality punctured her happy mood. It had been hours since she’d thought about her situation. She wasn’t even keeping abreast of the news. Of course, that could be remedied with one quick call to a certain Pulitzer Prize–winning guy. She fished in her handbag for her cell phone.

  As soon as Derek McKay said hello, she sensed the urgency in his voice and cranked up the window on the passenger side so she could hear him better.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I’m onto something here,” he said. “Listen. I don’t have time to talk right now, but I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind this letter bomb stuff, Shelby.”

  “Who?” The word came out with a gulp. She couldn’t believe her ears. On the other hand, Derek was such a phenomenal investigator, somebody who could see patterns where often even the police were at a loss, that she probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “I just need to put a couple more puzzle pieces together,” he said, lowering his voice even more. “Gotta go, babe. I’ll call you back in a couple hours and fill you in.”

  “Okay, but...”

  He was gone. Shelby snapped her phone closed and stared out through the windshield, gnawing on her lower lip.

  “Bad news?” Mick asked.

  “No,” she said. “Actually, I think it was good news. That was Derek McKay, one of our investigative reporters. He’s got a strong lead in the case, he says.”

  “What kind of strong lead?”

  There was just a hint of disbelief in his tone. A tiny little whiff of sarcasm. A tincture of professional jealousy perhaps. Shelby really wasn’t in the mood to debate the investigative merits of the police versus journalists. She didn’t want to spoil all the fun they’d been having.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He said he’d call me back later. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “Want me to call the department and check?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was enjoying not thinking about it, to tell you the truth.” She reached across and put her hand on the soft denim covering his thigh.

  “Me, too,” he said as he took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it over hers. “What do you say we go home and take a nap?”

  She grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “You read my mind, Lieutenant.”

  Alas, it wasn’t to be. No sooner had they gotten out of the car and started up the hill, hand in hand, trying not to run, than her father’s voice boomed out from somewhere behind the carriage house.

  “Mick! Hey! Glad you’re back. Come on out here and let me show you something.”

  Shelby groaned, and Mick gave her a quizzical look. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said. “He’s cleaning fish. He wants to induct you into the mysterious brotherhood of ripping out fish guts. He always does this. It’s some sort of bonding thing.” She groaned again.

  “Guess I better go,” he said without too much enthusiasm.

  “You don’t have to, Mick. Tell him you have a headache, or that you faint at the sight of blood. Tell him... tell him fish is against your religion.”

  “Nah. I’ll go.” He handed her the plastic sack from DrugWorld, and flashed her the sexiest grin in the universe. “Here. Guard these with your life.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Shelby watched him walk toward the carriage house, once again appreciating his athletic grace, the way his hair just brushed the edge of his collar, not to mention the way faded denim had a way of doing the most amazing things to the male posterior.

  The Harry Simon Fish Indoctrination and Buddy Buddy School was likely to take the next hour or two, so Shelby went inside the house, tossed their purchases onto her bed, and then went up to the third floor in search of her mother, who would undoubtedly be working despite the fact that it was Sunday.

  Linda was indeed upstairs in her office, but she wasn’t working. Instead, she was gazing out one of the high ballroom windows with a look on her face that was so sad, so completely bereft that her daughter nearly couldn’t breathe for a moment.

  “Mom?”

  The sad expression vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a warm, welcoming smile. “Hi, sweetheart. I didn’t hear you come in. How was your drive?”

  “Fine,” Shelby said, lowering herself into the chair on the opposite side of her mother’s desk. “Lovely. I’ve never seen such gorgeous colors on the trees.”

  Her mother nodded in agreement, and said, “They really are spectacular this fall, aren’t they? I think I read somewhere that it’s because we had such a wet summer.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that.”

  “It rained like crazy in June.”

  Trees, no matter how gorgeous, and the weather, no matter how wet, were the last things Shelby wanted to discuss just then. What about you and Dad? she wanted to shout. What about this stupid separation? And why were you just looking as if the world were about to end in the next fifteen minutes?

  Obviously anticipating that sort of outburst from her opinionated offspring, her mother lifted up a sweater from her desktop, spread out its long sleeves, and asked, “What do you think of this?”

  Oh, God. What did she think? It looked just like all the rest of them to her. Elegant. Colorful. Unique. Expensive. Another wonderful Linda Purl design. What was she supposed to say?

  And that’s when it suddenly hit her—the perfect solution to her parents’ problem. Shelby wondered why she hadn’t thought of this before. Linda Purl, captain of the chichi knitting industry, purveyor of unique designs, overworked female dynamo, ought to hire Harry Harry Quite Contrary, attorney currently sans portfolio and sans anything meaningful to do, to be her CEO.

  It was positively inspired. Shelby couldn’t wait to suggest it. She lifted one of the sleeves of the sweater. “This is so beautiful, Mom. It’s really stunning. You know, if you didn’t have to spend so much time on paperwork and sales and stuff, you’d have way more time to design.”

  Her mother nodded agreeably while she fussed with a loose thread on the front of the garment.

  “If you had somebody you trusted to help you,” Shelby continued. “Someone really smart, with plenty of experience and a certain—oh, I don’t know—a certain savoir faire...”

  Her mother glanced up at her. “Are you volunteering, honey?�
��

  “Me? No. Jeez, I hardly have time to get my own work done. But . . .” Shelby leaned forward, her gaze zeroing in on her mother. “Here’s a thought, though. This just occurred to me. What about Dad? He’d be perfect.”

  She was prepared for a minor explosion, for her mother to dismiss the idea right off the bat, and she was already lining up arguments to make her case when Linda just beamed at her and exclaimed, “What a wonderful idea, Shelby! Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Well . . .” Shelby sat back, so stunned by her mother’s response that she barely knew what to say. For a second, she questioned her own hearing. She had called it a wonderful idea, hadn’t she? “Well . . .” she began again. “You probably would have thought of it, sooner or later, Mother.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, sweetie.” Linda folded the sweater in front of her and set it aside, then smiled again across her desk. “After all, you’re the one in the advice business. I think it’s absolutely inspired. You should mention it to your father.”

  “Really?” She tried not to sound shocked that her mother was apparently taking her advice—and seemingly without a single grain of salt—for the first time in the history of the world.

  “Absolutely,” her mother said. “You should definitely mention it to him.”

  Shelby stood up. Jazzed. “Then that’s just what I’ll do. Right now, too.”

  Linda listened to her daughter racing down two flights of stairs, jet-fueled by the prospect of giving advice to her father.

  “Shelby, Shelby, Shelby,” she whispered, shaking her head, at the same time wondering if she’d just done something very foolish that would come back to bite her on the ass in about ten minutes.

  It was the perfect solution, dammit, for Harry to become active in Linda Purl Designs in some capacity. If nothing else, it would give him a reason to travel with her, which was something he longed to do, and give her the incentive to fit a little golf, or sightseeing, or idle pleasures into her business trips. Of course, those trips wouldn’t include some of the exotic destinations Harry might have on his agenda, but New York and San Francisco and Phoenix could be exotic in their own way. At least they’d be together. And who knew? London and Paris might not be out of the question if the business continued to thrive. They could do this, dammit, if each of them could just compromise a bit.