“Maybe Ryan stayed away because he didn’t know you were having problems and getting a divorce. Did you even tell him you were separated when you knew him? Or that your ex got another woman pregnant? Or that you might someday want to date him when you got your life straightened out?” Taylor asked.
“Why would I tell Ryan all that? I didn’t know him that well then. Besides, a married woman doesn’t date—even when her husband is living with his pregnant girlfriend. I know both my parents did it, but I just couldn’t do that,” Emma said firmly, surprised at the idea, because it truly had never crossed her mind to share her failures with a client, even one that was a friend.
“Ryan sure looked interested in you Emma, especially for a man who hasn’t seen you in a long time,” Taylor said.
“I honestly don’t know what that was about. Believe me, Ryan Carmichael never said or did anything that indicated he would have been interested in me if I was available. That little flirting display the other night was way out of character for him,” Emma said, having done a good job of not thinking about it until Taylor and Chloe brought it up. “I haven’t called Ryan back because I do like him. I’m simply not interested in getting involved with another man who’s just going to leave me. I’m the kind of person who’s in it for the long haul. I may seem like I haven’t learned my life lessons about love, but I have, Taylor.”
Taylor reached over and covered Emma’s hand with hers. “I’m sorry if I implied otherwise. Of course you have, and I shouldn’t have teased you about your positive outlook on men. You should be looking for a guy who wants nothing more than to be there at the end of the day with you. Don’t ever settle, Em. I’m not settling next time around either. No more philandering jocks or exploiting playboys for me. I’m holding out for a nice guy too.”
“Thanks, you two. Now I feel guilty as hell,” Chloe said, tossing down was left of her bread stick to her empty plate. “Jasper Wade is pretty great as a guy. How did I get lucky enough to find Mr. Wonderful when you two look as good as Jasper’s ex-wife model and her friends? What’s up with that?”
Emma squeezed Taylor’s hand in forgiveness and let go. She looked at Chloe and grinned. “I think it’s your breasts. You draw earthy men who want intimate relationships with them as much as you. Maybe Taylor is right. I should play up my own assets more.”
Chloe gave a shrugging, grinning Taylor a scathing look before turning a kind gaze on Emma. “Right—so are you thinking about getting double-D implants just to meet men? Keep in mind that size-fourteen hips also come along with my more attractive girly assets. I wouldn’t recommend a size fourteen anything for a woman your height. You look great like you are.”
Taylor laughed, but Emma didn’t. Instead, Emma shook her head.
“No—Taylor said I had to pick one asset to play up, so I’m just interested in breasts. I wear a single D cup. I’m just going to buy push-up bras with gel pads. I’ll look like you then, only shorter and with tanned breasts,” Emma said with a shrug. “See—look at these? I just need a little help.”
Chloe chuckled as Emma lifted her proportional breasts in her hands only to let them fall again. She glanced around to see if anyone in the restaurant had noticed Emma’s show. Fortunately, they had out-lasted the normal lunch crowd.
Chloe shook her head thinking about Taylor doing it at the hotel and how fast the pool had emptied. She sighed at the feminine audacity of both her friends. Was she truly as bold as they were? Maybe she was. Or maybe she was just forty and tired of not living full out.
“I guess gel feels like the real thing. Or so I’ve heard,” Chloe said dryly, smiling when Emma laughed.
“Well, I have firm B’s, and they’re staying that way,” Taylor said defiantly. “When you two large-breasted women have to invest in tons of spandex and underwire bras when you’re older, my slight droop will be nothing but sexy. I plan to still be wearing that blue halter with the same perky girls when I’m fifty, or hell—even sixty.”
Emma and Chloe snickered, but also nodded because in Taylor’s case, with her workout schedule, it was probably going to be true.
“We’re forty, ladies. Is there ever going to be a time when we don’t care how we look or how men react to us?” Chloe demanded.
“No,” Emma and Taylor answered immediately and without thought.
“Well that’s just plain depressing. Screw sexy, I’m ordering chocolate pie for dessert and thinking about last night instead,” Chloe said firmly, going back to her salad to finish it. “Jasper doesn’t seem to mind I’m a bigger woman, and I’m not suffering for a man again anyway. Being blond and beautiful doesn’t seem like it’s worked out any better for you two skinny chicks. When Jasper gets tired of me and my full figure, I’ll just look for another guy who likes brunettes with big breasts.”
“Do you think Jasper is going to get tired of you soon?” Emma asked.
Chloe snorted. “Not for a while, I haven’t even pulled the interesting stuff out of my sexual arsenal yet. Jasper doesn’t yet know just how good I really am. So far, he’s done all the work.”
“You saving your moves to publish a book, or sharing your secrets with your friends?” Taylor asked.
Chloe smiled. “Let’s just say I know how to use everything the good Lord gave me to the fullest advantage. I put in a couple great years with Aaron before he turned into a cheating bastard. Jasper gets to reap the rewards of my sexual education.”
“Aaron was that good?” Emma asked.
“Yes, he was. There’s no use in lying to myself or to you. The man was outstanding in bed. It’s too bad he was so terrible out of it,” Chloe admitted. “By the way, my former mother-in-law told me Aaron is talking about getting engaged to his latest girlfriend.”
Emma and Taylor stopped eating to stare.
“But—it’s just been a few weeks,” Emma said, stunned by the news and wondering why Chloe wasn’t.
“How long did your ex wait?” Chloe asked gently.
“A month,” Emma said, “but his girlfriend was pregnant. I always thought that was why they were in a rush.”
“Divorced men are always in a rush to replace their ex,” Taylor said stoically, remembering Lewis had married within a day or two of their paperwork being final. Her signed copies of the divorce hadn’t even arrived in the mail before his wedding was announced in the papers. “I don’t think most men know how to be alone. It’s rare when you find a man who gives himself time to grieve over his last relationship.”
“It just seems so disloyal,” Emma said, wondering if chocolate pie for dessert would lift her spirits. She could always walk it off later. “It wasn’t the infidelity that hurt me. I understood Brad moving on to someone who could have children and give him the life he wanted. When he remarried so fast though, it was like it wiped out our decade together as if it hadn’t mattered at all. Maybe he didn’t have to grieve its loss, but I sure did. It was months before I stopped expecting to go home and see him every day.”
Chloe and Taylor listened silently because there wasn’t much they could say. Emma had met Brad when she was turning thirty. She had loved her husband dearly, the kind of love that was supposed to last. It just hadn’t. They were separated for months before they divorced, and Emma hadn’t wanted it even then. She had only stopped fighting to save her relationship when she’d learned the other woman was having his baby. It was a double heartache because Emma had wanted a baby too.
“To be fair, I don’t know that it’s a man thing, Em. I didn’t grieve my relationship to Aaron for very long. Most of my grieving happened after the first woman. It’s hard to grieve for a serial cheater, and Jasper has totally cured me from missing the sex. Even if it doesn’t work out with us, I’m still going to be okay,” Chloe said, sure of it even though it was the first time it had occurred to her. “You’re going to be okay too. I think you’re smart to hold out for the kind of guy you need.”
Taylor raised her water glass. “Here’s to Emma and me finding nice guys
like Jasper who are terrific in bed.”
Chloe clinked her glass of water against both of theirs. “I’ll drink to that for you two, but keep your eyes off the original model.”
Taylor looked at Emma. “When was the last time you heard our favorite slut stake out ownership of a single guy?”
Emma wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t think she ever did. Usually, Chloe was dating several at once because she said no one man could ever meet all her needs. Jasper must be really good.”
“Or our favorite big-breasted slut that steals all the great guys might actually be retiring, Em,” Taylor said, laughing.
“Good,” Emma said, finding reason to laugh again at their conversation, “that means more guys for us from now on. We probably got lucky Chloe found her new man first.”
“You make me sound like the woman every man wants and tries to get. Was I seriously that popular in college?” Chloe demanded.
“Yes,” Emma and Taylor said together, looking at each other and laughing.
Chloe snorted and swore softly, sure they were exaggerating. “Yeah—that’s me. Chloe Zanders—the man eating machine.”
“Really? Is that the secret talent in your sex arsenal?” Taylor asked, looking at Chloe with wide eyes. “If so, give me some pointers. I hear I’m not very good.”
Chloe picked up her discarded bread stick and threw it at Taylor while Emma laughed.
Chapter 19
Sam looked up from counting inventory as two very attractive women walked into the lounge looking around for someone. Even though he knew they weren’t looking for him, his heart did the same flutter thing it always did when he saw Marla James enter the room.
Then he reminded himself for the millionth time that the beautiful chocolate skinned woman—no matter how luscious looking—was already taken. All the good ones were, Sam thought, sighing over not being the person Marla was looking for today.
He understood that Chloe had never been a real possibility because Jasper had seen her first, and God knew his friend needed a real woman in his life, but Marla—Sam had been attracted to her for years. He’d just learned to keep it to himself.
Even if the thirty-something Marla hadn’t been always attached to some tall, well cut guy who dressed like a million bucks, Sam figured he probably wasn’t her kind of man anyway. For one, he was too old for her. Also, he was not nearly dark enough on the outside to suit the mocha skinned beauty’s usual taste in men, judging from the one she finally married.
“Hello, gorgeous. Looking for Max and Chloe?” Sam asked, counseling himself to keep his cool as he set his clipboard aside on the bar to talk to her.
He watched Marla’s face light up when she saw him leaning on the bar, transforming her smile from nice to dazzling. Sam barely held off a sigh over how happy she seemed to see him. Their friendly admiration of each other was mutual—had always been mutual—but it had also been something he had tried damned hard never to let grow beyond “like.” He enjoyed Marla’s natural ease with him and knew he would miss it if he ever made her uncomfortable with unwanted interest.
“Hello, handsome Sam. Thanks for thinking of me and having Max call. I’ve missed you. How have you been?” Marla asked.
“Getting by okay, Marla. How about you?” Sam asked.
“Same old story, Sugar. When you going to run away with me like you promised?” Marla asked, leaning her ample cleavage on the bar to make sure smiling Sam got a good look. She’d worn this top hoping to run into him. It was time to make her move and let her instincts guide her in a new direction where men were concerned.
Sam’s gaze fell where he knew Marla had intended it to. He let his gaze linger there for a few moments, and then forced himself to raise his eyes to hers. The knowing laugh Marla let loose didn’t surprise him. Its effect on him did. Obviously, he needed to start dating again. It had been too long since he’d had a woman in his life—and his bed.
“Honey, I’m interested in your offer more than you know, but I’m too damn old to outrun that linebacker you married,” Sam joked, but still half meaning it. The man he’d last seen with Marla had been a big dude and hadn’t had much of a sense of humor. “When your old man dies, you give me a call. We’ll jump the next plane to wherever you want to go.”
“What if I ran him off? What if I got rid of the cheating SOB because he knocked up some trampy waitress he met while I was sitting in the hospital with his sick mama? Would you start shopping for plane tickets tomorrow if that happened, Sam?” Marla asked, smiling at the interest flickering in his gaze.
She turned away from Sam when she heard Max talking to her niece, Vanessa. Max smiled and waved to her. Marla waved back and eased her breasts off the bar, surprised—and thrilled—when Sam reached over it to grab her arm. The heat of his hand felt really nice. Marla’s first reaction was that it had sure been a while since she’d had anyone nice in her life, and probably never anyone as nice as Samuel Hanson.
“Hold it,” Sam said firmly. “How much of what you just said really was true?”
Laughing at his demand, Marla narrowed her eyes at the hand on her arm. “All of it. Why? You feeling sorry for me now?”
Sam turned loose, thinking carefully about how to answer. “No. Are you feeling sorry for yourself?” he asked.
“Sugar, I’m nothing but relieved,” Marla said firmly, starting to walk away. “I’ve been on sabbatical from men ever since and couldn’t be happier. The divorce has been final several months now and I still don’t have the urge for another man yet. Maybe I’m cured for good. What do you think?”
“Don’t bet on it,” Sam said softly, watching her hips shift enticingly inside the short skirt she wore as she stepped away. He’d never seen her in anything that didn’t show off every asset the woman owned, and to Sam’s mind, Marla James was nothing but prime female real estate.
Marla had only taken a couple steps away from the bar when Sam’s quietly uttered words hit her brain. Telling herself not to smile too wide or get her hopes up, she spun back to stare at the way-too-serious bartender as innocently as she could. “What did you say, Sam? I didn’t hear you.”
Sam took a deep breath. Hell—what did he have to lose?
“Come back for a drink when you’re done goofing off with Max and maybe I’ll tell you what I said,” he said, lifting one side of his mouth in a quirky smile as she gave him a look.
Marla tossed her head and rolled her eyes at him trying to out flirt her. That was never going to happen, not even on his best day.
“You’re buying if I come back to talk to you, Samuel. You want to talk to someone while I’m gone, go talk that friend of yours into hiring me and Vanessa so I can hang around a while. I need a steady gig or two, and I definitely like the scenery here when you’re around.”
Sam smiled at Marla and nodded as she turned around again and headed to Max with her bracelets jingling and tall heels stomping out a beat on the way. Sam thought the woman was probably musical in everything she did, and followed that thought by making a list of all the ways he could find out if he was right.
Shaking his head at the speed his interest had run with her mostly innocent flirting, Sam made himself go back to checking his inventory.
***
“Maximillan—good to see you aren’t limping anymore. Where’s this amazing woman Sam says that I just have to hear sing?” Marla demanded.
“Lower your voice, Auntie,” Vanessa ordered quietly. “Your voice carries and they don’t need to hear you talking in the lobby.”
“Honey, when are you going to get used to me? We can’t all be shy, Vanessa,” Marla said on a laugh.
Hearing another woman laughing behind her, Marla swung around to see a busty brunette with cleavage to rival her own. She walked back the few steps separating them and looked at the woman’s breasts for a full minute before finally lifting her skeptical gaze to the woman’s face.
“You got a set of pipes as big as your other assets?” Marla asked.
&nbs
p; “Are you kidding? I’m not even a professional singer,” Chloe said sharply, fighting not to cross her arms over her chest. “If you’re looking for somebody like that, you’re going to be disappointed.”
“Well what are you if you’re not a professional?” Marla asked, putting her hands on her hips like she was frustrated.
“Just a woman who likes to sing,” Chloe said.
“Show me,” Marla demanded.
“Why do I have to show you anything? I already have the job. I’m not the one auditioning,” Chloe replied, fighting not to laugh now as she tried to match the woman’s nerve. “I can call my friends to do back up. You sing. Show me why I need you two.”
Marla looked at Max. “Play her best song, Max. Let me hear her. I want to see if she can carry off a tune as well as she does that attitude.”
Chloe snorted and shook her head. The woman was fun.
“She sings Aretha almost as well as you. How about a duet number like she did with Annie Lenox? Vanessa can sing too. See how this works,” Max said, sitting down on the bench and launching into a jazzy piano version of “Sisters are doing it for themselves.”
Chloe’s surprised and totally pleased laughter peeled out through the lounge. The shock on Marla’s face was priceless. Seeing that, Chloe let go of her angst and decided to just sing.
“From the top, Maximillan,” Chloe ordered, forcing herself not to laugh more.
Not missing the opening notes this time, Chloe’s voice was strong and clear as she sang. In the empty lounge, her voice echoed off the walls.
Marla stared at her first for what she was able to do, and then laughed before she joined in. Vanessa ran over for the second verse and chorus.
Next Song I Sing (NEXT TIME AROUND) Page 17
