9 Ways to Fall in Love

by Caroline Clemmons

  She fit her bottom against his groin, closed her eyes and drifted toward sleep.

  "That was pretty damned awesome," he said." You're awesome. I just about lost my mind."

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter 19

  Joanna awoke buried beneath a mound of warm covers—but lying in the worst bed she had ever known. Her back ached. Her head ached. Something that felt like a towel was caught between her legs.

  Towel? Memories from the morning's wee hours flooded her mind. He hadn't used a condom. Dear God. She was sure she remembered he had used one the first time. But the second time, she had been so crazy and out of control for a few brief moments, all that had mattered was...was...was what he was doing with his mouth and...

  No one had ever kissed between her legs. Shari had talked about it in detail and a few women in the beauty salon had alluded to it, but not even Shari’s vivid description did justice to the sensation. And she had whimpered and begged. She clenched her jaw and winced. How could she look him in the face after all of that?

  His half of the bed was empty and she wondered when he had gotten up and where he was. She opened her eyes and peeked over the edge of the thick quilt to a dull gold light. Looking toward the two tall windows, she saw that the light came from sunlight filtering through aged openwork curtains and paper roll-up shades. She saw stark and unfamiliar surroundings—bluish floral wallpaper, a vintage chest of drawers made of a red-brown wood, a brown straight-backed chair.

  Her khaki Dockers and pink panties lay draped across the cedar chest, including her bra and shirt he had stripped off of her in the kitchen. She closed her eyes and groaned. Those Dockers would be a wrinkled mess and she had to walk out of here wearing them.

  Dear God. In the light of day, all that had gone on in this bed seemed more like a dream than a reality. Or was it a nightmare? She groaned again as memories of details swarmed into her conscious mind.

  That was pretty damned awesome. You're awesome.

  As his words swam back, her whole being filled with bliss and she felt a smile cross her lips.

  As total awareness asserted itself, she remembered that today was Tuesday. She saw no clock, but judging from the light in the room, it had to be at least eight o'clock. Oh, hell. She had to get moving and get to her shop. With the beauty salon being closed on Sundays and Mondays, Tuesdays were always busy days. Her mother would be in early and wondering why she wasn't there.

  Joanna listened for activity in the living room or kitchen but heard nothing. She sat up, only to find ever more aches and pains she didn't know she had and a tenderness between her legs. Keeping up with Dalton in bed had been as physically demanding as helping him work on the fence.

  If she had eaten ground glass, her stomach couldn't have felt worse. She needed about a dozen aspirin to cure the ache that throbbed behind her eyes. She held out her flattened hand and saw it visibly trembling. Besides that, she needed a shower and a toothbrush in the worst way.

  She knew there was only one bathroom, installed many years after the house's original construction date. The tub was stained a rusty red and its smooth enamel finish had been eroded away long ago by the heavily mineralized water. There was a shower, but it was metal and rusted. The showerhead was so corroded from mineral deposit from the water, only a trickle of water came out. She wouldn't shampoo her hair in the ranch's hard well water anyway. A sponge bath in the vanity sink was the only acceptable option.

  The bedroom was chilly. The morning sun hadn't had time to warm West Texas. She dragged the quilt from the bed and wrapped it around herself, noticing that the bed was a regular size. No wonder her and Dalton's bodies had been so close all night.

  She opened the door a crack and poked her head through. She saw no one but heard country music coming from the kitchen. Easing out of the bedroom, she padded up the hallway.

  She found the bathroom humid and warm. It smelled of cologne or body wash. A glance at the shower told her Dalton had used it not long ago. An image came to her of his Greek-god body naked in the shower. Erotic memories zoomed in on her and she closed her eyes and exhaled. Last night he had thought she was awesome, but what would he think of her this morning? What would Clova think if she knew her friend Joanna had slept with her favorite son? What should Joanna think of herself on a morning after a night of overindulgence in liquor, unbridled passion and uninhibited sex?

  On a sigh, she bent to turn on the electric wall heater and her head swam. She grabbed at the wall for balance as the heater blew out a loud roar and instantly began to fill the small room with warmth.

  Finally, she dared a glance in the vanity mirror and saw raccoon eyes from yesterday's mascara and whisker burns on her mouth and chin. Her expression looked vacant, her skin sallow, and her hair was a rat's nest.

  "Oh, hell," she whispered and pressed her fingertips against her mouth. Her fingers smelled like sex.

  Dalton's travel bag lay unzipped on the end of the vanity. She picked through it, found toothpaste and brushed her teeth with her finger. Nearly gagging on the bitter, salty taste of the water that came from the tap, she thought of Dalton as a boy and the hardship of growing up in a home where the only running; water was so heavy with minerals it was undrinkable and unusable for many purposes. But then, that was the nature of rural living in Wacker County.

  She filled the sink with warm water and dropped the quilt to the floor, revealing her own naked body in the mirror. It was the same as yesterday. No one could tell by looking, thank God, that Dalton Parker's mouth had touched every intimate part of it.

  "Oh, hell," she muttered again.

  She rummaged in the vanity and found a hairbrush. After she had washed herself and improved her appearance as much as possible, she wrapped up in the quilt again and left the bathroom.

  Before she reached the bedroom, Dalton came into the hallway carrying a coffee mug, a dazzling smile on his face. "Hey, sleepyhead."

  He didn’t look as if he had a hangover. Wearing clean jeans and a red long-sleeve T-shirt, he looked scoured, though dark stubble showed on his jaws. He looked so sexy and delectable that just seeing him almost took her breath. When he reached her, he looped one arm around her, pulled her close and kissed her. The scent of him filled her nostrils, the same fragrance as last night and the same one she had smelled in the bathroom. “I borrowed your toothpaste,” she said.

  “Yeah? Hope it was your brand.” He put the rim of the coffee cup to her lips. “Want some coffee?”

  The thought of putting coffee in her roiling stomach was on a par with swallowing disinfectant. "No, thanks," she said, turning her head away from the mug.

  "Not a coffee drinker?" he asked cheerily and kissed her again.

  She pulled the quilt tighter around herself. "My stomach isn't in great shape. How come you twisted my arm last night and made me drink all that stuff?"

  He set the mug down on a three-legged table standing against the wall, slid his hands beneath the quilt, wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close to him. "It turned out okay. Look what happened….God, you feel good. Did I mention that you’ve got a great ass?"

  She smiled up at him. How could she not when his knowing hands were caressing her bare bottom?

  His mouth lowered to hers and they kissed in a long, squishy kiss. He ended it and pecked the tip of her nose. "Know what?” he said softly. “You're as awesome in the daylight as you are in the dark."

  "You, too," she replied, laughing a little at the relief she felt at hearing him repeat that she was awesome.

  "Hungry?" he asked.

  "I could eat something. Something gentle, that is. Like baby food."

  He chuckled. "You’re funny. Want me to help you get dressed?" His thick brows bobbed. “I could kiss everything I missed last night. It was awful dark in that bedroom.”

  "I'd probably never get my clothes on. We'd end up back in bed." Still smiling like a loon, she looked into his eyes. "Dalton, listen, about last night—"

  "What abou
t it?" His cheery expression fell and he looked back at her intently.

  Stymied by the change in his demeanor, she lost the words she intended to say. She shrugged. "It's just that—"

  "Joanna," he said, moving her hair behind her ear, "if you're about to apologize or make an excuse or anything like that, don't. ’Cause I’m not gonna apologize. It was too damn good for either one of to be sorry."

  “I wasn’t going to apologize. It just that…well, you know no one’s ever…”

  “Baby,” he said softly. “Don’t be embarrassed at anything that gets said or anything that happens between us. It’s private. Just between us.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. I love the way you taste, those little sounds you make, the way you feel against my tongue…”

  “Really? I thought you just did it because I…you know, because I didn’t…because it didn’t happen for me the first time.”

  His fingers came beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. His mouth slanted across hers and they kissed long and lusciously. “Really,” he said. “I told you, darlin’. It was my fault you didn’t get off that first time. I was too nervous.”

  “Okay,” she said on a sigh. “I just don’t want something bad between us.”

  “Don’t lose sight of that thought. I’ve got an idea. Tonight we'll sleep at your house. I want to try out that fancy mattress you've got. Who knows how good we might be on a good mattress?”

  “You’re a devil.”

  “I know, but I’m fun. I put your clothes on the chest, by the way."

  She reluctantly pushed away from him and started back to the bedroom. "I need to get my eggs gathered and get out of here."

  "Already done," he said. "I put them on the counter in your little room. I've got breakfast all laid out in the kitchen."

  She stopped in the bedroom doorway and looked at him. "You gathered the eggs?"

  He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his mouth only inches away. "Had to, babe. You were in no shape to do it."

  Those words chased away what she had intended to say. It had only been something silly about emotions and feelings and all of that nonsense anyway. When he lifted his lips, she smiled again. "I do need to get dressed."

  Ten minutes later, she met him in the kitchen and found him standing at the stove arranging strips of bacon in a cast-iron skillet. To put out the fire in her stomach, she helped herself to half a glass of milk from the refrigerator, then walked over to the counter beside him. Four eggs lay on the counter. "You're cooking eggs?"

  "Fresh from Walsh's Naturals," he said. "Just laid this morning. How about that?"

  She smiled up at him. "Should be good. My hens lay only the best."

  He looped an arm around her shoulder and planted a quick kiss on her temple. "What're you doing today?"

  She watched the bacon sizzle and curl in the skillet, loving being attached to his side like another limb. "I take customers in the beauty shop on Tuesdays. How about you?"

  "Going by to see Mom, then going to Lubbock. I thought you might be able to go with me."

  The invitation was tempting, but she had never allowed anything except illness or an emergency to prevent her from taking care of her oldest and most loyal customers. "I wish I could, but some of my Tuesday ladies have been coming to me for years. They get upset if I'm not there. Big day in Lubbock?"

  "Lane was supposed to get moved out of the ICU yesterday. I need to see what happens next." He turned the bacon with a meat fork, then broke the eggs into a separate skillet. "But I plan to be back before dark."

  The bacon grease made a loud pop and they jumped. At the same time, his cell phone chirped from behind them. They both turned and stared at it.

  The thing continued to bleat. He didn't move.

  It had to be Betty Boop. Otherwise he would answer it. And anyone else would have hung up by now. Like black ink, a feeling Joanna had never known she was capable of spilled into her brain. For the first time in her life, she knew the bitter bile of jealousy. She locked her eyes on his. "You should probably get that."

  He turned away, gave the phone a scowl and an almost discernible shake of his head. Oh, yes. He did know it was her. "I mean it, Dalton. Answer it."

  He drew a deep breath. Leaving the stove, he walked to the counter across the room and picked up the phone. He checked Caller ID, then flipped the phone open and slapped it against his ear. "Yo. It's me."

  Oh, yes, it was the woman in California, and he was uncomfortable talking in her, Joanna's, presence. She blinked away the burn that rushed to her eyes. She waited to hear the "babes," the "darlin's," the "sweeties" tumble from his mouth, but they didn't.

  "I've been busy," he said. "Sure....Uh-hunh....Well, yeah..."

  Dear God. Reality. A cruel messenger. And a reminder to Joanna that she had never done anything quite so stupid as what she had done last night. How could she have been so...so, so…drunk?

  The phone still plastered to his ear, he walked out of the kitchen and on out of the house.

  Bastard! Joanna's chin quivered, but she refused to let him see her break down and bawl. She clenched her jaw, picked up the meat fork and punctured the egg yolks. Puddles of yellow spread through the grease and a grim little satisfaction spread through her. Then she turned off the burner, grabbed the sack of apples still sitting on the counter and walked out of the kitchen. On her way to the front door, she yanked her purse off the dining table, but left the file folder of chicken and donkey photographs behind.

  Outside, squinting against the brilliant sunshine of early morning, she saw him on the front porch at the corner of the house, his back to her, one hand in his pocket, his shoulders scrunched against the morning's cool temperature. To stand out in the cold shivering, he badly wanted a private conversation with Betty Boop.

  Joanna strode past him and kept walking until she reached her pickup parked in front of her egg-processing room. The newly gathered eggs needed washing, but she wasn't up to it.

  As she yanked open the pickup's driver's-side door, he hustled up beside her. "Joanna, it's not what you think."

  "Yes, it is." She threw her purse and the sack of apples onto the passenger seat. "It's exactly what I think. I've heard you talk to her. I've heard the 'babes' and the 'darlin's' and the 'sweeties.'" She climbed into the pickup and plopped onto the driver's seat.

  "Joanna, last night was special. It meant something. Don't do this. Don't be a horse's ass."

  Anger charged through her, heating her face. She stopped and glared at him. "Me a horse's ass? Look in the mirror, buster."

  She jerked the door from his grip and slammed it. She did not buzz down the window. She did not look at him. She cranked the engine, but he hadn't stepped back. If he didn't, she would run over his damned feet. Finally, she glowered at him through the window and he moved. She backed up, changed gears and roared toward the highway without looking back.

  * * *

  She berated herself all the way home. How could dull, conservative, hardworking Joanna Walsh have allowed herself to get drunk, wind up in bed with Dalton and completely abandon herself and her morals to his carnal whims? How could she have been so damn dumb? Hadn't she known from the beginning that a woman lived with him in his house in California? Joanna had even talked to her the day she left a message for him. For all she knew, he could be married to her.

  By the time Joanna reached the bathroom in her house, she had stripped. Minutes later, she stood in the shower letting warm water cascade over her head. It would serve her right if she drowned.

  But soap and water couldn't clean her mind or restore her spirit or wash away the humiliation that was stuck in her chest like a tight knot.

  More cold hard facts bombarded her. What if he had and STD? He had said he was clean, but so what? She wasn’t worried about being pregnant, but the way things were in bed with him last night, would she have cared if the time of the month had been ideal? She had been so sex-crazed, she hadn’t given a thought to
protection against disease or pregnancy either. The very idea sucked the air from her lungs and every other thought from her head. The pulse in her temples pounded harder.

  She had to leave the shower when the water became cool. She shrugged into her favorite robe, a thick pink chenille that was a size too big for her. She sank into the chair at her vanity to style her hair and try to put herself together for the day, but she was perking on only one cylinder.

  More scenes from Dalton's bed began to replay in her mind. Indeed he had taken her to a place within herself she hadn't known existed. She could count on her fingers the number of times she'd had an orgasm with a man, and she had never had several in a night, never had one with a man’s fingers inside her. Had he found that damn G-spot women were always talking about and magazines were always writing about?

  Then a new and certain knowledge dawned on her. Today she had a comprehension that she hadn't had yesterday and it was almost incredible. The fact that she had never found great pleasure with a man had often made her wonder if something was wrong with her. Now she knew for sure, some men just didn’t know how to do sex and the few men she had known fell into that category. She had never quite understood Shari's relationship with Jay, had never related, had thought the two of them silly, had even wondered whether they were perverted. But now she knew. Jay was unselfish in bed and Shari couldn’t get enough of it.

  After last night, Joanna Walsh got it. Finally. She was thirty-five years old and she finally understood the man-woman thing. She finally understood why some women might cling to guys who appeared to be worthless on the outside, the riddle that had puzzled her most of her adult life.

  Chapter 20

  After feeding the gnawing empty feeling in her stomach with another glass of milk, a slice of toast and three aspirins, Joanna dragged into the salon two hours late. Her mother was waiting for her behind the beauty supply counter, scowling from beneath a furrowed brow. "Where have you been? You missed your ten o'clock."