“She liked Jo, didn’t she?”
He nodded and. peeled off the curling corner of the label on his beer bottle. “She thought Jo would make an excellent wife and hostess, an asset to my career.”
“She doesn’t want grandchildren?”
“My sister has two kids, and my mother thinks that’s plenty enough people in this world to call her Granny.”
Pam giggled. “Mom doesn’t have grandkids—that we know of. Of course, knowing my brothers, who knows how many Kaminskis could be running around.”
Alan laughed and tipped his bottle for another drink. Every family, rich or poor, had its dysfunction. “Have you had dinner?”
“I’m not really very hungry.” she said, dropping her gaze again. “Thanks anyway. I’m tired—I think I’ll get back to the hotel and turn in early.”
Their eyes met and the reason behind her fatigue hung in the air between them. Alan gripped the bottle hard to keep from reaching for her. “Ah, come on,” he said. “Why don’t you stay for a beer—what’s one beer between friends?”
The corners of her uneven mouth turned up slowly, then she relented with a nod. “Okay, one beer.”
ALAN STARTED AWAKE, then winced at the sour taste in his mouth. But the movement of his facial muscles sent an explosion of pain to his temples and he groaned aloud, which sounded like a gong in his ears. He closed his eyes and waited until most of the pain and noise subsided before attempting to put two thoughts together.
He was in the hotel room, and he could hear Pam’s snore beside him, so it appeared they had slept in the same bed. Straining, he remembered they had consumed large quantities of beer and had left the sports bar, but that’s when his memory failed him. Had they gone directly back to the room? And then what?
He opened his eyes one at a time in the early-morning light and gingerly reached up to adjust his broken glasses, which were somehow still on his face. He moved his head to see the reflection in the ceiling. Another gonging groan escaped him when he saw they were indeed naked and intimately entwined.
Not again.
Pam lay on her stomach and the sheet had fallen down to expose the rub-on rose tattoo on her tanned hip. When his scrutiny triggered inappropriate responses beneath his half of the sheet, he pulled himself up a millimeter at a time and stumbled to the bathroom in search of a glass of water.
His hip ached from the unaccustomed lusty exercise, and he rubbed it as he downed the water. But at the sharp tenderness of his skin, he turned to glance in the mirror and smiled dryly. He must have been blitzed because he’d allowed Pam to rub one of her fake tattoos on his hip. A wet washcloth and a little soap would take care of it, he figured. Except when he scrubbed at the tattoo, the pain increased and the stubborn design refused to budge. “I must be allergic to the dye,” he muttered, and scrubbed harder. But minutes later when he lifted the cloth and saw the tattoo still had not faded, terror twisted his stomach.
“No,” he said frantically. “It can’t be real!”
He backed up to the mirror for a better look, but he couldn’t make out the tattoo. Letters of some kind? It was backward in the reflection, so he snatched up Pam’s hand mirror and positioned it to read the reflected word. His eyes widened and his hands started to shake.
Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm!.
Pamela jerked awake, unable to pinpoint the origin of the invasion into her peaceful sleep. She swallowed painfully and lifted her head. The sound of breaking glass from the bathroom made her sit up. “Alan,” she called, holding her. head. “Are you okay?”
The door swung open and he emerged naked. his face puckered and red. “No, I am not okay. In fact, I’m about as far from okay as I’ve ever been!”
Pam rubbed her tender hip and grimaced. “Don’t make me play twenty questions, Alan. It hurts to talk.”
“You!” he bellowed, shaking his finger at her. “You talked me into it!”
She sighed. “Did we do it again?”
“Yes!” he roared. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Her frustration peaked. “Then what are you talking about?”
“This!” he yelled, then turned around and pointed to his bare hip.
She leaned forward and squinted. “A tattoo? You got a tattoo?” Laughter erupted from the back of her throat. “You got a tattoo!” Then she stood, twisted to look at her own hip and squealed in delight. “No—we both got tattoos ! A rose! Isn’t it great?” She strode over to him and glanced down. “What does yours say?” Then she stopped and stumbled backward at the sight of the name etched on Alan’s skin, enclosed in a red heart. “P-Pam’s?” She covered her mouth with both hands and lifted her gaze to his.
“THERE ARE ALL KINDS of new laser procedures to remove tattoos,” she assured him as they moved down the path toward the beach. Alan walked woodenly beside her, occasionally stabbing at his taped glasses.
“But I think we’re skirting the bigger issue here,” she continued, trotting to keep up with him, even though he was limping slightly, favoring his tender hip. “What happened last night absolutely cannot happen again.”
“I agree,” he said curtly, staring straight ahead.
“We’ve only got one more day and one more night, so we should be able to stay sober and keep our hands to ourselves.”
“Right.”
“Let’s try to enjoy the time we have left,” she said amiably as they stepped onto the warm white sand.
He stopped and turned to her. “How about ‘Let’s just try to make it through tomorrow with as few calamities as possible’?”
Pam swallowed and smiled weakly. “That’s fine, too.”
They rented chaise lounges and Pam couldn’t help noticing that Alan waited until she had hers situated, then planted his several feet away. “Safety precaution,” he said flatly, then snapped open the newspaper he’d brought to read.
Frowning, Pam turned to her own reading material and tried to blot the disturbing thoughts of Alan from her mind. She had missed him yesterday, and the realization had shaken her badly. So when she’d stumbled across him in the sports bar, she had allowed herself to be persuaded to stay for a drink because she simply wanted to spend time with him. And although the rest of the night remained fuzzy, some incidents she recalled rather clearly.
Such as the fact that she had been the one who suggested they get tattoos, inspired, possibly, by the bartender’s impressive collection. And Alan had been hesitant, but she had dragged him down the street, and sent him into one booth while she entered another one for her design of choice. Where he’d gotten “Pam’s” was less clear to her, and the fact that they’d made whoopee again last night only added to the confusion.
Her heart lay heavy in her chest and she tried to convince herself that things would be better once they returned to Savannah. For one thing, she would rarely see him, if at all, since their connection to each other—Jo—no longer existed. It was for the best, she knew, because she didn’t want to be running into him at every turn...didn’t want to be reminded of the few days they were together when names, backgrounds and at-risk relationships were irrelevant and all that mattered was the powerful sexual chemistry between them.
“Hello.”
Pam looked up and smothered a cringe when she saw Enrico standing over her chair, his lips curved into a sultry smile. Resplendent in orange nut-huggers, the man nodded toward Alan who was still hidden behind a newspaper. “I see your man is neglecting you once again.” He wagged his eyebrows. “Perhaps I can remedy that situation.”
Annoyed, Pam began rummaging in her bag. “I doubt it.”
“Could I interest you in a walk up the beach?”
She jammed on her sunglasses. “No.”
“How about a drink?”
She lay her head back. “No.”
He leaned close to her and the stench of alcohol rolled off his breath. “You like to tease, no?”
“No,” Alan said behind him.
Pam lifted her head and look
ed up at Alan who stood with his paper under his arm, glaring at Enrico. How like a man to ignore a woman until someone else comes sniffing around. She smiled tightly. “I can handle this, Alan.”
His gaze darted to her, then he lifted his hands in retreat and reclaimed his chair.
But Enrico folded his arms and followed him back to his chair. “She is not worth fighting for, señor?”
“That is enough,” Pam declared, sitting up. “I think you’d better leave, Enrico.”
Enrico stood over Alan, taking advantage of the situation. “She is too much woman for you, eh?”
Pam’s patience snapped and she scrambled to her feet. “Leave, Enrico!”
He sneered and jerked a thumb toward Alan, who had risen to his feet. “Perhaps your man is weak?” Just as he lunged for Alan, Pam launched herself at the man with an angry growl, climbing his hairy back. She propelled him into Alan and they all went down in the sand. Once the breath returned to her lungs, Pam pummeled the man’s back.
Sand flew as they rolled around, scrambling for leverage. Alan splayed his hand over Enrico’s face and pushed him back, trying to avoid the man’s swinging arms. Pam yelped, clawing the grit out of her eyes while showering Enrico with the blinding stuff. Alan rolled behind the man and grabbed him in a choke-hold. The man grabbed handfuls of sand and threw them in the air.
Somewhere in the background she heard a voice yell for the police. Incensed, she wanted to land one good jab while Alan held him. Pam made a fist, drew back and threw the hardest punch she could through the swirling sand, eliciting a dull groan when she made contact with skin and bone.
She stepped back to blink her eyes clear. But when she massaged her throbbing knuckles in satisfaction, she saw Enrico several yards down the beach, jogging away, and he appeared unfazed by Pam’s right hook.
When she glanced back to the site of the scuffle, her stomach twisted. Alan sat in the sand, glaring at her, holding his hand over his right eye.
Whatever apology she might have conjured up was cut short by the arrival of a uniformed officer. “Hello,” the cop said, standing over Alan with a tight smile. “Again.”
“WELL, look on the bright side,” Pam said as she led the way to the double-parked limo the following morning.
Numb from another night in jail and a head full of contradicting thoughts, Alan gingerly touched his swollen right eye and asked, “And that would be?”
“We didn’t have sex last night,” she said brightly.
Which would have been the only redeeming event of the past twenty-four hours, Alan thought miserably.
“And we’re leaving today,” she sang, obviously anxious to return home. “I checked us out of the hotel—Twiggy said goodbye. I bought a suitcase and packed your things—they’re in the car.”
He stopped and stared at two new dents and the Kaminiskiesque parking job that left only two tires of the pimpmobile on the street, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he opened the back door of the limo and climbed in, banging the door closed behind him.
“You’re letting me drive to the airport?” Pam yelled from the driver’s seat after she buzzed down the divider panel.
Alan clicked his seat belt into place, pulled the strap tight and laid his head back. “Your definition of driving is a loose interpretation, but I’m too drained to argue.”
“Okay,” she said excitedly, revving the engine. I’m starved—do you mind if we stop and get something to eat on the way? We’ve got plenty of time before the flight”
“Go for it,” he said, removing his broken glasses so he couldn’t witness the driving event.
Of course, he hadn’t anticipated she would attempt to take the limo through a drive-through window—they were stuck in a tight curve by a squawking monitor for forty-five minutes. No longer surprised by any stunt she pulled, Alan ordered an ice-cream sandwich to hold against his puffy eye and munched a hamburger in the back seat during the melee. When the scraping sounds became too unbearable, he turned up the TV and watched a rerun of “Laugh-In” until she finally eased the car by the metal posts and the high curbs.
She buzzed down the panel when they were on the expressway again. “We still have over an hour,” she yelled cheerfully. “We’ll make it.”
He buzzed up the panel and unwrapped the icecream sandwich.
Five minutes later they were at a dead standstill. She buzzed down the panel. “It’s a freaking parking lot out here—the radio says there’s a tractor-trailer overturned and we won’t move for at least an hour. Don’t worry—we’ll still make it.” She smiled, then buzzed up the panel.
Alan sighed and picked up the remote control. Then a thought struck him and he buzzed down the panel. “Hey, Kaminski?”
She twisted in her seat. “Yeah?”
“Have you ever gotten naked in a limo?”
Her smile was slow in coming, but broad and mischievous. “No.”
“Want to?”
In answer, she buzzed up the panel. Alan sighed again and laid his head back. “Can’t blame a guy for asking,” he muttered. Especially since she’d go back to her stud stable once they returned to Savannah.
Suddenly the door opened and she bounded inside, toppling over him, laughing like a teenager. She straddled him and kissed him hard, then asked, “Do you think an hour is enough time?”
“We’ll have to hit the highlights,” he whispered, locking the door.
“What about the lowlights?” she said, pouting.
“In the interest of time,” he murmured, pulling at her waistband, “I’ll have to give them a lick and a promise.”
RUNNING THROUGH the parking lot of the car-rental return, Pam yelled, “That can’t ever happen again.”
“Right,” Alan yelled back. “Never.”
They rushed into the building. Alan forked over an obscene deposit to a pinched-nose man in case his insurance company wouldn’t cover the various damages to the limo, then they sprinted through the airport as fast as his stillaching hip would allow. When they dropped into their seats on the plane, he found it unbelievable that only a few days had passed since they’d left Savannah. It seemed like a lifetime ago—not to mention a small fortune ago, he noted wryly.
After takeoff, he donned a set of headphones, not to ignore Pam, but hoping to put some perspective on the week before they reached Savannah. Indeed, the more distant the Fort Myers skyline became, the more painfully clear the answers seemed.
Instead of trying to dissect the roller coaster of emotions she had evoked in him this week, he simply needed to consider the facts: he had been vulnerable, she had been eager to comfort a friend. Besides, even if the circumstances were ideal—which they weren‘t—and even if he had the intention of taking a wife—which he didn’t—he couldn’t imagine any woman more unsuited to marriage than Pamela Kaminski.
Thankfully, their flight was uneventful—the little mishap when Pam sent an entire overhead bin of luggage pounding down on two passengers didn’t even merit an eye twitch on his new scale of relativity. Rankling him further, she seemed oblivious to his brooding, chatting with the flight attendants and somehow managing to paint her toenails during the flight.
It was only when they were landing and he glanced over to see her death grip on the padded arms of her seat that he conceded to himself how extremely fond of her he’d become. Alan reached over to squeeze her hand, and the grateful smile she gave him made his heart lurch crazily. He knew in that moment that even if his eye healed, the tattoo was safely removed, the charges were dropped and his car insurance wasn’t canceled, he still might never fully recover from his week with Pamela.
She was her usual cheery self through baggage claim and on their way back to her car, reinforcing Alan’s suspicion that, for Pam, the week had simply been a casual romp—the woman had no earth-shattering revelations weighing her down. And despite the trouble that seemed to follow her around, he was going to miss her. Perhaps, he decided, after a few weeks had passed and he had shaken this somber,
life-evaluating mood, he’d call her, just to see how she was doing.
He offered to call a cab, but she insisted on driving him home, saying she needed to check on some new home listings in his neighborhood, anyway. On the way, she ran two red lights, but stopped traffic on the bypass to let a mother duck and her ducklings cross.
When she pulled onto the long driveway, Alan stared at his imposing home and realized with a jolt that only one week ago, he had anticipated returning to carry his bride, Jo Montgomery, across the threshold. Now he felt almost giddy with relief at the change in circumstances. He and Jo would have been content, but not entirely happy. She had never looked at him the way she looked at John Sterling. And he owed it to himself to find a woman he could care about that much.
“Are you okay?” Pam’asked, jarring him out of his reverie.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, realizing she was waiting for him to get out. But when he grasped the handle, she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Alan,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he said, his heart thudding against his chest.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For breaking your glasses and denting the limo and getting the ticket and having you tattooed and blacking your eye and getting you arrested.”
“Twice,” he amended.
“Twice,” she agreed.
Her blue eyes were wide, and her upside-down mouth trembled. She was so beautiful, she was impossible to resist. He inhaled deeply and gave her a wry smile. “Forget it.” Her happy grin was worth every misery he’d experienced over the week.
He opened the door and retrieved the dark suitcase she had purchased and packed for him. When he walked around to the driver’s side, his mind racing for something to say, he suddenly remembered the pendant he had bought for her. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, rooting through his gym bag until he came up with the black box. “For you.”
“For me?” she asked quietly, taking her lower lip in her teeth. She slowly lifted the lid and stared at the gold sand castle, then ran her finger over the surface. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, then raised shining eyes. “But why?” .
Wife Is A 4-Letter Word Page 14
