Hot Pink

by Susan Johnson

  So she’d investigated the earnest type of man. Check.

  She’d eaten just about all the cookies and chips she could eat for a weekend. Check.

  She’d surveyed the baby and motherhood scene. And survived it. Check and double check.

  Tomorrow she’d actually read one of the books she’d brought along and allow herself to become inspired and enlightened. She might even swim across the lake to burn off some of those cookie calories. And word of God, she’d eat something other than junk food—something fresh, colorful, highly energizing and restorative.

  She was going to get on with her life.

  THIRTY-ONE

  THERE WERE SEVENTY-THREE RESORTS, MOTELS, hotels, and bed and breakfasts between Duluth and Grand Marais. Rocco knew because he’d stopped at each one that weekend—with no luck.

  He was hot, sweaty, frustrated as hell and thinking all the time that Chloe was with some guy somewhere doing you know what. It was the worst feeling in the world. He hadn’t realized how jealousy could keep you from sleeping, eating, thinking clearly, thinking at all . . . because his brain was filled with unpleasant images of Chloe making it with some nameless, faceless guy.

  He just about ran off the road three times, and on the North Shore that meant plunging fifty feet into Lake Superior, where hypothermia would kill you if the car crash didn’t. He’d pull over each time and shake for a while, then he’d turn the CD player up real loud to distract his vile thoughts and drive on to the next motel.

  If this was love, it was gonna kill him one way or another.

  He was miserable.

  He didn’t dare have a drink, which might have blunted his resentments, because it would have blunted his reflexes as well, and he needed them to stay alive. And let’s face it, if he’d drunk, he probably would have only gotten more pissed. Alcohol wasn’t known for its overall uplifting properties.

  So he stayed sober, the level of his resentment grew and the beauty of the North Shore went unnoticed. He did remember to buy Mary Beth a pie at Betty’s Pies on his way back home. By that time he was making alternative plans, and since he planned on parking outside Chloe’s house tonight, he bought himself some food to go.

  It could be a long night.

  * * *

  SHE SAW ROCCO’S car when she pulled up to her building and all her new resolve to begin afresh instantly vanished. With an iron will and a brief but stern talking to, she restored her sense of purpose, telling herself she’d just come to terms with her life after a weekend of junk food and remorse and she wasn’t about to sink again into that calorie-laden, tear-stained pit.

  But her hand shook a little as she pulled her keys from the ignition.

  He was getting out of his car.

  * * *

  SHE WAS ALONE. Good. He wouldn’t have to deck anyone.

  He’d never felt this Me-Tarzan, You-Jane bullshit before. He suddenly realized his fingers were curled into fists, quickly opened them and drew in a deep breath. This wasn’t the time to make any mistakes.

  * * *

  “I’VE BEEN LOOKING for you,” he said as she walked up.

  “I was up north.”

  “Where?”

  She paused, debating whether he deserved an answer.

  “Your mother thought you were on the North Shore. You weren’t. I looked.”

  She should have given in to the sweetness and warmth coursing through her senses at his admission, at his wanting to find her enough to have talked to her mother and gone looking for her. But the memory of Amy was too recent, the loneliness of her weekend too stark. “Why were you looking for me?”

  She said it like he’d better have a damned good reason.

  But before he could answer, she added, curtly, “Your fiancée visited me Friday morning. You’re going to have to keep her in line. She threatened me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He tried to keep his voice real soft. “It won’t happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t. I’ve had a long weekend. If you don’t mind, I’m not in the mood for any smooth-talking bullshit. Go back to your fiancée.”

  “I don’t have a fiancée.”

  “She disagrees with you. You two should get together and clear that up.”

  “It’s cleared up. Will you marry me?”

  “No thanks. I think bigamy is against the law here. If you’ll excuse me, I’m tired.” Of bullshit and wanting what she couldn’t have. She began moving toward her door.

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “I’m not doing that again.” She tried to shake off his hand. “Find someone else to sleep with on the side.”

  His grip tightened, not so he was hurting her, but so she wouldn’t leave. “I’m serious about marriage. It’s all I thought about last week while I was gone. I talked to Amy’s father on Friday when I came back into town and everything’s copacetic—fine, perfect in fact.” That little white lie again, but he’d been praying a lot. “I was never engaged to her, not really—despite what she said. She’s a little nuts as you may have realized. So marry me. I went crazy this weekend looking for you, thinking you were with some one else—like Colin.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I arm-wrestled him for you on Friday, so at least one of your boyfriends is out of the picture.”

  She didn’t know if she should thank him or not. “You’re beginning to freak me out,” she said instead, because the whole notion of him and Colin, of marriage, of maybe or maybe not Amy, was way too much to absorb. It was like Chinese torture where you’re so worn down and pitiful, the person you should least befriend becomes your friend. Which was way scary after she’d just earnestly and soberly talked herself out of Rocco Vinelli.

  “I know it’s all kind of sudden.” He could have been a hostage negotiator, his tone was so nonthreatening and calm.

  “Insane, I was thinking. Let me go.”

  Her look was the kind that gave him reason to drop his hand from her arm. He wasn’t looking for a fight. “Let me talk to you, explain. We could go somewhere for coffee or a drink. I’ve missed you.”

  “Seems to me you miss me a lot.” Her gaze narrowed. “And we all know how that turns out. I’d get another line.”

  “I’m serious, Chloe. Dead serious.”

  She took a small breath because the temptation to believe him was powerful. And had Amy Thiebaud not paid her a visit on Friday, she would have been more likely to listen with an unbiased ear. “Amy threatened to have her father shut down my business. She said she’s booked the wedding reception, got her dress. She sounded serious. You two serious people should stay together.”

  “Do you want a damned affidavit that she’s not my fiancée? I’ll get you one.” A small heat infused his voice; the hostage negotiator tone was gone.

  “Look. Maybe you aren’t engaged to her. Maybe she’s a lying bitch. I’d like for her to be a lying bitch. But I’m getting real conflicting information here. Who do I believe. You? Her? The fucking evening news?” Chloe blew out a small breath. “Do you know what I did this weekend? I drove aimlessly, crying my eyes out because of you, ended up at the Lakeside Inn and ate away my misery. And after two days of that bullshit, I came back to reality and decided a man like you isn’t going to make me feel that way again. Okay? So thanks, but no thanks, to your proposal—not that I actually believe it anyway.”

  “So you don’t want to get married?” His voice held a sudden coolness.

  “You’re not dependable.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking for dependable. I got the impression you were more interested in hot sex and instant orgasms.”

  “And dependable. Sorry if I hadn’t mentioned that before.”

  “You wouldn’t last a week with dependable.”

  Or a night, she thought, reminded of her night at the Lakeside bar. But she was making a point, not being reasonable. “Yes, I would. Dependable appeals very much to me.”

  He snorted. “Did you get laid this weekend?”

&
nbsp; “Did you?”

  “Not likely when I was driving up and down the North Shore.”

  “Then you’d better go find someone. You’re probably going through withdrawal.”

  “Maybe I found someone already.” He held her gaze for a moment and then surveyed the quiet street.

  “Don’t you dare.” But her voice was breathy, his powerful body a potent reminder of the shortcomings of a vibrator.

  He took her hand in his and started pulling her toward her door. “I think I remember the code on your lock.”

  “I’ll scream. Mrs. Gregorich will call the cops. She’s probably watching right now.”

  “Good try.” He nodded toward the house next door, not slowing his pace. “No lights.”

  “She doesn’t have the lights on when she’s looking out at night.”

  “Then I’ll just have to explain to the cops that you haven’t quite made up your mind whether to marry me or not and we’re going upstairs to talk about it. Is it still four ones?”

  “Let me go, damn you.” She inwardly groaned at the iniquitous heat vibrating in her voice.

  He didn’t answer, but he’d heard the nuance of arousal too and held her firmly at his side while he punched in her code. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t like,” he murmured, shoving open the door.

  “What a fucking gentleman,” she hissed, dragging on his hand, appalled at her body’s lack of constraint.

  “Or maybe we’ll just talk.” He scooped her up in his arms to forestall having to haul her up the stairs. “Or you talk and I’ll listen,” he added, taking the stairs at a run.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she snapped.

  “Good, I don’t either.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Damn you, Rocco, put me down!”

  Reaching the foyer, he set her on her feet so suddenly, she had to wave her arms to keep her balance. “Thank you,” she said, huffily, arriving at a motionless state.

  “You’re welcome.” He was smiling.

  “This isn’t funny. Go.” She pointed her finger like a bad actress in a bad movie.

  “Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “I brought you a present.”

  “I don’t want a present.” She was having trouble sounding convincing. She adored presents.

  “It’s named for you.” He dipped his head toward her living room. “In there and I’ll show it to you.”

  “What’s wrong with here?”

  She hadn’t said go again. He was encouraged. “You have a TV in there.”

  She gave him a funny look, but she walked into her living room and stood in the middle of the room and looked at him with a show-me look this time.

  He took a small box out of his pants’ pocket and handed it to her.

  The box was magenta velvet, a white label rimmed in gold affixed to one side. The words on the label were magenta, the font modern and sleek, the name hot pink bringing her gaze up.

  “For you,” he said. “It’s named for you. Open it.”

  When she opened the small box, a glass bottle lay inside, the bottom green, the top in the shape of a pink flower.

  “Smell it.”

  Lifting off the top, she put the glass stopper to her nose and smiled. “It’s gorgeous.” She looked up at him. “It’s heavenly.”

  “Like its namesake.”

  “How am I supposed to stay mad at you?”

  “Don’t,” he said. “This was the worst week of my life.”

  She held the perfume cupped in her hands and wished the world wasn’t so complicated . . . or at least her life. “I don’t like to be so dependent on someone . . . needing someone so much my happiness hinges on it.”

  “We can work that out.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Do you know what love is?”

  “This weekend, when I couldn’t find you, I was thinking it was abject misery, for one thing.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. See, that’s the problem. Neither one of us even knows what love is. What if it isn’t just hot sex? What if we’re missing the whole deal?”

  “Jeez, Chloe, maybe no one ever knows what it is completely. Hell, Shakespeare wrote about it a dozen different ways. We don’t have to dissect every word and breath. Why can’t we just enjoy it?”

  “I was so unhappy this past week. I don’t want a repeat of those feelings. I’m never unhappy. Or I wasn’t ’til I met you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying maybe we should figure this out before we jump in too fast.”

  “We’ll get engaged first. That’s what an engagement is—getting ready for the real thing.”

  “And you should know,” she sardonically murmured.

  “Screw you. I was never engaged. She was nuts. Look, we’ll go as slowly as you want. I just want to see you.”

  “Like date?”

  “Date, go steady, call it anything you want.”

  “And we can see other people?”

  “No!”

  “See. I don’t like that already.”

  “Haven’t we both dated other people enough?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m not so sure I have.”

  He growled softly. “I’m not real inclined to share you.”

  “But then I’m not yours to share.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet.”

  A heavy silence hung in the air, a thick, suffocating shroud.

  His sigh was long-suffering and afflicted. “Okay. Have your way.”

  “You don’t have to give me permission.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re not making this easy.”

  “But then maybe it’s always been too easy for you.”

  “Give me a break. As if you’re a wallflower.”

  “I think maybe we fight too much.”

  “I think we wouldn’t fight so much if we stopped talking.”

  “And?”

  “Right. And did something else.”

  “How typically male.”

  “Jesus, Chloe, I don’t want to fight. I must have driven eight hundred miles looking for you and now that I’ve found you, you’re breaking my balls. Look, let me apologize for everything and anything I may have done to make you angry. It wasn’t intentional. And I’ve cleared everything with Jim Thiebaud. He understands—not that his daughter is nuts, because I couldn’t tell him that—but that Amy and I aren’t engaged and never were. Luckily, he’s a sensible man. Lucky for me, he’s a decent man.” A quick little prayer again and he hoped God was listening. “It’s late, I’m tired—you’re tired. Maybe we should continue this conversation tomorrow,” he said, his weariness suddenly audible in his voice. “I’m glad you like the perfume. I was hoping you would.” He lifted his hand toward the TV. “There should be ads running—I forgot the schedule—I’ll get you one.” He ran his fingers through his hair, stood motionless for a moment with his hands on his head, his eyes shut, then opened his eyes, dropped his hands and smiled. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  He turned back. “I’m really tired.”

  “Me too. Why don’t you stay?”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded. “Sort of.”

  He grinned. “That’s what I like. Enthusiasm.”

  “You’ve had way too much enthusiasm in your life. That’s your problem.”

  His gaze narrowed.

  “But I don’t want to fight.”

  A faint smile appeared. “I’m glad.” He opened his arms.

  When she went to him, he took the perfume box from her hand, stuffed it in his pocket, said, “We’ll look at the ads later,” and kissed her gently. “I think I’m half asleep,” he murmured, his breath warm on her mouth.

  “Come,” she whispered, taking his hand.

  And they walked down the hallway to her bedroom, holding
hands, smiling at each other, enveloped in a cocoon of contentment and happiness all the more precious for the desolation of their weekends.

  The shimmering color of her bedroom seemed to welcome him, like her. Or maybe he was becoming attached to shades of pink for the very best of reasons.

  “I didn’t pick up before I left,” she apologized, pausing for a moment in the doorway, surveying the unmade bed and strewn clothing with a small frown. “My mother wouldn’t approve.”

  “Neatness isn’t high on my list of priorities,” he said with a smile, pulling her into the room and shutting the door.

  She leaned into him, slid her hands up his chest and lifted her face for a kiss. “That must be why we get along so well. . . .”

  Her thighs were touching his, her breasts cushioned against his chest, the heated desire in her voice doing predictable things to his erection. “Because our other priorities match,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss her.

  His mouth rested on hers in a teasing, light caress.

  She pulled his head closer and kissed him back—not lightly at all.

  After their disagreement downstairs, he was moving slowly, waiting for instructions—like that. His kiss deepened, his hands slid down her back, slipped under her bottom and drew her into his hard, pulsing length. “It’s been a long time,” he whispered. Colin’s face instantly materialized in his brain at his misstatement, and his grip tightened, took on a possessive harshness. He lifted his mouth and met her heated gaze. “Not for all of us though—right?”

  “You don’t own me,” she whispered with a smile. “No one does.”

  Some women might have been abashed. Some women might have shown a modicum of guilt. But even in the heat of jealousy, he understood he had no right to expect faithfulness. “Maybe I can rent a piece of you.”

  “Maybe you can. Do you have references?”

  “How about this?” He moved his hips.

  “Feels like the gold standard to me.” She began unbuttoning his shirt. “References checked. Let’s try you out.”

  He stopped her unbuttoning. “Hold it. You’re always so impatient.” He was having trouble with Colin having been here and everywhere while he was gone.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Maybe.”