by Jane Graves
Kari was horrified. “What?”
“You had the nerve to be gorgeous. Bobbie doesn’t like anyone prettier than she is.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Honey, she looks like a mud fence compared to you.”
“So what do I do about it?”
“Gain fifty pounds, chop off all that gorgeous red hair, and stop wearing deodorant.”
“Is that all?”
“No. Throw in a breast reduction, and you two can be best buddies.”
Kari sighed. She knew the job would be a challenge, but she hadn’t expected any of the other waitresses to be.
“How are the tips?” Nina asked.
“Not great.”
“Hmm. Are you having fun with it?”
Kari was aghast. “Fun?”
“Waiting tables is hard work, but you can’t let anyone see that. This is a tourist town. A lot of people come here on vacation, and they want to relax. If you look like you’re always out of breath, that makes the whole situation tense. People don’t like that.”
No tension? That was like asking a person being chased by a bear to pretend they were out for a Sunday stroll.
“Just try to have a good time,” Nina said. “People having fun always look like they know what they’re doing.”
Kari did like to find the fun in anything she did, but pasting on a big smile when she had to be on her feet for hours each day with half a dozen people wanting something from her all at once while she was sweating like mad and wearing ugly shoes…well, that was a real challenge.
“So how are things going at the vineyard?” Nina asked. “Is the cottage working out for you?”
“It’s great.” And if Marc came back, it would be even better.
“I wasn’t surprised to hear that Marc let you stay there.”
“Yeah? I was.”
Nina laughed. “That’s because you don’t know Marc. Sometimes I want to shoot him dead for being so bossy. But he always does the right thing in the end. When the going gets tough, he’s the guy you want in your corner. And don’t you dare tell him I said that, or he’ll become so insufferable the rest of us will all pick up a gun.”
Kari told Nina about Marc showing up at her door with a boxful of things to help her feel better.
“That doesn’t surprise me, either,” Nina said. “Remember, this is the man who acted as if it was such an imposition for you to stay there.”
“How long has he been divorced?” Kari asked.
Nina looked surprised. “Divorced?”
“Uh…yeah. I assumed—”
“Marc was never married.”
“What?”
“Angela’s mother was his high school girlfriend. She got pregnant, then ran off after Angela was born. Marc would have married her, but she didn’t want anything to do with a baby or a husband.”
“You mean he raised Angela alone? And he was only in high school?”
“Yeah. And Daniel and I were just kids ourselves when Angela was born. I was fifteen, and Daniel was thirteen. Our father was dead, and our mother was in bad health. She’s gone now, too. Marc was already calling the shots at the vineyard by that time, even with going to school.”
“Then he had a baby on top of everything?”
“Yeah. But if there’s anybody who can handle the hard stuff, it’s Marc.”
Kari was stunned. She’d assumed he’d been divorced somewhat recently, but he’d never been married at all? His high school girlfriend had gotten pregnant and then left him with a newborn baby? Then it struck her. Maybe that was why he took his condoms so seriously. Suddenly what had happened between them a few nights ago was making a lot more sense.
Just then a woman came into the café wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a tote bag slung over her shoulder. She was tall and thin with dark, silky hair pulled into a ponytail. When she walked up to their table, Kari realized she was the friend Nina was meeting.
She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. “Had a family who was adopting a cat. Had to finish that up.”
“Kari, this is Shannon North,” Nina said. “She’s the director of the Rainbow Valley Animal Shelter.”
Kari shook her hand. “That’s a pretty cool job. I bet it keeps you busy.”
“You have no idea.”
“Kari’s new to Rainbow Valley,” Nina said. “She started working for Rosie, but she’s a little tight on money so she’s staying in the cottage at the vineyard.” Then she turned to Kari. “Shannon’s meeting me to work on her wedding plans.”
“Wedding?” Kari said. “You’re getting married?”
“Yeah,” Shannon said with a smile. “At the vineyard next month.”
“So where’s Luke?” Nina said. “I thought he was coming, too.”
Shannon frowned. “Funny thing. He said he had to meet the contractor who’s building a barn for the rodeo school at exactly the same time we were meeting to talk about the wedding.”
“Wish I’d known,” Nina said. “We could have met at another—oh.”
“If we met at two in the morning, suddenly that would be the time he was meeting the contractor. What is it with men and wedding planning? He just keeps smiling and saying, ‘Whatever you want.’”
Greg had done something similar with their wedding. Only with him, it had been Whatever your father will pay for.
“So how are plans going for the rodeo school?” Nina asked.
“Great. Marc was out last week to help Luke repair some of the fence around the property, so now he can start looking for livestock.” Shannon smiled. “It’s his dream, and now it’s coming true. I’ve never seen him so happy.”
In spite of her words about Luke and his aversion to wedding planning, Kari could tell just how much Shannon loved him. She was practically glowing with it, and Kari would bet her last dollar that Luke felt the same. That’s it, she thought. That’s how it’s supposed to be. All she could remember about the days before her own wedding was Hilda screeching, her father writing checks, and her own conviction about getting married slowly slipping away.
“Marc has given Luke a lot of business advice, too.” Shannon sighed. “We’re sure going to miss him when he’s gone.”
Kari came to attention. “Gone?”
“After harvest is over, Marc is leaving Rainbow Valley,” Nina said.
Kari was stunned. “Why?”
“Well, if he weren’t so young I’d call it a midlife crisis. But since he’s only thirty-five…” She exhaled. “Hell, I don’t know. He’s got it in his head that he just wants to be by himself for a while. So he’s turning the vineyard over to our brother and heading out.”
“For how long?”
“Three years. Then we’re all coming together again to decide what to do with the vineyard. If Marc wants to come back, we’ll keep it. If he decides to live somewhere else, we’ll sell it and split the proceeds. To be fair, after taking care of other people all this time, he’s earned the right to do just about anything he wants to. I just wish leaving wasn’t one of those things.”
Kari couldn’t believe it. Here she was trying to integrate herself into this town at the same time Marc was looking ahead to leaving it? A terrible sinking sensation came over her, a sense that something she wanted desperately was destined to slip right out of her grasp.
As if she’d ever had it in the first place.
“So…how are things going between you two?” Nina asked.
Kari’s heart jolted. “What do you mean?”
Nina shrugged offhandedly. “I just hoped you were getting to know each other.”
“Well, he did come by a few nights ago with that stuff, but…” She wondered what else to say. It didn’t seem right to tell the whole story.
“Okay,” Nina said. “Here’s the truth. I want my brother to stay in Rainbow Valley. I was hoping you’d give him a reason to.”
“You actually think he’d stay on account of me?”
“I
don’t know,” Nina said. “If you were seeing each other…”
“We’re not.”
“Would you like to be?”
Yes! But he doesn’t want me!
Or maybe he really did, and it was just the condom issue. He was just thinking too hard about all of it. The trouble was that she could speculate all day long, but she had no idea what was really going on inside his head.
Nina waved her hand. “No. Forget I said that. It’s crazy. You barely know each other. And it’s none of my business, anyway.” Then she turned to Shannon and stage-whispered, “What do you think? Is there a chance?”
Shannon smiled. “Well, last I checked, Marc’s not blind. And Kari isn’t, either.”
Okay. Enough was enough. Kari decided it was time to talk to Marc. The conversation might go nowhere, but they were going to have one whether he liked it or not.
Later that evening, Marc grabbed a glass of wine and went out to the deck. Brandy followed him there and lay at his feet, letting out a doggy sigh before closing her eyes for a nap.
He hadn’t been able to get Kari out of his mind. He’d seen paradise. Lived it for a few blessed minutes. Now he wanted to go back there. He wanted to make up for all the time he’d lost in the past eighteen years. He wanted to crawl into bed with Kari and make love to her for hours on end, leaving only long enough to consume the necessary food and water to stay alive. He wanted to make rabbits cry with envy. He wanted to have so much sex that Ripley himself wouldn’t believe it. But what had he done?
He’d run away from the very thing he was dying to have.
Brandy suddenly leaped up, wagging her tail. Marc looked down the path and saw Kari walking toward the house, wearing a pair of shorts and a tight little T-shirt. Having a beautiful woman on his property was unsettling. Having a beautiful woman on his property he’d seen naked was downright unnerving. He had no idea what she wanted, but she probably hadn’t shown up to heap forgiveness on him for what he’d done a few nights ago.
She climbed the steps to the deck and sat in the chair next to him. “Nice night, isn’t it?”
It was. But he didn’t think that was what she had on her mind. He certainly didn’t have it on his.
“Yeah,” he said. “Nice. Wine?”
“No, thanks.”
Silence.
“At least the heat seems to have broken,” Kari said. “It wasn’t even ninety degrees today.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is there any rain in the forecast? Surely after the storm a couple of nights ago—”
“I don’t think you’re here about the weather.”
“No. I’m not.” She paused. “I talked to Nina today.”
“Oh.”
“She told me a few things.”
“Such as?”
“She said Angela’s mother was your high school girlfriend. And that she left right after Angela was born. But maybe you’d rather she hadn’t told me that.”
Marc shrugged. “It’s no secret. The whole town knows it.”
“If you’d told me, I might have understood the other night just a little bit more.”
Marc looked away, feeling guilty. But it was a hard thing for him to talk about. Always had been. To this day it still brought back memories of that moment he realized Nicole was gone, leaving him with a newborn baby and no clue how to take care of one. Those had been the most difficult days of his life, ones he didn’t like to think about no matter how much he loved his daughter.
For a long time they sat in silence, the chirp of crickets grating against the stillness of the night. The evening breeze kicked up a few fallen leaves on the deck until they rustled softly.
“Shannon was with Nina today,” Kari said. “They were planning her wedding. It’s cool that you guys do weddings here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She said you’re leaving Rainbow Valley.”
So she’d found that out, too. “That’s no secret, either.”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I’m just getting on my bike and hitting the road.”
“Bike?”
“Motorcycle.”
Her face lit up. “Motorcycle? You have a motorcycle?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God! I love motorcycles! Can I see it?”
He couldn’t believe the rapturous expression on her face. It was as if she was a five-year-old kid talking about a paint pony with a silver-trimmed saddle. This was a new experience for him. Angela didn’t like the engine noise. Nina told him a motorcycle was a death trap whether he wore a helmet or not. Daniel’s fondness for motor vehicles extended only to those with four tires and a 350-horsepower engine. But this little wisp of a woman actually liked motorcycles?
“Sure,” he said, liking the thought of showing it off to somebody who actually appreciated it. “Come on.”
He rose from his chair. Kari followed him down the deck stairs, and they walked to the garage, where he lifted the overhead door. And there it was. A big, gleaming monster of a motorcycle with a black leather seat and chrome so polished she could have used it as a mirror.
“Oh, my God,” Kari said reverently, walking toward it as if she were approaching the gates of heaven. “It’s beautiful!”
“It’s a touring bike. Made for comfort. I intend to put a lot of miles on it.”
“When I was in college, I dated a biker for a couple of months,” Kari said. “Rode all over the place with him. When my father found out, he came completely unglued. The biker didn’t work out, but I’ve loved motorcycles ever since.” She glanced at Marc. “Mind if I sit on it?”
He nodded toward it. “Go ahead.”
She slung a leg over it and sat down, holding onto the handlebars. There was something about this beautiful, delicate woman with that powerful engine between her legs, smiling with ecstasy, that made him hot. Hell, was there anything about her that didn’t make him hot?
“There’s nothing like riding on one of these,” she said. “It feels as if your life is on fast-forward. I love that feeling of the landscape whooshing by. It’s like you’re driving headlong into life rather than sitting around and just letting it happen to you. It makes you feel so…I don’t know. Free?”
That was it exactly. That was how Marc felt when he was on the back of a motorcycle. When he was in his truck, it was all about work. When Angela was younger and he’d owned an SUV, it had been all about getting her back and forth to school and being a shuttle service for her and her friends. But when he was on his motorcycle, it was all about him and nobody else.
“I’ve always ridden behind somebody,” Kari said. “I don’t know how to ride one alone.” She faced him, her eyes alight with excitement. “Can you take me for a ride?”
All at once Marc had a flash of Kari behind him on that bike, her arms wrapped around him, those gorgeous thighs pressed up against his. He only wished he could make that happen right now.
“Can’t,” Marc said. “I don’t have another helmet.”
Kari’s face fell into a disappointed frown.
“Maybe I can borrow one for you.”
She smiled again. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
She stood up and hiked her leg back over the seat, and when she did, she stumbled a little. Marc caught her arm to keep her from falling. As he steadied her, he softened his grip until it was more like a caress, because the last thing he wanted to do was let her go. Since the moment he’d met her and found out she’d run away from her own wedding, he thought her crazy impulsiveness was something he needed to run from. But now—tonight, this moment—he had the feeling maybe it was exactly what he’d been so desperate to run to.
“I shouldn’t have left like that the other night,” he said quietly. “It was a rotten thing to do, and I’m sorry.”
“I understand why you did it,” she said, her gaze never leaving his. “But I don’t think there’s anything t
o worry about. And if we just take a trip to a drugstore, we won’t have anything to worry about next time, either.”
Next time?
Marc’s heart jolted hard when she said that, and within seconds his brain was already conjuring up images of what next time might be like.
But that wasn’t the only thing they needed to consider.
“You know I’m leaving Rainbow Valley,” he said.
“I know. But are you leaving right now?”
“No.”
“Then what does that have to do with having sex?”
“I’m just not looking for any kind of commitment.”
“What makes you think I am?”
“You’re not?”
“I just got out of a bad engagement,” she said. “I’m not going there again anytime soon.”
“Oh.”
“So we’re on the same page?”
“Same page?”
“No commitment. No strings. Just sex. How do you feel about that?”
Holy crap. What did she say?
Wait. Nothing on earth was that simple. He knew he should stop and think about this. But as she stared up at him, he couldn’t seem to make the logical side of his brain engage. Her carefree attitude was intoxicating. Her talk of motorcycles and freedom and life whooshing by was like crack to him right now. He’d told himself if a willing woman crossed his radar, he’d go for it. This one was giving him carte blanche to have the kind of sex he’d been dreaming about with the freedom to walk away when it was over. She’d handed him the keys to heaven. Wasn’t it about time he took them?
“Uh…okay,” Marc said, still a little stunned. “I guess we are on the same page.”
“Good.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed. Off-balance, he took two steps backward and hit the wall. Then she stepped forward, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
He was so startled that for a moment all he could do was let it happen. A tiny part of his brain told him just how crazy this was, but something had changed. Something was different. Crazy was what he wanted, and that was exactly what this woman gave him. She was kissing him hard and deep with a kind of abandon he’d never experienced before, as if there was nothing on this earth but the two of them desperate for each other. That was what he wanted. More of her. All of her.
