Maxine’s eyes were wide, incredulous. “Take control by sleeping with Campbell?”
“Wow,” a deep voice growled. “This is the best date I’ve ever not even gone on,” Campbell quipped, passing by Maxine with a light hand to her hip to give Mona a quick kiss on the cheek.
Mona winked and swatted his arm. “She’s a neurotic mess, Campbell. Wish I could be a fly on the wall.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mona. I love neurotic messes. They’re complex and challenging. Right up my alley.”
“Good thing, because you’re obligated to take my girl out and show her a good time. Now go. I don’t want to miss that Horatio clenching his teeth while he’s overacting.”
Campbell turned to Maxine with a grin that made her knees begin to buckle and her breath halt. As first dates in over twenty years went, she’d hit the jackpot. Freshly shaven, wearing a pec-loving sky blue sweater and low-slung jeans that molded to his strong thighs, he made her mouth dry. And he had all of his hair. A big plus in the over-forty crowd. “Let’s go,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
No. Oh, shit. She wasn’t ready. She was never going to be ready to date. This was ludicrous, a stupendously monumental error in judgment on her part.
Yet she forced herself to place her hand in his and found she relished the warmth of his callused palm and the way his fingers encouraged hers to curl around his.
The realization of the moment startled her.
The feel of Campbell’s hand encompassing hers, a hand she’d moments ago been reluctant to give to him, now experienced a flickering ember of an emotion stemming from the category titled “safe.”
Yes. That was it. Her hand in his represented safety, and hold on—she could still breathe. Giving her hand to him didn’t mean, at least not at this moment, that she was handing over her soul.
What a crazy thought to have. How dramatic and over the top. That holding Campbell’s hand somehow represented safety and the conclusion that he didn’t want to own it or remind her who owned it or tell other people who owned it wasn’t rational. They hardly knew each other.
Yet there it was. She felt it. Knew it like she knew her own shoe size.
Ah, but then there was something else that crept up out of the clear blue. It really was okay to go out and enjoy a cup of coffee without a fear in the world she’d have to come home to a brooding, sulking Finley.
A Finley who’d had a bad day and needed his ego stroked. A Finley who pulled all the strings and damned well knew it. A Finley who’d had his claws in her so deep, every second she spent away from home was spent anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.
All while she let guilt, totally self-imposed, eat at her chaotic mind filled to the brim with the potential chaos he could create if she wasn’t there to stop it. The worry, the expectation of something to worry about in her marriage, was over.
Forever.
And she hadn’t even realized that’s how she’d been living until this very second.
So here she was.
Campbell noted her sluggish feet and turned to ask, “You okay?”
Yeah. Yeah. She was okay. Her smile was genuine when she gazed up into his blue eyes. “You know what? I think I am. Let’s go have coffee.”
And she meant it.
She, Maxine Cambridge, was going to have coffee and she was going to do it unfettered.
She was free.
Free.
Every muscle in her body relaxed, leaving her limbs almost buttery soft.
And by hell, she was still breathing.
CHAPTER NINE
Note from Maxine Cambridge to all ex-trophy wives: Freeeeedom! Remember the song by George Michael? C’mon—lemme hear ya sing, freeeeeedom! In your fight for survival, though you might be poor, do remember, you are a free woman. Celebrate by dancing naked. Or clothed when in public venues. Don’t hamper your freedom with nasty fines and possible jail time. Although, three squares and fresh-air time from twelve-fifteen to one forty-five doesn’t sound like it completely sucks . . .
Len turned off the small desk lamp and threaded her way through the boxes of champagne glasses that had arrived just ten minutes before she was due to pack in another long day. How she’d ever thought she could run her own business, virtually alone, now escaped her. There weren’t enough hours in the day to soothe frazzled brides, handle every minute detail of a wedding, and still catch a couple of hours of sleep before she did it all over again.
But she was making headway, getting bigger weddings, nabbing pricier venues. It could happen if she could just keep it together long enough to create a reputation. She still had contacts from her old trophy-wife days, and she had no qualms about cashing them in.
A shadow by the entryway to her basement office startled her momentarily until Len recognized the large frame that went with it. This was not helping her keep it together. “Wow. For Finley’s stoolie, you blow at inconspicuous.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not Finley’s stoolie,” he said, strolling into view, handsome, hard, confident.
Her snort, totally indelicate and rasping loud, filled the small, cluttered space. “Right.” The urge to grab her mace should prevail, but unless her Spidey senses had gone askew, she didn’t feel the least bit threatened. A notion she still didn’t understand.
He leaned against the front of her particleboard desk, crossing his patent-leathered feet at the ankles. His steel gray suit, sky blue shirt, and navy blue tie immaculate. “If you’d kept your mace to yourself, you would have known that much about me.”
Facing him, she crossed her arms over her chest, flashing purposefully defiant eyes. He had such an honest look about him, but behind his gorgeously lashed eyes there were secrets. They just didn’t feel like they derived from the devious end of the spectrum.
Though, Adam’s return only reminded Len she’d continually put off mentioning his sudden, rather suspicious appearance to Maxine. She battled with whether she should mention him at all. Lately, it was just plain too good to see her best friend finally make an effort to pull herself up out of the hole she’d wallowed in to spoil it with the thought that Finley might have hired someone to spy on her.
She wasn’t even sure if Adam had anything to do with Finley anyway. He’d never said one way or the other. She’d been the one doing all the accusing that night.
Len had left that meeting with him in the retirement village parking lot wholly unsure if his intentions were devious. Yet guilt now gnawed at her gut. She’d call Maxine the moment she left her office and ask her if she knew an Adam Baylor. Until then, she’d get rid of Mr. Schmexy. “I don’t want to know about you, especially if you have anything to do with Finley Cambridge.”
His eyebrow cocked upward on an otherwise unperturbed face. A nice face. Too nice. “I have nothing to do with Finley Cambridge.”
“Then how about you tell me what you want and go away when you’re done.”
The firm line of his lips tilted upward in a sensual smile. “I want you.”
Those words, seductive, delicious as they slipped from his mouth, sent a hot wave of heat to the place between her thighs. And she had to fight not to stumble on her next words. She kept her face impassive, though her heartbeat clanged in her ears. “That’s unfortunate. I’m not available for the wanting.” She waved a dismissive finger in the direction of the doorway.
This time his eyebrow rose with a pinch of arrogance, but his lips curved. “What if I told you I never take no for an answer?”
Len’s fingers reached into the pocket of her baggy dress, cinched at the waist with a thick, black belt, and dug for her cell phone. “What if I told you I don’t care what you want and you’d better go somewhere or I’m calling the police?”
Damn. She was incredible when she was all worked up. The sharp angle of her defiant jaw tilted upward just enough so he could catch a glimpse of the long column of her creamy throat. Dark eyes shone bright with fiery independence and ultra-empowered woman. H
is quick gaze assessed her small breasts and the lacy bra she wore beneath her low-cut dress. A lacy bra he wanted to tear off with his teeth before dragging his tongue over a pert nipple.
Definitely easy on the eye.
Not so easy on the unmentionables. A fact he was trying to keep to himself by jamming his hands into the pockets of his trousers. This unexpected reaction to her was exactly what had brought him back here. To pursue an answer. To dissect the strong current of electricity that had no rhyme or reason after such a short amount of time doing nothing more than following her like some sick pervert. Which he wasn’t, but he had ducks to line up in a row, precautions to take before he revealed anything more to this stunning, easily excited creature. “Why don’t we start over?”
Her dark eyebrow slanted, her suspicion clearly ratcheting up a notch. “Start what over?”
Adam Baylor’s eyes swept upward, beginning at Lenore’s slender ankles and ending with her deep, dark eyes now cloudy with cynicism. “Our acquaintance, so to speak.”
Those beautiful, full lips, cherry red today, curled inward. “I can’t see a single reason why we need to be acquainted.”
Feisty. Mmm-mmm good. Adam pulled his hand out of his pocket, rounding on her if only to take another whiff of the musky perfume she wore. His lips grazed the shell of her ear, and he took note of her visible shiver and the goose bumps lining her arms. A shiver he recognized for what it was, and it had nothing to do with fear. “Meet me at Wendt’s for a drink, and we’ll see if I can’t change your mind about that. If you’re not there within the hour, you’ll never see me again.”
He noted her outraged gasp and the heavy clunk of something Adam figured she wanted to nail him in the back with but had decided against by letting it drop to her desk.
He forced his chuckle to a muffle by placing a fist over his mouth.
Hot.
Lenore Erickson virtually smoked.
Maxine climbed into the passenger side of Campbell’s old truck, giving it a covert once-over. She hoisted herself inside to navigate a place to sit on the battered red leather seat.
His lean hand grabbed the box of plumbing supplies and hurled them carelessly into the back. Campbell patted the area now cleared of debris, smoothing a tear in the leather. “Not exactly the sweetest thing you’ve ever put your seat in, huh?”
She wasn’t sure if he was poking fun at her for once having the luxury of driving the cream of the crop in automobiles or if he was embarrassed by the condition of his truck. Which wasn’t exactly state of the art, judging from the hard jolt and the swoop the chassis took with a lurching creak when they rolled over a speed bump at no more than four miles an hour.
Yet the use it had clearly seen over the years was comfortable. The kind of truck you could roll down the window and throw your bare feet up on the dashboard in while you ate an ice cream cone on a hot summer’s day.
Her eyes found her hands, folded primly in her lap, her earlier internal war cry of freedom and all its supposed bennies now but a mere whisper. The metaphoric fist in her head was still raised to the sky, it was just waving in the air with a whole lot less vigor. Instead, she’d begun to veer more toward plain freaked out that she was on a date.
A date. “I like the color of the seats,” she offered in a weak attempt to thwart the possible jab at her ex-lifestyle.
“I swear on a Cluck-Cluck Palace combo with curly fries, my other car’s a Ferrari.”
That made her laugh with a hollow chuckle, no longer as much bitter as it was disgusted with the ridiculousness of a housewife with a Ferrari. “Ironically, so was mine. A Spyder, I think, or some creepy, crawly name like that.” She couldn’t even remember anymore. More to the point, she didn’t care to remember.
He whistled his approval, his full mouth pursing deliciously. “Niiice. Mine’s a 308.”
Right. Not that the numbers meant anything to her anyway, but right. “So where are we going for coffee?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Along with her loss of confidence came a hesitant niggle. There was no love lost between her and surprises. She’d had enough surprises for one lifetime. Surprise—your best friend’s sister’s sleeping with your husband! Call her a cling-on for making the comparison between that horrible event and anything Campbell might have to offer, but it was a mind-set she hadn’t been able to shake even while she was doing all this growing.
Peace was what she sought, without any invasive ripples. Her silence provoked an insightful response from him, leaving her uncomfortable at how attuned he was to her rather bizarre emotional pendulum. “Not a fan of surprises?”
“I’ve had a few in these past months and they didn’t always have a happy attached to them. I’m sorry. It was just a stupid gut reaction that has nothing to do with you.”
And everything to do with the fact that I should absolutely not be dating because I’m a melodramatic, emotional candidate for a therapeutic couch, she wanted to add. Closing her eyes, Maxine analyzed this new territory and decided she was clearly having a ridiculous response to this new attack of nerves.
Campbell stretched his arms out ramrod straight, gripping the steering wheel with an insolent grin. “Promise. No bad surprises, but it stays a surprise.”
And somehow, just his word soothed her. Not to mention, her insides became molten mush when he grinned like that after making a statement so clearly meant to let her know he was in charge. Lighten up, Maxine. This isn’t about control. It’s coffee, surprise location or not.
Silence, not uncomfortable or in need of filling up with words, prevailed in the truck. The radio hummed a station low, and if she was hearing correctly, a little Harry Connick Jr. Leaning forward, the tangle of knots in her stomach loosening, she touched the radio’s dial. “Do you mind if I turn it up a little?”
Campbell’s eyes turned to meet hers with a smile in them. “Not at all. You like Harry Connick?”
Her nod was enthusiastic when she met his smile. “I do. I love Connick, Bennett, Sinatra, Nat King Cole. Oh, and most anything from the Rat Pack era. I was raised on Glen Miller and the Lennon Sisters, Tommy Dorsey, Lawrence Welk. I know it sounds corny, but it’s comfort music for me—” She stopped short, curtailing her ramble by biting her wagging tongue.
Campbell barked a laugh, revealing the brown column of his throat, hard with sinew. A place a girl could nuzzle her nose against while watching a DVD or . . .
“Remember all those bubbles they blew around after Lawrence’s show?” he asked. “My parents were big fans, too.”
“I remember living to see what dresses the dancers would wear. I loved how they puffed out when they twirled. I used to beg my mom to let me stay up and watch for that very reason.” The memory warmed her. Her on the floor with her pillow, and her mother and father on the couch in front of their big console TV.
“I’d have never guessed,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes with a snort at his presumption. “Okay. So I like a little frilly. What’s the harm in that?”
Pulling to a stop in a small clearing overlooking the woods she’d once hung out in as a teenager, Campbell turned in his seat, giving her that direct gaze with a glimmer of twinkle in it she suspected was meant to humor her. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I like that you like frilly things. All girlie-girls do.”
Instantly, her eyes fell to her lap again; she was thankful for the music filtering through the truck’s interior to serve as a muffler for her sudden intake of breath. A tear stung her eye. She wasn’t exactly looking or feeling very girlie. The upward climb her self-esteem had begun in her mother’s bathroom took a ridiculous, sudden downward dive. “Have I mentioned how good I am at the touchy emotions lately?” she teased.
Campbell’s fingers scraped the underside of her chin, tilting her jaw upward. “Hey, I wasn’t picking on you. I really do like girlie-girls. I appreciate a woman who appreciates being a woman.”
The sincerity of his tone, and that granite-hard blu
e gaze, softened only by the laugh lines around his eyes, made her smile. “I’m sorry. I get stupid sometimes for no other reason than just to get stupid. I have all these new triggers that spout off out of the blue, and they make no sense to anyone but me.”
His fingers curled around her chin, and using his thumb, Campbell caressed the spot just beneath her lower lip, making it warm and trembly. “That’s because you’re changing. You’ve had a helluva ride these last months, I suspect. To be where you were and end up where you are was like culture shock, I’m sure.”
Campbell’s words made her bristle. “I ended up just fine.” Fine had levels. She was still at level two, but whatever. She’d be ticking off levels in no time with all the hair rolling and poop scooping she was doing. She’d made two hundred bucks last week, working from sunup till sundown. So, yeah. She was just fine.
“Ah,” he clucked. “Now you’re taking offense where there was none to be had. What I mean is, you were married and financially secure. Now you’re single and not so financially secure.”
Oh. There was that. Wow. Sensitive much, Maxine? Blowing out a pent-up breath, she smiled in another apology. “Again, I’m discovering new ways to define sensitive and over-the-top dramatic.”
“You’re definitely giving them new meaning. But no worries. I get it.”
He did not either get it. “You get me taking offense to an imagined hint that I’m a shadow of my former self? How could you possibly get it?”
“No. I get being over-the-top sensitive about a subject that’s become a focus in your life—a sore spot, if you will. It gets blown out of proportion and you become hypersensitive. It’ll pass.”
Perspective. He had it. In spades. Again, Campbell’s words brought the big picture front and center, making her ask her next impulsive question. She found she had to know if he was thinking what everyone in the village was. That she’d married Finley for his money and now she was getting what she deserved.
You Dropped a Blonde on Me Page 15
