The Notorious Groom (Desire)

by Caroline Cross

  She sighed. It was just her luck that out of all the lovely, romantic lines uttered by Lochinvar, that was the one that applied to her life.

  She shook her head and retrieved her small, two-wheeled collapsible shopping cart from the coat closet. “Good night,” she said to Andrea.

  Not waiting for a reply, she stepped outside. The air felt hot after the air-conditioning, and the early evening sunlight was bright enough to make her blink. She rummaged in her bag for her sunglasses but, par for the day, couldn’t find them. With yet another sigh—she was starting to sound as if she had a bronchial condition—she slung the bag over her shoulder. Taking a firm grip on the cart, she set off for the market down the street, hoping she could remember what she’d meant to buy since she couldn’t find her shopping list, either.

  Not that she was in a hurry. On the contrary, as she walked into the store, stowed her things in a regular cart and headed down the nearest aisle, Norah had to admit that she’d been dreading the thought of going home ever since Chelsea had called to say she would be gone for the night.

  The cause of her misgiving was obviously Eli.

  After this morning, she would be crazy not to quail at the thought of being home alone with him. Yet as much as she tried to convince herself that was the case, she couldn’t silence the little voice in her head that kept whispering what she really couldn’t stand was the idea that he might not be there at all. That he might decide to do what any wildly attractive, only-pretending-to-be-married man would, and go out for the evening, instead.

  It was a possibility that ought to make her happy. After all, his absence would ensure she didn’t have to put up with any more teasing or innuendo.

  Yet for some inexplicable reason, the prospect made her feel disturbed, unsettled and dissatisfied. It was a little like craving chocolate even though it gave you hives, she thought dejectedly as she paid for her groceries.

  “There you go, Miss Brown.”

  Jarred from her reverie, she looked up to find that the box boy had already taken her wire cart, unfolded it and set her bags inside. “Why, thank you, Eric.”

  “You’re welcome.” The boy sent her a shy smile, then suddenly blushed. “I forgot. I guess I should’ve said Mrs. Wilder.” The tops of his ears turned red. “Congratulations,” he mumbled.

  A pang of guilt at her deception stabbed at her. Yet not for the world would she embarrass him further by correcting him, so she simply nodded and said again, “Thank you, Eric,” with all the dignity she could muster. Grabbing the cart, she pushed it outside and started down the sidewalk, only to skid to a halt after less than a dozen yards.

  She told herself she was seeing things—except she knew she wasn’t. Dead ahead was Eli’s car, parked snugly at the curb. The reason she knew that it was Eli’s car was because Eli himself was standing next to it, his backside propped against the door, his arms folded loosely across his chest, one ankle crossed casually over the other.

  Emotions cartwheeled through her. Wariness. Apprehension. Relief. Anticipation.

  He inclined his head. He looked as cool and delicious as an icy drink, dressed as he was in loafers, loose khaki pants and a woven white shirt open at the throat with the sleeves rolled up. A pair of aviator sunglasses added the perfect touch. “Hey, Boo. Surprise.”

  Her grip tightened around the cart handle. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “I had to go to the bank, so I thought I’d drop by the library and see if you were done for the day. I was on my way there when I saw you go into DiMaggio’s.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t sound too thrilled.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not that. I just...that is, I didn’t expect to see you.”

  He pushed away from the car and strolled toward her, not stopping until only the cart was between them. “I guess you could say it’s your lucky day.”

  Although she didn’t say a word, something of her feelings must have shown on her face.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly.

  His gaze swept over her. Suddenly self-conscious, she looked down at herself. For the first time, she noticed that there was a dark smudge on the toe of one of her white canvas tennis shoes. And that the top of one of her ankle socks had come unrolled and was straggling down. Water stains spotted her skirt from the flood in the library bathroom. And—she automatically tucked a flyaway wisp behind her ear—her hair seemed to be falling down.

  She braced for the inevitable joking remark.

  “Bad day, huh?” Eli’s voice was oddly guarded. “Well, try to look on the bright side. At least the worst is over.”

  She jerked her head up to stare at him, trying to decide why he was suddenly being so...kind.

  He stared back, his expression impossible to read behind the sunglasses. Then he gave a little shrug, tugged the cart from her nerveless fingers and towed it to the car.

  After opening the trunk, he set the groceries inside, then gave the cart a cursory once-over, pushed in the locking tabs, folded it flat and stowed it, as well. He shut the trunk, came around the end of the car and opened the passenger door. “Come on. Get in.”

  She hesitated, her gaze going from him to the car and back again. Caution urged her to refuse.

  Yet short of admitting that she didn’t want to be alone with him, she couldn’t think of a plausible excuse for turning him down. And they were only going a dozen blocks. Surely she couldn’t make too big a fool of herself in the five minutes or so it would take.

  “Come on,” he urged again, his voice dry. “It’s just a ride home. I promise not to wrestle you to the floor and ravish you along the way.”

  Suddenly she felt exceedingly foolish. After all, it wasn’t his fault that being around him caused her to experience all these strange contradictory feelings.

  “All right.” Straightening her spine, she walked over, set her bag and purse on the floor and gingerly lowered herself onto the contoured seat.

  Eli shut the door behind her with a grunt of satisfaction. He knew it was absurd, but for a moment there, he’d actually been worried she was going to refuse to get in the car and make up some ridiculous excuse to walk home.

  Not that it would have been any big deal if she had. If she wanted to walk from here to Portland hauling that ridiculous, little-old-lady cart, it was her choice. It wasn’t as if he felt obligated to help her—despite his dissatisfaction with the way things had gone this morning. It didn’t matter to him one way or the other, even if she did look a little wilted, like an unwatered flower left out in the sun.

  Although...as far as Kisscount was concerned, she was his wife. And it would hardly improve his already tarnished reputation to have everybody in town see her dragging home their groceries on foot while he drove around. While he himself didn’t give a fig what people said, he did care for Chelsea’s sake.

  Of course, none of it mattered now, he reminded himself as he opened the driver’s side door and climbed into the car. Not when Norah was sitting right where she belonged. It was just too bad she couldn’t relax, he thought, taking note of the way she was sitting with her knees pressed together and her hands clasped in her lap. She really was incredibly prim.

  With a little shake of his head, he settled into the worn leather seat, popped the gear shift into neutral and started the engine. “Boo?”

  “Yes?”

  “In the future, if you need stuff from the store, just say so and you can take the car ”

  “Oh, but—” She stopped, a curious expression flashing across her face. “Thank you,” she said finally.

  He studied her, wondering what that look was all about. “No big deal. But I would appreciate it if you’d fasten your seat belt.”

  “Oh. Of course.” For a moment she didn’t move, then she fumbled at her side for the metal tongue, found it and pulled. The webbing unrolled about a foot, then stuck, refusing to budge as she tugged on it.

  Famil
iar with the mechanism’s propensity to stick, Eli reached across her. “Here. Let me. It’s a little temperamental—”

  “It’s all right. I can do it,” she said quickly, letting go of the belt at the same time she turned and raised her hands to stave him off, inadvertently sending one palm sliding along the sensitive underside of his upper arm.

  Eli froze at the shiver of pleasure that danced along his spine at that innocent little touch. Nonplussed, he automatically turned his gaze on the cause.

  Norah stared back at him, her gray eyes wide and the rest of her as motionless as the scared little rabbit that had inspired her nickname. A faint flush crept into her pale, porcelain cheeks. “Excuse me,” she said in a small voice, carefully lowering her hand to the safety of her lap. “I didn’t mean to t-touch you. It was an accident.”

  “Of course it was.” What did she think? That he believed she was trying to seduce him? Right. He could just imagine her reaching up, taking his face in her hands and pressing her soft, pink lips to his. No doubt her whole body would shake with nervousness, right down to the taut crests of her round little breasts—

  To his shock he felt a stirring in his groin at the picture forming in his head. Wondering what the hell was wrong with him, he reached over, snagged her seat belt and yanked it into place. “Look,” he said brusquely, sitting back and fastening his own seat belt. “Don’t give it another thought, okay?” He put the ’Vette into gear and pulled away from the curb, not sure what devil made him add, “Women touch me all the time. I’m used to it.”

  “Oh.”

  That was it. Just “oh.” Yet for some incomprehensible reason there was something about Norah’s tone that burned Eli right down to his soul. He took a turn faster than he should, swearing then and there that this was his first and last attempt at doing good deeds.

  Neither of them said a word the rest of the way home. It wasn’t until Eli had parked the car and Norah scurried into the house like a scared little mouse that he realized he’d forgotten to ask her about the kitten.

  Damn. It just wasn’t his night.

  Five

  One of Norah’s few legacies from her father was the oversize tree house perched in a giant oak on the back edge of the property. It had once been her most cherished retreat, a place where she could escape her grandfather’s critical eye and indulge in her favorite pastime: daydreaming. She hadn’t been in it for more than a decade, however, until Chelsea’s recent advent into her life.

  The nine year old was understandably enthralled with the deluxe structure. With Norah’s help, she’d spent her first week at Willow Run getting it in order—removing cobwebs and squirrels’ nests from the interior, sweeping away leaves and pine needles from the surrounding deck. Together they’d washed the glass in the windows, replaced the bulbs in the light fixtures, which were powered by a line from the house, and with the help of a hand-powered winch hauled up a variety of supplies, from a boom box to a fabric-covered foam mattress to a tea set.

  Although the roof still needed to be patched, and the whole place needed a fresh coat of paint, the tree house was finally back to usable order. And over the past few days Chelsea and Norah had fallen into the habit of meeting there after Norah got home from work. Sometimes they would simply haul out the mattress and lie quietly on the deck, watching the sky through the leaves overhead. Sometimes they would read or eat a snack to tide them over until dinner. And sometimes they would talk, about whatever came to mind.

  Today, they were on the deck, enjoying the dappled sunlight while Chelsea did Norah’s hair, which so far involved lots of brushing and talking and not much else. It was one of those hushed summer days where the only sounds were the muted hum of bees and other insects going about their work and the quietly whistling songs of dozens of different birds

  “Your hair is really long,” Chelsea said happily. “Like Rapunzel’s.”

  “Umm.” Eyes shut, her face lifted to the warmth of the sun, Norah gave a sigh of pleasure as the child dragged the hairbrush through the heavy mass of her hair.

  “How come you never wear it down?”

  “There’s too much of it. It tangles and gets in the way.”

  “But it’s pretty.”

  Norah’s face softened at the compliment. “Thank you.”

  There was a soft thunk as Chelsea laid down the brush. Very carefully, she separated Norah’s hair into three sections. “Did you ever want to get it cut?”

  “All the time when I was younger.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “My grandfather. He thought women should have long hair.”

  “How come?” Her movements painstaking, she began to braid.

  “He thought it was more feminine.”

  Chelsea snorted. “That’s stupid. Eli’s hair is longer than mine and he’s not feminine.”

  “Yes. I suppose you’re right.” Norah shifted, her stomach doing its usual tap dance at the mention of Eli’s name. Although on the surface nothing had changed since the drive home from the grocery store, there was a subtle strain between them that hadn’t been there before. Try as she might, Norah couldn’t decide why. She’d gone over and over it in her mind, but other than that one glancing touch, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. And she knew their brief contact wasn’t the reason, because Eli had been telling the truth when he said he was used to being touched. But if it wasn’t that, what could it be?

  “You know what else?” Chelsea seemed to be warming to her theme. “I think if you ever want to get your hair cut, you should. That’s the cool thing about being a grown-up. You get to do whatever you want to.”

  “I suppose it seems that way,” Norah said automatically.

  “But it’s not that simple.”

  “Maybe.” Chelsea sounded unconvinced. “Only I don’t know why. Who’s going to stop you?”

  “That’s not the point—” Norah broke off, suddenly feeling a little disoriented as she realized that perhaps it was.

  Before she could think it through, however, a familiar masculine voice sounded from below. “Yo, Chelse. You up there?”

  “It’s my dad,” the youngster exclaimed. Snatching up a piece of ribbon, she hastily finished off the braid, scrambled to her feet and moved to the railing. “Hi!”

  “Hi, yourself.” Eli’s voice sounded a little closer.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see if you want to go out to dinner.”

  “Do I have to change clothes?”

  “Not if you don’t want to.” His voice took on a teasing note. “I didn’t think we’d go any place formal. My tux is at the cleaners.”

  “Aw, Eli,” she chided.

  “Aw, Chelsea,” he chided right back. “Why don’t you come down and we’ll get going.”

  “Can Norah come, too?”

  “Chelsea, no!” Norah whispered, shaking her head. The child ignored her, waiting to hear her father’s answer.

  There was a telling pause, but finally Eli said, “Yeah. If she wants to. Although I’m not sure when she’ll be home—”

  “But she’s right here,” Chelsea said, as if he’d said something exceedingly foolish. “We’ll be right down.” She turned toward Norah. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “Chelsea, I just don’t think—”

  “Please, Norah? Pretty please? I really want you to come.”

  Norah stared at the child’s pleading face and knew she was sunk. “Well...maybe it would be okay.”

  “Great!” With a sunny smile, Chelsea pulled up the hinged trap door, sat, then placed her feet on the rungs of the ladder and started down.

  Norah bit her lip, already regretting that she’d agreed and wishing she had the nerve to stay where she was. Except that she had told Chelsea she would go, and a promise was a promise.

  Sighing, she swiveled around and located her hairpins, then she reached around and caught the end of her braid.

  “Come on, Norah!”

  She hesitated
, then released the braid and hurried over to the trap door. Looking down, she could see Eli and Chelsea on the ground, waiting for her.

  Oh, dear. She smoothed her dress over her thighs and found herself thinking about how humiliating it would be if she fell. And then she wondered why she hadn’t changed into the shorts that she’d screwed up her courage to purchase specifically for wearing to the tree house.

  She supposed it was just another example of her lack of courage coming back to haunt her. Instead of doing what she wanted to do, she’d once again given in to her sense of propriety. As a result, she was now about to appear fifteen feet above Eli’s head...in a dress. Her only comfort was that no matter what he saw, it probably wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t seen before—which on second thought didn’t seem comforting at all.

  Afraid she would lose her nerve altogether if she didn’t get on with it, she knelt, found the ladder and started down, pulling the trap door shut behind her.

  “So where are we going to eat?” Chelsea asked Eli, leaning over to tie her shoelace.

  “I don’t know.” Glancing up, he watched Norah’s familiar white Keds appear, followed quickly by her ankles, calves and the backs of her round little knees. “Where do you want to go?”

  “The Loop,” she answered predictably. The Loop was a Kisscount fixture, and had been since the 1950s. It was the sort of All-American drive-in immortalized in countless movies, where you parked your car in an angled slot and had your order taken by a ponytailed, gum-chewing waitress on roller skates who brought your food on a tray that hooked over your window. It had been the place to go for the town’s younger set for more than forty years, and Chelsea always wanted to eat there.

  “I kind of thought that was what you were going to say.”

  A breeze sighed through the trees. His gaze still directed upward, Eli watched Norah’s skirt float up, revealing the slim length of the back of her thighs.

  “So can we go or not?”

  He jerked his gaze away, abruptly realizing that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get an eyeful Not that the sight of Norah’s underwear was likely to give him a thrill. On the contrary, he would bet the insurance money that she wore plain, practical white cotton panties—so why bother to look?