The Best Laid Plans

by Sarah Mayberry

  For a long time, there hadn’t been a day that went by without him thinking about her, about what had gone wrong and how he hadn’t seen it coming. He still didn’t understand how he could have been so out of step with her. How he could have slept beside her every night and not known that she was quietly opening separate bank accounts and viewing apartments so that when she walked out the door she could step straight into her new life. Without him.

  It hadn’t been a perfect marriage, but what marriage was? They’d had their differences and their rough patches. But he’d believed in her, trusted her, loved her implicitly.

  And she’d shed him like an old skin and never looked back.

  “Maybe we should have lunch another day,” Ethan said. “I’ll call you on the weekend or something, okay?”

  He ended the call before his brother could object. The phone rang immediately and he let it go through to voice mail.

  He didn’t need a pep talk or a lecture. He didn’t need his brother spouting the joys of marital and family life. He was happy for Derek and he loved Kay. He would lay down his life for Jamie or Tim. But he could not and would not go there again himself. What was that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  He wasn’t about to be fooled twice. No matter how much he was drawn to Alex. He may have toyed with the notion of intimacy over the past few weeks, but he didn’t have it in him to go there again. He just…didn’t.

  ALEX FLATTENED HER fingers and stirred the tray of glass tiles in front of her. She needed another aqua tile—not bright blue or powder blue, but aqua blue. And if she’d used her last piece, she was going to seriously consider having a tantrum.

  So much for mosaics as therapy. If anything, she was wound more tightly after an hour working on her latest project. She kept searching for an aqua tile, however, since the alternative was to wallow. And she’d done enough wallowing today. More even than when she and Jacob had finally gone their separate ways. More than at any other time in her adult life, in fact.

  As always, it hadn’t made her feel any better. Her eyes were still puffy and swollen from crying and she felt completely flat, interested in nothing. She knew herself well enough to know the feeling would pass, but the long hours of the evening stretched ahead seemingly endlessly.

  Get through tonight. Then you’ll have work tomorrow, and a week—okay, a month—from now you’ll be over it. Mostly.

  For a moment she was overwhelmed by the task ahead. She let her shoulders slump. She didn’t want to play with mosaics. She didn’t want to do anything. She felt hollow and empty. She felt defeated.

  After a long moment she took a deep breath and forced herself to sit up straight. She edged one of the tiles a little to the left and was reaching for her tile nippers just as a knock sounded on the door.

  She paused, glancing down at herself. She was wearing a baggy old pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a stretchy tank top. Her hair was still damp from her shower this afternoon and she wasn’t wearing underwear or makeup.

  She shrugged. There was only one person it could be, since the intercom hadn’t buzzed to announce a visitor. It had been a month since she’d last caught up with Helen, her friend from the apartment across the hall. Having company tonight could only be a good thing—provided it was the right kind of company. By which she meant the kind that didn’t know anything about her now-defunct baby plans and therefore wouldn’t ask probing personal questions. Alex didn’t want to be probed or questioned tonight. She simply wanted to process and grieve. And since she hadn’t confided in anyone apart from Ethan, she figured she was safe.

  She walked to the front door, rubbing her gummy fingertips together to try to remove some of the adhesive residue. She opened the front door—and discovered the wrong sort of company standing on her doorstep.

  “Ethan.”

  For a moment she simply stood there, blinking stupidly. She should have known it would be him. Why hadn’t she checked through the spy hole before opening the door?

  “Hey. I brought you dinner,” he said, hefting a heavy-looking recyclable shopping bag.

  “Dinner…?”

  He brushed past her and into her apartment. “Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, baby peas, homemade gravy. And a bottle of sémillon sauvignon. You want to eat out here or in the kitchen?”

  He was already heading for the kitchen before she could respond. She chased after him, belatedly dragging the low-slung waistband of her pajama bottoms up to meet the hem of her tank top. She was very aware that she wasn’t wearing panties or a bra and that it had been a long time since she’d considered herself fit for public consumption without either. But she could hardly race off to her bedroom to put underwear on while he made free with her apartment.

  Then she remembered something else—her mosaic project was spread out across the kitchen table. No one ever saw her mosaics, for good reason.

  She swore under her breath and lengthened her stride. She skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway. Ethan had left his shopping bag on the counter and was hovering over the table, examining her handiwork.

  Too late. Damn.

  “It’s not finished yet,” she said quickly.

  “It’s a tabletop, right?” he asked, glancing at her over his shoulder.

  His gaze dipped briefly below her neck and she crossed her arms over her braless breasts.

  “Yes. A side table. I found it at a secondhand shop.”

  “And this round thing at the top is a flower, right?”

  “A daisy.”

  “And this is a rose. And that’s a daffodil,” he said.

  They were pretty good guesses considering how un-rose-and un-daffodil-like her representations were. She was well aware that they looked more like clumps of ceramic confetti than anything else.

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s good—”

  “Don’t. Don’t lie and tell me it’s good. It’s terrible. I know it’s terrible. That’s why I don’t show my mosaics to anyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re terrible or not when I’m the only one who sees them. So you don’t need to butter me up by saying something nice when we both know it’s not true.”

  Ethan’s mouth curled up at the corner. “Are you finished?”

  She let her breath out, aware she’d overreacted a little. “Yes.”

  “I was going to say it’s good you put a cloth down because your glue’s leaking.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  She joined him at the table and saw that the tube of tile adhesive was adrift in a sea of ooze.

  “Damn.”

  “Where do you keep your paper towel?” he asked.

  “Under the sink.”

  She shifted her tray of tiles and her tool kit to the floor, then lifted the half-finished tabletop and leaned it against the wall. When she turned around again Ethan was wiping the adhesive off her drop sheet with a wad of paper.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And sorry about the rant.”

  Ethan handed her the wad of paper towel. “It was a pretty good one, as rants go. And for the record, the tabletop isn’t that bad.”

  She gave him a look. “It’s not that good, either.”

  He grinned. “True. But it didn’t make me want to poke out my eyes, so there’s something to be said for that.”

  Sometimes she forgot how completely devastating he could be when he smiled. She swallowed, the sound audible.

  “I’ll get some plates. And I need to wash my hands…”

  “Point me in the right direction and I’ll serve while you go clean up.”

  She was quick to take him up on the offer, scuttling off to her bedroom at the speed of light. She degummed her hands in record time, then scrambled into underwear and a T-shirt and jeans.

  She had no idea why Ethan was here, or why he’d brought her dinner, of all things. Their baby bargain was over. There was no reason for him to be here.

  Unless he felt sorry for her?

  She was brushing her h
air when the thought occurred and she stilled with the brush midstroke.

  Was that why he was here? Because he was worried poor childless Alex would lose it without close supervision? Had he imagined her huddled on the couch, elbow-deep in a bucket of ice cream and ridden to the rescue, the way he had so many times since this all started?

  She threw her brush onto the bed. If that was the case, if she detected even a whiff of pity coming off of him, she was going to tell him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his chicken and all the trimmings.

  And if it wasn’t the case… She had no idea why he was here. Hadn’t they said everything they needed to say to each other this morning? And weren’t they going to see each other tomorrow at work?

  There was one other reason he could be here, of course. But he’d made his feelings about settling down pretty clear—as had she. Only a very silly woman would allow herself to buy into the fantasy that he’d somehow had a change of heart since getting to know her.

  He was pulling a plastic tub of gravy out of her microwave when she returned to the kitchen. His gaze raked her from head to toe but he didn’t say anything about her quick-change routine.

  “I couldn’t find your bottle opener,” he said.

  She crossed to the fridge and pulled one of her own bottles from the built-in wine rack.

  “Let’s drink one of mine. It’s the least I can do, since you’ve supplied the meal.”

  “Your call.”

  She busied herself with opening the bottle and getting out wineglasses. Then she joined him at the kitchen table. Her plate was heaped with food, all of which looked ridiculously good. She slid his wine across the table and watched as his long fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass.

  “Thanks.” He smiled faintly and it hit her that the last man who’d sat at this table and eaten a meal with her was Jacob.

  “Why are you here?” She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but she needed to know.

  Ethan was slicing his chicken but he put down his knife and fork and looked at her. “I felt like crap and I figured you might, too. So I thought I’d bribe my way through the door with chicken.”

  She frowned. “You didn’t need to bribe your way in.”

  “Didn’t I?” His blue eyes were searching.

  “No. You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

  She’d let him down. Led him on a merry dance then left him gasping like a landed fish.

  “Of course. Aren’t you? If we were both a little more ruthless, we might have been shopping for a home pregnancy test in a few weeks’ time.”

  “No, we wouldn’t. I’ve already got one. A double pack, just to make sure.”

  “Exactly my point. We invested a lot of time and energy in this.”

  She looked down at her plate, away from the sadness in his face. He felt the same way she did. And he’d sought her out to both give and take comfort.

  “You’re a nice man, Ethan Stone,” she said quietly, glancing up at him again.

  “Let’s not get too carried away.”

  Good advice, Alex. Listen to the man.

  He deliberately changed the subject then and they talked about work and the day’s political news. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was simply Ethan, with his easy charm and distracting wit, but by the time they were pushing aside their plates she was feeling decidedly more mellow.

  She was glad he’d come. A dangerous admission to make, even to herself, but it was true.

  They moved to the living room after she’d cleared the table and she raided her chocolate-cookie stash for dessert while Ethan opened the second bottle of wine. She found him examining her teapot collection when she returned to the living room with a plateful of Tim Tams and other indulgences.

  “This is my favorite, I think. Although the one shaped like a cat is pretty damned cool,” he said.

  “The cabbage was a lucky find. But that cat… I nearly broke an old lady’s arm to get that teapot.”

  “Excellent. Tell me everything.” He rubbed his hands together with exaggerated anticipation.

  So she told him how she’d spotted the teapot at the same time as a purple-haired old lady at a yard sale and how they’d both reached for it at the same time but she’d been a trifle faster off the mark and the old lady had lunged across the table at her and refused to let go until the woman running the sale had to step in to adjudicate.

  Ethan was wiping tears from his eyes by the time she’d finished. She’d always loved making him laugh but tonight it felt like a special achievement.

  “Alex. That’s priceless. A million other women would have bowed to her brittle bones and handed the damned thing over but not you.”

  “Old people are just normal people with more wrinkles. Why should they be granted a get-out-of-jail-free cards on things like courtesy and finders keepers? Besides, it turned out she thought it was a dog, not a cat. When she put her glasses on she was more than happy to let it go.”

  She had her feet curled up beside her on the couch and had been rubbing her arches absently throughout her story. Ethan slid his wineglass onto the coffee table in front of him, then stood and crossed to sit on the end of her couch.

  “Come on. Give them here,” he said.

  It took her a moment to understand what he intended.

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “I give a mean foot massage, Alex. It’s about the only thing Cassie and I could ever agree on.” He held up his thumbs and wiggled them in the air. “Magic thumbs.”

  She shook her head again. No way was she lying on her couch while Ethan rubbed her feet. It was way, way too intimate.

  “I’m really ticklish. I’ll only wind up giggling like an idiot.”

  “Clearly you’ve only had substandard massages in the past. Come on.”

  She started to object again but he simply circled her right ankle with one of his big hands and pulled her foot into his lap.

  “Hey!”

  “Shut up and take your medicine.”

  He started rubbing her foot then and it felt so good that even though she knew she should pull free and maybe even send him home before she forgot that tonight was about mutual sympathy and not…anything else, she subsided back onto the cushions and closed her eyes.

  “Not ticklish?” he asked after a minute or so.

  She cracked an eyelid. He was looking very pleased with himself.

  “Strong thumbs, my backside,” she muttered.

  He laughed, the sound very low, and she closed her eyes again and didn’t even try to suppress her own smile. And she didn’t resist fifteen minutes later when he switched to her left foot, rubbing the tension from her arches and making her wish she had a third and even a fourth foot to offer him so she could prolong the experience.

  Twenty minutes later it occurred to her that Ethan had stopped the massage a while ago and she opened her eyes to find him collecting his car keys from the coffee table.

  “That was sneaky,” she said drowsily. “I didn’t even feel you move.”

  “I took origami lessons when I was a kid.”

  She was so out of it it took her a moment to understand he was joking. “Origami. Funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  She started to sit up.

  “Stay where you are. I’ll see myself out.”

  “I can’t let you cook me dinner then rub my feet for hours on end and not see you out.”

  “Yes, you can. Stay where you are. That’s an order.”

  He’d crossed to the couch to stand over her and she stared up at him mutinously.

  “If I’m supposed to be intimidated by the looming-over-me thing, you can think again.”

  She stood, only realizing when she did so that it meant they were standing chest to chest, only a few inches between them.

  “I won’t ask if anyone has ever told you you’re a pain in the ass. You’ll only take it as a compliment,” Ethan said.

  She tried to take a step backward
, but the couch was against her heels and she lost her balance. His hand closed around her upper arm to stop her fall. He was smiling, clearly amused by her.

  “Idiot,” he said.

  Then he lowered his head and kissed her once, very hard, on the mouth.

  He looked as surprised as she was when he lifted his head. For a moment they stared at each other, then Ethan’s gaze slid to her mouth again.

  “Alex,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

  He lowered his head again. This time his lips were gentle on hers, the pressure more a question than an expression of frustration. For a moment they stood locked together, neither of them moving, joined only by their mouths and his hand on her arm. Then she parted her lips the tiniest fraction. The merest hint of an invitation. He sighed and slid his hand to the nape of her neck and opened his mouth over hers.

  He tasted of chocolate and wine, and she made an approving, needy sound as his tongue stroked hers. Her hands reached blindly for him, finding his broad shoulders, pulling him closer. And then, somehow, they were on the couch, Ethan’s big body on top of hers, his hands gliding over her as their kiss became more and more intense. She whimpered as his hand cupped first one breast then the other, his thumb sliding over and over each nipple in turn until they were both hard and eager and she was quivering beneath him.

  It had been eighteen months since she’d felt a man’s weight on top of her and she’d spent the better part of the past month living in the pocket of one of the sexiest men she’d ever known. So maybe it wasn’t any wonder that she was on fire for him now. She’d always found him attractive. Always. She’d noticed his powerful body, she’d eyed his mouth and long fingers and imagined… And now he was kissing her and his hand was sliding beneath her top, pushing her bra out of the way, and he was breaking their kiss to lower his head to take her nipple into his mouth.

  She clutched at his shoulders as the wet heat of his mouth engulfed her. It felt so good. He felt so good.

  She arched her back, offering him her other breast, sliding her fingers into his hair when he turned his head and pulled her nipple into his mouth.