Suppressing a chuckle, Seth replied, “I turned on the mike inside your helmet so we can talk if you want to on the way. That all right?”
“Perfect.” She squeezed him with her thighs as he settled her feet between his legs. He’d wanted to do that ever since their first ride on July 4th.
“Pretty much,” he murmured then eased into the alleyway behind the studio. “You just hold on to me, okay?” He meant more than just maintaining her seat behind him. Because I don’t want to think about losing you, just when I’ve found you. “Tell me about your day.”
On the way to the lake, Jayne gave him the rundown on her “sucky” day, but he noted that she didn’t sound as stressed, at least until he stroked her hand where it rested on his abdomen.
With a regretful tone, Jayne said, “Seth, what if—”
Seth squeezed her hand gently. Don’t go there until the doctors tell you that you have to. “No ‘what ifs,’ Jayne. How about some ‘why nots’ instead?” She squeezed him and was quiet for several minutes.
Jayne was so unlike what he was used to. Innocent, caring, and generous. He saw it in the way she gave of herself to the kids in the library, in the way she interacted with her cousins and friends. He couldn’t picture her with a cynical attitude or expression. She embraced each new experience with relish, even ones that intimidated her, like riding on his motorcycle for the first time on July 4th. She’d been intimidated but she’d put her uncertainty aside and tried it, and enjoyed it. Behind him, she shifted, pressing her full breasts against his back, and he groaned audibly.
Catching himself, he cleared his throat as she asked, “You okay?”
“Perfect.” She stroked his chest with one hand while the other stayed on his abs. If she keeps doing that I’m going to be her willing slave, doing whatever she wants me to.
He’d have sworn he’d felt the same way for Tamar three years ago when they’d first gotten together. He’d been enthralled by her free-spiritedness. When he’d left the United States to travel with her, he’d done it with the purpose of seeing the world and furthering his knowledge of his craft in different cultures, and she’d told him she wanted the same thing. But the nightlife, shopping, and socializing had quickly won her attention over pursuing her own art.
He found a flat spot overlooking the lake and she helped him spread out the paper drape he’d brought from the workroom so they’d have something to sit on. Once they were settled, he opened the paper takeout boxes and fed her a bite of Moo-shu pork with chopsticks.
“Teach me how?” she asked as she pulled another pair of sticks from their paper package. He showed her the proper way to hold them and laughed out loud when she tried on her own and the pork went sailing through the air and ricocheted off a tree.
“We’ll let the animals have that one.” She giggled as she captured the next bite and quickly stuffed it in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, then said, “Tell me where all you’ve traveled to.”
“Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, all over Europe. I also saw a little of India.”
Jayne licked her full lower lip after taking another bite and groaned happily as she chewed. He nearly closed his eyes, he enjoyed the sound of her pleasure so much. He wanted to bask in it, but she was asking him a question.
“How long were you there?”
“Nearly two years.”
“Wow. How did you survive?”
“I had some money saved, and I worked, practicing what I was learning as often as I could. It was exhilarating and I met some amazing people.” She sat cross-legged before him and, on a whim, he lifted her braid from where it rested over her breast. He enjoyed the fraction of a second that his knuckles brushed against her breast as he ran the braid through his hand and then removed the elastic band.
“What are you doing?”
“Playing.” He ran his fingers through the sections of her hair and hid a smile at the way her eyes rolled as she closed her eyelids. Someone liked having their hair played with. She blinked after a few seconds and the roses in her cheeks bloomed a deeper shade of pink. She disarmed him with her responses and he knew that, good intentions aside, she was wearing him down without even realizing it. She turned her attention to balancing another bite of Moo-shu pork between the chopsticks.
“What’s the strangest food you ate while you were traveling? Did anyone trick you into eating something gross?”
Seth chuckled and shuddered at the memory. “In Japan, one of my teachers tricked me into eating shirako.” His friends had eaten them too and then laughed with him about it when they’d told him what it was.
“What’s that?” She took another bite, waiting for his answer.
“Fish sperm sacs.”
Jayne stopped chewing for a second and eyed him.
“Raw.”
Jayne’s shoulders started shaking and her eyes watered. She started chewing again and he fell back on the drape laughing as she made a motion like she was going to stab him with her chopsticks. When she finally swallowed, she gasped and laughed wholeheartedly. “You waited until I had a mouthful to tell me that.”
Seth finally stopped laughing. “I couldn’t resist. The look on your face was priceless. At least you weren’t eating fish sperm—”
Jayne put her hand to his lips. “Nuh-uh. Tell me about the most beautiful place you saw.”
Seth kissed her fingertips and shook his head. “That would be too hard. I saw a lot of beautiful places. Palaces, churches, temples, deserts, beaches.”
“Tell me your favorite. The place you want to go back to.”
“That’s easy.” For some reason, answering her questions, filtering out the memories of Tamar from what he told her of his travels, took some of the sting and regret from them. “Kapalai Island, near Malaysia. It used to be an island but now it sits at sea level and all the dwellings are on stilts above the water. I learned to scuba dive there. It’s out in the middle of the water and all the dwellings are connected by walkways. The chalet we—the chalet I was in had access to the water below from inside the chalet.”
Jayne placed a warm palm on Seth’s knee. “I figured you weren’t alone there. Stop editing. I asked, just tell me about it.”
“There’s no air-conditioning or cable television. The breezes blow right through the chalets and you look out at this beautiful expanse of blue water and sky. Some of the chalets had outdoor beds on platforms, draped with curtains so you could sleep outside—or other stuff—under the stars.”
“I’ll bet you loved it.” Her eyes sparkled and his heart clenched again at her generosity. She knew he hadn’t been alone and assumed he’d had incredible sensual adventures under the stars. Little vixen’s probably taking mental notes for a story.
Tamar would’ve been jealous to hear him talk about adventures involving another woman. She’d thrown a fit when she’d discovered that the chalets with outdoor beds had all been booked. He’d been secretly relieved because he hadn’t been interested in putting on a show for their neighbors. The thought of sharing one with Jayne was appealing, though.
“Nah. They were all booked up. The diving was excellent. Green sea turtles, coral reefs, and every kind of colorful fish you can imagine. At night I fell asleep exhausted.”
Jayne chuckled. “Yeah, right. Tell me about something funny that happened to you.”
Seth took a bite of his Mongolian beef and thought for a minute. “Japanese toilets.”
“Japanese toilets?”
“Yes. Top of the line. All the buttons are labeled in Japanese but they have interesting little pictures on them. The first time I encountered one, I tried all the buttons. You can choose between a warm or cool spritz, a squirt, a shower, or—um, a geyser, all aimed at different…parts.”
“Geyser?”
Seth nodded as she made a snorting sound. “Yup. About all it lacked was a squeegee and a spit shine. I thought the big orange button meant Stop, but I was wrong. It meant shoot-a-forceful-blast-of-water-straight-up-my—”
“Your butt!” Jayne fell back on the ground howling with laughter and he had to grab her Moo-shu pork before it spilled.
“Thanks for laughing at my trauma. I wasn’t the same for a whole day afterward.”
“Did you walk funny?”
Seth collapsed beside her and laughed along with her. “The bathroom stall flooded before I figured out how to stop it but I came out refreshed. I’m sorry. Did I ruin your appetite?”
“Are you kidding? It’s hilarious! Tell me more.”
He told her about touring the Khajuraho monuments of Madhya Pradesh in India. She listened intently as he described the intricate architecture of the temples and the erotic sculptures the monuments were world-famous for.
“I want to visit there someday. And Kapalai, too. I’d love to sleep on an outdoor bed with only the sound of the wind and water…” She played with a lock of her hair as she looked up at the tree branches above them.
Seth’s imagination took over and he imagined doing more than just sleeping with her on one of those open-air platforms as the gauzy drapes swirled around them.
He turned on his side, leaned forward, and kissed her. “I’d love to take you there.” She threaded her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and stroked gently as she returned his kiss. He wanted to consume her, kiss her until her lips were swollen, and make love to her there, right out in the open, under the dusky sky. Recalling his good intentions and the fact that she’d been feeling sub-par when she’d arrived at the studio, he pulled back instead. “Finish eating. You need your strength.”
Jayne looked away and nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
Jayne thought it over for a minute. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t trying to tempt you…at least not much.” She gave him a soft smile. “I need to get past that doctor’s appointment. I love hearing about your travels. You said you went to Europe. Did you see Paris from atop the Eiffel Tower?”
“I did.”
He told her all about it, the desire growing inside him to take her some of those places himself. Over the meal it seemed as though they were learning everything they could about each other, like they were making up for lost time…or worried they might run out of time.
Chapter Seven
Jayne looked up as Doc Hawks came into the examination room. As always, his gentle smile and gray eyes calmed her. He’d been her primary doctor since the age of eighteen and had seen her through the original diagnosis and both relapses of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was friends with her parents, and she’d always felt secure in his care, more than just a patient number on a chart.
He sat on the rolling stool and laid her patient chart aside as he finished leafing through her paperwork. “Jayne, you appear well. I like the lively color in your cheeks. Have you ridden that bull yet?”
“I’m not living like I’m dying to quite that level, Doc. I see a touch of silver in those sideburns, but you’re still hunky as ever. You get that young debutante to marry you yet?”
Dr. Hawks’s barking laughter echoed off the walls. “No, she moved on to a young polo player when I chased her around the house with my walker.”
Jayne snorted with merriment. Doc was in good enough shape to take on a whole team of polo players. “Aw, she doesn’t know a good thing when she’s got it. Or did you also try poking her with your cane?”
Dr. Hawks hadn’t treated her like the daughter of his friends since the first cancer diagnosis. From that point forward, he’d treated her like a grown-up and they’d gotten to the point where they always kidded around. Perhaps the kidding between them had sprung up as his way of lightening her mood during treatments over the years. Whatever the case, she’d never considered going to a different doctor, even though she had a long drive back to Houston whenever she needed to see him.
He proceeded to examine her lymph nodes as she sat on the exam table in her paper gown. He palpated what remained of the swelling, which had dissipated considerably since Friday evening.
“Refresh my memory. When did you notice this?”
“Friday afternoon.”
“Size?”
“My index fingertip.”
“Night sweats? Fever?”
“No.”
He checked her ears and her throat, grunted, and then listened to her breathing. After opening the top of the gown, he palpated the rest of the lymph nodes in her neck. He glanced at her healed tattoo as he checked the lymph nodes in her armpits.
“Well, look at you, Miss tattooed risk-taker.” Dr. Hawks stood back and an expression of pride came over his face. “Moving on, are you?”
Jayne gave him a cheesy grin. “This old doc dude once told me that it was time to get out in the world and live my life. I’m taking his advice.”
“Old doc dude,” he mimicked in a disgusted voice as he unbuttoned the sleeves of his dress shirt. Jayne’s jaw dropped as he revealed forearms that were covered in tribal tattoos.
Jayne giggled as he showed her both sides. “Doc, that’s some major hotness. You need to stop hanging around debutantes and find a woman who appreciates a man with a sense of adventure.”
Dr. Hawks raised his hands in a supplicatory gesture. “Someday I’ll learn. Mom approved of her and that should’ve been my first clue. So, how is Divine, Texas, treating you? Besides the tattoo? Got a boyfriend? Bevy of boyfriends?”
Jayne burst into more giggles. “Um, no ‘bevy’ to speak of, but I do have a boyfriend. He’s here with me today. He’s also my artist.” She showed him the rest of the healed artwork in progress. It was Dr. Hawks’s turn to drop his jaw, but not in a creepy way. He had seen her in various stages of health and illness, and she didn’t feel uncomfortable with him seeing her exposed like that.
“How far does it go?”
She showed him and said, “He drew it just for me. No one else will ever have one quite like this. The shading and script lettering comes next.”
He nodded as she covered it back up. “I’m assuming he uses strict standards of hygiene?”
“Very. He knew about the swelling and that I was coming to see you today and postponed the second session last Friday night, even though, besides the hangover, I felt fine.”
Doc arched a silver brow. “Hangover? You had a hangover?”
Jayne nodded weakly. “Oh yeah. A vicious one too.” Yeah and it turns out that tequila really does make my clothes come off. Thank God it was for the right person.
A knowing expression crossed Doc’s face. “That’s why you called? Because you had a swollen gland after tying one on.”
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s a symptom of recurrence in only two to three percent of patients. Your ears are a little inflamed and so is your throat. Allergies?”
“Yeah… Did I drive all the way to Houston for nothing?”
Doc scoffed. “Well, it’s good to see you too, brat.”
Jayne laughed and slumped in relief. “You know what I mean. It is good to see you, though. Good to see your old age hasn’t impeded your playboy image any. Actually, maybe I’d better rephrase that. Tattooed bad-boy image. Next you’re gonna say you own a…” She chuckled as he pulled out his smartphone and his fingertips danced on the screen.
“Say hello to my latest toy.” It was a beautiful, chrome-plated motorcycle.
“Victory? Is that the brand? Seth has a Harley.”
“Yes. She’s been fully restored. Smooth as sin.”
“Why, Dr. Hawks, you sound passionate about your new toy.”
Doc nodded and smiled as he rolled his sleeves back down. “It’s a lot of fun. About this swollen node. I’ll order lab work for you as a precaution. Get back on your allergy meds, keep that tattoo well cared for as it progresses.” He crossed his thick arms over his chest and adopted the “protective pit bull” expression. “This artist boyfriend. Is he good to you?”
“Seth Carter. He’s very good to me. He’s out in the waiting room. He didn’t want me to drive al
l this way alone. It was nice to have company.”
Seth had been attentive but quiet on the trip. At times, he’d been so deep in his own thoughts she’d kept quiet to not disturb him. A couple of times, she’d caught him gazing at her with inscrutable eyes. Each time, he’d squeezed her hand and kept on driving.
Dr. Hawks placed his hands on her shoulders. “All right, then. As long as he treats you right. Go live your life, Jayne. Stop worrying. Be sensible, of course, but go—live your life. Marry you artist. Have lots of—Sorry.” He dropped his chin guiltily.
She flapped her hand at him. “That’s okay. It’s been a long time. I’ve adjusted.”
“So you adopt. Raise lots of babies. Have a great life.”
Jayne wanted to jump down off of the exam table and run right out of there and do exactly what he suggested. She’d been bracing herself for another biopsy and an overnight stay in Houston. She was ready to get back to Divine.
* * * *
Biting the inside of his lip was making it sore, but Seth couldn’t seem to help it as he worried about what was happening in the exam room. He’d worried all weekend, wondering what they might find out today and the fragility of life had been hammered home to him. Jayne had voiced it perfectly a few weeks before when she’d told him that she was done letting life pass her by, watching everyone else move on while she’d coped with her illness. The most important thing she’d asked of him, he’d denied her. Who knew how long any of them had? He’d tried to be noble but realized now how futile it was if she’d missed her chance. Just like with the tattoo, they had unfinished business that he hoped and prayed for a chance to see through.
Seth dropped the magazine back on the end table when Jayne appeared in the doorway. The tension that had been building inside him since Friday night reached the breaking point as she walked toward him in the empty waiting room. The happy glow in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.
He gently grasped her upper arms as she reached him. “What did he say?”
She gestured at the bandage at the juncture of her elbow. “He ordered blood tests to be on the safe side. He thinks the swelling was something minor. I want to celebrate.”
Heather Rainier Page 9
