by JoAnn Ross
“Turn around,” she said. “And let me fasten it on you so you can see.”
Lifting her hair, Annie let Charity fasten the necklace at the nape of her neck. The tiers of faux diamonds cascaded down like falling rain. Moving in the political circles she had, Annie had seen some serious bling. But nothing that began to equal this.
“I can’t,” she said weakly, feeling her resolve dissolve like a sand castle at high tide as she studied herself in the mirror. The sane, new, self-made Annie reminded herself that she’d left the life of sparkly jewelry and formal designer gowns far behind her. These days she tended toward sundresses and jeans, and if she did wear jewelry, it was usually Claire Templeton’s simple but lovely sea glass work that the sisters sold here in the store.
“This isn’t the same as it was back east,” Sedona said. She might not be psychic like her hippie mother supposedly was, but she was very good at sensing what her friends were thinking.
“You’re going to be among friends, people who’ll be thrilled to see you looking so happy. And while I count myself fortunate never to have met your ex, from what you’ve shared, Mac Culhane is nothing like him.”
“No,” Annie agreed. “He’s the polar opposite.” In every way.
“Consider it your coming-out party,” Maddy suggested.
“Coming out of your shell,” Charity added. “Maddy and I have been there, done the breakup thing, though I was a runaway bride who escaped on my wedding day, so I didn’t have to live through a messy divorce. But we know of what we speak. You need this, Annie.”
“You deserve it,” Maddy said.
“A special moment to remember.” Kara pressed her case.
“And,” Charity said, “believe me, there’s a lot to be said for watching a grown man swallow his tongue.”
Even Doris laughed at that idea.
“I give up.” Caving, as she always seemed to do where Mac Culhane was involved, Annie handed over her credit card, thinking she could always live on cereal and cottage cheese for the next month to pay for the dress. Along with the strappy satin sandals and the ridiculously scanty underwear Dottie convinced her she had to have to go with it.
49
Feeling like the high school radio club nerd he’d once been, picking up the head cheerleader for the prom, Mac climbed the porch of Annie’s house and rang the bell.
Then felt as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus with a baseball bat when she opened the door.
“She was right,” he said.
She tilted her head. She’d piled all those curls up in some complex, yet appealingly messy style that had them looking as if they would come tumbling free if he just pulled out a few of those sparkly pins.
“Who?”
“Kara.”
“You’ve talked with Kara?”
“Yeah. At Bon Temps. She was in there when I stopped by to ask Sax what kind of flowers to get you.”
“You got me flowers?” It could have been a trick of the porch light, but he thought he saw her eyes glisten a bit at that idea.
“Yeah. Damn. I left them in the car.” He jerked his head toward his dad’s Prius, which he’d borrowed so she wouldn’t have to go to the dance all glammed up in a pickup truck. “I’ll be right back.”
“That’s not—”
He was back down the steps, reaching into the backseat before she could finish what she’d intended to say. “You may fool everyone else into thinking you’re Midnight Mac,” he muttered to himself as he retrieved the clear plastic florist’s box. “But once a nerd, always a nerd.”
“Here,” he said as he returned to the door.
“Oh.” She breathed out a soft, pleased breath that sent a cool wave of relief rushing over him. “You bought me Gardenias.”
“Sax said they’re traditional, and I guess he’d know. Seeing how he took Kara to their prom.”
“I heard about that. So what did Kara say?”
“That I’d swallow my tongue when I saw you.” He drank in the sight of her, looking like a red flame with a mile-long stretch of bare leg revealed by that slit in the side. “Which is true. But while I’m being real honest here, I’ve got to admit that I’m no doctor, but I think every bit of blood in my head has just flowed south.”
She glanced down. Tilted her head again. And laughed.
“If you think you’re going to get me out of this dress—”
“Oh, I most definitely plan to,” he assured her. “After I show off my girl to every guy in Shelter Bay. And then, when I get you home, I’m going to make slow love to you. All night long. While you’re wearing nothing but that necklace. And those do-me red shoes.”
“Well, you did bring me flowers,” she said, opening the box and holding it out to him to fasten them onto her wrist.
“A lot of the boxes the florist was making up were carnations. With a few roses,” he said. “But I told him I needed the gardenias. Not just because Sax says they’re traditional. But because they remind me of your skin.”
“Okay.” She sighed, which had her breasts rising in an intriguing way above that scarlet-as-sin strapless neckline. Then, dammit all to pieces, he watched her take a shawl thing down from a hook by the front door and wrap it around her shoulders, across the front of the mouthwateringly hot dress. “That just earned you the necklace-and-stiletto sex thing.”
“How long does this dance last?” he said as they drove into town.
“The way I’m feeling right now,” she admitted, “I doubt we’ll be staying around for the after-prom breakfast.”
He reached across the console and put his hand on her thigh, bared by the slit, which was conveniently on the left side of the dress.
“Thank God.”
50
Annie had never been part of the popular crowd in any of the many schools she’d attended. Nor had she felt as if she fit in with any particular group during her college days.
After that humiliating freshman year, she’d settled down and applied herself to her studies, waitressing at a local coffee shop and working part-time at a bookstore to help pay her bills and student loans.
But as soon as she and Mac walked into the gym of Shelter Bay High School, which had been decorated for the Matchmaking Fair dance with lots of sparkly hearts, red, pink, and white balloons, and pink crepe paper, she was greeted by the many people that she’d become friends with since moving to Shelter Bay.
Sax and Kara were there, Kara looking nothing at all like a cop in a white Grecian-style gown. They were seated at a table with Charity and her photographer husband, Gabe, Maddy and Lucas, and Cole and Kelli Douchett, who was showing a faint baby bump beneath her pink dress.
Annie remembered that the youngest Douchett brother, J.T., who taught history at Coastal Community College, was spending the summer in Ireland with his Irish movie star/screenwriter bride.
“We saved you guys a spot,” Kara said after waving them over. “And, wow, I could spot that dress the second you walked in,” she told Annie.
“Along with every guy in the place,” Mac said, as he held one of the two remaining chairs out for her. Once she was seated, he took the chair next to her and put his arm around her bare shoulder.
“Good idea,” Lucas said. “Claim her now before anybody else gets ideas.”
“She just happens to be sitting right here,” Maddy told her husband. “Meaning she can hear you.”
He shrugged. Grinned. “Just saying . . .”
They chatted for a while, easily, as friends do.
“I miss Phoebe and Ethan,” Kara said.
“Phoebe said they couldn’t get a sitter,” Maddy said dryly.
“More like they didn’t want to come in from the farm,” Charity replied.
“Not that much of a surprise,” Kara said. “Phoebe’s been through a lot, what with escaping that horrible husband, ev
en after she and Ethan found each other. I think they just want to enjoy the family they both fought so hard for.”
“Agreed,” Maddy said.
The thought of everything Phoebe and Ethan Concannon had been through to achieve their happy endings had Annie wondering if, just maybe, she and Mac could end up the same way. After all, the reason the mayor had come up with the idea of the Matchmaking Fair was that it was rumored there must be something in the water in Shelter Bay that had so many people falling in love.
As she was falling in love with Mac, despite the little voice of doubt reminding her that unlike those fairy tales Emma loved, all the other times in her life when she’d wished for her own happily-ever-after, it had remained elusive.
“There they go again,” Cole said, drawing Annie out of her introspection.
The others followed his gaze to the dance floor, where his and Sax’s parents were slow-dancing cheek to cheek, plastered together like a pair of teenagers.
“That used to embarrass the hell out of us kids,” Cole said.
“Now I just want to be them,” Sax said.
“Don’t worry, darling.” Kara took his hand and stood up. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“I hope we’re still that hot for each other when we’re parents,” Kelli said on a sigh as they watched Sax and Kara sway together, in perfect rhythm, as they’d always seemed to be. Even, apparently, Annie thought, back when Kara couldn’t, or wouldn’t see it.
“Believe me,” Cole assured her, “that’s not going to be a problem. Not even when we’re grandparents.”
And speaking of grandparents, Adèle Douchett and her husband, Bernard, were dancing as well. She looked younger than her seventy-some years in a flowing royal blue gown that swirled around her ankles when he twirled her. It crossed Annie’s mind that were it not for Adèle’s persuading her to volunteer at Still Waters, she might never have met Mac. And what a loss that would have been!
“They look so happy,” she murmured.
“Sax said they’ve had some rough times the past couple years,” Mac said. “With her fall down the stairs causing that dementia. But I guess she’s nearly over that.”
“She was tested two weeks ago,” Annie confirmed. “And the doctor said her scores were now higher than a woman ten years younger. It’s amazing how her brain was able to create new pathways with time and therapy.”
“If only that would work for Gramps.”
“You never know.” She took Mac’s hand in both of hers. “If it weren’t for his tendency to wander and leave the stove on, he could still be on home care. It’s so early yet—there’s still time for a cure. Or at least more drugs to slow the progress.”
“True. But I don’t want to think about problems tonight,” Mac said decisively. Pushing his chair back from the table, he held out a hand. “Dance with me?”
She smiled and put her hand in his much larger one. “I thought you’d never ask.”
One of the first things Owen had done, when they’d started dating, was to enroll Annie in a ballroom-dancing class. Dancing, like everything else he’d done, was formal, stiff, and boring.
Dancing with Midnight Mac, she quickly discovered, was like making love standing up.
The intimate, even possessive way he held her, which kept any other would-be partner from even thinking of cutting in, caused that familiar heat to flash through her.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he said, his mouth against her ear. “This isn’t some cotillion where we both wear white gloves and behave like extras in a period movie.”
She laughed at that. “I did that,” she admitted.
He drew his head back. “You were in a movie?”
“No.” Wouldn’t that have shocked everyone? “I wore white gloves.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Long ones to just above my elbows.”
“Well, that’s just dumb. How could a guy do this?”
Taking hold of her wrist, he lifted her bare hand to his mouth and kissed it, right in the center of her palm, which she’d never before realized was directly connected to that dampening place between her legs.
“Or this?” Seemingly unaware that they were in the center of the dance floor, he skimmed his lips up to the crook of her elbow, causing her pulse to leap.
“I think if anyone had done that, they wouldn’t have been invited back.”
“Lucky you to escape,” he decided as he released her hand, allowing her to lift her arms around his neck as he nuzzled her neck.
“Lucky me,” she agreed wholeheartedly, as red lights swirled around them and the not-bad Barry White wannabe declared a woman to be his first, his last, his everything.
“You are, you know,” Mac said.
“Lucky?” She leaned tighter against him, swaying to what she’d always considered one of the most romantic songs ever. Which was why it had been added to her luncheon seduction playlist.
“I’m the lucky one.” As he kissed her, lightly, tenderly, he slid his leg into the slit of the dress and pressed it between hers.
“I knew this dress was a mistake,” she said as his intimate touch caused embers to flare to life within her.
“That’s a matter of opinion.” When he lifted his knee, ever so slightly, as other couples moved around them, Annie was afraid she was going to come right there on the dance floor.
“You’re my everything, Sandy from Shelter Bay.”
Even as her heart felt as if it were about to float up with those red, white, and pink balloons on the crepe-paper-draped ceiling, Annie feared it was all happening too fast. Too soon.
“You don’t know me,” she said, realizing she was going to have to share her personal failure with him.
“I know all I need to know.” He lowered his head and as his lips brushed hers, he said, “I also know that I want, no, make that need, to be inside you.”
And wasn’t that what she wanted?
She would have to tell him. But not tonight, she thought, as she belatedly realized people were returning to the tables during the band’s break. Tonight was created for romance. Tonight she was Cinderella. With red-hot-come-and-take-me-big-boy stilettos instead of those silly glass slippers.
“The music’s stopped,” she said.
“Now, see, that’s where you’re wrong.” He skimmed the back of his hand down her face. “It’s just beginning.”
51
Annie stopped into the ladies’ room for a moment when Mac went to retrieve her shawl, and although he knew some women could take forever in there, especially when they were holding a summit, as she, Sedona, and Maddy had at the restaurant, she surprised him by being in and out in a flash.
“Quick,” he said.
“You’re not the only one in a hurry.” The proof of that was in her low, husky-as-hell voice that reminded Mac of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. Which, in turn, cranked up the thermostat on his own body temperature.
The fog had rolled in from the sea while they’d been indoors, making it seem as if they were engulfed in a cool white cloud as they walked back to where Mac had parked the Prius.
“Are you cold?” he asked as her heels clicked on the pavement, bringing up that fantasy he intended to live out as soon as he got her back to her house.
“Actually, I think I’m burning up,” she said.
“I know the feeling.”
“It’s a good thing you remembered where we parked,” she said. “Because I can’t see more than a few inches in front of me.”
“We’ve got good fog lights,” he said, in case she was concerned about getting back to Castaway Cove in such low visibility.
“I’m not worried. I was just thinking of something.”
“Want to share?”
“Absolutely.” He could hear the smile in her voice as he click
ed the remote to open the front doors. “As soon as we get in the car.”
He was treated to a weakening flash of long bare leg as she slid into the passenger seat.
When he joined her in the car, she caught his hand before he could buckle his seat belt.
“Wait.” She reached across the console and pressed her hand against the front of the single pair of dress slacks he still owned. “Don’t move.”
The sound of his zipper lowering in the still of the night was the sexiest thing Mac had ever heard. Then, sweet Jesus, she freed his erection, which was at Defcon One maximum readiness.
“I don’t think I could move if I wanted to.” Which he so didn’t.
“That’s the plan.”
Proving to be full of one surprise after another, she climbed over the console and straddled him and, without a second’s tease or hesitation, lowered herself fully, hot flesh against hot flesh, onto him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve spent the night going commando,” he managed, while his throbbing penis expanded to fill that warm, wet, happy place and she reached behind her back and unzipped the dress. Which fell to her waist, giving his mouth full access to soft, perfumed female flesh.
“Of course not.” She brushed her mouth against his and bit his bottom lip. “That’s what I was doing in the restroom. My panties are now in my bag.”
That she’d planned this only made him hotter.
“I’ve got to warn you,” he said, as she began moving against him in a way that would probably blow the top of any guy’s head off, “this isn’t going to last long.”
“Oh, I hope not,” she said, as she began to ride him, hard and fast.
With each slap of her slick, damp flesh, his hunger soared. One. Two. Three . . . He lost count, but didn’t think either of them had made it to ten when she came, violently, setting off his own explosive climax.
Since it was too late for protection, and the fog was surrounding the car as thickly as if it had been wrapped in cotton batting, he stayed inside her. Right where, he thought, still dazed as hell, he belonged. She’d slumped forward, her head resting on his shoulder.
