In Bed with the Wild One & In Bed with the Pirate

by Julie Kistler

  He felt bad as soon as the words came out of his mouth. It sounded as though he were telling Kate she wasn’t alluring. Because she was alluring—in her own spontaneous, high-energy, colorful way. Plus, she was pretty damn cute with that mind-of-its-own hairdo.

  He gave his head a shake. This was insane, thinking about Kate when he had to get back on good footing with Free. One thing at a time. “She probably thinks I called my best friend from a phone booth, asked him to pick me up, and that I’m now staying at his place in Mill Valley,” he continued. “Thinking I’m far away, her guard will be down. She won’t feel the urgency to change locks, for example. Which means I have a good shot at getting back inside the house, which will give me a chance to retrieve my keys and clothes, get stuff ready for dinner—”

  “Dinner?” Kate quirked one eyebrow. “You’re thinking about cooking at a time like this? That’s just like my mother. We could be in the middle of an earthquake, and she’d be fretting the soufflé might fall.”

  He smiled. Although Kate could sometimes irk him, she could also lift his mood with her quirky life views. It he were totally honest with himself, Free had never really affected his moods one way or the other.

  Pushing that insight aside, Toby explained, “I have to throw a dinner party tomorrow night because I think—no, I know—my potential employer is ready to offer me a job, if I don’t blow it. I need to do everything in my power to insure my home life is normal by then.” He didn’t want to ponder what “normal” meant. Or how he planned to reach this pretend normalcy in a little over twenty-four hours.

  “Okay, if you don’t want me to knock on your front door, and you don’t want to saunter over in your red undies, what do you expect to wear for the time being?”

  “Your mother’s yellow-flowered housedress?”

  “It does go nicely with red.”

  Kate stared at Toby. One corner of his mouth crooked upward, as though he couldn’t decide whether to let go and laugh or just silently enjoy their moment of whimsy. He still looked tired, but a bit more relaxed than when she’d first seen him last night on her doorstep. Plus, she liked him without glasses. She could see the soft brown of his eyes better, which she’d really seen better when she’d lain on top of him. Up close, his eyes were a deep, rich caramel, which complemented his butterscotch-colored hair.

  If this guy were food, he’d be yummy.

  Her gaze dropped. The same yummy butterscotch also carpeted his chest. Swirls of thick hair ran rampant over his pecs and cascaded down his midriff. With that hairy, nicely molded chest rising above the red satin cover, he no longer looked like next-door neighbor Toby. Last night, she’d thought he looked vaguely like a swashbuckler in the glow of the lamp, but he still had that aura, even in daylight. She recalled his sultry invitation. Come here. In that heated moment, she’d almost gone. She, who’d never gone after a man, much less full speed ahead, yet she’d had the urge to shove her passion into overdrive and go for it.

  “What are you thinking about?” Toby asked.

  “Driving,” she croaked. Driving? Time to get back to the planet Earth. “I have an idea,” she said quickly, trying to sound grounded and together even though her insides were anything but. “You have no money, and you obviously can’t go next door to get your wallet, so I’ll use my credit card and purchase you some clothes.”

  He frowned. “What kind of clothes?”

  “Guy stuff. Trust me, I have a younger brother so I know what guys wear. Plus, I have a keen dressing sense.”

  His frown deepened as he gave her a once-over.

  She decided to ignore his obvious disapproval of her dressing sense. She didn’t dress for men, anyway. She dressed to please herself.

  He gave her a dead-on look. “I don’t want to look like a walking color wheel.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He pointed a very determined index finger at her. “No crayon box colors. Especially nothing red. I’ll blend in with this room and no one will ever find me again.”

  Jeez, he could get touchy. Must be his Italian nature coming to the forefront. “No problem.”

  He looked relieved. “Hand me that notepad on the table.” She did as told. He began jotting something down.

  “Don’t you need your glasses?”

  He barely looked up. “I’m nearsighted. It’s the faraway stuff that gets blurry.” He began scribbling. “I must have a pocket on my shirt, left side preferably.”

  “Front of your shirt—or back?”

  He offered a small if-that-were-really-funny-I’d-laugh smile before continuing. “And I abhor black pants.”

  Abhor. That had to be worse than hate. “What about purple ones?” When his eyebrows shot up, she quickly mumbled, “Just kidding.” But she wasn’t. After red, purple was her favorite color, but it didn’t seem helpful to mention that right now.

  “As I said, no black pants. My closet was filled with them growing up—black pants for school, for church, for weddings. I prefer—”

  “Khaki. Beige.”

  His brows drew together. “How’d you know?”

  Because I’ve observed you for the past five years wearing those boring colors. Buddy, if you walked in the Sahara Desert, no one would ever find you again. “Because that’s what I’ve seen you wearing,” she said sweetly.

  He jotted something down on the paper. “So it’s understood. No—”

  “No black pants.” She pressed her fingers to her temples and squeezed shut her eyes. “It’s burned into my memory forever. I’ll never again buy black pants for myself. Or my children. Or my children’s children.” She opened her eyes. “Anything else?”

  He shot her a look. “Here’re my sizes,” he said, ripping off a piece of paper. “And I like, uh, extra breathing room in my pants.”

  She accepted the paper, holding her breath as she imagined what that meant. Maybe what they said about Italian men was true. Stallions. They were so hot, so passionate, they needed…“Extra breathing room,” she repeated breathlessly, gripping the paper so tightly she heard it crinkle. She loosened her grip for fear her sweaty fingers would smudge the numbers. How much extra was extra?

  Her mind was reeling.

  “Is the room rocking?” She walked lock-kneed to the bedpost and grabbed its smooth knob. Holding on, she braced herself. Had to be a three on the Richter scale. Maybe a four.

  “No. But you’re swaying.”

  With horror, she realized he was right. It was that damn breathing-room comment. She dropped her hold on the knob and pretended to read the piece of paper, which she might have been able to do if she wasn’t shaking. Staring at the jumping numbers, she said, “Extra. Breathing. Pocket.” Kate, the one-word girl, was at it again. She began backing up toward the door. “I’ll leave.” Good. Two words. “Now.” Damn.

  “I bet if you face the door it would be easier to walk out.”

  Bobbing her head in agreement, she swiveled in a half-turn and sped from the room.

  AN HOUR LATER, Kate strode down Columbus Avenue, a woman on a serious clothes mission. Unfortunately, this serious mission had a serious hitch—few North Beach stores were open at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. In fact, the only two businesses she’d found open so far were a tattoo parlor and a bakery. Needing fortification, she’d grabbed a latte at the bakery. They didn’t “do flavors” as the surly guy behind the counter informed her, so she’d had to take hers straight up, no almond flavoring.

  Sometimes a girl on a serious mission had to rough it.

  At that moment, a woman with long, wavy black hair walked outside a storefront, lugging a flat rectangle of wood. She wore a flowing yellow dress embroidered with brightly colored flowers along her neckline and hem.

  “Good sense of color,” Kate thought. She’s probably a very interesting, with-it person.

  The flat rectangle the woman was lugging turned out to be one of those sandwich signs. As she propped it open, Kate saw that both sides were chalkboards. In
orange, yellow and blue chalky script, Kate read the words Bab’s Barbary Post.

  Barbary Post. A cute play on Barbary Coast, the name of this part of San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Kate had always liked to imagine what the Barbary Coast had been like, filled with danger and sailors. She’d read stories about the saloons, miners, shoot-outs, and gambling, but all that faded in comparison to her fantasy of the Barbary Coast, which included swashbuckling, dangerous pirates.

  Of course, her fantasies of anywhere in the world—even Fargo, North Dakota—included swashbuckling, dangerous pirates.

  Approaching the plate-glass window of Bab’s Barbary Post, Kate gasped. There, in the window, was a mannequin dressed in black leather pants and a flowing red shirt, its neckline revealing a lot of mannequin chest flesh. The poor guy had seen better days. He was missing one arm, and his painted-on hair was partially chipped off, but if Kate squinted just right, he had that hazy, dangerous image of a bad-boy pirate.

  A sign, hung around his neck, read Come Inside, Matey. It was a call from the pirate gods. Katey the matey stepped inside.

  “Good morning!” called the dark-haired woman.

  “Mornin’,” Kate answered, looking around. Bab’s Barbary Post looked like a catchall for stuff from the sixties. Incense burned next to the cash register. A poster of Jimmie Hendrix decorated the back wall, his guitar pointing to an advertised “unisex” bathroom. An assortment of tie-dyed shirts hung on racks to her right. On a neighboring bookcase, a parrot perched on a shelf. Kate stared at it, wondering if it was moving slightly or if this was an extra strong latte.

  “It’s stuffed,” Bab explained, following Kate’s line of vision. “Loved that bird. Bought it because I wanted a pet that wouldn’t be underfoot, you know, like a dog or cat. So I bought a parrot. Didn’t know he liked to drink wine and walk everywhere.”

  Kate blinked. “It used to be your pet?”

  “For nearly fifteen years. Francis—that was his name. Oh, and I’m Bab.” After reaching over and shaking Kate’s hand, Bab pointed a glittery red fingernail at the bird. “He and I had a better relationship than I had with any man.” Bab’s aqua-blue eyes—outlined in thick black eyeliner that matched her hair color—gazed lovingly at the parrot.

  “Francis?”

  “Named him after Francis Drake. You know, the explorer for Queen Elizabeth.”

  This was right up Kate’s alley. “Francis Drake.” One of the cooler pirates in history.

  “Yeah. Had a wild side, though. Bet he stuck out in Queen Elizabeth’s court.”

  “Bet she liked that,” Kate noted, really speaking for herself now. She shifted her gaze to the mannequin, which had its back to her. For an inanimate object, it had an awfully cocky stance.

  “That’s Raymond.”

  For a mind-numbing moment, Kate wondered if that was one of Bab’s former ex’s, stuffed. But when she caught a gouge in the back of Raymond’s neck, an indentation that revealed his plaster innards, Kate breathed a sigh of relief.

  As she continued staring at Raymond, an image of Toby bounded into her mind. How last night he’d looked so wild, so daring in the splash of kaleidoscope colors. How the blues, reds, yellows spilled over the contours of his body. And how, at that moment, he’d looked like a swashbuckler par excellance.

  And when he again put on his boring “khaki or beige” clothes, the pirate would be covered, hidden from the world. Could there be a greater sin than disguising a pirate?

  Kate took a long sip of latte, the hot liquid warming her insides and firing her thoughts. “Great outfit,” she repeated slowly, her gaze traveling over Raymond’s clothes. She slugged down another sip of latte.

  “Thanks,” Bab said, rearranging some crystal figurines in a glass case. “Raymond—he was my boyfriend when I lived in Pacific Heights—had a fantastic dressing style, but underneath he was more boring than the mannequin. Just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “I hear you,” Kate agreed, thinking of the two “covers” she’d dated over the past four years. Cover number one, Davie, sported a devil-may-care style—it didn’t take long to discover it was really a I-don’t-care-about-anyone-but-myself style. And cover number two, Henry, swooped into her life, but failed to mention he was swooping into several other women’s lives at the same time. Eventually Kate had to laugh at that one. Whereas most women got irked at some two-timing guy, Kate had landed a four-timing swooper.

  Thinking about them now, Kate realized both were the opposite of Toby. He didn’t dash, storm or swoop. Okay, he’d sort of dashed that night his car blew up, but otherwise he was a seemingly boring, businesslike guy…or so she had thought until last night. Kate was beginning to guess ol’ Toby had more hidden plundering pirate in him than he showed the world.

  Maybe she could help him show more of that hidden side. Not that it mattered one way or the other to her, of course. After all, he belonged to another woman. A two-timing, bead-loving, name-changing woman who had chased him, nearly naked, out of his own home—but who was Kate to judge?

  She checked out Raymond’s backside. From this angle, he looked to be about the same size as Toby. She pulled the piece of paper out of her pants pocket and reviewed the sizes Toby had jotted down. She hadn’t looked at his handwriting before—each curl and stroke looked very exact. Was he that way in life, too? Overly cautious? Excessively careful?

  This guy definitely needed help bringing out his wilder, more colorful side. “Do you have any clothes for sale?” Kate asked, trying to sound innocently interested.

  “Sorry, no clothes.” Bab continued adjusting what looked to be a Twiggy doll on a shelf.

  “Oh.” Kate glanced at the mannequin. “What about…those clothes on Raymond?”

  “What about them?”

  “What about my buying them?”

  Bab propped Twiggy against a lava lamp and straightened. Looking Kate in the eye, Bab asked, “You want to buy the clothes off Raymond?”

  Kate nodded.

  Bab gave Kate a quick once-over. “Honey, I don’t think they’d fit you.”

  “Oh, they’re not for me.” Kate waved the piece of paper as though that explained everything. “I have his—Toby’s—measurements. We could check if his numbers fit Raymond’s.”

  Bab waited a beat before responding. “Is Toby going to a costume party?”

  Kate mulled that one over. “Yes,” she lied. “It’s a costume brunch. A literary event based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. It starts in an hour.” Hey, this story sounded pretty good if she had to say so herself. Feeling a rush of dramatic flair, she continued exuberantly. “Everybody has to come as a character from the book—and Toby would look great as my swashbuckling fantasy. I mean, as a piratelike character. I’d seen Raymond—the mannequin, not your ex—in the window a few weeks ago and thought at the time how great Toby would look in that outfit at his pirate birthday party.”

  “I thought you said it was a literary event. And Raymond wasn’t in the window a few weeks ago.”

  Kate raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise as she desperately backpedaled in her mind. “Yes, it’s a literary event and a birthday party rolled into one. Toby’s favorite book is Kidnapped, hence the literary angle, but we’re also kidnapping him first, although I need to get him dressed before that, while he’s still asleep, so we can roll him into the party looking festive.” Kate swiped at her brow. This story was getting deep, and complicated. She wasn’t sure anymore if she was rolling, dressing or kidnapping him. “And I forget exactly when I saw Raymond,” she said, plowing ahead. “Maybe it was a few days, not a few weeks, ago. You know how time flies.”

  Bab squinted, which made her kohl-lined eyes disappear into two thick, black slashes. “How many lattes have you had this morning?” When Kate started to answer, Bab cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I wasn’t particularly fond of Raymond the man, but I’ve gotten more attached to his clothes since they’ve been on Raymond the mannequin.”

/>   Kate looked at the mannequin. “Yes, yes, I can see what you mean.” Actually, she didn’t, but it felt good to be on Bab’s side of the conversation instead of out there by herself in Kidnapped-literary-birthday-brunch land. “But wouldn’t it be nice to know they’re on a living person again?” She turned and smiled at Bab, trying to look sincere even though her top lip was quivering. Maybe that latte was extra strong.

  “Hmm.” Bab tilted her head and looked at the mannequin as though pondering the question. “What kind of man?”

  Kate clutched her latte, vaguely aware her fingertips were digging into the cup. “A swashbuckler in the rough,” she said huskily.

  KNOCK-KNOCK.

  Lying on his lounge chair, the spot where he slept, rested and watched his home, Toby looked at the door to Kismet. Was it Melanie again, checking on him? Or worse, maybe she was ready to chastise him for lying on top of her daughter. He wondered if it would help his cause if he confessed that he hadn’t lain on top of anyone except his two-timing girlfriend for the past six years. Wearing nothing but a pair of red underwear sorely undermined that argument. He looked like a professional layer if nothing else.

  Knock-knock. “Toby?”

  He recognized the trace of Southern drawl, which was softer than Mother Melanie’s. He got up and headed toward the door, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his midriff along the way. When he opened the door, there stood Kate, a grin on her flushed face.

  “Hi!” she said, then waved awkwardly.

  “Hi.” His gaze dropped to a large white plastic bag with a Pudgie’s Pizza logo on its side. “Pizza? I already ate the biscuits and coffee.”

  Kate frowned, then followed his gaze to the bag. “Oh, no. It’s from Bab’s Barbary Post. She recycles pizza bags for her merchandise. Very environment-friendly and economical.”

  For a fleeting moment, he felt as though he were carrying on a conversation with Free, who spoke in non sequiturs. And he’d put up with it, just as he put up with her other traits, because that was how he grew up—always being responsible and patient with his siblings, his mother, and anyone else who wandered into his life. “Okay.” It seemed as good a response as any to Bab and her pizza bags.