Heat of the Moment

by Lori Herter

  He struggled to get his wheelchair over the threshold of the cottage doorway, and wheeled down the bumpy cobblestone walkway to the main house. His invalid routine felt especially tiresome now that he could walk again.

  When he wheeled himself into the large, tiled kitchen, he motioned her to the refrigerator. “See if there’s anything in there that looks appetizing to you. The freezer door is on the left.”

  Josie opened it and peeked in. “Looks like you’re a pasta lover.”

  Peter chuckled. “I tell Al to get me anything with noodles.”

  “You mentioned canned tuna. If you have mayonnaise and bread, I can put together some tuna sandwiches.”

  “I think there’s mayonnaise,” he said as she opened the refrigerator door. “The bread is in the pantry.”

  “You’ve got celery, too. I’ll chop some of that into it.” Josie turned to him, looking relaxed, clearly more at ease in the kitchen where there was no bed in sight. She smiled. “I can make us some iced tea, if you like.”

  Her sudden, beautiful smile made Peter feel as though his head were crashing through the ceiling. Even covered in the clothing equivalent of a plain brown wrapper, Josie had a way of sending his senses reeling. Careful, he told himself. There was still a chance she had entered his life for sinister reasons.

  About twenty minutes later, he sat at the maple table in the breakfast nook, looking out his large bay window that overlooked hills of manicured orchards dotted with trees and homes. He was humming bits of the old Irish tune he still couldn’t quite remember. All at once, Josie leaned over him as she poured iced tea into his glass. A gentle heat from her body, radiating femininity, stole over him as she stood close, her hand on the back of his wheelchair. He sensed her inner tension had vanished. She seemed to enjoy taking care of him. His kitchen wasn’t such a lonely, empty place anymore.

  He could get used to this! In fact, it made his head spin to realize how quickly he’d taken to her. Josie had already proven she could raise his libido with one subtle twist of her body, one lustrous flash of a smile in her large brown eyes. The effect she had on him was a little scary.

  Josie took her seat across from him and picked up her sandwich. Peter watched her mouth as she took a delicate bite and chewed. At the provocative movement of her lips, he looked down at his sandwich and tried to convince himself he was hungry—for food.

  Josie grew tentative again, cautiously setting down her sandwich, as if sensing his manner of observing her wasn’t impersonal. “What was it you were humming?” The silence and the undercurrents between them were obviously making her uneasy.

  “I don’t know. Have you ever had a song in your mind that you can’t quite remember, and you can’t get it out of your head, either?”

  Josie shook her head. “I guess not.”

  “You have any Irish blood in you?” He took a bite of his sandwich.

  She seemed surprised at the question. “No. I have several nationalities in my heritage—English, Russian, Dutch, Hispanic—but no Irish.”

  Damn. The song seemed connected to her in Peter’s mind, and he wished he could figure out why. He changed the subject. “Good tuna salad. You like to cook?”

  “Sometimes. When I get tired of eating out.” She looked out the window, still nervously making small talk. “You have a beautiful view here. A beautiful home.”

  “Just after I graduated college, I developed a new lightning warning system for golf courses that was more accurate and less expensive than the ones already on the market. I sold the idea to a manufacturer and made a lot of money. I bought this house and invested the rest. Then I founded Frameworks, a riskier venture, but I think it will pay off eventually.”

  Josie looked impressed. Genuine interest seemed to make her diffidence fade. “Did the new warning system measure static electricity in the air?”

  “Yes.” He went on to explain the details of his invention and enjoyed the way she listened with rapt attention.

  “Brilliant!” she said with a smile. “It must be nice to be financially secure, own a lovely home like this and undertake new ventures.”

  “What about you? Where do you live?”

  “In a condo in Irvine. It’s nice, just the right size for one person.”

  “You never married?”

  “Nope.” She said the word with finality as she picked up her sandwich.

  “You sound pretty sure that you made the right decision.”

  “Yup.”

  He smiled at her terse mode. “Sometimes I have the same frame of mind about marriage. You see, I tried it once. It definitely didn’t have a happily-ever-after ending.”

  She looked up at him while she ate, as if interested in hearing more, but hesitant to ask.

  Seeing her curiosity, he continued. “I married Cory in December, eight years ago. A real pretty Christmas wedding. And the following May, I discovered she was having an affair—she’d been seeing her previous boyfriend. She told me she’d married the wrong guy, that she realized she still loved him, not me. My sisters and mother had warned me Cory was on the rebound and that I might be in for trouble. But I didn’t listen. I was too bowled over by her, oblivious to the signs that were obvious to others. Al had tried to talk me out of marrying her, too. Anyway, I got an annulment. She married the other guy, but they eventually got divorced. I think she’s on her third husband now.”

  Josie put down her sandwich. “How awful for you. Sounds like she was kind of mixed-up.”

  Peter nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that. To me she was a fascinating mystery woman. She kept me intrigued because I couldn’t figure her out. But the women in my family recognized that she was high-strung and neurotic. When Cory assured me her previous relationship was over, I believed her. And,” he added with a sigh, “she was beautiful. I think even Al had a crush on her. We men get a little out of touch with reality when a beautiful woman is in the picture.”

  The sympathetic light dimmed from Josie’s eyes. A haunted, uneasy look replaced it. Peter wasn’t sure what to make of it. He couldn’t imagine why his self-deprecating remark would cause her discomfort.

  “So I’m playing it safe, staying single,” he said, trying for an optimistic tone. “Life is easier when you put trust only in yourself. How can you ever totally trust another person?”

  Her eyes were imbued with sadness now. “Or you worry about failing another person’s trust. That’s even worse, I think. When I was fourteen, I was walking to the grocery store with my little brother on an errand for my mom. My father had died. My brother, Frank, was seven. My mother trusted me to look after him. He tended to run off and she reminded me to watch him closely, so he wouldn’t run into the street.”

  She shifted her iced tea glass. “We got to a street corner, and I got distracted because a girlfriend from school was waving to me from across the street. My little brother ran out ahead of me and…got hit by a car.” She shook her head. “His legs got smashed up pretty badly. And all because I didn’t keep an eye on him the way I should have. I failed my mother’s trust and I failed him.”

  Peter blinked, surprised at the guilt she still carried. Unless she was telling this emotional story to worm her way into his confidence. “How is he? Did he recover?”

  Josie tilted her head and smiled fondly. “Oh, yes. He learned to walk again. When he grew up, he became a physical therapist, to help others with injuries. Frank’s married now and he and his wife have twins. They live on the East Coast. My mother moved out there to be near her grandchildren. I go out to visit them all twice a year. My niece and nephew are always eager to see their Aunt Josie.”

  Peter nodded. “Then everything is fine now. Why do you still feel bad about it? Anyone can get momentarily distracted. You didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “No. But you talked about trust. I failed the trust my family put in me, and my brother paid a dear price for my failure. They’ve forgiven me, but I still have a hard time forgiving myself.”

>   A thought leaped into Peter’s mind. “That’s why you came here to see me. Why you feel so guilty about my accident, when you had nothing directly to do with it. You’re trying to find a way to make amends for what happened to your brother under your watch.” Was it true, or was her story meant to supply a believable reason, a motivation, for her to come to him? He watched her reaction carefully.

  Her eyes widened and she stared at him for a full two seconds. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense.”

  She smiled shyly, and Peter turned to mush inside. God, he wanted to believe her.

  “You’re very insightful, Mr. Psychologist!” she said, looking impressed.

  He took a breezy manner, keeping his wits, playing her game, if it was a game. “We can benefit each other here. I get your kind concern for my well-being, and you get to make amends for your brother’s accident. Seems like it’s a good arrangement. Better than therapy, probably.”

  She nodded, picking up her iced tea. “Sounds okay to me, too.”

  “So, you have your brother’s kids to take the place of your own children. I have nieces and nephews, too. My sisters are both married, and between them they have five kids.”

  Josie looked sad. “Yes. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t sound too positive.”

  She sighed, put down her tea and pushed her plate away. “When I was a young teenager I wanted to get married and have kids, but…”

  “But…?”

  She seemed to catch herself, as if suddenly cautious about revealing too much. “Nothing. Changed my mind as I grew up. Focused on a career in science instead.”

  “I can sympathize with that. After my marriage broke up, I had doubts that I was cut out to be a family man. I focused on my work, too.” This was true, though he kept a hope burning that maybe he was wrong about not being a family man. “And now,” he said, indicating his wheelchair, “I have to draw the conclusion that it’s not in the cards for me.”

  “I think some people just aren’t meant to be married,” she told him. “The universe arranges things in ways that seal our fate. But we’re free to do so many other things if we’re not tied to a spouse and children. We can evolve on our own and not worry about the needs of other people. We don’t have to waste time looking for the perfect mate. Think of all the time we’re saving by not participating in the sexual rat race.”

  Peter nodded as if he agreed, though what she’d just said left him speechless. She’d more or less stated that she wasn’t looking, wasn’t dating, wasn’t having sex. Why would she tell him that? It was as if she’d assumed he’d understand.

  And then he realized she seemed to have drawn certain conclusions about him, perhaps from the dire news reports about his accident. While he hadn’t been out and about since his fall, it didn’t mean he didn’t want to be sexually active. It seemed she was assuming he couldn’t be, that his injuries were such that he couldn’t perform sexually anymore. Perhaps, in his wheelchair, he even appeared nonsexual. Like a priest, maybe. Someone in whom she could confide. And since she apparently lived like a nun, she assumed they were making the same life choice—to be celibate.

  Peter had to keep himself from chuckling. He leaned back in his chair and assumed a thoughtful pose. “You’re right about the time we aren’t wasting on the dating scene, sifting through potential partners, being disappointed over and over.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes brightening. “All those single women out there looking for Mr. Right. There is no Mr. Right. It’s a romantic illusion. Fortunately, I woke up and smelled the coffee.” She grinned in an older-but-wiser way. “And now I drink tea.”

  Her ideas and straightforward manner of expressing them sounded authentic—too unusual for her to have made up. If she was a spy, she was a far cry from Mata Hari. Peter nodded, as if all she’d said had resonated with him. But he was thinking, Josie, you haven’t even begun to wake up.

  They were silent for a moment, as if out of topics to follow their heart-to-heart discussion of why they were both single.

  Going back to her business mode, she asked, “So, I gather that the main problem you’re trying to overcome in your retrofit system is vibration resistance? Your tests so far have fallen short?”

  “We have to formulate a composite substance that protects against all the different types of earthquake vibrations, from a strike-slip San Andreas-type fault to the thrust motions of other types of quakes.”

  “Which thrust motions are you most concerned about?”

  Peter’s mind quickly strayed to thrusting motions of a whole different nature. He struggled to keep his mind on track. “Well, there are blind thrusts and reverse thrusts. They create different frictions….” He felt heat rising to his face and his mind went blank.

  Josie’s eyes widened. “I see,” she said, as if to cut him off. “I get the idea.” But as she indicated that she had the idea, she blushed.

  He tried to cover by continuing on in his best scientist-in-a-white-coat manner. “Of course, if the structure is in an area of liquifaction…the vibration can be climactic. Pipes burst, and…” He stopped and took a long drink of iced tea. Regaining his composure, he told her, “I’ll show you our data records from our previous tests. That’ll answer your question.”

  Josie quickly nodded. “Sure, I’ll just read that.”

  It was obvious she couldn’t look at him now. They might both be celibate, Peter thought ruefully, but their brains weren’t. It intrigued him that her mind had gone into double-entendre mode almost as quickly as his. He wondered if she, too, was contemplating the mythic force of the legendary Big One….

  JOSIE WASN’T USED to thinking in double meanings and wondered how she’d figured out what Peter had been thinking so quickly. She still felt shaken. What was going on?

  Maybe it was just a fluke, she told herself.

  She followed Peter as he wheeled himself back to the guest cottage, trying to get her mind off of their strange conversation. She decided to concentrate on her surroundings. The cottage was very pretty, she noted, near the pool and spa, with a nice view of the hills. The lab equipment and stainless-steel tables inside seemed incongruous. And then there was the small bedroom… Never mind! she told herself. The double bed was merely left over from the days when the cottage was meant for guests.

  Josie tried to relax and be grateful to be away from all the stress at Earthwaves. Her new job looked promising, though clearly she still had to get used to working with Peter, especially since they were completely alone together on his property. But he was stuck in his wheelchair, and she could see how much it slowed him up. Thresholds posed a problem. So did simply turning around. Clearly she had nothing to worry about, she reassured herself, even if they did have to talk about earthquakes.

  Josie felt very sorry that Peter was confined to a wheelchair, most likely paralyzed, from what the news reports indicated. A paramedic had been overheard saying Peter couldn’t feel his legs, couldn’t move them, when he was taken to the hospital by ambulance. He’d said nothing so far to contradict this information. In fact, their conversation over lunch seemed to verify that sex was no longer a part of his life. While she wanted to weep for his injury, she couldn’t deny that being around a man so incapacitated allowed her to feel safe.

  And yet there was an underlying tension she felt, a distracting new kind of tension that was different from wariness or fear. Being with Peter made her unusually aware of herself. Just watching him breathe, seeing his broad chest gently rise and fall as he sat in his wheelchair, made her conscious of herself in a peculiar new way. Over lunch, when she’d poured his iced tea, for example, she’d seen his chest expand as he took a breath, and she’d had to remind herself to breathe. And yet she’d felt amazingly at home there in his kitchen, standing beside his wheelchair, doing something for him. What was going on inside her? She was a little afraid to search her psyche for the answer.

  But she didn’t have to search—the answer popped out at
her. As she went back to work with Peter, sitting close to him in front of a lab computer, it dawned on her that his looks and personality seemed to match those of her ideal man, the dream man she’d imagined when she was only thirteen and still innocently romantic. Peter was intelligent, warm, with a sense of humor and a winsome quality to his gaze that could instantly charm. And like the man of her youthful imagination, Peter was divinely handsome. But he couldn’t literally sweep her off her feet. Josie’s dream man, of course, wasn’t an invalid.

  Peter reached across the keyboard to hit the tab button, his bare, muscular forearm gliding over the backs of her hands as they rested over the keys. He was explaining something, but after feeling his skin on hers she didn’t hear a word he said. She felt his male body heat, and suddenly grew aware of his masculine scent. Her heart almost stopped. Her breathing grew shallow, and she told herself to take deeper breaths before she grew dizzy. This restless, surprisingly physical yearning that threatened to overpower her was something she’d never felt when she was thirteen! She’d never experienced it this strongly as an adult, either—not even with Max, before her horrible night with him. And certainly never since that dreadful turning point in her life. But now Josie simply could not ignore the vague, yet increasingly overwhelming need rising inside her. What was happening?

  Though she wished she could find a way to ignore that question, she instinctively knew the answer. Her sexual consciousness was being awakened, as if from a long sleep. Part of her wished her libido would just stay dormant. But another part of her psyche seemed to be urging her to let her buried sexuality come out and play a little. Oh, God, but that was a scary thought….

  A couple of hours later, they were still sitting together in front of a computer screen. Peter had been explaining their data storage systems. It had taken all Josie’s mental strength to focus on what he was saying and ignore what she was feeling.

  “You look a little bleary-eyed,” Peter said. “I’ve been talking a lot, and this is pretty tedious work. Should we take a break? Have some iced tea by the pool?”