Not having gone out with anyone else, it hadn’t occurred to him that Red might. He was surprised, then touched.
“Did you play sports or act in any of the school plays or anything like that?”
“A little baseball. That’s it.”
“Well, I had one girl, Sophia’s mama, and then came Sophia. In all my years I couldn’t have gone to more than a handful of baseball games.” She tapped her lip and frowned. “Come to think of it, I do recall some boy getting hit in the nose with a ball one time. There was no family there to tend to him, and Sophia insisted on us driving him down to the med center in McMinnville. She always was one to look out for the underdog.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Ragamuffin, he was. I was half embarrassed to be seen with him in my minivan. Made you want to take him home and give him a bath, then a haircut. Can you believe the way some children are raised? Eventually the receptionist managed to track someone down and told us we could leave.”
Sam fidgeted. Where was Red?
At the height of his discomfort, a door opened down the hall and a dressier, sexier version of Red appeared, smelling flowery.
He stood. “Wow, Doc. You look great.”
“Look what he brought you,” said her grandmother. “Gerbera daisies. You can plant them, later.”
Tentatively, Red fingered a blossom. “Wet nails.” She smiled at him. “Pretty.”
“Where are you two off to?”
“Sam’s taking me to The Radish Rose.”
“Isn’t that nice? Well, be good.”
On their way to his van, Sam said, “That wasn’t awkward.”
“What do you mean? Were you uncomfortable?”
“Like a cow on roller skates. Kept expecting she was going to tell me to have you back by ten.”
“You’ll be happy to know I have a liberal curfew.”
“Then again, you are a grown woman with a PhD and her own business.”
He put the van into reverse and looked in the rearview, catching a glimpse of her legs on the seat next to him where her skirt had slid up when she got in.
His arm automatically contracted to place his hand on one milky thigh before he remembered the new rules.
“How was your week?”
“Busy,” she replied, smoothing her skirt down demurely toward her knees, leaving her hands on her thighs for her nails to dry. “Yours?”
“Same.”
A clumsy silence descended. Hard to believe this stiff, wooden couple was the same one who had a penchant for steamy matinées in the great outdoors.
“Hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved. I worked later than I intended. The only time this one couple could come in was between five thirty and six thirty. They paid their sitter double to stay late.”
“Kind of throws a wrench into your day, letting people pick their own hours.”
“I know. But they have little kids, and if they’re willing to do the work and I can keep their family together…”
“Lucky for them you’re so willing to adjust your schedule. Hope it works out.”
Was this the kind of dry conversation Red was looking for?
After the van, The Radish Rose hummed with energy and movement. They had just got their breadbasket when the hostess led the Bergs past their table. James owned the gas station across the street from the consortium, and Pat worked at the Albertson’s in McMinnville.
“Dr. McDonald,” exclaimed Pat, touching Red’s shoulder. “Thanks again for seeing Cassadee on such short notice. Those nightmares of hers are keeping the whole house up.”
Red smiled tightly. “No problem.”
Did Pat not realize the position she was putting Red in? Not to mention clueing in the whole town that her daughter was in therapy.
It was at that moment that Pat noticed that Red wasn’t alone.
“Hello, Sam. How’s the wine business?”
Sam saluted, silently willing Pat to move along.
“Hold on,” Pat said, eyeing Red’s fancy top, her hair piled on top of her head. “Are you two on a date?”
Red lifted a questioning brow at Sam, passing the burden of answering on to him.
“Everybody’s got to eat,” he said, ripping off a chunk of baguette, slathering butter on it and cramming it into his mouth.
Red’s brightly painted lips pursed. Then she turned to Pat. “Yes, as a matter of fact, we are.”
“Isn’t that special?” Pat clasped her hands. “James, did you hear that? Dr. McDonald and Sam Owens are dating.”
“The girl’s waiting,” said her long-suffering husband, pointing with the top of his head to where the hostess stood holding their menus while at the front of the house, a line formed.
“Whole town’ll know now,” sighed Sam as the Bergs walked away.
Red perused her menu thoughtfully. When Sam didn’t open his, she asked, “Do you already know what you’re having?”
“Same thing I always have here. Spaghetti.”
“Don’t you even want to look to see if something else might catch your eye?”
“Why should I? They make great spaghetti.”
“Hm. I hear the seared tuna is good. Or I could get the artisanal cheese quiche.”
“You could.”
“Tonight’s special is chicken parm with penne. You know what they say about penne.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s the perfect date pasta.”
“There is such a thing?”
“Sure. It’s all about the shape of the pasta. Not like spaghetti, where you have to slurp it up and there’s a chance you might splash red sauce on your top.”
“Who knew? Well, I happen to like spaghetti. I’m willing to live dangerously.”
When their food came, Sam dug into his spaghetti and meatballs and continued his story of how the website snafu got cleared up.
“So then I posted the problem on their help forum—”
Red tapped the corner of her mouth discreetly. Sam assumed that meant he was dragging the story out, so he speeded it up.
“—and bam, right away, customer service comes back and—”
She tapped again.
“What?” He waved his fork in the air.
“You got red sauce. Right…” She indicated a spot on her own face.
He wiped at his chin. “Did I get it?”
“No.”
He stunk at this dating thing. He wondered if Red was wondering the same thing he was—what they were going to do with themselves after dinner, if sex was off the menu.
Their server, Liz Greenburn, came back around to ask if they wanted dessert. Last winter, Liz and Heath Sinclair’s dad, Scott, had stunned all of Clarkston by moving in together. Turned out middle aged people weren’t too old for such shenanigans.
“We have homemade peach pie tonight.”
Red brightened. “I like pie.”
Sam slapped closed the menu and handed it back to Liz. “One slice of pie.”
“Am I supposed to feed it to you?” he asked when it arrived.
“You’re mixed up. That’s ice cream.” Red cut through the flaky crust into the sweet filling and deposited a bite into her mouth, closing her lips on the fork and drawing it out slowly.
An erotic feeling stirred in Sam’s center.
“Besides,” said Red. “That would be out of the correct order of things. Remember? We’re backtracking. Doing things sequentially, starting with cuddling.” She took another bite, savoring it slowly.
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes glued to her mouth. “So how about you fill me in on just what you mean by ‘in order’? Sooner we can get started, the sooner we can get back to the good stuff.”
“Well,” she said, “I want to ask you if you’d be willing to try something called Sensate Foc
us Technique. It’s a process that was designed for couples with sexual dysfunction, although—”
“Keep it down, would you?” Frantically, Sam looked around at the closely packed tables. “You want people to think I have a problem in the sack?”
“Sorry,” she whispered loudly. “As I was saying, strictly in general terms, because IN YOUR CASE, SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION IS DEFINITELY NOT—REPEAT, NOT—A PROBLEM.”
Heads turned.
“Jesus.” He couched his forehead in his hand.
Red continued with her candid description. “SFT is a well-established method to treat things like, oh”—she licked her fork and waved it in the air—“erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation...” She ticked off the examples as if they were architectural styles or wedding dresses instead of the most emasculating conditions known to mankind.
Sam leaned across the table and hissed, “Do you think maybe we could talk about this someplace else, where there aren’t thirty-seven people eavesdropping?”
Out of nowhere, Liz reappeared. “Listen to you two. Sound like an old married couple instead of one on their first date. Will there be anything else?”
“No,” he said, running a finger between his neck and collar. “Just the check.”
Liz bent over to within a foot of Sam’s ear. “Don’t worry. When Scott and I first got together, he had a little problem with delayed ejaculation. You know, when men can’t reach orgasm? Sometimes they call it inhibited ejaculation. It’s not unusual for a man Scott’s age. Anyway, I sent him over to Dr. McDonald, here, and now he’s as good as—”
“Please.” Sam stuck his fingers in his ears. He’d survived two wars, but don’t make him listen to his friend’s dad’s problems getting it up. “Stop.”
Liz straightened her spine and drew in her chin with a hurt expression. “I was only trying to help. I’d hate for your sexual shortcomings to come between—”
“Just the check,” Red repeated cheerfully.
Chapter 9
Sam had never been so relieved to get back to his van.
“About the technique,” said Red. “It was developed for people who’re having trouble achieving satisfaction. But in our case, we have the opposite goal: to slow things down.”
“Sounds to me like practice bleeding. Isn’t the whole point to get to where we’re already at?”
“I would like us to focus less on the sex act itself, and more on intimacy. You’ll see what I mean, once we get started.”
Automatically, Sam steered the van in the direction of Ribbon Ridge.
“Where are we going?”
“For a ride.”
“You’re not going to seduce me.”
“Who said anything about seducing you?”
“We both know how it is. You look at me in that certain way, touch me in that certain place, and I’m helpless to resist.”
“Fine. We’ll play it your way. Just hold hands.” Dutifully, he clasped Red’s hand between the seats.
“That’s done. Now what?”
“It doesn’t count while you’re driving.”
“Why not?”
“You have to be able to relax and focus on the sensation.”
* * * *
Only the savviest wine tourists knew about Ribbon Ridge. Traffic was light, even during the daytime. That, plus the view was one of the reasons it had become Sam’s favorite place to take Red.
The sounds of civilization tapered off as they left the town behind. Sam thought of turning on the radio to mitigate the silence, but his right hand was entangled in Red’s and he had to use the left one to drive.
When they reached the road that ran along the ridge top, he made a U-turn to give Red the superior view, then parked along the side of the road. He cut the engine, slid the windows down and leaned around Red to peer out at black, downward sloping land, across familiar vineyards to swaths of pines and the winking lights of farmhouses.
From Army cots, hovels, and five star hotel rooms all over the world, Sam had dreamed about coming back to this place. Only in leaving it had he realized how much he loved this valley…its lush vineyards, its wildflower meadows, its carefully tended farms. But even more than the geography, he loved its people, grounded in the soil, passionate about living close to the land.
Cicadas hummed and clicked in the night air.
After a minute, Red murmured, “Temperature’s perfect.”
“Mm.”
Their voices sounded different, up here. Like they were in their own, private world.
“I like to imagine what people are doing down there. Finishing up their last tasks of the day. Checking on their animals for the night. Winding down.”
“Yeah.”
She inhaled audibly.
“Sniff,” she ordered him.
“Huh?”
“I said sniff.”
After assuring himself that he wasn’t being watched—ridiculous, given their location, not to mention that it was pitch black out—he took a tentative whiff out his own window.
“Smell that?”
“The roses?” Roses planted among the vines acted like canaries in coalmines. Any sign of mildew on the petals, and the growers could react before it spread to the grapes. “Smells good.” Great. Now he was talking about posies.
Red sighed and let her head fall back. “How far would you say we can see from up here?”
His TAC-338A had a range of two thousand feet. That was six hundred ten meters, or 0.379 miles. Multiply that by ten…
“Three point eight miles.”
The moonlight silhouetted her head rising from the headrest.
“That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Why don’t you just round it off to four?”
“Because that’s not what it is. It’s imperative to approximate distance as accurately as possible.”
“I was just making conversation. It’s not like it’s life or death or anything.”
“Yes, it—”
Get a grip, Owens.
She let it drop, much to his relief. “I’m glad we came up here,” she said, her head falling back again. “It’s nice. Peaceful.”
Without warning, she loosened herself from their chaste handclasp and began slowly, rhythmically sliding the very tips of her fingers up and down between his.
He’d never noticed how much more sensitive the skin was along the inside of his fingers compared to his palm and the back of his hand. It tickled, in a good way.
He found himself relaxing, being lulled into a state of pleasant lethargy. She could do that forever and he wouldn’t mind.
His head fell back in imitation of hers, as his eyes drifted shut.
“Where’d you learn how to do that? On second thought—don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” He’d have to give the guy a slow, painful death.
She didn’t respond in words, just curled her fingertips around the base of his fingers, sliding her middle one up and down along the ridge between his knuckles.
It was incredible how good something so simple could feel. How sensual. The feeling went up his arm and down his spine, triggering his usual, infallible response.
He shifted in his seat, reaching between his legs with his free hand to give himself more room.
At that, her fingers stilled.
“Don’t stop,” he said thickly.
She resumed stroking the skin between his fingers. He could feel his heart rate increasing, his breathing becoming audible in the still night.
Such a little thing, her fingertips brushing against his hand. How could it have taken over his entire being like this? He opened his eyes to the darkness. No sight, no sound but his breath rushing in and out and the crickets in the background. His entire universe centered on the nerve endings in that slight hollow between
the knuckles of his middle and ring fingers and the scent of roses.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Doc…” He squeezed her hand, stopping the tantalizing movement of her fingers and lolled his head to the side.
Her head turned toward his in response, lips parted.
He leaned in to kiss her, and she intercepted his aim with a fingertip to his lips. “Nuh uh. No kissing.”
“I get it. I passed this part of the test.”
“Not yet. We’re just getting started. Do you like holding hands with me?”
He tightened his grip. “Have mercy, Doc. You know I do. Now let’s stop playing games and get to the real deal.”
“Not tonight. It’s not part of the plan.”
“Then when? How long do we have to pretend we’re thirty-year-old virgins?”
“We’re not thirty. Not yet.”
“The stress is accelerating the aging process. Look.” He traced a line along her forehead. “Worry lines.”
“It’s not going to work.”
His head fell against the headrest with a resigned sigh.
Unexpectedly, she reached out and ran her finger along the small scar along his temple. “But I have noticed something there before. What’s that from?”
He rolled his head away slightly. “Nothing.”
Red dropped her hand. After a pause, she said, “I think now would be a good time for you to take me home.”
He thought about that. “Give me a sec.”
He got out and strode a few yards behind the van to clear his head. The crunch of gravel under his feet, the cool breeze on his scalp when he ruffled his hair, took the place of a cold shower. He stood there with his hands on his hips and his head bowed and tried to think about things other than Red’s hand, her mouth, and her body that responded to his touch like a German sports car. Work problems. What he was going to do about his dad. The house and his lifelong deception. Anything to ease the cramped state of affairs south of the border. He blew out a frustrated breath.
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine Page 6
