Least Likely Wedding?

by Patricia McLinn

  She knew what she was getting into this time. She went after it. Inviting the explosions, looking for the heat.

  Under her hands, against her skin, inside her body, the contraction and release of his muscles sparked her to life, to lust, to…no, better not to let that thought in…not now.

  They brought Chester and the puppies home the next morning.

  Rob carried the box with the puppies into the sunroom, while Chester supervised. The dog got right into the whelping box and watched with a seeming frown as he reached for a puppy.

  “Maybe you should do this,” he said to Kay. “She doesn’t look happy, and she didn’t look that way when you put the puppies in the box.”

  “The book did say the fewer people handling the puppies the better the first few days, so they form a strong bond with their mother.”

  Kay scooped squirming puppies out of the box one by one. Chester greeted each one with licks. When all six—three beige and white, two dark red with white and one light red—were lined up to nurse, she touched each with her nose as if taking inventory, then licked Kay’s hand.

  “Jeez, it’s warm in here.” Rob wiped his forehead.

  “It has to be eighty to ninety degrees for the puppies the first couple weeks. This is only eighty. The heating pad is in the box to improve the temperature there. That way—where are you going?”

  “I’m going to need shorts. Plus, I have some Bliss House duties to attend to. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  Seeing the questions and doubts in her eyes, he bent to where she was kneeling in front of the whelping box. With his hand curved around her neck, he kissed her, possessive and promising.

  By the time he returned—he’d packed toiletries and a few changes of clothes into a gym bag and left a note for Fran—Kay had fallen asleep on the sofa in the sultry sunroom, one arm dangling into the whelping box. Chester could touch her anytime she wanted by lifting her head.

  Rob looked at the dog, who paid not the slightest heed to any humans as she nudged one of the darker puppies into position for a tongue-cleaning.

  Great. The dog could touch Kay whenever she wanted, while he couldn’t. But if he moved Kay to the bedroom, out of earshot of the puppies, she’d have his hide.

  Rob picked her up. She stirred against him. It shouldn’t have turned him on. Shouldn’t have made his groin fill and pulse. Her shoulder pushing across his chest for God’s sake. How could that have him this close? He closed his eyes, trying for control.

  He’d acted without a plan, on impulse. And look what happened.

  He could sit on the sofa with her in his lap, but how comfortable was that going to be for either of them? Not comfortable enough to catch up on the sleep they hadn’t gotten last night. Not comfortable enough for the long-term togetherness he wasn’t willing to forfeit.

  No, he had a better idea.

  He sat in the wide recliner with her in his arms. Once he was sure Kay hadn’t awakened, he levered it as flat as it would go, and stretched out with Kay along his side.

  Ah, this was better. Much better.

  He slept, and was glad of it. But waking was a lot more fun.

  Kay, warm and slightly damp, snuggled beside him. “Mmmm, Rob, you’re almost as warm as Chester.”

  He kissed her forehead. “And you’re considerably hotter.”

  She stretched and twisted into a sinuous curve that traced a line of burgeoning fire wherever it brushed and retreated across his skin. He turned on his side to face her and drew her leg up over his thigh.

  “Is that so?” She slid her hand down his chest, burrowing under waistbands to circle a finger around his belly button.

  “Mmmm. A little lower.”

  She obliged.

  The next day Kay returned to work on the mural. She didn’t have any choice if they hoped to be done in time for the previews she’d scheduled.

  She worked in bursts while Rob was at the Hollands’ house. She dashed to Bliss House, most often taking his car, painted like a fiend, then dashed back.

  In between, she fielded calls from the media, wrote letters, made pitches.

  Rob helped with all that, plus put together reports and projections on the Bliss House budget, moved money to an account that should earn more interest and otherwise cleared the decks. He’d also contacted the lawyer he’d talked to in June, and told him to contact the authorities. He did most of that from the Hollands’ house so Chester and the puppies had one or both of them within yelping distance at all times.

  Neither Rob nor Kay was getting much sleep. That could only partly be blamed on Chester and the puppies. The sofa had turned out to be less difficult than he’d thought, although the recliner remained their standby.

  “I’m starting to dream about beds,” Kay said on the third morning.

  “For sleeping? Or not sleeping?”

  “Yes.”

  He knew just how she felt.

  One of the beige-and-white puppies and the light red one weren’t keeping up with their larger siblings, so they held back the others and let those two start nursing first. Chester appeared to approve. She accepted Rob handling the puppies, too, now, although both he and Kay kept it to a minimum. Chester was totally focused on her litter. And eating.

  The third night after bringing the puppies home, Rob returned from a run for Chinese food and placed an unmarked paper bag on the counter.

  “What’s that?” Kay frowned.

  “Kung pao chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and a baby monitor, so you can hear whatever’s going on in one room, say the sunroom, while you’re in another room, say the bedroom.” He returned to the food bags and pulled more containers out. “Also shrimp cashew and spring rolls.”

  “That’s brilliant!” she said.

  “So you like shrimp cashew?”

  “I’ll show you what I like.”

  They used the baby monitor first.

  Rob fell asleep the next afternoon face down across the bed, wearing only his boxers, the baby monitor on the floor at his fingertips. He woke to the sight of Kay’s legs, sporting several spots of mural paint, extended from the towel-draped chair she’d pulled up next to the bed.

  “Don’t move!” she ordered the instant he tensed his muscles to sit up.

  “Why? What are you doing?”

  “Don’t move. If you turn around, I’ll be seeing your front, and right now I’m sketching your back.”

  “Aha. You’re sketching.”

  “Yes, Mr. Know-It-All, I’m sketching and it’s my first attempt at anything serious since I was a kid and it’s not half-bad and I’m enjoying it, so hold still.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear. Was that so much to ask?”

  He kept his torso still, but twisted his head to look at Kay. Rob Dalton, who thought things through, who weighed risk and reward, who always had a plan, knew that, despite thought, risk or plan, he loved her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Hey Kay, it’s Serge.”

  Kay had picked up the phone in the kitchen expecting another call about the opening, not one from the video producer. She glanced toward Rob, who was putting away sandwich-makings in the refrigerator, and went to the sun-room as the voice on the phone continued.

  “Where are you? I lost your cell number, but I’m in the city and called your place and got some guy who said you weren’t living there any longer. Didn’t sound like one of your fans.”

  “No, I’m not living there anymore.” Where she would be living after the middle of next month she didn’t know and, right now, didn’t particularly care.

  “Shooting anything?”

  “No.”

  “Good, good. I might have something for you down the road. No promises, you understand.”

  Her sketch pad propped against the chair snagged Kay’s attention. She had smiled as she’d shaded that narrowing at Rob’s waist. The lines of his back were so beautiful it made her eyes sting. “No promises.”

  “That’s right, but I’ve shown some peop
le your work. How about doing lunch next week?”

  This was it. The opportunity she’d aimed for. The next step in her plan.

  Why didn’t she care?

  “Next week won’t be good, Serge.” She leaned against the doorjamb to the garage. “Let me call when I know I’ll be around.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s that guy I saw you making out with on the tape that’s keeping you there.” He laughed. She’d totally forgotten they’d shot her kiss with Rob. “Well, don’t wait too long. I’ve got people who want to meet you. I think they’ll like your work, too.”

  “Thank you, Serge. That’s great to hear.” She just wanted to get him off the phone.

  “Even Donna liked it,” Serge said, “and that’s saying something.”

  “That’s great, Serge. Great.”

  Kay turned and there was Rob, watching her from across the room.

  She didn’t remember precisely how she wrapped up the conversation—although she knew Serge had to remind her to take his phone number.

  “You want something to drink?” she asked as she passed Rob on the way to the kitchen.

  “No thanks. Good news?”

  “Uh, yeah. The producer likes the B-roll of the wedding in Bliss House.”

  “That’s great. You’re going to make us famous in Tobias. They’ll shoot movies here like they do in Toronto, huh?”

  The twist in her chest was entirely unexpected. But so was the certainty that his us had not included her.

  She laughed. It sounded forced. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “He wants you in New York?”

  “Well…”

  “Make you a job offer?”

  “Just wants me to meet a few people.”

  “That could be a great opportunity.”

  She looked at him across the kitchen counter. “Yeah. A great opportunity.”

  Rob stood in the bedroom he’d occupied throughout his childhood and all but the last few days of this summer.

  Until was over.

  He’d told Kay he needed to get back to Fran’s house. Neither of them had said anything about why. They both knew why. And they both knew their bubble of time had ended. The phone call from her producer hadn’t burst it so much as evaporated it.

  He jerked the closet door open and took a briefcase from the back.

  He’d already delayed this to have these few days with Kay, these days detached from reality.

  On the desk, he carefully laid out the briefcase’s contents. He opened his laptop with materials already organized for transmitting. He punched in the phone number he’d spent all summer wishing he would never have to call.

  “My name is Rob Dalton, I believe you’re expecting a call from me.”

  He had to do this. He had to do this now.

  Rob pushed open the plastic sheeting that cut off their painting room from the world.

  Kay felt the instantaneous heat right through to the soles of her feet. She wanted to wrap herself around him, to feel his weight and warmth. Even though he’d only left this morning, she missed him.

  “What do you think?” she asked, gesturing at the mural. “We’re almost done.”

  “It’s fantastic. Amazing.” He was looking at her. “Kay, can you take a break?”

  Kay looked over her shoulder to her grandmother. Dora had been watching him, but now she shifted her eyes to Kay, and her expression softened. “Of course, you go ahead.”

  Rob had withdrawn after Serge’s call almost as surely as she had after asking him not to blow the whistle on his company. Neither retreat had gotten them anywhere. But she doubted standing there and talking until doomsday would have gotten them anywhere, either.

  He was going to report the wrongdoing. He couldn’t be Rob and do otherwise. And she couldn’t shake this gut-gnawing sensation.

  He guided her to the bench set into the patio wall.

  “I brought Chester and the puppies over to Miss Trudi’s for her to look after while I’m working,” Kay said. “You’re right—the wagon worked perfectly. I just put the box with the puppies in it, their supplies, and Chester walked along—”

  “Kay. I called the authorities this morning. It won’t be known publicly for a few more days, but it’s started.”

  Her stomach took a sickening plunge. It’s started.

  “Oh.”

  His mouth twisted, not quite a grin. “You usually have more to say than that.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Rob. I know you think you’re doing what you have to do—”

  “It’s the only thing I can do, Kay.”

  She blinked at the burn in her eyes, breathed in through her mouth to try to steady her stomach. “I know it is. But…”

  “I know.” He leaned forward, his forearms slanted across his knees, one hand cupped inside the other. “Maybe down the road when this is over…”

  She shook her head numbly.

  “You deserve a woman who’ll be with you through this.” She stood, her knees weak. “I can’t, Rob. You deserve someone who can.”

  Kay curled up on the sofa in the sunroom. She couldn’t even look at the recliner.

  She’d told Dora she wasn’t feeling well, gathered Chester and the puppies, come back home—no, this wasn’t her home, it was the Hollands’ home—and had thrown up. She hadn’t been sick this frequently even in the weeks before she’d called off the wedding to Barry. She hadn’t been sick this frequently since…a long time ago.

  Chester got out of the whelping box and stood in front of Kay, her tail wagging tentatively. Kay buried her head in her arms so the dog couldn’t see her face.

  Chester bumped the crown of her head with her nose and made a question out of a sound that was part cry, part moan, part growl.

  “You can’t make me feel better, Chester,” Kay said. “I’m going to disappoint you when I go back to New York, just like I’m disappointing Rob because I can’t be part of what he has to do. And if you make me feel better now it will make me feel worse later.”

  The dog made that sound again, then Kay felt the cushion sink and rock. She popped her head up. Chester circled with precision in approximately six square inches of space between Kay’s calves and the back cushion, then lay down, resting her head on Kay’s hip and looking at her.

  Tears slid down Kay’s cheeks and fell off her chin. But she did feel better.

  “I love you, Chester.”

  There, she’d said it out loud. To a dog. But it didn’t feel stupid, it felt good.

  “And you love me.”

  Chester whined in what could only be agreement.

  This dog loved her. Unconditionally. She hadn’t believed it when Chester had shown up in her life, she’d been afraid to believe it. She’d come to believe love just wasn’t for her.

  As much as she’d tried to win it, her parents had never truly given her love. As much as she’d tried to will it, the man who’d asked her to marry him certainly hadn’t loved her. As much as she’d tried to find it, her varied jobs had never made her feel loved.

  Even Dora… Oh, Kay, sweetheart, I should have fought for you. And that’s my shame and my regret.

  But in these few weeks in Tobias, Kay had felt love and loved.

  “I love you, Chester, and somehow we’re going to be together. Somehow. I promise.”

  The tears came harder now.

  Why couldn’t she have said those words to Rob?

  Kay dabbed dark paint to shade a rosebush cane. Too bad there wasn’t more black to paint on this mural. She should have included a section of the gardens at night. That would have matched her mood. Swirls of black and gray and brown, tumbling into each other, overlapping, running in circles. Like her thoughts.

  “Damn!” Dora dropped her brush, it hit at an angle on the bench, flipped end over end, swiped down her work pants and landed on the plastic-covered floor.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “These damned useless hands. God, look at this mess.” She jabbed her cramp
ed hand at a clump of gold-and-orange mums. “I don’t know how you’ll be able to fix this.”

  “I haven’t fixed anything you’ve done—I haven’t had to. I like it the way it is.”

  Dora snorted. “No one would ever believe those half-formed swirls were Dora Aaronson’s work.”

  “Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about Dora Aaronson’s work, then.”

  “What on earth does that mean?”

  “That is beautiful work, Dora. Beautiful. Just because it’s not how you used to work doesn’t change that. Forget what the art world might say. Forget expectations. Forget everything but how it feels.”

  “Can’t you see the shading isn’t—”

  “Perfect? So what? How could anything be more wrong than you not painting?”

  “How can I paint with hands like this?”

  “Maybe not in any way you’ve painted in the past, but—” An idea, brilliant and terrifying exploded across her mind. “Dora, I have something I want you to try,” she announced as she pulled out her cell phone and got busy.

  Twenty minutes later they pulled into the drive of Annette and Steve Corbett’s house in a car borrowed from Suz.

  As arranged, Kay led Dora around back, where Annette had easels and paper. Nell waited for them. Dora stopped when she saw the setup.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “This is finger paint,” Kay said more calmly than she felt. She was trying to convince an American treasure artist to finger-paint, for heaven’s sake. “We’re going to finger-paint with Nell.”

  “This is absurd, I am not going to—”

  “Knew she wouldn’t,” Nell said. “She’s a grandmother.”

  Dora’s indignation seemed to evaporate with her quick-drawn breath.

  She held up her gnarled hands to Kay. “How can I? I can’t hold a brush properly with these hands, how can I paint with them directly?”

  “That’s what we’re here to see. Forget your expectations, forget what you could do before. You can’t paint as you did, but that’s not the only way to let that urge that’s inside you out,” Kay said. “If you can’t find a style of painting that works, we’ll try other media—I have a little experience with that. But I recommend we start here.”