‘Oh, my,’ she muttered in a half-whisper, shivering when his fingers withdrew from their sensitive, very private sanctum.
‘Exactly,’ he mumbled back, out of breath.
‘Did you…?’
‘Like a fifteen year old.’
‘Oh, my.’
‘Yeah, well, safety first.’
‘What?’
‘Safety first.’
‘Safety first?’
‘It means I left the condoms in the Jeep instead of bringing any inside.’
‘Oh. Oh!’
‘You’re quick.’
She laughed. ‘Evidently so are you.’
‘You want me to apologise?’
She rolled her head against his chest. ‘For that? Nope.’
‘You know you shocked the hell out of me?’ Dominic’s heart stopped jack-hammering against his breastbone and began to slow. He straightened and wrapped his arm back around her waist, his chin coming to rest atop her head, revelling in the moment of shivery afterglow and discovery. He wanted to tell her, but now was not the time. It had to be a neutral setting not tinged by lovemaking or lust. It had to be pure and very, very simple.
Lesley settled a hand over his, her fingers running back and forth over the ridges of his knuckles. ‘You got what you saw all out of context.’
‘I didn’t get anything out of context. Don’t be ashamed.’
‘I could say the same thing to you.’
‘Why?’
‘You got your pants dirty.’
‘Shorts.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Shorts. I got my shorts dirty. I thought you were retiling today.’
‘I thought you were working at the store.’
‘I was, but I decided to bring you lunch.’
‘Is that what’s in the bag over there?’
‘Yep. Bagel sandwiches from Ruby K’s’
‘Are you still hungry?’
‘Lesley,’ he turned her in his arms and looked down at her, eyes a blazing aquamarine, ‘I’d starve to death just to watch you come again.’
Lesley couldn’t breathe. He’d just touched her in a most intimate, most satisfying of ways, but a stream of fresh anticipation ran from her toes to the top of her head. With a sly smile, she cut her gaze to the narrow rollaway bed in the other room. ‘Why don’t I,’ she grabbed a handful of his shirt and began to tug it upwards, ‘run out to your Jeep while you wedge something under the whee—’
Banging on the screen door spoiled her plans for mutual observation of mutual satisfaction. ‘Lesley! Lesley, the door’s locked!’
‘Oh, no,’ Lesley groaned, ‘it’s my mother.’
Chapter 19
Dominic’s chuckle stirred her hair. He brushed it from her cheek. ‘What do you think she wants?’
‘Three weeks ago it was a grandchild. Last week she tried to set me up with another one of my cousin’s toupee-wearing buddies. Since I got arrested, who knows?’
‘Less-leee, are you in there?’
‘Sound really travels in this place, doesn’t it?’ Dominic let her go and took a step back.
‘Don’t worry. We can hear her, but she can’t hear us.’ Lesley sighed and pulled up her shorts and undies. ‘I’ll be right there, Mommy! I’m…grouting!’ she shouted.
Dominic laughed again and glanced down at himself as he leaned against the edge of the vanity. ‘I think I’ll wait here.’
‘That seems wise.’ She moved to the doorway, buttoning her blouse. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ Lesley took about five steps before she turned around and went back.
‘Miss me already?’ he asked.
Heart fluttering in an unusual, unexpected way she hadn’t been prepared for, Lesley touched his cheek and kissed him hard. A second later she was out of the bedroom, in the hallway, calling to her mother. ‘Sorry, Mommy. Grout’s a little messy to get…off…’
Light heartedness turned to concern when she made it to the living room. From there, she saw her mother leaning against the outside door frame, dishevelled. Instead of an olive complexion, her white face shone though the fly-screen, her mouth thin and without a trace of lipstick.
Her mother always wore red lipstick.
Lesley quashed a tiny stab of dread. ‘Mommy? Is something wrong?’
‘I forgot your laundry. I came over here to give it to you and I forgot it.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll come over later tonight and get it.’ Lesley held the screen open wide. ‘Is that all?’
‘No. I think your grandfather is suffering from a rapid form of dementia.’
‘Why would you think that?’
A deep groove of worry in her forehead, Gina exhaled as she entered. ‘Over the last few weeks he vanishes for hours and hours and he won’t or can’t tell me where he’s been. And he’s been getting paranoid. He says his friend Mike Witteveen has it in for him. He’s been raving about disloyalty and double-crossing. I don’t think he’s eating right. I’ve found candy wrappers in his bathroom trash. He’s skipped dinner a few times and he didn’t eat the quiche I left in the fridge for his breakfast yesterday. It’s so unlike him to waste food.’
Lesley relaxed at once. ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about. GP’s just preoccupied.’
‘Preoccupied with what?’
‘His girlfriend.’
‘My father has a girlfriend?’
‘Don’t you and Dad have any idea about what’s going on in GP’s life?’ Lesley shook her head. ‘Don’t you listen to what he says?’
‘Of course we listen.’ Gina took a seat on the bottom tread of the staircase. ‘We listen,’ she said with a tremor in her voice. Tears began to stream down her face. ‘Of course we listen.’ She sniffled and pulled a tissue from her bra. ‘I’m so worried. He’s been acting so strange, like he’s lost touch with reality. He stares into space with a lit cigar burning in his hand, and there are times he doesn’t answer me, like he can’t hear. He’s been singing to himself – singing – and being sweet. When has my father been sweet about anything? Oh, dear Lord, what if he had a stroke?’
Lesley burst out laughing. ‘A stroke? Are you kidding?’
He mother looked up, wet eyes snapping. ‘What’s wrong with you? GP might have Alzheimer’s. Why are you not taking this seriously?’
‘Alzheimer’s? Oh, Mommy, GP is ass-over-teakettle in love with Mrs Flanagan, a woman he met in church. He’s been…oh, boy.’ As annoyed as she was with her grandfather, Lesley couldn’t help grinning.
Her mother raised an eyebrow and gave her a serious gaze. ‘What? He’s been what?’
Having his wicked way with Mrs Flanagan – just like Dominic had his with me five minutes ago. As a tingle skittered over her flesh, Lesley felt suddenly sorry for GP and his octogenarian lover. She exhaled. ‘Look, let’s just give him some privacy.’
‘Privacy? What are you talking about?’ her mother asked, perplexed as she stood and wiped her eyes with a tissue she took from her bra. ‘We give him privacy! He has his own room!’
‘His own room?’ Since when has that been privacy at your house? ‘He wants time alone with his girlfriend.’ Lesley walked into the kitchen. ‘He wants a place away from your nosing through his things and bugging him about what he does.’
Gina followed. ‘Oh, please.’
Lesley grabbed a bottle of water from a box and held it out to her mother. ‘Open your eyes, Mommy. I saw him getting a room at the Comfort Inn. He and Mrs Flanagan were there. Together.’
Ignoring the water, Gina’s two-handed gesture was very Italian. ‘What do you mean, “You saw him getting a room”? Why would he go to a hotel… Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He’s ninety-two. Ninety-two is too old for that sort of thing!’
‘Jeez, Mom, you still have a sex life at seventy.’
‘I’m sixty-nine! And it’s different with us!’
‘Why?’
‘Well…well…’ Gina headed back towards the staircase where she plopped back d
own. ‘Well…because we’re married and…it’s just different. He’s my father.’
‘Oh, I forgot. Parents don’t have sex, especially elderly parents.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘I’m going to kill that old stronzo for making me worry.’
‘Why don’t you have Dad talk to him? Make it one of those man-to-man things, just so GP’s not embarrassed.’
‘Embarrassed? My father? Ha! Anyway, your dad’s been in Vegas, for that golf tournament, and he won’t be back until tonight, af—what is that sound?’
A vibrating buzz sent Dominic’s cell phone trembling across the kitchen counter. ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you forget about me,’ got louder and louder.
Lesley ran back into the kitchen and snatched up the noisemaker. She flipped it open to answer it and watched her mother make a face from the other side of the doorway. ‘Dominic Brennan’s phone,’ she said, looking straight down the hall to the back of the house.
An instant later, shirt untucked beneath his tool belt, which was strategically placed over the front of his shorts, Dominic strode into view. ‘Hello, Mrs. Samuels,’ he said in a genial general contractor’s voice, as if he’d been there taking measurements or building something.
The pencil he’d tucked behind his ear was a nice touch. Lesley would have commented on it, but she held the phone out to him without a word.
‘Hello?’ Dominic said as he took the cell from her hand. Then his nose wrinkled and he headed outside, grimacing.
Lesley watched Dominic walk backwards outside and tried not to giggle when he hitched up his tool belt, blew her a kiss, and climbed into his Jeep.
Her mother sighed. ‘That man, he’s whatzizname’s brother, the big-shot Lab wunderkind, isn’t he?’
To this day, her mother refused to refer to Terry as anything other than whatzizname, but the big-shot lab wunderkind deserved better. ‘Dominic doesn’t work at the Lab anymore. He owns Trujillo’s Hardware.’
Gina had a quick peek out the front screen. ‘Whatzizname wasn’t so big, but there’s a lot of this one, isn’t there?’
Lesley barely restrained a shudder of delight. When she sighed she hoped it didn’t sound like amen to that to her mother’s ears. Now was as good a time as any. ‘You may as well know,’ she said. ‘I’m seeing him. So you can stop trying to set me up another one of Toby’s geeky wannabe Klingon pals.’
‘Do you really think GP took that woman to the Comfort Inn for some hanky panky?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh that man is worse than your brother was as a teenager. Did you know he got a suite down at the La Fonda down in Santa Fe when he was fifteen? He and his hippy friend Winslow had three girls in there.’
‘Mommy, did you hear what I said?’
Gina brushed fuzz from her sandy slacks as she stood. ‘I’m pretending I didn’t.’
‘I thought you wanted me to find a man who could give me good-looking babies. Dominic makes good-looking babies. You should see his son.’
Her mother’s eyes snapped up from lint removal. ‘His son? Someone else’s child? You want to mess with that family again? The father was nice, but the mother…and that whatzizname!’
‘Dominic is different.’
Gina squinted and shook her head. ‘Different? I’m sorry, Tootsie, you’re a poor judge of character. Apples like that never fall far from the tree. Didn’t I tell you about whatzizname? Didn’t I say he was all wrong for you the day you got engaged? Did you listen? No. You had to go and marry him, and then find out about the other women, and the booze and the drugs, and then go through all the annulment stuff, which, thank you, Jesus, wasn’t a divorce. You ruined your life with one bad choice. The tears, Lesley, I remember the tears and how you had to scrape yourself off the floor like old chewing gum. Those people are bad news.’
‘Momm—’
‘Don’t argue with me because there he goes,’ Gina peered out the screen door and Lesley followed her line of sight in time to see Dominic reversing down the driveway. ‘He’s left without even saying goodbye. Typical of those people. When are you going to realise your dad and I always know best and we’ll always look out for your best interests?’
‘I didn’t ruin my life. I’m over it. I’ve been over it for years, so spare me the “my best interests” drivel. I’m an adult, for God’s sake!’
‘Really? All right, Tootsie, quit riding around on a motorcycle and settle down! Settle down near your family.’
‘Well, Mommy, the bike’s gone so you got one wish, but you want to know why the reason I won’t live here? Four simple words.’ She held up a hand and counted them off one finger at a time, ‘Be. Home. By. Ten. If I lived here in this town you’d be calling me at ten-oh-one just to make sure I was home. Why do you think I never keep my cell phone charged? It would be, where are you, Lesley? What time will you be home, Lesley? Did you get a haircut yet, Lesley? Your hemline’s too short, Lesley.’
Her mother glared, exactly the way GP did. ‘Blow it out your hind end, you unappreciative child. I’m going home. That nice policeman friend of yours, the one I see in church, is here.’
A half-second later, John Tilbrook pulled open the storm door and stepped inside. Lesley had never seen him look more like a TV cop. It wasn’t his sharply pressed dark uniform, weapon or his badge that gave him the appearance; it was a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses.
Gina leaned forward and said, very quietly, so only her daughter could hear, ‘You couldn’t pick him instead?’
Ignoring the comment, Lesley forced herself keep a straight face while holding back the urge to say, ‘Officer Poncherello with the California Highway Patrol wants his sunglasses back.’ Instead, she smiled. ‘Hi, John.’
‘Hi,’ he waved back, ‘Dominic said to tell you he’d be back later with safety equipment.’
A small laugh burst out of Lesley’s chest. ‘Uh, thanks,’ she said and cleared her throat with a small cough.
‘Look,’ John whipped off his sunglasses, his expression grim, ‘I’d like to say it’s nice to see you and your mother – hello, Mrs. Samuels – but this isn’t exactly a social call.’
Lesley groaned. ‘You found my motorcycle, didn’t you? And it’s shot to hell.’
‘Actually, no. It’s a little more serious than that.’ John exhaled.
Lesley’s stomach lurched when he unsnapped a leather pouch on his belt. ‘Please. Don’t say you’re here to arrest me for something else I didn’t do.’
‘The cuffs are on the other side,’ John said, barely sniff-sniffing as he stuffed his sunglasses into the little pocket, ‘so wipe that thought out of your head. If you ever turned on your cell phone I’d have just called you.’
‘See, Lesley?’ her mother cut in, ‘Even he thinks you should keep your phone on!’
John glanced at Gina and tried not to laugh. ‘Millie, my Aunt Eilish’s friend, is frantic. She’s called the station four times to say she hasn’t seen or heard from my aunt for a couple of days. I’ve stopped in at her apartment at Aspen Ridge, just to satisfy Millie, and nothing looks untoward. My mom and I think she’s probably taken the shuttle bus to Santa Fe. She does that once a week with some other ladies and sometimes they go to Albuquerque and stay overnight, but Millie swears it’s something suspicious. I’m somewhat inclined to agree because, how shall I put this? My aunt’s been a little absent-minded lately and…well…’
A bubble of relieved laughter trickled out of Lesley. She looked at her mother and then back at John. ‘Are you’re wondering if she’s with GP?’
‘That’s what I’m hoping.’
Hand on her hip, Gina cocked her chin at John and said, ‘Hold on. Your aunt, my father’s…girlfriend, is the well-dressed elderly redhead I’ve seen you with at church?’
‘That would be a yes,’ he nodded.
‘That sneaky old goat.’
John raised his eyebrows. ‘Sneaky?’
‘I’
d go with the shuttle bus to Santa Fe scenario, but according to my cell-phone-hating daughter,’ Gina picked up her purse and rummaged around inside, ‘my father and your aunt are probably shacked up at the Comfort Inn having a torrid affair.’ She pulled out a tube of lipstick.
Amusement tipped up the corners of John’s mouth. ‘You’re kidding?’
Lesley shook her head. ‘No. I saw them getting a room there a few days ago. His car was parked there yesterday, too. I saw it on my way back from Smith’s.’
‘So you think my aunt’s there with your grandpa now?’
‘That’s where I’d put my money.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Gina halted her lipstick application, top lip coated with bright red, bottom lip bare. ‘You saw them getting a room? What were you doing at the Comfort Inn?’
‘Or who were you doing?’ A sniffy little laugh came out of John’s nose.
Lesley looked at her friend sideways, her eyes slits, ‘You did not just say that.’
‘Oh, Lesley,’ her mother moaned, ‘you didn’t?’ She sank back down on the steps. ‘You didn’t. You and that man did not…oh!’
‘All right, Mommy, relax,’ Lesley turned and scowled at John, ‘I did not get a room at the Comfort Inn!’
John smirked back. ‘Because you two prefer the Trujillo’s delivery truck, right?
When Dominic told his mother to shut the fuck up, it didn’t go over well.
Peggy froze at the mixing bowl full of homemade hot fudge sauce. ‘What did you say?’
Dominic set the coffee pot on the table in front of Marcus and his wife, Lily. ‘I said, shut the fuck up, Mom, and stop harassing Susannah. She set the table for you, she washed the dishes, made coffee, and now she’s helping you with dessert. What more do you want?’
His mother forgot all about being condescending to the large breasted, pink-mouthed new daughter-in-law who was dropping ‘too-small scoops’ of vanilla ice-cream onto cake plates. She turned on him without bothering to whack the batter off the wooden spoon in her hand. ‘I’m your mother, I gave you life! You do not speak to me like that! You do not use the eff word at me!’ she hollered.
A Basic Renovation Page 29
