So maybe that was the source of her vague unease. She was afraid of rejection, of risking her heart on a man who, despite saying they could give this free rein, see where this led, might himself only see it going a certain way down the road, when she might want it to go further. She could easily distort the relationship in her mind, amped up on the new experience or hormones or what have you.
She rubbed her brow. Often, when something was worrying her, she’d put the shoe on the other foot to clarify things, balance her concerns. Dale Rousseau was a divorced, middle-aged man, a retired SEAL who’d taken lives, who’d had to accept losing his leg. He loved dogs. He was very comfortable holding control over any situation. Did he have no reservations about meeting outside a club setting because he could impose an equally structured setting in any venue? Yet he’d implied he rarely conducted sessions outside the club.
He was an incredibly skilled Master and he’d given her an incomparable fantasy. What would it be like, if it were balanced and intertwined with the reality? Every time she came back to that thought, the yearning she felt intensified, as if her heart were seeking something she’d glimpsed last night, but hadn’t quite grasped. Something she’d have to cross a mine field to obtain, and things were good enough on this side of the field she couldn’t really justify risking her life, could she?
Time to be an adult again, Athena. Sighing, she picked up the silky robe he’d left her, slipped it on and headed for her bedroom. She had a full schedule for the next couple of days, so if a dose of reality was what she needed, she was going to get more than her share.
—
Unfortunately, her anticipation of their lunch together on Wednesday was dashed Monday, by a text Dale sent to her while she was at her office.
Have an adoption on Wednesday. Let’s reschedule for later next week. Will call you. Be good until then. Or not. I’ll deal with either contingency.
“Problem?”
She looked up to see Ellen, her administrative assistant, giving her a questioning look. Athena shook her head. “No, just a cancelled lunch for Wednesday.”
“Oh.” Ellen lifted a brow. “The one you told me to block out but didn’t tell me who it was with. The one that’s had you glowing all morning.”
“And how do you know that’s the reason I’ve been glowing?”
“Because when you read that text, the light went out.” Ellen picked up the papers Athena had just signed. “Hope he doesn’t screw it up, doing the things that men typically do.”
She should give Ellen a pleasant but nonencouraging look, keeping their relationship on its usual friendly but professional footing, but Ellen was a hard worker and a good woman. She was also a widow, which had given her and Athena a bond. She’d hired Ellen the year before Roy got sick, yet she remembered Ellen during that time as a quiet, efficient source of help on so many levels, the one person who never said the things that were well-meaning in their intent but such a painful effort to answer.
Athena also remembered a visit by Nancy Allen, a woman who’d always flirted outrageously with Roy. Nancy had come by to see Athena on a business matter, and had asked about Roy’s illness. At that point it was advanced, Athena only in the office the bare minimum needed to keep things handled. When Athena necessarily explained that Roy’s illness was terminal, Nancy Allen had put a familiar hand on her wrist.
“Oh, Athena, don’t give up on him like that. You need to be positive for Roy. Who knows what will happen?”
Athena had nodded, detached herself, and returned to her office. But she’d come back to the door a moment later to find Ellen had stepped in front of Nancy. Neither woman noticed Athena.
“With all due respect, Ms. Allen, you don’t know a damn thing about their relationship or what she’s handling. She loves that man more than the sun and the moon—if he’s dying, she’d be the first to know it, and she’s doing her best to help him through it and not fall apart while he needs her. That’s not giving up on him. That’s loving him in every way she should, even while her heart is breaking every day. Your job, if you consider yourself her friend, is not to tell her what she should or shouldn’t be doing, but figuring out how to support her. You shooting your mouth off about things you’ve never experienced makes you no kind of friend at all.”
Athena had the unique experience of seeing Nancy Allen pale like a vampire under her airbrushed makeup and flee. Her assistant’s fists unclenched and she swore softly, an obvious self-admonishment for losing her cool. When she turned back toward her desk, she started, seeing Athena.
“Mrs. Summers . . . I’m so sorry, I . . .”
“No apologies necessary. If that woman never darkens my door again, it will be too soon.” She paused, studying Ellen’s flushed face. “Thank you, Ellen.” Then she’d returned to her desk. It was the last they’d ever spoken of it.
Now, remembering so many other times Ellen had done exactly the right thing from that place of shared understanding, she cocked her own brow at her assistant. “Of those oh-so-many-things men screw up, what are we referencing today? You could create a male-bashing day calendar, Ellen.”
Her assistant laughed. “True enough. This one would be the cold feet syndrome. They have an amazing time with you, then get spooked and decide not to call you for a few months, long after you’ve given up on them. I think it’s because they’ve been burned before, but it’s still aggravating.”
“Hmm.” If Dale was having cold feet, there’d only be one foot involved, wouldn’t there? The wry thought made her consider her earlier thoughts. She might have a desire to be treated as a submissive, but that was not all she wanted from a man in her life. And he’d said he was interested in more.
“Go ahead and keep that two-hour lunch block for me on Wednesday,” she decided. “Since I’ll be working here until nine tonight on the details for the gallery benefit this weekend, I think I’ve earned it.”
Ellen snorted and moved toward the door. “With the hours you work, you could take two-hour lunches forever and never catch up. Good for you.”
With a woman’s practiced eye, Athena knew she and Ellen could be sisters, since they both had brown hair and green eyes, but the structure of their faces were different, and Ellen downplayed her looks significantly. The woman was too thin and pale, and today as always she wore demure, monochrome colors and little jewelry. She didn’t dye her short brown hair, so it had strands of gray that made it look mousy. She was as supremely competent—and utterly unremarkable—as the computer on her desk.
Athena thought about the effort it had taken her to even get dressed the first year after Roy’s death. Ellen’s husband had been gone far longer.
“Ellen, are you seeing anyone?”
Ellen turned, gave her a surprised look. “No, ma’am.”
Athena pursed her lips. “I don’t in any way want to commit the faux pas Nancy did, speaking of things she doesn’t understand, so let me simply ask this as a friend. How long will you mourn?”
Ellen shrugged uncomfortably. “I just can’t bring myself to date. All those games, and no man wants to feel like he’s being sized up for a life fit on the first meet.”
Ruined for casual dating. There it was again, a discomfiting reminder of herself in Dale’s words and Ellen’s mirror image.
The admin met Athena’s gaze. “I had a man who loved me, who knew me, who cared about me as much as I cared about him. You and I know what a miracle that is, but it’s a miracle that happened because of time and tears, years of being together. I’m not asking for all that in a first look. I’m looking for a sign, I guess, as silly as that sounds. If there’s a man out there for me, he’ll do or say something and I’ll recognize it. It will feel like . . . the chance is there. But if that never happens, it’s okay.”
Though her eyes had a suspicious brightness to them, Ellen pressed her lips together in an attempted smile. “We’re blessed if we get it e
ven once. So don’t worry about me, Mrs. Summers. I hope you’ve been fortunate enough to find that second round of blessings. You’re a good person, and you deserve that kind of love again.”
“So do you,” Athena said sincerely.
Ellen gave her a nod of thanks and exited Athena’s office, returning to her desk just outside of Athena’s view. Athena turned her chair to consider the city, the document blinking on her computer temporarily forgotten. It did take time. Dale had been a surprise. The question was whether he was simply a jump-start to get her heart moving toward love again, or if he was in fact the type of man that would take a permanent hold on it. She had to be brave enough to find out, didn’t she?
—
She’d decided to take lunch to him on Wednesday. If she arrived before the dog’s new family did, she wouldn’t mind watching him handle an adoption, hanging around until he was free to share food with her. She made sandwiches, boiled eggs and a good pound cake. She also added in some raw veggies, dip and other appetizers he’d probably like. Lynn had given her an odd look when she insisted on baking the cake herself, but she remembered his approval when he’d asked her if she made the sandwich herself. Of course, if she’d proven herself a lousy cook, he might have changed that stipulation. Men were funny that way.
On the flip side, with all this largesse, he might accuse her of trying to make him fat, but from the muscled body she’d had too little opportunity to touch, she was sure he was in no immediate danger of that.
They hadn’t had sex that night. Dom/sub sessions often didn’t involve that, especially if the couple weren’t romantically involved otherwise, but he’d made it clear with the condom comment on the first night that he hadn’t ruled it out. She imagined what it would have been like, straddling him before his climax, sinking down on him . . .
Easy girl. Her heart was tapping like a metronome on allegro, and she’d only driven up to the front gate. From here, she could see a big Caddy with no wheels under the shade of a sprawling oak inside the junkyard. During the massage that night, his voice had rumbled with soothing pillow talk of this and that. He’d mentioned on pretty nights he sometimes put a sleeping bag on the hood of that Caddy and slept there. Thinking of what they might do there, beneath the stars, she found her cheeks heating.
The gate was unlocked, but still closed, so she parked on the shoulder and decided to take the arbor gate that served as an entrance for foot traffic. Locking the car and slipping the picnic basket over her arm, she wandered under the arbor, pausing to reach up and touch the clematis vine he had winding through the wooden slats. The arbor looked hand built and recently repainted. The man certainly had a wealth of talents. Passing through the gate, she closed it securely after her and proceeded down the driveway toward the main office. He might be somewhere else in the junkyard, but she could certainly wait on the steps. Though the last group of dogs had met her, she hoped if there were any new ones loose, they wouldn’t decide she was an intruder. She had enough turkey sandwiches to ransom her life if necessary.
The drive was about a quarter mile, a nice walk on a breezy New Orleans day. When the curve in the road resolved itself to reveal the office area, she discovered she didn’t have to worry about Dale’s whereabouts. He was leaning against the railing of the stairs, playing with the dog she expected was waiting for his new family. A young tan-colored shepherd mix with one pointed ear and one that flopped over. He and Dale were engaged in a tug-of-war with a stuffed sock that had been knotted on both ends and once in the middle.
She was approaching downwind, so the dog didn’t scent her right off. Dale did, however. His gaze flicked up, and he straightened.
He wasn’t wearing the prosthesis. He was leaning on crutches, and the leg of his jeans had been pinned in the back so it wouldn’t drag along the ground. His expression gave her a mental pause, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure of herself.
No, she hadn’t called ahead, perhaps because she was testing the whole “structure” of their arrangement, but she hadn’t completely abandoned her manners. She’d already decided if she arrived and had the sense she was intruding, she’d simply say she was dropping him off lunch on the way to something else. Easy enough. She didn’t like lying to him, but she wasn’t going to put him in the uncomfortable position of bearing her company when it wasn’t welcome.
Oh hell. She could rationalize it all she wanted, but she’d followed pure impulse, wanting to surprise him, and hoping that was a good thing. She felt like a fool, but pushed down the dismay and ignored the cold knot in her stomach. As she came within speaking distance, the dog trotted over to her to say hello and check out the basket. She petted him, straightened. Dale still hadn’t spoken, but then neither had she.
When she met his gaze, she knew she wasn’t going to lie to him. She wasn’t sure she could.
“I thought I would surprise you with lunch, but I apologize,” she said with calm dignity. “I should have called and found out if you were all right with that. There are turkey sandwiches in here, potato salad and dessert. I wasn’t sure what condiments you liked, so I put those in small containers to add the amount you prefer. There’s a really good spiced mayonnaise. I’ll just leave all of it upstairs and you can eat it when you’re ready.”
The sound of a car trundling down the driveway had her turning. Dale bent to take hold of the dog’s collar so he wouldn’t run toward it. The occupants of the vehicle looked like a father and son, and from the anticipation on the boy’s face, the animated way he was pointing and talking to his dad in the car, Athena had no doubt the dog’s new family had arrived.
“You’re busy, so I’ll go ahead and get out of your way,” she said briskly. “The little boy looks very excited.”
She added that with a practiced smile. Then she moved toward the stairs to his apartment, cutting a wide swathe around him. He watched her mount the stairs, she could feel his gaze, but he still hadn’t said anything. Her heart felt like a stone, weighing her down.
The car doors opened, the boy jumping out. She turned at the top of the stairs, holding on to the rail tightly, just in time to see Dale let the dog go. The shepherd mix and his new master greeted one another with equal enthusiasm. The father was smiling at them both, talking to Dale, reaching out to shake his hand. Her gaze lingered on the set of his broad shoulders, his back to her in this position, and she swallowed, hard.
Letting herself into the apartment, she put the basket on the table. He might not be upstairs for a while, so she went ahead and unpacked the perishables, put them in the fridge. The man really did keep a neat place. The shelves were clean, not a crumb or stain on them from a ketchup bottle or orange juice carton. He kept beer, juice and milk, the usual sandwich staples, and what appeared to be the remains of a vegetable beef stew he’d cooked for himself.
She left the cellophane-wrapped pound cake on his kitchen table, in a basket that held a stack of napkins. She decided to keep the bottle of white wine, because it was obvious he was more of a beer drinker and she’d really brought the wine as her beverage.
The dryer was turning in his laundry room, and the apartment was small enough it heated the kitchen, bringing her the pleasant scent of drying clothes. From here, she could see his open bedroom door. He hadn’t yet made his bed today, and there were a couple of breakfast dishes in the sink, suggesting he’d risen late. Well, neat didn’t mean he wasn’t a man.
The thought would have made her smile, if she wasn’t nursing hurt feelings, a condition she fully accepted she’d brought upon herself. “Time to get going, you silly woman,” she murmured. But she did take the circuitous route, stopping by his bedroom door. She could hear him talking to the boy below, snippets of conversation about care for his new family member. She slipped into the bedroom, knowing she was being entirely inappropriate, but she had to do one thing, even if she never had the opportunity to do it again.
She sat down on the bed where the she
ets had been pulled back, so she was sitting where Dale would have lain as he slept. She smoothed her palm over that expanse, laid it on the pillow that still bore the indentation from his head. With his hair so short, it wouldn’t really be tousled when he woke, but it might stick up here and there. He’d have that appealing dark stubble that would make him look more than a little dangerous.
Her gaze drifted across the floor, and she saw the prosthesis. It was the first time she’d seen the leg part completely unclothed, a metal shaft and a plastic mold socket. As her gaze drifted over the night table, she noticed there was a tube of a topical antibiotic.
The prosthesis clearly made walking and dealing with the dogs easier, so perhaps the medicine was an indication of why he wasn’t wearing it today. She wanted to ask him about it, but things were strange and this wasn’t the right moment to explore more about him. Maybe at a time when they were both more prepared for it. If they ever reached that point.
With a sigh, she rose and left the apartment, carrying the basket. Dale was going over some paperwork with the father at a picnic table while the boy and dog were chasing one another around the open area. The boy had a toy he’d obviously bought for his new friend, and he was alternating between throwing it and playing tug-of-war like Dale had been doing before they arrived.
Athena wasn’t going to disrupt them. She was skirting the area, intending to head back up the drive to her car, when Dale’s voice reached her. “Athena.”
She turned, that same bright smile on her face. She felt like a lightbulb, the kind that hurt the eyes, such that a person turned it off at the earliest opportunity. “I put the sandwiches in the fridge,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about—”
“Can you hang around a few minutes? I’d like to talk to you.”
Despite her hurt, something in his tone, in the whole situation, pricked her intuition. If she put aside her own insecurities, she knew the way he was acting wasn’t quite Dale. Yes, she only had a couple of meetings to go on for that conclusion, but now, at the simple statement, the way his gaze met hers, she was sure she was right. It gave her the confidence to answer him in a way that was calm . . . and pointed. Challenging him to respond to it.
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