Charlie's Angels

by Cheryl St. John

  He’d lit an oil lamp for muted light, and the fabric of her gown shone like the pale hair she had gathered on her head. With half a smile, she untied the sash and let her robe fall open. The lamplight emphasized the curves and hollows of her body.

  Charlie’s mouth went dry.

  The white fabric pooled at her feet.

  He swallowed. Charlie realized then that he was standing naked with his reaction taking shape and that she was enjoying the scenery as much as he.

  “I didn’t say a thing that time.”

  “Yeah, well there’s the whole audio-visual thing,” he replied. “I’m a well-rounded guy.”

  “I see that.”

  He lowered himself into the warm water and reached out a hand.

  Starla moved to take it and stepped into the tub, his heart nearly stopping as she stood over him for the moment it took her to bring in her other foot and lower herself into the bubbles.

  “Watermelon?” she asked.

  It took him a second to figure out she was talking about the scent. “Yeah, sexy, huh?”

  “Well, I’ll never smell a watermelon quite the same way again.”

  Her smile was as life-threatening as the sight of her body, as his heart testified. He would never smell a watermelon the same way, either. Nor would he look at his bed or his room or his home or hear his name without remembering her. Before, when he’d thought of changing his name, his thoughts had been self-deprecating, now the same idea seemed like self-preservation.

  She still wore the makeup that made her eyes look all the more clear and haunting. It was her eyes and hair that made her so incredibly unique, so otherworldly, and again he absorbed the amazing fact that she desired him. However temporary or superficial her appetite for him, it was his good fortune that she felt it at all.

  He still held her hand, so he tugged her forward, leaning to meet her for their first kiss of the evening. It was a tentative meeting of lips that blossomed into the familiar heated yearning and deepened to a clash of tongues. Releasing his hand, she moved forward to slide onto his lap, skin gliding against skin in the silken caress of warm water. He pulled her toward him so her breasts brushed his chest and his erection quite naturally rubbed her in what must have been all the right places, because she caught her breath and moved on him deliberately.

  “You feel so good,” he said, releasing her mouth to hold her close and whisper against her ear.

  “I want you now, Charlie,” she said breathlessly.

  He glanced at the packets he’d left on the tile ledge. It took a minute to sheath himself and settle back down in the water, but they picked up where they’d left off and she sank down onto him, her body trembling.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, though she couldn’t possibly be. The water was warm and the jets swirled it around their bodies.

  She shook her head and gripped his shoulders. “No, I…I…o-oh, Charlie.”

  Her internal muscles quaked with her abrupt climax, and Charlie held her hips to guide her movements while kissing her neck and shoulder, gradually building his own pleasure. She took control then, kissing him and moving so deliberately that his own release came in a convulsive crest of sensory indulgence.

  He slid his hands up her back and held her tightly. For several minutes he remained with his face buried in the crook of her neck, enjoying every last sensation and feeling the beat of her heart against his. Finally, he leaned back and raised a hand to lazily draw circles of bubbles on her shoulder and upper chest.

  She laid her wet palm along his cheek and gazed into his eyes before tenderly kissing him. “I don’t know what it is about you, Charlie.”

  “I don’t, either…but I’m grateful for it.”

  She gave him a tender smile and drew a wet line over his lips with her finger, then kissed them.

  “We forgot the wine,” Charlie said against her mouth.

  She smiled and moved to settle back comfortably in the water beside him.

  With suds dripping from his wrist, he reached for the two glasses he’d poured and left forgotten.

  “I’ll bet we’re the only people who attended the program tonight who are now drinking wine in a Whirlpool tub,” she said with a sexy grin.

  “You might be right,” he agreed. “My folks have Meredith, so they wouldn’t be.”

  She smiled. “How about Ryanne and Nick? They seemed pretty stuck on each other.”

  “Definitely. And they could have sent Jamie home with a friend or relative.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Can pregnant women have sex in a Whirlpool?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You never…with your wife?”

  “No.”

  Starla sipped her wine. “Does it hurt that much to talk about her?” she asked.

  He studied the dew of perspiration on her face and sleek shoulders and thought about her question. “Not really.”

  “But you don’t. Talk about her, I mean. And you’re uncomfortable when others do.”

  “That’s a better word,” he agreed. “Uncomfortable.”

  She let the subject drop.

  Charlie refilled their glasses.

  “You have the perfect home here. It’s like a secluded getaway. As you intended, I’m sure. And on a night like this…” She smiled. “The weather outside is frightful and all that.”

  Charlie raised his hand and drizzled suds across her bare shoulder. “You’d like it here the other seasons, too. There’s all kinds of wildlife and a creek that runs across the land to the west. Spring is alive with so many shades of green that you can’t count ’em. I’ve been planting perennials every year and I have a garden with fresh vegetables. In the summer, there’s a bank of clover as pretty as anything you’ve ever seen, and from down by the creek, you can hear the frogs clacking at night….”

  Charlie paused, thinking about what he was saying. He’d been rattling on, describing things he loved about his place—things she probably didn’t care about—things she wouldn’t see.

  “Clacking?” she questioned.

  He felt numb inside. “It’s not a croak really. More of a clacking sound when there are so many.”

  She wouldn’t hear them. She wouldn’t be here.

  In another day or so, Starla would be gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wrapped in her robe and nestled in a fleece throw, Starla relaxed on the plump pillows and thick comforter Charlie had arranged before the fireplace. At the moment she was content to lie there forever.

  “Are you hungry?” Dressed only in a worn pair of jeans, he hunkered in front of the fire, using the brass poker to arrange a log he’d added.

  She turned an appreciative gaze on him, admiring the sleek-muscled breadth of his shoulders and the play of firelight on his corded arms. “Will you cook for me if I am?”

  After reaching to put the tool away, he brushed his palms together and sat. “I was thinking along the lines of cheese and fruit. No cooking required.”

  “Sounds great.”

  He draped his wrists over his knees. “Want to come along tomorrow when I go into town and deliver the orders? I figured we could pick up a few groceries.”

  “Sure. Will you be going to your folks for Christmas dinner since the roads will be cleared?”

  “No reason not to.”

  Of course there wasn’t. Charlie and his daughter would want to be with their family. Starla couldn’t help a little disappointment that the original plan to bake a ham for the three of them wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Mom invited you.”

  She nodded. “She’s a great lady.”

  “Yeah. No complaints about my folks.” He rubbed her feet through the blanket. “Warm enough?”

  She nodded.

  He looked as though he wanted to say more. Instead, he leaned toward her, kissed her and stood, heading for the kitchen. Warm and content, she closed her eyes and tucked away memories.

  “Want to watch anything?” he called a few minutes late
r. “Or listen to music?”

  Enjoying the crackling sound and heat of the fire, she’d dozed for a moment. “I don’t think so. I don’t mind if you do, though.”

  She heard him approach and set something on the floor. Opening her eyes, she discovered a tray of cubed cheese and apple slices. A few crackers lined a plate.

  Rolling to a sitting position, she reached for a square of cheese. Charlie stacked food on a small plate and handed it to her. She thanked him and leaned back against an overstuffed chair.

  He bit into an apple slice and chewed thoughtfully. “So, how did you get interested in cooking school?”

  “I don’t know. When I was a kid, I enjoyed time in the kitchen with my aunt. It was a treat to have all the ingredients on hand to bake and create recipes. I was used to eating on the road and occasionally being in an apartment long enough to buy groceries to last a day or two.

  “It probably had a lot to do with…” She paused after taking a bite of apple. “With the permanence of a kitchen and pantry and a freezer. Those things were luxuries, and even as a teen I felt secure when I was cooking.” She raised a questioning brow. “Think that’s weird?”

  “No, no, not at all. I get what you’re saying.”

  “Who knows what draws us to the things we like to do? Like you and your carpentry. Was that a childhood dream?”

  “Not as exciting as aspiring to be a policeman or a fireman or an astronaut, was it?” He grinned. “In high school, I took to woodshop like a fish to water. It’s creative and solitary, two things I liked.”

  “So your class yearbook says Most Likely To Build A House under your picture?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “What, my yearbook?”

  “Yeah. Unless you don’t want me to.”

  “Well, no, I don’t care. I just have to remember where it is.” Pushing to his feet, he opened one of the cabinets built into the wall beside the fireplace, revealing books and picture albums. He found what he wanted and after glancing at the cover, handed it to Starla.

  She rolled onto her stomach and opened the book.

  “McGraw,” she said, flipping to the index pages and running a finger down the names. Charles was listed on half a dozen pages, and she started with the first one.

  It was the football team, and a young Charlie posed with one knee on the ground, his helmet under his arm, in a row of other players. His face was slimmer, his hair longer, and he wore a serious expression.

  On the next page she located Charlie wearing a tux and standing beside the dark-haired girl who would become his wife, the same person in the photo on Meredith’s dresser. She wore a floor-length dress with slender straps over her shoulders and they posed on the dance floor with a dozen balloons overhead.

  “Partners Kendra Phillips and Charlie McGraw, Elmwood High’s inseparable duo, are in step as usual,” the caption read.

  Kendra wore her hair in an upswept style and a radiant smile lit her features. Charlie’s hand was touching her waist. Starla forced her gaze away and quickly located the next picture of him in the rows of seniors’ head shots. Charlie’s good-natured smile was in place on a much younger version of the same man. Beneath his likeness, she read, “Honor roll, student council, varsity football, Y-club.” Scrawled around and under were dozens of signatures, “Stay cool” and “You’re the man” written in youthful script.

  A fascinating peek into his past. There was a lot about Charlie McGraw that she didn’t know.

  Starla flipped through the pages, glancing at autographs that read, “You and Kendra are a cool couple” and “Kendra is lucky to have you.”

  His high school sweetheart.

  Starla closed the book. He’d said it was uncomfortable to talk about his wife, and it was really none of Starla’s business, so she kept her thoughts and questions to herself. She wanted to ask when he’d first known he loved Kendra and about the things they’d done together as young lovers. Some perverse side of her wondered if they’d made love in his car or at a motel—or at all.

  Somehow she pictured them crazy in love and sneaking away at every opportunity to be alone. Starla hadn’t stayed at one school long enough to have a real boyfriend, and her first sexual experience had been in college. “Honor roll, huh?”

  “You’re dying to ask me something,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Yeah, you are, go ahead.”

  It probably wasn’t cool in a casual relationship such as this to wonder about the other person’s past partners. Charlie certainly hadn’t questioned her. “It’s none of my business, Charlie.”

  He picked up the wineglass he’d refilled and drank. “You’re wondering about my wife.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Everyone said we were perfect for each other.”

  “You made an attractive couple.”

  “My mom used to talk about us getting married before either of us had ever mentioned it. She’d say teasing things like, ‘If you had changed your name to Phillips, then Kendra wouldn’t even have to change her name when you got married.’ And we’d chuckle over it. Our names were always linked.

  “And when we got to high school, because we lived in the same house, we of course walked together and went home together, and everyone saw us as a couple. At home we were able to talk about things. She was a good sounding board. A good friend.”

  Charlie fell silent. When he glanced at Starla, she gave him a tender smile. He moved the food tray aside and leaned toward her for a kiss. On his lips she tasted salt from the crackers and the sweetness of the wine.

  His mouth moved down her chin and neck and he nudged aside her robe to press kisses against her chest and then her breasts.

  Starla moved to lie on the covers and grasp his shoulders, threading the fingers of one hand into his hair. With slow deliberation, he aroused her once again, brought a flush to her skin and made her heart race. This time their joining was leisurely, the kisses sweet and the touches gentle. Their initial passion had been sated and this time was sheer indulgence.

  Charlie took his time, building her enjoyment to a crescendo that encompassed her entire body and being, and then following with his own deliberate release.

  They lay in the glow of the fire and the aftermath of their lovemaking and dozed, then woke again to share kisses and touches before sleeping soundly.

  When Starla awoke next, morning light filtered through the blinds. The delicious aroma of coffee stirred her senses and she pushed up onto one elbow.

  Charlie had obviously showered and dressed and now carried two mugs toward her. “Morning, sleepy-head.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Early yet. Barely seven.”

  Holding the blanket to her breasts, she accepted a cup, and he sat on the floor with her.

  She felt self-conscious with her hair ruffled, and quite likely there were sleep creases on her cheek. Charlie’s eyes showed only appreciation, however, as his gaze moved over her. He sipped from his mug and Starla did the same, the rich flavor of the brew awakening her taste buds and warming her. “Mmm, this is good.”

  He nodded, but he set aside his coffee and moved beside her. He slid her hand away so that her breast was exposed and ran his fingers over the swell. “I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

  She would be leaving. Her heart dipped as though she’d plummeted in an elevator. Did he share the same bereft loss she felt at the thought? The same urgency to cram as many memories as possible into the short time they had left? Of course not. She was a winter diversion and he was a healthy male with a heady sexual appetite. She hadn’t had enough of him, either, but not for the same reasons.

  “I should shower,” she said.

  “Not on my account.” He leaned to close his mouth over her nipple, and the sensation was hot and erotic.

  Without further conversation or preliminaries, he removed his clothing, sheathed himself and stretched out over her. The union
was swift and purposeful, almost desperate in its focus.

  Afterward, he touched her face, kissed her shoulder, and moved to sit beside her.

  She rolled on her side toward him and stroked his firm hair-roughened thigh, loving the solid feel of him beneath her hands.

  “Starla,” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did your dad have expectations for you? I mean, what did he want you to do with your life?”

  She studied his earnest face for a moment. “He taught me his business. We ran together for a couple of years after I graduated high school. I wasn’t happy, and he knew it. He knew I wanted roots. When I told him I wanted to go to college, he gave me his blessing and a bank account.”

  “How did you tell him?”

  “I just laid it out as plainly as I could. I’d found all the information on the colleges I wanted to try for and showed it to him.”

  “He wasn’t disappointed?”

  “He was happy for me. He didn’t really know what to do with a daughter on the road all those years. He did his best. We were a team. But he was okay with me taking a new direction.”

  “But you’re close now?”

  “As close as we can be when he’s never in one place. Why do you ask? Are you thinking about Meredith? You have an entirely different situation. She’s secure and confident in the home you’ve provided for her.”

  He nodded.

  She found her robe in the pile of covers and pulled it on, then stood. “I’m going to shower.”

  Charlie got up and pulled on his briefs and jeans. “The roads are clear. I’m going to load the Jeep. Want to find some breakfast here or eat in town?”

  “Whatever you’d like. I’ll call and arrange for the tow.”

  He nodded and tugged on his sweatshirt.

  Sitting in the Waggin’ Tongue, Charlie remembered the first time he’d seen Starla. It had only been four days ago, but everything had changed in that short time. It felt as if his whole life had been altered.

  Starla’s cell phone rang. She answered and gave the caller directions to Charlie’s road. “Okay, that’s great. Thank you.”