Love, Lust, and The Lassiters

by Merrill, McKenna

  He took her to Tony’s Bistro, a dimly-lit Italian place with romantic ambience and good food. “I’ll treat you to dinner,” she said as they were seated in a cozy booth.

  “No. You already spent a lot, and teachers don’t make a lot of money. I’m a wealthy hotelier,” he said with a wink.

  She smiled, still subdued. Her family always made her sad, he realized. Even Lilah had noticed it. He needed to know what was going on, but he needed to tread carefully. “Are you really doing well at White Pine?” she asked.

  “We are. This year has been a very good year. We took some risks, but now they’re paying off, and Logan and I are finally venturing to spend some money. It helped that we were both single and able to take some financial risks.”

  “Is Logan seeing anyone?”

  “Logan sees everyone. But I think he has a special something for Sally, that little blonde at the reception desk? They went on a date last night. I insisted they go so that he would stay away from you.” He toyed with his knife, not daring to look at her.

  “Why, Simon, that’s so very possessive of you,” she said mildly, picking up her menu.

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “What do you recommend?”

  “Mario’s special. It’s pasta like you’ve never had, pasta from heaven.”

  “Fine.” She set down her menu. “And I’ll have a diet coke.”

  “No wine?” he asked.

  “I have no tolerance. None. My nose turns red and I eventually just fall asleep before I can get drunk enough to make a fool of myself.”

  Simon was intrigued. “When’s the last time you drank?”

  “Oh, in college some time. Years ago.”

  “Just one glass. I want to see your nose turn red.”

  She flushed at the intimacy in his voice. “One glass. No more.”

  “Scout’s honor.” He gave their order to the waiter, then looked at her. She was a sight. Even in dim lighting she seemed to glow, and her hair shimmered, illuminated by the candle flickering on their table. “Veronica. Tell me why you’re so sad.”

  She jumped a bit. The waiter brought their wine, and Simon paused to taste it. Then he watched her as the man poured; she was disturbed. The waiter left, she sipped her wine. “Who says I’m sad?” she asked.

  “I do. Lilah does. The fact that you took a job where you knew no one, far from your family, does. And whenever you mention them, you get sad. Not to mention that you’ve never spoken about your sister.”

  Her head snapped up. “How do you know about my sister?”

  “Lilah told me. She said you haven’t seen her in two years.”

  “I haven’t seen either of them in two years. We had a falling out, that’s all.” She looked into her glass, and her face was hidden by a curtain of hair.

  “But you miss them. It’s obvious. Why not just go back and make up?”

  “Why not make up with your ex-wife?” she snapped.

  Simon stared, stunned by the unexpected anger. She met his eyes and softened perceptibly. She took another sip of her wine. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t talked about this with anyone, and I’m sort of rusty.”

  “Tell it to me in a nutshell. In one sentence. What keeps you away from your family all this time?”

  She took another sip of her wine. As promised, her nose had started to turn a shade pinker. “Okay, Simon, here it is in a little Vermont nutshell: Two years ago I thought I’d fallen in love. His name was Rick Santelli. We were engaged to be married. We were both seniors at the University of Iowa. We had our futures mapped out. I brought him home to meet my family, he took one look at my sister, and fell in love with her, and she with him. Love at first sight. A few days later they sat down and told me, with great sympathy, that Rick had changed his mind. There was something there with Juliana that ‘they had to explore.’

  “So I gave him back his ring, told them to go to hell, and walked out. My sister cried. She was my best friend. That’s it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Simon swirled the wine in his glass. This was more complicated than he thought. And he didn’t like the idea that she might be pining for some other man. “Obviously you felt betrayed.”

  “Obviously.” Her voice was bitter.

  “Do you still? Or is that why your face softens whenever you mention your family?”

  “You don’t understand. I was ugly, I said ugly things, and dammit, they deserved them. I’ve talked to Mom now and again, but I won’t go back. They got married, you know. Juliana and Rick. We were supposed to be the maids of honor at each other’s weddings, and this was how it happened instead.”

  Simon reached out, stroked her hand. “You realize you sound more upset at losing your sister than at losing your fiancé?”

  She shrugged. “I figured out soon enough that I wasn’t really in love with Rick. But that’s not what it was about for me. She was my sister. She had the obligation to turn him away.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  He understood her pain; he saw it all clearly now. “Let me ask you something. Remember when I kissed you last night? In your room?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It was last night.” Her tone was sharp, but he saw beyond it.

  “I had just met you. But I felt bowled over by you, by your presence, by your beauty; I literally felt like I couldn’t keep my hands off you. I never believed in love at first sight until last night.”

  “Simon.” She shook her head, sipped her wine. “This was different.”

  “Was it? What if your sister had told you she was in love with me? Would you have been able to pull away from that kiss?”

  Her eyes lit up; he swore sparks flew out of them. “You’re taking her side,” she hissed.

  “I’m not. I swear. I’m trying to give you permission to forgive. It’s what you want to do. You obviously love your sister. How long do you see this going on? Ten years? Fifty?”

  She stared hard at the table. A tear ran down her cheek, and he felt it like a slap in the face.

  “I don’t know how to forgive. Every day that goes by, it gets harder. I can’t do it, Simon, I can’t go back. The humiliation of trying to explain my behavior, the embarrassment—”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Veronica. They do.” He wiped the tear from her cheek. “Babe. Beauty. I’m sorry I made you cry.”

  She rubbed her eyes and downed her wine in one gulp. “No, I’m glad. It feels good to talk about it. It feels good to have it off my chest, to get a min’s opinion. Man’s opinion.”

  He stifled a laugh. He knew now, after a day with this woman he loved, when not to laugh at her. “Let’s get some pasta in you,” he said, as the waiter approached.

  * *

  They had a nice dinner. He spoke no more of Veronica’s sister, and neither did she. She spoke of her childhood in Ames. Her father had owned a hardware store; he had died of cancer when Veronica was in college. Her mother was a librarian. Aside from the death of her father, which had obviously been hard on her, Veronica’s was an ideal childhood, almost fairy tale like, Simon thought, but it suited her. She looked like a princess out of a fairy tale. Over dessert, Simon told her about the farm he’d grown up on. How he’d loved it; how he spent his summers out of school baling hay, getting tanned and muscular.

  She wiggled a finger at him; she’d had three glasses of wine, and her behavior went beyond relaxed. “You still are, I can tell.”

  “I still am what?”

  “Tanned and muscular. Doesn’t that word sound funny? Musk you lerr. Musk u lerr. It doesn’t even sound like a word any more.” She giggled.

  “Check, please,” he told the waiter.

  “Are we leaving? Let me run to the ladies’ room.” Veronica disappeared on unsteady legs. She was sweet, and her heartache was breaking his heart. He knew al
ready that he was going to call her sister and invite her to the inn. He knew, too, that Veronica would probably hate him for it. At first. How else was she going to reconcile with her family? He’d been intruding on her life from the start, and he wasn’t about to stop now.

  She returned, looking damp. She had obviously splashed water on her face and hair. “Feeling a little drunk?” he asked.

  She nodded. He stood up, took her hand. “Do you have your purse? Good. Let’s get you home to bed.”

  “Don’t you mean into your bed?” she whispered as they left the restaurant. “Isn’t that what you really want, Simon?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said mildly, “but I’d like you to be sober the first time I make love to you. And not in danger of falling asleep right in the middle of things.”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know about . . . . What?”

  God, she was drunk. Could someone really get drunk off of three glasses of wine? He’d never met anyone like her. A tipsy little teacher with prim expressions and kisses like a Playboy fantasy. “Here we are, Beauty, here’s the car. Careful, now—hey!”

  She had stepped in front of him, pulled him into a drunken but very lively kiss. Simon lost himself in it for a moment. “Let’s get in the car,” he said hoarsely. “No—no. Get in the back. Just for a minute.”

  “Oh, Simon, you naughty thing! Oh! I just fell down. Okay, there we go. What are you doing? Mmmmmm,” she said as Simon jerked her into a more serious kiss, bundled up with her in the back seat of his car. She was much more relaxed and generous than in their previous kissing sessions. She was sweetly submissive now, even when his hand slipped down her neck and touched her breast. “Mmmmmm,” she said again, snuggling closer.

  “God, Veronica, I can’t do this,” he said, yanking himself away.

  “Why?” she asked, running her hands down his chest. She had slipped into his jacket again as they left, and she looked very sexy.

  “Because. Because I actually have a chance of going all the way, that’s why. I want to be sure it’s what you want. It was stupid of me to get you drunk.”

  “I’m not druck. Simon, kiss me. I love you. I loved you at first sight. You looked so manly standing there, taking my bags, paying the driver, taking charge. I thought you looked like Rock Hudson.”

  “Rock Hudson was gay.”

  “But he was sexy, and so are you. Kiss me,” she said, crawling into his lap. She put her mouth on his and started doing inventive things with her tongue.

  Maybe it would be all right, he thought desperately, through a haze of desire. He could sleep with her, and then just keep her drunk ever after. She put her mouth against his ear, moaned softly, rubbed a hand over his belt. He felt himself growing hard.

  He pulled his mouth away with what seemed his last ounce of strength, his last grip on sanity. “Okay, that’s it. Party’s over. I have a little girl to put in bed, and a cold shower to take, and some work to do, so please get off my lap.”

  “Simon,” she said, sulking.

  He pushed her off and struggled out of the car. The cold air was bracing. He breathed it in for a while, then went to the driver’s door and got in. He knew she was pouting in the back seat, and he refused to look for fear of how sexy that would be. He started the car, backed out, began to drive.

  “Veronica, you can’t know how hard that was. You’re beautiful and you’re sexy and I want you very much, but I can’t be very proud of contributing to your—delinquency. You’d hate me tomorrow. I should have believed you about the wine, but I thought you were exaggerating, I mean—”

  The back seat was unnaturally silent, and it was odd that she hadn’t tried to interrupt him.

  “Veronica?”

  He stole a glance behind him and saw her sleeping, peacefully as a child, stretched out on the seat.

  “Figures,” he said. “It was all an illusion.” He stared hard at the darkness of the forest preserve road. “Even the I love you.”

  * * *

  From a telephone booth one block away, the man called the White Pine Inn and left another message.

  * * *

  Simon parked in front of the inn and enlisted the help of Logan, who understood at once. “Send Peter somewhere—is he at the desk? I don’t want anyone to see,” Simon said protectively.

  Logan cleared the area; luckily it was late enough that no guests were in the lobby. Simon carried Veronica, still dozing, to her room, where Logan had unlocked the door and hauled in the shopping bags.

  Simon thanked him, shut the door, and turned to her. She was lying face down on her bed, seemingly dead to the world. “Mm-oh,” she said, rolling over. “Simon.”

  He went to her. “Yes?”

  “Are we going to bed? Help me get undressed.” Her eyes were still closed, and he didn’t know if she was talking in her sleep or actually making a request. She had started to half-heartedly peel off her sweater, so he stepped forward. “Lift up your arms, Veronica.” She did so, sort of, and he pulled it all the way off, looking at the wall after one glance at her beautiful black bra and the flesh within it. “It scratches,” she said, pulling at her brassiere. “Take it off.”

  “God,” he said. He ran to the head of the bed, looked around her pillows for something like pajamas, and found a nightgown neatly folded underneath. So cute. He pulled it out, then went back to her, carefully unhooked her bra and pulled it off her shoulders. Oh, God.

  “Eyes on the wall, my eyes are on the wall,” he said, feeling for her head so that he could pull on her night attire. Somehow he managed, and once it was on, and not much less sexy than her naked body had been, he pulled off her shoes and socks, and then her jeans. While he set them on the window ledge, he saw that she was wiggling out of her underwear.

  He looked at the ceiling. “Is this some kind of test, God? Grandpa? Are you there?”

  He took the discarded panties and put them with the rest of her things. He grabbed a blanket out of the closet and threw it over her, then practically ran out of the room, switching off the light as he did so.

  At the main desk Logan waited. He didn’t make any jokes about the incident he’d just been a part of, and that’s when Simon knew something was wrong.

  “Simon, I didn’t get a chance to tell you with all the uh, excitement. She got another call from her admirer. Just an hour ago.”

  Logan held up the note that had been dictated to Peter. Peter hadn’t bothered to put it into an envelope. He’d been warned to be aware of any calls or notes for Veronica, and he’d taken it to heart.

  Simon picked up the message written on inn stationary, and read the terse sentence: You whore. I saw you kissing him.

  Chapter Ten

  Veronica woke with a headache. She knew she’d had wine the night before, and she’d drunk a little too much. She vaguely remembered walking to the car with Simon, remembered—what? Had she actually jumped on him like a pouncing cat, actually done those things to him? God, how far had she gone? She couldn’t remember. If it hadn’t been awkward enough facing him, it certainly would be now.

  She sighed, groaned, got out of bed and went to her little medicine chest, where she had already installed her Advil. She took a pill and splashed water on her face. She saw her shopping bags sitting on the floor of her room. She didn’t remember putting them there. She looked down at herself. She had a nightgown on. Had she done that? Had he? She placed her hands on her silky bottom. Oh lord, she wasn’t wearing underwear. What had she done? What had he done?

  A part of her felt resentful. If she’d had sex with Simon, she didn’t even remember it, and it was something she’d definitely wanted to be present for, if it happened. Of course it would happen; there was no denying that. Even before she’d had too much wine, she’d realized that there was something there between them, something that might last. She had a sudden memory of herself, sitting in his lap in his car—had it bee
n the back seat?

  What had she become? A wanton woman, and with her employer. It just didn’t bear thinking about. She showered and dressed in simple khaki pants and a blue turtleneck. The sweater made her look rather busty, but she was late for her session with Pat as it was, and she didn’t have time to change. She put on a touch of lipstick, a hint of mascara, and fled her room

  She ordered coffee in the café and grasped it like a true friend as she hitched her work bag over her shoulder and hunted for Pat. There were quite a few customers in the restaurant this morning, she noted. Simon must have almost a full house. She waved at Pat, and when she approached he proudly handed her his homework. She looked it over. It was neat and perfect. “Oh, Pat, you don’t need me, you’re brilliant. You’ll be doing this by yourself in no time.”

  “Just wanted to please the teacher.”

  “Well, I have a confession. I didn’t make up those sentences, because I was out with your son. I blame you,” she joked. “You made me go. But I’ll make some up right now, using our words.”

  She pulled a notebook from her bag and began to jot some things down. Finally she looked up, to find him studying her. “You had a nice time last night,” he said.

  “Yes, I did. Your son is a wonderful tour guide. Just wonderful in general. Here’s your work. Let me hear you read these to me.”

  Pat reluctantly took his eyes off of her face. “The big cat ran out of the zoo.” He read it almost without hesitation. He read the others, too, just as well.

  Veronica stared. “I’m starting to think you know how to read, and this was all just a ruse to get your son a girlfriend.”

  “Nope. To get me one.”

  She laughed. “We can probably start limiting our sessions to the morning, so I can teach Lilah in the afternoon.”

  “Lilah?” He raised shaggy white brows.

  “Simon is hoping to keep her here for a time. Maybe long enough to enter school next year.”