Rose felt like a balloon that all the air had been abruptly sucked out of. “Why?” she said. “Why on earth would he have guns?”
Torey laughed. “I keep forgetting you’re from the city. This is Maine, Mrs. Lindstrom. Most everybody has guns. Hunting’s the number-one sport around these parts.”
“Will you be all right?” The wind whipped her pathetically inadequate wool dress coat around her bare legs, and she turned up the collar to ward off pneumonia.
“Guess I’ll have to be.” Without saying good-bye, Torey Spaulding climbed into her sister’s car, and her sister cranked the ignition. After several tries, it started, and the sister put the car into reverse.
And Rose stood there, freezing, hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, and watched them drive away.
***
The Thanksgiving turkey smelled heavenly. It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock, but already Rose was hungry enough to start chewing on one leg of Casey’s kitchen table. Her stomach growled and she set down the potato peeler and flattened a hand against her thickening waistline.
“Hungry?” Casey said.
“What else is new?”
“If you need something to hold you, there’s pie in the fridge.”
“What are you trying to do, turn me into a baby hippo?”
Her sister Maeve rinsed off the chunk of squash she’d just peeled. “You’re eating for two people. Stop worrying about it.”
“If I stop worrying about it,” Rose said, “by the time this baby’s born, I’ll look like two people.”
The door opened and her brother Rob blew in, six feet of lanky Irishman, the front of his Led Zeppelin sweatshirt soaked with perspiration, and made a beeline for Casey. Catching her in a bear hug, he said gruffly, “Come here, wife of my loins.”
Eyeing her brother with distaste, Rose said, “Does this aromatic creature belong to you?”
Gazing lovingly at her husband, Casey raised elegant dark eyebrows. “I thought he came with you.”
Rob removed the paring knife from his wife’s hand, set it on the counter, and began to waltz her around the kitchen.
Maeve grinned. “Is he always like this?”
Wryly, Rose said, “Only when he forgets to take his Prozac.”
Rob spun Casey away from him. Without missing a step, she whirled around and came back to him. Rose popped an olive into her mouth and bit down on it. “I hate to be the one to tell you,” she said, “but there’s no music playing.”
“Hah!” he said, bending his wife over backward so far she was in danger of falling on her rump in the middle of the kitchen floor. “What do you say, babydoll? Is there or is there not music playing?”
Casey slowly rose back to an upright position, her face flushed. It could have been exertion. Or it could have been something else altogether. Gazing into her husband’s eyes, she gave him an intimate smile that hinted of deep secrets and hidden delights. “Oh, yeah,” she said softly. “It’s playing, all right.”
Over her shoulder, Rob shot Maeve a wink. “I rest my case.”
“Jesus,” Rose said irritably, “you two make me want to throw up.”
***
Outside Casey’s kitchen window, a loud and lively football game was in progress. Even Devon, generally far too sophisticated for such sophomoric nonsense, had deigned to join in. Not to be outdone by his sister, Luke was also taking part in the boisterous play, hobbling around on the walking cast he’d gotten three days ago. Inside the kitchen, Maeve MacKenzie was buried in suds up to her elbows. “So,” she said, “how’s it going with Mr. Wonderful?”
Rose glanced out the window at her husband, who was squabbling good-naturedly with Rob for possession of the football. Rob won the battle, and Jesse crouched beside him, hands braced against his thighs, his denim-clad backside thrown into vivid relief. Rose swallowed hard. She’d always been a sucker for a great ass. Briskly, she said, “It’s going just ducky,” and whipped the dish towel around the inside of Casey’s roaster.
She pretended not to notice Maeve eyeing her long and hard. “There’s trouble in paradise? So soon?”
“Some paradise,” Rose grumbled as she began opening cupboard doors in search of a final resting place for her sister-in-law’s turkey roaster.
“Is he treating you bad?” Maeve demanded.
“Hell, no. He treats me like a queen.”
“You don’t look very happy, for a queen. Does he drink? Run around? Yell at the kids?”
Rose knelt on the kitchen floor, shoved the roaster into an empty spot on the bottom shelf, then pressed a hand to the small of her back. Closing her eyes, she said, “No, no, and no.”
“Is he lousy in bed?” Maeve glanced out the window and said skeptically, “He sure doesn’t look like he’d be lousy in bed.”
At Rose’s silence, Maeve turned to look at her. “Oh,” she said. “Looks like I’ve struck a nerve.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. “Why the hell couldn’t I have been born an only child?” Rose snapped.
“What’s he done to you, Rose? He’s not into kinky sex, is he?”
“How the hell would I know?” she snarled, and to her absolute mortification, burst into tears. Loud, messy, wretched tears, the kind that would make her look like the bride of Frankenstein for days.
“Aw, Rose, I’m sorry. Come, let’s sit down.” Maeve dried her hands on her apron and guided Rose to a chair. Sitting down across from her, she patted her sister’s hand. “Tell Auntie Maeve all about it.”
“It’s so humiliating. I can’t believe I’m telling anyone this.”
“Sweetie, this is me you’re talking to. You can tell me anything.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s been eight weeks, Maeve. Two frigging months, and we still haven’t done the dirty deed.”
Maeve’s mouth fell open. “You’re not sleeping together?”
Rose sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of Casey’s apron. “Oh,” she said bitterly, “we were sleeping together, up until a couple of weeks ago. We just weren’t doing anything else.”
“What happened a couple of weeks ago?”
“We had this stupid fight, and he moved into the den. Jesus, Maeve, I wasn’t looking for love when I married him. You know as well as I do what a disaster that’s always been for me. But I thought…oh, hell, who knows what I thought? All I can say is that it’s pretty humiliating when you’re married to a man for two months, and he never lays a hand on you.”
Maeve glanced toward the window, her pale freckles drawn together in puzzlement. “This does not add up,” she said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. What the hell did you do to him?”
Rose blew her nose on a paper napkin. “Oh, sure,” she said, dabbing the tip of her nose. “Blame it on me.”
“Come on, Rose, look at him. He’s gorgeous, healthy, virile…hell, if he didn’t belong to you, I’d be after him myself. What happened?”
“I’m not really sure. Luke broke his ankle on our wedding night. Then we all came down with the flu. I started my new job, and I’ve been so tired, and we’re both always bringing home work. We don’t have any privacy, with a house full of teenagers.” She swiped again at her nose with the napkin and shrugged in apology. “And then we had that awful fight, and ever since then, he’s been furious with me.”
“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you to make the first move?”
“I couldn’t. He hates me right now. Hell, Maeve, it’s only sex. It shouldn’t matter so much. I don’t understand why it does. Except that every time he walks by, my whole body goes on red alert.”
“Sounds to me,” Maeve said, “as though you’re falling in love with him.”
Rose snorted. “Love,” she said bitterly, “is a myth, conceived and perpetuated by the male of the species, to ensure that there’ll always be somebody around to wash their socks and feed their overactive libidos.”
“There’s your problem, idiot. The poor man’s terrified of you. If I were him,
I wouldn’t come near you with a ten-foot pole.”
“I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”
“If you’d stop acting like such a jackass,” Maeve said, “maybe you could fix it.”
“Fix it? How the hell am I supposed to fix it?”
“Simple. By seducing him.”
For the second time in thirty seconds, Rose snorted. “Give me a break.”
“I’m serious. I’ll take the kids home with me, and you and Mr. Wonderful can spend the weekend getting to know each other. In the Biblical sense.” Her mouth thinned. “I suppose you’re still wearing that stupid football jersey to bed.”
“It’s comfortable,” Rose said defensively. “And I happen to like it.”
“Haven’t you learned anything in thirty-six years?” Maeve wrinkled her brow again as she pondered the situation. “Do you still have all that sexy lingerie that Eddie bought you?”
Rose grimaced. “Why does that name keep popping up?”
“Forget Eddie. He’s history. Do you still have the green teddy? The one that’s cut way down to your—”
“I’ve got it, but I’m not wearing it.”
“Damn it, Rose, you have a bureau drawer full of the most enticing unmentionables this side of heaven, and you’re wearing a football jersey to bed.” Maeve closed her eyes and shook her head. “And you wonder why your husband isn’t overcome with lust.”
“I won’t parade around looking like the happy hooker. I’m thirty-six years old and four months pregnant. I have an enormous belly and more wrinkles than George Burns.”
“Don’t exaggerate. You’re barely showing. You have a set of boobs I’d kill for. And the only wrinkles you have are the laugh lines around your eyes.”
“My thighs are fat.”
“Honey, you put on that green teddy, and you might have to pick him up off the floor and revive him, but once he comes to, I guarantee he won’t notice your fat thighs.”
***
She looked preposterous. Like those damn Barbie dolls she’d never allowed her daughter to play with. It was beyond pathetic, the sight of her thirty-six-year-old body crammed into a frothy scrap of silk and lace designed for a nineteen-year-old who didn’t have stretch marks on her belly or cellulite on her thighs. The lace was itchy, she had goose bumps on her behind, and whoever the turkey was who’d invented the thong—a man, no doubt—he should be shot twice and hung upside down to die. She couldn’t believe she’d let Maeve talk her into this. What the hell did Maeve know? Her body hadn’t been decimated by babies and ridiculed repeatedly by a man who’d promised to cherish her until death did them part.
Damn all men, anyway. It was humiliating, the things women had to go through just to make themselves attractive to the miserable creatures. And for what? Five minutes of foreplay, two minutes of rock and roll, five seconds of nirvana, if you got lucky, and a mate who was asleep within ten seconds. For this, men slayed dragons and conquered kingdoms? Too bad women didn’t realize just how easily they could take over the world. Just get Frederick’s of Hollywood to dress the entire female population, and every heterosexual male on the planet would fall in worship at their feet.
She gnawed on her lower lip and wondered if she really had the nerve to do this. What if this ludicrous get-up didn’t work? Maeve had sworn it would, but what if she was wrong? It would be so humiliating. As a man, Jesse was subject to the same illogical and immature thought processes as the rest of his kind. Technically, as long as that Y chromosome was present, the early twenty-first-century strumpet look should be a turn-on. But he wasn’t like other men. She couldn’t read him the way she’d been able to read Eddie. Jesse Lindstrom was an enigma. Who the hell knew what went on behind those seductive dark eyes? For all she knew, there were entire worlds back there that nobody had ever seen.
This was ridiculous. She was standing here dressed like some porno queen, freezing her ass off, waiting for a shot of courage that just wasn’t coming. To hell with courage. It was time to take the bull by the metaphorical horns, and march into battle.
***
The words were flowing. He’d hit one of those creative spaces where he couldn’t type fast enough to catch it all as it rushed past. His fingers raced over the keyboard in an attempt to keep up with the images floating through his head. The worlds he brought to life on the computer screen were vastly different from the one he’d left behind. That was why he kept doing it, why he couldn’t stop doing it. Creating universes gave him a high unlike anything else he’d ever experienced.
When she spoke his name, it took a moment for him to come back from that other world. He blinked a couple of times, swiveled his chair around, and opened his mouth to answer her.
It was sea green, the thing she wore, a diaphanous dream that covered little and hid nothing. “Laugh,” she said in a quavering voice, “and you’re dead meat.”
As if he could have laughed. As if he could have made any sound at all after being kicked in the stomach. He turned off the computer and cleared his throat. Twice. “Rose?” he said hoarsely, wondering if he was dreaming.
She moved toward him apprehensively, as though afraid he might eat her. He reached out a hand, then withdrew it, not sure what to touch first. There were so many choices. She removed choice by taking his hand and resting it on her abdomen. It felt different than before. More solid because of the baby growing inside her. He lay his other hand flat against her hard little belly, leaned forward and nuzzled this warm woman place that cradled his child. She braced a hand against his shoulder as his fingertips danced across her thighs, and when he touched the tip of his tongue to her belly button, she gasped.
He hauled her off her feet and into him, warm scent of woman floating inside his head, over and under and around him, heated rush of bodies melting together, her mouth and her arms and her legs opening to him. He shoved back the chair and it rolled away and thumped against the desk as he took her to the floor. Her fingers kneaded his back as he raised himself on his forearms and lowered his head to kiss her, long and slow and sweet.
When he’d temporarily gotten his fill of kissing those lush lips, he worked soft lace down off her shoulder and followed its descent with his mouth. Pregnancy had changed her body. Her breasts were fuller, heavier, the nipples darkened to a pale cocoa, blue veins prominent beneath alabaster skin. He touched his tongue to a flat brown orb, heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the flesh swell to his touch. Closing his mouth over it, he suckled gently, and her hips moved restlessly against his. Excited by the warm, musky scent of her, he peeled silk and lace down her body, unwrapping her like a Christmas gift.
Jesse tasted every inch of her as it was revealed, followed the green silk trifle past her hips, his tongue tracing a damp line down the inside of her thigh to the knee. He tossed aside the teddy and began working his way back up the trail he’d blazed. He took his time exploring her body, the smooth line of thigh, the rounded belly, the shallow swells and indentations of her ribcage.
Rose tugged determinedly at his shirt tail, hauled it from his jeans, worked at the buttons of his shirt. He shrugged it off, and her cool, slender fingers trailed a heated path along his shoulders. He closed his eyes and groaned as those fingers tangled themselves in his hair, sending ripples of delight through his body. “Rose,” he whispered.
She yanked his belt from its buckle, loosened his jeans, and as he worked them down over his hips, her fingers dug into his flesh so hard he knew he would have bruises tomorrow. He kicked aside the jeans, buried himself inside her slick heat, and lost himself.
She wrapped her legs around him, and together they danced toward the sun. Rolling and tumbling, hot and hard and greedy, he took her with him to the zenith and beyond.
They shattered together in a hard, violent surge. Muscles screaming, lungs afire, he collapsed on top of her, his heart threatening to burst from his chest, his face buried in her tangle of coppery hair. Her hands wandered aimlessly up and down his back as his body slowly cam
e back to him.
After a time, he raised his head. Drawing aside a strand of the wild red hair that lay in a tangled mass of curls around her shoulders, he said, “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get to this place again.”
Her chest rose and fell beneath him. “I didn’t think you wanted me.”
“Jesus, Rose. How could you think that? Jesus.”
“What was I supposed to think? You moved out of our bedroom.”
“It’s just that you make me so crazy sometimes.”
“That road runs both ways.”
“You know,” he said, “I honestly think that if we both tried a little harder, we could make a go of this marriage.”
She studied his face. More gently, she said, “You really think so?”
“I really think so. Look, I’m waving the white flag here. Let’s call a cease-fire.”
“I’m willing to try, if you are. But not here. Damn, this floor is hard.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Is this why your sister took the kids for the weekend?”
Her eyes grew wary, and he mentally kicked himself for saying the wrong thing. “Why?” she demanded. “What difference does it make?”
“I’m just wondering who I should address my thank-you note to.”
chapter thirteen
Outside the window, feathery white clouds drifted in a rain-washed sky. Inside, it was beastly hot, and she’d been having heartburn since breakfast. Rose crossed her legs, adjusted her skirt, and glanced at the clock for the twelfth time since the Monday morning meeting had begun. The heat and the soft drawl of Jim Davidson’s voice were making her sleepy. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall as Jim outlined the newest set of policy changes about to be implemented.
Sleeping With the Enemy Page 17
