by Nancy Warren
Amazingly, he did take the day off, most of which they spent in bed. She crawled out in the late afternoon to ensure the ceremonial locking up of the laptop took place, then Joe helped her make dinner. She loved the intimacy and the way his eyes warmed whenever they glanced her way. Which was often.
Luckily, the aunts didn’t come home until dinner time so she was spared any teasing, knowing looks, or even worse, how-to suggestions.
She took Joe for a long walk after dinner and then he announced he was heading off to bed early, sending her a significant glance that had her body blooming once again with desire.
She snuck into his room a little later feeling young and foolish and determined to be so quiet that two nosy old ladies would be kept in ignorance of what was going down in the Blue Room. Joe held a history book in his hands, but it was clear from the terrain of the bedsheet that he’d been waiting for her. She stripped in seconds and climbed in, putting a finger to his lips as she straddled him, riding him slowly until they were both sweat-damp and spent.
Feeling deliciously post-coital and heavy-eyed, she snuggled against his warmth and enjoyed the sense of drowsy euphoria that echoes great sex.
“I’ve never slept in this room, before,” she told him. “It’s nice. I love the way the ceiling slopes.”
“Yes. It’s a great room. Nice firm mattress, too.” He sounded wide awake, and she opened her eyes fully, then turned to see that Joe was not in a similar drowsy zone. His eyes were wide and he was staring at the ceiling.
Oh, jeez. She’d forgotten his problem, and here she was about to fall asleep in his bed.
Trying to act cool about it, she leaned over and kissed him good night.
“Stay,” he said, when she rolled out and fumbled into her clothes.
She smiled. “I don’t want to give the aunts the satisfaction of seeing me roll out of your room in the morning.”
She got to the door and glanced back, and she thought she’d never seen anyone look so lonely. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” he said.
Her smile wasn’t large, but she managed one. “Me, too.” And then she slipped out and padded to her own room. The sheets on her bed seemed chilled and it took her a long while to fall asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Joe hauled himself out of bed, realizing he’d have to hurry if he didn’t want to miss the advertised breakfast hours. He didn’t want Emily to think he was taking advantage just because they were having sex. And they’d better be having a lot of it to take his mind off the loss of his cell, laptop, and – at the last minute, the sneaky way she’d grabbed the iPad he didn’t think she’d noticed and shoved that in the safe.
After showering and shaving, he pulled on the most casual clothes he’d brought, jeans and a Knicks shirt, then ran lightly down the stairs.
Well, it seemed he hadn’t missed breakfast, he realized when he got to the dining room and saw the two older gals sitting over their coffee and the morning paper.
Some toast crusts sat on a white plate in front of Olive, and Lydia was spooning up the last of a bowl of oatmeal.
“Morning, ladies,” he said, hoping Emily had something a little more substantial on the menu for him. He’d been looking forward to another of her breakfasts and he had worked up quite an appetite in the night.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Lydia said, giving her brassy hair a pat.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” he said, feeling in charity with the whole world this morning.
She cackled at him. Then yelled, “Emily? Joe’s ready for his breakfast.”
“Be right there,” came her voice from the kitchen. He wanted to walk right in there and kiss her good morning properly, but with the two aunts looking on he felt that maybe he should restrain himself.
“You want some coffee?” Olive asked as he sat down at a place set between them.
He opened his mouth when Emily came swinging through the door in one of her endless aprons over a jean skirt and – he wasn’t sure what. From where he sat all he could see was apron front – for all he knew she didn’t have anything on underneath it.
Now that was an idea. Emily in nothing but an apron.
Sexual fantasy was promptly forgotten when she said, “Herbal tea for Joe.”
“Herbal tea? Don’t you know by now that I like coffee?”
“Doctor’s orders; until your esophagus has healed, he doesn’t want you drinking coffee. Didn’t he tell you that?”
Now he felt like a kid who didn’t want to take his medicine. “He might have,” he admitted. She put the tea in front of him and he caught her gaze. She looked exactly the same as always. Where was the blush? The exchange of intimate glances? He’d planned to be circumspect in front of the old ladies, but Emily was taking things a little far. It was like their night hadn’t affected her at all.
She poured something pink into his cup and his mood soured further. “What is that?” he asked.
“Raspberry tea. It’s good for the stomach.”
He sipped, decided it was as putrid as it looked and added up the things she’d taken away from him. One: cell phone. Two: laptop. Three: iPad. Four: coffee. Five: this morning’s good mood.
“Did you sleep well, Joe?”
“Never better, Olive,” he lied, watching Emily as she turned and headed back for the kitchen, seemingly completely uninterested. “And you?”
“I always sleep poorly,” she said. “It’s age.”
Lydia made a rude noise. “When I was as young as you, I didn’t waste all my nights sleeping. I don’t know what’s wrong with you and Emily. So hot for each other you scorch the air when you look in each other’s eyes, and acting like a pair of scared virgins.”
Enough already.
Rising, and placing his linen napkin on the table beside the pink tea, he strode around the table, catching Emily just before she reached the swing door leading back into the kitchen. He grasped her shoulder and turned her around bodily. Surprise was written all over her face.
“I forgot to say good morning to you properly, Emily,” he said pleasantly, then kissed her.
Not a kiss on the cheek or a peck on the lips either. Oh, no. He grabbed the back of her head, kissed her the way a man ought to kiss the woman he’s made love to most of the night, bending her back so they probably looked like a pair of passionate tango dancers to the interested onlookers at the breakfast table.
He felt the moment she gave in and kissed him back, putting her arm around his neck and pressing against him. He felt her heart thump against his chest and he was pretty sure that was her nipples he felt rubbing against him.
When he straightened them both she blinked at him, dazed, her color a little heightened.
He walked back to the dining table and sat down and put his napkin back in his lap.
Even the pink tea didn’t taste so bad this time he sipped it.
There was total silence in the room and he knew all three of the women were staring at him.
He felt he’d made his point.
Not even the plain poached eggs Emily served him with butterless toast could dim his sudden verve. There were no further references to the lack of initiative in young people today.
The two old ladies conversed with him over breakfast, sharing such nuggets from the morning paper as the fact that more hummingbirds had been counted in the area this year than last.
“Oh, look. You made page three,” Olive informed him as though he ought to be pleased.
He put down the forkful of egg and toast he’d been about to eat. “What do you mean?”
She folded over the paper and handed it to him. Sure enough, there was the headline:
New York Businessman Felled by Beaverton.
He shook his head and shoved the paper back at her. Usually, he was mentioned on the business pages. But, not even the fact that his ignominious gastric attack had made the news section of the paper could dampen his mood.
Emily came
through the swing door several more times, but it was fair to say that she no longer appeared as though this morning was like any other. When she saw him she blushed like a school girl after her first kiss.
That was more like it.
Emily felt like she was presenting the largest urine sample in history when she placed the half full liquor bottle of yellow cordial on Gordon Hartnett’s desk.
He looked at the bottle, cocked an eyebrow and turned his attention to Emily who settled herself into one of the chairs in his office. It wasn’t a very comfortable chair – she suspected doctors chose chairs the same way fast food restaurants did – to get people out of them again as soon as possible.
“What’s up?” he asked, settling into his own executive chair behind the desk, which looked a hell of a lot more comfy than the vinyl and chrome job on which she perched.
Gord wasn’t big into chit chat or wasted time. That’s one of the things that had made their affair work so well, she realized now. They’d both had obligations and lives to live and while they’d felt affection for each other, she knew they both viewed their relationship as a convenient, efficient way to meet their sexual needs.
The incredible thing to her was how different he’d been the second he met his wife to be. He’d ended things with Emily almost before Terri’s tonsils bit the dust.
She opened her mouth and completely different words emerged than the ones she’d planned. “When you broke things off with me, had you even asked Terri for a date?”
Gord blinked, obviously as taken aback by what she’d said as she. He leaned back a little as though seeking for the right position in his chair in which to have this unexpected conversation.
“No,” he said, when he’d finally settled. He looked like a man about to face a firing squad but open to his accept his fate.
“But, what if she’d said no, she didn’t want to go out with you? What then?”
“Emily, I’m sorry. I always thought you were okay with the way things ended between us. Forgive me, but I thought we both felt that our relationship was--”
“Temporary.” She completed the sentence for him cheerfully. “Yes, absolutely. We were convenient for each other. But I suddenly wondered what made you so certain things would work out with you and Terri that you ended things with me when you did. It’s funny, I never thought of that before.”
He turned his head so he was looking past her and Emily suddenly knew without having to follow his gaze that there was a picture of his wife behind her. “I think I fell in love with Terri the first time I saw her.”
“With a hundred and three temperature and her throat swollen?”
He gave a short laugh. “I know. She can’t believe it either, but it’s true. At first she was a patient, of course, but every time I looked into her eyes it was like seeing someone I’d known a long time ago and had missed really badly. Then I touched her and – I don’t know. It sounds corny and completely unlike me, but I knew.” He glanced back at Emily. “But I never, ever meant to hurt you in any way. You know I think—“
“No, it’s fine. I think the world of you, too, and I have no regrets. We were always destined to end up friends not lovers.”
He nodded and she felt the relief coming off him in waves.
But she still felt puzzled, as though there was something important hovering out of her grasp. “The thing is that I always thought we were alike. We’re practical about sex.”
“But I turned out to be a romantic in love.” He turned a little pink as though embarrassed even to be talking like this. “I never saw it coming. Never.”
“Wow. So even if she’d – once she could talk normally again – even if she’d said, thanks but no thanks, and left the state you’d have—“
“I’d have kept trying to change her mind. I wouldn’t have felt right making love to one woman when I’d fallen in love with another.”
She couldn’t help her smile. “So, you are an old-fashioned romantic at heart.”
“Let me ask you something. If she’d left and I’d tried to rekindle things with you, would you have gone for it?”
She’d never thought about that before. So she did now. That was one thing she’d always liked about her relationship with Gord, and obviously the reason their friendship continued after the affair was all but forgotten. They could talk about anything.
Her head was shaking before she realized she knew the answer. “No,” she said. “I guess once you’d fallen for Terri, whatever happened, the sex was over for us.”
He nodded. They smiled at each other and there was the affection of friends. She admitted, “I missed the sex for a while, though.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but I have a feeling one of my recent patients would be more than happy.”
“You mean Joe.” She didn’t feel like talking much about her and Joe. It was too new. Last night had been too blindingly fantastic for her peace of mind. However, what had happened between her and Joe was partly why she was in this office.
“Well, that’s gives me a great segue into what I’m doing here. First, I need your word that what I am about to tell you will remain confidential.” She’d heard about doctor/patient privilege on TV crime shows, but she wasn’t putting her aunts at risk based on a Law and Order re-run. “I can’t have anything bad happen to … anyone else in the story who might have accidentally caused someone harm.”
His brow creased in a frown. “I’m not sure I can—“
“Oh, no one died and there’s been no permanent harm.”
He looked at her for another searching minute, then at the bottle on his desk. He nodded. “You have my word.”
She didn’t know whether he gave his word as doctor or friend, but it didn’t matter. If he said he’d keep his mouth shut, he would.
Briefly, she described what had happened the night Joe had his attack, including the previously unknown fact that both he and she had been secretly dosed with the cordial.
By the time she finished, Gord was sitting on the edge of his chair, dividing his attention between her face as she spoke and the bottle of cordial on his desk.
“And they slipped this stuff to both of you. In wine.”
“Yes. According to the aunts, it needs to be mixed with alcohol to become effective.”
He pulled a legal sized notepad toward him and started scribbling. “And how long after ingesting the liquid did Joe have his attack?”
She eyed his notepad with disfavor and kept quiet until he glanced up and caught the direction of her gaze. “This is just for my own research. I gave you my word, Emily. This conversation stays between us.”
She nodded. “Okay. I think it was about an hour to an hour and a half later.”
“Did you feel any effects of the tonic?”
She hesitated. “I had no stomach trouble.”
“How about other symptoms? It’s supposed to be some kind of sex enhancer the way you described it. Did you notice anything in that regard?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, I’m a doctor. This is fascinating.”
“I felt extremely aroused. Before he even touched me.”
“How long did those feelings last?”
“Several hours.”
“And you said your aunt Lydia also took some of the stuff?”
“Yes. According to her she also shared it with a man.”
He glanced up his eyebrows raised in query. Like her, he must be wondering who Lydia’s new beau was. “The same man who was kissing her during West Side Story with nuns?”
“I have no idea who it was, but she says they were both fine afterward.”
“And did she say whether it had an … arousing effect on her and her partner?”
“Yes. She did. According to her they had fantastic sex. She’s very angry with me for taking away the rest of the bottle.”
He smiled briefly. “I’ll bet.”
“So, what do you think? Could the cordial or whatever it is have caused Joe’s attack? I feel s
ick that someone in my house could have caused him harm.”
“Do you have any idea what’s in this stuff?” he asked.
“No. Aunt Olive and Lydia say it’s mostly herbs, but they believe the recipe died with Dr. Beaver.”
Gord removed the cork and sniffed, then recorked it. “I’ll have a complete chemical analysis done.” He sat back and tapped his pen on the pad of scribbles. “My best guess is that this stuff may have contributed to Joe’s attack, but there were a lot of other factors involved. And no one else got sick, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“But you’ll let me know when you find out anything?”
“Absolutely.” He stared at the liquid in the bottle intently for a moment then shook his head. “You know, I swear that doctor knew something the rest of us don’t know. I’ve done a lot of research and people in Beaverton don’t get sick as often as the general population. And they live longer.”
“It’s quantifiable?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it could be that this is a pretty low-stress place to live? There’s no crime, and people here look out for each other.” She thought about her neighbors and had to smile. “No, it’s more than that. I think what I love about Beaverton is that people here generally do the things that make them happy.”
“Of course, you could be right. Maybe it’s all about lifestyle, but as a doctor with a background in research, I’d prefer a more scientific explanation. It’s interesting all the same.”
She rose to leave. “Thanks for taking a look at that stuff for me.”
“Thank you for bringing it. I’m truly interested in Dr. Emmet Beaver’s work and a sample of one of his medications is quite a find.” He sounded pretty pumped. So long as there was nothing in that bottle that could have made Joe sick, she was willing to let him have his fun.
As she rose to leave, Gord also stood. “Emily, I hope the same kind of fall-flat-on-your-face love happens for you, too.”
She smiled at him, and on impulse leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thanks, Gord.”