by Thea Devine
“Oh, here’s Dr. Tom Kelsey,” Jeannie said suddenly. “He’s the new vet in town. Hey, Tom, come meet Carrie Spencer.”
“Hi.” He held out his hand. Tom had a very firm handshake and deep blue eyes. Carrie liked him instantly. “Welcome back.”
“So even the newcomers know about the town pariah,” Carrie said.
“Actually, it was in the Paradise paper. You know, the list of summer people already in residence. I just happened to read it because I had an ad right on that page.” He smiled at her disarmingly before he turned to Jeannie. “You look great.”
“Thanks.”
Carrie dug her arm into Jeannie’s side.
“So do you,” Jeannie added, fixing him with an intense look.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked as the musicians mounted the stage.
“Uh...”
Carrie pinched her.
“Yes.”
Two of the band members played a long get-ready note on their fiddles, and couples began pairing up.
“Don’t tell me that’s Truck on stage,” Carrie said in surprise.
“Oh yes. He learned to play at college.” Jeannie grabbed Tom’s arm. “See you.” They whirled off onto the floor with other tapping, bumping, twirling couples, and Carrie edged back to the sidelines to watch Truck as he sawed away at his fiddle and stomped all over the stage.
Why am I watching him? No, I’m watching Jeannie, who’s a really good dancer. And Dr. Tom seems to like her, maybe a little too much.
Tom was a lot taller than Jeannie, and he had his arm around her at that point as they two-stepped around the room. Jeannie looked both fragile and happy.
“Is that Jeannie?” a voice demanded at her elbow.
Eddie. He sounded a little amazed, and not his usual smooth self.
She turned to look at him. “Hi, Eddie, nice to see you too, and yes, that’s Jeannie.”
“I thought you two were cooking something up.”
“I’d say Jeannie’s cooking tonight She’s a terrific dancer.”
“Yeah, she likes to come to these things,” Eddie said, his attention torn between Jeannie and the two women he had been talking to. “It’s not quite the evening out you’re probably used to.”
“I can get used to anything,” Carrie said.
“So they say,” Eddie countered. “Well, good to see you, Carrie.”
“You too, Eddie,” she murmured, not even flinching at his snide comment, and certain he hadn’t even heard her as he edged away.
This wasn’t going to be easy, she thought. Eddie was not an easy man, and probably now he was too used to the way things were. It was going to take time to shake him up, and determination on Jeannie’s part. At least he’d noticed that Jeannie wasn’t looking quite the same.
And then she became aware that the music had slowed down appreciably, that Truck wasn’t on stage, and before she could decide on a strategy, he came up right beside her.
“Care to dance?”
“I knew this would happen.”
“So did I. So what’s your point?”
“I’m lending Jeannie moral support. I’m not supposed to have a good time.”
“Oh.” That devastating smile again. “Okay, dance with me and don’t enjoy it.”
“I’m not going to do this,” Carrie said firmly. Truck had no business coming after her. She wasn’t interested, especially after witnessing Eddie’s flagrant indifference to Jeannie. That was what married life usually came to: a fragmented relationship held together by the tenuous strings of companionship, and sorely frayed without the glue of a family.
Not for me...
“You don’t have to do anything, just dance with me.”
“You said that yesterday too.”
“Did I? This isn’t a lifetime commitment, Carrie. It’s ten minutes on the dance floor.”
And in your arms. She braced herself as he slipped his arm around her and took her hand.
“I know how you are,” he murmured as she wrestled with him for control. “This is just the slow dance.”
“Right. You think I don’t know what that means. I know what that slow-dance business means, Truck.”
“It means we’re dancing slowly, Carrie. To the beat Step together step. We learned it in high school. What do you think it means?”
It meant he was holding her too tight, too right, too close. He knew just how, just the way she liked it. They moved together as if they’d been doing it forever, and that was scary too.
“Don’t think,” Truck murmured. “Just...dance—” He pulled her more tightly against him. Step together step, in perfect sync, her hips moving to the beat, moving against him where he fit so perfectly against her. She was made for him, he was convinced of it, and she wasn’t immune to him either, on any level. He sent a covert signal to the band, and the music played on. Couples dropped out, regrouped, and returned to the dance floor with new partners. He held her still closer, enveloping her in his heat, moving his hands to enfold her more intimately.
“I have to—Jeannie...” Carrie murmured.
“Jeannie’s fine. Tom is right there, and Eddie’s prowling the sidelines. You can’t do anything right now, Carrie. At least not for Jeannie.”
“Oh yeah? Who for, then?” she asked combatively.
“How about you?”
“I’m fine, thank you, and getting as tired as the band must be. Why don’t you have mercy on them and let them stop?”
“Not until I see you pushing and grinding and twining. In fact...”
“Truck—”
“Here we go...” The music changed, fast as lightning. Lines formed all around them with hopping, stomping dancers, and Truck swung her around and pushed her into the line.
It was one of those sink-or-swim moments; she saw instantly that she’d be a step or two behind everyone else, and way out of her element, but she was game anyway.
Carrie saw Jeannie talking to a tall fair man, her gaze intent, her body language fairly radiating confidence. She saw Eddie along the sidelines trying to keep track of Jeannie and several other of his women friends. She was very aware of Truck beside her, and the moves and kicks and thrusts of the dance, and how good he was at moving and thrusting.
She stopped dead on the floor. Was there never a moment when she wasn’t thinking about him in sexual terms? Why was she thinking about him at all? She almost bolted. It’s just a dance, Carrie. There are sixty people on this floor. Sixty neighbors. What do you think is going to happen?
The music wound down and everyone applauded and went in search of refreshments. Truck took her arm and guided her off the floor. “Lemonade?”
“Please.”
“Here comes Jeannie,” he remarked, grasping Jeannie’s hand and squeezing it as she passed him.
“Hey,” Carrie murmured.
“Uplift works,” Jeannie said excitedly, pulling her aside.
“No kidding.”
“Eddie can’t figure out what’s different. I can’t thank you—”
Carrie held up her hand. “Hold it, Jeannie. This isn’t a done deal with Eddie. This is an ongoing process. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort...and attitude.”
“I know, I know.”
“And patience.”
“I know...but he’s taking me home. Usually he stays and I go home alone. Don’t you think that’s meaningful?”
“I think you confused him tonight. At least two men that I saw were very attentive to you, and I’m guessing that doesn’t always happen.”
“Oh, it happens. He just never notices.”
“You should go home with him then. I’ll get someone to take me home.”
“Okay. Sometime this week I want to go shopping.”
“It’s a date.”
Jeannie squeezed her hand and flew across the dance floor as the band started warming up again. Eddie waited for her by the door. He entwined his arm with hers as they exited, and Carrie watched skeptically.
&
nbsp; It was a hard thing to watch, Jeannie’s pain, then her sudden hope. Maybe she’d done her a disservice. All the sexy-lady business was nothing more than a bandage over long-festering wounds that Carrie knew nothing about. Didn’t want to know anything about. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to get involved. Eventually, all she could do for Jeannie was leave her behind, and everything else. Everyone else.
“So Jeannie’s gone home.” Truck handed her a paper cup of lemonade. “And I take it you’re stranded.”
Carrie sipped. “Stranded? I don’t know if I’d put it that strongly. I bet I could find someone to take me home.”
“I dare you to let me.”
“I’m not scared of you, Truck.”
“Sure you are, but that’s okay. A kiss isn’t a commitment either.”
“But you’ll do it again, then where will I be?”
“Soundly and thoroughly kissed, and what’s so bad about that?”
Carrie didn’t like where the conversation was going. “Don’t you have a date with a fiddle?” she said.
“Nope. I’m going to stay right here and burn. Come on, Carrie. You’re making more of this than it is.”
No, I’m not. And if I were smart, I would not walk one foot out the door with him.
I’m not smart. And uplift works.
Tom rescued her. “How about it, Carrie?”
She took his hand. “I’d love to.”
It was so much easier to follow Tom. He held her politely, nicely, and his conversation was easy and humorous. He was in fact a very nice man, young, enthusiastic and a great advocate for the quality of life that had been the draw that brought him to Paradise from Chicago.
He wondered hopefully if she had a pet.
“There are some outdoor cats hanging around, so I can’t really promise you any business,” Carrie said regretfully. “Nor am I sure how long I’ll be staying in town.”
“You’ll stay,” Tom predicted. “You’ll see. Thanks, Carrie,” he said as he brought her back to Truck.
“Thank you,” she said warmly. He was halfway across the floor when it occurred to her that he probably would have been very happy to give her a lift home.
“He would’ve,” Truck said, reading her mind as he sidled up to her. “But he’s no fun.”
He swung her into the next dance, another slow dance, before she could protest. And then it was too late to push away, and by that time Carrie didn’t want to, anyway.
Uplift was dangerous. Men could detect uplift a a mile away. She would bet Truck knew exactly what she was wearing under her thin silk shirt. And she was too aware of the softness of her body against the hardness of his as she moved against him.
This was dangerous. This was stupid. Why was her body warring with her common sense? Why was her body winning?
She pulled away. “Truck...”
He pulled her back firmly. “Carrie,” he mimicked her tone. “Let’s just do one dance at a time.”
“You don’t get to choreograph everything,” Carrie muttered.
“No, but I get to lead.”
She wanted to bite him. For an instant, her mind was flooded with images: her lips on his shoulder, his chest, his belly...lower—no!
She shook herself. She had to stop thinking like this.
She needed a healthy dose of that sexy-lady attitude, she thought. Elusive would be good. And cool. Calm. All the things she wasn’t right now, with Truck’s long lean body molded to hers.
Why did he still have the power to affect her like this? Carrie felt as if she was on the verge of something explosive, something that would change her forever.
No, if she had given herself to him all those years ago, that would have changed her forever. Would have changed her life forever.
She hadn’t come back home to shake up her life. She didn’t want complications. And she didn’t want to start anything with Truck, not after all this time. And especially not after Elliott.
Well, the sexy lady should be able handle that, she thought. She’d just push it to one side and never think about it again. And she’d curl Truck McKelvey right around her little finger and keep her emotions neatly disengaged.
But that was the fantasy. The reality was that the music was too hot, Truck was too close and she was too susceptible.
Carrie became aware suddenly that the music had stopped and he was still holding her tightly and swaying in a rhythm she felt right down to her toes.
It would be so easy, too easy to let go...
“Come on,” he murmured against her ear. “I’ll take you home.”
There wasn’t any graceful way out of that either. He was already at a slow simmer and halfway out the door, and she wasn’t far behind.
But—the sexy lady could deal with that. It was all a matter of attitude. She could be detached. Not a problem, she thought resolutely. The sexy lady would know just how to handle Truck. Now, if only she could get a handle on how Truck was making her feel.
5
TRUCK DROVE a meticulously restored thirty-year-old Mercedes sedan luxuriously appointed with burled wood, leather and ivory. An executive’s car, Carrie thought, smooth, quiet, unobtrusive, elegant.
Surprising.
It occurred to Carrie that she didn’t know Truck at all, and that the way he handled this car would be very much the way he would handle a woman: with a gentle touch, and with passion and control.
She shivered. She felt out of control. There wasn’t anything about him that didn’t remind her of the past or make her think of possibilities in the present. It was too much, too soon. And all those feelings overrode any common-sense response she might have had to the situation. Her plans didn’t include this. She didn’t want this.
Where was that disdainful sexy lady who knew just how to say no? She was whispering in Carrie’s ear, goading her to say yes. Except Truck hadn’t asked her anything yet. It was just in the air, in the closeness of the car, in the jolting knowledge between them. There were some things you couldn’t escape. Some things that were meant to happen Some things that endured.
“Did you ever wonder,” Truck said as he maneuvered the Mercedes down the track toward her house, “what would have happened if we’d made love?”
She’d wondered that endlessly those first years in college- Sometimes, even after she’d gone to New York, though she’d been certain that she had made the right decision.
“No,” Carrie said.
“Liar.”
“Does it matter?”
“You tell me,” Truck said, swinging the car at an angle to the pond and cutting the engine.
“Did it matter to you?” she asked curiously.
He was silent a long moment. “It did.”
“Because you didn’t make it with me and everyone thought you’d be the one who did?” Carrie said, unable to keep the caustic tone out of her voice.
“No,” he said gently. “Actually I thought we were in love. But then, you had four guys snapping at your heels those last two years of school. I just happened to be the one who got closest.”
No, you happened to be the one I really wanted...
“Why are we raking over old memories?” she asked, discomfited by his honesty. They had never ever talked about love.
Love...
“I thought you might have some regrets.”
No. Yes. Maybe. “I don’t regret anything,” she said a bit too firmly as if she had to convince herself as much as she did Truck.
“No,” he murmured, making a move toward her. The move she feared, the move she wanted. “This is better.”
“Don’t you dare kiss me.”
“Then you kiss me, Carrie.”
“I knew I should’ve stayed home.”
“No Carrie.” He moved closer to her. “I think... you’ve finally...come home...”
He touched her mouth gently, achingly, with his own. “Say yes, Carrie.”
“I don’t,” she responded reluctantly, pulling back slowly from the pressu
re of his too-seductive lips, “want to...”
“Yes, you do.” He settled his mouth on hers again. He didn’t probe, he didn’t seek, he didn’t push. He was just there, feeling the texture of her lips, tasting them, nipping them lightly. “It’s only a kiss...”
Only.
“You keep saying that,” she murmured as he took her lips again, forcefully this time, sinking himself into the deepest recesses of her mouth before she could protest.
Don’t keep saying that...
Oh, but keep doing that...and that—
And that—as he took her into the heat and the storm of his mouth.
His long strong fingers dug into her thick hair to position her at just the angle he needed to plunder her.
His hands were so strong, his mouth so insistent. She wanted to run, she wanted to stay, and he had always evoked that feeling in her because the trap was those kisses, those hands, that body, and all the possibilities that existed for heartbreak.
Or love.
But love had nothing to do with it
Or this. This was...just a kiss. Only a kiss. A neverending kiss going deeper and darker and searing her soul.
“Truck...” She could barely breathe, barely speak, and his lips hovered a scant breath above hers, waiting, waiting... Had he always been waiting?
“Carrie,” he murmured in the same tone. He knew what was coming: the warrior princess in ambivalent mode. She wanted him, didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And anyway...he’d heard the whole story fifteen years before. And he’d bought it, and stupidly, he’d let her get away.
Not this time. He was so much more patient now.
“This is not just a kiss,” Carrie said huskily.
“What is it then?”
“I’m not going to let you do this, Truck.”
“What am I doing?”
“Trading on memories, damn you.”
“I don’t remember anything like this, actually,” he murmured.
“You don’t remember making out in a car?”
“Is that what we’re talking about? Wasn’t it the back of the truck? And anyway,” he added, usurping her line, “what’s that got to do with this...?”
Truck then slowly angled his mouth on hers again and shifted his weight purposefully against her body. No matter what she said, she wanted those kisses.