by Thea Devine
The vendor handed her the bag with her bowl. Carrie shoved the books and jeans on top of it, frantically searching for something to say.
“I came with Jeannie,” she blurted out after a long silence.
Truck’s eyes darkened, but he couldn’t think of a comeback that wouldn’t cause the three old ladies beside them to have a heart attack. Carrie looked good enough to eat, and that formfitting top and jeans she wore only fired up his imagination all over again, but all he said was, “Yeah, what is with Jeannie? She’s wearing skirts these days. And makeup. I don’t know how radical that is, but she looks a damn sight prettier and sexier.”
“She does, doesn’t she? Think Eddie cares?”
Truck hesitated a minute. Everyone knew Eddie didn’t care. “No,” he said finally.
“Think Tom does?” Carrie asked, motioning toward where Jeannie stood talking to him. Tom looked as if he was positively hanging on Jeannie’s every word. And she was doing that intense eye contact, and listening. All the things that came under the banner of the tricks of the sexy lady—tricks that might lose her husband.
“Yeah, I do. But that’s Jeannie’s problem.”
Maybe not. Maybe it’s mine, because I let it go too far...
Truck touched her arm, startling her. “I have to go get Old Man.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t. She wanted him to stay. No, to take her home and do all the things with her he had done last night. She watched him stride away, a man with purpose who loved his father and was content with his life.
Everyone knew him and called out greetings, and he stopped to talk to one or the other of them as he made his way from the field to his car. He could have seen them all yesterday, Carrie thought, and he was just as happy to see them today.
“Oh, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Trucker,” Jeannie said, coming up beside her. “Everything okay? Old Man?”
“He was just going to pick him up from somewhere. What about you?” Carrie asked quickly, not wanting to talk about Truck with Jeannie.
“Oh, I have a load of stuff—Tom’s watching it for me. C’mon, he’ll help us load up. What’d you come up with?”
“Books, a bowl, some jeans.”
“Hey,” Jeannie said with a grin, “some haul for someone who wasn’t in a buying mood.”
“It’s fun,” Carrie said. “I wouldn’t mind coming again.”
They got everything back to the car in due course, stopping along the way so Jeannie could chat with friends. She looked so happy, so confident that Carrie was just a little scared.
Uplift didn’t work in quite that way, quite that fast, she didn’t think. But certainly Tom was aware of it, of Jeannie’s body and her smile, her thick hair shining in the sun, and her focus on him.
“You really got those sexy-lady lessons down,” Carrie commented as they drove home.
“They work,” Jeannie said. “Maybe not on everyone. But they work.”
Carrie hesitated. She wanted to say something, she wasn’t sure she should. Finally, she murmured, “Be careful. You might be playing with fire.”
“Well, guess what, Carrie,” Jeannie said, and there was no acrimony in her tone. “Maybe it’s nice to feel hot for a change.”
Carrie’s heart sank. If something happened between Jeannie and Eddie, if they separated, or Jeannie left him, she would know the reason why...and Carrie would be the one responsible.
THE HOUSE WAS STARTING to look habitable. Now that things had aired out, and she’d replaced some of the sheets and towels and bought new blankets, pillows and a wonderful old bowl, the house seemed warmer, more inviting, but so very quiet...and lonely.
People visited family on Sunday and went out to dinner with friends. She remembered that from before; she and her mother had no family, and all her mother’s friends had other obligations, so they’d usually spent Sundays together, making dinner, listening to music.
Sundays had been particularly hard on her mother. Her mother had been too lonely too long, Sundays had always brought it home.
Carrie placed the bowl on the coffee table, and the stack of paperbacks beside it. She could read tonight or listen to the radio. She didn’t miss having a TV, and that shocked her a little. Instead she was spending the time on-line, searching job banks and networking across the country. Not that it had yielded anything yet Still, she’d only been out of circulation a little more than two weeks.
Two weeks! Only two weeks, and already her life had been turned inside out all over again.
She could not let her desire for Truck get in the way of anything else.
Easier said, she thought, curling up on the couch. It wasn’t as if there were some on-off switch. It was more like she was stuck on permanent burn.
And then last night—oh, last night...
...Is this what you want? And this...?
She felt herself heating up. This...
She jumped up from the couch. She had to stop thinking about him. She needed a cold shower...and a hot man—
She drew in a sharp breath. Lord, Truck had her coming and going.
Enough of that...
...Did you think I got enough of you...?
Did she ever think that her feelings for him were just lying dormant and that they would blaze up into this allconsuming conflagration?
No. No. That was the trap. That was the bait. You got so sexually entangled with a man that you got tied up in marriage and motherhood, and so constricted and constrained that there was no room for anything else.
And then fifteen years later, you woke up, like Jeannie, and discovered you weren’t living the life you thought you were.
Dear God, how must Jeannie have felt when Carrie had come back to town, fresh off of a glamorous life in New York?
Suddenly Carrie felt a burst of frustration like she’d done nothing right since she came back to town. And for someone who didn’t want to stay, she was getting awfully involved with Jeannie and Truck. Well, that would end soon. Something would turn up. And what was happening with Truck was just a side issue. There was no question. Career came first. But still...after yesterday, didn’t she feel sometimes, truly, she would give it all up...for Truck?
She groaned. Maybe, in her deepest heart, she was trying to find a way to have everything she wanted, even though she knew it wasn’t possible.
And anyway, love didn’t last. Look at Jeannie and Eddie. But a career went on forever. It was just a matter of footwork and timing. And perseverence.
The call would come and she knew she wouldn’t hesitate. Career came first She would be out of here...soon.
THERE WAS ONLY one way to handle Carrie, Truck decided, and that was to give her what she wanted—with a catch. And especially since she was so dead set on thinking that her stay in Paradise was only temporary. Some things weren’t temporary, like his fierce desire for Carrie every time he thought about her, every time he saw her.
This afternoon had been rough. There’d been too many people around and he’d wound up making banal conversation while he’d been feeling as primitive as a caveman and out of control.
“So, did you ask Carrie to dinner?” Old Man asked him when Truck had got him back home.
“Carrie isn’t doing dinner with the locals,” he answered.
Old Man cocked his head. “Is that so?”
“That is most definitely so,” he said, lightening his tone.
“That’s too bad.” There was a long pause. “Have you ever asked her?”
Longer pause. “Kind of,” Truck said finally.
Short pause. “I see,” Old Man said.
The problem was, his father saw too much, Truck thought. His father probably knew just how Truck felt about Carrie. And exactly what he meant by kind of. Nothing got by Old Man.
Truck sat on the porch and waited for Old Man to fall asleep. He then wheeled his father into his bedroom, gently lifted him out of the wheelchair and put him to bed. Afterward he went back outside and waited some more. He had learned the value
of patience and anticipation. He reined in his imagination. There was plenty of time for that later. For now, he had to take control. Carrie was not going to be allowed to deny what was going on between them.
It had gone too far for that anyway.
Carrie was working intently on her computer when late that night he let himself into her house. Lights were blazing everywhere, and he turned them down as he entered the kitchen, went through the living room and paused at the door to the den.
She still wasn’t aware of him. He watched her for a moment, his whole body tensing. He flicked off the overhead light so that only the muted glow of the desk lamp lit the room.
She jumped and pushed backward on her desk chair. “Who’s there?”
“Just me.”
She ran her tongue over her lips; the movement arrested him. “It’s after midnight.”
“I know.” He pushed her chair back to the desk and the flickering screen.
“What are you doing here?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and he felt the shuddering excitement building in her. She understood why he was here, he would not have to play games.
He slipped his hands downward to the swell of her breasts and cupped them. All her secrets right here in this one motion of his hands sliding under and around the curve of her breasts, his fingers swirling over and around them, but never touching her nipples.
“You know what I’m doing here.” He could feel her body caving right under his hands. “I’m your phantom lover, Carrie. I come in the night to lie with you, so you never have to be seen with me, you never have to talk to me, you never have to make a commitment to me.”
He deliberately intensified the swirling motion, coming closer and closer to her hard-peaked nipples. “Is that how you want it, Carrie? In the dark, deep of the night, when prying eyes can’t see?”
She arched her breasts into his hands. Her whole body went weak with a swooning excitement. He could do anything with her he wanted. She felt like clay, soft, pliant, rich.
“I want you,” she whispered, in thrall to his long fingers stroking her breasts.
Truck cupped her breasts again and urged her out of her chair. “Make yourself ready for me.” No niceties here, but she didn’t need that, only the insistent caress of his fingers all over her breasts, and permission to give in to her burning need. “Over the desk.”
He would show her that he was more than a memory, more than a phantom lover that came to her at night, and then, only then would Carrie keep him with her forever.
It was just the right height, and her bottom was canted at exactly the right angle. He kneaded the cushiony curves of her buttocks as he ripped off his jeans. She wanted this as much as he.
Her shuddering breaths aroused him still more. Slowly he pushed himself into her, letting her feel his power, his heat
Carrie could feel only the length and thickness of him, and his huge wicked hands holding her body immobile to receive him. She shimmied against his hips in flagrant anticipation, and he whispered in a husky tone, “Not yet. Don’t move. I want more of you.”
How much more? She caught her breath. That much more. She groaned, she threw her head back, moaned loudly as she felt him wholly rooted in her.
Silence. Heat. Swelling tension. Explosive need. Not a movement, not a word. Everything understood by their hot voluptuous joining.
And he waited. He understood so well the virtue of anticipation, of letting her experience the hard thick whole of his maleness inside her, and nurturing her appetite for it. It was enough for now that she wanted him right this minute in the worst way.
And that was how he intended to keep her aroused and hungry and primed for him. It was almost time...he felt it, he heard it in the soft sounds she made at the back of her throat. He grasped her hips, he shifted his stance, and he poised himself for the wild drive to completion. He heard her keening cry as he initiated a short rhythmic thrust that removed him from the depths of her. Again he slowed himself, pulling out and pushing in tirelessly, rhythmically, until she melted around him, begging him for more.
Then he took her, giving in to his volcanic craving for her.
Silence again. There were no words. Carrie lay sprawled across the desk, utterly spent and weak.
She thought he had left her to go to the kitchen. Or maybe he was sitting on the porch. But when she finally dressed herself, shut down the computer and went to look for him, he was nowhere in the house, and she felt a little lost.
...Did you think I got nearly enough of you...?
Her phantom lover...
A smile played around her lips. He sure was playing it to the hilt.
And here was the good part, she thought. For as long as she remained in Paradise, she could have him and her freedom too.
CARRIE WAS JUST NOT USED to not working. There was something about having a daily routine that made it easier to get things done, and after these initial two weeks, she was feeling a little discomfitted.
Not that she didn’t have things to do. Today there was laundry, for one thing, and she needed to check the postoffice box she’d rented. She had some proposals and drawings she needed scanned at the local office-supply store. She needed groceries. And a couple of things at the discount store.
It was just not the kind of thing she was used to doing.
She still hadn’t come to terms with it—the fact she wasn’t racing out the door every morning to go to work or to meet some deadline.
And then, she was worried about Jeannie. And what to do about Truck.
But maybe she didn’t need to do anything about Truck. He was doing it all himself, and she couldn’t argue with the consequences. A phantom lover...her phantom lover. Her body twinged at just the thought of it. She dressed in anticipation of it, though. She didn’t expect to run into him at the post office.
“Hey, Carrie.” Neutral tone. Nothing in his expression. Lethal looks today, long and lean in black, his hair uncombed, his expression uncomfortably indifferent.
“Truck.” What did she expect? “Come here often?”
“Bills are going out today. What about you?”
Had he really been her phantom lover last night? “I’m just getting my mail. I rented a box.”
Was she looking a little uneasy that he didn’t acknowledge their explosive coupling last night? Good, he thought. And this was just the first step. “I won’t keep you then,” he said.
Keep me...! Carrie couldn’t believe how noncommittal he was. “See you.” She turned to the bank of rental boxes and never saw his glimmering smile. Only saw the handful of letters that meant she had been considered and rejected yet again.
Ah well...
She stopped at Bob Verity’s store to pick up her papers which she now had on reserve.
“So how’s Truck coming with your house?” Bob asked.
“I can flush the toilet and take a shower. That’s about all I need right now,” Carrie said, her tone terse. She had to watch that. Bob lived on the other side of the pond. She wondered if he’d seen her and Truck on the roof all those days ago.
Damn it, damn it. No one could’ve seen anything through those trees unless they were flying low at five hundred feet.
Well, she couldn’t undo that, not now. She had to act natural, normal, and just slough it off.
Next she was on to the bank to make a withdrawal and chat with Jeannie. She looked phenomenal today, dressed in one of her old suits, but with the added dash of a new bodysuit, the look-at-me jewelry, the makeup.
“Well, don’t you look terrific,” Carrie complimented her.
“Don’t you.” Jeannie smiled. “There’s something about you and those gold colors. Kind of primitive and dangerous. You feeling like that today, oh mighty huntress?”
“I’m feeling more like roadkill,” Carrie said ruefully. “I got some more don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you letters. So it’s back to the drawing board.”
“Well, then, you work hard all week and you’ll have
the Bean-Hole Bean Festival to look forward to this weekend.”
“Sure,” Carrie murmured distractedly, counting the thin stack of bills Jeannie had handed her.
“I’ll call for you Saturday morning.”
“Same time, same place?” Carrie asked.
“Something like that,” Jeannie said, so offhandedly that Carrie pricked up.
“See you then,” she said, wondering if Jeannie weren’t using her somehow—as cover? To see Tom in a public place? Oh, Jeannie...
The office-supply store was next on her list, and then it was over to the discount store for some brooms and vacuum-cleaner bags. After she shopped and put everything away, she didn’t feel like doing anything much more than sitting on the porch.
It was time for a reality check. She had to seriously consider trying to find a job in Portland. Portland was about forty minutes down the turnpike in good weather. But she’d have to get a car, and maybe a snowplow. She’d have to get the house rewired and winterized, buy sheepskin boots, down coats and comforters, and lay in wood...
But she’d have Truck, she thought. If she decided not to go, if she found work, for as long as she wanted him, she would have Truck. And that was almost enough to make her stay.
8
OF COURSE that was assuming her phantom lover still wanted her. As the week went on, Carrie wasn’t so sure. And it wasn’t a situation where she could call Truck and ask him outright. But the not knowing was horrible, and the anticipation unbearable. She wondered what it was doing to him. Probably nothing, if he could look her in the eye and act so casually.
Men...
The nights were the worst, when she restlessly tossed and turned, listening for his footsteps, craving his touch.
This could get very out of hand.
I won’t let it.
I have better things to do than pine for him.
Having made that resolution, Carrie began looking around town with new eyes, determined that since she might be staying in Paradise, she’d better start making the best of it. If there wasn’t a job out there for her, then maybe it was time to create one for herself.