“Hello, Mom.”
“Do you try to hurt me, Jacob?” She sniffled, hiccupped, and sighed.
Oh Lord. The poor me act. “What did I do now?”
“Well, I don’t recall getting an invitation to your wedding. I’ve never even met the girl. That hurts, Jakey. I had to see it on your grandmother’s IG page.” He grimaced, hating when she used some sort of endearment to enhance his wrongdoing. He’d had many opportunities to stoke that feeling as it resulted from any call with his mother. He also hated when she shortened the names of perfectly normal things like social media pages to initials in an attempt to sound younger and more hip than she actually was. Telling her would only extend the conversation and start a fight he didn’t care enough to work into his day.
Jacob sighed as the cameraman moved to adjust the recorder attached to his cell phone. “I invited you to my graduation from high school. I got a card. I invited to my graduation from Medical School. Another card. Just run to the store, lick a stamp and send it off.” It sounded almost equally as harsh as he meant it.
“I was busy, Jacob. And you know my relationship with my mother is difficult.”
Excuses. Excuses. “I feel your pain.” His mother didn’t recognize sarcasm, but it made Jacob feel better.
“Thank you, darling.” He could hear her plastic smile. “Now, when do I get to meet this lovely young lady? Can you manage a trip to New York? I would love to take you to see a show and out for dinner. I can book you a room. Name the place.”
Jacob shook his head. “I’ll have to see if we can work it into our schedules.”
“You’ll let me know?”
He shook his head. “Sure.”
“Fabulous. Well, my dinner has arrived. Ciao, darling.”
Jacob didn’t bother speaking. She wouldn’t have heard it anyway and hung up. He turned away as Nat walked into the kitchen. “Your mom, huh?” He nodded. “Tough call?” She squeezed his biceps, leaned her head between his shoulder blades.
“She’s put out because she wasn’t invited to our wedding.”
Nat’s hand fell away, and she stepped back. “You didn’t invite her?”
He sighed again then turned to look at her, maybe plead with her to let this go. His mother was the only subject he didn’t want to talk about with her. He would give her anything but this. “It’s complicated.”
“How? She gave you life, and you couldn’t give her the courtesy of a piece of paper inviting her to your wedding?” She shook her head. “No wonder she’s upset.” She had that hands-on-her-hips glare that he’d seen only once before—after her tea with his grandmother.
“Your mom wasn’t there either, now was she?” His voice was low, but he didn’t bother blocking the anger. He needed to get it out, needed her to understand that not every part of his life was open for discussion. “This is none of your business.”
“My mom was at least invited.” She hissed the words before softening to a whisper. “She just got too drunk to come.” Nat turned on her heel and stomped out. So much for christening the new bed.
The cameraman, Matt, took his eye off the lens. “You should go get her. Apologize.”
“Because you need the video roll of the groveling husband?” He’d been paying attention to the jargon.
“No, dude, because she’s upset. Probably thinks you’re ashamed of her. And you know…the new bed.”
Shit. Christening aside, how could the Matt, some surfer dude with stringy blonde dreadlocks, who watched life go by from behind the lens of a camera, know more about his relationship with Nat than he did? Still, Matt was right. He had to apologize. Jacob nodded and walked slowly into the living room where Nat sat on the new sofa staring at a TV that was turned off.
He sat next to her, and she angled her shoulders away, toward the window. “My mom left me, okay? When she and my dad split up, she left me alone in an apartment in New York. I was only ten. If my grandmother hadn’t called to bitch about Mom draining my trust fund, I don’t know what would have happened. But she left me, then she ignored me for the entire rest of my life.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, reached out to hold her hand, which she pulled away. “It’s not you I’m ashamed of. It’s her.”
“Maybe she thought--”
He shook his head. “Please, Nat. Don’t.” He’d given his mother every benefit of every doubt, waited every Christmas for more than a box to show up with her name on it, felt the pain of every forgotten birthday.
Nat turned to face him. “When I was seven, my mom dropped me off at the babysitter then forgot where she left me.” She tilted her head. He didn’t want her pity. Anything but that. He’d had Lucia. She’d made certain he felt loved, protected. Nat’s pity now would cheapen that. He looked closer, inspected her eyes as though he had the right to try to look inside her. He didn’t see pity. He saw pain and maybe a hint of compassion. “I don’t make excuses for her anymore either. She just is who she is. And she’s still my mom. I mean all she ever really taught me was how to drink and how to get a guy to bring me home, but she’s my mom.”
He pulled her against his chest. “We’re quite a pair, huh?” He kissed the top of her head, inhaled the sweet scent of strawberries. And maybe his body stirred. Just a little.
But when she looked up, dry eyed, and licked her lips, he forgot everything but her, her hands on his shoulders, her legs straddling his, the low moan as she finally…finally pressed her lips against his.
Nat checked the mirror, tied the sheer white robe over the almost transparent bra. Even with two layers, the fabric barely hid anything. Resist this, Doc. After their make-out session on the couch, she’d escaped for a quick shower, a blow dry, and a few minutes alone with her curling iron. She wanted to be beautiful for this, make it a night they both deserved.
She fluffed a curl, hoped they didn’t last long, and opened the door. Jacob had the phone to his ear. “Black spots?” Nat moved closer, waited for him to notice her. “Mrs. Carlin…okay, Jane. Are you sure your pulse is racing?” He licked his lips and dropped the phone. “Mine, too.” He picked it up and added an “uh-huh” as though he’d been listening the whole time. When she took his ear lobe between her teeth, he sighed. “Oh God.” He covered with a cough. “No. No. Not you. Of course it doesn’t mean you’re having a stroke.” She moved to his throat, felt the pulse point with her tongue. Oh yeah. She had him right where she wanted him. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”
The hell he would. She trailed her lips down to his collarbone and nipped lightly then soothed it with her tongue. But when he pulled back, she knew. She just knew.
As soon as he was dressed—and there was even something sexy about the way he pulled a T-shirt over his head— he leaned down and kissed her. Kissed her like he was off to war and didn’t know if they’d ever be together again. Kissed her like with a little coaxing she might be able to convince him to stay. So she tried. “Can’t you just tell them to make appointments for tomorrow?” He was leaned at an angle that made it hard to slip her hands under his shirt, so she went for his waist instead. Before she had the belt slipped from the buckle, he moved back a step.
“The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back.”
“Okay, but I’ll tell you what. One way or another there is going to be some moaning in this bed tonight. You can be a part of it or you can…not. It’s up to you.” Nat had been around the block a time or two…or ten…but she’d married Jacob, and she wanted the full wife experience. And she wanted it right now. She opened the front of the robe. “Do you want to be a part of it?”
He didn’t have to answer for her to know, but what he quite obviously wanted didn’t stop him from walking out of the bedroom—after a few more kisses and a couple token promises—and out the front door either. Dammit.
She flopped backwards on the bed. If she had a single friend, she would call and whine about her plight. But wasn’t that what sisters were for? She picked up her cell and dialed Karen.
“Nattie? W
hat’s wrong?” The tone, the panic, could have been due to the fact that it was after midnight or that Nat never called unless her ass was on fire and she needed Karen to grab an extinguisher. “Is it Mom?”
“No. I just…”
“Do you need me to pick you up?” There it was, the rustle of sheets, the sister she could always count on hopping out of bed without asking for nary a detail.
But tonight, Nat wasn’t in the mood for being reminded of her former lifestyle. The old Nat never had a problem getting a guy naked. No one walked out on the old Nat. “You’re making me sorry I called.” Why had she called. Oh yes, to whine. About her lack of love life.
“If you’re calling to brag…”
“I’m not. Trust me. I have nothing to brag about.” As though she needed to clarify, she added, “Not so much as an almost brag.” She could have lived without her sister laughing on the other end, but after all these years of sharing almost every conquest Nat’d had no matter what ridiculous hour she’d gotten home, Nat supposed Karen deserved a couple of chuckles. “You about done?”
“One more.” This time the laugh was fake, and Nat scowled at the phone. “Okay. So what’s the problem. Is he gay?”
“I don’t think so.” Although…no, not a shred of evidence existed to prove that theory. “No. Not gay.”
“Aw, poor Nattie finally found a guy whose pants she couldn’t charm off.”
“Forget I called. Go back to bed.”
She was already staring at the end button when Karen shouted out to her. “Wait. I’m just teasing.” She coughed away what Nat was sure had to be another chuckle. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“House calls. Opportunity. We only have a five-hour window without the cameras in our faces.” It had only been one night, but she’d been waiting what felt like months for him to want her. Okay, it had only been days, but still.
“Put his phone on silent.”
“What if there’s an emergency? He’s a doctor.” Besides, he never put the damned thing down.
Karen clucked her tongue and Nat could see almost see her sister’s green eyes rolling back. “Yeah, rub that in some more. You already got to skip the whole bad date world, then you get paid to marry a guy who’s not only a doctor but could be one of those TV show doctors.” They’d been this way since the time Nat had learned to toddle. Playful but with a hint of truth behind the jealousy. Not that Karen had done badly for herself. She’d married Brett right out of high school, and they had a business, a life a couple hours from Rangers End and its busybody townsfolk. “So you aren’t getting laid. Nat, did you ever think that maybe that’s a good thing? What if one or both of you doesn’t like it? Or one…or both of you gets too attached and then you’re splitting up at the end of a year? Sex complicates everything.”
“Not for me.” She’d had plenty of sex without complications. Without becoming attached.
“This isn’t some guy you picked up in a bar. I don’t know how many different ways I can say this. You have to live with him…for. A. Year. And for someone with your track record and dating history, a year is about eleven months and twenty-nine days past your one-night-only relationship rules.”
“You make me sound cheap.” It was more of a shoe-fits kind of guilt she felt, but she sighed loud and long into the phone.
“Well, I can sugar coat it for you if you want, I just don’t see the point in dressing it up with bows and sparkles when it’s still gonna smell like manure. The truth is the truth.” Nat would have ended the call if she didn’t desperately need the help. Besides, Karen couldn’t really help that the facts painted Nat in an unflattering light. “Look, now that you know he takes his responsibility more seriously than a game of train station, if you want to make his horn blow, you’re going to have to get creative. That’s all I’m saying.” Nat huffed again. “Oh, stop it. Just do the tequila thing you did with Paxton.”
A little lime, some salt and Jacob’s naked skin. This was an idea she could get into. But…”How do you know about the tequila thing?”
“He’s Brett’s brother. And it was my wedding night. And he called to tell Brett.” She spoke in halting sentences as if she hadn’t appreciated being on the receiving end of a play by play account of Nat’s naughty escapades.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, he called us in Mexico to share all the dirty details. I forgot to thank you for that by the way. Every time I even see an empty bottle of Jose Cuervo anymore an image of you with your tongue all over my brother-in-law pops into my mind.”
“I couldn’t afford Cuervo. It was some generic stuff.” Not that it mattered. The result had been the same.
“I think you might be focusing on the wrong thing, Nat.” Karen might have been griping about it, but she chuckled. “Pax talked about it for weeks. Literally.”
How had she forgotten that night? Probably too much cheap tequila. She grinned. Much better to have a plan. “Thanks, Kar. I’ll call you back tomorrow.” She paused. “To brag.”
Quick trip, he’d told her. Hold that thought, he’d begged. But some four hours later, after holding impromptu office hours in Jane Carlin’s living room where he saw Jane who’d only needed to clean her glasses to get rid of the spots she’d assumed was sudden onset stroke; Helen Caron for poison ivy—the result of a rendezvous in the wood with John Shipley, and most definitely not itchy skin cancer; and Eloise Tafferty for a black spot on her gums that turned out to be a green spot and was nothing more than yesterday’s lettuce stuck in her dentures; he was finally on his way home.
Though it was after four in the morning, he didn’t care about poison ivy, dirty reading glasses or unresolved roughage, there was a bounce in his walk as he thought about Natasha at home waiting for him…in that lingerie. God, please let her still be waiting.
He tiptoed inside, walked straight to the bedroom and found her in a tank top and flannel pajama pants curled up on top of the blanket. Isn’t that just perfect?
* * *
He slept until the alarm blasted and he smelled coffee. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, not caring one damned bit about his hair or the camera man chatting over coffee with Nat like they were old friends. Hell, for all he knew about either one of them, they were. He walked into the kitchen. “Sorry about last night.” Really sorry. More than he had words to express sorry.
“It’s okay. I watched some por—uh, a movie and went to sleep.” She leaned in to whisper, “I told you…with or without you.”
He was awake now. “Really?”
She shook her head and smiled. “No. Just went to sleep.” Humor seemed to come so naturally to her, he was almost jealous. Even the guy who’d been “stuck”—his word—following them around the last week had a grin on his face. “Was everything okay with Mrs. Caron?”
“Yeah.” He nodded and sipped from the cup she handed him. “She said to tell you hello.”
Nat didn’t answer, simply turned and started washing dishes. “Do you have to work today?”
“Yeah. I have appointments all day.” But he’d rather spend time with Nat. “Don’t forget tonight we have ballroom dancing lessons.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I knew I should have read that whole damned contract.”
He sat his coffee on the table and slipped his arms around her waist, pressed his chest against her back. “It won’t be so bad. Might even be fun.”
* * *
JANE CARLIN: Dr. Jacob is just the sweetest man. He would come out in the middle of the night, never short-tempered even when we knew he wasn’t getting much sleep at home, if you know what I mean.
* * *
Famous last words. Might even be fun. And something Nat claimed was a mix-up, had them in a pole-dancing for couples class. And if that damned teacher—Marco something or other—didn’t keep his hands in PG13 land with Nat, Jacob would be quite happy to take his chances with a jury of his peers.
And not that he was complaining, but if this was Nat’s first foray into pole dancing, he�
�d eat his shoe. She gyrated, slithered, hung by her ankles and slid down. Damn. His mouth went dry. No woman should look that good hanging upside down.
She used momentum and upper body strength to twirl her body until she could plant her feet shoulder length apart. With a smile that almost made him explode right there, she crooked her finger at Jacob.
It wasn’t as if everyone in the room was staring at them…much. Or as if they were naked, although she had on a lot less clothes than he would’ve thought appropriate for ballroom dancing. The vixen.
She grinned and batted her eyelashes when she shoved him against the pole then slid her body the length of his. “Hello, doctor.”
If they weren’t in a room full of people…
She turned so her back was against his chest, ground her hips into his then bent at the waist. He gripped her hips because he needed something to hold onto rather than to support her. Oh, God. If she kept shifting against him…running her hands up his thighs…
* * *
MARCO: Natasha and Jacob were probably my best students. Once I showed Jacob some basic moves, he took to the pole like a naughty fireman. Good thing this is a cable show because that man is too hot for TV.
6
Nat dropped her chin on to Jacob’s shoulder. “You took to pole dancing pretty quickly, Dr. Jacob.” He’d been a good sport—and nothing more—for a while, but then when she’d peeled his shirt off, oiled him up a bit, he’d turned on like she’d flipped a switch.
He turned his head, pressed a kiss on her nose. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
He’d been a quick study, and by the end of their first lesson—not that they went back—he’d been a hip grinding machine. And her plan had backfired. When they’d left, she was sure he would take her straight to their bedroom, but duty called, yet again, and she ended up cuddling his pillow and wishing.
The Wedding Plan Page 5