by Viragh, Brea
I drove to the hotel and parked next to one of the lamp posts. For a moment I just breathed. In and out. Sparing a look in the mirror, I took in my reflection. Yes, some may consider me the quintessential town tramp and marriage wrecker, though I was guilty of neither. There was too much of Deborah in me to completely disregard the talk. The beauty who did as much harm as good.
I would not let Mama win, wherever she was. The best way out was to choose the exact opposite of what she would have done.
The afternoon sun hung low in the sky and I walked across the lot, remembering the room number and praying Duncan and Isabel were back from their outing.
My hand poised to knock, I heard footsteps coming up the stairway.
“Hi, Leda. It’s wonderful to see you. What are you doing here?”
I almost choked on the fake cheer. Oh yes, this was one woman who would have rather swallowed glass than spend even a second in my presence. And I thought I’d made such a good impression.
Not.
Whirling around, I plastered a grin on my face and hoped for the best. “Isabel! Great, you’re here. So wonderful to see you again as well!”
She and I both knew I was putting on a show, considering the last time we’d run into each other. To her, I was the bitch spending time with her fiancé. To me, she was Helen of Troy to my best friend’s Paris, and I was the Trojan Horse.
Isabel did the same, tolerating me because it was the polite thing to do, and I stayed because I doubted she had the strength to throw me over the hotel railing.
After making her way to the top of the stairs, she and I leaned in for a hug, full of charm and good old-fashioned manners. Our shoulders grazed but little else touched.
I willed my fingers to unclench from the top of the basket, holding the goodies out for her inspection.
“I brought these by for Duncan. And you too, of course.” I covered the mistake by the merest skin of my teeth. Caught up in my emotional state, I had difficulty remembering the task at hand.
Glancing down at the basket, I continued, “A little thank-you present for helping me so much over the past few weeks. I appreciate the hard work he’s done.”
Isabel straightened and I caught a flash of red-hot fury at the mention of Duncan and his help. I wondered, in a brief instant, if August was really making headway in his quest to capture her heart. From the looks of her reaction he may have been lying to me.
“What do we have here?” she asked.
“Cupcakes. A new flavor I’ve been working on, with spinach from my garden.”
“I’ve heard a lot about these cupcakes of yours.” Her voice was impassive, skin paling as she looked down at the frosting it had taken me an hour to craft. Needing the color to be correct. “I’m sure they’ll be delicious.”
Yes, woman, they will be, I wanted to say. I’ve heard you cook for a living and should appreciate the craft I put into these babies. All the declarations of apology I wanted to say, and nothing I knew she’d want to hear. She wouldn’t understand why I’d done what I had.
“I try my best. It’s a start-up business for now, but baking is my passion. Here you are.” Shifting from foot to foot, I handed the basket to Isabel, unwilling to release my hold until I knew she had it in hand. At this point in our relationship, I could almost see her letting it drop and watching the fruits of my labor splatter on unforgiving cement. “Is Duncan coming up soon?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Isabel’s face dropped and she glared at me, the force terrible until she clicked a cheery expression into place. “He pulled out a moment ago to run some errands, but he’ll be back in a bit,” she said with forced pleasantness. A bitter façade over an annoyed inside. “I’m happy to accept these for the both of us.”
“Oh, yes!” I shook my head, willing my nerves to still. To strengthen. My father didn’t raise a woman who would be cowed by a single word or nasty look. “Of course!”
Lifting my gaze, I locked eyes with Isabel. She was adorable, I thought. With the right makeup and an hour in my salon chair, I could turn her from girl-next-door into a knockout harkening back to pin-up times. She had the potential, and part of me ached to help her realize the stunner she could be. A stunner and a friend.
I straightened as well, knowing I’d overstayed my welcome if only by a few minutes. Isabel would have been happier to have never seen me in the first place.
“I’m sure I’ve taken up enough of your precious time. Tell Duncan I asked after him.” Watching my step to avoid the tripping hazard, I waved goodbye to Isabel.
“You take care now,” she called after me. “And thanks again.”
I wish I’d gone with sneakers instead of heels. It would have made the exit simpler. Instead of trying to look put-together, it took all my core strength to make it down the steps, those precarious slopes, without holding onto the handrail.
The car interior blasted me with desert-level heat when I slid behind the wheel again. “What a great experience,” I told my rearview mirror. “Great enough she took a few years off of my life with her blistering glare.”
Reversing out of the hotel parking lot, I made my way home with minimal traffic interference.
Getting into trouble, one of the many acts at which I’d always excelled. Even when I had the best intentions in mind. Dammit, I should have left well enough alone. Told August to shove his favor when I first had the chance. How much simpler my life would have been if I’d told him no and walked away before becoming invested.
How much more empty without knowing love. Now it was up to me to make sure no one else got screwed on my watch. I could deal with the broken heart and the pain of loving and losing Duncan. Yes, I could deal.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up the slight slope of my driveway and stopped, stunned, at the little car tucked beneath the silver maple. Already my heart caught on, beginning the opening steps to the samba. What the hell was he doing here? The person I least—and most—wanted to see.
I willed my heart to slow down, knowing it did no good. Inner romantic took hold of each vein, ventricle, and artery, pushing the beats to pound against my pulse points until I heard nothing else. It became show-time once more.
I parked next to the garage before flinging the key to the off position. He saw me sitting there, which meant there were no extra seconds to prepare.
“Duncan, hi.” The car door slammed shut behind me and I turned to face him. “Isabel said you were out running errands. What are you doing here?”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving furrows in its wake. “I know you don’t want to talk, but I’ve had a fucking horrible day, Leda. I’ve been halfway across the state trying to find a goddamn bakery, and then Isabel tells me she’d rather get a box of cake mix from the store and do it herself.”
I adjusted the purse strap on my shoulder and motioned him forward. “Did you tell her I offered to bake for you?” The keys were in my purse somewhere, weren’t they? After spending more time than I should have searching, I realized they were still clutched in my palm. Biting deep into the skin and leaving marks behind.
“I did. She seemed to think you were hell-bent on poisoning her. I have no clue where she gets such stupid ideas,” he said.
Oh. Well then. I’m sure she will love the cupcakes I dropped off. “Come inside and we can talk. You look like you’re about to punch through a wall,” I offered. “No sense in sending you back to the unsuspecting public yet. You may turn into a raging berserker.”
Red veins stood out against the sun-kissed tan and I watched his hands clench into fists at his sides. The key slid home and the lock turned. I was about to hold the door open for him when he beat me to the punch, pressing the wood back and allowing me entry first. His actions spoke a lot to his character. Even in the midst of a bad mood he was a gentleman.
He stood close to me, too close for my own good. I breathed him in, a sensual combination of cologne and sweat, and if I had half a mind left I would move two inches and press myself agai
nst him. Arch my back and purr.
No, wrong. Dead wrong. Think about the bakery. You can’t afford the negative exposure anymore.
I set my purse on the counter and turned to the refrigerator. Away from Duncan, before I forgot my resolve and let the organ between my legs take control. “I have a few sips of sparkling cider left from girls’ night last week,” I said over my shoulder. “Let me pour you a glass.”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
Having been to the house before, Duncan knew his way around the kitchen. He flung his arms overhead to stretch them and walked around the cramped kitchen. “We went to five different bakeries and none of them could help us. Finally, this one guy agreed to a two-level cake for the price of a five-level. Part of me wanted to throw in the towel and forget the whole fucking shebang.”
I don’t think I’d heard as many f-bombs come from his mouth in all the time I’d known him. “Why didn’t you? There are other options, I’m sure.” I grabbed the bottle of cider and a cup from the drying rack. “I mean, I may not be a professional but I won’t charge you more than the work is worth.”
“I have a picture in my head.” Duncan raised his hands to mime a square frame. “An affair to remember, I suppose. I want to give Isabel the wedding she deserves instead of the piddling ceremony she keeps pushing for. I feel like I can’t trust her to get the job done. Like she’s dragging her feet on purpose.”
“Why is she hesitating?” The bottle was cool in my hands. Sure, I didn’t have the fancy glasses this kind of drink deserved, but in a pinch, a mug would do. I poured half for him and the rest for me before handing it off. “Do you think she’s tried to get her list checked off and she just doesn’t want you to know?”
Duncan accepted the cider with a grateful smile. “She says she has too much on her plate. With the house, the wedding, and her job, I understand. I really do. But if she doesn’t want to plan, then she needs to tell me flat out and without any bells and whistles.”
“You are the one who said you wanted a big flashy affair,” I reminded him. “You said so.”
Rather than getting upset by the words, Duncan drew inward. His shoulders fell forward on a heaving exhale of resignation. “I know. Now I’m regretting even pushing for a wedding. We shouldn’t have tried to do it all at once.”
“It’s a lot to reconcile. A new place, a new job, trying to make a go of it in a hotel instead of a house.” Too much for anyone, even with shoulders the breadth of the Atlantic.
I sympathized with Isabel. Funny how I’d never realized it before. It was difficult enough to plan a wedding under perfect circumstances. I’d known plenty of young brides who went the Bridezilla route when they couldn’t keep it together. The stress of trying to make the day perfect sent even the strongest over the edge. No wonder she hated me. I was gum on the bottom of a shoe on the worst day of her life. Damn.
“She keeps going on and on about a justice of the peace and having everyone gathered on the courthouse steps.” Duncan grimaced as though the thought caused him physical pain. “I want the wedding to be better. Hell.” He gestured with a vague wave. “I want my life to be better.”
“Oh, boy.” I crossed to the man, dwarfed in his presence. Taking his face in my hands, I tugged until he could look me in the eye. “Everything is going to be okay. You need a vacation.”
Duncan chuckled. “You’re telling me, but it would be stupid to spend more money now. The house is eating away at our savings and I’m considering calling the whole thing off.”
“The renovation?”
“The wedding.”
I swallowed. “Calling it off is a big step, don’t you think? You love Isabel.” The words were a knife in my heart and I stifled a groan.
Duncan broke contact and shifted, a sleeping giant at last awake. “I love the woman, I gotta, but she’s driving me up the wall and we aren’t even married yet. I can’t sleep at night because I’m lying next to her thinking about what my life is going to become.”
“It’s stress talking. It whispers insidious tidings in your ear and makes you doubt yourself,” I warned. Why was I helping to push him away? This was part of August’s hopes from the start, wasn’t it? To get Duncan away from Isabel until she recognized her feelings for August?
“It’s a culmination of a lot of things,” he answered, “but I wasn’t raised to back out of a hard situation. You know?”
“Yeah. I understand.”
“So what do I do?” He paced across the floor, his heavy strides causing the weak joints to bounce. “Do I go through with a wedding when I’m unsure? Or take a break to figure out where we stand? God, talk about stressing my finances to the limit. Can you imagine pissing good money down the drain on a wedding I didn’t have?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say here.” I wrung my fingers together.
“Isabel and I have been fighting all the time,” Duncan admitted. “I don’t even want to go back to the room because I know, no matter what is said, one of us will turn it into an argument. I can’t blame her. I’m at fault too.”
“I’m sure you both have your good reasons.” I couldn’t bad mouth her now. Not when I saw the struggle written on Duncan’s face. This was a relationship, with two people who had been together for a sizeable chunk of time.
I wondered what Esme would say if she were in this position.
Duncan groaned. “I’ve said some mean words, I admit. And she is madder than hell about you and me spending time together.”
If the roles were reversed, I would have reservations as well. “Isabel doesn’t need to be upset. We’re friends.”
“I’ve tried to tell her. I don’t have any other friends here and you are the only person I’ve connected with!”
“She must have been sickened to hear you say it.”
“If looks could kill.” Duncan shot me a wry grin, his lips white. I wondered what he was trying to keep from saying. “She doesn’t know I’m here today.”
“You want to dig me a pretty grave, don’t you?” I teased, trying not to sound as rattled as I felt on the inside. “I’ll be on the side of a milk carton before too long.”
He stopped a foot from me, a great heaving exhale shaking his chest. “I wish it would all be simple,” he said after a minute.
I was stunned he’d managed to make any sound at all, from the tension in his face.
When I heard my own voice, it was high and tinny. “Why can’t it?” I asked.
“Because things change.” He took another step closer. “People change. And society doesn’t look kindly on those types of changes. They want to put you in boxes and keep you in a nice little slot. Figured out so no one gets hurt.”
I looked up, and up, until I met his gaze. He is not talking about this, I thought. If we talk about it, then I’ll go back on my word and forget what I’ve worked hard to accomplish. Then we won’t be standing across from one another, Duncan pale, discussing the end of a relationship.
It was a nightmare. A joke.
“What do you want, Duncan?”
“Before I answer that, I want you to promise you won’t let this cloud your opinion of me.” His words sent something through me, a swift jolt like the shock from an electric fence.
Alarm bells sounded in my head. “I don’t—” Before the words finished leaving my mouth, Duncan pressed his lips to mine.
The tingle went from a slight buzz beneath the skin to a full-blown forest fire. It lashed through bone and sinew until there was nothing but ash left in its wake.
Ash and Duncan’s kisses.
His hand skimmed over my face and I felt the shiver down to my toes. I groaned, arms lifting of their own accord to drape around his neck. Would I judge him for this? No. How could I, when I wanted it so badly? Spent long, agonizing nights telling myself no when I felt a soul-deep yes.
His fingers threaded into my hair, and I nipped at his bottom lip. I loved the way his breath caught, deepening the kiss from desperate to searing heat.<
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I knew it was wrong, God help me. A more righteous woman would have demanded he stop to protect her virtue. I never claimed to be righteous, though I made the effort. Those efforts were nothing now.
“Stop, Duncan.” The insistent echo of those warning bells clanged in my head, their alarms fading with each passing second.
Without being aware, my body pressed snug until it settled against his, and my hands found their way to his shoulders, clenching down.
“We need to stop.” Whose was speaking? It wasn’t me, breathy and needy. Was it?
“I know, this is bad.” Duncan stooped lower for a second taste. “Terrible.”
His fingers skimmed the sides of my torso, up over my shoulders and along the contours of my throat. The rough plane of his cheek rubbed against my hair in delightful contrast. How slim I felt brushing against him, bumping into all those important places. The immediate sexual pull didn’t surprise me. It was natural. What did surprise me was the lack of shame.
“We shouldn’t,” I murmured.
There was a dangerous and addictive quality to his taste. Spicy, heady, and better than I’d dared to anticipate. Moreover, I realized now the tingle had been merely a herald. The reality of Duncan was like a punch to the gut.
Instead of stopping, we dove for each other a second time, his lips rubbing until I felt the friction written on my bones. Heat ricocheted down from the contact, shooting through each limb before settling deep in my core, an echo in my heart. He stole the breath from my body and took it into his own. No matter how close we came I would always want and demand more.
Duncan deepened the kiss until I could only cling to him, quivering. I never knew it could be so good, much more than simple chemistry. This was sparks igniting through every bit of me, body and soul.
This is what fate feels like.
With his hands still in my hair, I felt invincible. My lips opened in an invitation which Duncan accepted. With head tilted, the kiss deepened. I found myself solidly pressed against him with his soft, demanding lips heating against my own.