by Nora Roberts
“Thanks.”
He was going to be sorry to lose her. Which Wade imagined he would as soon as she had a degree hot in her hand. It wasn’t going to be easy to find someone as competent, as willing, or as good with the animals, who could also type, deal with frantic pet owners, and answer the phone.
But life moved on.
He started toward the back to check on Sadie just as Faith came in the rear door.
“Dr. Mooney. Just who I was looking for.”
“I’m easy to find this time of day.”
“Well, me, I’m just passing through.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “That’s quite a dress for just passing through.”
“Oh.” She ran a finger down the soft cotton fabric of the thin-strapped, fully skirted number in bold poppy red. “Like it? I’m in a red kind of mood.” She shook her hair back, sent out seductive clouds of scent. Stepping forward, she skimmed her hands up his chest, over his shoulders. “Guess what I’ve got on under it?”
Every time, he thought, like a finger snap, just one look at her had him ready to beg. “Why don’t you give me a hint?”
“You’re such a smart man. Got that college degree and those letters after your name.” She took his hand, and covered with hers, trailed it up her thigh. “I bet you could find out right quick.”
“Jesus.” His blood took a violent panther’s leap. “You go walking around town with next to nothing on?”
“And you and me, we’re the only ones who know.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright on his, and nipped his lower lip. “Whatcha gonna do about it, Wade?”
“Come upstairs.”
“Too far.” With a throaty laugh, she nudged the door open behind him. “I want you now. And I want you fast.”
The dog slept quietly, her breathing regular. The room smelled of canine and antiseptic. The old chair where he spent many hours watching over patients was pricked with hair shed from countless dogs and cats.
“I haven’t locked up.”
“Let’s live dangerously.” She flipped open the button of his jeans, dragged down the zipper. “Why, look what I found.” She wrapped her hand around him, watched his melted chocolate eyes go blurry before he crushed his mouth on hers.
The sly excitement she’d felt when dressing, when driving into town knowing she’d go to him, seduce him, turned into something tangled and needy. Nearly painful.
“Take me someplace.” She arched back while his mouth fed on her throat. “Take me someplace hot and dark and wild. I need to go. Hurry and take me there.”
The jagged edge of her desperation knifed through his blood, leaving him raw. There was nothing tame between them when they came together like this, nothing soft, nothing sweet. When she was panting his name and her hands were on him, he forgot he wanted the soft and sweet.
All he wanted was Faith.
He tossed up the red skirts, gripped her hips. She was hot and she was wet and seemed to clamp over him like a greedy jaw when he drove himself into her.
She wrapped one leg around his waist and moaned, long and deep. He filled the empty places. It didn’t matter if it was only for the moment, if the emptiness came back. He filled them, and no one else ever had.
Harsh animal pants, the solid, rhythmic thud of body against body, bodies against wood, and the slick strong feel of him pounding into her. She let go, with a small, strangled cry in her throat as the orgasm sprang free. She always came fast and hard with Wade, such a surprise, such a lovely little shock to the system.
Then it would start again, slower, deeper, a long and gradual rip that opened something inside her to him.
And because it was him, she could cling, she could surrender to it. She could hold on and know he’d be there with her when she fell.
The phone was ringing. Or his ears were. Every breath he took was ripe with her. She moved with him, thrust for thrust, never stopping, never slowing. There were times when he could think about her sanely, and when he wondered why the two of them didn’t just devour each other until nothing was left.
She was saying his name, over and over, punctuating the word with gasps and whimpers. And he saw, just before he emptied into her, her eyes close as if in prayer.
“God.” She shuddered once, let her head rest back against the door, kept her eyes shut. “God. I feel wonderful. Like gold inside and out.” She opened her eyes, stretching lazily. “How about you?”
He knew what she expected, so resisted burying his face in her hair, murmuring words she wouldn’t believe. Words that hadn’t mattered to her years before when he’d been foolish enough to say them. “That was a lot more appetizing than the BLT I planned for lunch.”
It made her laugh and hook her arms around his neck in a manner that was as friendly as it was intimate. “There are still some parts of me you didn’t nibble on. So if—”
“Wade? Wade, honey, you upstairs?”
“Jesus.” The part of him that was still nestled cozily inside Faith shriveled. “My mother.”
“Well, isn’t this … interesting.”
Even as Faith snorted out a laugh, Wade was clamping his hand over her mouth. “Hush. Christ Jesus, this is all I need.”
Eyes dancing, Faith muttered against his hand while her body shook with laughter.
“It’s not funny.” He hissed it out, but had to struggle back a laugh of his own. He could hear his mother wandering around, cheerfully calling him in the same chirpy singsong she’d used to call him for supper when he’d been ten.
“Just be quiet,” he whispered to Faith. “And stay here. Stay right in here and don’t make a sound.”
He eased back slowly, eyes narrowed as Faith bit her lip and snickered.
“Wade, honey,” she said when he reached for the door, then she squeezed her own mouth shut with her fingers when he turned to snarl at her.
“Not a sound,” he repeated.
“Okay, but I just thought you might want to put that away.”
He glanced down, swore, and hurriedly stuffed himself back into his jeans and zipped. “Mama?” He shot Faith one last warning look, then stepped outside, firmly closing the door behind him. “I’m down here. I was just checking on a patient.”
He sprinted up the steps, grateful his mother had gone up to search him out.
“There you are, my baby. I was just going to leave you a little love note.”
Boots Mooney was a package of contradictions. She was a tall woman, but everyone thought of her as little. She had a voice like a cartoon kitten and a will of iron. She’d been the Cotton Queen her senior year of high school and had gone on to reign as Miss Georgetown County.
Her looks, wholesome, rosy, and candy pretty, had served her well. She preserved them religiously, not out of vanity but out of a spirit of obligation. Her husband was an important man, and she would never allow him to be seen with less than he deserved.
Boots enjoyed pretty things. Including herself.
She threw her arms open for Wade, as if it had been two years rather than two days since she’d seen him. When he bent toward her, she kissed both his cheeks, then quickly drew back.
“Honey, you’re flushed. Are you feverish?”
“No.” To his credit, he didn’t wince when she laid the back of her hand on his brow. “No, I’m fine. I was … in postop. It’s a little warm in there.”
Distracting her was imperative, and he knew the surefire way. “Look at you.” He took her hands, spread her arms and gave her a long, approving once-over. “Don’t you look pretty today.”
“Oh now.” She laughed, but pinked up with pleasure. “I just had my hair done, is all. You should’ve seen me before Lori got done with me. I looked like a ragpicker.”
“Impossible.”
“You’re just biased. I had a fistful of errands to do, and couldn’t go home until I’d seen my baby.” She gave his cheek a pat, then immediately turned toward the kitchen. “I bet you haven’t had lunch. I’m just going to fix you something.”
“Mama, I have a patient. Miss Dottie’s Sadie.”
“Oh dear, what’s wrong with her? Why Dottie’d just be lost without that dog.”
“Nothing’s wrong. She’s just been fixed.”
“If nothing’s wrong, what needed to be fixed?”
Wade dragged a hand through his hair while his mother poked in his refrigerator. “Fixed so she’d stop having a litter of puppies every year.”
“Oh. Wade, you don’t have enough food in this house to keep body and soul together. I’m just going to pick a few things up for you at the market.”
“Mama—”
“Don’t Mama me. You don’t eat right since you left home, and you can’t tell me different. Wish you’d come home for supper more often. I’m going to bring you over a nice tuna casserole tomorrow. That’s your favorite.”
He hated tuna casserole. Loathed it. But he’d never been able to convince her of it. “I’d appreciate that.”
“Maybe I’ll take one out to little Tory, too. I just stopped over to see her. She looks so grown-up.” Boots put three eggs on to boil. “That shop of hers is coming along so fast. I don’t know where that girl gets the energy. God knows her mother never had any I could see, and her daddy, well, it’s best not to speak if you can’t speak kind.”
Boots folded her lips and hunted up ajar of pickles. “Always had a soft spot for that child, though for one reason or another I never could get close to her. Poor little lamb. I used to wish I could just gather her up and bring her on home with me.”
Love, Wade thought, made you helpless. Wherever, however it came. He walked over, wrapped his arms around Boots, and rested his cheek on her newly lacquered hair. “I love you, Mama.”
“Why, honey, I love you, too. That’s why I’m going to make you a nice egg salad here, so I don’t have to stand around watching my only son starve to death. You’re getting too thin.”
“I haven’t lost an ounce.”
“Then you were too thin to start with.”
He had to laugh. “Why don’t you put another egg on, Mama, so there’ll be enough for both of us. I’ll just go down and see to Sadie, and I’ll come back and we’ll have lunch together.”
“That’d be nice. You take your time.”
She slid another egg into the water, and glanced over her shoulder as he went out.
Boots was well aware her son was a grown man, but he was still her baby. And a mother never stopped worrying about or looking out for her own.
Men, she thought with a sigh, were such delicate, such oblivious creatures. And women, well, certain women, could take advantage of that.
The doors of the old building weren’t as thick as her son might believe. And a woman didn’t reach the age of fifty-three without recognizing certain sounds for what they were. She had a pretty good idea just who’d been on the other side of that door with her boy. She’d reserve judgment on that matter, she told herself, as she sliced up pickles.
But she’d be watching Faith Lavelle like a hawk.
She was gone. Wade realized he should have figured she would be. She’d stuck a Post-it to the door, drawn a heart on it, and had pressed her lips to the center, leaving a sexy red kiss for him.
He peeled it off, and though he told himself he was an idiot, tucked it into a drawer for safekeeping. She’d come back when she was in the mood. And he’d let her. He’d let her until he came to despise himself, or if he was lucky, until his heart was whole and his again, and she was just an interesting diversion.
He stroked a hand over Sadie’s head, then checked her vitals, her incision, and stitches. Because she was awake now, her deep brown eyes glassy and confused, he picked her up carefully. He’d take her upstairs with him, so she wouldn’t be alone.
9
Sex made her thirsty. In a much happier frame of mind than she’d been in, Faith decided to wander up to Hanson’s and buy herself a bottle of something cold and sweet to enjoy on the way to the market.
She glanced back at the vet’s office, then up at Wade’s apartment windows. Blew him a mental kiss. She thought she might just give him a call later and see how he felt about taking a drive that evening. Maybe they could head over to Georgetown and find some pretty spot near the water.
It was nice being with Wade, comfortable on one hand, exciting on the other. He was as dependable as sunrise, always there when she needed him.
Memories of a long-ago summer when he’d spoken so easily of love and marriage, of houses and children, tried to wind through her mind, through her heart. She cast them out and set her mind on the thrill of fast, secret sex instead.
That’s what she wanted, and luckily, so did he. She’d oblige them both later. She’d borrow Cade’s convertible, then they’d take that drive toward the coast. They’d park somewhere and neck like teenagers.
She’d parked her own car several storefronts up from Wade’s office. No point in giving tongues an excuse to wag, though God knew they wagged anyway over everything and nothing. She was about to slide in when she spotted Tory walk out of her shop door, then just stand back on the sidewalk and stare.
There’s an odd duck who never did grow out of her funny feathers, Faith thought, but curiosity had her crossing the street.
“This one of your trances?”
Tory jerked, then deliberately relaxed the shoulders that had tensed. “I was just seeing how the window looks. The sign painter finished not long ago.”
“Hmm.” Faith planted a hand on her hip and took a long look herself. The black scrolled letters looked fresh and classy. “Southern Comfort. Is that what you’re selling?”
“Yes.” Because her pleasure in the moment had been dulled, Tory walked back to the door.
“You sure aren’t very friendly to a potential customer.”
Tory glanced back, eyes mild. Faith looked gorgeous, she thought. Sharp, smug, and satisfied. And she wasn’t in the mood for it. “I’m not open yet.”
Annoyed, Faith grabbed the door before it could shut in her face, and squeezed inside. “You don’t look near ready to me,” she commented, scanning the nearly empty shelves.
“Closer than it looks. I have work to do, Faith.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. You go on and do whatever.” Faith wagged a hand and, as much out of stubbornness as interest, began to wander.
The place was clean as a whistle, she had to admit. The glass sparkled on the displays Dwight’s men had built, the wood was polished to a gleam. Even the storage boxes were neatly stacked, and a large plastic bag held the Styrofoam bits used for packing. There was a laptop computer and a clipboard on the counter.
“You got enough stuff to fill all this space?”
“I will have.” Resigned to the intrusion, Tory continued to unpack stock. If she knew Faith Lavelle, her companion would shortly be bored and wander out again. “If you’re interested, I plan to open next Saturday. Selected stock will be ten percent off, that day only.”
Faith shrugged a shoulder. “I’m usually busy over the weekends.” She roamed by a waist-high counter with a glass top. Inside, on a drape of white satin, were examples of handcrafted jewelry—silver and beads and colored stones, artistically scattered, designed to catch the eye and the imagination.
Forgetting herself, she started to lift the top, found it locked, and swore under her breath. She shot a cautious look toward Tory, glad the other woman hadn’t noticed.
“You got some pretty enough baubles here.” She wanted the silver dangle earrings with the little lapis balls, and wanted them immediately. “I didn’t think you went in for baubles. Hardly ever wear any yourself.”
“I have three artists right now for baubles,” Tory added dryly. “I particularly like the brooch in the center section. The wire’s sterling, and the stones are garnet, citrine, and carnelian.”
“I see it. They’re all scattered on the wire like stars, like one of those sparklers the kids light on the Fourth of July.”
“Yes, very like that.”<
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“It’s nice enough, I suppose, but I’m not much for pins and brooches.” She bit her lip, but avarice won over pride. “I like these earrings here.”
“Come back Saturday.”
“I might be busy.” And she wanted them now. “Why don’t you sell them to me, make yourself an early sale. That’s what you’re in business for, isn’t it? To make sales.”
Tory set a pottery oil lamp on the shelf. She was careful to wipe the smile off her face before she turned. “I’m not open for business yet, but…” She started toward the display. “For old times’ sake.”
“We never had any old times.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She unhooked the keys that dangled from her belt loop. “Which one caught your eye?”
“That one. Those.” She tapped the glass. “The silver and lapis.”
“Yes, they’re lovely. They suit you.” Tory took them off the satin, held them to the light before passing them to Faith. “You can use one of the mirrors if you want to try them on. The artist lives outside of Charleston. She does beautiful work.”
As Faith walked to a trio of mirrors framed in bronze and copper, Tory slipped a long pendant out of the case. Why make one sale if you could make two? “This is one of my favorite pieces of hers. It’d go well with those.”
Trying not to be overly interested, Faith glanced down. The pendant was a thick barrel of lapis clasped in silver hands. “Unusual.” She switched her earrings for the new ones, then gave in and took the necklace. “You won’t see this walking back at you down the street.”
“No.” Tory allowed herself a smile. “I plan to offer the unique.”
“I suppose I should have both. Haven’t treated myself in ages. Seems like everything you see around Progress is the same as the other.”
Quietly, Tory closed the top of the display. “Not anymore.”
Lips pursed, Faith swiveled the chain around to look at the tag. “Some people will say you’re outpricing yourself.” She skimmed her finger down the chain as she looked back at Tory. “They’d be wrong. This is fair enough. Fact is, you could charge more if you were in Charleston.”