The Older Woman

by Cheryl Reavis

The punk was clearly in a state of disbelief—things like this didn’t happen to him. Up until now, he’d obviously had a free hand to do and say whatever he pleased to the hired help, no matter where he happened to find himself. He was trying hard to bluff it out, trying to pretend the grip on his arm didn’t hurt as much as Doyle knew it did.

  “Do you understand me!” Doyle said again.

  “Yeah,” the punk said finally. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Doyle said, letting him go. He glanced at Kate. The entire brief incident hadn’t caused any disruption in the place. People still laughed and talked. The fiddler still sawed away on his fiddle. But she was mad—at him, not the punk.

  She got the punk two more beers.

  “I can take care of myself!” she said after the college kid had taken them and gone.

  “I know that. I just happened to be closer.”

  She started to say something else, then didn’t. She went back to tending bar. He sat there and nursed his beer, totally out of sorts. What was he supposed to do? Let the guy jerk her clothes half off her in the middle of a pub?

  “I didn’t even swear,” he said under his breath.

  “Cal!”

  He looked around. Uncle Patrick was motioning for him to come sit in a nearby booth. He picked up his beer and hobbled over.

  “I appreciate what you did for Katie just now,” Uncle Patrick said as he sat down.

  “I’m glad somebody does, sir,” Doyle said.

  “Ah, well. You know our Katie is a bit touchy about having to depend on people.”

  Doyle didn’t say anything to that. Uncle Patrick stared at him across the table, clearly with something else on his mind.

  “So you would be him, then?” he said after a time.

  “Sir?”

  “The lad who has the Meehan girls all in an uproar. Of course, some of them are more in an uproar than others are,” he said, nodding in Kate’s direction. “You’re in the army, are you?”

  “Yes,

  sir.”

  “Can you stay in—in the shape you’re in?”

  “They’ll find something for me, sir, if I want it.”

  “Ah, but will you be happy at it?”

  “Don’t know, sir,” Doyle said, watching Kate at work behind the bar, a fact that didn’t escape her uncle’s notice.

  “I don’t think he’ll be bothering her again tonight,” Uncle Patrick said.

  Doyle took another swallow of beer. “I expect there’s more where he came from.”

  “You know, lad, I’ve been in an uproar about you myself.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that, sir.”

  “Say nothing at all—because I’m more at ease about you and Katie now I’ve met you. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t kick your arse if you should ever happen to need it.”

  “Understood, sir,” Doyle said, lifting his beer mug in a salute to the old man.

  “I hear you’re a bit of a musician,” Uncle Patrick said, taking Doyle by surprise.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, sir.”

  “That’s not what Katie told me. We’ll be having an open mike tonight before long. I expect to see you up there. Now, it’s back to work for me. No rest for the weary. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, lad.”

  “You, too, sir. Sir, there is one other thing.”

  “What’s that, lad?”

  “Could you watch your diet—take better care of yourself? I think the Meehan girls would appreciate it.”

  The old man laughed and walked away.

  Doyle stayed in the booth, listening to the music and still watching Kate, the very real possibility of more surgery jabbing at the edges of his mind.

  Texas.

  He didn’t even have the prospect of being a patient on her floor again. He kept wondering what else she had told her family about him. To say that he was surprised that she’d discussed him with her uncle Patrick would be a major understatement. Of course, from what he knew of the family, she had probably had no choice but to give up some information about him.

  Every now and then she looked in his direction—to see if he was staying out of trouble probably.

  A waitress came in the door. He knew that because of the short skirt. And because she may have had a couple of years on Mrs. Bee. She was met with an enthusiastic

  “Gold-dee” chant and a round of applause from the regulars—which she acknowledged with a little quickstep, then got immediately to work.

  Kate was relieved of her bartending duties, but it was a while before she came over to the booth. She took the opportunity to talk to her uncle first. Doyle thought she was making her case about his taking care of himself and not worrying the rest of them. Eventually she walked in Doyle’s direction.

  “You ready to go?” she asked him.

  “Already?”

  “If you stay, you’re going to have to sing,” she said.

  “In that case we better hop and pop. I can tell you right now I know how to clear a room.”

  She waited for him to get to his feet. She was close enough for him to put his hand on her shoulder when they walked toward the door, but he didn’t. He was trying his damnedest not to mess up here—and it wasn’t easy.

  “You still mad at me?” he asked when they were outside and walking toward the car—because he couldn’t leave well enough alone. “You might as well know I’d do it again,” he said when she didn’t answer him.

  She stopped walking and looked at him. “It’s not going to work, you know that.”

  People walked by them. He barely noticed.

  “What’s not going to work?”

  “You

  and

  me.”

  “How do you know? Stranger things have happened. Some things you don’t plan, Kate. You just go with them—and see what happens.”

  She sighed and began walking again toward where she’d parked the car.

  “Kate,” he said when she’d gone a few steps.

  She looked back at him.

  “You’re

  my—”

  He stopped because Joe College and his friends were walking by. The punk gave Doyle the go-to-hell-slash-another-day-another-time look as he passed—Doyle expected no less—but the kid didn’t say anything, probably because his friends had convinced him that he would be the better man by not taking on a gimp. But he’d learned his lesson on at least one account. He didn’t pay any attention to Kate whatsoever.

  She waited for Doyle to catch up.

  “What were you going to say?” she asked. “I’m your what?”

  “Nothing,” he said, losing his nerve.

  She stood looking at him.

  “I…wasn’t mad because you took on that kid,” she said after a moment. “I was mad because I was glad you did it.”

  “I don’t think I understand—but that’s okay.”

  “I don’t know what to do and I hate it,” she said.

  “Do about what?”

  “About

  you!”

  “How hard can it be?” he asked. “You either let me hang around or you tell me to take a hike.” He started walking again, and after a moment she followed.

  “Tell me what you were going to say,” she said when she caught up. “I’m your what?”

  “Fantasy,” he answered, this time without hesitation. “You’re my fantasy.”

  Chapter Nine

  She didn’t ask him about it until they were riding down a narrow country back road in the moonlight.

  “What is it?”

  He gave a quiet sigh of relief that she was still talking to him and looked in her direction. He didn’t want to be coy. And he didn’t want to be forthcoming, either.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” he said, opting for the pure, unadulterated truth.

  “Why

  not?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” she asked again.

  “Because I don’t wa
nt to come across like that punk in the bar—and I don’t want to end up walking back to Fayetteville.”

  She slowed the car to make a turn onto another secondary road. The moon hung directly in front of them now, making the road a silvery pathway.

  “This fantasy—does it involve…food?”

  “Food? No—” he said, wondering where in the world she got that idea.

  “Sex,

  then.”

  “That would be it.”

  “I

  see.”

  She didn’t say anything else for a long time. He shifted his position in the seat, more to keep his mind off how close she was to him than anything else. He definitely needed something to do, so he wouldn’t try to touch her. He really wanted to touch her.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “What?” he said, startled.

  “Where does this fantasy take place?”

  “I don’t know,” he said—which was the truth.

  “Okay,

  then.

  When?”

  “Don’t

  know.”

  She glanced at him. “This doesn’t sound like much of a fantasy.”

  “Guys don’t waste time on logistic assessment, Meehan. There’s no where and no when. There’s especially not a why. We only do the who and what. Most of the time just the what.”

  “Interesting. No frills. Cut to the chase.”

  “Pretty much,” he said, hoping he was off the hook now.

  “And this particular chase would involve…what?”

  He sighed. She was deliberately giving him a hard time here, and she knew it.

  “You keep this up and I’m going to tell you.”

  “Go

  ahead.”

  “I don’t want to have to walk to Fayetteville,” he said again.

  “I promise I won’t put you out.”

  “Yeah, you say that now. ”

  “Tell

  me!”

  “Okay!” he said, accepting the challenge. “We are more or less horizontal.”

  “And?”

  “And you want to.”

  “To…?”

  “To,” he assured her.

  “Well, I would, wouldn’t I?” she said. “In your fantasy.”

  “Right. You want to—and I don’t.”

  She looked at him. Even in the dark, he could read her that’ll-be-the-day expression.

  “Any particular reason for your…reluctance?”

  “I’m playing hard to get,” he said. “Don’t worry, though. You talk me into it.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “With everything you got.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t be mad if she laughed. Or so he thought. Hoped.

  She didn’t say anything else—she just chuckled to herself every now and then.

  He sighed. Whatever reaction he might have expected, mirth wasn’t it. It wasn’t even on the list.

  When she finally pulled into her driveway, he was totally ready for the moment of truth. This was it as far as he was concerned—the beginning or the end, and he was going to tell her so. She got out of the car before he could stop her, and she stood looking up at the night sky.

  He struggled to get out, and he hobbled to stand next to her. “Are you going to say anything or not?” he asked.

  “About

  what?”

  “About the situation,” he said with a good deal more patience than he felt.

  She looked at him…for a long time. He waited. This was absolutely it, and they both knew it. He could hear the faint tinkling of wind chimes, smell the lemon fragrance from the mystery plant on the patio. He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was or how much being even this close to her affected him.

  “Are you?” he asked again.

  She gave a quiet sigh and looked up at the starry sky again.

  “Kate?”

  She looked back at him. “Your place or mine?” she asked quietly.

  “Yours,” he said without missing a beat. Because he realized suddenly that his fantasy had a “where” after all. Her bed.

  Her bed.

  She walked off toward the patio, leaving him standing. He hesitated, then hobbled along after her. When he entered the house, he didn’t see her at first. He found her in the kitchen, opening an MRE for the cat. She emptied it into a small bowl and carried the bowl into the side room where she kept the washer and dryer, closing the door firmly after the cat went inside.

  She walked past him into another room, leaving him standing again. He made no attempt to follow her. He simply waited.

  “Do you have condoms?” she asked matter-of-factly when she came back. He could feel the effort it was taking for her to look at him.

  “No,” he said.

  “Doesn’t matter. I have some— What?” she asked abruptly, as if he’d made some remark or had some reaction to the fact that she practiced safe sex if the occasion happened to arise.

  “Nothing,” he said, looking at her. She avoided his eyes.

  “Okay, then,” she said, meaning to get by him. He caught her hand.

  “Hold it,” he said.

  “What?

  “Just stand there.”

  “Why?”

  “Just stand still. I want to say this one thing—” He let his cane lean against the table and put his hands on her shoulders, because he thought she’d take off if he didn’t. She didn’t try to get way, but that was about all he could say for it. “Don’t,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  “Don’t

  what?”

  “Don’t act like you’re open for business and like this doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve been posted here a long time. If all I wanted was to get laid, I know where to go. Understand?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Understand?” he asked again.

  She nodded, but she wasn’t happy about having to address the topic.

  “And try not to look at me like I’m the worst thing that could ever have happened to you.”

  “You are,” she said.

  “No, I’m not. It’s going to be good—you and me. You’ll see.”

  Whatever comment she might have wanted to make got lost in a sigh.

  “Get ready,” he said. “I’m going to kiss you now, so don’t panic.”

  “I never panic.”

  “Right.” His arms slid around her, but he didn’t do anything. “This is not good,”

  he said because she was standing so stiffly. “You’re ready to run.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Okay, I am,” she confessed.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  She didn’t do it.

  “Close them,” he repeated.

  When she did, he kissed her gently on the forehead, then her cheek, first one, then the other.

  “How was that?”

  “It was…fine…good,” she said.

  “Too easy, right? No problem.”

  “No

  problem.”

  He tightened his arms around her, bringing her closer, so that her head rested against his shoulder.

  “I want you so bad,” he said against her ear. “So—” he kissed the corner of her mouth “—bad…”

  He kissed her for real then, and he meant to hold back, to go slow, but he couldn’t do it.

  He was never going to get enough of this woman.

  Never.

  She returned the kiss. Nothing about it was one-sided. He was bombarded by more sensations than he could register. She smelled so good and she tasted so good. He wanted to do everything with her, to her. His hands slid over her body in a search for bare skin. He pulled at her skirt until he could get his hand up under it, and he pressed her body into his. She was clinging to him. His knees had gone weak. It was all he could do to keep his balance.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” he said urgently. “Where—”

  She stepp
ed away from him, but she held on to his hand and led him down a narrow hallway. He followed as best he could, reeling, drunk with desire.

  Her bedroom was at the end of the hall. A small lamp burned on the nightstand. The bed was big. She pulled the bedspread back, but that was all he gave her time to do. He sat down heavily on the side of the bed and lay back, bringing her with him. He kissed her, again and again—deep, open-mouthed kisses that made him feel as if he was going to explode. His hands slid into her hair, pulling out the pins so that it tumbled down onto her shoulders. And how long had he wanted to do that?