“What, are you kidding?” He gestured to himself. “Look at me, Mal. Come on.”
She went to the table, found the pictures she’d taken of him yesterday. “I happen to think you’re extremely photogenic. You’ve got a good face. It’s not beautiful like Brandon’s, but so what? Why does Julian have to be beautiful? I think it’s far more likely Nightshade would hook up with a guy who looks like you—a guy who’s got a real smile. When Brandon smiles, it’s so fake. When he smiles, you know what it makes me think?”
David shook his head.
“His smile says to me, ‘I love myself so much, I’d suck my own dick if only I could reach it with my mouth.’ “
He tried not to laugh and failed.
“Nightshade wouldn’t waste her time with a guy like that.” She tossed the pictures back on the table as she went for the costume box, digging through it. “Lose the glasses. I’ll fix your hair—I’ve got some gel in my bag.” She found the Speedo and fired it across the room at him as if it were a giant rubberband.
It hit him smack in the center of his chest.
He caught it, held it up. “I don’t think—”
“Oh, no fair,” she said. “I put this on. You’re definitely putting that on.”
He shook his head. “But—”
“Please,” she said, playing her trump card. “This way I won’t have to kiss Brandon again.”
Kiss.
As she watched him, she saw the word—and its meaning—register. For a guy who was one of the smartest people she’d ever met, it sure took close to forever for the old lightbulb to click on. But once it did, he was no fool.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s certainly worth a try.”
And he took the Speedo and made a beeline for the bathroom to change.
After Kelly showered, she cleaned her room.
Underwear and T-shirts in the dresser drawers. Other clothes in the closet. On hangers.
Who had she been kidding, anyway?
She was definitely living here, whether she pretended she was or not, whether she hung her clothes in her closet or not. She’d really done it—at thirty-two years of age she had moved back into her childhood home.
The circumstances were such that it wasn’t quite as pathetic as it sounded. Her father was dying. She had reason to be here. Of course, the fact that she was divorced and child-free and completely available to move back in to care for him was pretty pathetic. If she weren’t such a loser with her personal life, she wouldn’t have been able to help.
And it had to have been at least partially her fault that Gary had cheated on her and gotten Tiffany Big-Tits pregnant. The theory being that if she, Kelly, had been such a top-notch, grade-A wife, Gary wouldn’t have sought pleasure elsewhere. But Kelly had obviously failed wifeness. She was a great pediatrician, a decent cook, and an above-average personal assistant when it came to scheduling both hers and Gary’s lives. But when it came to being a lover and sex kitten extraordinaire, she’d flat-out failed. She’d chickened out. She’d let Gary take the lead, waited for him to inch his way out on the tightrope of sexual adventurousness. Only Gary had never inched. There’d been no adventurousness. And after a while, there was barely any sex.
Because Gary had stopped seeing her as the babe he’d once worked overtime to get into his bed. Instead, he saw her as the nice, faintly familiar-looking woman who picked up his dry cleaning. Complacency had replaced passion.
Marriage was like that. It was a giant permission slip to be complacent. And Kelly was determined not to get herself caught in that trap ever again. She would not spend even an hour of the rest of her life completely invisible, with someone who’d learned to see right through her.
Of course, she’d done absolutely nothing to shake Gary awake. If she had bought the sexy underwear she’d wanted, if she’d pulled him with her into the phone booth–size bathroom on the train, if she’d gone to his office and locked the door behind her, there was a pretty good chance he would’ve been ready to sign on.
Tom sure as hell had.
She would never have believed she had the nerve to do what she did this afternoon. To go to him that way, intending to seduce him.
It hadn’t ended the way she’d imagined it would, with his forgiveness, his understanding, and his agreement that their relationship was based first and foremost on passion, but also on their longtime friendship.
It hadn’t ended with tender kisses and shared laughter, two old friends who were more than friends in bed.
It had ended with Tom zipping up and walking away as if she meant absolutely nothing to him.
That wasn’t what she’d wanted. Or was it?
She’d wanted only to play at deep passion. She’d wanted only to pretend at a personal connection. She hadn’t wanted to risk getting too close, risk falling in love, risk heartache.
Especially not the kind of heartache she’d felt the last time Tom had walked out of her life.
Who was she kidding here? Only herself, it seemed.
She’d defined the parameters of this relationship with Tom before it had even started. She’d built them a neat little box, and surprise! That box couldn’t begin to contain this thing that they shared.
It was too big, too unwieldy, too dangerous.
The truth was, she was terrified of falling in love with Tom, of being devastated when he walked away again.
Yet even more terrifying was her fear of falling out of love with Tom. Even if some impossible miracle occurred and there somehow was a fairy-tale happy ending to this mess, complete with Tom as Prince Charming, standing at the front of a church in his dress uniform as she wore a white gown, there was no guarantee their happiness would last. In fact, it probably wouldn’t.
And Kelly wouldn’t be able to bear it if in eight years their conversation was limited to who was picking up the dry cleaning on the way home from work.
What she wanted was always to be the woman Tom gazed at with molten heat and burning need in his eyes, the way he’d looked at her today, in that closet.
Before he’d coldly turned and walked away.
God, there were no easy solutions.
Kelly unlocked the screen door that led to the balcony and went outside, breathing in the fresh ocean air.
Thirty minutes by train to Swampscott.
Fifteen to thirty to the car rental place, depending on its location.
Twenty minutes to fill out the paperwork, pay for the van.
Another forty, forty-five minutes home, depending on the traffic.
According to her calculations, Tom should be home pretty soon.
Kelly sat down on the balcony rocking chair to wait.
Eighteen
MALLORY USED ABOUT a half pound of hair gel and managed to glue down David’s hair. She’d combed it straight back from his face, but there had been one lock that just didn’t want to behave until now.
He was sitting at the kitchen table with a towel modestly wrapped around his waist. He didn’t look as painfully skinny as she’d thought he would without his shirt on. In fact, he wasn’t so much skinny as lean. He was built like a long-distance runner, with hardly any fat on him at all. His shoulders were solid, though, and his arms were actually muscular—a far cry from the pipe-cleaner appendages she’d imagined he’d have.
Not that she would have cared.
Well . . . Maybe she would’ve cared a little.
But not much.
He was sitting there so seriously. In fact, Mallory doubted he’d smiled once since he came out of the bathroom.
“Stand up,” she ordered him. “And lose the skirt, Braveheart. It’s time for you to experience the joys of baby oil over ninety-eight percent of your body.”
He smiled at that, but it was pretty wan. “You know, Mal, I’m not sure about—”
She didn’t wait to find out what he wasn’t sure about. She just squeezed some oil onto her hand and started spreading it across his back. She knew it felt cool against his warm skin.
Or maybe it was the sensation of her hands on him that shut him up.
“Come on,” she said. “Stand up.”
He stood, but he held the towel with one hand, at his waist.
Mallory used both hands to put oil on his entire back. His skin was remarkably soft. She wanted to take her time, to make it obvious this wasn’t just about putting oil on him for the photos, but she was nervous, too.
“Come on,” she said again, tugging gently at the towel. “I’m starting to get oil on this.”
David took a deep breath and released a rush of air. “Oh, my God, I’m just going to say it, all right?” He closed his eyes tightly, took another deep breath. “I really like you, Nightshade, and I suck at acting, and there’s a good chance that I’m really going to offend you because even though you’re going to be acting, I’m not. I really want to kiss you, and with this little bathing suit, there’s just no way to hide the fact that you completely turn me on, and I’m already more than half, you know, oh, God. I don’t want to take this towel off and it’s okay if you just want to be friends. I don’t want you thinking it’s only about your body because it’s not, it’s really not, I mean, it is, but it isn’t, you know? And—”
Mallory would have liked him to keep going. Everything he was saying was making her feel about as good as she’d ever felt in her entire life. It was okay with him if she just wanted to be friends. He really liked her—he wasn’t kidding.
But as she turned him to face her, as she began putting oil on his chest, he stopped. It was as if she’d suddenly pulled his plug out of the wall. He opened his eyes and looked down at her, as if he were surprised to see her there.
“Oh,” he said. “I can do that.”
She didn’t stop. She just looked up at him, directly into his eyes. “Yeah, well, I can do it better.”
He gazed at her. Didn’t it figure that now he’d be silent? When she most needed his reassurance that she wasn’t making a total ass of herself?
Her pulse was going so hard, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear her heart beating. She squeezed more oil into her hands, set the bottle back on the table, and ran her hands across the muscles in his shoulders. He had really nice shoulders.
Her voice cracked slightly as she said, “Don’t you think?”
He nodded then. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Oh, yeah.”
Mallory picked up the bottle again, and as she poured more oil into her hands, David reached for her. He touched her gently, the tips of his fingers trailing almost ticklingly lightly down her side, his gaze luminously hot as his eyes followed his hand. He touched her stomach, still lightly, touched her belly button ring.
It was all the reassurance Mallory needed. “I’m not going to be acting, either,” she told him quietly. “Not tonight. Not with you, David.”
“Yeah?” he whispered again, gazing into her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
He smiled then, and her heart did a slow flip in her chest. It was impossible not to smile back at him. He leaned closer, and she realized he was taller than she was. Much taller. He had to lower his head to kiss her.
But then he was kissing her, and she didn’t care how tall he was. All that mattered was David’s mouth, David’s hands, David’s eyes. His lips were exquisite, his mouth soft and deliciously sweet. He kissed her slowly, taking his time. She could taste his hunger, yet he didn’t try to inhale her completely, the way most guys did when they kissed her. And when he pulled her closer, he didn’t grab at her butt or her breasts, the way most guys did—as if a kiss gave them permission to manhandle her. Instead, he kept his hands carefully high on her back, still skimming her bare skin so deliciously lightly.
She felt his towel fall off, felt it slide down her leg and land on her foot.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said as he opened his eyes and gazed down at her. His beautiful eyes were so warm. “I didn’t want the first time I kissed you to be for the cameras.”
He was romantic. David of the funny hair and awful plaid shirts was the most romantic man Mallory had ever met in her life.
When she kissed him again, he sighed his pleasure and she knew.
It was okay that she’d fallen in love with him. Her heart was safe in his gentle hands.
Charles had gone to his room, feigning fatigue.
Although, it didn’t really count as feigning. He was tired. He was always tired these days. Less than three months left to live, and he was sleeping it all away.
He and Joe had arrived home to find the living room overrun with commandos. Tom’s friends were a little daunting. The big black man named Jazz rarely smiled. And the Hell’s Angel with chains on his boots and long hair kept circling the Vanessa Williams look-alike, pretending that he didn’t want her around.
Hah.
If Boots and Chains had his druthers, they’d be sharing a bedroom before the night was out. But Vanessa, she wasn’t born yesterday. She kept her head in her book, avoiding eye contact with Boots, clearly as smart as she was beautiful.
And she was beautiful. Charles had flirted with her a bit before he’d sought out the peace and quiet of his room. Her name was Alyssa. Even prettier than Vanessa. She’d smiled at him, and flirted a bit back, sweet beneath her drill sergeant facade.
Charles climbed into bed—a trick that could well have been an Olympic event among the nursing home set. He needed a hit from the oxygen tank next to his bed after achieving his nine point nine score. He figured he wouldn’t get a perfect ten, because even after nearly sixty years, the German judges would still have it in for him.
God knows he’d given them reason enough to hate him—and that hatred was mutual.
Hatred and fear. It was a bad combination. Made for some really nasty cold sweat. And the Ashtons tried to avoid stinking whenever possible.
He’d spent nearly all of 1944 reeking. He could remember standing in the dark by the train station on that uncomfortably warm summer night, certain that if the Germans didn’t see him, they’d be able to sniff him out.
Every cell in his body was on edge as he stood there, watching and listening for approaching Germans as Henri and Luc Un planted explosives on that railroad track.
His heart was literally hammering in his chest. He couldn’t see Cybele from where he was positioned, and it was driving him mad. He should have insisted she stay behind. He should have volunteered to go right from the first.
He should have made love to her when she’d come to his room.
And then it happened. Charles still didn’t know what went wrong. All he knew was one second he was scanning the nearby woods for Germans, and the next he was on his face, spitting dirt out of his mouth, with the roar of an explosion ringing in his ears, and the heat and flames from the blast still singeing the back of his head.
Cybele!
He pushed himself onto his feet, only to go back down, hard. Christ, he’d somehow twisted—or broken, God help him—his ankle. Same goddamned leg he’d hobbled around on for weeks.
It hurt like hell, but he could do little more than grit his teeth as he crawled toward the spot where he’d last seen Cybele.
She was there, and she was alive, thank God. But in the light of the fire dancing up from the flaming railroad car, he could see that she’d been stunned, a trickle of blood escaping from her ear.
He had to get her out of there. He could already hear shouting in harsh German and the sound of barking dogs. The two sounded remarkably similar and equally terrifying.
Cursing steadily to fight the pain, he pushed himself to his feet, scooping Cybele up in his arms.
Joe materialized through the smoke. And Charles saw from his face as he looked at Cybele that he feared the worst.
“She’s alive,” he told the other man.
Joe closed his eyes briefly. “Thank God.” He drew in a deep breath, looking back through the smoke, toward the flames. “Take her to safety,” he ordered. “Henri’s already scattered. I’m going back to look for Luc.”
Ch
arles felt the heat, even from this distance. “There’s no way he could have survived that. Why risk your own life for—”
“If he’s not dead, he’s badly burned and probably dying. But if the Germans find him . . .” Joe’s face was grim as he checked that his gun was loaded. “There’s only so much pain a man can take, and too many secrets to let escape.”
And Charles understood. Joe was going back out of more than loyalty to Luc. He was going back to protect them all. If Luc lived long enough for the SS to get their hands on him, Cybele’s entire operation was in dire danger.
“You take Cybele.” Charles tried to pass her to Joe. “I’ll find Luc.”
But Joe moved back. “Luc’s my friend,” he said quietly. “Keep Cybele safe.” Just like that, he was gone.
“Wait,” Charles said desperately. “I don’t even know which way to go, which way to take her. . . .”
But the German voices were getting louder, approaching swiftly from along the tracks.
Charles faded back into the woods, limping into the darkness. Exactly where, he didn’t know. Praying he wasn’t heading directly toward more Germans, he moved as quickly as he could on his injured ankle, trying to protect Cybele’s face from the branches whipping past them.
He hadn’t gone far when he heard it.
A single gunshot.
Either Joe was dead or . . .
Or Joe had found Luc, still alive but beyond saving, and he’d . . .
Both thoughts were unthinkable. But it was hard to believe a patrol of German soldiers would have taken Joe down without a volley of machine-gun fire.
And then the bomb Henri had planted on the tracks blew, and Charles knew Joe was still alive.
Charles heard the tearing sound of the German guns, the shouting as Joe surely led the soldiers in the opposite direction from Charles and Cybele.
Joe was still alive. At least for the moment.
Charles pushed on, farther into the countryside, the night a blur of pain and fear. He was hopelessly lost, and even when he tried to chart his direction from the night sky, he wasn’t sure which way to go. West and north to the fighting? Or away from it?
The Unsung Hero Page 33