by Lisa Jackson
“I can’t believe you said that.”
He grinned. “And your purple bra. I appreciated that.”
I could feel myself blushing. He took two steps closer, then kissed me. Didn’t take long for that kiss to take me to a better place. “I . . . we . . . it’s . . .” I pulled back an inch, tried to get control. “It’s the same, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, darlin’.” His voice was low, and deep, and yummy. “It’s the same.”
“Together we . . .”
“Get out of control. It’s fun. I like it.”
“I don’t know what to do. You’re overwhelming and messing up my plans.”
“Plans are meant to be messed up sometimes, honey.”
I tapped his cowboy hat. “Don’t do this, Josh.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t be so darn sexy.”
“Okay. I’ll try my hardest.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. I’ll put on a long blond wig and a dress next time. That should smash the lust.”
“It won’t because underneath I’ll know you’re still Josh.”
“That would be hard to change. I believe you owe me four more dates.”
Yes, I did. I would need a bunch of Christmas elves to go with us so I wouldn’t let him strip off my clothes.
He held up a hand. “I promise I won’t take off your shirt this time.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t mean it. I wanted to take off my shirt right now so I could feel his hands on me.
“I’ll wait until you take off your own shirt. Then I’ll let you take off mine.”
“Josh.” I had to laugh. It had always been like this between us. So hot, and yet, we were friends, we laughed, we joked. “I don’t think—”
“You don’t need to think about this too much, Laurel,” he said.
“Come out with me tomorrow night for dinner. I know of a new lodge with a restaurant overlooking Blackfish Lake. You’ll love it. Candlelight. White tablecloths. Crystal. Your style.”
My style. Josh always made me feel classier than I knew myself to be.
I hesitated.
“Do it for the house and five acres.” He dropped a kiss on my cheek. “Or do it so that I don’t go out of my mind sitting at home alone thinking about you and your purple bra.”
I didn’t want to sit home alone, either, not when blond King Kong was ten minutes away. I looked down at my Christmas bouquet. Josh was such a kind man. So masculine and sexy, but comforting. I could not fall in love with him again. I could not risk that heartbreak. I could not live through it a second time.
“Yes.”
In the ambulance, on that icy, disastrous night, my body shaking from cold and shock, my father’s hand in mine, the other covered in blood, he had a stroke.
His face collapsed on one side, his eyes went blank, and he pitched straight over.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Dad!”
The paramedic grabbed him and began care, starting with an oxygen mask. I panicked again. It took a while to get to the hospital because of the ice, but we finally made it, the doors whipping open as doctors and nurses took us both in separately.
The wicked stepmother, Chantrea, cried over my father. She hugged me tight, her tears flowing down my cheek as I lay in the hospital bed after my X-rays. My mother, after getting the call that I was in the hospital and had nearly drowned, was near hysteria. She and my aunt flew over. Aunt Amy rushed in, her face pale, along with Camellia and Violet.
Josh was there within minutes after Camellia called him. He kissed me full on the lips and I clung to him, but then I remembered what I’d said to my father, what I’d done, what I’d caused, my shame, my mortification, and pushed him away. I saw the confusion in his eyes, the hurt.
My father had managed to get out of our sinking car. He went up for air, over the roof, and down to my side. He slammed his fist into the window and broke it. He’d pulled me out, then up on the bank.
He was not conscious for twelve hours after his stroke and the doctors did not know if he was going to live or what type of life he would have if he did.
I fundamentally changed during that twelve hours. Who I was on that slick road and who I became while waiting for my father to wake up, to breathe, to talk, was a different person. I went from a rebellious, mouthy, immature teenager who had almost drowned, to a young woman who almost died from guilt.
The next day when Josh came to sit with me at the hospital when I was sitting with my father, I hardly spoke to him. He was kind and gentle and hugged me but I couldn’t respond. I was shut down hard, depressed, panicked that my father would die because of me.
When my father woke up, his left side was paralyzed.
I bent over his chest and cried. I saw his right hand move slowly, oh so slowly, to stroke my hair. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
The tears flowed out of both his eyes. His left side was immobile, his face drooped, but the left side of his mouth was frozen in a slight smile. He looked friendly, welcoming.
I did not leave his side at the hospital, except when it was my turn to babysit Aspen, Oakie, and Redwood. My older sisters also took time to babysit, as did my mother. In fact, my mother moved the boys into her house several times so Chantrea and I could concentrate on my father.
My father had saved my life even though my meanness, my inexcusable rant, had made him take his mind off the road, which caused the crash, which caused the stress, which caused his stroke. He might never be the same again, and he had three young boys, plus my sisters and me, to take care of
My despair was complete.
I had almost killed my father, our father.
I deserved nothing in life, including Josh. I could never be happy again. If my father died, I was the reason for it. That was the night I started to hate myself.
I cried until I couldn’t.
I loved The Apron Ladies Web site.
It was unfortunate that the orders were trickling in.
I called the newspapers and the media and sent photos of the aprons via e-mail. I put tags on all our aprons advertising the Web site. I took out ads in the local newspapers.
But most of the time I sat around and sewed aprons and thought about Josh.
What did I like about him?
Everything.
“Have you traveled, Josh?” The restaurant overlooking Blackfish Lake was classy. It was decorated for Christmas with a wreath made of branches on the stone hearth and a towering tree in the corner adorned in silver ribbons and ornaments. There were white tablecloths, candles, and crystal. It was a far cry from the sack lunches with anemic sandwiches and baggies of cookies we used to share.
He nodded. “I have. I’ve traveled every summer for the last seven years. About sixteen days, total, each time. It’s all I can take off.”
“Where have you gone?”
“Scotland and England, one trip. Turkey. Kenya. Greece. Thailand and Cambodia. Chile, Belize. I know we planned to travel when we were kids, and a few years after I started my company, I decided to go. I planned the trip to Cambodia and Thailand, loved it, was surprised at how much I loved it, came home, and planned another one. After my first trip I realized how much travel changed a person, made them grow and learn. It gave me a whole different perspective.”
Our conversation took off then, happily, with great excitement, as we had been to many of the same countries.
“I loved seeing new cultures, new places, meeting people,” he said. “But when I come home to Kalulell, I’m glad to be home. I’m a Montana man, and I love it here, love my land, my business, my life here.”
We had seen the world as we’d planned as teenagers. Our National Geographic talks worked, but we’d traveled separately. I thought of us in Greece together, on a ferry to the islands. In England, at a pub. In Scotland, watching a dance with men in kilts. How would Josh look in a kilt?
“Do you consider Los Angeles to be your home now, Laurel?”
“No.”<
br />
“Kalulell?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“I wish it was. It’s a Laurel place to live. Skiing . . . the lake . . . hiking... fishing.”
Why did he have to smile at me like that? A few snowflakes clung to the windows of the restaurant. Outside the trees were lit up with white lights for Christmas. “I wish it was, too, sometimes.”
“How about all the time?”
Those green eyes, I swear, they were twinkling at me. Twinkle, twinkle. I wanted to cuddle up on his lap.
“You’re impossible, Josh.”
“Thank you. I missed you, too.”
I missed you. And you are going to melt my Josh-lusting heart.
“Don’t try anything on the way home,” I told him, before he closed the door of his truck.
He climbed in. “Sit right here beside me, honey.” He patted the seat.
“Tempting, but no.”
“Please? Think of it as a Christmas present for me.”
I pretended to sigh. He sighed back. We both laughed and he pulled me into his arms quick as a hopping reindeer and I hopped on that passion train.
He knew exactly what to do with that mouth.
This time I kept my clothes on. I was wearing a mocha-colored dress with a ton of blue buttons down the back and blue knee-high boots.
“You’re killing me, Laurel,” he said, as I pulled away. “And I don’t like the looks of all those buttons.”
“Why do you think I wore this dress?” I tried to get my breath, darned if it wasn’t hard to start breathing right again. “It’s like a button chastity belt.”
He groaned. “What color bra tonight?”
“Burgundy. With black lace.”
“Torture me further.” He touched my pink tipped hair. “You’re my Christmas elf, Laurel.”
“I’m a Christmas elf who’s keeping my clothes on.”
“For now. But you might want to take them off, soon.” He looked outside, the snow falling steadily. “It’s awfully hot out there.”
He held my hand and kissed it, three times. I swear I felt those kisses going straight to my heart.
I put new red thread into the sewing machine. I loved the apron I was working on. My mother had made the pattern. There was a vee neckline, crisscross back straps, and three different fabrics. I would add white lace.
I studied our “feminist Christmas tree” with the women power sayings. I thought of my mom and aunt’s comments about romance and aprons and naked cooking.
Pretty, unique aprons for independent women.
Cooking aprons. Bedroom aprons.
Aprons to be naked in.
Sexy aprons.
Ruffles. See through. Cleavage. Fun. Frilly. Lacy. Role playing. Chiffon and silk. Not cooking aprons. Bedroom aprons.
“Mom,” I said. She turned to me.
“Aunt Emma.” Aunt Emma turned to me.
“This idea came from both of you. It’s all yours. I wasn’t taking it seriously at first, but . . .”
They clapped their hands when I told them.
“Bravo!” my mother said. “I’ve always wanted to be a porn apron star.”
“This way I can show off my figure . . . tastefully,” Aunt Emma declared. “Nudity is about class. It’s about the human form, with all my curves. A woman’s curves are physical art, nothing to hide.”
We planned. We drew designs. We made patterns. We chose new materials. We laughed.
“We’re naughty!” Aunt Emma said, taking off for the fabric store with my mother.
“Naughty as can be. Mrs. Claus would be proud of us!” My mother kissed my cheek. “And most proud of you, dear daughter.”
I received two letters in the mail with pictures of Christmas trees, an ant wearing a red bow, and a skinny rabbit with five feet.
Dear ant Laurel.
I bite good.
For Christmas I want vampire teef.
I love you ant Laurel.
Teddy
Dear Ant Laurel,
I no can go to the preschool for two days becauze I let the rabit out the windo he wants to be by the flowers and son.
When Im home from the preschool you come over to make the Crissmas kookies.
I lovee you.
Teddy bit me.
That bad.
I bited him back. There blood.
Love Shandry
Our eighth date was at Josh’s house.
I arrived and parked in front of his home at seven o’clock. I sat in the quiet of my car before I climbed the steps. I pictured him inside, warm and snug in one of his sweaters, his shoulders packed in, his jeans packed nice, all cowboy Montana-y.
Ah, Josh, I thought. I lost you once when I kicked you out of my life. I don’t know if I can lose you again without falling apart, piece by piece. That was not part of Plan NL, as in, new life.
I thought of our green farmhouse. If it wasn’t for the house, I would not risk ten dates with this man and getting hurt again.
Or would I?
Was it still all about buying my great-grandparents’ house back again?
Nah. It wasn’t.
Truth can be hard.
I wondered if I’d show him my red bra. It had a nice push-up.
“This is Date Eight, Josh,” I told him, after he’d made me a steak, potato, and salad. We sat on his couch, in front of a blazing fire. I love a gas fireplace, but there’s something about a crackling fire that warms the soul up.
“I know, honey. Come sit with me.” He lifted me onto his lap, quick as could be. I felt his warmth, his muscles, that smiling, oh so enticing mouth inches away. I felt myself go limp, which would have been mildly embarrassing, had I had a brain cell left in my head. I touch the man and I go limp? Ah, but that’s how it was.
“What do you say to a kiss, Laurel?” he murmured.
He smelled yummy. Like spices, wine, and chocolates, and Josh, safe and snuggly. “I say that if I kiss you I’m gonna be lost.”
“Lost in a good way?” He cupped my face with his hand.
“Yes, in a good way and a bad way.”
He grinned. “I want to get lost with you in a good way, baby, not a bad way.”
I did not have time to reply, as his mouth came down firmly on mine. I linked an arm around his shoulders, my chest against his, and slid into . . . us. I slid into Josh and me.
All restraint and “what the heck am I doing” and worries . . . gone. All brain cells . . . gone.
Delicious passion takes the place of thought when I’m with Josh every . . . single . . . time.
My night with Josh and our delicious passion did not end well.
We went from kissing to stripping, in not too many seconds. I took off my pink silky shirt, then I took off his, as he chuckled, exactly as he had predicted. My red bra went flying, his hands went north, I unbuckled his belt, he tugged at my jeans. He picked me up and carried me across the room to his bedroom. We rolled on that huge bed of his, the headboard carved with a blue heron in full flight.
I reached for him, held him close and tight, his mouth only leaving mine to forge hot trails down my body, which was precisely why mine left his, too. I could hear my own panting, and his, my legs wrapped around his hips, all clothes off and out.
And then, in mid-arch, in mid-kiss, in mid-mind-blowing passion when I knew we were going to consummate all this in another blaze of crazy lust . . . I froze.
“Oh no, Josh, no.” I could not do this. What about tomorrow? The next day? After the holidays when I wasn’t here? I couldn’t walk away after making love to him. . . .
“What?” he panted, his lips hardly leaving mine.
I wanted to cry, I wanted to run, I wanted to make love to him. “No,” I choked out.
“What . . . why, honey?” His voice was tight, his mouth an inch from mine.
“Don’t call me honey.” I felt my heart clench. His face, planes and angles and kindness and confusion, about killed me.
“Laurel—”
<
br /> I pushed at his chest and he didn’t move.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything is wrong with this.” I pushed again and he lifted up.
I saw him clench his jaw, breathing hard, like me. He bent his forehead to my chest, then looked me in the eye. “We’ll wait. I’m sorry. It’s too fast, I shouldn’t have—”
“Josh, please, don’t blame yourself. It’s me. It’s always been me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can you get off before I grab you again and change my mind?” I was close to tears. Close to making a fool of myself. He got off and I grabbed a blanket he had folded at the end of the bed and wrapped it around myself. I don’t know why I did that; he’d seen everything.
Josh flopped straight back on the bed, rubbed his hands over his face, and took a long breath in.
The whole scene made me sad and sick.
I went searching for my clothes. I grabbed my white negligee, which was over the back of a chair, searched for my pink silky blouse, which had somehow hooked onto the door handle to his back porch, picked up the rest of my clothes, and went to the bathroom and dressed.
I realized I did not have my red bra, but I was not going to look for it now. I’d grab it and go. I shook as I dressed, then ran my hands over my messy hair. When I opened the door to the bathroom, hoping to make a quick getaway so I could get to my car and cry my eyes out, he was standing in the kitchen, jeans only.
“What is it, Laurel?” He was serious, and sad, like me. “Tell me.”
I folded the blanket and hurried it back into his bedroom and put it on his bed. “I don’t want to talk about it. Do you see my bra?”
“No, I don’t.” His eyes were firmly on mine. “What’s going on, Laurel?”
“Josh, I’m not . . . I’m not here to get . . . to get involved with you again.”
His face moved back, as if I’d slapped him. “Why not? Everything we had before, we still have.”