A good night’s sleep. That was the ticket. She was determined to purchase it, no matter the cost.
Steve emerged from the kitchen balancing a tray that held a pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade and four frosty glasses. He had a smile on his face, the same smile that had stolen her heart the first time she’d laid eyes on him. The smile that still made her heart thud madly no matter how many shields she threw up to try to deflect it.
Yes, Kate thought darkly as her mouth went dry and her stomach dipped with desire, her plan had better work. Because if it didn’t, she was in trouble. Big trouble.
“I’d like you to meet our fourth for the evening,” Kate said.
Because she hadn’t wanted to alarm Mrs. Edmund and Clara Mae unnecessarily, she and Steve had agreed beforehand that she would introduce him as a friend and fellow Scrabble enthusiast. An incident that had occurred shortly after Kate had moved into the house was the catalyst for this decision. On that bright, sunny summer morning a year earlier, her brothers had shown up en masse in police cars, sirens wailing and guns drawn, because a Peeping Tom had been reported in the area.
Kate had been chatting on her front porch with Mrs. Edmund, who had just finished relating the tale of her new pacemaker. The sight of all those drawn guns had so shaken the woman that Kate had been terrified the pacemaker wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. One thing she wanted to avoid at all costs was a repeat performance of that day’s events. Since, as far as they knew, her biggest fan was no danger to anyone but her, she felt it best that Mrs. Edmund remain ignorant of his existence.
For that reason, she’d also insisted that Carlo question the elderly woman after the break-in on Monday, instead of Steve. Mrs. Edmund was used to her brother’s histrionics and would take no undue notice of his interrogation.
As Kate had anticipated, Mrs. Edmund had attached little importance to Carlo’s questions, and her brother had discovered that she’d seen nothing suspicious at the time of the break-in. Fortunately, since Kate lived across the street from a park, there were only four houses on her block. Other than Kate and Mrs. Edmund, no one else was home during the day. Which meant no pesky rumors were floating around to disturb the older woman and set her pacemaker off-kilter.
Unfortunately, by glossing over the real reason for Steve’s presence, she’d created a situation she hadn’t anticipated. It quickly became apparent that both women had taken an immediate shine to Steve. Equally apparent was that they’d decided he was the man for Kate.
“You should have told me your young man was such a handsome devil,” Mrs. Edmund said, primping her hair and smiling at Steve. “If you had, I might have gussied myself up more.”
“You look radiant just the way you are,” Steve told her.
And she did, Kate realized, as she watched the way her neighbor beamed at Steve’s words. It was amazing how the attentions of an attractive man erased the years from her face, giving Kate a glimpse of the youthful beauty Mrs. Edmund must have been. Kate felt a pang in the region of her heart. Surely she couldn’t be jealous of Steve’s attentions to Mrs. Edmund? Surely things hadn’t deteriorated that far? No. The idea was preposterous.
“I like him,” Mrs. Edmund pronounced, as if they’d all been waiting breathlessly for her assessment. She turned to Clara Mae, who had taken the seat opposite. “What about you, Clara Mae? What do you think?”
“What’s not to like?” Clara Mae said, making no effort to hide the fact that she was examining Steve from head to toe. “If I were a few years younger, I might try to steal him away from you, Kate.”
“And I would have the devil of a time resisting such charm,” Steve said, handing each woman a cold glass of lemonade.
“Now that’s what I call gallantry.” Clara Mae was clearly pleased. “It’s obvious your mother brought you up well.”
Kate’s gaze flew to his to see how he would react to the mention of his mother. When they’d been married and she’d tried to bring the subject up, he’d always withdrawn inside himself, declaring that no good could come of discussing what was past.
“Thank you,” he said softly. To Kate’s surprise, he added, “She was a special lady. It would have made her proud to hear you say that.”
“Ah.” Clara Mae heaved a regretful sigh, and patted his arm consolingly. “She’s passed. When?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“Too young, too young.” Clara Mae’s eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m sorry. You still miss her, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Over the heads of the elderly women, Steve’s gaze searched and sought out Kate’s. The message in his eyes was easy for her to read. Help me out of this, they begged. While she was half tempted to ignore the plea and see what other revelations the two women could wring from him, Kate couldn’t help but take pity at his obvious discomfort.
“Shall we get started?” she said quickly, taking a seat.
“Ready when you are,” Mrs. Edmund replied, flexing her fingers while Clara Mae pulled a tattered and worn paperback dictionary from her purse.
Steve handed Kate a glass of lemonade before sitting down in the empty chair across from her. Almost immediately, their knees knocked together.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, trying to ignore the surge of heat that shot through her at the contact.
“Sorry,” he muttered, his gaze averted from hers.
They both shifted in their seats. Once again, their knees knocked together, and once again they exchanged apologies. Kate bit her lip in consternation. When she’d set up the card table, she hadn’t noticed how small it was. Mrs. Edmund and Clara Mae could sit at it with ease. But Steve, with his long legs, did not have the same luxury. And she was the lucky woman sitting across from him.
It didn’t help matters that he’d changed out of his suit into a pair of navy-blue shorts and a bright red-, blue-, and yellow-striped polo shirt that made his eyes seem bluer than a summer sky. He looked so sexy her breathing went haywire every time she glanced at him. Though she tried to keep those glances to a minimum, her knees continued their run of bad luck. While she and Steve set up the Scrabble board and chitchatted with the women about current events, their knees kept rubbing together. Since Kate was wearing shorts, too, the feel of his bare limbs against hers had her body humming like an electrical power station. She moved uncomfortably in her seat, trying to find a position that would keep her knees in the safety zone.
Mrs. Edmund leaned toward Kate, engulfing her in a cloud of White Shoulders cologne. “You okay, dear?”
“What?” Still distracted by Steve’s knees, Kate turned her attention to her neighbor.
“You look distressed. Anything wrong?”
Kate forced herself to stop fidgeting and plastered a smile on her face. When Steve’s knees brushed against hers again, she didn’t so much as move a muscle, although she felt the heat all the way down to her toes.
“I’m fine,” she croaked in a high voice. She cleared her throat and added in a more normal tone, “Are we ready?”
As hostess, Kate went first. The combination of letters she’d drawn only allowed her to form the word “act” across the center of the board.
“Ten points,” she announced to Clara Mae, who was keeping score.
Mrs. Edmund went next, turning “act” into “lactic.” The play moved to Steve, who formed the word “course” using the second c in lactic.
Kate was just beginning to relax and enjoy herself, when Clara Mae turned “lactic” into “prophylactic.” It was Kate’s second hint—Steve’s knees rubbing against hers being the first—that the evening wasn’t going to go as smoothly as she’d hoped.
Clara Mae must have picked up on her agitation, because she said, “I assure you, it’s spelled correctly, Kate. Feel free to challenge, though, if you wish.”
Kate was well aware that the word was spelled correctly. It was the meaning of the word that gave her pause.
“I believe you,” she said. “I’m
not challenging.”
“You still don’t look happy,” Clara Mae said. “Tell you what. I know it’s pushing the rules a bit without a challenge and all, but I’ll look the word up. It’ll set your mind at ease.”
“Really, Mrs. Edgington, there’s no need—”
“Oh, yes there is,” Clara Mae demurred, nodding her white head firmly. “A triple word score is involved here. We’re talking eighty-seven points. I want everyone satisfied that it’s spelled correctly. When I win, I want there to be no taint on my victory.”
She opened her dictionary, found the entry she sought, then leaned toward Kate. “Here it is. See? ‘Prophylactic. A device, usually a rubber sheath, used to prevent conception or venereal infection. Condom.”’
Kate couldn’t help herself. She glanced across the table at Steve. His eyes twinkled as their gazes met, and he looked as though he were struggling mightily not to laugh. She felt a glow of warmth at their shared humor.
“Thank you,” she said to Clara Mae, swallowing back her own laughter as she formed the word “quiet” using the e in “course.”
“Speaking of prophylactics,” Mrs. Edmund said, “that gives me the perfect word” She then proceeded to lay down the tiles that transformed “course” into “intercourse.”
Kate felt the heat rise in her cheeks. This time she didn’t dare look at Steve, although she thought she heard him make a choking sound.
“Don’t look so shocked, dear.” Mrs. Edmund’s arthritis-twisted fingers patted Kate’s hand. “It’s a perfectly legitimate word.”
“I know,” Kate managed to say.
“The standard definition is an exchange of thoughts and feelings.” Mrs. Edmund replaced her used tiles. “Like what we’re doing here. Of course, I prefer the more intimate connotation, that being sexual relations. Making love is the most wonderful expression of intimacy. It’s the giving and sharing of not just bodies but souls that makes it so special. Don’t you agree, young man?”
“Absolutely,” Steve said.
As if drawn by a magnet, Kate looked across the table and found his gaze trained squarely on her. His eyes were clouded with the same memories that chased relentlessly through her brain, memories of the many times they had indulged in sexual intercourse together.
Kate’s mouth went dry, and her hands shook. Quickly, before he could read in her eyes how much she still wanted him, she looked down at the table and hid her hands on her lap.
Why had she ever been foolish enough to think that the presence of these two women would be enough to save her from his hold over her? And why now, after untold hours during which she’d played canasta, mah-jongg, poker and Scrabble with Mrs. Edmund without the conversation growing any more personal than was she seeing a young man, had the woman chosen to take their social intercourse to new, unexplored heights?
“I’m not embarrassed to admit,” Mrs. Edmund continued, “that over the years my Herman—God rest his soul—bought his share of prophylactics. I’ve no doubt Clara Mae’s Waldo did the same.”
Clara Mae nodded her head vigorously. “He did indeed. Yes sirree. You see, we weren’t as lucky as you young people. We didn’t have the wide variety of contraceptive devices that are available today. But that didn’t mean we weren’t any less passionate. Not at all. I daresay we were as lusty as any young lovers.”
Kate sat there, dumbfounded. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. It felt surreal, almost like a dream. If someone had told her earlier that, this evening, she would be sitting with her ex-husband and two elderly women discussing the definition of sexual intercourse and its relationship to prophylactics, she would have told said person that she had a few screws loose. Maybe it was because she’d never had a mother to discuss such things with—and her brothers had zealously avoided the subject, if at all possible—but it made her distinctly uncomfortable. Of course, Steve’s presence didn’t help any.
And she’d been worried about Mrs. Edmund’s pacemaker. The way her heart was pounding, if the subject wasn’t changed soon, she’d need a pacemaker of her own.
“Why is it,” Mrs. Edmund asked, eyeing Kate’s red cheeks, “that you young people always assume we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be young and in love?”
“Maybe,” Steve offered, sounding reflective, “it’s because there are times when we forget ourselves.”
Mrs. Edmund gave him a coy look. “A good-looking man like you? With all those hormones running amok? I don’t think there are many times you forget.”
Steve’s smile was broad. “Mrs. Edmund, are you flirting with me?”
“No, dear.” She aimed a sly look at Kate. “You may be a handsome devil, but I wouldn’t want to take unfair advantage of my hostess. She doesn’t get out much, you know.”
“No,” Steve said, his gaze speculative as it moved to Kate, “I didn’t know. Tell me more.”
Mrs. Edmund didn’t need further invitation. After barely pausing to draw breath, she launched into speech.
“She’s never said as much, but I think someone hurt her very deeply. I don’t think it was too long ago, either. I get the sense that the pain is still raw, still very close to the surface. She must have loved him very much.”
What was it about her that made people talk as if she weren’t even in the room? Kate wondered in desperation. And just how could she put a stop to it?
“Did someone hurt you?” Steve asked softly.
Kate felt her temper rise at his concerned suitor act. He knew darn well someone had hurt her, and that he was the someone in question. “Yes,” she said curtly.
“I thought so.” Mrs. Edmund’s voice was smug with satisfaction. “It’s taken you until now to risk dating again, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she admitted, a little more gently, because she didn’t want to hurt the older woman’s feelings.
“Didn’t I tell you, Clara Mae? And here you thought she was just picky.”
Clara Mae gave a woeful shake of her head. “Guess you were right, Janet. Appears I owe you five dollars.”
“I’ll put it on your account.”
“How did he hurt you?” Steve asked.
Instead of answering, Kate nodded toward the playing board. “It’s your turn.”
He laid down his tiles, and Clara Mae recorded his score.
“How’d he hurt you, Kate?” he repeated.
Much as she wanted to ignore the question, she couldn’t. Steve looked like he really wanted to hear what she had to say. And a part of her wanted to answer, while he was sitting there, unable to walk away. This was an opportunity he hadn’t afforded her while they were married. Maybe this was the only way they could talk about it, as if it had happened to two different people.
Clenching the hands she held in her lap, she said, “He wouldn’t open up to me. Everything was a big secret with him. He made me feel... insignificant. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Mrs. Edmund’s eyes were bright with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, dear.”
Kate tore her gaze away from Steve to ponder the older woman. “Did you and your husband communicate well?”
“Herman and I talked about everything.” A nostalgic smile curved the woman’s lips and her eyes grew soft and dreamy. “He was my best friend. We had no secrets.”
“What about arguing?” Kate pressed. “Did you do that, too?”
“Heavens, yes!” Mrs. Edmund laughed with delight. “Sometimes I just wanted to kill that man. But then our tempers would cool, and we’d make up. And the making up more than compensated for the fighting.”
Kate shot a pointed glance to Steve before turning her attention to Clara Mae. The look on his face told her he was sorry he’d pursued this line of questioning. Good.
“What about you, Mrs. Edgington? Did you and your husband fight?”
“Like cats and dogs. Those were the days.” Clara Mae sighed. “I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.”
“Well, my...the man who hurt me wouldn’t fight.
He always walked away. What do you think about that?”
Mrs. Edmund made a soft tsking sound. “No matter how fast you run, you can’t escape your problems. No, that wouldn’t do me at all.”
“It didn’t do me, either,” Kate said flatly. “I felt more alone when I was with him than when he was gone. So I ended the relationship. When I told him I wanted a di...out, he didn’t protest.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Clara Mae said. “That must have hurt.”
Only pride kept her from admitting exactly how much it had hurt. How much, despite the passage of eighteen months, it still hurt.
There was an odd look on Steve’s face as he turned his gaze on her. “You left him because he wouldn’t fight with you?”
He sounded incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Exactly why had he thought she’d left? Kate wondered. At the time, she’d thought she’d made her feelings and her reasonings abundantly clear. Of course, she hadn’t been thinking all that clearly in the weeks before coming to her decision. Maybe she hadn’t clarified things well. Still she couldn’t stem the vindictive voice inside her that whispered if he hadn’t understood why she was leaving, all he’d had to do was stick around long enough to ask. Instead, he’d calmly accepted her declaration and then walked out the door.
“Yes,” she said, thrusting her chin forward. “I left him because he wouldn’t fight with me.” It was a simplistic explanation for what had happened, but it would do. “Can you think of a better reason?”
“Hell yes,” he retorted. “Hundreds.”
“Name a few.”
“Gladly.” He ticked off on his fingers. “For starters, we have mental, verbal and physical abuse. Infidelity. Desertion. Incompatibility. Care to hear more?”
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