“Why not? It’ll be more convenient.”
“Why not? It’s as bad as castrating a guy. Nothing screams married with children louder than a vehicle with a sliding door.”
Margie chuckled. “Isn’t that what you’ve been saying you want? To be married with a child?”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just afraid the girls won’t check you out anymore.”
Alex simply stared at the floor.
“You are, aren’t you?” she insisted.
“Kind of.” He twisted his mouth. “But you know I’d never look back. I just don’t want my friends to think I’m whipped.”
Insecurity flickered in Emma’s eyes. Jake took her hand and squeezed it. “Remember in class when we talked about guys being egomaniacs?”
“Yeah. But I thought Alex was different.”
“In the ways that count, he is. But every man wants to feel like a rooster in a hen house,” Jake told her. “Even if he’s only chasing one of the chickens, he likes knowing he can still inspire the rest of them to lay eggs.”
Alex wrapped his arms around her. “Emmy, it’s not just about my image. I’m only eighteen. A van will make me feel old. I want something fun.”
Emma smiled sideways at her mother. “So what they say about little boy’s and men’s toys is true. They really do just get more expensive.”
“That’s putting it into perspective,” Jake said. “This old man wouldn’t mind a toy.” He turned to his son. “I have an idea that’ll solve your problem. Why don’t you get the bluebook value on your car and my SUV. I’ll trade with you and give you the difference between them. That way you’ll know what you’re getting.”
“Hey, that’d be great. Thanks.” Alex slapped his back. “Since you rode here with me tonight, we’ll drop you off at home on the way to the mall.”
“Alex, it would be rude for me to just wipe my mouth and leave right after dinner.”
“Well, how will you get home?”
“You’re going to be back by ten so Emma can get to bed early, right?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
Jake glanced at Maggie. “I think Emma’s mom and I can find something to talk about until you come back. If she turns out to be a bore, I’ll watch her television. And if all else fails, I’ll impose on her to drive me home again.”
After his son and Emma left, Jake sat back down and counted four pictures of Dan Bradford hanging on the walls and sitting on the tables. Maggie had obviously been crazy about the guy.
Laying his arm along the back of the sofa, he turned to her. “So now that you’ve heard some of the gory details of my marriage, what about yours?”
He listened quietly while Maggie spent the next hour giving him a chronology of all the places her family had lived in the last nineteen years.
“I know statistically a pilot’s job is no more dangerous than a bus driver’s,” she said. “Call it a premonition or paranoia if that makes the psychoanalyst in you happy, but each time Dan left for a flight, I worried he wouldn’t come home.”
“I can understand that. Especially following 9/11.”
“You’ve no idea. After the terrorists took control of those flights, Em and I were frantic every time he was gone. The weird thing is, when I finally got the call saying his plane had gone down, it was almost anticlimactic. I was in a total daze for a while, but then I felt a little guilty that I didn’t fall completely apart.”
“You couldn’t lose it with your daughter depending on you.” Jake squeezed her hand. “The guilt is normal. Imagining the worst all those years probably prepared you for losing him.”
“Maybe.” She picked a piece of lint off her top. “But no one is ever ready for their husband to die. I just handled it a lot better than I ever expected to.”
He settled back against the cushion. “So, it’s obvious life was never dull, but you haven’t said if you were happy.”
“I was very happy with Dan….” The pitch in her voice rose at the end of her statement as if there were more to it.
He arched one eyebrow. “I sense a but in that. I don’t suspect life could’ve been even close to perfect, hopping from one state to another every year or so.”
“True. However, that wasn’t the but you sensed. I was simply never sure how happy Dan was with me.”
“Was it the fifteen-year age difference?”
“Okay, Dr. Freud.” She smiled. “How’d you know that was a problem?”
“A man who marries a woman that much younger frequently does it more out of ego and physical attraction than because he has anything in common with her.”
“Oh, boy.” She sputtered. “Are you way off base. Do you ever quit analyzing everyone’s motives?”
“Probably not.” He chuckled. “It’s become automatic for me.”
“Well it makes you seem pompous and pretentious. No one likes being put under a microscope all the time.”
“Sorry. I just like knowing what makes people tick.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If that bothers you, you play the psychologist instead. Why do you think the age difference made Dan unhappy?”
“I don’t think. I know. His first wife cheated on him. Dan treated me like a priceless possession that he had to guard all the time. He hated other men even looking at me.”
“I don’t blame him. You’re an incredibly beautiful woman.”
A pink tinge seeped into her cheeks. “I never felt beautiful in my glasses. My eyes had trouble tolerating contact lenses, and I was afraid to even suggest LASIK surgery because Dan worried so much about losing me to someone younger. After he died, Barbara and Emma convinced me to have the operation.”
Jake gently touched her cheek under one of her expressive eyes. “To be truthful, I miss your glasses. They made your eyes look even bigger than they are.”
She dropped her gaze from his and licked her lips. “I think Dan’s jealousy was part of the reason he wanted to move so often. It kept me dependent on him for companionship and prevented me from forming any close friendships. Deep down, he was incredibly insecure.”
“How does a guy lacking in self-confidence get to be an airline pilot?”
“Easy. A man’s personal life is very different from his professional one. And I was a bit of a disappointment to my husband in the bed—” A stricken look flashed across her face, indicating she regretted running off at the mouth. “I’m just certain I helped feed his feelings of inadequacy.”
Jake stared at her, bewildered. Maggie had responded to him more eagerly than any woman he’d ever been with. “It would make sense for you to feel inadequate if you were a disappointment to your husband, but why would he feel that way?”
Her gnawing on her lip said she wasn’t comfortable with the turn in the conversation.
“Or was Dan frustrated because he didn’t feel like he could satisfy you?”
She turned her face away. “What makes you think I didn’t feel deficient, too? Look, I really don’t want to talk about my husband’s and my sex life with you.”
His tongue moved restlessly in his mouth as he gazed at her soft pout. Would she taste as sweet as he remembered? He cupped her face in his palm and turned it so he could look into her eyes. “But I do want to talk about it. I spent three nights with you in my bed. It took only the one I made love to you to be able to testify you have no reason to feel deficient, Rosebud.”
She ripped her gaze away from his. “I don’t want to discuss this. And please stop calling me that.”
“That’s how I’ll always think of you, Maggie. Why don’t you want to talk about how good it was between us? Afraid it’ll ruin the memory of what you had with Dan?”
“No, I just don’t see the point in dredging up the past—especially when what I felt with you wasn’t real.”
So Maggie had terminated her pregnancy because she’d realized she hadn’t loved him.
“I warned you at the time that you were confusing great sex with love, didn’t I?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, again avoiding his gaze. “That’s not what I meant. It’s that so-called great sex that was blown out of proportion. I don’t know what I felt that night. It was my first taste of passion, and I wasn’t completely sober. People always remember their first experience with something as being better than reality.”
“I have news for you, Sweetheart. By the time we became intimate, it’d been six hours since your last drink. If I hadn’t been sure the booze had worn off, I never would’ve touched you—regardless of whether I thought you were a working girl or not.”
It felt as if two decades of fantasies had become reality. He longed to play out his seduction-rejection scenario. Combing his fingers through her hair, he smiled. “Why don’t we do a little experiment and find out how accurate your memory is?”
Dipping his head, he covered her mouth with his in a soft, seductive kiss. He teased her lips to part and swept his tongue into her mouth. Damn, she still tasted sweet—like the fresh peaches from dinner. A soft groan escaped his chest as he slid his hand over her lush breast.
Her back arched, thrusting her softness into his palm as her breathing became ragged. Her tongue mated eagerly with his and a tiny whimper rose from her throat.
She was even more responsive than he remembered.
He nibbled his way across her cheek to her ear and murmured, “And that was just a kiss, Rosebud. How would you react if I really made love to you?”
“Please, don’t do this.” She shoved herself away. “I think I’ll go make some coffee.”
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her back and tipped up her chin to look into her eyes. “If my kiss gave you a craving for coffee, I guess maybe you’re right. Whatever made you cry, ‘Oh, Jake, please do that again,’ that night must not have been real.”
~~~
Margie jerked her hand away and escaped into the kitchen, her cheeks on fire. She wasn’t about to admit that, although Dan’s kisses had been pleasant, the experience had lacked the heart-pounding, shivering sensation that ricocheted through her when Jake held her.
While she measured coffee grounds into a filter, her fingers shook. His arms slid around her waist from behind and pulled her tightly against his solid chest, the rigid length of him pressing into her back. He nuzzled his way through her hair to her nape and nibbled on her neck, his hands roaming over the front of her, making her whole body tingle with desire until her panties felt soaked.
Wrenching herself out of his vice-like hold, she spun to face him. “Look, I’m not interested in a stroll down memory lane with you. I’d like us to simply forget we ever previously knew each other.”
He framed her face with his hands, his eyes searching hers. “I’m sorry. I can’t make a baby with a woman and just forget about it.”
She bit back a bitter sneer and dumped a carafe of water into the coffeemaker. He might not be able to forget the night they’d conceived their child, but he’d certainly had no trouble forgetting her the moment she was no longer carrying his baby.
“You seem to be able to keep those memories to yourself just fine in front of our children. See if you can carry that over to when we’re alone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the bathroom.”
When she pulled down her underwear in the john a few moments later, she breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the bright red stain on her crotch. As least she could blame her period for her wet panties instead of his kisses.
By the time she cleaned herself up and returned to the kitchen, the coffee was nearly finished brewing. She watched the final drops fall into the pot, and the heavy uncomfortable silence hanging between them finally got to her. “So....” She smiled with false gaiety. “What about the kids’ wedding? Are we going to have them make the arrangements for it, or should we handle it?”
He took his time answering her. “Inasmuch as I’d like to let them be completely responsible, that’s probably not feasible with their final exams and graduation rehearsal. And then there’s Alex’s job and Emma’s doctor appointment to squeeze in, too.”
Not to mention, it all had to be accomplished in the next week by two kids with no experience in dealing with anything like that.
Taking down two cups from the cabinet, she shrugged. “So you think we should just ask them what they want and arrange it all for them?”
“That would probably be best.”
After filling the two mugs with coffee, she handed him one and opened the refrigerator and poured some milk into her own. A self-satisfied smile slowly curled Jake’s mouth. “You remembered I like it black.”
“Huh?”
He held up his mug. “Nineteen years, and you still remember how I drink it.”
Her palm itched to wipe the smug smile off his face. He would probably crow with delight if he knew all the other things she recalled about him. Like the fact the backs of his knees were extremely ticklish. Or his passion for the pecan pie she’d baked that afternoon, which now she couldn’t offer him.
Her memory still held intimate little details about him that she’d learned during the two nights he’d just held her in bed. Like the way he mumbled in his sleep, that he liked the right side of the bed, and he didn’t like the covers tucked around his feet.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I just unconsciously handed it to you that way because Dan drank his black,” she fibbed, praying Emma would never have occasion to mention her father had drunk his coffee light and sweet.
One dark eyebrow raised a fraction. “Hmmm….I guess I must’ve been mistaken about the pie I thought I saw in your refrigerator.”
It obviously did wonders for his ego that a woman he’d dismissed so easily had never been able to forget the tiniest details of the four days and three nights she’d spent with him. Cocking her head, she feigned a questioning look. “Oh, do you like pecan pie? That’s wonderful. I was hoping to fatten Emma up. Would you like a slice with your coffee?”
His lips smacked in amusement. “I don’t suggest you quit teaching to pursue a career on the stage, Maggie. I’d love a piece.”
Once she served him a huge wedge, they carried their coffee into the living room. Jake propped his stockinged feet on the coffee table and groaned as he scraped the first taste of his dessert off his fork with his teeth. “Oh, man. This is about the best I’ve ever tasted. Why aren’t you having a piece?”
“Do you know how many calories are in a slice of that?” If she had any hope of shedding some weight before her daughter’s wedding, she didn’t dare even look at dessert. And she was going to have to trade the second half of her sandwich at lunch each day for a walk.
“So then just have a taste of mine.” He captured her lips in another sweet, tantalizing kiss that left her dazed. When he drew back, he murmured, “I’m not looking to rehash our past. I want new memories so I can forget what happened between us.”
Her head spun as he lowered her back on the sofa, his pecan flavored mouth becoming more demanding than before. Curling her fingers into his hard chest, she shivered in response to his tongue leading hers in a frenzied mating dance.
“Look, Mom!”
Chapter 9
Damn. Jake sprang away from Maggie as her daughter burst through the front door. The kids had to have bought the first ring they saw to get back that fast. He glanced at Emma’s outraged face, then at Maggie.
Now what? From the day he’d met this woman, his desire for her had caused nothing but trouble for him.
“How could you do this to Daddy?” Emma’s features twisted in revulsion. “I thought you loved him.”
“I do, Em. I—”
“Emma.” He squeezed Maggie’s hand and lied through his teeth in an attempt to mollify her daughter. “This isn’t what it looks like. I kissed your mom. She didn’t kiss me back.”
“Why would you hit on my mother? You’ve known her one stinking day.”
Telling the girl the truth would only upset her more.
Alex wrapped his arms around Emma. “Angel, calm
down.”
“No, I won’t calm down. It’s gross.” Emma spun on Jake again. “You’re going to be my father-in-law, Mr. Manion.”
“That’s right, so why don’t you call me Jake or Dad?”
“No.” Her upper lip curled. “You’re nothing like my dad. He never would’ve come on to my fiancé’s mother.”
Had he likened Emma to a timid kitten the evening before? He never would’ve guessed she could turn into such a fierce little tigress when her family was threatened, which apparently was what she was feeling.
Although her father had been dead for almost two years, the icy hostility chilling her gray eyes said she saw Jake as an interloper in her parent’s marriage, and she wasn’t about to let him off the hook until she was good and ready.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have kissed your mom. When you came in, you wanted to show her your ring. Let’s see it.”
She hesitated, and Alex caressed her cheek. “Em, don’t let what happened spoil the night for you.”
Reluctantly, she thrust her hand under her mother’s nose. “Isn’t it gorgeous? There’s a wedding band that matches.”
Maggie held her daughter’s finger and studied the ring they’d chosen. “It’s beautiful, Sweetie.”
Even with his limited knowledge of diamonds, Jake could tell the tiny stone couldn’t be much more than a quarter carat not counting the little chips running along the white gold band.
Alex shrugged. “I wanted to buy her a bigger one, but silly Emma insisted we should save the money to pay for diapers of all things. Go figure.”
Jake squeezed his son’s shoulder and smiled at Emma. “It’s perfect.”
“Thank you,” Emma forced past her tightlipped smile. Apparently she needed some time to warm back up to him.
“Well, goodnight, ladies.” Jake reached for the doorknob. “We’ll let you get to bed.”
Maggie stopped him. “So I’ll take care of making the arrangements for the reception?”
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu Page 12