He’d been good enough for her tonight, at least for a while. The memory of their little moondance caused his dick to twitch, and he sucked in a deep lungful of sea air, hoping it would cool him off. God, Talia had made him crazy—Talia or the song, or Talia and the song. He’d been so crazy, he’d actually considered sneaking into his daughter’s bedroom and searching it for rubbers.
He wanted to come inside Talia. What they’d done tonight had been fun, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Unfortunately, she wanted to do the dishes. Kissing, coming, and then hey, let’s get those leftovers into the fridge so they don’t spoil.
A reluctant laugh escaped him. Wasn’t that just like Talia? She’d been the practical one in their relationship. She’d been the one who cared about food—what it cost, how it was prepared, whether their daughter was eating a healthy diet. She’d been the one to select their daughter’s name. “Wendy was my favorite character in Peter Pan,” she’d explained. “All those silly boys didn’t want to grow up. Wendy was the voice of wisdom.” Talia had been the voice of wisdom in his life back then, too. And maybe he’d been a silly boy who didn’t want to grow up.
He’d thought she would take good care of him. Ultimately, she hadn’t. Now he was asking her, in a professional way, to take care of his mother. In a professional way, she probably would.
But what did he want from her for himself? If he moved up to Boston, would he want to see her? Would he want to stock up on contraceptives and screw her senseless, every chance he got? Was he kidding himself when he thought his move to Boston was just about being closer to Wendy while overseeing New England operations of Tek-Palette?
When he’d driven up here, that had been his plan: cheer himself hoarse of his daughter’s graduation, find office space for Tek-Palette, find a condo in the Brogan’s Point area for his mother. Find a cool, not-too-expensive apartment for himself in Boston.
Falling in love with his ex-wife had not been anywhere on his list.
Turning from the window, he dug his cell phone from his pocket and thumbed the email app. He needed to check in with his colleagues back in New York, to get their feedback on the office space Shirley had taken him to earlier that day. He noted a message from her about a few places she wanted to show him tomorrow in Watertown and Newton. He tapped out a reply, telling her he’d look at sites in the morning but he had to be somewhere by one o’clock.
At one o’clock, Wendy would be receiving an award. No way would he miss that. He’d see his daughter…and he’d see Talia.
Whom he was definitely not falling in love with, he assured himself. Wanting to bang her wasn’t the same thing as loving her, no matter how fantabulous the song said a moondance could be.
Chapter Eleven
Cory was already at the school when she arrived, a few minutes before one. Her mind was barely able to contain everything stuffed into it: excitement about Wendy’s honor, apprehension about seeing Cory, and a looping replay of her meeting with Rhonda Stern that morning. Rhonda was employed by the town’s Visiting Nurse program. Her mother had been a close friend of Grammy’s, and when Talia was setting up First Aides, Rhonda had been an invaluable resource for her, helping her to define the line between in-home helpers and health aides. Rhonda wasn’t quite old enough to be Talia’s mother—unless, perhaps, she’d gotten knocked up in high school like Talia—but despite their age gap, Talia and Rhonda remained friends after Grammy died and Rhonda’s mother moved to Florida to escape the harsh New England winters.
Rhonda had phoned Talia that morning, interrupting Talia’s start-the-day routine of guzzling coffee while reviewing the First Aides schedule, and asked if she could stop by. As long as the visit didn’t keep Talia from getting to the high school in time for the awards assembly, she didn’t mind sharing her second cup of coffee with Rhonda.
She’d thought it would just be a friendly visit. But Rhonda had an agenda, one that knocked Talia sideways—in a good way. “I think we should join forces,” Rhonda had said as they sat facing each other across the kitchen table. Talia had still been in her T-shirt and bathrobe—Rhonda wasn’t someone she had to dress for—and Rhonda wore scrubs featuring a floral pattern. She’d once told Talia that her clients treated her like a nurse when she dressed like one, so even though she wasn’t working in a hospital, she dressed as if she was. “First Aides could offer a second tier of home care,” she went on, “for people who need more than just assistance with running errands and fixing meals. You could add staffers who could check a client’s blood pressure and balance, sort pills, do glucose testing, that kind of thing. I could organize the medical end. I know the licensing. I know the law. I know what home health aides can and can’t do.”
“Are you leaving the Visiting Nurses?” Talia asked.
“Our budget is being cut,” Rhonda told her, looking not the least bit troubled by the prospect. “They’d let some of the younger nurses go before they laid me off. But I’m ready for a change. Time to try the private sector. I love what you’ve done with First Aides, but you’re boxed in because you can’t cross that line into health care. Your people can’t dress minor lesions, evaluate rashes, and treat other health problems—and you know those problems are common with your client base. Think about it, Talia. You could take First Aides to the next level. There’s such a demand for this kind of service.”
Talia continued to think about it after she’d said goodbye to Rhonda, showered, and blow-dried her hair. She thought about it as she devoured a slice of melon, as she dressed in a sundress and sandals, as she checked in with all the aides on that day’s schedule, and as she drove to the high school. The possibility of expanding First Aides with Rhonda excited her. If Rhonda could handle the medical end of things, Talia could easily handle the rest. With Wendy heading off to college, Talia would have the time and energy to take on a greater challenge. Rhonda had said she was ready for a change. Maybe Talia was ready for a change, too.
As soon as she parked her car in the visitors’ lot outside the high school, she tucked all thoughts of Rhonda’s proposition into a remote corner of her brain. Right now, she wanted to think about Wendy.
She didn’t want to think about Cory, but spotting him standing under the overhang outside the building’s main entrance made that impossible. And who was she kidding, anyway? She hadn’t stopped thinking about Cory since last night.
She didn’t want to think about last night, either. Couldn’t a mother focus her gray matter on her beloved daughter and nothing else for a few minutes?
Not with Cory loitering by the entrance, looking proud and confident and too damned sexy. If only he’d entered the building and gone straight to the auditorium, she wouldn’t have been confronted with his presence, his appearance, the appalling fact that just the sight of him made her twinge in secret places.
As soon as he saw her crossing the sticky asphalt to the building, he straightened up. He was dressed in neat jeans, an oxford shirt and a blazer. A light, warm breeze ruffled his hair. His lips curved in a tentative smile.
Merely glimpsing Cory’s mouth made her sweat. She remembered what he’d done with that mouth yesterday evening while their award-winning daughter was at the beach with her friends. She remembered the feel of his lips on her cheeks, her throat, her breasts, her crotch. She remembered coming so intensely, she’d felt as if her body had dissolved in a way that defied physics, transforming from flesh into fierce energy.
A blush burned through her at the memory. She hoped he didn’t notice. After all, last night had clearly meant little to him. As soon as she’d returned to the kitchen to deal with the dinner mess they’d abandoned during their insane interlude in her bedroom, he’d departed. He hadn’t even helped her carry the dishes to the sink.
Would he have lingered if she’d had condoms in her night table drawer?
That notion made her blush even more. But it also angered her. Had he come to her house just for sex? Was that why he’d brought the flowers? Surely he ha
d access to plenty of women in New York. He didn’t have to travel all the way to Brogan’s Point just to get laid. If he’d thought about it at all, he probably could have guessed that his pathetically prim ex-wife would fail to have contraceptives in her night table drawer.
Still, making love with someone you knew was preferable to making love with a stranger. And prim or not, Talia had been an eager participant. She hadn’t realized how horny she was until Cory had awakened and then satisfied that horniness. Maybe now that Wendy would be leaving home for college, Talia ought to consider reactivating her love life along with expanding her business.
“Hi,” Cory said when she joined him in the shade of the overhang. His face didn’t exactly light up at the sight of her. If he was angry because she hadn’t had condoms last night, that was his problem. She had just as much right to be angry because he hadn’t given her a hand with the dishes. Just like their marriage, so many years ago: he’d helped himself to the good parts of it—what few good parts there had been—while refusing to shoulder his share of the hard parts.
“You could have gone inside,” she said as she tugged the door handle. “It’s so hot out here.”
He reached around her to hold the door open for her, and they stepped into the entry. The expected blast of chilled air sent a shiver through her.
“I don’t know my way around the school,” he said, peering down the hall.
“We have to sign in.” She motioned for him to follow her to the front office.
Arlene Dempsey, the secretary on duty, recognized Talia right away. “Hey, Talia,” she called out. “Are you here for the awards ceremony?”
Wendy had been right. Arlene Dempsey was a blabbermouth. A lovely woman, always friendly and willing to help, but Talia would make a point never to confide in her about anything she didn’t want broadcast to the world. “Yes,” she said. “Any idea what award Wendy’s going to get?”
“I’m not sure. I could look it up—”
“No. Let us be surprised,” Talia said, reaching for the visitors’ ledger, jotting down the time, and signing her name. She handed the pen to Cory, who signed his name below hers.
Arlene glanced at the ledger, then shot Cory a curious look. “Cory Malone? A relative?”
“Wendy’s father,” he said.
“Oh. Oh! How nice that you could be here!” Arlene’s gaze shuttled between Cory and Talia, who suppressed a sigh. Now the whole school would know that her ex-husband was not just in town but by her side, accompanying her to the assembly. She supposed everyone would have learned that Cory was in town on Friday, when he showed up at the graduation ceremony. But they wouldn’t have known that he’d come to town days earlier than necessary, and that he was with her.
He wasn’t really with her, she reminded herself. Even after last night, he wasn’t with her. She was sure plenty of divorced couples attended the commencement exercises together, and behaved civilly, and shared their joy at their offspring’s’ accomplishments. But Talia couldn’t exactly say that she and Cory were behaving civilly. Last night had been deliriously pleasurable, but tearing each other’s clothes off and engaging in a few frenzied, orgasmic minutes on the bed with barely a word spoken between them… Civil was not a word Talia would use to describe what had occurred between them yesterday.
Arlene’s eager scrutiny of Talia and Cory made Talia uncomfortable. Or maybe what made her uncomfortable were her own thoughts, her memory of last night, her confusion about what it meant, what Cory thought it meant, whether it meant anything at all. Not wishing to dwell on the subject, she turned and strode out of the front office, Cory close behind. Once they’d turned down the central corridor, she let out a sigh. “Arlene will spread the word that you’re here,” she warned him. “Be prepared.”
“For what?”
She shrugged. “Everyone knows Wendy has a father, of course. Her friends know she travels to New York to see you. But no one has met you.”
“So they’ll meet me now,” he said, scanning the walls as they walked down the hall. Usually, those walls were covered with decorations—student artwork, fliers, announcements, placards. But with the school term winding down, the expanse of cinderblock and lockers looked pretty barren.
A dull roar of voices emerged through the open doors of the auditorium as they neared it. Entering the vaulted room, Talia noticed that the first twenty or so rows were filled with students. Parents sat scattered in the rows further back from the stage, which held a scratched pine podium, a row of folding chairs occupied by school officials, a few limp potted lilies, and an American flag sagging from a flagpole topped with a brass eagle.
Talia scanned the adults seated in the rear section and was relieved not to recognize anyone right away. She wasn’t sure why she felt inhibited about being seen with Cory. Probably because she didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions, or be the subject of speculation. She didn’t want the mother of one of Wendy’s friends or volleyball teammates to wink and make insinuating remarks about the handsome man accompanying Talia.
She found two seats near the back, beyond the reach of the lights illuminating the stage. Cory didn’t question her choice of seats, but simply followed her along the row until she sat in a pool of shadow. He sat beside her, shot her another tentative smile, and said nothing. Perhaps he understood why she didn’t want to make a spectacle of their being here together.
The principal, a pink-cheeked, silver-haired man who was probably the least impressive staffer she’d ever encountered at the school, rose from one of the folding chairs and crossed to the podium. He blinked in the glare of the stage lights, like a mole emerging from its burrow into the sunlight, and then launched into a monotonous speech about how wonderful the senior class was and what a privilege it had been to see them grow and mature over the past four years. Cory tilted his head toward Talia and whispered, “I used to sleep through assemblies like this when I was in high school.”
“You won your class’s art prize, though,” she recalled. “You didn’t sleep through that, did you?”
He snorted. “I almost didn’t hear them call my name when they announced that award. I was too busy thinking about how I was going to be a father in a few months.”
Well, yes. She supposed that particular reality had put a damper on both his and her end-of-high-school festivities. Her memory of her final days at St. Agatha was dismal. She’d been chronically nauseous. She’d felt fat, even though she hadn’t begun to show. She’d been a wreck, worrying about how to break the news to her parents. Her anxiety had been well-placed, too; when she’d told them, the evening after graduation, they’d kicked her out of the house. She’d had to move in with Cory and his mother that summer.
Unlike Wendy and most of her classmates, Talia had not had the privilege of anticipating college in the fall. She’d always expected to go to college, but once her parents had disowned her, that was no longer a possibility. She had thought Cory would skip college, too, and get a job, so they could start out their married life like other normal people did—on their own, self-supporting. But he’d received a generous scholarship to attend RISD, and he’d claimed that he’d be able to get a much better job with a college degree, and anyway, it was only four years. Talia could put up with his mother for that long, couldn’t she? Especially since his mother would be able to help with child care so Talia could get a job and earn some money.
As it turned out, she couldn’t put up with Tina Malone that long. Four years had loomed before Talia like eternity. If Grammy hadn’t come through for her, she would probably have snapped. She would have had a nervous breakdown and been carted away, drooling and babbling, in a straitjacket. Poor Wendy would have been raised by her stoner grandmother and her absent father, and she would not be winning a high school award today.
The principal droned on. Talia occupied herself by searching for Wendy in the crowd of seniors filling the rows near the stage. Even from behind, Talia ought to be able to recognize her daughter, but the taller boy
s obscured her view of some of the girls, and the lighting was uneven. She did recognize a few of the teachers: Wendy’s calculus teacher, whose bushy red hair had prompted the kids to call him Bozo the Clown behind his back. Ann Valenti, the biology teacher who did double-duty as Wendy’s volleyball coach. That lovely young English teacher with the southern accent—Ms. Benoit. Wendy had adored her literature class.
“So without further ado…” the principal said.
“What does he mean, without further ado? He’s put us through plenty of ado,” Cory whispered to Talia.
She grinned, acknowledging that Cory had just given voice to her own thoughts. Forget last night, she ordered herself. Enjoy that you can share this with him today.
It was true: attending the assembly with Cory—the only person in the world who cared as much about her daughter as she did—was better than attending by herself. How nice it would be to share special moments with an adult companion all the time. How nice it would be to have a soul mate to whisper snarky jokes to at boring assemblies, and to sound out about her ideas and plans.
Like Rhonda’s proposal, for instance. She wondered what Cory would think of that. Would he shake his head and tell her not to bite off more than she could chew? Would he encourage her to take a risk and grow her company? Would he help her assess the pros and cons, the financial perils, the potential benefits?
Forget First Aides, she admonished herself. Just think about Wendy. Yet the idea of sounding Cory out about expanding the company refused to let go of her. For her entire adult life, it seemed, she’d never had anyone she could confide in, an ally to offer different perspectives and useful suggestions.
Grammy had encouraged her to start First Aides, and had recommended several of her friends and acquaintances as potential clients. But she hadn’t really understood the business end of things. Working in Brogan’s Point’s Town Hall, she’d known plenty about tax assessments, absentee ballot applications, and the town’s pet census, but nothing about starting a company or managing employees. She’d been sparing with advice on the subject of child-rearing, since, as she herself admitted, she hadn’t done such a good job raising Talia’s mother. “How that woman could turn her back on her own daughter… I blame your father, Talia. He’s so close-minded, so positive that he’s right and the rest of the world is wrong. And he’s got your mother brainwashed.”
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