by KG MacGregor
Gasping for breath, Leo gave herself over to the euphoria
of Claudia’s lips on hers. Though her heart raged with fear and
doubt, she was powerless to resist the fantasy that had visited her
every day for the last two decades. “Please don’t break my heart
again.”
In an unspoken assurance, Claudia tightened her arms around
her neck and her kiss grew more intense.
It didn’t matter if Claudia denied her a verbal promise. She
would put today with the other memories if it was all they had.
Her hands traveled over Claudia’s back, settling on the curve of
her hips. “You have the sweetest body in the world.”
“It’s not the same body you remember,” Claudia demurred,
brushing her nose against Leo’s shoulder.
It was too sappy to say aloud, but all Leo could think was
that this body held the heart of the woman she loved, and that
was all that mattered. She dipped her fingers beneath the hem
of Claudia’s shirt and tickled the warm flesh of her back. They
kissed again, deep and slow, as her hands wandered higher and
released the bra’s clasp. She could feel Claudia respond, allowing
her hips to be pulled forward as her head fell back. Emboldened
by the surrender, Leo grasped a breast and kneaded its nipple to
a peak.
Claudia hissed with pleasure.
With mounting fervor, she tugged at the fastener on Claudia’s
slacks and thrust her hand inside.
“You’ve got to let me lie down, Leo, or I’m going to fall.”
She released her prize and led the way into the bedroom,
where Claudia tossed the comforter into a pile at the foot of the
bed. Leo kicked off her shoes and dropped all of her clothes onto
the floor. Claudia did the same, and they met on the cool white
sheets and fell together in a heap.
Leo was inside her instantly, covering her moan with a kiss.
With every stroke Claudia grew wetter, and Leo gave in to her
lust and lowered her mouth to its source. It was exactly the taste
that had been burned into her memory.
Claudia groped for her hand and squeezed it hard as she
came with a shudder. Panting from exertion, she tugged Leo
upward and grasped her face with both hands. “I love you. Give
me another chance and I promise I’ll put you first every time.”
Chapter 30
It was daybreak when Claudia awoke. A chilly breeze
wafted the cloth curtains, but Leo’s warm body covered most of
hers. Their lovemaking had been intense, both physically and
emotionally, as they poured themselves into each other. It was
unbelievable she had lived so long without it.
They had rediscovered one another throughout the night,
getting out of bed only to wolf down cheesecake from room
service. It was decadent, like the half dozen orgasms she’d had
at Leo’s touch.
“You were wrong about your body,” Leo murmured, nuzzling
her head under Claudia’s chin. “It’s as amazing now as it was the
last time I touched you.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“About ten minutes maybe. I was thinking about Maria and
wondering if she expected this to happen.”
Claudia rumbled with a low laugh. “I think she staged the
whole thing. I didn’t actually see her broken leg.”
“Are you going to tell anyone about this?”
She struggled to sit up. “Of course I’m going to tell people.
What kind of question is that?”
“I didn’t mean ever. I just wondered if you were thinking
about waiting awhile to see what happens. It isn’t something you
can un-say.”
Obviously, it wasn’t going to be easy for Leo to trust her.
“Look, if my feelings for you were going to go away, don’t you
think they would have done that already? The people who care
about me need to know about you. And I think some of them
might notice when I move to Monterey.”
“Mmmm,” Leo said, wriggling with satisfaction. Apparently,
the commitment to move was just the thing she needed to hear.
“I think Eva already knows.”
“Yeah, I think I might have told her but I’m not sure.”
Leo sat up in bed beside her. “Might have?”
“It was on her twenty-first birthday. I went up to Stanford
that weekend. I remember something vaguely about sitting in
her apartment and sharing a bottle of tequila. I’m pretty sure I
spilled my guts.” And it had brought her the worst hangover of
her life. “I definitely spilled them the next day.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That was the weekend she told me she was in love with
Todd. I remember saying that I’d only been in love once, and it
was with a woman I’d met in Monterey.”
Leo thinned her lips and nodded. “That explains what she
said. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
“My daughter? Are you kidding?” Claudia stretched and
swung her feet out of bed. She had a robe out in the sitting room,
but it was silly to fetch it so she could wear it into the bathroom.
“She thought it was cool as hell. Turns out she had a girlfriend
her freshman year. Believe me, that was an eye-opener. It finally
hit me what my father must have thought about me.”
“You told him about us?”
“Not specifically, but he knows I was in love with a woman
when I married Mike. Wait till he finds out I still am. He’s going
to love you, by the way.”
“What makes you say that?”
Claudia cranked the shower handle until it flowed hot.
“Because I do.”
Leo nodded. “I’ll buy that. I liked him for the same reason.”
As she stepped into the shower, she saw that Leo had come
to stand in the doorway naked with her arms folded casually
across her chest. She was as lanky as ever, and gravity had been
kind to her small breasts. Lots of things about seeing her again
were bittersweet, she thought, like feeling so comfortable with
someone after not having this level of companionship in her life.
“I never asked about your mother.”
“Eighty-one and still going strong.”
“Will I get to meet her?”
“Sure. She probably won’t get the lesbian thing, but she’ll
treat you a lot better than your last mother-in-law.” Leo handed
her a towel and stepped into the shower as she was getting out.
“I’ll have to tell Patty. She’s going to say I told you so.”
“Did she really know you were in love with me, or was she
just guessing?”
“We talked about everything. And one time she caught me
looking at the portfolio we did for that workshop.”
Claudia smiled at her memories of their attic sessions. She had
thought of the photos several times, but had decided they might
be a sore subject, since Maria had told her Leo wasn’t accepted
into the workshop that year. She assumed that meant they didn’t
pass muster, but she still wanted to see them eventually, especially
the nude. “You promised to show me those, you know.”
“And then you lef
t me to get married to somebody else,” Leo
said, shaking her head with incredulity. “I refuse to feel guilty
about not crashing your wedding to show you a photo album.”
“Do you still have them?”
“Of course I still have them. They’re locked up in my cedar
chest. No one’s ever seen them but me.”
“And the judges.”
“Not even the judges. I ended up not applying that year. My
heart wasn’t in it but I hired a model over the summer and shot
them again in the studio downstairs.”
Claudia was stunned. “Are you serious? We did all of that
work and you never even sent them in?”
“I didn’t want to give them up.” She finished rinsing her hair
and turned off the shower. “They were all I had left of you. I used
to sit and stare at them for hours thinking about all that time we
spent in the attic.”
She tossed Leo a fresh towel and started filling her toiletry
bag. “Hurry up and get dressed. I want to see those pictures
now.”
Claudia made one last sweep of the suite for her personal
items. The bellman had carted away all but her purse and Leo’s
camera bag.
“I think we should drive straight to Cambria and pack your
things,” Leo said seriously, pulling her into an embrace at the
door. “Otherwise I’ll have nightmares about you never coming
back.”
Claudia understood that she had to earn Leo’s trust but
she couldn’t speed up the process. It would come only with the
passage of time. “I’m under contract for next year in Cambria. I’ll
break it though if you really need me to.”
Leo’s jaw twitched before she finally shook her head. “I won’t
make you do that. But it’s going to be a long year.”
She recalled wistfully what Leo had said the night before
about wishing she had chosen for them. “You know what? Forget
it. I’m going to call my boss on Monday and tell him he has
six weeks to find someone else. Life’s a lot shorter than it was
twenty-three years ago and I don’t want to wait another year to
sleep with you every night.”
Leo’s face lit up in a bright smile. “Does that mean you’ll live
with me?”
“I told you I always wanted a Victorian house.” She wrapped
0
her arms around Leo’s neck and pulled her down for a kiss.
“And I always wanted you,” Leo said, guiding her into the
hallway toward the elevator.
Claudia was still grinning when the doors parted on the
ground floor.
Marjorie Pettigrew stood beside Big Jim, whose chair was
being pushed by a bellman. In typical fashion, she looked past
Claudia as she spoke, as though making direct eye contact was
beneath her. “I had presumed you would have departed already.”
“I’m leaving now.” Claudia pulled Leo forward and grasped
her hand. “Did you have a chance to meet our photographer?”
“Of course I did. Miss Westcott, isn’t it?” Marjorie’s eyes
dropped to their joined hands and she shrugged her shoulders
uneasily. “I’m quite surprised to see you today as well.”
“Leo stayed the night with me in my bed,” Claudia said
smugly. “In fact if you ever see me again, you can expect to see
her too.”
As realization dawned, her mother-in-law’s face contorted
with fury. “Don’t think for a minute that I’m going to allow—”
Claudia lowered her voice but leaned in to make certain the
woman heard every word. “You don’t allow a fucking thing in
my life, Marjorie. Eva graduated from college last month. That
means her father’s trust is vested, so you don’t get to pull our
strings anymore.”
With Leo’s hand still firmly in her grasp, she marched to the
exit, exhilarated to finally be free of Marjorie Pettigrew.
Leo grinned to see Claudia’s sports car alongside hers in the
parking area next to her house. The wedding dress was buckled
into the passenger seat, where Claudia had adorned it with
sunglasses and a scarf.
“I can’t believe you made fun of my car and you’re still
driving a Volvo station wagon that’s older than Miley Cyrus. For
an artist, that doesn’t say much for your creativity.”
“It says I’m practical,” Leo said, hoisting the camera bag
over her shoulder. After a burglary several years ago in which she
had lost over a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment—
fortunately insured—she had installed an alarm system on her
house and car, and placed security lights around the perimeter.
“You should bring the lovely lady inside, along with anything else
you want to keep.”
“I still love this house.”
Leo looked with pride at her yard, which she’d had
professionally landscaped after completing the last round of
interior renovations. “Wait till you see the inside.” She usually
entered through the back door, but since she wanted to show off
the new look they walked around to the front porch.
“I see you still have your porch swing.”
“I sit out here and read sometimes…and watch for sports
cars.”
She opened the door into the parlor, where the first of many
renovations leapt out. A long staircase led to the second floor.
“Oh, my goodness. It doesn’t even look like the same house.”
Claudia twirled slowly in the parlor, taking in the other changes.
The seating area was smaller, its centerpiece still the antique
davenport that had always adorned the entry.
The living room, which had once been the office and
showroom, was now formally appointed with contemporary
classics, a simple leather sofa with a matching loveseat and chair.
Colorful rugs and throw pillows gave the room a modern flair.
Opposite the fireplace, which was centered on the outside
wall, was an archway. “You remember my studio.” A teak table
with eight place settings sat beneath a bright chandelier. The far
wall was a picture window that looked out onto a tree and narrow
strip of yard.
“You put in a window.”
“No, it was here already. I just uncovered it.”
Claudia walked around the table, her fingers trailing along
the tops of the chairs. “Do you even know seven other people?”
she teased.
Leo laughed. “Believe it or not, I hosted Thanksgiving
dinner last year, and we had to drag in two more chairs from the
kitchen.”
“You’re right, I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“What happened to that bashful introvert I used to know?”
One by one, Leo had expanded her circle of friends—real
friends. It was easier now that the lesbian community was more
visible, and it didn’t hurt that her best friend was the most
outgoing person she knew. “Patty keeps me in the thick of things.
She likes to throw her parties here because she still lives in a one-
bedroom condo out near Pebble Beach.”
Claudia went ahead into the kitchen, which had been
/> remodeled in granite and mahogany. An island with two barstools
stood where the small table had once been. “You got rid of the
back staircase.”
“It’s the laundry room now. I had to move the second-floor
bathroom over to where the guest room was because the front
stairs came up on that side.”
“This was a huge job.”
“It took about two years to do it all, but it was worth it. I was
working out of the new studio by then and I took Madeline with
me every day.” She led the way back into the parlor and up the
stairs. The door leading into the turret room was gone, giving the
whole floor an open feel. It was still her den, but it now doubled
as an office. Another staircase led to the attic.
“No more ladder?”
Leo laughed and shook her head. “I’m too old to climb a
ladder. Go on up.”
A king-sized brass bed sat before the front window of the
turret. A dresser, cedar chest, side table and loveseat completed the
ensemble. The floors were polished oak, as was the wainscoting
that met the sloping ceiling. Toward the back end of the house, a
hallway separated a row of closets from the master bath.
“Leo, this is stunning.”
“I might never have done this if not for you. My bed’s right
where you used to sit.”
Claudia walked around and sat on the edge. “You can see the
ocean from here.”
“I wake up to it every day. Go sit on the loveseat.” She groped
in her bottom dresser drawer and located the key to the cedar
chest. The portfolio holding the photographs of Claudia was on
top, as she had studied them for hours during the week leading
up to the wedding. She opened to the first.
“God, I look so young.”
“It was half a lifetime ago. Do you remember what we were
trying to do with this one?”
With the tip of a manicured nail, Claudia traced the outline of
the stark shadow across her face. “Something about hard light.”
“That’s right.” Leo flipped to the next one. “And here we
have the same pose in soft light. See that?” She touched the
line of Claudia’s brow. “I saw this in the darkroom and thought
about where it came from. You were talking that day about your
engagement ring, how it was too big…something Mike wanted
but you didn’t.”