“Get over here now.”
She couldn’t keep her eyes from him, but the sight of him standing there in that rumpled state had a surreal quality. Could she trust the vision before her? Was there an intercom genii after all? Garrett still looked really mad, so probably not. She continued to stare at him.
He groaned. “Please.”
Cait relocked the car, walked over and stepped inside. Closer now, she could see beads of perspiration in a neat row along his hairline. Four flights of stairs, she remembered.
She searched his face for clues, explanations. “Why did you hang up on me? And, then, why did you run down here?”
“Cait, you’re a stubborn, frustrating-as-hell woman. I didn’t want to give you a chance to say anything both of us would later regret.” He glared at her.
This was hardly an I-Love-You-And-I-Can’t-Live-Without-You-Despite-Your-Faults declaration. She clamped her mouth shut, bowed her head and backed away.
“No.” He snatched at the lapels of her windbreaker. “That was the answer to the first question,” he said, his breath windy against her cheek. “This is the answer to the second one.” His mouth covered hers and they merged, lip-to-lip, tongue-to-tongue, until the only tangible thing between them was heat.
He broke away from her, his skin glistening with a new sheen which she was fairly certain had little to do with his dash down the stairs. He tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants, his body betraying his arousal, and then yanked her into the elevator.
“We’ve gotta talk,” he said. “But there’s something else we need to do first.”
Cait had a strong working notion of what that “something” might be, but she was thrown off course when, instead of leading her into the bedroom, Garrett marched her into his kitchen. He lifted her on the countertop and handed her a common grocery item.
“Creamy peanut butter?” she said, reading the label.
“Yes, Cait.” A slow grin pushed up the corners of his mouth. “Choosy lovers choose Jif.”
***
Garrett stretched his legs out under the sheets, snagging one of Cait’s ankles with a sweep of his foot. He caressed her with his toes then pulled her closer. Her hair was still damp from their recent shower, a necessity Garrett didn’t mind partaking in after the tasty stickiness of the peanut butter. And the jelly.
“Mmmm,” she said, if moans could be counted as words. She tugged him toward her, her arms encircling his waist, and she ran her thumb slowly from the backs of his legs to his shoulder blades. He felt himself getting hard again just from her touch.
They rested their heads on the same pillow, and she nestled into him like a baby bird. Then, as women do, she began chirping.
“Were you ever engaged before?”
“Uh, no,” he said.
“Did you have lots of lovers then? More than one girlfriend at a time, that kind of thing?”
He stared at her silky blond head. She wasn’t looking at his face but was focused on playing with his chest hairs…and driving him wild with it.
“Hmm, well, I had girlfriends before.” He figured that was ambiguous enough but still honest.
“But did you ever cheat?”
He groaned. This wasn’t really about him. Women always wanted to make sure they weren’t walking into the same trap twice, but he wasn’t up for a game of compare/contrast with bloody Fredric. “So, your ex cheated on you, and it still really bothers you, right?”
She sighed and burrowed into him even more. “Right.”
“I’ve never cheated, Cait. I’m not Fredric.”
She looked up at him and grimaced. “I know.”
“Then why the scary face?”
This made her laugh. “I’m sorry. I just can’t let something like that happen again. Do you know what I mean?”
He kissed her forehead. “I know what you mean. But are you over him, sweetheart?” Oh, man, he hoped she was.
“Him, definitely yes. But it hurt. I questioned the ideals of marriage and trust and commitment for a long time.”
Garrett still questioned the ideals of marriage and trust and commitment, but he wasn’t about to say that aloud. Instead he rubbed her back and let his fingertips wander lower still.
She reached out again, too, tracing patterns on all the areas she could reach. His thighs. His hips. “What happened on New Year’s Eve?” she asked him.
Damn. He didn’t see that one coming.
He felt the familiar pounding of his heart against his chest, reminding him that the fight-or-flight adrenaline still pumped strong in his arteries. Thinking of that night at his parents’ home in Connecticut always inspired a desire to bash in something with his fist then run like hell.
“My father and I ‘had words,’ as they say, but I don’t really want to talk about it.” There. He’d explained—kind of—and made his feelings clear. Now she’d drop the subject and they could get back to what they were doing—
“What kind of words?”
“Nasty words, Cait.” She might be Miss Persistence, but he had ideas that could distract her. He trailed his fingers from the soft skin of her belly up to the rounded buds of her breasts. She gasped. Instinctively, he licked his lips.
But she put her hand against his cheek to stop him from pursuing his ideas, and she looked him in the eye compassionately, patiently, lovingly. It was the loving part that did him in…and he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this discussion.
He sighed. “Look, my father was mad at me. I’d been kind of wild in my twenties, but I was slowly getting my life together. That night, though, I guess I seemed particularly juvenile. Jacob had just handled a big crisis at the company and was looking really mature. He was ahead of me in everything—more skilled, more experienced. It felt like it’d be impossible to catch up.”
“Your father expected you to?” she asked.
“He said that Jacob had inherited all of his traits and that Marianne was a lot like our mother. But me, well, he just couldn’t figure me out.” He swallowed, trying to drown the words and the pain in a gulp. It didn’t work.
“And?”
“And that, if I couldn’t be a corporate director, if I couldn’t lead like a man, then I couldn’t be in the family either.”
“He threatened to disown you?” Cait stared at him as if in shock.
He gave a short nod, unable to believe he was actually repeating those sentences aloud. “My father said, based on my behavior, that he didn’t think I was really his son anyway. He said that—” He had to stop. Clench his fists. “He said he wished I weren’t.”
Cait’s entire body radiated distress over his revelation, and he regretted not keeping his mouth shut. Garrett bent down and kissed her arm from knuckles to shoulder. He tried to refocus on the physical hunger, the sex, the lust. His speeding pulse raced for another reason, though. He’d never told anyone this much before. He’d sure as hell never planned to.
How had he been seduced into letting his guard down? In a flash of memory he recalled how quickly Cait could turn away, change directions, run from him. Jacob had been right on target with things like that. Maybe his brother really was that much smarter than him, and he’d been slow to catch on in every aspect of life.
“Oh, Garrett, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Not really.”
“No,” he said, feeling an odd constriction in his throat. “Perhaps not literally. But his expectations were clear. I knew I’d have to prove to be responsible, prove my leadership skills in order to be welcomed back home. I haven’t exactly succeeded here yet—”
“That’s not true! You’ve been wonder—”
“Has Doug Chippenak been caught?”
She squinted at him, and he hated the doubt he’d created in her eyes. “Well, no, but he will be and—”
“And nothing. Until I’ve done what I’m supposed to do, until my father finds me worthy of the Ellis name, I’ve tried to give him his wish. I’ve removed myself from the fam
ily.”
***
Cait felt Garrett withdraw from her, like a spirit leaving its corporeal confinement. They were good at playing lovers’ games together. That was easy. But when it got down to unearthing what lurked beneath their own manic drives, neither of them could seem to stay in one place and battle out the emotions to the bitter end. He was still attentive to her, but wary. He still wanted her, but she knew it had to be on his terms.
She felt her heart closing up at this. But she remembered Seth’s earlier admonition and restrained herself from flinging on her clothes and bolting out the door.
“Did you discuss what happened with you mother?” she asked him. “How did she react?”
“I’m done talking about this now.” His fingers slid off her breasts and slipped between her thighs, rubbing her, pushing inside her, until her mind stopped asking the questions she knew they needed to address—especially the biggest one: When he’d finally proven himself, would he stay here or go back?
But the heat of his mouth burned her nipples and, before long, passion’s fire consumed them both.
Yet, despite the steam they’d created, something numb and frozen still lay between them. And Cait already dreaded the day when it would have to thaw.
***
The thing Garrett hated about his cell phone was that it didn’t have a spiraling cord of a landline for him to wrap around his finger. At moments like these, when he was supposed to be listening to his mom, he would’ve enjoyed the distraction of watching the tip of his pinky turn purple.
No such luck.
“…and, Garrett, I know you’re very busy out West, but—”
“It’s the Midwest, not the West, Mom. There are no cowboys that I know of in Wisconsin.”
“You’re really not taking this seriously.” She gave one of her hurt sighs followed by a threatening pause. “We’ve been over this before. Your father and I would appreciate it if you’d come back to New Haven for a little visit. There are so many things both of us would like to discuss with you, and it simply cannot be done over the telephone or the Internet. Can you, in the foreseeable future, allot us a weekend of your time?”
Damn. When she put it like that he could hardly say no. “I’ll take another look at my schedule, okay, Mom? I’ll figure out something and fly back home soon. Before the holidays, for sure.” Or, maybe, he could stretch it to early January. But anything further away than the long Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend was probably pushing it.
When his mother finally released him, Garrett sank back into his office chair and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to go home. That, of course, wasn’t new, but his reason had changed recently. He thought of Cait waking up in his bed this morning, as she had almost every morning for the past two weeks: warm, snuggly, beautiful, sweet, intelligent, funny…tasty, no matter what the topping. She was only three hallways away this very instant, but he missed her.
His condo was roomier than her studio apartment, but the main inducement for spending their time in New Brighton was because they could be together there less conspicuously. Few Ridgewood Grove students haunted their takeout places, and it was rare to run into a parent or a staff member ten miles from school. Also, Cait needed to check in on her mom and on her mom’s house. She and Seth were preparing to put the place on the market after Thanksgiving.
Garrett was involved in their lives. He wanted to spend every free moment with her that he could. And with her family, too. He didn’t want to miss out on a single weekend.
But, hell, who was he kidding? Marianne nailed it right on the head during her visit when she said staying away from Connecticut wouldn’t change the past. It was just, for once, his resistance to going back home had less to do with the problems there and more to do with a real reason to stay here.
And that reason had a name: Caitlin Livie Walsh.
That, in itself, brought its own form of terror, forcing him to weigh which would be the lesser of two evils. Dealing with his father, despite not yet having accomplished his mission here? Or allowing himself to get too attached to Cait?
He looked down at the calendar on his desk and halfheartedly began blocking out potential weekends around Halloween to fly out of Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport.
STEP 14:
The batch could be eaten now as soft-serve,
but it’s better to pour the mix into a container
and put it in a hardening freezer at -20ºF
for two to three hours.
~From Mr. Koolemar’s Top Secret,
Kool Kreme Ice Kreamations Recipe Book, pg. 97
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cait flicked her dangly pumpkin earrings back and forth while reminding the Ninja Warrior to stay seated, telling the Pop-Rock Diva and Cinderella to stop whispering and asking the Hawaiian Surfer to please keep his hands to himself.
“Josh,” she told Brave Lancelot, “your sword needs to stay in your belt loop or we’ll have to put it in your locker.”
“Okay, Miss Walsh.” He reluctantly withdrew the plastic toy from Erin’s Fairy Princess tiara while his buddies, the Werewolf and Peter Pan, looked on and snickered.
Cait knew she’d need a handful of Tylenol after the Halloween Magic Assembly was over. Unfortunately, for it to end, it had to begin. And that hadn’t happened yet.
Garrett, on the other side of the auditorium, greeted a few parents who’d stopped by to see the show. He carried himself like a calm commander in an army of costumed chaos. Dealing kindly with children, considerately with parents, respectfully with staff. All this and a wiz with numbers, too. He was well suited to being a positive, influential administrator. She wondered if his own parents knew this side of their son. If they wanted to know it.
Ronald Jaspers tapped on the microphone and the squeal of feedback filled the air. His pallor was striking under the white stage lights. “My apologies for the delay,” he said. “It’s with great pleasure that I introduce the extraordinary troupe of magicians here to help us celebrate an early Halloween…”
As he spoke, Cait caught Garrett’s gaze and smiled. His eyes sent back a look that should only be allowed in a bedroom. Something ethereal in the vicinity of her heart began to tango.
They’d been more or less living together since Columbus Day. It just happened. She still kept most of her clothing at her own apartment and stopped by to water her plants, check mail and deal with any messages. But he’d presented her with a toothbrush that first weekend, and she’d purchased extra bottles of her favorite shampoo and conditioner, since she found herself at his place so many mornings. And, oh, he also bought her some special bath towels. Springy white ones, just like those at Four Gates.
They took lots of showers.
It wasn’t an entirely secret relationship. Jenna wheedled details out of her daily, and Garrett went with Cait to Seth and Dianne’s house frequently enough to be considered a family member. Last week he and Seth went golfing again at the Club. Their third time out. Cait knew she’d never hear the whole story on that afternoon.
They walked in slapping each other’s backs and laughing like adolescents. Longing lingered in Garrett’s expression for the rest of the night. Was falling in love with her family a prerequisite for him to fall in love with her?
She’d noticed he still held a part of himself back from her. Not physically, of course. There he couldn’t be more open. She worried about the emotional side, though. But, oh, their first kiss and all the firsts that followed… If it weren’t for Little Red Riding Hood, Cait might’ve lost herself in daydreams.
“No pinching, Daisy,” she whispered.
The girl sighed and flipped up her hood. “Okay, Miss Walsh.”
Cait watched an escalating battle between a few boys in Loni’s class and was about to nudge their teacher when Ronald’s droning voice abruptly stopped.
Everyone directed their attention to the principal—the children expectant, the adults first surprised then concerned. He crushed the index
card against his chest. There was an interminable pause.
“And here they are,” he whispered at last into the microphone before stumbling offstage.
Cait saw Garrett slip out the side door, following Ronald.
“What the heck was that all about?” Marlene murmured.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But if you can keep an eye on my class, I’ll go find out.”
Marlene nodded and Cait hurried into the hall.
“Cait, we need your help,” Sonja called, motioning her to the office.
Garrett hovered above the principal, who was sweating profusely in one of the office chairs and clutching Sonja’s water bottle in a shaky hand. “We’ve just called nine-one-one,” Garrett said. “Stand here by him, will you, while I get some aspirin.”
“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?” Cait whispered.
He put his hand on his chest then squeezed his fist. “It’s like that,” he said. “Like something’s wringing my heart.”
Garrett was back in an instant. “Take these,” he ordered, holding out two tablets. “And don’t worry. The paramedics will be here any minute.”
“I should’ve started walking sooner,” the older man mumbled. “I promised Shelley I’d walk during lunch three days a week, but I wasn’t strict with myself. And I should’ve followed the doctor’s dietary recommendations,” he lamented, swallowing the aspirin and some water. “If I recover from this, I swear I’ll—”
“Just relax, Ronald,” Garrett said. “Just stay calm.”
They heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Ridgewood Grove’s medics might be small in number, but they were fast.
Mike Firenzi appeared in the doorway, a stunned look on his face. “I—I was just in the auditorium—”
“Thanks for coming in, Mike,” Garrett said. “We’ve got a situation here, but it’s under control.”
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