by James, Sandy
He gave me an entirely wicked smile and dropped my hand just as Carly came back into the room and gave me a paper towel.
I pretended to wipe off the icing that was no longer on my fingers. I hoped she didn’t see what her father had done to cause my blush. I looked back at Mark to try and give him a chastising glare, but he wiggled his eyebrows at me. The temperature instantly shot even higher.
I tried to settle down and watch the cartoon. Carly flipped the footrest up on her recliner and relaxed. Mark draped his arm on the back of the sofa.
I felt like a teenager again, waiting, anticipating, longing. He subtly dropped his arm to my shoulder, caressing me with those clever fingers. Fire raced through my gut—that giddy warm feeling that you get when something excites you and reaches you on a visceral level.
After the movie, I asked for directions to a bathroom. As I walked away, I saw Mark talking quietly to Carly. She was nodding her head in response to his whispered words.
When I returned to the family room, she’d disappeared.
Mark stared at me with that little boy I-did-something-naughty twinkle in his eyes. He finally answered my unasked question. “Carly wanted to go...um...surf the net for a while.”
I wasn’t going to let him think I didn’t know what he was doing, even if I did find it both flattering and exciting. “Oh. I see. And she wanted to do this because?”
“I asked her to let us have some alone time.”
Got to love a man who’s honest.
I walked back to the coffee table and began to pick up the plates and glasses. He came over to help me. We carried everything into the kitchen. It felt downright domestic to stand side-by-side and wash and dry the dishes together. It was so comfortable. So like a real couple. So...
Stop it, Jackie. Just because your family is gone doesn’t mean you can adopt this one.
“Want to watch another flick?” Mark asked as I finished wiping the counter with the damp cloth.
“I should probably go. We lost our chaperone after all. People will talk.”
He grabbed my arm and turned me to face him. He reached out and caressed my cheek. “Stay. We can...talk.”
I turned my face toward his warm palm. The man was a magnet and I was metal. “Talk?”
“I barely know anything about you. Let me play detective.” He took the dishrag out of my hand and tossed it next to the sink before he wrapped his hand around mine and led me back to the sofa.
As we settled in, we turned to face each other. He casually rested his bent knee against mine. It was so relaxed and entirely too comfortable. I knew it. I’d let him in already.
Damn it all anyway.
“Tell me about you.” Mark laid his hand over mine where it rested on the back of the couch.
I shrugged. “I’m a teacher. I’ve got two boys away at college.”
He shook his head as he stroked my hand and wrist with his warm fingertips. The touch was so gentle it sent shivers running up my arm. “Tell me about you.”
I had to take a minute to think about that. For most of my life, I’d been either a child or caregiver. I’d been my parents’ daughter, then I was suddenly David’s wife. We’d married so stinking early in life, barely out of our adolescence. It still embarrassed me that I’d had to get married. And then I became Patrick and Nate’s mother. The hardest transition for me had been changing my name back to Delgado when David and I divorced because I’d been “Mrs. Ryan” for so long to all my students.
Hell, I’d been that identity so long to me.
So exactly who is Jacqueline Marie Delgado?
Mark loudly cleared his throat.
I came back from my reverie, blushing all the way. “Sorry,” I offered. “Thinking too hard again?”
He tossed me a nod. “Since telling me about you seems to be a difficult topic, let’s just start with the simple stuff. Where were you born?”
“Georgia. Fort Benning. My dad was assigned to dishing out basic training.”
“Army brat. I remember.” He began to stroke my hand again.
We started to play a chase with our fingers.
I let him win.
“I suppose Suzanne told you I’m divorced.”
A slant of his head and a raised eyebrow told me he was confused. “That’s quite a leap. Born in Georgia, then divorced. Child bride?”
The guy made me laugh at myself. Aloud. That was a gift from God if I ever knew of one. “Not that young, but young enough. Nineteen.”
A low whistle spilled from his lips. “That’s only a year older than Kathy. Way too young. How old were you when your oldest came along. Patrick, is it?”
“Yeah, Patrick.” I was flattered he’d remembered but not thrilled with confessing my youthful indiscretion. “Let’s just say he was a big baby for being six weeks premature. I was only twenty. Nate was a few years later. Then we learned about this miraculous invention called ‘birth control.’”
He chuckled. Then his face turned serious. “Elaine and I were high school sweethearts.”
My heart clenched in empathy. He was sharing stories with me about his late wife, and it was an important sign, a tell. He felt comfortable with me—just like I was comfortable around him.
I suddenly felt pulled in two directions. I wanted to know about her, but I didn’t. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t recognize that her ghost was sitting between us, I just didn’t want to know her well enough to mourn her passing. But I quickly realized I already did. I mourned what Mark and his daughters had lost.
“It took us some time to have the girls. Not horribly long, but Elaine was getting...nervous. It’s not like the Army has a lot of fertility benefits.”
We talked for some time about our lives, our families. Mark kept touching me. Sweet little caressing touches on my hand, my wrist, my knee. They were simple pats, almost absentminded. I’d forgotten how much I loved that type of contact and realized just how desperately I’d missed it.
After the first couple of years, David hadn’t been very demonstrative. Toward the end of our marriage, sex had become more a biological function than a loving expression of affection. I drank each of Mark’s caresses in like good, smooth whiskey, and he made me feel just as drunk.
We never did get around to watching another movie. By the time I recovered from my “Mark bender,” I looked up at the clock and gasped.
Midnight.
“Oh, my stars. How did it get to be midnight?” I asked.
“Good company and pleasant conversation. Are you afraid your car will turn back into a pumpkin?” He chuckled and gave me one of those incredible smiles.
“It’s already a pumpkin.” I stood up and stretched. “I really should be heading home. I’ve abused your hospitality long enough.”
Mark jumped to his feet, grabbed my hand, and tugged me into his arms. Damn, it was like some romantic movie as he stood there staring into my eyes. He was kissing me a second later.
Only four guys had kissed me in my entire life. At least it was four if you didn’t count my father and my weird cousin Henry who kissed every woman he could get his hands on. But even with my limited experience, I knew this man was something special—this kiss was something special.
My heart pounded a rough, fast cadence. My blood ran so hot, I felt like I was sixteen again. His lips were soft, his tongue skilled. I stretched my arms up around his neck and let him hold me even closer.
It was similar to leaning against a solid brick wall. The guy had to lift some heavy-duty weights to have a body like that. I could feel how hard my breasts were being flattened against his concrete chest. I don’t think I’d ever felt as aware of being a woman as I did when Mark was kissing me, when he was holding me.
Of course, as much as I wanted to turn my mind off and simply revel in his kiss, the stupid bells started chiming in my head.
He’s a parent. You have to see his daughter first period every morning.
Ding, ding, ding, the bells continued to ring.
He still misses
his wife. He’s too good looking for you.
Ding, ding, ding.
I reluctantly eased away before things got too steamy. With the way my body was reacting to Mark, I could very easily fall into casual sex for the first time in my life. I’d never even been tempted before. All this man had to do was take a couple of steps toward a bedroom and crook his finger. I’d run after him like a bloodhound following a fresh, strong scent, tongue hanging out all the way.
He sighed and his warm breath was a caress against my cheek. “Sweet Jackie,” he whispered. “Where do we go from here?”
How about your room? “I don’t know, Mark. I really don’t know.”
He ran his hands down my arms and then laced his fingers through mine. “I know it’s probably weird to be kissing one of your student’s parents—”
I interrupted with a chuckle. “To say the least.”
“But I’d really like to us to get to know each other better.”
His face shifted into a mask of deep thought.
I waited patiently as he sorted through whatever it was that was tumbling through his brain. I wondered for a moment if this was how I looked when I disappeared in my own thoughts.
He turned his attention back to me as he gave my hands a reassuring squeeze. “I didn’t think... After Elaine died... I miss her so much. I never thought there would be someone else—that I’d replace her.” He took a ragged breath.
I brushed the back of my knuckles across his cheek, enjoying the sensation of his light whisker stubble rubbing against my skin. “I’d like to see you again.”
Mark grabbed my hand and then he pressed a kiss to my fingers. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Van.”
“Whatever,” he said with a chuckle.
At the door to my ancient minivan, I had a hard time letting him go back to his house. My ego didn’t suffer because he seemed to be having just as much difficulty in leaving. There was nothing hurried about him or his attention.
I felt the need to warn him. This could all come back to bite us both in the ass. “You know, people will talk. Carly might...hear gossip.”
The grapevine in this small town rivaled the Internet in speed of transmitting information. Unfortunately, the “facts” it passed along tended to be as distorted and inaccurate as the World Wide Web could be. I could almost feel the eyes peeking through their drapes as Mark leaned against my van and tugged me back into his embrace.
Mind your own damned business! I wanted to scream at them.
“Sweet Jackie. What are we doing here? I barely know you, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. And you’re right. I know people will talk, but I just don’t give a damn,” he said in that wonderful deep voice.
I touched my forehead to his. “I don’t know what we’re doing either, Mark. But I’m willing to take some time to figure it out.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay.”
“I’m heading back inside now.” He still held his forehead to mine.
“I can see that,” I said with a laugh. “I really should go.”
He kissed me again. Not a simple peck, a slow, toe-curling, promise of making slow, passionate love to you at some later date kiss. Just like some silly romance novel.
Shit!
I’d let him in, all the way in.
CHAPTER SIX
“He still hasn’t called?” Julie asked as we sat down to our pathetic rabbit food lunches.
I shook my head and fought back the threatening tears, knowing I would be putting very little of the carrot sticks, celery, and lettuce in my stomach. I had absolutely no appetite and even less inclination to talk, especially about Mark Brennan.
I never cried in front of other people. Patrick and Nate might have seen a tear or two. But David? Never.
If I cried in front of my mother, she would always tell me to suck it up and develop a spine. I learned at an early age to hide what I was feeling. Let’s just say I spent a lot of my adolescence hiding in my walk-in closet with a pillow to my face just so she wouldn’t hear me. I still used that tactic when I was married, preferring to conceal my hurt than display it.
I had only wept at school once. A parent called me all sorts of foul names because I refused to pass her child who’d turned in zero assignments for an entire grading period. The woman caught me right outside my classroom door a few minutes before first bell, so there was no escape. After her tirade, she was escorted from the grounds by one of my bosses, but I still had to face my first period class. I couldn’t stop the tears. The students had gaped at me as if I’d lost my mind.
Kids must believe their teachers are some kind of reverse vampires. Evidently, they think we retreat to some sort of coffin during the evening and rest until the next dawn when we emerge to torture them. Running into a student at the mall always resulted in the students flashing me one of those deer-in-the-headlights looks and stammering out a greeting. At least when they waved at me in a public place, they tended to use all their fingers. They also think educators are not entirely human. Losing your temper, crying, or any other expression of real emotion leaves students confused.
I kept my emotions to myself when I was at school. Hell, I kept my emotions to myself everywhere. Yet today, I sat in the teacher’s cafeteria with tears brimming my eyes.
I’d trusted a man again, and I’d been hurt. Despite what Mark had said about how he felt about me, he hadn’t called in six damn weeks.
Carly seemed a little less happy every day in class, but I resisted the urge to go and talk to her. We exchanged cordial words, and we functioned fine as teacher and student. But I couldn’t ask her about Mark. It would be too embarrassing, and it didn’t seem fair to drag her into the middle of things.
His ignoring me—discarding me—hurt. It hurt like hell. I hadn’t wanted to let it. I didn’t want to face the fact that I’d let him get to me despite all my promises that I wouldn’t put my heart on the line again. I’d let him in anyway. I was humiliated at how quickly I’d allowed the attachment to form.
I could have loved Mark Brennan. Then I was honest enough to admit to myself that I probably already did. And how was I rewarded for being open and honest with another man and handing him my heart on a silver platter? It was the same old shit. Mark was no better than David. They were two of a kind.
Julie looked at me with that compassionate smile she must have floated my way a hundred times during my divorce.
I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to talk about Mark, didn’t want to think about Mark. I knew I’d cry.
I don’t cry in front of people.
“No,” I finally said in reply to her question. “He didn’t call. Drop it, Julie. Please. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
I shoved some salad into my mouth to give it something to do except talk about Mark Brennan and the fact that he’d gotten the better of me. The lettuce tasted like cardboard as the tears formed again.
Damn him.
“Have you tried to call him?”
If I hadn’t just finished chewing my lettuce, I would have spewed it across the table at the ridiculous question. “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Call him? Call him?”
I was practically screeching at the notion of doing something as foolish as announcing to him that he’d gotten to me. The group of male teachers who were eating at another table in the faculty lounge gaped at me. Then they elbowed each other and chuckled.
Go coach football or some other macho sport and mind your own fucking business.
“No, I’m not kidding. You’re a grown-up, not some kid in junior high school. Call him. Find out what he’s thinking,” Julie replied before she sipped some of her diet soda.
“I know what he’s thinking.” I pushed the remaining salad around the plate with my plastic fork. “He’s thinking some neurotic, under-sexed, middle-aged woman came on too strong and way too fast. You know, his silence speak
s...volumes.”
Julie shook her head. “You don’t know what’s going on in his head, Jackie. He could be...I don’t know...thinking about his daughter. Maybe he was uncomfortable dating one of her teachers.”
I snorted a small, sardonic laugh that made Julie glare at me. God love her, she was trying to make me feel better. I didn’t have the heart to tell her nothing would make me feel better, once a discard, always a discard.
“Maybe he and I didn’t click. No chemistry.”
“That’s not what you told me the other—”
“Well, maybe I was wrong.” I was snapping at my best friend when she had done nothing to deserve it. I reined in my temper. “Maybe he didn’t feel the way about me that I did about him. Please drop it. Please.”
I don’t want to cry in front of you.
***
The phone was ringing when I walked in the door. I got to it before the answering machine took command, not even having time to check the caller-ID. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
Hearing my youngest son’s voice brought me some familiar comfort and reminded me I wasn’t all alone in the world. “Hi, Nate. How’s school?”
I dropped my purse and briefcase on the kitchen table and kicked off my shoes.
“Fine. I hate my econ prof, but I love the rest of my classes. Patrick said he told you about Parents’ Day a while back. Are you coming on Saturday?”
“Despite the fact you didn’t invite me?” Mothers have a real problem not exercising their right to create guilt in their offspring. Nate had left a perfect opportunity dangling there like a ripe tomato on the vine. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Walking over to let Jellybean out of his cage, I was rewarded with a wolf whistle. I responded by ruffling the feathers on his neck the way he always enjoyed.
“Ah, Mom. I’m sorry. I’m just so busy, it slipped my mind.”
“It’s okay, Nate.” I’ve slipped a lot of men’s minds lately. “What time do you want me to be there?”
“Most of the stuff for parents doesn’t start until one. But...um... Would you...maybe...come for lunch. I–I want to introduce you to my girlfriend.”