by Gemma Bruce
They collapsed onto the bear rug, Julie’s back nestled against his front, the heat from the fire warming her face, breasts and knees, Cas warming the rest of her.
And that’s when she realized that she hadn’t heard him take out a condom.
“What the fuck?”
Cas flinched. “What?”
Julie rolled over to face him, looked down to where a naked penis lay against his thigh. “Did we forget a little something?”
Cas looked at her in that bland self-satisfied look that men got after coming their brains out. His eyebrows knit. “I don’t ... think so.”
“Condom?”
“Oh. Oh?” He pushed up to one elbow and ran the tip of his forefinger down her arm, lifting the hairs as he passed and sending gooseflesh across her body. He was too good for safety. Her safety. The thought brought her back to the point.
“I’m safe,” said Cas, still basking in postcoital glow.
“Well, that’s nice to know. But you don’t know that I am.”
His eyes widened and she could practically hear his balls shriveling.
“Are you?”
“As it happens, yes. But you didn’t know that.” Her butt was too close to the fire, in more ways than one. She shifted away from the heat and right into Cas.
He readjusted his arms around her and sighed. “That’s nice.”
“Damn it, Cas, this is serious.”
“I know. It was also stupid, but I just, um, just ...”
“Felt like living dangerously?”
Cas let go; frowned at her. “No. I always play it safe, don’t I? I just wanted ... something else. It’s hard to explain.” He lay back down and attempted to pull her close to him. “Can’t we just enjoy this and be glad we have—whatever it is we have.”
He was right. And she knew even before she asked him, that he would never jeopardize her safety. But that didn’t explain why he didn’t think to protect himself. He didn’t know anything about her. She could be a prostitute for all he knew. Had actually played the part more times than she could count.
She smiled as her sense of humor pushed her exasperation aside. That would be a story that would get his attention. Now that she thought about it, she had plenty of things to tell him about her life for the last fifteen years. She had posed as hookers, drug addicts, unsuspecting women in subways, and salesclerks in department stores to bodegas. That should keep them busy through dinner and a couple of drinks.
And he’d never have to know that she became a cop, only to quit because of someone else’s perfidy. The victim again.
“All right,” she said.
Cas opened his eyes. “All right, what?”
“All right. We can enjoy this and you can cook dinner.” She rolled to her back and stretched, and was amused to see Cas’s cock start to respond. “What shall it be this time? Cowboys? Pirates?”
Cas rolled on top of her. “Let’s play Julie and Cas.” And he stopped any argument she might have by plunging his tongue into her mouth.
Much later, as they lay in each other’s arms before the fire, Julie said, “Wes left me a riddle. Actually, a riddle and a half.” She felt Cas tense. Tell me now, she thought. She waited, gave him one more chance. Ran her fingers up his thigh, tempting him.
He twitched. “He left me the other half.”
She sighed with relief. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she said playfully. Then held her breath. She was just about to give up, when he said, “Okay.”
Chapter 15
Julie pried one eye open when Ulysses let forth with his raucous crow the following morning. She didn’t feel like getting out of bed and she didn’t feel like waking up alone.
Smitty walked across her and slurped her face. Okay, not exactly alone, but as much as she loved Smitty, he wasn’t Cas. And Cas was at home in his own bed. He hadn’t asked her to stay, but he had told her his half of the riddle.
Bill answered in his tremolo treble and the morning’s dueling cock-a-doodle-doos began in earnest.
“Ugh. Not fair.” Julie pushed the covers back and sat up. “Someone should teach you guys to say, ‘Good morning, sweetheart, ’ instead of arky-arky-ark.”
Smitty yawned and shook his head.
“I know. They’re roosters.” And Cas was probably a grouch in the mornings anyway.
The heat was pumping since she’d forgotten to turn it down the night before, and the house was toasty. But even Wes’s coat couldn’t keep the wind from knifing through her as she and Smitty stepped outside.
The chickens were reluctant to leave the coop and Julie had to bodily remove Hillary from her nest, getting a nasty look and a peck on her finger for her efforts. She dropped the egg, earning further disgust from Hilary. Not one of the brood ventured past the fenced-in yard, not even Bill and Hillary, who had a standing date with Smitty.
Julie hurried through the feeding routine, then carried the three eggs she’d collected back to the kitchen steps, where she sat down, missing Ernestine and thinking about the fire in Cas’s cottage the night before.
There wasn’t much she could do about Ernie, but she could bring in some logs from the woodpile. Fires were nice, especially when they were the background for riotous, unbridled sex. And that was all it was. Sex. Really good sex, but just sex. And she’d better remember that. Because it was becoming very easy to forget.
Smitty came trotting up, his back empty of his two favorite chickens, and plopped on the ground at her feet.
“I’ll just live blissfully in denial, Smitty,” she said and leaned over to scratch him behind the ears. “It’s the only way to come out of this with my, you know, my heart intact. Let’s go inside.”
She opened the door just as the telephone rang.
“Ernestine!” she cried and raced into the hall to snatch up the phone.
“Hi. It’s Maude. I’m back. I came by yesterday, but you weren’t there. How’s everything?”
“Ernestine is missing. I think someone stole her.”
“I saw the posters in town. I also heard you decked Cas at the Roadhouse, started a brawl, nearly broke Bo Whitaker’s arm, and cleaned up after yourself. Nice work.”
Julie sighed. “I didn’t exactly.”
“Also heard you followed Cas home afterwards.”
“I was afraid he might have a concussion.”
“Uh-huh. I’m calling to ask you to dinner tonight. We’ll eat around six. The dance starts at seven, so that’ll make us fashionably late.”
“What?”
“The Candy Apple Dance. Wear something slinky. I am.”
“I’m not going to the dance.”
“Of course you are.”
“No.”
“Julie. You’re an Excelsior. It’s your duty to put in an appearance. Wes would expect you to claim your place in the community.”
“He would?”
“Damn right he would. And he’ll haunt me if I don’t see that you get there. Not that I’d mind it so much if he did.”
Julie felt a stab of contrition. She’d been so caught up in her own problems, her own needs, that she hadn’t given much concern toward Maude’s, who was Wes’s friend and companion. Or even for Cas’s, who had been with Wes when he died.
“Okay. I don’t know about slinky, but I’ll find something.”
“Yeah, you will. See you at six. Don’t bring anything. I’ve got plenty.”
“But what about Ernestine?”
“Be patient.” Julie heard the click of Maude’s phone and looked at the receiver. Patient? How could she be patient when Ernestine might be someone’s dinner? And now this stupid dance. She could hardly wait to see their faces when the prodigal Excelsior walked in. But not in anything slinky, something sedate. Except that she didn’t own anything sedate.
Julie hung up the phone and wandered back to the parlor. This inheritance was turning into more than she bargained for. What happened to we’re so sorry for your loss and here’s the check? Maybe this was
a trial by fire kind of thing. A quest. Go through all the hazards; raise chickens, meet Cas again, go to the dance for everyone to gape and speculate.
If I complete my tasks, will I get the treasure? Then I can go about finding a life. One that I won’t run from when things get rough.
And Cas would go back to building boats without her.
It was after six when Julie drove up to Maude’s house. Her chores had taken longer than usual due to the cold, the sluggishness of the chickens, Smitty’s insistence that he shouldn’t be left at home, and the fact that her knit dress had serious static cling.
She managed to get the chickens bedded down and Smitty pushed inside with a dog biscuit; there was nothing she could do about the dress but give the town a thrill.
Maude, wearing blue jeans and a checked wool shirt, was standing in the yard by her white-paneled truck. She was talking to someone sitting inside, and Julie got just a glimpse of black spiked hair before the truck backed up and went roaring down the drive.
“Was that Melanie Reynolds?” she asked as she got out of the car and checked the ground for anything that wouldn’t look good on the bottom of three-inch heels.
“Yep. Wanted to borrow my truck. She does that sometimes. Reynolds won’t buy her a car until she stops with the witch routine, and she won’t stop. She usually gets around on that old moped.”
Maude pointed to an old, rusted bike leaning against the house. And Julie thought about the motorcycle tracks in her woods.
“Is she going to the dance?”
“Beats me. You never know with Melanie.” Maude shook her head. “She really ought to get out of this town. She’s trouble waiting to happen.”
“I saw her at the hotel and asked if she was planning on going to college. She said no.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Maude. “She skips too much school to keep her grades up. And the Reynoldses are broke. They can’t afford to send her. But we pretend that we don’t know.”
“Jeez,” said Julie. “I thought they were rich.”
“They think so, too. Unfortunately it’s all in their past, but still in their minds.” Maude shook her head and gestured toward the white frame house. “Come on in.”
“I hope you’re not planning to wear that to the dance,” said Julie as she followed her inside. “Because that would make me seriously overdressed.”
“Nope, but I didn’t want to get my outfit wrinkled.” Maude waggled her eyebrows. “Plus it’s a little drafty for feeding chickens.”
“I can hardly wait.” Julie shrugged off her coat, a black wool Albert Nipon she’d bought off a clearance rack, and handed it to Maude.
Maude whistled. “Now that’s a dress.”
Julie looked down at the straight black sheath. It clung to her hips and thighs and she succumbed to second thoughts about it being Candy Apple appropriate. “Too much?”
Maude hung up her coat and said, “Fabulous.” She ushered Julie through an archway and into a large living room. Julie had imagined Maude’s house filled with overstuffed, comfy chairs, needlepoint samplers, and braided rugs, everything smelling slightly of chickens. But Maude’s living room was chrome and leather with a berber carpet and recessed lighting. A stainless steel wet bar was set up in one corner and an open bottle of wine stood on the top between two crystal glasses.
“Would you like a cocktail or wine?”
“Wine’s fine,” said Julie. It wouldn’t do to get to the dance already plotzed.
Maude stepped behind the bar, whose height concealed everything but her head and shoulders. She grinned and Julie thought of the Cheshire cat gradually disappearing, except for his smile.
“Wine’s red and French. Wes was a stickler for proper vintages and we’re having ... veal. Thought I was going to say chicken, didn’t you?”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I eat chicken. And you will, too, once you get over thinking of them as part of the family. That’s what you’re doing, right?”
Julie frowned at her. “God, you’re right. How weird is that?”
“Not weird at all,” said Maude. “It happens. For a while, you’d just as soon eat old Aunt Ida as one of your brood, but you have to, unless you’re planning on setting up a little chicken cemetery in the back yard.” She handed Julie a glass and lifted hers in a toast. “That would really get Reynolds’s blood pressure up. And Marian would call out the bad taste brigade. All two of them.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the chickens.” Julie sipped her wine. It was full bodied and dry.
“Well, have a seat and shoot. We have a few minutes before dinner’s ready.” Maude hoisted herself onto the overlarge sofa, and stuck a pillow behind her back. “Wes’s idea. The man couldn’t be stopped once he got started. You’d think Martha Stewart had commissioned him to take her place while she was in the slammer. Would have redone my whole house, if I hadn’t threatened to leave town. And poor Ca—and your pink wallpaper.”
“He did Cas’s house, too?”
Maude widened her eyes. “Oops.”
“It wasn’t you. The bearskin rug gave him away.”
“Saw that, did you?”
Julie blushed in spite of herself. “About the chickens.”
“What about them?”
“I’ll need to find them a home. If you’re interested, you can have them. If you aren’t, I guess I’ll have to sell them, but I hate to think about breaking up the ... the ...”
“Family? Early days yet. Was that the timer going off?” Maude slid off the couch and bustled out of the room. Julie leaned back in her chair and thought about Wes choosing this huge furniture and she smiled. Because she understood. Maude did seem larger than life, even when you were standing next to her, looking down. And Cas needed some softness in his life. And she needed to be pampered. Julie’s throat tightened. She breathed out slowly, refusing to give in to stupid regret.
“Ready,” called Maude.
Julie followed her voice down the hall and into a dining room. An oval table was set with a white linen tablecloth. A vase of dried wildflowers adorned the center, and two place settings of white china were laid across from each other.
“Have a seat,” said Maude as she placed a covered serving bowl on the table. “I meant to dress for dinner, but hell, I’ll surprise you afterwards.”
Julie was surprised all right. She nearly dropped her coffee cup when Maude reappeared from her bedroom, shrouded in veils of crimson chiffon. They trailed from her shoulders, were cinched in at the waist with a wide rhinestone belt, then flowed out again until ending at her calves, above red Mary Jane shoes. Maude twirled around and the pointed tips wisped about her legs.
“Wow,” said Julie on an intake of breath.
Maude lifted her skirts and tapped her heels together. “There’s no place like Ex Falls,” she said. “Let’s get a move on.”
They took Julie’s car and pulled up to the VFW Hall at exactly seven-thirty. The parking lot was crowded and a really bad dance band blared from inside. Julie tried to let Maude off at the entrance while she found a place to park, but Maude merely said, “And let you get away?” And stayed put.
They opened the door several minutes later and stopped in the hall to hang up their coats. Maude immediately headed for the entrance, but Julie hung back, suddenly wishing she were any place but here. She could feel sweat rolling down her back. Maude grabbed her by the arm and pushed her through the double doors just as the band broke into a tune that sounded something like “Feelings.”
Julie froze in place and stared at the floor. Maude’s grip tightened on her arm. “Think Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady,” she said and began nodding greetings in all directions.
Right. Julie lifted her chin and got her first look at the dance hall. Red crepe paper garlands hung from the ceiling, festooned every doorway and window. Red cardboard apples were taped to the mint green walls, surrounded by more crepe paper. Several couples moved around the dance floor. A crowd s
tood around the refreshment table.
“Ain’t it grand?” said Maude, and still gripping Julie by the arm, she swooped into the room, trailing flames of chiffon.
No one noticed them at first. But as they walked along the edge of the dance floor, heads began to turn their way and Julie felt her skirt begin to creep up her thighs. She surreptitiously tugged it down and got a shock that made her fingers tingle.
Each time Maude stopped to say hello to friends, Julie stopped too. She missed the first few introductions from concentrating on trying to breathe. Chills ran up and down her neck. She could feel everyone watching her.
“And you know Elton already from Pliney’s,” Maude said. “And this is May, his wife.”
Julie jerked her attention back to the introductions.
May Dinwiddie was taller than her husband and twice his girth. “Julie Excelsior,” she said, looking Julie up and down with barely concealed curiosity. “I wouldn’t have recognized you. You’ve grown up.”
Julie smiled and wished May wasn’t staring quite so pointedly at her hemline, which she knew headed farther north each time she moved.
“Elton had his whole flock stolen a couple of weeks ago,” said Maude.
“I heard,” said Julie. “No leads?”
Elton slowly shook his head. “Goldurn thieves just walked in and took them out from under our noses. And Cas Reynolds doesn’t have a clue. And won’t accept any help. The boy’s outta his league. Don’t know what possessed him to take over for Hank Jessop.”
“His sense of community, maybe?” said Julie and Maude widened her eyes at her.
“Actually,” said Maude, “we can blame that one on Hank and Wes. They railroaded him so fast that he was swearing on the bible before he knew what he was doing.”