And that was the crux of the difference between men and women. Women were always wrong, and Tony and him had it right.
Tony called back again, “I’m sorry about Kate. She doesn’t understand these things. Come to the restaurant for dinner tonight.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Drinks on me. As much as you want. I’ll be the designated driver. Get drunk and let the anger out.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Good, then my liquor bill won’t send me to bankruptcy court.”
“I’ll think about it, Tony. Thanks.”
Then Clay called. “It’s all my fault. I never should have put that cow billboard up. It gave her fancy ideas. Why don’t you meet me at Tony’s tonight and I’ll buy you a drink.”
After Clay, the calls were rapid, from Arthur, Tigger, Clyde, Cathy and Barbara. “Why do they all think I need to get drunk?” he asked Cathy. “I’m fine.”
“Good. Meet me at Donetti’s. I have a girl I want you to meet.”
That held zero interest for him. So he told her “No, not interested.” He couldn’t even pretend to himself he wanted to go out with anyone else.
“You’re a stupid guy, Rex. Call Cara, kill her with kindness, apologize for being such a mule, and then, when you get her all melted and jelly in your arms, go in for the attack. She’ll never know where it came from.”
Now, that wasn’t a bad idea, Rex thought. It would give him a reason to call her back. Not that he needed one. But maybe he’d get the semen back. And maybe he’d get Les over there to arrest her, and make it impossible for her to go back to Erie until they found out if she was pregnant with their child.
Rex placed the call to Mandelay. Cara answered on the fourth ring. Her “Hello” was all breathless and damn sexy. His mind went blank for a moment and it took a second for him to round up his composure. It took almost a full minute to remember the reason why he was calling. She had that forget-everything-and-only-remember-her effect on him.
“Am I catching you at a bad time?” he asked, keeping his voice cool and controlled.
“Not really,” she answered. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Cara, let’s not say something you don’t really mean.”
“I mean it with all my heart.”
She didn’t sound so sure though and that was a good sign. “What’re you doing?”
“I was taking a shower.”
He had sudden visions of her sitting on the bed, wet and naked. He knew what she looked like wet and naked and that made his breathing stop. “Are you naked?” He almost choked out the words.
“I may be naked,” she said, her accent charming, all eastern and softly clipped. On second thought, maybe disarming was more like it. Her voice was almost lyrical. Everything about her had made him forget what it was he had planned to do, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. “Because when people take showers, they usually don’t wear blue jeans.”
“Go put on clothes.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to,” he said with all his charm. “I’m going to take you to Donetti’s tonight, and I can’t if you’re naked.”
“I can’t go with you tonight.”
“We’ll talk, I’ll apologize, you’ll forgive me, and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” He paused. “You can’t?”
“Yes. I can’t.”
She wasn’t supposed to say that. It wasn’t in his plan. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I have plans tonight.”
“You have a date?” He wasn’t jealous. Not one bit.
“Not a date really. I’m going with Tony and Kate for dinner. At Donetti’s.”
“Donetti’s?” He had to close his eyes and count to three, taking deep breaths before he could go on. “I’ll join you.”
“I don’t want you to join us.”
Oh, she was a coy one, that Cara. “Yes, you do.”
“And if you show up, I won’t talk to you.”
He’d join them all right. “Well, then, there’s nothing to talk about, now, is there?” He just wouldn’t let on about his plan.
The tone of her voice turned to sugary brightness. “I hope I get to see you soon.”
“Liar,” he said instead of goodbye.
She only hung up the phone.
Poor Cara, Rex thought. She didn’t know it yet, but she was going to be putty in his hands.
CARA AGAIN WORE her hair loose tonight. It had looked good when she left the hotel, but that was a top-down-Mustang ride ago. Now she raked her fingers through the thick mass of tangles and curls, doing her best to make sure it was still presentable, hoping it was, because there was no way she was getting up to use the rest-room mirror, or take one out of her purse. She wasn’t going to take her gaze off the man over there by the entry. She couldn’t believe Rex was here. After she’d told him not to show up. The nerve of him.
Lipstick? Where was it? Had she even put some on? Her finger glided over her bottom lip and came off pink. That was good. Then she realized she might have taken the cosmetic off the bottom, and her lipstick was top heavy, so she mashed her lips together trying to even out the color.
“Look!” Cara’s elbow nudged Kate’s arm. Her voice couldn’t conceal the excitement and touch of urgency she felt. “Rex.” She almost swallowed the name Rex.
“Where?” Kate asked.
“There.” Cara nodded toward the entry, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear.
“Hmm,” Kate murmured, kind of dreamy-like. “He looks real nice tonight. Ignore him. Maybe he’ll go away.”
“I will. Believe me, he’s not going to get near me.”
Tony looked at the two women, shook his head and continued to eat his sushi.
“Kate, look over there, that’s Tigger, one of the old men who I thought was donating semen. And that’s Barbara, the office manager, over there.” Cara waved at them. They lowered their heads and ignored her.
Rex immediately found Cara sitting with Kate and Tony. Hell, he was so attuned to her he would have found her even if she were inside and he was outside.
As he walked to the table he saw Tigger and Barbara. Those two were up to something. That Barbara, she was a wild woman. When Tigger started to wave at him, Rex started to head in that direction, but he saw Tony, and Tony was waving at him, too. Not that he didn’t love Tig as a grandfather, but Tony had Cara at his table, and there wasn’t a contest of where he was heading.
Cara didn’t care about any stolen semen. All she wanted was for him to sit next to her so she could rub her hand across his muscled thigh and feel those muscles twitch under her touch.
“I thought you told him not to come here,” Kate said. She could barely be heard over the laughter, music and conversations taking place at every table.
“I guess he didn’t listen to me. He must be unable to resist my charm.”
Kate smiled. “I would bet that’s it.”
As close as they had been yesterday, Cara still stared almost awestruck as he walked toward their table. She couldn’t help it. His jeans were so tight they would be almost indecent anywhere except in Pegleg where peel-on jeans were the uniform of choice for both men and women. What was more, she knew what was underneath those jeans.
He weaved his way slowly through the throng of customers and waitstaff, busboys and wine stewards. The room was crowded and not easy to navigate without stepping on, over or through someone.
Her mouth was dry, her tongue stuck in there, not having enough moisture to move around, or to let her speak in anything other than the croak she heard when she tried to tell Tony and Kate that Rex was coming over.
She reached for the water, but stopped midway, bringing her hands back to her lap. Her hands had betrayed her, getting all clammy.
Rex was halfway to their table, and she had to get some fluid down her or she’d end up making a froggy-sounding fool of herself. She tried for the glass of water again. When her hands slid over the
glass and didn’t get even a grasp on it, she stopped herself from picking it up. She knew if she pushed it anymore she’d have nothing but a wet mess and probably broken glass.
So instead of drinking water, she just watched him watch her as he walked toward their table. Watching him was so wonderful she almost forgot her heart was breaking because of him. The jerk.
Looking at him made her just want to smile all over. And get naked. And she could swear that he must be thinking the same thing, because his expression was one of a determined predator.
The closer he walked to their table, the more angry he seemed to become. His smile turned into a jaw-clenching frown.
His hands, so relaxed moments ago, were now formed into fists. Muscles that rippled under the cotton shirt, seemed tight and tense. She didn’t know what had caused the change, but it didn’t matter because he was walking toward her and her universe was now totally focused on him.
“Rex. You’re here.” She thought she sounded normal, she thought she could be understood. She didn’t sound too much like a cottonmouth snake. “I thought I told you not to come.”
“I couldn’t think of spending a night away from you.”
It took the kick on her shin, courtesy of Kate, before she realized Rex had asked, “Room for one more?”
Tony said, “Sure,” before Cara could formulate the words “Yes, come sit next to me so I can rub your leg.” He sat in the chair opposite her.
He stood halfway up, enough to reach into his pocket, and he pulled out a coin. A coin matching the necklace and bracelet she wore. He dropped it on the table. “Here. I believe this is yours.”
The table became silent as they all stared at the coin. Cara reached for it, “Yes, it is. And like I said before, I didn’t leave it in your lab.”
“Who else could have?”
“You tell me.”
“You lied to me, and you know what I’m talking about.”
“I have not,” she said indignantly.
“Yes, you have. From the very beginning.”
“No, I haven’t. I just haven’t been telling the whole truth.”
“That’s lying.” What was wrong with her?
“No,” she said, just as determined to have her say. “You’re not seeing the big picture.”
“Excuse me.” He leaned back in the chair, his arms flung outward. “The only picture I see is your coin by one of my freezers and semen has been stolen.”
“I didn’t steal your semen.”
“What about the pinpricks? And you know what I’m talking about.”
Her face turned ash white. Her eyes filled with tears. “I told you I was only thinking about it, I didn’t do it.”
Kate turned to him and said, “That was low, Rex.”
“I’m not the one with the safety pin.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“I found it.”
“What’s he talking about?” Tony asked.
“Later,” Kate hushed him.
Tony, looking confused, shrugged.
“I didn’t use it. Or you didn’t use it,” Cara said, looking straight at him.
“How do I know?”
“You have to trust me.”
“Trust you? You lied to me. You’ve stolen from me.”
“No, I haven’t. Anyway, if I did, it’s your fault. I thought you were a semen bank for babies. Do you think I was going to confess how terribly wrong I was when I went looking for donor fathers and found catalogs of bulls?”
“Fathers?” Now he looked confused.
“Those old men, I thought they were semen donors. I thought I’d have a baby who came out ninety years old.”
“What old men?”
“In your semen bank.”
“They are donors. They’re investors in the company.”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t believe after all we’ve been to each other, you’d accuse me of lying and stealing your semen.”
Tony laughed. “Cara, you didn’t have to steal Rex’s semen, he’s been known to give it away. Young men only dream of living the life of Rex.”
Kate slapped Tony’s arm. “Shut up.”
Rex saw Cara’s face and more tears and tried for damage control. “Tony, you know that’s not true. Tell her it’s not true.”
“I’m not lying.”
Now Cara was gulping for air. “All I wanted was to get a donor and to be a mother. I didn’t want a husband. I just wanted a baby.”
“All women want husbands.” Tony and Kate made noises in agreement with Rex.
“You’re wrong.” Cara was pointing her finger at the trio. “If you saw what my mother was picking out, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
“Hey,” Tony said, sounding insulted. “I was one of those guys.”
“You were different. I’ve known you since before we were born.”
He nodded. “That’s true.”
Rex was a man who had gotten where he was in business and in life by going with this gut. His instincts were usually uncanny. He could spot a person who was telling the truth a cornfield away. Cara may not be lying right now, at least about the baby she wanted and the husband she didn’t, but she had totally disregarded the fact that the coin was by his freezer unit. And he reminded her of that fact.
“I don’t know how it got there,” she said.
“Don’t you?” He didn’t believe her. He looked at Tony. “What about you? Did you send her to steal the semen?”
“What the hell are you talking about? My own semen was stolen.”
Kate grabbed both men by the hands and said, “You two stop it right now. You should be working together.” She looked at Cara. “Did you remember losing one of the coins?”
Cara shook her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “No. There are so many of them. I know some are loose and one fell off that first time I went to the clinic. I kept thinking I needed to get the bracelet fixed.”
Rex took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Maybe I was wrong.”
Her eyes looked stormy. “Just maybe?”
“That’s as far as I’ll go right now without more evidence.”
Cara stood. “I’m going home.”
“You haven’t eaten,” Kate said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“I’m going home. To Erie.”
“You can’t leave yet,” Rex said, standing up. “You’re not leaving until I know if you’re pregnant.”
“Oh, Doctor, believe me. I’m not pregnant.”
“How do you know?”
“In order to get pregnant, you have to have sex, and you and I, we didn’t have sex.”
Now he had been sucker punched. How dare she say that night of passion, many times, wasn’t sex? What did she think sex was, anyway?
“What are you talking about? Of course we had sex.”
“You just don’t get it. If you had been a gentlemen, you would have pretended I was telling the truth. You saw my humiliation.” She started poking him in the chest. “I explained it to you. You, Dr. Noble, should get your name changed from Dr. Noble to Dr. Nasty.” With her head held high she walked regally out of the restaurant and would have made it, too, if she hadn’t been stopped by Clyde who dragged her back to the table.
“I have a confession to make,” he told them. “I stole the semen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I had this plan, see, Doc. I like this little girl.” He nodded to Cara. “And you need to settle down, so I thought, if I plant one of her coins—they fall off your bracelet, dear, all over the place—that you two would find yourselves together and get married.”
Tigger came up to the table. “It’s my fault,” he said contritely. “I planted the coin.”
Before long, Barbara, Cathy and Arthur had also come to the table. The amazing thing was that none of them knew the others were doing the same thing. They each dropped coins on the table, and each said they we
re sorry. “Where’s the semen?” Rex asked.
Some had put it in other freezer units. Barbara had taken hers home and fertilized her African violet with it. “It died though. It must be too strong a fertilizer. In fact, I think you need to pay me for the dead plant and buy me another.”
Rex gathered Cara’s hand. “Can you forgive me?” he asked.
“No.” She turned and left the restaurant, head held high, back straight, and she didn’t look back.
Rex looked from Tony to Kate. “I don’t know what she’s so upset about. You eastern women are so sensitive.”
Kate stood, throwing her napkin on the table. “You deal with him,” she told Tony, then hurried after Cara.
Tony shrugged. “Women, go figure.”
Rex nodded, looking longingly at the door Cara had vanished through.
Tony signaled the waiter. “Tell the man what you want, Rex. It’s on the house.”
13
CARA HAD GONE straight from the airport to her apartment. She didn’t call her mother, even though it would have been the right thing to do. All she wanted was to go home and be by herself. She still had four days of vacation left, and she wasn’t going to tell her mother she was in Erie until the morning she had to go back to school.
As she had driven down the familiar streets toward her home, she realized that Erie didn’t feel like home. She didn’t know why, it just didn’t. When had that happened? She loved Erie.
Now all she could think about was a big bull in Texas and the bull’s big owner. The man she loved, despite that he had called her a liar.
She sat at her familiar desk in her office at home. All the school supplies, the teacher’s manuals, the how-to books surrounded her. Before, whenever she had come in here, she’d been filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of teaching her little babies. But now she knew they weren’t her babies, they were little kindergarten kids who belonged to other people.
When had the little babies in her class stopped fulfilling the need she had? She used to love going to her classroom, loved teaching, loved planning the lessons. She had loved wiping sniffly noses, and watching the kids play and learn. For some reason none of that thrilled her anymore. She knew she would still love her job and love her kids, but the thrill of the job wasn’t there. She wanted more. Much more. She wanted Rex. She wanted Rex’s baby.
A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband Page 16