Flushed

by Sally Felt

  “Cayuse,” Kim said. “I don’t think I’ve tasted a Cayuse.”

  “You’re in for a treat.” He poured a splash from the wrapped bottle and handed the glass to Kim. “Tell me if you agree.”

  He sniffed and sipped. Normally, he’d have waved off this part of the show and had it poured—if the wine had gone off, the sommelier would have smelled it before it got this far. But Bob had annoyed him trying to control the table, so he took his time.

  “It’s nice,” Kim said. “Polished.”

  The man smiled. “I think so too. How many glasses will you need?”

  Kim looked to Isabelle.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He loved the sound of that word on her lips.

  Stacey said, “Sure, why not?” She turned to aim the frame at her lover. “Bob?”

  “A syrah?”

  Classic. Kim thought Bob might want to ease off a little on that tone. This was a nice restaurant. Of course, as long as Kim had Isabelle’s hand on his leg, there was little chance of him moving, even to get in the idiot’s face.

  “Just me and the ladies, then,” Kim said to the sommelier.

  He hadn’t been to Mirabelle before. He couldn’t picture bringing a date to any restaurant not only in a suburban strip mall, but one with a McDonald’s in the parking lot. Once inside the door, though, he’d changed his mind. It was small, only slightly larger than his loft. The orange-washed walls and vibrant oil paintings made him wonder if the restaurant had been Isabelle’s pick. If so, she had creative and adventurous tastes. The menu included ostrich and Nicaraguan lobster. In the corner of the dining room, a Hispanic man in a tuxedo sat making love to a classical guitar.

  Polished was definitely the word.

  When they all had a glass of ruby wine in front of them, Bob having naturally changed his mind, their waitress appeared. Tall, auburn-haired and wearing a black bow tie with a tuxedo shirt, black vest and pants. Pretty.

  Kim recognized her. One of his exes.

  “Finally came to see me,” she said, winking. Her hand trailed briefly over his arm as he took the menu she offered. It threw him off enough that he yielded to Bob and his safe, mundane choice of appetizers.

  Kim couldn’t remember her name. This could be bad.

  Beneath the table, Isabelle’s thumb released his.

  Chapter Five

  “Been here before, have you?” Bob asked it more nicely than Isabelle would have.

  Kim shook his head, though his gaze followed the waitress’s exit. “I think she was making a joke,” he said.

  Isabelle remembered where she’d heard the word “cayuse” before. The winery responsible for what was honestly an exceptional syrah was named after a pony, perhaps inspired by the classic song that had spread the word around. Don’t Fence Me In.

  “Delightful,” she said.

  Kim was a man. He might have great manners and an amazing way of making her forget where she was and what men would do given half the chance. Likely any man as good looking as Kim wouldn’t even need half.

  And here he was ogling the waitress, or at least staring at her and getting ogled in return. Winked at. And pawed. Each time the woman came to the table, which seemed to happen a lot, it was Kim she addressed, her body language suggesting not only familiarity, but desire.

  Finally came to see me.

  It suddenly became easy to keep her hands to herself and provide an example for her friend.

  She didn’t think Stacey or Bob noticed the silence from their half the table. They were too busy alternating between feeding one another and devouring each other with their eyes. It made Isabelle vaguely sick.

  The appetizer course had to be the least amount of fun she’d had in Kim Martin’s company. When their entrees arrived, the waitress hovered at Kim’s side, her hand resting atop his shoulder as she asked him whether he needed anything else. Isabelle bit back a few choice suggestions.

  This shouldn’t be a problem. She shouldn’t care that women threw themselves at him or that even his polite refusal might turn out to be covert code. He wasn’t her date, not really. But after that kiss…

  Stacey turned to Kim and said, “Tell me more about you and Isabelle. How long have you been keeping your secret?”

  “I don’t tell it as well as she does. Isabelle?” He even said her name as if it was a poem. Seductive pig.

  She made herself smile, though she was hardly in the mood to invent romantic stories. She decided to go with the truth.

  “Well, it happened pretty fast, and it’s all your fault, you know, Stacey. You gave me Kim’s card ages ago. Then I needed a plumber and, voila. He was delivered unto my doorstep.”

  “To slay the toilet of doom,” Kim added, positively twinkling. He touched her wrist with two fingers. Casually. Spontaneously. Isabelle wished she could recoil and accuse, but she had a part to play. And as Kim’s smile swallowed her and his fingers slid up to her elbow, she also wished she could ignore the way his sandpaper touch kept her thinking about the parking lot and humid heat and the need to have these rough fingers all over her body.

  Was she doomed to be drawn to men she couldn’t trust?

  She excused herself to the ladies’ room. Stacey decided to join her, which was not really the plan, but what could she say?

  “Oh, Isabelle, he’s perfect,” gushed Stacey as they entered the rich-blue powder room. Isabelle pushed right on through to a toilet stall to put a closed door between them so her friend wouldn’t see her expression. “It’s so good you’re here, all of us getting to know each other. I want you to like him.”

  She tried a few calming breaths. It never worked as well for her as it seemed to for yoga people.

  “And unless I miss my guess,” said Stacey, her voice echoing briefly as she entered the stall next to Isabelle’s, “you and the plumber have been busy.” Her laugh was both suggestive and tinged by her own giddiness, a combination best attempted by new lovers. It was the kind of laugh Isabelle might have been laughing later tonight.

  Still could, if she were willing to risk it.

  But that kiss…she couldn’t remember a kiss tugging at her so deeply. She wanted another. If she had another, she wouldn’t want to stop there.

  And once she’d had a night with him, every wink, every smile, every touch he accepted from another woman would eat at her.

  Sexual betrayal hurt like nothing else, as she knew from devastating personal experience. Damn it, she should be the sun her man revolved around, the center of his universe. It had nearly killed her to learn she was simply one of several habitable planets Steven moved between.

  And he hadn’t even been the first to cripple her with evasion and lies.

  Never again. She couldn’t take it.

  Her body ached as if something had been physically torn from her while Stacey continued talking nonstop. But once she and Stacey were standing side by side at the restroom’s twin sinks, Isabelle knew her continued silence would start to worry her friend.

  “Bob seems smitten,” she said, hoping it would be enough. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Oh, me too,” Stacey said. “And you! We have to double again soon.”

  When pigs fly.

  As they returned to their table, Isabelle saw Kim was already on his feet. He was talking to their waitress. They were smiling. And why not? He was charming and she was, well, a woman only had to be breathing to notice Kim. Only a matter of time before nature took its course. She might not have seen it coming with Steven, but she was paying attention now.

  And Kim saw her approaching.

  And he smiled at her. Of course.

  Bastard.

  “Isabelle, I’d like you to meet Ginger Harris. Ginger, this is Isabelle Caine.” He stood next to Isabelle and slipped his arm around her as he said it.

  “Hello,” Isabelle said as her kidneys turned to ice.

  “So you’re dating Kim now?” the waitress asked.

  “Ginger.” Kim might have meant it as a
reprimand, or maybe just a warning not to be too obvious about sizing up the woman he was with.

  “I knew Kim a long time ago,” Ginger said with apparent reluctance. “I’m surprised he even remembers me.”

  As if she would wink at a stranger.

  “Knew him?” Isabelle asked. “As in, at school?”

  “We dated briefly,” Kim said.

  “Very briefly. Kim helped me out, and I’ll always be grateful.”

  Isabelle made herself smile. Seemed to her, Ginger meant to say they’d dated too briefly. Just how “ex” were they?

  “Anyway, I’m going to just fade back into the background so you can enjoy your dinner.” She backed away a step and addressed the whole table. “Can I bring you another bottle of wine?” She drew the empty syrah out of its wrapper.

  “Hang on, let me see that,” Bob said as he took the bottle from Ginger.

  “Are you ready for that Semillon, Bob?” Kim asked, his arm was still around Isabelle’s waist. She slid free, moved to her chair and sat down.

  Kim hurried to tuck her in at the table just as Bob burst out laughing. “I can’t believe this. Bionic Frog. We’ve been drinking Bionic Frog.”

  He turned the wine bottle so they could see. The label was a cartoon illustration of a frog smashing grapes with its cybernetically enhanced frog leg. “Bionic Frog” was spelled out in vibrant orange letters.

  Oh my. Well, the sommelier had never actually told them the wine’s name, had he? Maybe it embarrassed him as well.

  Stacey started to giggle.

  Kim stiffened beside Isabelle, then turned to the waitress. “Your sommelier said this was the last bottle. Would you ask him to recommend something else?”

  “Of course,” she said, her tone matching Kim’s cool formality.

  Bob continued guffawing and showing the bottle around until he seemed to realize his audience had grown quiet.

  Isabelle finished her prawns, hating Bob. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for Kim, but it wasn’t his fault the wine looked like a joke. It certainly hadn’t tasted like a joke. Bob was being an ass. Stacey deserved better.

  Then again, so did she.

  This awful evening couldn’t end soon enough. So much for Kim Martin’s spine-melting kisses.

  Men.

  It was all she could do to stay still through the remainder of the meal, neither throwing things at the walls nor stabbing Ginger with a fork when she came around to tell them dessert.

  Isabelle asked for the chocolate tortellini. The waitress looked between Isabelle and Kim and asked, “Would you like to share that?”

  “No, thank you,” said Isabelle. “I don’t share.”

  * * * * *

  Kim parked in front of Isabelle’s house and turned off the engine.

  Isabelle was already in the process of unfastening her seat belt as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. It had been a tense drive and he wasn’t sure why. Bob being a jackass? The waitress’s familiarity? Stacey getting a little drunk?

  If there was one thing Kim had no patience with, it was the silent treatment and the passive-aggressive guessing games that came with it. He’d expected Isabelle to be more straightforward than that.

  “Don’t you think it’s time for you to let it go?” he asked.

  “Of course. No need to walk me to the door.” Her voice was clipped.

  “That’s not what I meant. What are you so mad about?”

  “It was too soon. I should never have agreed, or brought you into it.”

  “No idea what you’re talking about.” Unless it was the whole not a date thing, which hadn’t made sense from the start. God help the waitress for having used the “d” word in front of them. Now he thought of it, that was when Isabelle had really clenched up.

  “No reason why you should.” She threw off the seat belt and opened the door. “Thank you for doing me this favor, Mr. Martin. I’ll see myself home.”

  Like hell. He scrambled around the Jeep to pace her as she stalked up the paved walk toward her front porch. He was going to say this whether she wanted to hear it or not. “Look, I understand the ape who crashed your party last night really hurt you, maybe made you a little extra sensitive. But it’s been what, two months? Let it go—the guy is toast. Hauling it around like this is just crazy.”

  “Thank you.” Her heels clacked loudly on the concrete. She walked like an angry housecat, lithe and graceful, hips swinging, yet still managing to create Godzilla-sized impact.

  He hurried to keep up. “Isabelle, I’m serious. He broke your heart. He’s an ass—doubly so for turning up uninvited. But you’re an incredible woman. Funny. Sexy. Bursting with life. Why won’t you share that?”

  She stopped walking to glare at him. “With you? Let me think. Maybe it’s because women throw themselves at you wherever you go—even tonight, even when it was supposed to look like a date.”

  “I hardly think Ginger was throwing herself at me.”

  She waved her arms and her shawl slipped off her shoulders to the ground. “Oh, of course not. It was all my imagination—it was me, in my craziness, that imagined her touching you and winking at you.”

  Kim sighed. She was more than a little extra sensitive, which could be a problem, given his many exes. He squatted, picked up her shawl and offered it to her.

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about. Men cheat, especially ones who are too good looking for their own good.” She reached for the shawl. He pulled it back, started to get ticked.

  “Just to clarify. Wasn’t cheating on the drive up here. Still not cheating.”

  “She wanted you.”

  “Once upon a time. Ancient history.”

  “Right. Of course. You’re so forgettable.” Isabelle’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “This may be the most bizarre conversation of my life.”

  “And thank you again.” She snatched the shawl from him.

  “You’re accusing me of being too attractive.”

  “I’m saying you’re a man.”

  He leaned out of the way as she snapped the shawl between her hands and flung it back over her shoulders. “So every man is too attractive.”

  “Every man will cheat, given the chance. And you doubtless get more chances than the average man.”

  “Because I once dated our waitress?”

  “Because women want you.” She turned away, tensed to resume stalking. Kim took her elbow to stop her. She glared at his hand. He released her.

  “What about you, Isabelle?” The beads on her shawl caught faint glimmers of streetlight, but ahead, her porch was dark.

  “I’m breathing.” She wasn’t yelling anymore. She sounded sad, or maybe just tired. She wouldn’t look at him, making his earlier hopes for an invitation inside a distant memory.

  “Tell me what that means.” Issues of letting go aside, he really didn’t want this to be the last he saw of her. “Isabelle.”

  “Goodnight, Kim Martin.” She walked away from him, up the stairs of her porch. He listened to the sound of her footsteps, softer on the concrete than in the heat of her anger, then resonant on the wooden steps and planks of her porch and wondered why, after all the women he’d known—beautiful women, talented women—this one had such a hold on him.

  He’d been there nearly a full minute before he realized two things were wrong. One, Isabelle was standing absolutely still on her dark porch. And two, the last sound of her footstep had included the crunch of glass.

  Isabelle couldn’t see to find the locks on her front door. The porch light wasn’t working though she remembered turning it on before she left. And something was broken. Flowerpot, maybe?

  But she knew that wasn’t it. Terra cotta probably wouldn’t cut and she had a strong suspicion her foot was bleeding. Once she started thinking again, no doubt she’d understand. But at the moment, all she could think was how cold she was now that Kim wasn’t standing beside her.

  That wasn’t why she was cold, she knew. She didn�
��t want to admit the real reason. Admitting to the fear meant admitting there might be justification for it—that something had happened to her safe, cozy house. That the wide stripe of deepest shadow she saw in front of her and couldn’t make sense of was actually the inside of her house, glimpsed beyond her open front door.

  The one she couldn’t see to unlock.

  Because the porch light was broken. Smashed. Shattered.

  “Isabelle?”

  Damn her heart for leaping at the sound of his voice. She’d told him to leave. Why hadn’t he gone? The man couldn’t be controlled. She didn’t need that.

  The keys felt foreign in her numbed fingers. The door…her hand…the thoughts in her scattered brain. It all seemed very far away.

  She wet her lips but couldn’t speak. Speaking might make it real.

  She heard him cover the porch steps in a single bound, felt the boards vibrate beneath her feet as he landed, felt the welcome heat of him at her back and then beside her.

  With a shiver, Isabelle recovered herself. Her house, her responsibility.

  She stepped forward, more crunching, an uncomfortable wetness in her sandal. She pushed the door open, rather, farther open. The doorframe had splintered where it had been forced.

  The house was unnaturally dark except for a light in the direction of her bedroom.

  “Let me, Isabelle,” Kim said.

  She wouldn’t move back, but she was happy to let him push past her. His feet crunched across the threshold and she followed. More crunching marked her path as she headed for the floor lamp near the fireplace. She switched the lamp on.

  Oh.

  Oh my.

  Books on the floor. The bookcases’ glass doors hung open. The coffee table had been pushed aside and the area rug beneath it ribboned into a heap. Glass on the floor, blue glass, probably the vase that had been on the coffee table. More glass where framed family photos had been swept off the mantel. CDs spilled from broken jewel cases on the floor. Hats everywhere. Kim moved cautiously through the house, Isabelle trailing him, turning on lights, feeling the numbness begin to thaw, turning to anger.