Cole said nothing. He just held her. On the floor by the sofa, Sergeant twitched in his sleep and let out a low, chuffing sigh.
Some time later, Cole pulled away enough to seek her lips.
Melinda kissed him back.
After that, there seemed to be no more need for sad confessions. For that night at least, they had each other, a bed to hold them, and the heated, insistent rhythms of mutual desire.
“Tuesday is Dad’s birthday,” Annie said the next morning, when she and Melinda were sitting at the breakfast table eating French toast and strawberries. “He’ll be sixty-two.”
Melinda forked up a strawberry, bit into it. It was very sweet. She chewed it slowly, feeling dreamy. Images of the night before bloomed, sweet as fresh red strawberries, in her mind.
Cole’s face above hers, his body joined to hers below, pressing hard and deliciously, until she couldn’t hold back her excited moans.
“Melinda.”
“Hmm?”
Annie had her mouth pursed. “What are you thinking about? You didn’t hear a word I said.”
Melinda sat up a little straighter. “I was thinking that I adore strawberries—and I heard everything you said.”
“You did?” It was a challenge.
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“You said that Tuesday is your father’s birthday and he’ll be sixty-two.”
Annie looked somewhat mollified. “Well. Good.” She grinned. “And we’re gonna bake him his favorite cake.”
Melinda speared another strawberry. “We are? What kind of cake is that, may I ask?”
“Red velvet ice cream cake, with butter cream frosting and red sugar sprinkles on top.”
Melinda brought the strawberry to her mouth, took it inside and chewed it slowly. “Um. Sounds good.”
“You like to bake, don’t you? You like to cook. And you’re good at it. This French toast is just right.”
“Why, thank you.” Melinda did enjoy cooking. She’d cooked all the time, during her years with Christopher. She’d planned and played hostess at a large number of successful dinner parties, preparing the gourmet meals herself. She’d found great satisfaction in choosing the menus, in buying her ingredients fresh from the produce and meat markets not far from their loft apartment, and then spending a whole day in the kitchen, making sure everything was just right.
Annie leaned a little closer, across the table. “We’re gonna bake that cake, buy some presents and cook us up a feast—and then tell Dad he has to come out of his room for his party.”
Melinda knew a wiser thing to do: what Annie had actually gone so far as to suggest last night. Tell Preston the truth about who Brady’s real parents were.
Of course, when they did that, everything would change. Nights like last night might not happen again....
“Okay,” Annie said. “What’s the matter now?”
Melinda wanted to smile and say, Nothing. Nothing at all.
But honesty won out over guilty desire. “I was just thinking about what you said last night. That maybe we ought to—”
Annie waved an impatient hand. “I remember what I said. And I did think about it some more.”
“And?”
“And I decided the best thing would be to wait until after Dad’s birthday.”
Melinda set down her fork. “Oh, Annie...”
“Don’t get all disgusted. You agreed we’d let him think what he wanted to for a week. And now I’m saying it can be less than a week. It can be Wednesday. The day after his birthday. But I just want to try that, you know? See if we can get him to come to the table to eat his birthday dinner and open his presents.”
Before Melinda could respond, the phone rang. Annie stood and went to the wall extension between the window and the cabinets over the sink.
“Hello, Yuma residence. Oh hi, Velma. How are you?” She listened. “Yeah. Thanks. I’m just fine. Mmm-hmm. Home to stay...” Her expression turned wistful. “No, Jimmy’s...he’s not here... Oh, Mrs. Finster mentioned Melinda, huh? Well, she’s a friend of mine. From L.A. A real good friend. She’s here for a week or two, to visit, you know?” Annie listened some more, then said, “Church? Today?” She gnawed on her lower lip. “Oh, no. I don’t think so. Dad’s not doin’ so well and...” Velma must have trotted out a few arguments to get Annie to change her mind, because Annie fell silent, except for an occasional murmured, “Um-hm,” and, “I know, but...” Finally she spoke firmly. “Listen. We’ll be there next Sunday, I promise you. How’s that?... Okay, real good. Talk to you then.”
She hung up. “That was Velma Kitchner. A school friend of mine. She heard I was back home. And will you quit lookin’ at me like that? Lands above, you’d think I did murder, I swear.”
“Annie, we can’t hide in this house forever.”
“We are not hidin’. We’re just—”
“We’re hiding. So that we don’t have to lie to anyone else about what is going on here—or tell the truth and take the chance that your father will find out before you finally agree to tell him yourself.”
“And I did agree to tell him. A whole day earlier than I said at first. So let’s stop beating this old, dead horse and get crackin’ on planning this party we’re gonna throw.”
Cole came in at twelve-thirty for lunch. When he walked in the door, Melinda was standing at the counter near the sink, slicing roast beef left over from the night before. He hung his hat on the peg and approached the sink to wash his hands.
Melinda concentrated on her task, carefully shaving the meat, so the slices would be temptingly thin. He slid her a look and a smile as he flipped on the faucet. She smiled, too, but didn’t look at him directly. She kept her eyes on her task, feeling dreamy again, a woman with a lovely, guilty secret she was enjoying way too much.
Cole took the bar of soap from the tray on the windowsill and worked up a lather. “What’s for lunch?”
“Roast beef sandwich. You can have it hot or cold.”
“I’ll take it hot.”
Hot. He’d take it hot. Her knife paused in midslice. “All right. With gravy?”
“Yeah.” He set the soap down again, rinsed his hands and reached for the towel on the bar near her shoulder. He brushed her arm in passing. The contact sent her senses spinning. She almost sliced her finger instead of the roast.
“Careful.” There was laughter in his voice.
“I’m trying to be.”
“Cole. There you are.” They both spun around. Annie was standing in the door from the front hall. Her big eyes narrowed a little as she darted a glance from Cole to Melinda and then back to Cole again. For a split second, she almost looked sly. Melinda felt certain she knew everything—each last caress and passionate sigh that had been shared in the darkness the night before.
But then a big, guileless smile took over her face. “We’ve been waitin’ for you to come in. To tell you about the party we’re gonna throw for Dad’s birthday Tuesday. Now listen, we’re gonna bake a red velvet cake and buy some presents and do it up real nice. And you’re gonna have to take a few hours off tomorrow, to watch the baby and keep an eye on Dad, so Melinda and I can drive into Fredericksburg and buy all the things we’re gonna need. The gift shops don’t open till ten, so I figure you can go on to work like you always do, then come back about nine, so we can leave.”
Cole hung the towel back on the bar. He looked supremely casual, but Melinda noticed how careful he was not to glance her way—and possibly betray their secret with a look, as they had almost done a moment before. “A party, huh?” He went over to the table and pulled out his chair.
“Yeah. And we’re gonna try our best to get Dad to come out of his room for it. What do you think?”
“I think you shouldn’t get your hopes up.” Annie’s face fell. But then Cole added, “On the other hand, there’s no harm in trying, now is there?”
“Nope,” Annie declared, beaming now “No harm at all.”
As soon as al
l the males of the household had been fed, Annie and Melinda set to work planning Preston’s birthday party. They sat at the table with a stack of cookbooks. Melinda wrote the shopping list. “So,” she said when they’d pretty much decided on the menu, “we’ll have fried chicken and mashed potatoes, a molded raspberry salad and sourdough rolls.”
“And broccoli with cheese sauce. Dad loves that.”
“But what about his poor arteries? Shouldn’t we be thinking a little bit about them?”
“It’s only one meal, Melinda. One meal is not going to do him in.”
“If you say so...”
“I do.”
Melinda shrugged and bent over her shopping list again. She began writing down the ingredients they didn’t have on hand.
“Melinda?” Annie’s voice sounded odd, tentative.
Melinda glanced up and arched a questioning brow.
“I...”
“What?”
“Well, Melinda...I saw. I...I know.”
The cryptic words told Melinda everything, but still, she hoped she might be wrong. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, Melinda.” Annie’s lower lip quivered. “I’m jealous, a little. I know...what it’s like. So beautiful and perfect. It’s like there’s no one else in the world, but you and him. Like whenever he is near, he’s all you can see.”
“Annie...”
Annie let out a long, dejected breath. “All right. I can see it in your face. You’re not gonna talk about it.”
“Annie, it’s...complicated.”
“Oh, Melinda. I don’t think so. I think it’s just love. Just love, that’s all. And I guess I’d be about the happiest sister in the world, if you ended up really married to my big brother, after all.”
“Look. Don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
Annie laughed then, a laugh with sadness in the depths of it. “Askin’ me not to get my hopes up is like askin’ the wind not to blow.” She tipped up her chin. “But I will...mind my own business about it, if that’s what you want. You and Cole can work things out in your own way. I won’t even mention it to him.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Okay. But I won’t stop hopin’.”
“Oh, Annie—”
“You can’t make me stop hopin’, Melinda. And I think you know that. But I promise you, I will keep my big mouth shut.”
Melinda must have looked doubtful, because Annie laughed again. “I know, I know. You’ll believe it when you see it. And you will see it. I will keep out of it. Cross my heart, hope to die.”
At ten-thirty that night, Cole stood in his room alone, looking out the front window at the wide, rounded shadows of the oaks that grew on either side of the walk. He had showered, turning the water up hard and hot, then switching it all at once to cold, thinking maybe he could freeze out the longing within him.
It didn’t work, so he’d pulled on a pair of jeans and come back out here, to the room where his father had slept with his mother.
He couldn’t see the moon from where he stood. But through the branches of the trees, the stars twinkled at him, thick and bright, seeming close enough that he could reach out through the tree branches and grab a handful of them, then open his fist and watch them glitter in his open palm.
She was waiting.
He could feel her—beyond the door at the other end of the shadowed room behind him.
Need dragged at him.
He resisted.
A pointless resistance, for certain. Because he would give in. But he was just enough his father’s son to hesitate before he went and did a thing he didn’t believe was right.
He ran a hand back through his still-damp hair, swore under his breath—and wished he were younger. A few years back, he could have simply done what he wanted to do. A few years back, it wouldn’t have felt as if he were betraying who he was.
When he was younger, in his early twenties, his sexuality had been his one rebellion against the straight and narrow path Preston Yuma had set for him. He’d sought out easygoing, pretty women then. And he’d thoroughly explored the pleasures of the flesh.
But that period of his life hadn’t lasted long. He’d discovered that he actually believed the things his father had taught him. That there had to be more than a soft, curvy body and a willing smile. There should be likeness of mind. Mutual respect. And a vow that bound them, for better or for worse.
About four years back, he’d stopped going out at night to honky-tonks and roadside bars. He’d started waiting.
It hadn’t been any picnic. His body still wanted the easy pleasure it had known.
But he had held out. For the right woman.
The right woman, who’d turned out to be a whole lot more than he’d imagined.
The right woman, who pretended to be his wife for his sister’s sake, who left her door open at night so that he could slip through it.
The right woman, who was good and tenderhearted and too rich and beautiful by half. The right woman, who had run into the wrong guy first.
The right woman, who would be gone from his life in a week or so.
He heard the scratch of a questioning paw against the door to the landing. He turned to let Sergeant in.
The dog sat when Cole opened the door, waiting as he always did, for a clear invitation.
“Come on, then,” Cole said. And the dog rose, bumped at his hand. Cole gave him a pat, ruffled the fur at his collar. “Go on, now. Lie down.”
Cole closed the door and turned the lock.
The other door beckoned.
He moved toward it, relentlessly drawn.
The gray cat that Annie called Spunky lay curled in a ball in the center of the bed.
Melinda was sitting in the chair by the window that faced the backyard. She’d left the light off, but the curtains were wide open. No oak trees screened the starlight. It filled the room, so all the shadows seemed to give off a silvery glow.
She wore that blue robe that clung to every sweet, tender curve, and she looked out at the dark shape of the old windmill, which circled slowly against the night sky.
She heard him, turned her head sharply, saw him standing there—and swept to her feet in a rustle of silk. He caught a flash of smooth thigh as the robe settled around her.
Her full mouth quivered a little. She murmured his name on a breath.
It was enough to bring him to her. He crossed the floor in three long strides. Her hair shimmered at him, pale as moonbeams. Her eyes glittered. He lifted both hands, hooked the sides of the robe above her breasts and pulled it wide. Then, a low, hungry moan escaping him, he lowered his head and took one hard, tempting nipple into his mouth. It tasted good. He swirled his tongue around it, nipped it with his teeth.
She moaned. Her slender arms pulled him closer, the blue silk sliding against his cheek. He grabbed the sash of the robe and pulled on it. It gave in a long, easy glide. He dropped it to the floor at their feet, pushed the robe off her shoulders, heard it collapse around her ankles with a sound like a sigh.
She pressed herself into him, her breasts pushing soft and full against his chest. The woman he had waited for, heaven in his arms—his for this night, at least...
The wing chair was right behind her, in front of the starlit window. He took her by her sleek hips, pushed her down into the chair, going down with her, kneeling at her feet.
He looked up at her, waiting, until she fully looked at him. And then he let his gaze travel down, along the star-washed length of her, over the full, perfect breasts and the tiny waist and the hips that flared just enough to be womanly. She had her long, incredible legs pressed together. The curls where her thighs joined shimmered, pale as moonglow in the dim light.
She said his name again, a pleading, hungry sound. He put his hands on her smooth knees, hooking his thumbs inside. She knew what he wanted. To see her. All of her.
She didn’t refuse him. With only slight reluctance she surrendered to the gentle pressure of his hands. He looked. And the
n brushed his hand in a slow sweep along the satiny flesh of her inner thigh. She gasped when he touched her. He parted the star-silvered curls, slipped a finger into the silky heat and wetness that told him she was his.
For this night. And the night after. And maybe, if he was lucky, a night or two more after that.
He shifted forward, moving between her open legs, to taste her.
She cried out as his mouth found her. He drank from her, holding her soft thighs apart with determined hands, tasting the secret inner wetness, circling the erect nub of her sex, feeling it swell even more as he pressed his open mouth to it and stroked it with his tongue.
All resistance banished, she moaned and writhed, pressing that sweetness against him. He slid his hands around her, to cup her hips and bring her closer still.
It happened then. He felt the pulsing, the series of tiny tender explosions against his insistent tongue.
“Cole, Cole...” Her hands held his head as he drank her completion, her body quivering tightly, going rigid—and then falling limp with a heavy sigh.
He didn’t leave her immediately, but kept his mouth on her, feeling the last tremors as they slowed to an occasional lingering pulse.
Finally he lifted his head enough to rest on her belly. She combed her fingers through his hair.
“I thought, maybe, you would stay away tonight.” Her voice found him through the darkness, soft, dreamy—a little bit sad.
He turned his head and kissed her, right below her navel. “I couldn’t.”
“I’m glad.”
He smiled to himself against her belly, thinking that she could no more deny this thing between them than he could. He found some satisfaction knowing that. It wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing.
Married by Accident Page 18