by Linda Seed
“Well … just one.”
Kate raised her eyebrows. “You need a little work on the whole ‘putting on an act’ deal. When you’re doing something to fool other people, it helps if you do the thing where those other people can see it.”
She walked out of the kitchen to take the plates to the patio.
Rose scowled and went to work cutting tomatoes for the salad.
Kate was wrong. She was just wrong. One of the kisses had been for show, and one or two had been just … friendly. And if a few friendly kisses had led Will on, well, she’d just have to deal with it.
Later. Maybe after a few more friendly kisses, possibly after some friendly sex.
But that would really lead him on, and Will was a good guy. If he actually was beginning to have feelings for her—which, according to him, he was—then it would be wrong to get him into bed purely for her own pleasure, knowing that it wasn’t going anywhere.
Wouldn’t it?
She was still pondering the cost vs. benefit analysis of having friendly sex with Will when Lacy came into the kitchen to get a serving platter for Jackson’s steaks.
“Kate says Will wants you,” Lacy said in an offhand way. “To which I said, ‘Duh.’ ”
“I’m thinking about friendly sex. With Will.” Rose put it out there as she began slicing radishes. “But, you know. Just friendly. Because I’m finished with relationships.”
Lacy paused halfway to the door with the platter in her hands. “What, like, ‘You’re helping me out by putting on a show for my mom, so to say thank you, I’m going to let you put your penis into my vagina’?”
Rose raised her eyebrows in an expression that said she was considering just that. “Would that be so wrong?”
“Yeah, it would.” Lacy gave her a hard stare. “Because he likes you. He really likes you. And he’s a sweet guy.”
“And I’d be messing with his feelings.”
“Yes.”
Rose put down the knife and propped one fist on her hip. “Well, jeez. Men do that all the time. Why is it okay for men to do that, but not for women?”
“It’s not okay when men do it,” Lacy pointed out. “And it’s not just men and women we’re talking about, it’s you, and it’s a real man who we all like.”
“Yeah,” Rose conceded, her shoulders sagging.
Lacy left, and Rose was alone in the kitchen with her vegetables. She went back to work on the radishes. Lacy was right, and Rose wasn’t happy about it. It would be wrong to mess with a nice guy who had real feelings. But, God. Had she ever been kissed the way he kissed her?
And that was a large part of the problem, the reason any sex between them couldn’t be anything more than friendly. If she let herself feel things for him—really feel things—then she’d lose herself in the magic of those kisses. And if that happened, she might never be heard from again.
At first, Pamela refused to eat Jackson’s steak. A woman of good breeding, she refused in the politest way she could manage, saying that the food looked lovely, but that she tried to avoid red meat. Rose knew from years of experience that what Pamela actually tried to avoid was anything one might produce on an outdoor grill while wearing a KISS THE COOK apron. Rose knew Pamela was still quietly brooding over the fact that her elegant little cocktail party had been taken over and turned into a Kiwanis Club cookout.
Pamela, sticking steadfastly to her original plan, was holding a tiny plate of crab puffs and onion tartlets, a glass of white wine on the table beside her, as Jackson eyed her from where he stood by the grill.
“Uh oh,” Kate told Rose. “I know that look. He’s upset because she won’t try his food.”
“Well, she’s a fool if she won’t,” Rose replied. “I guarantee he’s as good as any of those snooty chefs she gets for her dinner parties in Connecticut.”
“Right. And he knows that. But she doesn’t know that. And it’s bugging the hell out of him.”
“You really can see that Jackson Graham temper bubbling up under the surface,” Rose observed. “I think I detect a little wisp of smoke coming out of one ear.”
Kate sighed. “That’s just what we need. For Jackson to throw a tempter tantrum in front of your mother.”
Rose perked up. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it would really liven things up.”
Kate looked worried, so Rose decided it was time to take action. “I’ll handle it,” she said. She went over to Jackson and whispered in his ear. Still scowling, Jackson put a steak on a plate, drizzled sauce over it from a small bowl on the work table of the barbecue, and then garnished it with a sprig of something green. Rose grabbed a fork, a steak knife, and a napkin from the patio table and brought the food to her mother.
As Kate watched, Rose whispered something to Pamela, who grudgingly set aside her plate of hors d’oeuvres and cut a tiny bite of the steak. Pamela gingerly placed the bite into her mouth, and then her eyes widened in surprise and wonder. With no further hesitation, Pamela dug into the steak with gusto.
“There,” Rose said with satisfaction as she walked back to where Kate was standing.
“What did you say to her?” Kate wanted to know.
“I told her Jackson used to cook for the Obamas.”
“What?” Kate laughed. “He never cooked for the Obamas.”
“I know that. But my mother doesn’t.”
“Genius,” Kate said.
A few minutes later, Pamela crossed the patio to Jackson, said something to him, put a hand on his shoulder, then threw her head back and laughed.
“Wow,” Kate said. “That Obama line really worked. She’s actually fawning.”
Rose shrugged. “Piece of cake. You just have to know which lever to pull.”
“If you’re this good at manipulating her, then why don’t the two of you get along better?” Kate wondered.
“Manipulating her into liking Jackson is one thing. But I’m her daughter. I shouldn’t have to manipulate her into liking me.” Rose felt heat behind her eyes—tears threatening to come—and she blinked a few times to push it away. “Anyway,” she said brightly. “I need some of that steak. I’m starving.”
Once Will felt the full force of Pamela Watkins’s scrutiny, he couldn’t help understanding Rose’s attitude toward her. What would it have been like to feel that tacit disapproval as a teenager, when Rose was still unformed and insecure?
“William Bachman,” Pamela said thoughtfully, her eyes cast upward in thought. “Would I have heard of your family?”
Will and Pamela were inside the cottage, on the Naugahyde sofa that sat adjacent to the Barcalounger. Will had a beer in front of him, but he hadn’t drank much of it, because he wanted to be sharp for the inevitable interrogation. Pamela was nursing a glass of white wine.
“I don’t think so, ma’am. Unless you lived in Duluth at some point and needed a plumber.” He smiled affably, as though he didn’t know that coming from a blue collar family would brand him as unacceptable for Pamela’s little girl. “My father has owned his own plumbing and heating shop for twenty years. My mother’s an English teacher.”
“I see.” Pamela looked as though she were smelling spoiled meat. “And you’re a graduate student at Stanford. Coming from that kind of background, that’s impressive.”
Will didn’t like the way she said that kind of background, as though his parents had been crackheads or welfare scammers instead of hard-working, honest people who gave the best of themselves to their kids.
“The background they gave me was one of appreciating hard work,” he said mildly. “I imagine that’s what got me into Stanford.”
“Of course.” Pamela smiled tightly, apparently stung by the mild rebuke.
“Is everything okay in here?” Rose peeked her head in the patio door, looking nervous. “Are you two doing all right? Anything I can get you?”
“We’re perfectly capable of having a conversation without your supervision,” Pamela said, and Will could see how it was with them: Rose tentative and unsure, Pamela ha
rsh and critical.
“We’re fine, but it was nice of you to check on us,” Will told Rose. “Don’t you think so, Pamela?”
“I would have said ‘nosy,’ ” Pamela told him, turning away from Rose, who backed meekly out the door and closed it behind her.
He knew he was supposed to placate her. He knew he was supposed to make a good impression so Pamela would be satisfied and would get off Rose’s back. He knew the role he’d been assigned to play, but he just couldn’t play it. He stood up, took a fortifying sip from his beer, and looked down at Pamela as she sat primly perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, as though the cheap fabric might at any moment bite her in the rear.
“I think we’re finished,” he said.
Pamela pursed her lips. “Excuse me?”
He started to say something—the word shrew came to mind—then stopped, gathered himself, and started again. “Mrs. Watkins, you seem to think I need your approval in order to be with Rose. I don’t. I need Rose’s approval, and I think I’ve got that. Now, you can judge my ‘background,’ my parents, and whatever else you’d like. But I’m dating Rose. I just am, and that’s how it is. I’m a good guy. I’m nice to people. I like my family, and I like my friends, and I drive an old car that broke down on the way here.” He shrugged. “And I think it’s fine if you don’t like me. I really do. Because you don’t seem to like Rose much, either, and she’s one of the best people I know. So I figure that puts me in pretty good company. Excuse me, ma’am. I’m going to go back to the party.”
He walked away and left her there on the sofa, her mouth open in surprise.
Chapter Seventeen
When Will came back out onto the patio, everyone was sitting around with the last of the beer and wine, and the sun was setting over the calm ocean. The breeze was light, and the weather was still warm, though it was cooling down enough that they’d soon be driven inside.
Kate and Jackson had decided to take a walk on the bluffs at Fiscalini Ranch, Lacy and Daniel were starting to clean up, and Ryan and Gen were snuggling in a chaise longue, whispering to one another and occasionally laughing in low, intimate voices that made Rose burn with jealousy.
As much as she was happy for Gen and Ryan, she couldn’t help but brood over the fact that she didn’t have what they did—and never would, if her man moratorium held out.
When Will came outside into the twilight and sat on a patio chair beside her, Rose wondered whether the man strike had actually been a pretty bad idea. She felt herself being pulled toward him, not just her body, but her soul—and that created a feeling of fear and dread inside her that she didn’t know how to handle.
“So, what happened in there?” she asked him. The sky was streaked in pinks and oranges, and the crash of the waves murmured in her ears.
“I told your mother that you and I are going to be together, if you want me, and that she wasn’t going to have a say in it. I told her … Well. I said that if she doesn’t approve of me, I don’t care. But if she doesn’t approve of you, then she’s a fool.” His jaw was set in an expression of determination and what might have been anger.
“You said that?”
“Well, not in so many words. But that was the gist.”
“Oh, Will.”
“Look,” he said. “I know I was supposed to be nice to her, make a good impression. And I know I was supposed to put on this act, but—”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. It was their fifth kiss, and they were getting good at it. She melted into him, into his taste and his scent—salt air and sandalwood soap—and she heard a moan and realized it was coming from the depths of her own throat.
She pulled back slightly, still so close she could feel his breath on her, and murmured so that only he could hear, “I think we should just have sex.”
He jumped slightly in surprise. “What?”
“Will … Kate says it’s wrong for us to have friendly sex, because you have feelings for me, and I get that. I do. Because I don’t want to have feelings, and if we have sex, and you feel things and I don’t, then …”
“Rose.”
“But I think we can have friendly sex, and you can feel whatever you feel, and I can feel … well … like I’m having fun, and we can work out all of the rest of it later.” She touched his face, ran a thumb along the line of his lower lip. “Okay? Will?”
“Ah … no.”
He pushed her away slightly, and she felt the hard sting of rejection. But why was he rejecting her? What man didn’t want to have friendly, nostrings-attached sex?
“What?” She wanted to be sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Rose, I just … Thank you, but no.”
“But why?” She could hear the petulant child in her voice, and she didn’t like it, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
He looked at Gen and Ryan, who were on the other side of the porch, within earshot if he were to raise his voice. “I think I’d better go,” he said.
“You don’t have a car.”
“Ah. Good point.”
“I’ll drive you home,” she said.
“That’s … No, thanks. I’ll catch a ride with Ryan and Gen.”
Not only didn’t he want to have sex with her, now he didn’t even want to be in a car with her? Indignation and hurt swelled up in her like the rising tide.
“Will, what the hell’s wrong with you?”
His lips tight in an expression of frustration, he took her hand and led her around to the front of the house, where they wouldn’t be heard.
“Do you think that was a good offer? Friendly sex? Really?” The hurt in his voice took her by surprise and made her step back as the sky darkened around them.
“Well … yes. I thought it was a damned good offer.”
He turned away from her, kicked at a pebble in the driveway, and turned back to face her. “So that’s all I think you’re good for? A one-night stand? Is that it?”
“Wait. I never—”
“Rose.” He drew closer to her and spoke in a voice that was low and intense. “When you and I have sex—and I hope we will—you’re going to feel something other than that you’re having fun. You’re going to feel something for me, you’re going to want me, not just some casual fling. Now, I’m not opposed to casual sex. Some people like that kind of thing. I’ve liked it on occasion, myself. But not with you. With you, it’s going to matter.”
Then he walked back around the house to the patio, leaving Rose standing alone, stunned, in the driveway. She heard his voice, now falsely perky, saying, “Hey, Ry? You guys think I can get a ride home with you?”
“He turned down sex? That’s interesting.”
Rose was getting her morning coffee at Jitters the next day, and Lacy pondered the situation while steaming milk for Rose’s latte. “Guys don’t usually do that.”
“They don’t,” Rose agreed. “He went on about feelings. He sounded more like a girl than I did.”
“Well, God. That’s kind of refreshing, don’t you think? A guy who wants the sex to mean something?”
“Sure, it’s refreshing. But shocking, right? I mean, I didn’t even know such a subspecies existed.”
Lacy slid the latte across the counter to Rose. Then she moved to the register, where she rang up some cappuccinos and scones for a couple of tourists. That done, she came back to the coffee machines and started working on the couple’s drinks, while Rose stood across the counter from her.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Lacy wanted to know.
“Do? What can I do?” Rose threw her hands up in despair. “I’m going to eat too much chocolate, drink too much wine, and watch too much Netflix. What do any of us do when we’re not having sex?”
Lacy pulled a shot of espresso and gave Rose a side-eye. “Or you could admit that you really do care about the guy and give a real relationship a chance.”
Rose’s expression hardened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“
Of course you don’t.”
At that moment, Daniel came in the front door of the coffee house, throwing a friendly wave to both of them.
“Low-fat mocha?” Lacy asked him.
Daniel pointed a finger-gun at her. “You got it.”
Lacy finished the tourists’ cappuccinos, delivered them to their table with the scones, and then started on Daniel’s mocha.
“Hey, Daniel,” Lacy said as she worked. “How obvious would you say it is, on a scale of one to ten, that Rose has a thing for Will?”
“What, with one being not obvious, and ten being obvious as hell?”
“Right.”
He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Well, last night when I was helping to clean up after the party, I walked outside and saw her practically in his lap, with their lips glued together. So, I’d call it a solid ten.”
Lacy gave Rose a pointed look.
Rose waved her hands around. “That was just—”
“I know,” Lacy said. “Friendly. Or, you were saying thank you. Or pass the chips, or some damn thing.”
It had come to this: Her friends were mocking her transparent attempts to have a relationship while pretending that she was not having a relationship.
“Well … God,” she said.
Daniel leaned his forearms on the counter next to Rose. “For what it’s worth, Will’s a good guy. If you’ve got a thing for him, I think you should just go with it. He’s not some asshole. He’s … decent.”
Rose focused on her latte so she wouldn’t have to answer him. “Could we just change the subject?” she asked finally.
“Sure,” Lacy said. She passed Daniel his mocha, then asked Rose, “How are things going with your mother?”
“Ugh.” Rose rolled her eyes extravagantly. “She hates the rental house. She belittled Will. And now, with weeks to go before the wedding, she’s already starting in on me about the hair and the piercings. Apparently, if I don’t go all WASP Barbie for the ceremony, I’ll ruin all of Gen and Ryan’s hopes for happiness. Thank God I have work today.”
“Huh.” Daniel sipped his mocha and made appreciative sounds. “I saw her being friendly with Jackson, so there’s that.”