“How have you been, Shay? Good heavens, I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“I’ve been…fine.”
Ivy’s gaze was level. “You don’t look fine. Is everything okay?”
“Please don’t start, Ivy. I get enough analysis from Mitch and Alice.”
Ivy grinned and lifted both hands, palms out. “Say no more.” She sat down in the chair behind the desk and Shay took a seat on the sofa and it all seemed strange. It was amazing that a person could jog along in the same rut for six years and then suddenly find herself living a whole different life. “When can you work in a fitting for your dress?”
Shay stared blankly for a moment and then realized that Ivy was talking about the gown she would wear as a bridesmaid in her friend’s wedding. “Flexibility is my middle name,” she said awkwardly. “Name a date.”
“How about tomorrow night, at my apartment? Bring Hank and Alice and we’ll have supper after the sewing fairies close their little tufted boxes and steal away into the night.”
Shay smiled, hoping that she didn’t look forlorn. “I think I can collar Hank for the occasion, but Alice has a big date with a knitting-needle salesman.”
That brought a grin from Ivy, though her eyes were serious. It was obvious that she wanted to ask how things were going with Mitch. Shay was grateful that she didn’t. “How’s the catering business?”
“Hectic,” Shay replied without thinking. She felt foolish, sitting there in Ivy’s office when she should have been in her own, working. “Do you like your new job?”
Ivy smiled pensively. “Most of the time, I thrive on it.”
“And the rest of the time?”
Ivy glanced toward the office door, as if to make certain that it was tightly closed, leaned forward and whispered, “Shay, I think—I think—”
“What, Ivy?”
“I think I’m pregnant,” Ivy answered in a low rush of words, and it was impossible to tell whether she was happy or not.
Shay knew what she felt, and that was plain, old-fashioned envy. “Have you discussed this with Todd?”
Ivy nodded. “He’s thrilled.”
“Are you thrilled, Ivy?”
“Yes, but I’m not looking forward to telling my mother. She’ll have a fit, because of the white dress and everything.”
I should have such a problem, Shay thought. “Don’t worry about your mother, Ivy. Just enjoy the wedding and take things as they come.”
Ivy started to say something but the telephone on her desk began to buzz. Shay mouthed a goodbye and left, feeling even more bereft than she had before she’d arrived. Her life was in limbo and she didn’t know which way to turn or how to go on. She wanted to go to Mitch, but that would have been a weak thing to do, so she drove around until it was time for Hank to get out of school.
She brightened as she drew the station wagon to a stop in front of her son’s school. He’d be surprised to see her, and they’d go out for hamburgers and maybe an early movie, just the two of them. Shay had it all planned out.
Only Hank scowled at her and got into the car grudgingly, his eyes averted.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Shay said. “What’s the problem, tiger?”
“Nothin’.”
Shay shut off the car’s engine and turned to her son. She moved to ruffle Hank’s hair, but he pulled away. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
He flung her a defiant look. “Yes. You found out about your dad, but you won’t tell me anything about mine!”
Shay shrank back a bit, stunned by the force of the little boy’s rage. “I didn’t think you were ready,” she said lamely.
“I wonder about him all the time and there’s nobody to tell me! It isn’t fair, Mom!”
Shay closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gather strength. Hank was right. Keeping him in the dark about Eliott had not been fair. Hadn’t she been angry with Rosamond for not telling her about Robert Bretton? “I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
Over take-out food and the few photographs Shay had kept of Eliott, she told Hank the whole story. She told him, as kindly as she could, about the stealing and about the librarian and she ached at the hurt she saw in her son’s eyes.
Hank listened in stony silence and when Shay had finished talking, he snatched up one of the snapshots of his father and went out into the backyard to sit disconsolately at the picnic table. It was cold out there, and windy, and Shay had all she could do not to go out and drag her son back inside.
Presently, he came in on his own, his small shoulders slumped, his eyes averted. Shay, conscious of his dignity, did not speak or move to touch him.
“I’ll take my bath now, I guess,” he said.
“Okay,” Shay replied, looking out the window so that she could hide the expression on her face. The picture of Eliott was blowing across the surface of the picnic table in pieces.
At breakfast the next morning, Hank was in better spirits and Shay blessed the resiliency of children. In fact, she tried to emulate it.
She was humming when she got to the office and, just to give the day a little pizzazz, she went into the Christmas-ornament shop on the first floor and bought a fancy cornhusk wreath for the reception room. Clydesdale was positioned in the curve of the bay windows, and Shay hung the wreath on his head. “Hail, Caesar,” she said, before going off to find a hammer and a nail.
The entire day went well and Shay was feeling better than she had in days when she got home. Hank was there, idly pounding one fist into his baseball glove and watching Sally, his baby-sitter, paint her toenails.
“Spruce up, fella,” Shay said brightly. “We’re due at Ivy’s place for supper in an hour.”
Hank’s freckled face twisted into a grimace, then brightened. “Is Mitch going to be there?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you call Ivy and ask her?”
The baby-sitter picked up a blow dryer, switched it on and aimed it at her toes. The roar drove Hank to make his call from the kitchen.
By the time Sally had dried her toenails and gone home, Shay was through with her shower and wrapped in her bathrobe, carefully applying fresh mascara. Sensing Hank’s presence behind her, she asked, “Well? Is Mitch going to be there?”
Hank was silent for so long that Shay finally turned to look at him, mascara wand poised in midair. His lower lip was quivering and everything inside Shay leaped with alarm.
“He’s bringing a stupid girl!” Hank wailed.
Shay swallowed. “A girl?”
Hank nodded. “I called him up and told him off! I told him you were supposed to be his girl!”
“Oh, Lord,” Shay breathed, closing her eyes for a moment. “Hank, you shouldn’t have done that. You had no right.”
“I don’t care!” Hank shouted. “He’s just like my dad! He’s a creep!”
“Hank!”
Hank stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door and Shay knew it was useless to talk to him before he’d had a chance to calm down. She went into the living room and tried to make sense of what was happening.
Mitch and a girl? There had to be some misunderstanding. There had to be.
There was. Fifteen minutes after Hank’s outburst, there came a knock at the door. Shay opened it to find Mitch standing on the porch, a small, brown-eyed girl huddling shyly against his side. “This,” he said, “is the other woman.”
Shay smiled and stepped back. She hoped her relief didn’t show. “You must be Kelly,” she said to the child, helping her out of her coat.
Kelly nodded solemnly. “I’m seven,” she said.
“Where, may I ask,” Mitch drawled, “is the staunch defender of your honor as a woman?”
“In his room,” Shay answered, and as Mitch strode off to knock at Hank’s door, she offered Kelly her hand. “Would you like a cup of cocoa?”
“Yes, please.” Kelly’s dark eyes made a stunning contrast to her pale hair and they moved from side to side as Shay led her toward the kitchen. “
Daddy said you had a real carousel horse,” she said. “I don’t see him around, though.”
Shay hid a smile. “I keep him at my office. We could stop there later, if you want.”
“I’d like that, thank you.” Kelly settled herself at the table and Shay felt a pang as she put milk on to heat for the cocoa. Her mother must be beautiful, she thought.
In a few minutes Mitch appeared in the doorway with a sheepish and somewhat sullen Hank at his side. “Another domestic crisis averted,” muttered the man.
“I don’t wanna go anywhere with any stupid girl,” added the boy.
“I spoke too soon,” Mitch said.
“Hank Kendall,” Shay warned, “you go to your room, this instant!”
Kelly smoothed the skirts of her little dress. “I’m not a stupid girl,” she threw out, just loud enough for a retreating Hank to hear.
“Is she always this good?” Shay whispered once Kelly had finished her cocoa and gone off to the living room to sit quietly on the couch and thumb through a copy of House Beautiful.
Mitch shook his head. “I’m still a novelty,” he answered, trapping Shay neatly against the kitchen counter and bending to steal one mischievous kiss. “She’s only staying a few days, Reba and her husband are attending some conference in Seattle.” Liking the taste of the first kiss, he gave her another. “Hank’s pretty upset, isn’t he?”
Shay nodded. “I told him about Eliott.”
Mitch’s hand was in Shay’s hair, his thumb tracing the rim of her ear. “You did the right thing, princess. He’s going to need some time to come to terms with what happened, that’s all.”
“You were remarkably patient with him.”
Mitch kissed her again. “I’m a remarkably patient man.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But I’d sure like to take you to bed right now, lady.”
Shay trembled, needing Mitch and knowing that her need would have to be denied. “I’d sure like to go,” she replied honestly.
Mitch laughed and nuzzled her neck once. “I’ll try to arrange something,” he said, and then they coaxed Hank out of his room and went to Ivy’s apartment for the evening.
Mitch called Shay at the office first thing the next morning. “Keep the weekend open,” he said. “I’m going to take you somewhere private and love you until you’re crazy.”
A hot, anticipatory shiver went through Shay. “What about the kids? Where would we—”
“Reba is picking Kelly up tomorrow night. Maybe Hank could stay with Alice.”
“Well…”
“Ask her, Shay. You’re talking to a desperate man, a man consumed with lust.”
Shay laughed. “I’ll check with Alice and call you back.”
Alice asked no questions. She simply agreed to keep Hank for the weekend and returned to the group of knitters gathered at the back of the shop.
The rest of that week crept by, even though Shay was busy day and night. She didn’t see Mitch at all, but he managed to keep her blood at an embarrassing simmer by calling her at intervals and making scandalous promises.
Finally, Friday afternoon arrived. Shay left the office early, picked Hank up at school and brought him back to Alice’s shop.
Alice immediately set him to work unpacking a new shipment of yarn. “You just go along, dear,” she whispered, half pushing Shay out through the shop’s open door and into the hallway. “Hank and I will be fine.”
Shay pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her coat pocket and handed it to Alice. “This is a telephone number, where you can reach us, er, me.”
Alice glanced at the number, which constituted the sum total of what Shay knew about where she would be that weekend, nodded her head and tucked the paper into the pocket of her apron. “Have a lovely time, dear,” she said, dismissing Shay with a wave of one hand.
Because Shay had to leave the station wagon with Barbara and Louise so that they could make deliveries, Mitch picked her up in front of the building. She felt like a fool, standing there on the front steps with her suitcase at her feet.
“I didn’t even know what clothes to pack!” she snapped once she’d gotten into Mitch’s car and fastened her seatbelt.
“You probably won’t need any,” he replied.
Their destination turned out to be a log cabin in the foothills of the Olympics. There was smoke curling from the stone chimney and lights glowed at the windows. Pine trees towered behind the small house, scenting the crisp evening air, and among them were maples and elms, a few bright orange leaves still clinging to their branches.
Mitch took the box of supplies that he’d picked up at the store down the road, and carried it to the porch step, setting it down to unlock the door. Shay took as long as she could to get her suitcase and follow.
The inside of the cabin was simplicity at its finest. The wooden floors were bare, except for a few brightly colored scatter rugs, and polished to a high shine. A fire snapped and chattered on the hearth of the rustic rock fireplace, tossing darting crimson shadows onto the tweed sofa that faced it. There was a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchen, where Mitch immediately busied himself putting away the food.
“Whose place is this, anyway?” Shay asked, oddly nervous considering all the times she’d been intimate with Mitch.
Mitch closed the door of the smallest refrigerator Shay had ever seen and turned to unzip her jacket and slide it off her shoulders. “It belongs to a friend of Todd’s,” he answered, but his mind clearly wasn’t on such details. His eyes were on the third button of Shay’s flannel shirt and it was a wonder that the little bit of plastic didn’t melt under the heat.
“There isn’t any phone. I gave Alice a number—”
“That number is for the store down the road. If anything happens, Alice will have no problem getting through to us.”
Shay’s arms were still in her jacket sleeves, the garment only half removed, when Mitch slipped out of his own coat and began unbuttoning her shirt. She quivered, unable to utter so much as a word of protest, as he undid the front fastening on her bra and bared her breasts.
When he touched her, with one tentative hand, she gasped with pleasure and let her head fall back, her eyes drifting shut. Mitch stroked her gently, shaping each of her breasts for his pleasure and her own, teasing her nipples until they tightened into pulsing little pebbles.
Finally he removed her jacket entirely, then her shirt and her already-dangling bra, her jeans and her shoes, her socks and, last of all, her panties. A low crooning sound came from Shay’s throat as Mitch caressed every part of her with his hands, slowly, as if memorizing her shape, the texture of her flesh. One by one, he found and attended the spots where her pleasure was most easily roused.
After what seemed a dazzling eternity to Shay, he took off his clothes and they knelt, facing each other, before the fire. Now, while Mitch’s hands brazenly cupped Shay’s breasts, she used her own to explore him, learning each muscle in his powerful thighs with her fingers, each hollow and plane in his broad back and on his chest. At last she tangled her fingers in his hair and moved astraddle of him, catching his groan of surrender in her mouth as she kissed him and at the same time sheathing him in her warmth.
They moved slowly at first, their mouths still locked in that same kiss, their tongues mimicking the parries and thrusts of their hips.
But finally the need became too great and Shay leaned back in triumphant submission, bracing herself with her hands, her breasts swollen and heaving under the attentions of Mitch’s fingers. She groaned with each slow thrust of his hips, pleaded senselessly at each lingering withdrawal.
He stopped plying her nipples with his fingers to suckle and tongue them instead and Shay was driven to madness. She threw her legs around Mitch and he shouted in a madness of his own, plunging deep.
Shay would not allow him to escape the velvety vengeance that cosseted him, rippled over him, sapped his strength. Her triumph was an elemental thing, and she shouted with the joy of it even as Mitch growled in a
release of his own.
Once they’d recovered enough to rise from that rug in front of the fire, where they’d fallen in a tangle of perspiration and breathless laughter, they ate sandwiches and drank wine and then made the sofa out into a bed and made love again.
In the darkest depths of the night Shay awakened and lay listening, in perfect contentment, to the calls of the owls and the cry of some lonely, faraway beast. She felt her spirit, crumpled by the rigors of day-today life, unfolding like a soft cloth. She snuggled closer to Mitch and wished that they could stay there in that cabin far longer than just a weekend.
The morning was cold and the sky was a brassy blue, laced with gray clouds. Mitch and Shay consumed a hastily cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and then went outside.
They found a silver ribbon of a creek, hidden away among the trees and watched a deer dashing up a hillside, white tail bobbing. It was all so beautiful that Shay ached with the effort of trying to draw it all inside herself, to keep.
Early in the afternoon snow began to fall, drifting down in big, lazy flakes that seesawed their way to the ground. Mitch built up the fire and then came to stand behind Shay at the window, kneading her shoulders with his strong hands, his chin propped on the top of her head.
“What are you thinking, princess?”
Shay knew there would be tears in her voice and made no effort to hide them. “That two days isn’t going to be enough.”
“Two centuries wouldn’t be enough,” he agreed quietly, and his arms slid around her and tightened.
They watched the snow for hours, it seemed, and then they went back to the bed. There was no lovemaking; they were too tired for that.
When Shay was prodded awake by hunger, she sat up in bed and yawned. It was dark outside and the fire was almost out. She squinted at her watch and was shocked at the time; it was after midnight!
She prodded Mitch with one hand. “Wake up!”
He stirred briefly and then rolled over, hauling most of the covers with him and burying his face in his pillow.
Shay swatted his backside. “I said, wake up!”
He muttered something and burrowed deeper.
Linda Lael Miller Bundle Page 17