Miss February

by Karen Cimms

  We stayed on the edge of the bathtub afterward, speaking in low voices.

  “I should probably go,” he said into my hair, making no attempt to move.

  I planted tiny kisses along the side of his neck. A soft, low noise came from deep in his throat.

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  I kept kissing him and worked my way to his ear. “I don’t want you to go either,” I whispered.

  “You can come to my place.”

  I leaned back and frowned. “You’re worried about my daughter walking in on us, but you’re okay with leaving her home alone.”

  “Of course not. We’d bring her with us. I have two bedrooms.”

  “I can’t do that. What kind of mother takes her kid from her warm bed and drags her out in the night so she can go have sex?”

  “A horny one.” He sunk his teeth into my shoulder.

  It took a while, but we were finally able to tear ourselves away from each other. He left only after I promised that Izzy and I would stay at his apartment the next night.

  Later, I lay in bed and tried to process the past couple days.

  It seemed sudden and crazy, but I had feelings for Chase. Strong ones. I’d tried to ignore them, but they were real. Obviously. And during that time, while I was getting to know him, I think I’d been emotionally letting Preston go, even if I hadn’t been aware of it.

  At that moment, I would have given just about anything to have Chase lying next to me.

  I had almost drifted off when my phone vibrated on the nightstand.

  I miss you.

  My smile faded when I realized the text wasn’t from Chase.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  We spent Monday at Chase’s apartment, and then Tuesday after I worked at Blondie’s, he followed me back to my apartment, since my mother had Izzy. On Wednesday and Thursday, we went back to his place.

  On Friday, Diane stopped by work to find out what the hell was wrong with me.

  She followed me around the back of the restaurant as I pulled together the ingredients for a vegetarian chili.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.” I wiped my forehead with my forearm. It was unseasonably warm for late September.

  “A week ago you were ready to jump off the Landing Lane Bridge. Now you’re spending every night with Chase.”

  And I thought I was the dramatic one. I frowned and shook my head. “I wasn’t ‘ready to jump off a bridge.’ And I thought you liked Chase.”

  “I do. My ovaries explode every time I look at him, and I think you two would be great together. But shouldn’t you give yourself a little time to breathe?”

  “She’s right, Rain,” my mother said, darting into the kitchen for another bag of hoagie rolls.

  I frowned at her as well and gave her a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the support, Mom.”

  “Just saying. You need to figure out what you want.”

  The chopped onions, celery, and peppers sizzled in the hot oil when I dumped them into a large Dutch oven. I gave them a quick stir and then waved my spoon at them.

  “Did it ever occur to either one of you that maybe I’ve been developing an interest in Chase over the past few months?”

  “No,” they said in unison.

  “Well, that just proves you don’t know anything, because I was. I saw him a couple times, and I realized there was something special about him.”

  I lowered the heat under the veggies so I could focus on the conversation.

  “In fact, I felt something the first time he touched my hand.” I turned to my mother. “Remember how Daddy said he knew that man was going to die when he shook his hand?”

  “Oh, dear god!” My mother made the sign of the cross and clutched her chest. “Rain! Don’t say things like that. You think Chase is going to die?”

  “No!” I shook my head vehemently. “Jeez, Ma! But I felt something like low-voltage electricity running through his hands into mine. That’s never happened before. And it’s gotten stronger since then. And warmer.” It was hard to explain how it felt, and judging by the way they were looking at me, it wouldn’t matter what I said.

  Diane rolled her eyes. She believed in my psychic abilities when it suited her purposes, like whether it would rain on her wedding day—it did, but the sun came out by the time she came out of church, which I predicted—or whether she would pass Algebra I even though she didn’t study—she didn’t, which I also predicted. But when she didn’t like what I had to say, she didn’t want to hear it.

  After years of listening to my father’s predictions, and that he hadn’t seemed to know about his own death, my mother wasn’t interested either.

  “Would you just trust me to know what’s right for me?” I asked.

  My mother looked at me thoughtfully.

  “You know, I hate to encourage this psychic crap because you know how I’ve always felt about it, but what you just said reminded me of something.”

  “That you should trust me to know what I want?”

  She waved her hand, aggravated. “No, not that. What you said about electricity. Remember? Your father used to say something like that about me. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but he said the first time we touched, he knew. He’d felt it, some vibration or electricity or something, and he said he knew we’d be together the rest of his life.”

  Her eyes filled. “See what you made me do?” She dabbed at her eyes angrily and gave me a look that was meant to come across as annoyed.

  I could see right through her. I set down my spoon and put my arms around her. My father may not have been here to explain to me what the feeling I had when I touched Chase meant, but my mother, without realizing it, had just delivered the message for him. Loud and clear.

  “Daddy always said he knew from the very first moment. And he was right, Mom. I hope I might be just as lucky.”

  “Okay.” She gave me a quick pat on the tush and stepped away. “That’s enough. I can’t be waiting on all these people with mascara running down my cheeks.” She picked up the bag of rolls. “Just be careful, Rain. Promise me. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

  I nodded, feeling a little too emotional to say anything else.

  But while my mother might have understood, at least a little, Diane wasn’t convinced.

  She grabbed my hand before I could turn up the vegetables again. “Listen, Rain. I don’t want you to get hurt again either. Wally says Chase just went through a really bad breakup before moving here, and he might be doing the same thing you are. You might just be his rebound, you know?”

  “I know all about it. And he knows what I’ve been through, so we both have our eyes wide open.”

  At least, I knew my own eyes were open. When he knocked on my door last Saturday, I’d been certain I hadn’t wanted it to be Preston, and that had shocked the hell out of me. When it turned out to be Chase, I’d been so relieved I couldn’t stop crying.

  But did that mean I wanted Chase, or was I just happy it wasn’t Preston?

  And what if Chase really was on the rebound? I was twenty-three and had only been in two relationships, and both had nearly destroyed me in different ways. Jeff had taken my youth, and Preston, my self-esteem.

  The smart thing would be to let a relationship develop naturally. See what happened. Take it slow.

  I turned up the heat on my vegetables, gave them a stir, and let them sizzle.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Move in with me.”

  So much for taking it slow.

  I snapped the light on beside me and stared at him. “Are you crazy? Don’t you think it’s too soon? It’s only been a couple weeks.”

  We were lying in Chase’s bed. Izzy was asleep in the room down the hall.

  “Not for me, it isn’t.” He rolled onto his side, facing me, and propped his head up on his hand. “Move in with me. There’s plenty of room. Keep the apartment. If you aren’t happy, you can go back. What’s crazy is all the back-and-forth. I want your kiss to be the
last thing I feel at night and your smile to be the first thing I see in the morning.”

  I shook my head. It was crazy. I knew that, and he should have known that. What was even crazier was that I wanted to. Logic be damned. But with my track record, I wouldn’t chance it.

  “What if this is a rebound relationship? I don’t think it is, but what if I’m just trying to get over Preston and you’re still getting over the rabbit?” I was so stunned I couldn’t remember her name.

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled gently until I was again lying beside him. “Then we’ll take it slow.”

  “How is moving in with you taking it slow?”

  “Do you want to see anyone else?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. How about this? Let’s play house for a week and see how it goes.”

  I slipped my hand under the covers, grabbed his semihard dick, and giggled. “Is this what you call playing house?”

  It took a second for him to regain his focus. “That’s part of it—but all the rest of it too. Who takes Izzy to school and picks her up from day care? Who does the grocery shopping? Who cleans the bathroom, cooks dinner, walks the dog?”

  I sprang up again. “You have a dog?”

  “No, but I’ve been meaning to get one.”

  “One thing at a time,” I warned. “So is the answer to all those questions me? I run Izzy back and forth, do the shopping, clean the house, cook dinner?” A dog wasn’t even on my radar, so I let that one go.

  “Absolutely not. That’s what I mean by playing house. If the first week works out, we can do it for another week, and then we’ll reevaluate and see about week three.” He brushed a strand of hair from my face. “C’mon, Rain. Give us a chance. We have something special starting here.”

  He flipped me on my back and pushed inside of me.

  “You’re making it hard to say no.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Chase, it’s too soon.” I wrapped my legs around his waist in case he tried to pull away. He didn’t. He just lowered his forehead onto my shoulder. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to see where this goes. I do. I agree. There’s something special between us. I felt it the first time we touched—even though I didn’t understand it at the time. But if we’re wrong and it doesn’t work out, I can’t uproot my daughter like that. As it is, she’s already crazy about you.”

  “I’m crazy about her—about both of you.”

  I threaded my fingers in his hair and lifted his face so we were eye-to-eye.

  “I don’t want to mess this up.” I kissed him, deeply, hoping he would believe me. “I know I don’t want anyone else, but I can’t move in with you. I can stay here overnight, and you can stay with me when Izzy isn’t home. We can spend weekends together. Then in a couple months, let’s see how we feel. You might find that I drive you crazy.”

  He traced his nose along my jaw until he reached my lips. “Oh, you drive me crazy all right, Rain Storm. In the best way possible.”

  “Ditto.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Maybe it was crazy to want Rain and Izzy to move in with me.

  It had only been eight months since Jennifer tore my heart out of my chest, shredded it into tiny pieces, and then stomped all over it. To discover it was still here with me, beating, doing somersaults over another woman, surprised the hell out of me. I hadn’t believed it possible I could ever fall in love again or allow anyone to get this close to me, but Rain was all I could think about. It didn’t matter how fast it had happened.

  She was intoxicating, and I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything or anyone. No woman had ever had this kind of an effect on me, not even my ex-fiancée. To be able to have her, to make love to her, was indescribable. I was no novice in the bedroom; I’d had my share of girlfriends and even girls I’d hook up with for a good time.

  But with Rain, a touch of her hand, a flick of her tongue, and I would happily have signed over the title to my truck as well as my bike. She should teach classes, write books, you name it—she knew what to do to make me nearly lose my mind, and she did it well. I could understand why Preston didn’t want to let her go. The difference, as far as I was concerned, was that I also saw the person Rain was. I saw what was hidden behind those baby blue eyes. I saw the woman.

  But while I saw who she really was, everyone else just saw great tits and legs that went on for miles. I’d seen how guys looked at her and talked to her, especially at Blondie’s. While it had bothered me in the past, now that we were together, it was making me a little nuts. I was never one for jealousy before, but now, every time I caught some guy look like he was trying to picture Rain naked, I wanted to rip his face off. Making it more difficult was that Rain left little to the imagination, especially when she was tending bar. Even when it was too cold for shorts and tank tops, she was more exposed than covered. I didn’t know if she realized it. I think she’d been dressing that way for so long it was just who she was. I didn’t want to start trying to change her, but either I was going to have to spend every night she worked sitting on a bar stool for eight hours, or I would just have to suck it up and trust that she could handle herself.

  In spite of this newfound insecurity, things between us were great. It had been four weeks, and I couldn’t have been happier. For as much as was falling in love with Rain, I was also falling in love with Izzy. I hadn’t thought I was ready to be a father, but it sure as hell seemed that way. That little girl had me wrapped around her finger, maybe even more so than her mother. I was at their mercy.

  I came home from work on the Friday before Halloween to find Rain and Izzy in my living room. Izzy was wearing black tights, black shorts, and a black sweatshirt, on the front of which Rain had painted a white oval. A glittery headband with pointy black ears perched above her excited little face, her nose and cheeks painted to look like a cat. Rain was pinning a tail on her when I walked in.

  “Uh-oh,” I said when Izzy gave me one of her big grins. “Better tell the mice to go hide—the cat’s out of the bag.”

  She held up her paws and was about to make a run at me, but Rain held her back.

  “Wait, Iz. You’re going to tear your tail off.” She finished what she was doing, then gave Izzy a pat on the bottom. “Go.”

  Instead of the hug I was used to, Izzy got on her knees, rubbed against my leg, and meowed.

  “What do you think, Mommy?” I asked. “You think this kitty is ticklish?” I didn’t even have to move, and Izzy collapsed into a giggling mass at my feet.

  “How was school today?” I asked.

  “Good,” she rolled onto her back. “I got to pick a prize from the treasure box.”

  “Nice work!” I held out my hand, and she high-fived me.

  “So if you’re going to be a cat, should I be a dog, and Mommy can be a mouse?”

  “Uh-uh. Mommy’s going to be a bunny.”

  I looked at Rain. “A bunny?”

  She flashed me a salacious grin, and I felt a little nauseated. Rain was working the Halloween party tomorrow night at Blondie’s, and she’d told me she’d be wearing a costume.

  “You want to model that costume for me?” I asked, praying it came with lots of white fur and a basket of colored eggs.

  She winked. “Maybe later.”

  Just as I feared, Rain wasn’t dressing as the Easter bunny. Nope. She had a genuine Playboy bunny costume complete with tall, semi-erect ears and a big, fluffy tail.

  “Well? What do you think?” She strutted around the bedroom in four-inch heels and fishnet stockings. “How about you get one of those smoking jackets? Like Hugh Hefner?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “C’mon, what are you going to wear?”

  “A hard-on, just like every other guy who sees you in that.”

  She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a costume. I’m hardly showing any more than I normally do.”

  I must’ve grimaced, because he
r eyes flashed.

  “Do you have a problem with the way I dress?”

  I shook my head. I did, it seemed, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to say so.

  On Saturday, I dropped Rain off at Blondie’s, fed Izzy, and then took her to Rain’s mother’s to spend the night, promising I’d wait for her to get home before making our Sunday pancakes.

  When I got to Blondie’s, the place was standing room only. Rain gave me a wide grin and dragged a bar stool out from behind the counter.

  “Reserved seating,” she yelled over the jukebox as I took my seat. She looked me up and down. “I thought you weren’t wearing a costume.”

  “Who says this is a costume?” I was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. I’d slicked my hair back into a ponytail and sported a pair of dark aviator shades. An old Bluetooth ear piece was tucked against my right ear.

  “Seriously,” she made a face as she tried to figure out who I was supposed to be, “who are you?”

  I lowered the glasses so she could see my eyes. “I’m your bodyguard.”

  The guy sitting beside me burst into laughter. Rain smiled and shook her head. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

  At least she was laughing.

  “Heineken?”

  I shook my head. “Tequila shooter for me and one for the bartender.”

  “Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Holgate?” She batted those sinfully long eyelashes at me.

  “Not yet, but I’m hoping to get lucky later.”

  She leaned across the bar and reached for my face with both hands, then kissed me.