I’m In No Mood For Love

by Rachel Gibson

“Nah.” Adele shook her head, and her mass of long blond curls brushed her back. “I questioned him and he knew nothing of John Blair.”

  “Who?”

  “Wallace’s friend and chaplain. I had to research William Wallace for the Scottish time travel I did last year. The bartender was just trying to trick me into bed.”

  “Dog.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No. I’m not that easily tricked these days.”

  Clare thought of Lonny. She wished she could say the same. “Why do men try and trick us?” Then she answered her own questions. “Because they’re all liars and cheats.” She looked at the faces of her friends and quickly added, “Oh, sorry, Lucy. All men except for Quinn.”

  “Hey,” Lucy said, and held up one hand, “Quinn isn’t quite perfect. And believe me, he wasn’t anywhere near perfect when I first met him.” She paused and a smile crept across her lips. “Well, except in the bedroom.”

  “All this time,” Clare said with a shake of her head, “I thought Lonny had a really low libido, and he let me think it. I thought I wasn’t attractive enough for him, and he let me think that too. How could I have fallen in love with him? There has to be something wrong with me.”

  “No, Clare,” Adele assured her. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was him. Not you. And someday,” added Lucy the newlywed, “you’re going to find a great guy. Like one of those heroes you write about.”

  But even after hours of reassurance, Clare still couldn’t quite believe that there wasn’t something wrong with her. Something that made her choose men like Lonny who could never love her fully.

  After her friends left, she walked through her house and couldn’t recall a time when she’d felt so alone. Lonny certainly hadn’t been the only man in her life, but he had been the only man she’d moved into her home.

  She walked into her bedroom and stopped in front of the dresser she’d shared with Lonny. She bit her bottom lip and crossed her arms over her heart. His things were gone, leaving half of the mahogany top bare. His cologne and personal grooming brushes. His photo of her and Cindy, and the shallow bowl he’d kept for Chap Stick and stray buttons. All gone.

  Her vision blurred but she refused to cry, fearing that once she started, she would not stop. The house was so utterly quiet, the only sound that of the air-conditioning blowing from the vents. No sound of her little dog as she barked at the neighborhood cats or of her fiancé as he worked on his latest craft.

  She opened a drawer that had kept his neatly folded trouser socks. The drawer was empty, and she took a few steps back and sat on the edge of the bed. Overhead, a lacy canopy cut shadowy patterns across her arms and the lap of her green skirt. In the past twenty-four hours she’d experienced every emotion. Hurt. Anger. Sorrow. Confusion and loss. Then panic and horror. At the moment she was numb and so tired she could probably sleep for the coming week. She’d like that. Sleep until the pain went away.

  When she’d returned home that morning from the Double Tree, Lonny had been waiting for her. He’d begged her to forgive him.

  “It was just that once,” he said. “It won’t happen again. We can’t throw away what we have because I messed up. It didn’t mean anything. It was just sex.”

  When it came to relationships, Clare had never understood the whole concept of meaningless sex. If a person wasn’t involved with someone, that was different, but she didn’t understand how a man could be in love with a woman and yet have sex with someone else. Oh, she understood desire and attraction. But she just couldn’t comprehend how a person, gay or straight, could hurt the one they professed to love for sex that meant nothing.

  “We can work through this. I swear it just happened that once,” Lonny said, as if he repeated it enough, she’d believe him. “I love our life.”

  Yes, he loved their life. He just hadn’t loved her. There had been a time in her life when she actually might have listened. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but she would have thought she had to listen. When she might have tried to believe him, or think she needed to understand him, but not today. She was through being the queen of denial. Through investing so much of her life with men who couldn’t thoroughly invest theirs.

  “You lied to me, and you used me in order to live that lie,” she’d told him. “I won’t live your lie anymore.”

  When he realized he wasn’t going to change her mind, he’d behaved like a typical man and got nasty. “If you’d been more adventurous, I wouldn’t have had to look outside the relationship.”

  The more Clare thought about it, the more she was certain it had been the same excuse her third boyfriend had used when she’d caught him with the stripper. Instead of acting ashamed, he had invited her to join them.

  Clare didn’t think it was outrageous or selfish for her to want to be enough for the man she loved. No third parties. No whips and chains, and no scary devices.

  No, Lonny wasn’t the first man in her life to break her heart. He was just the latest. There had been her first love, Allen. Then Josh, a drummer in a bad band. There’d been Sam, a base jumper and extreme mountain biker, followed by Rod, the lawyer, and Zack the felon. Each subsequent boyfriend had been different from the last, but in the end, whether she broke it off or they had, none of the relationships ever lasted.

  She wrote of love. Big, sweeping, larger-than-life love stories. But she was such an utter failure when it came to love in her real life. How could she write about it? Know it and feel it, yet get it so wrong? Time and again?

  What was wrong with her?

  Were her friends right? Had she known on some subconscious level that Lonny was gay? Had she known even as she’d made excuses for him? Even as she’d accepted his excuse for his lack of sexual interest? Even as she’d blamed herself?

  Clare looked into the mirror above the dresser, at the dark circles beneath her eyes. Hollow. Empty. Like Lonny’s sock drawer. Like her life. Everything was gone. She’d lost so much in the past two days. Her fiancé and her dog. Her belief in soul mates and her mother’s two carat diamond earring.

  She’d noticed the missing earring shortly after arriving home that morning. It would take some doing, but she could find a matching diamond to replace the one she’d lost. Finding something to replace the emptiness wasn’t going to be as easy.

  Despite her exhaustion, an urge to run out and fill the void forced her to her feet. A mental list of all the things she needed flew through her head. She needed a winter coat. It was August, but if she didn’t hurry, the wool coat she’d seen on bebe.com would be sold out. And she needed the new Coach bag she’d had her eye on at Macy’s. In black to match the bebe coat. Or red…or both. Since she’d be at Macy’s, she’d pick up some Estée Lauder mascara and Benefits Browzing for her brows. She was running low on both.

  On the way to the mall she’d stop at Wendy’s and order a biggie fry with extra powdered salt. She’d get a gooey cinnamon roll from Mrs. Powell’s, then swing into See’s for a pound of toffee and…

  Clare sat back down on the bed and resisted her urge to fill the emptiness with things. Food. Clothes. Men. If she was truly through being the queen of denial, she had to look at her life and admit that stuffing her face, filling her closet, and reaching for a man had never helped fill the terrifying hole in her chest. Not in the long run, and in the end she was left with a few pounds that forced her into the gym, clothes that went out of style, and an empty sock drawer.

  Perhaps she needed a psychiatrist. Someone objective to look inside her head and tell her what was wrong with her and how to fix her life.

  Maybe all she needed was a long vacation. She most definitely needed a time out from junk food, credit cards, and men. She thought of Sebastian and the white towel wrapped around his hips. She needed a long break from anything with testosterone.

  She was physically tired and emotionally bruised, and if she were honest with herself, still a little
hung over. She raised a hand to her aching head and took a vow to stay away from alcohol and men, at least until she figured out her life. Until she had a moment of clarity. The ta-da moment when everything made sense again.

  Clare stood and wrapped her arms around the bedpost and the swag of Belgian lace. Her heart and pride were in shreds, but those were all things from which she would recover.

  There was something else. Something she had to take care of first thing in the morning. Something potentially serious.

  Something that scared her more than an uncertain future with no shopping sprees and salty fries. And that was no future at all.

  Vashion Elliot, Duke of Rathstone, stood with his hands behind his back as he lowered his gaze from the blue feather in Miss Winters’ bonnet to her serious green eyes.

  Clare’s fingers hovered over the keys as she glanced at the time displayed at the bottom right of her computer monitor.

  Miss Winters was pretty enough, despite the stubborn tilt of her chin. Pretty he could do without. The last pretty female in his life had displayed an excess of passion, in and out of bed, that he would not soon forget. Of course, that female had been his former mistress. Not a buttoned-up, prim and proper governess.

  “I was lately in the employment of Lord and Lady Pomfrey. Governess to their three sons.”

  Her pelisse swallowed her slight frame and she looked as if a strong wind might carry her off. He wondered if she were stronger than she appeared. As stubborn as her chin implied. If he decided to hire her, she’d have to be. The fact that she stood in his study showed a certain strength and determination of character that he usually found lacking in the opposite sex.

  “Yes. Yes.” He waved an impatient hand over her letters of recommendation before him on his desk. “Since you are here, I assume you read my advertisement.”

  “Yes.”

  He came around his desk and pulled at the cuffs of his brown frock coat. He knew that he was considered tall and unfashionably built from many long hours of physical labor spent both on his estates in Devon and on his ship, the Louisa. “Then you are aware that if an occasion arises that requires travel, I expect to take my daughter with me.” He wasn’t certain, but he thought he detected a spark in those serious eyes looking back, as if the thought of travel excited her.

  “Yes, your grace.”

  Clare wrote several more pages before she paused in her writing of The Dangerous Duke, the third book in her governess series. At nine A.M. she reached for the telephone. She’d lain awake most of the night, dreading this call. The thing she dreaded most, more than packing up the few reminders of Lonny, was calling Dr. Linden’s office.

  She punched the seven numbers, and when the receptionist picked up, she said, “I need to make an appointment, please.”

  “Are you a patient of Dr. Linden?”

  “Yes. My name is Clare Wingate.”

  “Do you need to see the doctor, or do you need an appointment with Dana, the nurse practitioner?”

  She wasn’t sure. She’d never done this before. She opened her mouth to just spit it out. To just say it. Her throat got dry and she swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “I see that you had your yearly exam in April. Do you suspect that you’re pregnant?”

  “No…no. I…I recently found something out. I caught my…well, I discovered my boyfriend…I mean my former boyfriend has been unfaithful.” She took a deep breath and placed her free hand on her throat. Beneath her fingers her pulse pounded. This was crazy. Why was she having such a hard time? “So…I need to be tested for…you know. HIV.” Nervous laugher escaped her dry throat. “I mean, I don’t think it’s likely, but I have to know for sure. He said he cheated just the one time and used protection, but can you really trust a cheater?” Good lord. She’d gone from stammering to rambling. “As soon as possible, please.”

  “Let me look.” From the other end of the line several taps on a keyboard, and then, “We’ll get you in as soon as possible. I have a cancellation with Dana on Thursday. Is four-thirty okay?”

  Thursday. Three days. It was an eternity. “That’s fine.” Silence filled the line, and Clare forced herself to ask, “How long will it take?”

  “The test? Not long. You’ll have the results before you leave the office.”

  When she hung up the phone, she leaned back in her chair and stared straight ahead at her computer screen. She’d told the receptionist the truth. She really didn’t believe Lonny had exposed her to anything, but she was an adult and had to know for sure one way or the other. Her fiancé had been unfaithful, and if she’d caught him in the closet with a woman, she would have made the call too. Cheating was cheating. And despite what Sebastian had said, the fact that she didn’t have male “equipment” didn’t make it easier.

  Her forehead felt tight and she raised her hands and massaged her temples. It wasn’t even ten A.M. and she had a massive headache. Her life was a mess and it was all Lonny’s fault. She had to get tested for something that could take her life, and she wasn’t the one who’d messed around. She was monogamous. Always. She didn’t hop into bed with…

  Sebastian.

  Her hands fell to her lap. She had to tell Sebastian. The thought made her throbbing temples just about burst. She didn’t know if they’d used a condom, and she had to tell him.

  Or not. More than likely the test would be negative. She should wait to say anything until she found out the results herself. She probably wouldn’t have to tell him at all. What were the chances he’d have sex with someone else between now and Thursday? A vison of him dropping his towel entered her head.

  Very likely, she concluded, and reached for a bottle of aspirin she kept in her desk drawer.

  Four

  My recorder beside my yellow legal pad, I look across the table at the man I know only as Smith. Around me locals chat and laugh, but it all feels forced as they keep a watchful eye on me and Smith. If I didn’t know better, if the language around me was peppered with Arabic and scented with cumin, I would think I was in Baghdad sitting across from a fanatic named Mohammed. The inner beast shines just as bright in deep brown eyes as blue. Both men…

  Sebastian reread what he’d written and scrubbed his face with his hands. What he’d written wasn’t so much bad as it wasn’t right. He returned his hands to the keyboard of his laptop and with a few strokes deleted what he’d written.

  He stood and sent the kitchen chair sliding across the hardwood floor. He didn’t understand it. He had his notes, an outline in his head, and a good workable nut graf. All he had to do was sit down and write a decent lead. “Fuck!” Something that felt a lot like fear bit the back of his throat and chewed its way down to his stomach. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  “Is there a problem?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out as he turned and looked at his father standing just inside the back doorway. “No. No problem.” Not any that he’d admit out loud, anyway. He’d get the lead paragraph. He would. He’d just never faced this kind of problem before, but he’d work it out. He moved to the refrigerator, reached inside and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He would have preferred a beer, but it wasn’t even noon. The day he started drinking in the morning was the day he knew he had to truly worry about himself.

  He lifted the carton to his mouth and took several long swallows. The cool juice hit the back of his throat and washed away the taste of panic in his mouth. He raised his gaze from the end of the carton to a wooden duck resting on top of the refrigerator. The brass plate identified the duck as an American wigeon. A Carolina wood duck and northern pintail rested above the fireplace in the living room. There were various wooden birds about the house, and Sebastian wondered when the old man had become so fascinated with ducks. He lowered the juice and glanced at his father, who was watching him from beneath the brim of his hat. “Do you need help with anything?” Sebastian asked.

  “If you have a moment, you could give me a hand moving something for Mrs. Wingate. But I hate to
interrupt you when you’re hard at work.”

  He would give his left nut to be hard at work instead of writing and deleting the lead paragraph over and over. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and returned the carton to the refrigerator. “What does she want moved?” he asked, and shut the door.

  “A sideboard.”

  He didn’t know what the hell a sideboard was, but it sounded heavy. Like something to take his mind off his looming deadline and his inability to string together three cohesive sentences.

  He moved across the small kitchen and followed his father out the door. Old elm and oak trees shaded the grounds and white iron furniture in deep shadowy patches. Sebastian walked beside his father across the yard shoulder-to-shoulder. A perfect picture of father and son, but the picture was far from perfect.

  “It’s going to be nice today,” Sebastian said as they passed a silver Lexus parked next to Sebastian’s Land Cruiser.

  “The weatherman said in the low nineties,” Leo replied.

  Then they fell into an uncomfortable silence that seemed to blanket most attempts at conversation. Sebastian didn’t know why he was having such a difficult time talking to the old man. He’d interviewed heads of state, mass killers as well as religious and military leaders, yet he couldn’t think of one damn thing to say to his own father beyond making a perfunctory comment on the weather or having a superficial conversation about dinner. Obviously, his father found it just as difficult to talk to him.

  Together they walked toward the back of the main house. For some reason Sebastian couldn’t explain, he tucked the ends of his gray Molson T-shirt into his Levi’s and finger-combed his hair. Looking up at all that limestone, he felt like he was heading into church, and suppressed the urge to cross himself. As if he felt it too, Leo reached for his hat and pulled it from his head.

  The hinges on the back door squeaked as Leo held open the door, and the sound of their boot heels filled the silence as the two of them continued up a set of stone steps and into the kitchen. It was too late for them. His father was just as uncomfortable being around him as he was being around his father. He should just leave, he thought. Put them both out of their misery. He didn’t know why he’d come, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else to do besides sit around and not communicate with his father. There was a lot waiting for him in Washington State. He had to get his mother’s house ready to put on the market, and he had to get on with his life. He’d been here three days now. Enough time to open a dialogue. Only it wasn’t happening. He’d help his father move the sideboard and then go pack his things.