Sweet Dream Lover

by Karen Sandler

  Alas, as lovely an interlude as it had been, she’d simply had enough.

  He’d be rolling on the floor with that one. Especially if he found that button again and pushed.

  Ixnay on option three. She was a lousy liar anyway.

  Option four, acknowledge what happened, admit it was glorious, but tell him the unvarnished, absolutely honest truth. Her response had scared her spitless. It had tipped her world off its axis and confused the hell out of her. She didn’t love Mark, at times she didn’t even like him. How did he so easily get under her skin?

  Even more than feeling guilty, she hated feeling vulnerable. If you were vulnerable, you were on your way to getting hurt. And when you got hurt, your life just flew out of control, opening the door to even more pain and heartache. She’d learned that lesson well from her parents’ divorce and the raw agony her vulnerable six-year-old self had endured afterward.

  Option four completely sucked. No way would she bare her soul that way to Mark, surrender that much power. He had enough power over her already, much as she might want to deny it.

  Just one little kiss and he’d brought her to her knees. Figuratively, anyway, since her knees had been locked around his hips when the explosion hit. It was so damned unfair.

  Flipping on her belly, she buried her face in the other pillow, just wanting to hide. But the pillow still smelled of him, his scent giving Ms. V another jolt of excitement. She’d have to strip the bed and wash the sheets to banish him completely. That would be too damn much work and besides, there was a certain comfort hugging a pillow that smelled of Mark.

  Lord, she was such a loser.

  * * * * *

  Fritz serpentined through the tables of the Mountain Diner, making his way toward where Norma waited for him in a booth. He’d just gotten a royal chewing out by Kat’s father, who’d been less than pleased with his machinations that had isolated Kat and Mark in the Roth cabin. He ought to feel crappy that he’d screwed up again, but then Norma’s face lit up when she spotted him, and he just couldn’t care very much that Phil Roth was pissed at him.

  Fritz set his cell phone on the table and scooted in next to Norma. “He read me the riot act. He doesn’t like them isolated up there. If there was an emergency, they’d have no way to get to a doctor.”

  Norma chewed her lower lip and Fritz reflected again on what a babe she was for an older woman. He liked the way her honey-colored sweater matched her eyes and the sun pouring through the window turned her blonde hair golden.

  A jolt went up his arm when she touched him lightly on the back of the hand. “What do you think?” she asked. “Should we take the cars back?”

  How would she react if he laced his fingers in hers? Just turned his hand over and caught hers, maybe even lifted it to his mouth to kiss it like in the old movies...

  He pulled his hand into his lap, a little worried at how goofy he was getting. Maybe all this clean mountain air was infecting his city boy brain.

  Norma locked her hands together on the table and color rose in her cheeks. Had he embarrassed her? Had she somehow figured out the crazy thoughts running through his head? God, he was such a loser, even his thoughts messed things up.

  He nudged her on the shoulder. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “What if something did happen?”

  She looked so worried, Fritz couldn’t resist patting her hand to comfort her. “If Kat were hurt, Mark would carry her the ten miles to Ashford.”

  Norma nodded. “And if Mark needed help, Kat would burn the cabin down to send up a smoke signal.”

  He stopped patting, but left his hand where it was. “I think we can give it another few hours. We’ll sneak the cars back up there just after dark.”

  She sighed, turning to stare out the window. “I wonder if it’s done any good, all these plans.”

  His gaze drifted down to her small hand under his. Her fingernails were so neat, glossy pale pink ovals neatly trimmed. His own were chewed down to the quick.

  She turned toward him again, her sweet hazel eyes fixing on his. “You can’t make two people love each other if they don’t want to.”

  The sadness in her face hit his stomach harder than any of the bullies had all those times in school. He wasn’t sure how, but it had to be his fault. It usually was.

  “We’ll just do the best we can,” he told her. When she still seemed troubled, he tossed caution to the four winds and lifted her hand to his mouth.

  She looked so startled by the quick kiss, he thought for a moment she might slap him. Instead her surprise gave way to another smile and pink rose in her cheeks.

  Fritz thought he’d never seen anything so pretty.

  * * * * *

  It was nearly noon by the time Mark made it back to the cabin. The chocolate chip muffin had tumbled from the porch rail and a hopeful squirrel was struggling to carry it off to the nearest tree. As runty as the fluffy-tailed rodent was, it had only dragged its booty as far as the tulip bed fronting the porch. It sat there, no doubt mulling over the engineering effort required to heft the loot up the nearest fir tree, when it spotted Mark. It took off, chittering and complaining.

  Mark tossed the muffin in the direction of the squirrel’s retreat, found the discarded paper towel, then headed up the porch steps. Somewhere between the tree root that tripped him and launched him into a patch of wild blackberry, and the fallen log that gave way when he stepped up on it, dumping him on his butt, he’d arrived at some hard truths.

  His back couldn’t stand another night on the sofa. He’d never bring himself to sleep in the downstairs bed without Kat. And hell would freeze over before Kat agreed to join him there.

  So he was going to head into town. She could join him, she could wait for him to come back with transportation, she could finish out the weekend in expectation of the return of their cars. Whatever she chose to do, his choice was clear. Get out of the cabin or end up in a rubber room.

  He stepped inside, ready to deliver his manly decision, to announce his course of action. The downstairs was empty. He listened for a sign that Kat was stirring on the second floor. Silence.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Mark hurried upstairs. Kat’s bedroom door was open. The room was tidy, the bed had been neatly made and Kat’s suitcase sat at the foot. A piece of paper leaned against the pillow. It was a sheet from the CLR packet and she’d written something on the back.

  Mark, Decided to go into town after all.—Kat.

  Outrage welled in him that she’d trumped his course of action. Worry followed on the heels of that emotion. Kat might be one of the most capable women he knew, almost scary in her determination and competence, but they were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere here. Anything could happen to a woman alone.

  He’d have to go after her. She’d been conscientious enough to scribble the time at the top of the note. She had less than a half-hour head start on him. He could catch up with her, no sweat.

  As he headed for the stairs, curiosity got the best of him, and he flipped over the pale lavender sheet. She’d written the note on the back of List ten qualities* that first attracted you to your partner. She’d doodled on the paper, drawn curlicues along the margins, and he wondered if she’d thought about filling it out before writing the note on the back. Not likely.

  Realizing his own list would be pretty incriminating if she stumbled across it, Mark retrieved it from under the sofa and crumpled it in a tight ball. He deep-sixed it in the kitchen trash with Kat’s note, then grabbed his wallet on his way out the front door.

  * * * * *

  Two miles down the private gravel road and Kat was rethinking her rash decision to walk to town. Exhausted by her race-walk pace, her heels raw and blistering, her waist pack digging into her back, she had to face facts. Thirty minutes on a treadmill three times a week was no preparation for this kind of real world punishment. She was no foo-foo female, but right now, bonbons and a dunk in the hot tub sounded mighty appealing.

  It
had just been too, too pitiful, lying there on the bed, hugging Mark’s pillow. The scenarios running through her mind when he returned grew uglier by the moment, devolving into X- rated fantasies of her jumping him the instant he walked in the door. Running away seemed the best course to preserve her pride and self-respect.

  Of course, right now, with her muscles screaming, her lungs puffing like bellows and her aerobic shoes whining they were never intended to walk on actual dirt, she was beginning to think self-respect was highly overrated. The thud of running footsteps behind her clinched her suspicions.

  Kat’s heart, no doubt certain it would be safer outside her chest, pounded in panic. She was too damn tired to escape. If the owner of those footsteps had evil deeds on his or her mind, she was a goner. She creaked to a stop and turned, figuring she ought to at least confront the instrument of her demise, then sagged against a nearby cedar when she saw it was Mark.

  He trotted up to her, barely out of breath. “Hey.”

  She nodded, too busy gasping to speak. When oxygen flow resumed in her brain she managed a few words. “Thought I’d go into town.”

  “Sure.” His cocky grin gave her laboring heart an extra squeeze. “I’ll come with you.”

  She should have been too worn-out to react to him. She should have been too mortified by what had happened on the cabin’s front lawn to face him. But despite her better judgment, she was so happy to see him, she nearly threw her arms around him in gratitude. For the second time that day.

  She wouldn’t, of course. She’d play it cool even when she felt so hot for him, images of naughtiness sparking in her mind. Her back against the cedar, her legs wrapped around his hips. Him inside her, his face burning with ecstasy.

  Lord, he’d read her mind. His smile faded and his blue gaze fixed on her, so intent she had to suppress the urge to squirm. He stepped closer, one hand reaching toward her. The two hours between the lawn interlude and now might never have passed.

  Just before he would have touched her, she ducked out of reach. Fumbling in the pocket of her sweats for the water bottle she’d slipped there, she gulped a slug of water. Should she dump the remainder on her head? Better to keep some in reserve in the event she boiled over again.

  “We ought to get going.” She started down the road. Minced, really, as her left shoe sent a stabbing pain into her arch.

  He fell in beside her. “Your feet okay in those shoes?”

  Her heels were on fire and she’d started to limp. “They’re fine.”

  He stared down at her, scowling. After a few more aching steps, he grabbed her arm. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  She should have taken offense, but when he urged her toward a chunk of granite beside the road and sat her down, she couldn’t summon the will to complain.

  He pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open. “There’s a couple bandages in here somewhere.”

  She gingerly untied her Avias and scooted them off her feet, wincing as they scraped over her blisters. Mark crouched on one knee, then sorted through a stack of business cards and plastic. As he dug out the bandages, he dislodged a folded bar napkin which fluttered to the ground. Kat got her hand on it first.

  She read the flowery script. “Bambi. Four-six-one-eight- three—”

  He snatched it from her and stuffed it in his pocket. “That’s private.”

  “How could you even consider dating a woman named Bambi?”

  “I was going to throw it away.”

  “She put a lipstick kiss below her phone number. How sick is that?”

  “She didn’t kiss it. She wiped her mouth before she wrote the number.”

  “Yuck.” Kat wrinkled her nose. “That’s even worse. Was she drunk?”

  He lifted her left foot and propped it on his knee. “I didn’t keep tabs on her alcohol intake.”

  “Where’d you meet her?” Kat sucked in a breath as he peeled her white ankle sock from her blister. “Was it O’Malley’s?”

  “No.” He nudged up her sweatpants, his fingers warm against her calf. “Drop it, Kat.”

  “Hennesy’s?” She squeaked the last syllable when his palm brushed too close to her throbbing heel. “I can’t see Thomas letting someone named Bambi into his bar.”

  He repositioned her leg so her sole rested against his thigh. Angle her foot a bit to the left, wriggle her toes and she’d be massaging a very interesting part of Mark’s anatomy.

  “This is a mess, Kat. You wouldn’t have any antibiotic ointment in that bag, would you?”

  “I have a tube of lip gloss.” Just as a trial, she squirmed her toes against the soft knit of his sweats. Mark nudged her foot closer to his knee. Thwarted, she continued her inquisition. “Don’t tell me it was Frank’s.”

  Pay dirt. She could see it in the way his mouth tightened and the little lines grooved in his brow. She knew those little lines.

  He stared so intently at her foot, you’d think he studied medicine instead of microeconomics at Cornell. “I can’t just put a bandage on this. There might be debris in the wound.”

  “You said you hated Frank’s. You said it was cheesy.”

  “I went in for a glass of water.” His mouth tightened even more. “You can’t walk to town like this.”

  “Did you call her? Is that why you still have her number?”

  “We need a better first-aid kit.” Grabbing her sock from the dirt, he shook leaf litter from it, then eased it back on her foot. “You did call her, didn’t you?”

  He straightened and stuffed the bandages in his pocket. “Some antiseptic and antibiotic cream.”

  “Did you go out with her?” She hopped toward him on her right foot. “For God’s sake, her name is Bambi!”

  He spun on his heel so fast she nearly tipped backward in reaction. His face wild, he grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging into her. She thought he might swallow her whole or, at the very least, kiss her again. She tipped her face up toward him.

  * * * * *

  She thought he was going to kiss her. As if. Of course, that exact impulse was zinging around inside his crazed mind, urging him to accept the invitation.

  Instead he bent and grabbed her around the middle, folding her in two before she could resist. Hoisting her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, he pinned her legs with one arm and felt her dangling hands slap his butt.

  She tried to twist loose, but he just held her tighter. “Lie still,” he growled. Locating her abandoned sneaker, he hooked a toe in it and tipped it up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting your shoe.” Flipping the sneaker into the air, he caught it on its upward arc.

  “With me. What are you doing with me?”

  He reached behind him with the shoe. “Carry this.”

  As she took the shoe, it crossed his mind that now she could use it as a weapon. “You can’t carry me all the way to town.”

  He turned and headed back toward the cabin. His teeth were clenched so hard, his jaw was cramping. “Yes, I called her.”

  She tensed in his arms. “This is really none of my business.” So now she didn’t want to hear it. Tough. “Yes, we dated.”

  He shifted her weight a little so her hip snugged against his neck. “I took her to Papa Gianni’s.” Take that, Kat.

  He felt the reaction in her, the way her body sagged and her lithe legs drooped down his chest. “That’s good, then. That you’re getting out and seeing people.”

  Now he felt like a louse. “It was just that one time,” he admitted. “She cried all during dinner about her cheating husband and their nasty custody fight. I referred her to a divorce lawyer and the local mental health clinic.”

  He waited for her to make hay with that. Instead she said, “Good for you,” and Mark was tempted to set her down to make sure he still had Kat in his arms.

  About a half-mile from the cabin, she torqued her body in an attempt to face him. “Are you going to leave me and go into town?”

  “Lie still. Your
water bottle is digging into my collarbone.” She flopped down again. “Are you going to walk to Ashford without me?”

  That was his plan. He’d take care of her blisters, set her up on the sofa with something to eat and his deck of cards to pass the time, then head to town. The quicker he got them transportation home, the quicker she’d be out of his hair.

  Damned if his traitor mouth didn’t have other plans. “Do you want me to stay?”

  She spoke so quietly he could barely hear her. “Yes.”

  “Then I will.”

  “You could go tomorrow, if the cars aren’t back by then.”

  “Sure.”

  Around the last bend of the gravel road, the cabin came into sight. He crossed the lawn and climbed the porch steps. At the top, he bent and eased her down to the wide wooden deck.

  He kept hold of her hand. “Can you make it inside?”

  “If you help me get the other shoe off first.”

  She leaned against the cabin door and he knelt to unlace her right shoe. Her fingers dug into his shoulder when he nudged the shoe from her foot. When he peeled away her socks, she sighed with relief.

  “Thanks.”

  Rising, he tucked her arm around his waist, supporting her as they went inside. After all, she could stumble on the rag rug in the entryway or smack her sore heel on one of the side tables. Better to hang on to him, prevent a mishap.

  She didn’t pull away, even when they got to the sofa, even when he turned her toward him. Then when he put his arms around her, tugged her even closer, she yielded, her face upturned, her chocolate brown eyes wide with anticipation.

  Kissing her again was out of the question. Of course it was. If she needed CPR, maybe he could justify putting his mouth on hers. But she was breathing just fine and he could see her pulse leaping in her throat. She obviously didn’t need resuscitation, not with her skin so warm and the way her chest rose and fell, her breasts pressing against him.