Sweet Dream Lover

by Karen Sandler

  When he stared at her in abject terror, she realized he didn’t have a sense of humor. Probably surgically removed in law school. “That was a joke, Garret.”

  He gave her a sickly laugh. “Yeah, knew that. Let me see if our table is ready.”

  He swiped his palms on the back of his slacks as he stepped up to the Valkyrie-proportioned hostess, drawing Kat’s gaze to an exquisite pair of buns. That tush would give even Mark’s derriere a run for its money.

  But she wasn’t thinking about Mark tonight. Tonight was all about her and the gorgeous hunk at her side. Lust and libido, not pain and heartache. Eye candy and boy toys, not love and forever.

  When Garret returned to her side, the palm moisture syndrome had migrated to his head, drawing beads of sweat across that magnificent brow. She supposed a sweaty gorgeous guy could still be sexy, but the ick factor provided a definite challenge. She’d have to imagine him slick and wet in the throes of passion to make it work. As long as passion didn’t involve him opening his mouth to speak.

  Physical contact with him was losing its appeal, however, and she was just as glad when his hand hovered over her shoulder rather than actually touching her. The hostess, no doubt an understudy for Wagner’s Brunhilda, seated them at a secluded table near the back, its locale made all the more intimate with its proximity to the kitchen. No one else was sitting anywhere near them.

  Garret looked behind him to the swinging kitchen door, then at the Eva Braun look-alike holding the menus. “Do you have another table?”

  “We’re busy tonight,” the hostess snapped, gesturing imperiously at the dozens of empty tables. “Take it or leave it.”

  Stunned as a deer in the headlights, Garret gulped and nodded. “Sure, sure, this is fine.”

  The hostess tossed down the menus. Garret tugged out Kat’s chair, colliding with the swinging kitchen door when a plate- laden waiter hurried out to his customers.

  Kat surveyed the distance between the door and her chair and realized she’d get creamed every time an order came up. “Grab the other end of the table.”

  Garret gave Brunhilda a fleeting glance, but he helped Kat move the postage stamp-sized table into the clear. When Kat sat down, he stood for a moment in flustered confusion before easing himself into his chair.

  A quick glance at the menu told Kat she wouldn’t get anything as plain and simple as a plate of food in Ma Petit Aubergine. The chefs didn’t cook, they presented, and every sauce listed included mysterious substances not actually intended for human consumption. She knew for a fact huitlacoche was a fungus that grew on corn plants, and why was a French restaurant throwing Central American mold into their capon crepes anyway?

  As she searched the menu in vain for something edible, the restaurant door opened, a gust of outside air ruffling the vase of weedy wildflowers on their table. Kat caught the new arrival out of the corner of her eye, then did a double-take. From the neck down, the guy was a ringer for Mark. The same nicely muscled biceps and broad shoulders, slim hips that fit so nicely between her legs. But if everything below the Adam’s apple was Mark’s double image, everything above was a weird parody, complete with long Simon Legree mustache and black cowboy hat.

  The waiter arrived, cutting off Kat’s view of the strange male conglomerate. She ordered at random, hoping she hadn’t selected deep-fried hippo schnozzes in a pomegranate reduction. She’d be so busy admiring Garret’s glorious face, she’d never notice the drek on her plate.

  Bereft of his menu, Garret sat with fingers locked in a strangler’s grasp on the mauve linen, looking everywhere but at Kat. Finally, she risked the damp and covered his hand with hers. His heart-stopping green gaze zeroed in on her.

  Damn, he’s good-looking. His perfect face stunned her into momentary silence before she could muster speech. “Garret, I get the feeling you’d rather be anywhere than here.”

  “No, no,” he squeaked, his appeal slipping another notch. “I’ve been looking forward to this.” The busboy arrived with glasses of water and Garret slammed back the entire contents of his.

  No wonder he sweated so much. All that water had to leak out somewhere. She gave his soggy hand a squeeze. “I have, too,” she lied. “But you might want to relax a teensy bit.”

  This was exactly what she’d prayed for, a night with the dazzling Garret, shared in non-sleep-inducing silence. But the poor guy looked so pitiful, sitting there like a perspiration fountain.

  “I never relax.” He shook his elegant head sadly. “Not on a date. Oh, get me talking about work and I’m quite the conversationalist.”

  Kat’s eyes crossed and her tongue suffered as she bit it. “Of course you are.”

  “But I’m a complete failure at social interaction.” His chin hit his chest. “I go out with a woman and all that great conversation about living trusts and estate planning just flies out of my brain.”

  “Such a pity,” Kat said in a suitably somber tone.

  “The funny thing is...” He forced a garish grin. “Most women seem to think I’m kind of cute.”

  Cute wasn’t even in the same universe as Garret’s perfection. But, alas, there was no substance under the surface.

  She patted his hand, the sensation akin to stroking a frog. At least his skin wasn’t green. “You must have a hobby,” she prompted.

  A bit of a hullabaloo at the door at the door distracted her again. Brunhilda waved her arms imperiously at Mark’s doppelganger, objecting furiously to the hat, the black T-shirt, probably even the mustache. Kat strained to hear the man’s voice, but the nasal twang wasn’t the least bit familiar. A buzz in her ears reclaimed her focus.

  “Zeppelins,” Garret said.

  She stared, sure she’d missed some crucial thread of the conversation. “Zeppelins.”

  “Model Zeppelins,” he clarified. “I build them.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kat hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Zeppelins were...what? An Italian squash? The spear used in pentathlon? Maybe it was some kind of ancient structure like the Coliseum. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Mine are strictly for display, not for racing.” He laughed, his luscious mouth widening into a smile. “Some of the fellows in the ZUG are, well...” Leaning across the table, he whispered, “A little on the nutty side.”

  Kat blinked, resisting the impulse to guffaw. “Really.”

  With the hostess on his heels, the mustached pseudo-Mark finally took a seat two tables over. He raised his menu, concealing all but the black hat and the odd-looking brown eyes. When he should have been reading the menu, he kept his gaze fixed on Kat.

  She glared in response, and Black Hat ducked behind the tall menu. Now that Garret was in familiar territory, he was regaling her with Zeppelin stories, telling her tales of “those crazy guys in the ZUG,” which she finally figured out was the Zeppelin User’s Group and not some kind of Brazilian tree beetle. Her eyes glazing over, Kat nodded whenever it seemed appropriate and pinched her leg through the skirt of her silk dress whenever lethargy threatened.

  The sort-of-Mark clone provided the only diversion from Garret’s droning. His cowboy-hatted head would lift over the top of his menu and that oddly colored brown gaze would sneak a peek at her. Every so often he would rub at his eyes, wiping them as if they watered.

  Despite the leaky eyes, he was good-looking in a rough- edged way. Not in Garret’s class certainly, but passably decent. If he offered to buy her a coffee at Starbucks, she’d probably accept. After all, who passed up free java? She doubted she’d go with him to check out his etchings.

  The Markish fellow got into a bit of a tug-of-war with the waiter over the menu, finally relinquishing it with a scowl. Now his acute interest in her was obvious without the menu to hide behind and the guy was starting to give her the creeps. Real stalker material.

  She was about to heave her water glass across the room at him when he suddenly froze in the act of rubbing his left eye. He pulled his hand away, then with a frantic expression started a mad examinati
on of his table.

  He paused, looked up at her, eyes wide. With a shock, she realized his brown left eye was now brilliant blue. Denham blue.

  * * * * *

  Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn.

  Mark scoured every square inch of the puke-pink tablecloth, searching for the brown contact lens he’d just popped out of his eye. Across the room, Kat glared at him, her baleful gaze penetrating his carefully crafted disguise. He could almost feel his eyebrows and fake mustache singeing under that infuriated glower.

  The Adonis with her chattered on, oblivious to the impending implosion. His nattering trailed off when Kat pushed to her feet and made a beeline for Mark. The delectable pale pink silk dress she wore hugged every slim curve, made him itch to touch her. The thin fabric would be warm, permeated with Kat’s scent.

  She slammed her palms on the table, jolting him out of his musing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  There comes a time in every man’s life when the gospel truth is more judicious than a lie. Face-to-face with an irate Kat was not one of those times. “Good to see you, too.” He tried a smile, but the mustache’s adhesive pinched.

  That was nothing compared to the agony when she grabbed the stiff, itchy thing and ripped it off his upper lip. He yelped, felt for a bleeding gash he was sure was there. “Damn it, Kat!”

  “You have no right!” Every head in the place swiveled toward her. She snatched out the chair opposite him and sat, the shifting silk of her dress diverting him momentarily from his pain. “You have no right to spy on me,” she hissed.

  “I’m not spying.” He checked his hand. No blood, but he might never grow a natural mustache. “I’m having dinner.”

  She stabbed a finger at him. “You hate French food. You hate foo-foo restaurants.”

  “Maybe I’m trying to broaden my horizons.”

  She flung the mustache across the table. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “Because you don’t want to be left alone!” He didn’t realize he’d shouted the words until he saw every face turned toward them, including Pretty Boy. To hell with them all. “Because you want me.”

  She started to shake her head. Mark jumped to his feet, knocking his chair back. The table tipped perilously as he pushed past it to grab Kat’s arm. He yanked her toward him. “You want me.”

  Then he kissed her.

  * * * * *

  Stop, her wussy, weak-willed mind murmured. Don’t. Stop. Mark’s tongue slipped inside her mouth and her body hummed. Don’t stop.

  She had a brief, fanciful notion that the glue from the fake mustache might permanently join them lip to lip. Another bout of tongue wrestling and she realized that would be an ideal scenario.

  He pulled back finally, his mismatched eyes wild, the black hat askew on his head. She could see from the way his dark curls were mooshed on one side he’d have a serious case of hat hair when he took off his cowboy chapeau. But who the hell cared about that?

  “Come home with me,” he whispered.

  Her libido had her nodding before her brain could muster so much as a protest. There was nothing right about this and everything wrong, but she was so damn tired of saying no.

  A hand fell on her shoulder, one that wasn’t attached to Mark’s wrists. She turned to see the godlike Garret behind her, looking just a wee bit peeved. She supposed she owed him some kind of explanation.

  “Sorry,” she gasped out. “Have to go. Pressing business.” Mark tugged her out of Garret’s reach. “Do you need to get your purse?”

  “Got it right here.” She lifted the business card–sized silk envelope.

  He steered her toward the door. “What the hell can you keep in a purse that size?”

  A condom, she thought, then decided discretion was the better part of valor. “Just cab fare home.”

  Once they’d exited into the cool night air, Mark put his arm around her, pulling her close to his side. His hat brim brushed the top of her head with each step. When they reached the corner, Mark shoved it off and dropped it in a trash can.

  The walk sign flashed and they took one step off the curb before Mark yanked her back. He turned her toward him, hands on her shoulders, a lunatic with skewbald eyes. “We’re going to my place.”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Okay, good.” His eyes widened and his fingers tightened a bit. “To have sex.”

  “Always the romantic, Mark.” At least he didn’t say “screw” or that other word that rhymed with fire truck. “Yes, sex is in the program.”

  He nodded, but he still looked dazed and crazed. “And you won’t change your mind halfway through.”

  She would have laughed if not for the exquisitely clear memory of what had happened at the cabin, her riding him on the lawn, screaming into orgasm. She grabbed his black T-shirt and pulled him closer. “This time we go the distance.”

  Chapter 14

  Norma loved dinners with her grandkids and usually the time flew by, six-year-old Travis and eight-year-old Brittany enthralling her with the details of their lives. She liked to indulge them, letting them pick whatever they wanted on their pizza, promising them ice cream after, dropping quarters in the big gumball machine so they could watch the sugary sphere wind its way down a spiral path to drop in their hands.

  But tonight she couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus on Travis’s cheerful chatter or Brittany’s big-sister wisdom. All she could think about was the clock and how close it crept toward eight.

  “Grandma, are you listening?” Travis finally asked imperiously as they left Chuck E. Cheese’s, his hands full of skeeball prizes.

  She bent to give him a hug and a kiss. “Sorry, I was daydreaming.” She stole a look at her watch. Seven-fifty-five. “Tell me again.”

  Travis chattered on, words streaming out a mile a minute, his conversation as energetic as his wiry six-year-old body. Norma met Brittany’s gaze and her granddaughter gave her a very grown-up sigh and shrug of the shoulders. As Travis ran ahead to Norma’s Geo, Brittany said with just the right touch of amused tolerance, “Boys are so weird.”

  Norma tried to hold back her impatience as she seat-belted her precious cargo in the backseat, then quickly got behind the wheel. Travis’s rapid-fire monologue continued until Norma pulled onto the 520 freeway, then abruptly cut off when he zonked out as usual from the car ride. When Norma met her granddaughter’s gaze in the rearview mirror, the little girl smiled and rolled her eyes.

  In the ensuing silence, Norma’s mind strayed again and again to Fritz, waiting for her at her house. It was well after eight. Would he wait for her? Maybe he’d figure she’d forgotten and he’d head back home. If he owned a cell phone, she’d give him a call when she got to Lisa’s. But Fritz seemed to be the one person in greater Seattle without a cell.

  If he wasn’t there when she got home, she’d call him at Kat’s. Just to make sure everything was all right and to apologize for being late. She’d looked forward so much to seeing him tonight; it would be a big disappointment if he’d gone home, but she wouldn’t let on.

  “Grandma?” Brittany’s sweet high voice snagged Norma from her frantic mental gyrations.

  Norma headed north on the 405, glancing at Brittany in the rearview mirror. “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Warning bumps rattled under her tires. Norma yanked her car back into the proper lane. “Oopsey. Did I wake up your brother?”

  “Do you?” Brittany persisted.

  “Grandmas don’t have boyfriends.”

  “Why not?”

  The exit for Lisa’s house in Kirkland was just a half-mile ahead. She needed only a couple more minutes to stall and she could escape Brittany’s third-degree.

  “Because they don’t, Brittany.” She took the Eighty-fifth Street exit. “What made you ask such a crazy question, sweetheart?”

  “Your face looked funny during dinner,” Brittany said. “Like the goo-goo eyes Daddy makes at Mommy.”

>   Goo-goo eyes. The way she felt about Fritz was so obvious even an eight-year-old could see it. Dear Lord, what if Fritz could see it?

  Norma laughed, but it came out as a breathy titter. “That’s quite an imagination you have, Brittany.” She pulled into her daughter’s driveway and jammed the Geo into park.

  “But, Grandma—”

  Before Brittany could finish another awkward question, Norma hopped out of the car. Lisa had come out onto the porch and held her arms out to Brittany as the little girl ran across the lawn. Travis woke from his nap cranky, clutching his Skeeball prizes as he slid from the backseat.

  Norma was nearly bursting with eagerness to get back in her car and return home, but she couldn’t just dump the grandkids and run. Travis’s crossness saved her. He was so whiny and grumpy Lisa begged off inviting her mother inside, since she had her hands full placating her son.

  Back in her car, Norma zipped across Lake Washington to Seattle, grateful the light traffic made the trip a quick one. It was twenty to nine by the time she pulled onto her street and she was absolutely certain Fritz wouldn’t still be waiting. When she slowed to turn into the driveway of her darkened house, she saw only shadows on her wide front porch. But when the Geo’s headlights strafed the porch, they illuminated a slight figure seated on the top step, hunched over something bulky cradled in his arms.

  Fritz.

  She was so overjoyed that he was still there, tears gathered in her eyes. Happiness flooded her, and she sat there a moment, trembling, struggling to get herself back under control.

  Fritz rose, both hands clutching the handle of a battered suitcase. For a single, crazy instant, she thought maybe Kat had kicked him out of her condo and he was here to ask if he could stay. That only increased the fountaining excitement inside her.He set aside the suitcase and started toward her as she climbed from the car. He stopped a decorous two feet from her and she had to fight back the urge to throw her arms around him.

  She hooked her purse strap over her shoulder with shaky hands. “Sorry I’m late.”