“How many of them do you intend to try, for goodness’ sake?”
He schooled his expression to one of innocence. “All of them.”
She did a Stevie and sprayed coffee everywhere. Raig moved swiftly toward her and patted her on the back as she coughed and spluttered.
“There I was thinking it was your producer who you said likes coffee everywhere, not you.”
In answer, she flicked some of rapidly cooling coffee at him. “I’ll tell him you like the idea. About time I wound him up. He had a great session last night with your emails, was full of it when he cottoned on you knew who I was. I nearly died when he asked me oh-so-innocently if you realized he was reading them and hoped you didn’t because he might get some juicy gossip to relay to Lizzie.” She was chuckling as she spoke. “They’ve been telling me to get my libido working again for ages. That’s the worst of still being friends with someone who knows all about your misspent youth. I say I’m steady and reliable. They say stuffy and reliable, and I’ve left my sexual awareness in the washing machine with the washing. Stevie told me last night I’ve obviously got the washing up to date.”
He grinned before giving her a smoldering glance that had a blush suffusing her face. At least he hoped that was the reason. “Nice to know you’re so prepared, Girl Guide. I’ll think of some, er, interesting emails for your next program, which is when?”
“Wednesday.”
“Loads of time then.”
She looked at him in bewilderment. “What for?”
He moved and put her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “This.”
Chapter Seven
“You idiot,” Vairi said, though there was no heat in her words.
Her hair brushed his back and her arms dangled against his legs as he swung her from side to side.
“Raig, put me down.”
He lowered her feet back on the floor. “Your wish. Well, partly.” Before she had a chance to say or do anything else, he kissed her thoroughly. An unnerving suspicion had been growing steadily ever since he’d met Vairi. There was a lot he needed to tell her. Some of it she might not like and some he really shouldn’t share. Nevertheless, he reasoned, as she meant so much to him—if as he planned he began to mean more to her—she had to know the problems that could arise.
Such as a bullet between my shoulders?
Unusually for him, he was procrastinating. In his life, he met everything head-on, open and clear. Because he wasn’t sure how Vairi would react to his confessions, he was delaying them. For the first time ever, he was afraid the price he might have to pay was going to be too high.
Sod it, he’d worry about opening up later. He wanted her opened up, he thought crudely. Anywhere. “Vairi, I’m wanting to taste you. Here or wherever, your choice. But please be bloody quick in choosing. I’m telling you that kitchen table is calling to me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You might want to lock the door and close the curtains then. Just in case Lorna and Denny take it into their minds to visit. Especially after I told her she’d set me up, so she could have no complaints about what happens. It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t turn up at some point and demand to know what’s going on.”
Raig remembered his phone call from Lorna. Best not to mention that to Vairi. He heard a car door slam somewhere nearby. Vairi groaned.
“Told you so.”
“Too late?” he asked wryly.
She agreed. “Much too late. We haven’t even got time to run and hide in the understairs cupboard. No windows,” she added as he looked at her blankly. “Right, Mr. Showman, it’s show time.” Footsteps rounded the house. “In the kitchen, love,” she spoke louder than before. “Come right on in. I’ll make more coffee.” He saw her eyes roam over him, as she caressed his erection through his jeans and one bare foot swept over his feet. “And well, let’s give her food for thought, eh? She’ll think you were here all night.”
“If I’d been here all night, we would still be in bed,” he replied frankly. “Then she would have been in for a shock.”
“She’ll be in for one now.” Vairi smiled wickedly as she moved closer to him, her breast brushing his chest and her mouth next to his. Raig got the message, toed off his shoes and shoved them out of view under the table so he was standing barefoot before capturing her mouth with his. He hadn’t meant to take hold of and caress her breast, but his hand moved of its own volition. She reached around him to cup and fondle his butt. Ahh, now that felt so good. He forgot they were about to have an audience, forgot everything except the sensations she was arousing.
“You reach my soul,” he murmured into her mouth. “Every last iota, open and—”
“Well. Excuse us for butting in.” The voice was light and sarcastic. “You did say come in. Shall we go out and knock?”
Without undue haste he felt Vairi move her lips. Not, he noticed, her hands, which were still gently roaming over the taut planes of his butt.
“No need,” he heard her say huskily, the sensual tones raising his heat level up several notches he could do without. “You’re in now. Going out and knocking won’t make any difference. Morning, you two. Coffee? I was just going to make another pot.”
Her smile was so devilish he couldn’t help but copy it. Talk about wicked, evil grin.
Lorna took a sharp breath and Denny stifled a laugh.
“Another one? How many have you had, for goodness’ sake?”
“Just the one. We’ve only just finished breakfast. You’re early today, Lorna. I thought Sunday was a day of rest and all that?” Vairi’s tone was mild, but even Raig could hear the warning in it. Butt out or else! Slowly her hands ‘butted’ off his bum and he moved backward from her, not caring if his friends noticed his very obvious arousal. It would be hard to miss it if their eyes strayed below his waist. It should have felt strange, being found with the mother of a friend in a compromising position. It didn’t. It felt right.
“I’ll make it,” he said easily. “Coffee for everyone?” He winked briefly at Vairi and gave her arm a quick squeeze. If Lorna was going to complain, they may as well make sure she had something big to complain about. He leaned in for another kiss. “Any idea where I left my shoes?”
Vairi kissed him back. With what he experienced was genuine enthusiasm and not put on for their audience.
“Nope.” She sighed theatrically. “I guess they’ll be somewhere around.”
“In the bedroom?” Lorna asked acerbically.
He regarded her steadily. “Could be, although it’s not your business, is it?” It was a statement, not a question.
She had the grace to look ashamed at her interjection. “Well, it is my mum you’re…um…”
“Screwing? Fucking? Making love to?” Vairi spoke quietly, but with authority. “Like Raig said, Lorna, not your business.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt, Mum.” Her tone was defensive. “After all, you’re a lot older than Raig. Different generations and all that. Nothing could come of it.”
Raig went to speak, but a signal from Vairi stopped him. If she agreed with Lorna, then he would not be responsible for his actions, and he would more than likely lose his best friend’s friendship. As well as his lover.
“Could it not? Aren’t all my bits in working order then? Have they atrophied due to lack of use? You hypocrite, Lorna.” She poked her daughter in the chest, hard enough for Lorna to wince. “Happy to ask Raig to entertain me for the evening, not happy how he did it. It takes two to tango, you know, two to argue and make up, and two to make love. If we aren’t bothered about the age difference, why should you be? Scared you’ll get a stepfather your own age?”
Raig boggled at that but daren’t hope she meant it. She hadn’t finished with her daughter, however. Lorna was pale and swallowed heavily several times. “Er, Mum…”
Vairi cut her off with a sweep of her hand. “Oh no, I forgot Denny is five years older than you, and Raig a couple of years older than that. So okay. I might be a c
ougar, but that makes Denny almost a puma. Or is it a one-way street? Okay for him, but not for me?”
She leaned back into Raig. He had the impression that if he hadn’t held her up, she’d have fallen down.
Vairi took a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “Oh, either sit down, drink your coffee and give over, or go away. I can’t be bothered with all this angst.” Vairi looked at her daughter steadily. Raig noticed Denny, who had still yet to speak, touch his wife’s arm. Lorna stared at her mother for a few moments more, then shuddered.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Overreaction, I guess. You know it’s hard to accept your mum does ‘it’.” She mimed quote marks in the air. “A bit like I know now you must’ve felt about me doing ‘it’.” Again the quote marks. She looked at her mother’s face. Raig decided she couldn’t have been overly happy with what she saw, because she apologized again. “Mum, Raig, I am sorry. I did overreact. Denny tried to calm me down, but all I could think was it was all my fault. Even though I didn’t know what this ‘it’ was. I was listening to your show.”
“I know,” Vairi said drily. “We got the email. Stevie was very amused. He decided it was perfect gossip for Lizzie.”
Unexpectedly, Raig went to Lorna’s rescue. “She got some from me as well, Lorna. Now she knows at least two people were listening.”
Vairi punched him lightly on the arm. “Three, Lizzie always listens. I think if it hadn’t been for her nagging me, I never would had said yes when Stevie put the idea of middle-aged me having a chat show and talking about all things slightly risqué, but only if you took them to be. Which reminds me, he still owes me a bottle of champagne. He dared me to talk about the time I danced on a table in a gay strip club. With his brother, I may add. Before he came out. Malcolm, I mean, not Stevie obviously.”
“I never heard that. Uncle Malcolm and you in a gay strip club?” Lorna’s tone showed she was unsure whether to be interested or aghast. Denny and Raig had no such inhibitions—they guffawed.
Vairi laughed with them, a sound that went straight to Raig’s gut and opened up all sorts of sensations.
“That,” she said with glee, “is because he forgot to add ‘on air’ to the dare. I told him when the show had finished. Please, don’t think my life was all high living and shenanigans though. Mostly I was a happy stay-at-home mum for Lorna.”
“So why were you there?” Raig was intrigued. “At the strip club. Apart from to dance on a table.” He leaned forward and spoke only for her to hear. “Will you dance on a table for me sometime? Naked?”
She shook her head at him, ignored his last question and addressed his first.
“I was there as camouflage for Malcolm, because he hadn’t come out. It was a, ahem, fact-finding mission for him in his role as an M.P. What he found was a guy—now his partner—and I ended up sandwiched between the two of them.”
Raig raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really?”
She went the color of a ripe tomato and put her hands to her cheeks. “Shit, what have I said? Not like that, you idiot.” They had both forgotten the interested bystanders.
“Like what?” Raig was all innocence. “I never said a word.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Er, hello. Earth to you two. Maybe a bit too much info here?” Lorna was waving her hands at them. “I’m still young and innoc— Well, young anyway. I accept it’s happened and all that, but I don’t want every gory detail.”
“Good, you’re not getting them,” Vairi snapped.
Still not over it then, bless her.
“Probably too much info,” Raig agreed, and nudged Vairi. “We’ll behave, both of us. Sorry, hon. Anyway, do you want the coffee I said I’d get ages ago?”
“Why not?” Lorna sounded resigned.
Denny gave her a hug. He seemed amused at her discomfiture. “Lorna, love, there’s an expression, ‘hoist with your own petard’, which I think fits this. Let them be. Be glad your mum is who she is. And that Raig has the sense to see it.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Lorna brightened. “No more show and tell though, okay? That’s definitely TMI for me.”
“No problem.” Raig boiled the kettle, spooned granules into the larger cafetière he’d found and made the coffee as he spoke. He noticed Vairi had disappeared and wondered what she was up to. He didn’t have long to wait until he found the answer. Making mischief.
He had poured the screaming liquid out before she returned, his phone in her hand. How the hell had she gotten that? The last he knew, it had been in his pocket.
“It’s been vibrating again,” she said as she handed it to him with a smirk.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lorna and Denny exchange long-suffering glances. He glanced at the blank screen. “Thanks, love. Nothing to worry about.” Don’t overdo it, that’s enough for now.
She must have agreed with him, for she said nothing else, just took her coffee with a smile and moved toward the garden. She threw a pair of maroony-pink flip-flops to Raig, who caught them and put them on his feet, wondering who they belonged to.
“Mine,” she murmured. “I read the size wrong.” He nodded and carried a tray with the coffee and biscuits out to where a low table and comfortable padded basket chairs waited, the sun warming their cushions, the sound of the bees as they busily moved from flower to bush adding to the lazy somnolence of a sun-kissed morning.
“You know, Mum,” Lorna began once they were settled, “this should have been said ages ago, but I am really proud of you. Not many people would survive and thrive like you, or put up with me through my goth and punk years. You never ever screamed or forbade me to have green hair or black nails. So I didn’t bother. I had a great childhood and a great role model. Well, maybe not in the ‘dancing on a table’ scenario, but the rest. I think if I’m being honest, I did sort of suggest to Denny we ask Raig to show you round the fair to get you out of a rut. I should have known you’d embrace that the same way you embrace everything else.” She blushed and giggled. “You’re right that I was a bit taken aback when, well, when I realized how you’d been entertained, but yeah, I agree, it’s not my business.”
Denny kissed his wife’s cheek. “Way to go, sweet, way to go.”
Lorna smiled at him and turned to Raig. “Now’s the philosophical bit. All men are hunters. The trouble is that for a lot of them, the thrill is all in the chase. Once they’ve caught their prey, they either devour it or ignore it. I believe you’re one of the good guys, who isn’t like that. If I’m wrong, and you hurt my mum, it will be my business. I’m a dab hand with the garden shears.” She made snipping gestures with two fingers.
He understood the need to protect one’s nearest and dearest. Wasn’t he just the same? “Point taken. I promise if it is at all in my power, there will be no way I’ll hurt her.” By omission maybe? He didn’t want to think about that.
“Excuse me? Hello? I’m here.” Vairi waved at the pair of them. “This is not a hologram. It’s a real, live me you can see. With a mind, spirit and voice of my own.”
All three turned to her. Embarrassment on Lorna’s face, glee on Denny’s, and Raig intended love on his.
“Oh, love, no one could ever mistake you for a hologram.” He rolled his eyes at her, and she groaned at him.
“The way you said that, Rake O’Shea, did not sound like a compliment.”
“It was.” He protested, although the amusement in his voice was obvious. “You are much too vibrant, alive, vivacious—”
“Loud?” she interjected in a dangerous tone. He took heed of the warning.
“I never said that, Vairi, my love. Although…” He raised his eyebrows. He remembered very well how loud she could be in certain situations. So, does she, he thought, as she glared at him before hastily changing the subject.
“So, Raig, no fair to open today? Sunday a day off?” Denny said loudly, and put his hand over his wife’s mouth. “Time to count your takings?”
He smiled. Good, evasive change. “We open at seven fo
r a couple of hours. It’s free ticket Sunday. Entry by ticket only. Local schools, kids’ clubs and young carers have been given tickets to ride. Wheelchair-friendly ramps to everything, extra helpers, buddies, stuff like that.” He had an idea. “Any chance you’d like to help? Any of you? The more the better. We can always do with extra pairs of hands, even if it’s just for hugs and handing out the ice creams.”
Immediately Raig received three nods and he smiled his approval. “Great. Denny, you and Lorna need to be at the ground by six. Comfy, practical clothes and shoes.”
“What about Mum?” Lorna began and giggled self-deprecatingly. “Silly me. Duh, she’ll be there, yes?”
Raig wasn’t sure that was a question but chose to interpret it as such. “Of course. Ask anyone to show you to the Ready Room if you can’t see either of us. Now, are you wanting any more coffee before you go?”
“Raig!” Vairi said with a giggle. “How rude.”
“Oh ho, here’s your hat. What’s the hurry?” That from Lorna.
“Got things to do, eh?” Denny contributed his two pennyworth as all three spoke at once.
“Sorry, and yes.” Raig knew he did not sound the least bit repentant, and couldn’t care less. He stood up as he eyed a blackbird at the edge of lawn as it waited with patience for any crumbs they might leave. “I’ve got to go soon, and I need to find my shoes, among other things. Sadly, flip-flops are no good for the site.”
“Mmm, dark pink is not really your color, you know,” Denny muttered to him as he put his arm around his wife and steered her toward the side of the house.
“Maroon,” Raig replied blandly. “Or so I was assured. Shades of red are all the same to me, unless it’s shocking pink.” He thumped his friend none too gently on his back and kissed Lorna on the cheek. “I’ll see you both later.”
He watched as Vairi kissed her son-in-law and gave her daughter a hug and a kiss. The love between all of them was obvious. Stupidly, he felt left out, an outsider looking in. It must have showed on his face because Vairi stretched up and kissed his cheek.
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