Love Lessons

by Gina Wilkins

She wasn’t good at parties. Business functions such as the one she had attended with Bill, sure. She was used to those. But a costume party with strangers—one of whom was the stunning and vivacious redhead who had drawn so much attention at the restaurant? Totally different story.

  Every instinct told her she would be more comfortable declining the invitation. But wasn’t comfortable a word she had recently begun to chafe against? Hadn’t she become increasingly dissatisfied with her predictable ruts and vowed to make some changes, even if it meant challenging herself occasionally?

  And did she really want to turn down a chance to spend another evening with Mike?

  “Okay,” she said after drawing a deep breath. “It could be fun.”

  “Trust me,” he said with a smile, picking up his mug of beer. “It will be great.”

  Which was pretty much what he had said about the haunted house experience, she couldn’t help remembering.

  “Just promise me no one at the party will leap down at me from the ceiling and try to suck my blood.”

  He grinned even more broadly. “I’m pretty sure none of the other party guests will try anything like that. As for me—well, I’ll try to restrain myself, but you do have a very tempting neck.”

  She lifted a hand automatically to her throat, thinking that maybe she should have worn a turtleneck tonight.

  They spent quite a while in the River Market district, a revitalized section of downtown Little Rock that ran alongside the Arkansas River. Lined with bars, restaurants and music venues, shops, art galleries and museums, including the Clinton Presidential Center, and with a large sports-and-concert arena on the North Little Rock side of the river, the area had become a popular destination for tourists in the daytime and local barhoppers and music lovers in the evenings.

  Catherine hadn’t spent much time there herself except during the summer months when she often dropped by early on Saturday mornings for fresh produce from the bustling farmer’s market. Still, she enjoyed her evening there with Mike.

  Mike walked her to the door when he finally took her home. “I had a great time here with you this evening. Sorry about scaring you so badly in the haunted house.”

  “I wasn’t actually scared,” she said, feeling the need to defend herself. “I knew I was in no danger. As I said, it was simply an unnerving experience.”

  “Then I’m sorry you were unnerved.”

  “And I’m sorry I didn’t enjoy it more,” she said with a sigh. “I know you expected to have more fun there. I didn’t mean to throw a wet blanket on your evening.”

  “Hey, don’t apologize. So haunted houses and horror movies aren’t your thing. No big deal.”

  She was glad he didn’t seem to be offended by her lack of enthusiasm for his choice of entertainment. And she hoped the Halloween party wouldn’t turn out to be another event that they would have to write off as “not her thing.” She couldn’t exactly say she was looking forward to it, since it made her vaguely uncomfortable to think about it. But she wasn’t actively dreading it, either. After all, she would be attending with Mike.

  “Look at it this way,” Mike advised with a grin. “October’s almost over—and Halloween with it. The next set of holidays are much more peaceful.”

  She didn’t really expect to still be seeing Mike socially when the next set of holidays rolled around, of course. As different as they were—and this evening had been full of signs pointing to that conclusion—it was highly unlikely that anything long-term would develop between them. But in the meantime, she might as well take advantage of the opportunity to enliven her dull life with a few new experiences.

  She put her hand on the doorknob. “Norman’s probably wondering where I am.”

  She wouldn’t ask him in. It was entirely too soon to be sending signals she wasn’t ready to follow up on.

  His smile never wavered, so maybe he hadn’t expected an invitation. “Maybe I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  “You have my cell phone number if I’m not home.”

  “Oh? Do you have plans?” he asked casually.

  “I’ll be in the lab most of the day.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  She shrugged. “Experiments don’t run by a regular calendar.”

  “But you can take calls?”

  “Sure. If it’s a bad time, I’ll say so.”

  “Okay. So I’ll call.”

  “Good night, Mike. Thank you again for a very nice evening.”

  He stood close enough that she could almost feel the warmth radiating from him. “Not including the haunted house, of course.”

  She laughed weakly. “Let’s just say I had a very interesting time. For the most part.”

  “Very tactful.” He lowered his head to brush his mouth lightly over hers. “Good night, Catherine.”

  After she closed her apartment door behind him, she wondered if that wholly unsatisfying kiss had been due to gentlemanly restraint—or if he had deliberately left her wanting more. She suspected the latter. And it had most definitely worked.

  Catherine had just set two six-well plates in the incubator in her lab Sunday afternoon when her cell phone rang. Her heart beating a bit more quickly, she answered it without thinking to check the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Catherine, hi. It’s Bill. Is this a bad time?”

  Pushing aside her instinctive disappointment, she spoke lightly. “No. I have a few minutes to talk. How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. And you?”

  She assured him that she was well. Only then did he bring up a subject she had hoped to avoid. “I had such a nice time with you the other night. I was hoping we could get together again. There’s a Halloween party at my country club. Would you do me the honor of going with me? We don’t have to go to a lot of trouble for costumes—we can just wear our lab coats and call ourselves a pair of mad scientists.”

  “Thank you for asking, Bill, but I already have plans for that evening.” It felt strange to have two invitations to parties on the same night. Hardly typical for her.

  “I see.” He didn’t even try to hide his disappointment. “I shouldn’t have waited so late to ask, I suppose.”

  Had he asked before Mike, would she have accepted? She couldn’t think of any reason why she would have turned him down, but still she was vaguely relieved that she’d had a valid excuse to decline.

  “Some other time then?” he asked, injecting more cheer into his voice.

  “Yes, of course.”

  She wondered after they disconnected if he really would ask again. And she wondered what she would say if he did and she had no other plans to use as an excuse next time.

  “So who is this girl you’re bringing to my party?” Laurie Clancy demanded of her brother as they sat in their parents’ wood-paneled den Sunday afternoon after lunch. A football game played on their dad’s cherished big-screen TV, but Laurie was more interested in her brother’s social life than in the game.

  “She isn’t a ‘girl,’” Mike corrected, reaching into a bowl for a handful of popcorn. “She’s a medical researcher. She has a Ph.D. and everything.”

  “You’re dating a scientist?” his sister Charlie demanded, sitting bolt upright in the big recliner on the other side of the den. “You?”

  Mike was hardly flattered by her obvious skepticism. “Yes, I’m seeing a scientist. At least, I’ve only been out with her once, but I’ve known her a few weeks.”

  “Did you meet her at school, honey?” his mother, Alice, asked from her rocker, where she was crocheting a green-and-red Christmas afghan. A petite bundle of nervous energy, Alice was always making something, most of which she donated to hospitals and nursing homes through her church activities.

  “No, she lives in my apartment complex. I’ve done some repairs for her a couple of times.”

  “Is she pretty?” his father, Mick, asked without looking away from the television screen. The overhead lights reflected off the bald spot in the middle of his faded red hair, and his wea
thered face showed little interest in the conversation despite his question.

  “Daddy. That isn’t important,” Laurie complained with the confidence of a woman who had no doubt of her own beauty. “It’s her mind that matters, not her appearance.”

  “She’s pretty, Dad,” Mike assured him. “And she’s brilliant,” he added for Laurie’s benefit.

  Then, because Charlie was a nut for animals, he added, “She has a cat named Norman.”

  “I can see why she would like the cat,” Charlie answered dryly, running a hand through the red hair that she kept cut in short curls. “But what does she see in you?”

  Laurie laughed. Alice looked up from her crocheting with a frown on the face that was still hardly lined at all beneath her stylishly tousled cap of slightly graying blond hair. “That wasn’t very nice. Why wouldn’t she be interested in your brother?”

  Rather than answering, Charlie asked, “How old is she? I mean, she already has her doctorate, so she must be at least your age, right?”

  “She got her degrees early, I guess. She just turned thirty.”

  Charlie frowned. “Thirty?”

  “Right. Your age,” he shot back pointedly. “And only a year, almost to the day, older than Laurie.”

  Since he and Laurie were only ten months apart, he didn’t think the age gap was at all significant. What was a couple of years, after all?

  “I was sort of hoping you would hit it off with Paula McDermott’s younger sister, Erin, at my party,” Laurie complained. “I met her at Paula’s wedding shower last week, and I invited her to my party because she seemed like someone you’d like. Erin’s twenty-four, and really cute. She’s just back in town after living in St. Louis for a couple of years. She’s a personal trainer at Silver’s Gym, and she likes a lot of the things you do. You know, sports and outdoorsy stuff. As soon as I met her, I thought, ‘Here’s someone who would be a really great match for Mike.’”

  This time it was Mike who scowled. “You didn’t tell me you were going to try to fix me up at your party. You said I could bring someone if I wanted.”

  “Well, yeah, but you said you weren’t seeing anyone right now and you would probably just come stag,” she shot back. “And it isn’t really a ‘fix up.’ There will be quite a few unattached people there. I just thought you’d like Erin, that’s all.”

  Mike was well accustomed to the matchmaking efforts of all his sisters, especially the two married ones, who wouldn’t be satisfied until everyone they knew had a spouse, children and a house in the ’burbs. For a while the older two had concentrated on Charlie and Laurie, but now Charlie was involved with a firefighter and Laurie was seeing a local television meteorologist, so everyone’s attention had turned to Mike.

  “I’m sure she’s very nice. And I’m sure there will be several single guys at your party for her to meet. But I’m seeing Catherine right now, so—”

  “You’re ‘seeing’ her?” Charlie broke in quizzically. “I thought you said you’d only known her for a few weeks and you’ve only been out with her once.”

  “Okay, I’ve just started seeing her,” he admitted a bit defensively. “The point is, I don’t need y’all to find dates for me. I’m perfectly capable of handling that myself.”

  “You haven’t done such a great job of that so far,” Laurie muttered.

  For some reason, his sisters had never particularly approved of anyone he had dated. Only a couple of times had he been involved in real relationships, and he had never gotten to the point of actually considering marriage with anyone he had dated. Still, his sisters had found fault with each of the women he’d brought into their lives for however long the affairs had lasted. As avid as they all seemed to be to see him seriously committed, not a one of them seemed to trust his judgment when it came to choosing his own mate.

  When he had complained about that to his mother, she had merely smiled and explained that it was because he was the youngest and his sisters had gotten into the habit of looking out for him. They all adored him, she reminded him, and it was hard for them to believe anyone was quite good enough for their little brother. And besides, she had added with gentle candor, it wasn’t as if he had the greatest track record with that sort of thing.

  So, okay, maybe some of his past relationships had been…spectacularly unsuccessful. And maybe a couple of the breakups had been…well, train wrecks. But past history aside, he wished they would give him a little more credit when it came to his personal life.

  “You’ll see,” he told Laurie, making sure that Charlie heard him, as well. “You’ll like Catherine. She’s smart and successful and interesting. The type of competent, independent woman you all admire so much. The kind you all are, for that matter. I bet you’re going to have a hard time finding anything to criticize about this one.”

  “We’ll see,” Laurie murmured.

  Mike hoped he hadn’t made it sound like a challenge.

  Chapter Eight

  Catherine came very close to calling Mike and telling him that something had come up, preventing her from attending the Halloween party with him. Only the awareness of how rude that would be kept her from picking up the phone.

  She wondered if panic attacks were going to be a regular thing when it came to going out with him. Or if there would be any more reason to worry about that sort of thing after tonight. Funny how they could talk so easily over the phone or during his studying, but their tastes in entertainment were so radically different.

  She checked her appearance one more time in her bedroom mirror. It wasn’t as if she had anything else to do, except pace and second-guess her acceptance of this costume-party invitation. Mike was late. Again. At least this time he had called to apologize and let her know he’d been detained.

  He wouldn’t tell her what he had selected as a costume. She still wasn’t sure she liked her own choice. She couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t particularly original, the idea having been inspired by their guide at the community theater haunted house.

  Her dress was black and formfitting, the hem falling halfway down her calves, the neckline dipping halfway to her navel. Well, maybe not quite that far, she thought, tugging self-consciously at it, but deeper than she usually wore. The oversize, silver bat-shaped pendant she wore on a black leather cord filled in some of the space, but still left more bare skin than she was accustomed to showing.

  Long sleeves belled from her elbows to flutter around the tops of her hands, on which she sported half a dozen cheap, gaudy rings. She had painted her fingernails a dark, almost black purple. She wore black hose, black shoes with ankle straps and very high heels, and dangling silver bat-shaped earrings. She’d forgone the obvious peaked hat, instead slicking back her brown hair with a dollop of gel and pinning a black silk rose just above her right ear.

  Her foundation was light, her brown eyes smudged with dark-purple shadow and veiled by a heavy coat of black mascara. She wore a glittery blackish-purple shade on her lips.

  She felt like an idiot. An imposter. What had she been thinking to go for sexy and mysterious? She should have just stolen Bill’s idea and worn a lab coat and some nerdy plastic glasses or something. Nerd she could do. Seductress was pretty much out of her range.

  Maybe there was still time to change. For all she knew, it could be another half hour before Mike arrived. She had a couple of clean lab coats in the closet….

  The doorbell rang just as she reached automatically for her makeup remover.

  Norman appeared in the bedroom doorway and meowed to announce her visitor. She thought he eyed her oddly when she moved away from the mirror toward him.

  “Don’t mock me,” she warned him, “or I’ll make you go to this stupid party as my familiar.”

  He twitched his tail as if daring her to try.

  Perhaps she and Mike had been on the same mental wavelength, she thought when she opened her door. He wore unrelieved black. Silky black shirt, buttoned to the throat. Black slacks that fit him like a caress. Black
boots. A long, purple-lined black cape that fell almost to his ankles. A ring with a big, bloodred stone on his right hand.

  Gel darkened his swept-back blond hair, which made such a striking contrast to his dark clothing. Interestingly, a new scar had appeared on his face, running from the corner of his right eye down to his jaw. Looking as though it had been there for years, the scar added a touch of danger and mystery to his pretty-boy face.

  He smiled at her, and she noticed something different about his teeth. The canines were definitely longer and sharper. They, too, looked startlingly real.

  “You look amazing,” he told her, his voice deep and a little startled. “Absolutely stunning.”

  The blush that warmed her cheeks didn’t exactly match the coolly sophisticated image she had tried to capture with her costume. “Thank you. You look very dashing yourself.”

  Making a face that twisted his newly acquired scar into a classic, sardonic expression, he admitted, “Between work and classes, I didn’t have much time to come up with anything clever this year. I borrowed the cape from a drama-major friend who played Dracula in a play last semester.”

  “The scar is an interesting touch.”

  “Same friend’s stage makeup kit.”

  “It’s very effective.” She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes from following the path of that fake scar to his lips. Even with the eerie, pointed teeth, he had the most beautiful mouth of any man she had ever known. Or maybe she had just never noticed any of those other men’s mouths.

  Mike reached out to trace a fingertip from her jaw down her throat to the bat pendant that hung just above her cleavage. A tiny shiver trailed behind his touch. She held her breath as she waited to see if his finger would move any lower.

  But he merely toyed for a moment with the pendant as his gaze held hers. “I suppose it would ruin your lipstick if I kissed you right now?”

  Her smile felt shaky. She wanted to tell him to hell with the lipstick, but she said, instead, “Yes. Not to mention that you’d get it on your face.”