On Lavender Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  “I think so.” She moved her hips tantalizingly against his hard male loins, spreading the golden warmth. “But perhaps you ought to really kiss me. So I can know for sure.”

  “Why don’t we put off the rest of the tour and go straight to the master bedroom?”

  “How far is it?”

  “About a mile down the hall.”

  “You can show me later.” She tugged his shirt from his jeans and ripped it open, sending buttons flying. “Because I don’t think I can wait that long to have you inside me.”

  The came together like wildfire, falling to an Oriental rug on the floor.

  Clothes were scattered as if by gale-force winds; Madeline’s sweater landed on a chair across the room, and Lucas’ jeans landed on an ebony table, followed seconds later by hers.

  “It’s never been this way with anyone else,” she said as she straddled him. The very idea filled her with wonder. And awe. “I know it sounds like a cliché, but I’ve never wanted any man as much as I’ve always wanted you. Since that first time.”

  “It’s never been the same for me, either, Maddy.” His roughened hands ran down her back, cupping her bottom, pressing her even tighter against him. “And now I know why. Because you were always in my mind.”

  “Okay.” She leaned forward, her breasts skimming against his chest as she pressed a hot, wet kiss against his mouth. “Consider me seduced.” Then his chin. “And now let me return the favor.”

  She slid down his body, teasing a trail of kisses down his torso, her tongue dampening his dark nipples before going still lower.

  He bucked as she blew a soft, warm breath against his stomach. Then lower still.

  “You’re so hard.” Her fingers curled around his aroused length. She ran her tongue over him. “And hot.”

  Control shattered as the fires burn hotter and higher, until a burst of blazing ecstasy consumed them both.

  They were sprawled on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, their bodies slick with perspiration. There were no words for what Madeline was feeling. No way to describe an emotion that was so much more satisfying, more all encompassing than mere contentment.

  “I think I’m regressing,” he said when his breathing settled enough to talk again.

  She snuggled against him. “I feel absolutely decadent.”

  He ran his hand down her side. “Decadent and delectable. But even in my horny, hormone-driven youth, I never made love on a rug.”

  “Ah, but we made love lots of times on a blanket.” She rolled over onto her stomach and gave him a saucy smile. “We’ll have to do that again. When we get back home.”

  “Home,” he agreed.

  The word was sounding more and more right every time she heard it. Thought it. Putting that idea aside for now, she brushed a lock of damp, sun-streaked hair off his forehead.

  “I must have regressed, too.” Because she adored his taste, she touched her lips to his. “Because I want you again.”

  “You’re not alone there.” She felt his smile against her mouth. “But this time we’re doing it in a bed. Because I don’t think I have any more skin to leave on this rug.”

  Lifting her effortlessly into his arms, he strode purposefully down a long hallway lined with art that she suspected cost more than her grandmother’s entire farm.

  “Oh, my God!” She laughed when he dropped her unceremoniously onto the mattress. “I never would’ve imagined your father having a waterbed!”

  “He had back surgery a few years ago. Nothing all that serious, but the doctors prescribed if for him when he got out of the hospital. Since it was comfortable, he kept it.”

  “Oh, we should really write a thank-you note to that doctor,” she said as he joined her on the mattress, causing waves to undulate beneath them.

  The sun began to break through the gloom outside the penthouse windows. Lost in each other, neither Lucas nor Madeline noticed.

  51

  Portland consisted of a series of neighborhoods, each with its own feel. The neighborhood where Lucas took Madeline shopping had a laid-back, small-town feel that reminded her a great deal of Shelter Bay.

  Local grocery stores, she was pleased to see, offered many organic products. There were also coffee roasters, galleries, and a community center with an old-fashioned bulletin board where people had posted notices of concerts, gallery showings, apartments for rent, a found dog and a lost cat.

  Walking hand in hand down tree-lined streets where there seemed to be more bicycles parked than cars, where people sat at small tables chatting and drinking coffee and eating ice cream, invoked a good-old-days feeling highlighted by an old-fashioned movie marquee that could have shown up in Back to the Future. Although Madeline couldn’t remember the last time she’d even watched a DVD of a movie, let alone gone to the theater, even she recognized the poster of Mary Joyce, a stunningly beautiful Irish actress who’d garnered a huge international following of fans due to her sexy portrayal of a selkie queen.

  “Oh, lunch!” she said, pointing toward a white taqueria food truck.

  “You’re kidding.”

  She looked up at him. “What—you think I’m too fancy for ‘real people’ food? It you really watched my programs, you’d see that’s what I cook.”

  “But not in a food truck.”

  “Food’s all about taste. Not the size of the kitchen the food’s cooked in. And I adore food trucks.” She dragged him by the hand over to the window and ordered a veggie burrito, while Lucas opted for the chicken mole burrito.

  “See,” she said, as they sat at one of the tables and shared bites of each other’s wrapped burritos. “It’s great.” The veggies were obviously fresh, cooked perfectly so they were still crisp. And only four dollars. “And your mole is amazing.”

  “You’re not going to get any argument there,” he said, licking the red sauce she’d gotten on her fingers while scooping the salsa roja out of the tiny container.

  When he began sucking on her fingers in a way that caused a now-familiar warmth to gather between her legs, she stood up to keep from leaping on him right then and there.

  “We still haven’t found anything for the restaurant,” she said, trying to drag her mind out of the bedroom and back to their other reason for having come to the city.

  They’d stopped at a few shops on the drive to Portland, but nothing had shouted out “Buy me!” The problem, she was discovering, was that most true antiques were French or English. Finding something American that wasn’t a reproduction was proving a challenge.

  They strolled down Antique Alley, looking in all the windows, when a weathered farm table caught her eye.

  “That’s it,” she said. “The bar.”

  The table, made for a large farm family, had a pine top with a distressed finish that reminded her of the smaller one in her grandmother’s kitchen, and sturdy maple legs.

  “It’s a dining table,” Lucas pointed out. “It’s not high enough for a bar.”

  “Surely Flynn can do something about that. Maybe add some reclaimed wood to the base of the legs. Or replace them.”

  “You’d be destroying the integrity of the antique.”

  “I’m not intending to sell it for a profit. I want it.” It was the exact piece she’d been looking for. It had character and fit in the dining room she’d envisioned. “Let’s go in and check it out.”

  It took all her self-control to curb her enthusiasm enough to ignore the table as she browsed through the cluttered store.

  “This is nice.” She ran her fingers over a bronze lamp with a colorful glass shade depicting acorns around the edge.

  “It’s from the Arts and Craft era,” the saleswoman, who’d been trailing her since she and Lucas first entered the shop, offered. “Tiffany.”

  Madeline checked out the inflated price tag. “Actual Tiffany?”

  “Well, Tiffany inspired,” the woman admitted.

  “It’s lovely,” Madeline said. Which was true. “But not quite what I’m looking f
or.”

  She continued wandering through the cluttered shop, pausing to inspect a Depression-era glass platter, a Wedgwood box, a Chippendale chest.

  “You have a lovely shop,” she told the woman.

  “Thank you. We pride ourselves on maintaining an eclectic inventory.”

  “Well, you’ve succeeded.” She ran her fingers over an ebony nude she suspected Maxime’s designer would’ve loved to put in the Riverside apartment. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid you don’t have what I’m looking for.”

  “Our merchandise continually changes,” the woman said. “If you could perhaps tell me what you’re looking for…”

  “The problem is, I’m not really sure,” Madeline said with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid it’s one of those situations where I’ll know it when I see it.”

  Undaunted, the clerk, who turned out to be the owner, brought various items to Madeline’s attention: a nineteenth-century bronze French chandelier, a pair of silver Art Nouveau candlesticks in a lily-and-lotus pattern, a richly embossed Sheffield Victorian teapot, even a scrolled wrought-iron balcony railing from New Orleans, which was alleged to come from the French Quarter building where Tennessee Williams had once lived and that inspired him to write A Streetcar Named Desire.

  Madeline praised but sadly shook her head at each offering.

  Meanwhile, Lucas pointed out various items—a vintage ship in a bottle, a German beer stein from the 1800s, and a massive moose head, which the owner assured Madeline was not actually “stuffed,” but rather, a taxidermist had stretched the moose hide on a form to preserve it indefinitely.

  All of which—especially the poor moose staring at her with those unblinking glass eyes—were even less appealing than the earlier offers.

  “This is nice,” Lucas said finally, stopping at the table.

  “It is,” Madeline agreed noncommittally. She looked at the tag. “Though a bit pricey. Especially if you compare it to that one we saw in the Pearl District this morning.”

  A time when they’d actually been rolling around on the waterbed, but the store’s owner didn’t need to know that.

  “Oh, dear,” the woman said, glancing at the discreet price tag herself. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. This table was supposed to go on sale today. But my clerk”—she glanced over at a woman selling a frosted-glass perfume bottle to a customer—“must have overlooked it.”

  Five minutes later, they’d arranged for the table to be delivered to Lavender Hill Farm.

  “I can’t believe you got her down to that price,” Madeline said, practically jumping up and down in the passenger’s seat of the Jeep. “And when you asked her to throw in that matching bench, I was sure you’d blown the deal.”

  “You needed a bench inside by the hostess stand. Since the bar’s going to be a few feet away, it was a logical choice. And she wanted to make a sale.”

  “You were still amazing.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself, sweetheart.” He ruffled her hair; then, when they stopped for a red light, leaned across the console and kissed her. “I’d say we make one helluva team.”

  She beamed. “I’d say you’re right.”

  The rest of the two-day holiday passed as if it had wings. They bought more antiques that would be perfect for the new restaurant (including some weathered iron lanterns she decided to have wired as chandeliers); walked along the Riverfront; ate crab cakes that, while she honestly didn’t believe lived up to her own, were still very good; drove out to a winery for a tasting, and talked. And talked.

  Madeline told him about when she worked in Provence and, in her nervousness at being constantly screamed at by a chef with a horrible temper, had mistaken salt for sugar and ruined an entire batch of fig tarts. A mistake that had gotten her immediately fired.

  Lucas told her about when he’d played high school football and been knocked to the ground by a huge linebacker who’d rung his bell. He’d managed to get up, but during the next play, Lucas, still confused, had run the wrong way and would’ve scored a touchdown for their opponents if one of his own teammates hadn’t managed to tackle him inches short of the goal line.

  “I never lived that down,” he said, laughing at the memory. “And after I was diagnosed with a concussion after the game, Dad benched me. Permanently.”

  “From what I’ve been reading about football and brain injuries, he did the right thing,” she said.

  “Probably. But it sure didn’t end up being my last one.”

  Given what he’d been doing the past ten years, she guessed that was true. She also knew they’d probably have to talk more about their years apart. But during this special, stolen time together, she just wanted to concentrate on being together.

  Although she would have preferred to have him all to herself, knowing that Lucas must still be suffering the loss of his family, they accepted a dinner invitation from his architect godfather and godmother at their hillside home, with stunning views of the city lights. Fortunately, the soaring glass, steel, and concrete mansion was much warmer inside, as was the reception they received.

  Not only did the couple welcome her as a longtime friend, but the wife seemed thrilled to receive a signed cookbook, and, over braised chicken legs served with garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans from Maddy’s cookbook, they spent an enjoyable evening talking cooking and ideas for the design of the kitchen, all of which, considering Dylan Delany’s own starkly modern exterior, surprisingly fit in perfectly with the farm.

  The night had dawned clear, so they walked along the river again, joining the other couples who were out enjoying the spring evening.

  Then they went back to the penthouse and made love. All night long.

  Maddy’s last thought, as she slipped into sleep, was while perfection might not be possible, her time with Lucas in Portland had come really, really close.

  52

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Lucas said as they drove back to the coast.

  “Oh?” She glanced over at him, surprised by the seriousness of his tone.

  “I don’t want to marry you for your money.”

  Coming out of left field as it had, the statement made her laugh. “I wouldn’t think so. Considering you’re probably the wealthiest man I know.”

  “That’s not my money. Not really.” In fact, if he thought about it too much, which he tried not to, the idea had him feeling guilty about coming into such a windfall when he hadn’t done anything to earn it. “Which is why I’m working on ways to give most of it away. The deal is, I didn’t even know about my inheritance when I decided I wanted us to get back together.”

  “Believe me, the thought never entered my mind.”

  “You never once compared me to the Frenchman?”

  “Of course.”

  “See?” The guy, while a douche bag, was not only famous, he was also ambitious. Lucas’ entire life for the past decade had been defined by being a SEAL. While everyone had advised him to take some time off to transition back into a civilian society, he’d discovered that not having a goal every morning left him feeling rudderless, which, in turn, brought back some of the PTSD issues he’d done his best to ignore.

  “And you always came out way ahead,” she said. “In fact, you make Maxime look even worse by comparison.”

  “When we were first together that summer, I had no clue about what I was going to do with my life. When Dad died, I found myself pretty much in the same place.”

  “But now you’re building the school, remodeling the cannery. It’s not as if you’re drifting. In fact, from the little bit Kara told me about your life these past years, it seems that taking time to drift with the flow wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “I tried that for a few days and didn’t like it. But I’m not the same person I was back then, Maddy.”

  “Neither am I.” She shrugged. “We’ve both had life-changing experiences. But when we’re together, it feels the same.”

  “For me, too. Bu
t there are things you need to know. Things I brought home from the war.”

  She turned as much toward him as the seat belt would allow. “Okay. But if you think you can scare me away, it’s not going to happen.”

  She might not have agreed to a lifetime commitment. But he was getting to her. Which made what he had to say easier.

  “I’m not as whacked-out as Scout was when she came home, but I do have some issues. I have nightmares.”

  “Name me one person who doesn’t. My recurring stress one is having to cater a State dinner, getting lost on the way to the White House, realizing I left my shopping list back in New York, and not being to remember a single thing I’d planned to prepare. And then, when I finally get there, I’m naked.

  “I realize that’s not nearly as serious as the ones you usually have, which are undoubtedly from having actually experienced nightmare situations, but I just wanted to point out that although I’m sorry you have to suffer them, they’re not going into any negative column on whatever list you seem to think I’m compiling.”

  She seemed honestly unconcerned. But since he had every intention of kissing her on the seawall on their fiftieth anniversary, Lucas decided to continue.

  “I always sit with my back against the wall in a restaurant. And check out where the emergency exit is when I go in.”

  “I noticed Kara did the same thing at the Sea Mist, which took some juggling of chairs. I suspect it’s common among cops and soldiers. Even SEALs.”

  “I don’t trust people as easily as I used to.”

  “Neither do I.” Which made sense, he decided. “Do you trust me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, then.” Her smile made his heart feel as if it might go airborne at any minute. “I don’t see that we have any problem.”

  Then marry me, dammit.

  Not wanting to dampen what had been such a perfect getaway, Lucas reluctantly decided since he’d apparently jumped that hurdle, this wasn’t the time to push.