Full lips turned up in a quirky smile, half-pleased, half-embarrassed. “Yeah, thanks. It sure beats walking the streets.”
“If . . .” Mandy paused, wondering if an offer of help would be taken as criticism. She blinked, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. “If you ever want to get your GED, change your line of work, call me.” She shoved a card with her cell phone number across the table to each girl. “I mean it. I’ll find a way to make it possible.”
“That goes for me too,” Peter added, handing over his card as well.
The two girls—one so fair, the other the color of dark chocolate—stared back, as if trying to gauge their sincerity. Delilah broke first, shoving the cards in with the bills sticking out of her G-string.
Fawn scowled, stuck up her chin. “Guess you mean it. Don’t be surprised if I hold you to it.”
After several moments of pregnant silence, Peter lifted his glass. Four drinks clinked together above the center of the small round table. “To a better life,” Peter murmured.
“A-men!” breathed Delilah.
“Did you send the clothes back?” Peter asked.
“Plus enough cash to put a smile on the dog’s face,” Mandy replied, recalling with warmth the kindness of their rescuers. Once again, she and Peter were snuggled down at opposite ends of the blue leather couch. Across the room a gas-log fire was giving off a cozy warmth, though Mandy longed for the crackle and tangy smoke of genuine wood.
Giving up her new-found independence and moving in with Peter had not been an easy decision to make, but Jeff and Eleanor Armitage hadn’t raised a fool. Independence was all well and good, but then there was foolhardy. Living with Peter might be an emotional risk, but he was the clear winner in a classic choice between the Devil You Don’t Know versus the Devil You Do.
“I’ve been thinking . . .” Peter ventured, his slitted amber eyes catching glints from the steady glow of the fire.
“Um-m?”
“Doug’s probably right. You shouldn’t be going out alone. You know . . . post office, groceries, the library. Not until we get this mess straightened out.”
“Golden Beach in broad daylight. You’ve got to be kidding!”
“You heard Doug. We’re likely dealing with the Russian mafia here. These aren’t small-time local crooks, Mouse. They’re rough, tough, and dangerous. Hell, they snatched us right out of a club in front of hundreds of people.”
“I gave up the RV. What more do you want?” The RV was her independence. She loved that RV. But there it sat at Calusa Campground, empty, while she was here, moved into the beautiful blue and green bedroom, with lace-trimmed sheets that still had not been slept on.
All right, so she was spending her nights on Peter’s black satin sheets. It didn’t mean anything. Propinquity. A convenient affair. The great experiment. Or maybe just a Hail Mary pass. And about as likely to succeed.
Something nudged her knee. From under lowered lashes Mandy sneaked a peek. Since Peter was six feet-two and she was five-nine, not even the luxurious extent of the French blue leather couch could hold both their outstretched lengths. Peter’s lower legs had been dangling over onto the floor, but now his left leg had crept up, was playing “kneesies” with hers. Mandy frowned. Sex was one thing. Being playful was something else. This was altogether too much like the old days when they were first married. Well and truly married. Maybe even in love.
Mandy clamped her knees together, leaned them tight against the back of the couch. Peter obligingly stretched both legs into the vacated space, pinning her into the corner by setting his bare feet in her lap.. “Comfy?” he inquired silkily.
Comfy? She was panic-stricken, her heart hammering like a teen virgin discovering her date had turned into an octopus.
Peter leaned back against the soft leather. “I think it’s time we had a little talk,” he announced.
Mandy turned her head away, staring at the red glow of the fireplace. What had happened to having a nice comfortable affair? Sex, yes; talk, no. She should protest, but her jaws seemed to be wired shut.
“All right, here’s the truth, flat out,” Peter declared. “We’ve been through the excuses, explanations, mea culpas, so let’s get to the heart of it without the frills. “I’ve been selfish, ambitious, insensitive, and unfaithful—though never while we were living together, I hasten to add. And after New York . . . after New York I was celibate for more than two fucking years. Believe it or not.”
Really? After his ten-second performance that first night in the RV, she could almost believe him.
“I’ve mellowed, Mouse. Worked hard on mending the worst of my faults.”
Mandy’s sniff was close to a snort.
“Now you,” Peter said, his tone shifting from penitent to documentary mode, “You’re prickly as a porcupine, smarter than anybody ought to be, sophisticated enough to be a crack electronic spy, sometimes naive enough to make the angelic choir. You’re also the only woman I’ve ever wanted to spend my life with. I was more than fond of you way back when you were a gawky brat, and yours is the only image permanently etched on my heart. Call me crazy if you want, but there it is. I figure we’re a matched pair.”
Romantic it wasn’t, Mandy sighed. But honest? . . . Maybe.
She had to look up, although she already knew what she would see—amber eyes gleaming with sincerity. Peter’s back-of-the-bookcover look, the one that turned his words into proclamations from Mount Sinai, even when they were fiction.
And, sure enough, there it was. Absolute Truth, or the Big Lie?
But why lie? Why tie himself down to a wife if he didn’t want one?
“I want a family, Mouse,” Peter continued, as if he’d heard her question. “Children, the whole works. I’ll even attend PTA meetings, I promise. And not be gone for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations . . .”
“Let’s not overdo it.” Mandy was working hard to keep her lips from twitching. The big important journalist/author was running a nervous hand through the dark bristles that passed for hair. His earnest expression reminded her of a ten-year-old who has just brought home a stray puppy. Honest, mom, I’ll feed him and groom him. He won’t be any trouble at all.
“Okay,” he grumbled, “so I might be gone occasionally.”
Silence.
“Look at it this way,” Peter declared, his temper beginning to flare. What did he have to do, stand on his head? “I figure you want kids too. You’re crazy about Bubba, right? So do you want a divorce so you can have kids with someone else?”
A blow. A below-the-belt blow. Put that way . . . there had never been anyone else. Not that Jeff and Eleanor hadn’t paraded a number of striking young men past her over the last five years but, truthfully, she’d found them all wanting. Few had even managed a first date; none, more than two. In her heart she was—had always been—Mrs. Peter Pennington.
But loving Peter wasn’t enough. Living together just to have children wasn’t enough.
Tempting, but not enough. Nowhere in Peter’s pretty speech had he said he loved her. Only that he wanted her to have his children. Just how far toward pragmatism could a girl stoop?
Pretty far.
But not yet. Let him suffer.
She certainly was.
“I don’t have any other candidates in mind,” Mandy pronounced, striving for an airy insouciance she was far from feeling. “I’ll take your kind offer under consideration.”
Peter swore, with feeling.
This time Mandy had to duck her head so he wouldn’t catch the tilt of her lips. Peter was satisfyingly angry enough as it was. Oh, yes, this was the way she liked it. With the shoe firmly on the other foot. And so very easy to put a stop to serious conversation. Keeping her head down, she tweaked the toes lying in her lap. One by one. She marched her fingers across one instep, moving up over his khakis, past his knee, dipping toward his inner thigh. And the bulge that was forming just beyond.
Games. Mindless sex. Anything to keep from remembering how long sh
e’d loved him. To keep from wondering if Peter really meant it when he said he wanted to settle down, have a family . . . She could accommodate herself to that, of course she could. She was a stiff-upper-lip New England Kingsley-Armitage. Love wasn’t required. Just compatibility, the right family, the right connections . . .
Hot damn! Mandy had seen guns poking through pockets that looked less hard than what was tenting Peter’s pants. Could any woman have done this to him? Or did he really care for her?
At least a little?
Mandy withdrew her hand, tucked her knees up under her chin.
Silence. Not so much as a long-drawn sigh.
Peter’s temper flared. “Dammit, Mouse! What now?” Her head was resting on knees clutched to herself as if to ward off evil. “Uh . . . Mouse? Do you think you could come back? I’m dying here.”
“Good.” She didn’t lift her head.
“Mouse!” His voice, having passed from baritone to tenor, was rapidly edging toward alto. Much more of this and he was going to be singing soprano. “Woman, I’m suffering,” Peter pleaded.
“The problem hasn’t changed,” she said through slitted lips. “We’re compatible. Our jobs aren’t.”
“Mo-ouse!”
“Are you coming back to AKA?”
“Hell, no!”
“You expect me to give up my career?”
“Yes, dammit, I’d like to see you out of it. But you’re a computer nerd. You can do what you do anywhere.”
Mandy lifted her head off her knees, regarded him with questioning green eyes. “You’d consider a compromise?”
“If I had to,” Peter breathed. Anything, anything!
“I’ll take that under consideration.”
“Mouse!” Peter roared. And pounced. Not easy attacking a wife scrunched into cannonball position, particularly in the sensitive condition of his advanced state of arousal. But with only a painful bump or two he managed to pry up her chin, hold that marvelously open face in his two hands, searching for some sign of love. Oh, God, yes, she was his. Even if she wasn’t willing to admit it. Mandy Mouse. The girl he left behind because he thought she didn’t want to follow him into his new life as a wanderer. The girl he hadn’t pushed hard because he’d thought she was better off where she was, instead of chasing with him to some of the roughest corners of the world.
So they were both fools.
Cupping her firm, stubborn chin between both his hands, Peter lowered his mouth to hers, gently, tentatively, waiting for the explosion. She didn’t move a muscle.
The jury was still out. Wiser man that he was, he broke the kiss, settled for resting his forehead against hers.
“Were you kissing your lover or your wife?” Mandy inquired.
“Both, I hoped,” he responded, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Don’t push it, Pennington. When I’ve got all our motivations figured out, I’ll let you know.”
“Can’t figure out love, Mouse. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Love’s the motivation I haven’t pinned down yet. Nesting instinct, yes. Love . . . maybe.”
Peter groaned. “How can you possibly doubt—”
Mandy lifted her face until her lips were brushing his. “Meanwhile, lust will do.” Her hand plunged under his polo shirt, burned its way upwards. Ten urgent fingers got a grip on his chest hairs. Peter’s mouth snapped shut. “I’m not wearing a stitch under this caftan,” she confided in a tone that made his head swim, “but you’re way too dressed. See that fluffy white rug in front of the fireplace? Get naked, Pennington. I’ll be waiting.”
Slowly, sensuously, Mandy slid her hands back down, lingering long enough to glide below the belt, where she explored his rigidity while looking him straight in the eye. Paralyzed, Peter simply watched as she slid out from under him and sauntered, caftan swishing, toward the rug.
He was going to have to remember not to call her Mouse. His wife had metamorphosed into a tiger.
Poised in the center of white artificial fur, she slipped her caftan over her head, cocked a naked hip in his direction. “Well,” she taunted, “are you coming?”
God, yes. Definitely. Any moment now.
Without taking his gaze from his wife, the full naked length of her haloed by the red warmth of the fireplace, Peter finally sprang to life, skinning himself out of his clothes. He stalked the short distance across the room, folded her into his arms, his male hardness pressed between them. “I don’t want to give us up, Mrs. Pennington. “And I’m damn sure you don’t either. We’ll find a way. I promise.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mandy nuzzled one of his nipples, gave it a tentative nip. Peter’s chest rumbled with a chuckle. “Planning on whips and chains next?”
She drew back, stricken. “I was just—”
He pulled her tight against him. “I know, I know. Forget Big Mouth here. Nip away, I like it.”
Taking him at his word, Mandy sank her teeth hard enough around his other nipple to surprise an “Ah!” out of him. She pulled down his head and nipped his lower lip. “Sorry,” she murmured on a sigh, resting her head against his chest, “it was worth a try, but it’s just not me. Amanda Armitage, forever plain vanilla.”
“You forget. Vanilla’s my favorite flavor.”
“You said you liked nips.”
“I liked your willingness to try.”
“Oh.”
“There’re all kinds of sex, Mou–Mandy. But love is kinder, I think. There’s a warmth, a glow that transcends the games people play. Sex has never been our problem. We don’t need games to keep our marriage alive. Just a bit of compromise.”
Mandy punched him in the stomach. Not hard.
“Sorry,” Peter grunted.
“Since you’re so intent on talking us to death, I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
Peter had no trouble wrestling her to the rug, where he sprawled full length on top of her. “Waggling your boobies as well as your booty in front of a man is considered an open invitation in every culture I know. No taking it back.”
“You said we didn’t have to play games.”
“You started it.”
Damn. So she had. “Peter?” Mandy winced as she heard how soft and sorrowful she sounded. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to have sex without talking each other to death first?”
Peter closed his eyes, heaved a sigh. “How about we turn over a new leaf?” he offered as his amber gaze refocused on her. “Starting now?”
He cupped her with his hand. Smiled at the feel of the dampness coating his fingers. “All that talk and you’re still ready.”
“So are you. Or someone shoved a brick between us.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
They’d been married seven years, yet it was fresh and wonderful, warm and healing, slow and powerful, full of infinite promise. They belonged together, a matched pair.
They just had to find a way to make it work.
Chapter Seventeen
Mandy, clutching two plastic bags from Publix, slowly climbed the stairs to the Amber Run model. Since Claire Blue seemed to have an endless supply of bottled water and soda, Mandy insisted on contributing bakery cookies for their frequent lunches. The cookies, several dozen each week, were also enjoyed by Amber Run’s prospective clients, Brad, who had a definite sweet tooth; Jamie, when he arrived after school; and Phil Whitlaw, who had begun to stop by at least once a week, probing Claire’s experiences with pregnancy.
Mandy, fascinated, took it all in, both information and situation. It couldn’t be often that a man’s first wife learned the nitty gritty of pregnancy from his second wife.
“Why the snail pace, Mandy?” Phil called from the ground below. “You knocked up too?”
Mandy almost dropped the cookies. “Just . . . things on my mind,” she gulped. She was blushing, she knew she was blushing. She’d almost answered, “Just not much sleep last night.”
“That�
�s okay,” Phil said, as she climbed, clutching the handrail. “We’re none of us virgins here. Feel free to say anything.”
If Mandy hadn’t been blushing before, she was now. Rosy pink gone to beet. How did Claire do it? she wondered. If Peter had been married before, and his first wife came to her, looking for advice, she’d be inclined to chase her off with a carving knife. And yet Claire . . . ?
Claire Blue was a saint.
After Mandy had sighed over a blissfully sleeping Bubba and Phil had looked at the baby as if he might turn into a dragon at any moment, the three women settled at the kitchen table and unwrapped the deli sandwiches Phil had brought.
Claire picked up her sub, then hesitated, staring at Mandy’s solemn face. “Okay, out with it, girl. What now? Aren’t you ever going to put that man out of his misery?”
Mandy took a large bite, ostentatiously concentrated on chewing.
“Look, Mandy,” Phil said, waving her six-inch sub like a club, “we’ve all been there. I chose my career over my husband and came damn close to missing out on both love and children. Sure, I’m scared of being a mother, particularly at my age, but if I could wipe it all away with a wave of my hand, it’s a case of no way, no how. I threw love in the trash, and for some incredible, wonderful reason, I was given a second chance. But don’t count on it. Hang on to that man and don’t let him go.”
“And me,” Claire said, “I hated Florida. I felt exiled, impossibly alone. I just wanted to go home. And, believe me, home wasn’t here. Yet here I am. And I wouldn’t trade my life for the whole world on a silver platter. Phil’s right, Mandy. Nothing is more important than love, even if we have to compromise to make it happen.”
Mandy stared down at her sandwich, whose tempting ingredients had turned to sawdust. “You make it sound so simple,” she whispered, “but—”
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