by Cheri Allan
How easily she’d given up her freedom to choose! How easily she’d given up herself. Was she really the world’s biggest doormat?
She didn’t have time to dwell on that depressing thought as a thumping bass beat filled the room. Someone turned on a disco ball, and the first ‘model’ strode down the runway to cheers, laughter and the flash of cell phone cameras.
Kate moved to the door to help Rachel check out those who wanted to pay for their purchases before the Naughty Nightie event, and Nana and Claire set out desserts.
Kate thanked a woman for her generous donation, and the next half hour flew by in a whirlwind as they commented on the various outfits and tallied and bagged purchases.
Suddenly the music changed again and a slinky striptease number filled the air. Grace stepped to the microphone wearing a red teddy, boa and bunny ears, looking impossibly chic for such a ridiculous ensemble. “Put away those cell phones, ladies, and get ready for our Naughty Nightie party! Whether you’re looking to kick back in uber-comfy organic all-cotton pj’s or wanting to add a little silk and spice to the bedroom, Belinda here has something for you! So grab a piece of paper and pencil from the basket that’s making the rounds, because we’re going to start with a little game. Let the fun begin!”
Nana leaned over to Kate. “I think that’s our cue to leave.”
“Leave? You can’t leave! What about the food, the car keys…the keg?”
“Oh, we ran out of that a while ago. It was only a little one. Anyway, don’t worry, I’ve got the boys lined up to taxi people home, Rachel will pack up the food, and as long as you lock up the cash in the safe before you leave, we’re done.” She yawned. “It’s past my bed time.”
Kate narrowed her eyes. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”
Just then someone cranked the music. The base beat thumped with Kate’s heart, as Belinda invited the women to write on their piece of paper the most unusual place they’d ever had sex.
Good God. Kate’s face flamed above her bustier. “Can I come with you?”
KATE RESCUED A FEW MORE discarded nighties from the mess on the makeshift runway and hung them on the garment rack, feeling more than a little exhausted. Their Naughty-Nightie consultant for the evening, Belinda Seamans, was as cheerfully plastered as many of the other guests and had insisted Kate continue to try on assorted samples as she and Grace sipped sangria and giggled uproariously at their creations long after the majority of guests had gathered themselves to leave.
Not surprisingly, Jim chose that moment—as Kate stood wearing a ridiculous ensemble consisting of the prairie skirt, a red Naughty Nightie merry widow bustier and Grace’s feather boa—to enter the shop.
His eyebrows shot toward his hairline.
Kate could feel her skin turning the color of the satin bustier Grace and Belinda had decided was the perfect replacement for the 1950’s torpedo top. “They sold my clothes,” she explained. “And I can’t find my shoes.”
“These things happen,” he said, his lips twitching. “Hey, Belinda. good party?”
Belinda smiled broadly, her short brown hair bobbing happily as she rolled her half-filled garment cart toward the door. “Fabulous! Absolutely... fabulous!” She frowned, raising on tiptoes to peer outside. “Is my Teddy here?”
“He’s in the parking lot.” Jim grabbed Belinda’s elbow as she stumbled briefly on her stout legs, then recovered. “Need help getting this outside?”
She waved him away with a cheerful hand and pushed her cart out the door. “All set!”
Carter was next to step inside the shop. “Okay, ladies. I hear I’m here for Susan, Lauren, Kelly and Diane. Ready?”
“Who am I taking?” Jim looked around.
Kate pulled the boa strategically across her chest, sure her face was beyond scarlet by now. “Carter is taking everyone that lives out by Miller Brook, and I figured I’d get lost on all these back roads, so Rachel borrowed my car and took anyone that couldn’t fit in with Ted and Belinda. She promised to drop my car off tomorrow if you don’t mind giving me a ride home tonight.”
“Oh. Sure.” Jim’s eyes skidded down her body, sending a fresh wave of heat across her bare skin. Good Lord, she probably looked like some bizarre cross between a Playboy centerfold and a Lawrence Welk singer.
“Oh, pooh!” Grace said as she stepped from the dressing room. “Everyone's leaving?”
Jim turned off the twinkle lights. “It’s late, Grace. Party’s over.”
“I suppose.” She stepped around a pile of clothes on the floor and shook her head at a forgotten plate of food someone had clearly stepped in.
Belinda poked her head around the door. “Grace, you coming? Teddy’s waiting.”
“Oops! That’s my ride. Gotta go! Tomorrow is soon enough for clean up.”
The door chimed behind her, then they were alone.
Jim cleared his throat. “Ready?”
Kate picked up the pile of clothes from the floor and set them on a chair. “As soon as I find my shoes...”
Jim dumped some plates in a trash bin. “What did they look like?”
“White.” Kate looked around with a sinking heart at the chaos around them. Surely they wouldn’t have sold them!
“Tell you what. I’ll take you home, and we can look more tomorrow. After Grace has a chance to find the floor again.”
“I hate to leave it all to—”
“Grace can take care of it, Kate. It’s late.”
Kate repositioned the boa, feeling excessively exposed despite the fact that it covered as much as the average tank top.
“Here.” Jim unbuttoned his shirt, his bare chest gloriously familiar. Kate’s mouth went dry as he passed her his shirt. “Unless you like what you’re wearing?”
Without another word, she got rid of the boa and wriggled her arms into the sleeves of his shirt.
She followed him to his truck, the warm summer night making her glad she’d not yet buttoned his shirt. The boning of the bustier dug into her side, but she ignored the discomfort. She never should have listened to Grace and Belinda. Made for her? The bustier probably wouldn’t even fit by the time she was done paying for it. The thought was more than slightly depressing.
She leaned against his truck waiting for him to unlock it. “No shirt. No shoes. I’m a mess. Thanks for the loaner.” She fingered the edges of the button-down.
“Forget about it. You’re a cute mess.”
“Randy was never cute.”
“Yeah, well, that was different.” Jim yanked open the passenger door.
“I thought he was cute. At first. Then I wondered when he’d ever grow up.” She gripped Jim’s forearm, hating the idea that she’d become the Randy she’d always resented. “I hope you don’t feel that way toward me.”
“Relax. I like you.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to say that.”
He helped her up onto the seat. “I mean it. What’s not to like?”
The fact that I’m a big fat liar? Oh, yeah. You don’t know that yet.
Jim shut the door.
“Why do you like me?” she wondered aloud as the truck left the parking lot.
Jim glanced over as if startled. “I don’t know. Lots of reasons.”
She raised a brow. “Name one.”
He shifted down at the corner. A streetlight shining through the windshield glinted off his tanned arm. He had gorgeous forearms, lean and muscular all at the same time. “Okay. I like your nail polish. It makes me think of popsicles. Which are sweet. Like you.”
She tried to keep her gaze casual, fighting the urge to give his shirt back so she’d stop drooling over his naked torso. “You can’t like my toes.”
“Why not? You forget. I’ve kissed your toes. They’re... cute.”
She mock-slapped him in the shoulder. “Stop saying that! Who wants to be cute? I hate that word.”
He glanced at her and chuckled. “In that outfit, honey, you’ll have to settle for cute.”
“Is this cute?” she asked, defiantly pulling his shirt off her shoulders. Lord only knew what made her do it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that all too soon her breasts would morph into giant, tender balloons, her love life would be shot for the next decade at least, and this, the second and last man she’d ever had sex with, only thought she was cute? Yeah, maybe that was it.
Jim stared at her cleavage. “Put the shirt back on, Kate.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Yeah, but would it kill him to tell her? She shrugged back into it and stared out the window.
A few minutes later, they pulled into his drive. “We’re home,” he said into the silence. He slid out and slammed his door.
He yanked open the passenger door.
She slid to the gravel drive. “What else?”
“Else what?”
“My nail polish? Seriously? That’s all you can say to me?”
“This is ridiculous.” He turned toward the cottage.
“What’s ridiculous is that we’ve slept together, more than once, and you can’t be honest enough to tell me what you really feel. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then it won’t hurt to tell me,” she said, trailing after him, the sharp stones of the drive nipping at her feet.
He stopped, his back to her. “Fine. I like how friendly and easy-going you are. Usually.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard,” she said, ignoring the jibe. “But it does make me sound boring.”
“Boring?” He spun around. “What are you talking about? What’s with you tonight?” He shook his head. “Never mind. This is a pointless conversation. You’re clearly in a mood.”
Kate ran up the porch steps ahead of him and turned her back to the door, effectively blocking the doorknob. “Is that all?”
He glanced down. She followed his gaze to see one of her breasts nearly bursting free of its confines, a dusky crescent just coming into view.
“Well?” she asked, purposely inhaling. The boning dug in again, causing another sharp stab in her side, but she didn’t care.
His throat worked, and then he looked back at her face. “As a matter of fact, you do have other... features... I admire.”
“Thank God,” she said, sagging against her front door. “Or I would have just wasted fifty bucks on this thing.”
He caught his bottom lip in his teeth. “Definitely not wasted.” Kate’s heart lurched as she stared at him, waiting, wondering if he’d try to kiss her.
Her breath caught as he leaned toward her, his fingers brushing her ribs through her shirt—until he pulled the sides of the button-down closed over her chest. “Well. Time to get you into bed. I mean, in the house.” He reached for the doorknob. Wiggled it. “Is this locked?”
Kate stared at the knob, still trying to process this unexpected turn of events. “Oh. Yeah.”
“You locked the door?”
“I always lock it.”
“Where’s the key?”
“My purse.” She looked around as if it might be hanging from a nearby bush. No such luck.
He closed his eyes on a groan. “Your purse is at the shop, isn’t it?”
“What do we do now?”
“Well, I’m certainly not driving back into town at this hour even if I knew who had the key. I guess you can stay at my place tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“I didn’t plan for this to happen, you know.”
“For what?”
She spread her hands, fighting off a sudden, overwhelming urge to cry. Why couldn’t anything work out? “Any of this. Everything.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll pick up your purse tomorrow.”
She stepped off the porch. “Forget it.”
“What the—? Kate.” He caught up to her on the path. “Are you crying?”
“You know, I do try to do things right. I don’t set out to make stupid choices. I don’t intend to wander aimlessly from one screw up to the next...”
“You’re not a screw-up.”
She whirled on him. “Would someone with her life all planned out be standing here in this get-up thinking things she has no right to think?”
His eyes seemed to grow darker in the half-light of the night sky. “What kind of things?”
“Things like...” Her pulse thudded in her ears, and she licked her lips, unable to make the truth flow over them even then. “... like I think I’m falling... in lust with you.”
“Very funny.”
She looked at him again. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Kate, you don’t know what you feel. You’ve just lost your husband. You’re making huge life changes. You—”
“I know it makes no sense! We barely know each other. But just because you’re not willing to be honest with yourself, just because you can’t admit what you feel, I—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Jesus, Kate.” He ran his hand over his face wearily. “What do you want me to say?”
Kate stilled, her blood simultaneously flooding her head and making it throb morbidly. Her stomach heaved. “Nothing,” she choked. “Don’t say a thing.” She practically ran past him toward his house, wishing she could magically disappear, or a giant, merciful wave would swarm from the lake and swallow her.
Instead, she stood, heart pounding, misery coursing through her every vein, at his back door, waiting for the earth to do the job the lake was apparently unwilling to do for her in her time of need.
“Kate.”
Despite the entreaty in his voice, she ignored him, the sweat of humiliation beading on her brow. She felt dizzy with it. Why couldn’t she just shut up? Why did she have to push it? Why couldn’t she let things stay light and easy between them? Now, look!
Her stomach clenched and roiled.
“I feel sick,” she said.
“Kate.” His voice had that gentle tone again. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I can’t talk about this anymore!”
She grappled with the hooks on the back of the bustier, struggling against his damned, blasted shirt. If only she could breathe!
“Stop,” he bit out, trying to still her frantic movements. “Fine. You want to know how I feel? Will that satisfy you?” She finally unhooked the top of her bustier and sucked in a swift lungful of air. “As stupid as it sounds, and as much as you’ve told me to take a hike with one breath and flirted with me with the next... if it makes you feel any better... I think—”
“Oh God...”
“—I’m falling in lust with you, too. Satisfied?”
She nodded—once—then promptly vomited at his feet.
“HI,” KATE SAID, hovering in the doorway.
“Hi.” Jim kept his back to her. Kate’s eyes slid down the thin sweats he’d changed into and tried not to notice how nicely they skimmed over his rear. Chances were good he wasn’t in a frisky mood after she’d thrown up on his shoes.
“Better now?” he asked.
Kate nodded even though he wasn’t looking. She slid onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table and fingered the hem of his button-down. The bustier was somewhere in the bushes by his back door. He’d obviously taken a quick shower. She didn’t blame him. “I’m sorry. I think it was just too much mocktail on an empty stomach.”
Liar.
Jim nodded and brought over a plate of cheese and crackers. He sat across from her, his shoulders rigid.
She chewed and swallowed a cracker and glanced up at him again. “I’m so sorry.”
“No need to keep apologizing,” he said, his voice weary.
“Right.” Kate ate another cracker and reached for her glass of water.
The kitchen was nice. Attractive and functional without being too fussy, she thought, trying to distract herself from the uncomfortable silence.
&nbs
p; Jim looked at her. He blew out a long breath. “There’s something I think I should tell you.”
“Yes?” Her stomach tightened again.
“I like you, Kate. I do. But... when I went to the Artisan’s Fair… it was with a woman. Another woman. On a date.”
Her hand shook as she set her water down. “I see.”
“She’s a client of mine. Or was.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing happened.”
“Jim, you don’t have to ex—”
“She wanted to—have something happen, that is—”
“Please. You don’t have to—”
“She wanted something I couldn’t give her, Kate,” he said, talking over her. “She wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. What I’m saying is—I’ve said the words you wanted me to say tonight and... I can’t do that again.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Yes, you are. Just by being you, you are.” He sighed, compassion filling his hazel eyes. “What I’m trying to say is: you’ve had a lot of tough stuff happen to you the last few months. And maybe you are ready to move on to the next step. If so, that’s great. But, I can’t be that next step. I can’t be anything more than a friend. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re right. Things have gotten too intense too fast—you know—between us.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
Her stomach threatened to revolt a second time that evening but she swallowed her disappointment and forced a half smile to her lips. “I understand.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
____________________
TWO WEEKS. TWO WEEKS SINCE he’d looked into Kate’s baby blues… and lied to her.
Hell, he didn’t know what he felt or what to call it, but ‘friends’ wasn’t it.
Jim shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the back door. Cathy was out of town, thank God, and he was back to dealing with Wilson. At least he still had the job. Never again would he date a client. Ever.
He knew there was one last cold beer in his fridge, and it had his name on it.
He pushed open the door at the top of the basement stairs and frowned at the sound of movement in his kitchen. It was unlikely to be a wild animal or intruder. Unless, of course, you considered your own family intrusive.