by Fiona Zedde
“But you wouldn’t see me. I called. I tried everything I could think of.”
Rémi clasped Claudia’s ankle and gently squeezed it.
The pain from that day was a weeping wound. A throbbing sore Claudia couldn’t stand to look at. Finally, she went back to her daughter. On a bright Sunday afternoon, she presented herself at Dez’s house, wearing the grief on her face. Dez immediately sagged in the doorway, knowing what her mother was there to say. Claudia couldn’t live without Rémi and didn’t want to. She was her own woman. A grown woman whose children had their own lives. She needed hers too.
Victoria sat with them as they talked, as Dez tried to talk Claudia out of her decision, tears carved into her face like scars. But Claudia remained firm. She forced her daughter to remember how unhappy she had been in the last years of her marriage with Warrick, how everything in their household had crumpled nearly beyond repair. And in those weeks with Rémi, she had been at her happiest in years.
“I just wanted to let you know what I’m going to do,” she’d said to her daughter. “So when you see us together, you won’t be surprised. Try to understand. Please. I know it’s hard. But I need her in my life.”
Throughout the conversation, Victoria said nothing, only held her new wife’s hand, eyes shining with understanding at what Claudia was saying. Then at the door, just before Claudia left, Victoria kissed her on both cheeks and murmured a husky, “Good luck.” That small act of kindness endeared her even more to the older woman.
“I think it was only after I was able to face Desiree,” Claudia said to Rémi in the cool wash of darkness, “that I could finally get what I need. You.”
She sat up, holding the blanket to her breasts. “Even with all that, I’m sorry it seemed like I abandoned you. It was a hard time. And since you haven’t said much of anything since I started talking, it’s still a hard time for me.”
Rémi took Claudia’s hand and drew her close and closer, until, off balance, she tumbled into Rémi. “If you’re saying that you want to be with me, then I’m saying yes.”
Claudia, her eyes bright and focused, stared unblinkingly at Rémi.
“I feel like I’ve waited all my adult life for you,” Rémi said. The blanket slipped, and she set it to rights, pulling it up to cover Claudia’s body. “I love you,” she said. “I want you. And if you’ll truly have me, I’m yours for always.”
Claudia’s cry was a sound of laughing relief. “Yes,” she said with tears anointing her cheeks. “Yes.”
And Rémi believed her.
Epilogue
“Do you think they’ll come?”
Rémi rearranged the wineglasses on the dining table one more time, desperately needing something to do with her hands. There were four place settings. Would they need them all tonight?
“They have to come,” Rémi said, answering her own question. “It would just be rude to accept our invitation then not show up.”
But it was seven forty-eight. Twelve minutes until Dez and Victoria were supposed to join them for dinner in Rémi’s condo. Claudia, seemingly unconcerned, moved gracefully through the kitchen, turning down the flame under pots and sliding the freshly baked honey wheat bread in the oven to keep it warm.
“Sit down, darling.” She brushed a kiss against Rémi’s neck on her way to the dining room with the butter dish. “You’re making yourself a nervous wreck.”
“I’m fine,” Rémi said, but she went into the living room and sat down anyway.
She picked up the remote. Then discarded it without turning on the TV. A magazine Yvette had left behind, Essence from last November, caught Rémi’s eye from the coffee table, but she didn’t bother to open it. Her fingers rapped nervously against her thigh.
Warm breath whispered against her neck a moment before Claudia’s hands slid down her chest from behind.
“Whatever happens, we’re going to be okay.”
Over the last eight months, their lives had come together firmly. Cleanly. All their family, friends, even former lovers now knew about them and either approved or seemed determined not to interfere. As Claudia’s lover, Rémi had met Eden and endured the older woman’s speculative looks, even her not-so-subtle warning that she better handle Claudia’s heart with care. Dez remained the only loose end.
Claudia seemed to have made peace with the fact that her daughter had problems with her and Rémi’s relationship and always would. She and Dez maintained their close mother/daughter bond, but they never spoke about Rémi. Never. A few nights before, when Rémi had suggested that they invite Dez and Victoria for dinner in an effort to put an end to the lingering awkwardness, her lover had actually stopped in her tracks as they made their way down Collins Avenue toward Gillespie’s. Then Claudia had nodded.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said with the slightest of smiles, the look on her face saying she wished she’d thought of it first.
Claudia called her daughter the next day to issue the invitation and, to Rémi’s happy surprise, it was accepted.
And now they waited.
“They’ll come,” Claudia murmured against her cheek, the scent of curried chicken still caught in her pale hair.
Rémi nodded and rubbed her palms over the soft flesh of her lover’s arms. They’ll come.
“Sit with me,” she said.
Claudia came and sat in her lap, dangling bare feet over the arm of the sofa.
In her dark capri pants and a plum-colored camisole beneath one of Rémi’s shirts she’d rolled up at the elbows, Claudia was the epitome of sexy and relaxed.
“Just think of it this way,” she said. “If they don’t come we’ll have plenty of leftovers for our picnic tomorrow.” Her fingers teased open the top button of Rémi’s shirt.
Rémi leaned back in the sofa, consciously trying to relax beneath her woman’s slight weight. “Not even I can eat that much food.”
“Don’t delude yourself, love.” Claudia snuck her fingers between the shirt’s buttons, gently raking her short fingernails over Rémi’s skin until a quiet purr vibrated beneath her palm. “Your big appetite is one of my favorite things about you.”
Rémi chuckled softly, soothed by her lover’s caress. “Maybe I should enter a hot dog eating contest next time one rolls into town. To further secure your favor.”
“No, no. Your appetite in the bedroom is enough to tie me to your side. Keep that up and I’ll remain suitably impressed, and enslaved.”
The laughter burst out of Rémi full force this time and her lover smiled, pressing even closer and offering her deep red lips to kiss.
“Thank you,” Rémi murmured against that soft mouth.
“For what?”
But the doorbell rang before she could answer. They both froze; then Claudia carefully got up from her lap and walked toward the front door. But she didn’t open it. Instead, with her hand on the doorknob, she turned back to Rémi. Suddenly Rémi realized that the other woman wasn’t as nonchalant as she acted. Claudia’s face was tight with sudden tension, her mouth a trembling line. She got to her feet.
At the door, she pressed a kiss to Claudia’s cool cheek then covered the hand on the doorknob with her own. Claudia nodded, and they opened the door together.
Dez stood in the doorway, her arm linked with Victoria’s and a bottle of wine in one hand. Her look was cautious, as if she didn’t quite know what to expect.
“Come in,” Claudia said.
Rémi glanced at her then, at her best friend and a gently smiling Victoria. “We’re glad you were able to make it,” she said, and opened the door wide to welcome them in.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2008 by Fiona Lewis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-1739-4