by Liz Durano
We don’t speak for a few minutes, and I shift my position so I’m kneeling on a foam pad she hands me from her gardening basket and dive into my new task. I don’t care that my hands get dirty or that I’m not wearing gloves. Nana doesn’t wear them either unless she’s weeding. She likes talking to her plants, gently encouraging them to grow.
As she brushes against me to hand me a worn basket to toss the weeds in, I’m glad I took a quick shower in one of the smaller bathrooms while Harlow was on the phone because anyone would have smelled sex on me from the get-go. I can almost hear my heart beating against my ears, and I can’t help feeling like I’m a teen again, sent home early after another fight at school because some kid called me stupid.
When Nana finally speaks, it’s in Spanish, and I know better than to answer her in English. Do you like her, mijo?
“Si.” I don’t even hesitate. With Nana, I have nothing to hide though we don’t look at each as we speak. Suddenly, I’m running out of weeds to pull and I remind myself to slow down, knowing my actions are merely matching the beating of my heart. Panic mode.
Does it bother you that she’s still married?
She’s getting a divorce. It’s complicated. They have property. And from what I hear, it’s pretty expensive, probably in the millions.
I sound defensive, and I am. I hate that Harlow’s husband took advantage of her grief and filed for divorce. I hate that he continues to harass her even when she clearly bailed out of the state to get away from him and everything else. I don’t want to be her knight in shining armor, but I also don’t want to stand on the sidelines and watch her fall apart over her vengeful husband’s latest antics. Why can’t he leave her alone? She also has a gun which scares the crap out of me, but at the moment, I don’t know how to bring it up without giving away the fact that I was there the night she almost killed herself. I’m almost positive that had been her intention though I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong.
I can tell from the way Harlow carries herself that she’s someone important. Being a pediatric transplant surgeon can’t be small potatoes. She must have worked her ass off to get to that point in her career, and maybe that’s where she turned to when her marriage fell apart—her work—until she had no more work to turn to, and she got in her car and drove west, ending up, of all places, at the Pearl. I really don’t know. I’m just guessing because Harlow trusts no one.
Just be careful, mijo, Nana says as she starts to get up and I quickly stand up and help her to her feet. Remember, she’s only here for two weeks, and I don’t want your heart broken.
It won’t.
Her eyes narrow as she studies me and I don’t have to guess that she doesn’t believe me. I’m in full denial, that’s for sure, but I’ve just spent the night with the hottest, smartest woman I know and right now, I’m fried. Nana’s gaze moves from the top of my mussed up hair to the tips of my boots. I wonder if there’s a hickey I missed spotting in the rearview mirror and I absently scratch my neck.
“I called Father McGuire and dedicated Sunday Mass to your Mama,” she says.
“This Sunday? But her anniversary isn’t in three weeks.”
“Si, but I doubt you’ll be staying here that long, mijo. Not to mention, your Dad is going to go crazy up in Flagstaff by himself.”
I nod. She’s definitely right about that.
“You’re here early so we might as well celebrate Mass early, too, in case you have to go back to work sooner,” she continues.
“Okay,” I reply.
“Are you hungry? I made your favorite for lunch. It’s on the table.”
With Nana, everything she makes is my favorite, but I’ll take a guess. I’m also starving I can smell it. “Adobada?”
Nana’s lined face breaks into a broad grin as she cocks her head toward the house. “With sopapillas. Now go inside and eat up.”
I stifle a yawn, nodding. “Thank you, Nana. You know I love you more than anything, right?”
“Shut up and go inside, Dax,” she says, laughing when I kiss her on the cheek before she nudges me into the house. “And get some sleep. You look like something the cat dragged in.”
Chapter 17
Harlow
Dax doesn’t return until it’s almost nine, showered and dressed in a tight t-shirt and running pants that emphasize a very defined ass. Even though he has a key to the place, he knocks on the door, apologizing profusely for being late. He also brings me a dozen flowers. Long-stemmed red roses that remind me it’s been too long since someone gave me any flowers.
“I fell asleep and just woke up.” He hands me the bouquet, and for a few seconds, we do the awkward should-I-kiss-you-on-the-cheek-or-on-the-lips routine that probably plagues new lovers until he settles it with a kiss on the lips. It’s a welcome treat after an afternoon that would have been overtaken by work, worry over the Senator’s recommendation, and going through legal paperwork had I not left the Pearl to do some shopping.
I can’t believe that in just a few hours, I’ve already missed the taste of Dax’s lips on mine, the feel of his arms wrapped around me coupled with the smell of clean soap and that unique scent that’s guaranteed to melt me into a puddle right there and then. It’s based on more than 900,000 variations of the estimated 400 gene coding for the receptors in our noses. But right now, I’ll settle for man-smell.
Dax sets his duffel bag on the couch and unzips it. “I know it’s late, but I thought that maybe we could do movie night. Wi-Fi isn’t the best out here and so…”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
He pulls out a stack of DVD’s that range from total guy flicks like Reservoir Dogs, Transformers, Tombstone, and then a few chick flicks that he probably snagged from his sister’s DVD collection. Bridget Jones’ Diary, While You Were Sleeping, Say Anything, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Steel Magnolias.
“I should have called to ask if you’ve had anything to eat yet,” he says as he follows me to the kitchen.
“I haven’t, but I went to town to get some groceries and got a few other things.” I pull out two bottles from a reusable grocery bag. A Pinot Noir ’12 and Cabernet Sauvignon ’11. I’m acutely aware that the wine cellar in the Pearl is Dax’s and wonder if he’s noticed that an expensive bottle—of all the wines I had to open on what would have been my last night on earth—is missing. So I’m making up for it, or I’m trying to.
“Oh, good! You found the Black Mesa Winery. They have amazing local wines,” he says, grinning. “So which one would you like to try tonight?”
“Take your pick.” I set two wine glasses on the kitchen counter and a wine opener.
“I like the Cabernet, but it’s best with something from the grill, so maybe we can save that for later?” He picks up the Pinot Noir and peels the foil wrapper. “This one’s from 100 percent New Mexico grapes, similar to the one we went to the other day. Why don’t we try this one?”
“Sure.” I stand in front of the open refrigerator to see what will best go with the wine—or I try to—for I have no idea what foods go with Cabernet. Anna Maria took care of things like these when Jeff and I were still together.
I hate that I feel so out of my element, and it’s over something so simple, like deciding what dish to make that will go with a Cabernet. Deciding which suture to use during transplant surgery surely is a lot easier than this.
“You okay?” Dax asks as the cork pops and he deftly pours two glasses of wine, sets the bottle on the counter and stands behind me.
“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
He wraps his arms around my waist and nuzzles his face into my neck, his beard tickling my skin. “Because you’re looking too serious right now. Flustered, too.”
My stomach does its usual flip-flops, and my knees just about turn to jelly as Dax squeezes me against him and breathes in my hair. I feel myself clench, memories of our night together rushing forth and I know if he keeps at this, I’ll be begging him to fuck me on the dining table. But no, I tell m
yself. It’s movie night.
For some weird reason, I’m curious to see how we fare without sex. I’m also sore all over, in places I didn’t expect to be sore. My hips, my thighs, and… well, down there. I can’t even say it, as if saying the alternative words for vagina is so wrong though I loved hearing them when he said them last night, of how good it felt, and how tight. Oh, God, there I go again, my thoughts drifting, but they drift anyway.
I also hate condoms. I wish I could go, how do they call it, bareback. I know I’m free of any sexually transmitted diseases, considering I’ve gone through two annual gynecological exams before last night, almost two years since I’ve had sex. I should pull out the latest medical results from my folder, the one that I had Andrea do when I first volunteered to help out at her clinic. But then, that would be too presumptuous of me that he’d want to have sex with me without any protection. Besides, what about him? For someone as hot as Dax Drexel, just how many women has he slept with? Come to think of it, we’ve never talked about those things. What do people talk about on one-night stands, anyway? Surely nothing that has to do with the rates of transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and fungal infections that plague short-term relationships.
“You really are thinking quite hard about something.” Dax gives me one more squeeze, a gentle graze of his lips along my neck and lets me go. “Why don’t we see what you picked up from the store?”
One more second of him holding me like that and feeling his hard-on along my back and I’d have turned around and gone down on him. No sex, Harlow. No. Sex.
We end up preparing gourmet pizza. One is a blend of Thai chicken pizza with pre-cooked chicken pieces, with peanut sauce that Dax mixes with lemon and other spices, sprinkled with crushed peanuts on a piece of flatbread, and the second is a classic cheese pizza topped with whatever else we find on the refrigerator shelves on another.
Dax pulls out two thick comforters from one of the bedrooms and sets it on the couch in front of the flat screen TV. By the time we’re settled with our second glasses of wine and the fully cooked pizzas in front of us, the first movie starts to play. It’s Tombstone, and he knows the dialogue by heart. He makes me laugh with his love for Doc Holiday, and I find myself wondering what I did right in my life to deserve a moment like this. There’s no pressure, and no worries of the past and the future. There’s just us snuggled on the couch enjoying our wine and homemade pizzas with the new moon a sliver in the sky, and above the greenhouse before us, the sun-shaped skylight reveals a tapestry of stars.
I find myself daydreaming about us in New York doing the same thing, snuggled on the couch. Some nights we’d probably see a play or a musical, and during the summers, check out Shakespeare in the Park or stay at the Hamptons. Can we really go beyond this moment and take it all the way out into the real world? My world? Would we make it? But is that what I really want to return to when this, right here, is perfect just the way it is?
“The tv is over there,” Dax murmurs, and I realize I’m staring at him instead of the screen.
“It is?” My hand drifts lower, slipping inside the elastic of his running pants but Dax catches hold of my wrist and rests it over the comforters where he can see it.
“It’s movie night, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right.” I bury my face in his chest. God, he smells amazing it’s driving me crazy. “So no making out?”
Dax shakes his head, grinning. “Nope, just like your rule of no wild parties.”
I pout. I knew my decision was going to haunt me.
After we clean up and put everything away, we pick our next movie, Some Kind of Wonderful, and this time, we decide to play the DVD in the bedroom. There’s no drama to our movements; nothing is forced at all. Even standing side by side in front of the bathroom mirror as we brush our teeth feels so right it scares me. There’s a lot of flirting and gentle bumping of body parts going on. Dax is playful, and I love it. He seems to pull out that silly part of me I never knew I had.
By the time Mary Stuart-Masterson opens the movie with her character, a tomboy named Watts, beating on the drums, Dax and I are snuggled in bed, propped up with pillows we’ve kidnapped from the other rooms.
I can hear the beating of his heart as he wraps one arm around me and I drape my arms around his waist. We don’t talk as if talking would ruin the lighthearted mood we’re in. I’m also pretty much buzzed from the wine, and at the moment I don’t want sex and neither, it seems, does Dax. He just holds me next to him, intently watching a movie that came out a year before he was born.
*
I hear a gentle knocking on the door the next morning as I step out of the bathroom and find a young man standing outside. I panic at the sight of him, thinking him to be a courier with some paperwork from Jeff. Still, I force myself to go to the door, though I don’t open it.
He’s young, about Dax’s age, and clean-cut, with thick dark hair, and green eyes, and he’s wearing a checkered button-down shirt and jeans. I open the door halfway.
“Sorry to bother you, miss, but is Dax here, by any chance? I’m Gabe… well, Dr. Gabriel Vasquez. Family Practice over in town. Dax wanted me to drop something off for him, and his grandmother said I’d find him here. I’ve been trying to call and text him, but his phone must be turned off.”
“He’s still asleep. I can wake him up.”
“No! No!” His voice hushed as he hands me an envelope. “Can you just give it to him when he wakes up, please? I know it’s early, and I’m sorry if I scared you.”
I take it and turn it over. It has Vasquez Family Practice with an address in Taos. Then, remembering my manners and glad that I had just brushed my teeth with the intention of waking Dax with some morning sex, I open the door wider and hold out my hand.
“I’m Harlow, by the way. Harlow James.” I hold out my hand, and he grasps it firmly.
“Dr. James! You’re the doctor Dyami talked about. Very pleased to meet you.” His voice still hushed as if the Pearl is a tiny house and his voice carries. “I hope you both can make the barbecue over at our house this afternoon. Dyami will be there with Sarah and Benny.”
“I’ll tell Dax.”
His phone beeps then and he glances at it. “Oops! I gotta go. I’m in the office half-day today, but I hope to see you this afternoon, Dr. James.”
“Call me Harlow.”
“Call me Gabe. See you then? It starts at three.”
“I’ll ask Dax, but that’d be great.”
As I watch Gabe drive away, I can’t help but smile. The man’s enthusiasm is infectious, and I wonder if Dax told him about me, and if he did, what did he say? As for this barbecue, Dax never mentioned it. But we also didn’t get to talk much about anything but the two movies we saw last night, from what Doc Holiday died from (tuberculosis), and what Wyatt Earp’s wife was addicted to (laudanum), to the fate of the earrings at the end of Some Kind of Wonderful which bothered Dax more than anything else.
He’ll just be fixing cars again, he had protested, indignant as he fluffed up his pillows and lay back down. That was his college education! How can he throw away his future like that for a pair of earrings?
I’d like to think she did the practical thing and returned it in the morning, Dax.
He had chuckled then, kissing my forehead. You think so?
Yes, like right now, the most practical thing is to go to bed. Mr. Drexel, instead of worrying about a movie.
But we are in bed.
Smart ass. I had to giggle, but Dax was serious, his brow still furrowed as if still mulling the movie’s ending. I meant, go to bed.
Are those doctors’ orders?
Yup.
And what happens in the morning, Doctor James?
I had to think of the perfect answer. I was thinking of being your huckleberry.
He grinned. That sounds like a good idea.
It is, I had said, rolling away from him and feeling him spoon his body behind me. Now go to sleep or you won’t have anythin
g to look forward to in the morning.
A few minutes later, I felt him stir as his arm drew me tighter. And how can a simple pair of earrings cost the equivalent of a college education? Where’d he buy them in that little town? Harry Winston?
Apparently, it still bothered him.
But right now, the only thing that bothers me is what’s in the envelope that a doctor deemed necessary enough to hand-deliver so early in the morning?
“Morning.”
Dax’s voice startles me, and I turn around to see him walking towards me, though he stops when he spots Gabe’s car driving away.
“Oh, shit, he must have been trying to text me, but I turned off my phone,” he mutters as I hand him the envelope. He opens the flap and then pauses to glance at me before shrugging and pulling out a piece of folded paper.
“Is everything okay?” My curiosity is hitting the roof as I watch him. If it’s from a doctor, what could it be?
Dax scans the paper for a few moments before he hands it to me. “It’s just a bunch of numbers and figures that tell me what I already know, but it’s really for you. I know it’s presumptive of me, but…”
I recognize the test results right away, my face reddening. When I look up at Dax, he’s running his fingers through his hair, looking sheepish. “When that condom broke the other night, I…I didn’t want you to worry that I, you know, have, like the clap or anything.”
“It’s okay, Dax. I’m on the pill, remember?” I lie, hating that I feel like I have to, but then, I can’t have children, so why worry about it? Like Dax just said, there’s still the issue of disease and infection. “But while we’re on the subject of medical tests, I… I have the same thing for you.” I walk to the dining table and pull out an envelope from my leather briefcase sitting on one of the chairs. It’s the test I took a month ago at Andrea’s clinic, just before I started seeing patients. I hand it to him. “I had her throw in the usual tests for STD. Just in case.”
We stand in front of each other for a few moments as if not knowing how to proceed from here. Learning that Dax had gone to have himself tested yesterday makes the butterflies in my belly flutter, and then there’s that area between my legs. God, why can’t I even say it?