“This is Plan B. Remember? If you didn’t like me, I was going to win you over with my boat?” he said.
His words hit her like a gut punch.
“Tom. I do like you. I ... I like you very much. What happened at the police station wasn’t personal.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. I mean, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It was a blind reaction to your being a ... a ...”
“Mortician? Undertaker?” He didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by her inability to accept his profession. In fact, He was teasing her about it.
“Well, yes,” she said, bewildered by his behavior. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I let myself react without considering ... How sorry I am that I hurt you.”
“Sure you can. But let me show you my boat first.” He had her by the hand and was pulling her down the planks that led to the docks.
“You don’t have to do this, you know. Having a boat isn’t going to change the way I feel about you,” she said, trotting along behind him to keep up with his long, hurried strides.
“You mean, I don’t stand a chance—ever? No matter what?” he asked, coming to a sudden halt.
She didn’t see the expression on his face. She’d collided nose first with his chest and was busy trying to right herself and answer him at the same time. If she had seen his face, she would have seen the glint of determination in his eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw and given up then and there.
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“I do have a chance, then,” he concluded.
She stood back and saw that his eyes were filled with laughter and what could only be described as supreme confidence. It was baffling. It shook her own confidence to its core. He was a man with a plan. And she was the nucleus around which he’d designed his ambitions.
“There might be a chance for us,” she said carefully.
A shockingly cocky grin quivered across his lips. He turned and began to walk toward the end of the pier again, slowly but still with a tight grip on her hand.
“It’s more than just might or maybe, Sydney,” he said without a trace of humor. “I admit I had my doubts. I figured it was over the minute you found out I was a mortician. But that was before this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?” She let him lead her farther down the pier, wondering what had happened to furnish him with so much assurance. She’d obviously missed something.
“You were confused.”
“I’m still confused. How does that change anything?”
“It changes our future from an absolute impossibility to a conceivable possibility,” he said, guiding her onto a four-foot walkway between two large sail craft. “Your confusion is an open invitation for me to persuade you to start thinking my way.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, responding to the challenge he was presenting her. “And what exactly is your way of thinking?”
His gaze captured hers and held it fast, proving the seriousness of what he was about to say.
“We belong together,” he stated firmly, leaving no room for an if, and, or but. “What do you think of her?” he asked abruptly, sweeping a hand out over the boat on their right before she had time to argue.
In a state of denial—spiked heavily with yearning—she watched him step down onto the deck of the boat. He turned to help her, holding his arms out expectantly, seeming to know that she wouldn’t run, that she’d leap into his arms anytime he asked her to.
It was true, of course. As much as she wanted to feel in control of the situation, she knew in that instant that she wasn’t in control of anything—her mind, her heart, the circumstances. She was a willing victim of the moment, a fatality to a power far greater than any she possessed ... a casualty of love. She stood on the dock and looked at Tom, acknowledging in her heart that she loved him more than anything else in the world.
There were no bells, no firecrackers. Nothing was as she had expected it to be. After all the years of wanting and wishing for love, all she felt was a bittersweet soreness in her chest that was deeper and truer than anything she’d ever felt before.
Unable to disappoint him, she placed her hands on his shoulders and allowed herself to be lifted, then lowered to the deck beside him.
The double-mast schooner, with its gleaming white planks, varnished oak trim, and polished brass, was obviously well loved and cared for. It was a beautiful vessel. One Sydney normally would have gotten extremely enthusiastic over. But she wasn’t looking at the sleek, lean lines of the hull and the height of the masts and imagining herself sailing with the wind in her face.
She was watching the strange look in Tom’s eyes. The tenacity she saw played with the muscles of her stomach; the possessiveness made her throat feel tight. But the tenderness and wonder left her heart fearless and her pulse racing.
“Want a tour?” he asked, his gaze taking a leisurely trip along the planes of her face, resting briefly on her mouth, and then detouring south to her breasts.
“Sure.” The fluttering in her chest was making her dizzy.
It was all there—the stern, the bow, the halyard, the moon, the end of the sunset, and the stars as they began to glitter and glow in the dark. He told her about the depth sounder and the direction indicator, and she tried to appear interested. What she heard was the lapping of the water, an occasional gull overhead, and the ruckus her heart was making.
“Tom, it’s beautiful. It really is,” she said, sliding a hand over the smooth oak wheel. “I’m envious.”
“She sails better than she looks.” He grinned and leaned back against the wheel. “If you’re still here in the morning, we can take her out. Go over to one of the islands and spend the day maybe.”
“That sounds like another bribe.”
“You know it, sweetheart,” he said, reaching out to pull her to him. She stood between his legs with her hands braced on his shoulders, his at her hips, and wondered if a man’s touch would ever feel as splendid to her.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, relieved beyond belief to have her in his arms once more. “I spent twelve hours with you, and it was as if I’d known you all my life. When you left, I felt ... lost.”
She nodded her understanding, recalling her own sense of disorientation and loss—recalling, too, her reason for leaving.
When he was near her, it was easy to forget what he did for a living. He was too handsome and laughed far too easily to be a mortician, in her book. He was gentle and compassionate, hardly the traits of a man who performed such cold, heartless tasks. Still ...
“I hear your audit went well,” she said, changing the subject, feeling uneasy once again.
He groaned and lowered his head. But when he looked up again, he was laughing at her. “You’re going to follow your head and not your heart, huh?”
“Tom, I ...” She had to stop. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. She wasn’t even too sure of what she was feeling.
“That’s okay,” he said, standing, keeping one arm firmly locked around her waist. He wasn’t worried. He had his foot in the door, and it was only a matter of time and patience and loving her to distraction before she’d relent and let him into her heart. “I’d rather talk about those conditions and expectations you have about love, but we may as well get this business ... out of the way. Come see what Rex Swann bought us for dinner. We’ll get the talking and eating over with and take our time with dessert.”
He smiled at her lecherously and made her laugh. She’d almost forgotten how good he was at that, making her laugh when she least wanted to.
He let her descend first into the well-lit cabin below. The steps were tricky in her pumps, but the trek was well worth it. As clean, elegant, and functional as the vessel was topside, the cabin of the ...
“I forgot to look at the name,” she said, mildly disgruntled. “You can tell a lot about a man by what he names his boat, you know.”
He thought her remark over for a second and then agreed. “In th
is case you’re right. Her name’s The Here’n Now—which is a pretty good title for my philosophy on life too.”
“The Here’n Now,” she repeated, saying the name as one word the way Tom had. “You don’t believe in God and heaven and hell and all that?”
“Sure I do,” he said, bending over the small refrigerator to remove a bowl of tossed green salad and a bottle of white wine. “But it’s the here and now that really counts. If getting into heaven hinges on living the best life you possibly can, then this is when you live it—right here, right now. You can’t keep worrying about all the mistakes you’ve made in the past; they’re done, you’ve made them. But you can feel regret and vow to do better—right here, right now. And there’s no sense fussing about the mistakes you’ll make tomorrow, because—” he hesitated, watching her closely as he finished his sentence, “because there’s no guarantee on tomorrow. All you’ve got for sure is the here and now.” He opened the wine with a loud pop. “I figure if you do your best with every here and now you get, you end up with a pretty decent life behind you in the end—and smooth sailing after that, so to speak.”
He grinned at her as he handed her a glass of wine and continued with his dinner preparations. She wandered the small confines of the cabin. She didn’t get far. The sleeping quarters, along with the compact bathroom, small galley, and eating area, didn’t leave much room for nervous wandering.
“I suppose that in your business you’d have to give that sort of thing a lot of thought,” she said, pondering a small corkboard where a variety of pictures of friends and family were displayed. “God and heaven and how you live your life, I mean.”
“Doesn’t everyone? Haven’t you?”
She glanced in his direction; he was watching her.
“I avoid thinking about it,” she said, slipping into one of the boothlike seats at the table. “When I think of the future, I don’t see myself any older than I am at the moment. I don’t think of ... of growing old or of ... dying. My future is infinite. I don’t see an end to it.”
Tom nodded, thinking that she was in for a big surprise someday, but liking her way of thinking nonetheless.
“But you don’t live in the future, and you’re not plagued by your past,” he said, knowing her well enough to speculate. “So you live in the present too.”
“Pretty much. But I plan very carefully for the future because I know it’s coming. If I thought this was the last moment I had on earth, I’d be too afraid to take my next breath.”
“And how do you see this never-ending future of yours?”
She shrugged. She couldn’t tell him that he was in her picture of the future. She couldn’t tell him about the children on the beach or the contentment and happiness she saw for them all. That was her dream of the future, how she hoped it would be. But her experience told her that the future didn’t always transpire as she’d envisioned it.
She shrugged again as she answered, “The way it is now, I guess.”
“What?” He dropped the salad tongs into the bowl of vegetables and gave her his complete attention. He braced himself on the counter with an arm and a hip and stared at her in suspicion. “Are you telling me that you don’t see changes in your life? Ever?”
“No. But—”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” he broke in. He took on an expression that she was well acquainted with, a tightness in his features that signaled his efforts to control his emotions. Her heart began to skip beats erratically as she recognized the tension and excitement he was battling to contain as he spoke to her. “Because I’ve got news for you, Sydney. Your life is going to change in a big way, real soon.”
Both wary and amused at his presumptuousness, she smiled. She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. Nor could she hide the way it made her feel. She wanted a change in her life, and she wanted it to be him.
“You keep looking at me that way, and this talk is over,” he said, pushing away from the counter and taking the seat opposite her. He took her hand in his and caressed each finger in a slow and surprisingly intimate fashion. “I know you’re worried and I know you have reservations about us, but I don’t. I haven’t since the moment I laid eyes on you. So, if you need to talk, talk. I’ll answer any questions you have, tell you anything you want to know. But do it now, Sydney, because I want you. And once I make you mine, I won’t ever let you go.”
She heard herself swallow. Those were the words her heart wanted to hear. He was the man she’d spent her life looking for. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to worry and fret over something as wonderful as loving and being loved. She didn’t want anything but to wallow in the knowledge of his emotions, to relish the warmth in her chest and the excitement deep in her belly. But how often did one get what one truly wanted in life?
“Aw, Tom,” she lamented. “Can’t you see this isn’t going to work? It might for a while, sure. While it’s new and we can’t keep our hands off each other and we’re breathing hard and it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole world out there waiting for us to rejoin it.” She paused to take a second breath. “But what happens then? What happens when the new wears off and we want to face the world together? Are you going to want to take me—screaming and wailing—to the Mortician’s Annual Fourth of July Picnic? To undertaker conventions? Am I supposed to pretend that I don’t know what you do, so that every time I wonder where you are or who you’re with, I won’t black out or tear out a chunk of my hair?”
“Sydney.”
“No. Let me finish.” She stood, feeling the need to move. She felt as if she were about to burst from the nervous tension and dejection inside her. “Do you know that I blacked out at that hospital you took me to? I don’t remember anything past those two metal doors. Not the jokes or the doctor or the X rays ... not even you. If we stay together, I’d be blinking in and out of reality every time I asked you something as simple as how your day went.”
“Not if you knew what my day was really like,” he said, turning to watch her pace the small confines of the cabin. “I’m just an ordinary businessman. I have an office, secretary, everything. The funeral homes run themselves. I have very little to do with them anymore.”
“But you’re a mortician.”
“What’s that?” he asked. “You’ve got it in your head that being a mortician hasn’t changed in the past two hundred years. But it’s just like every other profession. It’s all specialized now. There are technicians, hairdressers, makeup artists, funeral directors, PR people, accountants. You name it, we got it. It’s a family business that I inherited from my father. I go to the office every day and push papers around on my desk. That’s it.”
“Where is your office?” she asked, as if it might be a factor worthy of consideration.
He grimaced. “Right now, it’s downtown at the original parlor. But I could always move to a regular office building,” he added quickly. “Would that help?”
“I don’t want to turn your whole world upside down,” she said, throwing her hands up in despair. “It wouldn’t be fair. I’d feel worse than I do now.”
She picked up a pretty pink conch about the size of her fist and turned it over and over in her hands without seeing it. It was hard to appreciate beauty when one’s life seemed dismally futile, when one’s happiness was in sight but beyond one’s reach.
She heard Tom’s movements and didn’t reject his touch when he slipped his arms around her from behind. In fact, she sighed and allowed herself to relax and take comfort in the strength and solidity of his body. He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck, and she permitted herself the luxury of wishing he’d do it again.
“It’s too late to worry about turning my life upside down, Sydney,” he murmured near her ear. “You’ve managed to spin it around so many times, I can’t tell which end is up, anyway.”
He turned her in his arms, but when she wouldn’t look at him, he placed two loving fingers beneath her chin and forced her gaze to meet h
is.
“All I know for sure anymore is that I love you, Sydney. For two weeks I tried to talk myself out of the way I was feeling. I told myself it was hopeless, that you’d never accept me because of my profession. I told myself you weren’t worth getting all bent out of shape over. I told myself it was an infatuation, that it wasn’t anything an hour or two in bed with you couldn’t cure. I told myself that it was for the best, that we were never meant to be together. But I don’t lie very well. I didn’t believe any of it.”
A soft laugh escaped him, and he smiled. He touched her cheek with fingers that were cherishing and filled with the awe he felt inside.
“The battle was over before it was fought,” he said. “I pictured my life without you and saw nothing. I couldn’t even remember what it was like the day before I met you.” She stood mesmerized, hardly breathing, as he spoke and played with the soft blond curls at her temple. “I felt ... immobilized. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t move forward. And every moment without you was empty.”
“I know,” she uttered, her throat tight around her vocal cords. She knew the empty feeling. She knew the hopelessness that fought with the certainty in her heart. She knew the need of her soul to be with its mate. She knew the ache of her body to be touched, to be one with the man who communicated faith, passion, and belonging to her innermost being.
His kiss was like a field of spring flowers—light, airy, and full of promise. It filled her senses with the warmth of sunshine and the sweet misery of anticipation. Her spirit frolicked in his embrace, and her body grew sensuous and languid against the earthy planes of his body.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmured, eyes closed, thoughts spinning. “It’ll only complicate things between us.”
“Things between us are already complicated.” He brushed his lower lip against hers seductively. “This’ll help you decide whether or not it’s worth fighting for.”
It was a lame excuse to have sex with someone, but Sydney didn’t need a great deal of justification to do what felt natural and genuine to her.
Asking for Trouble Page 11