“No, and I’ve been rethinking it, Carl, and rethinking again. I want more, but I want this, too.” She let him refill her wine glass. “I love you, Carl, and you know it. I know I’m not the kind of woman you really want, but I’m here any time you want me. Maybe that’s wrong, but it’s what it is.”
“Baby, I don’t want to hurt you, and I want to be fair, but I’m in no position to take up a relationship of the sort you want right now. I need the sexual release, and you are a very sexy woman, but I have too many responsibilities right now to take on another.”
“I know, sweetie. Let’s just forget I brought it up and enjoy our evening.” Ivy blinked back tears again and drank more wine. Wine always seemed to help her get over her disappointments where Carl was concerned. “I promise I won’t bring it up again.”
2
Two weeks after their return from the Apache Mountain Resort, Ivy stood in the small galley kitchen of her apartment, mixing some slaw to go with her pulled pork dinner.
Carl would be joining her soon, and she wanted to have everything ready when he arrived. Ivy dumped fries from the basket of the deep fryer on the counter.
This would be his last visit before going out of town again, and Ivy wanted everything to be perfect. They hadn’t spoken much since their return from that trip, and it had worried her some. Then he’d messaged her on the computer, and she’d invited him for dinner. It had relieved Ivy when he’d happily accepted her invitation.
He’s probably just horny. He needs to empty his cock before going out on the road again.
Her yellow tabby, Cheshire, twined between her feet, begging for dropped tidbits.
“Get out of here, you mooch. This is slaw, and you don’t like it.” The cat gave her a surly yowl but sauntered into the living room to take up his place on the couch. “There’ll be pork later,” Ivy assured him.
The doorbell rang, and Cheshire leaped from the couch and ran for the bedroom. “What a brave kitty you are,” she said, chastising the cat. “I’m getting a dog.” Ivy wiped her hands on a dishtowel and walked to the door.
“Hi, sweetie,” she greeted Carl with a deep kiss.
“Smells good in here, baby. What you cookin’?” He handed her a paper sack from The Wine Seller. She opened it and brought out a bottle of Riesling.
“Pulled pork and slaw,” Ivy told him, “and blackberry cobbler with ice cream for dessert.”
“You know what I like, baby, but I was hoping for a little more for dessert.” He slapped her behind. “How’s the bruise?”
“All better. It’s just a big tender yellow spot now.”
Carl squeezed her behind. “I’ll kiss it and make it all better after dinner.”
“I’m sure you will,” she laughed. “When are you leaving and where to this time?”
“In the morning around five. Have to be in Tulsa day after for a real estate conference.”
“Cutting it close, aren’t you? You should have gone today.”
“Then I would have missed this fine dinner and the even finer dessert.” He pinched her breast.
“Are you buying, selling, speaking, or all of it?” she asked as she put white china plates on the round oak table.
“I’m speaking on the importance of studying comps in the market and looking at a few places around the campus for rental properties.” Carl sat in one of the sturdy oak chairs. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me on this trip.”
Ivy looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. He’d never invited her to join him on one of his trips before, though she’d brought it up several times in the past, pointing out that she had no constraints on her time and was free to travel. He’d always brushed her off with excuses of this meeting or that.
This is a damned trick. He’s springing it on me last-minute like this, thinking I’ll say no because of Cheshire. Then I can’t say he’s never asked me to go with him.
“I’d love to, Carl.” She watched his face for surprise. “I’ll have to pack a bag real quick and call my sister about coming over to feed and water Cheshire, but I’d love to.” She carried the bowl from the crockpot with the pork to the table and returned to the kitchen for the slaw and the buns. “Do you want to pick me up here in the morning or spend the night?”
“I thought I’d take you home with me tonight and leave from there in the morning.” He poured the sweet white wine into glasses from the cabinet by the table and handed her one. “I know it’s last-minute, but I really wanted to spend some time with you, Ivy, and I’m going to be coming right back here after the conference. Most of my trips are usually far longer,” he said, sipping the wine, “so I thought this would finally be a good opportunity to see how we traveled together.”
“Sounds good to me. I can throw a bag together after dinner. How long will we be gone?”
“Not more than a week. There will be one semi-formal cocktail thing, but business casual for the most part. Are you alright for that?” He fixed himself a sandwich and forked up some fries from the bowl. “This looks and smells great, baby. I know it’s going to taste great too. So do you have the wardrobe for a week of boring conferences and boring cocktail parties?”
“I’m fine so long as there’s an iron in the room so I can press the wrinkles from my clothes,” Ivy said, giddy with anticipation. Mentally she went through her closet. A couple of skirts, jackets, slacks, and tanks should get her by for a week just fine.
Ivy had purchased most of her wardrobe so it could be combined to make up multiple outfits that would pass for business casual. Her black velvet dress would work for a cocktail party, and her black flats would do with it all. Jeans for travel, her swimsuit, and a long sleep shirt should round things out. By the time they’d finished their meal, Ivy had her mental packing completed.
“We’ll be staying at the Clarion,” Carl said, and Ivy thought he was trying to impress her with the fancy accommodations. “I’m sure there will be an iron available, or you can use the valet services.” Carl began picking up the dishes and carrying them into the tiny but neat and tidy kitchen. “What do you want me to do with the leftovers?”
“There are containers with lids in the cabinet over the stove. Put the pork in one and throw it in the freezer along with the fries. The little bit of slaw can go down the disposal. If all the pork doesn’t fit in the container, put some of it down for Cheshire. He loves pulled pork.”
Ivy called her sister on her way into her bedroom and made arrangements for Carrie to check on the cat every few days, refill his food and water dishes, and clean out his litter box. Cheshire tended to be picky about his box and would throw a yowling fit if he thought it needed to be cleaned.
Luckily cats are solitary creatures that can amuse themselves and use a litter box. In her bedroom, Ivy pulled out the suitcase she’d just emptied from her trip to the resort and packed it with all the items she’d made a mental note of during dinner.
Ivy didn’t think she’d ever packed as quickly in her life. Luckily most of the toiletries were still in her overnight bag, and all she had to replace were her toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and weekly med case. She made sure that was topped off and threw in the full bottles of her most essential.
The only meds I needed to worry about when I was younger were aspirin and birth control. Now there are blood pressure, cholesterol, and bullshit aches and pains. Getting old is a bitch. I’d better not forget my damned phone charger, either. What did the world do before cell phones? We had quiet time in the car, that’s what. The only time we had to be worried about being bothered by pesky relatives or salesmen was at home. Now the cell phone has left us open to being pestered in our quietest moments. It is nice to have in case of a flat, though.
Ivy came from the bedroom, laden with her bags, and dropped them by the door. “Are you ready for some cobbler and ice cream?”
“Sounds good to me, baby. Did you get everything? Are you taking your laptop?”
“It’s in my bag along with the cords, my phone ch
arger, and my meds. I think I have it all.”
“Did you bring your swimsuit? They have a nice indoor pool and a hot tub at the Clarion.”
“Got it.” Ivy dipped two heaping scoops of vanilla ice cream onto the warm blackberry cobbler and carried the bowls to the table. “I’ll have another glass of wine with this. I’m not driving. Do you want coffee?”
“No, the ice cream is good enough. You’re a great cook, baby.”
“Just simple country fare, nothing special.”
“It’s special to me because I didn’t have to cook it, and I’m not eating it in some lonesome restaurant.” He dug into his dish with pleasure. “So good.”
After cleaning up the dessert dishes and popping the cobbler into the freezer, they carried Ivy’s bags to Carl’s Lexus and drove to his condo in Paradise Valley. Ivy was impressed, but she did her best not to let it show.
His luxury automobile made her nearly twenty-year-old sedan look like a piece of crap, and his condo made her efficiency apartment built sometime in the early eighties look like a slum.
I know he thinks I’m after him for his money. He has to believe that. Why wouldn’t he? I’m poor and on a meager fixed income. He’s a retired doctor and a successful real estate investor. What do I have to offer him besides what’s between my legs and an adventurous imagination? I know he could do better than me in his own social circles. Maybe high-class women don’t give it up as easily as classless, poor country trash like me. But I’m not classless.
I did the whole big money, high dollar country club thing back years ago when I was in retail. I went to those parties with lines of coke on the glass-topped coffee tables and Gull-wings and Porsches in the driveways. Been there, done that, remember the hangovers. It was fun at the moment, but those people were fake and stupid. They had their big houses and fancy cars but needed drugs and counterfeit friends to prop them up and make them feel important. I went to those parties in clothes from the Dress Barn, but I looked as good as they did, and I could carry on conversations with any of them. Screw this. I’m just as good as he is, and if he can’t see that it’s his loss, not mine.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Carl asked when she didn’t open her door after they’d parked in the garage. “Do you need both bags?”
“No, just the small one if these clothes are alright to travel in tomorrow.” She looked down at her simple denim leggings and cotton tank top.
“You should wear what you feel comfortable in. You look great to me, baby.”
Carl got out and walked around to open the door for her. Ivy appreciated that he still practiced these small civilities. Some women claimed real gentlemen didn’t exist anymore, but Dr. Carl Anderson was a real gentleman who still opened doors and held a chair for a woman. Ivy never found it sexist or demeaning. She appreciated it. Maybe she was just an old-fashioned hick after all.
Ivy walked into an immaculate kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops, and Italian marble floors. A black iron pot rack hung over a center island full of bright stainless-steel pots and pans. The glass lids sat atop the rack. Red and white gingham curtains hung at the windows, giving the room a distinctly country appeal. It would be a joy to cook in a kitchen like this.
Carl led Ivy through the kitchen, past a wide stairway, and into a living room equally charming. Western art hung on the walls above over-stuffed leather-upholstered furniture adorned with brass studs. A functional fireplace upon one wall sported a heavy oak mantel and black iron grates.
The taxidermy head of a white buffalo looked down at her from above the mantel. A large ceiling fan spun lazily over the center of the room, circulating the air. Beautiful antique hurricane lamps adorned oak end tables, and a bronze statue of a Pony Express rider sat in the center of the matching coffee table. The largest grandfather clock Ivy had ever seen ticked on another wall. Ivy had a difficult time taking it all in.
They passed a room filled by an ornate desk and bookshelves packed with leather-bound books. Ivy presumed it to be Carl’s home office. The blue glow of a computer screen illuminated the room.
At the end of the hall, Carl led her into a bedroom that transported Ivy back a hundred years in time. A massive iron four-poster bed sat in the center of one wall. Across from the bed stood an eight-foot-tall Victorian wardrobe with acid-etched mirrors set into the doors.
Oval braided rugs lay on the marble floors on either side of the big bed—more hurricane lamps with bright green cut-glass shades set upon the oak nightstands. An oak washstand with a large, ornately painted pitcher and bowl stood next to the window hung with floor-to-ceiling lace sheers flanked by rich red velvet drapes, matching the gold tasseled-bedspread and pillow shams.
“Carl, this is beautiful. Did you decorate it yourself?”
Ivy peeked into the adjoining bath decorated with oval miniature portraits, lace curtains, and a large porcelain clock between the double sinks. More oval rugs lay before the tub and sink, and rich Egyptian-cotton towels hung from the black iron towel bars. The rooms were breathtaking.
“Don’t you think a man can decorate?” Carl chuckled, but Ivy could tell he appreciated her admiration of his beautiful home. “You should see the playroom upstairs.”
Ivy raised an eyebrow. “Not like Christian Grey’s playroom, I hope.”
“No,” he laughed, “strictly a game room with a billiard table, a felt-topped Faro table, and an old bar I rescued from a saloon in Bisbee that was being torn down. It dates back to the days of the Earp brothers, and the boys might have bellied up to it back in the day.”
“I can’t wait to see it. I bet it’s amazing. How many rooms are upstairs?”
“Just the playroom and a bath. It’s the room over the garage. There are two bedrooms down here, but I use one for an office. It has a Murphy-bed if I have company who need a place to stay.”
“Nice. Keeps the freeloading relatives away if they think you only have one bedroom,” Ivy laughed, still taking in the ornate details of the artwork in the rooms.
Ivy knew her antiques, and Carl had thousands of dollars in decor displayed here. The porcelain pitcher and bowl might have looked like a reproduction to an untrained eye, but the delicate, nearly translucent quality told Ivy it was of actual eighteenth or early nineteenth century German manufacture with ground alabaster mixed with the clay and fired to give a fine translucent glass-like quality. The rich colors of the painted scenes attested to fine hands in a precision artisan’s workshop.
“Where did you find all these things, Carl? It’s amazing.” The grandfather clock chimed a deep, booming gong from the living room. “That clock must have cost a small fortune. I’ve never seen one that big.”
“The clock came from an auction in Austin. It used to stand in the Texas statehouse. It dates back to the beginning of the Republic and came from Germany. It didn’t cost as much as that pitcher and bowl if you can believe that. I got that from an auction at the Vanderbilt Mansion.”
Ivy touched the delicate bowl with reverence. “I can believe that. It’s German, too, right?”
“You do know your antiques,” Carl said with a raised eyebrow. “Did you see the miniatures in the bathroom?”
“Yes, they’re real French miniatures and not reproductions. I’d guess late eighteenth century.”
“You’d be correct. They came from a house in the Garden District in New Orleans. It was an old French family that came over after the Revolution. The one in France, not the one here.”
“Did the porcelain clock in there come from the same place?”
“Yes, I wanted to keep them together. You certainly do know your antiques.”
“I had a house full of them once. None as pricy as these, but I’ve done some studying on the subject for my books.” She smiled. “I keep up my subscription to Country Living.”
“I know you do. Would you care to join me in the bed? It’s not old. I had it custom made by a welder friend of mine to fit my California king mattress.”
&
nbsp; “They didn’t make beds nearly this big back in the day. They could have fit a family of five or six in a bed this big,” Ivy laughed and dropped onto the firm pillow-topped mattress. “Feels comfy.” She kicked off her shoes and fell back onto the pillows while Carl walked over and switched off the light. She wiggled out of her pants, stripped off her tank top, and pulled back the bedspread and sheet. “Join me?” she teased in the glow of the nightlight from the bathroom.
3
They rose early, showered off the sweat residue from their lovemaking the night before, and dressed. The Lexus pulled out of the drive promptly at five. A coffee stop at the first McDonald’s drive-thru was the only interruption of the morning as they made their way to the I-17 north out of the Valley of the Sun toward the I-40 at Flagstaff. That would take them all the way into Oklahoma City, where they’d change to the I-44 North to Tulsa.
It would be a long day’s drive, but with good weather and no traffic delays, they could make it easily before midnight.
“I don’t know why you don’t simply fly to these things,” Ivy said as the car made its transition onto the I-40 and the morning sun flashed into her face. She lowered the visor to shield her eyes from the blinding glare.
“I enjoy the solitude of driving, and you don’t get this scenery from a plane.” Ivy had already heard these explanations before. “Having the car gives me more latitude. If I flew to Tulsa and then decided I wanted to take my girl on up to Branson for a few days, I’d be shit out of luck.” He looked over at her and grinned.
“Cheshire would kill me if I left him to my sister’s tender mercies for an extended trip to Branson.” Ivy gave him a nervous chuckle. “If you wanted to visit Bass Pro Shop, there’s one in Mesa now, or are you a closet Donnie and Marie fan?”
“I’m just saying the car gives me more flexibility in my schedule. I like to scout the real estate possibilities when I travel, and rental cars are a pain in the ass. Having my own car is more convenient.” He pulled off the highway and into a truck stop to fill the tank. “Why don’t you run in and take a pee while I fill up. We won’t be stopping again until we hit New Mexico.”
Promises: Do You Know Where the Poison Toadstools Crow? Page 2