Save The Date Part 23

Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and her chest was lightly freckled, her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s flushed pink. She had a narrow waist that belled out to full hips and a delicious, rounded b.u.t.t.

Cara didn't have the taut, angular physique of Zoey, who spent most of her waking hours at the gym, and the rest of them obsessively weighing herself and measuring every morsel, every calorie of food she ingested.

This was a woman's body, the body of somebody with an appet.i.te for the good things in life. This was a body he could spend a long time exploring.

Only now, her lips were slightly blue, and her skin was pebbled with goose b.u.mps. And those shivers he'd felt, when he'd pressed himself urgently against her?

"Are you cold?"

"G-G-G-G.o.d y-e-s-s-s."

30.

"What about the dogs?" Cara asked, as he pulled her down the hallway, toward the bedroom. She was glad he had his back to her, convinced her frostbitten b.u.t.t was probably permanently imprinted with the Frigidaire logo.

"They're on their own." Jack plopped down on the edge of her bed, unknotting the laces of his work boots, kicking one free, then the other. He pulled her down beside him.

Suddenly shy about her state of undress, she clutched for the quilt draped over the foot of the bed, pulling it across her exposed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Maybe we should check on them. They're awfully quiet out there. I hope Poppy isn't showing Shaz how to dig up my peonies."

He yanked the quilt off. "I'll buy you a carload of peonies. Later."

Cara crossed her arms across her exposed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Was she actually going to go through with this? She hadn't been with a man since leaving Leo, had only slept with two other men before marrying Leo. And what about birth control?

Too late. Jack scooted backward onto the pile of pillows at the head of her bed, tugging at her hand. "C'mere."

She was stretched out beside him. He turned toward her, gave her a lazy smile. He ran his hands down her side, all the way down, and then back up. One hand slid between her thighs and paused there. Cara gripped his shoulders.

"Um, Jack?"

His tongue was making slow, excruciating circles around her nipple. Her body curled into his as he stroked and nipped and kissed, and she knew she could lose her mind-and self-control-any minute now.

"Hmm?"

He rolled away from her, just a few inches. "Don't worry. I've got something in my pocket."

Cara looked down. "So I see."

"Dirty girl." He flopped onto his back, waiting.

She hesitated only a moment. Propping herself up on one elbow, she pressed the flat of her hand lightly against the bulge of his jeans. "Here?"

He was touching her again, his gaze locked with hers.

Cara worked the metal zipper down half an inch at a time, stroking as she did so. "Here?" she whispered.

"You're getting warm."

Cara laughed. "You don't even know...."

She had the zipper all the way down now, and could see the waistband of his gray knit briefs, the erection straining against it. She let her fingertips trail across him.

"Warmer."

Cara rolled onto her knees and grasped his jeans and the waistband of the briefs with both hands, sliding them lower. He stuck one leg between hers, so that she was directly over him. He ran his hands down her flank, and then around, and upward, suckling one breast, and then the other.

She nearly lost her concentration. The jeans were down around his hips now, and he thoughtfully thrust his hips upward, off the bed, so that she could tug them down, past his thighs. As her hands explored all the possible hiding spots for what she was seeking, as well as potential pleasure points, she felt the small square packet in his right front pocket.

She took her right foot, swung it over his leg and down, sliding the jeans all the way to his ankles.

Cara sat up with the jeans in hands, reached in, and extracted the foil-wrapped condom. "Got it," she exclaimed.

"You win," Jack said, reaching for her.

If she'd been cold standing in front of the Frigidaire, she was on fire now. At some point, Jack dragged a second box fan into the bedroom, placed it on a chair, and angled it toward the bed. The fan blades whirred ineffectively, but at least, she thought, remembering her open windows, they would have prevented anybody on the sidewalk below from hearing what was going on up here.

Their lovemaking started out slowly. She wanted him badly, but was too shy to tell him how badly. But Jack Finnerty seemed to know what she wanted, and what she needed. Eventually, whatever inhibitions she'd initially felt disappeared. She lost herself in the joy of pleasing him and letting him please her.

"You're beautiful, you know that?" He was lying on his side, facing her, their bodies slicked with s.e.x and sweat.

"I'm a hot mess and we both know it," Cara retorted. "I can't believe I let you take me to bed as filthy as I was. And I really can't believe I let you into my bed as filthy as you were!"

"Who took who to bed? You were the one who asked me what I liked?"

"I was referring to dinner options," she said, trying in vain to sound prim.

"So now I know. You like your men dirty. And you like your s.e.x dirty." Jack chuckled as he leaned forward and gave her a lingering kiss.

"No. Really. This was lovely. But now, I have got to have a shower." Cara sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for the quilt to wrap around herself.

He sat up too, in time to grab the edge of the quilt and pull it away from her.

Cara crossed her arms over her bare chest, then shrugged. They'd spent the last hour and a half naked. He'd explored every inch of her body, and she his. It was too late to play shy.

"Wait up," he said, standing. "I could use a shower myself. No use in wasting water." He gave her a hopeful grin.

She opened her bathroom door and gestured inside. The room was tiled in pale pink, with a burgundy tile border. There was a pink toilet, a pink sink, and the smallest pink bathtub he'd ever seen-and he'd seen a lot of bathtubs in his job.

"Is that a Barbie dream tub?" he asked, pushing aside the flowered shower curtain to look down at it. It was barely big enough for one adult, let alone two.

Cara stepped around him, turned on the faucets, and stepped in. "Don't worry, I'll save you some hot water."

She emerged from the shower wrapped in a thick white terry bath sheet, with her damp hair wrapped in another towel. He was standing, bemused, and st.i.tch-stark naked, leaning against the doorway outside the bathroom.

Jack Finnerty had to be the least inhibited man she'd ever met, Cara decided. She handed him a clean towel and a washcloth. "Your turn. Listen, while you're in the shower, I'm going to run to the store for a couple things."

"More condoms?" He waggled his eyebrows in a comic leer. "Whipped cream?"

"Steak," she said. "And a couple baking potatoes. Where are your clothes?"

He hooked a finger inside the edge of her towel and pulled her toward him. Good G.o.d, he was already aroused again.

"Why, you wanna hide 'em so you can keep me here as your love slave?"

"Dream on." She kissed his nose. "I'll throw 'em in the wash. Rapid cycle. You don't want to put on those grubby jeans again after a shower, right?"

"Not really. It would be great if you'd go ahead and wash 'em, but I always keep a spare pair of jeans and a shirt in the truck."

"Okay. I'll check on the dogs on my way out."

He'd seen her grill on his various trips in and out of the courtyard earlier. "I'll start the grill, if you tell me where you keep the charcoal."

"There's a big galvanized trash can just outside the back door. The charcoal's inside it and the lighter fluid should be sitting right beside it."

When he got out of the shower, Jack wrapped the towel around his waist and wandered into her living room. The room was like her, he decided, and he approved. Lots of books. Novels. She had eclectic taste, from cla.s.sics to recent best-sellers, heavy on mystery with some girly-looking romance novels mixed in. There were three whole shelves of gardening and interior-design books. And one devoted to nonfiction. Some history, some pop culture.

He'd never seen Zoey read anything heavier than Us magazine.

There were also half a dozen self-help books with dreary, depressing-sounding t.i.tles on Cara's bookshelves. These, he decided, would be cla.s.sified as "relationship books." When Love Dies. Divorce: Getting Over It, Getting Through It.

And then there was his favorite: Putting Back the Pieces: Post-Divorce Recovery.

He pulled it from the shelves and leafed through it, noting several pages that she'd dog-eared. The author photo of this little gem showed a grim-faced Slavic-looking woman, who, according to her bio, had a thriving marital therapy practice in New York. The author, a Dr. Jankovic, reminded him of Frau Blcher from Young Frankenstein.

For a moment, he felt a spasm of guilt, for invading Cara's privacy. But that didn't stop him from skimming down one of the pages, and when he saw a pa.s.sage heavily underlined in ink, he read it aloud.

Over and over again in my thirty years of practice, I find a recurring pattern among patients whose marriages have failed. After careful examination, we discover that all too many of them have been attracted to a partner, in part because something in that spouse's family life supplies that which was lacking in a person's own life. Children of failed marriages often choose a partner from an intact home, in the mistaken belief that marital happiness can be genetically transferable.

What was that about? All Jack knew about Cara's parents was that her father was a strict, controlling military type and her mother was dead. And of the ex, Leo, he knew even less, except that the guy was a s.h.i.t.

And he also knew that no matter what she said, the divorce had left Cara emotionally fragile.

He found the stacked washer-dryer unit in a closet just off the kitchen, and transferred his clothes into the dryer. Then he padded outside, with the towel wrapped loosely around his hips, to get the grill started.

As soon as he opened the back door, Poppy and Shaz bounded over to greet him, tails wagging. He winced when he saw the havoc they'd wrought in Cara's garden. Flowerpots were upended, plants matted down, and yes, it looked like one or both of the dogs had been digging up the beds. He'd have to make good on the peony IOU.

He dumped charcoal in the grill, added lighter fluid, and looked around for matches. Finding none, Jack went inside, found his truck keys on a small table in the hall, and went through the garden gate, into the lane where his truck was parked.

Stepping carefully to avoid broken gla.s.s and worse on the lane's crumbling asphalt paving, he unlocked the truck and reached under the front seat, pulling out the rolled-up jeans and clean T-shirt he kept there. He stretched across the seat, opened the glove box, and scrabbled around until he found a box of kitchen matches.

He was just locking the truck again when a shiny black Lexus rolled slowly down the lane. The car's windshield was tinted, so he couldn't see the driver, until he stopped right beside Jack and the electric window slid down.

The driver was a white guy, late thirties, with blond hair and a deeply tanned face. Despite the tinted windows, he wore a pair of Ray-Bans.

Jack didn't know the guy. He tucked the clean clothes under his arm and started back toward the gate.

"Hey man," the stranger called out.

Jack turned around, but said nothing.

"What's goin' on?"

Jack shrugged, and the towel settled lower on his hips. He retucked it. "Not much." He turned to go again.

"Some kinda party goin' on in there?" The blond jerked his chin in the direction of the courtyard and the town house beyond and smirked.

"Nope." Was the guy trying to proposition him? The historic district had a vibrant gay community, and it was well known that people sometimes trolled the quieter lanes and parks looking for a casual hookup. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been approached. And after all, Jack was standing in the lane, barefoot and dressed only in a towel.

"See ya," Jack said, and he motored back inside, being careful to lock and padlock the gate behind him. The Lexus rolled on down the lane, and he went inside to get dressed.

While he was grilling the steaks, Cara put the potatoes in the oven and threw together a salad, slicing fat, ripe red tomatoes she'd bought at the Sat.u.r.day farmers' market in Forsyth Park, and crumbling locally made goat cheese into a vinaigrette dressing. She went out to the garden to snip some dill and chives from her herb patch, and handed Jack a cold Moon River.

He gave her an appreciative kiss, and wrapped his arms around her waist. "You smell nice," he murmured, nuzzling her hair.

"So do you. Hey-did you use my shampoo and conditioner?"

"Sure. If that's a problem, next time, I'll bring my own."

"What makes you think there's gonna be a next time?" She stifled a giggle.

He ran his hands up under her T-shirt. "There will be. You can't get enough of me, right? You're insatiable, right?"

Cara pushed him away lightly. "Don't burn my steak, wise guy."

The mosquitoes and gnats swarmed the garden right at dusk, so they ate at the dining-room table, moving the box fans from the bedroom into the living area.

Jack sipped the last of the wine she'd poured him, and pushed back from the table.

"That was great," he said. "I guess I could cook if I took the trouble, but living alone, h.e.l.l, most of the time when I get home from work, I have a microwave burrito or something like that. Having a real steak, and salad, all of it, that's a treat." He turned and flipped a bit of steak to Shaz, who had spent the past hour crouched by his feet, hoping for a treat.

"The books say you shouldn't give dogs table sc.r.a.ps," Cara said. She looked down at Poppy, who'd also been hanging around, hoping for a handout.

"You always go by what the books say?"

"No. But Poppy's breeder said the same thing."

He grunted something noncommittal, then sighed. "I'll get these dishes cleaned up, then I better get on down the road. Early day out at Cabin Creek tomorrow."

She nodded, and helped carry their dishes into the kitchen. He ran soapy water in her sink, carefully washed and rinsed everything while she dried. When the kitchen was cleaned up, he whistled for Shaz.