“No,” she laughed. “Give them a second, they’ll snap out of it. Maggie! Sarah! This is my friend Sam. Sam, meet Maggie my sister, Sarah my other sister.”
Maggie and Sarah left the Fireside at seven, although Clare and Sam had graciously invited them to stay. They hadn’t interrogated him after all, but asked him things about his job and family, polite things that were nonthreatening. And he was open and friendly. Good disposition. He had a very natural charm about him—and he was clearly wild about Clare. He reached for her hand several times and held on to it until she pulled it away.
It was possible Clare was uncomfortable. Maybe with this affection around her sisters, maybe with how much he wanted her. It was almost palpable. He was hot to trot.
Maggie was so jealous she could spit.
She couldn’t remember the last time Bob came on to her. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d rebuffed her advances.
Maggie admired her house as she drove into the cul-de-sac. She always did. It was one of the bigger homes in Breckenridge and she’d labored over every detail in the design when they’d built it ten years ago. The lights shone from the ground floor; the upstairs bedroom lights were off. Bob’s office light was on. Of course.
She pulled into the four-port garage and parked her BMW next to Bob’s Mercedes. When she walked into the kitchen—the immaculate kitchen—she was treated to the delightful aroma of the meal Ramona had prepared. She put her purse and briefcase on the kitchen desk and glanced into the dining room. On the days Ramona worked for her, she always made dinner before she left and laid the dining table. She saw that on this occasion it was set for two, tall tapers ready to be lit. That meant Ramona had given the girls something to eat earlier and Bob had waited for her.
She shed her coat and hung it in the front closet. As she did so, she could hear Bob’s voice coming from his study. On the phone again, which might explain why he hadn’t had his dinner. She glanced at her watch—it was only seven-fifteen.
By the time she made herself a cup of tea and went to his office, he was off the phone and on the computer. Bob was a lawyer and lobbyist for several environmental groups in the Northwest. He kept an office in Carson City, but he was well set up here and could work from home, especially when the legislature wasn’t in session. Like Maggie, his hours were long and he was extremely successful.
She reminded herself that they were lucky. She was lucky. Bob was a wonderful man; a fabulous and devoted father. An extremely supportive husband; a good partner. He was tall, handsome, growing sexier with age. So what was wrong? What was happening to them?
She put her tea on the desk and embraced him from behind. “Hi, honey,” she said. “How was your day?”
He didn’t turn, but rubbed her hand and reclined against her. “Long. Yours?”
“Interesting. My sister is dating. A younger man.”
That made him turn. “Really? How much younger?”
“I’m not sure—I met her for a drink and he showed up there to have dinner with her before I could get more details. I think at least ten years.”
Bob laughed. “Good for her. And here I thought she was going to pine away for Roger.” He laughed again.
Maggie leaned a hip on his desk. “You know, we need a break. We should try to get away.”
“We have that trip to Hawaii planned right after Christmas….”
That was a family vacation during the girls’ holiday break from school. “I was thinking…just you and me.”
“I don’t think I can get away before Christmas.”
“How about a weekend? How about one night?”
“What’s up? You have trouble at work?”
“No, Bob. I have trouble at home. We haven’t…You know.”
He reached for her hand and stroked it lovingly. “What’s the matter, honey?”
She touched his cheek just as affectionately. “Why don’t we make love anymore, Bob? Is it me? I’m not attractive to you?”
“Come here,” he said, pulling her onto his lap. “Don’t be silly, Maggie. You’re gorgeous. I’m just overworked, is all. You know how much I love you.”
“It isn’t something like someone else, is it?”
Shock registered on his features. “Shame on you. You know there could never be anyone else.” He kissed her lips, but it was one of those brief husbandly kisses. Then he rubbed her back a little. “It’s been twenty years, honey. It just hasn’t been the priority it was when we were younger. But don’t we have a good life?”
“Perfect,” she said. “But I think I could use a little special attention, if you know what I mean.”
He smiled knowingly, with a superior smirk. “You saw Clare being pawed by some good-looking young guy and had an estrogen surge, didn’t you?”
“I think I did,” she admitted. There was no think about it—she wanted to feel someone’s hands all over her.
He laughed roguishly and pushed her off his lap. “Come on, honey. Let’s have a drink, a nice dinner—I waited for you. And then a little later, we’ll take care of Miss Maggie’s hormones.”
She slipped an arm around his waist as they walked to the dining room together, comfortable and safe against him. “That would be nice,” she answered. But she didn’t dare get her hopes up. Very likely by the time she primped and came to bed, Bob would be asleep with the light still on and a book spread across his chest. This wasn’t the first time she had asked and he had promised.
Sarah didn’t go home. She went back to her shop. She let herself in, locked the front door and went to the back, to her studio. She pulled the damp cloth off the sculpture—a little boy and his dog. She ran her fingers along its curves and in so doing, got another look at her chipped and dirty nails. She lifted her hands, splayed the fingers and grimaced.
She had never seen Clare look so lovely. Elegant and almost regal. And the glow on her cheeks suggested that she was stirred up inside, filled with that passionate surprise that is love and explodes into lust and fulfillment. Would she do it with him? Sarah wondered. Surely she would. It was all over them.
Sarah had never had that. Well, she’d had plenty of lust when she was a kid, but only a glimmer of love. She remembered thinking she was in love several times, but knew in the aftermath the feeling had been nothing. Nothing.
Since her mother’s death, she had only had a couple of relationships, both very dreary and pretty much meaningless. There was Hal, a very quiet and unstimulating accountant from Carson City. They had actually dated for five years, but Hal was not very interested in sex. Just when she had decided she couldn’t stand him any longer, he broke up with her and instantly married a hot blonde from Lake Tahoe. At that point Sarah decided it must have been her. Sarah was the dull one.
Maggie and Clare had felt so sorry for her when she lost Hal. “Oh please,” she had said. “He bored me to tears.”
One of her customers became an affair for a while. He lit her up inside and she had a hint of what Clare might be feeling right now—excited and nervous and hungry inside. She wanted him. She had him. Very soon after having him and finding him more than a little satisfactory, she found out he was married. She actually shed tears—but she was so grateful that she hadn’t told her sisters about him. They would have hovered and fussed. Since that depression episode, they still thought of her as broken and needy.
If she had a man like Sam—sweet and handsome and so physical—she wouldn’t be able to contain herself. But, she thought as she looked at her blurry reflection in the studio’s window, she couldn’t have a man like Sam. Look at yourself, she lectured. She took off her glasses and saw only a worse blur.
She put the glasses back on and was instantly disappointed. She closed the blinds.
She pulled the tie from her hair and shook it out. It was so limp and flat.
I used to be sexy, she thought. Then she heard Maggie’s voice in her head saying, “Sarah, this is not sexy—it’s trashy! There’s a difference, for God’s sake!”
A te
ar slowly escaped her eye and she brushed at it impatiently. Sarah would give anything to have a man like Sam look at her the way he gazed at Clare. Ache for her that way. Want her in such a hard, passionate way that the air around him was electrified.
But that would never happen, she reminded herself. Better paint something.
Clare and Sam were seated at a small table in the corner. He pushed the candle and flower out of the middle and reached across the short space to take both her hands. “That was nice—the way you brought me right out of the closet. Almost like you’re not hiding me anymore.” He tried to keep his face from beaming, but he doubted he was successful.
“I had just been telling them about you. Of course they wanted to know everything.”
“You were being grilled,” he pointed out.
“You can tell, can’t you—that they thought I’d never have a real date.”
“With someone who’s so hot for you, he’s almost explosive.”
“There’s that talk again. Want me to run?”
“Clare, aren’t you just about done running from me? Aren’t you getting comfortable with this? With us?”
“Sam, you might be the best-looking guy in town,” she said. “And you’re a good guy on top of it. Sweet. Funny. You could have any woman you want. Why on earth do you want me?”
He took a deep breath and folded his hands in front of him.
“I’m not fishing for compliments,” she said. “I’m serious. I really don’t get it.”
“Clare, I don’t have any trouble picking up girls, but it isn’t easy to find a woman who’s solid. Who knows her mind. I like that you’re mature—I don’t see that as a handicap. I know you’ve had some tough times, but instead of being a victim, like some women younger than you might be, you’ve let it give you character. You probably think all men find sex appeal in boobs, but some of us find humor and strength and wisdom to be sexy. And,” he said, treating her to that grin, “it doesn’t hurt that you’re also very beautiful.”
She just smiled for a moment and then said, “Something wrong with my boobs?”
“I love your boobs,” he laughed. “But that’s not all I love.” He held his breath. Was that too much? He was trying to be careful not to push her. She didn’t respond well to being pushed. Another thing that turned him on.
She shook out her napkin and draped it over her lap just as their salads arrived. She smiled again and picked up her fork.
He watched her for a minute. Her movements were so graceful. He loved the way she’d give her head a delicate toss and her rich brown hair would bounce. He was aching to grab handfuls of it. “You look gorgeous,” he said. “I didn’t think you could get any more beautiful, but you did.”
“Thank you, Sam. You’re very good for my ego.” Then she did something she rarely did—she reached for his hand. It was almost always the other way around. “Why were you here early?”
“I told you—I thought I’d grab a beer and wait for you.”
She took a bite of salad, then said, “You weren’t calming your nerves, were you?”
“No,” he said. “I was a little anxious, but not nervous.” Not for dinner, no, he thought. But for later. He hoped she would let him take her someplace where they could be alone, and it wasn’t Lover’s Lane he had in mind. But he hadn’t been at all overconfident—hadn’t done anything like book a room. It wouldn’t be hard to get one, however. If she agreed. “I’ve just been looking forward to this. Did you have nerves?”
She shook her head. “I got a big check today—the settlement from the accident. We were celebrating. And I decided it was time to tell my sisters about going out on an actual date with you. That had me wound a little tight. Just so you know, it’s out now for sure. They’ll probably tell the town.”
“Okay by me,” he said, digging into his salad, telling himself not to eat like a pig and devour his meal to get it over with quickly. Dessert. He’d like to have Clare for dessert. He heard himself moan and was appalled that it was actually audible.
“Are you all right?”
“This…this is really good.”
They talked about food for a while—finding their likes and dislikes remarkably similar. He asked about the house they had seen, was she really considering it? She told him she’d made an offer, then about her plans to remodel. She explained all she had done to the house she lived in. He tried to be patient through her descriptions of spackling, painting and papering. Their steaks arrived with a bottle of red wine.
“If you waited this long to tell your sisters about me, either you’re not exactly best friends or you had reservations about trotting me out in public,” he said.
“I had mentioned you to Maggie earlier, but the subject hadn’t come up with Sarah. She’s almost seven years younger than me. We’re nothing alike. To tell the truth, we have nothing in common—we’re all different as night and day. We didn’t get really close until after college, but we were at least loyal when we were younger. There was this one time—my mother was waiting up because Maggie and I were both out on dates. We got home about the same time and were sitting on the couch with Mom, it was pretty dark in the room—only the fireplace and television providing light. She was asking about our evenings, what we’d done, where we’d gone, all that. All of a sudden Maggie burst out laughing so hard she fell off the couch. She was pointing at me with one hand, holding her stomach with the other, tears rolling down her cheeks. I couldn’t figure out what she was laughing at until I looked at myself. My sweater was on inside out. My mother said, ‘Oh honey, did you have it like that all night?’ My face went so red I thought I’d faint and all I could say was, ‘Boy, how embarrassing.’ Maggie has never let me forget it.”
He looked perplexed. “You had it inside out on your date?”
“No,” she laughed. “When I left the house, it was on right.”
“Oh,” he said. Then a slow smile grew on his face. If there’s a God, he thought, she’ll go home with that sexy black dress on inside out.
“Mrs. Wilson?” The restaurant manager, Frank, stood at their table. He was a man about a dozen years older than Clare and had been with the establishment for many years. “Clare?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a situation. I’m sorry, this is very uncomfortable….”
“What is it, Frank?”
“It’s Mr. Wilson, ma’am. He’s in the bar. I’m afraid he’s had a bit too much to drink. I’ve never seen him—”
They were interrupted by the sudden slurring presence of Roger, swirling a drink in his glass. “Well, well, well, isn’t this a pretty picture. My wife is out for the evening.”
“I’m sorry, Clare,” Frank said. “We’ll just—”
“Roger! What’s the matter with you?”
“I might’ve had juss a tad more than is imprudent…But what’d’ya ’spect—when I’m sitting there just washing you grope this…this kid here.”
Clare, completely dumbfounded, looked at Sam. There she saw an entirely new face—grim, stony, dangerous. This would be the cop’s face, not the sweet young man who’d finally gotten her to agree to a date. His eyes glittered, looking a little as though he might’ve recently eaten human flesh. There were no dimples but a very scary tic at the corner of his mouth. And there was a pulsing vein in his left temple. This was not a kid. This was a serious man. And he was very protective of the woman in his company.
She had not once in her entire friendship with Sam imagined him in a conflict, and now she wondered how she could have known about his job and not conjured up such a picture. But here it was—and Sam was very large and strong. If he got into it with Roger, Roger would be severely damaged. Thank God Roger was a lover, not a fighter.
“Sorry, Mrs. Wilson. Clare,” Frank said, nearly wringing his hands. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Two young waiters were at his side immediately, escorting Roger away from the table.
“Frank, we’ve been separated pending divorce for months,”
she tried to explain.
“So I’ve gathered, yes. I’m so sorry for the interruption. Please accept our complimentary dinner. We’ll escort him out.”
She looked at Sam desperately. “I have no idea what that’s about. Of all the headaches Roger has given me, he’s never been a lush. He just doesn’t overdo it.”
“It’s about him seeing his wife out with another man,” Sam said, but he didn’t look at Clare. He watched Roger’s departing back.
“God,” she moaned, lowering her head to her hand. “How many ways can I humiliate thee—let me count the—”
Sam was on his feet.
“Where are you going?”
Sam looked down at her. His expression was still forbidding. “Clare, he can’t drive,” he said.
She had no idea what she was supposed to do. “Well…Should we call him a cab?”
“Maybe the restaurant will,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He walked away from the table, following Roger.
Clare sat at the table and noticed, suddenly, that the restaurant was so quiet you could hear a stomach growl. The only noise was the distant singsongy voice of Roger protesting his ejection from the premises. She looked around and saw that every set of eyes was on her. “Oh, jeez,” she said. She grabbed her purse and bolted after Sam.
Roger was outside, the two young waiters were preventing him from going back inside and Sam was standing just outside the door with Frank. “Did you ask about a cab?” she asked them both.
“We offered a cab and he said he won’t have it,” Frank replied. “We couldn’t get his keys away from him.”
“Damn it! What’s the matter with him?” she said, more to herself than to the men.
“If he gets in his car, I’m going to make a phone call,” Sam said.
“What’ll happen to him?” she asked.
“He’ll be picked up,” Sam said. Tic. Pulse. His eyes, usually deep blue, were steely. Icy. He did not look at Clare. “Probably before he can even find the ignition.”
Roger wandered around the small parking lot, a little lost, lurching from one side of the aisle to the other. He had his keys in his hand and, swaying, he managed to click the control so that the lights of his Pontiac blinked. Sam took his cell phone out of his pocket.