Blame it on Cupid (36 page)

Now, though, she had to shake the tears before Charlene saw her. Charlene had to be what mattered. She
had
to get perky again.

She would.

She did.

Charlene bounded down the library steps the minute the car pulled up. She heaved in a half-dozen books and climbed in. “So how'd it go, cookie?” Merry asked.

“It was
horrible,
” Charlene said, but clearly she was jazzed. “Talk about a mean assignment. We're talking cru-el. Took us hours and hours. But I worked with Dougall and Mike and Greta and George. Mike actually knows something about computers. But George, he was such an Edsel.”

“An Edsel?”

“Yeah, that's what my dad used to say. I think it was a car. You know, a car that tanked? That's George. A lot of ideas, but they all tank. Anyway—”

Buzz, buzz, buzz
all the way home. Then cookies and milk. Then chasing after dirty clothes and glasses and towels that somehow had walked into the living room. Then came a discussion of the next day's schedule of events—who knew an eleven-year-old needed an agenda calendar to keep it all straight?

And the whole time, Merry kept thinking, she was glad she'd gotten that out with Jack. She'd just been building up illusions that he seriously cared, that he was developing the winsome, yearning kind of loving feelings that she had. If he wasn't, it was far better to nip the whole thing in the bud before anybody got hurt.

Like her.

Because right now it felt as if her heart were broken three ways from Sunday and might never recover. Pretty hysterical, considering Jack had never said or implied a single promise, nor hinted at even a vague hope for a future.

Funnier yet, Jack was the first man who'd made her strikingly aware that love and lust were only part of the whole deal. Kids used the “respect” word incessantly these days, yet Merry had never considered how much it mattered to her…that when you really loved a man, his respect counted more than diamonds.

Or else the lust thing, enticing as it might be, was only worth rhinestones.

“So, can I do it?” Charlene asked.

By then, they were both brushing teeth in their respective bathrooms, walking back and forth with toothbrush midmouth to finish their conversations. Only Merry had lost track. Damn it, despair could do that to a girl.

“Run it by me one more time,” she said.

“Come on, Merry. You heard me. It's a ropes climbing course.”

“You mean like…climbing. As in climbing mountains. As in going up real high so that you could fall real far. So far you'd risk breaking your ankle. Or your head.”

“God, you are such a wimp. It's a
sport,
Mer. Just like any other sport.” When Charlene peered into her face, she seemed to realize a “no” was coming, because she abruptly blurted out, “My dad would have let me do it.”

Merry almost dropped the toothbrush. It wasn't as if Charlene never mentioned her dad, but it was the first time he'd popped into a conversation, as normal as sunshine. And how normal was this, for Charlene to try to guilt her into getting what she wanted? Merry was so proud of her she wanted to shriek. “I'll tell you what. I think it's past time we worked with some of your dad's things—either packed them away or sold them or gave them away—whatever you want, Charlie. But right now too much is just sitting there, gathering dust. So…if you'll give me Saturday morning to deal with some of that stuff, then you can sign up for the ropes course.”

Charlene hesitated. Until now, she'd gotten pretty freaked at even the idea of touching any of her dad's belongings. But now she said, “Do you mean it? You'll put it in ink that I can sign up?”

“Well, I'd need to hear some more. Who teaches the course. Whether I'd trust him or her. The safety record and all. But if the details pass muster, then…I think…okay.”

Charlene disappeared into her bathroom to spit. Merry heard the sound of the water running, then nothing. She'd started slathering on moisturizer when Charlene suddenly showed up again in the doorway, wearing one of her best major scowls.

“All right, we can do that stuff on Saturday,” she said.

And that was it. The kid disappeared into her own room, not slamming her door, but closing it with a quiet clip.

Merry thought,
I'm gonna die if I lose that kid.
She had second thoughts about their conversation on the climbing course, because darn it, she knew full well, she might not have power over what Charlene did after the custody hearing.

But that was down the pike. And it was right
now
that Charlene had shown signs, finally, that she was starting to come to terms with her dad's death—which meant that it was right
now
Merry wanted to respond to her. Over the next week, obviously, she'd have to bring up the hearing. But every second they were together wasn't going to be about that, Merry was determined.

She was going to “mom” Charlie with all the love she had. Period. It was an easy choice to make, because love had no timetable.

She only wished that were just as true with Jack….

J
ACK HURLED A FISTFUL
of gravel at the window, thinking damnation but that woman had messed with his mind for the last time.

A man could take a lot—but there was a limit. That limit, he figured, was what any reasonable male human being could be expected to tolerate in the realm of risking his life, limbs and losing his mind. Not to mention his heart.

He waited, but when there was no sight or sound showing up in the spare bedroom window, he bent over to scoop up another fistful of gravel. Between the cloudy sky and spitting rain, it was impossible to see clearly. If he accidentally gathered up any bigger stones with the gravel, he could well break a window.

A broken window would hardly help his cause. And tonight, that'd just be his luck.

Still, he hurled the second fistful, only to suddenly notice movement from a different room farther to the west. That window suddenly cranked open. “I'm not in the bedroom,” she called out.

“Yeah, I had that impression.” He also had an inkling where she was, since jasmine-scented steam puffed out the open window.

“You know, if you wanted to see me, you could use the door like normal people.”

“Yeah, well, that would have risked waking the squirt. And I needed to see
you.
Merry.
Listen
to me.” It'd been spitting rain for the last half hour. Not a deluge. Just enough to drool icicles down his neck, to drizzle from his eyebrows, to make the night truly miserable. “I don't know where you got all that psychological stuff about my ex-wife. But I came over here to tell you that I never heard such nonsense.”

“No?”

“I was
trying
to answer you, for Pete's sake. But then you had to run off. And this is like the third time. There's always something to run off for. I can't finish a conversation with you to save my life.” When he realized he was throwing his hands around, talking like she did with body movements, it scared him. So he slugged his fists onto his hips in a more normal, tough-guy posture. “So I'm here to tell you, just maybe some of that nonsense was true.”

She didn't interrupt. He'd counted on her interrupting, because she always did. Then she'd say the words and he wouldn't have to. It seemed she chose that moment to completely stay quiet and listen, the damn woman. So he was stuck going on.

“I thought we had a pretty darn good marriage,” he said. “Perfect, no. But I loved her. I loved our boys. Maybe the fire in the furnace wasn't as hot as it used to be, but she was busy, and I just tried not to care. It seemed to me we'd built too good a life to throw it out. And whether either of us were that thrilled for a period, I know it sounds corny, but I believed in the vows.”

“Aw, Jack…”

There she went again. Her heart…man, her heart was always in her eyes. All that sympathy. All that compassion. All that love, just given so generously.

He flexed his hands. “So when she just took off, it was like she ripped off my ego with her.” He scraped a hand through his wet hair, to stop the drips. “I
hate
talking about stuff like this.”

“Did you think I was forcing you?”

“No. But I'm just trying to admit…maybe I did take an easy road after that. Not a cold-blooded love 'em and leave 'em track. But maybe I didn't let anybody get too close. Maybe you had that part of things right. I just hadn't put it all in those words before.”

She leaned over the sill, crossing her arms. “You're getting soaking wet.”

“Sometimes you have to slap a guy upside the head before he thinks, you know? Who wants to think if they don't have to? About stuff like this?”

“Come in out of the rain, Jack.”

“But what happened to me isn't the point. What I wanted you to know was that…I wasn't using you. I wasn't playing you. If you thought I didn't care…for all I knew in the beginning, that's what you wanted, someone to sleep with now and then, someone to just be there. For a while. So you wouldn't be so by yourself when you first moved here. That's what I thought we were doing. But I didn't know…that was going to change for me. I didn't know…I was going to feel differently than I had all this time. I—”

Hell and a half.

She disappeared.

Here he was pouring out his heart, standing there in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, and the woman just disappeared on him.

If that wasn't typical of Merry, he didn't know what was. From the minute she'd moved here, she'd made him think about all this damned crap he didn't want to think about. Made him think and worry about how he was raising his boys, that his sons could get the idea their dad was a man who couldn't commit. She'd made him think about Cooper, and how damn much the boy just wanted to be part of a family and all a family meant.

Hell, a family meant everything to him, too. Or it used to. Once upon a time. All right.
Now.
He fiercely hungered for a woman to wake up to. To share with. To seduce. To argue with over dinner. To just
be
with, for God's sake.

And for someone who valued being with him.

It was pretty dumb, how much that mattered to him. He was no kid seeing life through rose-colored glasses anymore, no idiot who still counted on a woman to
be
there no matter what. But somewhere in his dusty mental attic, apparently he'd locked up that hope that someone'd be there through a little thick and thin. If it wasn't too thick or too thin. And Merry, because she was so infernally upbeat and open, had somehow coaxed him into believing that if a guy was really careful, if he loved her all the way, all the time, if he—

The back door opened. “My God, Jack. You're a mess.”

In the silver mist, he could see she was wearing a thin nightgown. Nothing sexy. But here she was barefoot, wearing a pale long nightgown that swooped around her ankles, stepped out on a March night—and no, it wasn't pouring, but it was still coming down in nonstop cold noodles. Proving for all time that she didn't have a single functioning brain—my
God,
she was ditzy—she walked straight toward him with her arms held out.

“Come here,” she whispered, as if that made any sense at all. And then the crazy woman wrapped her arms around him, lifted up on tiptoe, and offered her mouth.

And he took it, melding his mouth with hers, aching hard, but he was thinking, this is exactly what was wrong. She was flaky. Witless. Young. Not young in years, but too young for him. She was so beyond him, the way she was open, the way she was so giving.

Way, way, too giving.

He just couldn't give back that way. He clutched her head, feeling the slippery satin of her lips, the heat coming off her body, the roaring thump of her heart against his. Merry was so…Merry. The way she poured out sensuality and emotion. She responded as if she loved the taste of him, the feel of him. That she craved how he made her feel.

She told him that with every kiss, every touch, every volatile response.

She acted…helpless. As if she felt swept away. As if he made her feel swept away.

That was exactly how she loved. As if no one were watching. As if no one existed in the universe but her, but him.

As if they weren't standing in the pouring rain, in a suburb, with her white lawn nightgown getting soaked and her kissing him as if she completely didn't give a damn.

“Merry—”

“Oh, no, buster. You're not getting out of this now. Suck it up and accept your fate.”

Maybe she wanted him to laugh. Instead he swooped her up, thinking the damn woman was going to die of pneumonia if he didn't get her out of that dark, mean-wet night. The laundry room was right off the kitchen, the fastest place inside he could peel off that soaking wet nightgown of hers.

He already had fond memories of that dark laundry room—but not fond enough to stall there this time. She was shivering by the time he'd pulled off the gown, either because she was chilled now, or because she wasn't. Once he had his hands all over her, she seemed to heat up faster than a fire for the right kindling. He wanted to be her kindling. Now, tomorrow, and for as long as she let him be.

But right now, just getting her out of that laundry room and near a mattress—quietly, so the squirt didn't wake up—was his immediate primary crisis. He was usually good at logistics. But not when he had his hands all over a wet, warm woman, who was kissing him like she'd die if she couldn't. And he was kissing her back like she was dreaming if she thought he'd ever, ever, let her go.

He knew where her room was, knew that sleeper-couch mattress had springs with teeth and squeaks, but right then he'd have settled for any surface at all. The minute the door was closed and locked, he lifted and leveled her flat. Finally, his hands had the freedom to streak the bare, soft length of her. Her supple skin warmed for his palms. Her breath caught, sucked in as if starved of oxygen. Her breasts changed shape, firmed, swelled, ached for the shape of his palms, the wash of his tongue.

Frenzy. Who knew he could just…lose himself like this? In her? With her? Rain silvering down her windows, the scent of almonds and jasmine on her pillow, on her, the texture of her hair raveling through his hands, the nectar of her kisses, her touch. Tension escalated like an out-of-control fire, too hot, too wild, too dangerous, yet all he could do was take more of her, love more of her, ask more of her.

Need more of her.

He took the bottom this time, thinking it'd force some control on him, force some slow-down, yet when she eased on top of him, her spine arched in a bow, he lost it all over again. He picked up her fever. She picked up his. Even diamonds melted if the temperature was hot enough, and that's how she felt to him, so unbearably willing and vulnerable and sensuous that she could melt even the hard old stone that he could have sworn was his heart.

They rocked together, rolled together, pistoned the same fierce rhythm together, until finally they both exploded…and then crashed.

He didn't want to recover, didn't want to even think about recovering, but eventually he realized that she wasn't covered. God knew where the pillows and blankets had gone, but the only thing warming her cooling skin seemed to be him. She was just lying there in his arms, looking at him, both of them still heaving like noisy freight trains.

“Whew,” she whispered.

“That's what I was thinking.”

She smiled at him. The rainy windows illuminated her tousled hair, her pale forehead. Her brow momentarily mesmerized him. As far as he could remember—and he was replaying the last half hour in his mind in detail—that was the only spot on her body he'd neglected. Even exhausted as he was, he had to reach over and tenderly kiss that patch of soft skin, right between her brows.

“You're precious,” he told her, the words coming out rough, as if they'd been buried deep for a long time and were rusty from misuse. Or from fear. “I didn't know…about precious before.”

“Then you—” Whatever she'd been about to say was cut off. They both heard the sound of the telephone. Her body immediately stiffened.

He understood. She didn't want Charlene wakened by a late call—besides which, even though it wasn't midnight yet, it was a little late for the usual friendly call. Only bad news seemed to come this late. She quickly bolted out of bed. “I have to—”

“I understand,” he said. “Go.”

It was a land-line call, and she didn't have a connection in the back bedroom. He didn't know where she'd gone to answer it, but the phone stopped ringing, and she didn't come back for a minute. Then a couple minutes. Then several.

He wasn't sure what to do. Eventually he had to get up and get dressed and go home, because of Charlene. But he didn't want to leave Merry until he had to. The longer she was tied up on the phone, though, the more he worried that something was wrong.

When another minute passed, he hauled his behind out of bed, shucked on his jeans and sweatshirt—both were damp, but he couldn't very well walk around her house without clothes.

He found her in the kitchen, hunched at the kitchen table with the receiver ironed against her ear, wearing an old shirt she'd apparently tugged from the laundry room for warmth. The expression on her face made his jaw clench. Something was bad wrong. Her face looked bleached of color, her eyes fierce with anxiety. Everything about her posture was tense, as if someone had punched her and she was waiting for the next blow.

“You need to do what you need to do,” she said into the receiver and then waited. A moment later she hung up.

“God. What's wrong?” he asked gently.

She came up with a tremulous smile for him, but nothing that eased that look in her eyes. “It was Charlene's birth mother.” She closed her eyes momentarily and then heaved a huge sigh. “And I'm fine, Jack—”

“The hell you are.”

“No. Really. The thing is, I've been waiting for that call for weeks now. It's not that I wanted it. But it's been like waiting for bad news—it's actually easier when it finally gets there, so the waiting's over. The problem's out in the open.”