Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (33 page)

Shelby nodded, still frowning, and went to talk to Tony. She knew how Quinn knew about the game. Uncle Alfred had told him. There could be no other way, considering that he’d not been to the restaurant all day. How nice that the two men could “chat.” About a whole lot more than poker, she’d bet, and
she
wasn’t a betting woman.

“Let’s go,” she said as she came out of the kitchen, brushing past Quinn, pushing open the door.

He followed her like a puppy just graduated from obedience school, then took her hand and slowed her rapid gait. “Let’s enjoy the night, all right?”

Shelby didn’t want to “enjoy the night.” She wanted to talk, damn it. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she wanted him to talk.

Maybe she didn’t want either one of them to talk.

They climbed the stairs together, Shelby waiting as Quinn unlocked the door to his apartment. “There’s a pink scarf tied around Brandy’s doorknob,” he told her, and she looked across the hallway and grimaced.

“Great. Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Eat pizza,” Quinn said, pulling her into the apartment, bringing her against his chest. “I’ll call for it… in a moment.” He lowered his head toward hers, aware that this might be the first of the last kisses he’d ever share with her. “In a minute…”

Shelby felt his lips brush against hers, lightly, teasingly. Once, twice, a third time. He wasn’t holding her; he wasn’t really kissing her. What he was, she felt sure, was waiting for an invitation.

She gave it to him. Slid her arms up and around his shoulders, stepped closer against him. Finally grabbed onto his head with both hands and ground her mouth against his, her need overwhelming everything else— including what she believed to be her better judgment.

She needed him. She wanted him. She loved him.

Nothing else mattered, not for this moment. Nothing else could.

She sighed into his mouth as he lifted her and carried her into his bedroom. Reached up for him blindly as he put her on the bed, then left her for a few moments, a lifetime, before joining her again. Before undressing her, slowly, his warm mouth following after his hands as he slid her clothes from her body, pressed his own nakedness against her.

His kisses were long, drugging, and she felt tears stinging her eyes as she held on to him, held on to him because she could not let go. To let go was to lose him, to face the truth, to ruin this glorious perfection.

Quinn found her breasts with his mouth and hands, devouring the taste of her, skimming his fingers over her, glorying in her soft moans, her automatic response to his touch that couldn’t be faked, was never a lie.

I
love you, I love you,
he chanted inside his head, not daring to say the words. Not now. Not yet. He’d said them once, and frightened her. He had to tell her the truth, all of the truth, or else his words of love would be meaningless.

He lingered over her, committing each curve to memory, until Shelby reached down, clasped him in her hand, and whispered into his ear, “Please, please. Please, now.”

Shelby’s tears flowed freely as he eased onto her, slid between her welcoming thighs, sank deep inside her. She wrapped her legs around him, high on his back, and held him to her with hands that caressed, urged, imprisoned. She wanted all of him, even as she gave all, praying her body could tell him how much she loved, even as her mind hid how little she trusted.

Their mouths clung, so that neither could tell lies, nei ther could say the truth. For the lies had hurt, but the truth could destroy.

Afterward they showered together in the old-fashioned claw-footed tub with the brightly flowered shower curtain enclosing them beneath a round curtain rod. They laughed as they stood together on rubber cutout daisies pressed to the bottom of the tub, their laughter dying as Quinn soaped up his hands and began washing Shelby, who became suddenly modest, turning her head as she tried to still his hands.

But Quinn persisted, not going too fast, but only fast enough to keep her from bolting, to wait until she melted against him, her blond hair darkly wet as she threw back her head and gave herself over to his ministrations. Until her body became one throbbing center, until her muscles forgot how to work and she nearly slid from his arms.

He lifted her from the tub as the water turned cold, wrapped her in a huge bath sheet he’d brought from his Philadelphia apartment, and sat her down on the small bench in the bathroom. He used a smaller towel to dry her hair as she sat there, looking at him, occasionally leaning against him, sighing against his chest.

“Hungry?” he asked against her ear, and felt her head move in the negative, followed closely by a yawn. He smiled, kissed the tip of her nose, lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the bed. “We should talk,” he said as she lay down on her side, curled into a fetal position.

“I know,” she answered, her eyes closed as she snuggled deeper into the feather pillow.

Quinn turned off the light and crawled into the bed beside her. “Do you want to talk?”

“I don’t think so,” Shelby answered honestly, two days of near-sleepless nights catching up to her with a vengeance. “I just want to sleep. Here, with you. Can we do that, please?”

Quinn reached out a hand and brushed her damp hair behind her ear. “But you
know,
don’t you?” he asked, watching her face carefully.

“Yes, I know. You’re a rat,” Shelby murmured after a moment, feeling as if she were within a dream, safe in a fantasy where she could have everything she wanted, say anything she wanted, always win and never lose. “I’m in love with a rat.” Then she yawned, sighed, and fell asleep.

Quinn watched her for a long time, the bed a mass of dark and light gray stripes thanks to the full moon coming in through the blinds, before carefully sliding off the bed, pulling on a pair of shorts, and returning to the living room.

He turned off the television and the single light he’d left burning, and sat down on the couch. There was nothing else, he knew, that he could say to Shelby. No explanation, long or short, no graphs, no spreadsheets, no smooth or not-so-smooth massaging of the truth to make himself look better.

It was over. The worst was over, with neither of them saying much of anything, actually. The only thing left was to wait for the morning, and learn whether Shelby loved him enough to forgive him.

That was the question. The last question. Unless she’d already said everything she meant, all he needed to know.

I’m in love with a rat.
Shelby’s near-comatose confession had just about said it all.

Shelby smiled as she walked to work Thursday morning, secure in the knowledge that Quinn was going to have a very stiff neck, if his position on his couch could be any indication.

Which served him right, she had thought as she’d tiptoed through the living room and closed the door behind her.

Because he’d tricked her. Kissed her. Made love to her. Held her, caressed her, took her to the brink and over so many times that she had all but passed out in his bed without a word spoken between them about his lies, her lies.

She stopped to listen to a robin high in one of the sidewalk shade trees, smiling as she remembered Quinn’s conniving ways, his avoidance of discussion, his mouth hot and moist against hers. The way he treated her body like a fine musical instrument he had mastered, creating a symphony so seductive that there was nothing she could do but succumb to the magic.

“You’re good,” she said, looking up at the robin. “But he’s better.” Then she smiled and walked on, and decided that this morning was just about the best morning of her life. Quinn loved her. She loved him.

They’d talk about their mutual lies some other time. Maybe in fifty years. And they’d laugh about them.

Yes, fifty years. That would be a good time.

Time.

About damn time.

Those three damning words…

Shelby stopped, her smile disappearing as those three words echoed in her mind. Quinn loved her. She loved him. They wouldn’t talk about that man, that threatening note, those three words. They couldn’t. Not now, not in fifty years. Because, if it were true, it would mean he was definitely a rat, and if it were false, then she’d be shown as a person who could believe something so terrible about the man she loved.

That realization slid a single cloud over Shelby’s lovely morning, but she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself once she opened the door to Tony’s and went straight to dealing with the lingering morning crowd and the early lunch crowd—which many times were the same people.

It seemed as if many of the citizens of East Wapaneken had decided to make a day of it at Tony’s, including at least a dozen who offered their help in preparing for the three-seatings fund-raiser the regulars had officially dubbed “The Official Fund-raiser for Our Sons, Fathers, Husbands, and Brothers.” It wasn’t exactly a catchy tide, but it worked. At least for the most part.
And Cousins,
someone had scratched onto the end of the long banner that hung sort of at half-mast across the restaurant’s front windows.

Thelma had come back from Texas a day early when she heard about the dinner, intent on taking up her duties as hostess. A tall, rangy-looking woman who had a lantern jaw and black raisin eyes, she’d introduced herself to Shelby at three, intent on letting this upstart young woman know who was in charge. At three-fifteen, she was folding cloth napkins in the shape of swans, just as Shelby had taught her, and telling anyone who would listen that she was going to wear her purple dress that night—the one with the bugle beads she’d bought for her daughter’s wedding—and content herself with being a pampered customer for a change.

One after another, crises came up. One after another, Shelby shot them down. Although she did have some small trouble with Tony and the matter of presentation.

“Presentation is everything,” she told the man who thought a garnish was a fat wad of iceberg lettuce with a chunk of orange perched on top of it.

“Food
is everything,” Tony countered, scowling down at her as he shoved another huge rib roast into the oven.
“Taste
is everything. You got your linens. You got the fancy cups for the ladies. And that’s all you’re getting, understand?”

Thoughts of exotic greens and perhaps a tomato slice in aspic were waved a reluctant farewell as Shelby returned to the dining room, put her hands on her hips, and took one last look around the room. They’d closed the restaurant at three to remove the oilcloths and replace them with the rented linens that gleamed a soft ivory, accented by the deep rose “swans” Thelma had made.

Silverware glinted on each table, the spoons, knives, and forks arranged correctly instead of simply rolled up inside a paper napkin. There were new silk flowers in the holders, the ketchup bottles had been removed, and tonight sugar would be served in paper packets rather than in huge silver-topped containers. Small folded papers marked each table with the name of the party that had reserved it for the first sitting.

Crepe-paper streamers of ivory and navy crisscrossed the ceiling and trailed in the corners. Shelby had personally washed the leaves of all the hanging plants and placed blue crepe-paper bows around each pot.

She looked around, smiling softly, and realized that each napkin, each tablecloth, each new silk flower, had been a victory. Her victory. Such a warm feeling of accomplishment swept over her, ten times stronger than it ever had when she’d been on committees for various charity balls. Because this was different. This was East Wapaneken. And she had done this herself, for a truly wonderful reason.

The satisfaction of a job well done.

She pressed a hand to her stomach.
And all the butterflies
of a first-time hostess, praying nothing too disastrous will occur before the evening is over.

“You’ re looking smug, my dear,” Uncle Alfred said from behind Shelby, so that she nearly jumped out of her skin.

She turned to look at him, amazed to see him dressed in his tuxedo. “Where… ?”

“Darling, no one travels without being prepared for all possibilities, didn’t you know that? Now help me with this tie, won’t you? I can’t seem to be able to do it by myself.”

He lifted his head and Shelby expertly completed the job her uncle had started, then kissed him on the cheek before stepping back to admire him once more. “You really are a handsome devil, you know. The ladies will be swooning all night long.”

“As long as they tip me first,” Uncle Alfred said, winking at her. “This is nice, isn’t it, my dear? I feel so
American,
if that’s the word. Why, it’s almost like a barn raising, or whatever it’s called. One for all and all for one and… well, let’s just say I’m enjoying myself and have done with it. Not that you’re to tell Somerton any such thing. I want him to believe I am suffering unbearably, am learning a lesson about my profligate ways, and will be like a tame lamb once he allows me back under his roof.”

“Looking for a raise in your quarterly allowance, aren’t you?” Shelby said, shaking her head.

“It could happen,” Uncle Alfred said, then turned on his heel to go open the door, as someone was knocking on it. “Ah,” he called over his shoulder as he advanced toward the door. “Joseph and Francis are here, isn’t that nice.”

“Joseph and Francis?” Shelby asked, stepping around the divider to see the two hulking men she had actually believed were named Mutt and Jeff coming into the restaurant carrying… a small organ? “Unc—I mean, Al—what on
earth?”

“Our dinnertime entertainment, my dear,” Uncle Alfred said as Joseph—carrying a padded bench—and Francis—hefting a small electronic organ over his head as if it weighed no more than a feather—passed by, heading for a small cleared spot on the opposite side of the room.

“No,” Shelby said, shaking her head. “You’re kidding. You
are
kidding, aren’t you?”

“On the contrary, my dear. It seems that Joseph is quite accomplished on that musical machine. He’s had, oh, at least five lessons beyond what he has taught himself, and is very proud of himself. They broached the idea to Anthony last night, during our game, and he agreed.” He stepped closer, bent down, and whispered in Shelby’s ear, “They also promised to knock two grand off my bill if I told Anthony they were professional musicians.”