June (Calendar Girl #6) (6 page)

She shrugged and sighed. “I guess I just figured by now, we’d be out in the open. That he wouldn’t be embarrassed to be with me.” Her eyes got glassy and she sniffed softly.

I shook my head. “I do not get the impression that he is embarrassed to be with you. But, I will say, I’ve been to these events, and you’d be the odd duck out for sure.” I looked over her beautifully pressed blouse, her frilly apron, and figure-flattering pencil skirt. Definitely. She was leagues above the young tarts the men in Warren’s group paraded around. Women just like me. With effort, I choked back a gag.

“I see,” were the words she said, but they could have just as easily been a cursed challenge, except that she was far too classy.

Placing my hand on her forearm, I held her tight until her gaze reached mine. “You don’t see, but I’ll show you.” Looking like a woman with ants in her pants, I reached back under me and yanked my phone out of my back pocket. Then I pulled up the image I’d sent Ginelle last week. “This is what you’re up against.” I handed her the phone. For long moments, she inspected the image.

“These women are young enough to be their daughters.” A slightly shaky hand lifted in front of her mouth. “Some possibly even their granddaughters.”

I nodded. “Yep. That’s why I’m here.”

A horrified look crossed her face. “No, nuh uh, not because of what you think. His reasons are actually really altruistic.”

That’s when her do-I-look-stupid face graced her features along with an eye roll. 

“Okay, it’s weird, but I get it. He needs his own bimbo,“ I ran my hands in the air closely over my form. “To make him look like he’s one of them. It’s all for a good reason though. He has this project that he needs these rich guys and a bunch of stodgy politicians to support so he can get medicine and vaccines to third world countries.”

Recognition must have dawned on her because she started to nod and lean closer. “You know, he mentioned this project. It’s been in the making for years. I honestly thought he’d given up on it.” Then she huffed. “Yet another thing he’s doing in
her
memory.” The tone when she said ‘her memory’ seemed put-out and on the ugly edge of scathing.

My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘in her memory’?”

Right then, Kathleen responded in a way I would have never pictured. She tipped her wine glass up to her lips and glugged back the crimson liquid until it was gone.

“Ketty Shipley.”

“Who’s Ketty Shipley?” I asked, completely lost.

“Warren’s dead wife.”

“Oh,
that
Ketty Shipley.” With that, I sucked back the last of my wine and waited a moment. “So why the nastiness?”

Kathleen rubbed her forehead and pulled out the hidden clip. To my extreme surprise a wild mane of long hair fell well past her shoulders in beautiful, big, bouncy waves.

With a shake of her head she ran her hands through it a couple times and groaned. “It’s not that I didn’t like her. For a while, she was my best friend. It’s that I don’t like that she’s been dead for twenty- five years, and Warren is still in love with her. You can’t win the man’s heart when it still belongs to his dead wife.”

Her shoulders slumped, and I looped an arm over hers and locked her to my side. “Honestly, it can’t really be that bad.”

“Oh no,” she said mockingly. “You think I’m full of piss and vinegar then?” With a burst of energy she was up and out the door. I sat there completely dumfounded. What the hell did piss and vinegar have anything to do with it anyway? I swear, older folks said the weirdest shit.

A few minutes went by, and I worried that I’d offended her. I played out the conversation and although it was uncomfortable at best, I hadn’t said anything inappropriate that would cause her to rush out of the room. Before I could go over it again, the door was flung open and she pushed in a food cart. The same kind that you get when you are staying in a really fancy hotel and the bellman brings your dinner.

“What’s this?” I asked even more confused.

In a second, she was at the side of the bed. “Come now. Let’s hop along.” She patted the top of the cart. “I have to show you something that will prove my point.”

“What point?” I hopped up and then she helped me sit down on the cart. Then she pushed me out of the room and down the hall.

“The point that he’s not over Ketty!”

Gripping the cart, I cringed. “If I say I believe you, will you not scare the hell out of me by dragging my gimpy ass around this McMansion on a deathtrap? If you accidentally push too hard, I could end up flying down the stairs.”

She stopped and then patted me on the back. “I used to run Aaron around the house in this all the time. He loved it. It’s perfectly safe. No worries. Besides, we’re heavily insured. You’d end up set for life if you were truly injured while in the Shipleys’ employ.”

That did not make me feel any better. “Not if I’m dead!” I countered.

“Relax, we’re here.” She stopped at a set of double doors at the end of a very long hallway and pulled out a set of keys from her apron. When I say a set of keys, I mean a ring filled with so many keys it could keep a locksmith with fattened pockets for another couple decades.

With a quick flick of her wrist, she unlocked and opened both the doors. I slid off the cart onto my good foot and then tip-toed into the space. The taut skin still smarted, but the wine had helped.

Once I got into the center of the room, I stopped and looked around. The room was gargantuan. It seemed to take up the entire end of this side of the mansion. It had to be two thousand square feet alone. Along two full walls was picture after picture of a dark-haired, blue-eyed young woman, spanning what looked like her teenaged years all the way to approximately her thirties. I slowly made my way to one of the walls and fingered a couple of the framed images. The woman shared an amazing resemblance with Aaron. In some of the photos, the young lady was holding Aaron, who looked no more than three or four.

As I scanned the rest of the space there was a vanity set up. A brush, comb, makeup, and other lotions and perfumes sat, as if waiting for the woman who owned them to sit and prepare herself for a night out. Moving along the side, another area hosted a wide glass case. The case was at least six feet in length by two feet wide. Within were incredible sets of earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, the likes of which would be found in a high-end jewelry store. They were all top notch, obviously very expensive pieces that would sell for tens of thousands of dollars and possibly more.

Farther down the room was rack after rack of women’s clothing. None of them had even a speck of dust on them even though they had to be decades old, yet they were hung as if ready to be worn by their owner.

More things hugged the walls, books, knick-knacks, picture after picture of Aaron as a small boy, all the things that would have made a home were in this one room.

“What is this place?” I asked Kathleen, practically losing my ability to speak as shock closed my throat, the words coming out whispered and breathy.

Kathleen leaned against the vanity and traced the golden handled brush. “Exactly what it looks like.”

With a sarcasm-laced tone, I responded. “Jesus Christ! It looks like a shrine to a dead woman.”

“Ketty Shipley lives on, even though she’s been dead for twenty-five years.”

Chapter 5

“What the hell are you two doing in here?” The irate voice of none other than Warren Shipley growled behind me, and I spun around.

“Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Shipley,” Kathleen started to explain, but I cut in.

I shrugged and hopped over to him. “Sorry Warren. I got curious. It was the only door in the whole house that was locked. Now I know why. Kathleen was just telling me how inappropriate it was for me to enter your private space.” Plastering on an apologetic smile, I glanced at Kathleen then patted Warren’s chest as if what I saw was no big deal. It was. Huge in fact. “Your secret is safe with me.” I added and moved to the hallway. “Uh, my foot hurts, so I’m going to turn in.”

Warren must have gotten over his shock at being caught with a shrine to his dead wife and stopped me with a hand to my arm. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. I lifted up my foot. The hall light shined on the black ink. “Got a tattoo today.”

Apparently shock was an easy thing with this guy, for he gasped and held my foot aloft, taking a gander at the ink. I was getting tired of holding it up when he lifted me up in a princess hold and set me back on my cart. “Convenient this food cart with wheels is sitting right here, isn’t it?” His bushy eyebrows lowered in a frown.

“Um, yeah. I was going to find the kitchen and make myself a meal but trying to hop on one foot and carry a plate would have been a disaster.” I smacked the metal cart and was satisfied when it made a gong noise. “Found this baby and voila! Figured it would work like a charm. Plus, I can lean against it and push off with my good foot.” I gave my best grin-pout combo.

“Uh huh,” he mumbled, unconvinced. Based on his tone, I didn’t think he bought my layer of lies, but so far, he didn’t stop me.

Kathleen however wasn’t about to play games. “Sorry, Mr. Shipley. I’ll take Mia back to her room to rest.”

“I expect to see you back at my room so we can discuss this, Kitten.”

Once we were out of earshot, I tipped my head back and looked at her upside-down as she pushed me along the hallways. “Kitten?”

Her lips moved into that sweet, small smile. “Nothing out of you. You’re getting me in all kinds of trouble.”

That got my attention. “Me!” I scoffed. “You’re the one that just had to show me how he wasn’t over the dead wife. That we got caught was all on you! I tried to save your ass.”

Kathleen chuckled softly, and it sounded like tinkling little bells. “Oh sweetie, if I wanted my ass saved, I wouldn’t still be here after thirty years now would I? I’m perfectly happy with the location of my ass as it is.” There was an undertone of discontent. That shrine proved he was, in fact, not over Aaron’s mother. Maybe some people just never got over their first love. Shit, I hoped that wasn’t the case. I’d had a pretty shitty first love. I’d had a lot of pretty stellar dives in the crap pool that was my love life. Hopefully, God would take pity on me and send me the right man. The man that would take it all away and everything with him would just be…effortless.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket, startlingly loud against the metal of the cart. Both Kathleen and I jumped out of our skin then laughed about the silliness of the situation. We’d been caught trespassing into a very whacked-out, secret space; she was pushing me around the McMansion on a food cart after I’d permanently marked my own body, and now we were scared of things that buzzed in the night. The scene was comical. No doubt we could make some money on Broadway with this shtick.

When we reached my door, I thanked Kathleen for the lift, hopped into my room, and fell to the bed, phone in hand.

To: Mia Saunders

From: Wes Channing

I dreamt about you last night. We were in my pool again. Sky was nothing but midnight and bright stars. You were laid out, legs spread wide and my mouth was doing that thing you loved. Remember that? Remember how easily I could make you melt. Make you come with just my mouth. God I miss that. Your taste on my tongue. Like pure honey. Tell me, are you thinking of me, right now?

To: Wes Channing

From: Mia Saunders

Yes.

To: Mia Saunders

From: Wes Channing

Prove it. Show me.

Holy mother of hot men. I read Wes’s words at least five times. Enough that I felt twitchy, like my body was roasting from the inside out. He wanted me to show him. I’d never sexted before. The idea had some serious merit. I was horny, and he obviously was. What would it hurt? That little voice inside my head that said this would only complicate things prodded at my subconscious like a woodpecker against the trunk of a tree.

Tap, tap…tap, tap…tap, tap.

Like the idiot I was, I pulled out a mental BB gun and shot that woodpecker off its perch, shimmied out of my clothes leaving nothing on but my bra and panties. A hot pink set that had scalloped lace edges. He was going to lose his mind at this getup. Holding the phone at my chin, I crossed my legs making sure they looked casual yet sexy in the soft light and took a picture.

To: Wes Channing

From: Mia Saunders

How’s this?

I sent the picture and started caressing my thighs with just the tips of my fingers, running them up and down my legs and higher. Once I reached my breasts, I cupped them and squeezed more roughly than I would normally, but I was imagining the way Wes would touch them. He couldn’t get enough of my body and often, when he was insane with lust, he’d hold onto me like I was the last woman on Earth. Roughly and with manly intent. I loved those times. They made me feel desired, wanted, like nothing in the world would come between us.

The phone pinged and I scrambled to lift it up. Oh sweet baby Jesus and all things good, kind and delicious.

To: Mia Saunders

From: Wes Channing

Now you’ve made me hard.

The picture he attached mimicked mine only he was in a pair of swim trunks that were delightfully tented. His abs were on full display, and at that moment, I would have given anything to run my tongue along each ridge of muscle, especially the very large appendage raising his shorts.

Wetness pooled between my thighs. Ribbons of heat and desire roared through my limbs. I rubbed my thighs against one another, attempting to relieve some of the tension, but the friction just added to the need.

To: Wes Channing

From: Mia Saunders

I wish you were here. I’d take care of that big problem you’ve got.