Just One Taste (14 page)

“That explains it,” Cade laughed. “You know what they say about England and the U.S…two nations separated by a common language? You’ve got that southern accent going on, but underneath you’re really English!”

“Indeed.” She gave him a frosty look.

“Sorry. I’ll try to shut up.” He didn’t look one bit guilty, though.

“When I was not quite seventeen years old, my parents married me off to Sir Joseph Barton.”

“Jeez. Sixteen! Isn’t that against the law over there?”

Juliet sighed deeply, resigning herself to Cade’s interruptions. Americans were a voluble lot. One could find out hair-raising intimate details from perfect strangers in the grocery line if one were so inclined.

“There were no such statutes then. My husband was more than forty years older than I at the time of our marriage. He—we—I’m afraid the marriage was not a success.”

“So, you’re divorced. Big deal. I mean, he was so much older than you. Not that the fifties are old, but you probably didn’t have much in common. He was rockin’ to the Rolling Stones while you were into Justin Timberlake.”

He looked so earnest and forgiving, poor deluded fool. A divorce would be the least of her worries.

“I am not a divorcee. I am a widow.”

“Oh. My God, Julie, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.” He started to get off the couch but sat back down when she glared at him. “I guess I’m not good at this listening stuff. Just ask my mother. Look, no matter what you went through, we can work it out.”

“Perhaps,” she said an enigmatic smile on her face. “My husband had—had an accident. He left me very well off. I was free to travel, to explore the world. I’ve lived in a great many places over the years. Several continents. Several countries. Several states. I’ve relocated my current business six or seven times since the thirties.”

Something about these words should set an alarm bell off. Even if her husband went out in flames on their wedding night, she was only talking about the last ten years or so. And she wasn’t thirty yet. He’d seen her driver’s license when she got carded at an Old Port bar last spring. She’d laughed hysterically when the waiter told her he didn’t think she was twenty-one.

Cade was quiet. He rubbed Rufus’ ears. The dog gave a happy wuffling snort.

Juliet observed this charming domestic scene. A man who was good with animals and wanted children would make a fine husband.

If he didn’t die.

“Rufus has been my only companion, but this is Rufus the Eighth. Prior to the string of Rufi, as I like to call them, I had Charlies. Five of them. There were at least a dozen Tigers.”

“That’s a lot of dogs.”

“Yes. Over two hundred fifty years’ worth of dogs.”

It was clear Cade wasn’t following from the look on his face. “In dog years, you mean.”

Juliet shook her head.

C
ade watched
her curls bounce and spring back. He’d loved her hair. The color. The smell. He’d like to get his hands in it right now and play with her white girl’s Afro. He was sorry she’d cut it, but she still was damned cute. Hell, she was beautiful. Small but curvy. They could be lying on her sleigh bed right now, Juliet pearly white in her nakedness since she never went tanning, her nipples peaked, her lips swollen from his kisses. He’d be patient as he’d tongue a trail right where she’d beg him to be, her voice husky with desire. He wondered if she still waxed. He couldn’t wait to find out. He’d been waiting a long year. His whole life, really. But damn. He licked his lips and hoped she didn’t notice the shift in his pants.

“Cade, are you listening to me?
Now
would be a good time to ask a question.”

“Uh, you’ve had a bunch of dogs. You’ve traveled a lot. I don’t see the problem.”

“Ask me my birthdate.”

“Hah! You’re not gonna catch me there! If there’s one thing my mother told me, you never ask a woman how old she is. You told me you were twenty-seven last year. If my mathematical genius still holds, that would make you twenty-eight now. And even if you fudged a little, I don’t care.” He grinned. “You’re very well-preserved.” He was alarmed to see the tears build in her enormous brown eyes. “Hey, age is just a number. It’s all about your attitude.”

“Don’t give me T-shirt platitudes, Cade. I am older than you.”

“
That’s
why you broke up with me?” Cade couldn’t believe it. What were a few years between friends?

Women were a mystery.

“In part. That, and the fact that every man involved with me for any length of time meets his Maker sooner rather than later. I am cursed.”

Cursed?
Cade sat up straighter. “Whoa. Just because your husband died—”

“My verbal abilities are proving inadequate. I should have written everything down and read it to you,” Juliet muttered.

She picked up the folded papers and passed them across the table. “In 1789 my husband followed these instructions, or something very like them, in an attempt to gain eternal youth and potency. The spell went awry and he was killed. I was then seven and twenty. Twenty-seven, that is. I had no idea he was dabbling in magic. I thought he was a man of science. But part of his blasted plan worked. I am as you see me, untouched by time.” She took a huge swallow of her drink.

Cade stopped tickling her dog and sat very still. What the actual fuck? Poor Julie. She was…well, she must be having some kind of psychotic episode or something. He wasn’t really up on medical lingo despite writing that drug warning pamphlet last year.

He’d made a lucky escape. He could finish his own beer, be out of here, but she kept talking.

“My birthday is March 5, 1762. I remember the Continental Congress. Both of them. I lost a dear friend at the crossroads of Quatre Bras. Given the choice, Aubrey would have preferred dying in more glory two days later, but it was not to be. I was privileged to hear Miss Nightingale speak, although I had discovered I had no aptitude for nursing in the aftermath of Waterloo.” Juliet had been nearly useless. Bereft and frightened. Bloody hands trembling as she changed bandages, hiding like a coward when more dying young men called out to her. She still lived while the best that was Britain lay suffering or in makeshift graves. She closed her mind to the carnage that still haunted her dreams and continued.

“To celebrate the 100
^th
year of my widowhood, I attended
L’Exposition Universelle
in Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. I posed for Gustav Klimt in 1908 when I lived in Vienna. With my clothes on, I might add. It’s a pity I can’t hang the portrait, but it would cause too many questions to be asked. It’s a remarkably good likeness. When the stock market crashed, I was in New York City, Lisbon during most of World War Two, many other places in between and since. I am a walking history book. And you, no doubt, think me a Bedlamite.” She drained her glass and looked drained herself.

As she said one crazy thing after another, Cade had watched Juliet get paler until she was the color of the paper in front of him. He could tell she believed everything she said. If she was acting, she was way better than Meryl Streep and that Queen Elizabeth chick who’d played both of them.

It was bad enough before when she threw a shoe at him. This timeline she’d just recited had wrapped around his throat and was choking him to death. He’d thought she was a little quirky and original; now he guessed she was just plain insane.

“You don’t believe me,” she said in a flat voice.

He tried to smile. “It’s a little hard for me to understand, Julie. Are you saying you’re a witch or something? You don’t think you’re a
vampire
, do you?” His hand went inadvertently to his neck.

She gave a brittle laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous! Have I ever bitten you?”

Cade just looked at her.

“Well, apart from ordinary loveplay. A harmless nip here and there. I am not a vampire. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s daylight outside and I haven’t yet turned to ash. And I’m most certainly not a witch. Oh, no. I have absolutely no power. Do you think I’ve
liked
living through four centuries? I assure you, it’s very taxing keeping
au courant
. Just when I think I know the game, the rules change. And you must see how inconvenient it is for me to keep moving.” She framed her face with her hands. “No amount of plastic surgery could produce
this
result. While my friends become grandparents, I still look like the
au pair
.”

“So you’re not twenty-eight.”

“No. And let’s not forget I seem to kill off the men I have affairs with. Not that I’ve been promiscuous. You have nothing to worry about there. Hunt seems to think they died because they were not my true love.”

Cade looked at his watch. He needed to go. “Who’s Hunt?” he asked, but he really didn’t care. He
had
to get out of here. Stat.

“An antiquarian bookseller in Boston. For the past few decades he’s been looking out for magic books for me.”

“Decades.”

Juliet’s face lit up. “Yes! He can tell you how long we’ve had business dealings together! He was quite as shocked as you are when he discovered my secret. Let me call him.” She picked up the cellphone on the coffee table.

“Don’t bother.” Cade rubbed his temple. He was getting a headache and its name was Juliet. “Look, I can tell you’re sincere about this, but—”

“Read those papers, please. Read them and you’ll understand.”

He’d humor her, and then he’d get the hell out. He’d wasted a year of his life pining for a nutjob, a beautiful girl who thought she was going to live forever. Who said she was like some kind of Black Widow who killed her lovers. Maybe she really had whacked somebody. He probably should call the police. Or Social Services or something. He looked up to see her huge brown eyes, pleading with him to read the bullshit she’d written down on copier paper.
She
was the one who should be writing a novel. She had ten times the imagination he did.

“Okay.” He pretended to scan the pages. He couldn’t read her handwriting anyway. Funny how he’d never noticed how weird it was. She’d always sent him e-mail or bought him silly cards with just a heart and her initial.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. I wish I could help you, Julie, I really do, but—”

Her eyes were shining. “You can. I know you are
my
true love. We can marry and then perform the rites to reverse what Sir Joseph did. The worst that could happen is that I’ll blow the house up and die. You should be fine.”

Marry. Blow the house up. Die.
Should
be fine. There were just so many issues to address, Cade was speechless.

Juliet left the chair and snuggled next to him on the couch, squeezing his hand, which was too numb to squeeze back. “I have a little cottage on a lake. It’s very secluded, down a dirt road. I bought it in the sixties when it was dirt cheap, little more than a shack, really. I’ve fixed it up over the years. I came up for a couple of weeks every summer when I lived down south and it was just too hot for sweet tea to work its magic.” She giggled. “Magic! Well, southern folks swear by sweet tea, you know. It’s the perfect place for us to spend our honeymoon and see about fixing things.”

Cade’s throat was parched. He longed for some sweet tea himself. Instead he reached for his ale and took a swig. “Umm, Juliet. I’m not sure I’m ready to get married. Maybe we should wait a while. Get to know each other again.” He watched her face slowly crumple in defeat.

She slid a few inches away across the cushion. “You’re right, of course. You must think me very foolish. A—a—a pushy broad, is that not correct?”

That and more
. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Juliet. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He gave her shoulder a little squeeze and left by the alley door.

“He called me Juliet,” she whispered to Rufus. “Twice.” And her tears began to flow.

C
ade got
up at the buttcrack of dawn, not that he’d had more than a few hours of sleep. Today’s paper lay in its plastic sleeve on the front porch he shared with his neighbor, delivered by some middle school kid and his bleary-eyed dad.

Cade glanced at the weather report in the upper right-hand corner. Another beautiful September day ahead, crisp, clear, but he wasn’t going to set one foot outside.

He let Jack out into the backyard to do his business. No way was he going to the dog park this morning.
She
might be there, trying to worm her way back into his life, all big eyes and honey hair. He dumped out yesterday’s coffee in the sink and watched it go down the drain. He didn’t want to be maudlin, but that looked like the story of his life right there, shitbrown and stale.

When he’d gotten up yesterday at this time, a scant twenty-four hours ago, he had been swelling with hope and love. He didn’t go in for therapy, but he’d gotten himself to a breakthrough about the break-up. There was no point it letting it chew him up anymore. He’d been stubborn for a year. A whole year. Sure, he’d made a couple of really feeble attempts to contact her. And they had been ignored. But what if she never got the e-mail? Or the Christmas card was lost in the horror of holiday mail? He heard about letters going astray for years, finally arriving after the addressee was dead.

He couldn’t trust the post office or the Internet with his future. Cade had to be proactive, an annoying buzz word, but the idea behind it made sense. He needed to see her again with his own two eyes. For, gag on another annoying word, closure. He wanted to get the goods on
why
Juliet had dumped him. The real reason. He was a man. He could take it.

He wanted to tell her that he still cared, even though he’d worked like hell to get over her. He wanted to see if there was a chance…

There was a chance all right. He thought of the book
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
he’d loved as a kid. He felt like pancakes and meatballs were dropping on his head right this minute. That would make as much sense as what he’d heard yesterday as Rufus drooled on his thigh.

Juliet was obviously seriously disturbed. The magic junk she’d amassed had gone to her brain. And if he didn’t get some caffeine into his, he’d never get any writing done today. He spooned some Beech Nut into the filter, filled the carafe with water and waited to wake up. Jack scratched at the door and Cade let him in. He poured the breakfast kibble into his dog’s bowl and watched while Jack made a chomping mess, scattering nuggets onto the linoleum like he did every morning. It was just another day. More of the same.

Yesterday had been different enough to last a lifetime.

Cade took his coffee into the dining room alcove where he’d set up his office and powered up his PC. He checked his personal mail first and was relieved there was no weepy message from Juliet proposing again. He was just congratulating himself on his lucky escape when the phone rang.

“Hey, Dee.”

“Good, you’re up. I shouldn’t be the only one awake at this hour.”

“Lindsay’s still teething, huh?” Cade’s cousin’s little girl was an adorable imp who was now biting all and sundry with her six new teeth. She’d even taken a bite out of Jack, who had been stoic throughout the ordeal.

“Yup, and Paul’s got one of those change-of-season colds, so between the snoring and the coughing and the crying I’m pretty cranky, and I wasn’t too happy to get a call from your girlfriend.”

Cade put his coffee down. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Cade. You wrote my English term papers. I know how smart you are. She called on your old number, the Gray Matters line. I answered it like any good office manager-slash-administrative assistant-slash-bookkeeper should, even if most businesses don’t open at 6:23 in the morning.”

Dee never referred to herself as his secretary, and truthfully she went over and beyond any job description. She’d been enormously helpful with the expansion of his little company.

Cade grimaced “I’m so sorry, Dee. What did she want?”

“You, you big dope.”

Cade felt his stomach clench. He was probably just hungry. “You didn’t give her my new number, did you?”

“What do you think? I told her—very sweetly I must say, considering—that you were unavailable at that hour and she should call back after nine. Do you want me to transfer her if she calls back?”

“No! No, I really don’t. Maybe you can tell her I went out of town.”

“Weasel.”

“Hey, whose side are you on? I told you what happened.”

Deirdre sighed. “I know. The Shoe Shooter. The Flip-flop Fighter. Did you do like I told you and go see her?”

“Yeah. I saw her yesterday.” He really didn’t want a lecture from his little cousin on love. He clicked on to the New York Times site and tried to read the headlines while she yammered at him.

“I gather it didn’t go well?”

“Not particularly.”

“She sounded really upset, Cade.”

I’ll bet she is,
he thought. She’s probably having breakfast with Hitler and Hirohito right now. Or maybe Charles Dodson and Charles Dickens. It was the best of times, the worst of times in Wonderland. Anything was possible in her fantasy world.

“I’ll take care of it. Just take a message if she calls back, Dee. Anything else on the docket today?”

“Brian’s finishing up the Dinerstore catalog. He’s bringing it by before he goes on vacation. I’ll cut him his check. I should be Fed-Exing the project this afternoon.”

“Great, great. Thanks a lot, Dee. Have a good day.”

“You betcha. And Cade?”

“Uh huh?”

“You need to put the past behind you.”

Dee had no idea how right she was.

A
t 9
:01 Juliet swallowed back her nerves and punched in Cade’s number. Apparently, it wasn’t really his number anymore, but his office number. She had no idea his technical writing career had taken such a successful turn. He had a snotty secretary and everything.

Well, Juliet admitted, if she had to answer the phone before 6:30 in the morning, she’d probably be snotty too. It surprised her that Cade, laid-back as he was, required his employees to come in at that hour. She knew he himself was an early riser, which is why she called, but it hardly seemed fair to require his staff to come in when he was still home.

She hadn’t slept a wink. Her declaration yesterday had been a debacle. And she’d been so
forward
. She had actually proposed to Cade. It was as though centuries of demure, ladylike behavior had been erased by her brazen desperation.

“Gray Matters. How may I direct your call?”

“Uh, good morning again. This is Juliet Barton. Is Ca-Mr. Gray in?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gray is not available. May I take a message?”

Juliet jumped as she heard an ear-splitting shriek on the other end of the phone. Before she could say a word, she heard, “Hold, please,” and she was plugged into some bonging and dinging New Age music. The more she heard the calming refrains, the more anxious she became. She had just about tied her finger into a knot of hair when Cade’s secretary came back on the line.

“I’m sorry. Ms. Barton, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Do you wish to leave a message?”

Juliet had a vision of the other woman tossing hundreds of little pink pieces of paper into some sleek trash can. “Perhaps I could just come down to the office and see Mr. Gray personally. Can you schedule an appointment for later today?”

“Come in? To the office? You want to, uh, make an appointment? For today?”

All the secretary’s professionalism seemed to have deserted her. What kind of a place was Cade running with blood-curdling screaming and ditzy employees?

Juliet resurrected her coolest Lady Barton of Barton Manor voice. “That’s correct. I wish to engage Mr. Gray’s services.”

“
O
h
, honey. Give it up. He doesn’t want to see you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Juliet pulled her finger out of her hair before she lost circulation in it.

“Julie, can I call you Julie? Cade’s carried the torch for you for a year. But whatever you said to him yesterday freaked him out completely. He’s moving on. You should too.”

“Who
are
you?”

“I’m Cade’s administrative assistant. And his cousin Deirdre. We all were supposed to go out for dinner together last September but I had the baby instead.”

And Juliet had been jealous when Cade grinned like an ape announcing to everybody in the restaurant that he had a new second cousin.

“The baby’s at work with you?”

“I work from home. Cade’s been a fantastic boss.”

Juliet thought a moment. “So there’s no office.”

“We all work from home, Julie. Brian, Cade and I. It’s the Computer Age. Listen, I’d love to chat some more. You sound nice. But I gotta go. I can’t hear Lindsay. That’s a very bad sign. So goo—”

But Juliet had already hung the phone up. She had plans. She belted her long maroon sweatercoat, grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

C
ade was sacked
out on his leather couch. Around ten o’clock he’d given in to the droopy eyelids and given up trying to make sense out of a hand-written list of one-hundred- percent organic ingredients for a fledgling skincare company’s brochure.

Just because he was going to take a nap in the morning didn’t make him lazy. He was just tired. It wasn’t as though he’d actually gone back into his
bed
. He’d rest his eyes for a few minutes…

He was having the most erotic dream of his life. Julie was naked. On her knees. Her white skin was polished, like pearls. His fingers slipped through the silk of her gilt-bronze hair, twisting the curls away from her upturned face. Her lashes left the faintest shadow on her cheeks, her lips were pursed in the most wicked smile. He leaned closer and the sweet warm haven of her mouth welcomed and worked his cock with a skill her innocent blush belied. Groaning in his sleep, he never heard the back door open.

Jack woke up from his snooze on the mat in front of the sink, but didn’t bark because it was JULIE!!! Only his pal Rufus wasn’t there in person, just a fine bouquet of fox terrier fragrance wafting about. It had been a long time, but Jack put his nose right in her crotch, and it was JULIE!!! all right. She always smelled so good. He thought about jumping up to lick her neck, but knew she didn’t like that, so he swiped his tongue on her hand instead and knocked her around with his tail.

“Sit,” Juliet said primly, and Jack actually did.

She still had the key to what she euphemistically called “the garden entrance.” Cade lived on the ground floor of a huge Victorian monstrosity that had been carved up into six spacious apartments. He had a front door too, quite a lovely one with beveled glass and carving, but she had wanted to enter with some stealth. If Cade were true to form, he’s be slaving away in his dining room-cum-office. She was counting on the element of surprise, wanting to judge just how much he hated/feared/or maybe still loved her when she tiptoed up behind him.

Nothing at all had changed about Cade’s place. When she’d entered the gate from the street, she saw that Cade was still somewhat lax in picking up his dog’s landmines in his postage-stamp sized yard. The baseball bats and gloves were by the kitchen door, his cleats and their clumps of dirt proving he’d spent the past summer doing something other than yearning for her. There was half a pot of cold coffee on the counter, and the newspaper was spread out on the square pine table, open to the comics. Or perhaps Cade was checking out his horoscope. Reading
Beware of people from your past,
or some such thing
.

“Stay,” she said, and Juliet could almost see the disgruntlement on Jack’s face. He heaved a sigh and lay back down. She went through the arch to the back hallway. The bathroom door to her left was open. Toilet seat up, of course. Juliet checked her reflection in a toothpaste-spotted mirror. The man really needed a cleaning lady. Or a wife, if wives still cleaned things these days. Most of her friends were far too busy with their careers to keep their homes tidy and decent domestic help was impossible to find. She fluffed her hair, thinking she looked a lot like Little Orphan Annie, except with pupils.

Juliet walked past the linen closet. She knew from experience that if she opened the door she would be assaulted with rolling rolls of toilet paper and an avalanche of badly-folded towels. She peeked into the bedroom. The shades were still down, but there was no luscious lump of man under the plaid coverlet. Juliet stumbled over some balled-up socks and one athletic shoe in the dimness and overcame her urge to pick them up.

Cade was not precisely a slob, just rather casual and carefree. He would love her little cabin in the woods.

Juliet headed to the front of the apartment. Cade was not hunched over his desk in the dining room. She was surprised to see that his screensaver still had a picture of the two of them grinning like lovestruck imbeciles. It wasn’t at all businesslike, which pleased her enormously.

Her elation was short-lived. Where was he? Perhaps he’d left the house to run some errands. Should she leave a note? He’d probably have her hauled up on charges for breaking and entering. She hadn’t broken anything, but trespassing was a possibility. After Cade revealed what she’d told him to the authorities, no doubt she’d face years in a psycho ward, wearing itchy orange pajamas and eating Jello desserts. She’d outlive her jailers, languishing in some dank, depressing cell, forced to watch cable TV to keep true insanity at bay. But perhaps that would not be efficacious after all. Orange wasn’t the new black.

These unhappy thoughts were interrupted by a snorking sound coming from the couch in the living room.
Of course
. No wonder she hadn’t seen him when she walked past the parlor. He was lying down. Sleeping, damn him! How could he sleep, when she’d tossed and turned all night! She slipped the tiny chased silver pistol out of her purse and put it in the pocket of her knit coat. One look at Cade’s face when he woke up would tell her if she had to use it.