Love Deluxe (20 page)

Chapter Fifteen

In the morning I woke and he was gone. The glass door to the balcony was open and the room was cold. I put on a robe, walked outside and leaned over the railing, the sun made bright patterns on the water and two manatees swam slowly around the pylons below. I heard the door open and John came in carrying a tray with coffee and Diet Cokes and breakfast.

“There’s my sweetie,” he said. “I brought you some eggs and a biscuit and jelly; they have a buffet downstairs. Man, it feels like winter, come in here before you catch your death of cold.”

I smiled and told him he sounded like my grandmother and to come out and see the manatees. We watched the animals swimming in slow motion, nuzzling each other, they moved languidly, content in their vast, watery world.

“It’s good to have a buddy,” he said, watching them play. “I think they’re lovers, like you and me.”

“Well, your lover is sore this morning because she got drunk on beer and had nasty sex with a blue-eyed blond in a cheap motel room. It’s official, I’m a trashy girl.”

He looked stricken and hugged me to him, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t know what happened, you make me wild, I want to know you’re mine and only mine. I’m not used to feeling like this, I’m in love with you and it keeps getting stronger. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, you’re the one who’s good with words, not me, but I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I’ll live,” I said, “and for the record— I didn’t enjoy it at all.”

He stepped away, horrified for a minute until he knew that I was joking. Then he grinned and I was caught once again in the spell of his vivid blue gaze. With one long arm he drew my body to his and said, “I sure was clueless before I met my sweetie, why didn’t anyone ever tell me about hot Baptist widows?”

***

The road to Micanopy curled through dense pine forests and along rivers dotted with ancient cypress trees that looked as if they were raising their knees and wading into the water. The trees were crowded with under growth and Kudzu vines run amuck, tangled and evocative, a landscape lost in time. We drove down the narrow main street lined with old brick storefronts and overhung with centuries old oak trees, dripping Spanish moss.

“It’s unbelievable,” John said, “how’d you ever find this place? Man, it’s the town the world forgot.”

“It really is,” I said, “its bewitching.”

We drove up to the Herlong Mansion and he said, “Damn, now that’s a house!”

“It’s a bed and breakfast, let’s see if they have a room available, I’ve never stayed here but I’ve always wanted to.”

The desk clerk said we could take our pick, the Thanksgiving crowd had left that morning and the place was empty. He handed us a brochure with room descriptions.

“Thanksgiving,” I said. “Thanksgiving was yesterday wasn’t it? I completely forgot… didn’t even call my parents.”

“Yes, we served a full turkey dinner in the dining room and in tents on the grounds, the Governor made an appearance. Our Thanksgiving feast is quite popular.”

John picked the Herlong Suite and the clerk asked how long we’d be staying and if we needed help with our bags. I told him at least two nights, could we let him know if that changed? No problem, he said, we had the place to ourselves. He gave us the total for two nights stay and asked how we would like to pay; John pulled cash out of his wallet and started in with his bonus buy routine.

I left him to it and went to park the car. I opened my purse and found my cell phone, the ringer was on silent and I’d missed a dozen calls. What had happened to me, I wondered? I’d let myself disappear, become a stranger. I was a woman who used to drink only once in a blue moon and now I drank almost daily. I ignored my family and business and was no longer happy unless my vagina was bruised and aching, a constant reminder that kept me wanting more. Blue moon made me think of McKay and I wondered why he hadn’t spent Thanksgiving with his sons in Alabama. He came to the cottage and we bought paintings and had dinner on Wednesday, had he stayed in town just for that?

I called my mother and of course she was in a panic, “Catherine, where are you?”

Oh no, it was never good when she called me Catherine.

“I started calling the beach house yesterday morning,” she said and her voice was shrill with alarm. “Everyone was here for dinner and we all wanted to say hello and wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I called Emily; she couldn’t get hold of you either. Are you alright? I should get your daddy up from his nap, he’s worried sick, this just isn’t like you.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m fine, in love with my husband, we’re remodeling the cottage and we’ve made a new friend with a boat so we’ve spent some time with him. Now we’re antiquing near Mt. Dora, hoping to find some things for the shop. I can’t go into detail now, Mother, but the house in San Antonio sold, I’ll need to be packed and out by New Year’s.”

She was relieved that all was well and glad that I would be sending inventory; she had stopped by my shop to check on things and she said it looked bare. She wanted to know all about McKay, impressed with my brief description of his boat.

“Well, darlin’, you do sound very happy so I won’t worry anymore and I’ll tell your father you called. You’ll be here for Christmas, now I’m counting on that, Cate. You should call your sisters and Emily and tell the girls at your shop to let me know when the new things arrive and need arranging and I’ll go right on over.”

I told her I loved her and I wished Daddy could see the boat, he would adore it and the Gulf was so nice that time of year. We’d all get together at the cottage next spring, do the whole family thing, I missed them all, that John was a miracle worker; he made me so happy to be alive every day.

The back of the Range Rover opened and John gathered our bags, singing some lines from a Rolling Stones song and I thought,
John Foster is the only person in the world who can understand any word out of Mick Jagger’s mouth.

“I was schooled with a strap right across my back,” he sang. “Hey, buddy, I got a really good deal and guess what?” He was beaming, “They have turkey and stuffing and a lot of Thanksgiving food leftover, they’re gonna fix it all up for us in the dining room tonight, how do you like that?”

“You’re amazing,” I said, following him to the mansion, “I hope they have pumpkin pie, it’s my favorite.”

“If my baby wants pumpkin pie, she’s gonna get pumpkin pie!”

The room was a Victorian fantasy tastefully done. It had a high four poster bed with a canopy and French doors that opened onto the second floor balcony with a view of endless gardens and giant oaks.

John set our bags down and asked, “This is the master suite, do you it like it, is my wife happy?”

I kissed him, smelling his particular scent, he wore just the slightest hint of cologne which I’d always disliked on men, but on him it was hot and ignited some primal part of my brain that screamed “
sex!
” I felt that stirring deep in my core and a wetness that after last night caused me to step back in discomfort.

“I need to take a nice, soothing bath and maybe you could find some ice?”

He looked so remorseful I almost laughed, “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m a Neanderthal, I’ll never do it again, I…”

“Don’t be silly, of course you’ll do it again and I’ll want you to, now will you go get some ice?”

I lingered in the tub, the ends of my hair hanging in the water, a hand towel filled with ice between my legs. John sat on the floor talking about how beautiful Florida was, that California was great, too, but with a different kind of beauty, that he would show it to me someday and Vegas, as well. That flying into Las Vegas at night was a wonder to behold, like looking down into a giant bowl filled with Christmas lights.

“John, you never talk about old girlfriends, why is that? You must have had dozens, was there anyone special, poor things, did you cause them bodily harm, too?”

He made a face and said, “I had a lot of girls, from the time I was a freshman the older girls were hitting on me and they had cars and weed and I thought that was cool. They would pick me up and just drive to some field and we’d have sex, man, I was young but big already, you know? But I got tired of it, believe it or not, it was all so easy. I only had two real girlfriends in L.A. when I lived there after the Navy, one of them was serious but she was into strange stuff I couldn’t take. The other one stayed around for a while then we moved to the mountains and she hated it so she left. I dated a girl in Austin, she wanted it to be serious and I liked her, she was from Brazil and really pretty but an uptight Catholic with all these weird superstitions. I guess I broke up with her about a year before I met you.”

“Did you have one night stand kind of sex in that year before we met, you’re sort of a ‘have to have sex’ kind of guy, what did you do?”

“No,” he said seriously, “I was lonesome.”

I burst out laughing and he turned red and gave me his injured look.

“I don’t know why I tell you anything, I embarrass the hell out of myself just watching the looks on your face when I tell my stupid stories.”

I climbed out of the water and sat on his lap dripping wet, wrapped my legs around him, “You’re stories aren’t stupid at all, you’re just one of a kind and you seem so much bigger than life. You’re handsome beyond belief and you come across as arrogant and unflappable but then you tell me these stories and they’re just fresh and unexpected and I don’t know, you crack me up. I catch myself thinking about how unique you are and smiling and people look at me like I must know the best secret in the world and I do.”

He held me close, the pulse in his neck thumping against my cheek and he whispered, “I don’t want you to ever be ashamed of me, buddy.”

“Never ever,” I said. “So this girl in L.A. that you were serious about, what do you mean she was into strange stuff? Like, drugs?”

“Yeah, but sex too. Her name was Amanda, God, she was really beautiful. She’d been married to this football player and had this really cute kid who lived in Utah with her parents, but she wanted to push the edge of the envelope, like dirty sex. And she fucking loved heroin, man, it ruined her looks. I tried to get her to stop, took her to this Methadone clinic but it didn’t work. She’d lock herself in the bathroom to hide and shoot up, pretty soon she didn’t care who saw her do it. Heroin is some bad shit to get hooked on, nobody ever gets off the Horse.”

“That’s horrible. But I can’t imagine you turning down sex, what did she want to do?”

He hesitated; turned red again, ran his hand through his hair.

“She wanted…real degrading, kinky shit, man it was a turn off, and she begged and begged. I couldn’t do it, there are places where a cock just doesn’t belong. She started going out at night without me and I was glad, finally she packed her bags and left.”

What a strange man, I thought, he looked like the kind of guy they used to call a playboy, like he’d want sex every way but normal, yet he was embarrassed to talk about kinky sex.

He reached for a towel and wrapped me in it, asked, “How ya doing… down there?”

I wanted to laugh but I bit my tongue and told him, “It’s getting better,
down there
, but we should give it a rest at least for tonight.”

“Okay buddy,” he said, “let’s get dressed, and go downstairs. Our feast is getting cold, hurry up!”

He stripped down, stepped in the shower and hummed another Stones tune under his breath. He was so beautiful; statues were carved centuries ago with his image in mind. He was tall and perfectly proportioned; his skin was golden from the sun and the hair on his body was the palest yellow. He caught me staring at him and motioned for me to join him, I shook my head and he looked disappointed for a minute and then continued washing.

I put on some make up, dried my hair, twisted and pinned it into a loose chignon. I stepped into a pair of miniscule black panties with a rose in front and saw that John was out of the shower, drying off and mesmerized as he watched me. I’d brought only one dress, a black boat neck, long sleeved sheath, curve hugging but demure from the front. When I slipped into Manolo mules and turned my back to John, I heard him catch his breath. There was practically no back to the dress, it was cut so low that if I were to bend a half inch forward the crack of my ass would show. I finished putting on my earrings and turned toward him, the look on his face was priceless. It was such a mix of emotions; lust, admiration, surprise and adoration that I lost my composure and blushed. With all his beauty he found me desirable and it made me feel cherished and powerful and beyond sexy.

In the next two days we walked the streets and lanes and dirt paths that made up Micanopy. The friendliest people in the world inhabited the itty-bitty hamlet and how could they not be as happy as larks, nothing of the real world encroached. There were no constantly ringing cell phones or endless fascination with iPads, no one was rude enough to text or shop online or ignore their companions while eating in a restaurant. Any friendly dog was known by name and welcome anywhere, in cafes, stores, or stranger’s homes.

John talked to everyone, “I’m blown away by this place, did you know they filmed
Doc
Hollywood
here? Michael J. Fox stayed in the bed and breakfast where we’re staying. And some film called
The Yearling
, too, whoever wrote that lived near here, and, man, this place is old, one of the oldest towns in Florida.”