A New Lu (19 page)

As I turn on the water he moves in behind me and kisses my neck, just where the robe gapes away at my nape.
“Hmm,”
he murmurs. And then one arm comes around the front, powdered-sugared fingers splayed so as not to soil my wrapper, and his wrist hooks in low on my belly to pull me back against him.

The kettle is filling.

“Lu?” he whispers against my ear.

“Hmm?”

“Do you mind if I have another taste?”

I don't think he's talking about lemon bars because he's pulling loose my sash between the knuckles of his other hand.

The thing about sex is, if it's been absent awhile, it comes back in waves of remembrance of need. The need is mutual.

William's hands are something altogether different when they are being directed not by the physician's mind but the man's libido. Soon I'm remembering things I've only read about as those hands glide and slide and seek and slip into—oh my, I wonder if anyone ever used powdered sugar that way before?

Pretty soon, I feel him reach back and slide down his shorts and then he's lifting the back of my robe with the other.

Feeling what he's feeling, I wriggle back against him. “I've never done it standing up.”

“Good. We have some firsts together.”

A gasp at the right moment can be as distracting as glass shattering on marble. We are no longer alone.

One instant William is knocking on my door. The next, I feel the cool breeze of abandonment on my posterior. He's amazingly quick, a flash of naked man through the nearest exit, which is the dining room. And he didn't even trip on his boxers!

The blood draining from my head, my heart, my loins closes the world to a pinprick diameter as I turn to face our intruder.

Andrea. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“I knocked. Nobody answered.”

26

I need to collect my house keys. Far too many people have access to my house.

“Girl, you need to be more careful.” Andrea has a hand on each hip. “I could have been anybody walking in here just now.”

“You
are
anybody, Andrea. Go home!”

I've adjusted my robe but the damage has been done. It could have been worse, I tell my galloping heart. It could have been Cy or Curran, or—Davin or Dallas! Much, much worse.

“Who was that guy?” Andrea cranes her head around but I step in her way as she's about to follow the path William took as he sprinted off. “Tell me I didn't walk in on some sexual predator you're afraid to tell me about because he's got a gun pointed on us from the shadows?”

I fold my arms. “Do I look frightened?”

Andrea grins. “You look freshly fu—”

“Andrea!”

“He's cute. How come I don't know about him?”

I'm trying for poise here. I really am. I have never been walked in on in the middle of sex before. It takes a bit of effort to speak coherently.

“What the
hell
are you doing here, Andrea?”

She shrugs and, to my horror, goes to sit down at my kitchen table. “I saw your car parked up the street a couple of hours ago. Just now I came back and saw it still there. I wondered if you'd had car trouble. Then I called and got no answer.”

“I turned off the ringer.”

Andrea grins. “I can see why.”

“What are you doing in my house?” I need the answer to make sense of an embarrassment so acute I feel a rash coming on.

“I rang the bell.”

It's not that I don't believe her, it's just…I don't believe her. “It worked yesterday.”

She crosses her legs as if I've asked her to tea. Tea! I turn to shut off the running water.

“Okay, so maybe I peeked through the window and it was so quiet and dark in here that I let myself in, thinking maybe you were sick or something.”

“I was something.”

“Next time you should like, let a sister know, so she can run interference for you.”

“Andrea, I really don't want to talk about this. But if we must, can it be another time, like in four or five years?”

“Oh, right, you've got company.” She stands up. Her head swivels toward the dining room again. “He looked pretty involved so I guess he's pissed at me.”

“You could think that. I sure am.”

“Listen, you should be thanking me. This could have been something else altogether. You got someone looking out for you.” She prods her chest with a freshly manicured nail. “Don't forget that.”

“At this point, I can recite a roster of people lined up to
look out for me. Maybe you could form a political party and elect me mayor.” I point to the way out. “Home, Andrea.”

“Okay, okay.” She stands and takes long, cartoonish sneaky steps toward the door. “I'm proud of you. I told you, men are out there. Only answer this. Is he—good…?” She makes an obscene gesture with her hand.

I sling the first thing I can reach at her, a sponge.

At this point, it's about even odds that William has shimmied down the drainpipe and disappeared over the eastern horizon.

I give him plenty of warning that I'm coming, mounting each step with a heavy, reluctant tread. I know it's really me who's delaying the moment in which I must explain myself, and my friends, again.

William is standing in Davin's room, fully dressed. As in socks and shoes, and bag-in-hand dressed. “I'm sorry if it seems I ran out on you. I didn't know what—I thought maybe it would be better if I… Who was that?”

“The FBI.”

“What?” Oh dear, at this point, he's ready to believe anything of me.

“The Fábregas-Prem Bureau of Investigation. Better known as Andrea, my best friend. She thought I was sick, or maybe you were a pervert who broke in. We sorted it out.”

“Oh.” William puts down his bag and looks at me with exasperation. “I don't want to tell you your business. But does it occur to you that you are managing a few too many parties in your life?”

I'm certainly not feeling like a party anymore, so I'll assume he means other people.

I sit down on Davin's bed and lean slightly forward, bracing my hands on my thighs to relieve the stiffness in my lower back. “I was a sensible middle-aged person until
my husband walked out. I don't mean he held things together. Far from it. But that's another story. Still, people never came and went in my house without warning. Well, Davin had that pack of friends who set up in the TV room his senior year and played Dungeons and Dragons pretty much full-time, when they weren't in school. And, of course, before that Dallas went through the stage where there were two or three guys hanging out all the time they weren't in school, either. But for me, basically, I've been a normal, relatively sane wife and mother, and journalist. Pretty much.”

“I want to believe you.” William comes up and sits down beside me. “But if that's true, perhaps you were sitting on a part of yourself you've never had a chance to know.”

I give him a look. “No license to practice here. Remember?”

He smiles. “Okay. So what do you want to do now?”

“Go to bed.”

“Now?” He looks alarmed, not lusty.

“Not sex. Sleep. I need my rest. Okay?”

“Okay.” He chuckles. “Because I'm bushed, too.”

And just like that, we set a pattern that will last the rest of the weekend. We don't answer the dead-bolted door. We don't go out. He takes some medical calls, and a few to Jolie. She and Jon seem to be managing to keep it together under one roof. On Sunday, William and I sit and read the paper, eat occasionally, make love when the mood strikes mid-afternoon, and I tell him each time I feel Sweet Tum within flutter. He's remarkably good at looking quite pleased about that, each and every time.

When Cy calls, he sneezes, bless his heart, and I put off his offer to visit with a “Not until you're sure it's just pollen. I have a baby to consider. Call me Monday.”

27

There's one thing about drama. It juices the imagination. I've been typing like a fiend since William took a cab to the rail station an hour ago. I click the print button and smile. I have two hours left before I'm due at work. How I love deadlines!

In under forty-five minutes, I'm showered, dressed and out the door, a miracle of second-trimester tranquility.

The sight of Curran standing just outside my door, clicking away on the camera, leaves me unruffled. We made an agreement yesterday, by phone. From 6:00 p.m. Fridays until 8:00 a.m. Mondays, I'm a free agent. If anything really cinematic comes up, I will call. Otherwise, we all need time off from work, and one another.

“Hey, Lu!”

I smile and nod. “You look like a lobster.”

Curran shrugs. “They say if you wear an SPF of 15, even a very white person can tan.”

“They lied, Curran.”

I slide behind the wheel of my car and he gets in on
the passenger side. I didn't volunteer to pick him up or take him home, but it seemed a bit much to expect him to pay an extra fare every day just so he can catch sight of me opening my door. This way, I know he knows he'll see me first thing. No scouting out my backyard, or surprise jumps from bushes. He gets his picture, and I get to drink coffee without closing all the blinds.

“Fun weekend?”

“The shore was stupid!” Since Curran's grinning, I assume he means he had a good time. “Your weekend see any excitement?”

I grin, too. “I have a secret lover. We had sex on every piece of furniture in the house.”

Curran shakes his head. “Old movies and popcorn, huh?”

I shrug. Am I that dull?

We arrive at work a whopping fifteen minutes early. By now I'm almost accustomed to the fact that people I know will gawk at the sight of me. I suppose it's because I'm wearing maternity clothes more or less full-time. Various members of the staff catch my eye and wave, or give me a victory or thumbs-up sign. Well, not everyone.

KaZi is standing at the reception desk. When she notices Curran and me approaching, her eyes, rimmed in thick bands of black eyeliner, narrow into equal signs. Then she throws up a hand, palm out, and looks away.

I turn to Curran. “What was that about?”

Curran wheels around and, mumbling under his breath, “I gotta be somewhere,” heads back out the door.

Evidently, the lovebirds are fighting. No need for me to take sides. “Hey, KaZi.”

She gives me an I-don't-think-you-want-to-talk-to-me stare, then turns and walks away.

I shrug and look at Babs. “Hi. Please see that Tai gets this.”

It's my revised column for “The Pregnant Pause.” Before
the day is over I'll know whether this is officially my first day back with a new column or my official last day at the old job.

“…wanted you to know.” William's voice is low and soft with relief.

“I'm so glad.” I shift the phone to my other ear as I reach to pause one of my favorite movies,
Dark Victory,
on my computer screen. “How soon will they perform the amnio?”

“A week. Jolie and Jon didn't exactly reconcile, but she agreed to go home until the time for the test.”

“Which means you're released from parenting up close and personally.” I hit the stop button to turn the movie off. Bette Davis's eyes are distracting even on Pause.

“I'm on call this weekend. So I was thinking that, if you're not busy…” The hesitation in his voice surprises me. “Come out here.”

“Sunday's my birthday.”

“What about your children?”

I fish a dried apricot out of my bowl of healthy snacks and pop it into my mouth. “Davin can't get away and Dallas probably won't try.”

“Now, that's not right. What about your dwarfs and the FBI?”

“There is a small party planned for Saturday. I…er, how about you come help us celebrate?”

“You're not obligated to include me.”

Damn! He heard the hesitation in my voice. Frankly, I am thinking about the repercussions. Even if Andrea has had an up-close and much-too-personal encounter with him, meeting Cy and Curran will be another thing altogether. I'd like to keep William to myself a little longer.

“Oh, then, forget it. You try to be nice to some people…”

His laughter, sharp as ever, cuts across the line and into
my frustrated day, laying open a sunshine center. “If I can switch part of my on-call weekend duty, I'll be there midday on Sunday. You stay put. I'll catch a cab from the station.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I look up and my voice changes. “Got to go.”

Tai is in my doorway.

“Come in.”

I know how it must look, curtains drawn, lights down, a DVD playing an old movie while I'm on the phone talking sweet and low—and I don't care. She's made me wait until three-thirty to give me the verdict on my column. Sweet Tum needed me to mellow out.

Tai's carrying my latest column copy between two fingers. “I read ‘Knocked-Up But Not Out.'”

She practically purrs as she lays it on my desk. Is this a dead-rodent trophy or am I trapped like a rat? “I love it. It's got everything. Smarts. Sass. Controversy!”

I frown. “What's controversial?”

“The fact you say you will not name the father of your child. I've been thinking about that. Our readers are going to devour that tidbit. Absolutely devour it. And scour future issues for clues to his identity in your columns.”

I sit back and smile. “There won't be any.”

“There needn't be. You've flung down the gauntlet.”

Tai folds her arms and leans her whippetlike body against my door frame. “Frankly, I wouldn't have believed a woman in your position could resist pointing the finger of accusation. Revenge is sweet, believe me. The possibilities of why you are resisting the opportunity to make the man squirm are too delish to ignore! Are you too noble? Too ashamed? Or won't say because you don't know?”

If she's waiting for me to offer up the real explanation, she can just go fish. “Always happy to make a positive contribution at
Five-O
.”

Tai feigns disappointment that I didn't bite. “Got to hand it to you, Lu. It's positively genius PR.”

“Thanks.” I glance at my clock. It's still naptime. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, actually. I've decided we won't be needing Marc's services any longer.” She frowns slightly but it disappears in a microsecond. “He is not at all what I'd been led to expect.” Her gaze comes back to me. “You, on the other hand, have unexpected depths, Lu Nichols.”

So my job is secure because either I'm an example of nobility
ne plus ultra,
a fool or a slut. I can live with that.