Flirting With Pete: A Novel (25 page)

Gently, she worked Caroline’s wrist back and forth. “Speaking of the best,” she continued, still whispering, “I think we should plan a trip. You always wanted to go to Spain. I think we should do it.” When Caroline remained silent, she said, “It doesn’t have to be for a while. We could do it next spring or summer, or even the summer after that. I could book the trip”— she had actually done that the year before—“and we can cancel if we change our minds”— which was what she’d had to do then. “Actually, maybe we shouldn’t do it in the summer at all. Spring or fall might be better in terms of the crowds. What do you think, Mom? Something to look forward to?”

“Will I be well enough?”

“Of course.”

“To walk around for hours? That’s what one does on a sight-seeing trip. Remember when we went to Washington, D.C.? The whole time, you complained that your feet were killing you.”

Casey recalled it with chagrin. “I was in seventh grade. I didn’t want to be in Washington with my mother. I wanted to be with my friends, all of whom were going to D.C. with the school group, but you wouldn’t let me do that.”

“Because I wanted
us
to be together, Casey. You were growing up too fast, and I
knew
you’d be with your friends more and more. Besides, I didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be mischief if you went with your friends.”

Casey didn’t call her on that. There had often been mischief when Casey was with her friends, and, as often as not, she was the ringleader. She loved a party with an ill-gotten keg, loved the idea of being underage at an X-rated movie, loved the idea of dyeing her hair green to match the uniforms worn by the high school basketball team that year when it made the state championships.

“I loved pushing the envelope,” she said now, “but you know what that was about. I was testing. Always testing. I had to know that you loved me, green hair and all. Besides, what fun would adolescence be if the adolescent didn’t drive her parents up a tree?”

“Ah-ha. That was a Freudian slip, my dear. You said ‘parents,’ in the plural. That, in a nutshell, is what much of your misbehavior was about. You had no father. You resented me for not providing one.”

“I didn’t want you to provide one. I wanted my
real
one.”

Caroline didn’t have a rebuttal. There was nothing she could say that she hadn’t already said— and Casey might have agreed, if things hadn’t changed on her own end.

She spoke aloud. “You always said you didn’t know what made him tick. But he’s dead now, and I have his townhouse. It can tell you about him.”

Caroline remained silent.

“Did you know that he played the piano? Or that he spent hours sitting alone up on the roof deck? Or that his best friend was a cat? I think he was a lonely person. I mean, all those years when I resented him for ignoring me, I was probably happier with my life than he was with his.”

Caroline remained still.

“He died suddenly,” Casey blurted out, wondering if she could evoke some kind of reaction. “It was a massive heart attack.”

There had been moments in the last three years when, typical of patients in her condition, Caroline had made small movements of her head, hand, or mouth, but there was nothing now. She didn’t blink or wince or moan.

“Maybe that’s better than this lingering of mine,” Casey imagined her saying.

“You’re not lingering. You’re healing.”

Caroline drifted off to sleep— at least, that was what Casey chose to think. Otherwise, she would have argued with her mother. If Caroline was feeling self-pity, Casey wanted no part of it. Self-pity accomplished
nothing
. She wanted Caroline well.

Feeling emotional again, she whispered, “Gotta go, Mom.” She kissed Caroline’s hand and set it carefully on the sheet. “I’ll be back real soon. We’ll talk more then.” She rose. “About Spain.” She revised the thought. “If Spain’s too much, we’ll do Hawaii. It’s a long flight, but once we’re there, we can veg for a week. No exertion at all. No sight-seeing. Just sun and sand and piña coladas, so if you’re not feeling one hundred percent, that’s okay. Hey. If the long flight worries you, we can do the same thing in Costa Rica. There’s an incredible luxury resort there. I’ll get the name of it, okay?”

Back at the townhouse, Casey slept soundly from midnight to five, but once she woke up, there was no returning to sleep. She couldn’t even lie in bed. Her mind was speeding along too many urgent paths.

First thing, she pulled on running gear, caught her hair up and pulled it through the back of her cap, and set off in a steady rain to check up on her mom. She knew she would have gotten a call if Caroline had worsened. She might also have phoned the nursing home for an update and saved herself the trip. But she was uneasy, which was unusual for her. She wanted to see firsthand that Caroline was well. Running to the Fenway and back meant that she got a workout at the same time, which made sense.

Caroline seemed fine. She was positioned differently from how she had been the night before, and while Casey wanted to think she had moved on her own, she knew better. The nurses turned her every few hours. She was on her back now, having breakfast. A feeding tube hung from the IV pole, letting gravity carry nutrients directly into her stomach.

Casey’s own stomach lurched. She didn’t know why. She had seen this before, more times than she could count, so it wasn’t revulsion or dismay or even surprise. After the initial shock of it three years before, she had come to take these meals for granted.

But something had changed. The doctor thought Caroline was trying to die, and Casey couldn’t shake the thought of that possibility. It left her feeling empty and alone, left her thinking about the closeness she and her mother should have had as adults, left her unutterably sad. She wanted to relegate this shadowy version of Caroline to her room, but the door wouldn’t stay shut. Casey was desperate for her mother to open intelligent eyes, to speak, to smile.

She didn’t stay long. She was too wet and too scared. After standing by Caroline’s bed for the briefest minute, she retraced her steps and went back out into the rain.

Oppressively heavy and warm, the weather fit her mood. She ran hard and fast, letting raindrops mix with sweat and tears until her legs screamed. Only then did she slow to a saner pace. It took her more reasonably through the Public Garden, down Charles and up Chestnut to the alley that led to her car.

The Miata wasn’t alone. Jordan’s Jeep was beside it.

Panting from the run, Casey bent over, put her hands on her knees, and struggled to catch her breath. Rain dripped from the bill of her cap, from the trees, from the sky. She straightened, tipped her head back, and let the rain wash her face.

Her breathing steadied, but the emptiness lingered. Hungry? She probably was, but she couldn’t think of eating. The hollow inside went way beyond food.

She didn’t have to use her key on the latch. Jordan had left it open. Slipping through, she relatched the door, but it was a minute before she spotted him. He was off on the left past the potting shed, half hidden under hemlocks whose lowest limbs cleared his head by barely a foot. Though he was sheltered there, it looked as if he hadn’t been under cover for long. His hair was spiked with rain, his tank top and shorts generously spattered.

Today the tank top was gray. He stood with a hand on one shoulder, his arm angling up across his chest. The other arm hung by his side. The shorts were dark and loose, and hit mid-thigh. Below them, his legs were well formed, very straight.

There was nothing casual about him. With his eyes on her, dark and wide, he looked alarmed.

No, Casey decided, not alarmed. Apprehensive.

No, she decided, not apprehensive. Expectant.

Suddenly, all of the doors in the house of her life closed except one. That door was open and inviting. Jordan was vibrantly masculine. The chemistry between them was strong. She had felt its pull from the start, and it had only grown.

He was her father’s gardener. That should have stopped her, but it didn’t. Actually, the fact of what he was made him all the more appealing. In that instant, turning her back on helplessness and grief, she couldn’t think of anything better than having a grand time for herself at Connie’s expense.

Then she stopped thinking of Connie, too, because the tug at her insides was stronger than even that. Holding Jordan’s gaze, she crossed the garden to where he stood.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, as if he had known where she was.

She didn’t answer, simply brought her body to his, linking her hand to the one that hung by his side. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he felt what she did. She knew. She just knew. When she lifted her face, his hand was right there to remove her hat, long fingers cupping her head. His mouth met hers without an ounce of timidity.

Casey gave herself up to the moment. She didn’t think, didn’t analyze or fantasize. She focused on pure sensation— the heat of his mouth when he deepened the kiss, the simmer of his tongue in long lonely spots. She felt a melting inside when he began to stroke her breasts, felt a greater satisfaction— and need— when he pulled off her singlet and used his hands, then his mouth there, and suddenly she was desperate for the totality of it. She touched every part of him she could, pushed clothing aside and touched more.

Somewhere in the midst of it she heard his voice, low and hoarse. “Is there a reason we shouldn’t do this— boyfriend, birth control, whatever?”

She couldn’t think of a thing, not with her insides aching so badly and the sensation of solidity and fullness that his body offered. It was all she could do to peel off her wet shorts while he did his, and the rush was worth it. Jordan inside her was the ultimate sensation. Yes, there was solidity and fullness, but there was also wholeness.

Later, she would recall the shifting of positions, back and forth and around, but that was a thought and at the moment she was into sensation. That sensation of wholeness altered her need, changing the urge to
do
to the urge to
be.
It slowed her, suspended her so that she hung there in the glory of his possession, in the richness of ragged breathing and rain on foliage, the solidity of a muscled body and the scrape of a beard, the scent of wet man and trees and earth. Just as with yoga breathing she stretched beyond the norm, so, too, now she opened more and more, opened without restraint, offering every part of her to his hands, his limbs, his mouth, tongue, and sex, until her body erupted in orgasm. The sensation of it was deeper and richer than she had imagined possible.

Contentment. That was the first concrete thought she had. Sitting there on Jordan’s lap as he sat against the tree— not caring or knowing how they came to that particular pose— she was utterly content.

Her arms looped his neck. Her forehead rested against his stubbled cheek. She drew in one breath after the other, gradually longer and more steady. He remained inside her through those lengthening minutes, no longer erect but very much there.

When she finally took a deeper breath and lifted her head, he was looking at her. His eyes held more of the same richness that she had felt so strongly, but the force of it frightened her now. She didn’t know this man. She had never before had sex as impulsively. She didn’t regret it; she felt too good. But he was truly an unknown.

Not wanting to deal with that reality, not wanting anything to put a damper on the pleasure she had felt, and sensing he wanted to speak, she covered his mouth with her fingertips. She didn’t know what he might say, but she didn’t want words at all. She let her eyes tell him that, and she felt him concede. Only then did she remove her hand and ease off him. Standing up, she pulled on her clothes as quickly as she could, though she was slowed by their wetness and the dirt that clung to her skin. He stayed where he was, watching her with increasing laziness, either perfectly comfortable in his nakedness or just exhausted from the sex.

Whatever, his scrutiny was a turn-on. She made herself presentable, made ready to leave the cover of the hemlocks, even backed off toward the path. Then she stopped, reversed direction, and returned to straddle his legs. Lowering herself to his lap again, she slid her fingers into his hair and held his head for a final kiss. It lingered, at the same time heady and content. She might have stayed there a while longer, might even have taken her clothes off again for the sheer pleasure of being naked against him. But Meg would be coming soon. And Casey had clients to see. And she didn’t want him to think she was in his thrall.

With a final peck, she used his shoulders for leverage, pushed herself up, and went to the edge of the hemlock cover. Without looking back, she took a quick breath and raced off into the rain toward the house.

Dripping wet and streaked with dirt, she went to the service entrance which was cleverly hidden away in the corner, camouflaged by ivy. She had barely put her key to the lock there, though, when she withdrew the key, tipped up her chin, and went around to the office door. She wanted Connie to see how she looked and know what she’d done.

Opening the screen, she released the lock and entered the office. She couldn’t quite get herself to muck up the carpet, though, so she walked around it, on the wood floor.

If Connie was appalled, he didn’t let on. The wood didn’t so much as creak. Nor did she feel even a hint of ghostly outrage as she went gingerly across the room. She did feel guilt leaving wet footprints on the floor, though. So she pried off her running shoes and socks, ran up to the laundry room off the kitchen, and left them to dry. On a whim, she left her shirt and shorts there, too, and ran naked up to her room.

She wasn’t ready to shower yet, though. Her body still hummed of Jordan. Wrapping herself in a towel, she left the bedroom and went down the hall. Feeling bold and defiant, she pushed Connie’s door open wide. She didn’t quite cross the threshold, but for the first time she took a long look.

The room was really quite handsome. It wasn’t cluttered with furniture, but the pieces that were there were large and strong.