Flushed (14 page)

Enough.

Interesting that her doubts about Kim were different kinds
of doubts than before. She’d probably think about that at some inconvenient
moment, like when she should be sleeping. Alone in her bed.

Enough already.

“I didn’t know you could get something back after you’d
flushed it down the toilet, did you? Kim has a tool for everything.”

“I’ll bet he does, and I want to hear all about it.”
Stacey’s laugh was positively lewd.

Isabelle was blushing as she parked in the tiny lot. She and
Stacey raced the rain to Sammy’s covered back patio, wove their way between
picnic tables and butane heaters, through the screen door and into the
restaurant itself.

The place was far from empty, even midafternoon, but they walked
right up to the head of Sammy’s cafeteria-style line, where Stacey threw a
plastic tray on the brushed metal tracks and, without a glance at the giant
chalkboard, ordered a rib platter with extra sauce. She wanted onion rings. She
wanted spinach casserole. She wanted a Corona.

Isabelle went with the pork loin sandwich with sauce and
slaw, and led astray by her friend’s example, traded up from a root beer to the
real thing. She paid while Stacey carried her tray to the condiment bar to load
up with pickles and peppers and an extra bottle of sauce.

“What’s the latest with Bob?” Isabelle asked after Stacey
had made her first selections on the jukebox and a Willie Nelson song older
than either of them began to play.

Stacey grinned. “The man’s stamina is unbelievable. He is an
absolute bull in bed.”

“I’m happy for you.” Isabelle didn’t know that stamina was
the most important attribute in a lover, but this relationship seemed to have
staying power, at least by Stacey’s standards.

Isabelle realized with a start that her
is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-relationship dithering with Kim had lasted exactly as long
as Stacey’s he’s-the-one relationship with Bob. Since Monday night, to be
precise.

“But you’re ducking me, girl,” Stacey said. “I’m still
waiting for the skinny on your plumber honey.”

Isabelle took a bite of her sandwich and took her time
chewing.

“Come on,” Stacey said. “I’d be with Bob right now, but he
had to make some business calls. He told me not to lose touch with my
girlfriends. So I called you. So you owe me.”

Her logic defied the word.

Isabelle told her anyway. Once she started, she found she
really wanted to tell the whole crazy story, about Kim rescuing her at the
party and then agreeing to keep up appearances on a double date. About her
finding and flushing Steven’s ring. About the break-in at her house. About
Kim—maybe—finding the ring for her. About her dragging the man to her bed and
keeping him there until she was sated.

“You’re kidding me,” Stacey said. “You only met him Monday?”

Isabelle nodded. “He came to fix the toilet.”

“And you had sex with him?”

“You and Bob,” Isabelle blurted, angry to feel herself
blushing.

“Yeah,” said Stacey as if it only proved her point. “But
this is you.”

Isabelle became very interested in her slaw.

“I knew something was up,” Stacey said. “When you introduced
Kim, he said he’d fixed your toilet, but he made it sound like it was the first
time he had—at your house, anyway. But then at Mirabelle, you said you’d met
him when you called for a plumber. It was Bob who pointed it out. That you’d
changed your story, I mean. He’s such a good listener.”

Isabelle realized she’d said too much, that everything she
said to Stacey would get back to good-listener Bob and from there, to Steven.
Of course, Steven already knew she’d found the ring. She just hated to let him
know the rest, especially about her flaunting a relationship that didn’t exist.
Or hadn’t existed at the time. Maybe still didn’t.

Crap.

“You and Kim. This is exciting, About time you started
dating again!”

“I’m not. We’re not.” She pushed back from the table and
made a trip to the condiment stand for pickles she had no intention of eating.
With luck, Stacey would default to talking about bullish Bob by time she
returned.

Instead, Stacey was drawing breath to scold her before
Isabelle could sit back down. “What do you mean, you’re not? You have something
against great sex with unnaturally beautiful man?”

So much for luck.

“Stacey, you know why not.”

“Let it go, already,” her friend said, shaking her head,
along with the onion ring she held. “Steven was bad news, sure. But he’s
history.”

“Yes. And my history is peppered with rat bastards just like
him. May I remind you of Daniel, who returned from his semester abroad with
VD?”
And didn’t tell me. As if it might go away on its own.

What a fool she’d been not to realize the warning flags
during his absence. Calls and texts unanswered or met with short replies. Not
to mention that he’d come home wearing new cologne.

Stacey winced, though she and Isabelle hadn’t met until
after the whole ugly incident. “College guys aren’t rat bastards. They’re
goats. It stinks, sure, but it’s the truth. Some of them grow up.”

“Men suck. Even my own dad ran around on Mom,” Isabelle
countered.

“Opening the door for a terrific death-do-us-part stepfather
who has been faithful in both his marriages,” Stacey insisted.

“As far as we know, anyway,” Isabelle muttered and
immediately regretted it. Daddy Trey was a great guy. Too bad his son had
become proof that even nice guys cheated.

How was she supposed to enjoy her lunch now?

“So you and Kim are just sex?”

She shrugged, exhausted by the prospect of trying to explain
how she’d tried to make it just sex and had it fall apart on her almost as soon
as Kim had gone. And she especially didn’t want to mention that he wasn’t
returning her calls. None of that needed to get back to Steven via Bob. Even
without the Bob factor, though, Stacey was perhaps not the wisest source for
romantic advice.

She turned the conversation back toward her friend’s bull,
and Stacey happily obliged with twenty minutes of love and sex and utter
satisfaction.

Isabelle took Stacey home then stayed parked in the street
long enough to check for texts or voice mail from Kim. Nothing.

Overhead, the clouds were so dark and heavy she wished for
nothing more than to be safely tucked inside her cozy bungalow before the storm
began. She headed home in the earliest part of rush-hour traffic, but as she
turned onto her street and looked longingly ahead to her house, she knew
something was wrong for the second time this week. She stopped the van until
she could figure out what it was.

There. Sitting on the front porch steps. Steven.

Her cell phone rang.

Kim had turned on his phone as soon as they reached the gate
at Love Field. A whole list of missed calls waited for him. His Dallas realtor.
Damon. Isabelle.

Isabelle. He returned the call right away, wasting no time
on the message.

“Hello?”

She sounded distracted. Distant.

“Isabelle, it’s Kim. My phone’s been off—sorry.”

“Kim!” The relief in her voice was something he could almost
touch. It felt good. It worried him.

“Are you okay? Where are you?” Kim joined the crowd jostling
their way off the plane.

“My street—I’m looking at my house from up the street.
Steven is sitting on my porch steps. He’s waiting for me,” she said.

Her words were one thing, her tone was something else
altogether. Something was wrong. For the first time, Kim wondered whether
infidelity had been Steven’s only crime. He wondered whether the big jock had
ever physically hurt her. Kim started jogging through the airport, the phone
clapped to his ear, trying to hear her every breath.

“He’s the one that broke in,” said Isabelle. “He’s the one
who stepped on my hats.”

Steven? That big lout had broken into Isabelle’s house? Kim
flew out the security exit and sprinted for his Jeep. “Don’t go home. Go to my
place. Take my parking space. I’ll tell security you’re coming and I’ll be
right behind you.”

He gave her directions and stayed on the line until he was
sure she’d understood and was on her way. Then he called his building. They
weren’t willing to let her into his unit with nothing more than phone
authorization, but they would let her into the parking garage when she turned
up on the security camera. She was welcome to relax in the lobby while she
waited for him.

Irritating, but it would have to do.

Rush-hour traffic was even more irritating, especially when
combined with an afternoon thunderstorm, which always brought traffic to its
knees. He parked on the street, grabbed the plastic bag with his day’s
acquisitions and ran through driving rain to his building’s lobby door.

Building security pointed and there, in an acid-green chair
nearly as curvy as she was, he found Isabelle. Asleep. Her shoes lay on the
slate floor in front of the chair, her feet tucked up beside her. Her straw hat
had fallen to the floor behind and her pale skin and dark curls made a
heartbreaking contrast with the orange throw pillow they rested on. She looked
small and delicate in a way she never did when awake. He hated to wake her. He
imagined carrying her upstairs and tucking her into his bed, but she wouldn’t
like waking up in a different place than she’d gone to sleep any more than he
would. If ever he carried Isabelle Caine to bed, it’d be because he’d earned
her trust in that he would look out for her. Or because she was awake and
squirming and soon to be happily, deliciously naked.

This was not the time. She was in trouble.

She wore a pants suit more tailored and conservative than
the one she’d worn to the gym. Pinstripe gray. White blouse. Utterly feminine.
He had no idea how she made that work. No matter how she yelled or how
aggressive she got, she was the most female woman he knew.

He squatted by her chair, rainwater dripping from his hair
down the back of his neck. He set the plastic bag on the floor.

“Isabelle.”

Her lips were parted in sleep, one of her hands curled under
her chin. Kim’s chest ached to look at her.

“Isabelle.”

Her other hand was tucked between her knees. Kim stroked her
fingers. She jerked awake with a gasp.

“Sorry, Isabelle. It’s only me.”

She seemed momentarily panicked, her eyes wide as she
searched his face. He tried not to feel hurt. After all, they hadn’t known each
other long, had they? He gave her a minute to figure out who he was and where
she was and why, while he continued to drip on the floor.

“Sorry they wouldn’t let you go upstairs where you might be
more comfortable,” he said. “Are you ready to go now?”

She straightened in the chair, bare feet on the floor, and
touched her hair as if looking for her hat. The orange pillow had left an
impression on her cheek that made Kim smile. He knew for certain she wouldn’t
be a morning ogre. If anything, he’d bet she’d be even more beautiful.

Damon was right. He had it bad. He reached around the chair
to snag the fallen hat. “Got it,” he said, offering it to her.

“I fell asleep.”

He grinned, though he tried not to. She was just so cute.
“Do you like Chinese?”

She frowned.

“Food,” he said.

Her mouth made a little “O”.

“Yes.” He unclipped his phone and called for delivery while
she pulled herself together, settling the hat, buckling her sandals.

He collected his bag, stood up and offered his hand. She
moved like a sleepwalker as he took her to the elevator. “I’m not always like
this,” she said. “I must have been really, really asleep.”

“Gives me an excuse to keep my arm around you,” he said,
trying to keep it light until she seemed more together. They had the elevator
to themselves, its concrete-lined interior even less welcoming than his
building’s inflexible security staff.

“I feel stupid,” she said as they arrived at the eighth floor.
He didn’t know whether she meant her head was fuzzy or because she’d fallen
asleep to start with.

“Don’t worry about it.” He unlocked his front door and
pushed it open for her.

“He hid it behind my medicine cabinet,” she said, walking
through his kitchen. “And I found it and it made me so mad and—oh my.” She’d
stopped to stare at the electrified skyline that made up the far wall of his
loft. The blinds were wide open and though it was at least an hour until
sunset, the sky outside was bruise-blue, dark and angry.

Normally, he loved this moment, bringing a woman to his
place for the first time and watching her react to the amazing view. But
Isabelle hadn’t been feeling stupid about sleeping. She’d been feeling stupid
about Steven, the man who had broken her heart.

The man who’d broken into her house.

“He hid that ring in your bathroom?” Kim asked.

She was making little gasping noises, like desperate sips on
a straw. Her hand seemed to be pawing the air down by her hip, as if she were
blindly reaching to hold on to something, something that wasn’t there. He
bumped his hand against hers, offering, hoping…

He suddenly had his arms full. Isabelle hid her face against
his chest and he held her, dropping the bag so he could give her his full
attention. She was trembling, her hands trapped between them, and he could
still hear that desperate breathing, like the world’s tiniest sobs. She sure
was upset about this Steven character. Kim wondered again whether the ass had
hurt more than her heart.

Or worse, whether she was still attached to him. Kim
squeezed her, feeling helpless.

Her hat was coming off. He set it on the kitchen counter and
went back to holding her. “Do you think?” Her voice was muffled by his shirt.

“What, Isabelle?”

“Could you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I even would. Just tell me what.”

She drummed fists against his chest, but lightly. It was
close enough to a smile to slow his mile-a-minute, train-headed-for-disaster
thoughts.

She gulped. “Would you please draw the blinds?”

That wasn’t merely unexpected, that was just plain bizarre.
Was she paranoid? Was this some weird foreplay? Fear of storms?

Oh, no. They were eight floors up. The back wall was
floor-to-ceiling glass. Nothing to interfere with the view. Nothing to make it
clear there was any kind of barrier between them and a long drop.

Isabelle was afraid of heights. Kim was an idiot.

“Right back,” he said. He let her go long enough to scramble
to the window and pull the cords that controlled the long vertical blinds. He
got impatient, tried to turn them too fast and got the slats caught on each
other. All in all, it was an eternity before he could return to Isabelle.

“All clear,” he said, but as soon as he had his hands on her
hips, they slipped right off again as she backed away and turned around to look
for herself.

“You didn’t have to close them,” she said, running her palms
up and down her suit’s sleeves as if checking for holes in her armor. “Drawn
would be enough. I’m really sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“Why should you? It’s not your problem.” She crossed in
front of the loveseat, standing by the window and poking at the blinds in the
corner as if seeking the controls.

He hurried to the other corner where he pulled the cord and
opened the louvers. She could still see the city, but with the comfort of a
visible barrier between her and the view. Or so he hoped. “Okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’d like it to be,” he said.

“What?”

He realized he’d said it aloud. He hadn’t really meant to,
but here it was. Time to show some guts. “I’d like it to be my problem.”

Isabelle couldn’t make sense of Kim’s words. Her stomach had
been a mess even before she’d looked out at endless, looming city. Losing it in
front of Kim only added humiliation to the disaster within. He was a climber.
Of course he’d want to live high. How ridiculous that she should be completely
derailed by a little bit of glass.

“Why would you want acrophobia?”

He laughed. “No, Isabelle.”

Great. Now they were both embarrassed, though she didn’t
know what he had to be embarrassed about, unless it were witnessing her
freaking out.

“It’s a great view,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She turned around and looked at the rest of the place. A
plastic bag lay on the floor near the entrance, the only clutter marring the
otherwise pin-neat condo. Kim must use a housekeeper—no unmarried straight man
lived like this. Of course, the smaller the house, the more important it was to
be neat, and unless there were more rooms lurking behind the curving concrete
half-wall, the place was tiny, even by her own generous standards, born of
living in a small house. Given Kim’s ultra-chic building and the amazing view,
she suspected he’d paid more for it than she’d paid for her bungalow, yard and
unfashionable address put together. He’d furnished it with a tailored loveseat
covered in mustard-colored suede, and Danish teak woods including a modern
masterpiece of a bed with a carved grid for a headboard. The bed cover was a
deep-purple duvet, with an overlay of filmy gold fabric. Pillows were red and
orange. His choices had done a lot to warm the industrial concrete feel of the
place. “I love these colors,” she said.

He shrugged. “Saw it in a magazine.”

She laughed, deciding he had a housekeeper and a decorator,
but she said, “You have excellent taste.”

He smiled. “On behalf of my friend Damon, thank you.”

She adjusted her purse over her shoulder. “I feel
ridiculous. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why’s that?”

“I overreacted. So, Steven was on my porch. So what? I could
have blown him off like I have before.”

“You said he was the one who broke into your house,” Kim
said. “If that’s true, you were absolutely right not to go home.

She sighed, tired again in spite of her unplanned nap
downstairs. “This is really nice of you.”

“It’s not charity, Isabelle. You can say we’re not dating,
but you can’t tell me not to enjoy your company.”

She blushed. “Of course I can.”

“Okay, you can. But I will anyway.”

“Even when I fall to pieces?”

“Even then.”

His voice was so soft, so warm, it was like having his arms
around her all over again. He really was too nice a guy for her to treat him
the way she had. She held her hand out to him. He took it. She kissed him and
his arms really were around her.

“Thank you,” she said. She rested her head against his
collarbone. She felt him laugh softly into her hair. Outside, lightning
flashed. Kim continued to hold her, his cheek against the top of her head.

This was nice. Sometimes being with Kim was so comfortable,
so natural, she felt she’d known him for years. She slipped her thumbs through
the back belt loops of his jeans and relaxed for the first time today. “I
didn’t know you even owned a pair of jeans,” she said, still leaning against
him.

“These aren’t mine. I’m just leasing them.”

She smiled. “Nice fit,” she said. It would be so easy to
make it a leer, to spread appreciative fingers over his tight butt, to make
this moment into something else. Something like yesterday.

But this wasn’t yesterday, she wasn’t Stacey, and whatever
Kim was to her, he wasn’t just some boy toy she could use whenever she had the
itch.

Isabelle blushed, embarrassed all over again.

“Thanks,” Kim said, happily oblivious.

She was relieved when the doorbell rang. Kim retrieved bags
of steaming Chinese food from a drenched delivery boy so young, Isabelle said,
“He can’t be driving,” as soon as he’d gone.

“Bike,” Kim said. “King Doh is right around the corner. Best
kung pao chicken in the Metroplex.”

She moved her hat from the nearly nonexistent kitchen
counter to the top of his sleek dresser so he could set the bags down. As
sauces and bright vegetables and endless fragrant steam emerged from the
packages Kim opened, Isabelle forgot her nervous upset and the fact it hadn’t
been long since her lunch at Sammy’s. The two of them stood in the cramped,
narrow kitchen by the front door, eating and laughing and making Isabelle wish
for someone exactly like Kim—except for his being so damn attractive to other
women. If other women found him ho-hum…

No. That was crap. Isabelle liked being on the arm of a
good-looking man. She relished being the cause of admiring and jealous glances
of other women and even gay men. But there was good looking and there was
good
looking
. If Kim had a potbelly and zero sense of style, he’d still be
painfully handsome. Standing here in jeans and a vaguely retro knit pullover
with a stripe around the chest, his easy athletic grace only magnified his
appeal. She could hardly bear not touching him. Even Stacey called him
unnaturally beautiful and she currently thought the sun rose and set on Bob the
Bull.