Sweet Caroline (25 page)

* * * *

"CAROLINE, CAROLINE," He said again and again. The thin straps of her dress gave way, freeing the breasts his mouth longed to taste. Tiny breasts, warm in his palm, and taut enough for him to taste their sweetness.

239

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

Groaning, he ground himself against her while his hands searched for the hem of her dress. In seconds, it was bunched around her waist, allowing him the freedom to slip his fingers inside the waistband of panties, to kneed her tight bottom and slide along satiny soft lips until he thought he would go mad.

Somehow Caroline had managed to slip his arms out of his suspenders and toss his cummerbund aside. Only his trousers and a swatch of silk separated them. "Touch me," he cried. She hesitated long enough that he took her hand and guided it home. "Touch me."

* * * *

BREATHLESS, SHE RAN her hand the length of him. No man she'd ever been with felt harder, nor larger, nor more ready to take her to places she'd only dreamed of going before. Her heart was shouting,
Go for it!
With trembling fingers, she began to unzip his fly. That's when good sense took over. One minute she was pliant and ready, the next she went rigid in his arms. "No, Mick, no, we can't," she said, fighting to catch her breath. "Not here, not like this. Not the first time."

"No, Caroline, no," he pleaded but he'd already loosened his grip and let the hem of her skirt waft to her knees.

"Caroline, you want to, you know you do." He cradled her face in his hands. "I won't hurt you, I swear I won't."

"Oh, Mick, I'm not afraid." She placed her hand over his and drew it to her lips, where she pressed a kiss into his 240

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

palm. "I want you to make love to me. You touched me, you know how much."

In the moonlight, she saw the frustration in his eyes lessen.

"How much?" There was a trace of roguishness and challenge in his voice, but when she looked away from him, he slipped the straps of her dress onto her shoulders. Very lightly, he slid his fingertips across her breasts before he tucked them back inside her dress. Then he pulled her close, and despite the heat of the evening, he felt the gooseflesh standing on her arms and the painful awareness that his erection still thrummed against her.

"Stay with me tonight, Caroline. Promise me you will."

"I promise," she said, but like the moonlight and all things ephemeral, she'd lied.

Leaving Mick in the gazebo, Caroline hurried along the dark path, anxious to put distance between Mick and her. She hadn't even stopped to button up, but her fingers flew along the front of her jacket just as her feet flew along the path. A few yards from the turn, where the kerosene lamps would again light her way, Caroline ran smack into Gabrielle—

Gabby—one of Mick's sisters and one of the twins.

"Oh, Caroline, we wondered what happened to you," Gabby greeted her. "Have you seen Mick?" Even as she asked the question, Caroline noticed Gabby's gaze returning twice to Caroline's mouth, and what must have been smears of lipstick.

241

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

"He's—he's..." Her voice trailed off as she raised a hand and pointed a finger behind her while she covered her lips with her other hand.

"Out in the vineyards?" Gabby looked over Caroline's shoulder into the dark.

"I-I think he wanted to clear his head a little. He should be along in a minute."

"Well, good." Gabby looped her arm through Caroline's.

"We'll be doing the bridal dance in about ten minutes. He and Marina are the first couple up." They started walking together. "I'm sorry we haven't had time to visit tonight. I hope Mick brings you back to the ranch soon." Caroline kept a brave smile that could fool neither her heart nor her head. She'd wait until the wedding dance started then she'd walk away and take with her any chance that she and Mick would ever be together.

* * * *

TEN MINUTES LATER, almost to the second, Mick rounded the corner from the path and walked across the dance floor. The wedding party had already lined up for their grand entrance. Marina, looking like a snake had just bitten her, stood in the lead, holding Mick's jacket.

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Caroline standing beside the table where his cleric cousins still sat. He didn't dare turn and look or heaven only knew what his body would do next. He had never wanted a woman as much he wanted Caroline. Maybe because he'd never found a woman before who fit him so perfectly, physically, and stood an intellectual giant among 242

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

her peers. An intoxicating combination, and as if he'd been drugged, Mick felt powerless to combat the effect she had on him. Tonight would surely be one of the greatest nights of his life.

"Here I am, darlin'," he said to Marina, who grudgingly smiled and helped him with his jacket. "Right on time."

* * * *

CAROLINE WAITED UNTIL the single women had lined up to vie for Ramona's bouquet. In the chaos of happy screaming and flailing arms, she ducked away.

A few minutes later, she turned onto the Gravenstine Highway and headed home, knowing how Cinderella felt. At the stroke of midnight, her gilded coach, too, had turned back into a pumpkin, and she'd left her Prince Charming behind. 243

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

"DANG IT!" CAROLINE cried out in frustration and pounded her balled fists against the tangled sheets. It was 3:45 a.m., and she'd been lying awake every second of the night. What had she expected? That Mick would come after her?

Beg her to return and hold her close, reassure her that someone had simply played a mean trick on her, that their height, the color of their eyes, and their undeniable
simpatico
were only coincidences and not the result of kinship? Or that he'd climb on his white charger and rescue her from the evil gods of shared DNA?

He'd done neither. Mick was not a man to wear rejection gracefully. As soon as he realized Caroline had broken her promise, she knew he'd find solace in the arms of the lovely dark-haired Marina.

"Dang it!" she cried again, tossed the covers aside, and turned on cable TV. She'd never stayed awake through an entire Perry Mason episode before. Hopefully, he'd once again provide the surcease from pain that roiled in her stomach and tore at her heart.

Somewhere around four, she drifted off, and what seemed like only minutes later, awakened to a thundering roar.

"CAROLINE SPRING, OPEN THIS BLEEDIN' DOOR OR I'LL

BREAK IT DOWN!"

She sat up and looked around. The television droned on, with a seasoned newsman mechanically rehashing yesterday's 244

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

headlines. It was 7:17 a.m., and brilliant sunlight streamed through the blinds.

"CAROLINE!!!!"

Don't answer it. Make a clean break.

Except that Mick had a master key. If he didn't use that, she had no doubt he'd simply put his size sixteen boot right through the door.

"CAROLINE, I'M COUNTIN' TO THREE THEN I'M COMING

IN. ONE..."

"Mick, stop it! I'm coming," she shouted. Barefoot, she stomped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" an unshaven, blearyeyed Mick shouted in her face. "You promised me. Twice you said you'd spend the night. You snuck out like a coward the minute I turned my back. Somehow, Caroline, I never figured you for that. If you didn't want to be with me, you only had to say no."

His hair was mussed, and he still wore the formal pleated dress shirt and trousers that were a part of his tux, although like Caroline, he stood barefoot. A dark rust shadow covered his cheeks. One fist clutched the top of the door and crushed in the crook of his other arm, he carried his jacket and cummerbund. His formal dress shoes lie askew across the hall, as if he'd flung them against the door of his apartment before he started pounding on Caroline's.

"Come in, Mick," she said softly. "It's time I explained." She'd never seen him looking worse—or better. How easy it would be to go into his arms and beg him to make 245

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

everything right, but there was still so much to say and so many consequences to think about.

"Caroline, the time for teasin' is over." He'd quieted down but the force and urgency in his words left no room for misunderstanding. "I've got feelin's for you, lass, but you skirt 'round the truth every time I ask a question. We're not kids, Caroline. It's time we dealt with each other like adults."

"You're right, Mick, you're absolutely right. Now come inside, please."

"If you can't be honest with me, I want you to pack your things and move out. You can't have it both ways." His voice was stiff, profound pain written in his face. Caroline barely found the breath to answer. She knew the look of that pain, had seen it in the mirror last night when she came home. Her heart was breaking, and Mick's was, too.
I've got feelin's for you, lass
. Not the most poetic phrase she'd ever heard, but it had come from his heart, and no sonnet by Browning could match its sincerity.

"Mick, I don't want it both ways." She reached for his hand.

He snapped it away, out of reach. "Tell me what you're doin' then. Don't keep me dangling like a bleedin' puppet."

"You're right." She locked her hands behind her back. Maybe that was best. If their hands touched, she knew they'd forge blindly ahead, driven by an undeniable force rather than reason.

After a long, long minute Mick cleared his throat and walked past her and into the living room. With legs spread wide apart, arms folded tightly across his chest, he stood in 246

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

the middle of her living room, a thundering Zeus in rumpled formal wear. "All right. I'm ready." Caroline had tossed her sequin handbag on her bed. "I have something to show you that will explain everything. Now, please, sit down." He did as told while she disappeared into the bedroom and returned in less than the count of five. In her right hand she carried the postcard, in her left the two birth certificates. "Here." She handed them to him. "I haven't told you the truth, Mick, because I don't know it." Looking at her with suspicion and distrust, Mick took the documents. She heard him draw a long breath. He turned the postcard to the picture side. Without a word, he walked to the window, where the light was better. "What's this about?" he muttered, bringing it close to his eyes. Surprised, Caroline saw he was incredibly myopic, that he'd obviously been wearing contacts, which she'd never noticed. As though reading her mind, he turned to her, sour-faced and defensive. "I'm color blind, too, okay?" Caroline remembered the way his clothes had hung and marked in his closet. Why hadn't she thought of that? But so what? At least fifty percent of all men had problems seeing true colors, and there was certainly no shame in being nearsighted.

"Mick, I..."

"What does this mean?" He turned the face of the postcard toward her. "Why did you do that?"

"I didn't do that. Someone sent it to me. Look at the birth certificates. One is mine and one is for a baby girl born a couple of days before I was, in another state." 247

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

He shrugged, not connecting the threads that seemed so clear to Caroline. "So what?"

"Since I was a teenager I've been receiving invitations to Mahoney family reunions. All of them but that one were mailed from a small town in New York. If you look at the Smith birth certificate, you'll see she was born in that small town in New York, not in Dallas where I was supposedly born."

He continued staring at the papers with no sign of recognition of the truth.

"All of them were sent to the address where I grew up. I didn't find the postcards or the Smith birth certificate until after my mother died. Don't you see what that's saying to me—to us?"

The truth finally dawned. Mick dropped the papers like they'd been set afire in his hands. "Bloody hell, Caroline, you're not tellin' me—"

"Oh, yes I am, Mick. I think those documents were sent to tell me that I'm a Mahoney. Don't you see why I have to stay away from you? I might be your sister." Silence hung between them so long and so loud Caroline thought she might burst into tears out of sheer frustration. Mick never moved. He stood there, staring at the papers at his feet. She saw the vein in his temple jump, and just as she was about to beg him to say something, he stooped down, swept them up and tossed them carelessly atop the coffee table. He wore an unsettled expression, a mixture of disbelief, hope and frustration. "Damn it, Caroline," he spat out while he turned in a circle, searching for something. 248

Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

"What?
What?
"

"Where the hell is your phone?"

"In my purse."

"Sweet mother, why can't you use a regular phone like everyone else?"

In seconds she was back, carrying the sequined evening bag she'd left in the bedroom. She pulled out the cell phone. He strode across the room and almost yanked it out of her hand. Without saying a word, he punched in a number and waited, staring at the ceiling while he wiped a thin layer of perspiration off his upper lip.

Caroline began pacing.

"Who's this?" Mick demanded. "What are you doin' up so early? A pause. "Yeah, me, too, but I need to speak to Sheila. Is she up?"

Another pause.

"Mum, it's Mick." He waited. "No, I left the ranch a while ago." He rolled his eyes. "Everything's fine, it's just that Caroline and I need to see you right away." At that declaration, Caroline stopped pacing.

"No, she's not going to ask you for my hand," and that made them both smile. "Right now? No, in about an hour. I need a shave and shower, and she has to get dressed." Caroline gasped. "Don't say that! It makes it sounds like we—"

Mick waved a hand to quiet her. "No, Mrs. DeSantis, I did not spend the night with her. Can we come by in an hour or not?" He shook his head while he listened. "Okay, okay, we'll eat breakfast, but we have to talk to you privately, not with a 249