Bachelor Number Four (3 page)

Today, Arden saw an overture. How could she have missed it for so long? The way he lingered to chat, even after she placed her order? The extra samples he routinely included? Brian was hitting on her, and probably had been for months.

“I’m sorry to tell you I won’t be back here again.” Brian’s words pulled her out of her musings.

“No? Why not?” It was too soon for flirting to seem natural again, but now that her eyes had opened she couldn’t seem to stop the age-old dance that happened all the time between men and women.

Brian leaned on the counter. He dressed really well, she had time to note, feeling stupid she only now noticed. “They’ve changed my territory. I’m not going to cover this area anymore.”

“That’s too bad.” She meant it too. Brian was a great rep. He’d always been really nice…because he’d been hitting on her. That made her smile, and when she did, he homed in on it like a fly to honey.

“Listen, Arden, I know it’s short notice and all, but I was wondering if you were free tonight. For dinner.”

He was asking her out. She’d decided to date and here he was, the first offer, like a sign. Arden knew better than to turn it down. She couldn’t. She’d lose her courage.

“That sounds great.” She thought for a second. “It works out really well because my girls are both with friends tonight until about eight o’clock. Can we make it early?”

Brian squinched his face like he was going to say no, but then nodded. “Sure, if that’s the only time you can make it.”

She didn’t want her first date to be an inconvenience. “If that’s not good for you—”

“No, no, it’s fine. How about if you meet me at Kendall’s over on Walnut Street? Five o’clock?” He smiled.

How could she have never noticed his charming smile before? How white his teeth were? How much Brian looked like a male model?

“Sure. See you later,” she called to Brian on his way out the door.

“It’s a date,” he replied.

It certainly is, she thought, bemused and bedazzled a bit by the circumstances.

“You have a what?”

Arden had to hold the phone away from her ear to counter the force of Lida’s scream. “A date.”

“With who? How? When did this happen?”

Arden struggled with her mascara, cradling the phone to her ear and almost dropping it. She gave up juggling to focus on Lida’s voice. “His name is Brian Doyle. He’s a sales rep for Bobsin Bitts.”

“And here I thought you’d have gone ahead and dialed the way-back phone for a certain Mr. Dirty Worker Man.”

Arden’s heart pitter-patted, even as she scoffed. “Um. No. Brian’s been coming to the shop since I opened.

“And he only asked you out today? What did you do to him?” Lida broke away from the phone to holler, “No, Henry! Super Glue is not for making collages! I swear, it’s like the second I get on the phone, all hell breaks loose. Which is saying something, considering the chaos when I’m not on the phone. “

Arden laughed. “It was the weirdest thing, Lida. It’s like I woke up today and decided I was open to the idea of dating. And all of a sudden I started noticing men noticing me!”

“The veil has been lifted. Hallelujah!” Lida yelled again. “No! Cats do not need press-on nails! Arden, I have to go.”

“You go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You call me tonight, if you know what’s good— Henry Allen Crowley! Put that Super Glue down immediately!”

“Go,” Arden urged. “I’ll call. I promise.”

She stared at her reflection. What had Brian seen in her eyes today that was different from the last time he’d come into the shop? Arden brushed her hair and applied lipstick, quelling her anxiety with action. Whatever it was, she hoped she hadn’t lost it between this afternoon and now.

Then, before she knew it, it was time for her to go.

“So, Arden—” Brian smiled at her over their after-dinner coffee, “—where do we go from here?”

Arden put down her cup. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You know. You’ve been playing hard to get for about five months now.” Brian flashed her that charming grin.

“Hard to—” Arden laughed to cover her shock. “No, Brian.”

His hand slipped across the table to capture hers. His finger caressed her palm, and Arden shivered…but not in a good way.

“Oh, don’t be shy. I could tell you wanted to get to know me better. And hey, it’s against my personal policy to get involved with clients. But now I’m no longer your rep…” Brian smiled again, his smile no longer so charming. Now it was full of teeth. Like a shark.

Arden extricated her hand without fanfare and picked up her cup to disguise her trembling fingers. “To be honest, Brian, I didn’t—”

“I’m only in town for tonight,” Brian interrupted, annoying her. “And I know you have to get back to your…kids.”

He said the word like it was distasteful, and her face must have shown her dislike because he again cut her off before she could speak.

“I mean, kids are great, you know? Love the little ankle-biters. And I think a woman with kids knows how to treat a man.”

Incredibly, while Arden sat with lips parted in shock, Brian waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Why? Because we’re more desperate to keep one?” Arden demanded.

Any sane man would have backed away, but Brian was pure salesman. “Want to come back to my hotel room with me? I can make it quick.”

Arden stood. “I’m sure you can.”

Brian got up, too, apparently mistaking her outrage for eagerness. “How about if you follow me? That way, you can scoot out and pick up your kids when we’re done.”

“I don’t think so.”

That smooth brow furrowed. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to drop you off—”

Arden broke into his speech with a laugh. “I’m sorry, Brian. I was being unclear. I shouldn’t have said ‘I don’t think so’. I should have said no.”

“No?”

“No.” Arden took a step away from him. “Thank you for dinner, but there’s no way I’m going back to your hotel room with you.”

Fortunately the restaurant was almost empty or Brian’s sneering response might have caught more attention. “Why not? I’d say that’s exactly what you’re looking for. All you’ve done for the past five months is tease me, Arden. You can’t tell me you don’t want a piece of this.”

He stopped short of grabbing his crotch, but his gesture made his intentions clear. Arden felt her face twist in an expression of distaste so blatant there was no way Brian could miss it. He recoiled, charming smile gone.

“Fine,” he said, straightening his tie. “Consider the dinner my parting gift to you.”

“Thank you,” Arden said again, “but I’ll be happy to pay for my half.”

Brian slapped down a sheaf of bills on the table. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Then you could be justified in turning me down. Well, too bad. I took you out, I’m paying for dinner, and you can go home with a guilty conscience.”

This made her brows lift in amazement. “I have nothing to feel guilty about!”

Brian leaned so close she could smell his cologne. “You led me on.”

Had she been catapulted back to high school and her one and only date with the school jock? He’d tried all the same lines to get into her pants. She hadn’t fallen for them at sixteen. She wasn’t going to fall for them now.

“Goodbye, Brian.” Arden tucked her purse under her arm and turned on her heel. By the time she got to the doorway, tiny hitching gasps were threatening to turn into full-fledged guffaws. The situation didn’t exactly seem as though it called for laughter, but it wasn’t worthy of tears either. She got into her car and stifled a cackle with the back of her hand. Then she looked at her reflection in the rear view mirror.

“Nice first date,” she said to the empty car, and laughed again.

A few minutes later, she’d picked up her children. The girls were both full of stories about their night’s events. Aislin had been to a Brownies’ sundae party to kick off their fall fundraiser, and Maeve had been invited to a movie with her friend Katie. Both girls were high on sugar and up-past-bedtime excitement, but their excited chatter gave Arden the chance to drive and think about her date with Brian.

She ought to have felt worse about it. She’d been a bad judge of character. Brian’s charm had turned sour faster than milk on a hot day. His expectation of fast, easy sex had affronted her…not because she was looking for a boyfriend, but rather because he’d assumed getting in her pants meant not giving a damn about anything else. Getting laid was one thing. Getting laid by a moron was something else entirely.

She glanced in the rear mirror to catch sight of her daughters still babbling to each other about their evenings. Arden’s throat closed at the sight of their sweet faces. She was a mother, a mommy, not some siren of sex. Not even a M.I.L.F. At least, she’d never thought so.

Making love with Jason had always been good, even in the dry times when pregnancy and caring for infants had sapped her sexual desire. He’d always made her believe there was more to her than changing diapers and cleaning toilets. He’d made her feel like a woman even at her times of lowest self-confidence, with baby weight and leaking breasts, greasy hair and bad-fitting clothes. Jason had always made Arden feel beautiful…and loved.

But those feelings had been saved for him alone. If other men looked at her with appreciation in their eyes, she’d never noticed, content to be a wife and mother. Today had been her first experience with seeing male reaction to her in twelve years—since meeting Jason.

Knowing that a man, even a man as scummy as Brian had turned out to be, found her attractive could not offend her. Discovering she was desirable after so long pushing away that part of herself was a heady feeling. That some man other than the one she’d married and invested her life in could want to take her to bed…that made Arden grin and giggle out loud.

“Mo-oom! It’s not funny!” Aislin’s cry tore Arden’s attention away from her thoughts.

“I’m sorry, honey. What’s not funny?”

Aislin gave a long-suffering sigh. “Brittney Zook at Brownies said her mom’s going to buy her a bra, and she made fun of me because I don’t have one.”

Arden thought carefully before replying, flicking on her turn signal and heading down the street toward their house. “Do you want a bra, Aislin?”

Maeve burst out laughing. “She doesn’t have any boobies!”

“They’re called breasts,” Aislin told her sister haughtily before saying to Arden, “No, but I don’t want Brittney to make fun of me either.”

Arden pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and turned in her seat to look at her older daughter. At eight years old, Aislin was still pretty far away from needing a bra, but Arden remembered being the last girl in her class to get one. She swallowed against another wave of emotion threatening to make her voice tremble. “Honey, you really don’t need a bra, but if you think you’d like one…”

Aislin crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want one! I don’t have any boobs!”

“Breasts,” Maeve corrected and earned a scornful look from Aislin.

“Maeve,” Arden said gently, “don’t tease. Aislin, does Brittney need a bra?”

“No.” Aislin giggled. “She doesn’t have boobs either.”

“Maybe it make her feel more grown-up to have one,” Arden offered.

Aislin snorted. “That’s so dumb. Besides, she just wants to get one so the boys can snap her straps. She thinks that means the boys like you when they do that, but that’s dumb, too. Like I would ever want a boy to snap my straps!” She made such a face of disgust Arden stifled a laugh.

“That means they want to do sex!” cried Maeve importantly.

Arden’s laugh cut off. “Maeve, who told you that?”

“I saw it on TV.”

“Ah.” What to say now? They’d already had the talk about the birds and the bees, how women’s bodies worked, how babies were made. The girls both knew about eggs and sperm, and if they weren’t quite clear on the exact details of how the two combined, Arden was okay with them not understanding for a little while. But this…

“Kids our age don’t do sex, Maeve.” Aislin unbuckled her belt and gathered her things. “You have to be a grown-up.”

And that was the end of that, Arden thought as she followed them into the house and supervised their night’s routine. She was wrong. As she bent to kiss Aislin good night, her daughter said, “Mom, you did sex with Daddy, right?”

Arden sat on the edge of the bed and took Aislin’s hand. “Yes, honey. To make you and Maeve.”

“But didn’t you do it other times, too?”

Arden squeezed Aislin’s fingers. “Yes, Aislin. That’s what men and women do when they’re married.”

She braced herself for the next question, not sure how’d she’d continue to answer, but certain she wanted to give her kids a healthy view of sex.

“But you don’t do it now?”

She smiled and shook her head, glad the answer was an easy one. “No, honey.”

Aislin’s eyes were serious. “But will you ever do it again, do you think?”

A few different answers whirled in Arden’s brain before she said, “I don’t know, Aislin. Sex is something that’s very special and is better when it’s shared with someone you really care about.”

“Like you cared about Daddy.”

Arden took a deep breath, not wanting to cry. “Yes. Like Daddy.”

“I don’t ever want to do it. It sounds disgusting to me.” Aislin turned on her side and pulled her hand from Arden’s.

“Good night, sweet pea.” Arden bent and kissed Aislin’s forehead, tucked the covers around her, and went downstairs.

Another milestone covered, she thought as she went to the computer. The sex talk. It only got more complicated from there.

She adjusted the keyboard and clicked the mouse to stop the swirling screen saver. “Hello, handsome.”

The photo of Keanu filled her screen, marred only by a few icons on her desktop. Idly, she arranged them so they lined up along the side of the screen and no longer blocked his distinctive features. She leaned back and stared at his perfect face, then peeked at the clock. It was already almost ten. The girls would both have a hard time getting up in the morning since they’d gone to bed so late past their normal bedtime. She should get some sleep, too.

Just a quick note to Lida, she thought as she opened her email program. She wanted to let her friend know about the disaster date.