Then he seemed to lose his power to resist. He nudged his knee between hers and raised it to the juncture of her legs, lighting fire to the sparks within her as he slipped the tank top's straps off her shoulders, then lower still to below her bare breasts.
It was Abby's turn to moan, and her back arched again all on its own, meeting his hand as it covered first one engorged mound and then the other.
The warm kid-leather palm cupped her flesh, kneading, squeezing, teasing in featherlight strokes all in turn.
Strong fingers explored her nipples, circled them, barely brushed the tips, rolled them gently, even pinched but with a tenderness that was anything but painful, driving her almost crazy with the desire that grew more urgent by the moment.
Her hips rose to him; her hands grasped his arms, his shoulders, his sides, his tight, tight derriere. Her tongue met and matched his thrust for thrust in a motion she wished other parts of their bodies were enacting, even if they were out in the open, on the football field. Nothing seemed to matter but the sensations alive in her, the desires he was building within her, the yearnings crying out to be sated. Making love with him was the only thing that was important. Right then. Right there...
But just when she was sure he would go further, go all the way to making love to her, he tore his mouth from hers, his hand from her breast and stopped everything cold.
“If I don't quit now, we'll have to take this to the equipment shed,” he said in a raspy, ragged voice.
“I always wondered what it would be like,” she heard herself say, the words coming straight from the intensity of her own need.
Cal chuckled wryly but he didn't do anything beyond dropping the top of his head to her shoulder. “You'd hate me in the mornin'.
I'd
hate me in the mornin'.”
Because he'd made love to her in the equipment shed or just because he'd made love to her?
Abby wasn't sure. And her courage came up short of suggesting they take this somewhere else to finish it, just in case he was saying he'd hate himself in the morning if he made love to her at all.
He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before blowing out a long gust of hot air against her skin. Then he raised his head and pulled her tank top back up into place, keeping his eyes closed the whole time when she would have welcomed his looking at her naked breasts.
And Abby had to swallow back desire so sultry she thought it was going to singe her insides.
But swallow it she did while she watched him cover his gloriously masculine torso with the henley shirt again.
Then he raked both hands through his hair with a punishing fierceness, pointed his chin to the sky and again held his breath as if he were fighting as hard as she was to tamp down on all they'd just erupted in each other.
Yet for the life of her she couldn't understand why. Why they weren't on their way to his house, to his bed, right at that moment, if he wanted her the way she wanted him.
But when he stood up and offered her a hand to help her to her feet, too, all he said was, “Come on. Let's get you back to your car so you can go home and get some sleep before this night is through.”
She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything at all. Not then. Not as they walked across the athletic field. Not in his car on the short drive to the bakery.
He drove up the alley and parked behind her small sedan but he didn't turn off the engine. Instead he left it running as he got out and came around to open her door and take her up to the driver's side of her car.
“What would you say to a real, live date tomorrow night?” he asked only after he'd seen her safely behind the wheel, closed the door and was leaning in through the open window.
“I'd say that sounded good,” she managed to answer in a soft voice, confused by this man who never seemed to do or be what she expected.
“How about I pick you up around seven? Cook you dinner?”
“Okay.”
And then what?
she wanted to ask.
Will you get me all turned on again only to leave me high and dry?
But of course she didn't say that.
“Seven it is, then,” he said, searching her face and looking somehow confused and frustrated and forlorn himself.
He ducked in for a quick kiss. But only a quick one before ducking out again as if he were afraid of it developing into more than that.
Then he said, “Cut me a little slack if I went over the line tonight, Abby. I haven't had a lot of experience with good girls.”
He gave the top of her car a final tap and left her sitting there, watching him go back to his own car through her side mirror.
And unquenched desire notwithstanding, Abby couldn't help smiling.
Was that why he'd stopped short of making love to her tonight? Because he thought she was a good girl and good girls didn't do that?
And here she'd considered herself to be giving very clear signals to encourage him.
Lord, was she that inept? Or were their wires just crossed?
She honestly didn't know.
But either way she took a deep breath of her own and sighed it out, finding comfort in one thing.
They still had tomorrow night....
6
T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON when the bell over the bakery's door rang to announce a customer, Abby was alone in the kitchen, bagging up the dinner rolls that hadn't completely sold out. It had been a busy day and with the exception of those buns, there wasn't much of anything else left to sell. She crossed her fingers in hopes that that fact would mean she wouldn't have to spend much time with the customer. She was anxious to head for home, and get ready for her date with Cal.
But one foot through the doorway that connected the kitchen to the storefront and she knew it wasn't any baked goods this particular man had come for.
“Bill,” she said in surprise as she found herself face-to-face with her former fiancé on the other side of the counter.
“Hi, Ab,” he greeted tentatively.
Abby hadn't had any illusions about never seeing him again. Clangton was too small a town for that. But she hadn't been looking forward to the occasion, either, and it was every bit as awkward as she'd feared. Especially when she knew his plane from the trip that was supposed to have been their honeymoon had only landed a few hours earlier. Certainly she hadn't thought he'd stop by the bakery on his way home. What did he want to do, tell her about the great time he'd had without her?
She wasn't going to help him, if that was the case. Actually she didn't feel inclined to make anything easier for him. So rather than giving him a conversational opening, she merely stood there, watching him fidget like a shamefaced child.
It was funny, though, because she wasn't thinking that she was glad he was uncomfortable. Instead she was thinking about how different he suddenly looked to her.
Not that anything had changed. Except that now he had a deep tan. He was still slightly under six feet tall. Still lean and lanky. His hair was still a shiny black and so curly he had to keep it cut short in order to have any control over it. He still had swarthy, olive-toned skin and a small ridge on the bridge of his nose. He still had dark eyes that were a little too close together and smallish teeth. He still wore clothes wellâwhite tennis shorts and an equally white polo shirt. He was still attractive enough without being anything remarkable to look at.
But for her he'd lost his appeal. And not only because of what he'd done in calling off their wedding three weeks before it was to have taken place. Not even because he'd done it by attacking her with criticism.
He simply didn't seem to match up when her mind flashed an image of Cal in comparison. Bill Snodgrass just wasn't the man Cal was.
“How are you doing?” Bill finally asked.
“I'm fine,” she answered easily. In fact she seemed to be doing better than he was if the lines of strain in his face were any indication.
“Could we talk?”
“About what?”
“A lot of things.”
“I'm sort of pressed for time,” she said with a glance at the wall clock.
“I was cheating on you,” he blurted out in a way that sounded partly as if he thought that would convince her to indulge him and partly as if the weight of carrying the information around with him had suddenly become more than he could bear.
He did manage to shock her. “You were cheating on me?” she parroted as a million questions went through her mind. When? Where? With whom? How could she not have known?
“I met her last fall over in River Run,” Bill continued quickly. “She was in that bookkeeping class I taught two nights a week.”
Abby had some problems grasping what he was revealing to her. “You cheated on me with one of your students when I thought we were dating exclusively,” she said when things began to click. “So why did you ask me to marry you in the middle of it?”
“I was trying not to like Peggy. She wasn't my type. Flashy. Loud. Aggressive. Brash. Brassy. I was afraid if I brought her to Clangton she'd embarrass me. I thought if I committed myself to you formally, it would help get my mind off her. Keep me from doing something stupid, something I'd regret.”
He hesitated, shrugged, then admitted, “But next to her you seemed like the same old same old. I mean, we've known each other all our lives. We dated when we were just kids in high school ourselves and then these last two years since I came back to Clangtonâwhere's the excitement in that?”
Oh, yeah, the guy was a charmer.
“So why are you here now, telling me this?”
“I've learned my lesson.”
“What does that mean?”
“I took her to Mazatlán with me.”
He was having trouble making eye contact with Abby but he accomplished it just then and must have seen the expression of disdain on her face.
“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands, palms out, as if warding off an attack even though Abby hadn't moved a muscle or said anything to this last admission. “I know it was tacky to not only go ahead with our honeymoon trip without you but to take Peggy, too. But that's what I did. And it cured me.”
“Cured you?”
“She just went berserk down there. Drinking, swearing, doing things I couldn't believeâlet's just say it was awful.” He smiled halfheartedly, as if he expected Abby to feel sorry for him. To commiserate.
She only went on staring at him, thinking how grateful she was not to be married to him.
He didn't seem to realize it as he went on. “Shy, quiet, predictable, steady and provincial started to look better and better to me,” he said, repeating all the reasons he'd originally given for why he'd decided he didn't want to marry her after all, why he didn't love her anymore.
“You have every reason to be furious with me,” he went on. “But couldn't we think of this as just a little fling I had before settling down? You know I didn't date a lotâthere was you when we were seniors and only one girl in college and one while I was working in Denver before moving back here, and then you again these last two years. I guess I just hadn't gotten it all out of my system. But it
is
out of my system now. Believe me, it's completely out of my system now. And all I could think about on the plane ride back was you. How much I love you. That marrying you, having kids with you, getting old with you, is really what I want.”
Abby stared at him in disbelief. “You're kidding, right?”
“I know what I did was lousy. But I'm sorry. And I love you,” he said as if that wrapped everything up in a neat package.
Abby stared at him, not only in disbelief for all he was saying, but also realizing as she did that somewhere during the time since he'd broken their engagement her feelings for him had changed to such an extent that standing there, facing him, hearing all he'd told her seemed almost as if it were happening to someone else. As if she were that far removed from it. And that distance felt good.
“It's too late, Bill.”
“It can't be. Not after all the years we've known each other. Not after everythingâ”
“It's too late.”
“You don't mean that. You're just mad. I understand that But we can work through it. You can have your mad for a while, and I'll jump through some hoops to make amends and we canâ”
“No, I'm not just mad. I'm not mad at all. In fact, in a way, I'm glad this happened. Certainly I'm glad it happened before we were married. But I don't want to turn back the clock. Or start over with you.”
“Come on, Ab,” he wheedled as if she were just playing hard to get and he was losing his patience for it.
She shook her head. “No, Bill.”
“Then it's true,” he sneered at her suddenly. “My brother picked me up at the airport and he said rumor had it that you've been hanging around that shiftless, no-good, redneck cowboy who won the old Peterson place in a poker game.”
“Shiftless, no-good, redneck cowboy?” she repeated, laughing slightly at the derogatory description of Cal. It was yet another of Bill's categorizationsâCal was the shiftless, no-good, redneck cowboy and she was shy, quiet, steady, predictable and provincial. For a fleeting moment she wondered what tags Bill might put on himself.
Then he broke into her musings. “Do you think he'll be faithful to you? Because you're kidding yourself if you do. Love âem and leave 'emâthat's what guys like him do. That's what he did to Cissy Carlisle and who knows how many before herâyou've heard the talk the same as I have. And he'll do it to you, too.”
Abby may have contemplated that same thing herself, but the way her former fiancé said it made her bristle anyway. “Maybe. But what I've been thinking is that the love part of it might be worth experiencing anyway. Which is more than I can say for what I had with you.”
Bill drew himself up in what looked like righteous indignation, as if that simple statement were more out of line than anything he'd done or said.
But at that point Abby didn't care one way or another if she'd made him angry. She just wanted him to leave so she could get home to dress for her evening with Cal.
“He'll make you a lot sorrier than I ever did,” Bill shouted.
Abby considered saying that that wasn't possible but refrained. She wasn't interested in slinging any more arrows. Instead she said, “I'll take my chances.”
“You weren't enough woman to keep me around. You'll never keep a guy like him.”
“I think you should just go now, Bill. We've said all we need to.”
He didn't budge. “You'll come running back to me. We both know it. Only I might not be waiting.”
“Goodbye, Bill.”
“He'll ruin you!” her former fiancé shouted again.
Cal had already ruined her for the likes of this man. And she was only glad of that.
But Abby merely said, “Please leave now.”
Her former fiancé still stood there, sputtering for a few minutes before he finally turned around and stormed out of the bakery, slamming the door so hard the bell above it clattered even after he was out of sight.
Abby took a deep breath, rounded the corner, turned the Closed sign and locked up.
But as she did, her former fiancé's words haunted her, reinforcing every self-doubt she'd had since meeting Cal. Every concern that he was only toying with her. That there couldn't be any kind of future for them.
But she'd spent the whole day looking forward to this date tonight and she reminded herself that she'd already decided to indulge in the moment's rapture even if that was all she was going to get.
“Don't let Bill Snot-grass wreck it,” she advised out loud as she headed for the kitchen to finish what she'd been doing so she could go home.
And since it seemed like good advice, she took it.
Â
AFTER A FAST DRIVE HOME, a shower and a shampoo, Abby scrunched her hair into a mass of full curls, applied a scant touch of mascara, blush and lip gloss and lightly spritzed herself with a perfume that smelled like a field of wildflowers. Then she put on a short-sleeved denim dress that buttoned from a deep-V shawl-collar neckline through body-hugging princess seams to midway down a full skirt that ended at her ankles.
The whole time she was getting ready for her date with Cal she tried not to think about Bill Snodgrass or any of what he'd said to her. But the thoughts kept following her around anyway.
It was good to realize that her feelings for Bill were not as strong as she'd thought they were. That the truth was, what she'd felt for Bill was more the kind of love a person had for a brother than for the man she married.
What didn't help was that a big portion of what proved that to her came in comparing not only the way Cal and Bill looked, but also in the way she felt about the two men. It served to open her eyes to the fact that she had never had an overwhelming passion for her former fiancé, the way she did for Cal. That never had she experienced what was running rampant through her now.
In fact it suddenly occurred to her that what she was experiencing now could well be the kind of love she should have had for Bill.
Which made what she was indulging in with Cal all the more dangerous. Because there was the potential to be hurt more by him and by this relationship not working out than she'd been hurt before by Bill's rejection. And that was no laughing matter.
Yet as she heard the Corvette pull up out front and glanced once more in the mirror, her desire to be with Cal couldn't be daunted.
Maybe she was being shortsighted and foolish, but the end of what she and Cal were sharing now seemed like something too far in the future to be concerned with at that moment. And she just couldn't let the possibility of future pain take away the pleasure of the present, any more than she could let the past do it.
“So you really are going to play with fire,” she said to her reflection, confirming an earlier thought she'd had about having anything to do with Cal Ketchum.