Heartwishes (26 page)

At last, Colin got to what Jean said that had so upset him.

Gemma listened to every word he told her and marveled at how Jean had twisted everything around so she was the victim of Colin. Gemma had to work to keep her anger down. She wanted to point out that it was no wonder Jean hated losing him. Where was she going to find another man to pay the rent, help solve cases, and keep her entertained at night?

Gemma thought the wise thing to do would be to keep her true opinions to herself.

“One minute she was complaining that I’m too good,” Colin said, “and the next she was telling me that I’m the personification of evil.”

“So if she knew what was going on, that you hated your job, and as she said, you were hiding in her life, then why was she trying to get you back? What does she
like
about you?”

“I look good in a tuxedo,” he said.

Gemma didn’t laugh at his attempt at a joke. “What else?”

Colin gave her a suggestive glance. “She always said I was good in the sack. I have a bit of endurance.”

“Wow,” Gemma said, her eyes wide. “Are you talking four minutes or five?”

Colin burst into laughter. “Gemma, you’re going to unman me.”

She smiled. “At least I made you laugh.”

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Thanks,” he said. “I know Jean was hurt and angry, but . . .”

“Her remarks still cut deep,” Gemma said. “You know, of course, that her contradicting herself showed she was lying.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely.” She paused. “How are you going to deal with your parents? They like Jean a lot. When your dad finds out that she won’t be cooking for him anymore, he’s going to be very upset.”

“I indoctrinated Dad to pain when I quit working at the dealership.”

“You carry a lot of guilt, don’t you?” Gemma said.

“You don’t? You’ve never felt bad for disappointing someone?”

Gemma didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m doing some soul baring here, so you can too.”

“When my father died, my mother was devastated. She loved him completely and absolutely—and depended on him for everything. She wanted me to take over his household duties.”

“Fix the car, that kind of thing?”

“More or less. She wanted me to pay the bills, remember when the insurance needed to be paid. When the kitchen drain broke, she wanted
me
to call the plumber. When I said I had too much homework to do all those things, she got angry. She said I wasn’t much use as a daughter.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“That’s way too young for that,” Colin said. “She should have been helping you.”

“‘Shoulds’ don’t always happen. In fact, in my life they never do.
I couldn’t handle what my mother wanted, so I retreated into books. I read constantly, studied, researched. Besides, I was missing my dad so much that it was like a disease spreading inside me. I had trouble thinking coherently.”

“What did your mother do?”

“She turned to my younger sister, who lived up to all Mom’s hopes and dreams. Together, they figured out how to run the household.” Gemma looked at him. “See? I know a lot about guilt.”

“You know what I think?” he said. “I think your mother is the one who should bear the guilt, not you. You and your sister should have been her first concern, and she had no right to dump adult responsibilities onto her kids, either of you.”

“Thanks,” Gemma said. “And I think every word Jean said about you was a lie. She just wanted you back so much that she said anything she could think of to make you feel like you couldn’t leave her.”

“Yeah,” Colin said, smiling. He was silent for a moment, then said, “So what kind of furniture should we get?”

She looked him up and down, at the size of him. His muscles were still engorged from his workout.

Colin noted the way she was looking at him and his eyelids lowered in a seductive way.

“Strong,” she said.

“Me?” he said. “I do all right. I once benched—”

“No. I mean we should get really
strong
furniture.”

Again, Colin laughed. “You’re not going to let me indulge my ego, are you? First you knock both sex and me down, and now you’re saying I might break the furniture just by sitting on it.”

“I guess you could prove me wrong on both counts,” she said softly.

“I would love to do that,” he said. “Genuinely and deeply love to.”

She looked out the truck window to hide the warm glow that came to her face.

“Thanks,” he said.

She looked at him.

“I really mean it, Gemma. Thank you for listening. I didn’t sleep at all last night and I was at Mike’s gym at five.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. Bad, huh?”

“Very bad. If a heavy bench press slips, it can kill you.”

He was still holding her hand. “I guess you’ll have to go with me next time.”

“I’ll be there at six-thirty tomorrow.”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said as he pulled into a parking lot.

As Gemma had figured, the furniture store was an enormous warehouse that seemed to go on forever. She couldn’t resist telling him her dilemma about what to wear.

“You guessed right,” he said as he stepped down, then pulled a thick roll of blueprints from behind the seat.

Gemma got out of the truck and walked around to stand beside him. “How much furniture do you want to buy?”

He handed her a plastic pouch containing an architect’s scale, mechanical pencils, and some triangles. “Know how to use those?”

“Only vaguely. You’re not planning to furnish the whole house today, are you?”

“I am,” he said. “I never want to spend another night in that apartment of mine and I’d like to get this over with. Besides, by now everyone in Edilean knows I bought the house, so why try to keep it a secret? You have any favorite colors?”

“Whatever color the book jacket is, that’s what I like.” She was feeling a bit like she wanted to say she’d wait in the truck. The only reason she’d ever seen the inside of a furniture store was because
she’d gone with her friends before they got married. “Colin,” she said tentatively, “I really don’t know—”

He opened the glass door, and she saw what looked to be acres of furniture. Overhead ceiling fans whirred. To the right was a long row of antique shops; to the left were light fixtures.

“Come on, Ranford, buck up your courage,” Colin said.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I want a couch,” Colin said firmly. “Something I can take naps on.”

“I don’t think your living room is big enough to hold that,” she said without cracking a smile.

Colin put his hand to his heart. “Wounded again. Come on or I’ll hide your gloves and you won’t be able to box.”

Gemma put her fists up beside her temples. “Then I’ll take you on with bare knuckles.”

“May I help you?” asked a woman behind them.

Embarrassed, Gemma dropped her fists.

“We want to furnish a whole house today,” Colin said. “Free delivery, right?”

“Of course,” the woman said, smiling. “Where do you want to start?”

“Couch,” Colin and Gemma said in unison.

As the saleswoman started walking, they followed. “Leather or fabric? Rolled arms or straight? High back or low?”

“Fabric, rolled, high,” Gemma said.

At the same time, Colin said, “Leather, straight, low.”

“Ah, newlyweds,” the woman said. “Well, come on, I’ve had a lot of experience at settling arguments.”

Neither Colin or Gemma corrected her impression that they were newlyweds.

“Hungry?” Colin asked as he pulled one of two big sandwiches from a paper bag. On the way back from the warehouse, they’d stopped for them. He’d texted Luke from the restaurant, so when they got back, Luke and Rams were waiting. The three men carried in the king-size mattress and springs Colin and Gemma’d brought back in the truck.

“You and I could have carried them,” Gemma said to Colin.

“Thanks, but no,” he’d said.

Gemma trailed behind the men with bags full of sheets and towels. She pulled off tags and put them in the washer while the men set up the bed.

Luke and Rams left as soon as the bed was on the floor, so Colin and Gemma were now alone, standing at the counter in the kitchen.

“Ravenous,” she said. She took her sandwich and a bottle of water and went to sit on the pretty rug in the living room.

When Colin appeared, he had a cold bottle of champagne and two glasses. “Rams left this and said it was from Tess. What did you do to make her like you so much that she sent champagne?”

“Rams said it’s because Mike likes me.”

“That would do it for Tess. She thinks quite highly of her brother.” Colin bit into his sandwich. Chewing, he picked up his bottle of water. “To more days like this one,” he said.

“Truthfully, I’d rather spend four hours in the gym,” she said.

“Me too,” he said, and they looked at each other and smiled.

Between them passed images of the day. There’d been a lot of laughter as they tried to envision how the furniture would look in the house—and they’d been equally bad at it. Their saleswoman, Mrs. Ellis, thirty years in the business, was used to couples like them, so she showed them how to measure and plan the arrangements in each room.

It took an hour or so for them to get the hang of what they were doing, but soon they’d adjusted and slid into a comfortable
camaraderie. They were both good at compromises, and besides, as Gemma said, it was Colin’s house. When Mrs. Ellis said that Gemma would be living there too, they hadn’t corrected her. Instead, they’d looked away for a moment, then they went on as though nothing had been said.

The only time they halted was when they came to the third bedroom. The second had been easy, as they’d made it into a guest bedroom with twin beds.

“How about a baby’s room?” Mrs. Ellis said.

Both Gemma and Colin had stood there, staring at her in silence.

“It does happen,” she said, laughing. When they still said nothing, she said, “All right, we’ll just leave that room empty for now.”

Throughout the day, Gemma had been acutely aware of Colin’s presence—and of the constant mention of their having a future together. When they started to buy a bedside table, Mrs. Ellis asked who slept on which side. Who liked to read in bed? Did they watch TV at night?

Gemma and Colin kept up the charade that they’d been a couple for a long time, might even have been recently married.

But every time the saleswoman mentioned something that hinted at their physical togetherness, Gemma and Colin had looked at each other. At first their glances had been shy, but as the day wore on, their eyes lingered. When Mrs. Ellis talked of a child’s room, Colin had taken Gemma’s hand in his and held it for a few moments.

Once, when they’d been leaning over the blueprints spread out on a dining table and when Mrs. Ellis had turned her back, Colin had kissed Gemma. It had been a quick kiss, as though he were a schoolboy doing something behind the teacher’s back, and Gemma had laughed. After that, they’d held hands several times, and twice Colin had briefly put his arm around Gemma’s shoulders.

Had anyone been looking, no one would have guessed they weren’t a couple.

On the drive home, they’d gone back to just being friends and talked about what had been bought and what they liked and didn’t like.

Gemma was now remembering all the touches and glances, and from what she saw in Colin’s eyes, he was also remembering them.

In the next second, they were in each other’s arms and kissing.

“I’ve wanted you all day long,” Colin said.

“Me too.”

She didn’t say that being so near him, leaning over blueprints spread on a table, feeling his breath on her cheeks, had at times made her close her eyes.

“We said—” Colin began and started to move away from her.

“Who cares about words?” Gemma said as Colin kissed her neck. She loved the size of him, the weight. When he slipped his shirt over his head and she was confronted with all his honey-colored skin, her breath caught in her throat.

“I don’t have a condom here,” he said, his voice sounding tragic.

“Tris put me on pills,” she replied.

He kissed her deeply. “I want to do better this time,” he whispered, then picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, where he carefully put her down on the mattress cover.

It was early evening and the light through the window shade cast a golden glow through the room.

“I want to see you,” he whispered as he slowly began to remove her clothing. When her shirt was off he kissed her shoulders, her arms, and he put each of her fingers to his lips. Gemma lay there, her eyes closed, and enjoyed the sensation of this delicious man making love to her.

He pulled her up, his strong hands caressing her back, his lips on hers, his tongue seeking the inside of her mouth. Her bra strap came unfastened and his big hands caressed her breasts, making her moan with desire.

He removed her jeans next, slowly unfastening them, kissing her legs as he moved downward. When his hands caressed her through her panties, she clutched at him, wanting him
now
!

“Not yet, my sweet,” he whispered as he unfastened his jeans and slid them off.