Authors: Kathy Reinhart
There was a long silence, before he said, “That was actually a nice story. I mean, I can see where it was embarrassing for you, but it was nice. I can’t say that I have any friends that I feel that close to.” His brow furrowed, and he asked, “So, this means that you’ll be forgiving them for the prank they played on you this weekend?”
I nodded. “Right after I pay them back.”
Cory had seen to it that we would have plenty to eat during our stay and after agreeing on spaghetti, Con tended the fire while I fixed dinner.
I felt so at ease with him that there was no lingering embarrassment after telling him one of my most horrifying stories. I didn’t get the feeling that he was laughing at me, which is the first reaction I always expected. Although, giving thought to his story about the frog, I was more certain than before that he had made the whole thing up in a noble attempt to put me at ease. No man who looks like him would ever have to stoop to trickery for a simple kiss. Just looking at him I could see that he had the kind of lips women went crazy over... as they kissed their way up from the base of the throat, pausing at the earlobe, before making their way to...
“Is dinner almost ready?”
The lid to the spaghetti pot made a loud clamor as it hit the floor, bouncing across the linoleum. I quickly bent for the lid to keep him from seeing the blush that raced across my cheeks.
“Uh... I think... just about.”
He laughed. “Hello. Do I know you? You remind me of someone I once met at a street side café.”
I handed him two plates and silverware. “Preoccupied... here, would you set these on the table.”
He gave me a suspicious side-glance, but didn’t question me further. I was thankful for his diplomacy and quickly changed the subject before he could change his mind.
“So tell me, what is it that you do for a living? You’re a waiter or... I think Cory said something about supervising the waiters.”
“Excuse me?” His eyes shown confusion.
“I’m sorry, maybe I misunderstood her.” I threw my head from side to side in an exaggerated motion. “I might have been a little intoxicated at the time.”
As I went back to the kitchen for the salad, he began piling spaghetti onto our plates.
“I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I’m a pilot.”
I must have looked like a mannequin in a culinary advertisement, standing in the doorway, a bowl of salad the only thing between him and the dumb expression on my face.
“A pilot? Then why were you waiting tables at Sal’s?”
He laughed. “Okay, I see why you’re confused. I’m the pilot who flew the waiters and the band to your party. When Cory hired me, she also invited me to stay afterward. As for waiting tables—my mother owns Sal’s. I waited tables there while I was putting myself through flight school and I still help her out when she’s in a jam.”
My mind was working overtime trying to process the events leading up to my party.
“So, Cory must have met you, what, at the airport? I know she had never seen you before the first time I saw you at Sal’s.”
“That would be correct. I ran into her a few days after the first time I saw you. We talked a bit and she hired me to deliver your... guests.”
“Then you know Charlotte’s fiancé, Kevin? He’s been a mechanic there forever.”
“I wouldn’t trust my plane to anyone else.” He teased, slapping the table. “Yes, I know Kevin, great guy.”
“So, you’ve met my friends and your mother owns our favorite café. Talk about a small world.”
“And don’t forget your grandmother. I’ve met her, too.”
I let out a faint laugh. “And she’s not one you’ll soon forget.”
He agreed with a nod of his head, as he finished the last of the spaghetti on his plate.
Almost rhythmically, I washed the dinner dishes and he dried and put them away. I had never considered a man with a dishtowel draped over his shoulder as being sexy but tonight, I couldn’t imagine anything sexier.
It took a conscious effort to keep my mind off him and on topics that wouldn’t land me in an embarrassing situation.
“So, how long has your mother owned Sal’s?”
“All of her life. Actually, her parents bought it when she was born and named it after her, her name’s Sally. Her mother died before I was born and her father only a few years later. She’s been running it ever since.”
My eyes opened wide as he twirled the dishtowel in his hand as if he were going to towel snap me with it. I watched cautiously, but his playfulness ended with twirling.
“And, I’m assuming you lost your father.”
“Yeah, a long time ago.”
His demeanor changed so slightly that if I hadn’t been looking directly at him, I would have missed it.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked about him.”
“No, that’s okay. It doesn’t upset me that he’s gone, what upsets me is what he was when he was here.”
I found myself curious to his meaning and resisted asking, but gave him my undivided attention when he offered an explanation.
“My father was a drunk—that being the cause of my parents divorce soon after I was born. My grandfather paid for the best rehab facilities, bought him a business and even tried cutting him off financially when all else failed. But my father never did beat it.”
“Now I’m really sorry I asked.”
“Don’t be.” He stared into the dirty dishwater for a second, and then returned his attention to me. “In some respects, I’m glad things happened the way they did. I mean, my grandfather is obnoxious and domineering to a fault, so I try my best
not
to be like him and my father was an embarrassing drunk, so I rarely drink. If I never had the opportunity to see the flaws in people, I may not have strived as hard as I have to find the good in myself.”
I stared at him, my mouth slightly ajar. I think it was at that exact moment when I realized I was no longer seeing him for his outward appearance. He was the first man I had ever known that was as beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside, making me want him more than I’d ever wanted anyone.
I teased, “Do you have
any
flaws?” before my better judgment could stop me.
Hanging the dishtowel on a knob and turning his attention to me, he stated, “I keep take-out food joints in business due to a lack of culinary skills... My laundry has a tendency of getting ahead of me and I have a little scar on the back of my thigh. I expect one-hundred and ten percent from the people I work with, earning me the reputation of being a little difficult... I don’t always remember to buy cards on holidays, but I’m working on it and two of my lower teeth,” pointing to them, he continued, “overlap just a little.” He sat on one of the stools by the island. “Like my mother, I refuse to kowtow to my grandfather, no matter how much money he waves in front of me... I’ve been known to foozle on the golf course and I don’t visit the gravesites of my dead relatives. In all honesty, I find it a little morbid.”
I casually headed toward the living room. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“How about you, any flaws hiding behind that pretty smile?”
I considered this another question that sounded much easier when I was the one doing the asking.
“Foozle?”
He raised an eyebrow, prodding me to answer his question. “Okay, let’s see... I stutter when I’m nervous and I can be quite indecisive, especially when the stakes are high... I let my empty shampoo bottles sit on the edge of the tub for a while before I get around to throwing them away and I can’t hold my liquor, as you’ve seen. I haven’t always been the best daughter...” Thinking of my grandfather, I sadly added, “or granddaughter—and I’m very sorry for that. I wander aimlessly around the city when something is troubling me... I can get a little carried away when I’m with Cory and Charlotte and I have this little... well, not so little scar on my back.”
As if he sensed my discomfort, he quickly put me at ease, by saying, “And, you have a habit of calling strangers by the names of cartoon characters.”
I laughed and stole a glimpse of his beefy arms. Almost speaking to myself, I said, “How could I have forgotten that flaw?”
He motioned to the couch and I sat, leaving enough room that he didn’t have to sit any closer than he wanted to. Surprisingly, he chose to sit on the floor, slouching enough that the back of his head was resting on the cushion, almost touching my leg.
I had such an urge to bury my fingers in his sandy hair and stroke it softly, but of course being dull, boring, predictable Meg, I didn’t.
This was one of those rare moments in life when, presented with an opportunity to do something so daring, so utterly out of character it would take pictures of the event to convince anyone that I had actually done it, I was going to blow it in the name of good judgment and rational thought, cursing myself for... well... probably forever.
“Well, it doesn’t look like your friends are coming for us tonight, so-o-o, any ideas how we can pass the time?”
I thought, ‘This is it, without fear or doubt, my one chance to be totally audacious and bring my fantasy to life,’ and said, “Cards?”
I felt a chill of excitement run up my back when, almost as if reading my mind, he strained his neck in order to look at me, and replied, “For fun, money... or favors?”
Eighteen
...Our worlds were colliding on a very eerie, but very real course and I didn’t know how to escape the collision. Confusion, shock and pain were all elements of an ending that began as a perfect evening, and I couldn’t run fast enough or far enough to separate myself from it...
We had each found comfortable spots on the floor and took turns choosing the stakes. ‘For fun’ meant making the loser do something silly. Con made me cluck like a chicken the first time I lost and I made him impersonate Elmer Fudd once and attempt a cartwheel another time. ‘For money’ was a freebie because neither of us would take the money when the other lost and ‘for favors’ consisted of retrieving drinks and adding logs to the fire, simple errands that were much less thrilling than what my runaway mind had imagined before we began.
It was getting rather late and I was certain I had mistaken clubs for spades on more than one occasion. Con was either too tired to notice or just pretended not to. I was beginning to get the feeling that he was stalling, avoiding the ‘end of the night’ formalities. The fire had died enough to keep him from detecting my frequent blushes as I could feel a sexual tension beginning to thicken in the air around us. He may dream about another woman, but for now, he was here with me and his willpower was deteriorating so fast, I could almost hear it chipping away.
There I go again, standing in the cloud of white smoke left behind by my vivid imagination.
“It’s getting late; I think I’m going to head up.”
He glanced at his watch, and said, “Yeah, I guess I should do the same.” Concentrating on the deck of cards while he shuffled one last time, he added, “Thank you. I had a good time tonight.”
With his attention on the cards, I couldn’t see his expression well enough to know if his words were sincere or if they were an obligatory compliment but if I’ve learned nothing else from Cory, when in doubt, rely on humor.
“Aw... I’ll bet you say that to all the girls you find yourself stranded with.”
He stood, shaking his head in an exaggerated motion, and teased, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d find myself...” Laying the cards on the coffee table, he continued in a more serious tone. “I have to hand it to your friends. I mean, all I did was ask for you number and they ran with the ball. I admire their nerve, even if they did take it to extremes.”
Offering a hand, he helped me to my feet.
“This was extreme, even for them. But I’m not sorry they did it.” Scanning his face for a reaction, our eyes locked, as I continued, “What I mean is you’ve been great. I don’t think I would have handled this weekend as well as I have if it were anyone else.”
Almost unnoticeably, he took a hold of my other hand.
To his unknowing eye, I was the portrait of calm, but what he couldn’t see was that my blood was in a race with my adrenaline, causing sweaty palms, jumping nerves and unblinking eyes.
His eyes were unyielding, keeping mine as their submissive hostages. His lips slowly grew nearer and his eyes continued to hold mine without mercy or relent. As I teetered on the line between rational and reverie, he lifted a hand to my face and softly stroked my bruise with the back of his fingers. I tilted my head as his hand crossed my cheek, leisurely working its way around to the back of my neck.
He had the power to turn a private fantasy into a heated reality. Slowly, he lowered his head until his lips brushed mine... once... and then again, savoring each second of foreplay to a kiss. A slight tilt of his head brought our lips together in a delicate union.
I lost my anchor on reality as his kisses deepened, drawing me into his impressive body. My head spun and my legs buckled as he tilted his head from one side to the other, experiencing my lips from every angel. With his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, my fingers explored every inch of muscle on their journey up his back.