Mr. Right Now (14 page)

“One more, then I’ll have to take your car keys,” the guy said, laughing at his own joke. Mason thought it would be funnier if he offered a lifejacket instead of taking car keys.

He needed to get the stranger out of her room first. With her room cleared of all living bodies except her own, the non-existent reporter wouldn’t have a story to tell. So move the guy out. First he needed to know the guy’s name.

Toasting his image in the mirror behind the bar, he took a long drink and then got up from the bar.

He would start with the name. Then he would call in a favor or two and find out if Casey’s agent and ex were setting her up for a fall.

Casey woke up with a splitting headache and the unsettling feeling she wasn’t alone. Gingerly, she picked up her head off the pillow and looked around the room.

Empty.

The rollaway bed looked as if it hadn’t been slept in. The door to the bathroom was ajar, the light on. She always closed the door. A brown leather duffel hid behind a corner of the sofa, the leg of a pair of jeans sticking out of the top. So she hadn’t dreamed the escort fiasco. That meant Mason was real, too.

She was alone, but for how long? This whole cruise was surreal. Sagging back onto the pillow, she crossed her arms over her eyes and groaned. How was she going to fix this situation? It was like an episode of
Three’s Company
got mixed up with
Erotic Confessions
. A comedy of errors and sex.

Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. She could call room service, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. She had to get used to the stares sometime. The clock on her bedside table read ten o’clock. Hopefully most of the passengers would be on deck for games and sunbathing, not in the restaurants. Casey rushed through her shower, and then dressed in white shorts, an orange-and-white striped tank and wedge sandals.

The hallway was empty. She made it up the stairwell and almost to the cafeteria before bumping into Eddie. Did the man have some kind of writer radar? It seemed everywhere she went, there he was. Just like Mason. And Tyler. Who knew going on a cruise would have men coming out of the woodwork for Cassandra Cash?

Jane had. Of course, she’d weighted the dice in Casey’s favor.

“Ms. Cash, so good to see you again. Tyler’s in there,” he said. Eddie pointed over his shoulder toward a large meeting room. Casey made a mental note to stay away from the area. “We’re getting a poker game going in there. Have to have something to do, what with the rain and all,” Eddie chattered away, not noticing Casey’s frown.

Rain? Rain meant everyone would be inside. She tried to see around Eddie, up to the main deck, but all she could see was a slightly gray sky. Maybe the rain wasn’t so bad.

“...and that’s when we decided on poker. A few of the women were talking about joining us, but most of them are just chatting away about books and such.” Eddie leaned closer, cupping his hand around one side of his mouth. “I overheard talk about starting up charades and some other games in the other meeting room. There was talk of
Pictionary
and
Name That Tune
. I’d avoid the area if I were you.”

“Like everyone there has the plague. I’m not a gaming girl.” Unless those games involved sex, apparently. “I, um, I just wanted breakfast, and then back to the room. I have some work to do.” She half-turned, preparing to escape the breakfast room. Room service. She needed room service. He caught her arm.

“Working on the new book?”

She nodded.

“Are you going to work on the male orgasm this time? You know, thousands of pages are devoted to the female orgasm, but everyone seems to think we men work on autopilot.” He lowered his voice. “There’s more to us than meets the eye, you know.”

Her brain hurt trying to absorb everything he’d said in the last two minutes. Male orgasms. Elderly male orgasms.

Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t divulge any details.”

“Can you give me a hint?” He sidled closer.

“Sorry. Contractual obligations.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire
. There were no obligations, only a yawning void in her head where the book should be taking on form. Instead, she could only think of her dilemma. Once more the thought of turning Mason into a fictional hero, and herself into a heroine, struck her. She pressed her index finger to her temple and brushed the thought aside.

Patting her on the shoulder, he nodded and smiled. “They don’t want some other writer taking your idea, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Then, as if realizing he was blocking her way to the deck, he jumped to the side.

“You’re on your way to breakfast. I’m sorry. You better hurry. The fruit was picked over when I checked on Mags and the silver dollar pancakes were turning into door stops.” He brushed past her and disappeared around the corner.

She took a deep breath and continued up the stairs.

A cool breeze greeted her on deck, blowing her hair against her neck. Instead of a slightly gray sky, she saw dark, low-hanging clouds and a heavy rain pouring down into the ocean. Drops of rain beat against the canvas awning over her head, protecting her from a good soaking. Still, a few drops ricocheted off the deck and against her bare legs. She shivered. No way was this a quick shower that would evaporate in a few minutes. She should never have left her room. Why couldn't she, just once, act like the pampered semi-celebrity and order room service? Okay, Plan B: fill a plate quickly and get back to the room.

She pushed the hall door open, pulling it shut again when the wind caught it. The room was crowded. Everywhere women and a few men who apparently hadn’t heard about the poker tournament two floors down sat around tables, talking. Hoping to stay anonymous, she hurried to the buffet.

Eddie was right. The pancakes, eggs and other hot foods looked a little worse for the wear. She grabbed a plate and filled it with melon. She picked a bottle of water from the cold case, a carton of milk that reminded her of elementary school, several napkins and flatware.

She turned to leave, and nearly dropped the whole lot. Mags and another woman she didn’t recognize stood just behind her. Startled, she raised her right hand to her chest, and the bottle of water she held bounced hard off her breast bone, making her catch her breath.

“We wanted to ask you to join our table this morning,” Mags said. She nodded her head toward a table to the left, where several other women sat around the big circle sipping tea or stirring coffee. “Eating alone just isn’t any fun.”

“I don’t mind...um...I was just going to—”

The other woman talked right over her, pulling on her arm as she guided Casey to an empty chair on the other side of the table. “It would be wonderful to talk to you over breakfast. We thought you might even give us some pointers. Some of us are interested in memoir writing.”

Panic filled her belly. “I don’t really know anything about recreating the past. I wouldn’t want to point you down the wrong road.”

“Oh, pooh.” Mags waved a hand in the air, dismissing Casey’s words. Weaving her arm through Casey’s, Mags led her to the table. “You do a better job of getting those emotional details down than any other author I know. Besides, the things we want to put on paper about will be better if we fudge on a few details.”

“I have work—”

“You have to eat breakfast, dear. Didn’t your mother explain it’s the most important meal of the day?” Mags pulled an empty chair from the table and motioned for Casey to take it. “Work will be there when you get to it. Girls,” she said, turning to the table. “This is Cassandra Cash, the writer. She’ll be joining us for breakfast this morning.”

Casey placed her napkin in her lap as a round of “nice to meet you”s and “welcome”s came across the table.
Deep breath, you can do this, Case.

“Thank you for the invitation.” Such as it was. “I hate to eat alone.” Casey caught a melon ball with her fork, smiled again at the table and popped it into her mouth. The sooner she was done with breakfast, the sooner she could return to hibernation in the stateroom.

The conversation picked back up as she ate. Melon ball, melon ball, murmured “uh-huh,” melon ball.

“Well, the problem I seem to be having is with the sex,” an older woman across the table said. Her brown hair was tinted with a few well-placed streaks of white. Casey wondered if she had her hairdresser create the streaks or if she simply had the luck of graying symmetrically. “It’s just so regimented lately. I’ll tell you, it’s just not the same as it was back then.”

A melon ball caught in Casey’s throat. She’d rather they talk about writing than about their geriatric sex lives.

“I think I sh—”

“I’m having that problem, too, Maureen,” another lady said, talking over Casey. “I remember what it used to be like, but then something happens and it’s completely different. Like my sexual experiences have been boring porn.”

A few twitters of laughter rounded the table.

Boring pornography? She had to get out of there before they started talking about lubes or sex toys. Casey wasn’t sure she could handle breakfast with the over-sixty
Girls Gone Wild
bunch. She popped the last melon ball into her mouth, stood and then froze.

“Do you have that problem, too, Cassandra?” Every head at the table swiveled to look at Casey.

Did she have what problem? The problem of her sex life feeling like a boring porn flick? Memories of Mason floated into her mind. Not hardly. Unbelievable, yes. Boring, no.

The melon ball stuck in her throat and Casey began to choke. “Um...I’m, uh, not sure—”

Mags pounded on her back, then raised Casey’s arms above her head. “You know,” Mags said, rescuing her in more ways than one. “When you write about sex, even though you’re writing about tips, is it sometimes flat?”

“Well, not...no. I thought you were...” Casey shut off that train of thought and continued with, “Writing your memoirs.”

Several of the ladies nodded. The one with white-streaked hair said, “Yes. We are writing the true-to-life adventures of the Rosie the Riveter generation. You know, we’re the ones who saved this country during the War. Now, everyone thinks we have to be sweet, cookie-baking grandmothers. We’re more than that, but we need a little help. So, do you?”

Casey’s brain seemed to be working in super-slow-mode. Making the connection between these earnest women, baking cookies, Rosie the Riveter and sexually explicit writing just wasn’t happening. “Do I...” Casey left the question open-ended.

“Do you find sex hard to put on paper without it turning into a health class textbook?”

How did she answer the question? If she simply said no, would they ask that horrid,
Where do you get your sex ideas from
question? If she said yes, would they let her leave the table? Not likely. Casey would have to bite the bullet, so to speak, on this question.

“I think the key you’re looking for is emotion." At least, that was what she thought. Writing self-help with sometimes sexually explicit chapters for the
Cosmo
generation didn't necessarily call for emotion. More of the health textbook writing they didn’t want. “You can be very explicit within the scene, but if you don’t add in emotional feelings from that moment on the page, it’s just sex.” She balled the napkin tightly in her fist. “How did your heart feel? That’s more than just pulses-pounding stuff. Remember how you felt about the person you were with, how it felt to be touched.” A flush heated Casey’s cheeks as she remembered Mason caressing her body the night before.

For the life of her, she couldn’t remember any feelings other than the unsettling urge to shut out everything and everyone else. Just to be with him. No interruptions.