A New Forever (7 page)

They each plunged back into their respective lives as if nothing at all unusual had happened that weekend—Clay was busy with the ranch, she assumed, since she hadn't heard from him, and Elodie buried herself in work and painting.

One night Elodie came home and there was a light on in her apartment. She checked the parking lot and spotted a little red Mini, and knew that Joshua had dropped by. Despite the fact that she'd just worked a double to try to afford the coat she didn't want but which Clay wanted her to have, Elodie sprinted up the stairs and into her apartment, only to be crushed in a bear hug the moment she opened the door.

"Elodie!"

Joshua was a thin, small man, but he gave huge, wonderful, all out hugs, and she felt herself let go and relax against him. It was the first time she'd felt relaxed since things had started to develop with Clay.

"Joshua! It's so good to see you!" She hugged him back, but she knew that her hugs weren't nearly as fantastic as his were.

He leaned back and kissed her, then returned to the small galley kitchen where he began stirring a pot. "I was just going to leave a contribution to the 'feed a starving artiste' fund. I thought you worked mornings on Tuesdays?"

Elodie crowded into the kitchen with him and took a deep breath of the fragrant steam from the pot of whatever it was he had on the burner. It smelled like pure heaven to her. The restaurant where she worked didn't have the usual policy towards employees; that they could eat there free of charge. Instead, they gave a small discount on the price of a meal, and since Elodie could eat more cheaply at home, she almost never ate what she served all day long.

The truth was, she didn't eat much at all. Once she got home, food didn't even enter the picture; all she wanted to do was either sleep or paint. Nine times out of ten, painting won out over sleep.

"Yeah, I do, but today I did a double."

Joshua stopped stirring long enough to give her a glare that reminded her uncomfortably of Clay. "Is the Bill Fairy going to have to pay you a visit again?" he asked, pulling his gold, wire-rimmed glasses down his nose and giving her his best schoolmarm imitation.

"No, he is not! I still owe the Bill Fairy from the last bailout!" She watched as he began to ladle his famous Not French Onion soup into four of the oven proof bowls he'd accidentally left at her place. That soup in particular was a favorite of Elodie's, Joshua knew. It was unlike French Onion soup because it was nowhere near as salty. The base wasn't beef broth, as was the norm, but rather a lighter vegetable broth, chock full of all sorts of onions—not just the usual Spanish, but Vidalia and red and shallots and scallions, along with just a hint of garlic and white wine.

There was no chunk of soggy bread in the middle of Joshua's soup, either. Both he and Elodie detested that, so instead he had made some homemade garlic bread that was crisp and hot from the oven. After topping the soup bowls with mounds of cheese, he set them under the broiler long enough to melt it and grabbed two large soup spoons from the drawer, giving her one.

They both stood there, staring at the ancient gold oven as if it held the secret to immortality. The minute or so that it took to melt the cheese seemed like forever when you were waiting to feel all that warm, oniony goodness making your mouth happy.

When it was ready, they fairly descended on it, each grabbing a bowl on a plate and several slices of garlic bread for dunking, then making their way to Elodie's tiny living room, where he had already parked a two liter bottle of chilled white wine in ice in a cooler, and strategically positioned two empty glasses.

Elodie broke through the slight resistance of the browned cheese to the liquid goodness beneath, sighing in ecstasy with the first swallow. In complete seriousness, she asked, "Joshua, will you marry me?"

Involved in his own gastronomic orgy a few feet away, Joshua ignored her. She always proposed to him when he cooked for her. She was easy.

Minutes later, when they were both sated but still looking forward to their second bowl, Joshua asked in a deliberately casual voice, "So what's this I hear about you dating Clay?"

Elodie's spoon clanged noisily into her bowl. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," he admonished gently. "You guys went out to Red Creek week before last, and went to a movie last weekend."

"Jeez, Joshua, stalking me any?" Startled but not angry, Elodie got up and headed for round two of everything.

She could hear his snort behind her. "Small towns make stalking a waste of energy," he called, then appeared at the kitchen doorway, content to wait while she served herself.

"Uh huh. Lovely. I'd forgotten the gossip quotient in this place." She moved past him, back to the living room.

"Yep—so get ready to spill when I get back in there."

Elodie tried to busy herself with her soup, but no such luck.

Joshua positioned himself back in his chair, and even before he took his first scoop of melted cheese and broth, he stared at her and said, "Dish."

Although she tried to downplay what was going on, Joshua wasn't buying any of it. He listened politely to her glossed over version of what had happened, then said, "Okay, now tell me what's really going on."

Leave it to Joshua to want to delve into the meat of the matter. He wasn't the type to put up with casual niceties. He didn't believe in putting a face on things. He was the most honest person—intellectually and emotionally—she had ever met.

Their friendship had developed strangely; he'd been a regular at the restaurant where she worked. He was a few years older than she was—kind of like Clay—and went to school with one of her brothers. He was always more than polite, and was an extravagant tipper, and he started to always sit in her section. They chatted, and eventually he'd asked her if she'd like to go to a gallery opening with him the following Saturday.

He seemed harmless enough, and she'd never seen him in the restaurant with anyone else—male or female. And he'd hit on her weak spot for anything involving any type of art. It seemed highly unlikely that a gallery opening would end up with her dead in an alley, so she said yes.

That was the beginning of a beautiful, if somewhat unusual, friendship. Joshua had never made any sort of overture towards her that smacked of anything but friendship and affection. She'd known him since just after April had died, and she'd never heard of him dating anyone. Elodie had come to the conclusion that he was pretty much asexual, which she assumed was highly unusual, especially in a man. But there he was. It was also very likely he was gay, but Elodie didn't feel it right to ask unless he wanted to offer. It didn't matter to her… he was her friend, and that was what was important.

He was actually the best friend she'd ever had—besides April. He was warm and truly affectionate, and she never had to worry that his hands would wander during one of his phenomenal hugs. He was supportive, but also forthright without being pushy. He'd told her that she should shop her paintings around; that she was very good to his amateur eye, and that he thought she should try to contact someone and see if they would show her work.

But he never overstepped his bounds.

Joshua knew she sometimes forgot to eat, especially if she was in the grip of a creative streak, so he'd started leaving pots of food on the stove for her—on the stoop until she gave him a key—stews and pretty good Kao Pau chicken and jambalaya. Sometimes they were the only meals she ate all week. He consciously made sure they were things she could ladle into a bowl and shove in the microwave. That was the full extent of Elodie's culinary talents.

Elodie bit her lip, debating about whether or not to really spill her guts to Joshua. On impulse, she ran into her bedroom and finagled the portrait of Clay out of her closet, bringing it back into the living room and coming to stand in front of Joshua, with the painting facing her.

Joshua was just licking his fingers from the buttery garlic bread, and looked up at her with his index finger still in his mouth. Elodie turned the picture around and heard his indrawn breath as he stared at it for the first time.

"Wow—it's friggin' gorgeous!"

He stood and took the portrait into his own hands, trying to see it in a better light. Then, seconds later, he looked up from Clay's face and into Elodie's, then back down and up again. "You love him."

Elodie didn't say a thing, but she knew Joshua knew the truth in his heart.

"Oh, honey, only someone who felt very strongly about him could have painted him in this way." Joshua put the painting to one side and tugged Elodie up into a hug. "What are you waiting for, girl, go get him!" He turned her loose with that enthusiastic suggestion, but Elodie just sank back down into her chair.

"I can't do that. He's—he was—my brother-in-law."

If Joshua had rolled his eyes any harder, they would have fallen out and onto the floor. "Puh-leeze! This is not the fifteenth century. Marry him, quick, before some wench snatches him out from under you!"

Elodie had to laugh at Joshua's sheer enthusiasm. He was all for grabbing as much love and fun in this life as you could—mostly love, although he didn't necessarily follow his own advice. "I don't think so. He's off limits."

"He is not. Stop restricting yourself so much. If he's the one you love," Joshua looked pointedly back at the portrait, "and he obviously is, then you go get him!"

On a giggle, Elodie replied, "You are such a cheerleader! If you want him so much, you go get him."

"I don't want him. But you do. Don't let another minute go by!"

Elodie sighed. "That's kind of why I ended up going to Red Creek with him. I thought of what happened to April, and decided what the heck. So now he's got me going out once a week with him—but I can't afford it!"

Joshua wasn't going to let her use that as an excuse. "I will lend you the mo—"

"No, you won't. That's why I'm working double shifts." That and trying to get a coat and save her butt from getting an even more painful tanning, but Elodie wasn't about to tell him about that.

He sighed, loudly and exaggeratedly. "You shouldn't be working double shifts. You're barely eating, I know," he glared at her as she automatically reached for her bowl of soup, "and you're not taking care of yourself." He sighed extremely loudly for dramatic effect. "I can see that I am not going to get anywhere with you, as usual."

Just then, the phone rang, and Elodie scooped it up. "Hello?"

"How's your bottom?"

No preamble, no "how you doing", just "how's your bottom."

"Uh, fine." She dragged the word out and pressed the phone closer to her ear, just in case any sort of untoward sound might leak out and into Joshua's avid ears.

He was already getting up, though, having deduced who was on the other end of the line. He put their dishes to soak in the sink, and poured the remainder of the soup into a big Tupperware bowl, then he scooted out to kiss her on the top of her head.

Elodie whipped around and saw him backing away from her, waving goodbye and blowing kisses at her, then making grabbing motions towards the phone.

She got the message as he backed out of her place. Elodie heaved a huge sigh of relief. She had not wanted to talk to Clay while Joshua was still in the same room. There was no telling what he'd do. And at least she'd kept one secret—Joshua didn't know that she'd been spanked. She was sure that if he'd stayed, she'd have ended up saying something that would make him curious, and then the cat would be out of the bag. Elodie couldn't imagine how Joshua might react to the idea that she got spanked. She couldn't think that he'd be any too happy about it—most people peering in from the outside would assume that she was being abused, but it was hardly that.

"Just fine?" Clay asked, putting a fine point on the question.

"Yeah, it's not hurting anymore." She didn't mention that it had hurt like hell to sit down when she got home, and that she could still feel the 'warmth' for several days.

Clay paused for a moment before responding in a deep growl, "Then I must not have spanked you hard enough. Have you gotten your coat yet?"

Elodie humphed into the phone, trying to sound indignant at being asked, but she answered truthfully. "No, I haven't." She hadn't quite gotten the money saved yet, and she was trying not to rob Peter to pay Paul.

"You'd better get on the ball there, Miss Elodie, if you don't want a second—and worse—dose of what you got once already. You had better bring that coat to the bowling alley, and if it's cold out, you'd better be wearing it. I have a vintage hairbrush in my desk that would work perfectly on you, though, if you don't."

Elodie froze, wondering if it was something he used to use on her sister.

"And, no, this is something I bought a couple of months ago," he said.

"How did you know that's what I was thinking?"

Somehow, she could see him shrugging even over the phone. "Because I know how paranoid you're likely to be about that kind of thing."

"I'm not paranoid. I'm just concerned about propriety."

Clay grunted. "Too concerned for your own damned good, I say."

"Uh huh. Is that all you called for, to gloat?" she asked with a bite in her tone.

"I'm not gloating at all." He chuckled, and it instantly made Elodie smile. "I wanted to make sure that you survived your first spanking."