ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT? (Running Wild) (21 page)

Bruce got up and got Polly's bag for her. He sat down and waited patiently as she spoke at length to Harry.

“I have to go to the office,” she said when she hung up. “A man I’ve been searching for has surfaced, and I have to have him served quickly, before I lose him again.”

He nodded. He looked disappointed, but resigned.

She took a deep, shaky breath. "I’ll be a couple hours at least.” It took all her courage to add, “I don’t suppose you could stay here and wait for me? The bed isn’t made, but the sheets are clean.” 

The look in his eyes sent a shudder through her.

“Unless one of my patients decides to go into labor, I’ll be waiting in your bed when you get back. No matter how long it takes."

And then he kissed her, and one tiny strand of the huge ball of fear inside her began to slowly unravel.

Edna dropped by two days after Zacharias finally left. She rang the doorbell just after Graham went down for his afternoon nap, and Maxine was pathetically glad to see her. Having her father stay for ten days had taken its toll.

“You look absolutely fantastic.” Maxine studied the older woman. "You’ve lost weight. That dress looks great on you. Where’d you get it?"

It was a robin’s egg-blue silk shirtdress, with a daring slit that showed off shapely legs Edna had been hiding.

“Polly saw it in a window downtown and practically ordered me to buy it." Edna's clear skin glowed, and her gray eyes sparkled. "She told me the wonderful news about locating Ricky Shwartz and getting your money back, and I wanted to say congratulations and tell you how thrilled I am for you." She handed Maxine a huge bouquet of deep blue irises, already arranged in a tall copper container.

“Oh, Edna, thank you. They’re so beautiful.” 

Maxine set the flowers on top of the bookcase. “I’m lucky to have a friend like you.” She led the way into the kitchen. As she made tea and set out chocolate biscuits, she gave Edna the highlights of her father's visit.

“He was going to stay only five days, but somehow it got extended to ten.” She explained how generous Zacharias had been financially, related his surprising reaction to the news that his daughter had supported herself by doing phone sex, and confessed how difficult it had been to keep from losing her temper and thumping him.

“He criticized, complained about everything, repaired things that weren’t broken, sharpened every knife in the house so that now I keep cutting myself, and spoiled Graham so badly I can hardly stand him. He’s taken to throwing himself on the floor and kicking and screaming if he doesn’t get his own way, and if he wakes up at night he has a fit if I don’t appear instantly.”

Edna laughed. “Sounds like his grandpa did a good job on him.” She bit into her cookie. “I’m so glad things turned out the way they did with your dad, Maxine.”

"Me too. I still have issues with him, but we also have something in common. He thinks the sun shines out of Graham’s eyes, and when the kid's not being a tyrant, I think so too.”

Zacharias’s visit had healed sore places inside her. The ones that were still bleeding had nothing to do with her father. “And how about you, Edna? How’re things with your sons?”

Coached by their father, Edna’s boys had both confronted her, angry and accusing, after finding out about the phone sex.

“Gary’s still pretty mad at me, but Marshall comes by and visits. He’s beginning to realize his father isn’t always right. Marshall’s got a girlfriend John doesn’t approve of." She smiled and shook her head. "And some of his friends have told him they figure it’s cool to have a mother who actually did phone sex, so that’s helping things along as well.”

They laughed and Maxine asked, “What’s happening with the personal ads?”

“I’ve met three nice men," Edna said nonchalantly. “I’ve dated all of them, but there’s one, Stephen, whom I particularly like. He’s a retired doctor. He’s invited me to go on a cruise with him to Portugal.” She blushed. “Sex with him is fantastic, and conversation isn’t so bad either.”

Maxine laughed, but Edna’s words evoked painful memories of Harry. They’d also shared good conversation and great sex. Something wistful must have shown on her face, because Edna said softly, “Have you heard from him?”

Maxine shook her head. "Graham’s gotten several pictures in the mail from Sadie, but that’s it.”

“Call him.” Edna reached out and put a hand on Maxine’s arm. “It's only because of Harry’s article that Polly found Shwartz. At least you owe him a thank you.”

Maxine nodded. She’d been dithering about it for days. “I’m scared," she admitted now. “I’m afraid that he’ll hang up on me the way I did with him." And if he did, her heart would truly break. She took a breath and blurted out the other half of it.

"With him. I’m Maxine, but I’m India as well. That wild, out-of-control part of me is right there when I’m with Harry, and it scares me.” She gave Edna a beseeching look. "You understand, don’t you?” Edna was probably the only one who could understand. She was Lilith as well as Edna.

Edna nodded. "The hardest thing I’ve ever done was let Stephen see who I really am. I thought it would drive him away, being radically honest, telling him about the phone sex, telling him I enjoyed being Lilith. But I had to do it, to be true to myself.” Her smile was radiant. "He loved it. And I think I’m starting to love him, and I’m so happy I go around singing all the time.”

She patted Maxine’s hand. “You were happy like that when you were with Harry. Call him, Maxine. You’ll always regret it if you don’t.”

Edna left, and Graham woke from his nap. For the remainder of the afternoon Maxine busied herself with laundry, ironing, weeding the garden, making a summer stew. She made certain she was too busy to make a phone call.

But inevitably evening arrived, Graham went to bed, and things were quiet. Maxine, palms sweaty and heart hammering, knew the time had come. It was a warm summer night, but she was shivering as she lifted the receiver and dialed.

He answered almost instantly.

“Hello?"

His voice set off explosive reactions in her, a rush of warmth, a sense of dread, terrible longing, and fear that gave way to certainty. She hadn’t planned it, but now she knew what she had to do. Courage came, and with it, a tiny measure of confidence.

“This is India McBride, Harry."

He made a startled sound and began to say something, but she interrupted, her voice low and smooth and sexy. “I want you just to listen to me, please. There are things I need you to hear.”

His silence told her he was paying close attention.

She closed her eyes and let herself recognize her truths. “When Maxine first created me, we both thought it was because she needed the money. She did, but that wasn’t all of it, Harry. See, she was always ashamed of me. I was this lush, sensual, outrageous part of her, and she was scared that if she let me out, no man would really love her the way she longed to be loved. Because I’m bad, I want to do all the nasty, delicious things Maxine was taught were sinful."

This was hard. It was like exposing her plump naked belly to a photographer. “But I’m part of her, Harry, an important part. And by doing phone sex, we got to know each other and she realized I wasn’t so bad after all. We weren’t exactly soul mates, but we got to be friends. And then you came along, Harry. And Maxine and I both fell crazily in love with you, and for the first time the two parts came together. But loving and trusting are two different things. When the stuff came up about the article, it was easier not to trust you, just in case . . .” Her sexy India voice wavered and she became Maxine, insecure, shy. “Just in case you didn’t love me back.”

Tears were close, and the tissues were in the kitchen. She sniffled and swallowed and blurted out the rest. “I've made peace with my father. I’m changing my job. I think I know myself now, for the first time. But life's empty and awful without you and Sadie. See, I love you with all my heart, Harry.”

Her belly was in knots as she waited for him to say something. It took a couple of long, agonizing seconds for her to realize the line was dead.

She stared at the silent phone in disbelief. He'd hung up on her. She’d gambled and lost, and she hadn’t even gotten around to saying thank you to him for locating Shwartz.

Damn. Waves of desolation rolled over her, too intense even for tears. The future stretched ahead, long and straight and dusty, devoid of Harry, and she tried to tell herself that it would get easier than this—it had to, but she couldn’t begin to believe it.

After a while she got to her feet and stumbled into the kitchen, but tea didn’t hold any appeal. She opened the cupboard and searched for the brandy bottle. There were a few pathetic drops in the very bottom. She couldn’t even get dramatically and tragically drunk.

The only thing left was a hot bath; her knees were grubby from gardening and her nails had dirt underneath them. She headed down the hall and turned the water on, but before she could get her shorts off, the front doorbell rang.

To hell with them, whoever they are. She couldn’t imagine talking to anyone right now.

It pealed again, and yet again, and at last she turned the taps off and stomped back down the hallway.

She jerked the door open and her mouth dropped as her heart rose.

"Harry? Oh, God, Harry, come in.”

He had a blanket-swathed Sadie asleep on his shoulder, and he walked over and gently put her down on the sofa. Then, less gently, he pulled Maxine into his arms and kissed her hard before he dropped on one knee to the carpet.

“Before another single thing happens to interrupt us, will you marry me, Maxine? Because 

I love everything about you, the stubborn part, the shy part, the part of you that’s insecure. I love Graham. And India. God, Maxine, I love the part of you that’s India. So what do ya say? Will you marry me?”

His chin was covered with stubble, and his jeans were stained with what might have been spaghetti. He’d been running his fingers through his hair, and it stood up in a rooster’s comb on the back of his head.

He was the most desirable man she’d ever seen in her entire life, and she wanted him so badly her thighs quivered. The kids were asleep, her bedroom was just down the hall, and they had the whole long night ahead of them.

"I will, Harry. I want you. Yes, I’ll marry you.” Sadie stirred and sat up, rubbed her eyes, and peered around. “Daddy, you ’pologized. Hi, Maxine. Where’s Graham?”

Down the hall, a whimper began and escalated rapidly into a roar of outrage.

Maxine looked at Harry, and together they started to laugh. With two little kids around, making it to the bedroom was going to present a challenge. But they were equal to it, and they had time on their side.

They had a whole long lifetime ahead of them.

If you love romance and would like a free novella, the first in a hot “BOOKS FOR THE BEACH” series, go to
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RUNNING WILD, THE TRILOGY

ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT
is the second book in a THREE BOOK TRILOGY. The other two,
STAND BY YOUR MAN
, and
MAKE ME A MATCH
, are also available on Amazon.

Excerpt from
:

MAKE ME A MATCH

Alice doesn’t live here anymore

The Saturday morning of his fortieth birthday, Eric Stewart began to wonder if maybe his crazy sister Anna was right about the stormy effects Uranus was having on his astrological chart. Eric didn’t personally know Uranus from a hole in the ground, apart from hearing Anna blather on, but there was no doubt turbulence was in the air.

“I don’t want a relationship; all I want is sex,” Nema screamed, letting fly with a piece of pipe he’d been saving to use as a tail for the dog he was welding out of iron rebar. Garbage was how he made his living, but dodging it wasn’t his favorite pastime.

She was panning the area for more ammunition. “We discussed it in the beginning. Why can’t you stick to the plan?”

Judo and great reflexes helped at times like this. Eric was able to dodge again, even though Nema’s aim was deadly. At six-one, she was not just tall but well muscled, and he was grateful she didn’t have a gun; she’d taken marksmanship, hoping to get apart on a television cop show currently being filmed in downtown Vancouver.

He’d met her at a party where a lot of the guests were actors. He’d figured he’d been invited for comic relief; the cretin giving the party kept introducing him as the garbage-man. It backfired, though, because Nema dumped the guy and came home with Eric.

On the way she’d said, “So, are you really a garbage-man?” as she ran her fingers through his hair. “Clean-cut, blond curls, baby blue’s, you don’t look like a garbage-man.”

“I’m undercover, and I bathed before the party,” he’d joked. “Actually, I own a garbage disposal business, Junk Busters Inc.,” he’d explained. “Garbage has been good to me.”

“Ohhh, a real, live blue-collar hunk who’s taller and stronger than me, that’s such a turn on,” she’d said, and then she’d gone down on him right there in the car. But that was eight weeks ago, and other things had gone down since then, like his enthusiasm for Nema.

“I don’t want to come to your birthday party,” she was shrieking, “and I don’t want to meet your sisters. I don’t want to talk about acting or welding or movies or books. I don’t want to look at the junk you make out of junk. I just want to get naked and come. What part of that don’t you get?”

She looked around the room for something else to throw, but fortunately everything else within her reach was way too heavy. Thankfully, he’d salvaged only big pieces of iron this week.

“Easy, honey.” He knew from years of experience raising three sisters that when a woman was this mad, reason didn’t work. Soft and soothing usually didn’t either, but it was worth a try. “Calm down, let’s talk about this.”

To his amazement, this time he got lucky. Nema’s pretty face crumbled and she collapsed on the chair he’d made out of discarded plumbing supplies. She shook back her flaming hair and swiped at her wet eyes.

“It was so good in the beginning, Eric,” she wailed. “Why do you have to mess it up like this with birthday parties and family and conversation?”

He let out a breath and wondered if he dared sit down. She could go off again without warning, he reminded himself. Better stay on his feet, keep a few yards away.

He tried to figure out strategy. It wouldn’t be smart to tell her the truth, that he was bored cross eyed with being a sex object, that he didn’t always want to drop his pants and his blowtorch just to get it on with her.

That even for a guy in his prime, six times in a twelve-hour period was pushing it. He’d read that book about Tantric sex; he knew there was a school of thought that figured it was dangerous to deplete your store of vital essence. Besides that, his balls were sore from overuse.

And there was his pride to consider as well as her temper. What guy in his right mind wanted to admit that welding pieces of discarded iron into useful shapes could get to be way more interesting than sex?

“You’re a gorgeous woman, Nema.” That seemed safe enough, and it might buy him time to figure out what else to say.

“But? I definitely hear a ‘but’ coming.” Her sultry dark eyes narrowed and her full mouth tightened.

He eyed her warily. “No
buts
, honest, honey. Truth is, I think I’m having some sort of mid-life crisis.” That wasn’t technically true, at least he hoped not, but he’d watched a television program about male menopause a couple days ago, and it might just get him off the hook here.

“It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I’m questioning a lot of things about myself lately.”

Most of which had to do with whether he’d get the financing for two more trucks and forty more bins, which meant he could expand into Vancouver’s bedroom communities. That would mean Junk Busters Inc. was in the big league when it came to removal services.

He had four trucks and as many regular drivers. He had ninety bins to drop off wherever people needed them. He was making more money than he’d ever thought possible back when he was sixteen, which was when he’d quit school and bought a beat-up half-ton for seven hundred bucks. He’d started carting junk away from building sites to pay for it.

He hadn’t realized then that there was no ceiling to the garbage business. As long as people kept throwing stuff away, somebody had to pick it up and take it away. So much of modern society was disposable.

So now he was worth a million and a half on paper, and the ironic part was that he still sweated bullets sometimes at month’s end when the bills were due. Equipment rich, cash flow poor. That would level off when he got the two latest trucks paid for, but it made it touchy when it came to expansion. His brother-in-law, Bruno Lifkin, who was also his accountant, assured him the business was doing fine financially.

Garbage had also given Eric a hobby he loved. A lady he’d dated once or twice—Ainsley? Amy?—he couldn’t remember. Anyhow, she’d dragged him to an art exhibit, and he’d seen what some guy made out of old car parts, a weird and otherworldly sculpture that was only good for looking at, and inspiration had struck.

Eric was practical. The things he scrounged from the trucks and then welded together now furnished his apartment, tables, chairs, lamps, his sofa. The dog was the first thing he’d done that wasn’t strictly functional. Welding unlikely bits of scrap energized and thrilled him. It also gave him the feeling he was making something out of nothing, which in turn gave him hope for his future.

It was really too bad Nema didn’t thrill him any longer.

“I’m actually considering talking to somebody, Nema. ”

His bank manager, with Bruno in tow, first thing Monday morning.

“Like a shrink?” He saw the horrified look on her face and realized he was on the right road here. He shrugged and tried to look depressed.

“Analysis. That’s it, that’s the straw.” She shot to her feet and grabbed the oversize quilted handbag she used as an overnight case. “I’m outta here. I already went through this with a guy once; we ended up sitting in this geek’s office talking about our mothers. I’m just not into that head stuff. What is it with guys these days, anyway? Call me when you’re over it.”

A moment later, the outside door slammed behind her. He blew out a breath and let himself flop onto the sofa. He looked out the tall, uncurtained windows at the busy street and the wild and windy June morning and tried to figure out how he felt about her walking out on him instead of the other way around, whether he was making a huge mistake here, whether his pride ought to be hurt, when the door banged open again.

His heart gave a thump and he leaped up, ready to duck.

“I forgot, here’s your keys.” Nema lobbed them into one of the hubcaps he’d fashioned into a bowl. “Have a nice life. If you happen to come to your senses, you’ve got my number.”

The door slammed again. He heard the lock engage, and now he had the spare set of keys. It felt final this time. He tried to remember if she had any stuff in the bedroom or the bathroom. He didn’t think so; he was pretty careful about letting women leave anything at his place. Generally, he preferred their bed to his, that way he could get up and come home, but Nema had four roommates, so they’d spent more time here than he was comfortable with.

He didn’t care if women stayed over Friday and Saturday, but Sunday night he’d always made it a rule that they went home and took everything they owned with them. The weekend rule, he called it.

He didn’t want them to get any ideas about moving in, and it was easier to maintain the status quo if there were rules. He was vigilant about making sure they didn’t leave makeup bags and wisps of underwear behind, and in turn he never left so much as a razor at their places either.

He’d kicked himself for allowing Nema to have keys to the place.

She’d cajoled them out of him early on, in a particularly vulnerable moment. Before he got so disillusioned with being a stud.

It wasn’t noon yet, but he figured he deserved a brew after what just happened. Besides, it was his birthday, how often did a guy turn forty? He got up and retrieved a Bud from the fridge, screwed off the cap and flopped down again, considering things.

He took a long swig and choked when the door buzzer sounded.

She was back.

He thought of hiding, but he’d never been a coward. He walked to the door and opened it cautiously, wishing he was wearing a cup. He’d seen her practice kickboxing; it was a scary sight.

“You got muscle strain?” Rocky Hutton gestured at Eric’s hand, which was hovering over a vital part of his anatomy.

“I thought you were Nema.” Eric glanced up and down the hall and sighed with relief when there was no sign of her. “C’mon in.”

“You guys having a fight or something?” Rocky picked up the box of plumbing parts he’d brought and carried them inside. “Happy birthday, I thought you could use these old fittings to make more hat racks.” Rocky was a plumber. He often brought Eric valuable secondary material. “I won’t stay. You and Nema will wanna make up when she gets back.”

“She’s gone for good. With any luck she isn’t ever coming back.” Eric got another beer from the fridge and handed it to Rocky. “Sit down, I’m celebrating.”

“Jeeze. You really okay with her walking out on you?” Rocky took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. Eric figured the Rock had no idea that his thick black hair had molded itself to the shape of the cap. As usual, it was mashed flat on top and sticking up over his ears and around the back of his head.

“I might not be in a couple weeks when I get horny again.” He hadn’t had a single chance to feel horny for the past two months, not since he’d met Nema. “Right now it feels pretty good to have her gone. That sex thing all the time was starting to wear me down.”

“Yeah, that could be a real problem, all right.” Rocky gave Eric a doleful look. “I struggle with it myself. So how many is that you’ve gone through since January?”

Six months? Eric shrugged and tried to add it up.

“Six, maybe. Seven, if you count that mail carrier, but that only lasted two weeks.” Her legs had attracted him. She had first-class legs; it was all the walking, but talking about postal zones and the weight of flyers proved to be a real turnoff.

“It must have to do with being blond and having curly hair.” Rocky took a gulp of his beer. “I’m thinking of getting a bleach job and a perm. Y'know, I hate to say it, but Sophie’s right about you and that catch-and-release thing.”

“Yeah, well, Sophie’s a smart ass.” His sister was also an ER physician, and she’d heard the phrase after chatting with a patient in the ER, a fisherman who was getting a hook extracted from his ear. You fished for the sport of it, the guy told her, and when you hooked one, you took the hook out and put the fish back into the water. The mouth was somewhat damaged, but it healed.

Catch and release
.

Eric thought it had a nice generous ring to it, but his sisters had an entirely different opinion. They’d started keeping score of the women he went through, which had tended to make him secretive in the past few months.

“Does Sophie know about Nema?”

“Nope, none of the girls do. I was going to introduce her tonight at the party, but now there’s no real reason to mention her. They look at one another with that expression on their faces, like here we go again, and then when it’s over, they get on my case about being fickle and how the poor girl must feel and life passing me by. What they don’t know won’t hurt me.”

“Gotcha.” Rocky knew all about the self-help books on commitment phobia Eric’s sisters had been buying him. “They worry about you, Eric. I wish I had some sisters to worry over me, Dad and I are turning into old guys with hair in our ears and nose and not enough on our head.”