Fix You (36 page)

             
She spread her feet wider on the tile. “Only a little.”

             
His finger went deeper by degrees. His tongue ran around her nipple. In to the knuckle, he crooked his finger, drew anther gasp from her.

             
“I’m fine.” She didn’t recognize her own voice. “Just…please.”

             
He stood and his hands found her hips; he lifted her and she’d never been more glad for low kitchen counters because she
needed
him to be able to reach her and reach her
now
. In a blind frenzy, her legs went round his waist, her hands helped his shove down his sweats, and together they fitted themselves together.

             
“Ready?”

             
“Just go easy.”

             
It had been ten weeks, and still, it was an invasion. But he was so, so easy. And she closed her eyes against the sudden tears. And she was too glad to have her husband inside her to let a little pain get between them.

             
It was a slow dance they danced in the sunlit kitchen. There was an unspoken understanding that later, when her body was ready, there would be heavy nights grappling on sweat-soaked sheets. But for now, he worked a rhythm that lingered over every inch of contact; he moved in her with deep, slow strokes that brought pleasure lapping in like waves. She dug her nails in the bundled muscles of his shoulders and closed her eyes, relishing every touch and every slide of skin-on-skin.

             
She came with the heady thunder of her own pulse drumming in her ears, the kitchen swimming before her sightless eyes, his hair soft against her cheek. Jordan buried himself to the hilt and came again, shuddering against her.

             
For a wondrous golden second, they basked in the afterglow, not caring that it was four in the afternoon and they were naked in front of the windows. “I missed you,” Ellie whispered right against his ear. “Don’t ever think that I wasn’t missing you like crazy all that time.”

             
Both girls woke with a chorus of screams in the next room and the sound had never been so sweet.

26

             
A
t the end of a newly-scraped pea gravel drive, in the middle of a clearing beside a cottage, a Victorian mansion stood clean and proud once more. The crisp black shutters and shingles, the iron weathercock at the pinnacle of the south turret, highlighted clapboard so white it glowed in the twilight. A lush yard spread to the edges of the surrounding forest. A curl of smoke lifted from the main chimney. Lights glowed in shiny new windows. And everywhere, shifting shadows in the fading light, were flowers: planted in straw beds around the porch; at the corners of the cottage; along the path down to Lake Allatoona; spilling from pots on the porch steps; dangling from macramé baskets; and around the tumbling three-tiered fountain at the drive’s turnaround, there were roses. Red, soft pink, yellow, purple and apricot: thorny and tangled and closing their petals against the winter that was to come. Those were the proprietress’s favorites, and thus had been the things to name the place. Rosewood Inn was fully-renovated, fully-functional, and ready for its first guests.

             
“I think,” Jess said in a flat monotone, “that I might be having a panic attack.”

             
“No you’re not,” Delta said, and checked another item off on her clipboard list. “Done, done, done. See? You are completely ready.” She offered a smile through the dressing table mirror that was less than reassuring given her detailed, authentic Cleopatra costume. Having the Queen of the Nile tell her that everything was “ready” didn’t make her feel “ready” at all.

             
With a sigh, Jess checked her own costume in the glass; she was a cat, and had only consented as far as to wear all black and a little set of black cat ears nestled in her blonde hair. She wasn’t in the Halloween spirit and every second the party drew closer, the more she regretted hosting it.

             
During their marriage, it had become a tradition for the Beaumonts to host a lavish costume party every Halloween. Friends and family were treated to a food and décor extravaganza…at least, they
had
been. Before the split.

When Delta – Atlanta party planner to the stars – had suggested a party to celebrate the opening of the inn, Jess had been the one to suggest Halloween. A month ago, she’d decided that the best way to prove to her friends that she was surviving this divorce was to uphold tradition. Now, though, as she regarded her pasty complexion on the night-of, she regretted the whole thing.

              “All the food is set out,” Delta said, “and last I checked, the boys were lighting the jack-o-lanterns. Guests should start arriving in ten and you are
ready
.”

             
“Saying it more won’t make it so,” Jess quipped, and stood with a sigh.

             
Delta flashed a tight, costume apropos smile. “Who’s the party planner here?”

             
“You, your highness. I take it I should leave you to it.”

             
“Exactly.”

             
The bedroom door creaked open and Willa came thumping in, decked out head-to-toe like a pirate.

             
“Hi, sweetie.” Delta knelt to pull her into a hug. “What are…” Jess watched her scan Willa’s costume, “you supposed to be?”

             
“A pirate wench,” Tam said from the door.

             
“Piwate wench!” Willa cheered.

             
Delta made a face. “Well isn’t that…adorable.” She stood and gave Tam the tight smile.

             
Tam wasn’t in costume per se. With a little extra hair gel, his tightest jeans, and a plain white t-shirt under his usual leather jacket, he’d claimed to be “someone” from
Grease
.

             
“Wow, I love how creative you are,” Delta told him on her way out.

             
“Yeah,” he snorted. “Like Elizabeth Taylor was a stretch for you.”

             
“Watch it.” She gave him a mock stern glare, the Egyptian wings of her eyeliner doing dramatic things to the expression, and slipped out into the hall.

             
“We’re all set,” Tam told her once Delta was gone. “And the first car’s pulling up.”

             
Her heart somersaulted. “
What
?”

**

              If he didn’t know her – and he felt confident that after a whole house reno and this many weeks together, he did indeed know her – Chris might have thought Jess was enjoying herself. Had he not spent so many nights learning every facial twitch, every gesture, every sigh, every inch of skin – when tense and when relaxed – he wouldn’t have read the stress that shimmered beneath her stunning exterior.

             
“Jess, the place looks
amazing
!” a waspy brunette dressed like Cher exclaimed as she caught Jess on her way through the dining room. “How long did this take you?”

             
Chris had no love for costume parties; he’d buckled on his tool belt and attended as his contractor self, a move strengthened by Tam looking very much like his greaser self. But Jess, he decided, could have a costume party every day of the week if she wanted to. She was in second-skin black leather pants, black suede fuck-me ankle boots, and a black top so stretchy it was almost translucent. Oddly enough, the little pointed felt cat ears on top of her head added to the overall hotness. He was holding up a wall, drinking, ignoring her posh guests, and entertaining fantasies of skinning the leather pants off of her long legs once everyone left.

             
Jess forced her lips into a smile that he knew was fake. “About three and a half months. I had a really talented crew.”

             
“I’ll say!” Cher said, again in exclamatory tones. “I want the number of your contractor.”

             
The false smile thinned. “I’ll have to see if I can dig up his number.”

             
Ha!
So kitty got jealous after all, it seemed. Good to know.

             
“If you’ll excuse me,” Jess said, and continued on toward the kitchen.

             
The house did, if he said so, look pretty damn good. It was finished stem-to-stern and outfitted in rich, era-appropriate colors that blended the home’s Victorian roots with some of Jess’s more modern choices. She and her sister had found nearly all the furniture at flea markets and auctions, and he’d helped them refinish it. Delta Walker had provided linens and towels for the guest suites from “sources” she claimed she still had in retail. In the final weeks, Jess and Jo had worked like a NASCAR pit crew: fast and furious and dirt-streaked. They’d polished floors and bannisters. Painted. Scrubbed. Hauled. Toiled with a fervor that put his crew to shame; tied their hair up in bandanas and complained not once about the gritty man’s job they pushed themselves through. And at night – the nights he didn’t want to end – there had been food, and the kids’ laughter, and Jo and Tam’s storytelling, and Jess, limp and exhausted, twining her arms around his neck and thanking him with her tired body when words failed her.

             
He was all but living with her.

He was decidedly in love with her.

              There was a tug on his tool belt. “Chris.” He knew Tyler’s voice as well as he knew his own these days.

             
“What?”

             
The kid was dressed like a ninja, all in black with only his eyes visible. Jess had somehow found time to make his costume. “Can you get me a candy bar?”

             
The dining room table – a great hulking cherry wood thing it had taken three of them to move once the leaves were in place – was draped with black satin and lit with three dozen black candles. The appetizer spread was laid out on silver platters that Jess had admitted had been a wedding gift, plastic skulls and spiders littered between. The candy bars were done up like flower arrangements in pedestaled glass urns in the center of the table, well out of Tyler’s reach.

             
“You’re not gonna squeal on me, are you?”

             
“No. You won’t squeal on me, will you?” Tyler tugged down the lower half of his mask and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Mama doesn’t want me to have anymore.”

             
“Anymore? How many have you had?”

             
The kid’s grin was sheepish. “Three.”

             
That’s what he needed: a first grader with a sugar high refusing to go to bed and ruining his whole skinning-of-leather-pants fantasy. But Tyler had his mom’s pleading-eye routine down to a science, and Chris wasn’t proof against it. “Sure,” he relented. “Whatcha want?”

             
He bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet. “3 Musketeers!”

             
Mission so ordered, Chris pushed away from the wall and entered the terrifying throng of party goers circling the table. There was some sort of line that kept going round and round and he had no idea where the front of it was, or who he might be cutting in front of. Whatever. He stepped up and leaned over the cold cuts and cheese straws, reaching for Tyler’s 3 Musketeers. There was only one left, and someone else was reaching for it – someone with flame red manicured nails and a smile to match.

             
She was dressed all in red satin with matching horns and a plastic pitchfork in her other red-nailed hand. A blonde, her red lipstick and heavy black eye makeup set off her complexion in a dramatic way, and turned what was most likely an ordinary face into something that would draw a man’s attention.

             
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She flashed him a megawatt smile. “You go ahead.”

             
“Nah.” His fake bitch radar went off inside his head with a
ping
. His life of bachelorhood had left him with an eye for female stereotypes. This woman oozed sugar – from her smile to the jaunty sideways appraising look she gave him across the table – and that always spelled bitch. “I don’t need it.”

             
She tossed her hair and laughed. “As if I do.” She ran a manicured hand down the satin-encased curve of her waist, hips giving a twitch. “Please take it. You’ll be doing me a favor. My personal trainer will thank you.”

             
Personal trainer…? Oh, Jesus. Chris nicked the candy bar and forced a smile. “Thanks.”

             
When he would have backed away, he realized he was blocked in by a nun and a showgirl.

             
The devil across from him gave another blinding smile. “I’m Shelly, by the way. How do you know Jess and Dylan?”

             
Her interest was clear. Chris made a show of frowning. “Dylan’s here? I didn’t think that jackass got invited.”

             
Her smile faltered. “I…”

             
“No,” a familiar voice said behind him; a hand curled around his elbow. “That jackass
was not
invited. Shelly, if you’ll excuse us.” And Jess pulled him away from the table and out of the fray.

             
Chris fell into step beside her, thankful to be rescued, and stealthily passed Tyler his candy bar on their way out of the dining room; the little boy beamed at him.

             
“Shelly is shameless,” Jess said in a stage whisper. She had her arm looped through his now and was leaning into him; he could smell the soft floral warmth of her perfume. “And she’s in the wrong costume because her husband Dave is the one who should be in horns.”

             
Before her, he might not have understood that reference. He’d fallen in with a pack of smart women and thanks to Ellie and Delta and Jess, he now knew all about useless things like cuckold horns. “Why’d you pull me away?” he protested, holding back a grin. “I could have gotten lucky with that one.”

             
She halted and flashed a glare up at him that left him chuckling.

             
“Jealous?”

             
“
No
,” she lied. She reached to shove her hair back and her fingers collided with her cat ears. He liked the face she made.

             
“Why,” he glanced around them at the streams of dressed-up guests, “did you invite all these people if you hate them?”

             
“I don’t hate them.”

             
“Yeah you do.”

             
“I don’t…” She sighed, eyes dropping, shoulders sagging. “They’re my old couple friends.”

             
“I noticed,” he said dryly. “Half the women have tried to pick me up and everyone keeps asking where Dylan is.”