Good Guys Love Dogs (33 page)

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INGLATH COOPER

The kiss, when it came, was worth
the wait. Their

mouths met and melded, preliminaries
ignored in a

frantic attempt to know each other
completely.

She tightened her arms around his
neck, and he

gathered her closer against him.
This kiss that made up

for all the years when she had
thought she would never

again know this kind of physical
chemistry. Dates

endured only because it didn't seem
normal for someone

her age not to go out once in a
while. Kissing should be

this, an act of intimacy that
signals rightness, that

prompts an instant internal
awareness that says,
This is

where I belong.

In his arms, the message felt as
impossible to deny as

the stars in the sky.

The kisses became more urgent, their
body language

communicating more clearly than
words that it wasn't

enough. He drew back and looked into
her eyes. “Are

you sure this is what you want,
Colby?

“Yes, she said.
“I'm sure.

To her surprise, he picked her up
and continued

kissing her while he carried her
though the living room

and down the hallway. Cradled
against his chest, she kept

her arms around his neck, one hand
laced through his

hair.

He stopped at the first door on the
left, and they

reluctantly pulled apart long enough
to give their

surroundings a cursory glance.
Shadows draped the

room, but the enormous bed in the
center of the floor

was impossible to ignore.

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GOOD GUYS LOVE DOGS

“Candles, Ian
said.

Colby shook her head. “Phoebe
thinks of

everything.

He smiled and set her down at the
side of the bed.

He kissed her again, long and slow,
one hand at the base

of her spine, massaging, enticing,
the other winding

through the back of her hair.
“Don't go anywhere, he

said, his voice uneven.

Smiling, she said, “Phoebe
probably has a booby trap

rigged to go off if I step back out
that door.

He laughed.

Maybe she loved that most about him.
The sound of

his laughter, a sound she would like
to know for the rest

of her life. Over the breakfast
table. In crowded movie

theaters. At night just before she
fell asleep.

The enormity of the admission hit
her then. She

loved him. Loved him as she had
never loved any other

man. She loved him for his
generosity. For changing his

life for his son. For passing those
grits around at the

church breakfast when he'd never
even heard of them

before. For loving his dogs. He was
a genuinely good

man, and regardless of what happened
here tonight, or

how things ended up, she loved him.
How simple that

was. How profound.

Ian had found a match and lit the
oversize candle on

the nightstand. The scent of
honeysuckle drifted toward

her.

Candlelight danced across their
skin, and she grew

warm with longing. Ian reached for
the hem of her

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INGLATH COOPER

sweater and pulled it over her head.
Beneath it, she wore

a white cotton blouse. He undid the
buttons and brushed

it open with the back of his hand.

His fingers trailed the length of
her jaw, hesitated at

the tip of her chin, then made a
line down her throat.

A sigh of pleasure escaped Colby's
parted lips. He

kissed the column of her throat, his
mouth following the

same trail his fingers had just
taken. She began

unbuttoning his shirt, the backs of
her fingers grazing the

hair-roughened skin of his chest.
Halfway down, she

yanked the shirttail from his pants,
then undid the last

few buttons and pushed it off him.

She let her eyes have their fill of
him. He was a

beautiful man. No other word for it.
Fit and finely built.

With wide shoulders and narrow hips,
the kind made for

blue jeans. His skin was still brown
from the work he'd

been doing outdoors in the fall.

They kissed again, and a wave of
sudden self-

consciousness assaulted her. It had
been a long, long time

since she'd been with a man. What if
he didn't find her

attractive? What if. . . .

“Colby, you're so
beautiful.

Under his appreciative gaze, she
felt
beautiful.

Powerful in the way a woman feels
when a man looks at

her with desire in his eyes.

She kissed him then. Wrapped her
arms around his

waist, while an orchestra of emotion
struck up inside her.

Need of the most overwhelming kind
lent urgency to

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GOOD GUYS LOVE DOGS

their movements and sent them
toppling back onto the

bed behind them.

The mattress dipped, their
clumsiness lightening the

intensity between them. They both
laughed, breathless.

When their laughter faded, they
watched each other,

assessing, appreciating.

“You scare me,
Colby, he said. “You're everything I

didn't know I wanted. I'd like to
believe that means we

were meant to be.

She pressed her lips to his temple
and closed her

eyes, tears seeping through her
lashes.

He pushed a strand of hair back from
her forehead,

his fingers lingering in a gentle
caress. He walked to the

door and turned the lock, and when
he returned to the

king-size bed, she opened her arms
to him.

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50

ummed. Lena had no other word for
it.

BMilie got sick at the movie, a
virus or something.

Mrs. Mitchell had driven Lena home,
since there wasn't

much point in her staying the night
if Mil ie spent most of it

in the bathroom. Ever since Lena
confronted her with

spreading gossip about Luke, Mil ie
had been working

overtime to make up for it. She'd
felt terrible about ruining

their afternoon. Lena agreed not to
hold it against her as

long as she kept her word from now
on.

Lena arrived home to find a note
from her mom on

the kitchen counter saying that
she'd gone out to the lake to

pick up Phoebe. That was just like
her. Lena wasn't even

supposed to be home tonight, and
she'd stil left a note just

in case she came by and wondered
where she was. How

many kids had moms like that? A
yearning for things to be

like they used to be swept over her.
She thought about

what Luke said at the party last
night. Maybe he was right.

Maybe she hadn't handled things like
she should have. Was

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knowing her father worth ruining the
relationship she'd had

with her mom?

The question nagged at her as she
went into the den

and looked for the TV section of the
newspaper, not finding

it in any of the usual places. She
peered out the window

and saw the paper sticking out of
the box. She put on her

shoes and sprinted outside to get
it. While she was there, she

checked the mailbox and found
several letters inside.

Just as she turned to head back up
the driveway, she

spotted the corner of an envelope
sticking up from the

edge of the brick flowerbed that
served as the base of the

mail box. She bent down and picked
it up, then threw it on

top of the other mail. In the house,
she tossed it al on the

kitchen table and leafed through the
paper until she found

the TV section. Nothing on worth
watching.

She put down the paper, the letter
on top of the pile of

mail catching her eye. A plain white
envelope, addressed to

her mom and marked Personal and
Confidential. She held

it up to the light. No return
address.

It was wrong to open it. The last
time she'd read

something that didn't belong to her,
she'd wished she'd

left the letter where she found it.
A strong voice told her to

leave the letter alone. But like
Pandora, she couldn't help

herself. It was from her father. She
knew it.

She got a pot out of the bottom of
the stove and put

some water on to boil. The minutes
ticked by like molasses

from a cold jar until finally enough
steam rose from the pot

to loosen the seal on the envelope.
She slid the letter out and

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INGLATH COOPER

unfolded it, her heart thumping too
hard, her hands

clammy.

Colby,

I know I'm a coward for getting
back to you this way. But, as you

know, confrontations were never
my strength. I've gone over and over this

during the past weeks, and I keep
coming to the same conclusion. Lena

is your daughter. I have a family
of my own, and I can't bring myself

to jeopardize what I have by tel
ing them that I have a daughter they

never knew existed.

I think it's best if we just
leave things as they've been. Since Lena

has never met me, she can't be
hurt by my decision. I trust you to

explain this to her in the best
way you can.

Doug

Lena flung the letter away from her
as if it had scorched

her fingers. It fluttered to the
floor like a fal en angel, and

she stood staring at it, unable to
believe what she'd just

read.

He didn't want anything more to do
with her now than

he had sixteen years ago. Her
stomach heaved. She ran to the

bathroom and threw up until dry
retching sounds echoed the

emptiness inside her. She sat on the
cool tile floor, her left

arm and forehead resting on the side
of the bathtub.

What was wrong with her? What had
she ever done to

make him hate her so much?

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She sat there, miserable and
crushed. When she final y

got up from the floor, she wiped her
face with a cool

washcloth and then went into the
kitchen and stood staring

out the window at the backyard where
she'd played and

done much of the growing up that her
father hadn't wanted

to witness.

The pain inside her loomed so great
that she had to

find a way to make it go away. If
not forever, then just for a

little while.

She remembered the bottle of gin
someone had given

her mother for a Christmas present a
year or two ago. She

pul ed a chair out from the kitchen
table and scooted it over

to the cabinet above the sink. She
opened the door, and sure

enough, there it was, in the back,
unopened. Lena reached

for it, then got down and poured
herself a glass.

The first sip tasted awful. She
nearly gagged, and when

it hit her throat, still sore from
being sick, it felt like fire

blazing a trail to her stomach.

She went to the refrigerator and
grabbed the orange

juice container, watering down the
gin with it. Still awful, but

not quite so bad.

Taking the bottle and the glass with
her, she went into

the living room, sat on the couch,
and, for the first time in

her life, proceeded to get drunk.

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51

he was drunk.

SLuke knew it as soon as he answered
the phone.

“H-he doesn't
want me, Lena said.

The words were slurred and hard to
understand. “Lena,

who are you talking about?

“He s-said I
wouldn't c-care 'cuz I never met him. But

that's not true.

Her father. She must be talking
about her father.

“Where are you,
Lena? Are you at home?

He barely heard her answer.

Luke knew her mom wasn't home,
because Mrs. Walker

called earlier to say his dad had
gone out to the lake to

meet Colby. “Lena?

No answer. The receiver dropped to
the floor, and he

felt his heart fall with it.
“Lena, I'll be right there! he

yelled, hoping she heard him. He
grabbed his keys off the

kitchen counter and bolted out the
door.

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52

an lay awake, looking down at this
woman who had

Icome to mean everything to him. She
had simplified

life for him, brought into focus
everything important,

screening out the things that were
not. Her innate goodness

became more clear to him with each
moment he spent

with her. His heart belonged to her,
and he could not

imagine a future without her.

She stirred and opened her eyes to
stare up at him with

the expression of a sated woman. The
sight of it fil ed him

with an almost primitive gladness
that he had been the one

to put that look in her eyes.

She stretched beside him, her legs
entwined with his.

“You can't expect
to look at a man like that and get away

with it, he said, trailing a finger
across the flat plane of her

belly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck
and kissed him

with renewed heat before saying,
“I don't intend to.

They were quiet for a bit, just
holding each other, while