Liberating Lacey (3 page)

One hip braced against the counter, Lacey watched him work, her floral cup held gently between her hands. “I didn’t think you’d be here this morning,” she said as he built the second sandwich in the pan.

“Why’s that?” he asked. A nasty thought hit him. He’d spent so much mental energy wondering why he didn’t want to leave that he never bothered to think about whether or not she wanted him to stay. Maybe the novelty had worn off.

“I’ve never done this before, but my best friend was single most of the time I was married. She said guys almost never stay.”

19

Anne Calhoun

“Your friend’s right,” he said, resisting the urge to mash down the sandwiches, just to have something to do with his hands. “I’ll go if you’ve got plans.”

“Not a one,” she said. “Not a single one.”

Settle the fuck down, Anderson. She seems fine with this.

“The renovation’s recent,” he said.

“Last year,” she agreed, following his conversational lead. “The kitchen had been redone in the early nineties but I wanted more energy efficient appliances and a new look.”

“Dan Walker did it?” he asked, but he knew the answer to that question.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“He’s my dad’s biggest competitor.”

“Your father is Michael Anderson? Anderson Renovations?” At his nod she continued, clearly pleased to have made a connection. “I really liked his design and his estimate was within two hundred dollars of Daniel’s, but he had a four-month wait.”

“Dad loses more customers because he won’t hire foremen. He figures he can supervise two jobs at a time, no more.” Hunter peeked under the sandwiches. The bottom layer of cheese was melting nicely, the bread a light golden brown. Perfect.

She watched him flip the first sandwich. “Do you work with your father?”

“Sometimes. Depends on his schedule and mine. I work four-on-two-off so my days off rotate. If he needs a hand and I’m off, I help.”

“So I might have met you last year.”

“You hired Walker, remember?”

“True. I was married then, so it’s probably for the best.” He tried to imagine coming over to help his dad do demo, or measure for cabinets, install the slate flooring, seeing Lacey two or three times over the course of the job. He wouldn’t have noticed her right off, but as the meetings added up, he might have been interested in something he couldn’t have. Married women were completely off limits.

There were too many single women in the city to bother with a guaranteed clusterfuck.

And Lacey wouldn’t have looked twice at a dust-covered contractor working on her kitchen.

He cleared his throat. “How long have you been divorced?”

“Three months. We were separated for almost a year before that.” Definitely on the rebound and it was none of his business. “If you want anything else with these sandwiches, now’s a good time to start making it,” he said as he assessed the melting cheese.

She took down plates and pulled salad ingredients from the fridge, quickly throwing together a tossed salad with the rest of the tomatoes, cucumbers, a few mushrooms and croutons. The robe loosened as she worked, revealing the swell of her breast before she retied it firmly around her waist.

20

Liberating Lacey

Her gaze skimmed over his jeans and t-shirt, then she lifted a hand to her collar. “I should get dressed.”

“The food’s ready,” he said.

She tightened her belt another fraction of an inch. It was sheer torture, knowing she was naked under the robe, a test of his willpower. He’d successfully resisted the urge to kiss her. He wasn’t taking her back upstairs.

The table seated six, two on each long edge and one at the head and foot. Lacey slid out a chair along the side nearest the island. Circumventing the problem of sitting at the head of the table, the spot presumably occupied by her ex-husband, he set a plate in front of Lacey and took the seat next to her. She pushed the salad bowl his way and they settled into the meal. Her sigh of appreciation when she bit into the gooey sandwich made him ridiculously proud.

When she finished he could tell she was thinking what to say next, so he solved that problem for her.

“I’m heading out, Lacey,” he said, then firmed up the reluctance in his voice before justifying this entirely rational statement. “I’m in a charity event later this afternoon and I need to do a couple of things before then.”

Nice. Like you could impress her.

“Of course,” she said. “Thank you for lunch. It was delicious.” He considered her. No trace remained of the sleek, chic woman scanning the scene at Buff. Her lips were still all sexy and swollen, her chin and collarbone pink from his stubble, and a very languid, satisfied look softened her eyes. But even in her robe with her hair dried in waves around her face she screamed money.

And she met his eyes without flinching. A trained observer, he habitually looked people in the eye but she didn’t look away. She also didn’t try to stare him down, just met his gaze with complete confidence.

“You don’t look like a Lacey,” he said. In his world, strippers and hookers used Lacey as an alias for Chris or Susan or Jennifer.

“It’s Laetitia, actually, after a minor Roman goddess of joy. My father called me his lacey girl because my baby clothes were trimmed with lace. The nickname stuck.” Definitely time to go. Where the hell were the not-so-subtle hints for something more? Even a phone number and a “call me sometime”?

She took a breath.
Here it comes
, he thought, then about-faced yet again and reminded himself why he couldn’t accept the inevitable suggestion for coffee, or a drink, or dinner.
This won’t end well for you. You’re busy even when every third cop isn’t out
on some kind of training or leave. You work 4 to midnight…

“I know this will sound naïve or even condescending,” she started, “but thank you.

Last night was really wonderful. I haven’t…well, it could have been ugly and it wasn’t.”

21

Anne Calhoun

Oh, Jesus.
He didn’t do married women and he didn’t do virgins, literal or figurative. Separated for a year and divorced for three months, she’d had plenty of time for a relationship, but he knew. “I was your first since your divorce.”

“Was it that obvious?” Chagrin crossed her face. “I really didn’t want to be a cliché, the newly single woman looking for reassurance with anyone she could get into her bed, but yes, you were the first man I’ve slept with since my divorce. My first hook up ever. My first public sex, too. I sound naïve, don’t I?” She gave a little laugh and finished her coffee.

She hadn’t seemed desperate. Hot as hell, a livewire of sexual promise humming under her observational surface, yes, but not desperate. “You sound like a woman who gave fifteen years to a marriage that ended. And you weren’t obvious, either.” The likelihood that he was first in a long line of men following her pricey BMW home made his gut churn. He tried to pass it off as concern for her safety. “Look, when you go back to Buff, don’t—“

She interrupted him with an embarrassed shake of her head. “I’m not going back to Buff. I just wondered…if maybe it was possible…if the books and movies weren’t exaggerating and people really did feel…well…swept away by desire.” He tried to keep a straight face but determination and years of practice on the street failed him. “And?” he asked, the smile unfamiliarly wrinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Another first,” she said.

He liked how she looked him straight in the eye, without a hint of flirtation, when she talked. He really liked being her first at something. But being with her was as shocking as licking a battery and for him, about as smart.

“Good.”

The silence stretched between them and she broke it with a nervous question.

“What charity event?”

In her world, charity events probably meant a tux and cruise packages up for auction. Not so much in his. “Ultimate Frisbee. It’s soccer, played with a Frisbee,” he said, giving the simple explanation. “We’re playing the firefighters’ team this afternoon, around four at Memorial Park, to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club. Should be a good turnout.” He picked up his plate and stood to leave.

“No, don’t mind the dishes. I’ll clean up in a few minutes.” In the foyer he grabbed his helmet and patted his pockets in search of his keys.

Lacey waited patiently while he bit his tongue to keep
Maybe I’ll see you later?
out of the air of her sunny, quiet house. He’d mentioned the UF game once and that was enough.

She lived five minutes from Memorial Park. She’d said she had no plans for the day.

She wasn’t asking him to stay.

“Goodbye, Hunter,” she said and reached for the doorknob.

The fact that she was wearing almost nothing and asking for nothing sealed the deal. With the hand not holding his helmet he cupped her head and held her still for the 22

Liberating Lacey

long, hot, sweet kiss he’d wanted since she walked through the kitchen door. Without hesitation she opened her mouth to him, the fingers of one hand slowly curling into his shirt, the other hand gripping his biceps, the nails digging into his skin when he flicked his tongue lightly against the curve of her lower lip.

The kiss ended things on his terms, but knowing he was her first, not her last hookup, burned in his gut. Given the daytime realities of cop and classy divorcee, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, so he opened the door and jogged down her flagstone sidewalk to his bike. She watched from the doorway, red hair mussed, body soft and warm, as he straddled the bike and zipped out of her driveway.

Out of her life.

23

Anne Calhoun

The motion on the field surged and halted, flowed and ebbed so abruptly Lacey found it hard to follow the Frisbee’s bullet-like movements, but she had no problem picking Hunter out of the fourteen players on the field. The firefighters wore bright red shirts, while Hunter’s team was shirtless. The visual spectacle of so many bare, toned torsos should have made it hard to pick him out in the swirling, sweating melee, but she found him immediately.

“There he is,” she said, pointing.

Claire shrugged her shoulder to adjust baby Melanie’s sling and gave an absent-minded jostle to Connor’s stroller. “In the blue shorts?”

“No, he’s wearing black shorts, white running shoes. See, he’s got the Frisbee—“ Hunter came to an abrupt halt, twisting and turning from his hips as he looked through his wrap-around sunglasses for a teammate to pass to. The red-shirted man guarding him began the count to ten that timed Hunter’s hold on the Frisbee. Five minutes of research on the Internet taught her that the player with the Frisbee must remain immobile while other players jockeyed for position upfield. The goal was to advance the Frisbee to the opposing team’s goal, ultimately passing the disc to a player standing in the end zone.

“I see him,” Claire said. She put her hand to her straight blonde hair in a gesture Lacey recognized as the same unconscious grooming attempt she’d foolishly made this morning when she found Hunter in her kitchen. “Damn, girl.”

“He has to the count of ten to pass now.” Lacey shielded her eyes from the brutal late afternoon sunlight and attempted to disguise her excited voice and visceral reaction with a UF lesson. “If the other team knocks the Frisbee down, or a player drops it, it’s a turnover.”

At the firefighter’s call of “eight!” Hunter pivoted on one foot, bent forward and slung the disc to a bare-chested teammate sprinting down the sideline. The player caught it and braked abruptly, a different firefighter dancing in front of him, arms flailing in a blocking defense while he began the count. Hunter took off at a dead run and lost his defender while weaving between red shirts and his own teammates. He broke free of the pack of players, sprinted into the end zone without a pursuer, then turned and shouted, waving his arms. His teammate sent the Frisbee arrowing toward him, seemingly just beyond Hunter’s reach. With a diving catch he plucked the disc from the air an inch from the ground.

An exultant shout went up from the assembled throng as Hunter bounded to his feet. He flashed a quick smile while exchanging fist bumps with his teammates before 24

Liberating Lacey

passing the disc to another player, quickly brushing grass and dirt from his chest and abdomen as the two teams gathered in the end zones to begin the next series.

Cops and firefighters holding buckets moved through the good-sized crowd, collecting donations for the Boys and Girls Club. Lacey pulled several twenties from her pocket and put them in the bucket, getting a “thank you, ma’am” from the big, broad man before he extended the bucket to Claire.

The need to walk Connor to sleep got Lacey to the park. Claire came by at four-thirty with two fussy kids, spit-up on both shoulders and a desperate look on her face, so Lacey succumbed to fate. While she had no intention of making herself known to Hunter, she wouldn’t mind unobtrusively watching the game while updating her friend on the results of her night at Buff. His attention firmly focused on the action, Hunter had given no indication he’d seen her or was scanning the crowd for her, saving Lacey the embarrassment of seeming like a high school girl hanging out near the quarterback, hoping to catch his eye.

Connor let out a sleepy squall from the stroller. “I’ve got to keep moving until he’s sound asleep,” Claire said. “Do you plan to wait around for your cop boy toy after the game?”

“He’s not my boy toy,” Lacey said.

Claire looked surprised by her sharp response, so Lacey added in a more reasonable voice, “He’s twenty-eight, not a boy, and we’re not dating.” With just one hookup under her belt, she knew the rules. They weren’t hard to figure out. Meaningless sex, the wordless intimacy of two bodies striving together for mutual pleasure then going their separate ways. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that.

“Good. Guys like him are rarely interested in more than sex,” Claire said. They cleared the crowd around the field and made their way to one of the asphalt walking paths. “He was hot, though. Very dark, very handsome and very nicely built. He actually had six-pack abs. How do you do that?”

Lacey had licked every ridge in that abdomen and the deliciously thick shaft arching up over the ridges. “Do what? Here, let me…” She took the stroller from Claire and pushed, the expensive jogging stroller moving easily over the sidewalk.

Claire sighed with relief and peeked into the sling. “I feel like a pack mule most days, not the wife of a partner in a law firm. Get the best of what’s available. When you wanted a relationship, you had Davis, smart, kind, devoted to you. Now you want a hookup and you’ve got Holden—”

“Hunter.”

“Hunter,” Claire continued, “who looks dangerously gorgeous, or gorgeously dangerous, and by the sounds of things, fucked you senseless and was a gentleman while he was at it.”

“You could get a nanny, you know, or just some part-time help. And look how well things turned out with Davis. So devoted he wanted a divorce.” 25

Anne Calhoun

Claire wisely didn’t start in on Davis. “I’m interviewing nannies. College girls, mostly. Did you really pick this guy up at Buff and do it in the parking lot?” Maybe it was the late afternoon heat and sunshine, maybe it was the sight of Hunter’s tanned, gleaming torso, but Lacey’s head was spinning. “Can we carry on one conversation at a time, please?” she said with a laugh. “You’re getting some help?”

“Afternoons so I can get dinner ready if I nap with the kids. I need the nap and everyone needs to eat. We finally ran out of the casseroles you sent over after Melanie arrived. Julian’s understanding, but he seems to expect a meal after work. Happy?”

“Yes. You’ve looked exhausted.”

“I’m thirty-seven and I’ve had two babies in fifteen months,” Claire said tersely.

“All the more reason to get some help. You don’t have to be Superwoman,” Lacey said with a smile.

Mollified, Claire moved on. “The parking lot? My God! I don’t think I did it in the parking lot when I was twenty and wild, or thirty and wild.”

“Shhhhhhh!” Lacey looked around as they strolled under the oak and maple trees lining the path through Memorial Park. Now in a shady portion of the park, she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head.

“And he was there when you woke up this morning?”

“He made me lunch. Grilled cheese sandwiches.”

“With the fake American cheese I feed Connor, or the real kind Nana used to make?”

“The real kind.”

“Did he shred the cheese?”

Lacey nodded.

“Wow.” Claire peeked under the blanket draped over the stroller, then headed for an empty bench in the shade. “Let’s sit for a minute while they’re both asleep.”

“That’s a big deal, the fact that he shredded cheese?”

“The fact that he wasn’t zipping his jeans on his way out the door is a big deal.

Shredding cheese is akin to a sighting of an image of the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast.” She eased the sling down and cupped baby Melanie’s tiny head, dark hair clinging sweatily to the soft skull. The infant’s rosebud mouth worked in her sleep.

“She’s beautiful,” Lacey said, her voice soft.

“Yeah. I wish motherhood wasn’t such a blur,” Claire said. “You sound let down.” Lacey watched the leaves toss in the hot breeze and thought about how to answer that question. “No, I’m very happy with the outcome.” The
outcome
. She’d danced in a club, had sex up against an SUV with the hottest guy she’d ever met, had more mind-shattering orgasms than she could count and eaten her first grilled cheese sandwich in years. And every time she thought about him, her 26

Liberating Lacey

nipples tightened against the lace of her bra and the tender flesh between her thighs clenched in response.

“And? This is what hooking up feels like,” Claire said, the mild tone softening her words.

“I didn’t expect a marriage proposal after one night. I knew what I wanted—a man I felt powerfully attracted to. My mouth went dry when he touched me and I couldn’t stop staring at him. I wanted his hands all over me and when he…” Her voice trailed off. Memories flashed through her, the way he’d settled between her thighs and adjusted the cant of her hips to suit him, of his powerful, muscular body pressed against hers for each slow, rhythmic stroke, his tanned hands against the pale skin of her breasts and hips, the scrape of his teeth over her collarbone, her nipples, her inner thighs. His dark green eyes, solemn, intense, but ferocious in climax.

She cleared her throat and looked away from Claire’s knowing gaze. “I didn’t expect to like him. He made me laugh. I wouldn’t mind getting to know him.”

“You’re not cut out for casual sex, honey,” Claire said gently. “You feel too much, care too easily.”

“And he doesn’t?”

“Honestly? Grilled cheese notwithstanding, he probably liked your ass in your jeans, or just felt like scratching an itch.”

“Probably,” Lacey agreed reluctantly. She was no hookup expert, but Hunter’s kiss goodbye wasn’t perfunctory, dismissive. He kissed her like he’d been holding back, like he regretted going.

After fifteen years in the meat market, Claire was neither romantic nor sentimental.

“Did he ask for your number?”

Ouch.
“He didn’t even ask for my last name,” she admitted.

“Don’t hold your breath, sweetie. He’s smokin’ hot and a cop to boot. He’s probably got badge bunnies all over him.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go. Julian promised to feed Connor while I nurse Lanie so we can get an hour of alone time tonight. He’s picking us up at the bottom of the hill. Want a ride home?”

“I think I’ll stay a while. It’s a nice afternoon and the sun porch gets warm this time of year.”

Claire gave her a kiss on the cheek, then stood carefully to avoid jostling the sleeping infant. “Call me tomorrow. Julian says the new partner’s a very eligible bachelor looking to settle down. Perfect for you.” Lacey smiled. Perfect for her. “I will. You’re sure you don’t need help with the stroller?”

“It’s all downhill from here,” Claire said as she headed for the Mercedes SUV

waiting at the bottom of the hill. Nearby the Ultimate game was breaking up, players and spectators streaming to cars parked on the side streets. Hunter was nowhere to be seen.

27

Anne Calhoun

Lacey put her sunglasses on and tipped her head back, absorbing the heat of the late August rays beaming down on her face. Perfect for her. Another partner in a law firm, another man with a pedigree, the right degrees, the right attitudes, the right direction in life.

How did she know what was perfect for her? She thought she’d had it, for fifteen years. Then it disappeared in the wreckage of
starting over
. What was perfection? Did
right
last?

“Hi.”

Her head snapped forward so quickly her oversized sunglasses slid down to the tip of her nose. Hunter stood before her, bits of grass clinging to the tanned skin stretched over honed muscles. His dark brown hair was almost black with sweat and while his eyes were hidden behind his shades, she sensed a hint of pleasure in the softer cast of his mouth. A t-shirt dangled from one hand.

“I didn’t think you saw me,” she said.

“Redheads stand out in a crowd,” he said. He sat down beside her and stretched his legs out into the asphalt path. “Like the game?”

“Very interesting,” she said. “Your team seemed to play more strategically than the firefighters.”

“They don’t have a regular team, just got together for this game,” he said. “Some of my guys have been playing together since college. Who was with you?”

“My friend Claire and her children.”

“The hookup expert?” he said.

“Before marriage and children,” Lacey clarified. He continued to look at her, his eyes totally hidden behind the sunglasses, but the firm set of his mouth told her he thought she’d crowed over her “conquest”.

“Hunter! I wouldn’t…I never…I didn’t tell her anything but the most basic facts.” One dark eyebrow rose over the frame of the sunglasses.

If he were going to accuse her of truly tasteless behavior, he’d have look her in the eye and speak the words. “Would you mind taking off your sunglasses while we’re talking, please?”

Without a word he reached up and removed the glasses. Sheer amusement danced in his green eyes while the rest of his face was carved from stone.

“Oh, you…” she said.

“You’d never talk cheap like that,” he said. He settled his shades on top of his head as he looked out over the park’s grassy expanse. The war memorial stood at the top of the hill, the city’s busiest street ran along the bottom, near the Ultimate field. Walking paths meandered in between trees and overgrown groves of bushes along the sides.

“Really? I could be lying. I could have told her everything. Descriptions of your…anatomy. Techniques.”

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He stretched his arms along the back of the bench, comfortable confidence radiating from his big body. “No way. You blush just thinking about it. You couldn’t get the words out.”

She crossed her arms and silently damned her pale skin. “You are mistaken.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, beautiful. Say ‘He fucked me to a screaming orgasm on the stairs’ or ‘The last time I came, I scratched the hell out of his shoulders.’” The intimation of his last sentence squashed the pleasure rising in her at his charming-but-inaccurate nickname. Horrified, she looked over his shoulder. He leaned forward and twisted his torso away from her. Faint crescent-shaped indentations marred the skin just above his shoulder blades. He sat back, a rueful grin on his face.

“I’m just glad you didn’t have those fake nails.”

“I am absolutely mortified,” she said.