Ms. Simon Says (18 page)

“I know I should thank you,” she said, “but you make it almost impossible, Mick. You are without a doubt
the
most irritating man I’ve ever met in my life.”

He turned from the now-secured windows and stared at her, from her bare feet on upward, for a moment before he said, “That’s because you want me.”

Everything on Shelby’s face that could form an O did so. Her eyes. Her nostrils. Most of all her mouth. “I beg your pardon.”

“I said you’re irritated because you want me.” He stopped speaking just long enough to let his mouth slide into a goofball grin. “I feel the same way. You’re the most irritating woman I’ve ever met, and it’s all I can do not to toss you down on that mattress right this minute.”

“It is? I mean, I am?” She swallowed. The sound was embarrassingly loud and vaguely reminiscent of a Disney character. She might as well have had a bubble over her head with the word “Gulp” printed in it.

“You are,” he said, moving toward her the way a lion might move toward a shivering antelope. “And, yeah, I do.”

“You do what?” she asked, having lost track somewhere, somehow, of the banter, of the you’s and the I’s and what they did or did not want. Pretty much all Shelby knew just then was what she wanted. Him. And here she was all of a sudden. Antelope on a stick.

“I want,” he said, “you.” The words had hardly left his lips before those lips made hard contact with hers, and his arms—they were hard, too, like young tree limbs— wound around her and pulled her against him. And speaking of hard...

This kiss was as astonishingly visceral as the one on the beach earlier that day. Shelby responded in every single cell of her body.

Then Callahan’s radioactive mouth moved to her ear, where his tongue made a hot circuit that sent jolts of desire through all of Shelby’s bones.

“Dear Ms. Simon,” he whispered, his lips at her ear. It took her a moment to realize that his rasped “Dear” wasn’t meant as an endearment, but rather a salutation.

He continued his wet, hot speech with “There’s this woman...”

Oh, brother. Oh, damn. Shelby felt all of those sex-drunk cells of hers instantly sober up while her melting bones took on a distinct and rather unpleasant chill.

There’s this woman
, huh? Here it comes. Sadly, she knew this drill all too well, not just from letters she’d received, but from her own experience as well. He’s involved with somebody else, but oh, you kid. She had to hand it to Callahan, though. Usually this little speech came accompanied by the mournful recriminations during the afterglow rather than during the foreplay. Apparently, the lieutenant liked to live (and love) on the edge.

She let him continue, although her ear suddenly didn’t feel like an erogenous zone anymore.

“There’s this woman,” he whispered, “and I think she wants me as much as I want her, but it feels like it’s too damn soon. I don’t know. I just don’t want to fuck this up. What do you advise?”

Her head snapped back. “You’re talking about me?” “Well, yeah.” Callahan seemed to have a little trouble focusing on her face. He looked bewildered. Absolutely adorable.

“Omigod,” she breathed. And then she laughed. “You were talking about me!”

He stepped back, abruptly releasing her from his embrace. “Well, who the hell else?” he exclaimed. Then he shook his head. “Okay. You know what? It’s getting late here. I think I’ll just...”

Shelby had obviously drenched his ardor with her laughter. But she couldn’t help it. She was just so damned surprised. And pleased. Tickled, actually. Callahan was afraid of screwing up their relationship by moving too fast. That was so...It was so...Well, practically unheard of, for one thing. And...

“That’s just so damned sweet,” she said, lifting her hand to touch his cheek.

He swore and rolled his bleary eyes. “I’m going to bed. See you in the morning,” he said gruffly. And just to prove to her that he wasn’t all that sweet, he growled from the doorway, “And keep those goddamn shades pulled down, will you?”

“Yessir.” Shelby gave a little salute in the direction of the slamming door.

Son of a gun.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
he next morning Shelby slept late. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. It was closer to lollygagging than sleeping late. When she woke a little after seven, the room was still nearly pitch-dark because of the closed shades, which immediately set her to thinking—okay, dreaming—about Michael Rainbow Callahan.

His middle name didn’t strike her as silly anymore, but utterly romantic. She must have been out of her mind.

But when had a man ever kept his gun in its holster, so to speak, when—quite clearly with another kiss or two, or with another hot, moist, sensual breath in the vicinity of her ear—he’d have had Shelby flat on her back with her legs wrapped like a pink satin bow around his waist?

Never. In her experience, admittedly somewhat limited, the majority of men were gunslingers, latter-day Wyatt Earps and Bat Mastersons, who stood ready—no, eager!—to whip out their forty-fives, their thirty-eights, or whatever size
pistola
at the slightest provocation. Hell, they didn’t call it “banging” for nothing.

Shelby smiled up at the ceiling, and for a moment she lingered over those images—Callahan’s gun and her pink satin bow—and then she decided she was being pretty sappy, especially about a man who, when all was said and done, had walked out on her. She’d believed him completely last night, but what if he hadn’t been telling the truth? What if his restraint hadn’t been a fear of screwing up their relationship with premature sex, but fear of something else? Something entirely different?

Shelby’s mind raced through a list of possibilities for his uncharacteristic behavior, from A for AIDS to Z for zipper deficiency. Well, she doubted that last one since she’d felt the strength of his arousal. Still, his behavior differed so radically from the typical male that she had to wonder.

In the end, though, she dismissed them all because Callahan had given her no reason not to believe him. Which brought Shelby back to his words—
It feels like it’s too damn soon
—and to the remarkable conclusion that perhaps this man shared her view of great sex as the accompaniment to a great friendship.

She stretched, enjoying the darkness of the room and the warmth of the sheets, reluctant to begin a day in which she might discover she was wrong about her protector and his motives.

By eight-thirty, she had showered and dressed and trotted downstairs to discover her potential lover in the kitchen, wearing a chest-hugging, biceps-revealing black tee over his jeans, and helping her mother unload the dishwasher. Okay. There was “good,” and then there was “too good to be true.” Just her luck, he was probably the latter. She sighed softly as she entered the kitchen.

“There’s my sleepyhead,” her mother said. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

Callahan’s “Good morning” was accompanied by a fleeting grin and a quizzical tilt of his head, as if he were trying to gauge Shelby’s mood.

“Good morning,” she responded, padding toward the refrigerator while trying to gauge her own mood. It felt somewhere east of reason and slightly north of lust.

Over the clatter of silverware, her mother said, “Shelby, Mick has volunteered to run a few errands for me this morning. I thought maybe you could go along in case he has trouble reading my directions. You know how difficult it can be to make out my scribbles.”

She was pouring a glass of orange juice while her mother spoke and she nearly spilled it at the part about the scribbles. Her mother printed so neatly it was less like penmanship than a damned font. Still, it was nice of her to play the eternal matchmaker. Too bad she didn’t know her daughter couldn’t wait to get Mick Callahan alone.

“Sure, Mom. I’d be happy to go along.” She shoved the juice carton back onto its shelf and used her hip to close the door. “If Mick wants company.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Fine.” Shelby took a long sip of her orange juice, wondering if anybody else was aware that the sexual tension in the room was so thick a person might need a snowblower just to get from the sink to the door.

Probably not. Her mother seemed blissfully unaware as she dropped the last fork into the silverware drawer and said, “Well, let me just go scribble down a few notes and you two can be on your way.”

“Great. I’ll run upstairs and get my jacket,” Callahan said, making a beeline for the door. “Be right back.”

The next thing Shelby knew, she and all that sexual tension were alone in the kitchen. She trudged through it to rinse her glass in the sink.

Mick fired up the Mustang. There was frost on the ground this morning and a bitter chill in the air, so he cranked the heater up all the way so the car would be warm for Shelby.

Just because he’d been an asshole last night didn’t mean he had to be one today, he told himself. Ms. Simon had probably laughed herself to sleep after he fled her room like some kind of squeamish virgin.

It feels like it’s too damn soon.

He must’ve been out of his fucking mind to say something like that with a woman like Shelby Simon in his arms and apparently in the mood. Christ. This courtship business was a mystery to him. Worse than a Rubik’s Cube. There had never been anything resembling a courtship with him and Julie. They simply
were
. At least that was how it had always seemed. Considering the course of events, however, a bit of courtship might not have been such a bad idea.

He reached up to skew the rearview mirror his way, to see if he looked as idiotic as he felt. Yeah, idiotic. And tense. Wound way too tight. He passed his fingertips across his jawline, wishing he’d shaved this morning, wishing his life hadn’t come undone two years ago, wishing he knew how to fix it.

Over breakfast this morning, Linda Simon had given him a couple interesting insights into her daughter. It seemed that Shelby was single-handedly responsible for pairing off most of her friends, while she herself rarely went out with any guy more than a few times.

“It isn’t that she can’t make a commitment,” her mother said. “At least I don’t think that’s the problem. Well, on the other hand, maybe she can’t commit to anything. Look at her apartment. You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Mick?”

“You mean the House of Beige?”

“That’s it exactly.” The woman shook her head. “I just don’t know. I’ve been shopping with Shelby, and she’ll admire something in red or blue, but when it comes time to actually make a purchase, it’s forever beige.”

As he replayed the conversation in his head, he wondered about the wisdom of getting involved with a woman like this. Hell, if she found it impossible to commit to a blue couch, how would she ever make a commitment to a human being?

Of course, it might already be too late for him to consider being wise in matters of the heart.

“Dear Ms. Simon,” he muttered. “Help. Shit. Signed... How about Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered in Bumfuck, MI.”

He was jerked out of his little reverie by a succession of knocks on the passenger window. Shelby’s pretty face was barely visible through the frosted glass. Mick leaned across to pull up the lock and open the door.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” she said, sliding into the seat, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Brr...”

“I’ve got the heater turned all the way up. It won’t take long once we’re on the road. Where to?” He realigned the rearview mirror, then coaxed the shift into reverse and backed out of the driveway, while she consulted her mother’s list.

“Well, let’s see. First we go into town and pick up the mail.” She laughed that wonderful, honey-dipped laugh of hers. “Well, there’s some excitement, huh? Will there or will there not be more exploding yarn, sports fans? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of...”

“Don’t make a joke of it,” he said, cutting her off, sounding far harsher than he intended, so he softened his tone when he continued. “I just mean that if you make too much of a joke about it, you’ll let down your guard, and that can be dangerous.”

“I know. It’s just that a little humor helps me cope with this awful mess.”

“That’s my job,” he said, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her gaze, trying to smile in a way that she’d find comforting rather than a come-on. “To help you cope.”

She didn’t say anything in response, but Mick was aware of the fact that she’d turned sideways in her bucket seat and was leaning back against the door, staring at him. Staring a hole right through his right temple, as far as he could tell.

“What?” he asked.

“What was that all about last night, Callahan?”

He felt an immediate tightening in his jaw. “What was what all about?”

“When you...”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it now. Okay?” He was still weaving the car through the narrow, forested dirt road that led from the lake to the blacktop, so he decided it was reasonable to blame the driving conditions for his reluctance to speak. “I need to concentrate on the road here or we’ll get wrapped around a tree.”

“Oh, right. Like yesterday when you managed to go ninety miles an hour, glare repeatedly in the rearview mirror, yell at me, and whistle ‘Dixie’ all at the same time. Now you’ve suddenly got an attention deficit disorder.” She clucked her tongue. “Give me a break.”

He shouldn’t have laughed. It undermined his credibility. But he couldn’t help it. “We’ll talk about it later. All right? Over lunch. How about that?”

“You promise?”

“Scout’s honor.” He held up two fingers, even as he felt as if he should be crossing his fingers behind his back and getting his lies, like his ducks, in a row.

As soon as Callahan parked on Main Street, Shelby was only too happy to jump out of the car. She’d practically had to bite her tongue all the way from the lake not to bring up the subject of last night. Lunch better be early, she thought as she pulled open the door to the little post office and heard a bell ring somewhere above her head.

“Hi, Mrs. Watt,” she said, greeting the woman who’d been the postmistress here since before Shelby was born. Thelma Watt had looked about ninety-five twenty years ago, and today she didn’t look a day over ninety-six in a starched blue dress with USPS patches sewn on the breast pocket and both sleeves.