No More Mr. Nice Guy (3 page)

“Just bought it,” he affirmed. “Like her, Caro?”

Climbing into the soft leather seat, glancing at the complicated dials and five on the floor, she wondered where on earth one would put a bag of groceries, much less the stack of medical journals and doctor’s bag Alan always carried with him. “Very sporty,” she answered. “You sold the town car?”

“Not yet, but I will,” Alan said lightly as he put the car in gear and backed up. “It just occurred to me what a practical, sensible car that was. You didn’t think I was always practical and sensible, did you, Caro?”

Yes. “No,” she said hesitantly. It wasn’t like her to lie, but she needed a minute to absorb the meaning of all these changes. As it was, she was still trying to catch her breath.

“One can overdo the responsible image. There’s more to life than being serious.” Abruptly, he shot her a grin. “We’re going to have fun today, and that’s a promise.”

The pulse in her throat slowed down to a normal rate. Alan’s grin was as familiar as apple pie. “We always have fun when we’re together,” Carroll said affectionately.

“
More
fun, then. Completely forget work and responsibilities and just let it happen.”

“Sounds good,” she murmured.

Lafayette’s city streets zoomed past, abetted by a purring engine and a cornering speed that had her reaching for her seat belt. The gray-green waters of the Wabash River glittered beneath them, and then they were in West Lafayette, winging past Purdue… Carroll stole glances at Alan at every turn.

House hunting on Saturday mornings was just one of the casual pastimes they’d taken up recently. Alan had always chosen outings that suited their mutual needs and interests. Their compatibility was real, and she wasn’t likely to forget that again…but this morning felt increasingly different from their other dates. The changes in Alan were rather baffling.

Not necessarily upsetting or alarming, but definitely baffling. Usually comfortable with Alan, she felt an odd blend of anticipation and nervousness today. It was almost as if she were going out with a stranger, dating someone for the first time.

Sandalwood and musk, the beard, the black chamois shirt, jeans that hugged his long, muscular legs, the lingering flavor of that morning kiss…he wasn’t Alan. Not that she went for a scruffy appearance, but his look was rather unexpectedly and boldly male.

And in the close confines of the sportscar, she felt a trickle of something chase up and down her spine, something starkly sexual, something elemental and powerful…

His hand suddenly reached over and claimed hers. “Cold, honey?”

She linked fingers with him, welcoming the comfort of his big hand enclosing her smaller one. “Not at all.” There, now. Alan wasn’t a dangerous stranger, but the considerate man he’d always been. She relaxed, as she always relaxed around Alan. So he’d had a masculine whim when he got dressed that morning. Well, all men who could afford it probably succumbed to the yen for a sportscar sometime.

It was the best of October mornings, cool and crisp, with sunlight so bright it turned the leaves to garnet and amber and emerald. City turned into country, with roads that wound around sleepy hills and ancient woods.

Lafayette wasn’t the kind of town that boomed or died out on the whim of the economy. Having survived the rule of the British, Indians and French a few centuries before, the residents had learned to roll with the punches. Suburbs didn’t just pop up in Lafayette. New houses were more likely to go up in twos and threes, some in the country and some in the city, all constructed with the understanding that they were going to last.

When Alan stopped the car, he said quietly, “Now, I know this one sounded like something we’d both like, Caro. But keep an open mind until I show you a second one later today, all right?”

“Of course.”

But she loved the area the minute she stepped out of the car. A contractor was putting up four homes, all two-story colonial-style houses with huge yards, nestled among the hills. It wasn’t far from town, yet kids could easily and safely play here, and one had the illusion of getting away from it all while at the same time neighbors were only a few steps away.

There was no grass yet, and the sidewalk was littered with sawdust. They went inside the first house, still so new there were no windows, no doors, and the floors on the second level weren’t completed. It smelled like fresh wood and newness, like hopes and dreams. Carroll just looked at Alan, whatever worries she’d previously had dissolving instantly.

He chuckled. “Caro, you like every house we see,” he chided.

“I can’t help it. Just look at the fireplace!” She wandered over to the fieldstone hearth. “I can just imagine a fire here, a Christmas tree in that corner…” She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and ambled through the rooms. “Alan, this is a wonderful kitchen!”

He followed her, leaning against the doorway. Chunks of space had been left for appliances, but the kitchen was no more than wishful thinking at this point. The cabinets were oak, and still unvarnished. A space had been marked for an island counter. Windows looked onto a showy cluster of trees in fall colors. He saw all that, but couldn’t stop looking at Caro.

If anyone had accused her of being a dreamer, she would have instantly denied it, but Caro
was
a dreamer. When she looked at the windows, he knew she was mentally putting up curtains. When she opened a cupboard, he knew she was mentally stocking it. Thanksgiving turkeys were being carved on the counter, dishes put away on a hurried morning, coffee being poured at an invisible table after a long day’s work… Caro was doing all of that, just standing there with her hands in her pockets, her spaniel-brown eyes sparkling, her lips parted in a grin. “I can’t stand it,” she said.

“I know you can’t.”

“I love it, Alan!” Her eyes narrowed. “But we haven’t seen the bedrooms. They’re probably dreadful little cracker boxes…”

She was off, Alan following her. The stairway was in; she took the steps two at a time. “Watch it up there,” he cautioned, knowing darn well he’d promised himself to drill caution right out of his character, but this was different. The upstairs was little more than bare beams.

Balancing on those bare beams, Carroll carefully made her way from room to room upstairs. “Two bathrooms,” she called back. “Master bedroom with a
huge
closet; good heavens, you could put a bed in there. The view from the second bedroom’s kind of blah, but, oh, Alan…”

She paused between two rough boards at the opening to the last bedroom. It was tiny, with an alcove window and a view of the far hills. A crib belonged in that alcove. Anyone who didn’t put a crib in there would have to be crazy. A crib with a soft yellow ruffle and a cuddly bear and a mobile that played Brahms. The carpet would be white—when she was dreaming she didn’t have to be practical—and next to the crib she would place a big, old-fashioned rocker with arms, the kind that was really meant to rock a baby…

Alan’s arms slipped around her from behind. His chin nestled on the top of her head, coaxing her back to the warmth of his chest. “What are you seeing?” he murmured.

“Just…a baby’s room.” She half turned to look at him, still snuggled in his arms. “The thing is, Alan, what if the wrong people got hold of this house? What if they did something idiotic like make this room into a
den?
”

She said the word as if it were a cuss. Amused, Alan said gently, “You liked the Cape Cod–style house we looked at last week just as much.”

“I couldn’t have.”

“You did. And remember when I asked you to keep an open mind this morning? Come on, Caro…”

He helped her down the stairs and outside. She stole one last glance at the house as he urged her into the car. A few miles later, the sportscar sped under an ancient, wood-covered bridge that creaked and groaned; abruptly they were in wilder country.

Carroll glanced at Alan, unsure where they could possibly be headed, but there was no clue to their destination in Alan’s slash of a smile. “Patience,” he urged.

He wasn’t sure if he was urging patience for himself or for her. He, too, had seen that imaginary baby in the alcove. Their baby. Cradled in Carroll’s arms. And he had to whip that image out of his mind before it settled there. That was last week’s way of thinking—babies and colonial houses and marriage.

That was dull thinking, the kind of thing nice, boring, sedate, fuddy-duddies dreamed of. Not men with extravagant imaginations and adventurous characters and flexible values. Alan wanted more for Carroll than a stereotyped future, and he was just coming to understand that maybe he wanted more for himself as well.

In time, he pulled onto a sloped gravel path and parked at the crest of a knoll. Beyond birds and squirrels, there wasn’t a sign of life. Ahead of them loomed a massive old red barn, with a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign painted on the roll-open doors. Carroll looked at him bewilderedly.

“Now wait, just wait…” Alan climbed out of the car and reached in the back for the box and blanket he’d crammed into the tiny storage space. “Follow me. And don’t jump to any conclusions until I’ve explained. Here.”

Alan tossed her the wool blanket. She caught it and trailed after him as he jammed a shoulder into the barn door and pushed. With a haunted creak, it opened.

“Now come on in…”

The barn was dark. It smelled like old leather and old wood and cold. Two lofts overlooked the main floor, which was empty except for a pile of loose straw—hay? Who knew the difference?—in one corner. On the first level, there was ample space to hold a county fair. The beamed ceiling stretched as high as the sky, and a sparrow—evidently confused—was winging back and forth from one beam to another.

“Alan,” Carroll started hesitantly. This was it? The second “house” they were going to look at? This was
it?

Alan nudged a glass of champagne into Carroll’s hand. She would have thanked him if her vocal cords had been functional. As it was, the power of speech had deserted her. So had Alan. He was spreading the wool blanket on the pile of straw. The champagne had appeared from the box he’d just opened, and next to the wine stood a tin of beluga caviar and a box of wafer-thin crackers.

She gulped three sips of the sparkling wine, stared at Alan and swallowed another gulp. Champagne and caviar for lunch?

He seriously had in mind living in a barn?

Was
this Alan, or did he have a twin brother recently escaped from a mental institution?

She took another sip of wine, and would certainly have finished the glass if Alan hadn’t taken it from her. In its place, he handed her a cracker mounded high with Russian black roe. “Now,” he said with satisfaction, “we can talk.”

“I think we’d better,” she said faintly.

“But
not
standing up. First we get comfortable.”

He motioned her down to the blanket. As far as comfort went, the wool blanket was scratchy and the straw unyielding, but none of this was of immediate concern to Carroll. Alan stretched out next to her and propped himself up on an elbow. In contrast to the startled alarm in her own eyes, Alan’s reflected the cool blue of a fathomless pond.

“Caro,” he said gently, “most people seem to want a two-story colonial house in a suburb. It’s a predictable choice, a sensible, logical choice.”

“Yes.” She couldn’t say much more. He’d urged the cracker to her lips, and her taste buds were exploding under the unexpected saltiness of the delicacy.

“We’ve been looking at houses for weeks, because we like to look at houses, because we both like to imagine what it would be like to live with different floor plans and layouts and in different areas. Yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Yes,” Alan echoed, “but last week it occurred to me that we’re forgetting to dream, Caro. And that standard traditional houses may be someone else’s dream. What about a place that could be made totally individual to us? A nest for just our dreams and no one else’s. Are you listening?”

She was listening, or perhaps feeling more than listening. Alan was serious. She couldn’t remember ever having seen quite that brooding intensity in his expression. A shock of hair brushed his temples, out of place. His palm drifted from her cheek to her throat, where his thumb idly stroked the soft underside of her chin. He was looking at her…possessively. Alan never looked at her possessively.

“A barn seems pretty unlikely at first, doesn’t it?” he said quietly. “But look closer, honey.” He leaned back, drew her into the crook of his shoulder and motioned toward the roof. “Can you picture a double skylight up there, on both sides of the beams? And a huge stone fireplace in the center of the room. Can’t you imagine sleeping up there in one of the open lofts, with a view of the stars above and the warmth and glow of a fire below?”

She wanted to share the whimsical dream, but it was hard. A cold wind was whistling through the barn boards, and there were cobwebs strung from beam to beam. “A person could fall out of those open lofts pretty easily,” she said hesitantly.

“We’d have railings.”

“What about bathrooms?”

“We’d have bathrooms, too.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere you want to put them.”

“Heaven knows, there’s room for ten bathrooms downstairs alone,” she murmured.

Maybe insanity was catching, because she could almost imagine the massive old barn being transformed into a house. Homey—never. But with paint and partitions and windows and carpets… She tried to envision it as a home, for Alan’s sake. For the moment it seemed less important to worry about what had brought on his drastic personality change than to tend to the crisis at hand. Alan was looking at her. He seemed to need something important from her, something she couldn’t fathom.

She pushed the lock of hair from the temples of her stranger. “Alan, are you serious about this?”

“You know exactly what I’m serious about?”

“What?”

“I want a place for you to dream, Caro. A place for you to be absolutely anyone you want to be. We can make a nest anywhere…on the beach, in a city, in a barn. It takes something more elemental than walls and windows to bring two people together, and we both know that. But what I’d like for you is a place where you feel free to let down your hair, not care about the rules, about responsibilities. Admit it, sweet. Life teaches us all to be cautious, but that isn’t really what we want to be. That isn’t what
you
really want to be, now, is it?”

“No…” She felt the faintest warmth color her cheeks, as if she’d confessed to the deepest, most intimate secret with that single word. It was so true, though. At times she’d felt trapped by the lessons life taught her, aware she was overly cautious and maybe too careful. No one wanted to bungle through life asking to be hurt…but she’d never wanted to be inhibited with Alan. Did he understand?

The sleepy blue of his eyes somehow promised her he did. A dozen words surged to her lips, all wanting to escape at the same time. For forever she’d wanted to be honest with him, man-to-woman honest, intimately honest about secrets and fears and dreams. Maybe it was the craziness of the barn, or the champagne, or the unique flavor of the caviar, but she suddenly understood that she could have that kind of honesty with Alan if she just reached for it.

And he was so close. He shifted, leaning over her. The pad of his thumb gently traced the shape of her bottom lip. “Where did you get those beautiful brown eyes?” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

Alan’s gaze slid from her eyes to her lips. She could feel him staring at her lips as one of his hands slowly reached down and undid the top button of her jacket. Then the second button. Then the third.

“Safe can be nice,” he murmured gently. “In fact, I think that’s what first attracted you to me, wasn’t it, Caro? You’ve always felt safe with me. But maybe…you really never wanted to feel all that safe. And just maybe, it never occurred to you that the two of us are capable of something quite…dangerous together.”

Again she tried to say something, but words failed her.

Alan smiled with satisfaction, just before his mouth covered hers.

Surrounded by the tattered scruff of beard, his lips were infinitely beguiling, wooing her down, deeper into the blanket. A swallow sang somewhere. Sandalwood and cold crisp air and the scent of straw assaulted her senses in a rush, as if no other smells had ever existed. A hum filled her ears with a whispered song about yearning and desire and magic. It was crazy, really.

Alan’s tongue stole inside her mouth. Tongue tips touched; hers initially retreated. They were in a barn, she tried to remind herself. She had to muster up a little sense. It was midmorning. It wasn’t the right time of day. And Alan would certainly never…

It seemed that Alan certainly would, because his fingers unfastened the last button of her jacket. His hand slipped inside, pushed up her heavy wool sweater, and in one smooth motion unlatched the front hook of her bra. For a moment, Carroll was distracted by the faintest whiff of feminine outrage. Where had he acquired the expertise to unlatch front-hooked bras like that? She’d never worn one before; the wisp of violet lace was brand-new…but then, a lot of things suddenly felt brand-new. Dangerously, deliciously new.

Her breasts, for instance. Women were supposed to be so sexually sensitive around their breasts. Carroll had never felt that special sensitivity; it was simply nice, being touched. Alan’s thumb deliberately rubbed the nipple, teasing the tip with pressure and then softness, and suddenly “nice” had nothing to do with the throbbing sensations affecting her pulse. The tingles traveling up her spine were distinctly…wicked. Her breath caught, was immediately captured by Alan’s kiss.

A lifetime later, he raised his lips, only to let them wander back down to her neck, then up to the shell of her ear. “I think,” he murmured, “you’re not feeling quite so safe right now, are you, Caro?”

“Alan—” An awful lot of moorings were shifting all at once.

“I think—” his lips dipped to her throat “—it might have been a mistake ever to let you feel safe, love. You’re not, you know. We’re alone here. There’s no one anywhere around for miles. And you’d better understand right now that I’ve wanted to touch you this way for so long…”

His head ducked down again, at the same time as his hand wandered from her abdomen to her thighs. Through her thin white cords, she could feel the heat of his palm, the deliberate sensual pressure. Desire trickled through her bloodstream, unexpected, deliciously enticing. Wanting had never been so easy to feel, to express, to share.

His palms cupped her breasts together. His tongue lashed at their tips until the nipples were red and hot. His tongue was so soft that the graze of beard surrounding his mouth seemed impossibly rough, sensuously rough.

He rubbed his cheek against her vulnerable flesh, first against satin-soft breasts and then against the smoothness of her stomach. Air hissed from her lungs. Adrenaline—or maybe melted butter—raced through her veins. Danger licked through her senses…but so did a languid, sultry feeling of pure feminine power. The Alan-would-nevers had changed in her mind to the very sure knowledge that she could well be taken on the floor of a barn, by a man she suddenly realized she didn’t know at all. More terrifying than that, she wasn’t sure she cared!

Her knees, locked together, were gently, firmly separated when his hand slipped between them. He stroked the inside of her thigh, where she’d always been the most vulnerable, where Alan couldn’t possibly know she’d always been the most vulnerable. She twisted around him, unsure whether she was trying to press closer to him or stop his hands from their marauding forays. It didn’t stop him. His mouth molded itself fiercely to hers at the same time his palm made a shelf at the juncture of her thighs, and he rubbed until she arched for the feel of his hand, abandon rippling through her like a storm.

Gradually, slowly, Alan decreased the pressure, gently gliding his hand back to her thigh, her hip, around to the soft flesh of her stomach. As he would gentle a wild creature, he gentled the woman breathing so hoarsely beneath him.

He kissed each white breast one last time, then reclasped her bra and pulled down the sweater and kissed her again, on her throat, her cheek, her closed eyelids. The tension in his groin was painful, distracting him when he didn’t want to be distracted. He wanted to savor the flush on Caro’s cheeks, the trembling of her mouth, the sensual darkness in her eyes when her lashes fluttered open. He’d never seen Caro like this. He’d never dreamed how special, how beautiful, how vulnerable she was in loving.

There was a word for a woman who teased. There was probably a word for a man as well. Unfortunately, he’d have to live with the epithet, because he’d just had an infinitely clear glimpse of how it could be for them, how he wanted it to be for Carroll when they made love for the first time.

The caviar and wine had been so easy. He could think up more ways to court her as a woman wanted to be courted. He’d been selfish, he realized, too set in his ways to see Carroll’s needs—but that was all going to change.
He
was going to change—completely.

“Caro?” Reluctantly, he leaned away from her to reach for the bottle of champagne and tin of caviar. When he handed her a cracker and a glass of wine, their eyes met, and he couldn’t help but smile. Carroll was lying limply on the blanket, and her brown eyes still looked dazed. “Would you like to go dancing tonight?” he asked her.

“Dancing?” The word seemed unfamiliar. The world seemed vaguely unfamiliar. She couldn’t stop looking at Alan, even as she sipped the wine, even as she nibbled at the caviar.

Her breasts felt a lingering, exhilarating awareness from the intimate chafing of his beard. The caviar suddenly tasted saltier. The air was fresher, the smell of straw stronger than before. A feeling of wonder felt as fragile as a secret inside her, intensified by a growing awareness that Alan had feelings for her that she’d never guessed before.

The wine and caviar and loving came at her all at once, as something he’d planned uniquely for her. If he’d intended for her to feel special, she definitely did. More special, more alive, more
woman
than she’d felt in forever.

Alan clicked glasses with her, winked with a winsome grin. “Dancing,” he repeated. “As in—until dawn, Caro. Tonight, if you’re free?”

“Yes, but, Alan? I always thought…you didn’t like to dance.”

He motioned that detail aside with a wave of his hand and took a long swallow of wine, his gaze flickering absently around the barn. “Do you see what I mean about this place now, honey?”

Carroll restudied her surroundings, this time barely noticing the cobwebs and chill and bare boards. Maybe they were still there, but they didn’t seem to matter as much. All her life, she’d been determined to be practical. At this moment, she could envision a palace in a tree house. “An endless feeling of spaciousness,” she commented blissfully.

“It would definitely be a house like no one else’s.”

“Absolutely. And character, Alan. The whole place has character.” Alan threw back his head and laughed, and Carroll cocked her head at him curiously. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh…nothing’s funny, exactly. I’m just so relieved you like the place, can see the same potential in it that I do, Caro. When you first walked in, I could see you had doubts.”

“A few, maybe—but none that seem so terribly important now,” she said softly, although she wasn’t sure she was referring to the barn.

“Good,” Alan said with satisfaction, “because I bought the property yesterday.”

A dollop of caviar suddenly went down Carroll’s throat the wrong way. Alan thumped her on the back until the coughing spasm passed.

***

Wedding invitations were spread out on Carroll’s kitchen table, along with the Sunday paper, a roll of stamps, coffee mugs and extravagant lists of potential guests. Nancy finished a lengthy dissertation on her fiancé’s travel plans, from Stéphane’s flight back to Quebec to his expected return two days before the wedding. When that failed to get Carroll’s attention, she tried talking clothes, and when that failed, she just shook her head. “I hate to say this,” Nancy said politely, “but I’m supposed to be the scatterbrained one in this family, with Mom running a close second.”