Sex and the Widow Miles (The Women of Willow Bay) (9 page)

Damn him anyway. Why did he have to be such a nice man? So kind and considerate and smart and talented? Okay, and he was damned good-looking, too. And why, oh why, did he have
to tell me he was attracted to me? That particular declaration had stuck in my head like a frickin’ earworm.

Maybe I should sleep with him and get it over with.
Clearly, the heat between us wasn’t going away. I could pretend that fire didn’t exist, but when it flared like it did tonight, I had a hard time ignoring it. Maybe the sex would be terrible—hell, what did I know from good sex? The only person I’d ever been with was Charlie. We always had a very nice time in bed, at least as far as I was concerned, and he never complained.

But what if I slept with Will and the experience turned out…
bad
? What if we got naked and he was disgusted by my older body? I’d always taken good care of myself, but the effects of gravity after fifty-two years and the pale streaks on my belly from carrying babies were pretty evident—all the things Charlie had said he loved. Surely Will was used to younger, more toned, more experienced, sexier women.
Idiot!
Of course he was.

I finished the wine and tried to put him out of my mind. Eventually, I would have to deal with my attraction to Will—probably sooner than later—but tonight,
he’d
been the one to stop. He’d walked out after one kiss. Maybe I wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Maybe it had occurred to him that he was kissing a woman who was way older than him and he’d lost his taste for cougar.

What a disheartening thought.

I smacked my forehead. What was I thinking! This game of emotional volleyball was wearing me out.

As I put the dishes in the dishwasher, my mind turned to Charlie. What
would
he think about Will? He’d always told me that if anything ever happened to him, I should go out and find some young stud and raise him up the way I wanted him. Charlie had been eight years older than me and already kind of set in his ways when we met. We joked all the time about me being his child bride. I’d done most of the adjusting in our marriage and was always happy for it to be that way. He’d raised me up the way he wanted me, no question about that. I became the perfect doctor’s wife. He always said so.

“
Ah, Charlie.” I sighed and tossed the damp tea towels in the laundry room. “God, I miss you. I need your wisdom. I don’t know what’s right, but this guy is getting to me. Couldn’t you just give me a little sign? Maybe a quick flash of lightning if it’s okay for me to try Will Brody on for size.” A glance around reassured me I was alone in the kitchen. Anyone who overheard me would be convinced I’d lost my mind, talking out loud to my dead husband. I peered out the window. No streak of lightning—the Chicago sky was dark except for the city lights reflected in Lake Michigan.

Thanks a bunch, Charlie.
You are no help at all.

Grabbing my reading glasses from the bar
, I wandered over to the computer and lifted the lid. The laptop hummed to life and Charlie’s wallpaper appeared—a photo taken from the top of our beach steps, looking north up the shoreline of Lake Michigan toward Sleeping Bear Dune. A wave of homesickness washed over me. The view of the lake from my family room window was entirely different from Carrie and Liam’s Chicago view. City lights gave an eerie yellow reflection to the water beyond, and I missed the blue-gray chop of the winter lake in Willow Bay.

Plopping in the chair, I clicked the browser, ready to check my email, then map out details of the fashion show so I
’d have some hard facts for Sarah tomorrow. Money for a venue and a caterer was going to be the main issue, but I was hoping to get plenty of donations. Plus I figured I could convince Carrie to help me sell tickets. I’d considered a luncheon on a Sunday afternoon, maybe at a hotel. But a dinner dance would be fun too. My mind whirled as I scribbled a few notes and waited for webmail.

Will was right, having the email program set up for
my
account would be a ton easier than going through the Internet every time I wanted to check my messages. Maybe it was a simple thing to do. Idly, I clicked the email icon and watched the program open before me. Geesh, there
were
a lot of notes there for Charlie. I scrolled through them, mostly they were promotional things from wineries, gardening sites, and boating places. A marina in Traverse City had sent a message that the part he’d ordered for our pontoon was in. That arrived the day after Charlie died. I figured they’d restocked it, so I deleted it. The boat was in storage at Dixon’s in Willow Bay. I had no idea when or if I’d ever use it again.

I continued scanning the list—eBay, Amazon, a company that sold parts for Jaguars, and a music store in San Francisco telling him that they were having their annual
“Dollar Disc Days.” I’d thought all this kind of thing went to his hospital email since he’d never once mentioned this other account. I touched Shift and deleted about thirty more junk emails before an address I didn’t recognize appeared—
[email protected]—
with the simple subject, “Hey?” The message was dated three days after Charlie had died—the day before his funeral.

I double-clicked and it opened in a new window. My heart caught in my throat as I read the words:

Hey
, Handsome,

Where
’ve you been? I’m sorry I missed your call the other night. I was out with Peter and couldn’t answer. But I slept with the phone under my pillow and your delicious message in my ear. I’m so hungry for you, so anxious to see you and touch you… just three more weeks and you’ll be inside me…

E

I blinked twice, my mind still full of images of runways and dresses even as it occurred to
me that something wasn’t right. But I couldn’t quite figure out
what
wasn’t right, because it was like reading an email about how the sun didn’t rise one morning.
Impossible
. So my mind went blank trying to figure out what this could possibly mean, since there was no way it could mean what it seemed to mean
.

I scrolled down and found another one dated a few weeks earlier, but this time the subject was
RE: This Morning…
I opened it, my heart pounding in my ears.

I know, my lover. Mornings are my time to dream about you too, to remember your kisses, your hands on me. I lie in bed and wonder what you’re doing at that very moment… probably a surgery or seeing patients, but I know I’m in the back of your mind. I loved talking to you while you drove home last night. One day, someone’s going to stop at the overlook and you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining what you’re doing in the front seat of your Jag with your pants unzipped. But thinking of you touching yourself while I do the same here in my bed is incredibly erotic… June can’t get here soon enough.

Missing you, Doc
… and wanting you…

E

Below it was the note
E
was responding to.

Hey, Gorgeous,

I woke up this morning thinking about your beautiful breasts
… I miss their softness, letting my fingertips touch them … I miss taking one of your nipples between my lips and gently sucking on it, and hearing you moan with pleasure … Jesus, I miss hearing your sounds of pleasure … I’m tempted to take my friend out right now, but I’ll wait until tonight … There’s something very erotic about stroking myself to an orgasm and knowing that you’re on the other end touching yourself, too…

Doc

His
friend?

What the
hell?

This couldn
’t possibly be my Charlie. Charlie Miles never once referred to his dick as his
friend.
I jokingly gave it a name when we first got married, and if we ever called it anything, it was Big Chuck. Heat rushed to my face and as I scrolled further, my fingers trembled. The emails were not frequent, maybe once every month or so, but the oldest message in the inbox, dated six months before Charlie died was again from
EJT135.

My Doc,

Dear
God, are you never going to arrive? I’m half-crazy with waiting, and longing to touch you again. Your plane should be landing in an hour and soon you’ll be in my arms. I know it’s not safe for us to text, but how I wish I could have a welcome text waiting on your phone for you when you land. Something titillating to make the drive up to me painfully erotic.

The wine is breathing and I
’ll be naked in bed… hurry, my lover…

E

Doc?
Really? He hated being called
Doc
. Hell’s bells, he damn near decked one of Kevin’s poor buddies when he gave him a perfectly innocent “Hiya, Doc,” one day on the beach steps. That was at least ten years ago. There was no way on earth these messages were Charlie’s.

Were they?

No!
Charlie Miles was as faithful as the day was long. Perhaps he let some colleague borrow his email account for assignations with this
EJT
person. I tapped my fingernails on the edge of the table. My heart was in my throat. Panic was setting in.

Scrolling back to the top of the
inbox, I scrutinized the list, trying to see if the note right after he died was indeed the last one. It was. There were newer emails, but no more from
EJT135
. They’d stopped arriving right after he died. Did that mean they
were
Charlie’s? Unless… unless the other guy started collecting them somewhere else.

Dammit, I knew too little about how the Internet worked to know what was possible. I
’d always just gotten my email from my email account. I’d used the same email address since the day we signed up all those years ago. I knew how to shop online and Google any topic, but the technical stuff was beyond me. I clutched my throat. Pain was building inside me, making clear thought more and more difficult.

A list to the left of the
inbox indicated an archives
folder.

Ah, okay, older emails
.

I clicked it and got another inventory of folders, including another
inbox. When I clicked, a list showed up. All the emails in the archive inbox folder were from
EJT135
—according to the counter, 227 of them dating back two years, which was about when Charlie bought the computer.

I read a few of them—they were all the same. Passionate, sexy, full of EJT
’s longing for Doc and Doc’s reciprocal hunger.

Jesus
Christ!

I slammed the lid on the laptop and paced the length of the apartment, then back again.

Not my Charlie. God, please.

This Doc had a Jag and he was a surgeon. Arms crossed over my belly, I stared out across the city lights to Lake Michigan, ransacking a list of Charlie
’s colleagues in my mind. Who else had a Jaguar? Who was most likely to be screwing around?
Frank Forrest?
He was always groping me at parties. And Jamie Talbot was a terrible flirt, frequently whispering wicked suggestions in my ear behind Charlie’s back. But Frank drove a Hummer and Jamie, a BMW. Besides, both of them were smart enough to use their own private email accounts.

Whirling around, I stomped to the table and yanked the cover up again to read more of the messages. I couldn
’t seem to stop myself in spite of the knot forming in my stomach and the anguish clouding my mind. She adored him and he was nuts about her. Who was this woman? The relationship was long-distance. He had to fly to her and never once did they mention her coming to see him. An idea occurred to me—when was the last time Charlie went to a medical conference?

One of the tabs at the side of the program window was for a calendar. I found it and furiously clicked the arrow to go back to June year before last.
Oh, God!
He’d had a cardiology conference scheduled for that last week in June, but it didn’t say where. Did I know about that?

Oh, wait, he saw her six months before he died
… either August or September of last year
.

Was he away then? My brain was so muddled, I couldn
’t remember. I went back to September, but there was nothing listed there.

Thank God
.

I moved one month back and scanned the August calendar. Dear Lord in heaven, he
’d had a conference at the end of August last year. Bile rose in my throat.
Where?
Crap, the location wasn’t listed. He’d just put “conference” in a four-day time span.
What the hell?
Who doesn’t list locations and times on their calendar?

Someone trying to hide something, apparently. But he never let anyone on this computer—why would he hide his itinerary? Possibly because there was no itinerary beyond falling into EJT
’s bed.