Sweetest Desires (A Sweetest Day Romance) (20 page)

“Bet that scared the devil out of him, or should I say the Devlin?” His snicker turned into a belly laugh. Randy had gloated after he told Cindy the whole story.

He’d insisted that she meet him at his apartment. Since Cindy was thrilled to receive the information, she agreed. Now that she’d gotten what she’d wanted, she could finally close this chapter of her life with Randy.

“I like your hair pulled up,” Randy complimented. “Very sexy.”

She couldn’t use the ol’ sniff and cough act this time.

He then took her hand and stroked the back of it, his touch light, as though he feared to break the fragile bones. His hand moved beneath her skirt, clutching her bottom. “I thought now that our friendship had moved to another level, you might want to, uh, maybe, you know, have sex, or rather make love, or whatever you want to call it.”

Furious, she turned on her heel and would have stalked away if his hand hadn’t shot out to grab her arm and bring her back around.

“Since I gave you want you wanted, you’re damned well going to give me what I want.”

Her eyes moved down to his tight grip around her arm. She then glared into his eyes, determined not to show her fear. “Should I take that as a threat, Mr. Devlin? And if you try to force yourself on me, God will strike you dead.”

She’d never seen this side of Randy. She knew nothing about this man. Zilch. He might be a psychopath or a rapist. She hadn’t even considered doing a background check on him. There’d been no reason to. It was all supposed to be a friendly favor with no strings attached.

He released his grip and gave her a slow, insul
ting once-over.

“I’ve checked you out too, babe. You’re living with that chick’s husband—O’Connor. Yeah, I know all about it. You’re trying to break them apart and get him for yourself. I know about slutty women like you. You’re the same slut as you were in high school. Nothing’s changed.”

Cindy sucked in a sharp little breath, determined not to lose control. “I’m not a slut!”

“O’Connor’s a damn fool to throw everything away for a woman like you. All I can figure is that you must be really hot in the sack. But is a roll with you worth losing all he’s bound to lose? I seriously doubt it. His eyes moved down her body. “Your beauty’s fading. You’re not even that good looking anymore.”

She wanted to explode but managed to preserve control, albeit through glued teeth. “You don’t know anything about my relationship with Carson, only what you’ve deduced in your dirty mind. And if you try to take advantage of this situation, the wrath of God will fall upon you and no amount of prayer, not even from the holiest, can stop it.”

He grinned impishly. “Don’t start preaching like a fire-breathing Bible prophet. If it’s so wrong for me to want to jump your bones, shouldn’t it be just as wrong for you to take a married man away from his home and family?” He waited for her to answer but she didn’t. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re one wife too late, babe.” He lifted the envelope that lay on the small wooden table beside him and sidled closely to her. “If marriage is what you’re looking for,” he said smoothly, drawing himself even closer to her body, “then we can make that happen right now. Even a heathen like me knows that sex with a whore creates a marriage according to the Good Book,” his fiendish grin remained.

His breath exploded in her face with the stale stench of alcohol.  Making further comments would’ve been useless, so she snatched the envelope and dashed out the door.

* * *

Erotically frustrated, Randy ran behind her as she hurried down the stairs. Noticing the small rose tattoo along the lower back edge of her neckline sporting the letters NL, he shouted, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Stamp Tramp, but I do know you’re not only a whoring liar, you’re a damned-to-hell hypocrite. Watch your step, babe, ’cause your next victim may not be as forgiving as I’ve been!”

Before she had time to reply, he slammed the door behind him.

Chapter 26

Deanna quickly became attached to
Carson. He was different, not just another one of her mother’s temporary flings. He’d given her meaningful conversation and individual attention, especially when they were in Asheville, and she’d confided to him what she couldn’t admit to any other person, her concerns about her weight.

By now, she had moved in with Carson and Cindy and was sleeping in the third bedroom. She’d overhead her mother say to Carson how she’d co
ntinued to search for that perfect place for us. Deanna hoped the “us” included Carson. It didn’t take long for him to go from Mr. O’Connor to Carson.

It was one of those rare Saturday evenings when Carson wasn’t traveling or visiting his children. He’d decided to relax this weekend. He would do something he hadn’t been able to do for years—read an entire novel, preferably a legal thriller.

“I’ve just made a pitcher of unsweetened iced tea. Would you like a glass?”

Deanna frowned. “I like sugar in mine.”

“We’ll cure you of that soon enough. Sugar is your enemy. You shouldn’t have cake or cookies, either.” Carson leaned over and gave her a hug. “Remember our talk? That’s one of the reasons why you have this weight problem, sweetheart.”

She tried to smile but was disappointed. She craved the sweet stuff.

“I’ve made a fruit salad, steamed vegetables, and baked tilapia. You do like tilapia, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. Thank you, Carson. I’m starving.”

Carson refrained from commenting on her appetite, but she saw his twisted smile.

“Look. I’m fat and I’m not pretty. I know these things, and I’ve accepted them.” After a brief pause, she said, “Actually, I don’t want to talk about it.” She rubbed the side of her nose, something she a
lways did when faced with a complex situation.

“Nonsense! We’ve got to talk about it. More important, we need to do something about it.”

“That’s easy for you to say because you’re handsome. Everyone in my family is pretty except for me.” She turned her face away, embarrassed and ashamed.

Carson reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. “Deanna, you’re thinking all wrong. A few people are blessed to be born beautiful, but most people have to work at it. If you worked at it, you could be a striking young lady. You have your mother’s beautiful skin. Your eyes are lovely, and your hair could be beautiful if you took proper care of it. And most important, you could lose some weight.”

“No, I couldn’t,” she mumbled.

“Well, my dear, if you gorge yourself you can’t lose weight. You have to go on a strict diet-and-exercise regimen. One of the many good things my wife taught me was how to eat and how not to eat. I could help you lose weight, Deanna, if you’d li
sten to me. Will you listen to me?”

She looked at Carson. “Why?”

“Because I care about what happens to you.”

Not since her dad’s pep talks on why she should eat her vegetables had she heard such sincere words. She sighed. “I’ll listen,” she said, “but it won’t do any good. I’m just naturally fat. And I love to eat. Sometimes I think the only thing in my life is food.”

“Then we’ll have to find other things.”

She frowned.

“You know,” he began, “My wife once told me that when she was eleven years old and five feet two and still growing, she sagged the scales at one hundred thirty-five pounds. But as she got a little older, she began to work her weight off. She told me some of it was baby fat, but for the most part, it was excess weight from overeating, careless diet, and no exercise. She went from beast to beauty. In fact, she became a top gymnast in high school, which won her a scholarship to college. And that’s where we first met.” He smiled radiantly.

Why did he always have to say,
My wife this, my wife that
? Why didn’t he refer to her as his ex or just call her Katharine? Calling her
his wife
made it sound as if Cindy and Carson were cheating. Cindy had told her that Carson was going through a divorce and as soon as it was final, she and Carson would be married; but until further notice, it was to remain a secret between mother and daughter.

Carson’s pep talk worked. Deanna started the diet the next day, and it was, to say the least, me
ager.

Breakfast: Half a grapefruit, one banana, one slice of wheat toast, eight-ounce cup of two-percent milk, and a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

Lunch: Caesar salad with tuna and a small cup of broccoli soup.

Dinner: One piece of baked chicken. One ser
ving of steamed vegetables. One serving of brown rice. Fresh fruit for dessert.

Deanna was used to eating three large meals a day, and she was also an inveterate snacker. By eleven o’clock the first morning, she was ravenous. The Caesar salad lunch did nothing to ease her growling stomach.

At two-thirty in the afternoon, she went for a stroll. She trudged a dreadful half-mile to the McDonald’s, and ordered three cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, and an apple pie. When she finished eating, she burst into tears.

The customers looked at her. One of the cu
stomers asked, “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I’m supposed to be on a diet!” Deanna wailed.

“Some diet,” another customer commented.

She forcefully pushed herself away from the t
able and burst through the exit doors. She took short, slow steps out of the parking lot and on to the sidewalks.

Deanna was lucky. She was able to catch a ride from a neighbor who happened to spot her dragging her feet down the avenue, even though she knew the walk would have done her some good.

Hoping to avoid Carson, she returned home and locked herself in her room, throwing herself onto the bed and beating the pillows with her fists.

After a while, she realized the tears were f
utile. Her only option was to calm down, wash her face, and go down to dinner as if nothing had happened.

“Well, sweetheart,” Cindy said as Deanna tac
kled her rice. “How was the first day?”

“Not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Good. You weren’t hungry?”

“Oh, a little.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to buy a new scale. We’ll weigh you then and every day after that. It’s very important to get in the habit of weighing yourself every day. By the way, I’ve made an appointment for you with my doctor on Friday. He’ll give you a checkup and determine what your correct weight should be. That way, we’ll have a target, which is just as important psychologically as it is physically.”

Deanna picked at her vegetables without r
esponding.

“Don’t you like your green beans?” Cindy asked.

“They’re okay. They taste plain, though.”

“That’s because there’s no seasoning in them,” Carson chimed in. “Now finish your chicken breast, and afterwards I’ll take you to a movie since your mother has an appointment this evening.”

“Oh, good!”

“I’ll pick up CJ and Bethany first then we’ll swoop back by and get you.”

Oh, bad! She didn’t have a problem with CJ, but Bethany was whiny and required Carson’s undivided attention. She knew why she couldn’t go with him to get his children. It was because of that Katharine-woman that Cindy had told her about.

* * *

By Friday, Deanna weighed in at one hundred sixty-pounds. The doctor relayed to Deanna and Cindy, given her bone structure and height of five feet five inches, she should weigh one hundred twenty.

“A hundred twenty pounds!” she moaned, remembering the doctor’s advice. “It’ll take me months to lose forty pounds! Maybe even years! Can’t I just stay fat?”

There was a long silence, then Carson said, “Of course, you can. You can do anything you want. But wouldn’t you like to be slimmer?”

She didn’t answer.

Carson took her hand. “I know it isn’t easy, but I want you to try. And I want you to be honest with me too. There’s no point of going through this charade of dieting in front of me, then sneaking off to stuff your face with hamburgers.”

She cringed. “How’d you know?”

“You’re not very subtle, telling me you’re going for a walk and coming back home with catsup stains on your blouse. Honestly!”

“But I got so hungry, I thought I was going to die!”

“That’s called losing weight. Next time you want to sneak off, will you promise me you’ll come talk to me first? You see, it’s important you lose those first five or ten pounds. This way, you’ll feel encouraged and you’ll want to stick to your diet. So will you promise to talk to me?”

She sighed. “I promise.” She moved into the living room just as an Armour hot dog commercial came on. Her eyes fastened on the plump, beefy weenie. She longed for just one with the works.

* * *

Deanna surprised herself by sticking to the diet for a month. The first week she lost ten pounds; then, for two agonizing days, nothing happened. She dreamed of international cuisine—Italian food, Ch
inese food, and though not a cuisine—French fries, especially. She came close to breaking the diet, but she stuck to her guns. Cindy and Carson worked diligently in an exercise routine with her. Then the pounds started melting. By the end of the first month, she had lost fifteen pounds. Much of it was water weight. Two weeks after that, she’d lost another ten pounds, and for the first time in her life, she began to believe she might someday look like other people. Maybe even her beautiful mother.

The public school Deanna attended wanted to skip her to the next level and at the beginning of the next school term, accelerate her to the ninth grade. But instead, in April, Cindy enrolled Deanna in a nearby private school, where, also for the first time in four or five years, she began to make friends. While she still dreamed of high-calorie goodies, weeks of fresh green salad and fish had dulled her interest in food. She became interested in other things: her studies, her newfound friends, even clothes. And, to her surprise, boys. Those alien creatures began catching her eye, and she was catching theirs.

Seeing Carson sitting at the kitchen table going over some notes, Deanna came behind him and hugged his neck. He caressed her fingers.

“Can I call you ‘Dad’?” she blurted out.

Obviously caught off guard but not wanting to hurt her feelings, he said, “Well, I’m already someone else’s dad. But I’ll always be your friend—a best friend even. Can you settle for that?”

She shrugged. “I guess, for now.” She’d have to wait until he married her mother and she could off
icially call him
Dad
.