The Older Woman (19 page)

“Who told you about that?”

“Who told me?
Everybody
told me—and quit dodging the question. Is it serious?”

He didn’t quite know how to answer.
He
was serious.

“Got it that bad, huh?” Rita said.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment.

“Does she know it?”

“Nah.”

“You going to tell her?”

“I

doubt

it.”

“Why

not!”

“I don’t want to scare her off,” he said truthfully.

“Not telling her might scare her off, too. If you love her, you ought to tell her, Bugs.”

He didn’t say anything.

“
Do
you love her?”

“Looks like it,” he said, then grinned. “That’s not for publication,” he added, and she smiled.

“I’m happy for you, Bugsy. But don’t waste time here, okay? Look at all the time Mac and I wasted. When I think of how close we came to losing everything—well, you know. You were there.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was there.”

She looked at her watch. “Speaking of time, I’d better go pick up Mac before the traffic gets all backed up on the boulevard. I just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing for myself. Love agrees with you, mister.”

“You, too,” he said.

She laughed in that way she had and ran lightly down the steps to her car, turning once to give him a little wave. He watched her drive off, trying to decide if he felt better now that he’d admitted his feelings for Kate to someone.

Yeah, he decided. He did.

He sat on the porch for a while, expecting Kate to come home from work at her usual time. She didn’t, and eventually he decided to go back inside and up to his apartment.

The phone rang when he was halfway up the stairs. With some difficulty he managed to backtrack and answer it.

“Hey,” Kate said, and he smiled broadly.

“Hey, yourself. You’re running late. All hell break loose…again?”

He could hear her give a little sigh. “Yes. But I’m on my way home in a few minutes, I think. I…want you to give me about forty-five minutes after I get there—

before you come over.”

“Okay….

Why?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “See you later.”

He stood there holding the receiver after she’d hung up, still smiling.

Whatever it was, it sounded promising.

Very promising.

It was almost dark by the time she pulled into the drive and completely dark by the time the forty-five minutes were up. It was also going to rain—the fire-flies were hovering close to the ground—one of Pop Doyle’s no-fail indicators of a soon-to-happen evening thundershower.

The first drops began to fall when he was halfway across the yard, and he savored the smell of rain on hot, dusty ground. By the time he reached the hedges, it was coming down hard. He glanced at the stone bench as he passed it, thinking of the day Kate had been sitting there and Mrs. Bee had all but shoved him out the door to go riding to the rescue.

Rain or no rain he couldn’t walk fast, then or now, and he could barely see where he was going. The house was dark except for a dim light coming, he thought, from the den or the hall. He rapped lightly on the back door, and when she didn’t come, he opened it and went inside.

He could hear soft music playing somewhere in the house. Some kind of stringed instrument. A Celtic harp, maybe, or a dobro.

Haunting.

Melancholy.

A lighted candle burned on the mantel in the den. He could just make out Scottie’s picture in one of the silver frames. The candle flame wavered slightly as he walked past.

“Kate?”

he

said.

She still didn’t answer, and he kept going.

He bypassed the kitchen and went down the hallway toward her bedroom. He could see a flicker of light coming from there.

He saw her when he reached the doorway. She was sitting on the side of the bed. There were more lighted candles—on the dresser and the nightstand. She stood up when she saw him, came to him, took him by the hand.

“What…?” he began, but she pressed her fingertips against his lips.

She led him into the room. He was drenched to the skin, and without prelude she began to dry him gently with a towel. Her fingers lightly caressed his face from time to time, lightly touched his mouth. When she was done, she began to undress him, still saying nothing. He couldn’t keep from smiling. He had thought her invitation sounded promising, but this was way beyond that. She kept walking between him and the light from the candles. He could see her body through the thin gown-like thing she was wearing, and his breath caught. He wanted to touch her, but she eluded his grasp, still saying nothing. When he was naked, she took him by the hand again and led him to the bed—no, to the place she had made for him there.

He lay down where she wanted, his back resting against a number of pillows placed against the headboard.

He started to say something again, then didn’t. He gave himself up to whatever this was instead, closing his eyes after a moment.

Waiting.

The music played softly. It had that echo sound, he realized, sort of like the song he and Kate had danced to after Mrs. Bee’s anniversary dinner.

The rain fell.

He could feel her come onto the bed and kneel beside him. He opened his eyes when she took his hand. She touched it lovingly, caressing it, running her fingers gently between his. When she pressed her warm lips into his palm, he gave a small gasp at the unexpected intensity of his response.

She moved closer to him.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered, and when he didn’t, she leaned over him to kiss his eyelids closed, first one, then the other. And she didn’t stop with that. She kissed his cheek softly, his forehead, the other cheek, and finally the corner of his mouth. His breath grew heavy, and his hands began to tremble.

He wanted to touch her, needed to touch her.

“Kate—”

“Shhh. My fantasy,” she said against his ear. Her breasts lightly brushed against his chest. He could feel her nipples, hard with desire, through the silky cloth.

Her fingertips moved lightly over his shoulders, down his arms and back, over his chest and down his thighs, touching him everywhere.

Almost.

Her hands were warm and gentle. He had never had this experience before, not even with her. She had touched him before, of course, but not like this, not with such…

Love was the only thing that came to mind.

Love.

Her hands became bolder. He was having a hard time lying still. She moved to kiss his mouth, softly at first, and then—

He looked into her eyes.

What is it?

He reached for her. He thought for a moment she was going to cry.

“Kate…”

He tried to say more, but she wouldn’t let him. Her mouth covered his again, the kiss hungry, needy. He returned it. Whatever he had, whatever she wanted—his body, his soul, his last dime—it was hers.

He pulled the gown over her head, and she came to him. He wrapped his arms around her, and then he was inside her.

I love you, Kate!

The music played.

The rain fell.

He woke up alone. The house was quiet now. Quiet and dark. He sat up on the side of the bed and switched on the lamp. His clothes were folded and stacked on the foot of the bed. He reached for them—they were warm, as if they’d just come out of the dryer.

He thought he heard her talking, and he put them on in case the sisters were here for some reason, and made his way slowly down the hall to the kitchen. Kate was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, talking to someone on the phone. There was just enough light for him to see that she was dressed and purposeful. It made him more than a little uneasy.

“Don’t turn on the light,” she said as he came through the doorway.

The phone call must have ended, because she put the phone down on the table.

“Are you…all right?” he asked, because she wouldn’t let him ask that or anything else earlier.

“Yes,” she said. He could hear her take a deep breath. “Sit down, okay?”

He pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Do you remember when I asked you once if you wanted the truth and you said,

‘Always’?”

“I

remember.”

“I hope you meant it—because I want to tell you the truth now.”

“Go ahead,” he said, but a thousand alarm bells were going off in his head. He reached across the table to put his hand on hers. She took her hand away.

“I…”

“Go ahead,” he said again when she didn’t get any further.

“I care about you,” she said after a moment.

He stared at her across the table. He’d heard
that
before and he knew exactly what it meant. He had no great expectations when it came to women. Never had. Never would. He was glad that it was dark. He didn’t want to see the look in her eyes.

“Nobody has ever—”

“Could we just get to the bottom line here?” he interrupted.

“It’s over,” she said quietly, and he could feel the breath go out of him. “I thought I would be all right with this—with you and me—but I’m not.”

He started to get up, to get away from what she was saying, but then he changed his mind, mostly because he felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut and he wasn’t sure he could stand.

Sometimes you hit the ground. Sometimes the ground hits you.

He sat there, knowing he could make it hard for her, for them both. He could make her spell it out for him, make her justify her decision with reasons—or lies. But he didn’t. It took every ounce of control he had to keep his voice sounding normal.

“Okay,”

he

said.

“Cal…”

“I said okay. Whatever you want. Our being together—it’s that kind of an arrangement, isn’t it? No strings. No anything but bailing whenever somebody feels like it. You just happened to feel like it first.” He stopped, hoping, praying that she would contradict him—tell him that he’d completely misunderstood, like she had the other time.

But she didn’t. She didn’t say a word, and the silence between them lengthened.

“So when did you know you’d had enough?” he asked in spite of everything he could do. “Last week? Today? Was it something I said or did?”

“No—”

He gave a sharp sigh. He had to get out here before he did something really stupid. “Well, that’s good to know, I guess. So. That’s it then.”

“Cal…” she said again.

“What, Kate! If it’s over, it’s over!” He pushed the chair back and struggled to his feet. “I do have one question, though. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“What is it?”

“What the hell was that in there just now!” he asked, pointing toward the bedroom. “One for the road? Send the poor dumb jerk on his way happy? What?”

But even as he asked, he knew what it was. It was Kate Meehan, saying goodbye.

He was overbalanced and he crashed into the edge of the kitchen table.

“It’s okay!” he said when she tried to help him. “
I’m
okay. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Cal,” she said when he reached the back door. He looked around at her, but he didn’t wait to hear whatever else she had to say.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I guess I’d better say thanks. Thanks a lot, Kate. I’ll say one thing. You’re the best I ever had.”

Chapter Eleven

Y
ou can’t make a woman love you if she doesn’t.

He couldn’t remember when he didn’t know that little truth. He’d learned the hard way. It was seared into his brain somewhere in big capital letters. And it didn’t help.

He couldn’t sleep, didn’t really care if he ate, and what little energy he had he used trying to stay out of Mrs. Bee’s way and off the church ladies’ radar. The most positive thing he’d done in the past few days was to let the cat in and out.

He kept going over and over everything in his mind. What Kate said. What he said. And what he
should
have said.

Why the hell didn’t I see this coming?

That was the question that dogged him so. He hadn’t had this problem with Rita, so why hadn’t he sensed that Kate was on her way out the door? It wasn’t like he hadn’t been on the qui vive—as his old drill sergeant used to say. He had been, but there was no point in pretending that he hadn’t been completely knocked over by Kate’s invitation to run along. He still didn’t understand how he could have been so dense. He’d never mistaken Rita’s feelings for him as anything but friendship. Kate was a friend, too, as far as that went—but there was more. There had
always
been more. He knew that, damn it. He’d felt it, even before they had become lovers.

He realized how hard it was for her to come to terms with their being together. He knew that the sisters were afraid that her association with him meant that she was going into some kind of emotional tailspin because the real estate guy had dumped her—the same way she had when her husband blew off their marriage. She might have been afraid of that herself, but he’d thought that at least for the time being she had resolved the misgivings she’d had.

Clearly, he’d thought wrong, because here he sat staring at the walls, while she—

he didn’t know what the hell she was doing.

He gave a heavy sigh. One thing for sure—he was going to have to find another place to live. He didn’t think he could stand seeing her every day. Or not seeing her every day. So far, he’d managed not to hang out the window trying to spot some movement over at her place, but it hadn’t been easy. Nothing about this was easy. He couldn’t stop remembering the way she looked and felt…tasted…

Damn.

He kept thinking about making love with her, especially the last time—
her
fantasy, she said. Well, it was some fantasy, he’d give her that. He’d always be glad he was on the receiving end of it, regardless of the grand finale when he got the boot, regardless of the way he felt now.

He was going to have to do something and soon—but for now he only had one thing on his list. Feeling sorry for himself.

No problem. Too easy.

He’d had all that practice right after Rita’s wedding—and right before he fell totally in love with Kate Meehan.