Fool for Love: Fooling Around\Nobody's Fool\Fools Rush In (26 page)

“Your house is wonderful,” Claire said.

Mark's mother smiled. “Thanks. It keeps us busy.” She moved to a large pot on the range. When she lifted the lid, a rich aroma of fish, sherry and spices filled the air. “I hope you like seafood, because I made bouillabaisse.”

“I love it.” Claire removed her blazer because the
room was so warm. “Is there anything I can do to help, Mrs. Lavin? Or is it Dr. Lavin?”

“It's Naomi, and if you really want to help, you can tear these greens for the salad.” She lifted a wet head of romaine from the sink and handed it to Claire. “Let me get you a bowl.”

Within a minute, Claire had rolled up her sleeves and was tearing romaine leaves. Naomi busied herself slicing a loaf of French bread onto a cookie sheet and sliding it into the oven to toast. “What a perfect day for a drive,” she said cheerfully. “God knows when we'll ever see Mark and his dad again. If Mark lets Bob take a turn behind the wheel, they might be back by nightfall—or they might not. I wouldn't put it past them to keep driving until they hit Seattle. Little boys love their fancy wheels, don't they?”

Mark certainly loved his fancy wheels. Claire had grown up with sisters, who'd been much more obsessive about clothing, shoes and jewelry than about cars, and her father had never seemed unduly interested in them, either. “Mrs.—I mean, Naomi?” She shook the excess water from a leaf before adding it to the salad bowl. “I hope Mark made it clear to you that we're not getting married.”

“He explained that the report in the
Boston Globe
was misleading. Leave Claire alone, Lovey,” Naomi scolded the dog, who was giving Claire's loafers a thorough sniffing.

“He's not bothering me—or is it a she?”

“She. Her name is Lovey, and she understands English, so feel free to tell her to bug off if she's bothering you. She obviously likes you. If she didn't, she'd be growling. And her tail—that's always a
giveaway.” Lovey's tail wagged like a metronome set on allegro.

“Anyway…the piece in the
Boston Globe
…” Claire resumed tearing romaine leaves. “It was more than misleading. It left the impression that there was something going on between Mark and me. There's not.”

“Nonsense,” Naomi overruled her. “You're friends. If nothing else, you're drawn together by your victimhood, the shared embarrassment of this silly joke or whatever it is.”

“All right,” Claire conceded. “We're friends. But we're not engaged.”

“Whatever you say.” Naomi blithely handed her a tomato and a knife. “You can add that to the salad.”

Claire couldn't guess what Naomi believed, what she suspected, what she hoped for. Did she want Claire to be Mark's fiancée? Did she want her celebrated single son to get married? To a woman he scarcely knew?

Claire had claimed that she and Mark were friends. She wanted that to be true. In all honesty, she wanted to be more than friends with him. It wasn't just because he was good company. It wasn't only that he seemed so at home with himself. It wasn't even because in a pair of dashing sunglasses, with the wind ripping through his hair, he was close to irresistible. It was because he was the kind of man who unflinchingly hugged and kissed his mother when he saw her.

That hadn't seemed like a particularly bachelor-like thing to do. It seemed much more like the behavior of a man who appreciated the bonds of family.

Mark wasn't a family man, Claire firmly reminded herself. He was a carefree guy with a hot car and a blissful lack of commitments. If not for Rex Crandall's obnoxious stunt, Claire wouldn't even be a blip on Mark's radar screen. Why waste energy imagining what his future as a family man would be like? Even after kissing her, Mark had made certain she understood that she would never be a part of that future by turning tail and walking away.

By the time the bread was done toasting, the men-folk had returned from their test drive. Bob Lavin seemed as excited as a child on his birthday. “Naomi, I'm telling you—the engine is so smooth on this baby,” he babbled while Mark dropped into a chair and beckoned Lovey. He gave the dog's ears a vigorous scratching, while the dog panted contentedly and nuzzled his knees. Every now and then, Mark would bend his head to Lovey's and murmur something. Lovey seemed to understand him; she'd respond with a happy bark or a nod.

Claire forced herself to look away. As sexy as Mark's smile was, as attractive as his build, as mesmerizing as his eyes, none of them were as appealing as his obvious joy while playing with his parents' dog. He no longer seemed like a big-shot radio executive, a condo owner, a typical male infatuated with his fancy car—or a bachelor singled out for special mention in a glossy urban magazine. He seemed like a man with a heart.

Over their mid-afternoon dinner, Mark and his parents talked nonstop, doing their best to include Claire in the conversation. Naomi discussed her gardening—“I defy any animal-rights activist to explain to
me why grubs don't deserve to be killed”—and Bob discussed the recent visit to the campus of a U.N. diplomat. They talked about their students, their research, a trip they were considering taking to the Galapagos Islands in August. They asked Mark how things were going at the radio station, what fund-raisers he was organizing and what charities those fund-raisers would be supporting.

“I can't say I'm a big fan of the music they play at WBKX,” Bob Lavin confessed to Claire. “I'm an old folkie. Bluegrass, acoustic music, that kind of thing.”

“Claire likes Dvorak,” Mark told his parents, who seemed to approve. Claire wondered why he'd mentioned her musical preferences. It wasn't as if he needed to make his parents respect her. After today, she would never see them again.

Even knowing that, she enjoyed the meal. She ordered herself to focus on the banter and the delicious seafood stew, and tried not to think about how affectionate Mark's parents were, and how affectionate Mark was with them. After clearing the table, Bob and Naomi gave Claire a tour of the house, the upstairs of which was even quirkier than the downstairs, full of oddly angled rooms, low doorways and crooked floors. Then all of them, including the dog, trooped out into the backyard to admire the vegetable garden Naomi had only just started planting. Then back inside for coffee and tea and a homemade apple tart served with scoops of vanilla ice cream. “How do you find the time to cook like this?” Claire asked Naomi as she rubbed her full belly. “You're a college professor.”

“She doesn't cook like this most of the time,” Bob explained, sending his wife a teasing look. “She doesn't cook like this for me. Only for Mark, when he's visiting.”

“And when he brings his friends over,” Naomi added.

“Like hell,” Mark complained. “When I was in high school, you never cooked like this for my friends.”

“When you were in high school, your friends would descend upon the kitchen like locusts and eat everything in sight. My bouillabaisse would have been wasted on them.”

“I hope you didn't go to all this trouble just for me,” Claire said. “I've had a wonderful time, but…”

Naomi arched her eyebrows in a question. “But?”

Claire glanced at Mark for help, but he seemed as curious as his parents to hear what she had to say. “Well, as I said earlier, we're not getting married.”

“Of course you aren't,” Bob said “We understand that,” Naomi added.

“Before April Fool's Day, Mark and I had never even heard of each other.”

“You would have heard of me if you read
Boston's Best,
” Mark joked.

Ignoring him, she moved her gaze from Bob to Naomi. “You've made me feel so welcome here—like a part of the family. But I'm not.”

“We want you to feel welcome,” Naomi explained. “You're Mark's friend, so of course you're welcome.”

“And you don't eat like a locust,” Bob praised her, his smile uncannily like his son's.

“When that article appeared in the
Globe,
” Naomi said, “we thought, well, maybe you were the one. Mark was adamant about your not being his fiancée, but we wanted to see for ourselves.”

“You didn't believe me?” Mark looked indignant.

“It has nothing to do with believing you,” Naomi said. “It has to do with a mother's intuition.”

“And now that you've seen for yourselves?” Mark pressed her.

“As you've said, you're not getting married,” Naomi answered.

“You made your point,” Bob conceded.

“Okay,” Mark said, sounding mollified. Claire ought to have been mollified, too, but she couldn't suppress her longing for things to be different. This outing hadn't helped her to clarify her own feelings. It had only made her aware of what a decent, generous man Mark was—or could be, if he ever got tired of being a bachelor. Claire had to accept that he was a long way from tired, though. She mustn't allow herself to think of him as a potential fiancé.

That one last balloon lingering against the ceiling of her office was bound to deflate eventually. The sooner she accepted that, the better.

In fact, she resolved, Monday morning she'd yank the damned balloon down from the ceiling, puncture it, and toss it in her trash can. Then she'd move on for good.

C
LAIRE WAS
unnaturally quiet once they left his parents' house. The only time she spoke was to ask him if he'd mind closing up the car's top, since dusk had drained the day of its heat as well as its light. He'd accommodated her, although he would have left the top open if she hadn't been cold. He was looking forward to taking long, nighttime top-down drives this summer, with the stars twinkling above him and all that darkness gusting through the car.

Other than mentioning the top, though, Claire didn't say a word. As they wound their way through North Adams and up into the hilly switchbacks of the Berkshires, she sat silently, minute after minute, her hands folded primly in her lap and her gaze glued to the SUV in front of them, its taillights glowing and a kayak strapped to its roof.

Mark wasn't a mind reader. If he'd been blessed with that particular talent, he might have guessed that Rex would stick one to him this past April Fool's Day to spite him for having been chewed out so royally over last year's show. Mark might have prepared himself somehow, or taken steps so Rex couldn't make him the butt of a joke. Or he might not have been so harsh after last year's show so Rex wouldn't have been so eager for revenge.

Like hell. Rex had deserved the dressing down and the hit to his wallet he'd received last year. And he deserved punishment this year, too, even if this year the mayor hadn't called Mark up to complain about the havoc Rex's show had wrought throughout the city. Rex had wrought havoc in the lives of only two people this year: Mark and the woman whose mind he wished he could read.

She seemed to have had a good time at his parents' house. Lovey had obviously adored her—the dog didn't rub her nose against the shins of people she didn't adore, and she'd rubbed her nose against Claire's shins so much, she'd probably come close to wearing a hole through the fabric of Claire's pants. He'd had no trouble reading the
dog's
mind. She thought Claire was just fine.

He had to agree with Lovey. Claire was fine. Better than fine. She was sharp and funny and gentle. She was passionate about preserving antique buildings like his parents' house, and when a drip of bouillabaisse broth had settled on her lower lip and she'd caught it with the tip of her tongue, he'd remembered, with a sharp twinge in his groin, that she was also passionate in other contexts.

When the time came for him to settle down, he'd want to settle down with a woman like Claire O'Connor, someone calm and steady and thoughtful, someone who could roll with the punches and hang on to her sense of humor. Someone with hair like hers, and legs like hers and wide, green eyes and a passionate pink tongue exactly like hers.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, trying to ignore his
own sudden hunger, which had nothing to do with food.

“God, no.” She laughed weakly. “I'm stuffed. Your mother is a very good cook.”

“I liked your mother's cookies, too.”

“My mother bought those at a bakery.”

“Doesn't matter. I think we should be grateful that our mothers are skilled when it comes to feeding our friends.” Talking about their mothers helped to take the edge off his hunger. It was a hunger he couldn't satisfy, not with Claire. Not as long as he wasn't ready to settle down. He might not be able to read her mind, but after today he had a pretty clear idea of at least one aspect of it: Claire wasn't the sort of woman a bachelor could party with and part from. She was loyal, committed. Even after breaking up with a guy, if she believed that guy needed her, she came running, breaking the speed limit if necessary.

If Mark touched her—and with her hand resting on her knee, just inches to the right of the gear stick where his own hand rested, touching her would require only a small shift in his position—he would want her. If he kissed her, his hunger for her would overtake him. And then he'd break her heart, because he wasn't ready to be anyone's fiancé yet. If he were, she could easily be the one.
If.
But he wasn't. Not yet.

She glanced at him, smiled and turned back to stare at the SUV ahead of them on the narrow road.

What was she thinking?

“Was today horrible for you?” he asked, hoping to jostle a reaction out of her.

“What?” She looked confused. “No. It was lovely.”

“I thought you were going to say, ‘It was Lovey.”'

“No, the dog was fine. I liked the dog.”

“She can be a little pushy. I saw her sniffing at your legs all afternoon.”

“I didn't mind.” She settled back in her seat. “Lovey's an awfully sentimental name for a dog.”

“My parents consider it alliterative,” he explained. “Lovey Lavin.”

“That does have a nice ring to it.”

Claire seemed to be loosening up, relaxing a little, her posture thawing. An hour into the drive, he finally had a conversation going. “We had another dog when I was growing up,” he told her. “I got to pick his name.”

“I take it you didn't name him Lovey.”

“I named him Scamp,” Mark said. “A manly name.”

She smiled—and glimpsing her smile made him feel even more triumphant. “Scamp was a mutt,” Mark recalled, shaking his head nostalgically. “We picked him up at the pound. He was a great dog.” Scamp had joined the family when Mark was seven and had died when he was in college. As much as he liked Lovey, she would never replace Scamp in his heart.

“Mark?” Claire's voice had an edge to it.

“Yeah?”

“Look at the car ahead of us—the SUV. Doesn't it look like the boat is wobbling?”

The road was dark, but his headlights caught the
sway of the kayak on the SUV's roof, and the vibrations in the straps holding it in place. “Hard to say,” he muttered, easing up on the gas. “I think—”

And then he stopped thinking—because the kayak snapped free of its restraints and shot backward like a fiberglass missile, slamming into the hood of his car, careening off it and crashing against the windshield. His air bag exploded in front of him, shoving him back into his seat as he floored the brake pedal. The Benz-mobile jerked to a halt and the air bag fizzled into a limp sack that dangled from the steering column.

He turned to Claire. She was pressed back into her own seat, her air bag also limp and emitting a metallic scent. Her eyes were closed and a red welt appeared on her chin. She wasn't moving.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered, then said it louder as he yanked off his seat belt. “Oh, my God! Claire! Claire, are you all right?” He ran his hands over her face, her shoulders, her throat and then back up to her face. “Claire!”

Her eyes fluttered open. “I'm okay,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Are you sure?” Leaning over her, he saw glints of something sparkling in her hair and on her knees. Chips of his windshield. The outer layer of the safety glass had spider-webbed from one end to the other, and some of the inner layer had splintered off into the car, onto Claire. “Don't move,” he ordered her.

“I'm okay.”

“You've got glass on you. You could be hurt. Don't move.” He lifted his hand toward her hair and
noticed that his fingers were trembling. Oh God, oh God. She could be hurt.
Claire.

“I'm okay,” she said, her voice a bit stronger. “I'm fine.” She lifted her hands to her hair and plucked a couple of glass chips from the tangled waves. “It's not sharp.”

“Don't.” He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her head. The insides of her wrists were unnaturally pink, like that raw spot on her chin. The air bag must have caused the abrasions.

He continued holding her hands, in part to keep her from groping for glass in her hair and in part because he couldn't bear to let go of her. Her flexing fingers reassured him that she was, indeed, okay. But his pulse pounded crazily in his skull, and an edge of hysteria was making his vision momentarily go red.
She could have been killed!

She hadn't been killed. She was okay. His breathing slowed, his vision returned to normal, but he kept her hands clasped tightly within his. He wasn't about to let go.

“Mark. Look at your car.”

“The hell with my car!” A car was just a car—even if it was a Mercedes SLK Roadster. Claire…God help him, if she'd gotten hurt…

Transferring both her hands into one of his, he used his free hand to open the console between the seats and pull out his cell phone. Clicking it on, he punched in the emergency number. After one ring, it was answered by a nasal woman who informed him he'd reached the police station of a town whose name he didn't recognize, and his call was being recorded.

“Yes,” he said, still clinging to Claire's hands. “My car was just hit by a boat.”

“By a boat? Are you in the water?”

“No. The boat's on land. It was on the roof of an SUV, and now—” He squinted through the dense lace of cracks obliterating his windshield. “—it's on the hood of my car.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

He gazed at Claire, at that raw smudge on her chin, at her startled eyes and sweet, delicate mouth. “No,” he said, feeling his heart heave in relief. “No one's hurt.”

 

A
HALF HOUR LATER
, Claire remained standing along the shoulder of the road in the thickening night, her arms folded across her chest and her purse hanging by its strap over her shoulder. Beside his damaged car Mark huddled with a police officer, a tow-truck operator and the burly, bearded driver of the SUV. They all seemed remarkably calm under the circumstances. If an unsecured kayak had hit her car, she'd be pretty upset—and her car wasn't a brand-new Mercedes Benz.

Fortunately, the kayak didn't weigh much. It had dinged and dented the hood of the car, but most of the damage was to the windshield. Claire suffered a pang of grief for the car. Just hours ago, Mark and his father had taken it for a spin through the streets of Williamstown, two little boys flush with the thrill of tearing through town in a hot coupe. Now that hot coupe sat like roadkill on the side of Route 2.

After a few more moments of debate with the
other men, Mark broke from the group and strode over to her. “How are you?” he asked.

She was amazed that he seemed more concerned about her condition than his car's. She was in far better shape than the car was. Her chin stung a little—a glance in the side mirror had indicated a burn the size of a quarter on the edge of her jaw. But that would clear up in a day. “I'm fine,” she told him for the umpteenth time. “How are
you?
”

He ran his hands along her arms from her elbows to her shoulders and back again, as if checking for fractures. Then he released her and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Here's the deal. The other driver is freaking out, pleading guilty left and right. He's told the cop the whole thing is his fault—”

“Which it is,” Claire pointed out.

“I think he wants to keep his insurance company out of it. I don't know if he realizes how much the repair is going to cost, but for now, he's saying he'll take care of everything.”

“Will he take care of getting us back to Boston?”

Mark sighed. “Yeah, but not tonight. I need to have the car towed back to Boston for repairs, and apparently it's next to impossible to get that done on a Saturday night. The local guy said he'd do it tomorrow—and he's the only tow operator in the area. He's willing to tow the car to his garage for the night, and then move it down to Boston tomorrow, even though that'll mean skipping church.” Mark reached up and she felt a light tug on her scalp as he un-snagged a piece of glass, and then the soothing stroke of his fingers freeing the chip from a wavy lock.
“Actually, he sounded kind of pleased about skipping church.”

She was so distracted by his hand moving through her hair that she momentarily lost track of what he was saying. Once he'd tossed the bit of glass onto the gravel at their feet, her mind cleared and she digested his words. “So what are we going to do tonight?”

“Well, Ray—that's the SUV driver—said his sister-in-law owns an inn in town, and she can put us up for the night. His treat.”

Claire ruminated. Was the inn nice? A picturesque bed-and-breakfast or a dive? More important, would Ray's sister-in-law put them up in one room or two? “Do you think we'd be better off returning to your parents' house for the night?”

“We're sixty miles from their house. I can't see asking them to drive all this way to get us, and then drive home, and then have to bring us back here tomorrow.”

Claire nodded. “And we're how far from Boston?”

“About seventy miles.”

“Okay.” She was tired, and it wasn't just from the stress of the accident. She also felt overwhelmed by the gracious reception his parents had given her, by the food and the company and the long drive…and most of all by the understanding that she had fallen for a man who had no intention of abandoning his bachelor ways. By the time they'd left his parents' house, she could no longer deny the unpleasant truth: she loved Mark Lavin. And he'd made it clear that he loved his swinging single status.

If only he would throw a fit over his battered car instead of gently fishing pieces of glass out of her hair, she'd be able to steel her heart against him. But he was being so kind, so considerate—as if she, a woman his obnoxious disk jockey had shoved into his life, was more important to him than his dream car.

“So should we take Ray up on his offer and stay at the inn?” he asked.

“Sure.” She shrugged. She had no pressing business back in Boston, and returning to Mark's parents' house would only bring her back to the place where she'd been forced to acknowledge that she loved him.

He patted her shoulder, then pivoted and jogged back to the men clustered by the Mercedes. They conferred for a few more minutes, the bearded man spoke into his cell phone, and Mark returned to Claire. “Officer Beldon is going to drive us to Ray's sister-in-law's place. Ray is on the phone with her now. She's expecting us.”