No More Mr. Nice Guy (9 page)

Never in her life had she imagined lovemaking as she’d experienced it the night before. Necking at the conference and roses and dancing all night—she’d loved all of it, but what mattered was that they’d come together the night before naturally and with honest feelings. She’d never needed the roses. She
had
needed to know that he cared about her with honesty and depth…and that she was capable of feeling the same way. Alan had made that possible by opening himself up to her in the past few weeks.

That should have been the only thing that mattered, and it was. Except that a once-predictable man was becoming totally unpredictable. And security was nurtured by understanding…and there were times lately when she didn’t understand him at all.

The man next to her suddenly showed remarkable energy for someone who was supposed to be sound asleep. He nuzzled her as he tugged her underneath him; he nuzzled her arms as he wrapped them around his neck; he nuzzled her lips until they parted, and he rubbed against her until her legs opened, too.

Oh, hell, she thought helplessly. If he really wanted to, he could decorate the whole place in zebra stripes.

It was the last thought she had for some time. Alan settled right down to the business of pleasure. Hers. If she’d had any last lingering doubts that he found her body beautiful, they rapidly disappeared. He liked everything. Breasts, ribs, wrists. Nose. Ears. Navel.

Nothing was off limits to the man, and he was incredibly slow. She did any number of clever things to speed him up, but he was clearly intent on driving her mad with wanting. She’d never been the kind of woman who could be driven mad with wanting.

Alan proved her wrong, and when it was over, she lay wrapped in his arms, too exhausted to lift a finger, too sated to move. “Don’t,” she murmured.

“Don’t what?”

“You’re looking at me,” she accused him from behind closed eyes.

“I love looking at you. I’m never going to stop looking at you. Caro?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re a delicious lover. And a delectable woman. And I never even imagined loving anyone as much as I love you. And if I never told you before, I—
hey.
”

Her eyes shot open. She could feel the warm flush on her skin from his whispered words, but it wasn’t that warm flush Alan was staring at. Glaring at, actually. His forefinger gently, softly touched the chafed skin around her breasts.

“Did I do that to you?” he demanded gruffly.

“Alan, it’s nothing.”

“My beard did that to you, and you never said one word?”

“It’s nothing, honestly. The redness will go away. It doesn’t hurt. It’s nothing,” she assured him, but he was already leaping out of bed, heading for the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, she had her clean-shaven man back again. When he pounced on the bed, he had a devilish gleam in his eye, and a lot of interest in rubbing his smooth cheeks in lots of sensitive places.

She could have sworn she didn’t have an ounce of energy left in her body, but she miraculously found some. Her heart soared from kiss to kiss.

Those little nagging voices in her head ceased once and for all. Zebra stripes notwithstanding, no woman could be so foolish as to think anything was wrong with a man who loved like that.

Alan’s mother had served a New England boiled dinner on Sundays for as long as he could remember. He’d hated it just about that long…but would probably have missed it if she stopped. Her kitchen hadn’t changed since his childhood. Blue linoleum floors were waxed to a fine shine; pale cupboards gleamed with care; the old enamel teapot on the stove had always had the same chip. An ornate lamp stood in the center of the kitchen table. As a child, he’d been fascinated by its dangling glass prisms.

“Don’t know as I like the President’s stance at that summit meeting,” his father said as he spooned a large helping of meat and potatoes onto his plate. Reed-slim and bald as a cue ball, Stan expected his wife to interrupt them the minute she sat down, and she did.

“What’s Carroll going to wear to her sister’s wedding, Alan? Isn’t it coming up next Saturday?
Stanley,
you’ve hogged all the potatoes again!”

“There are plenty of potatoes left.”

“All that starch isn’t good for you.” Plump, with round blue eyes and curly bangs, Lucy clucked disapprovingly. “Isn’t she maid of honor, Alan?”

“Isn’t
who
maid of honor?” Stan demanded. “I tell you, Lucy, one of these years you’re going to learn to stick to one question at a time.”

At an early age, Alan had learned to get his conversational licks in when he could. Carrying on dialogues about weddings, summit meetings and his medical practice all at once, he kept a shrewd eye on his mother’s movements, knowing she had trouble with arthritis, and initiated a discussion on retirement with his dad. Stan had a year to go before he reached sixty-five, but unless he started to develop outside interests, he was going to drive himself and Lucy nuts wandering aimlessly around the house when that time came. Leopards didn’t change their spots. Stan was a workaholic, but Alan was slowly, methodically working on him.

“Ready for big pearl tapioca, everyone?” His mother jumped up for the tenth time since the meal started.

“I can get it, Mom.”

“Sit down, sit down. For heaven’s sake, you’d think I was helpless. You know, Alan, I was hoping you might get a teensy-weensy little idea from this wedding…”

“…so like you told me, I looked in the want ads and sure enough there was a lathe on sale. Hadn’t worked with one of those since I was a kid. Made a pair of bookends for your mother…not that I’d take up woodworking as a full-time hobby, mind you.”

“She’s such a nice girl, already like one of the family. Not like that London woman you brought home a long time ago. And your father and I would never push you, Alan, but—”

“…damn chisel broke right in my hands. They don’t make things like these used to. Saw a sale down at Sears, though…”

“…grandchildren…”

“Best tapioca you’ve ever made, Lucy.”

His mother blushed bright pink, speechless. Stan said that to her every Sunday; it still seemed to astound her. Alan regarded his parents with warm affection, his thoughts about six and a half miles away and two streets down, give or take an apartment house.

He’d heard his mother’s prompting. He didn’t need it. A simple gold band had been on his mind since he met Carroll, but then last night…she’d been so free in loving. Wild and giving and wanton, her face flushed with passion, her eyes shimmering with it, her skin quivering when he touched her just so…

He’d had in mind everything perfect for the first time, an orchestration of romantic fantasy—not an unplanned coming together that a tidal wave couldn’t have stopped.

Truthfully, he was relieved it had happened so naturally, but their lovemaking had also confirmed what he already knew. Freedom and passion and excitement and the surprise of the unexpected were what a woman wanted in a man, what Carroll wanted and needed.

“Neither of you want another helping of tapioca?” Lucy asked disappointedly.

“Mom, we’ve already had two.”

“Can’t have enough of a good thing.”

True, Alan thought fleetingly.

She loved him. He hadn’t been positive that anything he’d done had made a difference until last night. Now he knew, and he wasn’t about to blow it, or coast just because he’d crossed a few hurdles.

Marriage meant settling down. He simply had to stop himself from thinking on those terms, no matter how hard it was. The excitement of a lover and a love affair were what clearly appealed to her.

Dammit, he had to find some way to give her that. His previous efforts had been paltry. Anything was possible now that he knew she loved him back. No way was he going back to being stodgy.

“Wonderful wedding! Absolutely wonderful!” Mrs. Tobins leaned close to buss Carroll’s cheek, and whispered, “I don’t doubt for a minute you’ll be next, darling! Don’t you worry about a thing. You’ll land that young man of yours!”

Carroll smiled, a little wanly. Who could have guessed that the receiving line would be a gauntlet? Her feet were killing her; she was so tired she could have fallen asleep standing on her head; and if one more person made one more reference to her single state…

George Brooks stepped forward next, pumped her hand like the healthy man he was, and leaned his florid face toward her. “You always were twice as pretty as your sis,” he boomed. “Be at the altar yourself within a year, gal. And if your beau don’t have that kind of sense, I’ll divorce my Marabelle and marry you myself.”

A fate worse than death, Carroll thought dryly. Not that her mother’s longtime neighbor wasn’t trying to be kind. “Thanks so much, George.” All right. If
one
more person made
one
more comment…

Mary Sue Stuart loomed next in the receiving line, herding her second husband and three children ahead of her. “Sweetie, when on earth are you going to pin down that adorable doctor?” she whispered, with the exact same giggle that had driven Carroll nuts since they were in grade school.

She hardly had the option to scream, and once the receiving line ended, she could get off her feet for only a few short minutes. Maybe she was becoming inordinately touchy on the subject of Alan and marriage. A little break was all she needed…but breaks were in short supply for the next hour and a half.

Once the wedding guests had been greeted, the reception dinner began. Carroll, stuck at the head table as maid of honor, kept trying to sneak glimpses of Alan…but Alan seemed inordinately busy with the tipsy blonde in gold brocade at the third table.

Following dinner, the band started to play. Stéphane led Nancy in the traditional first dance, after which the bridegroom came toward Carroll to claim the second.
No,
she thought fleetingly,
my feet really aren’t capable of moving
…but there was no help for it. With a brilliant smile, she let Stéphane lead her to the dance floor.

“How’s my newest sister tonight…besides breathtakingly beautiful?”

“Nowhere near as resplendent as my new brother,” she responded lightly, and tried to relax in his arms. Stéphane, in white tie and cutaway, looked like a storybook prince and danced like Baryshnikov. Neither of those things surprised her, but discovering that she genuinely liked her new brother-in-law did. He
was
a charmer; it wasn’t fake.

As far as his compliment went, she might not be “breathtaking,” but Carroll definitely felt beautiful. Her gown was apricot velvet, with a deeply scooped neckline and long sleeves that ended in delicate points at her wrists. Rapunzel might have worn this dress. Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella. But only Nance would have been imaginative enough to pick it out for her maid of honor.

She felt almost like a beauty…but a beauty very close to total collapse. It might be only nine in the evening, but the day had been hectic—not to mention the week leading up to it. Her feet were still killing her, her head was pounding and her vision was blurred from lack of sleep.

She didn’t want to see another dance floor, another magnum of champagne, or another flower for the next hundred years, give or take a few.

On Monday, Alan had picked her up after work, and they’d driven to a nightclub in Chicago. She’d drunk far too much champagne, danced her feet off altogether and arrived home in time to snatch three hours of rest before going to work the next day. On Tuesday, he’d arrived with his arms full of flowers and tickets to a mime production at the university. On Wednesday, he’d brought her gardenias and led her into the woods, where he’d cooked dinner over an open fire, then taken her home to Cold Duck and candlelight. On Thursday, he’d found an all-weather skating rink that played romantic music until the wee hours.

Last night had been the rehearsal dinner, which had ended early enough, if either of them had had the sense to just go home and go to bed. They’d gone home. And gone to bed. They just hadn’t slept.

Sometime soon, she had to sleep. All the razzle-dazzle was delightful; she felt courted like a princess. Only at the ragged old age of twenty-seven, she was starting to get dark circles under her eyes, and the wedding—to her own surprise—was making her a little nervous. Courting usually led to a ring. Alan hadn’t mentioned rings in weeks.

Finally, the dance ended…and before the band could begin another song, the guests began clinking spoons against their glasses, demanding in the traditional way that the groom kiss the bride. Stéphane winked a goodbye at her, and went off in search of Nancy. The crystal-metal clanging had reached fever pitch by the time the two obediently pleased the crowd by going into a passionate clinch.

Watching them, the silliest blur filled Carroll’s eyes. How sentimental could you get? And it had started for her at the church, when she’d seen the reflection of candlelight on stained glass, heard the first strains of the wedding march and sensed the promise of love in the air.

Turning, she saw Alan coming toward her across the crowded room and immediately moved toward him. He was lost from sight for a minute, and she stole one last glance at her brother-in-law. Stéphane was just as tall, dark and handsome as she’d first thought, just as sexy, his smile just as roguish.

Her eyes flickered immediately back to Alan. His dark suit was new and stylishly tailored and his linen shirt impeccable, but some things hadn’t changed. His diagonal tie was askew, his hair just a little rumpled, his collar just a little too tight. It didn’t matter. As he neared, her heart beat faster all at once. Her skin warmed, her toes tingled, her eyes softened. There was really no comparison between the two men. Stéphane was just your average swashbuckling hero type.

Alan was Alan.

He reached her and held out his hands. She clasped them, smiling. “Can I steal you away from family responsibilities just for a minute?” he said teasingly.

“Instantly,” she assured him.

“Good.” With an arm at her waist, he steered her toward the door.

Outside, the night air was close to freezing, but the cold felt good after being surrounded by too many people and too little fresh air for so many hours. “I told myself I was going to wait to give you this until the end of the evening, Caro…but I couldn’t wait.”

Her lips parted in surprise as he plucked a small velvet box from his pocket, and then she just looked at him. Love filled her eyes like the sheen of stars. “Oh, Alan…”

“Open it, love.”

Her silly fingers were trembling, but she managed to part the stiff catch of the box. The yard light was brilliant, easily bright enough for her to see its contents—a ruby heart strung on the most fragile braided gold chain she’d ever laid eyes on. For a moment, she couldn’t say a thing for the lump in her throat.

The gift was exquisite…but not what she was expecting.

“Like it?”

“It’s beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she murmured truthfully. “I adore it, Alan.”

“Let me put it on for you.”

She obediently turned and closed her eyes as she felt his gentle hands fasten the clasp at the nape of her neck. Love swirled through her on about an equal level with despair. Her eyes stayed closed until she was absolutely positive she wasn’t going to cry.

Oh, my darling, I love it, adore it, cherish it, can’t believe you did this, and will never in a hundred years forget to appreciate you, but…

Dammit, Alan, where’s my ring?

“Squish squish squish…getting the idea, Tiger?”

The five-year-old’s name was Aaron Barkman, and Carroll hadn’t figured out yet who’d thought Tiger was an appropriate nickname. To her, Tiger suggested a physical child who liked a little romp and stomp and noise.

Aaron was wearing a button-down shirt, white vest, neatly creased jeans and unscuffed shoes. She’d talked him into putting a smock over his clothes, but as yet the smock hadn’t seen a smudge of paint. Standing with his arms folded, his serious brown eyes fixed on the finger paint she was mixing as if he were watching a monkey in the zoo…and being patient about it. “My mother said I was here to work,” he remarked gravely.

“We are working. Come on, try it.”

He sighed like a tired little ninety-year-old man, and cautiously edged closer. “It’s a very nice picture,” he said politely.

Carroll dearly wished she could get the child away from his mother for a full twenty-four hours, preferably near a mud puddle on a hot day. “Come on. Get your fingers in it. Squish it all up!”

“You’re going to tell my mother we’ve been working?”

“I certainly am.”

“It’ll get under my fingernails.”

“Your hands’ll wash. I guarantee it.”

In time, he was persuaded to mix blue and red. A little later, he was persuaded to paint letters and sound them out. With older children, the technique didn’t work, but Carroll, because she’d been well trained, knew that hearing and sight often needed to be combined with the sense of touch in teaching young children. If they made the letters—preferably in their favorite color—as they were sounding them out, somehow they began to understand what had previously been a mystery to them.

The finger paintings were drying a half hour later. Having washed his hands and put away his smock, Aaron put on his coat and then gravely extended his hand. Carroll shook it with equal gravity. “I’ll come back and work some more with you this afternoon, if you want,” Aaron offered seriously. “But I think you’d do better if I did the mixing.”

“You think I’m a little messy?”

He nodded. “My mother would die.”

When he was gone, thoroughly disappointed that he couldn’t return until next week, Carroll tugged down her yellow sweater and grinned. She’d give him a few more weeks to get used to her before she scared him to bits with a giant bear hug.

Her stomach growled, and she glanced at the clock. Hungry or not, in the half hour before lunch she had in mind cramming in three hours of paperwork. She was stapling dittoed papers together on the red carpet when she heard a “Pssst” from the door. Glancing up, she felt her lips curl in an immediate smile. “Alan! Surely you’re not here to sit through
another
three hours of
s’
s and
l’
s!”

Alan chuckled, shaking his head. “Where’s your coat?”

“You’re taking me out to lunch?” she asked.

She hurried, belting her cherry wool coat, and grabbed her purse. A long morning had just been given a lift, and she hadn’t seen Alan since the night of the wedding.

Memories of that night rushed back to her. She’d been so disappointed that he hadn’t given her a ring. Between that and a zombielike case of tiredness, she really hadn’t been “in the mood” when Alan had taken her home. But then, she hadn’t planned on Alan’s using his diagonal-striped tie to blindfold her en route to seducing her.

Shortly thereafter, she’d forgotten tiredness and forgotten rings. Alan had been simply, gently and tenderly determined to bring out the abandoned woman in her. He’d certainly succeeded. So often she used the sense of touch as a teaching tool for her little ones. She’d never considered how it would feel to have the tables turned on her. While she was deprived of sight, her sense of touch had been exquisitely intensified, until their lovemaking had become an explosion of tactile explorations and feelings…

Really, Alan was becoming the most demanding lover.

And his surprise appearance at lunchtime was simply a joy. “I’m starving,” she confessed as she lifted the purse strap to her shoulder. Alan pushed open the door so she could walk out ahead of him. “It’s snowing.”

“Yes.”

The sky was alive with little flakes, more like gently tossed confetti than serious snow. She stood patiently while Alan insisted on adjusting her scarf. It was an excuse to touch her, nothing more. For an instant, blue eyes met brown, nothing planned, nothing intentional, and the next thing she knew his arms were around her and they were kissing. And shivering.

Alan pulled back, a sparkle in his eyes that boded ill for her sanity, and grabbed her hand.

“Where we going? Apple Annie’s?”

“Nope.”

“Bruno’s?”

“We’re going somewhere you never dreamed you’d be taken to lunch. No more questions.” He closed the passenger door.

“Pizza?” she quizzed the minute he opened his door. “Burgers? Soup and salad?”

“It’s in the female genes,” Alan said to the windshield.

“What is?”

“Curiosity. You’ll see soon enough, Caro.”

She saw soon enough that he was turning into the Sheraton Inn’s parking lot. Her eyebrows lifted as she sneaked a look at him. The Sheraton put on a pretty fancy lunch for two people who usually hit and ran a quick lunch stop between working hours.

Alan, she just noticed, was looking vaguely like a ten-year-old gloating over a secret. On the surface, of course, the image was one of a successful doctor. His pants were freshly creased, the camel suit one of his old ones—conservative and tasteful. With the beard gone, he had a clean, distinguished profile. Alan had a natural dignity, she decided absently.

She couldn’t imagine why the picture of a gloating ten-year-old persisted.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, becoming aware he was driving past the restaurant parking area toward the inn’s back lot, making for an unnecessarily long walk. There were several spaces close to the restaurant door, and it was cold outside. “Did you miss the parking space next to that truck?” she asked lightly.

“We can go in the back way. You won’t be cold,” he promised her.

And she wasn’t. Seconds later, they were both out of the chill and striding down the long corridor of the rear entrance to the inn. A maid was pushing a cleaning cart down the hall. Slightly unsure of the route back to the restaurant, Carroll turned to Alan. About that instant, he captured her arm.

She caught the strange glitter of a gold key in his hand, but it didn’t really register until he fitted it in the door. When he gently pushed her a step backward, her lips parted in surprise. Darkness. Though the day was brightly lit, blackout drapes sealed in the darkness. When the door closed behind Alan, for a moment she could see nothing.