Not Your Everyday Housewife (22 page)

“Stop,” he croaked. “You’re killing me.”

“I love my mixer. It reminds me of”—she paused, fiddled with the buckle of his belt—“sex.”

He grabbed her hand. “Stop. I can’t think when you talk like that.”

Maybe Tula Rae was right.

“I came to say some things and I need you to listen. I almost didn’t come. I struggled with what I could offer you. You’ve made more in four months than I’ll make in four years.”

“And I’m miserable.” There, she’d finally confessed. “I need more than just a paycheck and an expense account, Sam. I need you,” she finished softly, dipping her fingers inside the waistband of his jeans.

“All I can offer is what’s in here.” He pressed his fist to his chest and said, “More love than I’ve ever felt for any other woman.”

Cyn threw her arms around him and pressed her body to his. “I love you. I want to come home.”

He slowly eased his hands along her neck to her shoulders and then down her back as he kissed her long and full. “Come home, Cyn. Heal the ache deep inside me.”

“Always,” she murmured against his lips.

“In the good Lord’s name, woman, will you stop slobbering all over your husband long enough so I can meet Sammy boy?” Tula Rae stood, hands on hips, feet spread, intimating a growl. She burst into a rowdy laugh and opened her arms wide. “Sammy boy, good to finally meet you.”

Sam flung an arm around Cyn’s waist and grinned. “You, too, Tula Rae. Thank you for sending my wife back to me.”

She tipped her frizzy head at him and said, “De nada.”

They followed her into the kitchen where Derry sat on Alec’s lap sipping hot chocolate. Sam eased into a chair and Cyn climbed on his lap. He pulled her to him and she slung both hands around his neck.

“Looks like we won’t be the only ones taking a nap this afternoon,” Derry said, leaning against Alec’s chest.

“I need a nice long one,” Cyn murmured, nuzzling her husband’s ear.

Derry laughed. “Listen to that dirty talk.”

“What? No, I didn’t mean
that
.”

“Sure you did. It’s okay, Cyn. He’s your husband and you haven’t been together in, how long?”

“Too long,” Sam said, stroking Cyn’s arm.

“That’s going to be one long nap,” Alec said.

“Maybe we should just wake them in the spring,” Tula Rae said with a wink.

The back door opened and Earl Gray stepped inside, caked in snow. “Wake who in the spring?”

“Cyn and her man. You look like a black snowman. You meet Sam and Alec yet?”

“Sure did.” He nodded toward the men. “When I was out shoveling the front walk.” He slipped off his jacket and accepted the hot cup of tea Tula Rae handed him. “How’s my bride?”

She snorted and shook her head. “Two more hours. Still time to back out.”

“No way.”

Tula Rae grinned and handed him a piece of pumpkin bread. “We’re just waiting on one more guest, and the preacher, Max Welle.”

“Who’s the guest?” Shea asked.

“You’ll see soon enough.” Tula Rae gave her a sly look. “Come to think of it, I believe I heard a car door. Shea, why don’t you go let our guest in?”

“Sure.” Shea slipped off the chair and padded to the front door. She yanked it open and let out a small yelp. Marcus Orelean, tanned and handsome as ever, stood ten inches from her.

“Hello, Shea.”

She’d forgotten how his voice made her tingle. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited to a wedding. Same as you, I imagine.”

“But she never said anything...”

“That’s Tula Rae for you.” He stomped his boots on the door mat. “May I come in? It’s brutal out here.”

Shea stepped aside to let him pass and caught a whiff of his cologne. Creed, she thought.

“How’ve you been, Shea?”

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.” He had the fullest lips. Kissing lips.

Marcus pulled off his gloves and unzipped his leather jacket. “Good.”

Her gaze strayed to his long fingers and her belly tingled. God, what was wrong with her?
Focus.
“How’s Madeline?”

“She’s great. She still asks about you.”

Shea looked away. “Tell her I said hello.” She’d planned this meeting hundreds of times, and now she couldn’t get two complete sentences out of her mouth. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see her.”

“We’ll see. It’s hard on kids when people they start to care about pop in and out of their lives. It gets too confusing.”

“I never meant to—”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

He stared at her for several seconds, so long and hard she had to look away. Then he cleared his throat and took a step away from her. “You know, I picked up the phone a half dozen times, and then I decided a letter might be better.” He shrugged. “I even wrote two and put stamps on them. But I never sent them.”

Her head shot up. “Why?” His eyes were so blue, so incredibly mesmerizing.

“You made it clear there couldn’t be anything between us.” His lips pulled into a faint smile. “But you can’t deny the attraction.”

Her insides did somersaults when he smiled at her like that. “I couldn’t take another man’s rejection.”

“I shouldn’t have to pay for another man’s mistakes.”

She could stretch out right here and let that warm voice roll over her like a massage. “You’re right, you shouldn’t.” She forced herself to hold his gaze.

“Tula Rae said you’re divorced.”

“That’s right.”
Did you ask her about me? Or did she offer?

“And you’re moving to Ogunquit.”

“I guess you and Tula Rae have been having quite a few conversations.”

“She doesn’t want to see me get hurt again,” he said, looking away.

“Again?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, “Look, she prepared me for this. I knew you’d be here but I came anyway because this is important to her.”

“What do you mean, ‘anyway’?”

“I don’t want to see you again, Shea. It’s too hard.”

“So you’re giving up, just like that?”

“Leave it, okay?”

Her heart swelled with hope. “I can’t, Marcus,” she whispered. “I’m following my dream, just like you told me to. I’m leaving my job, selling my house, and moving to Ogunquit. Do you know why? It’s about second chances and dreams. I want to buy into Music and More, maybe even help you expand it one day.”

He worked his jaw back and forth, his eyes drilling into her with unleashed emotion.

“I’m scared to death, Marcus. But I want music bad enough to fight for it. Every logical bone in my body tells me to run from you. I’m too old for you, you’ll get tired of me, you don’t really know me…” She laid a hand on his arm and continued, “But every piece of my heart says stay.”

When he kissed her, a surge of desire shot through her with such intensity she moaned. “Don’t give up now,” she murmured against his lips, “not when I’m finally starting to believe this can happen.”

Marcus pressed her against his hard body, kneading the soft flesh of her buttocks. “It can happen.” He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth and ground his erection between her thighs. When she moaned in his mouth, he pulled away and promised, “It
will
happen.”

The marriage of Tula Edwina Rae and Earl Edgar Gray took place in the kitchen of The Bird’s Nest on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. Six guests attended. The bride wore a lime turtleneck and blue jeans, with a cluster of oregano and baby’s breath tied to her braid. The groom chose a royal blue button-down shirt, string tie, and black jeans. The couple wore matching cowboy boots.

The groom gave his bride three Maid-for-You mixers, Sugar N’ Spice, Guacamole Green, and Hot Chocolate, one for love, one for fidelity, and one for honesty.

Upon seeing the bride’s extremely zealous response to these gifts, and their own lady’s delight, the men in attendance, including the Reverend Max Welle, secretly added mixer to their list of must purchases for their lady loves.

The End

Copyright Mary Campisi 2011

Not Your Everyday Housewife is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and situations are all products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to real persons, locales, or events, are purely coincidental.

Mary Campisi should have known she’d become a writer when at age thirteen she began changing the endings to all the books she read. It took several years and a number of jobs, including registered nurse, receptionist in a swanky hair salon, accounts payable clerk, and practice manager in an OB/GYN office, for her to rediscover writing. Enter a mouse-less computer, a floppy disk, and a dream large enough to fill a zip drive. The rest of the story lives on in every book she writes.

When she’s not working on her craft or following the lives of five young adult children, Mary’s digging in the dirt with her flowers and herbs, cooking, reading, walking her rescue lab mix, Cooper, or on the prefect day, riding off into the sunset with her very own “hero” husband, on his Electra Glide Classic aka Harley.

www.marycampisi.com