Odd Mom Out (21 page)

After taking an hour to travel five miles, I spend another half hour making small talk before Dad walks me to the door.

“Could you take your mom to the doctor for me on October sixteenth?” he asks as we stand on the front steps of the house. “I’ve got something I can’t get out of and don’t want to reschedule Mom’s appointment.”

I’ve never taken her to her doctor and am happy to help but also a bit wary. “Is there anything special I need to do?”

“I keep a notebook so I can keep track of symptoms, and I’ll send that with you.”

“Okay.” I look at him a long moment. He seems unusually tense. But then he’s been quite tense for the past month or so. “Dad, is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” he answers briskly. “The appointment’s at three. Don’t be late.”

He kisses me good-bye, and I’m back in my car. By the time I reach my house on Yarrow Point, I have only thirty minutes before Luke arrives, and I’m suddenly so nervous that I sit at the foot of my bed and take deep, calming breaths.

After a minute, I stand. I don’t feel much calmer. If anything, I’m in even more of a panic.

I’d like to cancel the date. And I’d do it if I had his number, but I don’t. He’s just beautiful Luke with the big biceps, thick chest, tight butt, and long, muscular legs.

Since I can’t cancel the date, I’ve got to at least get dressed.

The thing to do, I tell myself, is to just be myself, and that includes wearing what I like to wear. Wearing what makes me comfortable.

Jeans, combat boots, and a big billowy white shirt.

I look in the mirror and sigh. Eva would kill me if she thought I was going out with a man dressed like this. Eva would just about die.

She’d tell me I’m not Lara Croft from
Tomb Raider
and that only lesbians wear combat boots for evening wear. I look down at my boots. From this angle, they do look rather . . . butch. . . .

Oh, shit.

Impatiently, I plop back on the foot of my bed, unlace the boots, and trade them for my painterly clogs. Eva hates these, too, but I like them, and they don’t scream different sexual orientation. They just scream . . . different.

For all of two seconds, I consider changing the entire outfit. But then what do I wear? Something clingy? Something silky? Something that shouts,
Hey, I have breasts and a vagina?

No. That’s just too pathetic.

But some jewelry would help, something funky like my carved pendant from New Zealand and the delicate bangles from India. I top my white shirt with a car-length red suede coat I picked up on a business trip to Milan a few years ago and comb my long hair smooth.

A little mascara and a cinnabar-hued lipstick topped with a golden lip gloss and I’m done. This is as girlie as I’m going to get. And you know, Lara Croft from
Tomb Raider
is kind of my style.

The doorbell rings.

I gulp air. Tough girl disappears with the realization that Luke’s here.

“You look beautiful,” he says as I open the door.

Luke must have called my stylist. He’s dressed like me. Jeans, white shirt, no red suede coat, thank God, but he’s got on heavy leather shoes, the kind that look as though they’d work beautifully on a hiking trail.

His hair is still damp and he’s freshly shaven, and he smells unreal.

“Thanks,” I answer, breathing in his scent, very shower clean with a hint of a subtle spicy cologne I don’t know but like very much. “You look nice, too.”

“
Nice?
”

“Beautiful?” I say, throwing his compliment back at him.

He has a quiet laugh, and the sound is a sexy deep rumble from inside his chest. He holds the door for me. “Do you have everything?”

“Yes.”

His Land Rover is nearly as worn on the inside as it is on the outside, but otherwise it’s spotless. The brown leather seats have a wonderful aged patina, the dash has been polished, and the floorboard’s vacuumed clean.

“It’s a great truck,” I compliment as he holds the door open for me.

“I’ve had it forever.”

“And before that it did safaris in Kenya?”

Sliding behind the wheel, he flashes me a curious look. “You have a problem with old?”

“Hardly. My car’s a ’57 Ford truck.”

He looks at me even longer. “A gift?”

“A gift to myself. I bought it years ago, love it, couldn’t imagine driving anything else.”

His blue gaze drifts slowly across my face, studying, analyzing. “So you’re not just easy on the eyes,” he eventually drawls, starting the Land Rover. He backs out of the driveway and then turns onto the road.

Easy on the eyes.
An interesting expression, I think, watching his broad, tanned hands as he expertly shifts gears that I know have to be a bit creaky; yet he knows his truck, loves his truck, and with each shift of his wrist I feel that hot, fizzy sensation in me grow.

I like him, and I don’t even know how or why, but once he looked at me, I saw something in his eyes and I wanted that, too.

I saw a mind working. I saw a flicker of heat in a cool blue gaze. I saw curiosity and a desire to be intrigued, entertained. I liked that he made me feel like a sexy outlaw or chopper, something that one doesn’t see all the time on the street.

Watching his hands, I think, I want those hands on me.

I want his mouth on mine.

I want his skin against my skin.

I want.

And like that, I’m dizzy and breathless, and the desire I feel is a very grown-up desire, one that doesn’t need small talk or a timid, tentative touch. No, this desire says,
I’m all woman and I need a grown-up man.

We head to Kirkland for dinner, but our reservation at 21 Central isn’t until seven-thirty, which gives us time to wander through the downtown art galleries.

It’s a perfect night for wandering around downtown Kirkland, a city that always reminds me of Laguna Beach dropped at Lake Tahoe. We stop in at all of the galleries but save my favorite, the Patricia Rovzar, for last because it’s just across from the restaurant.

Nothing grabs my eye tonight, but the gallery owner greets me warmly and offers us a glass of wine. “It’s a Willamette Valley red,” she says, referring to the Oregon wine region south.

Luke and I pass on the wine. I haven’t eaten anything since morning and don’t want to drink on an empty stomach, and Luke says he prefers a good amber beer over wine.

We stand in front of a huge murky canvas that neither of us pays attention to.

“I know nothing about you, other than the obvious,” I tell him, sliding one hand into my pocket.

His eyes have that flicker of heat again. “What’s the obvious?”

“You’re tall.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he answers, and when I say nothing more he adds, “That’s
it
?”

I smile crookedly, face flushing. “You want more?”

His upper lip barely lifts. “Sure.”

I stare at that upper lip that snakes ever so slightly. What a talented mouth to do things to me without even touching mine. I push my hand deeper into my pocket. “You’re . . . attractive.”

“Ah.”

Heat surges through me. “You’re confident.”

“Think so?”

“Yeah.” I grow hotter. “You said at Back-to-School Night that you’re not married, you have no kids, and you sponsor a Little Brother.”

“You remembered.”

“That wasn’t very much to remember.” I look at him sideways. “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t mind, and I’m thirty-eight. I came close to marriage once, about four years ago, but in the end, it didn’t work.”

“Why?”

“She lived in Charleston, and I live here.”

“You wouldn’t move.”

“My work wouldn’t let me move.”

“What do you do?” I ask.

“Management,” he answers, “sales.”

“And she wouldn’t move here?” I ask, thinking of the huge move I made to Seattle to further my career.

He shrugs. “She grew up close to her family and didn’t want to raise children so far from them.”

I nod. It makes sense in a terribly realistic sort of way.

“And your husband?” Luke asks, neatly turning the focus on me, and his blue eyes hold mine. “Where is he?”

I steel myself inwardly. “There never was one.”

“You two—”

“There was no two,” I interrupt. “Eva’s never known a father. I had her, made her, on my own. I used an anonymous sperm donor.”

Luke’s surprised. I can see it in his expression. But even I’m surprised that I was so blunt with him. Usually I dance around the subject, but for some reason I don’t want to dance around it with him. I am who I am. I like who I am. I’m not going to apologize.

“That took guts,” he says after a moment.

My shoulders lift and fall. “I wanted to be a mom. I knew I’d be a good mother.”

“But you weren’t interested in being a wife?”

“I’m not planning on getting married, no.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t see it in the cards.”

He looks increasingly perplexed. “You don’t like men?”

I smile as heat surges to my cheeks, making my face too warm. He’s so rugged and so beautiful. Even women who like women would like this man. “I’m straight, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s more the whole marriage thing that I have a problem with.”

“Why?” he demands bluntly.

Again I shrug. “I just don’t think marriage works. Love doesn’t last—”

“Yet you love your daughter.”

“With all my heart.”

“But you don’t think you can love a man that way?”

My breath catches and my eyes sting, and I turn to face the huge dark murky canvas behind me. His question felt like a sucker punch. It caught me by surprise, and it hurt.

I don’t quite know how to answer him, as it’s not that I don’t think I can love a man that way.

It’s that I don’t think a man can love a woman that way.

And I don’t think a man can love me that way.

I believe women fall in love and begin relationships with great hope and expectations, but then we somehow go wrong. Women end up giving too much, yielding and bending and compromising until we’re worn out, worn down. My mother spent much of her life trying to please my father. As a child and teenager, I did everything I could to get my father’s approval. A decade ago, I wanted nothing more than to make Scott happy.

But for what purpose? And to what end?

Why did my father get to dictate the mood and tone of our home? Why was he the king? The ruler? The head of state?

Why was it so important to me to make sure Scott was always happy, and happy with me?

Truthfully, it was a relief when Scott went back to his wife and children. It freed me. It allowed me to bury my last lingering illusions of romantic love and move on to mature love. Maternal love.

“I think lots of people get married for the wrong reasons,” I say at last. “They get married because they hear a biological clock ticking or they want someone’s financial support or they need love, crave acceptance.”

Luke gazes down at me, his lips curving faintly, mockingly. “And you don’t?”

I think for a moment, then shake my head. “No.”

He studies me now. I can feel his gaze search my face, lingering on my eyes and lips. “So you believe in living with a man, just not marrying him?”

“I’m not against marriage, and I’m not about to tell someone to live, or not live, with their partner. I’m just not planning on having a . . . partner.” I stumble over the last few words even as an uncomfortable heat rushes through me. I can’t believe we’re even discussing this topic. I don’t talk about this with anyone, much less sexy single men.

A small muscle pulls between Luke’s brows. “And how do men you date handle this? They’re okay with it?”

My mouth opens, shuts. I struggle to think of an appropriate answer, one that won’t scare either of us. “I don’t date.”

“Don’t as in . . .?”

“Ever.” I shove my hands deeper into my jeans pockets, shoulders rising higher. “You’re the first date in . . . um . . .” I swallow. “Since Eva was born.”

He stares down at me, his expression part perplexed, part sardonic. “So why are you here with me tonight?”

I meet his gaze levelly, smile bravely back. “I honestly don’t know.” And dang it, it’s the blasted truth.

Leaving the art gallery, we cross Central and get seated in the dim restaurant with the dark wood-paneled walls with the faux leopard fabric on the booths. We both order beers, appetizers, and entrées.

When the appetizers arrive, I eagerly sample one of the crab-and-lobster wontons. “I love food,” I say half-apologetically when I realize Luke’s watching me, suddenly feeling defensive.

“So do I,” he counters.

“But you’re a man, and big. You’re expected to eat.”

“That sounds rather sexist.”