The Backup Plan (15 page)

She stared at him with evident surprise. “You want to discuss this?”

“Not really,” he admitted candidly. “But I think we should.”

“Kiss me and then we'll talk,” she offered.

“If I kiss you, believe me, it won't be followed up with talking,” Cord warned her.

She shrugged. “Okay, then. Kiss me, anyway.”

“Dinah!” he protested, just as she closed the distance between them and plastered herself to his body like a barnacle attaching to a seashell. Desire shot through him with the force of a cannon. Dinah wasn't wearing so much as a scrap of clothing, and his swimsuit could hardly save him from the effect of all that bare skin next to his.

Before he could say a word, before he could even form a coherent thought, her mouth was on his, hot and greedy and demanding. She clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Maybe she needed this, Cord reassured himself. He sure as hell needed it. He'd been needing Dinah, wanting Dinah as far back as he could remember. He knew she couldn't say the same, but did that really matter right here and right now? People made love for all sorts of reasons—lust, neediness, a way to forget. Would it be so terrible to take what she was offering without examining all the motives behind it, his or hers?

She framed his face in her hands and looked into his eyes before he could find an answer to any of that.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please make love to me. Don't say no, Cordell. Whatever's going on in that head of yours can wait. It's not important.”

Cord knew it was important, but in that instant, he also knew that he couldn't deny her anything. The desperation in her eyes, the desire, the heat of her surrounding him, it was all impossible to resist.

His gaze still locked with hers, he tugged down his swimsuit, lifted her slightly and plunged into her, joining them. There was an instant of stunned surprise in her eyes and then she began to move, taking what she wanted, her head thrown back, water streaming from her hair. She looked like a sea nymph, glorious in her passion, even more glorious when a powerful release shuddered through her.

When she would have moved away, Cord held her in place. “Not just yet, darlin'. That one was for you. Now let's do it one more time for the two of us.”

The water slicked over them as his body found its rhythm. It was an extra sensation that he'd never experienced before, not even during some long and very provocative showers. Maybe it had something to do with the way the waves stirred around them so that her breasts played a tantalizing game of hide and seek. He cupped her bottom, tilting her hard against him, then plunged inside one last time, finally shattering the unbearable tension for both of them.

Dinah went limp in his arms, her cheek resting against his shoulder. “That was…amazing,” she said, her voice still breathless.

“Definitely right up near the top of the Beaufort scale.”

She glanced up at him. “The Beaufort scale?”

“Richter wasted time measuring seismic shifts in the earth. My scale measures another sort of earthquake entirely.”

A grin tugged at her lips, even as she gave him a light punch. “You're irredeemable.”

“Could be,” he agreed. “But right at this moment, I'd have to guess you're glad about that.”

She met his gaze. “Yes, I am, but smugness is not an attractive trait, Cordell.”

“Duly noted.”

With her legs still wrapped around his waist and her hands linked behind his neck, she looked in his eyes. “Do you know what I'd like right now?”

If it wasn't more sex, Cord thought he might very well cry. “What's that?”

“That burger you promised me. I'm starving. It's the first time in days I've felt like eating.”

“Making love will do that to a person,” he agreed, hiding his disappointment. “Brings back all sorts of appetites. Of course, if you expect to go someplace for lunch, you are going to have to let go of me, get out of the water and put some clothes on.”

“You're not nearly as adventurous as you're cracked up to be,” she accused.

He looked her in the eye. “You think I'm stodgy?”

She nodded, her lips twitching as she fought a smile.

“Really?” He sighed dramatically. “Then I suppose I'll just have to prove you wrong.” He headed for shore with Dinah still clinging to him. When he would have carried her right on to the car, she started laughing.

“Okay, okay, put me down, you fool. I need to get my clothes.”

“Then that was a test?” he asked, halting in his tracks, but still holding her in his arms.

“Of course it was.”

“Oh, sugar, you should know better than to test a man
like me. If there's a fork in the road and one way heads toward wicked, that's the path I'll take.” Still holding her, he bent down and snagged her panties, then the scanty halter top she'd worn. “What are these worth to you?”

“You're holding my clothes for ransom?”

He grinned. “Pretty much. And just so you know, I hear voices.”

“You do not,” she said, suddenly looking just a little bit worried.

“If you don't believe me, listen.”

She fell silent. Within seconds the unmistakable laughter of what was more than likely a carload of teenagers drifted toward them.

“Oh, my God,” she said, snatching at her clothes.

“Oh, no, you don't. You have to pay up first.”

“You haven't said what you wanted,” she said, beginning to look a little frantic. Her cheeks had turned a bright shade of pink that couldn't entirely be attributed to the sun.

“Come home with me tonight,” he said. “Stay with me.”

Her gaze faltered. “I don't know, Cord.”

“We just made love in public, twice as a matter of fact. Is it so much to ask that we try it in a nice, comfortable bed?”

“It's not the idea of sex with you that worries me,” she admitted, her brow furrowed.

“Then what? And just so you know, the car's engine just cut off.”

Alarm flared in her eyes. “It's the implication,” she said in a rush. “This could get complicated, especially if we let this start to mean something.”

“It
does
mean something,” Cord replied quietly. “At
least to me.” He pushed the clothes into her hand. “Put these on and we'll finish this conversation over lunch. You can bring up the whole trust thing and tell me again how I ruined any chance of you ever trusting me when I told Bobby that lie to keep the two of you apart. That was ten years ago, Dinah. I like to think I'm a different man now.”

A tiny flicker of guilt nagged at him even as he spoke. He could dismiss that old lie from now till doomsday and Dinah might even be willing to forgive him, but if she found out he was lying to his brother again right now—at least by omission—it would be all over.

He grabbed his own jeans and hiked them up just in the nick of time as a crowd of half a dozen teens came tearing over the dunes. They barely spared a glance for Cord and Dinah in their exuberant race to the water.

It was just as well, he concluded, because Dinah still looked as if she were a little dazed. Cord almost relented and took back his request, but something told him if he gave in too easily, they might never get back to this point. Dinah's guard would go up and all the progress they'd made would vanish as if it had never happened. In fact, it might be worse because knowing how incredible they were together had clearly scared her.

To be truthful, it terrified him, too, but he didn't want to turn back. And he'd find some way to make up for his silence about her return. He'd spin it in a way that would keep both of them from being furious with him.

“Dinah?”

She looked up at him blankly.

“You ready?”

She blinked as if coming out of a trance. “Sure.”

“You want something to drink before we go? There's soda and beer in the cooler.”

“No, I'll wait till we get to the restaurant.”

“Okay, then, let's get moving. The place I have in mind is bound to be packed.”

Her expression brightened slightly at that. “Good.”

He regarded her with amusement. “We're still going to talk about you coming home with me tonight.”

“As long as you feed me first, you can talk about whatever you want to talk about,” she said.

“That's the spirit.”

She gave him a sassy look as she passed him on her way to the car. “Doesn't mean I'm going to listen.”

Cord stared after her. The woman was filled with so many contradictions, it might take a lifetime to unravel them all. He sure as hell was willing to give it a try, though.

D
inah was already regretting her impulsive, totally uncharacteristic behavior at the beach. She'd suddenly been overcome with the desire to do something outrageous, something that would wipe away all the pain and horrible memories she couldn't otherwise erase. She'd known with purely feminine instinct that Cord would never turn her down.

In the heat of the moment, so to speak, it had seemed exactly right to take advantage of his bad-boy reputation. For a few minutes she'd been carried away on a sea of sensation so overwhelming that nothing else had mattered. In that instant there had been only Cordell and her, alone in the world, the sun on their shoulders, the cool water splashing gently over them, their bodies perfectly attuned. It had been instinctive, mind-blowing sex at its most primal level. It was the kind of thing she'd always imagined only happened when two people came together in a desperate need to feel totally alive.

And wasn't that what it had been about for her? She'd seen too much death, suffered too much loss. She'd needed to be reminded, if only for a moment, that she
wasn't dead, that the woman who had grabbed onto life with both hands and chose to live still existed even though a part of her had died right alongside Peter. She needed to figure out who that woman now was. Maybe making love to Cord would snap her out of her inertia.

Yet second thoughts were now raging in her mind al most as wildly as passion had earlier. She'd wanted a moment out of time, just one moment, but Cord evidently wanted more. As wonderful as she'd felt for that fleeting moment, Dinah wasn't sure she had anything more to give him. And even if she found it was possible, would she want to? This man had betrayed her and his brother once. Why would she allow herself anything more than a casual fling with him?

“For a woman who insisted she was starving for a hamburger, you haven't made even a dent in that one,” Cord chided, breaking into her troubled thoughts. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No, it's great,” she said, taking a dutiful bite. It was charcoal broiled, juicy and topped with a thick slice of cheddar cheese, ripe summer tomato, onion, mayonnaise and ketchup. As burgers went, it was sublime, but it might as well have been sawdust.

Cord rolled his eyes, clearly not believing her act. “How about some steamed shrimp?”

“No, thanks. This is plenty.”

“Ice cream?”

She gave him the kind of horrified look she would have expected from her mother, who was of the clean-your-plate era. “Before I finish my meal?”

He laughed. “You're a grown-up now. You can have dessert first. I'm thinking a huge hot fudge marshmallow sundae we can share. How about it?”

“You are definitely talking my language,” she admit
ted. She eyed the burger with regret. “It seems a shame, though, to waste food like this.”

He held out his hand. “If it will help allay your guilt, I'll finish it,” he said a little too eagerly to be perceived as a martyr. “You order the sundae.”

“I'm impressed with the nobility of your sacrifice,” she said dryly.

“You should be. I'll have to add a couple of miles to my run in the morning.”

“You run?” For some reason, she was surprised by that. She'd always envisioned him spending every spare second lazing around in that well-used hammock of his. That he had the discipline to run destroyed another leftover judgment she'd made about him.

“Every day.”

“I used to,” Dinah told him. She hadn't been out in months, not since the day Peter had died. All the running they'd done together hadn't done him a damn bit of good, so she hadn't seen the point in continuing the exercise.

But it might have been what saved your life,
a voice in her head nagged now as it had been for months. She sighed. Running hadn't saved her life. Peter had, when he'd given her the chance to slip away.

When she looked up, Cord was studying her curiously. “If you stayed over at my place tonight, you could come with me in the morning.”

Her lips twitched, despite herself. “And that's sup posed to entice me? Running's hard. I hated every second of it.”

“But it clears your head,” he said. “Keeps you in shape. Releases all those good endorphins.”

She frowned at that. “Is there something wrong with my shape?”

“Truth be told, you're still too skinny,” he taunted.

“I didn't hear you complaining back on the beach,” she reminded him.

“No reason to complain then. I had more important things on my mind.”

“Your mind was disengaged from the minute you hit the water,” she retorted.

Cord laughed. “I suppose that's true enough.” His expression sobered. “So what about it, Dinah? Will you come back to my place tonight? I'm not asking for a lifetime commitment, if that's what's worrying you. I'd just like to hold you in my arms for one night.”

“And one night will do it for you?” she asked, amused.

He grinned. “Depends on whether you snore or steal all the covers.”

She weighed all the reasons it would be a perfectly awful idea against the one powerful reason for saying yes…that it would guarantee her the kind of exhaustion that might lead to a dreamless sleep, something she hadn't had in what seemed like forever.

“Yes,” she said at last, impulse overruling her head for the second time that day. She met his gaze and gave him a long, lazy grin that had a justifiable wariness stirring in his eyes. “But you're gonna have to be the one to explain it to my mother.”

His eyes danced with amusement at the challenge. “You sure you want me to do that, sugar?”

“I think it will be absolutely fascinating to see what you come up with,” she said. “If you can turn it into some G-rated explanation, you will earn my undying respect.”

“G-rated, huh?”

“That's the rule.”

Dinah stared in disbelief as Cord pulled out his cell phone and punched in a single number. “You have her on speed dial?” she asked incredulously.

“This is your mother we're talking about. She's the ruler of all things out at Covington,” he explained. His expression brightened as the phone was apparently answered. “Hey, Mrs. Davis, how are you?”

Dinah felt her stomach tighten as she waited to see if Cord would stick to the rules or say something absolutely outrageous to her mother that Dinah would never be able to live down.

“Your daughter asked me to give you a call and let you know that she's going to be spending the night at a friend's. She didn't want you to worry.” He grinned at whatever her mother said. “Yes, ma'am, I surely will tell her that. You enjoy the rest of your day, okay?”

When he'd hung up, Dinah frowned at him. “What did she want you to tell me?”

“To be sure to use protection.”

Dinah choked on her sip of diet cola. “She did not!”

“Sugar, your mama is an enlightened woman. I don't think you give her half enough credit.”

Dinah knew that was probably true enough. She switched gears. “You broke the rules.”

“Me? Did you hear one thing come out of my mouth that a six-year-old wouldn't say if he was going to have a sleepover at a playmate's?”

“What about that whole protection thing?”

“I didn't say that. Your mama did. I can't be held accountable for her having the intuition to figure out what you and I are up to.” His gaze narrowed. “You're not in tending to back out now, are you?”

Dinah shook her head. How could she, when she'd laughed more and felt more alive in the past couple of hours than she had in months? “I must be crazy,” she said, half to herself. She met Cord's gaze. “But, no, I'm not backing out.”

 

Dorothy hung up the phone, a smile on her lips. Thank goodness her daughter was finally showing some sense. A decade ago Cordell might not have been the man she would have chosen for Dinah, but times had changed. People changed.

Not only had Cord proved himself to be respectable and hard-working, but recently he'd shown himself to be caring where Dinah was concerned. And goodness knows he'd apparently dedicated himself to dragging her out of this depressed state she was obviously in. If he accomplished that and nothing else, Dorothy owed him her gratitude.

“Was that Dinah?” her husband asked when she joined him.

“No, it was Cord. He was calling on Dinah's behalf, though. I think they're becoming something of an item,” she said with undisguised pleasure.

Marshall lowered the Sunday sports section and stared at her over the rim of his reading glasses. “Are you telling me that our daughter is getting mixed up with Cordell Beaufort?”

She heard the unmistakable disdain in his voice and responded with a touch of defiance. “Yes.”

“And you're encouraging it?”

His censure grated. She frowned at him. “I most certainly am. Neither you nor I have been able to do a thing to shake Dinah out of this lethargy she's been in. If Cord can do that, then he has my blessing.”

“I don't understand you, Dorothy,” Marshall declared with unmistakable disappointment in his tone. He raised the paper, putting an abrupt end to the discussion.

“There's nothing new about that,” she retorted under her breath.

Apparently Marshall heard her, because he tossed the paper aside with a scowl. “What the devil is that sup posed to mean?”

She decided that for once she would see the argument through to its conclusion. Placating him, trying to smooth things over every time they talked hadn't worked. Maybe a rousing good argument would.

“It means that you haven't understood me for years,” she said. “In fact it's been decades since you even tried. If I were a less secure woman, I'd have to wonder if you weren't having an affair.”

To her surprise a wounded expression crossed his face. He slowly removed his glasses and stared at her with the deep blue eyes that had once been her undoing. Now she merely returned his gaze with an unblinking stare of her own and waited to see if he'd confirm her half-formed suspicion. She convinced herself it would be a relief to know the truth.

“Are you mad at me simply because I don't see what you see in Cord Beaufort?” he asked. “Or are you fishing around to see if I'll admit to something?”

She regarded him with impatience. “Neither, Marshall. The truth is I'm not mad at you at all. I'm just sad.”

He looked totally confused. “About what? Dinah?”

“No, you idiot. About us.”

“Us! What's wrong with us? You know damn well I'm not having an affair.”

If he'd been so dismissive of her fears and asked
such a ridiculous question a few weeks ago, she would have walked out of the room in frustration, but watching Dinah struggle with her own demons had shown her that there was nothing to be gained by waiting for things to change. It was up to her to make something happen.

“I don't know any such thing, as a matter of fact. At least that would explain why we're simply coexisting, Marshall. You go your way. I go mine. I want something more out of marriage, don't you?”

His face suddenly registered a combination of dismay and fear. “You want a divorce?” he asked, his voice flat. “Is that what this is about? After all these years, you want to end our marriage?”

She actually thought about the question before responding. A divorce would certainly shake them out of this awful limbo. But how many of her friends had seized on that option and found themselves no happier than they were before? And if she were being totally honest, she felt genuinely bereft at the thought of losingMarshall. That, in itself, was a shock.

“No,” she told him slowly. “I want to fix our marriage, if at all possible. I'm not ready to give up on it yet. But things have to change, Marshall. We have to put some effort into this relationship. Are you willing to do that?”

He looked thoroughly baffled by her question. “I have no idea what you think we need to be doing that we're not doing already.”

She didn't find it all that hard to believe that he was clueless. She didn't know exactly what she expected either. And that was precisely the problem. It was impossible and unfair to ask a man to change if she couldn't even tell him how she wanted him to change. Maybe that's why it had taken her so long to get around to
having this conversation. She'd never known what to ask for.

“Am I the wife you wanted me to be?” she asked in stead.

“Of course you are,” he said at once. “I love you, Dorothy. You're an amazing woman. You juggle a hundred balls in the air and you do it with such finesse it leaves me in awe.”

She stared at him in amazement. “You've never said anything like that before. I didn't think you even paid attention to anything I was doing.”

“Of course I pay attention and I say it all the time,” he contradicted, then paused, his expression turning thoughtful. “But perhaps not to you.”

“Then who on earth do you say it to?”

“I brag about you to my colleagues.”

“Really?” she said, oddly touched. “I always thought you were simply happy that I had enough to keep me occupied and out of your hair.”

“Nonsense!” He peered at her intently. “Is that what you think is missing, a few compliments?”

She smiled at his wistful expression. “If only it were that simple, but we're making a start right now, Marshall. We're talking, really communicating, for the first time in years.”

“We talk all the time,” he protested with a faintly baffled expression still plastered on his face.

“Not about anything important. We talk about what time we're expected at some dinner party or what happened at the bank. We never talk about what we're thinking and feeling or what we want. Do you realize you're getting close to retirement age and we've never discussed what you'd like to do or if you even intend to retire?”