The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (52 page)

Dream on,
a voice scoffed. Kitty would be the first to admit you’d never get rich this way. Some years she barely broke even.

Claire returned to the kitchen to find that Willa had arrived like a change of season, rubber thongs slapping as she ambled to and fro, fetching eggs and flour and fruit from the pantry. The plus-size Filipina favored tight clothing and splashy prints, like the hot pink sweater embroidered with sequined butterflies she had on now; and though she talked incessantly, mostly about her boyfriends, she never seemed to run out of breath.

Willa directed her sunny smile at Claire. “You keep hanging around here, pretty soon you’ll be as fat as me.”

Claire laughed. “I don’t see that it’s hurt
you
any.”

Willa giggled. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about my
new
boyfriend. Deke Peet, how’s that for a name? We met at the Rusty Anchor … you know that place out on Highway One, with the neon sign that blinks? … it’s kinda skeevy but they have good bands on the weekend … that’s what me and Teena was doing there, you know, lookin’ to shake it up a little on the floor … so, anyways, this guy,
big
guy, looks like he just rode up on a Harley, comes up and asks supersweet if he can buy me a beer …”

Claire let the tale spin out a bit more before reaching for her jacket, slung over the back of a chair. “I’d love to stay all day, but I should be going. I have to be at work.”

“On Saturday?” Kitty raised an eyebrow.

“I have a client coming in from out of town. Everything has to be ready for him to sign first thing Monday morning.” She paused to ruffle Maddie’s hair on her way out, and the little girl tipped her head back to beam up at Claire. “Thanks … for everything,” she called softly to Kitty.

Kitty turned, and the smile she gave Claire was so warm and accepting it brought tears to her eyes. “I should be thanking you,” she said. “Any time you want your old job back, it’s yours.”

Minutes later Claire was pulling into her assigned space behind the building, neatly trimmed in juniper, that housed the offices of Hodgekiss, Jenkins, and Brenner. Her heart was heavy as she unlocked the door to the lobby. If she didn’t have the guts to return Gerry’s call, how could she expect to quit her job and find a new career?

In her office she lowered herself into her chair. Her desk was tidy, files and documents stacked in order of priority in the tiered wire holder, the trust she’d been drafting neatly tucked into its folder. Beneath its plastic shroud, her computer gleamed like a great glassy eye. An
evil
eye. For on this crisp January day, while others were strolling along the beach with their pant legs rolled up or sitting down to a cup of tea, she was settling in at her desk with nothing to look forward to but a file as thick as her thumb.

Abruptly, she reached for her Palm Pilot. She’d entered Gerry’s number, thinking it would be easier to ignore than if stuck to her refrigerator. Now, as she retrieved it, Claire felt herself break out in a light sweat.

It’s still early. She might not even be up.

Claire eyed the phone as if it were a snake coiled to strike. She was sweating freely now, beads of moisture collecting on her upper lip. Thank God none of the partners were in today; they wouldn’t recognize her—cool, always-in-control Claire Brewster, whose nickname around the office (though no one had ever said it to her face) was the Ice Maiden. How much easier it would be to forget the whole thing, pretend Gerry had never called. Her life would go on as before, smooth and untroubled.

But she knew that wouldn’t be the case. As Kitty had pointed out, the lid was off Pandora’s box.

She snatched up the receiver and punched in Gerry’s number. It seemed to ring for an eternity. She was about to hang up when a familiar voice answered merrily, “Hello?”

Claire sagged back in her chair. “It’s me, Claire.”

There was a little hitch of breath at the other end. “Hi. I was hoping you’d call.”

“Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“No … not at all.”

“I’ve thought it over.”

“Yes?” The trembling expectation in Gerry’s voice was almost more than she could bear.

Claire closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “I’d like for us to meet.”

“M
OVE OVER, WILL YOU?”
Gerry gave Aubrey a playful nudge. “Being famous might get you in to see the pope, but it doesn’t entitle you to more than half the bed.”

He rolled onto his side, propping himself on his elbow facing her. The soul of dignity on the concert stage, he might at this moment have been Lady Chatterley’s gamekeeper: eyelids heavy and mouth suggestively curled, his silver hair as rumpled as the bed.

“Speaking of the pope,” he said, “what would His Holiness think of this?” His sweeping gesture took in the twisted sheets and blankets, the puddles of hastily discarded clothing on the floor.

She tossed her head back with a laugh. “That I’m sure to go straight to hell.”

“It doesn’t worry you?”

“Do I look worried?”

“Quite the contrary, my dear. You look like a woman in need of—”

Gerry flung a pillow at him, which only made him more determined. He grabbed hold of her and kissed her, leaving her decidedly short of breath. Damn the man. They’d be in bed all day if he had his way, and though she’d have liked nothing better, she had children to get home to, Saturday errands to run, and a house that wasn’t going to clean itself.

“Don’t tempt me,” she growled.

But what would be the harm in a quick one for the road? Andie and Justin were off with their respective friends and not expected back until late this afternoon.

She’d be home long before then. Why did she always feel as if time spent on herself was time stolen from her family?

A family that might soon include Claire. Goose bumps broke out on her arms and chest and she shivered, drawing the sheet up over her breasts. Her daughter was flying down this Friday, and they’d arranged to meet for lunch at the Tree House Cafe. Her stomach turned a slow cartwheel at the thought. It had been exactly one week since Claire’s call, and she’d managed to stay on an even keel. But now, stripped of her defenses, away from the demands of work and the world, she could no longer keep her anxiety at bay.

Will I like her? Will she like
me? She couldn’t very well expect the poised-sounding young woman she’d spoken to, a perfect stranger really, to fill the emptiness left by an infant girl held clasped to her heart just long enough to tear a hole in it … or fill the shoes of the daughter whose birthday she’d silently marked year after year, wondering what she looked like, how she was doing in school, if she was happy and well cared for.

And what about Andie and Justin? They still knew nothing about Claire. Every time she’d start to tell them, she’d chicken out. But time had run out. Tonight she was going to sit them down after dinner and break it to them as gently as she could. A line from the Book of Mark came to mind:
Be not afraid: only believe.
She had to believe it would all work out somehow, that God was indeed watching over her. Otherwise, how could she go on?

She scooted over and wound her arms about Aubrey’s neck, pulling his head down and holding it nestled against her shoulder. He radiated warmth, and breathing in his scent—dried sweat, soap, a hint of the Gauloises he smoked—she felt her muscles relax. After a moment he lifted his head to smile at her, his eyes—the black-brown of polished teak—seeming to caress her in some way. Eyes that one particularly rhapsodic female reporter had described as reminiscent of nineteenth-century Romantics. Gerry thought the woman might have been referring to more than his romantic appeal, for there was something tortured in them, too, a sense of some unspeakable tragedy buried in the deep, dark woods of those eyes.

She recalled their first meeting at last summer’s music festival. Her first glimpse of Aubrey had been from afar; he’d been standing on the amphitheater podium in his tuxedo, baton poised. A line from a poem had come to mind:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored and imperially slim.
Tall and straight, with that startling silver crest, and a presence that even from a distance commanded the eye. As his baton came swooping down on the opening chords of Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 and the music rose as if from a rent in the heavens themselves, she’d broken out all over in goose flesh. The crowd of hundreds spread on blankets over the grass fell silent. There was only the soaring music and its echo in the valley below. Aubrey, on the podium, looked like a man in the throes of either agony or ecstasy.

Afterward, Sam had taken her to meet him backstage. Sam knew him better than most—he was leasing Isla Verde and they’d met early on to iron out details of the contract—though from the stories percolating around Carson Springs, you’d have thought half the people in town were on intimate terms with him. There’d been talk of his wife’s tragic death in a car accident some years back, and wild speculation about the women he’d been seen with since (information derived mostly from tabloids). The moment their eyes had met, Gerry had seen what all the fuss was about. Aubrey Roellinger was even more charismatic up close, with an angular face, high forehead, and emphatically Gallic nose that might not have worked separately but came together in an irresistible whole. The overall effect, coupled with his distinctly European air, was of a tree falling on the roof of a house safely locked against intruders.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he’d said in his faintly accented English. He took her hand, which she’d half expected him to bring to his lips, vaguely disappointed when he didn’t.

“You gave me goose bumps,” Gerry had replied, then laughed. “I meant when you were conducting.” Their eyes met and lingered a beat too long, as if sharing a joke … or an invitation.

They’d gotten together for lunch a few days later, and dinner the night after that. Within weeks they were lovers. The arrangement suited them both perfectly. Mike had cured her of ever wanting to get married again, and Aubrey had made it clear he wasn’t looking for a wife. Neither had any interest in more than this: a friendly meeting of minds and bodies and a mutual satisfying of appetites. That they shared a number of interests and enjoyed each other’s company out of bed as well as in came as a bonus.

Now, snuggled beside him, Gerry smiled at the irony of it: Here she was in Sam’s house, in the bedroom her friend had shared for twenty-five years with her husband. Knowing that Sam was perfectly happy where she was didn’t take away from the strangeness of it. She’d been relieved, their first time, to see that Aubrey had kept it pretty much as it was, and she now looked about appreciatively at the whitewashed walls hung with watercolors of native flora, and the old pegged floors scattered with Navajo rugs. The only thing missing was the Mission oak dresser Sam had taken with her to her house in the Flats, in its place a handsome antique linen press with pullout shelves that served as drawers.

“Poor Gerry.” He nuzzled her hair, his breath warm against her scalp. “Am I keeping you from your appointed rounds?”

She smiled at his formal way of speaking. A lifetime of living abroad had left him with only the faintest of accents, but his way of putting things was decidedly Continental. “I’m not exactly the Pony Express,” she told him. “On the other hand, you’re no white knight on horseback.”

He drew back with a look of mock surprise. “You mean those stories in the tabloids aren’t true?”

“If they were, I’d be a twenty-five-year-old blonde with tits by Mattel.”

He threw his head back in a hearty laugh. “I prefer you exactly as you are. Tits and all.”

“Good, because they’re not getting any younger.”

She cast a wry downward glance at her breasts. All her life she’d wished they were smaller. As a teenager she’d strapped them into bras that would’ve dented the fender of any car reckless enough to hit her; as a novice she’d sought desperately to keep them from jiggling under her habit. And now, just as she was getting used to being a bombshell, damn it all if they hadn’t begun to sag. She sighed. It was just as well Aubrey wasn’t one of those youth-obsessed older men—not, she was quick to remind herself, that forty-eight was
old
—because she had no intention of getting a boob lift, face work, or even a dye job. As if to emphasize that, she lifted her head off the pillow and shook her hair so that it fanned out around her head: a tumble of black curls lightly dusted with silver, more suited to a gypsy fortune-teller than mother of three.

“Now, where were we?” she purred.

Aubrey kissed her throat, tracing her collarbone lightly with his tongue. She shivered, feeling him grow hard as she pressed up against him. God Almighty, where did it come from? Not half an hour since they’d made love, and already he was raring to go again. She smiled to think what he must have been like as a teenager. No wonder he left the women in his audiences breathless and shifting in their seats. They must sense he was a master with more than his baton.

The flutter of his breath against her neck traveled in an exquisite line to her belly and below, where he was gently stroking. She parted her legs, allowing him to explore freely. It didn’t matter that just minutes ago she’d been thoroughly sated; all at once it was as if she hadn’t made love in a year. What was this effect he had on her? She hadn’t felt this way with Mike, or Rory King, or even hot-blooded Anthony Oliveira, who’d oozed sex from every pore and with whom she’d done it in parked cars, restaurant bathrooms, and on one memorable occasion an abandoned ranger station atop Mount Matilija.

She closed her eyes and gave a soundless little gasp as Aubrey’s finger thrust up into her. Oh, those hands! Like a sorcerer’s—long and supple, conjuring magic. Every woman, she thought, should have an Aubrey Roellinger at least once in her life, if only for one night.

His feathery strokes built and built until she was crying out, begging him to take her. “Not yet,” he whispered in her ear, waiting until she was on the verge of coming before he abruptly withdrew his hand and mounted her. She wrapped her legs about him as he did, using them to pull him into her. There, heart to heart, pelvis to pelvis, with the sun warming their naked bodies and the old oak bed creaking with their weight, they rocked together with a sure, practiced rhythm. There was no hurry, for she’d forgotten where she’d needed to be and what it was she’d been in such a mad rush to do. All that mattered was here, now …
this.
When he drew back to give her a lazy smile, she felt herself tumble into those hooded dark eyes. Seconds later she came in a blaze that traveled all the way down into her toes.