I’m In No Mood For Love

Nine

She’d wrapped the fishing pole and reel in pink ribbon and glittery bows. It was so girly and gaudy, Sebastian had hid it behind the sofa in the carriage house where no one would see it.

“Such a sweet girl.”

Sebastian stood beneath a big awning constructed in the Wingate backyard. There were about twenty-five guests, none of whom Sebastian had ever met before. He’d been introduced to everyone and recalled most of their names. After years of reporting, he’d developed a knack for recalling people and events.

Roland Meyers, one of Leo’s oldest friends, stood next to him, munching on foie gras. “Who?” Sebastian asked.

Roland pointed across the lawn at a large knot of people, the setting sun bathing them in burnt orange. “Clare.”

Sebastian speared a little weenie with a toothpick and stuck it on his plate next to crab-stuffed Camembert. “So I’ve heard.” His father, he noticed, had dressed himself up in charcoal trousers, white dress shirt, and a god-awful tie with a howling wolf on it.

“She and Joyce put this whole thing together for your father.” Roland took a drink of something on the rocks, and added, “They’ve been like family to Leo. Always taken real good care of him.”

Sebastian detected a note of censure. It wasn’t the first time that evening that he felt as if he were being politely admonished for not visiting sooner, but he didn’t know Roland well enough to be certain.

Roland’s next words removed any doubt. “Never were too busy for him. Not like his own family.”

Sebastian smiled. “The interstate runs two ways, Mr. Meyers.”

The older man nodded. “That’s true enough. I have six kids and can’t imagine not laying eyes on one of them for ten years.”

It had been more like fourteen years, but who was counting. “What do you do for a living?” Sebastian asked, purposely changing the subject.

“Veterinarian.”

Sebastian moved down the table filled with hors d’oeuvres. Directly behind him, sixties music played from speakers hidden by planters of tall grasses and cattails. One of the strongest memories Sebastian had of his father was his love of the Beatles, Dusty Springfield, and especially Bob Dylan-of reading Fantastic Four comics and listening to “Lay Lady Lay.”

Sebastian ate the Camembert on thin crackers and followed that up with a few stuffed mushrooms. He raised his gaze to the people milling about the lawn amidst lit torches and candles floating in various fountains. His gaze moved to the group of people standing near a nymph fountain, and once again landed on one brunette in particular. Clare had curled her straight hair, and the setting sun caught in the big waves and touched the side of her face. She wore a tight blue dress with tiny white flowers that hit her just above the knee. The thin straps of the dress looked like bra straps, and a white ribbon circled her ribs and was tied beneath her breasts.

Earlier, before the guests had arrived that evening, he’d watched the caterer set up while Clare and Joyce had placed Leo’s carved wildlife along the tables and in the cattails. Roland had been right. The Wingate women did take good care of his father. A twinge of guilt plucked his conscience. What he’d said to Roland had been true too. The interstate did run two ways, and he’d never bothered heading in the direction of his father until a week ago. They’d let things fall to nothing, and whether it was the old man’s fault or his didn’t seem to matter anymore.

They’d had a great time fishing together, and Sebastian had felt the first real hint of optimism. Now, if neither of them did anything to mess it up, they might actually have some kind of framework on which to build. Funny that he’d had a fuck-it attitude toward his father only a few short months ago. But that was before he’d stood in a mortuary picking out a casket for his mother. That day, his world shifted, turned him 180 degrees around and changed him, whether he’d wanted it to or not. Now he wanted to know the old man before it was too late. Before he once again had to make a decision on cherrywood or bronze. Crepe or velvet. Cremated or buried.

He polished off the remaining hors d’oeuvre and threw the plate in the trash. Or, given his job, before his father might have to make arrangements for him. He preferred to be burned rather than buried and wanted his ashes dumped rather than kept in a columbarium or on someone’s mantel. During the course of his life, he’d been shot at numerous times, he’d chased stories and been chased, and he didn’t have any illusions about his own mortality.

With that happy reflection, he ordered a scotch on the rocks at the open bar, then made his way to his father. When he’d packed for his impromptu trip to Boise, he’d thrown jeans, a couple pairs of cargo pants, and a week’s worth of T-shirts into the suitcase. It hadn’t occurred to him to pack anything to wear to a party. Earlier that afternoon, his father had brought him a blue and white striped dress shirt and a plain red tie. He’d left the tie sitting on the dresser, but he’d been grateful for the loan of the shirt, whose tails he’d tucked into his newest Levi’s. Every now and again he caught the scent of the old man’s laundry soap and realized it was coming from him-a little disconcerting after all these years, but comfortable.

At Sebastian’s approach, his father made a place for him. “Are you having a good time?” Leo asked.

Good time? No. Good time meant something entirely different in Sebastian’s personal lexicon, and he hadn’t had that kind of good time in months. “Sure. The food is good.” He raised his drink to his mouth. “But pass on the cheese ball with the chunks in it,” he advised from behind his glass.

Leo smiled and asked just above a whisper, “What are the chunks?”

“Nuts.” Sebastian took a drink and his gaze slid to Clare, standing a few feet from his father, chatting it up with a man in green and blue plaid who looked to be in his late twenties. “And some sort of fruit.”

“Ah, Joyce’s ambrosia cheese ball. She makes it every Christmas. Horrible stuff.” The corner of Leo’s smile quivered. “Don’t tell her. She thinks everyone loves it.”

Sebastian chuckled and lowered his glass.

“Excuse me while I go grab some of the Camembert before it’s all gone,” his father said, and made a beeline for the buffet table.

Sebastian watched his father walk away, his gait a little slower than it had been earlier. It was getting close to his bedtime.

“I bet Leo is just thrilled to death to finally have you here,” said Lorna Devers, the neighbor from across the hedgerow.

Sebastian pulled his gaze from his father and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know if he’s thrilled or not.”

“Of course he is.” Mrs. Devers was in her fifties, although it was hard to tell which end of fifty, given that her face was frozen from Botox. Not that Sebastian had a real opinion one way or the other about plastic surgery. He just thought it shouldn’t be so obvious to the casual observer exactly where a person had gotten herself nipped, tucked, sucked, or injected. Case in point, Lorna’s Pamela-Anderson-sized breasts. Not that he had anything against big, or even fake. Just not that big and that fake on a woman that age.

“I’ve known your father for twen-a few years,” she said, then proceeded to talk about herself and her poodles, Missy and Poppet. As far as Sebastian was concerned, that was strike three and four. He had nothing against poodles, although he couldn’t see himself owning one, but Missy and Poppet? Lord, just the sound of those two names siphoned off a few ounces of testosterone. If he listened much longer, he was afraid he’d grow a vagina. To preserve his sanity and his manhood, Sebastian eavesdropped on the different conversations taking place around him while Lorna rambled on.

“I’ll have to buy one of your books,” the guy next to Clare said. “I might learn a thing or two.” He laughed at his own joke, but didn’t seem to notice that he was the only one laughing.

“Rich, you always say that,” Clare managed as smooth as butter. Light from the torches flickered and seeped through the soft strands of her dark curls, touching the corners of her phony-as-hell smile.

“I’m going to do it this time. I hear they’re real sexy. If you need research, give me a call.”

Somehow, when Rich said it, it sounded sleazy. Not like when Sebastian said it. Or…perhaps it sounded just as sleazy and he didn’t want to think he was as ignorant as Rich.

The corners of Clare’s fake smile went higher, but she didn’t answer.

Standing directly across from Sebastian, Joyce conversed with several women who looked to be about her age. He seriously doubted they were friends of his father’s. They looked too rich and too old-guard Junior League.

“Betty McLeod told me Clare writes romance novels,” one of them said. “I love trashy books. The trashier the better.”

Instead of defending Clare, Joyce asserted in a voice that brooked no disagreement, “No. Claresta writes women’s fiction.” Within the wavering light, Sebastian watched Clare’s phony smile fade. Her gaze narrowed as she excused herself from Rich and moved across the lawn to disappear behind pots of tall grasses and cattails.

“Excuse me, Lorna,” he said, interrupting the woman’s fascinating tales of Missy and Poppet’s love of car rides.

“Don’t stay away so long next time,” she called after him.

He followed Clare and found her looking through a stack of CDs next to the sound system. The light from the torches barely leached through the grasses as she read the titles by the blue LCD light.

“What are you putting on next?” he asked.

“AC/DC.” She glanced up, then returned her gaze to the CD in her hand. “Mother hates ‘racket.’”

Sebastian chuckled and moved behind her. “Shoot To Thrill” would probably spike Joyce’s blood pressure and give her heart failure. While that might be amusing, it would ruin Leo’s party. He looked over Clare’s shoulder at the stack of music. “I haven’t hard Dusty Springfield in years. Why don’t you play that?”

“Fine, party pooper,” Clare said, and picked up Dusty’s CD. “How’d Leo like the fishing pole?”

He’d rather be whipped than admit he hadn’t given it to him yet. “He loved it. Thanks for the wrapping job.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and Sebastian could hear the laughter in her voice as she popped a CD into the stereo. “You two will have to break it in while you’re here.”

“That’ll have to wait. I’m leaving in the morning. Got to get back to work.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.” After he finished the piece on the black fever outbreak in Rajwara, he was headed to the Arizona border with Mexico to do a follow-up piece on illegals entering the country. After that he was off to New Orleans to write an update on conditions and progress in the Big Easy. At some point he still had to deal with his mother’s estate, but he figured that could wait. There was no rush.

“I noticed Leo’s new Lincoln in the driveway. I guess the old one must have turned fifty.”

“It did. He bought the new Town Car today at a dealership in Nampa,” he said as the delicate scent of her perfume surrounded his head and he felt an urge to lower his face to the side of her neck. “You know a lot about my father.”

“Of course.” She shrugged and one thin strap slid down her arm. “I’ve known him most of my life.” She pushed Play and Dusty Springfield’s lush, soulful voice flowed like a sexy whisper from the speakers. She shook her head and her hair brushed her bare shoulders. Sebastian felt a second, stronger urge to raise his hand and reach for a curl resting against her skin. To feel the texture with his fingers. He took a few steps back, retreating deeper into the darkness. Away from the scent of her neck and the inexplicable compulsion to touch her hair.

“For as long as I can recall, he’s lived in my mother’s backyard,” she continued while Dusty sang about getting a little lovin’ in the morning. She turned and looked up at him through the variegated shadow. “In a lot of ways, I know him better than my own father. I’ve certainly spent more time with him.”

He supposed his insides were getting all tied up in hot knots over Clare because he hadn’t been laid in months. That had to be the reason. With his mother’s funeral and everything else going on, he’d put off his sex life. As soon as he got home, he was going to have to do something about that. “But he’s not your father.”

“Yes. I know.”

A man just shouldn’t put off something like sex. Especially when he wasn’t used to going without. He raised his glass to his lips and polished off his scotch. “As a kid, I used to wonder.”

“If I knew Leo wasn’t my father?” She laughed, a breathy little sound of amusement, and took a step toward him. “Yeah. I knew. The term ‘serial cheater’ was invented for my father. Every time I visited him, he had a new woman. Still does, and he’s seventy.” A shaft of light cut across the darkness and lit up Clare’s cleavage but left her face in inky shadow.

The memory of her naked except for a tiny pink thong flashed in his head and got all mixed and confused with the woman standing in front of him. Desire crawled down his belly and tightened his groin. He pulled his gaze from her cleavage and looked behind him. The very last thing he needed to complicate his life was Clare Wingate.

“He still thinks he’s quite the lady’s man,” she said through a breathy laugh.

He turned and moved a few feet toward a wrought-iron bench sitting beneath a pruned dogwood tree. If it hadn’t been painted white, it would have been undetectable in the darkness. “I don’t even know if my father has a girlfriend or a special woman in his life.” He sat and leaned back against the cool metal.

“He’s had a few. Not many.” Dusty’s soulful voice drifted on the warm night breeze.

“I always wondered if there was anything going on between your mother and my dad.”

Again she gave a breathy little laugh. “Nothing romantic.”

“Because he’s the gardener?”

“Because she’s frigid.”

That he could believe. One more thing mother and daughter did not have in common.

“Aren’t you going to rejoin the party?” she asked.

“Not yet. If I have to listen to Lorna Devers for one more second, I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set myself on fire.” Mrs. Devers was only one reason he didn’t plan to rejoin that party for a while. The other reason wore a blue and white dress and was stalking him.

“Ouch.” Clare laughed and moved in front of him.

“Believe me, it’ll be less painful than listening to her silly stories about Missy and Poppet.”

“I don’t know who is worse, Lorna or Rich.”

“Her son is an idiot.”

“Rich isn’t her son.” She sat beside him on the bench, and Sebastian gave up, resigned himself to his tormented fate. “He’s her fifth husband.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.” She sat back and the night almost swallowed her. “If I hear my mother tell one more person that I write women’s fiction, I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set her on fire.”

“What’s wrong with her saying you write women’s fiction?” Moonlight filtered through the dogwood and cut across her nose and mouth. Her fantasy of a mouth that made him wonder if she tasted as good as she looked.

“It’s the reason why she says it. I embarrass her.” The corners of her lips rose in a smile. “Who else should we throw on the pyre? Besides Lorna and my mother?”

He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. He set his glass on the ground and looked through the darkness before him. He could just see the outline of his father’s house and the porch light above the red door. “Everyone who has taken the time to point out to me that my relationship with my father sucks.”

“Your relationship with Leo does suck. You should try to work on it. He’s not getting any younger.”

He glanced at the hypocrite across the iron bench. “Hello, pot? This is the kettle calling.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That before you start giving me advice, you should take a good hard look at your relationship with your mother.”

Clare folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked across at the man beside her, the white stripes of his shirt the most visible thing about him. “My mother is an impossible woman.”

“Impossible? If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few days, it’s that there is always a way to compromise.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She’d given up on compromise years ago. “There is no use trying. I can’t please her. I’ve tried my whole life, and my whole life I’ve disappointed her. I quit the Junior League because I didn’t have the time, and I don’t belong to any other charitable organization anymore. I’m thirty-three, single, and haven’t produced a grandchild. To her, I’m wasting my life away. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever done that she approved of was my engagement to Lonny.”

“Ah, so that’s the reason.”

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out why a woman would choose to live with a gay man.”

She shrugged and the other strap of her dress slid down her arm. “He lied to me.”

“Maybe you wanted to believe the lie to please your mother.”

She thought a moment. It still wasn’t the ah-ha epiphany she’d been waiting for, but there was some truth in it. “Yeah, maybe.” She pushed both straps back up. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him and that it hurts less because he wasn’t unfaithful with a woman.” She felt an appalling sting in the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t had a good soul-cleansing cry all week, and she certainly couldn’t allow it to happen now. “It doesn’t mean that all the hopes I had for a future suddenly go away and I feel relieved, and I think, ‘Wow, dodged that bullet.’ Maybe I should, but-” Her voice broke and she rose to her feet as if someone had yanked her up.

Clare walked farther from the party and stopped beneath an old oak. She placed her hand on the rough, uneven bark and stared out through rapidly blurring eyes at the outline of wild growth beyond. Had it only been a week? It seemed longer, and yet…it also seemed like yesterday. She rubbed beneath her eyes and wiped away her tears. She was in public. She didn’t cry in public.

Why was the crying jag hitting her now? Here, of all places? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps because she’d kept herself busy. Worrying about the HIV test and planning Leo’s party had taken a lot of mental and physical energy. Now that she didn’t have those worries blocking her emotions, she was having a breakdown.

And it was damn inconvenient.

She felt Sebastian move up behind her. Not touching, but so close she could feel the heat of his body.

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“If you don’t mind, I just want to be alone.”

Of course, he didn’t leave. Instead he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Clare.”

“Okay.” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “I’m fine now. You can rejoin the party. Leo’s probably worried about where you are.”

“You’re not fine, and Leo knows I’m a big boy.” He slid his hands down her bare arms to her elbows. “Don’t cry over someone who isn’t worth it.”

She looked down at her feet, her pedicured toes barely visible in the dark. “I know you think because I don’t have the right equipment that I shouldn’t take it so hard, but you don’t understand that I loved Lonny. I thought he was the person I’d spend the rest of my life with. We had a lot in common.” A tear rolled down her cheek and fell on her chest.

“Not sex.”

“Yeah, except for that, but sex isn’t everything. He was very supportive of my career and we took care of each other in every way that really matters.”

His warm, rough palms slid up her arms to her shoulders. “Sex matters, Clare.”

“I know, but it’s not the most important thing in a relationship.” Sebastian made a scoffing sound, but she ignored it. “We were planning to go to Rome on our honeymoon so I could research a book, but that’s all gone now. And I feel foolish and…empty.” Her voice broke and she raised a hand and wiped at her eyes. “How do you love someone one day and not the next? I wish I kn-knew.”

Sebastian turned her and placed his hands on the sides of her face. “Don’t cry,” he said, and brushed her wet cheeks with his thumbs.

The distant sound of crickets chirping mixed and mingled with “Son of a Preacher Man” softly pouring from the stereo. Clare looked up at Sebastian’s smeared dark outline. “I’ll be okay in a minute,” she lied.

He lowered his face, and the light touch of his lips stopped the air in her lungs. “Shh,” he whispered at the corner of her mouth. His hands slid toward the back of her head and his fingers plowed through her hair. He placed soft kisses on her cheek, her temple, and her brow. “Don’t cry anymore, Clare.”

She doubted she could if she wanted to. While Dusty sang about the only boy who could ever teach her, shock clogged everything in the center of Clare’s chest and she could hardly breathe.

He kissed her nose, then said just above her mouth, “You need something else to think about.” He gently pulled her head backward and her lips parted slightly. “Like how it feels to be held by a man who can get it up for a woman.”

Clare placed her hands his chest and felt the solid muscles beneath the thin dress shirt. This could not be happening. Not with Sebastian. “No,” she assured him a little desperately. “I remember.”

“I think you’ve forgotten.” His lips pressed into hers, then eased back a fraction. “You need a little reminding by a man who knows how to use his pickle fork.”

“I wish you’d forget I said that,” she managed past the constriction in her chest.

“Never. Although I can’t imagine anything the size of a pickle fork being much use to anyone.”

She gasped as his mouth opened over hers and his tongue swept inside. He tasted like scotch and something else. Something she hadn’t tasted in a very long time. Sexual desire. Hot and intoxicating, focused directly at her. She should have been alarmed, and she was a little. But mostly she liked the taste in her mouth. Like something luscious and rich she hadn’t had in a while, and it poured all through her, warming the pit of her stomach and the empty places inside.

Everything around her receded away like a low tide. The party. The crickets. Dusty. Thoughts of Lonny.

Sebastian was right. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a man make love to her mouth. She couldn’t recall it being so good. Or perhaps it was that Sebastian was so good at it. Her palms slid to his shoulders and the side of his neck as his slick tongue teased and coaxed until she gave in and kissed him back, returning the passion and possession he fed her.

Her toes curled in her Kate Spade sandals and she ran her fingers through the short hair brushing the collar of his shirt. His mouth never left hers, yet she felt the kiss everywhere. His wet mouth on hers turned every cell in her body needy and greedy and wanting more.

She rose to the balls of her feet and pressed into him. He groaned into her mouth, a deep sound of lust and yearning that fanned her ego, flamed the feminine fire deep inside that she’d allowed to die to a small ember. She turned her head to the side and her mouth clung to his.

His hands slid to her waist and his thumbs fanned her stomach through the thin cotton of her dress. His fingers pressed into her and he held her against his lower belly, where he was hard and swollen. He wanted her; she’d forgotten how truly good that felt. She kissed him like she wanted to eat him up, and she did. Every last bite. At that moment, she didn’t care who he was, only how he made her feel. Wanted and desired.

He pulled back and gasped for breath. “Jesus, stop!”

“Why?” she asked, and kissed the side of his throat.

“Because,” he answered, his voice sounding both rough and tortured, “we’re both old enough to know where this will lead.”

She smiled against his neck. “Where?”

“To a quicky in the weeds.”

Clare wasn’t that far gone. She dropped to her heels and retreated a few steps, leaned her back against the tree and took several mind-clearing breaths. She watched Sebastian comb his fingers though his hair and tried to make sense of what had happened. She’d just kissed Sebastian Vaughan, and as crazy as that sounded inside her head, she wasn’t sorry. “You’ve been practicing since you were nine,” she said, still a little dazed by it all.

“That shouldn’t have happened. Sorry, but I’ve been thinking about it since the night you stripped in front of me. I remember exactly what you look like naked, and things got out of control and-” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t started crying.”

Her brows lowered as she stared into the darkened shadows and raised her fingers to her lips, still moist from his kiss. She wished he hadn’t apologized. She knew she should probably be mad or appalled or offended by the way they’d both behaved, but she wasn’t. At the moment, she didn’t feel offended, appalled, or even sorry. She just felt alive. “You’re blaming me? I’m not the one who grabbed and assaulted your mouth.”

“Assaulted? I didn’t assault you.” He pointed at her. “I can’t stand to see a woman cry. I know it sounds clichéd, but it’s true. I would have done just about anything to get you to stop.”

She was sure she’d be sorry later, though. Like when she had to see him in the light of day. “You could have walked away.”

“And you’d still be bawling your eyes out like you were the night at the Double Tree.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Once again, I did you a favor.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Not at all. You stopped crying, didn’t you?”

“Is this your ulterior motive crap again? You kissed me to help me out?”

“It’s not crap.”

“Wow, how noble of you.” She laughed. “I suppose you got turned on because…why?”

“Clare,” he said through a sigh, “you’re an attractive woman and I’m a man. Of course you turn me on. I don’t have to stand here and try to imagine what you look like naked, I know you’re beautiful all over. So of course I felt something. If I hadn’t felt some measure of desire, I’d be damn worried about myself.”

She didn’t bother pointing out that his desire measured about eight hard inches. She wished she could conjure up some righteous indignation or anger, but she couldn’t. To do that meant she’d have to be sorry. Right now, she wasn’t. With one kiss he’d given her back something she hadn’t even known she’d let slip away. Her power to make a man want her with nothing more than a kiss.

“You should thank me,” he said.

Right. She probably should thank him, but not for the reason he thought. “And you should go right ahead and kiss my butt.” Lord, she sounded like she was ten again, but she didn’t feel like it. Thanks to the man in front of her.

He chuckled, low and deep in his chest.

“In case you’re confused, Sebastian, that wasn’t an invitation.”

“It sure sounded like an invitation,” he said. He took a few steps back and added, “The next time I’m in town, I just might take you up on it.”

“I don’t know. Will I have to thank you?”

“No. You won’t have to, but you will.” Then, without another word, he turned and walked away, not in the direction of the party but toward the carriage house.

She’d known Sebastian all of her life. Some things hadn’t changed. Like his attempts to talk around her and make her think day was night, to feed her lines of bull, and on occasion make her feel wonderful. Like the time he’d told her that her eyes were the color of the irises growing in her mother’s garden. She couldn’t remember her age, but she did remember that she’d lived on the compliment for days.

Clare felt the sharp edges of the tree against her back as she watched Sebastian step onto the porch of the carriage house. The light above his head turned his hair gold and the white of his shirt almost neon. He opened the red door and disappeared inside.

She once again raised her fingers to lips made sensitive by his kiss. She’d known him most of her life, but one thing was for certain, Sebastian was no longer a boy. He was definitely a man. A man who made women like Lorna Devers eye him like a piece of smooth, mouth-watering decadence. Like something she wanted to sink her teeth into just once.

Clare knew the feeling.