The Trouble With Valentine's Day

Seventeen

Nine hundred and ninety-seven to go.

Kate lay in a tangle of sheets and legs, Rob's moist mouth in the small of her back and his hands on her behind.

"Your tattoo turns me on."

A lot of things turned him on. Her walking in his front door had had him jumping on her like a duck on a bug. At least they'd made it to his bed this time.

She turned, and his mouth found her navel. Her stomach growled, although at the moment she wasn't sure if she was more hungry for him or for food.

He rose and sat back on his heels. "Want something to eat?"

Golden sunlight from the window spread across Rob's bed, filtering through dark, fine hair covering the thick definition of his chest muscles and flat ridges of his stomach. A dark, happy trail circled his navel, leading straight down his lower belly to his pubic hair and his erection. A long, angry scar ran from his sternum to his navel, marring the perfection of his body.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Ham sandwiches." He got up from the bed and moved to his dresser. He pulled on a pair of gym shorts and tossed her a big T-shirt with a hockey logo on the front. As they made their way to the kitchen they stepped over her panties and his briefs in the middle of the bedroom, her bra and his shirt on the stairs, and her dress by the front door.

The kitchen light shone off the pots and pans and the stainless steel appliances. Rob opened the refrigerator and looked inside. "Did your grandfather mention that he asked my mother to marry him?"

"Yes." Her gaze took in the gold scales etched in black on his shoulder and down the left side of his smooth back. The tattoo dipped beneath the waistband of his shorts and appeared again wrapping around his right thigh. Earlier, she'd run her fingertips across the tattoo. Rob had shivered and the snake had seemed to come alive and move across his skin. Two small scars marked his back about a hand's width apart. "My grandfather told me when he got home last night. When did you hear the news?"

"This morning." He set a jar of mayonnaise, a head of lettuce, a package of ham, and two wheat beers on the work island. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about earlier when you brought over the granola bars." He moved to the pantry and grabbed a loaf of bread. "But I got sidetracked. Remember?"

Yes, she remembered. "What do you think of their plans?" Kate asked and grabbed a bottle opener that was stuck on the refrigerator. She popped the tops and handed him a bottle.

"I told her she didn't have to get married just because she slept with Stanley." He raised the beer. "And she reminded me that the most serious problems in my life were caused by sex outside of marriage." He took a long drink, then sucked a drop from the corner of his lips. "I think if I'd been nine, she would have smacked me."

Kate laughed. "I said about the same thing to my grandfather, and his reaction was pretty much like your mother's. He actually used the word fornication as if it was a bad thing."

Rob's laughter joined Kate's, and he set down the bottle and took eight slices of bread from the bag. As Rob spread mayonnaise on the bread, Kate tore lettuce and watched him out of the corners of her eyes. She liked the way his tattoo moved when he flexed his arms. In fact, there was a lot to like about him. His broad, hairy chest and flat abs were high on her list.

"If Stanley makes her happy, then I'm happy. It'll be a little weird at first." Rob piled ham on the bread, then cut the sandwiches with the knife. "Will this make me your uncle or your cousin?"

She hadn't thought of that. "Let's just say neither."

He put the sandwiches on a plate and looked down into her face. "You know what they say?"

She gazed up past his mustache and nose and into his eyes. "What?"

"Incest is best." He lightly took her chin between his fingers and kissed her mouth. "Of course, I don't know that firsthand."

"I'm glad you cleared that up."

Together they moved to the dining room to sit at the long, formal table. In between bites of sandwich and potato chips, he told her it was the first time he'd eaten in the room. He talked about his daughter and the plans he had for them when she was old enough to visit during the summer months.

"Why do you live in Gospel?" she asked as she pushed her plate aside after one sandwich.

"My mother lives here."

"But your daughter lives in Seattle. It sounds like you miss her."

"I miss her a lot." He took a bite, then washed it down with beer. "At first I moved here to recuperate because my mom's a nurse. She helped me with my physical therapy, but mostly I couldn't stand to live in Seattle and not play hockey. It reminds me of everything I used to have and everything I lost." He placed the bottle on the table, and his green eyes stared into hers. "I used to think I moved here because my mother's here. The truth is I came here because I needed a change." He reached for a chip and munched on it. "I ended up staying because I like it here." He washed the chip down with his beer. "Don't you want another sandwich?"

"One's my limit."

"Now it's my turn to ask you a question."

She took a drink from her beer, then set it back down. "What?"

"Why do you live in Gospel?"

"My grandfather needs me," was the easy answer.

He scratched the scar running down his bare chest and leaned his chair back on two legs. "Not buying it. Your grandmother's been dead for more than two years."

She looked over at him, her relaxed, sexy fantasy man. What did it matter what she told him? It wasn't as if she should hold back for fear of killing the relationship. She pushed her hair behind her ears and told him about Randy Meyers. How she'd found his family for him and what he'd done with the information she'd given him. She told him how Randy had looked and seemed so normal.

"You can't always tell a crazy person by looking," she said.

Rob nodded. "Stephanie Andrews didn't look crazy until she shot me. The scariest thing about crazy people is that they can look so normal."

He was right.

"Did you see Kathy Bates in Misery?" he asked as the legs of his chair hit the floor. "She was scary as hell." He reached for another sandwich and took a bite.

"Yes she was, Mr. Man."

He laughed and swallowed. "So you quit your job and moved to Gospel because a psycho nut killed his family?"

That was one reason. "I quit because I could no longer tell myself that the people I tracked down were lowlifes and deserved to be found and that I was somehow better."

"You came here for a change just like me," he said as if it was fact.

"Maybe."

"Do you think you'll ever go back?"

"To detective work?" She shook her head.

"To Vegas?"

She thought a moment. Vegas had chewed her to pieces and spit her out, but sometimes she really missed the bright lights of the big city that truly never slept. "Maybe. I've spent a lot of my life there. That's where I graduated my last year of high school, and I went to ULV. That's where I used to party like a rock star and later got my PI license. It always felt like home to me. Maybe it will again."

Rob polished off his sandwich and hers, then he took her back upstairs. They had sex against the granite wall of his shower, taking care of fantasy number nine hundred and ninety-six. Afterward, he dried her off and they watched the ten o'clock news. He fell into an exhausted sleep during the weather report.

Kate removed his arm from her waist and gathered her shoes and underwear. She looked at him one last time, asleep within the tangle of sheets and the sliver of moonlight pouring across the bed. She walked downstairs and pulled her dress over her head. She stepped into her shoes and shoved her panties and bra into her little black bag.

Then she left, quietly shutting the door behind her, because that's what you did with a fantasy man. You left before you did something stupid like spend the night. Before you could fool yourself into thinking that what you had was real.

Rob walked into the M &S the next morning, and his gaze instantly sought Kate. She stood behind the counter ringing up items from a blue plastic basket for Regina Cladis. She looked good. Good like something he wanted to toss over his shoulder and carry home. The older woman said something and Kate laughed, a warm, amused sound that seeped between his rib bones and lodged in his chest.

"Morning, Rob," Stanley called out to him from his position at the coffee machine.

"Hello, Stanley."

"Hey, Rob," Dillon Taber said from behind his coffee mug.

"Hey, Sheriff. How's it goin'?" Rob asked as he walked through the store to the counter.

"Can't complain."

Kate looked up at him. The corners of her mouth curved just a little, as if she was trying very hard not to smile. She wore a white shirt that closed with laces across her breasts and had some sort of black thing beneath it. The shirt wasn't real tight, and it didn't show off anything fun, but it still managed to be sexy as all hell.

"You should try the jalapeno jelly," he told Regina as he moved behind her in line. "It's really good."

"That's what Kate says." Regina turned and squinted at him through her thick glasses. "But I'm going to pass."

"Okay, but yesterday I saw Iona fighting with Ada over ajar."

Her magnified eyes narrowed. "Why would they fight over the same jar?"

He hadn't thought of that. "Who knows what drives some women to drop their gloves."

"Huh?"

"Here's your change, Regina," Kate said through a smile that she could no longer contain.

As soon as the older woman grabbed her bag and walked away, Rob took her place at the counter. "We need to talk about somethin', babe."

Her smile flattened. "You're calling me babe again."

"I know." He placed his hands on the counter and leaned closer. "Do you want to talk here, or somewhere more private?"

She glanced around the store, then her brown eyes met his. "My grandfather's office."

"Lead the way;" He moved behind the counter, and his gaze slid down the back of her white shirt to the waistband of her black pants. He'd finally seen her tattoo. It was blue and gold and covered one cheek on her nice, smooth butt. He liked it. He liked all of Kate. Except for one thing.

"Why did you leave last night without telling me?" he asked as soon as they were alone.

She leaned back against the closed door, her dark red hair falling to her shoulders. "You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you."

"Why the hell did you leave at all?" When he'd woken and found her gone, he'd been angry, and not just because he'd wanted another shower with her.

"I couldn't stay. Not after the lecture I got about fornication from my grandfather."

In the past, he'd used women and they'd used him. He didn't want that with Kate. He'd had a bad marriage. He didn't want that either. He wanted something in between. Something he'd never had before. A woman in his life that he actually liked out of bed. He took a step toward her and combed his fingers through the side of her hair as he looked down into her eyes. Eyes that had just the night before gazed back at him, shimmering with the same aching desire he'd felt for her. "If you won't stay the night, at least tell me you're leaving. Even if I'm asleep. That way I won't wander around looking for you, thinking maybe you got lost in my house."

She bit her bottom lip. "You did that?"

"Well… yeah." Maybe he shouldn't have admitted that. Before he could confess anything else potentially embarrassing, he kissed her. He meant to give her a quick peck, but he stayed a fraction too long, and the want and need that had not been sated the night before settled low in the belly and twisted into a hard knot. Her lips parted and her tongue touched his, slick and warm and tasting of cocoa and whipped cream and Kate.

When he came up for air, his hands were beneath her shirt on her breasts. Her nipples were hard against his palms and her fingers were wrapped around his wrists. Through the door, he heard Stanley moving around in the storage room.

"Rob, we can't do this here," she said in a shaky voice just above a whisper.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. This is my grandfather's office. He's right outside the door."

She was right. This time. "Sorry," he said as he slid his hands to her waist. "I got sidetracked again."

She licked her lips, moist from his kiss. "That seems to happen to you quite often."

Only with her. She made it hard to breathe. Made him lose his mind. Maybe because he felt safe and comfortable with her enough to lose his mind. Knowing that he made her lose her mind as well was a huge turn-on. He squeezed her waist and forced his hands from her. "Come over tonight."

Her eyes were a little dazed, and she blinked a few times as if she were trying to clear her head.

"We'll have dinner," he added. "Shoot pool. Six-thirty?"

She nodded and tucked her shirt back into her pants.

"If you don't show up," he warned for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, "I'll come looking for you."

"I'll be there." She took a deep breath and opened the door. "I'm going to kick your butt at pool."

"Right," he scoffed, but a few hours later, she'd won four out of six games. Probably because he got distracted by the way she looked leaning over his pool table.

He grilled steaks, and they ate in his dining room again. Then he took her to bed, where he scored big.

Over the next week, they knocked out a few more fantasies, including a quicky in the alley behind Rocky's and-Rob's personal favorite-a hummer in the HUMMER.

She brought over a picnic basket, and they ate in bed while watching the Chinook's Avalanche game on the big-screen television in his bedroom.

She knelt in the center of his blue plaid quilt wearing a T-shirt from his old Red Wings days. It covered her from shoulders to her upper thighs, and he wondered why she bothered with the shirt at all. He'd just spent a pleasant hour getting up close and personal with the parts she covered.

"Ouch." She winced as the camera zoomed in for a close-up of Chinook goalie Luc Martineau thumping Teemu Selanne in the back with his stick. When that didn't seem to faze the Fin, Luc hooked his skates and took him down.

"Yeah," Rob said through a laugh.

She spread Brie on a slice of baguette and handed it to him. "That wasn't very nice." She picked green grapes from the stem and handed those over too. "That number sixty-eight is kinda cute?"

"Selanne?" He popped a grape in his mouth and frowned. Cute? Something that felt a little like jealousy jabbed his chest. Only he didn't think it was jealousy because he wasn't a jealous guy. "Selanne hits like a girl, and his accent is so thick, you wouldn't be able to understand him."

"Who cares about talking," she said and glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his bare chest. "No more staring at Selanne."

She rose above him and straddled his hips. "Too bad I never saw any hockey games when you played."

"I have a lot of old game tapes." He slid his hands up under the T-shirt to her waist. "Maybe someday I'll show them to you." But not today. The tapes were packed up in a box, where they'd been since he'd been forced to resign. He had more important things to do today.

And the next day, too. For the first time in his life, Rob began inventing reasons to see a woman. He checked up on her in the morning while she baked bread, and he convinced her that she needed to drive out several nights a week to help him perfect his granola. He told her that he had to find just the right balance so it didn't taste like cardboard and vitamins. He said he wanted to hire someone to make it for him so he could sell it to campers and backpackers in his store. He knew that would appeal to her entrepreneurial spirit.

It was pretty much a lie and he wasn't the least bit sorry.

On the first Sunday in May, he picked her up at six in the morning and they headed to a little spot he knew on the Big Wood River where the trout couldn't resist a chamois nymph this time of year.

"These are not cute," Kate said as she stepped into the neoprene waders he'd given her. Rob helped her pull the straps over the shoulders of her sweatshirt and put on the fishing vest he'd rigged for her. She shoved a ski cap he'd given her over her hair, and she watched him tie a creamy beige fly to the end of her leader.

"We're using that for bait?" she asked as she leaned in for a closer look.

"No, babe. This is a lure. Not bait." And just as she was about to remind him not to call her babe, he dropped a kiss on her mouth, then waded into the river. She followed close behind him, hanging on to the back of his vest as he tested the slick rocks before committing his weight. The icy current pushed at the backs of their knees as he showed her how to hold her rod. He stood behind her, his arms along side hers as he taught her the basic cast just like his father had taught him.

"Keep the tip between one and eleven o'clock," he told her, and when she'd mastered the basic cast, he showed her how to add line. "Now we'll strip about twelve feet." He pulled the line from the reel to float on the current in front of them. He showed her how much line to let out at each back and forward cast. "The idea is to have the fly barely touch the water before bringing it back up."

Her nymph got hooked in the thickets behind them, and rather then waste time retrieving it, Rob reached into his vest, pulled out his scissors, and snipped the line.

"Sorry I lost your fly," she said as he plucked another from his vest.

"Don't be sorry. I lose them all the time. It's part of the sport, and I've got thousands." He took his place behind her once more and slid his hand around her waist as she stripped line and started casting. "No, you're snapping your wrist. Smooth strokes." He lowered his mouth to her ear. "You know about smooth strokes, don't ya, babe?"

"You're not going to distract me," she said as she worked, keeping the tip of the pole between one and eleven. "And don't call me babe."

"Why not?"

"Because you've probably had a lot of 'babes' in your life."

He thought a moment. "No. Only you."

The third Sunday they went fishing together, she caught her first fish. An eleven-inch rainbow that took off downstream and gave her a fight. The bright morning sun shot sparks off the water swirling about her long legs encased in dark green waders. Her laughter mixed with the rush and ripple of the river as she fought to land her trout.

While he removed the hook for her, he watched her admire the brilliant colors of the rainbow. She slid her fingers down its slick body. "It's beautiful, Rob."

Her bright eyes glanced up into his, and her cheeks were a shiny pink from the crisp morning air. He'd never known a woman like Kate. One who wore Tiffany bracelets and lace underwear while she stood in a freezing river fishing beside him.

She took the fish from his hands and carefully lowered it into the water. The fish flipped its tail and splashed her waders. Then it darted beneath the surface, and she rinsed her hands in the freezing water. She looked up at him with pure pleasure and said, "That was awesome." He felt a pinch in his chest. A confusing little compression near his right ventricle. It wasn't as if he'd never seen pleasure on her face. He'd seen it a lot because he put it there.

He stripped ten more feet of line, brought the tip of his pole up and cast his fly near the head of a pool. The nymph started to drag, so he rolled the rod tip upstream and mended the line.

He glanced at Kate out of the corners of his eyes as she checked the condition of her fly. No pinch or tug this time. Nothing to get confused about. He rolled his head and relaxed. There was nothing he had to try and figure out.

The next Sunday was Mother's Day and they didn't fish. He and Kate ate dinner with his mother and Stanley. Over mint-crusted lamb chops and red potatoes, they listened to the wedding plans. The date was set for the second Saturday in June. Stanley and Grace were getting married in the park by the lake, and both planned to read poems to each other. They asked Rob and Kate to stand up with them.

"Sure," Kate said as the corner of her lips twitched.

"How long are the poems?" Rob asked.

"Oh," his mother answered, "fifteen or twenty minutes."

He groaned inwardly and Kate cleared her throat behind her cloth napkin.

When the meal was over and everyone had pushed their plates away, Kate offered to help his mother clear the table.

"No, you stay out here and keep your grandfather company," Grace insisted. "Rob will help me."

Rob was leaving for Seattle in the morning, and he figured his mother wanted to talk in private about his trip.

"What's going on between you and Kate?" she asked instead.

"What?" He looked at her and set the plates in the sink. He hadn't seen that one coming, but he wasn't all that surprised.

"Don't play games." She placed a serving dish on the counter, then reached into a cabinet and pulled out a can of decaffeinated coffee. "I see the way you look at her."

"How do I look at her?"

"Like she's special to you."

He opened a drawer and took out several plastic bowls with lids. "I like her."

"You look at her like you more than like her."

He spooned red potatoes into a bowl and didn't comment.

"You weren't fooling me. I know you were playing footsies with her under the table."

Actually, his feet hadn't been that close to her, but his hand had been on her thigh most of the evening. Nothing sexual, just touching her. He shrugged. "So, I like her a lot."

"You're thirty-six." She filled the carafe with water then said, "In three weeks you'll be thirty-seven."

"And next year I'll be thirty-eight. What's your point?" he asked even though he knew.

"Just that Kate's a nice girl. Maybe someone you could get serious about." She paused, and he didn't have to wait long for the rest. "Maybe marry."

"Maybe not. I've done that, and I sucked at it."

"You got married because Louisa was pregnant."

"Doesn't mean that I didn't love her." He looked at his mother and asked, "Where's the pie?" Subject closed.

There was nothing that could mess up a good thing like talk of marriage. Thank God Kate wasn't pushing him in that direction. She never asked where he was going or when she would see him again. She didn't get jealous when he talked to other women or paranoid when he had to work late and couldn't see her. She didn't get all girly and want to talk about their "relationship."

As far as he was concerned, that made their relationship just about perfect.

Rob's trip to Seattle turned into the trip from hell. Since his last visit, Amelia had decided to take up permanent residency in terrible-twos town, and she regularly threw fits like she was possessed. The first hint that she'd turned to the dark side happened the day he took her to play with his former teammate's, little girl, Taylor Lee. They'd only been at Bruce Fish's about half an hour when Amelia strong-armed Henry the Octopus from Taylor Lee, then whacked her in the head with it.

The fit at Fishy's was tame in comparison to the spectacular fit she threw his last night in town when he took her to the Old Spaghetti Factory. She was perfectly fine during dinner-well, as fine as a two-year-old could be-but on the way out, he told her she couldn't have the Lifesavers she knew he had in his pocket. She threw herself on the ground and beat her heels on the floor, and all he could do was watch, for fear that if he picked her up, she'd nail him in the nuts with her little pink boots.

His sweet baby girl had turned into a demon child, and to top it off, Louisa had clearly lost her mind, too. Just as he was leaving for his return trip, she mentioned that she and Amelia should come and stay with him in Gospel. Not permanently, just on the weekends.

During the summer months, business kept him from seeing as much of Amelia as he'd have liked, and he wasn't opposed to seeing more of her. But he didn't want Louisa staying with him. If she brought the subject up again, he'd give her the names of local real estate agents.

By the time his plane landed in Boise around noon, he was exhausted and not looking forward to the long drive to Gospel. An hour from town, he called Kate on his cell phone. She arrived fifteen minutes after he got home, and seeing her standing on his porch was like looking at sunshine.

The second the door shut behind her, she pushed him up against the hard wood. A surprised oomph left his chest, and she grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head. The gold Rolex he'd been given when he'd signed with the Seattle Chinooks slammed into the door and dug into his skin. He didn't mind. "What are you planning?" he asked.

"An assault."

She kissed his neck, and the touch of her wet mouth sent shivers down his spine, working out the tension he'd felt for days. "Are you going to hurt me?"

"Yeah, but I don't think you'll complain."

He closed his eyes. "Does this mean you missed me?"

"No," she said, but her actions attested to the lie. "I was too busy to miss you." She let go of one of his wrists and slid her hand down his chest. "Mmm," she murmured as she softly sucked his throat. She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from the waistband of his pants. Then she cupped his crotch and gave him a gentle squeeze. "Does this mean you missed me?"

"God yes," he said through a tortured breath.

She laughed and kissed her way down his chest and scar. She knelt in front of him and pressed her face into his belly as she unbuttoned his pants. She looked up at him and took him into her hand. Then she kissed the head of his hard dick, and he spread his feet to keep from falling. She sucked him into her hot, wet mouth and she stayed with him through his climax.

When it was over, she pulled his underwear and pants back up. "I think I'm in love," he said, totally relaxed.

She reached for his fly and buttoned it. "No, you're not. That's just your afterglow talking."

She was probably right, but there was a little part of him that wished she wouldn't have dismissed what he'd said so quickly, as if he couldn't possibly mean it. He didn't know why it should bother him, but it did. He liked her a lot. Liked having her around. He loved how she made him feel. He loved having sex with her, but that wasn't love. Love didn't feel this relaxed. This good.

His life here in Gospel was turning out to be just about perfect. Why would he want to mess it up with love?