Flirting With Temptation (11 page)

“Oh, my,” Rose said, as the woman closed the gap between them and then practically crawled up his body, nipping his neck and smiling against his ear as she whispered something, then her hands slid up his back and into those curls at his nape.

Babette’s palms tingled, recalling the way those springy curls felt when she used to tunnel her own fingers through them.

The Jag lady kissed him, and it was no ordinary kiss. It was an I’m-going-to-give-you-anything-and-everything-you-want-and-then-some kind of kiss. Her body was moving and rubbing against him, and Babette suddenly grew very hot. Everywhere.

This was not good. She needed to stop staring. She needed to leave this cramped little hiding place between the palm trees and the building.

She needed to breathe.

As if knowing that Babette was watching and simply couldn’t take any more, the brunette pulled away, took Jeff’s hands and tugged him back inside the condo.

“Whew, alrighty then,” Rose said, exhaling loudly as she shook her head. “I’ve seen him put on many a show on that balcony, but I believe this one takes the cake.” She dropped one side of the shawl, gathered it up with the opposite hand and waved it in front of her face like a fan. “I’m not cold anymore.”

“As if anyone could be cold watching that,” Babette said.

Rose snorted. “Didn’t leave all that much to the imagination, did they?” Then she tilted her head, glanced back at the balcony and said, “Well, I guess they did. Or we’d have seen some skin.”

Unable to shake the image of the woman attacking Jeff like an animal in heat, Babette glared at the balcony. “I didn’t know he was dating someone,” she said aloud.

“Dating?” Rose actually cackled. “Honey, you haven’t been listening. It’s a different one every two or three days. That’s why I bought him that case of—”

Babette waved her hand in front of Rose’s mouth before she blurted out “condoms” for everyone sitting on their balconies to hear.

“I was going to say protection,” Rose huffed.

“Sure you were.”

Rose’s cheeks pinked, and she smiled guiltily. “You know me too well.”

“A different one every few days?” Babette asked. So Jeff had gone back to his old playboy ways after things ended with Kitty.

“Pretty much. I mean, sure, some of them could be repeats, since basically I just notice tall, short, blond, brunette, that kind of thing, but there’s so many different ones that I sure can’t keep them straight. Doubt he can.”

Babette nodded. If he wasn’t into just the brunette, then there was still a chance she could get him back with Kitty Carelle and keep Kitty’s money, which was the only positive thing about this situation that she could think of at the moment.

“But I’d be shocked if you couldn’t get him back,” Rose added. “He was his happiest with you. Never did understand why you split up.”

“Neither did I,” Babette said, more a whisper to herself than a response to Rose. Then before her little peeping tom could continue, she added, “But I’m not here to get him back for me. I do plan to make him regret ever letting me go, but that’s mainly to soothe my ego. The real reason I’m here is to get him back with the poodle.”

Chapter 7

G
ertrude Robinson should have slept late this morning. She’d been up until nearly midnight, when she finally got in touch with Babette and made sure she’d arrived in Florida okay. Deep down, Gert had known that she was fine; Babette was notorious for forgetting to turn on her cell phone, or forgetting to charge it, or something or other. The girl was definitely old enough to find her way to Florida.

Gert rolled over, glanced at the clock beside the bed. Five thirty-eight. She pushed the covers aside and sat up, knowing that she wasn’t going back to sleep and that she might as well start the coffee. What was it about getting old that made you automatically get up with the birds no matter what time you went to bed, and then feel like your day was nearly over by noon? She hated that, hitting the middle of the day and needing a nap, but since she’d barely gotten five hours of sleep, she knew a nap would be in order.

No problem. She wasn’t going to the golf course until tomorrow anyway, if she actually went. The jury was still out on whether she had enough nerve for that one, but she needed to, for Henry. And for herself.

She went to the bathroom, grabbed her robe from behind the door, and slipped it on. Then she paused a moment to look in the mirror. Her hair looked even whiter in the mornings, eyes a lighter shade of brown, though that could be because she wasn’t focusing all that well yet. She still had the morning squint that her mama had always called “sunshine eyes.” She tilted her head one way and then the other, examined the tiny slivers of wrinkles that bordered the corners of her eyes, as well as the thicker ones that spanned her forehead. When her hair was fixed, those were virtually unseen, and she liked them that way. But she had earned them, after all, and she wasn’t going to do anything cosmetically to have them changed. Those were her own version of an officer’s bars, each of the three on her forehead standing for milestones in her life. Her marriage. Her children. Her grandchildren. She expected a fourth one to show pretty soon; the great-grandkids were almost five now and due their own place of honor on Granny Gert’s face.

She slipped her feet into pink satin slippers that matched her robe, gifts from Babette and Clarise, and then took one more look in the mirror. Standing there in her nightgown and the pink satin robe, she didn’t look all that bad for wear. Henry had said she was always a teenager in his eyes. However, now that she was thinking about getting “out there” again, Gert wished she had someone giving her the same encouragement, that little smidgen of an ego boost to let her know that she could do this and do it well.

And more than that, she really needed to make certain that Henry was okay with her dating again. Even though he wasn’t here anymore, and even though he’d been gone for over a decade, she knew that he was still around, in his own way. He’d promised her he would be, and occasionally, she could almost feel him near, making her smile, cloaking her with love and approval. She wondered whether he’d approve of her finding Rowdy Slidell.

She made her way to the kitchen and found her favorite mug, one that little Ethan had bought her for Christmas last year.

“World’s Greatest Grandpa,” she said, reading the side of the mug and smiling the way she always did when she took it down each morning. Little Ethan had never even met Henry, and the darling thought that the picture on the side was an older woman, instead of a man. Gert had to admit, it could go either way. But Clarise hadn’t asked him to swap the gift that he picked for Gert, and she was glad that she hadn’t. In his own special way, little Ethan had given her a new morning ritual, a way to be reminded of Henry, and that he really was the “World’s Greatest.”

She kissed the picture on the side of the mug, poured her coffee, then sat at the kitchen table to think. Last night, she’d waited up to reach Babette partly to know she’d arrived safely, but also because she wanted to ask her if she’d started calling the list of Slidells in Tuscaloosa. Babette had printed all of the possible numbers before leaving and told Gert that she felt certain she could find Rowdy and provide her with his number and address.

Gertrude sipped the hot coffee and glanced toward the mantel, and the tall urn in the middle. If she got the number, would she call it? Should she? It’d been a long time since she’d even talked to a man in the way that a couple talks.

Babette had been flustered when Gertrude reached her and hadn’t even mentioned the phone numbers. Instead, she’d talked nonstop about the clothes she bought in Montgomery, and then about seeing Jeff but not talking to him, visiting Rose Nettles, one of her friends at the retirement condo, and she’d also mentioned something about hiding out behind a building and being afraid that she and Rose would get caught. Oh, and then she said something about a “brunette bimbo who’d cut her off.”

Gertrude laughed, then drank more coffee. There was never a dull moment in Babette’s over-eventful life, and there had been too much going on in her life yesterday for her to remember to call the Slidells in Tuscaloosa, which was just as well. Gertrude still wasn’t certain she wanted to reach Rowdy.

She stood and took her coffee with her as she padded in slipper-clad feet across the living area to the mantel. Taking another sip, she stared at the urn. It was gray, natural quarried granite, a symbol of strength and dignity, or that’s what the gentleman who’d sold it to her had said when Henry passed on. A cast bronze dome topped the granite, and an engraved plate with Henry’s name, birth date, and date of death centered the bottom.

Gert touched the urn, the coolness of the granite a mighty contrast to the warmth of the coffee cup in her other hand. “What do you think, Henry? It wouldn’t hurt for me to call Babette again this morning, would it? I have been so lonely, you know. I mean, no one would ever take your place, never, but it would be nice to share my life with someone again. If that’s okay with you,” she added, nodding as she mentally modified what she wanted her granddaughter to do. “I believe I’ll get her to find his phone number and address, but I won’t have her actually call him. I’ll just get it, in case I decide to get in touch with him again. And I won’t get in touch with him until you’ve given it your stamp of approval. So you’ve got to let me know, somehow. I know. It won’t happen here, will it? But I’ve got an idea that I think might work, a way you can tell me what’s what, and let me know what you want me to do.”

She bobbed her head slowly as she realized that she’d made her decision. She didn’t want to do anything to hurt her first love, even if he were no longer physically here. Glancing at the clock, she decided to give Babette a while longer before she called, in case she slept late.

Then she looked back toward the urn and wondered why she so often found the need to converse with it. Goodness knows Henry wasn’t going to give her any answers from there. The gray granite was exactly what the salesperson had said, strong and dignified. But, what Gertrude knew, and what she’d probably have to tell her family members eventually, was that the elaborate piece in the center of her mantel . . . was empty.

“Hello, can I speak to Rowdy Slidell please?” Babette asked, then nodded as yet another Slidell in Tuscaloosa told her that she had the wrong number. She’d been calling the numbers on the list ever since Granny Gert woke her up this morning and informed her that she didn’t want Babette to actually talk to Rowdy; she simply wanted her to get his information so Granny could decide whether or not to call him herself.

Babette had been working on the list sporadically throughout the day, between checking to see if Jeff had returned from work and answering phone calls from Clarise, Genie, and Kitty. Clarise had wanted to find out if she’d seen Jeff yet and make sure that her brother-in-law had been nice; Babette had told her that she hadn’t even spoken to him, so she had no idea whether he’d be nice or not.

Genie had simply wanted Babette’s opinion on the two Love Doctor clients that she was helping out in Birmingham. That conversation didn’t last long, since Genie hadn’t met the clients yet.

Kitty, on the other hand, was not so easy to get off the phone. In fact, she was another reason Babette had only managed to strike fifteen of the fifty-seven Slidells in Tuscaloosa from her list. Kitty had called all day long. Over and over. And each time, she asked the same things in rapid fire succession.

“Have you seen him? How did he look? How did he act? Did you mention me? Did you talk to him about getting back together? Well, if he isn’t there, where is he? Will you go to the store and find him, or will you wait for him to come back home? He usually goes to the Seaside store, you know, but sometimes he goes to the office at Panama City, and every now and then, he goes to the Fort Walton one. You could call the stores and ask which one he went to today. Is he seeing anyone? Do you know her name? What does she look like? Is she pretty?”

Babette had told her, repeatedly, that she hadn’t seen Jeff (a lie, but elderly espionage didn’t really count as far as what Kitty had in mind), that she didn’t know if he was seeing someone (she didn’t know that he was seeing
someone
; she knew that he was seeing several
someones
), and that she had no idea whether whoever he was seeing, if he was seeing someone, was pretty (although the girl climbing on top of him last night would fall into the striking category). Bottom line, Babette didn’t want to tell Kitty anything, because she didn’t really know anything. And more than that, she didn’t want to talk to Kitty. Yet. Eventually, it’d have to happen, because she promised regular updates when she worked on a client’s case. But she didn’t mean minute-by-minute, even if the client did pay triple for her services.

Just thinking about Jeff lip-locked with the brunette made Babette’s skin burn, and she knew good and well it wasn’t merely because his sexual gallivanting was going to make it harder for her to convince him to get back with Kitty. It was also because his sexual gallivanting was making her want to gallivant with him too. A lot. Kept her up practically the entire night with hot and heated dreams of Jeff against that balcony railing and a woman climbing all over him, except the woman in her dreams wasn’t the Jag lady. It was Babette. Naked.

She glanced at the clock and realized she’d been on the phone all afternoon. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening and she hadn’t even set foot on the beach all day. The closest she’d come was running down to one of the resort’s two restaurants and eating a club sandwich. She’d selected a table on the deck, and she’d enjoyed the atmosphere of the beach while she ate . . . and talked to Kitty. The woman simply hadn’t let up. Had she been that relentless with Jeff? And if she was, had he actually liked that?

Obviously he had. He asked her to marry him.

Babette scanned her notes beside each number on her list of Slidells. She’d tried them all. Some had answering machines, and she didn’t leave a message. Others didn’t have answering machines at all. And the ones where she actually reached a human on the other end didn’t have a clue who Rowdy Slidell was. She could call some more later, after people had a chance to get home from work. For now, she was going to make up for all of the beach time she’d missed by staying inside all day. She put the cell phone on the table. If anyone needed her, they could leave a message.