I’m In No Mood For Love (11 page)

He had to sell his mother’s house. Soon. Her best friend and business partner, Myrna, had moved all the beauty supplies out of the salon and
taken all the plants. She’d donated the canned and dry goods to the local food bank. All that was left for him was to figure out what to do with the rest of his mother’s things. Once he got that off his shoulders, his life would get back to normal.

He reached for the soap, lathered his hands and washed his face. He thought of his father and wondered what the old man was up to. Probably pruning roses, he supposed. And he thought of Clare. More specifically, of the night he’d kissed her. What he’d told Clare had been the truth. He would have done just about anything to get her to stop crying. A woman’s tears were just about the only thing in the world that made him feel helpless. And, he reasoned, kissing Clare had seemed like a better idea than hitting her or throwing a bug in her hair, like he had as a kid.

He lifted his face and rinsed away the soap. He had lied to her. When he apologized for kissing her, he hadn’t been all that sorry. In fact, he hadn’t been sorry in the least. One of the most difficult things he’d ever done was turn away and leave her standing in the shadows. One of the most difficult—but the wisest. Out of all the single women he knew, Clare Wingate was not available for kissing and touching and rolling around naked. Not for him.

But that didn’t stop him from thinking about her. About her round breasts and dark pink nipples. Lust churned low in his belly as he closed his eyes and thought about making her nipples hard as his fingers followed the pink string of her thong across her hip to the triangle of silk material covering her crotch.

His testicles ached and he turned rock hard. He thought of her using her beautiful mouth on him, and sexual need pounded through his veins, but there wasn’t anyone to slip into the shower and take care of that need for him. He could call someone to come over, he supposed, but he didn’t feel right having one woman finish something another woman had started. With the thought of Clare in his head, he took care if it himself.

After Sebastian’s shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the kitchen. He felt a little ridiculous having just fantasized about Clare. Not only was she the weird little girl from his youth, but she didn’t even like him. Usually he tried to fantasize about women who didn’t think he was a dickhead.

He poured a mug of coffee and reached for the phone sitting on the counter. He dialed and waited as it rang.

“Hello,” Leo answered on the fifth ring.

“I’m back,” he said, pushing thoughts of Clare
from his head. Even after the time they’d spent together recently, it still felt a bit strange to just dial up the old man.

“How was your trip?”

Sebastian raised the mug. “Good.”

They talked about the weather, then Leo asked, “Are you going to be heading this way anytime soon?”

“I don’t know. I have to pack up Mom’s house and get it ready to sell.” Even as he said it, a part of him shrank from the thought of packing his mother’s life in boxes. “I’ve been putting it off.”

“It’s going to be tough.”

That was an understatement, and Sebastian laughed without humor. “Yeah.”

“Would you like me to help?”

He opened his mouth to give an automatic refusal. He could pack up a few boxes. No problem. “Are you offering?”

“If you need me.”

It was just stuff. His mother’s stuff. She most definitely
wouldn’t
have wanted Leo in her house, but his mother was gone and his father was offering a helping hand. “I’d appreciate that.”

“I’ll tell Joyce I’ve got to be gone a few days.”

Packing up the kitchen was easier than Sebastian had anticipated. He was able to detach himself as
he and Leo worked side by side. His mother had never been into china or crystal. She ate off Corelle, plain white, so if she broke a plate she could replace it. She bought her glasses at Wal-Mart, so if she dropped one, it was no big deal. Her pots and pans were old and in fairly good shape because she’d rarely cooked, especially once Sebastian had moved out of the house.

But just because his mother hadn’t been materialistic didn’t mean she hadn’t been meticulous about her appearance till the day she’d died. She’d been picky about her hair, the color of her lipstick, and whether her shoes clashed with her purse. She’d loved to sing old Judy Garland songs, and when she was in the mood to splurge, she’d bought snow globes. She had so many, she’d converted his old bedroom into a showplace for her collection. She’d lined the walls with custom-made shelving, and Sebastian had always suspected she’d done it so he couldn’t move back home again.

After Leo and Sebastian packed up the kitchen, they grabbed some newspapers and cardboard boxes and headed for Sebastian’s old bedroom. The wood floors creaked beneath their feet, and through the white sheer curtains sunshine flowed into the room and through the rows of globes. He half expected to see her, pink feather duster in hand, dusting the shelves.

Sebastian set two boxes on a card table and a stack of newspapers on a folding chair he’d placed in there earlier. He deliberately pushed memories of his mother and her feather duster from his head. He reached for a globe he’d brought back from Russia and turned it in his hand. White snow fluttered about Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.

“Well, I’ll be…Who woulda thought Carol would have kept this all these years.”

Sebastian looked over at Leo as the older man reached for an old globe from Cannon Beach, Oregon. A mermaid sat on a rock combing her blond hair while bits of glitter and shells floated about her.

“I bought this for your mother on our honeymoon.”

Sebastian grabbed a piece of newspaper and wrapped the Russian globe. “That’s one of her oldest. I didn’t know you gave it to her.”

“Yeah. At the time, I thought that mermaid looked like her.” His father glanced up. The deep lines at the corners of his eyes got even deeper and a faint smile played across his mouth. “Except your mother was about seven months pregnant with you.”

“Now that, I did know.” He set the globe in the box.

“She was so beautiful and full of life. A real
corker.” Leo bent and grabbed a piece of paper. “She liked everything full-tilt, like a roller coaster, and I…” He paused and shook his head. “I liked calm.” He wrapped the globe. Over the sound of the paper he said, “Still do, I guess. You’re more like your mother than you are me. You like to chase lots of excitement.”

Not so much anymore. At least not as much as he had a few months ago. “Maybe I’m slowing down.”

Leo looked up at him.

“After this last trip, I’m seriously thinking about hanging up my passport. I have a few more assignments, and then I think I’ll go strictly freelance. Maybe take some time off.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m not sure. I just know I don’t want to take foreign assignments. At least for a while.”

“Can you do that, then?”

“Sure.” Talking about work kept his mind off what he was doing. He reached for a Reno, Nevada, globe and wrapped it up. “How’s the new Lincoln?”

“Rides like butter.”

“How’s Joyce?” he asked, not that he cared, but thinking about Joyce was better than thinking about what he was doing.

“Planning a big Christmas to-do. That always makes her happy.”

“It’s not even October.”

“Joyce likes to plan ahead.”

Sebastian set the wrapped globe in the box. “And Clare? Is she over her breakup with the gay guy?” he asked, just to keep up the small talk with the old man.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of her lately, but I doubt it. She’s a very sensitive girl.”

Which was yet one more reason to stay away from her. Sensitive girls liked long-term commitments. And he had never been the kind of guy to commit to anything long term. He reached for a Wizard of Oz globe with Dorothy and Toto following the yellow brick road. Even though it would never happen, he let his mind wonder to the possibility of spending a night or two with Clare. He wouldn’t mind getting her naked, and he was certain she’d benefit from a few rounds of sex. Get her to relax and lighten her up. Put a smile on her face for weeks.

In his hand, the first notes of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” began to play from the music box within the base of the globe. The Judy Garland classic was his mother’s favorite, and everything inside Sebastian stopped. A thousand tingles raced
up his spine and tightened his scalp. The globe fell from his hands and smashed to the floor. Sebastian watched water splash his shoes, and Dorothy, Toto, and a dozen little flying monkeys washed across the floor. The detached front he’d kept inside his soul shattered like the broken glass at his feet. The one steady anchor in his life was gone. Gone, and she wasn’t coming back. She was never going to dust her snow globes or fuss about clashing shoes. He’d never hear her sing in her faulty soprano voice or nag him to come over for a haircut.

“Fuck.” He sank to the chair. “I can’t do this.” He was numb and charged at the same time, like he’d stuck a key in the light socket. “I thought I could, but I can’t pack her up like she’s never coming back.” The backs of his eyes stung and he swallowed hard. He placed his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. A sound like a freight train clambered in his ears, and he knew it was from the pressure of holding it all back. He wasn’t going to cry like a hysterical woman. Especially not in front of the old man. If he could just hold it back for a few more seconds, it would pass and he’d be okay again.

“There’s no shame in loving your mother,” he heard his father say over the crashing in his head. “In fact, it’s a sign of a good son.” He felt his father’s hand on the back of his head, the weight
heavy, familiar, comforting. “Your mother and I didn’t get along, but I know she loved you something fierce. She was like a pit bull when it came to you. And she never would admit that her boy did any wrong.”

That was true.

“She did a fine job raising you mostly on her own, and I always was grateful to her for that. The Good Lord knows I wasn’t around as much as I shoulda been.”

Sebastian pressed his palms against his eyes, then dropped his hands between his knees. He glanced up at his father standing next to him. He took a deep breath and the pinch behind his eyes eased. “She didn’t exactly make it easy.”

“Don’t make excuses for me. I could have fought more. I could have gone back to court.” His hand moved to Sebastian’s shoulder and he gave a little squeeze. “I could have done a lot of things. I should have done something, but I…I thought that the fighting wasn’t good and that there would be lots of time once you were older. I was wrong, and I regret that.”

“We all have regrets.” Sebastian had a ton of his own, but the weight of his father’s hand felt like an anchor in a suddenly vertiginous world. “Maybe we shouldn’t dwell on them. Just move on.”

Leo nodded and patted Sebastian’s back like
when he’d been a boy. “Why don’t you go get yourself a Slurpee. That’ll make you feel better, and I’ll finish here.”

He smiled despite himself. “I’m thirty-five, Dad. I don’t get Slurpees anymore.”

“Oh. Well, go take a break and I’ll finish this room.”

Sebastian stood and wiped his hands down the front of his jeans. “No. I’ll go find a broom and a dustpan,” he said, grateful for his father’s steady presence in the house.

T
he first week of December, a light snow dusted the streets of downtown Boise and covered the foothills in pristine white. Holiday wreaths hung suspended from lampposts, and storefront windows were decked out for the season. Bundled-up shoppers crowded the sidewalks.

On the corner of Eighth and Main, “Holly Jolly Christmas” played softly inside The Piper Pub and Grille, the muted Muzak a fraction or two lower than the steady hum of voices. Gold, green, and red garlands added a festive air to the second-story restaurant.

“Happy holidays.” Clare held up her peppermint mocha and lightly touched glasses with her friends. The four women had just finished lunch
and were enjoying flavored coffee instead of dessert.

“Merry Christmas,” Lucy toasted.

“Happy Hanukkah,” Adele said, although she wasn’t Jewish.

To cover all bases, Maddie added, “Happy Kwanzaa,” although she wasn’t African American, Pan African, or had ever set foot in Africa.

Lucy took a drink and said as she lowered her glass mug, “Oh, I almost forgot.” She dug around in her purse hanging on the back of her chair, then pulled out several envelopes. “I finally remembered to bring copies of the picture of us all together at the Halloween party.” She handed an envelope to Clare, who sat on her right, and two others across the table.

Lucy and her husband, Quinn, had thrown a costume party in their new house on Quill Ridge overlooking the city. Clare slipped the photo from the envelope and glanced at the picture of her in a bunny costume standing beside her three friends. Adele had dressed as a fairy with large gossamer wings, Maddie as a Sherlock Holmes, and Lucy had worn a naughty cop outfit. The party had been a lot of fun. Just what Clare needed after a difficult two and a half months. By the end of October her heartache had started to mend a little, and she’d even been asked out by Darth Vader.
Without his helmet, Darth had been attractive in a macho-cop sort of way. He’d had a job, all his teeth and hair, and appeared to be one-hundred-percent heterosexual. The old Clare would have accepted his invitation to dinner with the subconscious hope that one man would ease the loss of another. But though she’d been flattered, she said no. It had been too soon to date.

“When’s your book signing?” Adele asked Clare.

She looked up and slipped the photo into her purse. “I have one at Borders on the tenth. Another at Walden’s on the twenty-fourth. I’m hoping to cash in on all those last-minute shoppers.” It had been almost five months now since she found Lonny with the Sears repairman, and she’d moved on. She no longer had to battle tears and her chest didn’t feel so tight and empty these days, but she still wasn’t ready to date. Not yet. Probably not for quite a while.

Adele took a sip of her coffee. “I’ll come to your signing on the tenth.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Lucy said.

“Me too. But I’m not going near the mall on the twenty-fourth.” Maddie looked up from the photo. “With the place so crowded, I’m more likely to run into an old boyfriend.”

Clare raised a hand. “Me too.”

“That reminds me, I have gossip.” Adele set her
mug on the table. “I ran into Wren Jennings the other day, and she let it slip that she can’t find anyone interested in her next book proposal.”

Clare didn’t particularly like Wren, thought she had a huge ego but little talent to back it up. She’d done one book signing with Wren, and one was enough. Not only had Wren monopolized the whole two hours, she kept telling anyone who approached the table that she wrote “real historical romance. Not costume dramas.” Then she’d looked pointedly at Clare as if she were a felon. But not finding a publisher for your next book would be horrible. “Wow, that’s scary.”

Lucy nodded. “Yeah, no one tortures verbiage quite like Wren, but not having a publisher would be frightening.”

“What a huge relief for the Earth Firsters. No more trees have to die for Wren’s crappy books.”

Clare looked at Maddie and chuckled. “Meow.”

“Come on. You know that woman can’t even construct an intelligent sentence and wouldn’t know a decent plot if it bit her on the ass. And that’s a lot of ass.” Maddie frowned and glanced about at her friends. “I’m not the only catty one at this table. I just say what everyone is thinking.”

That was true enough. “Well,” Clare said, and raised her peppermint mocha to her lips, “every
now and again I do have an overwhelming urge to lick my hands and wash my face.”

“And I have a desire to nap in the sun all day,” Lucy added.

Adele gasped. “Are you pregnant?”

“No.” Lucy held up her drink, which was laced with kahlua.

“Oh.” Adele’s excitement was instantly deflated. “I was hoping one of us hurries up and has a baby. I’m getting broody.”

“Don’t look at me.” Maddie shoved the Halloween photo in her bag. “I don’t have any desire to have children.”

“Never?”

“No. I think I’m one of the only women on the planet who was born without a burning desire to procreate.” Maddie shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind practicing with a good-looking man, though.”

Adele raised her coffee. “Ditto. Celibacy sucks.”

“Double ditto,” Clare said.

Lucy smiled. “I’ve got a good-looking man to practice with.”

Clare finished her coffee and reached for her purse. “Bragger.”

“I don’t want a man on a permanent basis,” Maddie insisted. “Snoring and hogging the blankets. That’s the good thing about having big Carlos.
When I’m finished, I throw him back in the nightstand.”

One brow lifted up Lucy’s forehead. “Big Carlos? You named your…”

Maddie nodded. “I’ve always wanted a Latin lover.”

Clare looked around to see if anyone had overheard Maddie. “Sheesh, lower your voice.” None of the other diners were looking their way, and Clare turned back to her friends. “Sometimes you’re not safe in public.”

Maddie leaned across the table and whispered, “You have one.”

“I didn’t name it!”

“Then whose name do you call out?”

“No one’s.” She’d always been very quiet during sex and didn’t understand how or why a woman could or would lose her dignity and start hollering. She’d always thought she was good in bed. At least she tried to be, but a soft little murmur or moan was as loud as she got.

“If I were you, I’d practice with Sebastian Vaughan,” Adele said.

“Who?” Lucy wanted to know.

“Clare’s hot friend. He’s a journalist, and you can tell by looking at him that he knows what to put where and how often.”

“He lives in Seattle.” Clare hadn’t seen Sebastian
since the night of Leo’s party. The night he’d kissed her and made her remember what is was like to be a woman. When he’d flamed the desire deep inside that she’d almost allowed her relationship with Lonny to extinguish. She didn’t know firsthand if Sebastian knew the who, what, where, when, and why, but he certainly knew
how
to kiss a woman. “I don’t think I’ll see him for another twenty years or so.” Leo had spent Thanksgiving in Seattle, and the last Clare had heard, he planned to spend Christmas there also. Which was sad. Leo had always spent Christmas day with her and Joyce. Clare would miss him. “I’ve got to get going,” she said, and stood. “I told my mother I’d help her with her Christmas party this year.”

Lucy looked up. “I thought you refused to help her after last year.”

“I know, but she behaved herself over Thanksgiving and didn’t mention Lonny’s aspic.” She reached for her wool peacoat on the back of her chair and shoved her arms inside. “It about killed her, but she didn’t mention Lonny at all. So as a reward, I said I’d help her.” She looped her red scarf around her neck. “I also made her promise to stop lying about what I write.”

“Do you think she’ll be able to keep her promise?”

“Of course not, but she’ll try.” She grabbed her
red alligator skin purse. “See you all on the tenth,” she said, bid her friends good-bye, and walked from the restaurant.

The temperature outside had risen, and the snow on the ground began to melt. Cold air brushed her cheeks as she walked along the terrace toward the parking garage. She pulled her red leather gloves from her coat pocket and put them on. The heels of her boots tapped across white and black tile as she hooked a right at an Italian restaurant. If she’d walked straight ahead, she would have ended up in the Balcony Bar—the place Lonny had always assured her
wasn’t
a gay bar. She knew now that he’d lied about that, just as he’d lied about a lot of things. And she’d been perfectly willing to believe him.

She pushed open the doors to the garage and walked toward her car. At the thought of Lonny, her heart no longer pinched in her chest. What she mostly felt was anger, at Lonny for lying to her, and at herself for wanting so desperately to believe him.

The temperature inside the concrete garage was colder than it was outside, and her breath hung in front of her face as she unlocked her Lexus and got behind the wheel. If she thought about it, she truly wasn’t all that angry anymore. The one good thing that had come out of her failed relationship with
Lonny was that she’d forced herself to stop and take a good hard look at her life. Finally. She was going to turn thirty-four in a few months and she was tired of relationships that were doomed to failure.

The obvious ta-da moment she’d been waiting to reveal itself and solve all her problems had never happened. About a month earlier, while she’d been folding laundry and watching
The Guiding Light
, she’d realized that the reason she hadn’t been able to experience the big eureka moment was because there wasn’t just one—there were several. Starting with her issue with her father and sliding right into her subconscious desire to either rile or please her mother. And Clare had dated men who’d fit both bills. She hated to admit that her mother had that much influence on her personal life, but she did. To top it all off, she was a love junkie. She loved love, and while that helped her career, it wasn’t so good for her personal life.

She pulled out of her parking space and headed toward the toll booth. She was a little embarrassed that she’d reached thirty-three and was only now changing the destructive patterns in her life.

It was past time she took control. Time to break the passive-aggressive cycle with her mother. Time to stop falling in love with every man who paid attention to her. No more love at first
sight—ever—and she meant it this time. No more settling—ever—and that included, but was not limited to, cheaters, liars, and fakes. If and when she got involved with a man—and that was a big
if
and a cautious
when
—he was going to feel
damn
lucky to have
her.

The day before Joyce Wingate’s annual Christmas party, Clare dressed in old jeans and a cable-knit sweater. Over that she wore her white ski parka, wool gloves, and light blue wool scarf wrapped around her neck and the lower half of her face. She spent the afternoon adding the finishing touches to the outside of the house on Warm Springs Avenue.

The last two weeks since she’d met her friends for lunch, she’d helped her mother and Leo decorate the big home inside and out. A twelve-foot Douglas fir stood in the middle of the foyer, adorned with antique ornaments, red bows, and golden lights. Every downstairs room had been decorated with pine greenery, brass candlesticks, nativity scenes, or Joyce’s extensive nutcracker collection. The Christmas Spode and Waterford crystal had been cleaned, and the linens pressed and waiting in the truck of Clare’s car to be brought inside.

The day prior, Leo had come down with a cold, and she and Joyce insisted that he abandon the
remaining tasks outside for fear his cold would worsen. He was given the job of polishing the silver and wrapping pine garland and red velvet ribbon up the mahogany banisters.

Clare had taken over outside, and every time she ventured into the house for a coffee refill or just to thaw her toes, Leo fussed and argued that he was well enough to hang lights on the remaining shrubs. He might have been, but at his age, Clare didn’t want to take a chance that the cold would get worse and turn into pneumonia.

The work outside was neither hard nor heavy, just freezing and tedious. The big house was festooned with lighted boughs that hung about the door, along the porch, and around each stone column. A pair of five-foot pepperberry reindeer stood in the front yard, and lighted candy canes lined the sidewalk and driveway.

Clare moved the ladder to the last shrub and untangled one remaining string of C-9 lightbulbs. After this string, she was finished, and she was looking forward to going home, filling her jet tub with hot water and sitting in it until her skin wrinkled.

The sun was out, warming the valley to a balmy thirty-one degrees, which was an improvement over the twenty-seven high of the day before. Clare climbed onto the ladder and wrapped the lights around the top of the eight-foot tree. Leo could
have told her both the common and scientific name of the shrub. He was amazing that way.

The frozen foliage made a rasping sound as it slid across the sleeve of Clare’s coat, and the toes inside her boots had turned numb about an hour ago. She could no longer feel her cheeks, but her fingers still worked inside her fur-lined gloves. She leaned into the shrub to wrap the lights around the back and felt her cell phone slip from her coat pocket. She reached for it a second too late, and the thin phone disappeared into the shrub.

“Dang it.” Her hands dove into the greenery and pushed it apart. She caught a glimpse of the silver and black flip phone as it slid deeper into the middle of the shrub. She leaned forward, bending over the top of the ladder and reaching as far as she could into the middle. The tips of her gloves brushed the phone, and it disappeared into denser foliage. As she pulled her head out of the shrub, a vehicle turned into the driveway and continued to the back of the house. By the time she looked around, the car was out of view. She assumed the florist delivering her mother’s poinsettias, crocuses, and amaryllis for the party was a little early.

She moved to the back of the shrub closest to the house and pushed the branches apart. The frozen stems brushed her face, and her thoughts turned to spiders. For the first time since she’d
stepped outside, she was glad it was below freezing. If it had been summer, she would have bought a new phone rather than risk spiders in her hair.