I’m In No Mood For Love (18 page)

She reached for a tube of red lipstick and leaned toward the dresser mirror. She wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. Not yet. Just last week she’d decided to test the waters and had met Adele at Montego Bay for the restaurant’s eight-minute date night, in which a person spent eight minutes getting to know someone before moving on to the next table. Most of the men she’d met that evening had seemed perfectly fine. There’d been nothing really wrong with them, but two minutes into her first “date,” she’d opened her mouth and said, “I have four children.” When that hadn’t totally turned him off, she’d added, “All under the age of six.” By the end of the evening she’d somehow become a single mother who collected stray cats. When that hadn’t totally turned off one stalwart
dater, she’d alluded to “female troubles,” and he’d practically knocked over the table in his haste to get away from her.

The doorbell rang as Clare finished with her lipstick, and she moved through the house to the front door. Adele and Maddie stood on her porch, gifts in hand.

“I told you two not to get me anything,” she said, knowing full well that they totally would.

“What’s this?” Maddie asked as she pointed to an express mail box at her feet.

Clare wasn’t expecting any mail orders or anything from her publisher. When she knelt to pick it up, she recognized the Seattle return address. It had a Florida postmark. “I think it’s probably a birthday present.” Sebastian had remembered her birthday, and she tried to tamp down the pleasure of it before it reached her heart. When she heard footsteps walking up the drive, she half expected to see Sebastian. It was Lucy, of course, and she was carrying a bouquet of pink roses and a small gold box.

“I thought I’d beat you girls here,” she said as Clare let her friends into the house.

Clare took the roses from Lucy and went in search of a vase while her friends hung up their coats. In the kitchen, she cut the bottoms off the stems, and her gaze drifted to the white box on the
counter. She was surprised that Sebastian had remembered her birthday. Especially on assignment, and the pleasure she’d tried to suppress brushed across her skin. She told herself it probably wasn’t a thoughtful gift. More than likely the box held the usual self-serving man present. Something crotchless with nipple tassels.

“Lord, I’ve had enough of the cold,” Maddie complained as the other three women moved into the kitchen.

“Could one of you pour the wine?” Clare asked as she arranged the flowers in some deceased relative’s Portmeirion vase. Lucy poured, and when she was finished, the four friends moved into the living room. Clare set the vase on an end table next to the sofa, and when she turned around, Adele was setting the gifts on the coffee table. Including the white box.

As the four women talked about getting older, Clare opened the presents her friends had bought for her. Lucy gave her a monogrammed business card holder, and Adele a bracelet with little purple crystals. Maddie, being Maddie, gifted Clare with a personal safety device in the form of a red stun pen to replace the faulty one she’d given her the year before. “Thanks, guys. I loved all the gifts,” she said as she sat back with her glass.

“Are you going to open that one?” Adele asked.

“Is it from your mother again?” Lucy wanted to know. A few years ago when she’d been avoiding Joyce, her mother had sent her beautiful bed linens for her birthday. Picking up the phone and calling Clare would not have been passive aggressive enough.

“No. My mother and I are speaking this year.”

“Who’s it from?”

“A friend of mine.” The three women stared at her, brows raised as they waited for more information. “Sebastian Vaughan.”

“Sebastian the reporter?” Adele asked. “The guy Maddie thinks has heft?”

“Yes.” Clare’s face was purposely impassive when she added, “And he is just a friend.”

Maddie sucked in a breath. “Just a friend, my ass. I can tell by your face you’re hiding something. You always get that look when you’re hiding something.”

“What look?”

Lucy pointed at her. “That look.” She took a drink of her wine. “So, is he a boyfriend?”

“No. He’s just a friend.” When her friends continued to stare at her, she sighed and confessed, “Okay. We’re friends who have sex.”

“Good for you!” Maddie nodded. “Adele told
you that you should use him as a rebound man.”

Adele nodded. “I’ve had a few, and sex without strings is some of the best kind.”

Lucy was quiet for a few moments, then asked, “Are you sure?”

“About what?”

“That you can handle sex without strings? I know you. You’ve the heart of a pure romantic. Can you really handle sex without falling in love?”

“I can handle it.” She set her glass on the coffee table and reached for the white box. To prove it, she’d show them the gift from Sebastian was no big deal. None at all. “And I am handling it.” She opened the white mailer and smiled. Inside was a smaller box wrapped in pink metallic paper and excessive bows and ribbon. “It’s working out great. He lives in Seattle and sees me when he’s here in town to visit his dad. We have a lot of fun and there are no expectations.”

“Be careful,” Lucy warned. “I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

“I won’t get hurt,” she said as she unwrapped the pink paper. “I don’t love Sebastian and he doesn’t love me.” She looked down as she opened the box, and nestled in white and pink polka-dot tissue was a black leather belt. On the heavy silver buckle was the deep inscription, boy toy.

Clare stared down at the gift as she felt a sharp
pinch in her chest and a frightening little flutter in her stomach. At the same time, she felt like she was being thrust to the top of a roller coaster. Up, up, up, and she knew there was nowhere to go but straight down.
Boy Toy.

“What is it?”

She held it up and her friends chuckled. “Is he marking his territory?” Adele asked.

Clare nodded, but she knew it wasn’t like that at all. It was worse. He’d looked into a young, awkward girl’s heart and given her what she desired most. He’d paid attention. He’d listened to her and gone to a good deal of trouble to get it for her. He’d wrapped it in pink and he’d made sure it arrived on her birthday. Her face was suddenly hot, and her pinching heart pounded frantically, beating against the wall she’d built to keep Sebastian out. The wall she hid behind to keep from falling madly and completely in love with a man so totally wrong for her. Around her, her friends talked and laughed and seemed oblivious to the struggle within her to stay on top of the roller coaster. To struggle and fight and hang on. But it was too late. She was helpless as she started the plunge. Deep emotion rushed toward her, and the overwhelming force of it threatened to rob her of breath. She told herself that she couldn’t let herself love him, but it was too late. It slammed into her, and she fell madly, deeply,
completely in love with Sebastian Vaughan. Splat. “Oh no,” she whispered.

Lucy noticed something was wrong and asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I think turning thirty-four has put me in a weird mood.” She laughed and prayed she sounded convincing.

“I understand. When I turned thirty-five, I started getting a really panicky feeling,” Lucy said, and Clare breathed a little easier. “It’s normal.”

Later, during dinner, Clare tried to tell herself that the burning in her chest wasn’t
real
love, that it was a result of the jalapeno shrimp bites she ordered for an hors d’oeuvre. The tears threatening to sting the backs of her eyes were the result of turning another year older. It was normal. Even Lucy thought so.

But by the time the meal ended with crême brulée, Clare knew it wasn’t the jalapeno nor the day. She was in love with Sebastian, and she didn’t think she’d ever been so scared. Sure, there had been other scary times in her life, but she’d always known what to do. This time she had absolutely no idea. Somehow while she’d been convincing herself that all she felt was friendship, her love for him had snuck up on her quietly. It hadn’t been a whap to the chest or a breath-stealing glance from
across the room. No warm fuzzy tingling zaps to the heart when she thought of him. Instead, it had grown from a little seed, finding the cracks and fissures in the wall guarding her heart, entangling her without her even knowing it until she was caught good and tight.

While she and Sebastian talked about a lot of different things, they had never talked about what they felt for each other. But at least she wasn’t in denial. Not anymore. Yes, he wanted to be exclusive, but she knew he didn’t love her. She’d been with men who’d loved her. She might not have felt so strongly about them, but she knew how a man in love acted. And it wasn’t like Sebastian.

Once again she’d fallen for Mr. Wrong. She was such a fool.

That night she went to bed thinking of Sebastian, and when she woke, he was still on her mind. She thought about the smell of his neck and the touch of his hands, but she refused to call him. She had a perfect excuse. She should call and thank him for the birthday present. In fact, etiquette demanded that she at least call him, but she refused to give in to the temptation to hear his voice. Perhaps if she just tried to ignore her feelings, they would go back into hiding. She didn’t kid herself that they would go away. She was a
thirty-four-year-old relationship veteran and former love junky. But perhaps, if she were very lucky, his absence would make her heart grow a little less fond.

T
hree days after Clare’s birthday Sebastian called, and she discovered that she wasn’t so lucky. Not at all. If anything, the sight of his name on her caller ID made her chest hurt.

“Hello,” she answered, striving to sound calm and a little blasé.

“What are you wearing?”

She looked down at her robe and bare feet as she pulled a brush through her damp hair. “Where are you?”

“On your porch?”

Her hand stopped, as well as the blood flow to her head. “You’re outside my house?”

“Yeah.”

She tossed the brush on her bed and walked
from her bedroom toward the entryway. She opened the door and there he stood, wearing a white T-shirt beneath a deep green wool button-up and looking beautiful. Smile lines creased the corners of his green eyes, and he hooked his phone to the brown leather belt wrapped around the hips of his faded jeans. Oh God, she was in trouble.

“Hello, Clare.” The sound of his voice sent hot little tingles up her spine and raised little goose bumps on the back of her arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked into the receiver. “You didn’t tell me you were coming to visit Leo.”

“Leo doesn’t know I’m here.” He took the phone from her, hit the Off button, then handed it back. “I flew in to see you.”

She looked behind him at the Mustang parked in her driveway. It had Idaho plates. “Me?” Her heart wanted to take that as a sign that he cared for her more than just as a friend with benefits, but her head wouldn’t let her.

“Yeah. I want to spend the night. The whole night. Like when you came and stayed with me in Seattle. I don’t want to sneak back to Leo’s like a kid. Like we’re doing something wrong.”

She should send him away before she fell even
more in love with him, but the problem was, it was far too late. She opened the door wide and let him in. “You want to sleep here?”

“Eventually.” He followed her inside and waited until she’d closed the door before he reached for her.

“There’s lace on my bed, remember? Something bad might happen if you sleep in a girly girl bed.”

He pulled her against his chest. “I’ll risk it.”

“Thanks for the birthday gift.” She smiled and placed her hands on his shoulders. “It was very thoughtful of you to get it here on my birthday.”

“Did you like it?”

“Loved it.”

“Show me,” he said as he swooped in and planted a kiss on her mouth. He touched her as he always did, only this time there was a difference in the way she responded. No matter how she tried to hide from it, she was in love with Sebastian. Her heart was involved, and when she took him to her bedroom, it was more than just sex. More than pleasure and gratification. For the first time, she truly made love to him. The warmth of emotion spread through her body from the inside out. From the center of her chest outward to the tips of her fingers and toes. When it was over, she pulled him close and kissed his bare shoulder.

“You must have really missed me,” he said next to her ear. He’d noticed the difference in their sex but misinterpreted what was behind it.

Sebastian stayed with her for two days and talked to her about growing up with his mother and his guilt over his relationship with his father. He told her how angry he’d been when he’d been sent away as a child. She suspected he’d been more than angry. Although he might not admit it, she was sure he’d been hurt and bewildered too.

“I learned my lesson. That was the last time I told a girl how babies are made,” he said.

“Good. I was terrified of sex for years after that, and it was all your fault.”

He’d placed an innocent hand on his chest. “Mine?”

“Yes. You told me sperms were the same size as tadpoles.”

He’d laughed. “I don’t remember, but I probably did.”

“You did.”

They talked about their writing, and he told her he’d been hard at work on his book. He talked about the twists and turns of the plot and said he figured he was about halfway through. He also confessed he’d read all her books. She’d been so shocked she hadn’t known what to say.

“If they didn’t have half-naked guys on the covers, I think more men would read them,” he told her over dinner at her house.

She hadn’t thought it possible, but that night, looking across the table while he ate veal with sage marinade, she fell in love with him even more. “It may surprise you to know that I do have male readers. They write me all the time.” She smiled. “Of course, they’re all incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit.”

He paused over his veal and looked up at her. “I hope you don’t write them back.”

“No.” Perhaps he didn’t love her now, but he was here, with her, and who knew how he would feel next week or next month.

The next time Sebastian drove into Boise, he was on his way home from a ski trip in Park City, Utah, where he’d met up with some of his journalism friends. It had been three weeks since his last visit, and he had plans to stay with Leo for several days and do some fishing at Strike Dam, where his father had told him people were pulling out twenty-two-inch rainbows. But within a few hours of his arrival, he called and picked Clare up at her house. Sebastian hated shopping more than any man she’d ever known, and he conned her into going to the mall with him. Leo’s back had started “acting up”
and they went in search of a massager. Sebastian hoped to get his father feeling good enough for the drive to the dam in the morning.

Due to the change in plans, Sebastian decided to relax with Clare that evening and watch “kick-ass movies,” eat “salty popcorn,” and “drink beer.” At least they agreed on the popcorn. Clare was more of a wine person and preferred chick flicks, but he’d promised she would get to pick the movie next time.

“What was your favorite movie growing up?” Clare asked as they walked into Brookstone.

Without hesitation he said,
“Willie Wonka.”

“Willie Wonka
?
”
Clare stopped next to a display of ergonomic pillows. “I hated
Willie Wonka.
”

He glanced at her across his shoulder. “How can any kid hate
Willie Wonka
?”

They moved farther into the store, past a couple with twins in a double stroller, and Clare asked, “Didn’t you ever wonder why Grandpa Joe wouldn’t get out of bed until Willie came home with the golden ticket?”

“No.”

They stopped at the display of massagers. “For years he’d just laid there with the other grandparents while Willie’s mother worked to support them.” She picked up a massager the size of a pen and set it back down. “Then Willie gets the ticket,
and puff, Grandpa Joe’ s magically cured. He starts dancing around and can go to Wonka Land all spry and energetic.”

“Once again, you overthink everything,” Sebastian said, and picked up a massager with a bulbous blue head. “Like
most
kids, I just thought about all that candy.” He grinned and held up the massager. “What does this remind you of?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she lied, and took it from his hands. She replaced it with one that had a big triangular head and couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

“What was your favorite movie?” he asked as he flipped the switch and rubbed it across the back of her pink fleece jacket.

“Ahh.” She shivered and her voice rattled a little as she spoke. “I have several. When I was little, my favorite movie was
Cinderella.
The old Rodgers and Hammerstein television version. When I was in junior high, I loved
Pretty in Pink
and
Sixteen Candles.
”

“
Pretty in Pink?
Is that one of those Molly Ringwald movies?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it?”

“Hell no.” He flipped the Off switch and picked up a massage belt. “I’m a guy. We don’t watch movies like that unless there’s something in it for us.”

“Sex.”

He grinned. “Or at least second base.”

She laughed and turned toward a massage chair. Her laughter died and shock lifted her brows as she came face-to-face with her past.

“Hello, Clare.”

“Lonny.” He was as handsome and as groomed as she remembered. By his side stood a blonde about his same height.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine.” And she was. Seeing him again, she felt nothing. Not a racing heart nor a killing rage.

“This is my fiancée, Beth. Beth, this is Clare.”

Fiancée? That was fast.
She turned her attention to the other woman. “It’s nice to meet you, Beth.” She held out her hand to the woman who obviously believed Lonny loved her as a man could love a woman. Only he wasn’t capable of that kind of love.

“You too.” Her fingers barely touched Clare’s before she dropped her hand. The woman was in denial. As deep as she had once been, wanting to believe in something so bad, and refusing to see the reality that was staring her in the face. She supposed the right thing to do would be to let Beth in on the secret life of her fiancé, but it really wasn’t her job to disillusion the delusional.

Before Clare could introduce Sebastian, he
stepped forward and offered his hand to Lonny. “I’m Clare’s friend, Sebastian Vaughan.”

Clare’s friend.
She looked over her right shoulder at Sebastian, at the reality staring right at
her.
After all these months. She was no more than a friend to him. Her chest imploded right there in Brookstone, next to all those bulbous massagers, for Lonny and Beth and the lady with twins to see. She was no better than Beth. No different from the day she had found Lonny in that closet, literally and figuratively. She thought she’d changed. Grown. Learned. She was as delusional as ever. She wanted to crawl away. Crawl away and fold in on herself.

Through a haze, she made small talk for several more minutes before Lonny and Beth walked away. She stood beside Sebastian as he bought the massage belt for Leo. He didn’t see that she was falling apart. When they left the mall, passing all those people, no one seemed to notice that she was dying inside.

On the drive home he talked about his ski trip and mentioned that he was thinking about taking Leo fishing in Alaska for salmon. It wasn’t until they pulled into her mother’s driveway that Clare finally looked over at the man who was no more capable of loving her than Lonny.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stopped in front
of the garage. “You’ve been quiet since we ran into your old boyfriend. You’re better off without him, by the way.”

She looked into Sebastian’s eyes. Into the eyes of the man she loved with all of her heart. The eyes of the man who did not love her. She didn’t want to cry, not now, but she could feel the tears scalding the inside of her chest. “Are we friends?”

“Of course.”

“Is that all?”

He turned off the ignition. “No. That’s not all. I like you, and we get along really well. We have great sex.”

That wasn’t love. “You like me?”

He shrugged and put the keys in the pocket of his black fleece jacket. “Yeah. Of course I like you.”

“That’s it?”

He must have started to figure out where the conversation was headed. Weariness entered his green eyes as he looked over at her. “What more do you want?”

That he asked just proved the awful truth. “Nothing you can give,” she said, and opened the car door. She shut it behind her and headed across the lawn toward the back of her mother’s house. If she could just be alone, locked up by herself, before
she fell apart. She made it as far as the dormant garden before Sebastian grabbed her arm.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he swung her around to face him. “Are you all freaked out because your old boyfriend is engaged?”

“This has nothing to do with Lonny.” A cool breeze tugged at her hair, and she pushed it behind one ear. “Although seeing him again forced me to see how things are between us. How they’ll always be.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to be your friend. That isn’t enough for me anymore.”

He took a step back and dropped his hand. “This is sudden.”

“I want more.”

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Want more?”

“Don’t ruin everything by talking about relationships and commitment.”

Not only was her heart devastated, now he was making her really angry. So angry she had an urge to curl up her fist and sock him. “What’s wrong with wanting a relationship and a commitment? It’s healthy. Natural. Normal.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s bullshit. Meaningless, pointless bullshit. Sooner or later someone
gets pissed, then the fighting starts.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Clare, we get along great. I like being with you. Leave it at that.”

“I can’t.”

His eyes narrowed further. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because you like me and I love you.” Her throat hurt from suppressed emotion. “This is no longer just a friendship. Not for me, and it’s not enough just to be
liked
by you. At one time in my life I would have settled for that, hoping for more. But not now. I deserve a man who loves me and wants a relationship. A man who loves me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me. I don’t need those things to survive, but I want them. I want it all. A husband and children and…” She swallowed hard. “…and a dog.”

He set his jaw and folded his arms over his chest. “Why do women push and prod and make demands? Why can’t you all just chill out about relationships?”

Lord, it was as she’d suspected. She’d made the same mistake other women had made in Sebastian’s life. She’d fallen in love with him. “I’m thirty-four. My chill-out days are over. I want a man who wakes up in the morning wanting to be with me. I don’t want to be with a man who blows into my life just when he wants sex.”

“It’s more than just sex.” He pointed at her as a
cool breeze played with the open zipper of his jacket. “And you’re the one who said that we’re just friends with benefits. Now you want to change everything. Why can’t you just leave things alone?”

“Because I love you and that changes everything.”

“Love,” he scoffed. “What do you expect from me? Am I supposed to change who I am and fit my life to suit yours because you suddenly think you love me?”