I’m In No Mood For Love (4 page)

Clare sat back down on the bed and resisted her urge to fill the emptiness with things. Food. Clothes. Men. If she was truly through being the queen of denial, she had to look at her life and admit that stuffing her face, filling her closet, and reaching for a man had never helped fill the terrifying hole in her chest. Not in the long run, and in the end she was left with a few pounds that forced her into the gym, clothes that went out of style, and an empty sock drawer.

Perhaps she needed a psychiatrist. Someone objective to look inside her head and tell her what was wrong with her and how to fix her life.

Maybe all she needed was a long vacation. She most definitely needed a time out from junk food, credit cards, and men. She thought of Sebastian and the white towel wrapped around his hips. She needed a long break from anything with testosterone.

She was physically tired and emotionally bruised,
and if she were honest with herself, still a little hung over. She raised a hand to her aching head and took a vow to stay away from alcohol and men, at least until she figured out her life. Until she had a moment of clarity. The ta-da moment when everything made sense again.

Clare stood and wrapped her arms around the bedpost and the swag of Belgian lace. Her heart and pride were in shreds, but those were all things from which she would recover.

There was something else. Something she had to take care of first thing in the morning. Something potentially serious.

Something that scared her more than an uncertain future with no shopping sprees and salty fries. And that was no future at all.

Clare’s fingers hovered over the keys as she glanced at the time displayed at the bottom right of her computer monitor.

Clare wrote several more pages before she paused in her writing of
The Dangerous Duke,
the third book in her governess series. At nine
A.M.
she reached for the telephone. She’d lain awake most of the night, dreading this call. The thing she dreaded most, more than packing up the few reminders of Lonny, was calling Dr. Linden’s office.

She punched the seven numbers, and when the receptionist picked up, she said, “I need to make an appointment, please.”

“Are you a patient of Dr. Linden?”

“Yes. My name is Clare Wingate.”

“Do you need to see the doctor, or do you need an appointment with Dana, the nurse practitioner?”

She wasn’t sure. She’d never done this before. She opened her mouth to just spit it out. To just say it. Her throat got dry and she swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“I see that you had your yearly exam in April. Do you suspect that you’re pregnant?”

“No…no. I…I recently found something out. I caught my…well, I discovered my boyfriend…I mean my former boyfriend has been unfaithful.” She took a deep breath and placed her free hand on her throat. Beneath her fingers her pulse pounded. This was crazy. Why was she having such a hard time? “So…I need to be tested for…you know. HIV.” Nervous laugher escaped her dry throat. “I mean, I don’t think it’s likely, but I have to know for sure. He said he cheated just the one time and used protection, but can you really trust a cheater?” Good lord. She’d gone from stammering to rambling. “As soon as possible, please.”

“Let me look.” From the other end of the line several taps on a keyboard, and then, “We’ll get you in as soon as possible. I have a cancellation with Dana on Thursday. Is four-thirty okay?”

Thursday. Three days. It was an eternity. “That’s fine.” Silence filled the line, and Clare forced herself to ask, “How long will it take?”

“The test? Not long. You’ll have the results before you leave the office.”

When she hung up the phone, she leaned back in her chair and stared straight ahead at her computer screen. She’d told the receptionist the truth. She really didn’t believe Lonny had exposed her to anything, but she was an adult and had to know for sure one way or the other. Her fiancé had been
unfaithful, and if she’d caught him in the closet with a woman, she would have made the call too. Cheating was cheating. And despite what Sebastian had said, the fact that she didn’t have male “equipment” didn’t make it easier.

Her forehead felt tight and she raised her hands and massaged her temples. It wasn’t even ten
A.M.
and she had a massive headache. Her life was a mess and it was all Lonny’s fault. She had to get tested for something that could take her life, and she wasn’t the one who’d messed around. She was monogamous. Always. She didn’t hop into bed with…

Sebastian.

Her hands fell to her lap. She had to tell Sebastian. The thought made her throbbing temples just about burst. She didn’t know if they’d used a condom, and she had to tell him.

Or not. More than likely the test would be negative. She should wait to say anything until she found out the results herself. She probably wouldn’t have to tell him at all. What were the chances he’d have sex with someone else between now and Thursday? A vison of him dropping his towel entered her head.

Very likely, she concluded, and reached for a bottle of aspirin she kept in her desk drawer.

S
ebastian reread what he’d written and scrubbed his face with his hands. What he’d written wasn’t so much
bad
as it wasn’t
right.
He returned his hands to the keyboard of his laptop
and with a few strokes deleted what he’d written.

He stood and sent the kitchen chair sliding across the hardwood floor. He didn’t understand it. He had his notes, an outline in his head, and a good workable nut graf. All he had to do was sit down and write a decent lead. “Fuck!” Something that felt a lot like fear bit the back of his throat and chewed its way down to his stomach. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

“Is there a problem?”

He took a deep breath and let it out as he turned and looked at his father standing just inside the back doorway. “No. No problem.” Not any that he’d admit out loud, anyway. He’d get the lead paragraph. He would. He’d just never faced this kind of problem before, but he’d work it out. He moved to the refrigerator, reached inside and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He would have preferred a beer, but it wasn’t even noon. The day he started drinking in the morning was the day he knew he had to truly worry about himself.

He lifted the carton to his mouth and took several long swallows. The cool juice hit the back of his throat and washed away the taste of panic in his mouth. He raised his gaze from the end of the carton to a wooden duck resting on top of the refrigerator. The brass plate identified the duck as
an American wigeon. A Carolina wood duck and northern pintail rested above the fireplace in the living room. There were various wooden birds about the house, and Sebastian wondered when the old man had become so fascinated with ducks. He lowered the juice and glanced at his father, who was watching him from beneath the brim of his hat. “Do you need help with anything?” Sebastian asked.

“If you have a moment, you could give me a hand moving something for Mrs. Wingate. But I hate to interrupt you when you’re hard at work.”

He would give his left nut to be hard at work instead of writing and deleting the lead paragraph over and over. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and returned the carton to the refrigerator. “What does she want moved?” he asked, and shut the door.

“A sideboard.”

He didn’t know what the hell a sideboard was, but it sounded heavy. Like something to take his mind off his looming deadline and his inability to string together three cohesive sentences.

He moved across the small kitchen and followed his father out the door. Old elm and oak trees shaded the grounds and white iron furniture in deep shadowy patches. Sebastian walked beside his father across the yard shoulder-to-shoulder.
A perfect picture of father and son, but the picture was far from perfect.

“It’s going to be nice today,” Sebastian said as they passed a silver Lexus parked next to Sebastian’s Land Cruiser.

“The weatherman said in the low nineties,” Leo replied.

Then they fell into an uncomfortable silence that seemed to blanket most attempts at conversation. Sebastian didn’t know why he was having such a difficult time talking to the old man. He’d interviewed heads of state, mass killers as well as religious and military leaders, yet he couldn’t think of one damn thing to say to his own father beyond making a perfunctory comment on the weather or having a superficial conversation about dinner. Obviously, his father found it just as difficult to talk to him.

Together they walked toward the back of the main house. For some reason Sebastian couldn’t explain, he tucked the ends of his gray Molson T-shirt into his Levi’s and finger-combed his hair. Looking up at all that limestone, he felt like he was heading into church, and suppressed the urge to cross himself. As if he felt it too, Leo reached for his hat and pulled it from his head.

The hinges on the back door squeaked as Leo held open the door, and the sound of their boot
heels filled the silence as the two of them continued up a set of stone steps and into the kitchen. It was too late for them. His father was just as uncomfortable being around him as he was being around his father. He should just leave, he thought. Put them both out of their misery. He didn’t know why he’d come, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else to do besides sit around and not communicate with his father. There was a lot waiting for him in Washington State. He had to get his mother’s house ready to put on the market, and he had to get on with his life. He’d been here three days now. Enough time to open a dialogue. Only it wasn’t happening. He’d help his father move the sideboard and then go pack his things.

A huge butcher’s block dominated the middle of the kitchen, and Leo tossed his hat on the scarred top as he passed. White cabinets lined the walls from the floor to the twelve-foot ceiling, and late-morning sunlight spilled through the windows and shined off of stainless steel appliances. The heels of Sebastian’s Gortex hiking boots thudded across the old black and white tiles as he and his father walked through the kitchen and headed into a formal dining room. A huge vase of fresh-cut flowers sat in the center of a twenty-foot table covered in red damask cloth. The furniture, the windows and drapes, all reminded him of
something he’d see in a museum. Polished and well-tended. It smelled like a museum too. Cold and a little musty.

A thick area rug muffled their footsteps as he and his father made their way toward an ornately carved piece of furniture on one wall. It had long spindly legs and a few fancy drawers. “I take it this is a sideboard.”

“Yes. It’s French and very old. It’s been in Mrs. Wingate’s family for more than a hundred years,” Leo said as he removed a big silver tea service from the sideboard and set it on the table.

Sebastian had figured it was an antique and was not at all surprised that it was French. He preferred clean modern lines and comfort over old and fussy. “Where are we moving it?”

Leo pointed to a wall next to the doorway, and each of them grabbed an end of the sideboard. The piece wasn’t heavy, and the two of them moved it easily. As they set it down in its new place, Joyce Wingate’s raised voice carried from the next room. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” a second voice Sebastian recognized answered. “I was in shock,” Clare added. “And I just left the house and went to Lucy’s wedding.”

“This doesn’t make any sense. How does a man just go gay? Out of the blue?”

Sebastian looked at his father, who moved to the tea service and got busy arranging the silver sugar bowl and creamer.

“A man doesn’t ‘go gay,’ Mother. In hindsight, the signs were all there.”

“What signs? I didn’t see any signs.”

“Looking back, he had an unnatural fondness for antique ramekins.”

Ramekins? What the hell was a ramekin?
Sebastian’s gaze returned to the empty doorway. Unlike the old man, he wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping. This was juicy stuff.

“Lots of men love a beautiful ramekin.”

And these two women didn’t know the guy was gay?

“Name one man who loves ramekins,” Clare demanded.

“That chef on television. I don’t recall his name.” There was a pause, and Joyce asked, “You’re sure it’s over, then?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a shame. Lonny had such beautiful manners. I’ll miss his tomato aspic.”

“Mother, I found him with another man. Having sex. In my closet. For God’s sake, screw the aspic!”

Leo carried the tea service to the sideboard and for a fraction his gaze met Sebastian’s. For the
first time since he’d arrived, he saw a spark of laughter in the older man’s green eyes.

“Claresta, watch your language. There’s no need to yell profanities. We can discuss this without yelling.”

“Can we? You’re acting as if I should have stayed with Lonny because he uses the right fork and chews with his mouth closed.”

There was another pause, and then Joyce said, “Well, I
suppose
it was necessary to call off the wedding.”

“You suppose? I knew you wouldn’t understand, and I debated about whether to even tell you. I only decided to tell you since I figured you’d notice him missing when he didn’t show up for Thanksgiving dinner.” Clare’s voice became more clear as she walked into the large open entryway. “I realize he was the perfect man for you mother, but he turned out not to be the perfect man for me.”

Her hair was pulled back into one of those inside out ponytails, all sleek and polished like the mahogany sideboard. She wore a white suit with big lapels, a deep blue blouse, and a long string of pearls. The skirt hit her just above the knee, and she had on a pair of white shoes that covered the front of her feet. The heels of the shoes looked like silver balls. She was spit polished and buttoned up tighter than a nun. Quite a change from the last time he
had seen her, with her back pressed against a motel room door, falling out of that silly pink dress, black smudges beneath her eyes, and hangover hair.

Just outside the dining room door she turned back to the room she’d exited. “I need a man who not only knows where his pickle fork is located, but wants to put it to use more than once on holidays.”

There was a shocked gasp followed by, “That’s vulgar. You sound like a floozy.”

Clare placed a hand on her chest. “Me? A floozy? I’ve been living with a gay man. I haven’t had sex in so long, I’m practically a virgin.”

Sebastian laughed. He couldn’t help it. The memory of her stripping off her clothes didn’t quite square with the woman claiming to be “practically a virgin.” Clare turned at the sound and her gaze met Sebastian’s. For a few unguarded seconds confusion wrinkled the smooth skin between her brows, as if she’d discovered something where it wasn’t supposed to be. Like the sideboard on the wrong wall or the gardener’s son in the dining room. A faint pink blush spread across her cheeks and the wrinkle between her brow deepened. Then, as had happened the other morning when she’d turned around and seen him standing behind her wearing nothing but a hotel towel and a few drops of water, she recovered quickly and remembered
her manners. She pulled at the cuffs of her jacket and entered the dining room.

“Hello, Sebastian. Isn’t this a wonderful surprise?” Her voice was pleasant enough, but he didn’t believe she meant a word of what she said. She pushed up the corners of her lush mouth, and he didn’t believe she meant that either. Maybe because that perfect smile didn’t quite reach her blue eyes. “Your father must be thrilled.” She held out her hand and he took it. Her fingers were a little cold, but he could almost feel her palm sweat. “How long do you plan to be in town?” she asked, all polished politeness.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, and looked into her eyes. He couldn’t say how “thrilled” his father felt about his visit, but he could practically read Clare’s mind. She was wondering if he was going to spill the beans about the other night. He smiled and let her worry.

She tugged her hand, and he wondered what she’d do if he tightened his grasp, if she’d lose her composure. Instead he released her and she held out her arms for his father. “Hello, Leo. It’s been a while.”

The older man stepped forward and hugged her; his old hands patted her back as if she were a child. As they had Sebastian when he’d been a child. “You shouldn’t stay away so long,” Leo said.

“Sometimes I need a break.” Clare leaned back. “A long break.”

“Your mother isn’t that bad.”

“Not to you.” She took a few steps backward and her hands fell to her sides. “I suppose you couldn’t help but overhear my conversation about Lonny.” Her attention remained fixed on Leo, as if she had dismissed Sebastian. As if he wasn’t in the same room, standing so close he could see tiny stray wisps at her hairline.

“Yes. I’m not sorry he’s gone,” Leo said, lowering his voice a fraction and giving her a knowing look. “I always suspected there was something a little light in the loafers about him.”

If the old man had known that Clare’s fiancé was gay, Sebastian wondered how it was that Clare hadn’t figured it out.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being…you know…funny that way, but if a man has a preference for…ahh…other men, he shouldn’t pretend he likes the ladies.” Leo placed a comforting hand on Clare’s shoulder. “That’s not right.”

“You knew too, Leo?” She shook her head and continued to ignore Sebastian. “Why was it so obvious to everyone but me?”

“Because you wanted to believe him, and some men are tricky. You have a kind heart and gentle
nature, and he took advantage of that. You have a lot to offer the right man. You’re beautiful and successful, and someday you’ll find someone worthy of you.”

Sebastian hadn’t heard the old man string that many consecutive sentences together since he’d been in town. At least not when he’d been within hearing distance.

“Ahh.” Clare tilted her head to one side. “You are the sweetest man alive.”

Leo beamed, and Sebastian had a sudden overwhelming desire to knock Clare off her pins, to pull her perfect ponytail or throw mud on her and mess her up like he did when she used to irritate him when they were kids. “I told your mother and my father that I ran into you the other night at the Double Tree,” he said. “It was a real shame you had to leave and we didn’t get to, ahh…chat a little more.”

Clare finally turned her attention to Sebastian and, through the fake little smile curving her full pink lips, said, “Yes. Truly one of the biggest regrets of my life.” She looked back at Leo and asked, “How’s the latest carving?”

“It’s almost done. You should come and see it.”

Sebastian shoved his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. She’d changed the subject and dismissed him again. He’d let her change the subject,
for now. But he’d be damned if he let her pretend he wasn’t in the room. He leaned his behind against the sideboard and asked, “What carving?”