I’m In No Mood For Love (5 page)

“Leo carves the most fabulous wildlife.”

Sebastian hadn’t known that. Of course, he’d seen them around the carriage house, but he hadn’t known his father carved them.

“Last year he entered one of his ducks in the Western Idaho Fair and won. What kind of duck was it, Leo?”

“A shoveler drake.”

“It was beautiful.” Clare’s face lit up as if she’d carved it herself.

“What did you win?” Sebastian asked his father.

“Nothing.” Color rose up Leo’s neck above the collar of his beige shirt. “Just a blue ribbon, is all.”

“A
huge
blue ribbon. You’re too modest. The competition was stiff.
Veni vidi vici.”

Sebastian watched the flush creep into his father’s cheeks. “I came, I saw, I kicked some bird-carving ass?”

“Well,” Leo said as he looked down at the carpet, “it wasn’t anything like the important awards you win, but it was nice.”

Sebastian had been unaware that his father knew about his journalistic awards. He didn’t recall mentioning them the few times they’d spoken
throughout the years, but he must have said something.

Joyce entered the dinning room wearing all black, like the angel of doom, and put an end to the discussion of ducks and awards. “Hmm,” she said, and pointed to the sideboard. “Now that I see it, I’m not sure I like it there.” She pushed a side of her short gray bob behind her ear with one hand and twisted the pearl necklace around her throat with the other. “Well, I’ll have to think about it.” She turned to the three people in front of her and placed her palms on her bony hips. “I’m glad we’re all in the same room because I’ve an idea.” She looked at her daughter. “In case you’ve forgotten, Leo turns sixty-five on Saturday, and next month marks his thirtieth year of employment with us. As you know, he is invaluable and practically a member of the family. In certain respects, much more than Mr. Wingate ever was.”

“Mother,” Clare warned.

Joyce held up one slim hand. “I had thought to put together something next month to mark both occasions, but I really think that since Sebastian is in town, we should put together a small gathering of Leo’s friends this weekend.”

“We?”

“This weekend?” Sebastian hadn’t planned to stay through the weekend.

Joyce turned to Clare. “I know you’ll want to help with the arrangements.”

“Of course I’ll help as much as I can. I work most days until four, but after that I’m free.”

“Surely you can take a few days off.”

Clare looked as if she might argue, but at the last moment she pasted one of her fake smiles on her face. “Not a problem. I’ll be happy to do whatever I can.”

“I don’t know.” Leo shook his head. “It sounds like a lot of trouble, and Sebastian doesn’t know when he might be leavin’.”

“I’m sure he can stay a few more days.” Then the woman who’d once banished him from her land like a queen asked, “Can’t you please stay?”

He opened his mouth to tell her no, but something else came out instead. “Why not?” he heard himself say.

Why not?
There were several good reasons why not. First, he wasn’t sure more time wouldn’t make his relationship with his father less awkward. Second, his
Newsweek
article obviously wasn’t going to get written at his father’s kitchen table. Third, he had to deal with his mother’s estate, although calling it an estate was a stretch. The fourth and fifth good reasons stood in front of him: one was clearly relieved by his decision, the other annoyed and still pretending he was invisible.

“Wonderful.” Joyce brought her hands together and placed her fingers beneath her chin. “Since you’re here, Clare, we can get started right now.”

“Actually, Mother, I need to leave.” She turned to Sebastian and asked, “Would you walk me out?”

Suddenly he wasn’t invisible after all. He was sure Clare had something to say about the other night, some blank spots that she wanted him to fill in for her, and he debated whether to leave her hanging. In the end he was curious about what she might ask. “Sure.” He pushed away from the sideboard and pulled his hands from his pockets. He followed her from the dining room, the silver heels of her shoes making tiny
tap tap
sounds across the kitchen tile.

Sebastian walked down the stairs first and opened the back door for her. His gaze moved from the blue of her eyes to her slicked-back hair. As a kid her hair had always looked painful. As a woman it looked like dark silk that needed to be messed up. “You look different,” he said.

The sleeve of her suit brushed the front of his T-shirt as she passed. “I wasn’t exactly at my best Saturday night.”

He chuckled and shut the door behind them. “I meant, you look different from when you were a kid. You used to wear thick glasses.”

“Oh. I had Lasik surgery about eight years ago.”
She looked down at her feet as they walked beneath an old oak tree toward the garage. A breeze played with the leaves above their head, and shadows fluttered in her hair and across the side of her face. “How much of the conversation with my mother did you overhear?” she asked as they stepped from the lawn and onto the stone driveway.

“Enough to know that your mother didn’t take the news about Lonny very well.”

“Actually, Lonny is the perfect man for my mother.” They stopped by the back bumper of her Lexus. “Someone to arrange the flowers, who won’t bother her in the bedroom.”

“Sounds like an employee.” Like my father, he thought.

She placed a hand on the car and looked at the back of the house. “I’m sure you’ve guessed why I asked you to walk out here with me. We need to talk about what happened the other night.” She shook her head and opened her mouth to say more but nothing came out. She lifted her hand from the back of the Lexus, then set it back down again. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

He could help her out. Clear things up real fast and tell her they hadn’t slept together, but it wasn’t his job to make her life easier. One thing he’d learned from his years as a journalist was to just sit tight and listen. He leaned his hip into the car,
crossed his arms over his chest, and waited. Several thin strips of sunlight picked out deep auburn strands in her brown hair, and the only reason he could think why he even noticed was because he was trained to notice small details. It was his job.

“I’m guessing we met in the bar at the Double Tree,” she began again.

“That’s right. You were throwing back Jägermeister with some guy wearing a backward ball cap and a wife beater.” Which was the truth. Then he broke his just-sit-back-and-listen rule and added a little lie for fun. “He had a nose ring and was missing a few teeth.”

“Oh God.” She pulled her fingers into a fist. “I’m not sure I want to know every detail. I mean, I probably should—up to a point anyway. It’s just that…” She paused and swallowed hard. Sebastian’s gaze slid from her mouth, down her throat, to the top button of her blouse. She was wound tight, but there was another side of her. One he’d seen the other night. One that didn’t pull her hair back and string pearls around her neck before noon. He wondered if she was wearing that pink bustier beneath her bland suit. It had been dark in the hotel room, and he hadn’t gotten a real good look at it before she’d whipped it off.

“I’m usually not the sort of woman to drink myself into oblivion or invite men to my hotel
room. You probably don’t believe that, and I don’t blame you. I…had a really bad day, which you already know about,” she rambled.

As Sebastian listened, he let his mind drift, and he wondered if she had a thong on beneath that virginal suit. Like the one she’d worn the other night. That thong had rocked. He wouldn’t mind seeing that thong again. Not that he liked Clare much. He didn’t, but not every woman could wear a thong and look that good in it. He’d traveled the world and seen his share of thong-clad women. It took a woman with a firm butt and just the right junk in her trunk to pull off a thong.

“…condom.”

Whoa.
“What?” He looked back into her face. Her cheeks were turning a bright shade of red. “Come again?”

“I need to know if you used a condom the other night. I don’t know if you were as inebriated as I was, but I hope you remembered. I realize that it was my responsibility…as much as yours, of course. But since I wasn’t planning to…to…I didn’t have any with me. So, I’m hoping you did and that…well, you were responsible and used it. Because in this day and age there are serious consequences from having unprotected sex.”

She’d accused him of taking advantage of her when she’d been drunk. Pretended he didn’t exist,
and now it sounded like she was getting ready to accuse him of giving her something really unpleasant.

“I have an appointment with my doctor at the end of the week, and if we didn’t use a condom, I think you would be wise to do the same. I thought I was in a committed relationship, but…You know what they say, it’s not only the person you’re sleeping with, but everyone they’ve ever slept with too.” She gave a nervous little laugh and blinked her eyes a few times as if she were fighting back tears. “So…”

Sebastian looked at her standing there, with the shadows playing in her dark hair and touching one corner of her mouth.

He remembered the little girl with huge glasses who’d followed him around as a kid, and just as he had all those years ago, he began to feel a little sorry for her.

Damn it.

“W
e didn’t have sex.”

“Excuse me?” Clare’s eyes stung, as she battled the tears she refused to shed. She was mortified and embarrassed, but she would not cry in public, especially in front of Sebastian. She was made of sterner stuff. “What did you say?”

“We didn’t have sex.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “You were too drunk.”

Clare looked at Sebastian for several long seconds, not quite trusting her ears. “We didn’t? But you said we did.”

“Not at first. You woke up naked and you assumed that we did. I just let you assume it.”

“What?” They hadn’t had sex and she’d just gone through the agony of the past few moments.
For nothing? “You did more than let me assume. You said we were really loud and you were afraid someone was going to call security.”

“Yeah, maybe I embellished a little.”

“A little?” The sting in the back of her eyes turned to shooting anger. “You said I couldn’t get enough!”

“Well, you deserved it.” He pointed to the Molson beer on his T-shirt and had the audacity to act offended. “I’ve never taken advantage of a drunk woman. Not even one who strips naked right in front of me, crawls into bed, then spoons me all night.”

“Spoons? Spoons!” Had she done that? She didn’t know. How could she know? He was probably lying about that too. He’d lied about the sex. She took a calming breath and tried to remember that she didn’t yell in public. Scream or pummel lying bastards to death.
Be nice,
the little voice in her head warned.
Don’t lower yourself to his level.
She’d been raised to be a nice girl and look where it got her. Nice girls didn’t finish first. They just sat around choking on everything they were too nice to say. Stuffing it down, terrified that someday they would burst, and the world would see that they weren’t nice after all. “I don’t believe you.”

“You were all over me like white on rice.”

“You’re clearly delusional.” He was pushing her
like he had when they’d been kids, but she wasn’t going to fall into old childish patterns with him. “But I don’t have to believe your wild fantasies.”

“You wanted freaky, down and dirty sex. But I didn’t think it was right to take advantage of a shit-faced drunk.”

She felt her head get tight. “I’m not a drunk.”

He shrugged. “You were, but I didn’t give you what you were begging me for.”

Her tight head exploded. “You lying dickhead,” she said, and didn’t care if her outburst was immature, or the sign of an ignorant mind, or if she’d responded to his baiting. It felt good to take her anger out on him. He deserved it. Or rather, it did feel good until he gave her that wicked grin of his. The one she recognized. The one that reached his green eyes and robbed her of satisfaction.

He took a few steps forward until only an inch or so of thin air separated his chest from the lapels of her jacket. “You were pressed against me so tight, my button fly left an imprint on your bare butt.”

“Grow up.” She tipped her head back and looked up past his clean-shaven chin and mouth to his eyes. “Why would I believe you? You’ve admitted that you lied. We didn’t have sex and—” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “Thank God.” She felt as if a heavy load had suddenly been lifted from her heart. “Thank God I didn’t actually sleep with
you,” she said through a huge gush of relief. She shook her head and began to laugh like a lunatic. She wasn’t a big drunk slut after all. She hadn’t reverted to her old self-destructive pattern. “You don’t know what a relief that is. I didn’t have loud, hot, sweaty sex with you.” She raised a palm to her forehead. Finally, a little good news after the week from hell. “Whew!”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at her. A lock of his sandy blond hair fell over his tan forehead. “You walk around so uptight, I doubt you’ve ever had loud, hot, sweaty sex. You wouldn’t know loud, hot, sweaty sex if it threw you down and climbed on top.”

She could practically feel his testosterone-infused indignation. He was right, she hadn’t ever had loud, hot, sweaty sex. But she would probably know if it climbed on her. “Sebastian, I write romance novels for a living.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket.

“Yeah?”

She pulled out her keys. There was no way she would ever let him know he was right about her. “Where do you think I get my ideas for all the
loud
, hot, sweaty
sex
I put in my books?” It was one of the most frequently asked questions of romance authors, and one of the most absurd. It was called romantic
fiction
for a reason, but if
she were given a dollar for each time she was asked where she got her ideas for the love scenes she wrote, she could supplement her income quite nicely. “It’s all carefully researched. You’re a journalist. You know about research. Right?”

Sebastian didn’t answer, but his wicked smile flat-lined.

Clare opened her car door and Sebastian was forced to take a step back. “You don’t think I just make all that stuff up, do you?” She smiled and climbed into her car. She didn’t wait for an answer as she fired up the Lexus and closed the door. As she drove away, she looked in her rearview mirror at Sebastian standing exactly where she’d left him, looking stunned.

He’d never read a romance novel. Thought they were sappy. For chicks. Sebastian buried his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans and watched Clare’s taillights disappear. How much sex did she put into those books she wrote? And how hot was it?

The back door to the house closed and drew his attention to his father walking toward him. Was that why Mrs. Wingate didn’t like to talk about what Clare wrote for a living? Was it porn, and more importantly, did Clare really research something like that?

“I see Clare left,” his father said as he approached. “Such a nice sweet girl.”

Sebastian looked at his father and wondered if he was talking about the same Clare who’d just called him a lying dickhead. Or the Clare who’d been so relieved that she hadn’t had sex with him, she’d looked like a death row inmate who’d suddenly found God. Like she just might fall to the ground and praise Jesus.

“I know that Joyce put you on the spot in there.” Leo stopped in front of Sebastian and shoved his hat on his head. “I know you weren’t planning to stay the weekend.” He looked across the yard and added, “Don’t feel like you have to stay now. I know you got important things to do.”

None of which he felt
compelled
to do. “I can stay the weekend, Dad.”

“Good.” Leo nodded. “Good, then.”

Squirrels chatted in the trees overhead, and Sebastian asked, “What are your plans for the day?”

“Well, after I change my clothes, I was thinking of driving to the Lincoln dealership.”

“You need a new car?”

“Yeah, the Lincoln just turned fifty.”

“You have a fifty-year-old Lincoln?”

“No.” Leo shook his head. “No. The speedometer just turned fifty thousand miles. I get a
new Town Car every fifty thousand miles.”

Yeah? His Land Cruiser had more than seventy thousand, but he couldn’t see himself turning it in. Fact was, he just wasn’t all that materialistic. Except when it came to wristwatches. He loved a good watch with lots of gadgets on it. “Do you want company?” he heard himself ask. Spending time with the old man away from the carriage house could be just what the two of them needed. Maybe do some father-son bonding over some cars. He could help his father out. It could be good.

The squirrels continued to chatter into the silence. Then Leo answered, “Sure. If you’ve got the time. I heard your cell phone ringin’ earlier and I thought you might be busy.”

The call had concerned a piece for a major news magazine that he and the managing editor had discussed several months ago. Now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to hop a plane and travel to Rajwara, India, and chase an epidemic of black fever. The conventional methods of treatment in that part of the world had bred drug-resistant parasites and no longer worked. The projected death toll was as high as 200,000 worldwide.

When he’d spoken to the editor about the piece, it had seemed important, exciting. It was still important, vitally so, but now he wasn’t so hot to see the drawn, hopeless faces or hear the suffering from
hut after hut as he walked dusty streets. He was losing the fire to tell the story, and he knew it.

“I don’t have anything to do for a few hours,” he said, and the two of them walked toward the carriage house. He could feel the burning desire for his job cool a bit, and it scared the hell out of him. If he wasn’t a journalist, wasn’t chasing stories and tracking leads, who the hell was he? “Where else do you want to look besides the Lincoln dealership?”

“Nowhere. I’ve always been a Lincoln man.”

Sebastian thought back to his childhood and remembered the car his father had driven. “You had a Versailles. Two-toned brown with beige leather seats.”

“Fawn,” Leo corrected him as they passed a marble fountain with a cherub peeing into a clamshell. “The leather was fawn that year. The two-tone paint was fawn and butternut.”

Sebastian laughed. Who would have guessed that his father was the Rain Man of Lincolns? The BlackBerry hooked to his belt rang, and he stayed outside to answer it while his father entered the carriage house to change. A producer from the History Channel wanted to know if he was willing to be interviewed for a documentary they were putting together on the history of Afghanistan. Sebastian didn’t consider himself an
expert on Afghan history. He was more of an observer, but he agreed to do the interview and it was set for next month.

A half hour after the call ended, he and his father were on their way to the Lithia Lincoln Mercury dealership to look at Town Cars. Leo had spiffed himself up in a navy blue suit and a tie with the Tasmanian devil on it. His gray hair was slicked back like he’d combed it with a pork chop.

“What’s with the suit?” Sebastian asked as they drove up Fairview past Rocky’s Drive Inn. As they passed, a car hop in a short skirt skated down a row of cars with a tray held above her head.

“Salesmen respect a guy in a suit and tie.”

Sebastian turned his attention to his father. “Not a Looney Toons tie.”

Leo glanced over at him, then returned his green gaze to the road. “What’s wrong with my tie?”

“It has a cartoon character on it,” he explained.

“So? This a great tie. Lots of guys wear ties like this.”

“They shouldn’t,” Sebastian mumbled, and looked out the passenger side window. Just because he didn’t like to shop didn’t mean he didn’t know how to dress.

They drove for a few more moments in silence as Sebastian took in the sites up and down the
busy street. Nothing looked familiar. “Have I ever been out this way?” he asked.

“Sure,” Leo answered as they sped past a woman walking a big black dog and a beagle. “That’s where I went to school,” he said, and pointed to an old elementary school with a bell on top. “And remember when I took you and Clare to the drive-in theater?”

“Oh, yeah.” They’d had popcorn and orange Fanta. “We saw
Superman II.”

Leo moved into the middle lane. “They tore it all down and now it’s where they sell Lincolns.” He turned into Lithia Motors and drove slowly past rows of shiny cars designed to create avarice in the least materialistic. Near the middle of the lot, they parked and were soon approached by J. T. Wilson, who wore a polo shirt with the dealership’s insignia above the left pocket.

“Which of the Town Cars are you interested in looking at?” J.T. asked as the three of them moved across the parking lot. “We have three models of Signature Town Car.”

“I haven’t made up my mind. I’d like to test-drive a few and compare,” Leo answered.

Sebastian just couldn’t see why a guy would get worked up over a Town Car, but as they walked past two rows of SUVs, he stopped as if his feet had suddenly got stuck to the asphalt. “Why not
test-drive the Navigator?” He glanced inside at the plush interior and ran a hand along the shiny black paint. He could see himself in that car and had visions of driving down the road fiddling with the stereo.

“I like the Town Car.”

“You could add a set of chrome rims,” Sebastian persisted, experiencing unexpected car craving. Perhaps he was more like Leo than he thought. “Maybe some custom grill work.”

“I’d feel ridiculous. Like that Puff Daddy.”

“P. Diddy.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. You could haul in a Navigator.”

Leo shook his head and kept walking. “I don’t want to haul anything.”

“Most of the Navigators have a tow package with a heavy-duty receiver hitch,” J.T. informed them.

Sebastian didn’t bother informing the men he’d meant haul
ass.
Reluctantly, they moved on, and together Sebastian and Leo took a gold Town Car for a test-drive. “Why do you turn in a perfectly good car every fifty thousand?” he asked as they drove out of the dealership.

“Depreciation and trade-in value,” Leo answered. “And I just like a new car.”

Sebastian didn’t know anything about depreciation and wasn’t picky about the miles on
his car. “This thing sure is smooth,” he said.

“Hauls ass too.”

Sebastian looked at his father, and across the car they shared a smile. Finally, they agreed on something. The importance of hauling ass.

The two of them spent the next half hour tearing up the streets and enjoying moments of comfortable silence punctuated by easy conversation. They talked about the changes he’d noticed in Boise, although he’d been young the last time he visited. The population had exploded and brought a lot of growth, but one thing that remained just as he’d remembered was the state capitol building made of sandstone and patterned after the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. As a kid, his dad had taken him to visit, and he could recall the marble interior and crawling around on the cannon somewhere on the grounds. Mostly he remembered how it looked at night. All lit up with the golden eagle shining on top of the dome, 208 feet above.

When they returned to the dealership, playtime was over and Leo got down to business.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “You’re going to have to come down.”