I’m In No Mood For Love (8 page)

“Would you like a glass?”

He looked the bottle over and read the label. “No, this is good,” he said, and Clare took a seat in one of the matching high-backed chairs. He crossed one foot over his knee and rested the bottle on the heel of his boot. “For a lot of years I bounced
around from state to state and wrote articles for a lot of different news organizations, but I don’t write for the black-and-whites anymore.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Not for a few years, since I was an embed with the First Battalion Fifth Marine Regiment during the invasion of Iraq.” He took a drink of his beer while Clare waited for him to get to the reason behind his visit. “How many books have you ladies published?” he asked, and Clare realized he wasn’t going to talk about why he’d appeared on her porch, leaving her to wonder but have absolutely no clue. Other than to drive her insane with speculations.

“Five,” Maddie answered. Adele had eight publishing credits to her name, and like a good reporter, Sebastian followed up each answer with another question. Within fifteen minutes the two women who were hard to impress had become willing victims of Sebastian’s born-again charm.

“Sebastian published a book about Afghanistan,” Clare felt compelled by good manners to point out. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall the name of your book.” It had been years since she’d borrowed it from Leo and read it.

“Fractured: Twenty Years of War in Afghanistan.”

“I remember that book,” Adele admitted.

“So do I,” Maddie added.

Clare was not surprised that her friends recalled it. It had taken up the top slots on the
USA Today
and
New York Times
best-seller lists for weeks. Authors didn’t tend to forget or easily forgive a list hog. Except Adele, apparently. Clare watched as her friend wound a spiral lock of hair around her finger.

“What was it like being embedded with the Marines?” Adele asked.

“Cramped. Dirty. Scary as hell. And those were the good days. For months after I returned to the States, I’d just stand outside and breathe in air that wasn’t permeated with powdered sand.” He paused, and a slight smile touched the corner of his mouth. “If you talk to the military guys who are home now, that’s one of the things they appreciate most. Dust-free air.”

Maddie studied Sebastian as he took a drink, and the suspicious scrutiny that she subjected upon all men melted from her brown eyes. “They all look so young.”

Sebastian licked the beer from his bottom lip, then said, “The sergeant who commanded the vehicle I rode in was twenty-eight. The youngest soldier was nineteen. I was the old guy, but they saved my ass on more than one occasion.” He pointed at the champagne bottle with his beer and changed the subject. “Are you ladies celebrating?”

Adele and Maddie looked at Clare but didn’t answer. “No,” Clare lied, and took a sip. She didn’t feel like sharing that afternoon’s doctor visit with Sebastian. He might look normal and talk like a regular guy, but she didn’t trust him. He’d come to her house because he wanted something. Something he didn’t want to discuss in front of her friends. “We always drink when we get together to pray.”

He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. He didn’t believe her, but didn’t press her either. Maddie raised her glass and asked, “How long have you known Clare?”

For several heartbeats Sebastian looked into Clare’s eyes before he turned his attention to the women across from him. “Let’s see. I was five or six the first time I spent the summer with my father. The first time I remember seeing her, she was wearing a little dress that was kind of gathered at the top.” He pointed to his chest with the mouth of his bottle. “And little girl socks that fold over around the ankles. She dressed like that for years.”

Growing up, she and her mother had fought a lot about clothing. “My mother was into smocked dresses and Mary Janes in a big way,” she said. “When I was ten it was pleated skirts.”

“You still wear a lot of dresses and skirts,” Adele pointed out.

“It’s what I’m used to, but as a child, I didn’t have a choice. My mother bought my clothes and I had to look perfect all the time. I was terrified of getting dirty.” She thought back and said, “The only time I got dirty was when Sebastian was around.”

He shrugged, clearly unrepentant. “You looked better messed up.”

Which showed his contrary nature. No one looked good messed up. Except maybe him. “When I visited my father,” Clare said, “he’d let me wear whatever I wanted. Of course, my clothes had to stay in Connecticut, so the next time I visited him they didn’t fit. My favorite was a Smurf T-shirt.” She remembered Smurfette and sighed. “But what I really wanted, and not even my father would get for me, was a ‘boy toy’ belt buckle like Madonna. I wanted one of those in the worst way.”

Maddie frowned. “I can’t imagine you ever wanting to be a boy toy.”

“I didn’t even know what it meant, but I thought Madonna was so cool rolling around in that wedding veil with all that gaudy costume jewelry hanging off her. I wasn’t allowed costume jewelry because Mother thinks it’s vulgar.” She looked at Sebastian and confessed, “I used to sneak into your
father’s house when he was working and watch MTV.”

Tiny laugh lines creased the corners of his eyes. “Rebel.”

“Yeah, right. Rebel, that’s me. Remember when you taught me to play poker and you won all my money?”

“I remember. You cried, and my dad made me give it all back.”

“That’s because you told me we weren’t really playing for keeps. You lied.”

“Lied?” He took his foot from his knee, leaned forward and placed his forearms on his thighs. “No, I had an ulterior motive and big plans for that money.”

He’d always had an ulterior motive. “What plans?”

The bottle dangled from one hand between his knees as he thought a moment. “Well, I was ten, so I wasn’t into porn and alcohol yet.” He tapped the bottle against the leg of his cargo pants. “So, probably a stack of
Mad
magazines and a six-pack of Hires. I would have shared with you, if you hadn’t been such a crybaby.”

“So, your ulterior motive was to take all my money so you could share magazines and root beer with me?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

Adele laughed and set her empty glass on the table. “I bet you were cute running around in your little dresses and polished shoes.”

“No. I wasn’t. I looked like a bug.”

Sebastian was conspicuously silent.
Jerk.

“Honey, it’s better to be a homely child and a beautiful adult than a beautiful child and a homely adult,” Maddie pointed out in an effort to comfort Clare. “I have a cousin who was a gorgeous little girl, but she is one of the ugliest women you don’t ever want to lay your eyes on. Once her nose started to grow, it just didn’t stop. You may have started out a little short on looks, but you’re certainly a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you.” Clare bit her bottom lip. “I think.”

“You’re welcome.” Maddie set her glass on the table and stood. “I’ve got to get going.”

“You do?”

“Me too,” Adele announced. “I have a date.”

Clare stood. “You didn’t mention that.”

“Well, today is about you, and I didn’t want to talk about my date when your life isn’t so great.”

After both women said their good-byes to Sebastian, Clare walked them to the front door.

“Okay. What is between you and Sebastian?”
Maddie asked just above a whisper as she stepped out onto the porch.

“Nothing.”

“He looks at you like there’s something more.”

Adele added, “When you left the room to get his beer, his gaze followed you.”

Clare shook her head. “Which doesn’t mean a thing. He was probably hoping I’d trip and fall or something equally mortifying.”

“No.” Adele shook her head as she reached into her purse for her keys. “He looked at you like he was trying to picture you naked.”

Clare didn’t point out that he didn’t have to try. Pretty much, he already knew.

“And while I would normally find that disturbing in a man, it was really hot when he did it.” Maddie also dug around in her purse for her keys. “So, I think you should go for it.”

Who are these women?
“Hello. Last week I was engaged to Lonny. Remember?”

“You need a rebound man.” Adele took a step off the porch. “He’d be perfect in that capacity.”

Maddie nodded and followed Adele down the sidewalk toward their cars, parked in the driveway. “You can tell by looking at the man that he has heft.”

“Good-bye, you two,” she said, and closed the
door behind her. As far as Clare was concerned, Maddie was preoccupied with heft, probably because she hadn’t been anywhere near heft in several years. And Adele…Well, she had always suspected that Adele sometimes lived in the fantasyland in which she wrote.

W
hen Clare walked into the living room, Sebastian stood with his back to her, gazing up at a portrait of her and her mother taken when Clare had been six. “You were cuter than I remember,” he said.

“That was retouched several times.”

He chuckled as he turned his attention to a photo of Cindy, all groomed and polished in her pink hair bow. “This must be your wussy-looking mutt.”

Cindy was AKC certified and belonged to the Yorkshire Terrier Club of America. Hardly a mutt. “Yes. Mine and Lonny’s, but he took her when he left.” Looking at the photo made her miss her dog a lot.

He opened his mouth to say more, but shook his head and glanced about the room instead. “This is a lot like your mother’s house.”

Her house didn’t look anything like her mother’s. Her tastes were much more Victorian while her mother’s tastes leaned toward the French classics. “How’ s that?”

“Lots of stuff.” His gaze landed on her. “But your house is more girly-girl. Like you.”

He set his beer on the mantel. “I have something for you, and I didn’t want to take it out in front of your friends. Just in case you hadn’t mentioned that night at the Double Tree.” He reached into the front pocket of his cargo pants. “I believe this is yours.”

He held up her diamond earring between his fingers. Clare didn’t know which was more stunning, that he’d found the earring and brought it to her or that he hadn’t mentioned it in front of her friends. Both gestures were uncharacteristically thoughtful. Nice, even.

He took her hand in his and placed the diamond earring in her palm. “I found it on your pillow that morning.”

The heat from his hand seeped into her skin and spread to the tips of her fingers. The sensation was disturbing, and as unwanted as the memory
of what he’d been wearing, or rather, not been wearing, which seeped into her head and got stuck in her brain. “I thought I’d lost this for good.” She looked up into his eyes. There was something purely physical about Sebastian. A combination of cool strength and hot sexual energy that was impossible to ignore. “I would have had a difficult time matching it.”

“I kept forgetting to give it to you when you were at your mother’s.”

His thumb brushed hers and heat spread to her palm. She closed her hand into a fist to hold the hot tingles inside, pressing her fingers tightly together to keep the feeling from traveling to her wrist and spreading across her chest. Too late, she pulled her hand away. She was old enough to recognize the warmth brushing across her flesh. She didn’t want to feel anything for Sebastian. Or any man, for that matter. Nothing. She’d just finished a two-year relationship. It was too soon, but this feeling had nothing to do with deep emotion and everything to do with lust. “Tell me what happened in the Double Tree Saturday night.”

“I did.”

She took a step back. “No. Not everything. From the time you found me sitting on a bar stool talking to a toothless man in a wife beater until I
woke up naked, something more had to have happened.”

He smiled as if he found something she’d said amusing. The smile chilled the warm little tug of lust. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what you and your friends were celebrating.”

“What makes you think we were celebrating anything?”

He pointed to the champagne. “I’m guessing that bottle cost someone a hundred and thirty dollars. Nobody drinks Dom Perignon for the hell of it. Plus, I just met your friends, so don’t give me that crap about a prayer circle.”

“How do you know how much the champagne cost?”

“I’m a reporter. I have an incredible capacity for minutiae. Your friend with the curly hair said today was about you. So, don’t make me work too hard for the answer, Clare.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts. Why did she care if he knew about the HIV test? He already knew she’d planned to take one. “I went to the doctor today and…remember Monday when I talked to you about getting tested?”

“For HIV?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t quite look him in the eyes and lowered her gaze to the sunglasses hooked to
the neck of his T-shirt. “Well, I found out that I was negative today.”

“Ah. That’s good news.”

“Yes.”

He placed his fingers beneath her chin and brought her gaze up to his. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“We didn’t do anything. Not anything fun, anyway. You cried until you passed out, and I raided your minibar.”

“That’s it? How did I end up naked?”

“I thought I told you.”

He’d told her a lot of things. “Tell me again.”

He shrugged. “You stood up, stripped out of your clothes, then crawled back in bed. It was quite a show.”

“Is there more?”

He smiled a little. “Yeah. I lied about the guy in the bar at the Double Tree. The one with the baseball cap and wife beater.”

“About drinking Jägermeister?” she asked hopefully.

“Oh no. You were definitely knocking back the Jägermeister, but he wasn’t missing any teeth and he didn’t have a nose ring.”

Which wasn’t much of a relief. “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t know if she believed him. Even though he’d brought her the earring and spared her the embarrassing explanation in front of her friends, she didn’t think he’d lie to spare her feelings. God knew, he never had in the past. Her hand tightened around the diamond in her palm. “Well, thank you for bringing the earring to me.”

He grinned. “I have an ulterior motive.”

Of course he did.

“You look worried.” He raised his hands in the air as if surrendering. “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.”

She turned away and placed the earring in the cloisonné dish on the coffee table. “The last time you said that, you talked me into playing doctor.” She straightened and pointed to her chest. “I ended up buck naked.”

“Yeah,” he said as he laughed. “I remember, but it wasn’t like you didn’t want to play.”

Saying no had always been her problem. Not any longer. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“I don’t have to know.”

“How about if I promise that you won’t end up naked this time?” His gaze slid to her mouth, down her throat, and to her finger, resting on her dress, between her breasts. “Unless you insist.”

She picked up the three empty glasses and
champagne bottle. “Forget it,” she said through a sigh as she walked from the room.

“All I need are a few ideas about what I should get my father for the party Saturday.”

She looked back at him. “Is that all?” There had to be more.

“Yeah. Since I had to drop off the earring, I thought you could point me in the right direction. Give me some ideas. Although Dad and I are trying to get to know each other again, you know him better than I do.”

Okay, so now she felt bad. She was being judgmental, and that wasn’t fair. He’d been a smooth-talking flimflammer as a child, but that was a long time ago. She certainly didn’t want to be judged by things she’d said and done as a girl. “I got him an antique wooden duck,” she answered, and entered the kitchen, the heels of her sandals tapping across the hardwood floors. “Maybe you could get him a book on wood carving.”

“A book would be good.” Sebastian followed. “What do you think of a new fishing pole?”

“I wasn’t aware that he fished these days.” Clare set the glasses and bottle on the granite island in the middle of the kitchen.

“He and I pulled a few trout out of the reservoir this afternoon.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “His gear
is fairly dated, so I thought I’d get him a newer setup.”

“With him, you have to pay attention to brands.”

“That’s why I thought you could help me out. I wrote down what we’ll need.”

She stopped and slowly turned toward him. “We’ll?”

He shrugged. “Sure. You’ll go along. Right?”

Something wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t looking her in the eyes and…She sucked in a breath and the real reason for his unannounced visit became crystal clear. “There’s no ‘we’ll,’ is there? You came here to talk me into getting your father a fishing pole. By myself.”

He looked at her then and gave her his most charming smile. “Honey, I don’t know where the sporting goods stores are in this town. And really, there’s no point in both of us going.”

“Don’t honey me.” She was such a fool. She’d given him the benefit of the doubt, felt bad for misjudging him, and here he was, standing in her kitchen attempting a bait and switch. She folded her arms across her chest. “No.”

“Why not?” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Women love to shop.”

“For shoes. Not fishing poles. Duh!” She groaned
inwardly and closed her eyes. Had she just said
Duh
? Like she was ten again?

Clearly amused, Sebastian laughed. “Duh? What’s next? Are you going to call me a numb nut?”

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Good-bye, Sebastian,” she said as she moved to the kitchen doorway. She stopped and pointed to the front of her house. “You are on your own.”

He pushed away from the counter and moved toward her. Slow and easy, as if he wasn’t in a big hurry to comply to her demand. “Your friends are right, you know.”

Good God! Had he overheard the heft conversation?

As he walked past her, he paused and said next to her ear, “You might not have been the cutest little girl in patent leather shoes, but you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. Especially when you’re all worked up.”

He smelled good, and if she turned her face just a little she could bury her nose in his neck. The desire to do so alarmed her, and she kept as still as possible. “Forget it. I’m not doing your shopping for you.”

“Please?”

“Not a chance.”

“What if I get lost?”

“Get a map.”

“Don’t need one. The Land Cruiser has a navigation system.” He chuckled and pulled back. “You were more fun as a kid.”

“I was more gullible. I’m not a little girl now and you can’t trick me, Sebastian.”

“Clare, you wanted me to trick you.” He smiled and moved to the front door. “You still do,” he said, and was gone before she could argue or utter a good-bye or good riddance.

She walked back into the kitchen, reached for the champagne glasses, and set them next to the sink. Ridiculous. She hadn’t wanted to be tricked. She’d just wanted him to like her. She turned on the faucet and added a few drops of lemon fresh Joy.
She’d just wanted him to like her.
She supposed that was the story of her life. Sad and a little pathetic, but true.

The water ran for a few moments before she turned off the faucet and placed the glasses in the warm soapy water. If she were honest and took a good hard look at her past, she could see the same destructive patterns in her life. If she were honest, the kind of honest that was painful to look at, she’d admit that she was letting her childhood influence her adult life.

Admitting that really did bite the big one, but it
was too obvious to ignore. She’d absolutely refused to consider it for so long because it was such a cliché, and she hated clichés. She hated to write them, but more than that, she hated being one.

In college she’d taken sociology classes and read the studies conducted on children raised in single parent homes. She had thought she’d escaped the statistics, which found that girls raised without fathers were more likely to engage in greater and earlier sexual activities and were at a greater risk of suicide and criminality. She’d never had one single thought of suicide, never been arrested, and was a freshman in college when she’d lost her virginity. Her friends from two-parent homes had lost theirs in high school. Therefore, she’d convinced herself that she did not have the classic “daddy issues.”

No, she hadn’t been sexually promiscuous. Just emotionally hollow and subconsciously seeking male approval to fill the empty places inside. And she didn’t have to look very hard at her life to discover why she always searched for male attention to make herself feel whole.

Clare washed the glasses and set them on a towel to dry. For all intents and purposes, she’d been raised without a father. On those occasions when she visited her dad, he always had a beautiful woman living with him. A different beautiful woman. To a little girl with thick glasses and a
wide mouth that didn’t fit her face, all those beautiful women had made her feel even more unattractive and insecure. It hadn’t been their fault. Most of the women were kind to her. Nor had it been her fault. She’d been a child—it was just life, her life—and she was still letting those old insecurities influence her relationships with men. After all these years.

Clare reached into a drawer and pulled out a towel. As she dried her hands, she came to a painful realization. She’d settled for men unworthy of her because, deep inside, she’d felt lucky to have them. It wasn’t exactly the bing-bing moment she’d been waiting for to explain her relationship with Lonny. It didn’t answer why she hadn’t seen what had been so obvious to everyone else, but it did explain why she’d settled for a man who could never love her the way any woman deserved to be loved by the man in her life.

The telephone sitting next to the porcelain canisters rang, and she glanced at the caller ID. It was Lonny. He’d been calling every day since she’d kicked him out. She never picked up, and he never left a message. This time she decided to answer. “Yes.”

“Oh, you’re there.”

“Yes.”

“How are you?”

Hearing his voice made all the hollow places ache. “Fine.”

“I thought maybe we could get together and talk.”

“No. There’s nothing to say.” She closed her eyes and pushed past all the pain. The pain of loss, and of loving a man that did not exist. “It’s best if we both just move on.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

She opened her eyes. “I’ve never understood what that means.” She laughed without humor. “You dated me, made love to me, and asked me to marry you, but you weren’t physically attracted to me. Exactly what part of that wasn’t meant to hurt me?”

He was silent for several long moments. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“No. I sincerely want to know how you could lie to me for two years, then claim you never meant to hurt me.”