I’m In No Mood For Love (9 page)

“It’s true. I’m not gay,” he said, lying to her and probably himself. “I’ve always wanted a wife and kids and the house with the picket fence. I still do. That makes me a normal man.”

She almost felt sorry for him. He was even more confused than she was. “That makes you trying to pass for something you’re not.”

“What does it matter anyway? Gay or straight, men are unfaithful all the time.”

“That doesn’t make it right, Lonny. It makes them just as guilty of lying and cheating as you.”

When she hung up, she knew she was saying good-bye to him for the last time. He would not phone again, and there was a piece of her that missed him. That still loved him. Not only had he been her fiancé, he’d been one of the best male friends she’d ever had, and she would miss that friendship for a very long time.

She dried the glasses and placed them in the china hutch in the dining room. Her thoughts turned to Sebastian and his irritating sneaky ways. And of the pheromones that rolled off him like heat waves tumbling across the Mojave Desert. Those pheromones had stunned Maddie and Adele and left them both dazed. And no matter how much she hated to admit it, there was no denying that she was very aware of him too. The way he looked and smelled, and the touch of his hand on hers.

What was wrong with her? She’d just ended a serious relationship, and was already thinking about the touch of another man. But now that she thought about it for a rational moment, she realized that her reaction to Sebastian probably had more to do with not having good-quality sex in ages rather than the man himself.

He wants you
, Maddie had said, and Adele had added,
You need a rebound man.
But they were
wrong. Both of them. The last thing she needed, rebound or permanent, no matter how long it had been since she’d had good sex, was a man. No, she needed to be okay by herself before she even
considered
allowing a man in her life.

By the time she crawled into bed that night, Clare was certain that her reaction to Sebastian had been purely physical. It was the reaction of any woman to a handsome man. That was all. Normal. Natural. And it would pass.

She turned off the bedside light and chuckled into the darkness. He’d thought he’d come over to her house and sucker her into doing his shopping for him. Charm her just like he had in the past.

“Who’s the sucker now?” she whispered. For the first time in her life, she hadn’t been tricked by Sebastian.

But the next morning, while her coffee brewed, she opened the front door to get her newspaper and a fishing pole fell into the house. A note written on the back of a Burger King napkin was stuck in one of the eyes of the pole. It read:

S
he’d wrapped the fishing pole and reel in pink ribbon and glittery bows. It was so girly and gaudy, Sebastian had hid it behind the sofa in the carriage house where no one would see it.

“Such a sweet girl.”

Sebastian stood beneath a big awning constructed in the Wingate backyard. There were about twenty-five guests, none of whom Sebastian had ever met before. He’d been introduced to everyone and recalled most of their names. After years of reporting, he’d developed a knack for recalling people and events.

Roland Meyers, one of Leo’s oldest friends, stood next to him, munching on foie gras. “Who?” Sebastian asked.

Roland pointed across the lawn at a large knot of people, the setting sun bathing them in burnt orange. “Clare.”

Sebastian speared a little weenie with a toothpick and stuck it on his plate next to crab-stuffed Camembert. “So I’ve heard.” His father, he noticed, had dressed himself up in charcoal trousers, white dress shirt, and a god-awful tie with a howling wolf on it.

“She and Joyce put this whole thing together for your father.” Roland took a drink of something on the rocks, and added, “They’ve been like family to Leo. Always taken real good care of him.”

Sebastian detected a note of censure. It wasn’t the first time that evening that he felt as if he were being politely admonished for not visiting sooner, but he didn’t know Roland well enough to be certain.

Roland’s next words removed any doubt. “Never were too busy for him. Not like his own family.”

Sebastian smiled. “The interstate runs two ways, Mr. Meyers.”

The older man nodded. “That’s true enough. I have six kids and can’t imagine not laying eyes on one of them for ten years.”

It had been more like fourteen years, but who was counting. “What do you do for a living?” Sebastian asked, purposely changing the subject.

“Veterinarian.”

Sebastian moved down the table filled with hors d’oeuvres. Directly behind him, sixties music played from speakers hidden by planters of tall grasses and cattails. One of the strongest memories Sebastian had of his father was his love of the Beatles, Dusty Springfield, and especially Bob Dylan—of reading Fantastic Four comics and listening to “Lay Lady Lay.”

Sebastian ate the Camembert on thin crackers and followed that up with a few stuffed mushrooms. He raised his gaze to the people milling about the lawn amidst lit torches and candles floating in various fountains. His gaze moved to the group of people standing near a nymph fountain, and once again landed on one brunette in particular. Clare had curled her straight hair, and the setting sun caught in the big waves and touched the side of her face. She wore a tight blue dress with tiny white flowers that hit her just above the knee. The thin straps of the dress looked like bra straps, and a white ribbon circled her ribs and was tied beneath her breasts.

Earlier, before the guests had arrived that evening, he’d watched the caterer set up while Clare and Joyce had placed Leo’s carved wildlife along the tables and in the cattails. Roland had been right. The Wingate women did take good care of
his father. A twinge of guilt plucked his conscience. What he’d said to Roland had been true too. The interstate did run two ways, and he’d never bothered heading in the direction of his father until a week ago. They’d let things fall to nothing, and whether it was the old man’s fault or his didn’t seem to matter anymore.

They’d had a great time fishing together, and Sebastian had felt the first real hint of optimism. Now, if neither of them did anything to mess it up, they might actually have some kind of framework on which to build. Funny that he’d had a fuck-it attitude toward his father only a few short months ago. But that was before he’d stood in a mortuary picking out a casket for his mother. That day, his world shifted, turned him 180 degrees around and changed him, whether he’d wanted it to or not. Now he wanted to know the old man before it was too late. Before he once again had to make a decision on cherrywood or bronze. Crepe or velvet. Cremated or buried.

He polished off the remaining hors d’oeuvre and threw the plate in the trash. Or, given his job, before his father might have to make arrangements for him. He preferred to be burned rather than buried and wanted his ashes dumped rather than kept in a columbarium or on someone’s mantel. During the course of his life, he’d been shot at numerous
times, he’d chased stories and been chased, and he didn’t have any illusions about his own mortality.

With that happy reflection, he ordered a scotch on the rocks at the open bar, then made his way to his father. When he’d packed for his impromptu trip to Boise, he’d thrown jeans, a couple pairs of cargo pants, and a week’s worth of T-shirts into the suitcase. It hadn’t occurred to him to pack anything to wear to a party. Earlier that afternoon, his father had brought him a blue and white striped dress shirt and a plain red tie. He’d left the tie sitting on the dresser, but he’d been grateful for the loan of the shirt, whose tails he’d tucked into his newest Levi’s. Every now and again he caught the scent of the old man’s laundry soap and realized it was coming from him—a little disconcerting after all these years, but comfortable.

At Sebastian’s approach, his father made a place for him. “Are you having a good time?” Leo asked.

Good time? No. Good time meant something entirely different in Sebastian’s personal lexicon, and he hadn’t had that kind of good time in months. “Sure. The food is good.” He raised his drink to his mouth. “But pass on the cheese ball with the chunks in it,” he advised from behind his glass.

Leo smiled and asked just above a whisper, “What are the chunks?”

“Nuts.” Sebastian took a drink and his gaze slid to Clare, standing a few feet from his father, chatting it up with a man in green and blue plaid who looked to be in his late twenties. “And some sort of fruit.”

“Ah, Joyce’s ambrosia cheese ball. She makes it every Christmas. Horrible stuff.” The corner of Leo’s smile quivered. “Don’t tell her. She thinks everyone loves it.”

Sebastian chuckled and lowered his glass.

“Excuse me while I go grab some of the Camembert before it’s all gone,” his father said, and made a beeline for the buffet table.

Sebastian watched his father walk away, his gait a little slower than it had been earlier. It was getting close to his bedtime.

“I bet Leo is just thrilled to death to finally have you here,” said Lorna Devers, the neighbor from across the hedgerow.

Sebastian pulled his gaze from his father and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know if he’s thrilled or not.”

“Of course he is.” Mrs. Devers was in her fifties, although it was hard to tell which end of fifty, given that her face was frozen from Botox. Not that Sebastian had a real opinion one way or the other about plastic surgery. He just thought it
shouldn’t be so obvious to the casual observer exactly where a person had gotten herself nipped, tucked, sucked, or injected. Case in point, Lorna’s Pamela-Anderson-sized breasts. Not that he had anything against big, or even fake. Just not that big and that fake on a woman that age.

“I’ve known your father for twen—a few years,” she said, then proceeded to talk about herself and her poodles, Missy and Poppet. As far as Sebastian was concerned, that was strike three and four. He had nothing against poodles, although he couldn’t see himself owning one, but Missy and Poppet? Lord, just the sound of those two names siphoned off a few ounces of testosterone. If he listened much longer, he was afraid he’d grow a vagina. To preserve his sanity and his manhood, Sebastian eavesdropped on the different conversations taking place around him while Lorna rambled on.

“I’ll have to buy one of your books,” the guy next to Clare said. “I might learn a thing or two.” He laughed at his own joke, but didn’t seem to notice that he was the only one laughing.

“Rich, you always say that,” Clare managed as smooth as butter. Light from the torches flickered and seeped through the soft strands of her dark curls, touching the corners of her phony-as-hell smile.

“I’m going to do it this time. I hear they’re real sexy. If you need research, give me a call.”

Somehow, when Rich said it, it sounded sleazy. Not like when Sebastian said it. Or…perhaps it sounded just as sleazy and he didn’t want to think he was as ignorant as Rich.

The corners of Clare’s fake smile went higher, but she didn’t answer.

Standing directly across from Sebastian, Joyce conversed with several women who looked to be about her age. He seriously doubted they were friends of his father’s. They looked too rich and too old-guard Junior League.

“Betty McLeod told me Clare writes romance novels,” one of them said. “I love trashy books. The trashier the better.”

Instead of defending Clare, Joyce asserted in a voice that brooked no disagreement, “No. Claresta writes
women’s fiction.
” Within the wavering light, Sebastian watched Clare’s phony smile fade. Her gaze narrowed as she excused herself from Rich and moved across the lawn to disappear behind pots of tall grasses and cattails.

“Excuse me, Lorna,” he said, interrupting the woman’s fascinating tales of Missy and Poppet’s love of car rides.

“Don’t stay away so long next time,” she called after him.

He followed Clare and found her looking through a stack of CDs next to the sound system. The light from the torches barely leached through the grasses as she read the titles by the blue LCD light.

“What are you putting on next?” he asked.

“AC/DC.” She glanced up, then returned her gaze to the CD in her hand. “Mother hates ‘racket.’”

Sebastian chuckled and moved behind her. “Shoot To Thrill” would probably spike Joyce’s blood pressure and give her heart failure. While that might be amusing, it would ruin Leo’s party. He looked over Clare’s shoulder at the stack of music. “I haven’t hard Dusty Springfield in years. Why don’t you play that?”

“Fine, party pooper,” Clare said, and picked up Dusty’s CD. “How’d Leo like the fishing pole?”

He’d rather be whipped than admit he hadn’t given it to him yet. “He loved it. Thanks for the wrapping job.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and Sebastian could hear the laughter in her voice as she popped a CD into the stereo. “You two will have to break it in while you’re here.”

“That’ll have to wait. I’m leaving in the morning. Got to get back to work.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.” After he finished the piece on the black fever outbreak in Rajwara, he was headed to the Arizona border with Mexico to do a follow-up piece on illegals entering the country. After that he was off to New Orleans to write an update on conditions and progress in the Big Easy. At some point he still had to deal with his mother’s estate, but he figured that could wait. There was no rush.

“I noticed Leo’s new Lincoln in the driveway. I guess the old one must have turned fifty.”

“It did. He bought the new Town Car today at a dealership in Nampa,” he said as the delicate scent of her perfume surrounded his head and he felt an urge to lower his face to the side of her neck. “You know a lot about my father.”

“Of course.” She shrugged and one thin strap slid down her arm. “I’ve known him most of my life.” She pushed Play and Dusty Springfield’s lush, soulful voice flowed like a sexy whisper from the speakers. She shook her head and her hair brushed her bare shoulders. Sebastian felt a second, stronger urge to raise his hand and reach for a curl resting against her skin. To feel the texture with his fingers. He took a few steps back, retreating deeper into the darkness. Away from the scent of her neck and the inexplicable compulsion to touch her hair.

“For as long as I can recall, he’s lived in my mother’s backyard,” she continued while Dusty
sang about getting a little lovin’ in the morning. She turned and looked up at him through the variegated shadow. “In a lot of ways, I know him better than my own father. I’ve certainly spent more time with him.”

He supposed his insides were getting all tied up in hot knots over Clare because he hadn’t been laid in months. That had to be the reason. With his mother’s funeral and everything else going on, he’d put off his sex life. As soon as he got home, he was going to have to do something about that. “But he’s not your father.”

“Yes. I know.”

A man just shouldn’t put off something like sex. Especially when he wasn’t used to going without. He raised his glass to his lips and polished off his scotch. “As a kid, I used to wonder.”

“If I knew Leo wasn’t my father?” She laughed, a breathy little sound of amusement, and took a step toward him. “Yeah. I knew. The term ‘serial cheater’ was invented for my father. Every time I visited him, he had a new woman. Still does, and he’s seventy.” A shaft of light cut across the darkness and lit up Clare’s cleavage but left her face in inky shadow.

The memory of her naked except for a tiny pink thong flashed in his head and got all mixed and confused with the woman standing in front of
him. Desire crawled down his belly and tightened his groin. He pulled his gaze from her cleavage and looked behind him. The very last thing he needed to complicate his life was Clare Wingate.

“He still thinks he’s quite the lady’s man,” she said through a breathy laugh.

He turned and moved a few feet toward a wrought-iron bench sitting beneath a pruned dogwood tree. If it hadn’t been painted white, it would have been undetectable in the darkness. “I don’t even know if my father has a girlfriend or a special woman in his life.” He sat and leaned back against the cool metal.

“He’s had a few. Not many.” Dusty’s soulful voice drifted on the warm night breeze.

“I always wondered if there was anything going on between your mother and my dad.”

Again she gave a breathy little laugh. “Nothing romantic.”

“Because he’s the gardener?”

“Because she’s frigid.”

That he could believe. One more thing mother and daughter did not have in common.

“Aren’t you going to rejoin the party?” she asked.

“Not yet. If I have to listen to Lorna Devers for one more second, I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set myself on fire.” Mrs. Devers was
only one reason he didn’t plan to rejoin that party for a while. The other reason wore a blue and white dress and was stalking him.