Ms. Miller and the Midas Man (12 page)

“Oh my,” she said.

He responded with a light chuckle and opened the screen door, passing her in before him. Arguing with her would be useless, he knew. Her mind was made up. She was a failure, a disappointment. It would be quicker and easier—and a lot more fun—to spend the rest of his life showing her how special she was.

It never occurred to her to tell him she didn’t want to go inside with him. It would have been a lie, and the way she was behaving, he wouldn’t have believed her anyway. They were destined to ruin, and she couldn’t remember being happier, or more optimistic. Or less afraid.

“What about Chloe?” she whispered, feebly grasping at straws as his arms snaked about her from behind, his mouth sipping at her throat below her ear.

“She’s upstairs sound asleep.” His hands made quick work of the first few buttons on the front of her dress and then his mouth moved to her shoulder.

“What if she wakes up?”

“She won’t.”

“But what if she does? What’ll you do?”

He turned her around to face him. He held her face in his hands, kissed her tenderly, then said, “If she wakes up, I’ll go to her. I’ll give her a glass of water and tell her a story. I’ll wait for her to fall back to sleep. What’ll you do?”

She smiled and gave him the only answer that came to mind.

“I’ll wait for you.”

There was not one inch of her that didn’t feel as if it had been touched by something magical, something mysterious and powerful that could come back at any moment and seize her again. Carry her off. Devastate her world.

She could hear birds chirping and feel the heat of the sun on her face, but if she opened her eyes, the dream she’d had the night before would be over.

She was warm and comfortable. Her body was weighty and sluggish with satisfaction, her muscles aching sweetly when she stretched.

“Don’t move.” The words came in two firm syllables from the man beside her. She managed to lay perfectly still for several seconds before she started to laugh. He groaned and rolled, looping one arm across her chest. He nuzzled and cuddled, muttering, “Go back to sleep.”

Turning her head toward him on the pillow, she found him half-awake, his eyes warm and affectionate, still clouded with the passion of their lovemaking.

“I think I should go,” she whispered, touching her nose to his playfully. “Chloe’ll be awake soon.”

“She’ll watch cartoons till eight. You can leave then.” He pulled her close and closed his eyes.

“She’ll see me then.”

His eyes opened and narrowed to study hers. “We’re going to have a
secret
love affair?”

“Don’t you think we should? At first? For a while? To make sure it works?”

He grinned. “I gotta tell ya. It’s working great for me.”

She laughed softly and Eskimo kissed him again. “Me too.”

“Then why worry?”

“I just don’t want to get everyone’s hopes up, and then disappoint them later if it doesn’t work out between us.”

He pulled away to get a clearer look at her face.

“Are
you
hoping it works out?”

Taken aback, she wondered if he thought she’d be in bed with him for any other reason.

“Actually, I am,” she said softly, hesitating only a moment before she exposed her heart’s desire.

He gave her a quick reassuring kiss. “Me too. I’m dying to see you as one of those tall, bony, super-proper old women with your mouth all puckered up in disapproval, scolding me for carrying my teeth around in my shirt pocket at our youngest son’s wedding and...”

“With my mouth all...Our what?”

“Son. Our youngest son.” He raised up on one elbow to look down at her. “I should probably tell you now that I want sons. As many as you’ll give me. I’m in dire need of male companionship.”

“You want them right away?”

“As soon as you can arrange it.”

“You couldn’t just join a baseball team for this male companionship?”

He curled one leg over both of hers and lowered his head to her breast. Her heart beat steady and strong. He’d gotten the answer he wanted. He’d seen it in her eyes—that strange soft glow that women get when they think of babies. She wanted one.

“It’s not the same,” he said, making a huge to-do of sticking his arm under the covers to touch her soft, warm belly. “I need someone who doesn’t already know how to stand in front of a toilet or how to shave. Who doesn’t already know the significance of overtime or the distance between home base and the pitcher’s mound. Someone who doesn’t already know how great duct tape is. I want someone I can teach all that stuff to.”

She was grinning. “And you can’t very well teach Chloe how to make those disgusting noises with your armpits, can you?”

“Well, no. I guess I shouldn’t have,” he said, and when she started to laugh, he wrapped his arms around her. Cradling her head in his hands, supporting himself with his elbows, he said, “So you see my problem?”

“I do. You have a very serious problem.”

“I know. And I’m very serious about it,” he said—though he didn’t really need to when the amused sparkle in his eyes died away to reveal the somber thoughtfulness behind it. “So, tell me this. With my hopes as high as they are, and with you actually hoping things work out between us, who do you think will be more disappointed if they don’t? You and me? Or everybody else?”

It seemed as if he was trying to make a point; she just wasn’t sure what it was.

“Us, of course. I only meant that we should consider Chloe and my mother and—”

He kissed her to silence her.

“I know what you meant and you’re probably right about Chloe. She’s already learned the lesson about grown-ups not getting along sometimes, and we probably shouldn’t rush it. The two of you have just met, you need time to get used to each other,” he said, his gaze lowering to her mouth, her chin, her neck, her chest. She was so beautiful to him. Then he looked up suddenly. “But beyond that, beyond the three of us, it doesn’t matter what anyone feels or thinks about us being together or not. We’re the ones with the most at stake here. We’re the ones who’ll pay the price. And...” he said, laying a finger against her lips when they opened. “And we’ll pay it in equal portions. Understand? You won’t hurt less than I do or be happier than I am. Our dreams are equally important here. Okay?”

She agreed, but she didn’t really understand. He brushed his lips against hers. Playful and enticing. But maybe it was him who didn’t understand. What did he know about disappointment, anyway? The Midas Man. Who had he ever disappointed? She hadn’t even begun to disappoint him—and yet...

“Tell me about your wife,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

He raised his head slowly to look at her. “Now?”

She knew the look in his eyes, felt his arousal against her thigh, and started to laugh. “If you wouldn’t mind, in fifty words or less?”

He chuckled, shifted his weight a bit, then frowned in concentration.

“Nothing really
happened,”
he said, looking back on it. “It wasn’t as if we cheated on each other or fought a lot. We were young when we married and our life was complicated—with Chloe coming a little sooner than we’d planned, working, and both of us with school to finish. I was substitute teaching and working on my master’s degree, and Janis was just finishing up her MBA and planning to go on to law school. But we were happy then. I finished up and got a full-time job. Janis started law school a semester late after having Chloe, but she made it up the next summer. There was a day-care program at the high school I taught at, and I’d take Chloe there sometimes, so Janis could study. If we had a problem, there always seemed to be some way to work it out. The crazier our life was, the happier we were—the more we needed each other, depended on each other, and valued the other.”

“So, what happened?” she asked when he seemed stumped on the memory.

He shook his head. “Life got easier, I guess. I was cutting my teeth as principal of a big inner-city high school, and she was a promising young clerk at a big law firm, Chloe was just three and starting preschool. We could finally afford to take a short vacation. We left the baby with Jan’s mother and went to the Bahamas for five days. On the fourth morning we woke up in each other’s arms and...just sort of stared at each other.” He frowned, remembering. “We were two people in bed together with nothing in common, no common goals, wanting different things out of life. We cared about each other, but we weren’t in love anymore. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. What we had just fizzled away.”

“That’s it? No blowout? Nothing?”

He rolled away onto his side, no longer in the mood, and propped his head up in the palm of his hand.

“No. We tried to make it work. We stayed together a little longer. For Chloe. For ourselves. Saw a couple different marriage counselors, her mother’s minister...It just wasn’t there anymore.”

“So you ended it.”

“Basically,” he said, nodding, his eyes clear and steady on hers. No anger. No regrets. No doubts. “She came home from work one night and said she thought we should—she thought she might be falling in love with someone else.” She cringed in sympathy at that, and he grinned. “By then I’d been looking at other women for a while.” He shrugged. “It was only a matter of time before one of us said it.”

“And was she, is she, in love with someone else?”

“The jury’s still out, but yeah, I think so. Maybe. She quit her job, rearranged all our lives, and moved all the way to Springfield to be with him. I’d say she was feeling something for him.” He laughed and reached up to play with a stray lock of her thick, dark hair that wasn’t spread out with the rest in a long tangle of curls across her pillow. “You know, if I were more philosophical about life, I’d be tempted to say that my marriage turned out the way it was meant to.”

“You would? Why?”

He traced the ridge across her lower lip with his thumb and wasn’t at all surprised to feel his desire for her stir once more.

“Because now I have the job I’ve always wanted. I’m living in a house I don’t have to pay for. And I’ve met you.”

She smiled, quickening hard and fast, her insides twisting into a greedy knot of need. She reached up and caressed his stubbled face, thoroughly amazed that she could. And because she could, she lifted her head off the pillow and kissed him.

No great philosopher, she didn’t care how they came to be together, only that they had. The newfound awareness of her own happiness had struck her with force and intensity, and she wasn’t about to question it. Enjoy it. Relish it. She’d cling to it as long as she could. A week. A month. A year—if good luck really existed.

He put his palm flat on her chest and pushed the pale blue sheet down her body, below her navel. A cool breeze sent chills across her skin. His hot mouth dropped to her breast. Exquisite pleasure swelled up in her, gurgled in her throat. Her back arched, and she squelched a flicker of guilt at her selfishness. She
wanted
this. She
wanted
to be happy. She wanted to love and be loved—if only for a while. Happiness was her right, and God knew, she was due some.

She rolled toward him, slipping her leg between his, pressing close to him when his lips met hers, clever and eager to please her. He leaned back, pulling her with him until she was on top of him. Kneading her firm buttocks, he let her feather kisses about his head and neck indiscriminately.

The world came to a screeching halt—and so did they. Their eyes traveled upward toward the ceiling where they heard Bert’s toenails tapping across the floor above to greet Chloe into a new day.

“Oh dear,” she said, suddenly standing beside the bed, tugging the last remaining tucked-in corner of the sheet loose to wrap it around her nakedness. “Quick. I have to go.” In a fluster, she was gathering her shoes and dress and underthings and holding the sheet and leaving and wanting to stay all at once. “Did I bring my purse? No. God, I don’t think I even closed my front door.”

He couldn’t help laughing. She reminded him of a nearsighted bird come in through a window, bouncing off the walls in an effort to find her way out again. Reaching for his pants, he thought he should help her before she knocked herself out cold.

“Oh sure, you laugh now. Just wait till you have to explain this to her,” she whispered loudly. “I don’t have time to get dressed. I’m taking your sheet. I’ll bring it back later.”

“Bring it back for breakfast.”

She gasped, surprised by what a great idea that was. She laughed softly.

“This is insane.”

Passing her on the way to the door, he planted a kiss on her mouth, saying, “Completely insane. And you’re loving it.” She grinned, unable to deny it as she tiptoed past him into the hall. He grabbed her arm, spinning her around toward the back of the house. “You laugh now, but just wait till you have to explain this to all the neighbors.”

She giggled. Clandestine love affairs and sneaking home in a bedsheet were new to her—and truth to tell, she was loving it. She’d bet her hair was a mess, too, but she didn’t care. Who would have thought the quiet, seemly, regimented Augusta Miller would ever feel so brassy, wanton, and careless?

He opened the back door for her, followed her out onto the porch, and held the screen door for her. Then because he wasn’t ready for her to leave him—and because her hands were full of clothes and bedding, he walked with her to the gate.

She hesitated before going through, made a vague gesture toward his house, and finally stepped forward to place her hand, palm flat, on his bare chest.

“Thank you,” she said, sensing it was a silly thing to say. Yet what more could you say to someone who’d rescued you from a prison, who’d mixed hope into the unrest of your heart, who’d awakened you with a kiss as if he were a prince in a fairy tale?

He grinned, dimples denting his cheeks deeply, fully aware of her meaning. “Hurry back and I’ll scramble your eggs too.”

She giggled. “And I thought you were obnoxious before. What have I done?”

He took a tender hold of her chin, tipped her mouth up to meet his. “You’ve made me very, very happy. That’s what you’ve done.” He kissed her again, his hands moving low on her body. “Think this bedsheet is big enough for both of us? Let me in.”