Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (13 page)

“Next time I want the IV,” he told his dad.

The bed dipped under his father’s weight. “Brenda told me what happened last night.”

Walt tried not to moan. Such an undignified sound from son to father.

“We’ve invited the Adams many times in the past few years. They’ve never shown up.”

“They think I’m responsible for Vivian’s death.”

“That’s preposterous. They lost their child, needed to blame the universe.”

The light from the window wasn’t as blinding when Walt turned his eyes on his dad. He’d gathered a couple more wrinkles in the past year. A few more gray strands in his hair. The civility in his father’s tone was new. “You’re usually riding my ass, Dad. Reminding me of my place. What’s up?”

Walter huffed, placed both palms on his knees. “I’m not getting younger.”

Walt waited for the riding to begin.

It didn’t.

“I don’t see you nearly enough. Don’t even know where you are half the time.”

“I live in California.”

“I’m talking about the trips out of the country.”

“A lot of parents don’t know where their adult children are. You’re not unique there.”

His dad moved from the bed, opened the blinds all the way. Surprisingly, the sun didn’t burn and Walt noted that his head no longer spun. He glanced into the empty glass, still felt the nasty taste on his tongue.

“What father doesn’t want their child to live close?”

“It’s hard to be close when all we do is argue over my choices when I’m here.”

“I-I know. I’m trying.” His dad met his gaze and held it.

This was good. The timing was strange, but the result was decent. “Where is Dakota?”

The grin that spread over his father’s face was more genuine that he’d seen in years. “She and your sister went to town to pick up a prescription.”

“Is she sick?”

Walter glanced at the ceiling. “Let me see if I can remember her words. ‘Dr. Eddy,’ she said, ‘since your son is sleeping off last night’s bender, and I can’t ask him, you’re going to have to write me a script.
’
 ” His dad was laughing.

“A script for what?”

“Seems your girlfriend woke with cystitis.”

Walt felt his shoulders drop. Urinary tract infections were common, and nothing to worry about. Still, blame rested on his shoulders. The term
honeymoon cystitis
was coined from patients who were overly sexually active. Considering how many times he and Dakota managed to get naked over the past couple of days, he wasn’t shocked.

“I like her.”

“We’re just dating, Dad.”

“Still like her. Did you help her buy the gift?”

Walt rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. “Gift?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” He moved toward the door. “She gave me a stethoscope dating back to the Civil War. Thoughtful.”

Walt found himself smiling. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“What the hell was in that?” He nodded toward the empty green glass.

“I’ll e-mail you the ingredients. Nice to know it still works.”

Chapter Eleven

Dakota reached over her keyboard and picked up the phone. She tucked the receiver between her shoulder and her chin. “Hey.”

“Do you always answer the phone that way?”

She finished the sentence she’d been writing and leaned back in her chair. “Doctor . . . so nice of you to call.”

He’d called her twice since their return from Colorado and it had only been three days. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much. Lots of water, antibiotics. I’m good.”

“Perfect.” He sounded rested, more than when he’d called after his shift the night before. “Can I convince you to take a break?”

Dakota glanced at the blinking cursor on her screen. The word count was already over ten thousand. The opening scene of her new book had played in her head like a tape, and now it was crafted on the page and flowing like river water after a storm.

“I’m talking food, not the microwaveable kind,” Walt suggested.

“Do you cook?”

“No. Well, pasta, but that’s not what I had in mind.”

She lowered her voice. “What do you have in mind, Doc?”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Wait . . . you live farther away than that.”

“I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

She clicked a few keys, saved her file, and turned off her computer. “So forceful. I think that’s sexy.”

He laughed. “You know, if this book gig doesn’t work out you’d be a shoo-in for a phone sex operator.”

“I would, would I? What do you know about phone sex?”

There was a pause and Dakota offered a throaty laugh.

“Thirty minutes.”

She showered, dusted enough makeup on to be presentable, and blew her hair dry. When she opened the door to Walt twenty-five minutes later, she wore a teddy and a smile.

The smell of food in bags caught her attention right before Walt moved into the house, slammed the door behind him, and devoured her. They were lips and arms, removing clothes and reaching for the other as she dragged him to her bedroom.

Later, they were eating out of box containers sprawled over her bed. “How did you know I liked Chinese?”

“Everyone likes Chinese,” Walt said as he dug his fork into a tub of fried rice.

“It’s sinful. All the salt, the oil.”

“Which is why everyone enjoys it.” He leaned forward and licked a grain of rice off her bare breast. “Naked eating. I like.” He ran a sticky finger over her nipple and pulled a moan from her as it puckered.

“If I didn’t know better,” she said while Walt pulled away and filled his mouth with more orange chicken, “This was a thinly-veiled booty call.”

He lifted his brows and made a show out of chewing. After he swallowed, he filled his fork again. “You’re the one who answered the door in lingerie.”

“I could say that you showed up five minutes early and that I wasn’t yet dressed.”

“You could. But you’d be lying.”

She reached into his box, pulled out a chunk of chicken with her bare fingers, and popped it into her mouth.

Dakota returned the nipple favor and dipped her fingers in the sauce. She ran her fingers down his chest, low on his hips. Before she reached for his responding erection, she caught his eyes. “I’d be lying.”

The slow descent of her tongue down his chest was tangy sweet. Food sex . . . she’d written about it, had fun with whipped cream at least twice, but Chinese food?

“Holy . . .”

She hesitated at his hip, licked off the sauce she’d placed where his thigh met his torso.

“Looks like I missed a spot,” she said, finding the sauce with her lips and tracing the trail up his length.

He was sweet on her tongue, the length of him filling her mouth, which pulled a gasp from his lips. Walt’s hand caressed the side of her face as she took him. When she looked, he was watching her.

Her heart leapt, his intense stare looked through her. He guided her away and swept the boxes of food to the bedside table.

When his lips took hers, the taste of ginger and spice mixed between them, Dakota leaned back and welcomed him. Unlike how they’d made love when he first arrived, this was slow, calculated, and a little heartbreaking.

Dakota felt her heart slipping a little further into Walt’s world. A dangerous one . . . one filled with crazy hours and the need to be single. Only as he called her name and plunged into her more times than she could count, Dakota couldn’t picture him without her by his side. More, she was having a hard time seeing her world without him.

Her release was like a slow, spreading fire that started at her toes and burned through her center.

He collapsed on top of her, his breath just as rapid as hers.

“Chinese food will never look the same.”

She laughed, felt him slip from her as his own mirth caught in his chest.

The bed was empty when his eyes opened. Dakota’s side of the bed was cool and it was still dark outside.

Walt found his boxers and pulled them on when he left her room.

He found her in her library office with a dim light and her radio playing from her computer on a low volume. She was laughing, and typing faster than anyone he’d ever seen. “You’re such a bitch. Love it.” Dakota kept typing, stopped long enough to reach for a water bottle on her desk, sip it, and then returned her fingers to the keyboard. He’d never seen her work and wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Typing, yeah, but excitement as the thoughts streamed from her head and onto the page . . . no, he hadn’t expected that. Somehow he thought she’d type in silence, all focus on the page . . . then again, she was animated in every other aspect of her life. He shouldn’t be surprised, yet he still was.

She finished whatever thought she had on her mind and leaned back.

That’s when she noticed him.

“Oh . . . did I wake you?”

“No. I think it might have been the rice.”

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. Her eyes traveled to the clock on the wall and that’s when Walt noticed the time. Three in the morning. “I’m not sure if you’re the earliest riser ever, or if it’s a late night.”

“I woke about an hour ago and couldn’t go back to sleep. Then I had this brilliant idea.”

He moved closer to her desk, looked at the bright screen. “Can I read it?”

Dakota grabbed the mouse and clicked her word program to the sidebar. “Not until it’s done.”

He laughed. “So that’s how it is?”

“Yep. This is raw, sloppy. You can read it when it’s polished.”

Walt pulled his fingers through her dark hair and combed it behind her back.

She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

“Come back to bed?”

He didn’t have to coax. Whatever thought she’d had must have been hammered out in the hour she was typing away. After tucking her in his arm, he heard her breathing even out as she fell back to sleep.

It was his turn to lie awake and watch the shadows on the wall. He’d missed this. A hookup, an occasional lover didn’t often result in overnight stays and weekends. Dakota was different. If Walt was honest with himself, that scared him. Her no-nonsense approach to life, her humor, her independence. Her ability to make Chinese takeout erotic . . . good Lord, he hadn’t expected that. His eyes drifted close and his mind started to clear. He smiled, on the inside, in a place that hadn’t felt this good in years.

Mary huddled over her coffee, her eyes wide open and ready for gossip. “I’ve seen his car here twice this week, and you were gone at least once.”

“You’re stalking me?” Dakota poured more java into her cup and sat down.

“Living vicariously through you. I’m jealous so give the details, baby.”

Details . . . were there details? “He’s nothing like I thought a doctor would be. I bet he can be serious when he wants to be, but most of his stories are just hysterical.”

“I can’t imagine his daily life at work. That has to be hard.”

“If it is, he doesn’t show it. Some of the things he talks about churn my stomach, but he talks about them as if he’s describing a walk through the supermarket.”

“Any more talk about his late wife?”

Dakota had shared that with Mary when she’d returned from Colorado. “Nothing. Every once in a while he stares at me and I want to ask what he’s thinking about. You know . . . what did she look like, how was it after she died. But I can’t. I want to know, but I don’t.”

“Do you think he loved her?”

“I think he did. He might not have been
in love
with her, but he cared enough to make sure she was taken care of in death. That couldn’t have been easy.”

Mary traced her fingers along the writing on the coffee cup. “So where do you think things are going with you guys?”

“Please, Mary. We’ve only been dating for what, two months?” Not that she hadn’t asked herself that very question. They led different lives, and yet when they were in the same room it felt as if they shared the same one.

“You’re right. Two months is too soon to think about forever. But after three we need to bring this up again.”

“What’s so magical about three months?”

“Three months is the honeymoon phase of dating. You show your best face, don’t let your annoying habits show. Chances are you haven’t fought . . . you haven’t, have you?”

“Does the stun gun count?”

Mary smiled. “No.”

“Pushing him into the lake?”

“That was foreplay. I’m talking a major disagreement.”

Dakota shook her head. “Nope. Not even his witchy mom could wiggle between us.”

“Any annoying habits that you can’t stand?”

Were there any?
“He procrastinates.”

“That can be annoying. And we know how type A you are.”

“I’m not type A.”

Mary stood, moved to Dakota’s pantry, and opened the door. Inside there were supplies of food that would take care of her for at least six months. All the cans were lined up, the dry goods rotated with every purchase. The powdered milk was replaced every couple of months . . . and the water bottles . . . “Oh, damn. I am type A.”

“I bet Walt doesn’t know about this habit.”

“He knows I’m a closet prepper.”

“He probably thinks it’s cute. Now.”

Dakota felt the smile on her face fall. “You mean he’s going to hate it after three months?”

The thought of messing up her pantry just to make Walt happy waved a thin veil of anxiety over her.

“He might not hate it, but he won’t say a negative thing about it until next month,” Mary concluded. “And his procrastination isn’t a problem until he procrastinates with something important to you. That is when the fight will happen.”

“Geez, Mary. Sounds like we should just break up now and avoid any issues.”

“Don’t jump. How you fight will tell you how well you actually work together. It’s easy to work when the sex is hot and you’re both discovering each other. Adversity,” Mary said, pointing a finger at Dakota, “that’s when you see the guts of a relationship.”

What will our first fight be over?
Why was she sitting here sipping coffee and spending any time worrying about an argument that hadn’t yet happened? “I feel like you just psychoanalyzed me.”

Mary grinned, spoke over the rim of her cup. “I did. The bill’s already in the mail.”