Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (22 page)

     "Sometimes it's best not to know these things. A husband has a one-off fling and that's all. Why ruin a good marriage because of one miss-step?"

     After she hung up Sissy had flown into a rage, screaming at Ed, cursing him, throwing anything she could get her hands on which resulted in a few shattered vases. Her tirade had alarmed the people in the next cottage, so that they had come running and banged on her door until she opened it.

     The sight of her neighbors had sobered her instantly. The woman in a black and white French maid's uniform, bare breasts hanging out, the man in jodhpurs and boots and gripping a riding crop. They had come to see if she was all right, and when she calmed down and dried her eyes and told them she had just received some bad news, they had cheered right back up and invited her to a luncheon party.

     Considering the state of their dress and Sissy's own emotional state, she had declined. Instead she had gone into the little village at the heart of the resort where she had tried to distract herself with shopping, but only ended up helping a stranger to choose a shirt, and now it was eight o'clock in the
evening and Ed had still not called back as he had said in his morning phone message he would.

     The credit card statements listed the Palmer House in Chicago for all those times Ed was supposedly out of state. Dialing Directory Assistance, she obtained the number of the Palmer House, dialed, and asked for Ed Whitboro's room. A small spark of hope in her was snuffed when the desk clerk said, "Certainly," and put her through. She had hoped they would say no one by that name was registered there.

     But Ed
was
registered there. He wasn't in and this was not something to leave on voice mail, so she hung up.

     This time Sissy didn't reach for wine. In a fury she stripped off her clothes and plunged into a steaming bath, scrubbing herself all over as if to scrub Ed off her skin, to erase all the imprints he had left on her over the past fifteen years. She scrubbed her face and lips and plunged her head under the water to get Ed out of her hair like the song in
South Pacific.

     She had brought a couple of good dresses with her, chose the pink silk. Applied a little make-up and left her hair loose instead of up in its usual modest bun, so that it felt strange flowing loosely about her neck.

     Anger drove her into the night through the trees, past flickering tiki lights, around a lime-shimmering pool where people swam and splashed, until she came upon the enormous aviary where winged creatures flew about, trapped.

     She didn't know where she was going, only that she had to move. And she wasn't aware that she was nearly running until she rounded a private path and slammed into a warm, hard wall that said, "Oof!"

     Sissy bounced off and would have landed on the stone path were it not for two large hands grabbing her arms and holding her upright. "Steady there," a stern voice said. "Where's the fire?"

     But he was smiling and when she apologized for running into him he just laughed. "I've had worse things happen in my life." His accent was slightly Southern. He wore a black baseball-style cap with gold stitching that said
United States Marine Corps.
And he was wearing green and black camouflage fatigues. It crossed her mind that he might be on his way to visit her kinky neighbors when she stepped back, out of his strong grasp, and nearly fell again.

     She had twisted her ankle.

     "Let me help you, miss," he said, holding out an arm.

     But Sissy couldn't walk.

     "I'd better take you to the nurse." And before she could utter a word, he swept her up into his arms so that she floated parallel to the ground. She quickly hooked an arm around his neck so she wouldn't fall, and then realized there was no risk of falling, his grip on her was so tight.

     "This really isn't necessary," she said, feeling foolish, but feeling a thrill as well. He smelled of manly aftershave and she saw the slight stubble of beard on his jaw.

     "I know a back way," he said, understanding that she wouldn't want people to see her like this. As they followed a dark path illuminated only by moonlight, he introduced himself as First Lieutenant John Parker.

     "Just take me back to my room, please," she said, barely able to breathe. He had impressive eyebrows, dark and thick and lowered over shadowed eyes—a man used to giving commands. "I don't need the nurse."

     He grinned with splendid white teeth. "Whatever the lady wants."

     Once inside her cottage, Lieutenant Parker deposited Sissy gently on the sofa and went to the mini-bar for a chilled bottle of water, as if he lived there, taking control.

     Unscrewing the cap and handing Sissy the bottle, he knelt before her and tenderly manipulated her ankle, asking, "How does this feel?"

     He had removed his black cap and she saw the blond military buzz cut. His fatigues were clean and crisply pressed—loose trousers with cargo pockets, shirt with the sleeves rolled up and unbuttoned at the throat. Gold insignia glinted on the collar. He explained that he had just come back from a tour of combat and was taking some R&R at the resort. Sissy asked politely where he had been but he wouldn't talk about it. He wanted to put it behind him, he said. Sissy was spellbound. She had never met a soldier before. The closest she had ever come to a man in uniform was when a policeman gave her a ticket for jaywalking. The soldier took her breath away. Just the thought of what he had seen, been through, and had to endure—

     Sissy was startled by her reaction. She found herself studying his jaw, so square and clearly defined, with just a hint of stubble, a man too preoccupied
with deep issues to even think of shaving. But he was clean. He smelled clean. He looked scrubbed, in fact. His forearms were sunburnt, as was his face and neck. Desert Storm. The Middle East.

     It made her pulse race.

     Finally, he stood and recommended she stay off her feet for a while. Then he went to the door where he turned and looked at her with shadowed eyes. She felt his scrutiny, the power emanating from him. Her lungs struggled for air.

     "Are you all right?" he said in a throaty voice, as if she were having an effect on him as well. "Would you like me to stay?"

     
No! Go, quickly!
"Yes," she whispered.

     He reached her in three strides, lifting her off the sofa, lifting her with power and force and bringing her face to his. The kiss was hard and possessive. Everything about him was hard—his back, arms, legs. He carried her to the bed and when she thought he would be rough, rip her clothes off and have his way with her, he surprised her by standing over her, undressing her first with his eyes, then reaching down with calloused fingers to gently unbutton her, draw silk away from silk, lingerie from her skin, exposing her with such maddening slowness that she wanted to scream for him to hurry up.

     She lay mesmerized as he continued to stand over her when she was completely naked, and then began to undress himself—the shirt, the olive undershirt where dog tags jingled at the end of a chain. Next the shiny combat boots, then the trousers to reveal olive shorts that could not contain his erection.

     When he was completely undressed, he stood over her like a statue, but smiling, and Sissy was mad with desire. She looked at his magnificent member and suddenly she wanted to do something she had never done before in her life. She reached for him without even thinking. She didn't plan it, the gesture came naturally as she slipped her hands over his sculpted buttocks and took him into her mouth.

     It was another new sensation, and one that so intoxicated her she became ravenous. He stood for only a few seconds before drawing back and pressing Sissy down on the bed. He was big—bigger than Ed and Alistair, and heavier, and it was powerfully erotic to have him on top, pushing down,
and then opening her legs to fill her with himself. Sissy closed her eyes and reveled in a new kind of lovemaking, because her soldier was neither gentle nor slow, but all male, dominant, and went about his business with force.

     He was danger and combat, warrior and courage, guns and fighter jets. His kisses were forceful. His stamina astonished her. When she had thought he would finish, he kept going so that she experienced one orgasm after another until, sweating and exhausted, she begged him to stop.

     She tried to stay awake, but she felt so delicious and satisfied, that she dozed off in his arms. And when she awoke later, he was gone. All that lingered was his scent on her skin.

     Her ankle didn't hurt any more either.

O
PHELIA SCANNED THE SHELVES IN THE SMALL DRUGSTORE IN
T
HE
Grove's little village and found everything from eye drops to foot powder. But no pregnancy test kits.

     "I'm glad you're taking this holiday," her mother had said. "You're worn out,
bubeleh."

     David had been equally as supportive. "You push yourself too hard, Ophelia." Back when she was in therapy with him he had asked her if she knew why she pushed herself so, why she needed always to be the best, the smartest, the fastest. Who was she competing with? She had said she was just that way and dropped it and he never asked again. But his encouragement that she take this free week at a resort, to relax and think, implied the question was still there. He wanted to know what drove her—more, he wanted Ophelia herself to know what drove her.

     An admitted workaholic, she had even brought her current project with her to The Grove, a book titled,
In Defense of Our Ancestors.
Her theories so misunderstood, attacked and ridiculed, that she felt a rebuttal was in order.
In her laptop was stored the transcripts of all the TV and radio shows she had been on, plus print media—articles, book reviews and interviews. David had suggested that the title was misleading—she wasn't really defending cave dwelling forebears but herself. Ophelia thought that sometimes it was a pain to be married to a Freudian psychoanalyst. It wasn't necessary to analyze
everything.

     But none of that had anything to do with why she had decided to accept the contest prize for a week's stay at a resort.

     A young woman staffed the counter, dispensing aspirin and lip balm. "May I help you?"

     Ophelia asked for a pregnancy test kit and the young woman directed her to the infirmary. "We have a nurse practitioner in residence. She works with a doctor in Palm Springs. She's very capable and discreet."

     The two-room infirmary was located in the main hotel building, behind the business offices. The nurse was young and hip, quick to explain that she wasn't "just an R.N." but a licensed physician's assistant trained to diagnose and prescribe, under the aegis of a doctor who came to the resort twice monthly to go over the medical records.

     When Ophelia told her what she needed, the nurse went into the back to look through her supplies, and as she waited anxiously, Ophelia thought of little Sophie, how her illness had changed her sister's and brother-in-law's lives. Everything had revolved around the illness. Their every thought and action, what movies they saw, what they had for dinner, was ruled by a damaged gene. Her sister became obsessed with it. Sophie almost became a secondary player in the drama.

     "I'm sorry," the nurse said, returning to the outer room. "We are out of pregnancy test kits. I can call the order now and have the kit flown in with our evening supply delivery."

     Evening. Ophelia checked her watch. It was noon. She could wait. She would work on her book. Swim more laps. Call David. Act normal.

H
E HAD COME TO MY ROOM TO ASK ADVICE ON WHAT SHIRT TO
wear, and while I was changing out of my bra and panties and attempting to get into the little sequined costume, Kenny peeked and he was not supposed to.

     
So now I pretend to be annoyed with him and tell him he must be punished. "You expect me to get into this silly costume, you put it on me." It is an order. "But you must keep your eyes closed."