Something Unexpected (15 page)

Rosemary closed her eyes. “I'm weak. Tell me I'm weak and that I'm conducting my life like a romantic comedy and that carpe diem dating is the only good idea I've had since I bought the Barbie-and-Ken wedding suite.”

“Carpe diem dating is a really good idea,” Daphne said dutifully, “in theory. In reality, it's kind of like crocheting a zip line. You can try and try, but it's never gonna hold. We're die-hard romantics, Rosemary.”

“But you're committed to celibacy. That's a plan to keep from being hurt again. It's okay not to want to be hurt, right?”

On the other end of the line, Daphne sighed. “Well, I'm still planning to date, so I'll probably still get hurt. I'm just trying to weed out the real contenders from the phonies.”

“Which makes excellent sense!”

“Yes. For me. But, Rosemary, what if you've already found your real contender? What if Dean Kingsley is your destiny, and you keep resisting until it's time for you to split up and then it's too late?”

Rosemary felt hiccups coming on. “If Dean Kingsley were
my destiny, I would know for certain, wouldn't I? I mean, I would be feeling peace right now.”

“I don't know. Destiny could be like coconut ice cream. You'll never know how right it's going to be unless you dive in and take a bite. Then…kismet.”

“Kismet,” Rosemary murmured.

“One more thing you might want to consider,” Daphne said, and Rosemary could tell she was enjoying the ice cream again. “This whole celibacy thing?”

“Yeah?”

“It's really fattening.”

 

Dean arrived bearing a suitcase and a gift for his bride.

“Crystallized ginger,” he announced, handing her a package of cellophane-wrapped candy. “My sister-in-law swears there's nothing better for morning sickness. If it works, we'll start carrying it at the drugstore. And these—” he whipped a bouquet of two dozen long-stemmed yellow roses out from beneath his arm and lowered his voice to the intimate caress that sent goose bumps racing down her arms “—are for the beautiful lady of the house.”

“Thank you.” Rosemary accepted both gifts, leading the way into her cottage-style home. Nerves rattled her bones. Dean always managed to appear utterly sincere when he said things that made him sound as if he'd walked out of a Frank Capra movie. In fact, he
looked
as if he'd walked out of a Frank Capra movie.

His chestnut hair was thick as turf; his jaw looked as if a master sculptor had formed it. Broad shoulders, a flat stomach and a perpetual smile in eyes as blue as a Honeyford summer sky could make any woman feel good about being alive. But with Dean, Rosemary often got the feeling that his sole purpose was to make
her
feel good.

Smiling shyly over her shoulder, she caught sight of his suitcase—evidence that he truly was moving into her home.

They had discussed it, of course, while in Reno, and both agreed that moving into her larger two-bedroom cottage made the most sense over the next couple of years. Still, her heart thumped heavily at the prospect. She had never lived with anyone other than her family and ex-husband. Leading Dean through the living room, she paused in the small square hallway that opened onto the downstairs bedroom, the stairwell leading to the upper floor and the sole bathroom in the house.

“You remember those girls in college who were completely comfortable living in coed dorms and diving into swimming pools in their underwear at parties?” she asked.

Bemused, Dean nodded. “Uh, yeah. I do.”

Rosemary broke the sad news. “I wasn't one of them.” She opened the glass door that closed the attic bedroom off from the rest of the house. “I'm putting you upstairs. I moved my things down here so I can use the bathroom and kitchen a little more easily once my pregnancy progresses. Since I'm an early riser, I thought I'd take my shower first in the morning. Or, we can talk about it. It's actually a claw-foot tub with a shower attachment… I hope that's okay.”

He nodded.

“I usually start a pot of coffee first thing, too. You're welcome to share if you're a coffee drinker in the morning.”

Another nod.

“All right.” She wished for a little more from him. Making plans was very calming. Why did men not get that? “Well. Then generally I take a walk—I pack my breakfast and bring it along—and I wind up at work.”

Dean mulled over what she was telling him, but made no comment other than a noncommittal, “Ah.”

“When the baby comes,” Rosemary persisted, certain her
tension would subside once all strategies, present and future, were neatly laid out, “I can have the crib in my room. All the floors are hardwood with the exception of the upstairs bedroom, but when the baby starts serious crawling I'll go rug shopping for something soft on the knees. And we might need to replace this glass door.” She tapped it. “A solid wood panel would be much safer. Or we could use a baby gate down here and install a door to the bedroom upstairs for privacy. What do you think?”

He smiled gently. “I think you're an intelligent, conscientious woman who is understandably ambivalent about having a roommate she didn't anticipate. Now you've got the next two years planned out down to the minute. You're remarkable. But I find that where you're concerned, Rosemary Josephine, I've got my hands full just taking it one night at a time.”

From someone else that could have been a put-down, but Dean wasn't telling her not to plan, just saying he needed to evaluate things in the moment. Rosemary realized he possessed the quality of stillness. Even on that first night, as he'd flirted with her, there had been something steady and unshakable about him. It wasn't that he hadn't cared about the outcome, but rather that he trusted the outcome to be okay, whatever it was.

“Wow,” she whispered, “that was
such
a nice way of saying I'm uptight.”

He leaned toward her, or maybe she was imagining it, because
she
wanted to be several inches closer. “I like you uptight. Gives me an excuse to try to relax you.”

Rosemary licked her dry lips. “Do you have a
plan
to accomplish that?”

The smile in his eyes expanded to a grin. “Why, yes, Rosemary. As a matter of fact, I do.” He raised his suitcase. “I'll show myself upstairs and put this away. Meet me back here in fifteen minutes.”

She laughed at the notion of specifying a place to “meet.” The entire first floor of her cottage occupied eight hundred square feet. “Okay, fifteen minutes.”

Rosemary watched him head upstairs, easygoing, relaxed, taking this next step in his life with enviable calm.

I hope the baby has his personality.

Her breath pinched in her chest. It was the first time she'd thought about whom the baby would take after or whom she hoped the baby would take after.

Placing a hand on her stomach, she felt a near-overwhelming urge to follow Dean upstairs and show him the little mound of her belly.

Here,
she would say,
feel. That's her, little Montana Jeffers Kingsley
. And Dean would laugh and argue lightly.
You mean little Nate Jeffers Kingsley.
Then he would put his warm, gentle hand on her stomach, and his expression would change, assuming the serious, contemplative air she was coming to know. Their eyes would meet, the pressure of his hand would increase a bit, and she'd see again what she'd noticed several times already but had deliberately glossed over—desire. The hunger he had to touch her bare skin, to possess the woman who carried his child.

As if her feet had brains, they danced with the yearning to race him to the attic. And the queen-size bed. Would the sex be as good now as it had been that first night?

Gritting her teeth, she pivoted from the stairs, marched herself to the kitchen and grabbed a vase for the roses. Before she attended to the flowers, however, she turned on the faucet and stuck her arms beneath the stream of water, giving herself the cold shower she so desperately needed.

 

“Ohhhh,” Rosemary groaned. “Mmm…amazing. I'm so glad I married you.”

Dean laughed. “Stick with me, baby. I've got connections.”
He forked up another piece of the Double Trouble Chocolate Pie his sister-in-law, Claire, had baked for them.

After he'd come back downstairs, he'd handed Rosemary a DVD then went out to the car he'd parked in the gravel alongside her front yard and returned with the pink bakery box wrapped in string.

They'd watched the first half of
The Music Man.
“Featuring,” Dean had said, explaining his movie selection, “Marion the Librarian, in honor of the most beautiful librarian I know.” He'd kissed the tip of her nose.

They'd sat a thigh's width apart on her green velour couch while Professor Harold Hill played his con game and wooed the übercautious librarian. When Marion sang “Goodnight, My Someone” to the soul mate she believed she might never find, Rosemary burst into wet blubbers, feeling as mature as a nine-month-old, and causing Dean to scoot over and put his arm around her. That arm had felt perfect, and she'd cried some more until he'd tipped her face up to his, wiped the tears and looked as if he was going to kiss her.

She'd waited, lips parted, hoping the leaky-nose issue was all taken care of, because she was so going to kiss him back. With the snuffling past, her libido went on the rampage
again
(horny pregnant women were obviously no old wives' tale), and she waited for him to make the move.

Which turned out not to be a kiss.

He'd clicked off the movie, called “Intermission” and stood up to cut the pie.

Damn good thing it had two layers of fudge and a rich cookie crust, because extra shots of chocolate were the only way she was going to medicate her sexual frustration tonight.

She honestly couldn't remember feeling sexually frustrated before. Ever. Dissatisfied, yeah, but climb-out-of-my-
skin, gotta-jump-your-bones, don't-talk-just-do-it-to-me-now frustrated? Uh-uh.

“This should be made an illegal substance,” Rosemary said, licking the back of her fork. “I'll drop by the bakery before work tomorrow and thank Claire in person.”

“She'd love to see you, I'm sure.”

Tilting her head back against the sofa, Rosemary sighed. “Daphne was right. Celibacy is fattening.”

Vaguely surprised she'd said that out loud, she glanced at Dean, who had taken a sip of the decaf they'd made and now struggled not to spit it out. Once he'd swallowed, he said, “Daphne the cute blonde is celibate?”

Rosemary nodded. “Although I'm not sure I should have said anything. It's probably too much information.”

Dean wagged his head. “Len is going to be very disappointed. He's been all over me to get her phone number from you.”

“Don't tell him,” Rosemary insisted, though she didn't think Daphne kept her celibacy a secret. In fact, quite the contrary when it came to men, since she currently viewed the willingness to wait as something of a test. “Why is sex so important to men, anyway?” Rosemary wondered aloud.

“To men?” Dean's mouth twitched. “It's important to women, too, isn't it?”

He was amused, which made Rosemary feel about forty years older than she was and not very sexy. She'd brought it on herself, of course, and considered dropping the subject altogether, but she was slightly drunk on sugar and for much of her sexually active life she had honestly wondered what the big deal was.

“What I mean is, making love can be…fun. But sex changes, like everything else in a relationship. I suppose it's never been that important to me.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged.

“Describe sex in one word. An adjective,” he challenged.

“I can't—”

“I bet you have a bachelor's degree in English,” he guessed. She did. “Give me a word.”

“Well, it's…nice.”

He set his plate on the coffee table. “‘Nice?' Rosie Jo,” he said, his voice a velvet lion's purr, “are you saying what we did at the motel was only ‘nice'?”

If she were a match, she'd be lit now. “No. That was more…that was…um…”

“Yes?”

“More than nice.”

Blue sparks of humor and challenge shot from his eyes. He seemed half amused, half disgusted when he shook his head. “Nope. You're a librarian. Pick an
accurate
adjective to describe you, me and that king-size bed.”

Rosemary tried to swallow, but there was nothin' doin'. Her throat had frozen up on her. She croaked out a weak, “Well…” then cleared her throat and started to perspire. “What would you call it?”

His eyes narrowed, his gaze locked on her. “Astonishing. Inimitable. Transforming. Scorching.”

Oh.
Scorching. Good adjective. Yes, definitely scorching….

Do not confuse sex with love. Do not confuse sex with love. Do not confuse sex with love.

Rosemary recalled the eleventh commandment in her mother's home, imparted with all the gravitas of Moses on the Mount.

“All I meant,” she said, speaking slowly and laboriously since she didn't have a drop of spit left in her mouth, “when we started this conversation was that if Len is serious about
getting to know Daphne, then he shouldn't care whether she's fully clothed or bottoms-up naked. That's all.”

Dean looked at her. A long time. Finally he said, “With all the books in that library of yours, there's got to be one that explains the natural science of man and woman.”

Rosemary bristled at the implication that she didn't have a grasp on male-female relationships. Which, okay, she didn't. Even though she'd been married ten years, and that made the situation especially sad. But she did know about lust. She knew that it could start a relationship and that it could end one. What it could not do was make a relationship last.