Somewhere in His Arms (79 page)

              She nodded shyly, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “You’re very sexy, English.”

     “Am I
?” Now he was blushing.

     “What’s going on over there?” Pat demanded as his avatar disemboweled Gavin. “You two get a move on or you’ll be eating
me Wensleydale and I don’t have enough for the likes of you!”

      “Keep your knickers on, dad!” Alec laughed and snatched up his keys. He escorted his wife to the door and paused briefly for their inspection. “How do we look?”

       Pat and Gavin let out low whistles of appreciation for Lucy’s petite beauty and grimaced at Alec. “She’s smashing but you look like shite!”

             
“Very funny!” Alec ushered his wife into the night and held up a hand as he left. “Don’t wait up!”

     Pat and Gavin dissolved into riotous laughter and went back to their game.

             
Alec drove to Nobu and they ate dinner on the patio. Lucy couldn’t imagine a more romantic setting, eating lobster ceviche by sunset, and the tranquil rhythm of the ocean playing a hushed serenade. “It’s so pretty,” she said, gesturing to one of the last Malibu sunsets they would see. They were leaving on Friday.

     “Will you miss it, love?” Alec said, reaching across to hold her hand. “We can visit during the summer if you want.”

      She laughed. Yes, she would miss it but she was more than ready to leave all of it behind to start her new life with Alec. “I’ll miss it some,” Lucy confessed, “but not as much as I’d miss you.” He grinned, revealing those dimples she loved so well. “So tell me about this shack you’ve got in Whitby.”

     “There’s not much to tell,” he said, as the waitress refilled their water glasses. “It should be condemned, but I haven’t the heart to go through with it. I just wish we had the money to gut the thing and start fresh.”

     “I wish I could see it.”

     “You will,” he promised and polished off the last rib eye taco. “As soon as we get you settled, we’ll go up one weekend so you can see it.”

     “Good,” she sighed in relief and sipped her tea. “What’s for dessert?”

     “Lord, woman!” he chuckled. “You’re still hungry?”

     “Of course!” Lucy smiled at her handsome hubby. “What’s life without chocolate spring rolls?”

     “I don’t know.” He pulled out
his wallet. “This is going to cost you, wife. Pay up!”

     Lucy scrunched up her face prettily and blew him a kiss. Alec caught it in mid-air and shook a finger at her like a woeful husband scolding his wife, but he was happy that she was his.

    After dinner, Alec took her to a movie that was playing at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. They sat in the back and held hands, watching an actress tumbling through the vast emptiness of space.

    Later, they wandered outside to look at the famous
hand and footprints. Alec laughed when Lucy placed her small feet into some of the footprints and discovered her feet were larger than Marilyn Monroe’s. He snapped a few photos and asked her if she wanted to go to McDonald’s for a soda and to get Pat something so he wouldn’t be so grumpy. She agreed happily and off they went.

    The restaurant was bustling this time of night, so they took their cokes and headed for a table in back where they discussed where they would be living once
they got back to London. Alec had been renting an attic apartment at his parent’s house in West Hampstead, but he said it wouldn’t be a problem to look at some flats more suited to a young married couple. “I don’t mind,” she told him, chewing on a piece of ice. “As long as we have some privacy.”

    He scoffed at that. “I think we need a place of our own, love. It’s time I got out. I only lived with them because it was cheap and I was lonely.”

    “And now you’re not?”

             
“Oh no,” he said teasingly, winking at her. “I’m an old married man and the old harpy never lets me have a bit of peace!”

    “Old harpy!” she gasped in mock horror. “I’ll remember that next time you want a free sample of her wares!’ His eyes widened and he was immediately contrite.

     “Touche, wife,” he relented with a sly grin. Alec rose to use the restroom. “I’ll be a minute.”

     “Okay,” she said, smiling up at him and sipped the rest of her coke. Lucy sat at the table, munching idly on ice and hoping Alec’s mum would like her. She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t see the young man who entered with a couple of friends and immediately noticed her sitting at the table. He sauntered over, straightening his tie, and cleared his throat awkwardly.

    “Lucy, is
that
you?” he said in disbelief and caught his breath when she turned around. She was just as lovely as he remembered, and he took a moment to kick himself for hurting her. What the hell had he been thinking when he tumbled into bed with that tramp? She’d kicked him to the curb once she tired of him and he’d been licking his wounds ever since. But here was a chance to make it right. He’d thought about Lucy constantly since their last meeting. He knew she was married to that Englishman, but his warped mind couldn’t grasp it. “H-How’ve you been?”

    Her stomach lurched and not in a good way. Lucy had a good, long look at the man she thought she’d loved, and now she was certain she’d made the right choice when she dumped him like the plague. How could she think he was handsome? He was still tall with that athletic grace that drove the girls wild, but as for the rest of him, Alec made him look like one of those cadavers he’d practiced on in medical school. His hair was still wavy and his eyes still green, but Lucy had had a good look at what lay beneath the surface, and she wasn’t buying. She barely glanced at him before turning back to her ice. “Hello,” was all she could muster.

    Not taking ‘no’ for an answer, Dean sat down across from her and she grimaced in disgust. “Go away.”

     But Dean wasn’t thinking clearly. He’d missed her eyes, her smile, and the way her little nose scrunched up when she was upset. She was so damn gorgeous it took his breath away. She was wearing a lace dress with a sweetheart neckline that revealed the creamy tops of her breasts and her hair…

     “I’ve missed you, Lucy,” he said, and tried to take her hand. She snatched it away as if he was a carrier of a quiescent virus and kept glancing anxiously towards the men’s room. “Talk to me!” he pleaded desperately. “It’s been hell without you.”

      “I’m sure,” she muttered,
the steady warmth in her dark eyes fading rapidly. She now stared at him with cold indifference and Dean wondered if he shouldn’t have worn a sweater. “So, how’s life?” she said politely and making him feel as if he were a helpless patient in the emergency room.

     “It could be better,” he said, as his eyes caressed every curve. “I lost the fellowship to Eaton.”

     “That’s too bad,” she said coldly, and crunched on the last of her ice. “How’d Viv take it?”

     “We don’t talk.”

     “Oh?”

     He sighed and tried to take her hand again. This time, she hid it under the table. “We had a fight and she threw me out.”

    Lucy didn’t really want to hear about his pathetic love life. She wished Alec would hurry up and rescue her from this idiot. “Well,” she said, getting up to toss the cups into the trash,  “I’d like to stay and chat, but I’m waiting for someone.”

    “Your husband?”

    She nodded and held out her hand. He winced at the rings. He wondered how that English bastard had snatched her up. Lucy married him shortly after their first meeting from what he heard and she’d made
him
wait for a year? His mind unraveled at the thought of her giving it to some sleazebag just like that, when she had gone on and on about how much it meant to her to wait. Dean couldn’t process this information and he lost it right then and there. “How long did you keep your panties on?” he demanded in a loud voice, startling several diners nearby.

    “That’s
none of your business,” she snapped, and tried to skirt past him but he caught her arm. What was this? He had her arm in a death grip and it was beginning to hurt. His eyes had gone near black and the anger in his voice was palpable. “Let go of me!” she demanded, pulling at her arm.

    Dean yanked her to him and tried to kiss her. “You’re
mine
, Lucy! You’ve always been mine!” She turned her head and pushed at his chest, her eyes turning helplessly to the other patrons, but they turned away in cowardice and focused on their burgers. Even the employees went along their business as if a woman being accosted in their restaurant was a nightly occurrence. “I can’t believe you! You made me wait for a year! How long did you make
him
wait, Luc?” He demanded, trying to unzip her dress. “You slut!”

     “Let go of me, you bastard!” she cried and
kneed his balls sharply. He gasped in agony and let her go. But he wasn’t going down without a fight. He reached up and grabbed a handful of lace and it disintegrated in his hand. The bodice fell apart and her right breast was exposed for everyone to see. And he wasn’t done with her yet; he reached up again and caught hold of her skirt. He yanked down hard, leaving Lucy clad in her slip. That was the last straw. He’d insulted her, stripped her bare in a restaurant, and this final humiliation was too much. Lucy pulled back her arm and plugged him smack dab in his nose. The resulting flood rivaled the worst of any nosebleed she’d ever had.

     Lucy stood back and felt something go around her shoulders. Alec had come out to see what the commotion was and found his wife near starkers. He tugged his blazer around her securely and surveyed her handiwork. “I think
you broke his nose,” he said in admiration.

    “And
where
were you?” she demanded, shaking out her hand. “I could have used some help.”

    “You don’t want to know,” he replied
, slightly embarrassed. He inspected her knuckles and pressed a kiss against them. Alec glanced up at the diners who were now just beginning to stir from their gluttonous slumber. “Where
were
they?”

    “Apparently unhealthy food is more important than interrupting an attempted rape.”

     Dean sat crumpled on the floor while his buddies tried to stem the flow that now rivaled Old Faithful. He was starting to look a little pasty. “Yuh bruh muh nosth!” he mumbled through a towel someone had brought him.

     Alec knelt down and eyed the bastard in disgust. “Be glad that’s all she broke!” He glanced up at his wife who was blushing to the roots of her hair. “I think you owe my wife an apology.”

     “Nuh!” Dean shook his head, trying to staunch the flow of blood. At this rate, he was going to need a transfusion. Now he knew what Lucy had gone through.

    “I think you’d better apologize,” Alec said quietl
y, placing a firm hand on the little shit’s leg. The warning was implicit. “Lucy gave you one, mate. You
really
don’t want one from me.”

   
Dean’s friends glanced at Lucy and what was left of her dress on the floor and then at Alec who looked as if he wouldn’t mind cleaning all of their clocks and urged him to apologize. She might press charges, they said. Lucy perked up at that. Someone had called the police and by then all she wanted to do was go home.

   
The police officer took one look at the whole scene and decided the creep had to go. “You’re coming with me! You have the right to remain silent…” he began and cuffed him. The last thing Dean saw when he glanced back was Lucy smiling gratefully at her husband. They hugged each other and exchanged loving kisses. Dean looked away in despair as the officer led him out to the squad car. He would spend the night in a cold cell ruminating on how he could have been so stupid. Lucy and Alec never thought about him again. But just to show there were no hard feelings, she didn’t press charges. She figured he’d suffered enough.

* * *

             
“What are we doing here?” she asked as her husband turned the key. “I thought we were going to Santa Monica.”

              “Keep your knickers on, woman,” he told her as the door swung open. “Gavin wanted me to pick up a few of his things. He’s too chicken to do it himself.”

              Alec had promised her a day out to the Santa Monica Pier, but a side trip to Gavin’s apartment came first. “Nice place,” she breathed in awe. Porn could be very lucrative it would seem from the look of things. It was a fairly large condo decorated in tasteful creams and pastels. Apparently, Gavin thought he was living in 1984. There was even a large poster of a well-known TV actor clad in his detective uniform of a white linen suit and pastel T-shirt.

             
“Here,” Alec said to his wife, and handed her several large garbage bags. “Go to the bedroom and get his clothes. I’ll get the kitchen.”

             
“Okay,” she said, and tromped down the hallway to the bedroom. A huge waterbed dominated the room and Lucy took a moment to indulge the kid inside her. But then she hastily jumped off, thinking she might catch something. Who knew what was lurking on the surface? She went and started opening drawers, tossing every bit of clothing she could find into the bag. When the drawers were empty, she started on the walk-in closet. She never knew men could have so many clothes! Even Alec kept his wardrobe to the bare minimum.