Texas! Chase #2 (20 page)

With shining eyes and a shy smile Marcie greeted Chase at the front door of their house. She still couldn't believe the turn of events that had taken place in her office earlier that day. Her arms bore bruises where she had pinched herself throughout the day to make sure she hadn't been dreaming.

Apparently she hadn't been because now

Chase bent down and kissed her cheek. It was an awkward kiss, more like a bumping of faces together.

After his lengthy speech they had agreed to erase the angst of their first month of marriage and start again, not only as friends, but lovers. There was only one thing he had wanted assurance of, and that was that she was taking contraceptives. Without equivocation she had assured him she was.

"How long have you been home?" he asked as she helped him out of his jacket.

"Awhile. Is it still raining?" She dusted drops of water off the sheepskin as she hung it on the coat tree.

"Sprinkling. Something smells delicious."

"Chicken enchiladas."

"Yum. Did you get another phone call from the kook?"

"No."

"Then why'd you take the phone off the hook?"

Her blue eyes sent him a silent but eloquent message.

He swallowed hard. "Oh."

"Would you like a drink?"

"Sure."

Neither of them moved.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

"Very."

"Are you ready for dinner?"

No.

Upstairs—they never remembered getting there—he kissed her repeatedly, with passion and heat. His tongue was questing. He used it to explore. Like a gourmand, he sampled and savored her mouth, as though unable to decide which texture and flavor he liked best.

Articles of clothing seemed to melt away from their bodies. When they were both naked, they embraced long and tightly for the sheer animal pleasure of touching skin to skin, body to body, male to female. She was soft where he was hard and smooth where he was hairy, and the differences enthralled them.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and drew her between his knees. His stare alone aroused her breasts. They crested. They ached to be touched. He didn't.

But with his fingertip he traced the shadows they cast on her belly. Like a child who would be chastised for coloring outside the lines, he carefully followed the curving outline of the silhouette and paid close attention to the projecting shadows the flushed nipples made.

Watching his fingertip move with such precision over her flesh, Marcie moaned. She drew his head forward and pressed her nipple against his lips, which opened to enfold it.

The heat, the wetness, the sucking action he applied, was so piercingly sweet it was almost painful.

Parting her thighs with his hand, he gently massaged the swollen, pouting lips of her sex.

Marcie gasped in ecstasy as his fingers tunneled into her moist center. Her tummy quickened.

An electric tingle shot through the tip of his tongue into her nipple and from there into her womb. She softly cried his name.

He lay back on the bed, pulling her over him, and she managed to impale herself upon him in time for him to feel the gentle contractions that seized her. They rippled through her endlessly it seemed before she realized that some of the surges belonged to him.

Moments later, sated, she lay upon his chest.

The upper half of it was hairy. The lower half of his torso was still prickly where the hair hadn't completely grown back. She loved it all.

Her thumb idly fanned his nipple while she listened to the strong beats of his heart as they gradually returned to normal. Then another sound caught her attention—a low grumble from his abdomen.

She raised her head and looked inquiringly into his face.

"Now I'm ready for dinner," he said.

Chase did something then that he hadn't done in bed with a woman for over two years.

He smiled.

During the weeks that followed, Chase was frequently caught smiling. Some days he completely forgot to be sad, miserable, and bereaved.

He still thought of Tanya several times every day, but the memories no longer came at him in stunting, debilitating blows. They were cushioned by his general contentment.

If life wasn't as sweet and idyllic and rosy as it had once been, it was at least livable.

A little more than just livable—pleasantly livable.

The pleasantness was sometimes hampered by feelings of guilt, because the source of that pleasantness was his second wife. Each time his memory conjured up an image of Tanya's sweet face, he felt constrained to reassure it that she still had his love. Nothing would ever change that.

In his own defense he reminded himself that Tanya was dead and he was alive, and because she had loved him so unselfishly, she wouldn't want or expect him to deprive himself of life's pleasures.

Marcie made his life a pleasure.

She was funny and fun, intelligent and interesting, always thinking up innovative places to go and things to do. They even went to a rodeo together in a neighboring town. It surprised him how much she enjoyed it, although during the bull-riding event she laid her hand on his thigh and told him how glad she was that he was a spectator and not a participant.

"It would be a crying shame if you damaged your beautiful body."

He had taken inordinate pleasure in her simple compliment. She was always saying things like that to him, things that took him by surprise and delighted him. Sometimes she was sweet, sometimes playful, sometimes downright bawdy.

She became a bona ride member of his family.

They were considered a unit. It was now

"Chase 'n' Marcie" in one breath,' not just

Chase. Sage had started phoning long distance from Austin to ask Marcie's advice on this or that. Marcie hosted a baby shower for

Devon. She went shopping with Laurie and helped her pick out a new dress. Lucky frequently remarked on how wrong he'd been about their marriage.

"I'm glad you didn't listen to me, Chase."

Lucky had recently said. "You were right to marry Marcie. She's a prize. Smart. Good-looking.

Ambitious. Sexy." The last word had an implied question mark following it.

"Sexy." Chase tried to stop the grin he felt forming. He wasn't quite successful. His brother laughed out loud.

"That sexy, huh?"

"That sexy."

"I thought so. These redheads…" Lucky had said, shaking his head musingly. "There's something about

'em, isn't there? Like they've got fires smoldering inside them or something."

Chase was prone to agree, but discussing

Marcie's internal fires made him uncomfortable for a multitude of reasons. He punched his brother in the gut. "You're a pervert, talking about your pregnant wife like that." He no longer winced when Lucky's coming child was mentioned. He could even talk about it freely, with only a remnant of a pang affecting his heart. "Poor Devon. Are you still going at her hot and heavy?"

Lucky bobbed his eyebrows. "There are more ways than one to do it, big brother. Or don't you know?"

He knew.

Because he and Marcie had tried just about

all of them and then had made up a few of their own.

One evening she had brought him a bowl of popcorn while he was lounging in the large leather chair in front of the fireplace, mindlessly watching a detective show on television.

Within minutes there was popcorn all over the place, and he and Marcie were tangled up in the chair recovering their breath.

Both had remained dressed. Chase had thought that finding her erogenous zones inside her clothing was about the sexiest time he'd ever had. Until a few mornings later when they'd showered together. Propped against the tile walls, they had made love, as slippery, sleek, and playful as otters.

But whether he was ducking his head beneath her sweater to take her breasts into his mouth or squeezing a soapy sponge down the center of her body and tracking the foamy trail with his eyes, he always had one hell of a good time.

So did she. She never demurred from openly expressing her enjoyment of all they did together.

The lady was hot. From her cool, professional mannerisms and clipped practicality, no one would suspect the depth of Marcie's sensuality.

They hadn't reached the bottom of it yet.

Just last evening she had turned their hello kiss at the front door into one of the most erotic experiences of his life.

"I just can't wait," she had whispered

against his lips as she undid his pants and slid her hand inside.

"Be my guest."

That was the last thing he had expected her to do when he came home from a routine day at work…

until she knelt in front of him and replaced her caressing hand with her mouth.

Before it was over, they were both left on the living room sofa feeling weak and wicked.

And when she smiled up at him, he had said, "God, you're gorgeous."

However, he had lived with her long enough to realize that she still considered herself the same Goosey Johns she had been as an awkward adolescent. She had a good self-image professionally. When it came to her appearance, she still nursed fundamental insecurities.

"I wish I were pretty."

They were lying close together in the king-size bed they now shared. Unlike their wedding night, the lights now remained on until they were exhausted and ready for sleep.

"You are pretty, Marcie."

She shook her head. "No. But I wish I were."

"You're pretty," he had insisted, kissing her soft, pliant lips.

And later when his hands moved to her breasts, she sighed despairingly, "I wish they were larger."

"It doesn't matter. They're so sensitive."

The damp brushstrokes of his tongue proved him right.

"But not large."

Chase laid his finger across her lips, stilling

them. "If they were any larger, it would be excessive. For that matter, I wish I had twelve inches."

Her eyes had grown huge and round and she exclaimed, "You mean you don't?"

He had hugged her hard and they had laughed. When they made love, neither noticed any deficiency in the other.

Chase's life had been so sensually enriched, he no longer invited Lucky to The Place for drinks after work. He never postponed going home unless it was absolutely necessary. If Marcie wasn't there because of an evening appointment to show a house, he paced impatiently until she arrived.

He always had so many things to tell her, it seemed. It took them a full hour to fill in each other on how their days had gone. She was a surprisingly good cook, an excellent conversationalist on an endless variety of subjects, and an adventurous and imaginative lover.

Every evening he looked forward to going home to her.

That's why as he approached the house this evening he was dreading an upcoming business trip to Houston. Maybe he could persuade

Marcie to leave her agency in Esme's capable hands and come with him. They could incorporate a visit to her folks. Do some shopping.

Yeah, maybe she would come along.

He let himself into the house and called her name, although her car wasn't in the driveway and he assumed she wasn't at home. He disengaged the alarm, sorted through the mail, and brought in the newspapers. He got himself a beer from the refrigerator and checked for a note. She was good about leaving him notes, informing him where she had gone and when he could expect her to return. Tonight there was no note.

He was on his way upstairs to change clothes when the telephone rang. He retraced his steps back to the entry table and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?"

"Who did you want?"

Marcie's caller hadn't phoned in several weeks. Only a few days ago she had remarked on it. "I told you so," she had said in a singsong voice. "He's given up on me and moved on to another victim. One who doesn't have a sexy husband around to fend off unwelcome suitors."

Chase wondered now if this was the man.

Had hearing a masculine voice surprised him into blurting out his question?

"I'm calling for Mrs. Tyler," the caller said.

"This is Mr. Tyler. Can I help you?"

"Uh, well, I'm not sure. I spoke with Mrs.

Tyler before."

"Regarding what?"

"Painting."

"Painting?"

"I'm a house painter. She called and asked me for an estimate on doing some interior painting."

Chase relaxed. This wasn't Marcie's caller.

."I'm sorry. She hasn't mentioned anything to me about it."

"Well, it was a long time ago. Couple of years in fact. I didn't even think about it till I was out your way today. Drove past Woodbine

Lane and remembered talking to her.

She never called me back, but I remembered her name 'cause she said you were the Tyler Drilling people. I checked my cross directory and got your phone number. I reckon she got somebody else to do the painting before, but if you ever need—"

"Just a minute, Mr., uh—"

"Jackson."

"Mr. Jackson, you said you heard from my wife a couple of years ago?"

"That's right. It was around the time your building burned down."

"And she was calling about this house?"

"Yeah, she said it was the only house on

Woodbine Lane. Said y'all hadn't bought it yet, but were thinking about it. Said she needed a room painted for a nursery and wanted to know how much I would charge."

After several moments of silence he said, "Mr.

Tyler? You still there?"

"We don't need any painting done."

Chase slowly replaced the telephone receiver.

For a while he merely stood there, staring into near space. Then he pivoted on his heels and gazed at the large living room with its appealing view of the forest beyond, now tinged with the green promise of spring. He

tried looking at the room through different eyes, eyes now dead, forever closed.

The front door flew open behind him and he spun around, almost expecting Tanya's spirit to be hovering in the opening. Instead it was Marcie, gathering her windblown hair in her fist.

"Hi," she said breathlessly. "I thought I

might beat you home, but I can see I didn't. I