Woman to Woman (47 page)

“You mean there isn’t a Cattle Baron’s Ball after all?”

There probably is. There are certainly enough people wearing Stetsons and cowboy boots, but you don’t see many suede fringed jackets. It’s top hot.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s unbelievable. In the summer, you can’t drive with your windows open. You just keep the airconditioning on the whole time,” Sam said.

“Putting your arm out the window of the car when you’re on the freeway is like being hit with a blast from a hot-air dryer.”

“Have some dips,” announced Fiona as she swept into the kitchen with a tray of empty glasses. She took a bowl of taramasalata and a large plate of cut vegetables out of the fridge and left them in front of Sam.

“Are you having fun?” she whispered into Aisling’s ear.

Sam’s mouth curved into a knowing grin as he looked Aisling in the eye.

“Loads of fun she replied, never taking her eyes off his face.

“Maybe we should just have sex on the table and then they’d all be happy suggested Sam with a glint in his eye when Fiona left with a tray of dips for the rest of the guests.

“I don’t know replied Aisling, as though she were thinking seriously about the idea.

“Maybe we should know a little about each other before that, what do you think? Sex on the first date is one thing, but I always find that sex within the first ten minutes is pushing it!” He laughed uproariously.

Aisling couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

What the hell, she didn’t have to play Michael Moran’s quiet little wifey any more.

They scraped the bowl clean as they sat at Fiona’s spotless kitchen table and talked. Aisling found out that Sam was originally from Cork where his parents still had a small dairy farm near Clonakilty. He’d lived in Dublin for seven years before moving to Texas.

The money was incredible,” he explained, ‘even if the change of climate nearly killed me. I thought I’d feel at home somewhere like Texas because I had this idea that it was a rural sort of place, like home. Unfortunately, in Houston, the nearest you got to cows was in a steak house. For the first six months, I didn’t see much apart from the office.”

“But you must have seen lots after that,” Aisling said.

“Yeah, I did. I loved Galveston, that was my favourite place.

It’s this old Victorian town on the Gulf Coast, all pretty wooden houses and ornate Victorian mansions. And miles and miles of sand covered with this sea grass you can’t pick because it’s the only thing holding the sand together and keeping the ocean out!”

“It must be wonderful to have travelled so much.” Aisling picked up the last bit of carrot off the plate.

“It was.” Sam sat back in his chair, his mind suddenly elsewhere. On whoever he left behind, Aisling thought to herself. Why else would a successful man leave the States to come home? He must have been married. He had to be forty or near it and he was charming, funny and good-looking. No way a man like Sam would have remained single for long.

God, how did I ever think I was the only person in the world to have their marriage break up? she wondered. That was just my self-obsession and self-pity.

It’s happening all the time. Is there anyone out there who doesn carry the remains of their past around with them, memories of happier times, different times?

“You look like you’re lost in time,” she said softly.

He smiled apologetically.

“Sorry. You’re right. I was a bit.”

“You know, if I’d met you six years ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the kitchen she said.

“I’d have been in there with my husband and I’d never have flirted with

“I know. Fiona told me you were separated. He must be mad.”

“So must she.”

He grimaced and drained his wine glass. That obvious, huh?”

Aisling pretended to consider it.

“Maybe not to most people,-but let’s just say, I’m sensitive to that sort of thing now. I find myself looking at people in the supermarket, staring at their ring fingers and working out if they’re married, separated, whatever. It’s my little game.”

“You still wear your wedding ring,” Sam said, almost accusingly.

She looked down at her left hand, at the sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds and the slim wedding band she still wore. She was so used to wearing them that she couldn’t imagine taking them off. But why, she thought? Michael was gone. He was living with somebody else and he wasn’t coming back. So why was she still wearing his rings?

For a moment, she was back in McDowell’s on the day he’d bought her engagement ring. Thirteen years ago.

The sapphire ring suits you best,” Michael said, leaning on the glass-fronted case with her fingers held tenderly in his hand.

“I like the diamond solitaire,” she answered.

“I’ve always dreamed of having a diamond ring.”

The sapphire one has little diamonds around it,” Michael pointed out, sensible as ever. In the end, he’d won. He bought her the sapphire ring and promised her a ring with a solitaire sometime. He’d never bought it.

Aisling looked at Sam and shrugged.

“You’re right,” she said, looking into his eyes, wondering how anyone could have eyes so blue.

“I don’t know why I still wear them.”

She straightened out her fingers and slid the rings off. With all the weight she’d lost, they came off easily. She left them on the table beside her wine glass. Twelve years of marriage down the Swannee.

“We’ll have to celebrate,” Sam said gently, moving his chair right beside hers. He put one hand around her neck and pulled her face closer to his, so close that she could feel his breath on her skin. Then his lips met hers, softly touching hers.

For a moment, Aisling panicked. This was happening so fast.

Then she felt Sam’s arms reach around her waist, gently holding her to him. She relaxed and let herself go, feeling her mouth open under his. He tasted sweet and faintly bitter, the wine on his breath mingling with something else. Her skin felt warm where he was holding her.

Nobody had held her like this for so long. She’d spent so many nights alone in the big bed, only Flossie or her books for company. Now, she was in a man’s arms, a man who wanted

Suddenly, she wanted to go to bed with him. Now. This instant. Shocked, she wondered if she’d lost her mind, but no.

She hadn’t. She simply wanted him, hungered for him, as she used to hunger for jam doughnuts or ice cream. She didn’t care if she never saw another doughnut ever again, all she wanted was Sam.

“Aisling,” he murmured into her hair, his lips brushing against her neck and her ear.

“I shouldn’t have done that, but I couldn’t help myself.”

She arched her neck back, leaving her skin exposed for him.

He was a quick learner.

“I’m glad you did,” she said softly, as he moved along her neck to the soft hollow at the base of her throat.

“Oh!”

Aisling would have recognised Fiona’s voice anywhere. Shemade a sort of strangulated squeak and turned on her heel.

Aisling and Sam started laughing at exactly the same moment. She clutched Sam’s head against her neck and roared.

“We’ve been caught she said between laughs.

“I feel like I’m fifteen again and my mother has just caught me groping my girlfriend in the dairy.” Sam could barely talk he was laughing so much. ‘.I don’t think I enjoyed that so much.”

He moved up until they were face to face. He held her face cradled in his hands and kissed her again, gently on the lips.

“I never thought I’d be found snogging in the kitchen at a party at my age, but that was wonderful,” he said.

“I hope you don’t regret this tomorrow, Aisling. I’d like to see you again.”

“I’d love that.” It was true. But Fiona’s interruption had brought her to her senses.

A flirtation and a kiss in the kitchen was one thing. Going off with a man she’d just “met for wild passionate sex was another.

It would be wild and passionate sex, she knew that for sure.

The way he kissed sent ripples of excitement down her spine.

Aisling gently stroked Sam’s cheek and smiled at him.

“I better go. It’s late.”

It was nearly twelve and the babysitter said she didn’t want to stay the night. Aisling got up from her chair. Sam jumped up instantly.

“Will you let me walk you home?”

“Of course. But I don’t want the neighbours to think I’m a scarlet woman, so we better be discreet,” Aisling said quickly.

She had a sudden vision of all the guests from the party craning their heads out of Fiona’s upstairs windows for a better view of Sam kissing her passionately at her hall door.

Or worse, the boys seeing her kissing Sam passionately.

“Damn, you’ve ruined my whole plan.” Sam put his arms around her waist and grinned. He wasn’t as tall as Michael, she thought suddenly. Stop it, Aisling, she said silently. She didn’t want to think of Michael. She kissed Sam again. He tasted just as good this time round.

“I’ll just get my handbag,” she said. She hurried up to Fiona’s spare room where she’d left her things.

Fiona caught her rushing down the stairs.

“Are you going?” Fiona was doing her best to conceal a smirk but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“Both of you?” she asked meaningfully.

“Sam is walking me home Aisling said.

“Walking. That’s all.

So don’t focus the telescope on my house!”

“I’m so pleased you like him, he’s a dear man.” Fiona gave her a big hug.

“Phone me tomorrow and tell me everything, right?”

“I promise. “

Jo sat on a stool in the small dressing room and watched Frederick paint one last coat of ruby-red lipstick on the model’s perfect mouth. The girl sat perfectly still in the chair. Dark arched brows framed pale blue eyes edged by expertly applied eyeliner, giving her an exotic, faintly Egyptian look.

“We want vampish make-up, dark, smoky eyes and dark lips,” Jo had explained to Frederick on the phone the previous week.

“I’m calling it the Christmas Glamour Look and I’ve got three long dark evening dresses, one black velvet tuxedo and a sequin ned mini dress for the shoot. The make-up has to be dramatic.”

Frederick was doing his best to be very dramatic, although the heavy make-up required for the camera looked out of place in a draughty photographic studio on a cool Monday morning in September.

Exhausted after a restless night, Jo didn’t feel up to organising the shoot for the December issue. It was two months to the Christmas production day, but that edition traditionally carried lots of fashion pages and Jo knew that Ralph, the photographer Style used, had a catalogue shoot lined up for half of October and was going on holiday to Jamaica in November. That left September for everything the skiing clothes shoot, the knitwear shoot, the working woman’s suit shoot and the lingerie-to-get-your-man-to-buy you-for-Christmas shoot.

She had to organise all those over the next two weeks, which would mean lots of dashing around the shops searching for the right accessories and perfect shoes. At least she’d got absolutely everything she needed today.

Several elegant dresses hung from the rail in the small dressing room, ready for the two models to transform themselves into glamour queens. Boxes containing high-heeled suede and satin sandals were lined up on the floor, while packets of tights lay on the cupboard top alongside the simple silver earrings Jo had picked for the shoot.

Frederick’s huge bag of tricks were spread out on the counter top, palettes of every colour under the sun, eye pencils, brushes, jars of foundation and cotton buds jostling for space beside the hairdresser’s heated rollers, cans of hairspray, pins and brushes.

Outside the door, Ralph yelled instructions around the large, highceilinged studio. It was nearly eleven on Monday morning and they had to be finished by half two because Ralph was photographing a group for a business magazine at three. It didn’t leave them much time for the Style shoot and as the other model was late, they were definitely in trouble.

The photographer’s favourite Eric Clapton CD was belting out of the sound system and Jo could feel the stirrings of a thumping headache. This was shaping up to be a disastrous day. It had been a pretty bad weekend, as she’d waited for Mark to ring so she could explain exactly what had happened at the office.

She’d gone over it in her head many times, telling him how she’d really tried to get on well with Emma. How she’d, worked with the younger woman to make her part of the Style team. How Emma had thrown it all back in her face in a fit of spite. But Mark hadn’t phoned.

By Sunday night, Jo had convinced herself that he’d heard Emma’s side of the story and had made up his mind not to ring her at all. She felt utterly miserable. The only bright spark on the horizon was the thought of her cottage, which Mark’s contractor friend had told her was structurally sound even though it needed some work.

“Finished,” announced Frederick. He stood back and admired his handiwork. The model, Carol, unfurled her long, impossibly slender body, stood up and reached into her denim shirt pocket for her

cigarettes. “Don worry, I’ll smoke outside she said, patting Jo on the shoulder. The model pulled on a tatty leather bomber jacket over her jeans, careful not to dislodge the heated rollers in her dark hair and left the room, lighting up as she went.

“We’re nearly ready shouted Ralph from the studio.

“Where the hell is Stephanie?”

“Here.” came another voice, as a tall blonde girl dressed in grey sweatpants and parka hurried into the dressing room, hair flying.

“Sorry I’m late she said to Jo.

“I got stuck in traffic.”

“Steph, your hair!” shrieked Alan, the hairdresser, pushing into the dressing room with a tray and four mugs of tea.

Stephanie’s high-cheekboned face was stunning even devoid of make-up, but her hair was definitely greasy at the roots.

“I won’t have time to wash it now. It’ll have to be sleeked-back hair Alan muttered to Jo.

“Fine.- Jo was tired, cross and ready to belt Steph’s beautiful head. She didn’t care what Alan did to the model’s bloody hair. Damn Mark. Damn, damn, damn.