“Hey, who’s the extra place for?” Jesse wanted to know.
Marsha looked up from the salad she was fixing to find both boys regarding her curiously. She had set the round kitchen table for four tonight, her mind so preoccupied with other thoughts, she’d hardly noticed what she was doing.
She stared at it now, in bemusement, as though she were seeing it through her sons’ eyes.
A runner made of a cheerful Guatemalan striped fabric, mostly fuchsia, yellow and turquoise was laid across the center, and her wrought iron moon and star candlestick holders, a birthday present from Celeste which usually stood on her altar, were set on either side of a vase of sunflowers.
What was I thinking? She hadn’t even noticed all the work she’d put into her efforts to impress Sam. She’d actually gone to the trouble of finding four matching plates, and she’d dug up matching silverware, as well. All the while insisting to herself that she was indifferent. Obviously, she didn’t know herself as well as she thought she did.
“A friend of mine is joining us for dinner,” she said, trying for that tone of finality that had served her so well when the boys were younger.
But either she was out of practice, or the boys were too grown up to fall for it anymore. “Oh, yeah? Who?” Frank pressed, crunching on one of the carrots she’d planned to grate into the salad. Oh well, she guessed the salad had enough color already.
Marsha sighed. “No one you guys know. Someone I met over the weekend. Actually, he’s going to be renting the cabin for a few weeks.”
“He?” Jesse asked, and she could feel their interest spike. “You have a friend who’s a he now?” He gazed at her as if she’d suddenly announced an interest in…sky diving, or alligator wrestling. But no, Marsha decided reluctantly, he’d probably find either of those ideas less incongruous.
“And what do you mean, he’s staying at the cabin? How come? Where does he usually live?” Frank was far too young to sound so old. Marsha glanced at him uneasily. He sounded like his father. Or maybe even her father. Now there was a chilling thought.
“He lives in New York,” she said as she turned away from the salad, to check on the rice. She’d planned a very simple meal, nothing elaborate. Red beans and rice, grilled vegetables, the salad, and some tortillas which she’d put in the oven to warm.
At least I didn’t go overboard with cooking. Certainly, this wasn’t the kind of dinner that would give anyone the wrong idea. Then she remembered the homemade Sangria chilling in the refrigerator. That might have been a bit over the top, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
“So, does this mean...you’re dating a tourist?” Jesse sounded incredulous. Which was just about the response she figured she could count on getting from anyone who saw them together, or even heard about it, later.
Sam had been way off-track this afternoon. She had not been embarrassed; but she knew, far better than he ever could, the kinds of conclusions to which everyone who knew her would jump. She knew the eager speculation she would see gleaming in her friends’ eyes. Knew how those same eyes would darken with sympathetic outrage when it ended. She knew it all. She’d seen it all. She just wasn’t sure she was ready to go through it all again.
“Let’s get this straight. I am not dating anyone. Okay?” It really shouldn’t be too hard for them to fathom this. After all, she hadn’t been out on even one single date since she and their father had divorced.
Which meant she hadn’t enjoyed one single romantic interlude in their entire lives. Jeez.
The thought was so amazingly depressing, she was surprised when her wrist veins didn’t just pop open by themselves. But it still didn’t alter the fact that she was not dating Sam. He was just someone she enjoyed spending time with. That’s all. “I told you,” she said, very firmly. “He’s a friend.”
A friend. She wasn’t sure herself, how or when it had happened, but somewhere along the way, a line had been crossed.
She’d noticed the change during lunch. He was warmer than before, more relaxed somehow, and much less wary of her. And he kept gazing at her with a gentle amusement in his glance that would have spelled real trouble for her, if he’d still been radiating the same level of desire as he had the night before.
But along with the other changes, she’d been chagrined to discover that the sensual awareness she’d grown accustomed to feeling around him had altered, as well. She didn’t think it had diminished, exactly. Or maybe she just didn’t want to admit that it had. She preferred to believe that he had simply locked those feelings away somewhere deep inside him. Someplace she couldn’t sense them at all.
They’d stayed talking at the diner for far too long after they’d finished their lunch. Much longer than he’d planned—something she realized only when he was dropping her back off at the shop.
“When do you finish up here?” he asked, with a worried look at his watch. He had computer equipment to pick up and drop off. And on top of that, he now had to stop by the station and see Nick, as well. He’d never be able to do everything he had to, and still be back before she closed.
“Look, don’t worry about how long it’s going to take you,” she told him. “I don’t live all that far from here. I’ll walk home. That way you can just bring the van back there whenever you’re done.”
He shot her an odd look. Hooded, dark, almost predatory, but it was gone again so quickly, she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t just imagined it.
“Are you sure? I’d hate to put you to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” she assured him, writing the address down on a piece of scrap paper. She could walk home through the greenbelt, as the intricate network of parks and footpaths that threaded its way through Oberon was called. She got a vivid mental image of herself doing just that, in the warm September twilight. In her vision, she was carrying a couple of grocery sacks, and tingling with a pleasant sense of anticipation. Of course, she thought, as the idea unfolded in her mind. She could stop, on the way, at the produce stand in the next block after work and pick up some fresh vegetables to grill for dinner.
Dinner. The lamplight gleaming in his eyes. The pleasant clink of china and silverware. The animated murmur of voices.
Her fingers fumbled as she removed the car key from her key ring. She trusted him, she reminded herself, as she handed the key over to him. And it was just a car.
“Just don’t drive, too fast, okay?” She laid one palm against the side of the van, adding just a little more power to the shell of protective white light that was already there. “I don’t think it’s used to maneuvering as quickly as you are.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered, very politely, his mouth quirking into a small smile. “Anything else I should know about it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She paused. “So…when you get back, would you like to stay and have dinner with us?”
“Us?”
“My sons and me.”
“Oh, right. Right.” He nodded, letting out a deep breath and blinking, once or twice. And then he smiled at her. “Yes, that sounds wonderful. Thank you.” It was a nice smile. Pleasant. Warm. Friendly.
She hurried inside then, reluctant to watch him even get into the driver’s seat. She stomped down hard on the images that tried to form in her mind. Images of long, supple fingers making delicate adjustments to the mirrors; sliding caressingly over the steering wheel; cupping the ball of the stick shift in the palm of his hand, with a firm, sure grip.
She kept herself very busy all afternoon, not thinking about the van. She compiled a grocery list of things to pick up for dinner. She decided what merchandise to discount for Saturday’s sidewalk sale. She picked out a new Enya CD. I can play it this evening. She went over her inventory of beeswax candles and chose a pair of lemon-yellow tapers to fit in her candlestick holders. They’ll look perfect on my table. Then she sampled some of Lucy’s new amber scented massage oil; selected a few sticks of ginger-flower incense to use tonight, as well; and finally decided she couldn’t live any longer without a pair of aquamarine, peridot and blue topaz earrings she’d had her eye on for over a month.
Shopping was a good form of therapy, and less expensive than most. But when she considered the state of her bank account, and her rapidly shrinking profit margin, she was thankful that the afternoon had not dragged itself out any longer than that.
“So, when is this friend supposed to get here?” Frank asked.
“Any minute now,” Marsha answered casually, listening to the rapidly approaching hum of a familiar engine. “Why don’t you get the door?”
