Anything for Her Marriage

Oh, never mind. This train of thought led nowhere he had any desire to visit, thank-you-very-much.

“Aunt Nancy? Where’s Mama?”

From nowhere, a pajama-clad urchin with dusty-blond hair appeared in front of them. Guy’s youngest, he figured. A brief pang of bittersweet longing to have his children back as babies, to see if he could do better this time, mingled with a profound sense of relief at not having to. Hannah was sixteen, Schuyler thirteen going on forty. Rod hadn’t been much better at fathering than husbanding. One day, maybe he’d figure out where he’d gone wrong.

But not tonight. Tonight he had about all he could handle convincing himself he didn’t want to take Nancy Shapiro to bed, to bury his face in all that hair, to seek, in those delicate, graceful arms, a few hours’ surcease from being a major screwup.

“Hey, sweetie,” Nancy crooned to the child, who scrambled up into her lap, pushing up the already short dress to danger level. Unconcerned, she propped her feet on the edge of the coffee table, allowing Rod a ringside view of her legs—thin but surprisingly shapely, and sexy as hell in sheer black stockings that glittered whenever she moved. When he tore his eyes away from her gams, however, he noticed the expression on her face as she cuddled the little boy.

He tore his eyes away from that much more quickly.

“Mama’s in the kitchen, honey,” he heard her say, and the I-want-one-of-these tremor in her voice was unmistakable. “You want me to get her?”

“C’n you take me to pee?” he said. “The bafroom’s all dark.”

There went the laugh. “I think we can handle that.”

He felt them get up, watched as Nancy carried the child out of the room. For a skinny woman, she had the cutest fanny he’d ever seen.

A few minutes later, she returned, sans child, but didn’t sit. Instead, she stood in front of him, twisting a silver ring on her right index finger, as if trying to get up the nerve to say something. Someone turned up the music; people raised their voices accordingly, and she rolled her eyes. Then she grinned, and leaned over, close enough for him to feel her breath on his cheek, see the slight swell of breasts peeking above the low sweep of the dress’s neckline that by rights should be too small to arouse anyone. She smelled…edible.

“I, for one, am not in the mood to watch everybody else get kissed at midnight,” she said. “So whaddya say we get out of here, go get a cup of coffee?”

He looked at her as if she’d suggested they go skinny-dipping in the lake a few blocks away. “I don’t think—”

But she shook her head, sending that riot of hair into a tizzy. “Forget thinking. It’s New Year’s Eve, and who said we have to suffer everyone else’s happiness?”

She had a point. She also had the greatest mouth in the world. Generous. Spellbinding.

And she had a point.

Nodding, he pulled himself off the sofa, retrieved their coats from the den, then ushered Nancy outside without even saying goodbye to their hosts.

Nancy gasped in the glacial blast that mugged them the instant they hit the porch. The light snow needling their cheeks was nothing, but damn it was cold. Underneath her black velvet swing coat, she couldn’t stop shivering.

Not just because she was cold, though.

“At the risk of sounding tacky,” Rod said next to her, his breath nearly opaque in front of his face, “my place or yours?”

She tried to laugh, but the sound froze before she could get it out. “I’m too snockered to d-drive,” she chattered, “b-but I live just on the other s-side of the lake. If we go there—th-that is, if you t-take me there—I can walk b-back over here tomorrow and p-pick up my c-c-car.”

He nodded—she was beginning to see a pattern here—then led her to his car, a gleaming silver luxury model sedan that had been the focus of a huge media blitz last year. His media blitz, she figured, when he was still head of marketing for Star Motors. Before he let her in, however, he shrugged off his topcoat—made, no doubt, from wool plucked from the under-side of some hardy beastie that grazed on grasses found only on the most remote mountain range in the world—and slipped it around her shoulders.

She wanted to crawl inside this coat and live here for the rest of her life. Well, actually, she wanted to crawl inside his car first, because the coat didn’t cover her feet, which had turned instantly into two-hundred-dollar popsicles.

They got in. Then they sat there. His car smelled of fine leather and his cologne and some indefinable rich smell she could easily get used to. Nancy had no idea what Rod was thinking, but she was thinking… Actually, she was shivering too hard to think, but ohmigod was in there somewhere.

She’d just invited Rod Braden for coffee. And he’d accepted. Somehow, she squelched the laugh threatening to blow her cool. She also remembered she had worked up the chutzpah to ask Norman Sklar to dance that night all those years ago. And that he’d accepted. She hadn’t felt like this since that night—apprehensive, excited and damned smug.

If a tad perplexed. Rod hadn’t said anything, or even started the car. Confined in a small space with him, he seemed…

She sighed inwardly. You know you’re in trouble when you can’t remember the last time you had sex. Hell, she only vaguely remembered who she’d last had sex with. Not that her list of partners would impress anyone, but what a pitiful comment on her thirty-four years that—if she was generous, mind—the best she could muster were two forgettables and one adequate. And let’s not go into which one of those had been her husband for five years.

The buzz alone from two feet away was already more exciting than any of her actual experiences. She wasn’t sure whether that was more of a comment on Rod or her, but she decided analyzing it would serve no viable purpose.

She jumped when Rod cleared his throat. “Where’s your place?”

“Oh. Right.” She gave him directions; the three-minute drive passed in silence. But now she noticed a sharpness to the buzzing that put her on guard, made her wonder if she’d edged closer to losing it than she’d realized. Had she misinterpreted politeness as actual interest? Wouldn’t be the first time, God knew. By the time he pulled up in front of her lakefront bungalow, she decided she’d let her imagination run away with her. From her.

“Look,” she said on a sigh, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked you to leave with me. I guess the wine impaired my reason more than I’d thought, but it’s obvious you’d really prefer to be alone, so if you want to back out, it’s okay—”

“Nancy,” he said softly, and she turned, chiding herself for getting off on just the way he said her plain vanilla name. She’d left her porch light on so she wouldn’t kill herself trying to come in later; the feeble light illuminated features that, before tonight, she’d only seen radiate grace and confidence. “If I hadn’t wanted to come with you—with you—I wouldn’t have. God knows, I didn’t want to be at that party, but I don’t really want to be alone, either.” His lips tilted into a sad smile. “Done that enough this past little while to last a lifetime.”

Her heart had become stuck somewhere at the base of her neck and was now pounding uncomfortably. She shifted, looked out at the puny snowflakes twirling in his headlights, which he’d yet to turn off. “Yeah. I know how that goes.” She shuddered in the cold, swung open the door. “Well, come on, then. The inaugural meeting of the Spruce Lake Lonely Hearts Club is about to begin.” She hesitated, leaned back into the car. “Um, I have cats.”

Rod chuckled. “There’s a cure for that, you know.” She rolled her eyes. “How many are we talking about?”

“Seven.”

He just stared at her, then said, “Just don’t ask me to clean out their boxes.”

“Not a problem.”

They got out of the car, icy pellets pricking their faces as they walked up to her door. Her smooth leather soles skidded on the filmy layer of snow underfoot; Rod caught her before she fell, keeping his hand on her elbow the rest of the way. Underneath his coat, she shivered, imagining what it would be like to cuddle against that solid chest.

Naked.

She pushed the thought away, then sighed when it came right back like an eager dog with a stick in its mouth.

All these years, she’d entertained fantasies of what it would be like to have Rod Braden do more than smile politely at her, imagined being alone with him, receiving his undivided attention. Well, she didn’t have to imagine that any longer. So, um, how far did she dare push her luck?

Oh, come on. Since when did she rely on luck to accomplish anything? If you want something, you go after it. Okay, so maybe that philosophy had more than its share of holes, but it sure as hell beat waiting around for life to fall into your lap. Maybe tonight wasn’t her only shot at upping the ante with Rod Braden. But maybe it was. Why heap more regrets on the already towering pile she’d accumulated over the years?

She took a very…deep…breath.

“And another thing—” she fumbled for her key in her Judith Lieberesque purse, managed to get it in the door “—I haven’t quite decided yet whether or not to seduce you.”

Talk about your stunned silences.

“Well,” she said to the doorknob, since someone had to say something and apparently the honor had fallen to her, “I don’t hear retreating footsteps, so I guess that’s a good sign.”

What she heard was a short, startled laugh. “Are you always this forthright?”

Still staring at the doorknob, she nodded. Then his hands were on her shoulders, turning her to him, the look in his eyes…oy.

Something told her she wasn’t the only person standing here who went after what they wanted.

Chapter 2