Caleb's Bride

“Lesley!” Gabby shook her head at her irreverent sister-in-law.

“He’s not a priest, Gabs. He can have sex. And FYI, so can you.” Abandoning the fork, she snatched a few tiny containers of creamer and laced her coffee, eyeing Gabby with barely concealed impatience. “So what about it?”

“No! I told you—”

Lesley waved a hand. “Forget the gorgeous man of God.” She took a fortifying sip of decaf. “I mean sex. What’s your excuse for not having any?”

Gabby squirmed, ironically feeling as if her best friend had caught her in the act, not out of it. “How do you know I’m not having any?”

Lesley slapped the table as if she’d heard a good joke. “Please.”

Gabby’s glance skittered away, a mouse hoping the cat one foot away might not notice her.

“I love you, Gabs,” Lesley said, sighing. “You know I’d never say anything to hurt you, but we’ve reached critical mass. I didn’t say anything while there was still a chance that Dean might…”

“I know, I know.” Plopping her elbows on the table, Gabby covered her eyes with her hands then peeked around to make sure no one they knew was nearby, but Les would not have spoken if there had been. Gabby knew her sister-in-law truly did have her best interests at heart. “If it comforts you any, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m in a rut I have to get out of. And I am. I have a plan. But first, I need to tell you something. I need to tell someone…”

Save for a brief hiatus when the waitress came by to refill their coffee cups, Gabby did not stop talking until she’d filled Lesley in on That Night with Cal. Lesley’s eyes grew wider and wider, until she practically shouted, “You and Caleb?! And you never told me? I’m going to go home and write in my journal that we are nothing like Oprah and Gayle after all. But first—” She climbed so far over the table, her bosom was nearly in the pie. “How was it?”

Picking up Lesley’s discarded creamer containers and stacking them, Gabby shrugged. “It was…you know…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What, it was too long ago? You can’t remember?”

She remembered. Sex with Cal had been desperate, frantic…

Out of control—that’s what it had been. What she had been that night. The experience stood, in fact, as the one out-of-control moment in Gabby’s highly controlled life. And her body had reveled in it, sweeping her mind right along with it.

At first, anyway.

Being a virgin at the time, she’d felt pain that had eventually allowed reality to intrude into the moment of madness, and once that happened…She shuddered. Regret and embarrassment had snuffed out lust. For her, at least. And, really, such a wild, out-of-control feeling—not her at all.

To Lesley, she responded, “I was young. And it was my first time, so…you know.”

“Oh.” Lesley nodded. “Right. Not great, then. My first time with Eric left a lot to be desired, too. But we tried again the next day, and that—”

“Too much info, too much info!” Gabby covered her ears, unwilling to hear details about her eldest brother’s love life.

“All right. Tell me what happened afterward for you two.”

“Nothing happened. He was going away to college.”

“Which left two months between the Fourth of July and September. So…?”

“So nothing. He dropped by the next day to check on me…” Reluctant to relive the details of that torturously awkward encounter, Gabby shook her head. “It was only a one-night thing.”

Lesley made a face. “Teenage boys and sex. Gotcha.”

Gabby shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, what do you want to do about it now?” Lesley questioned, finally digging into the pie that was unlikely to do any damage at all to her willowy, five-foot-nine-inch dancer’s body. “You say he’s back in town. I wonder how long he’s staying. Maybe you two could have a do-over and get it right this time.”

“No!” Gabby looked around a tad wildly, though no one new had entered the diner, and Pastor Sex Appeal was paying his bill. “Shhh. Don’t even suggest that,” she hissed across the table. “I’m hoping I don’t run into Cal again at all. I want a brand new start to my life, Les. Nothing I’ve done up to now requires a trip down Memory Lane.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.” Thoughtfully, Lesley licked berry juice off her fork. “You’ve had good sex since Cal, though, right?”

Lowering her gaze, Gabby confessed, poking at a piece of pie crust.

Lesley reached for her coffee cup, narrowing her gaze at Gabby over the rim. “I know you don’t like to talk about your sex life, and I’ve always tried to respect that, but there has been someone, right?” She nodded hopefully. “Someone who made your toes curl?”

Gabby’s brow knitted. She bit her lip. “Umm…no actual toe curling to report.”

“Huh.” Taking a sip of coffee, Lesley shrugged philosophically. “Okay. So someone who maybe wasn’t the greatest lover, but still…?”

“Ahh, let’s see…” Knuckles to her lips, Gabby closed one eye, pretending to have to think about it. “Mmmm…” She shook her head—a tiny, reluctant movement. “No.”

Lesley watched her for a protracted moment, her expression a symphony of shock, horror and awe. “Gabrielle Coombs! You are not telling me that you haven’t. Since that one time?”

Mouth open, Lesley braced her hands against the booth. “Are you serious? Caleb Wells has been your one and only lover?” She raised a hand to her heart. “I like a surprise as much as the next person, but this kind of shock could kill a girl!”

Chapter Three

Gabby looked frantically around the coffee shop then back to her sister-in-law. “Shhhh! You see? This is why I don’t like to talk about it. It sounds worse out loud than it really is.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Lesley was so frozen in shock, it took her a moment to move her lips again. “Gabby, you’re thirty-three. Out loud or not—”

“I know!” Groaning, Gabby lowered her forehead to the table, rolling her brow slowly back and forth on the cold wood. “I know.”

“How did this happen? Haven’t you wanted to?”

“Of course I wanted to. But with someone I loved. And I kept, I don’t know, thinking it was going to happen with Dean, and I didn’t want to be…unavailable.” She raised her head. “I get props for trying to hold out for true love, right?”

“You’re thirty-three, not in the novitiate and practically a virgin again. No, you get no props.” Lesley wagged her head. Her voice fell to a hushed tone generally reserved for announcements that all heroic attempts to resuscitate have failed. “This is bad.”

Sitting up, pressing against the hard-backed booth, Gabby rubbed her sweaty palms on the rough denim covering her thighs. “Remember how in love Poppy and Grammy Joan were? How they’d look at each other, and you could tell they knew exactly what the other person was thinking?”

Lesley nodded. “Yeah. I’d catch Max staring at her picture after she died. Sometimes he’d wink at her like he thought she could see him.”

“Right. They were practically a local legend. The couple nothing on this earth could part. Well, that’s what I was waiting for—a forever love. Time got away from me, that’s all.”

The women were silent awhile. Lesley reached for her friend’s hand. “Madly in love or not, you’ve got to start your romantic life, Gabby. The meter’s running.”

Sitting straighter, Gabby nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m planning, Les—to start my life, romantic and otherwise.” Pulling a manila envelope from the pink-and-black nylon backpack she’d brought with her, she extracted a brochure and some boldly printed trifolds, which she spread out on the table. “Look at this.”

Lesley scanned the papers. “These are brochures for that new cruise line—the one that caters to singles. I read about it in Via.” Looking up so suddenly she almost gave herself whiplash, she gasped. “Shut. Up. You’re going to have meaningless cruise sex! Have you booked the trip?”

“No, no. I’m not going on a trip. I’m going to work, Les. On the ship.”

Lesley blinked. “Work. Wha—Where?” She stabbed a finger at the brochure. “On one of these floating bedrooms?”