have been just outside the bedroom door. “The front door was open. Are you all right?”
I said nothing, too stunned to speak. Surely this was all a dream. Otherwise, I was experiencing the most surreal morning of my life.
“I came to clear out my office,” Ryan continued. “I took today off. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Mind? Why should I mind. Oh, maybe because I was this close to a mind-blowing orgasm with a man--a younger man--who actually seemed to desire me.
“How old are you?” I whispered to Freddy.
“Twenty-four,” he mumbled as he shifted his mouth to my inner thigh.
Oh my.
“Do you know how old I am?”
He shook his head. “Thirty maybe?” His words were barely audible. “And you’re hot.”
I was beginning to harbor serious feelings for the guy.
“Bernie?” Genuine concern tinged Ryan’s tone.
“Hide,” I mouthed to Freddy, who planted one more kiss on my stomach before he dashed for the master bathroom.
“I just threw up,” I hollered to Ryan. “Give me a minute.”
“Oh.” A long silence followed. “I’ll wait downstairs.”
Nothing sent a man running in the opposite direction faster than vomit.
I left Freddy in the bathroom, wrapped my faded yellow robe around myself and went downstairs. Ryan had settled into the recliner and sat flipping through my mail.
“There’s nothing for you there.”
He dropped the envelopes, guilt plastered across his face. His expression grew serious as he straightened to his full height. “You’re really red. Do you have a fever?”
I felt my face grow even hotter. “Something like that. Listen, I already packed up your office, but maybe you could come back at a better time?”
He nodded. “Sure thing. Where’s Freddy? His truck’s in the drive.”
I had to think fast. Definitely not something my brain was up to at the moment. I spotted the top of Poindexter’s ears, hiding behind the china cabinet.
Smart dog.
“Um... I think Freddy took Poindexter for a walk.”
Ryan made a face as if he didn’t believe me for a second.
“I asked him to.”
“Oh.” He nodded.
I faked a little gag. “I don’t feel so hot.”
His eyes grew huge and he bolted for the door. “I’ll give you a call later to see how you are. I can get my stuff another time.”
“Thanks,” I answered. But he’d already cleared the threshold and was halfway to his car.
Coward.
Five minutes later I watched Freddy’s truck pull out of the drive.
He’d still been ready for me when I’d returned to the bedroom. Matter of fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen a man quite so...well...ready.
But on the way back up the stairs, I’d realized Ryan wasn’t the only coward.
I was a coward, too. Too much of a coward to take a tumble in the sheets with my twenty-four-year-old landscaper, no matter how amazing his eyes were or what sort of tricks he could do with his tongue.
I was forty-one, for crying out loud. Forty-one.
I knew better than to jump into bed with the first warm body I could find. Didn’t I?
I was standing in the doorway, clutching the neck of my robe when I heard a voice.
A deep, rumbling, masculine voice.
“Maybe you’re right, Number Thirty-Two.”
I winced, praying right then and there for the ground to swallow me up. Instead, I straightened, facing my cat-walking neighbor head on.
“Right about what?”
Number Thirty-Six shrugged as he hesitated for a moment, then he resumed his walk, tipping his chin toward the tailgate of Freddy’s truck.
“Maybe everyone does have an agenda.”
When he glanced back in my direction, I’d like to say his face was expressionless, or teasing, but it was neither.
Number Thirty-Six looked disappointed.
I straightened, giving brief thought to defending myself, to telling him Freddy meant nothing, to telling him to mind his own business.
I thought about saying a lot of things, but instead I merely pushed the front door closed without saying a word.
As inexplicably guilty as I felt, I decided I didn’t owe Number Thirty-Six an explanation. The man had brought me a Christmas tree. So what?
Did that entitle him to pass judgment on my pathetic sexual almost-escapade with the landscaper?
I thought not.
Though as I headed back to the kitchen to eat every leftover cinnamon bun I could cram into my mouth, my guilt morphed from a tiny simmer to a full-out boil.
Number Thirty-Six.
Disappointed.
Damn the man.
o0o
“Conscience is that still, small voice that yells so loud the morning after.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
FIFTEEN
“HJKZ SFCSYF EJGF J ICCR JPH PK YPAF, WDN ACB VCHF BFJVCK NEFZ KFGFB SDYY NEF NBPIIFB.”
-DKQKCMK
My UPS driver arrived first thing the next morning with an absolutely-not-concealed-in-a-brown-wrapper box emblazoned with the words Dating Now. I