I’m In No Mood For Love

“Of course not, but she’ll try.” She grabbed her red alligator skin purse. “See you all on the tenth,” she said, bid her friends good-bye, and walked from the restaurant.

The temperature outside had risen, and the snow on the ground began to melt. Cold air brushed her cheeks as she walked along the terrace toward the parking garage. She pulled her red leather gloves from her coat pocket and put them on. The heels of her boots tapped across white and black tile as she hooked a right at an Italian restaurant. If she’d walked straight ahead, she would have ended up in the Balcony Bar-the place Lonny had always assured her wasn’t a gay bar. She knew now that he’d lied about that, just as he’d lied about a lot of things. And she’d been perfectly willing to believe him.

She pushed open the doors to the garage and walked toward her car. At the thought of Lonny, her heart no longer pinched in her chest. What she mostly felt was anger, at Lonny for lying to her, and at herself for wanting so desperately to believe him.

The temperature inside the concrete garage was colder than it was outside, and her breath hung in front of her face as she unlocked her Lexus and got behind the wheel. If she thought about it, she truly wasn’t all that angry anymore. The one good thing that had come out of her failed relationship with Lonny was that she’d forced herself to stop and take a good hard look at her life. Finally. She was going to turn thirty-four in a few months and she was tired of relationships that were doomed to failure.

The obvious ta-da moment she’d been waiting to reveal itself and solve all her problems had never happened. About a month earlier, while she’d been folding laundry and watching The Guiding Light, she’d realized that the reason she hadn’t been able to experience the big eureka moment was because there wasn’t just one-there were several. Starting with her issue with her father and sliding right into her subconscious desire to either rile or please her mother. And Clare had dated men who’d fit both bills. She hated to admit that her mother had that much influence on her personal life, but she did. To top it all off, she was a love junkie. She loved love, and while that helped her career, it wasn’t so good for her personal life.

She pulled out of her parking space and headed toward the toll booth. She was a little embarrassed that she’d reached thirty-three and was only now changing the destructive patterns in her life.

It was past time she took control. Time to break the passive-aggressive cycle with her mother. Time to stop falling in love with every man who paid attention to her. No more love at first sight-ever-and she meant it this time. No more settling-ever-and that included, but was not limited to, cheaters, liars, and fakes. If and when she got involved with a man-and that was a big if and a cautious when-he was going to feel damn lucky to have her.

The day before Joyce Wingate’s annual Christmas party, Clare dressed in old jeans and a cable-knit sweater. Over that she wore her white ski parka, wool gloves, and light blue wool scarf wrapped around her neck and the lower half of her face. She spent the afternoon adding the finishing touches to the outside of the house on Warm Springs Avenue.

The last two weeks since she’d met her friends for lunch, she’d helped her mother and Leo decorate the big home inside and out. A twelve-foot Douglas fir stood in the middle of the foyer, adorned with antique ornaments, red bows, and golden lights. Every downstairs room had been decorated with pine greenery, brass candlesticks, nativity scenes, or Joyce’s extensive nutcracker collection. The Christmas Spode and Waterford crystal had been cleaned, and the linens pressed and waiting in the truck of Clare’s car to be brought inside.

The day prior, Leo had come down with a cold, and she and Joyce insisted that he abandon the remaining tasks outside for fear his cold would worsen. He was given the job of polishing the silver and wrapping pine garland and red velvet ribbon up the mahogany banisters.

Clare had taken over outside, and every time she ventured into the house for a coffee refill or just to thaw her toes, Leo fussed and argued that he was well enough to hang lights on the remaining shrubs. He might have been, but at his age, Clare didn’t want to take a chance that the cold would get worse and turn into pneumonia.

The work outside was neither hard nor heavy, just freezing and tedious. The big house was festooned with lighted boughs that hung about the door, along the porch, and around each stone column. A pair of five-foot pepperberry reindeer stood in the front yard, and lighted candy canes lined the sidewalk and driveway.

Clare moved the ladder to the last shrub and untangled one remaining string of C-9 lightbulbs. After this string, she was finished, and she was looking forward to going home, filling her jet tub with hot water and sitting in it until her skin wrinkled.

The sun was out, warming the valley to a balmy thirty-one degrees, which was an improvement over the twenty-seven high of the day before. Clare climbed onto the ladder and wrapped the lights around the top of the eight-foot tree. Leo could have told her both the common and scientific name of the shrub. He was amazing that way.

The frozen foliage made a rasping sound as it slid across the sleeve of Clare’s coat, and the toes inside her boots had turned numb about an hour ago. She could no longer feel her cheeks, but her fingers still worked inside her fur-lined gloves. She leaned into the shrub to wrap the lights around the back and felt her cell phone slip from her coat pocket. She reached for it a second too late, and the thin phone disappeared into the shrub.

“Dang it.” Her hands dove into the greenery and pushed it apart. She caught a glimpse of the silver and black flip phone as it slid deeper into the middle of the shrub. She leaned forward, bending over the top of the ladder and reaching as far as she could into the middle. The tips of her gloves brushed the phone, and it disappeared into denser foliage. As she pulled her head out of the shrub, a vehicle turned into the driveway and continued to the back of the house. By the time she looked around, the car was out of view. She assumed the florist delivering her mother’s poinsettias, crocuses, and amaryllis for the party was a little early.

She moved to the back of the shrub closest to the house and pushed the branches apart. The frozen stems brushed her face, and her thoughts turned to spiders. For the first time since she’d stepped outside, she was glad it was below freezing. If it had been summer, she would have bought a new phone rather than risk spiders in her hair.

“Hey there, frosty.”

Clare straightened and turned so fast she almost tripped herself. Sebastian Vaughan walked toward her, the sunlight catching his hair, lighting him up like an archangel come down from heaven. He wore jeans, a black down parka, and a smile that hinted at less than heavenly thought. “When did you get here?” she asked, and came out from behind the heavy greenery.

“Just now. I recognized your butt when I pulled in the driveway.”

She frowned. “Leo didn’t mention you were coming.” The last time she’d seen him, he’d kissed her, and the memory brought a flush to her frozen face.

“He didn’t know until I landed about an hour ago.” His breath left his lungs in white wisps, and he took one bare hand from the pocket of his coat and reached toward her.

She pulled back and wrapped her gloved hand around his wrist. “What are you doing?”

His smile creased the corners of his green eyes. “What do you think I was going to do?”

Her chest got tight when she recalled with startling clarity what he’d done to her at his father’s birthday party. More than what he’d done, she remembered her response. And the disturbing thing was, she wanted to feel that way again. She wanted what every woman wanted, to feel desire and be desired. “With you, I never know.”

He picked a twig from her hair and showed it to her. “Your cheeks are red.”

“That’s because it’s below freezing out here,” she said, and blamed it on the weather. She removed her hand from his wrist and took a step back. Needing a man to make her feel good about herself was the old Clare, she told herself. The newer and wiser Clare had learned that she didn’t need a man to feel okay. “Why don’t you do something useful and call my cell number.”

“Why?”

She pointed behind her. “Because I dropped it in there.”

He chuckled and reached for the BlackBerry hooked to his belt. “What’s the number?”

She gave it to him, and within a few moments “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” played from within the tall shrub.

“Your ring is the Black Eyed Peas?”

Clare shrugged and dove into the shrub once more. “It’s my new motto.” She pushed several branches apart and caught a glimpse of the phone.

“Does that mean you’re over the gay boyfriend?”