Out beyond the French doors, the June sky had turned the deep lavender of morning twilight. She braced herself on an elbow and stared down at Matt in the half-light. His hair curled down along his forehead, and his thick, dark lashes lay against his cheeks. He looked peaceful, content, unworried. And so very young…
She resisted the urge to touch his hair or kiss his sleepy mouth. No matter how much she lusted after his body—and she needed it like an addict craves his next fix—kissing him awake would be a huge mistake.
He was a terrific lover. That shouldn’t have surprised her since he’d had so much practice in his young life. But practice didn’t always make perfect. She’d had lots of practice and had never experienced anything like last night. He’d been so generous in bed, so interested in giving pleasure as well as receiving it, that it would be so easy to believe he cared about her. But she was too smart to fall into the trap of mistaking pleasure and passion for true love.
She could no more imagine Matt Lyndon in a stable, long-term relationship than she could imagine finding a unicorn in Eagle Hill Manor’s backyard. It wasn’t going to happen. Ever.
It was time to leave.
She slipped from the bed and tiptoed into the living room, where she found her clothes scattered across the discarded cardboard. She slipped on her dress without bothering with her underwear or shoes. She found her purse where she’d dropped it the night before and dug for her keys. Just as she was ready to open the door, one of the kittens scampered up to her and curled itself around her ankle. She had no idea if this was Aramis or Porthos because the two kittens were so alike. But the kitten meowed and looked up at her with such an adorable face.
How could anyone call these little fluffballs Doom and Ghul? Short answer: a twentysomething guy just moving into his first apartment. It was like a sign or something, reminding her that Matt Lyndon was basically a well-educated frat boy.
She stared down at the kitten, torn by her conflicted emotions. Should she take him home? She wanted a cat. But a small part of her brain whispered that leaving the cat at Matt’s gave her an excuse to knock on his door some other time. Plus, leaving the cat here meant that he’d have to scoop the litter box.
She picked up the kitten and snuggled it against her cheek. He rubbed his head against her and started to purr. A lump formed in her throat for no reason she could truly explain.
“It would be dumb to leave you here where you’d be called something horrible like Ra’s al Ghul,” she whispered to the adorable creature snuggled against her neck.
It was settled. Better to go, leaving nothing behind. She’d satisfied her curiosity once, and if she allowed herself to satisfy it again, she might end up hurt or broken. Curiosity killed the cat, and in this instance, it might destroy the cat owner’s heart.
Besides, she’d had a wonderful night. That was all she needed. A wise woman would leave it at that.
She didn’t feel very wise as she crossed the short distance between his apartment and hers. She opened the door and headed into her own bedroom with the kitten, where she fell into her bed, snuggling the furball until she fell asleep. Thank God Monday was one of her off days.
She woke up hours later, the kitten still curled next to her. “You’ve definitely had a personality transplant,” she said to the kitten, giving him a little kiss on his tiny head. She reached for her cell phone and checked the time. Holy crap, it was almost noon, and she had promised Sid she’d be there in the morning.
Guilt and remorse washed through her, along with a familiar sense of shame. What had she been thinking? The last thing she wanted was another one-night stand, and even though it had been a memorable one, sex with Matt Lyndon was not what she wanted.
She wanted a relationship. She wanted to find someone who would rock her world the way Jeff rocked Melissa’s, and Dusty rocked Amy’s, and David rocked Willow’s. She wanted the fairy tale. Instead she got twenty-first-century sexual liberation, which wasn’t all that.
She raced through her shower and headed out to Sid’s place, stopping at the Food Lion to do a little grocery shopping for him, focusing on food that was low salt, low-fat, and low-calorie.
But when she knocked on Sid’s door, Leslie Heath answered it, wearing a purple and green dashiki shirt and looking like a Baby Boomer fashion plate. “Oh, hi, Courtney, we were just about to call you. Let me take those groceries.” She snagged the plastic bags from Courtney’s hands and continued talking. “I’ll put them away. You come on in and visit. We’ve been commiserating and plotting.”
“Commiserating and plotting?”
Leslie waltzed off without any further elaboration. She moved into the kitchen as if she lived there. She seemed surprisingly familiar with where Sid kept pantry items. Courtney watched for a moment, emotions churning. Who was this woman? Leslie was as unlike Barbara as a woman could be. Barbara had been reserved and conservative. Leslie was anything but.
Courtney held her resentment in check and turned toward Sid’s small living room, crowded with Barbara’s big, traditional furniture, which he’d been unable to let go of when he’d sold his house in town. Courtney found Sid sitting in the big wing chair, wearing yet another Hawaiian shirt—this one in the same shades of green and purple as Leslie’s dashiki. Despite the loud shirt, or maybe because of it, he looked surprisingly well, considering that he’d had coronary bypass surgery less than a week ago. His color had improved dramatically, and the twinkle had returned to his deep-set blue eyes.
And
