Caron Todd - Her Favorite Husband

“Of course.” At least he didn’t seem shocked or titillated by the news, the way some people did. “Puzzled, though. Because here I am, so glad to see you and there you are, so…skeptical.”

“You surprised me.”

“Which I should never, never do.”

At last he smiled, and unexpectedly, it was his old smile—the one she’d wanted to see—warm, kind, much better than the bartender’s.

“One second I’m watching a football game and the next you’re standing in the doorway. You, of all people…”

“Here, of all places. A ghost. A bad dream. Indigestion.”

His chuckle, brief as it was, instantly made her happy.

“None of the above. More of a fold in time.”

“Like being catapulted back ten years…”

He’d stopped leaning away from her. Stopped playing with his beer bottle. “Exactly. You came through the door and for a weird millisecond it was like we were back in that dark little apartment on Corydon.”

Basement apartment, all they could afford, but handy to the university. “I wish we were.” She let her knee bump his in case he missed her point.

“Sarah.”

“Don’t you wish we were?”

“It was damp, remember? And sometimes we had crickets.”

His eyes weren’t closing her out anymore. They were drawing her in. It struck Sarah that his coolness until now might not have been disapproval, after all. Not completely, anyway. It might have been an attempt at self-control.

If so, it seemed to be slipping.

She swung the bar stool around, bringing their knees into contact again. Heat flowed right up her leg. She saw when his thoughts went in the same direction as hers—the one place where nothing had ever gone wrong. She laid her hand on his cheek. She didn’t know she was doing it until she felt the sharpness of his whiskers.

He stiffened, and for a moment a wall went up. She thought he was going to tell her to take herself, her favorite skirt and her beautiful high heeled shoes all the way back to Vancouver in one giant leap, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything.

His hand covered hers. His fingers moved, gentle, exploratory, as if the skin he touched was something unusual, something that needed his full attention. Slowly, down to her wrist, then up again. That was all, but she felt it everywhere, in every cell, and from the intensity of his expression, she guessed so did he.

She gave herself a second or two to consider doing the sensible thing. “My hotel is across town. Fortunately, it’s a skinny town.”

He took more than a second or two, so many seconds she thought he would turn her down. Then he said, “My room’s upstairs.”

“Even better.” She found a ten dollar bill in her purse and put it on the bar. “Unless there’s someone who’d rather you didn’t?”

“Not lately.”

The phrase simmered before her while they walked out of the room, not touching, trying to keep their intentions to themselves. “How lately?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, of course not.” They went through the lobby, still tamping down a sense of urgency, nodding to the desk clerk and wishing him a good night. “But is it not lately in the sense of a month or in the sense of a year? Ballpark.”

They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed.

“I’m responsible and healthy, if that’s what you mean.”

It wasn’t. Maybe it should have been, but something else was bothering her. As he pressed the button for the third floor she leaned close and spoke against his lips. “I mean, is there anyone else on your mind?” She didn’t want there to be, not at the front of it, not at the back, not deep down and half-forgotten.

“You kidding? Sarah’s here. All things bright and beautiful.”

It took her back, miles and years back, to the week they’d met, to the first time they’d made love. They were dazzled by each other and that was what he’d said to her afterward. Sarah, all things bright and beautiful. It was the most poetic thing she’d ever heard, better than in a movie, better than in a book. She’d thought what an angel of a boyfriend she’d found.

But he wasn’t an angel at all.

She was standing right against him and each breath brought her chest into contact with his. The tingling made it hard to concentrate. If she took one step away, got just a few inches of air between them, she could think more clearly.

Instead, she moved closer. His arms came around her and they kissed, tentatively at first, feeling their way between past and present.

When the elevator opened they hurried to his room. Door locked, clothes off, skin that was familiar and different at the same time.

She broke away, put her palms on his chest, pushed him onto the bed. She needed that, after all his…skepticism. She needed to be in charge. She liked the way he looked up at her, heated, waiting, visibly struggling to remain passive.

“Anticipation is half the pleasure,” she told him.

“Half? Are you sure?”

There was a huskiness in his voice. She could almost feel it against her skin. She got onto the bed, letting her legs rub along his. Somewhere between floor and mattress, waiting became too much for her, too. She lowered herself onto him, gasping at the relief of that touch. Before she’d had time to reconcile the strangeness with the familiarity, heat and a tremulous heaviness gripped her. She gave in to it, and let the waves carry her. In moments, he followed, pulling her hips closer, finding his way deeper, whispering her name.

They rested, and then he began to stroke her again, taking his time, making her feel the way he always had, that there was no one more beautiful or more important to him in all the world. Far at the back of her mind was something she needed to tell him, but she couldn’t get hold of it, couldn’t see it at all, and soon there were no thoughts left, only him, moving over her and in her, only the rightness of that.

SHE FELL STRAIGHT TO SLEEP. At first she nestled close, soft puffs of air blowing on his chest. Unbelievable, to feel that again. Soon she turned, onto her side, but with her back still pressed against him. Disconnecting a step at a time.

Soft and sweet as she slept, apparently harmless.

But here, and therefore not harmless.

At the bar he’d nearly walked away from her, even as they’d toyed with the idea of coming upstairs. One foot on the floor, ready to get up and go. That was thanks to a small, really small, portion of his brain that knew what was good for him. They couldn’t fall together like this and then just as easily fall away, with no repercussions.

He was an idiot.

Her hair, dark soft waves of it, had fallen forward, a few wisps fluttering each time she exhaled. He propped himself up on one elbow so he could smooth it from her face.

A thinner face. She was thinner all over. Between wedding bands. Had three disappointing men taken away her glow, given her those sharper angles? Poor Lady of Shalott. That was what her brothers used to call her. Always dreaming. No real man would ever make the grade.

A few years ago one of their former classmates had told him about marriages two and three. That was when the second was over and the third was on the horizon. That Sarah. She’s had more husbands than I’ve had winter coats.

True or not, it wasn’t a friendly comment. He’d said so, and got a pitying look. No doubt he was part of the story now. Poor guy, still on Sarah’s hook.

He would have denied it before that urgent need to get to his room had taken over, before that kick in the chest when he’d turned and seen her at the door.

SARAH WOKE UP RELAXED and refreshed, with no sense of time.

The length of Ian’s body was pressed against her back and legs. No one else felt like him. If they’d been apart for fifty years instead of ten, she’d still know who lay behind her. She wished she could doze off again so neither of them would have to move just yet, but she could tell he was awake, too.