Public Displays Of Affection

Chapter Twelve

LoriSue leaned up against the cupboards and munched on a raw mushroom. "I have some news. Now don't both you go fainting on me or anything, but I've decided to do some volunteer work for the Little League."

Charlotte glanced up from the marinade she was whisking. "Really? More than just your night at the snack bar?"

"Yep. I've volunteered to redesign their Web site."

"I didn't know you had experience with that, LoriSue," Bonnie said from her seat at the kitchen table.

"I just finished revamping the Sell-More site-and it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself-so I figured the Little League's would be a snap. I'm going to take new photos and everything!"

"Wow. That's nice of you." Charlotte dropped hunks of tofu into the marinade, covered the glass bowl with plastic wrap, and checked the clock. She had one hour and eight minutes to feed the kids and start the evening rush. As she rinsed bok choy, she ticked off the sequence of events in her head. She'd run Hank to ballet class, then take Matt to his game and make a quick stop at Kroger's on the way back to town. Then she'd drop off the groceries at home, throw in a load of laundry, pack tomorrow's lunches, and pick up Hank. They could both watch the end of Matt's game.

She made a mental note to bring a change of clothes for Hank, who refused to wear her ballet leotard at the ballpark. She said it made her look like a Miss Priss.

Charlotte lifted the lid from the simmering brown rice, fluffed it with a fork, and replayed for the thousandth time every word she'd exchanged with Joe yesterday, every shared glance. She was dying here. She'd made it painfully clear what she wanted. All he had to do was come and get it. But she hadn't heard from him today. This was torture.

"… a damned sexy man, don't you think?"

LoriSue's words jarred Charlotte from her thoughts. She put the lid back on the pot and cheerfully turned toward Bonnie and LoriSue, to find them staring at her expectantly.

"Did I miss something?" Charlotte laughed as she wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.

"I asked if you didn't agree that Joe Mills was sexy."

At the sound of his name, Charlotte felt a flash of heat deep in her abdomen that began to percolate into her limbs. She supposed that answered that question. "Sure." She tried to sound nonchalant. "He's handsome enough."

Bonnie coughed politely.

Then LoriSue crossed her arms under her unnaturally perky breasts and made a soft humming sound. "Well, Charlotte, I saw him walk over to the major field with you yesterday and sit down right next to you in the stands. What did you two talk about?"

Charlotte busied herself with getting out the cutting board and swirling canola oil around in the wok. "We chatted about this and that. Nothing in particular. Would you like to stay for dinner, LoriSue?"

"No, thanks. And I'm taking Justin out tonight, so he won't be staying, either, believe it or not. We're going for Italian and then we're looking at a house."

"A house?" Bonnie nearly shouted. "You're moving?"

"Yep. It's an end-unit three-bedroom, two-bath condo over at The Lakes. Fabulous. Skylights. Sunken living room. Hot tub. Landscaping included. Just got listed yesterday-perfect for me and Justin."

"Does Justin know about this?" Bonnie asked.

LoriSue nodded.

"And how is he with it?"

"Fine." She grabbed another mushroom. "Well, a little confused, I suppose, but I've told him I'm going ahead with the divorce. He understands. He's a good kid. He's-"

The deep saw of Hoover's bark made all three women crane their necks out the kitchen window.

"Oh, my God! He's here!" LoriSue teetered her way across the kitchen floor in her heels and whipped open the screen door to a startled Joe.

He stood wide-eyed on the back patio, holding what looked like a cardboard box full of weeds.

Charlotte let out a startled laugh and Joe looked past LoriSue's blond head to offer her a shy grin. He held up the box so she could see its contents-honeysuckle vines.

"Pardon me." Joe looked somewhat uncomfortable as the three kids pressed up against his back and the women gathered around him in the doorway. Hoover stopped barking just long enough to sniff the crotchi of Joe's jeans.

"He won't smell your butt if you give him something to eat," Hank said.

"Ice-cream cones are his favorite," Matt added.

"Yeah, you could rob this place blind if you gave him an ice-cream cone," Justin said.

"Come here, Hoov." Charlotte grabbed the dog by his collar and hauled him inside, looking up at Joe in apology. Her heart skipped a beat the instant she saw those eyes-the same eyes that had haunted her soul for as long as she could remember were now literally on her doorstep. Her dream man was one step from being inside her house. He was one step away from forever blending fantasy with reality, and it shook her to the core.

"Sorry about the dog," she mumbled, hoping no one could see that she was rapidly unraveling in Joe's presence.

"Come on in!" LoriSue stepped aside and motioned Joe into the family room with a dramatic sweep of her red-nailed hand. "We were just talking about you!"

"I… uh…" Joe looked from Charlotte to the box of dirt and vines, then back to Charlotte again. "I just wanted to tell you I was replacing the honeysuckle I damaged. Would you prefer that I plant these by the shed or would you like them somewhere else?"

Charlotte made brief eye contact with Bonnie, and in her friend's face she saw the wise advice to remain calm. It made her damn mad that Joe had this effect on her and that it was obvious to others. She took a deep breath and attempted to sound gracious, which was hard to do while wrestling with ninety pounds of dog.

'That's very kind of you, Joe. Right by the other bush would be great."

With a quick nod, he backed away from the door, and the kids adjusted their positions just enough to allow him to make a quarter turn.

"I'll help you dig," Matt said.

"Can we toss after?" Hank asked.

"Kids!" Charlotte transferred Hoover's control to Bonnie and stood up straight "Give Mr. Mills some room to breathe, please. We have to eat and get ready for activities, anyway."

The three kids produced openmouthed stares of disbelief.

"But, Mama!" Hank wailed.

"Figures." Matt said.

"What's for supper?" Justin asked.

"You won't like it." Matt assured him, rolling his eyes in disgust. "Stir-fried toe fungus again, with those alien vegetables."

"Tofu makes me barf," Hank said.

Joe glanced up at Charlotte with raised eyebrows and a crooked grin. "Sounds delish. Well, good afternoon, ladies."

Charlotte watched him take the long walk across her yard, cardboard box propped on a slim hip, the kids trailing behind him chattering nonstop, and noted once again how smoothly Joe Mills moved. She recalled the way he'd slipped down from his Jeep so long ago, giving her the first glimpse of his long, strong legs. She remembered seeing him glide and sway at his punching bag his first night in Minton. And she imagined that his footfall would be silent on her bedroom carpet-he could easily sneak up on her. Like a ghost. Or a predatory cat. The first few lines of a poem floated into her head:

He comes for me in the night

To suck the marrow from my bones

And the common sense from my head…

"That man is so unbelievably hot." LoriSue peered through the screen as she whispered. "I'm gonna get me some of that if it's the last thing I ever do."

Bonnie let go of Hoover, who flung himself at the doors, doubling his barking efforts. The dog meant well, but Charlotte knew that it was too late to protect her from Joe. The damage had been done.

"I'm going to tell her." Bonnie removed the bifocals from the bridge of her nose and let them dangle on their chain against her cotton nightgown.

"Tell her what?" Ned clicked off the TV remote and the lamp. "That ole Ned Preston thinks her neighbor could be anything from a CIA agent to a retired mall security guard? What's that going to accomplish?"

"I'm just worried about her."

"I know. Any new developments?"

"Well, today he planted honeysuckle to replace what he hacked to pieces."

Ned's laughter boomed through the bedroom. "That weed? It would've grown back on its own. I must have scared the shit out of him." He continued to chuckle as he made himself comfortable under the covers.

"I want you to find out who he is, Ned."

Ned sighed, propping the pillows behind his head. "How am I going to do that? I'm just a retired county police chief. Besides, it could be nothing. Maybe he's just who he says he is. Maybe he's a former cop who started writing books. It happens all the time."

"I don't know about that."

"You been to the bookstore lately, hon? Anybody can write a book. You don't necessarily have to have anything earth-shattering to say or any talent to say it."

"I guess."

"But I could try to get his fingerprints if you want"

Bonnie reached over her husband's body and turned the lamp back on. "You could do that?"

"I could lift his prints off something and run them and see what comes up."

"Are all cops fingerprinted?"

Ned frowned. "Most law enforcement officers will show up on AFIS-the FBI's fingerprint database. Fve heard some feds won't, if they do national security stuff, but most everybody else will. Your average beat cop should be there-not that Joe strikes me as a particularly average kind of guy."

Bonnie put a soft kiss on her husband's cheek and turned over on her side. "I've noticed that, too," she whispered.

Joe bolted from a deep sleep, his bare chest covered in a slick sheen of sweat, his hands shaking.

He couldn't have been out long. His wristwatch showed it was midnight, and only an hour before, he'd been staring at the ceiling, thinking about how he could find a way to get to know Charlotte while keeping her safe at the same time. That meant he'd fallen prey to the nightmare the instant he went into REM sleep, his subconscious answering him with the vision of Charlotte and her children covered in blood, lying right next to Steve in the Denny's parking lot

He jumped from the bed and nearly ran into his office. At least the feel of his chair beneath him and the familiar tap of the keyboard under his fingers provided some comfort and helped to steady his breathing.

He pulled up the Tasker file* not sure what he was looking for. He'd gone over the details so many times he practically had them memorized. But he found himself reading Kurt's obit once again, drawn to the man he saw in the photo * feeling a link to him, asking him to spill his secrets.

He supposed he wanted Kurt to tell him everything about Charlotte, everything he'd never have a chance to discover for himself. What did she wear to bed? What was her all-time favorite movie? Her favorite music group? How did she take her coffee?

Joe slumped down into the chair and let his head fall back. He wondered-did Charlotte come for her husband the way she'd come for him? Did she cry because it was so intense? Did she laugh with joy? Did she tremble at Kurt Tasker's touch the way she had at his own?

Most of all, Joe wanted to know this: How did it feel to be the man Charlotte loved?

He straightened again, closed the file, and sat in the pitch-dark, staring absently out the windows that faced Charlotte's house. He never did get those drapes. What was the point? He wasn't staying, didn't know where he was going, and didn't really give a damn.

It felt strange to be so detached from his own future. But in his mind, each day was simply another step closer to Guzman's trial. It remained to be seen how many twists and turns the case would take along the pipeline of the federal court system, but once the trial was over, whenever that might be, he saw nothing but a blank.

It was as if he didn't dare plan anything that far in the future. He just needed to stay alive long enough to testify. That's the only thing that mattered.

Sitting there in that house, in that town, so close to Charlotte, it was tempting to believe he was safe, at least temporarily. But this was a pretend life he was leading, light-years from reality, and he would be a fool to relax. He needed to remember that his biggest danger wasn't the delivery of LoriSue gift baskets. It was Miguel Guzman. It would always be Guzman.

Joe propped his feet on the desk, still looking out the windows, and took a deep breath. The faint scent of honeysuckle hit his nostrils and he grinned to himself, recalling how he'd learned the hard way that garden centers didn't actually have honeysuckle. Instead, he was sent to a fanner's place down the road, where the guy laughed when he asked to buy some, gave him a shovel, and said, "Have at it, son."

At least he'd be leaving Minton with a clear conscience.

Joe thought he saw a figure pass by a second-story window of Charlotte's home and wondered what she was doing up so late. He'd grown accustomed to her daily schedule and knew that she was up at 6:00 in the morning and out the door with the kids by 7:30. She should get more rest.

The figure passed again, and Joe was up out of the office chair and standing next to the window, considering the layout of the Tasker home. That was definitely Charlotte who walked by-he saw a flash of her pale legs. But what room was that? Was she in her bedroom? Or with one of the kids? Joe found himself back at the desk, pulling his binoculars out from the drawer, suddenly determined to figure out where Charlotte was and exactly what she was doing up so late.

He trained the lenses onto the three identical windows. One was covered completely by a white shade. On the other two, the shade was half-drawn, leaving the bottom portion of the window exposed. He dropped to his knees and looked straight into what he could now tell was her bedroom.

Charlotte was propped up on a mound of pillows in a big four-poster bed, wearing what looked like a pair of white silk shorts-pajama bottoms and a little white tank top. She had a book opened in her lap and was writing in it Her diary maybe. He watched her scrunch up that pretty pink mouth in concentration and absently push a slippery strand of hair behind her ear.

She suddenly stopped writing, laid her head back against the pillows, and closed her eyes-then quickly picked up the pen once more. Her hand raced over the page as her toes tapped in impatience. He was fascinated by the way she glowed in the lamplight-all pinks and peaches and oranges-against white sheets. She looked luminous. She looked beautiful.

She looked so far away.

Joe nearly staggered backward at what happened next. He watched, openmouthed, as Charlotte put the book aside and slowly raised her hands to her breasts. He watched her scootch back against the pillows, let her head fall to the side, and brush her fingers in delicate little circles around her nipples. She gazed out the window into the darkness, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

He'd never seen a woman do this before. Up until tonight, he'd been fairly certain it happened only in porno movies. He'd apparently been wrong.

Joe's hands trembled enough that he had to steady himself against the window frame, anchoring an elbow into the molding. He took a deep breath and adjusted the focus. The image he saw was crisp, painfully erotic, and, his conscience told him, nothing he had any right to witness.

But at that moment, Charlotte arched her back and pushed her T-shirt-covered breasts into her hands. She pinched her own nipples. Then she let one hand slide down her breastbone, into the hollow between her ribs, down her belly, and into the elastic of the silk pajama bottoms.

Joe watched her mouth open in shock from the touch of her own fingers. He watched her arch further, her hips coming up off the bed, her legs falling open to accommodate the rhythm of her hand. Lust poured over him like a flood of hot lava, and Joe felt his own body moving to the sensuous tempo she set, the slight push of his hips in concert with the rock of hers.

His hips. Her hips. Her hand. His hand. It was blurring together in his mind and suddenly it was as if he were with her, right there in her bed with her, her skin and breath hot against him.

In a flurry of movement, Charlotte peeled off the pajama bottoms and flung her tank top to the floor. Joe stared-enraptured-as her lithe body twisted to the side. With one graceful arm she tilted back the base of the lamp and took something from underneath. It was a key, and she was unlocking the drawer to the nightstand, and Joe felt his pulse escalate. He felt clammy and shaky.

He needed to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit that would afford him this view, so he stayed ramrod straight on his knees, not daring to breathe, as the woman of his fantasies removed a flesh-colored vibrator from its storage sleeve and began to pleasure herself.

She first took the tip of the vibrator and ran it over the little raspberry peaks of her breasts. She licked her lips.

Joe licked his.

Then she dragged the vibrator down the center of her body, making a sudden detour around her left hip, across her upper thighs and small mound, then to her right hip. She was teasing herself, prolonging the buildup, pretending she didn't know exactly what she had in mind.

Joe couldn't stand the suspense.

"Do it, Charlotte." The anguish he heard in his own whisper startled him. He sounded desperate.

He was desperate.

Then Charlotte turned a little knob at the base of the vibrator and pointed it directly at a spot Joe remembered well. She'd been so slick and swollen that day-so excited and ready for him. He recalled in detail the feel of his fingers as they danced over the hard little kernel nestled in the split of her body. He remembered in detail how her eyelids drooped, heavy with pleasure, then snapped wide open in surprise.

He laughed out loud at the absurdity! This was ludicrous! She was there and he was here and what a perfectly good waste of two consenting adults! He was going to march right across the drive and give her the real thing. He wanted it. She wanted it. Hell, she'd come right out and asked for it!

And it was impossible.

Joe groaned, helpless with longing and indecision, and watched Charlotte slowly, so slowly, spread her legs and insert the tip of the vibrator inside her body. He swallowed hard. He groaned again. And he moved his hips in concert with the cadence of her wrist.

Charlotte obviously knew what worked for her. He watched her bring her free hand back to rub that sweet spot while she continued to plunge in and out, and Joe's heart was racing and his eyes bugged out as Charlotte brought herself to a jerking, rigid climax, her mouth wide open in what he figured was probably a soundless scream that wouldn't wake the kids.

The scream in his own head was primal and never-ending, and he felt drained and weak as she pulled the vibrator out and flipped over on her stomach to recover. He watched her stretch luxuriously, then reach up to the bedside table for what he thought might be a drink but…

What the hell? It looked like one of those aerosol cans of snack cheese! And she was squirting the bright orange glop directly into her mouth!

Joe laughed again. He laughed at Charlotte for being such a perfect combination of sweet soccer mom and sexual dynamo. He laughed at her for eating that disgusting cheese stuff in secret while she made her kids eat tofu. He looked down at his wet boxers and laughed at himself and the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

Maybe it was time to rethink this. Maybe he'd exaggerated the risk in his head. He was in Minton, Ohio, for God's sake! Miguel Guzman would never find him here! What was he thinking?

Maybe Roger was right. Maybe he needed to stay right where the Administration had decided he'd be safe. They'd done a risk assessment before they brought him here. They knew what they were doing. Maybe he needed to stay in Minton and disappear into life as Joe Mills, an ordinary man who was entitled to an ordinary life, albeit with an extraordinary woman.

He got another glimpse of Charlotte just as she turned off her light Right then, he knew the choice had been made in his heart long ago. He'd walked away from this woman once and regretted it with his whole being.

He'd be damned if he'd do it again.