thing she’d ever seen. When Kate had turned it on to show her what it could do, Cassie had bought two of them.
“I’m hanging up now. Be good,” Kate said.
“Impossible. Don’t you be good, either. It’s bad for you.”
Kate smiled at Armand’s kissy sounds as she cut the connection. She remained in the driver’s seat, missing Armand. He was the only man in her life she had ever completely trusted.
A shrink might surmise that it was because Armand was gay, and therefore not a romantic possibility, which allowed Kate to open up and trust him.
The shrink would probably be right. Trusting men had never been her strong suit. One more thing to thank Mayor Winfield for, she supposed. Not to mention the few men she’d dated over the years, who had never inspired thoughts of true love and Prince Charming. More like true greed and Sir Fast Track.
“So, do I get out or restart the car and drive away?” she asked herself, already missing more than just her friend and partner. She also missed her apartment overlooking the water. She really missed her beautiful, stylish shop with its brightly lit, tasteful decor, such a contrast to some of the more frankly startling products they sold.
Two stories high, with huge front glass windows, soft lemony-yellow carpet and delicately intricate display cases, Bare Essentials had done what everyone had sworn couldn’t be done. They’d taken sex and made it classy and elegant enough for Michigan Avenue.
Yes, she wanted to be home. Actually, she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Could she really go through with it? Could she walk along these streets, enter her mother’s house and go through her childhood things so her mother could list the place for sale?
Well, that was the one good thing. At least Edie had finally gotten out, too. Though Edie had taken frequent trips to the city, she’d resisted moving away from Pleasantville for good. No, it had taken Mayor Winfield’s death, his subsequent will and some vicious gossip to accomplish that feat.
Kate thought she’d outgrown the vulnerability this place created in her. She wasn’t the same girl who used to hide in the tree house to cry after school when she’d been teased about her secondhand clothes. She was no longer a trashy Tremaine kid from the wrong side of town. She and her cousin had bolted from Pleasantville one week after high school graduation, moving to big cities—Kate to Chicago, Cassie to New York’s modeling scene—and working to make something of themselves.
Kate had long ago learned the only way to get what you wanted was to work hard for it. Being smart helped, but she knew her limitations. She wasn’t brilliant. And as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t talented enough to pursue her teenage dream of a career in theater, though she’d probably always fantasize about it.
No, common sense and pure determination had been the keys to achieving her goals. So she’d worked retail jobs by day and gone to school by night, taking business and accounting courses, sneaking in a few acting or performing credits when she could.
Then the fates had been kind. She’d met Armand, a brilliantly creative lingerie designer, at exactly the time when Cassie’s career had taken off and she’d had the means to loan Kate the start-up money for a business.
An outrageous, somewhat dramatic business.
Combining her need to succeed, her innate business sense and her secret love for the flamboyantly theatrical, she’d dreamed up Bare Essentials. Though originally just designed to be an upscale lingerie boutique to feature Armand’s creations, bringing in other seductive items—sexy toys, games for couples, seductive videos and erotic literature—had really made Bare Essentials take off like a rocket when it opened.
The fabulously decorated, exotic shop had taken Chicago by storm. With the right props, location and set design, what could have been a seedy, backroom store was instead a hot, trendy spot for Chicago’s well-to-do singles and adventurous couples.
Coming back to Pleasantville should have been absolutely no problem for the woman who’d been featured in Chicago’s Business Journal last month as one of the most innovative businesswomen in the city. Still, sitting in the parked SUV, she felt oppression settle on her like two giant hands pushing down on her shoulders. The long-buried part of her that had once been so vulnerable, made to feel so small and helpless and sad, came roaring back to life with one realization.
She was really here.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “Home lousy home,” she whispered. Then she stepped into Pleasantville.
A S HE SAT gingerly on the edge of a plastic-covered sofa in the parlor of his childhood home, Jack Winfield considered committing hari-kari with the fireplace poker. Or at least stuffing two of the cow-faced ceramic miniatures his mother collected into his ears to block out the sound of her chewing out the new housekeeper in the next room. Sophie, the luncheon salad was unacceptably warm and the pasta unforgivably cold .
As if anyone cared about the food’s temperature when its texture was the equivalency of wet cardboard.
“She’d never forgive me if I got blood on the carpet.”
He eyed the poker again. Maybe just a whack in the head for a peaceful hour of unconsciousness? At least then he could sleep, uninterrupted by the prancing snuffle of his mother’s perpetually horny bulldog, Leonardo, who seemed to have mistaken Jack’s pant leg for the hind end of a shapely retriever.
“Sophie,” he heard from the hall, “be sure Mr. Winfield’s drink is freshened before you start clearing away the dishes.”
“Sophie, be sure to drop a tranquilizer in his glass, too, so Mr. Winfield can get through another day in this bloody mausoleum,” he muttered.
He rubbed a weary hand over his brow and sank deeper into the uncomfortable sofa. The plastic crinkled beneath his ass. Sick of it, he finally slid off to sit on the plushly carpeted floor. Grabbing a pillow, he put it behind his head and leaned back, wondering how long it had been since he’d relaxed.
“Three days. Five hours. Twenty-seven minutes.” Not since he’d returned home to Pleasantville for this long weekend.
Jack didn’t like feeling so caged-in. He needed to be home, in his own Chicago apartment, away from grief and the smell of old dead roses and talcum powder. Away from his mother’s tears and his sister’s complaints.
Actually, when he thought about it, what he really needed to bring about sleep and a good mood was a seriously intense blow job. Followed by some equally intense reciprocal oral sex. And finally good old, blissful, hot, headboard-slamming copulation.
He hadn’t been laid in four months and was feeling the stress. It almost seemed worth it to call his ex and ask her to meet him at his place the next day for some we’re-not-getting-back-together-but-we-sure-had-fun-in-the-sack sex.
Home. Chicago. Late tonight. And not a moment too soon.
Jack supposed there were worse places to visit than his old hometown of Pleasantville, Ohio. Siberia came to mind. Or Afghanistan. The fiery pits of hell. Then again…
“You’re sure you have to leave tonight?” his mother asked as she entered the room. “I thought you were going to stay longer than three days. There’s so much to do.”
“I’m
