hadn’t realized that Natalie considered her misbehaving ovaries a slap in the face of her womanhood, and he hadn’t understood her emotional storms. Sometimes, when she’d seemed especially moody, he’d just removed himself rather than comfort her and say the things she needed to hear—that he would love her forever even if there was never a baby.
Their disagreement over adoption had been the proverbial straw.
Right now they were wallowing in the good times, the fun times of high school, before real life intervened. But they were riding a pink cloud of nostalgia that couldn’t last for long.
Still, this night could last.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” he said. “I want to make love to you properly, on a real bed, with air-conditioning.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“What?” What was she saying?
“We need to get back to the reunion. There are so many people I haven’t talked to yet—”
“Nat, you’re making excuses. What’s the real reason?”
She maneuvered off his lap, managing to narrowly avoid kneeing him in the groin. “I don’t regret this, Josh, but I think we should return to our senses.”
“I happen to think making love to you in a comfortable king-size bed is perfectly sensible.” He adjusted his clothes and buttoned his shirt while Natalie located her panties and worked her feet back into her high-heeled sandals. “Besides, I’m not sure you want to go waltzing back into the VFW Hall looking like that.”
“What?” She pulled down the visor and checked herself in the mirror. “Oh, my God, I look like I just had sex in a car. Melissa would know instantly.”
Everyone would know instantly, but he didn’t say so. She opened her little purse and pulled out a comb and a lipstick, working feverishly, first on her hair, then her lips.
“This is hopeless! And I’m all sweaty.” She smelled her hair, then her shoulder. “I smell like Stetson! All right, yes, take me back to your hotel room. I’m going to shower and air out the dress.”
Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it gave him time to change her mind. “I have to go inside to get my jacket and tie,” he said. “What do you want me to tell Melissa? Because she’s going to ask where you are.”
“Tell her we’re going for a drive.”
NATALIE SAT IN Josh’s fancy car waiting for him to return and ordered herself to calm down. She needed to downplay what they’d just done, or Josh would know how profoundly it had affected her.
She’d had no idea what she’d been missing. She’d thought her memories of Josh were pristine, untouched by the years of separation. Every so often—probably more often than was healthy—she trotted out those treasured memories and relived them. But clearly she’d suppressed some things—like how Josh could send her to the moon with a simple touch.
Her hormones hadn’t had a workout like this in a very long time. But it was more than just the physical stimulation. Memories assaulted her from every direction, things she hadn’t thought of in twenty years. Like when Josh had carved their initials in that picnic table, her first real indication that what he felt for her was more than fondness or teenage lust. And all those times they’d driven out to Cemetery Road and made love in his truck. They’d always done it in the cab, because the one time they’d spread some blankets out in the truck bed and attempted to make love, a sheriff’s deputy had driven by and caught them with their clothes half-off. He hadn’t turned them in, hadn’t called their parents, but he’d told them to get dressed and go home.
Natalie had never been able to look Deputy Klegg in the eye again.
So many good times—picnics, taking Josh’s family’s boat to the lake with their friends and waterskiing, parties at Melissa’s house dancing to MTV. So much love.
Though they’d raised a lot of eyebrows by marrying so young, most people thought they’d make it. The only ones who weren’t surprised when Josh and Natalie divorced were his parents. Though they’d always been civil to Natalie, she’d known they thought Josh could do much better.
Josh returned a couple of minutes later with his jacket and tie in hand. “Good news,” he said as he climbed into the car. “Melissa was out on the dance floor. I didn’t have to tell her anything.”
Good. Maybe Natalie had a chance of returning to the reunion before it was over and pretending nothing had happened.
She and Melissa had once shared everything, but Natalie would never tell anyone what had happened tonight.
The Holiday Inn was a good twenty-minute drive and two towns away. Josh turned down the air-conditioning and opened the sunroof. Natalie was quiet as the breeze blew in, whipping her hair around.
“This is a gorgeous car,” she finally said to break the silence.
“Thanks. Kind of a cliché, though, don’t you think? A guy hits forty and buys himself expensive toys to compensate for his loss of youthful virility…”
“Ah, trust me, you haven’t lost anything. In the dark I’d have thought you were seventeen again.”
“I hope my technique has improved some since I was seventeen.”
“Fishing for a compliment?” Still, she couldn’t help smiling, remembering their early fumblings. They’d been each other’s firsts. They’d learned together through trial and error. Lots and lots of trial and error, followed by even more trial and success.
She squirmed a bit in her seat and deliberately changed her line of thought. She didn’t want to get all hot and bothered again, not when they would soon be alone in a hotel room. She could only hope Josh would honor her desire to freshen up and return her to the reunion.
The hotel was nice, built only a couple of years earlier. As Josh let Natalie into his room, she noted the open suitcase on the bed as well as the faded Levi’s and golf shirt he’d draped over the back of a chair, probably the clothes he’d driven here in.
The bed was covered with a snow-white duvet, but the pillows had been rearranged. She could see him propped up in bed, probably shirtless, one arm behind his head as he channel-surfed.
Her mouth went dry and she walked briskly across the room, out of touching range. She tossed her purse on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “Guess I better get busy. You made quite a mess of me.”
“I think you look better than you have in your whole life.” The way he looked at her almost did her in.
No, no, no, she couldn’t succumb again. But she froze as Josh followed her, walking slowly, purposely, with a devilish intent obvious in his blue eyes.
But instead of reaching for her, he reached for her purse and opened it, snagging her cell phone and pulling it out. He extended it toward her. “Call Melissa and leave a message that you won’t be home until morning.”
A whole night with Josh? Did she dare? Or rather, did she dare pass up the chance? How much fun did she allow herself, anyway? Her life was devoted to her work and her child.
