Maybe This Time (35 page)

 

Andie walked her way through cooking and serving dinner like an automaton, trying to find her way through the I-was-drugged and There-are-ghosts paradox. She believed North, North would never lie to her, but she believed May, too.

Except that everything that May had said about wanting North, that was her, too. She'd been isolated and sexually frustrated and she had wanted North, she was pretty sure she'd taken the job so she could stay in touch with him, and that was May all over. That girl with the curly hair like hers had been in love with North the way she'd been in love ten years before. May danced all the time the way she had danced ten years ago, the way she'd started dancing with Alice in the kitchen again. Maybe the hallucinations were just her way of getting back to the reality that she loved North. Maybe seeing May was seeing herself, the way she was supposed to be, carefree and dancing and unashamedly in love with North Archer.

If that was true, everything was good. May hadn't possessed her, she'd just been so drugged on brandy that her subconscious had tried to drag her into that bedroom while her conscious mind fought it because it was such a bad idea, like a nightmare while she was awake.

Maybe Kelly hadn't been possessed, maybe she'd just made the rounds to solidify her career and then lied about it.

Maybe everything was all right. Maybe all she had to do was get
her grip on reality again. Common sense told her there were no ghosts. The salvia had convinced her otherwise, but that was over. There were no ghosts.

“Are you okay?” Flo said to her anxiously in the sitting room when dinner was over. “You haven't said a word.”

“Yeah,” Andie said, trying a smile. “I think everything's okay.”

“Well, I could use a
drink,
” Kelly said. “Where's the brandy?”

“Gone,” Southie said. “But there's a case of beer in the car. Every bottle sealed with its own little cap.”

“Aren't they always that way?” Kelly said, confused, and Andie left them all and went into the kitchen to think.

She turned on the radio, pulled out her baking stuff, and began on the six bananas she had that were sufficiently brown to make bread.

North had to be right. It had all been a hallucination. Because, rationally, ghosts did not exist.

She let out her breath. It was okay. Everything was okay. Reality was back.

Once she accepted it, the relief was overwhelming. So was the anger—if North hadn't turfed Crumb, she'd have strangled her with her apron—but there weren't ghosts, she'd just been drugged, everything was fine . . .

The radio blared, “And now here's Kathy Troccoli, going out to Steve from Jen . . .
‘Everything Changes'
!”

“Yes,”
Andie said to herself, and picked up her bowl full of bananas and bopped around the kitchen, mashing as she went.

May had been right. No, she had been right. Dancing made you know you were alive. Life was good. Life was
normal.
If she hadn't lost her grip on reality, if she hadn't lost her common sense, she wouldn't have been so crazy the past month. And now she wasn't crazy anymore. Thanks to North, she wasn't crazy at all.

“I'll never be the same,” she sang, as she dumped in egg and vanilla and butter and then mixed them as she danced. Fifteen minutes and four song dedications later, two loaves of banana bread
were in the oven, and when the DJ said, “And here's an oldie, going out from Joe to Brenda . . .” Andie belted out “Hurt So Good” using her pepper mill as a microphone as she danced around the kitchen because that's what normal people did when they sang to the radio.

Then she looked up and saw North, leaning in the doorway, holding a longneck beer bottle and grinning at her, and she thought,
That's normal, too,
and kept dancing and singing, happier than she'd been in years.

Ten years.

The music stopped, and North said, “Southie sent me in here. He didn't tell me it was a concert,” but he was smiling at her in that old way that said,
I don't care what you do, I just want to be next to you when you do it.

“I'm
happy,
” Andie said, smiling back as she put down the pepper mill. “I've decided you're right, it was all just a hallucination because I was here all alone, and from now on I'm not going to be crazy, I'm not going to lose my grip on reality, I am going to be smart and sensible.”

“Okay,” North said, looking not sure about it. “You got all of that from finding out there aren't ghosts?”

“I really believed there were. I talked to the kids as if there really were ghosts. They must have thought I was nuts. And then you saved me.” She beamed at him. “Plus, you saved Alice and Carter from Crazy Andie, which means extra points for you.”

“What do I get for extra points?” North said, his eyes steady on her, and she felt her blood heat from relief and happiness, but mostly from looking at him, strong and tall and beautiful in the doorway, feeling the way she'd used to before everything had gone wrong.

Which didn't mean it would go wrong again.

“Listen,” she said sensibly. “We can't go back to where we were. We've changed too much, there's too much at stake with the kids—”

“I don't want to go back to where we were,” he said, and she
thought,
Oh,
and felt depressed. Then he said, “I want to start something new,” and she said, “Oh,” and thought,
Don't lose your grip here.

“Well,” she began, trying to be rational about the whole thing, and then the DJ on the radio said, “This one goes out to Andie, from North. North of what, I don't know. Okay, then, here you go, Andie . . .” and the first bars of Clapton's acoustic “Layla” began.

North looked as surprised as she did. “Not me.”

“Southie sent you in here, right? Southie called that in.” Clapton's guitar distracted her with that low, swinging rhythm, and she took a deep breath.
Sexiest song ever.
“Why ‘Layla'?” she asked him, trying to get her mind back to reality.

He grinned, and she said, “Tell me,” and he shook his head and crooked two of his fingers at her.

Like I'd just come because you called,
she thought, but he was moving toward her, and she met him halfway without even thinking about it.

It's just dancing,
she thought as he reached for her.
Nothing crazy about this.

“I've missed you,” he said as he slid his arm around her waist, and she shivered and said, “I've missed you, too,” and he pulled her close and rocked her to that perfect rhythm, pulling her hips to his as her blood heated, and she didn't miss a beat. Ten years went away and they were dancing in the attic again, everything was the way it was . . .

No it's not,
she thought, but he was there, and she was glad, she never wanted to stop dancing with him, never wanted to lose his hands sliding over her, never wanted to leave him . . .

“Andie,” he whispered, and she knew the question without him asking.

“No,” she whispered back. “The place is full of people, we'd get caught.”

He smiled down at her, rocking her to the beat, and she thought,
If it wouldn't be so insane, I'd say yes, I would, I would.

“Andie,” he said, and she put her forehead on his chest.

“No,” she said, “we're in the real world now, we have to think about the consequences,” but his breath was warm on her neck as he kissed her there, his hands hot on her as he pulled her hips against his, and she thought,
Don't lose your grip on reality, that never works for you.

The song ended and there was some advertising blather but she couldn't hear because North said, “Andie,” as he gently pressed her back against the counter, and she breathed deep and realized that reality was losing its grip on her.

“Okay, somebody's going to walk in on us,” Andie said breathlessly.

“I like this T-shirt,” he said in her ear, making her shiver. Then he drew his finger slowly across the “Bad Witch” lettering, and made her shudder.

“Don't do that,” she whispered, but his hand had already moved to cup her breast, and he was bending down to her, and she tried to think, but all she wanted was his mouth on hers, her hips tilting to meet his.

He kissed her softly, going deeper as she relaxed against him, his hands moving under her T-shirt now as he slipped his tongue in her mouth, and she forgot everything else, kissing him back, wanting him more than she ever had before.

“Okay, but upstairs,” she breathed as he pushed her T-shirt up. “We have to be practical here. Come on.”

She tried to slide away from him, but he held her trapped against the counter.

“Here,” he said, his eyes dark, the old, hot, demanding North back, unsnapping her bra with one hand and unzipping her jeans with the other.

“No, no, this is crazy, I'm not crazy anymore,” she said, fumbling to block his hands. “You were right. Reality, common sense,
come upstairs
.”

“Here,” North said, his voice low, going right into her spine, and she shivered, and then he stripped her shirt and bra over her head and tossed them behind him.

“Wait!” she said, grabbing for them and missing, and then closed her eyes as she felt his lips on her skin. “Crazy,” she whispered. “We should—”

“Here.” He bent his head down and kissed her neck, and then she felt his mouth on her breast, and common sense evaporated along with sanity and all the other buzzkills, and she said, “Yes.”

Someone rapped on the kitchen door, and Andie jerked back as Southie said loudly from the hall, “I think we should stay out of the kitchen. It's really Andie's turf.”

“Stop,”
Andie whispered to North, and then she heard Lydia say, “Sullivan, I don't know what your problem is, but I want a drink and I'm going in there,” and North pulled Andie down the counter and into the pantry, her jeans sliding off her hips on the way.

He kicked the door closed, and they were in the dark, and she thought about Lydia finding her bra and Bad Witch shirt on the floor, and then he touched her again, and she didn't give a damn. She yanked his shirt up, wanting his skin on hers, wanting all of him, and he pulled the shirt off as she shoved her jeans the rest of the way down, tangling her ankles and almost knocking herself over in Crumb's hallucinogenic pantry. He caught her the way he always did and boosted her up onto the pantry counter, and she wrapped herself around him, around all that muscle and heat and power and safety and sense, everything she'd lost ten years before, all of
it focused on her, his hands and mouth urgent on her, teasing her, heating her, making her insane.

“What happened to sanity?” she said, gasping. “You were such a fan.”

“I saw you again,” he said in her ear as he slid his hand between her legs. “And I went crazy.”

“Oh,” she said, and then his fingers moved inside her and she said,
“Oh,”
and bit him hard on the shoulder, raking her hands down his back, and he grew rougher, too, making her moan and gasp, until she couldn't stand it, until she banged her head on his shoulder and said,
“Now,”
and he pulled her hips to him and slid hot inside her, and she cried out because he felt so damn good after so damn long.

He moved with the old, familiar, deliberate rhythm that always made her mindless, touching her everywhere as she touched him, blanketing her mind with heat until she moaned, sliding against him, tasting the salt of his skin and feeling his breath on her neck, hearing him whisper low to her that she was beautiful, that she was everything, that she was his. His rhythm built inside her until she was sobbing from the tension, until it was too much and she arched up and bit down, her eyes closed tight, and felt it coming, now, now,
now,
and then he moved hard against her and she broke just as hard, crying out as he held her tight and the spasms took her. And when she was quiet and gasping, she felt him shudder, too, and held him as tightly as she could, leaning back to take his weight as he lost his mind.

After a while, he took a deep breath and eased out of her, and she said, exhausted and exhilarated, “Tell me again about common sense.”

“Fuck common sense,” he said, his voice husky, and then he got rid of the condom, and she thought,
Where the hell did he get a condom?
and realized he must have brought them with him.
Pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?
she thought, but she didn't care, and that
wasn't it, anyway. He'd have brought them just in case, to protect her. Because he was North and that was practical.

He cupped her face in his hands and said softly, “You okay?” and she kissed him, long and slow and deep, mindless with love again, and he said, “You're okay,” and put his hands on her waist to help her down.

She stood next to him, breathing deep, her arms around his waist, her head on his chest, practicality coming back with sanity, knowing she should tell him that she didn't want to make the same mistake all over again, that they were going to have to have a serious talk about the reality of their situation, that they were going to have to deal with the ghost of their old marriage, but all she wanted was to go upstairs with him and do that again, slower and longer this time.

We won't even have to light the fire,
she thought.
May was a hallucination. We're safe.

North kissed the top of her head and said, “Do you want me to get your clothes?”

“I can get them,” she said, lifting her face to his. “On my way upstairs. To the bedroom.”

“That's it,” North said. “Play hard to get.”

He kissed her again, and she thought,
I'm yours,
and then she stopped thinking again and just loved him.