The Time of Her Life (11 page)

His
pseudo
life. He needed a real
one. A life that involved more than residents and employees as his constant
companions. How long had it been since he’d accepted an invitation to a game, to
a party, to a wedding?

So long everyone he’d known had stopped asking.

Jay set the bottle on the floor with a loud clink of glass
against tile. Pushing to his feet, he left the bathroom and went into his room
to grab his iPod. He had to get out of his head before he drove himself crazy.
Or broke more baseboards.

While passing through the sitting room of his suite, he spotted
a flicker of a light in his periphery and turned to gaze out the window in that
direction.

His house sat on a rise, so he could make out the dark
silhouette of the cottage through the trees. It had been a long time since
anyone had used the guesthouse, and the sight startled him.

Susanna.

One light went on. Another went off.

He knew what she was doing—moving from the living room to the
kitchen. Turning on one light before shutting off the other.

Was she just now getting around to dinner? Seemed kind of late,
but for all he knew she liked late meals. Widowed working woman raising kids.
Couldn’t have been early by the time she got home and made dinner. Or maybe her
kids had prepared dinner. Mom had taught him and Drew to cook. Drew hadn’t been
that fond doing anything but eating, but Jay liked cooking.

Well, once he had. Nowadays, Liz sent meals to his office and
he ate at the facility. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d cooked
a real meal. Back in the days when Jay had brought dates home, he would break
out Mom’s cookbooks. He always impressed women with his cooking skills. Usually
he impressed them right into bed.

One more sad commentary on how his life had melted into work
until they’d become one. No wonder he was crawling to get out of here. Work was
sucking the life out of him.

Another light shone from the back of the cottage. The bedroom.
Then, sure enough, the kitchen light went off.

Jay had no clue what she might be doing. He only knew that he
didn’t want to be wondering, standing here on the outside looking in. He wanted
a real life with a real woman he could be involved with, not a woman attached to
work who was only distracting him from how miserable he was.

He was calling Northstar in the morning.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
USANNA
INHALED
DEEPLY
,
a breath filled with wet air
and fragrance. Scents overlapped each other. Gardenia. Magnolia. Clematis.
Hyacinth.

Today was the perfect spring day. The sort
of day where the very idea of work was sacrilege. She pushed the thought
away with barely an effort because today was about appreciation and wonder
and reminders about what was important in life.

Life itself.

Every aromatic breath was a gift, a
reminder that the people in her life were the only thing that mattered.
These perfect days were about renewing her spirit the way the world renewed,
springing to life after a healing winter sleep.

Healing. She saw renewal everywhere. In
the electric colors of the landscape. Hues so alive they tempted her to
reach for silken petals, to run reverent fingertips along the weathered wood
of the arbor. Even the whites distinguished themselves in the blooms of the
magnolia, the clematis, strikingly different from the towering piles of
clouds in the sky.

The sun shone through the spring foliage,
cast an intricate dappling of light and shadow on the grass as she stood
beneath the arbors. She belonged here. Every step she had ever taken in her
life led to this place.

Now.

The only moment that mattered. The only
moment that was hers to savor. A moment filled with magnolias unfurling to
catch the sun in petal-palms, wisteria dripping in swollen bunches, so
impossibly heavy that a gentle spring rain might snap their fragile stems
and send them tumbling to the grass.

The mere thought of rain brought the
realization of thirst, how parched she was in the heat of this partial sun,
no different than this lush landscape, which craved moisture to nourish and
refresh.

The realization of thirst brought sudden
rain, only the sound at first, the gentle tap, tap, tapping against the
shelter of overhanging branches and leaves. A shower of warm droplets that
rooted out tiny cracks and niggled in, through leaves and lattice in a
delicate descent.

Her skin thirsted for the rain as her
spirit craved the simple joy of life, this reminder that routine made the
days blur together, the effort she focused on work, only the means to an
end. The end is all about the people who populate her world.

Helping them through their
days.

Providing for herself and her
kids.

Challenging herself to learn, to discover,
to accomplish, to fail, to rest, to reach.

To love.

The only thing that made any difference at
all. A discovery that nourished spirit the way rain nourished
earth.

And trailed over her, awakening senses
until she felt each warm droplet dance over bare skin, down the contours of
her face, her neck, each fat droplet drawn to the next, uniting in silken
ribbons that gained momentum, streamed around the bow of her shoulders, down
her arms. Followed the curve of breasts in tiny cascades, making her nipples
tingle with awareness.

With the knowledge of a
presence.

Skip.

He was there, belonging to this moment as
the rain poured from a sunny sky.

His gaze drank her in all at once, a gaze
so potent she felt his appreciation as alive as the rain.

He enjoyed her nakedness, the sight of
her.

She felt his appreciation deep within,
felt beautiful beneath his gaze.

She wanted to entice, to bring him
pleasure. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she parted her lips to catch
raindrops on her tongue, her hair tumbling down her back, wet strands
heavy.

Rising up on tiptoe, she lifted her hands
to the skies. Warm droplets splashed between outstretched fingers, and her
body stretched taut with the motion. Muscles shifted to redirect the
rivulets of rain over new terrain, into the V of her waist, the slight
roundness of her belly, the length of her thighs.

A show, designed purely to heighten the
physicality of this moment, his awareness.

An invitation.

To satisfy the ache deep within, a
yearning.

For him.

And he knew.

Because he yearned, too.

Reaching out, he grazed his fingertips
over the curve of her cheek, a testing touch, his skin mildly rough,
creating friction along soft skin.

All this exposed skin, and he touched her
cheek.

But somehow his touch didn’t surprise her.
He was a gentleman always, thinking of others, making her desire as
important as his own.

And his teasing touch was all about
desire. His touch felt as natural as the wisteria hanging from the arbors
and the rain falling from the sky and the wet grass beneath her
toes.

Trailing his fingers along the curve of
her jaw, he explored her face with a featherlight touch, a touch that filled
the moment with breathtaking promise. One innocent touch that made her skin
exquisitely sensitive everywhere, as if one small caress trailed over her
body.

An intimate caress that caused heat to
gather low in her belly, awakening a response that had slumbered so long
she’d forgotten how potent it might be should it ever awaken....

Susanna jolted awake.

For one blind moment, she only stared into the night, not a
shadow or a sound striking any familiar chord through the fog of her sleep. Not
the pale sheers that fell the length of the floor-to-ceiling windows, almost
ghostly in the dark. Not the spindle-legged furniture. Not the fragile golden
glow from some room beyond a door.

A night-light?

She stared into the room, eyes adjusting to the dark, too aware
of her heart pounding with slow, throbbing beats. Her skin flushed until her
pajamas clung uncomfortably.

Awareness came only in slow degrees but along with it came more
awareness.

Of the nature of her dream. And her body’s reaction.

Her breasts felt heavy in a way that only accompanied arousal.
The fire low in her belly still smoldered.

She knew this feeling, though her body hadn’t awakened in this
way for so long. Rolling onto her back, Susanna flipped away the comforter,
allowed the cool night air to clear the remnants of sleep and dispel the effects
of
that
dream.

The memory of her oh, so handsome husband made her smile. She
had been many things at that time of her life—wife, mother, CFO—but Skip had
never let her forget she was a woman, first and foremost, the woman he
loved.

How long had it been since she’d felt anything but fear,
anxiety, worry?

Since long before Skip died. The worry had started when he
hadn’t been able to shake what they’d thought was a flu, the low-grade fever,
the swollen glands. He’d gotten listless, lethargic, unable to eat or sleep
normally, and he’d started losing weight. By the time he’d finally admitted that
she was probably right and he should see the doctor, even he’d been worried.

But neither had been prepared for the diagnosis.

No, it had been a very long time since she’d paid attention to
anything but survival, and savoring each and every second with everyone she
loved.

Funny, how her body would suddenly remind her she was still a
woman. Was the melatonin having some weird effect?

Fanning herself with the comforter, Susanna frowned. Hot
flashes made her think of menopause, but she hadn’t even reached her milestone
fortieth birthday—
yet.

But something about that didn’t feel right, either, and her
drifting thoughts chased around and around, trailed over the fading images in
her head. The flowers. The sun. The rain.

The arbors in spring.

Walter’s rich Southern drawl suddenly made an appearance, too,
sharing a promise of how beautiful the arbors would be when they bloomed again.
She’d only seen internet photos, yet her mind had been filled with detailed
images, the blossoms in living color and amazing detail.

The man who’d watched her.

As Susanna stared into the quiet darkness, she could still see
the eyes of that man in her dreams, eyes as green as the arbor leaves in
spring....

All vestiges of drowsiness evaporated as she realized she
hadn’t been dreaming about her oh, so handsome husband at all.

* * *

S
USANA
WAS
A
WRECK
THIS
morning. A complete wreck. Inspiring Jay’s confidence had been her main
objective. Instead, she’d convinced him Northstar had sent an idiot to run this
property. Northstar had rolled her under the bus, leaving a bad taste in her
mouth, and the divide between corporate and private wider than ever before.

And then there was
that dream.

The very thought sent her scurrying for cover in her office.
She’d likely beaten Jay onto the property, but she had no idea what to expect
from him. She could be packing her bags before lunch for all she knew, and
professionalism would be her only defense.

She didn’t have the energy to deal with stupidity today. Not
when her future hung in the balance. If she failed miserably, she held Northstar
partially responsible for mishandling Jay. She couldn’t be something she wasn’t,
no matter how hard she worked. She wasn’t an experienced property administrator
with exclusive memory-care knowledge.

Anxiety must be responsible for the madness happening in her
brain. For
that
dream.

Susanna tried to find some calm in the activity of her morning
routine. Hot water in a mug. VIA. A glimpse out the windows. But she was very
early this morning and dawn wasn’t ready to make an appearance.

She sat down at the computer, considered working on
transferring data from The Arbors into Northstar’s software, but the reality
that Jay might put the brakes on this transition period made the effort feel
like a waste. She couldn’t concentrate, anyway. Not after that dream.

Time to take action. She went online and typed into a search
engine:

What does being naked in a dream
mean?

A full page of potential explanations popped up, and Susanna
clicked on the first link.

To dream of being naked means to be free.
There is nothing restraining you, you’re free to do whatever you’d
like.

No. No. No. Too personal. Susanna wasn’t free to do what she
liked. And certainly not with a business partner, a
younger
business partner, a younger business partner
who would be leaving town soon.

If he didn’t show her the door first.

She tried again:
What does dreaming of
rain mean?

More links.

To be out in a shower of rain denotes
pleasure will be enjoyed with the zest of youth, and prosperity will come to
you.

That was better. Pleasure and prosperity sounded good right
now. That meant she might still have a job near her kids.

And if she didn’t...Susanna could only control what she could
control. If Jay decided to replace her because he didn’t like her résumé even
after five weeks of working together, then she’d attempt to reason with him.
That was all she could do.

Susanna’s phone vibrated. Crack-of-dawn phone calls always made
her heart miss a beat. Scrambling to withdraw the phone from her pocket, she
glanced at the display, holding her breath to face yet another potential
crisis.

Karan.

“You’re making a habit of waking up before dawn,” Susanna said,
suddenly so relieved for a lifeline to someone familiar in her anxiety-riddled
world. “Should I be worried?”

“Good morning to you, too.” Karan sounded cheery and
unexpectedly awake for a woman who didn’t have much use for conventional
business hours. “Nothing at all is wrong with the world today. How about
you?”

“You’re up awfully early, or haven’t you gone to bed yet?”
Susanna cradled the phone against her ear as another thought occurred to her.
“Charles is okay? Everything good there?”

This was the second time around for Karan and her husband. Five
years of marriage, a divorce then remarriage.

Only polite to ask. Maybe she wasn’t the only one in the world
whose life was crumbling around her.

“I saw him off to surgery.”

“Making a habit of that. Admirable.” As a cardiothoracic
surgeon, Charles’s life was dictated by his patients’ needs. Karan’s life, too,
by default. “Give him a hug for me.”

“Will do. Won’t see him until later, though. He hasn’t even
pulled out of the driveway yet.”

“And you called me instead of crawling back into bed? Really,
Karan. What’s up? Can’t sleep? Maybe you should try some melatonin.” Side
effects like erotic dreams wouldn’t be any problem for a woman with a handsome
husband.

A beat of silence. “Is all well? You sound...
off.
”

Of course, Karan would hear past what Susanna was saying to
what she wasn’t. But there was no way on this planet she could put into words
that dream.
Not even to her best friend.
Especially the best friend who thought Susanna had a crush.

The memory of their conversation came rushing back, and Susanna
squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if she could block it out. No such luck, so she
launched into a blow-by-blow of what had happened yesterday and Northstar’s
betrayal.

“Well, I’m not at all happy with your boss,” Karan finally
said. “Nothing like leaving you vulnerable. Not okay. But an idiot, Suze? That
doesn’t sound like you at all. You’re far too practical to get so flustered. Jay
wasn’t rude, was he?”