Back to Life Ch. 03

"You never told me you had a man, baby girl," George commented next morning at breakfast, a big grin splitting his face. "Been holding out on me, eh?"

Karen smiled. "First of all, I'm not a baby," she said, rolling her eyes at the chuckle that escaped him, "and second, I don't have a man, as you put it. Peter is just a friend."

"Is he male?" George asked innocently. Snatching the roll she threw at him out of the air, he opined, "Then he is your man!" He chuckled when she stuck her tongue out at him. "Especially as you'll be spending the weekend with him!" he concluded triumphantly.

"I'm not spending the weekend with him, George! Geez! His cousin has invited me to spend the weekend in her home. Just because he's going to be there too, doesn't mean I'm spending it with him! You're impossible!" she huffed good-naturedly. "It's a wonder you're not demanding to meet him before he takes me away for a weekend of debauchery!"

"There's to be debauchery, then?" he asked, raising an amused brow.

Karen laughed, and he joined her. She loved it that she had someone she could be herself with, someone who loved her and cared about her happiness. George never judged her, even when she was busy condemning herself.

"I'll introduce you when he comes to pick me up," she promised. "At least, that way, you'll know what he looks like if I disappear or come back with my reputation in ruins!"

They shared another laugh, and finished their meal. When Peter rang the doorbell at three o'clock precisely, Karen was rolling her case down the stairs. George heard the loud thumping as he came out of the sitting room to answer the door, and came to take it from her.

"I'll get the door," she said, relinquishing her hold on the case and hurrying to let Peter in.

He was backlit by the afternoon sun, and she blinked to get his face into focus. He was smiling as she invited him in, and when the door was closed, she made the introductions.

"Peter, meet my brother George Mullings. George, my friend, Peter van der Meulen."

Peter and George shook hands, and Peter said,

"A pleasure to meet you!" before he took the luggage with him out to the car. George and Karen followed, and as Peter opened the passenger door for her, George hugged her and said as he kissed her cheek,

"Don't do anything I wouldn't!"

Peter's grin lit up his face, though he said nothing in response, as Karen smacked her brother in the arm, laughing.

"That means I have a lot of freedom, then!" she quipped, and smirked at him as she waved goodbye.

"Hello, petal!" Peter's voice broke into her amused thoughts as they turned onto the main drag. Karen looked questioningly at him.

"Petal?" she asked.

His eyes briefly took in the daisy-decorated top she wore above a pair of loose-fitting stonewashed jeans. Karen smiled at the nickname, and wondered what they would talk about for the next two hours. Peter answered her unspoken question, because he seemed to be well-versed in the areas they drove through and kept up a gentle running commentary that made the journey seem to go by quickly. When they were close to Woodstock, he turned to look briefly at her before saying, his eyes once again on the road,

"I'm very pleased that you agreed to be my date, Karen. I know you'll like Jannie. She's a lovely woman!"

She could hear the affection for his cousin in his voice. "And Duncan? Will I like him, too?" she wanted to know.

"Duncan is a bit reserved with strangers, but he'll be hospitable, especially as the occasion is in his honor. And no doubt he'll be more open than usual because I've brought a woman with me."

She looked at him, puzzled, and it occurred to her that she really knew nothing at all about this man whom she had been fantasizing about almost from the moment she had bumped into him in Amsterdam.

"I've been a widower for the last four years," he explained, his voice expressionless.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, shocked and embarrassed. Here she had been salivating over a man who was clearly still mourning his dead wife...

"No, that's all right. Alijd and I were essentially estranged for years before she died." His tone remained completely without feeling, as though he were describing balmy weather. Karen turned to look at him properly, wishing she could see his face, see his eyes, to see if he was really as unaffected as he appeared to be. There were things she wanted to ask, but she bit her tongue, waiting for him to offer.

"She had been diagnosed with cancer after we had been married for ten years, and following the treatments, she went into remission. But then, five years ago, it returned, more aggressive than usual, and within a year she was dead."

"I'm sorry, Peter. Death is never pleasant, even when it is expected." Karen didn't know what else to say, because she had no idea how he felt about anything her had told her. And she noted he had said nothing about why he and his wife had been estranged. He didn't seem to be the kind of man who would have been the cause of that estrangement, but as she knew even less about his wife than she knew about him, she was going entirely on faith.

Evidently he was done talking, because the last few minutes of the journey were made in silence, and when he turned onto his cousin's driveway, Karen wondered when, if ever, they would return to the conversation they had left on the highway. He came around to help her out, and then retrieved their luggage from the trunk. She followed him to the front door, which opened before she could knock, as though his cousin had been looking out for them.

"Hello there!" a tall, angular woman greeted them, a smile of welcome on her pretty face. "You must be Karen," she continued, smiling and extending her hand.

"It's lovely to meet you," Karen said, shaking her hand and letting herself be led into a warm living room. Peter followed them and his cousin waited till he had put down the luggage before hugging him warmly.

"How are you, Peter?" Jannie asked, pulling away from his arms to look him over. "It's so good to see you! At least you don't look so gaunt anymore!" She reached over to kiss his cheek again and then said, "Come through. I'm sure you'd like a cup of tea before you go up to change."

She led them into her big country kitchen and they sat around the woodblock table and sipped tea while she brought her cousin up to date on the party plans. Duncan would be home in a few minutes, and would be getting ready for a party she had told him they had been invited to. It was to be a formal affair, and as he never usually remembered what events he had been invited to, and she was always the one to organize the attendance at such functions, Duncan would not be at all suspicious. Since he never remembered his birthday either, the surprise would be complete. She asked Peter to move his car to the side, where Duncan would not see it readily, and while he did that, she showed Karen to her room.

"Duncan won't get back downstairs till around 6:15, so you have a bit of time to freshen up. You and Peter will share a bathroom. I hope you don't mind." Jannie was solicitous, but Karen felt an undercurrent of interest in her and Peter's relationship that she did not know how to satisfy.

"No, that won't be a problem at all. Thank you for agreeing to put me up!" she replied, feeling oddly embarrassed.

"I'll see you downstairs, then," Jannie said, and went away.

She unpacked her dress, and hung it up, glad it was of the sort of material that did not crush easily. By the time she was ready to slip it on, the few creases would have smoothed themselves out. Unpacking the rest of her things quickly, she was about to go to the bathroom to wash her face when a knock sounded on her door. It was Peter, wanting to know if she was all right, and informing her that he would be coming to escort her downstairs at about 6:10 or so.

"I'm just on the other side of the bathroom if you need anything, okay?"

Karen smiled her thanks. "Is it okay if I go first?" she asked, indicating the bathroom.

"Yes, of course," he replied, and took himself off.

Half an hour later, her hair swept up off her shoulders, her stockinged legs encased in high-heeled black sandals, Karen surveyed her reflection in the full length free-standing mirror. Her face was warmly made up, the colors subtle, but she saw the flush in her cheeks that had nothing to do with rouge and everything to do with the man in the bedroom next to hers. She berated herself for being worried about what he might think of her appearance, but when she opened her door at his knock and saw the look in his eyes, she grew warm with emotion.

"You look very lovely, Karen!" he said, his voice hoarse as though he were developing a cold. His eyesp0 took in her neck and shoulders, the latter left bare by the off-the-shoulder cut of the dress, which clung to her breasts like a second skin, flaring out gently from the waist to tease him.

"Thank you!" she answered, and then let her eyes roam his person. His suit was dark gray, the shirt he wore a blue to match the eyes he kept trained on her. He had shaved again, and his cheeks were smooth and cool, and his lips slightly parted, as though he were on the verge of speech. He smelled of some clean masculine fragrance, and underneath it all was that subtle flavor that was him. Her mouth watered, and she swallowed, placing her hand in the crook of his arm. Her whole body reacted to the feel of his muscle under the suit jacket, and she inhaled deeply to calm her quaking nerves.

"Let's go down the back stairs to the kitchen, so we won't run the chance of bumping into Duncan before Jannie can spring the surprise," he suggested, and led her along the passage to the opposite end of the hall, and down into the kitchen. The room seemed crowded, though when she counted, there were only nine other people in it. She was introduced as Peter's friend, and then Jannie went to get her husband, who could be heard whistling as he came down the stairs.

Duncan's shock when he walked into the kitchen to shouts of "Surprise!" was almost comical. And as they sang him the birthday song, he went a bright red and smiled in an I'd-rather-be-dead-than-here sort of way. But he put on a game face, and by the time the party was in full swing, he seemed much more relaxed. These people were his family and friends, so Karen assumed it was just his innate reservedness that had made him react as he had before. When Peter took her over to be introduced, Duncan's eyes grew sharp with speculation.

"Duncan, many happy returns!" Peter said, shaking his hand. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine," he continued, pulling her forward gently. "This is Karen Mullings. Karen, my cousin Duncan."

Duncan's smile was genuinely delighted as he shook hands with her, though his eyes went almost immediately back to Peter's face.

"How did you meet?" he wanted to know.

"We bumped into each other in Amsterdam a few months ago, literally," Peter explained with a smile at Karen.

She returned the smile, adding, "More accurately, I bumped into him! And then we met again in London recently."

"Well, I'm very glad to meet you, Karen," Duncan said, finally relinquishing her hand. He winked at her, surprising her, given his apparent reticence before. She smiled at him, and noted that he looked his Dutch relative over with an amused eye.

Karen was introduced to each partygoer, including the two latecomers whose train had been delayed. They were all of an age, older then she was, talented and beautiful and warm people, and they all got along remarkably well for having so little time to spend together each year. She knew they were watching her and wondering who she was to Peter, and she thought to herself that that was no more than she herself was thinking.

Jannie sat them across from each other at the table, an incredibly impressive thing that took up almost all the room in what she called the great room, which was the dining room and living room together, with the door between them slid open to allow for just such an occasion. Peter looked his fill at the beautiful woman who had chosen to partner him for this affair. She was an exotic bloom among the pale lilies with her copper-colored skin and delicious curves. Even her lips, wrapped just now around the spoon for her soup, were a distracting arc of flesh that was driving him crazy. He forced himself to attend to what his neighbors were asking him, to brush off their commiserations at the loss of Alijd -- "It's been four years!" he explained quietly to the one on his right -- to listen to their stories of life since the last time he had seen them.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been happy to listen, but nothing about these circumstances was normal, and his libido had not stopped kicking him in the groin since he had seen her inside her brother's house, her arms bare, her breasts a temptation he fought to resist gazing at. Now, despite the table between them, and the conversation and laughter around him, the assault was harder than ever, and his powers of concentration were being sorely tested. He prayed silently that dinner would soon be over, and they could all repair to the back patio for some much needed fresh air. He needed it in great gulps, if he was to avoid making an absolute ass of himself with her.

He caught Duncan's eye, and saw the knowing twinkle in it with a sense of despair, mixed inexplicably with relief. He didn't need anyone else knowing how deeply under Karen's spell he already was, before he allowed himself to admit it, and yet there was a kind of satisfaction in knowing that what he was feeling was real enough that a discerning and caring eye could see it. He looked away, and caught her just as she smiled at something said to her by Jack Talbot, another physician and friend. Her lips curled sensually, her teeth gleamed through, and he licked his own lips in sudden thirst. He wanted to feel those lips under his, to spear that mouth with his hungry tongue, to...

"Don't you agree, Peter?" Jannie's voice pierced the haze of increasing lust that he had let himself sink into, and he reddened at the feeling of all eyes on him.

"Sorry, coz, I was woolgathering. What did you say?" He made the best of a bad situation, knowing only Duncan may have had some inkling of the reason for his distraction.

"I was saying that it's been a while since we've had a family reunion, and thought we might pull it off this summer. Don't you agree? We've already decided that the venue will be Duncan's family castle in Scotland, but we'll need to make dates. What do you think?"

"It's a splendid idea, love," he said approvingly, avoiding Karen's interested gaze. "Whatever you decide, I'll do my best to fit it into my very packed schedule!" His sardonic tone was meant to highlight the irony of his words, and everyone enjoyed a hearty laugh at his expense. Although it bothered him to know his family and friends knew the depth of his deprivation, at least it took their minds off the reason he had been woolgathering, and gave him a chance to regain control.

By the time Jannie was serving dessert, Peter was calm enough to sit next to Duncan and carry on a sensible conversation about his cousin's latest philanthropic project. But his hope that any mention of his new-found relationship with a woman would be forgotten was dashed when Duncan leaned toward him and asked, sotto voce,

"So, are you going to tell me about the delectable Miss Mullings? Or do I have to ask her myself?"

Peter sighed, not sure how to answer Duncan, and not too thrilled that his cousin was paying such close attention to his woman. His. The thought shuddered through him, making him catch his breath. He desperately wanted her to be his, but a couple of bland dates in the company of masses of people would provide him nothing in the way of opportunities to make her so. And they still had much to say to each other.

"I'd sooner you kept your opinions as to her delights to yourself, if you don't mind!" he said sharply, completely shocking himself, and amusing Duncan no end. His cousin burst into delighted laughter, drawing Jannie's eyes to them.

"I'm sorry, my friend! I'll curtail my observations to those of a clinical nature!" Duncan finally managed, still chuckling. "Now, tell me exactly how she came to bump into you, and how you met again, and why you are still denying yourself the pleasure of her...er, charms?"

Peter saw the twinkle of amusement still in his cousin's eye, and bit back another sharp retort. He wasn't a schoolboy, and Duncan had no interest in Karen apart from the one all men have in a beautiful woman.

"What makes you think I am denying myself anything?" he demanded instead.

"I've been keeping an eye on the pair of you all evening, and its clear to me that the two of you are still dancing around each other. What's more, my dear fellow, it's equally obvious that she has you spun around, and you don't know your head from your tail with her. I don't believe I've ever seen you in such a lather. You're like a racehorse, chomping at the bit and rearing to go!"

"What are we talking about?" Jannie's voice interrupted, forestalling Peter's reply.

"Your cousin's faltering love life, my dear!" He kissed his wife's hand where she had it on his shoulder, and the easy familiarity and intimacy between them pierced Peter to the heart. He wanted that. He needed that...with Karen.

"She is a lovely thing, isn't she, Duncan? Just what the doctor ordered for my stick-in-the-mud cousin, to get him out of the doldrums and put some pep in his step!"

Jannie offered her opinion with a sweet smile, to take the sting out of her words, but Peter knew she was serious. After four years without a woman, during which she had encouraged and cajoled and bullied and begged him to take back his life, Karen was the first sign any of them had that he might be making a new start. If they only knew exactly how much she had moved him from ground zero, they'd be shocked, but he also knew they'd be cheering him on vigorously.

"Thank you for allowing me to invite her," he said, "as I needed to find a way to see her again, and this was the perfect chance."

"Anything to oblige, love! Wouldn't it be lovely if she were to come to the family reunion as somewhat more than just a 'friend'?"

Jannie sounded so hopeful that Peter had to smile. His cousin was a true romantic, one of a dying breed, he thought.

"It would," he agreed.

"I'll just go put some music on, before everyone leaves, and serve up coffee and liquers," Jannie said, leaning down to kiss her husband's cheek before walking away.

Peter's eyes followed her, as did her husband's, and together they noted that Karen joined her. Peter turned to watch his cousin's face soften with love, and his eyes gleam with desire for the woman he had been married to now for thirty-five years. They had married young, Jannie being only a few years Duncan's junior, and it seemed to Peter that their love had only grown over time. He swallowed the ball of hurt that tried to surface and, excusing himself, went to walk in the dimly-lit back garden. He was suddenly no longer in the mood to discuss the possibility that he might have found someone to make him feel human again. He needed some space to release the pain he had bottled up inside him for ten years, and he could well do without an audience.

A sound made him turn his head, and Karen stood behind him with a glass in her hand.

"Jannie said you like this," she said, coming toward him and offering him the drink. "It's Drambuie."

Peter smiled and took the glass, resisting the urge to take her hand and pull her into him.

"Thank you," he said instead, and took a deep swallow, savoring the mellow flavor on his tongue.