Love Potion #2. Margot Early
Читать онлайн книгу.
to the fact that Paul was inside, Wolfie and Mariah met her on the porch. Cameron petted Mariah, and Wolfie and Cameron looked at each other, the dog as wary as always.
She went inside, and Paul said from the kitchen, “I fed the dogs.”
He was at the kitchen table, reading her newspaper and eating pesto straight from the jar.
“Are you going to save me some of that?” she snapped.
“Your eye looks horrible.”
Cameron found she was shaking. She was shaking because she’d made love with Paul the night before and now he was in her house and she didn’t know how to behave around him. She found it terrifying that her most recurring thoughts of the day had been of him—nothing else. The minutiae of Paul and of the night before. Every single word and touch exchanged. It was absurd.
So now she didn’t say “What are you doing here?” because she was slightly glad that he was there, although she didn’t want to be glad. She’d barely thought of Graham all day. She’d thought of Paul.
“Thank you for feeding the dogs.” Wolfie ate outside and only when he thought no one was looking. Mariah had followed her into the house and sat politely beside Paul, looking hopeful. She had a beautiful black-and-brown face and fluffy black fur that had remained puppy-soft even as she matured.
Cameron managed to ask, “Why did you come over?”
He looked up, dark eyes wide, and it occurred to her that what other women—her cousin, Mary Anne, for instance—had been telling her for years was true. Paul was a hunk. He had one of those hard-jawed faces that you sometimes saw on guys who climbed Everest. The hint of five o’clock shadow, though undoubtedly uncomfortable for anyone who kissed him, increased the sexy mountain-man effect.
She wished she could stop trembling.
“To see how your day went,” he replied calmly.
“Everyone asked who hit me,” she informed him.
He winced slightly, almost as though he had hit her.
It was an unusually sympathetic response from Paul. Normally he would have said that it would help bond her with her clients, or something equally thoughtless. But he seemed to appreciate how bad it was for the director of the Women’s Resource Center to walk around with a black eye.
“Denise is coming over,” she said. “For dinner. You can stay.” She went out to her bicycle to collect the groceries she’d bought and bring them inside.
As Cameron began slicing vegetables, she noticed that Paul had made no attempt to touch or kiss her. She kept thinking of the way he’d kissed her the night before, not opening his mouth at first, just gradually doing so, just tasting her lips with his tongue, as though it was something he’d never done before.
So, we’re going back to being just friends, she thought. Maybe he thought they’d be “friends with privileges” or bonking buddies. Not a chance.
From the table, Paul watched her back, the two light brown braids swinging over the shoulders of her thrift-shop Fair Isle sweater. He could say something about last night. But what was there to say?
He wanted to do it again.
What he said was, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
At the counter, Cameron froze. Of all the things a man could say after a sexual encounter, this was one of the worst. Implicit was the fact that his hurting her was quite possible. In fact, it implied a certain likelihood. Attempting objectivity, she compared “I don’t want to hurt you” to “Sex will ruin our friendship.” Hard to judge which was worse, actually. What was she supposed to say?
She wheeled around. “You can’t hurt me, because I’m not sleeping with you again. For one thing, I don’t want to get pregnant.” She wished she hadn’t said that, for many reasons, from hating to discuss a terrifying subject to hating to tell lies. “But even if being pregnant wouldn’t kill me, you and I are just friends. What happened happened, but now my biggest concern is learning how to conceal a black eye before I lose my job.” Since I’ve already lost my mind and slept with you.
Paul thought she was acting strangely, but she’d been clear. He told himself it was a relief. And though the thought of her becoming pregnant alarmed him almost as much as it could alarm her, he knew that any fear of that outcome was neurotic. He said, “This is the twenty-first century. It’s totally irrational to believe you will die in childbirth.”
Her face flushed in a way he associated with her being particularly—well, hysterical. Oh, God, here we go.
“Easy for you to say! Didn’t one of your own mother’s clients almost die in childbirth?”
“No. It was a stillbirth, what you’re talking about, and it happened at the hospital.” Actually, Paul wasn’t sure of this. It had happened when he was six years old, and his father had moved out soon afterward. Sometimes the story of the stillbirth came up when people argued that homebirths were unsafe. He thought he could remember his mother saying, “If she’d been my client, I would have sent her to a physician.” But Paul didn’t know why this was, knew none of the details, though he was sure either of his parents could provide them.
Cameron was still talking. “Anyhow, you think dying in childbirth is the only unpleasant possibility. You think, ‘Oh, they’ll just give her an epidural. She’ll be fine.’ Roxanne Jacobs had an epidural, and she’s had crippling back pain ever since. You think, ‘Oh, Cameron will just have a cesarean section.’ My sister miscarried in the fifth month four times. You think a little miscarriage is nothing, but that’s like a stillbirth every time.”
Paul considered interrupting, but it was hard to find a place.
“And each time was physically excruciating. She thought she was going to die, not to mention being heart-broken because she’d lost the baby. And they are babies, premature but completely babies. Beatrice named every one.” Tears welled in Cameron’s eyes.
Horrified, Paul said, “Baby—” He almost put his hand over his mouth. He’d called her “baby.” That could lead to lack of clarity. About their relationship. But he forced himself to finish saying what he’d begun to say. “You know how you get before your period. You’re just freak—”
“I AM NOT EXPECTING MY PERIOD!” she shrieked. “Would I be worried if I was? Do you know nothing about women?”
He considered asking her to please put down the knife but decided to remain silent.
He heard the front door open. Denise called, “Cameron?”
Thank God, he thought.
Cameron grabbed a dishcloth to wipe her eyes.
Two days later
CAMERON PEERED around the Charleston Walmart as she waited in line, clutching a magazine on top of her two-in-one, double-check home pregnancy kit. Paul was not with her, having dropped her at Walmart and gone alone to prowl the endless aisles at Home Depot. That night, he was going to be the soundman for an English band called Crawl at a Charleston concert, and he’d asked her to go with him, and she’d agreed. So, though this was the Charleston Walmart, it was not out of the realm of possibility that she would see someone from Logan here.
With the coast clear, she went through the checkout, smiling tensely at the clerk. She paid for her purchases, then hurried into the ladies’ restroom, where she closed herself in a cubicle to find out the worst.
Alone, she watched the test strip, prepared to wait the three minutes, waiting to exhale in relief.
One line appeared, confirming that the test was working.
Nothing else.
She waited.
She looked at her watch.
She tried to breathe. It’s okay. It’s okay.
She wasn’t pregnant.
She