The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(72)
“I take it we’re not quite ready for sex,” Ethan says dryly.
“Sorry,” I wheeze, another gale sending me into convulsions of laughter.
“You’re not sorry,” he says, rolling off me. But there’s a smile in his voice, and he grabs the pillow, looks at my laughing face, grins and shoves the pillow back with considerable force.
“I’m taking a cold shower, woman,” he says, getting off the bed. “I hope you feel guilty as sin.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“AND THERE WE HAVE GRAYHURST, the lovely home of the Welles family,” Captain Bob says, suppressing a belch. He’s pinker than usual today, making me glad I’m the one steering past Parker’s dock. “The house was built in 1904 as a gift to Lancaster Welles’s second wife, who found her husband in the sack with a maid. She would be the first in a long line of wives who got a home as a pay-off for Lancaster’s infidelity,” Captain Bob continues, taking a pull from his doctored up coffee. This, at least, is the correct version of the past.
“It’s gorgeous,” says a lady from Nebraska. Her sweatshirt sports a Siamese kitten with sequined green eyes. The rest of the charter is similarly dressed…one lady is clad all in pink sweats, looking like she fell into a vat of Pepto-Bismol. Another wears elastic-waisted clam diggers and a sweatshirt proclaiming her World’s Best Gramma. My mother would die if she saw them. Or murder them as a group.
“Oh, look,” Pepto-Bismol cries. “A rich person!”
Captain Bob, who has eyes sharper than an eagle’s no matter how many ounces of alcohol he’s consumed, nods. “That would be Lancaster’s great-granddaughter, the lovely Parker Welles,” Captain Bob comments.
Sure enough, Parker, Nicky and Ethan are out on the lawn for a picturesque family romp. The Nebraskans leap to the side of the boat to snap photos of the three against the impressive backdrop of the back patio, which is about as big as a football field and bordered with animal-shaped topiary bushes. I give three short blasts from the horn. Nicky runs to the edge of the patio and waves, as do Parker and Ethan. I think, as I so often do, what a good-looking couple they make, Ethan’s dark hair and nice way of dressing a good match for Parker’s stylish looks and blond hair.
When this tour ends, I’m heading over to Grayhurst myself for a little family dinner. Ethan, Parker, their son and me. One of these things is not like the other, I mentally sing. One of these things just doesn’t belong.
“Beautiful ladies, if you’ll turn your attention to that cluster of rock out there,” Captain Bob says, “you’ll see the site of Mackerly’s famed pirate attack of 1868. Many were the maids who lost their hearts—and their virtue—to Captain Jack Sparrow in the weeks that ensued.”
I roll my eyes, but apparently, the Nebraskan ladies haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean, because they sigh with wide-eyed wonder. Bob gives me a wink, and I grin and shake my head.
An hour later, I’m standing in the wine cellar of Grayhurst, shivering.
“What looks good to you?” Parker asks.
“Anything not too expensive,” I answer, imagining her father discovering his prize bottle of Château Lafite (reportedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson) missing, swilled by the Hungarian baker who is his daughter’s friend. From upstairs, we can hear the muffled thump of Ethan and Nick, who are engaged in a rowdy game of Star Wars. “Release your anger and feel the power of the Dark Side!” Ethan booms, causing Nicky to burst into peals of laughter.
“Fruity? Dry? Oaken undertones with a hint of vanilla and a peachy-mango finish?” Parker asks, grinning.
“Um, gosh,” I say.
My friend, well aware of my discomfort around such displays of her wealth, surveys the rows and rows of bottles, the dim light making them gleam. “Well, here. This one only sells for about a hundred bucks a bottle,” she says, pretending to ignore my grimace, and studies the label. “So? How are things going with Ethan?” she asks, not looking up.
“Oh, you know. Not…not bad.”
“That sounds discouraging,” she says. “What’s wrong?”
I glance over at the stairs. “Nothing. We’re trying. It’s a little weird.”
She just looks at me, sighs with exaggerated patience. “Are you guys sleeping together again?” she asks.
“Um…not exactly,” I mutter, darting a glance around the wine cellar. No one to rescue me from this conversation down here, unless there’s a ghost or two.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s like our mojo is gone or something.”
Following my giggle fest the other night, I’d fled back to my apartment after an appropriate amount of apology time. Then last night, we’d had gone to see the latest Matt Damon explosion flick in South Kingstown. When he walked me to my door, Ethan had kissed me. Nicely. Very nicely. So nicely, so wonderfully, that perfect mouth, the scrape of his beard, his body so warm and close, and I’d felt myself slipping into that vortex where all I could think of was what Ethan was doing and how it felt.
Then I’d heard Corinne inside, and I’d seized on the excuse. “I’d better go,” I whispered against his mouth. “Corinne…she and Chris still haven’t worked things out.”