The Right Bed?: Your Bed or Mine?

Caley had felt his unease all evening. She sensed he had questions to ask but she’d tried to keep the conversation from getting too serious. In truth, she was as confused today as she had been on the day she arrived back in North Lake. Only, she was confused about different things.

Over the past few days, she’d realized that Jeff Winslow had been right. There was a certain charm to living a small-town life. And she hadn’t missed the stress of work at all. The panic attacks that had been plaguing her had disappeared and she was finally sleeping through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, wondering what she might have forgotten to do at work. The only time she felt them return was when her cell phone rang. Like Pavlov’s dog, she responded to the sound of the Mozart ditty. She even reprogrammed the ring to see if a new tune might be easier to take. But it didn’t matter. The moment she saw a work number come up on the caller ID, she started to get queasy and fluttery and a little woozy.

She’d been happy here with Jake and though she didn’t want it to end, Caley knew that, for all practical purposes, a future with him would be difficult. They had both built careers in big cities. Those cities just happened to be seven hundred miles apart. It seemed like a long way. But then, it was only a few hours by plane. She flew back and forth to L.A. at least once a month to see a client there and thought nothing of it.

Conceivably, if she wanted to see him, she could call Jake at lunchtime and be in Chicago by supper. It was possible and with every minute that passed, Caley was thinking more and more about what could be instead of what might have been.

“I should probably go check on Sam and Emma,” Jake said. “Do you want to stay here or come with me?”

“I can come with you. I do want to see how Emma is doing. I feel a little guilty leaving her out there all alone. I mean, she’s with Sam, but I think she might be pretty angry that we just left them there.”

She picked up the pizza box and set it on the table near the window, then turned to Jake. He was stretched out on the bed, wearing just his jeans and boxers. His feet were bare, as was his chest, and he looked so completely at home, as if they’d been together for years and this was just an ordinary night.

“What?” he said, glancing over at her.

“Nothing,” Caley said. She grabbed her sweater and tugged it on over her head. Then she looked at him again. Slowly, she crossed the room and ran her hand through his messy hair. “I like this. It doesn’t have to be all passion and excitement,” she said. “Although I do enjoy that.”

“You want passion and excitement?” Jake asked. “I can do that. I just thought you were hungry.”

“No,” Caley said. “I mean, I love it when we … you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But this is nice, too. It’s comfortable. I’ve never really had this with a man. It feels real. We can be together and there’s no pressure.”

“Now you’re starting to make me feel bad,” Jake teased. “I don’t want to be boring.”

“You’re not.”

Jake got to his feet and grabbed his shirt, pulling it on. “You’re right. I’m not. Come on, I’ll show you some excitement.”

“We’re not having sex in a public place,” Caley warned.

“No. We’ll save that for later. I’m going to show you some real small-town fun.”

Five minutes later, they pulled on their jackets and were headed back to Jake’s car. It had grown colder, the temperature dipping toward the teens, and Caley pulled her hood up around her face. When she got inside the truck, Jake flipped on the heater full blast and then headed down Lake Street to the boat landing.

“Are we going to watch the submarine races?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said. “We’re going out on the lake.”

Caley felt a rush of panic. “In this truck? Oh, no we’re not.”

“Don’t worry. It’s safe. The ice is really thick this year. We just have to watch out for ice-fishing holes.”

Caley screamed as they drove from the landing onto the ice, expecting the truck to fall through the moment it got over the water. When it didn’t, she glanced over at Jake. “Are you sure we’re safe?”

Jake turned to her. “I would never do anything to hurt you.” He’d expressed the sentiment before but Caley hadn’t realized until now how strongly he felt it.

“All right. I taught you how to drive, now I’m going to teach you how to spin doughnuts. In the time-honored tradition of high school drivers, these are things you’ll need to know. Number one, turn off the four-wheel drive. Number two, make sure your seat belt is buckled. Number three, don’t steer into the skid. Got it?”

“I don’t really want to do this,” she said.

“It’ll be fun,” Jake assured her. With that, he hit the accelerator and the truck took off. A moment later, he made a sharp turn and they began to spin on the ice. Caley screamed, clutching at the door handle. At first, she was terrified that they were going to break through at any minute. But as the fear wore off, Caley found that the danger was exhilarating.

When Jake finally pulled the truck to a stop in the middle of the lake, she was breathless, her pulse racing. “That was amazing. Almost better than sex,” she said with a giggle.

Jake pulled the truck out of gear and then crawled over the console, pressing Caley up against the door. “I think we ought to make a comparison right here and now. A little experiment.”

“You want to have sex in the middle of a frozen lake?”

Jake nodded. “I intend to seduce you in other memorable spots. That way, when you go back home, you won’t forget me.”

Caley heard the teasing tone in his voice, but the humor didn’t extend to his eyes. She reached out and smoothed her palm over his cheek. “I’ll never forget this,” she murmured. She touched her lips to his and a moment later, they were caught in a passionate kiss.

She felt all the longing and the need between them. But she also felt a bittersweet resignation that from now on, every moment counted. As they slowly began to undress each other, Caley wondered how she’d ever be able to do without this. Passion had never been a big part of her sex life, but now that she’d experienced it with Jake, she couldn’t imagine doing without it—or him. Would it even be possible to go a week without touching him or kissing him or feeling him move inside her?

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” she asked, running her fingers through his hair. “If we fall through, they’re going to find our frozen bodies in a very compromising position.”

Jake worked at the buttons of her blouse. “But at least they’ll know we died happy.”

“And since we’ll be frozen together, they’ll have to bury us together.”

Jake groaned. “Now that’s just morbid.”

A loud pop shattered the silence outside the truck and Caley jumped, startled by the sound. “What was that?”

“The ice,” Jake said. “It creaks and pops. But it won’t break.”

Caley struggled to sit up and then rebuttoned her blouse. “Although this would be a lovely little story to tell friends and neighbors, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to summon up the needed concentration to truly enjoy myself here.”

“You wanna go back?” Jake asked.

“Yes, please,” she replied. “If you get me off this ice, then I promise you can have your way with me.”

“And if I hum, will you do a striptease?” Jake asked.

Caley thought about his request for a few seconds, then realized there were all kinds of fantasies left for them to explore. “Yes. But then I get to hum and you have to strip.”

Jake quickly straightened up and began to put his clothes back in order. Then he got behind the wheel and put the truck back into gear. “Would you like to see how fast we can go on the ice?”

“No,” she said.

Jake hit the accelerator and they took off again. “The only thing you have to remember is that it takes a lot longer to stop.”

He drove the SUV off the ice at the boat landing in town. When he reached the intersection for East Shore Road, he turned. A few minutes later, they were bumping back down the drive at Havenwoods. Jake jumped out of the truck. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

As promised, he returned a few minutes later, a smile on his face.