Chapter 25 #2
As they talked, she’d been drying glasses out of the dishwasher and returning them to the shelves. “I’m here until one.”
The open invitation to share wasn’t lost on him. As someone who made a living listening to other people’s problems, he rarely shared his own with anyone. But there was something about her that had him spilling the whole ugly story.
By the time he finished telling her about his wife leaving him for a younger guy, she’d discarded the dishtowel and he had her full attention.
“I’m so sorry, Kevin. That’s awful.” Without asking if he wanted it, she opened another beer for him and put it down on the bar. “That one’s on me.”
“Thank you.”
“Had you guys been having problems?” she asked tentatively, as if she wasn’t entirely sure she should ask.
“Not that I knew of. I was blindsided.” He took a drink of the beer.
“But with hindsight, I can see there were signs that I missed. Or chose to ignore. I don’t know.
She wasn’t happy. I thought it was a phase that would pass.
It had before.” Sliding a finger through the condensation on the bottle, he said, “After the boys left home, we found ourselves without much to talk about. It happens. I see it a lot in my practice.”
“It’s a big change after years of focusing on your kids.”
“It is, and we were guilty of making it all about the kids, to the exclusion of our relationship. We tried to get back on track. Went on a few vacations, spent time with friends. But it took effort that hadn’t been necessary way back when.”
“I think it says something for you that you can look back and see where the trouble was.”
“Too bad I didn’t realize how bad the trouble was before it was too late.”
“You knew.”
“I did?”
She nodded. “You said it took effort, that it wasn’t easy the way it once had been. You had to be aware of that at the time.”
“I was, but I never expected her to actually leave me for another guy. And what she said on the way out the door…”
“What did she say?”
“That life was too short to spend it with me.”
“Ah,” she said, shaking her head. “That was unnecessary. It’s her loss. You know that, don’t you?”
“You think she’s saying that when she’s getting busy with her young stud?”
“Is that the part that pisses you off the most? That he’s younger?”
“Nah.”
“You sure?”
“Kinda.”
Her husky laugh warmed him on the inside the way a shot of whisky would. A low hum of desire took him by surprise. It’d been a long time since he’d felt anything resembling desire. “You’re easy to talk to, Ms. Rose.”
“Thank you, Dr. McCarthy.”
“How do you know I’m a doctor anyway?”
“I asked your brother.”
“Which one?”
“Mac. I saw him in the grocery store earlier today.”
“And you asked him about me.”
“I might’ve.”
He was so out of practice with such things that Kevin wasn’t sure he was reading this correctly. Was she flirting with him? “How come?”
“I thought you seemed troubled the other night. I asked if you were okay. We got to talking.” She shrugged.
“And that’s all it was? Some bartenderly concern?”
“Is that a word?”
“Answer the question.”
“It might’ve been more than that.”
Definitely flirting. He cocked his head to take a closer look at her pretty face. She never blinked.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but I’m not sorry you’re single.”
“Separated.”
“Permanently and legally?”
“Heading that way.”
“Are you planning to go back to her?”
“No.”
“What if she shows up here and says it was all a big mistake?”
Kevin thought about that for a minute. “Even then.” Permanent damage had been done, and there was no undoing that.
“Then that counts as single in my book.”
“Does it, now?”
“Yep.” She gave him that look again, the one that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than interest. “I slept with your niece’s husband once.”
“Joe or Owen?
“Joe.”
“Before he was her husband?”
“Yes! Years before.”
“Okay.”
“So that doesn’t appall you?”
“Why should it? I assume you were both single and consenting.”
“We were.”
Kevin shrugged. “Sex happens.”
“Does it?”
“That’s been my experience.”
“What do you think about it maybe happening tonight?”
For a moment, Kevin was rendered speechless. But then he recovered. “I’m fifty-two.”
“Are you incapable?”
“No,” he said with a laugh. “All the equipment works just fine, thank you, with no medication required. But I suspect I’m a hell of a lot older than you are.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“That’s sixteen years.”
“A doctor who can also add.” She fanned her face dramatically. “You don’t find that every day.”
She was cute and sexy and funny and lovely.
And young. Too young for him, but he’d gone hard as stone at the thought of taking her to bed.
The confident way in which she’d propositioned him was a huge turn-on.
He was forever counseling his female patients to take control of their own sexuality.
To find a woman who clearly owned her sexuality was incredibly hot.
“So what do you say, Doc? Would you like to come home with me tonight?”
He’d never once, in thirty years together, been unfaithful to Deb. But his marriage was over and she’d moved on with someone else. There was no reason he couldn’t do the same. Under the bar, he slid the wedding ring off his finger and stashed it in his back pocket. “Yes, I believe I would.”