Give Him the Ooh-la-la by Lise McClendon

Author:Lise McClendon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thalia Press

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The talk of wine made them thirsty. Pascal found a bottle of champagne someone had brought for Christmas, the good stuff, the Veuve. He had been eyeing it for days. He popped the cork and poured them each a flute. Merle had missed dinner so she threw together a salad with goat cheese and they sat in the kitchen. Pascal tipped his head, watching her. She chewed a bite of lettuce and swallowed.

“What?” she asked.

“You said you didn’t trust me.”

She set down her fork. “Sometimes you make it hard. You don’t tell me anything. My mind goes on hyperdrive. I’m back at the window on the second floor, finding your binoculars. Feeling --”

“Betrayed,” he said.

“Like I don’t even know you.”

“I don’t like that.” He took her hand again, rubbing his rough thumb over the back of it. “You do know me, blackbird. Don’t you?”

In moments like this the suspicions faded. That was what worried her, that emotion-laden animal side that simply spaced out the memory of bad stuff when Sex-on-a-Stick was close at hand. She hated that her hormones could turn her mind to mush, that he could do that. Could she rationally say she knew him? Knew his heart, his soul? Knew his goodness?

The last two years had rocked her. She was unbalanced, unsure of what she wanted, what she needed to move forward. Did she need a man? Besides Tristan, probably not, but would that always be the case? Did she need this man, delicious as he was? Was having a transatlantic love affair more trouble than it was worth if it brought unwelcome light onto shady relatives? How would Tristan feel about his hero Pascal finding even more evidence that his grandfather was a first class piece of shit? Bad enough the boy’s father had been unfaithful and left them to clean up his messes. Did she want Pascal to dig deeper? Did she have any choice in the matter?

Pascal was massaging her hand harder as if to bring her back to the present. Two lines of worry deepened between his eyebrows. He did care about her, for her. Annie said so, she used the ‘L’ word, love. Merle looked down at his big, calloused hand then closed her eyes and tried to peer into her heart.

Whatever was there was shrouded, dusky in twilight, still worrying about the past while preparing for the future.

So she did the only thing she could think of: She twisted her hand around to hold his and raised his knuckles to her lips.

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