Chapter One: Dating Kristin
“Josh, would you mind terribly if we just stay in the hotel tonight?” Kristin asked JC when he called at six-fifteen. “There is a little jazz club...”
“That’s fine with me, Kristin.”
“It’s not dressy...”
“I know I made a bad first impression, but I do clean up nicely.”
“I didn’t mean...”
“Yeah, you did, but that’s cool.” He laughed. “I don’t take permanent offense.”
“I just don’t much feel like digging out a completely new outfit. Give me say...twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be there.” JC didn’t tell her he was already there.
He would have sworn every man in the place knew when Kristin entered the club – all heads swiveled in her direction. She was petite perfection and men could sense something beautiful and rare was in their midst. And what was even more amazing to JC was she was there to be with him. She wore the blouse from earlier with black slacks. She looked like an exotic flower.
“Have you waited long, Josh?” Kristin asked as she seated herself across from him.
He had waited 26 years... “No, not long.”
“I’m sorry about this morning. I tend to bulldoze...”
“Velvet Fist.”
“You have been talking to my aunt.” Kristin smiled. “You and I got off to a terrible start this morning. Want to start over again?
JC offered his hand and she reached half way to meet him.
“Hello, I’m Kris de Carlo.”
“I’m Josh Chasez. Come here often?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother, that line is older than you! It’s so decrepit it doesn’t even stink anymore.”
“I’m not what you call a smooth operator.”
“Good to know,” she said softly. “I prefer the direct approach.”
They sat there lost in each other’s eyes until the waiter came for their orders.
“Mineral water with a twist of lemon, please,” Kristin told him. “Josh?”
“Glass of red wine.” JC didn’t need hard liquor. She was intoxicating enough.
“Um…Josh, can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure, Kris.”
“If you’re going to keep my hand, come over here.”
He’d forgotten he had kept her hand in his. “I wanna keep it.”
“Then don’t stretch out my arm, come here.”
JC rose and slid into the both next to her. He did eventually let go. When the band started their set, he put his arm around her shoulders so she could relax against him. He laid his cheek against her silky, soft hair as she leaned into him.
“Mmm...I like this. Soothing music to end a hectic day,” she purred.
“Bad, baby?”
“I don’t mind doing this stuff. It’s the pompous good ole boys that piss me off. I hate being treated like the ‘little girl’. The jackasses don’t listen.”
JC chuckled softly. “Bet Aunt Martha doesn’t know you talk like that.
She tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “You’d win. I was always her perfect little girl – even when I showed up on her doorstep, broke, pregnant and alone.”
“He left you?”
“Not in the way you mean. Peter died trying to protect me and our baby in an earthquake.”
“He was a good guy.”
“The best.” She settled back against him.
He didn’t sense any residual mourning, no sadness. She had dealt with the loss, seemingly letting go of the bad and keeping the good.
“Your aunt said you had a daughter.”
“Chelsea. Sixteen gong on thirty. The kid amazes me.”
“You’re kidding. You have a sixteen year old? You don’t look old enough...”
“I get that a lot. I had her when I just turned eighteen.”
“You’re still young and beautiful, Kris.”
“Thanks.”
They were silent for a while longer. Until he broke it by asking, “Would you like something to eat?”
“I’m famished, but I don’t want to move.”
“Want to split an appetizer basket?”
“Mmm...Greasy, breaded, deep fat fried food. I’m there.”
“Mushroom, zucchini, clams...mozzarella sticks. Sound good?”
“Chels would pitch a hissy,” Kristin mused.
“She doesn’t like junk food?”
“You kidding? Any given day she’d sell me for a Pepsi. She watches it mostly – unless pepperoni pizza is involved.”
JC waved down the waiter and placed their order and refreshed their drinks.
“You’re a prince, Mr. Chasez.”
“How is that?”
“You let me listen to my favorite music, just chill why I use you as a pillow – and let me eat junk food without checking for extra pounds.”
“I like jazz. I like chillin’. I like junk food. And I don’t think you need to worry about the pounds.”
“And he knows how to talk to a lady.” Kristin snuggled back.
He crossed his arms at her waist and she accepted the embrace.
“Wake me when the food gets here.”
JC escorted her up to her floor and opened her door. Handing her the key card, he asked, “Still want to see that game tomorrow?”
Kristin gave him a drowsy smile. “Only if you promise I can have one of those dried out hot dogs and watery cokes.”
“Sorry, baby, Wrigley is Pepsi only.”
“Damn. Okay, I’ll suffer through.”
She looked so much like an adorable little girl; he had to stroke her cheek. “Sleep tight, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
“Night, Josh.” She reached up and kissed his bristly cheek.
When the door closed between them, JC felt desolate. He would have to wait hours to see her again!
JC had to grin as Kristin approached him the next afternoon. Wearing an oversized tee shirt that asked “Who’s playin’?” that swallowed her little body and a non-committal baseball cap backwards, she looked about her daughter’s age. Men in the hotel lobby still turned to look.
Was she drooling? Kristin wondered as she took in her date for the afternoon. The white tee shirt he wore clung to his well-muscled chest and abs. He was lucky she didn’t strip him out of those well-worn jeans and have her wicked way with him! Whoa! Where did that thought come from? She hadn’t been sexually attracted to any man since Peter...
“You look ready,” JC flicked his finger at her nose when she came up to him.
“I didn’t think it prudent to wear my Dodgers shirt.” Why had she drawn his eyes to her shirt? She wished she’d worn a bra...
“Wise lady.” Taking her hand, he led her to his car.
“You do realize that hat does nothing for you,” Kristin announced once they had been seated. The red and white trucker style hat and the several days’ growth of beard detracted from his male beauty.
JC merely smiled. “It serves its purpose.”
She reached up to tuck an errant curl behind his ear. “I know who you are,” she announced softly. “I haven’t been buried in the office 24/7 and I have a daughter who loves to dance.”
Did she realize what her tender touch did to him? His very soul shook at her touch! “It’s hard to be real sometimes.”
“I believe I saw the real you the first day,” she mused.
“No, baby. That wasn’t me. That was somebody trying to escape for awhile.”
“You can be real with me, can’t you?”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “I can, can’t I? You now how good that is? It’s outa-this-world, fucking fantastic.”
“I’m glad.”
“Kris, do you like baseball? I mean we don’t have to do this – I mean I’d do anything to be with you...”
“I was brought up on baseball. My father was a rabid Cardinals fan.”
It was a Cubs verses the Cardinals game. “If you’re cheering for the Cards, we’re gonna get beer dumped on us,” he warned with a grin.
“I don’t root for teams. I just let myself get carried away. Hey, where else can you scream and yell your head off and no one notices? It’s a great stress reliever.”
JC hadn’t thought of that before. “You, lady, are priceless.”
They yelled, screamed, and abused the umpires like the crowd around them. When the game was over, they were limp from spent emotion – and couldn’t have told you who won. They didn’t care.
At the car, Kristin turned and opened her arms to JC. “Come here, baby.”
There was nothing sexual in the embrace. They simply put their arms around each other and held on, comforted by close human contact. JC buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent, letting her touch soothe the ache in his soul.
“Kris...”
“Shh...” she hushed him gently.
He couldn’t have said how long she held him. The crowd ebbed and flowed around them, paying no attention to the couple. He drew strength from her and a rare commodity – serenity.
When she finally released him, she whispered, “I’ve been there too. Left adrift.”
JC knew Kristin understood. She understood him clear to his soul.
“Where to today?” Karen asked when her son came down for breakfast.
“Six-Flags. We have the whole day. I guess most of the people she is doing the lectures for wanted to check in their offices mid week.”
“You like Kristin.”
“For being kinda bossy, she’s pretty cool.” Liar. If he were truthful, he was head over heels in love with Kristin de Carlo.
“I’m glad.” Karen was pleased at her son’s interest in a woman who wanted nothing from him, someone genuine, away from the spotlight.
“It’s nice to kick back. Kristin is like a kid when she cuts loose.”
“Like someone else I know,” Karen mused.
“We’re a matched set.”
Kristin was game for any wild ride, any adventure. She didn’t mind being turned upside down, side ways or backwards. Getting soaking wet wasn’t an issue – which was a good thing when the teenaged boys they shared the water ride with deliberately steered to see how drenched they could get! JC had a sneaking suspicion they wanted to soak Kristin so her shorts and tank top were plastered to her. He was denied the softness of her unfettered breasts against his arm, but the boys were denied the view. Thank God she wore a sports bra!
JC helped her from the ride while the boys ogled her backside.
Taking several steps from the platform, Kristin shook herself like a wet puppy.
He laughed. “I’m already wet, thank you!”
Giggling, she fell against him and felt his arms enclose her. He liked to nuzzle her – and she liked him doing it. She knew if she dared to lift her head, he would kiss her. She didn’t know if she was ready for that.
“What color are your eyes, baby?” he asked suddenly. “Some times they look kinda black. Most the time they are kinda blue.”
“Peter called them midnight blue. Dark blue I guess.”
They began to walk, their arms around the other’s waist.
“It must have been tough to lose him so young.”
“We had two wonderful years. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, but we stayed together.”
“You fought?”
“No, his family. He was older and I was a tramp from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“I don’t see you as a tramp.”
“I didn’t have enough money to be trashy,” she mused. “We met at the family diner. I waited tables after school...Do you really want to hear this?” she asked.
“It’s part of you, Kris. It let’s me know who you are – how you got here.”
She grinned and bumped her hip into his leg. “I got here through the manipulation of your mother and my aunt.”
JC chuckled. “I am so glad they meddled.”
“So am I.”
He did kiss her then, lightly and briefly. “Tell me about Peter,” he urged softly.
“He was twenty-four and I was sixteen. He was a software developer. I’d never even seen a computer. His Beemer had broken down in our nowhere little town. You can bet Hank’s garage had never even seen a BMW, let alone have parts. Peter stayed at the diner until he could find someone to tow his car and someone to come and get him.
“To me, he looked like a movie star. Dark wavy hair and designer sunglasses. But I saw past all that. He was made of money, but he’d lost his soul. He’d grown up wealthy and was in the computer business to make more. That was so not Peter. He wanted to develop programs to help people to make life easier for the handicapped. He was a down to earth guy.”
“Hours went by and his friends never came and the tow wouldn’t come until morning. Peter pitched in wiping tables, doing dishes. I was so impressed as only a teenager can be. Here was this computer genius washing dishes at Martha’s Diner!”
A hero type. JC was not even in the same league, he thought, disheartened.
“He’d never had a snapping towel fight. I bet I stung his butt good before he got the hang of it!” Kristin laughed at the memory. “Here was this tall lanky guy nearly a foot taller than me and I was whipping his ass.”
“He sounds like a good guy,” JC offered.
“He was. Here it was Friday night and he was stuck in Nowheresville and having a good time being a regular guy. He called his friends. They had forgotten and went to a party. He left a message he’d stay the night and go with the tow truck in the morning. We lived above the diner. Aunt Martha let him sleep on the couch in the living room. The next morning before he left, he gave me my first kiss and promised he’d be back.”
“He did.”
“Not for weeks. I thought I was just another girl he’d kissed and made that promise to.”
“Why didn’t he call?”
“He was trying to decide what he really felt, he said. I was only sixteen and he had already established a lucrative career.”
“Large obstacles,” JC murmured. They had walked quite a way while she talked and she hadn’t distanced herself during the entire time. Her arm remained around him and when she looked up, she met his eyes. He wouldn’t say she was ‘over’ Peter de Carlo, but she had let him rest peacefully in her heart.
“Aunt Martha never said we were impossible. She did warn us that the world would be against us. She gave her permission for us to marry. I finished high school early, because I doubled up on credits. I got pregnant with Chelsea when I turned seventeen. We were so happy...”
“But his parents didn’t like you.”
“I was an ignorant country mouse who had manipulated their son into marriage. I never did understand how I could be cunning and stupid at the same time.”
Kristin halted to wrap both arms around JC’s lean waist. “I was six months pregnant when he decided to take a long weekend at a secluded resort...There was an earthquake...”
JC held her close, holding her to his heart. This part of the story was still painful for her.
“We were eating lunch...I guess the resort wasn’t built to withstand even minor tremors...Peter grabbed me and shoved me into this old solid fireplace...A timber caught him in the back and then the whole place came down. I was so scared...I felt like I was alone, buried alive... Then I heard Peter’s voice, could almost feel him beside me. All the while I waited for rescuers, hours, nearly a day, he kept talking to me – about how wonderful life was, how beautiful our child would be.” She looked into JC’s eyes, her own awash with tears. “Then I heard the people digging through to get me. Peter told me to make him a promise. He said he wanted our child to be whatever he wanted to be. I promised. It was maybe twenty minutes before I was dug out. I demanded to see Peter. They showed me his body. They said he had died nearly instantly when the beam crushed him, driving his ribs into his lungs and heart.”
A love that existed beyond death to comfort the living – that was an awesome sort of love.
“I love Peter. I will always love Peter. He was a wonderful man. But I know he belongs to my past.”
Kristin was telling him she was free to love.
“Thank you for telling me, Kris. It was a beautiful story. He was a special person.”
“So are you.” She kissed him softly then pulled away. “Feed me!” She taunted, “Or I’ll change my mind.”
“Yes, ma’am, boss lady!” JC laughed.
“What shall we do tomorrow?” JC asked as he prepared to leave Kristin at her door one more tortuous night.
She shook her head. “I have to work later tomorrow.”
“Late dinner maybe?”
“Josh, I think tomorrow I’ll stay in.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I...”
“You’ve spent every evening with me this week.”
“I want to be with you.”
“I think you need a day away – I need a day away – to put things in perspective.”
“No...”
“Please, Josh.”
“Are we still on for Saturday? We were going to go to the museum.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Can I call?”
“No. I have the closing of the conference Saturday morning. Basically, coffee and good-bye to those who stay over. I should be done by eleven or so. Meet me for lunch?”
“Any where you say.”
“Paris?” She giggled, teasing.
JC lowered his head to kiss her, but she ducked away. “If that’s where you want to go, I can arrange it,” he murmured against her hair.
“The museum restaurant. Say twelve-thirty?”
“I’ll be there, Kris.”