IT RAINED AGAIN the following evening, a heavy, torrential sort of rain that was more appropriate for spring than it was fall. Natalie barely made it home from work before the skies opened up with a gush, as if someone had thrust a knife deep into the belly of the clouds and ripped them open wide, spilling their innards like a gutted stoolie.
Oh, nice imagery, Natalie, she told herself. Good thing she’d finally convinced herself how silly she was being with all those mobster references.
She sighed to herself as she shrugged out of her raincoat and hung it on the coat tree by the front door. The downstairs of the house was unlit, made even darker by the thick clouds obscuring what little sunlight was left early in the evening this time of year. Maybe Mrs. Klosterman just wasn’t home yet, Natalie thought. But no sooner had the speculation materialized in her head than Natalie detected the faint scent of something mouthwateringly yummy cooking in the oven. Probably her landlady had just gotten busy in the kitchen and didn’t realize how dark it was outside, so she hadn’t bothered with any lights. So Natalie crossed to the nearest lamp and clicked it on.
Or, rather, tried to click it on. Nothing happened, though. So she tried again. Click, click, click. Still nothing. So she moved to the end table on the other side of the sofa. One click, two click, red click, blue click. Nothing again. Great. No electricity. Good thing the stove was gas, otherwise there would be no dinner, either, and Natalie, for one, was starving.
“Mrs. Klosterman?” she called as she made her way toward the kitchen. “I’m home! Looks like we’ll be eating by candlelight tonight, huh?” She smiled as she playfully added, “Oh, well, that’ll just make it more—” her words were halted, though, when she entered the kitchen and saw Jack Miller pulling a Pyrex baker from the oven “—romantic,” she finished lamely.
“’Yo,” he said by way of a greeting when he saw her.
She told herself that the polite thing to do would be to say ’yo—or, rather, hello—to him, too, but the word got stuck in her throat. Probably because she was so preoccupied by how he looked standing there in the kitchen in his rumpled suit. His necktie was tugged loose and hanging kind of off-kilter, as if he hadn’t been able to get the damned thing off fast enough, and had been rudely interrupted in the process. His hair was slightly damp, as if he’d gotten caught in the downpour, too, and was pushed back from his face in a way that showed off how long it was—longer than what one normally saw in a man who wore a suit to work, rumpled or otherwise. But what really caught Natalie’s attention was how he had one hand encased in an oven mitt shaped like a lobster claw and an apron slung haphazardly around his waist—a red plaid apron that was decorated with retro-looking cats.
The scene should have been funny, she thought. But her stomach did a little flip-flop as she absorbed it, and her skin grew warm, and somehow, that response didn’t seem funny at all.
“Where’s Mrs. Klosterman?” she asked softly.
“You got me,” Jack said as he settled the casserole on top of the stove.
Well, no, she didn’t, Natalie couldn’t help thinking. But it was a nice thought to have anyway.
“I just got home a little while ago myself,” he added. “I thought I heard the back door slam right after I came in, but I looked around, even looked outside, and I didn’t see Mrs. K anywhere. But there was a note on the table saying the casserole would be done in fifteen minutes and that there’s a salad in the fridge, and that she’d be out all evening. So now I’m taking out the casserole, because it’s been fifteen minutes.”
He narrowed his eyes at that. “But how did she know to put fifteen minutes in the note?” he asked no one in particular. Certainly not Natalie, since she sure didn’t know the answer. “How did she know I’d be home fifteen minutes before this was done? Especially since I’m usually later than this?”
“I generally get home fifteen minutes earlier than this,” Natalie offered. “The rain held me up today, though. Maybe she thought I’d see the note when I arrived home at my usual time.”
“Still, it’s weird,” he said. “I mean, if she’d put down that it would be ready at five o’clock or something specific like that, that would have made sense. But fifteen minutes? It was like she was here waiting for someone to walk through the door, and she jotted down the right number of minutes just before ducking out. But that doesn’t make sense, either, because then why didn’t she just wait for whoever came in and tell them in person?”
Natalie shrugged. “Gee, you can just never really tell with Mrs. Klosterman,” she said, as if that would explain everything. And to Natalie, it did.
Jack evidently wasn’t so easy to convince, though, because he said, “Yeah, but still…”
Nevertheless, his voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to waste any more words on the matter. He just tugged off the oven mitt and hung it back on the peg where it normally lived. He seemed to have forgotten the apron, though, because he made no motion to remove it. And Natalie didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing out that he still had it on. Especially since he looked so cute wearing it.
For a moment, they only stood on opposite sides of the kitchen staring at each other, neither of them seeming to know what to say. Finally, though, Jack broke the silence.
“Bad storm, huh?” he said.
“Yeah, this much rain is unusual for this time of year,” she replied.
“Made it get dark really early.”
“Even earlier than it normally does.”
“Bad traffic.”
“Really bad.”
“No electricity.”
“Not a watt.”
“Does this happen often?”
“Occasionally.”
And would they do nothing but make small talk all night? Natalie wondered. This was worse than when they’d first met and didn’t know a thing about each other.
“So have you had dinner?” she asked, hoping to nudge the conversation into a more practical, if not more interesting, direction.
He shook his head. “No, I’m supposed to have dinner with Mrs. K.”
Natalie narrowed her eyes at that. “So am I,” she said.
He seemed surprised. “Oh.”
“When did she invite you?”
“This morning, as I was leaving for work.”
“She invited me last night,” Natalie told him smugly, as if that were some kind of major coup.
He gestured toward the table. “But she wrote in her note that she’ll be out all evening,” he said. “Why would she invite both of us for dinner, and then go out?”
The answer hit Natalie before he’d even finished asking the question. Hit her like an avalanche barreling down from the Matterhorn, as a matter of fact. Mrs. Klosterman had invited them both for dinner and had then gone out because Jack needed the love of a good woman to set him on the straight and narrow path, and Natalie needed to get out more and mingle so she wouldn’t have to spend night after night at home alone. This was a setup, plain and simple, an attempt by Mrs. Klosterman to get the two of them together. Romantically together. Not that Natalie would ever tell Jack that. There were limits, after all, to just how much one was obligated to tell a person about his landlady—she didn’t care what the Department of Housing and Urban Development said.
“Gee, you can just never really tell with Mrs. Klosterman,” she said again by way of an explanation, hoping he’d buy it this time.
Although he still didn’t look particularly appeased by the analysis, he said, “I guess we might as well eat this without her then. While it’s still hot.”
“I’ll set the table,” Natalie offered.
But when she exited the kitchen through the other door, she found that the dining room table was already set. For two. With Mrs. Klosterman’s best china. And her finest crystal. And her recently polished silver. With fresh flowers in a vase at the center. And a dozen tapers in crystal candlesticks strategically placed on the table and the buffet and the china cabinet waiting to be lit. And a bottle of what looked like very good champagne chilling in a silver ice bucket. And a battery operated boom box that was playing soft, lilting Johnny Mathis tunes.
Oh. Dear.
This, she thought, might be a trifle harder to excuse with a generic Gee, you can just never really tell with Mrs. Klosterman than her landlady’s other idiosyncratic behaviors had been. Jack was too smart a guy not to figure out what was going on once he saw this. The minute he set foot in the dining room, he’d know they were being set up, too, and that their landlady was trying to hook them up romantically. And then he was going to run screaming for his life—or, at the very least, for the health and well-being of his manhood—in the opposite direction.
Natalie spun around in the hopes of intercepting him before he came in, thinking she could just throw some dishes onto the smaller kitchen table and sneak in here later to clear out the evidence…ah, clean up everything…later tonight. Unfortunately, when she spun around, she wheeled right into Jack. Which, okay, maybe wasn’t so unfortunate after all, because he instinctively reached out to steady her, curling both hands around her upper arms in the same way Rick had with Ilsa during that “hill of beans” speech at the end of Casablanca, when you knew he would love her forever.
So that was kinda cool.
There was just one thing different, though, she thought as she looked up at him. Jack was way, way sexier than Humphrey Bogart. And seeing as how Natalie had always considered Bogey to be the ultimate when it came to sexy men, that was saying something. Mostly, she supposed, what it was saying was that Jack Miller was now the ultimate when it came to sexy men. But those eyes, those cheekbones, those lips, those nose…ah, that nose…She couldn’t quite quell the wistful sigh that rose inside her when she looked at him.
Until she realized he wasn’t looking back at her. No, he was looking at the dining room table. The dining room table that was already set for two—and only two—with all of Mrs. Klosterman’s finery.
Oh. Dear.
“Uh…” Natalie began eloquently, having absolutely no idea how to explain this development without feeling completely humiliated.
“Oh, Mrs. K already set the table,” Jack said when he witnessed the horrifying scene. “That was nice of her. She even put out some candles for us. She must have realized the power might go out in a storm like this. That was really good planning on her part,” he added, thereby sparing Natalie from humiliation, mostly by being a complete blockhead.
And then he turned around to go back into the kitchen, thereby concluding the revelation portion of their show.
Unbelievable, Natalie thought. All that blatant, rampant romance, and as far as he was concerned, it was “good planning.” Wow. Women really were from Venus, and men really were from some dark dank cave where they had yet to discover fire. Even smart guys like Jack Miller were absolutely clueless when it came to matters of the heart. Here was incontrovertible scientific proof. Or, to put it in layman’s terms, here was a real doofus.
Oh, well, she thought. At least now she wouldn’t have to make something up about Mrs. Klosterman’s intentions. She could just sit back and enjoy the ambiance of a romantic meal, and be comfortable in the knowledge that she was the only one who appreciated it.
Once back in the kitchen, Jack clutched the edge of the counter and exhaled a huge sigh of relief that Natalie had obviously fallen for his ignorance about what that scene in the dining room was all about. Yeah, one thing about women—they could always be counted on to assume men were absolutely clueless when it came to matters of the heart. But any idiot could have taken one look at what Mrs. K had done out there and realized what the old lady was up to. She was playing matchmaker. And the match she had in mind to make was Natalie and himself.
Not that Jack would necessarily object to such a match under certain circumstances. Provided it wasn’t a match, per se. The traditional kind of match, he meant, where two people got married and started a family and ended up fiddling on the roof together happily ever after. He’d rather do his fiddling with Natalie in the bedroom. Just not happily ever after, that was all. Well, okay, maybe happily. Maybe very happily, now that he thought about it. Just not ever after. Because that whole ever after concept was something he wasn’t suited to at all.
He just wasn’t the flowers and candlelight and Johnny Mathis type. He liked women, sure. He liked them a lot. Maybe too much, which was part of the problem. He couldn’t see himself being tied to one for the rest of his life, even if she was cute and smart and funny and funky and reminded him of Fishin’ with Orlando. Natalie was the kind of woman who needed and deserved a guy who would fall deeply and irrevocably in love with her and be with her forever. Not one who was only in it to have a good time for as long as a good time lasted. Which was all it would be to Jack.
Yeah, maybe, possibly he could see it lasting with her longer than it did with other women. Because she was, you know, really cute. But he couldn’t see it lasting forever. Especially since he was only here for as long as it took him to complete a job, and then he was outta here for good.
And he certainly couldn’t see the two of them sitting down to china and crystal and flowers and candlelight on a regular basis. Not on any basis. Not unless it was perfectly clear that nothing, but nothing, would happen afterward. So as long as he played stupid about the whole romance thing, then maybe the two of them could get through the evening relatively unscathed. All he had to do was make his stupidity convincing. And hey, that shouldn’t be so hard, right?
Of course, there was Natalie to think about, he reminded himself. She for sure had to have picked up on what Mrs. K was trying to do. Not only were women always homed in on the whole romance thing, but Natalie was an especially smart woman. And, all modesty aside, Jack knew she was interested in him romantically. And not just because of the invitation she’d extended to him last weekend to join her for dinner, though certainly that was what had put him on alert. But since then, whenever he’d seen her, he’d picked up on little clues here and there that let him know she was thinking about him in ways that weren’t necessarily casual. Like the way she always said hello to him. And how she always smiled at him. What else could it be, but that she was interested in him romantically? People didn’t just go around saying hello to people and smiling at people to be polite. She had to be interested in him romantically.
Sometimes, a man just had a sixth sense about these things.
So that made it doubly important why Jack had to make sure she didn’t get any wrong ideas about this little dinner. He didn’t want to lead her on. That would be cruel. No, instead, he’d just break her heart right up front, he thought wryly. Because that would just be so much kinder.
And with that little pep talk—such as it was—out of the way, he went to the refrigerator to find the salad Mrs. K had promised, pulled off the plastic wrap and rifled through the drawers to see if his landlady had one of those big ol’ wooden spoon and fork sets that people used for tossing salads and taking up extra wall space over their stoves. When he didn’t find them, he settled for a smaller, stainless steel version instead, then carried the salad out to the dining room.
Where Natalie was putting a match to the last of the candles and looking incredibly sexy bathed in the soft golden flickers of light.
Jack stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her, the termination of his movements so abrupt that the salad kept going, nearly tumbling from his fingers before he managed to regain his grip on it. For a moment, he simply could not move from the position where he had halted, because he was so transfixed by the vision of Natalie. In profile as she was, her face washed in pale candlelight, she was quite the vision indeed.
Her dark hair, which she normally wore pulled back, fell forward over one shoulder, the silky tresses curling over her breast against a crisp white blouse whose top two—no, three, he noted with something akin to gratitude—buttons were unbuttoned. As she shook out the match and straightened, the garment gaped open a bit, just enough for him to see a hint of pearly skin beneath, skin that seemed to glow almost golden in the soft illumination. She looked up at him then, and smiled, her features seeming softer somehow, more feminine, thanks to the buffing effects of the lighting.
He had been thinking since she entered the kitchen that evening that she looked every inch the schoolteacher, with her starched white blouse and flowered skirt and berry-colored cardigan sweater. But the sweater was gone now, and the blouse buttons were undone, and the skirt flowed down over stockinged feet. Natalie had made herself comfortable. And there was something inherently sexy in that.
What was really strange, though, was that usually, when women made themselves more comfortable around Jack, they didn’t, you know, make themselves more comfortable. They actually made themselves less comfortable by putting on sexy contraptions like bustiers and garter belts that made Jack less comfortable, too. But in a good way.
Natalie, though, she took making herself more comfortable to heart. And her version of more comfortable was, inexplicably, far sexier than any other version of more comfortable that Jack had ever seen.
And it really made him uncomfortable. In a really good way.
“What can I do?” she asked when she saw him, her voice as soft and glowy as the rest of her seemed to be.
What could she do? he echoed to himself. What could she do? Oh, he could think of lots of things for Natalie to do in that moment. Like, she could unbutton the rest of those buttons on her blouse. And then she could slip that skirt down over her hips and legs and leave it right where she was standing. And then she could walk over to where he was standing, and take the salad out of his now numb hands and put it on the table. And then she could put her hands on him, and go to work on his buttons and his skirt…ah, shirt. And then she could sit herself down on the edge of the dining room table, and pull him in between her legs, and move his hands to her breasts, and stroke her fingers down over his bare chest and torso, and then even lower, until she could wrap her fingers around his—
“Not a thing,” he said, his voice sounding a little strangled, even to his own ears. He cleared his throat roughly. “You don’t have to do one single thing,” he reiterated. “I’ll just, um…” He remembered the salad then, and set it hastily on the table. “I’ll go get the casserole, and then we can eat.” And before she could respond, he fled back into the kitchen as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.
A funny thing happened, though, once he got there. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he had gone into the kitchen to do. Because he was too busy remembering what he’d wanted Natalie to do in the dining room.
Oh, man, he thought. It was going to be a long night.
NATALIE WASN’T sure whose idea it was to play Trivial Pursuit, but not long after she and Jack had finished cleaning up Mrs. Klosterman’s kitchen, they were sitting at the dining room table again, with the board unfolded and game pieces assigned and all the candles gathered together to provide enough lighting for them to see what they were doing. Jack, ever the gentleman, insisted that Natalie should roll first.
“Entertainment,” she said when she landed on the pink space. Oh, goody. That and arts and literature were her best categories.
Jack drew a card from the container and read, “Which movie took home the Oscar for best picture in 1972?”
Oh, that one was simple. “The Godfather,” she answered easily. Until she realized what her answer had been. And then she felt a little uneasy.
Ah, it was just a coincidence, she told herself. That stuff about noticing more Mob references because her landlady had put her in the right frame of mind. There was nothing more to it than that.
“Correct,” he told her. “You get to roll again.”
So Natalie did. This time she landed on a blue space—geography. Oo, ick. That was her worst subject. She braced herself for the question.
“What body of water connects Sicily to the Italian mainland?” Jack asked. Then he smiled. “I know the answer to this one,” he said without turning the card over.
That made one of them, Natalie thought. “I have no idea what it is,” she said.
“The Strait of Messina,” he told her. He flipped the card over to double-check the answer, then punctuated his response with a satisfied chuckle that indicated, Yup, he did indeed know the answer to that one. “My turn now,” he said. He rolled and landed on a yellow square. “Oh, I’m great with history,” he said.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Natalie thought as she pulled a card from the deck. Who wasn’t? “What volcano erupted with devastating results in 1669?” she asked.
“Hah,” Jack replied smugly. “That’s easy. Mount Etna.”
Natalie turned the card over. The answer was indeed Mount Etna. Dammit. “Where is Mount Etna, anyway?” she asked as she replaced the card in its proper box. “You being so good with geography and all, I mean,” she added teasingly.
“It’s in Sicily,” Jack told her. “Hey, whattaya know. That’s two Sicily questions in a row.”
Yeah, and one Godfather before them, she thought. She was beginning to detect a pattern here….
“My turn again,” he said, rolling the dice. “Sports and Leisure,” he said as he landed on an orange square. “Excellent. I’m great with this subject, too.”
Natalie ignored him and read, “What underdog NBA team won the National Championship in 1978?”
Jack smiled. “That would be the Washington Bullets.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. There was definitely a pattern emerging here. And she wasn’t sure she liked it.
He rolled again, landing on another orange space, but this time his right answer would win him a piece of the pie. “Wed-gie, wed-gie, wed-gie,” he chanted as Natalie drew a card from the deck.
Doof-us, doof-us, doof-us, she chanted to herself. Oh, good. It was a bartending question. Maybe he’d miss it. “What drink,” she said, “contains both Galliano and Amaretto?”
“Oh, oh, I know this,” he said. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Yeah, sure it is,” Natalie said.
“It is, I tell ya. I know this.”
“Mmm-hmm. Fifteen seconds.”
He gaped at her. “Since when? There’s no time limit on Trivial Pursuit.”
“There is when one of the players is a smug little geek,” she said.
“Hey!”
“Ten seconds.”
He started to argue again, thought better of it, and put his efforts into trying to remember the name of the drink. “Ah, dammit. What’s it called…?”
“Five…four…three…two…one.” Natalie honked out the sound of a penalty buzzer and said, “Time!” Then she flipped the card over and frowned. “A Hit Man?” she said.
“That’s it!” Jack exclaimed. “A Hit Man.”
“There’s actually a drink called a Hit Man?” she asked dubiously.
“Sure,” he said. “It’s a shooter.”
Of course it was.
“My turn,” Natalie said, snatching up the dice before he could get his mitts back on them. She rolled a six, which put her on a green space. Damn. Science and nature. She almost always missed those.
Jack pulled a card and read, “Which dark nebula is located in the constellation of Orion?”
Well, if nothing else, at least they were getting away from the mob questions, Natalie thought. Not that she had a clue what the answer to this one was. “I have no idea,” she confessed.
“Me, neither.” He flipped the card over. “The Horse-head Nebula.”
Natalie felt like banging her head on the table but somehow managed to refrain from doing so. Instead, she said, very civilly, too, “Your turn.” And then she tried not to flinch as she waited to see what he would land on next, and what his question would be.
He landed on pink. Entertainment. Surely there couldn’t be any more questions about The Godfather, right? She drew a card and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the innocuous question. “Down what street does Chicago’s famous St. Patrick’s Day parade march?”
Jack smiled. “I know this. Like I said, I have family in Chicago.”
“So then what street is it, smart guy?” she asked.
“Wacker Avenue.”
All Natalie could manage by way of a response was something that vaguely resembled a growl.
“Me again,” he said, scooping up the dice. “History again,” he said when he landed on a yellow space. “Hit me.”
Oh, don’t tempt me, Natalie thought. She drew a card, but found herself reluctant to look at it for some reason. And when she finally did, and saw what the question was, all she could do was shake her head in defeat. “What labor figure was last seen at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in the summer of 1975?”
“Jimmy Hoffa,” Jack said, grinning.
Natalie snatched up the box top to study it. “What is this, Trivial Pursuit the Sopranos Edition or what?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Jack admonished. “Don’t be a sore loser.”
“I’m not losing,” Natalie pointed out. “Neither one of us has any wedgies. We’re tied.”
“But I’ve answered more right questions than you have,” he said.
Only because the questions were all about his family, Natalie thought uncharitably. “Oh, and what a gentleman you are to have pointed that out,” she snapped.
His smile fell. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not behaving in a very sportsmanlike manner.”
Natalie felt properly chastened. “Don’t apologize. I’m not exactly being a good sport myself.”
“So what say we call it a draw?” Jack asked. “And do something else instead.”
Natalie looked around at their poorly lit surroundings, and listened to the rain pinging against the dining room window. “What else is there to do on a cold, rainy night when it’s dark outside and there’s no electricity?”
And no sooner was the question out of her mouth than an answer popped into her head. A very graphic, very explicit answer that featured her and Jack. Specifically, her and Jack upstairs in her apartment. Even more specifically, her and Jack upstairs in the bedroom of her apartment. Most specifically of all, her and Jack upstairs in the bedroom of her apartment naked. And sweaty. And horizontal. Though maybe she was a bit less horizontal than he, being on top like that and yelling Ride ’im, cowboy…
“Uh…I mean…” she began, trying to cover for herself.
Thankful that the dim lighting hid her embarrassment, she looked over at Jack…only to discover that the lighting wasn’t quite dim enough. Because she could see from his face that his brain had conjured the same answer to her question that her own had, maybe even right down to the ride ’im, cowboy, which meant he most certainly could see enough of hers to deduce the same thing.
Though, on second thought, maybe he was thinking something else, she realized as she studied him more intently. In fact, judging by his expression, his thoughts were even more graphic and explicit than her own. Which meant he must be thinking about—
Oh. Dear.
“We, uh…” she began, scrambling for something—anything—that might put different thoughts into their heads, “we should, um…we should, ah…clean up,” she finally stated triumphantly. “We should clean up the kitchen so Mrs. Klosterman won’t have to do it when she gets home.”
If she ever gets home, Natalie thought. What time was it anyway? She glanced down at her watch to see that it was past nine o’clock. This really wasn’t like her landlady at all. Then again, if Mrs. Klosterman was playing matchmaker, which she clearly was, who knew how late she’d stay out? She might not come home until tomorrow. Hell, she might not come home until April. And if she wasn’t here to chaperone things, and with Natalie and Jack both thinking graphic and explicit ride-’im-cowboy thoughts…
“Yeah, clean up,” Natalie repeated. “We should do that. Right away, in fact. Now, in fact. So Mrs. Klosterman won’t have to when she gets home, in fact.”
When she looked at Jack this time, he didn’t look embarrassed or aroused. What he looked was befuddled. “Natalie,” he said.
“What?”
“We already cleaned up so Mrs. Klosterman wouldn’t have to.”
“We did?”
He nodded. “Less than an hour ago. Don’t you remember?”
Now, how was she supposed to remember that, when her head was filled with ride-’im-cowboy thoughts about Jack, huh? Honestly. Men.
“Oh,” was all she said in response. Though then she did receive a faint recollection of standing next to Jack while he washed dishes, wiping them dry and stacking them neatly on the counter.
“But we didn’t put the dishes and crystal away, did we?” she asked. Because she was pretty certain they hadn’t.
“That’s because we didn’t know where Mrs. Klosterman kept them,” he pointed out.
Oh. Yeah. Right. Then Natalie noticed the china cabinet behind Jack, noted a few empty places where things had obviously been before, and realized that must be where their landlady stored everything. “Well, it must go in there, right?” she asked, pointing to the piece of furniture in question. “We can put everything back in there. It would save her the trouble of carting it all in here and putting it all away since I doubt she’ll be able to do that very quickly.”
And it would save her and Jack the trouble of ripping off all of each other’s clothing and writhing on the dining room table naked, since she doubted they’d ever make it upstairs the way they were both looking at each other right now. Heck, they’d be lucky to even rip all their clothes off each other, she thought further. Then again, there was a lot to be said for making love half-clothed, she thought further still. Not that Natalie had a lot of first-hand experience with such a thing in her limited sexual knowledge—or any first-hand experience with it, for that matter. But giving it some thought now—which, inescapably, she did, and for several moments longer than she needed to, really—it seemed kind of, oh…incredibly, outrageously erotic.
“We could do that,” Jack offered with an eager nod.
And for one brief, delirious—and incredibly, outrageously erotic—moment, Natalie thought he was talking about the writhing half-clothed on the dining room table thing instead of the putting Mrs. Klosterman’s china and crystal away thing. And in that one brief, delirious—and incredibly, outrageously erotic—moment, she felt a little light-headed. Not to mention a little warm. Not to mention a little incredibly, outrageously erotic.
But then sanity returned—dammit—and she realized he was only proposing that they do the putting away thing, and not the putting out thing, and she tried not to feel too suicidal over that.
It soon became clear, however, that the putting away thing and the putting out thing had a lot in common. Because putting Mrs. Klosterman’s china and silver and crystal away in the china cabinet meant that Natalie and Jack worked in very close quarters, since the china cabinet wasn’t especially large. Every time Natalie reached up to put something in the hutch, Jack seemed to be bending down to put something in the base, and their bodies kept bumping, their arms kept intertwining, and their positions shifted continuously into poses that, had they indeed been only half-clothed, would have led to some serious dining room table writhing.
So by the time they finished putting everything away, they were even more inclined to be putting out than they had been before.
“Gee, I wonder when Mrs. Klosterman will be getting home?” Natalie wondered aloud as she moved away from Jack and toward the dining room window, looking beyond it as if by doing so, she could conjure her landlady outside. “It’s getting kind of late.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Jack said. “She did say she’d be out all evening.”
Natalie just hoped that didn’t translate to all night. Because, gee, that would be Mrs. Klosterman for you. She was about to look away, then noticed something curious. The house next door had lights in the windows. And not the soft flickering glow of candlelight, but the bright, blazing light of electric lamps.
“Hey,” she said. “The house next door has electricity. How come we don’t?”
“You sure?” Jack asked.
He joined her by the window and bumped his body against hers again, and Natalie instinctively took a step in retreat, lest the bump lead to something else, something like, oh, Natalie didn’t know…writhing half-clothed on the dining room table.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Both houses should run on the same power line.”
He strode to the other side of the room and flicked the wall switch, looking up at the overhead fixture. But nothing happened. He went out into the living room, Natalie on his heels, and tried a light in there. Nada.
“Maybe there’s a blown fuse,” he said.
“For the whole house?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Could be the whole first floor is hooked up to one. It’s an old house. Fuses blow sometimes.”
Not since Natalie lived there, she thought. Mrs. Klosterman had had the whole place rewired when she’d had it renovated into apartments. Everything was totally up to code.
“Do you know where the fuse box is?” Jack asked.
She nodded. “In the basement.”
“Show me.”
She collected a flashlight from a shelf in the kitchen where Mrs. Klosterman always kept one handy, then led him down the rickety wooden steps—those hadn’t been renovated along with the rest of the house—into the cold, damp basement, through a maze of stacked boxes and discarded furniture, to the corner where the fuse box was fixed against the wall. Jack flipped the metal door open and shined the flashlight on it, then shook his head at what he saw.
“What?” Natalie asked. “What’s wrong?”
In reply, Jack began to flick switches, one after the other, until he reached the bottom of the second row, which threw the basement into light.
“They were off,” he said. “Every last one of them. Flipped over to the off position. Now, how could that have happened?”
How indeed? Natalie wondered. But not for long. Because she knew exactly how it had happened. And if Jack was even half as smart as she was confident he was, he’d know, too. Even a man who was absolutely clueless when it came to matters of the heart knew how a fuse box worked. Because he was a man. And it was a fuse box. And God had made both—along with power tools and football conferences and overpriced sneakers and V-8 engines—on the same day. The only way those fuses could have been flipped over was if someone had done the flipping. Someone who thought Jack needed the love of a good woman, and who thought Natalie should put out…ah, get out…more.
In spite of that, she said, “Gosh, I can’t imagine.”
“Yeah, me, neither,” he replied. Though she was pretty sure he was lying.
“It’s an old house,” she said, echoing his earlier statement. “Old houses can be eccentric that way.” And not just old houses, either, she added to herself.
“Mmm,” Jack said.
And Natalie couldn’t have agreed more. Because you could just really never tell with Mrs. Klosterman.