The light pink paper crinkled in Rae’s hand and she smoothed the edges with her fingers. She felt silly carrying the bouquet of tulips and lilies up to Cori’s room, but she always took fresh cut flowers on her Sunday visits. Her mom’s one great regret about living in the desert was that gardens didn’t flourish with the same burst of color, spring or not, as in the rest of the country. So Rae tried to take her a seasonal bouquet on a regular basis. Granted, that didn’t mean she had to do the same for Cori, but she wanted to avoid awkwardness. Cori would notice the flowers on the backseat and wonder if they were for her. She might feel put out that Rae had only purchased lovely blooms for her mother. That was what she told herself until the door opened and Cori’s eyes lit up.
“They’re beautiful.” She buried her face in the red and yellow blossoms and inhaled.
Rae felt the blood rushing to her face and hoped her tan would hide the blush. She’d never bought flowers for a woman, other than her mom. She didn’t know what to expect, but Cori’s reaction was perfect. She dragged Rae through the door by her lips. Not the greeting she’d expected after their heated argument the night before, but she wasn’t about to complain.
“I’m glad you like them.” The sentiment was a gross understatement, but her brain couldn’t come up with anything else.
Cori looked around the room. “I don’t have anything to put them in.”
“Oh.” Rae cursed the oversight. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
In fact, she knew exactly what she’d been thinking. She wanted Cori to like her again. Simple. Practicalities, like a vase, had escaped her. She searched the room and offered the plastic ice bucket as a possibility. “How about this?”
Cori held the bouquet in front of her like a baton, or possibly a trophy, as she walked into the bathroom. She ran some water into the container and arranged the blooms carefully. Her fingers lingered on a waxy red tulip petal. “No one’s ever given me flowers. It’s quite…lovely. A real…”
“Surprise?” Rae suggested with faint cynicism.
“What I meant was that I didn’t expect anything so…romantic.”
Rae hesitated. Flowers were romantic, and given what they usually meant, the offering seemed unexpected to her as well. She smiled and shrugged, sure her blush was obvious now. “I don’t know what to say.”
Cori kissed her lightly on the lips. “Don’t say anything. This is perfect as is.”
They stood, lost in each other, until the sound of the door being opened startled them into motion. Julie, looking worse for the party she’d attended the night before, stood in the entrance, her gaze moving from Cori to Rae, to the vase of flowers, then back to Cori.
“I’m interrupting.”
“No, we were just leaving.” Cori kissed her on the cheek and led Rae from the room.
“Be good,” Julie called after them. Then laughed.
*
The drive to Rae’s mom’s passed quickly with Cori sitting quietly, apparently lost in thought. She didn’t comment on the bundle sitting in the backseat. If it bothered her that Rae had bought flowers for her mother as well, she didn’t mention it.
“Anything I should know about your mom before we get there?” she asked as they entered an older neighborhood in North Las Vegas. The houses here were built wind-tough to protect against unpredictable desert storms.
Plenty, Rae thought. For instance, her mom had no idea Cori was joining them. Rae hadn’t thought to tell her. “Well, she’s lived in Vegas her whole life. She has an unbelievable collection of Dean Martin records, and she thinks I can do no wrong.”
“You must be the youngest kid.” Cori’s face was serene and her tone innocent.
“Why, do I seem spoiled?” Rae parked in the driveway and remarked uneasily, “This is it.”
The laughter in Cori’s eyes relaxed her a little bit, but she couldn’t help the knot of tension in her stomach. She was nervous. She’d never brought a girlfriend home to meet her mom. Girlfriend. The word brought Rae up short. When exactly had she applied that term to Cori? Furthermore, what would Cori think if she knew? Giving her new emotions room to breathe was proving more confusing than she would have thought. Life was simpler when she knew, with the certainty of unemotional detachment, what the outcome of her actions would be.
Cori placed her hand on Rae’s arm, stopping her from exiting the car. “Rae, I don’t know why you’re doing this, but thank you. It means a lot to me that you would bring me here.”
“Yeah?” Rae raised one eyebrow, too nervous to pull off cool. “I’m glad.”
She didn’t add that she would’ve spent the day doing just about anything, including fire-walking or eating actual mud pies, to enjoy Cori’s company for just a little longer. Hell, she might have even attended the Republican National Convention if Cori asked her to.
With her mom’s bouquet under one arm, and holding Cori’s hand, Rae waited at the door. Normally she would use her key, but with Cori along, that didn’t seem like the right thing to do. She tried for a casual smile as she heard her mom unlocking the door. If Norma Sutherland was surprised that Rae wasn’t alone, she didn’t let it show. She swept them both inside, dropped a kiss on Rae’s cheek, and introduced herself to Cori without skipping a beat.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sutherland.”
“No, sweetie, call me Norma.” She led them into the kitchen and took a vase from the pantry. “Mrs. Sutherland was an old dragon of a woman who terrorized my life.” She winked. “God rest her soul.”
“Mom never liked her mother-in-law,” Rae explained, avoiding her own feelings about her grandmother.
“Ex mother-in-law, I’ll thank you to remember.”
Pearl Sutherland had been a difficult woman during her lifetime, demanding, harsh, and more than a little unforgiving. But Rae had chased after her love. Her grandmother was the only thing left in Vegas of the absentee father Rae barely remembered. Eventually, their relationship had grown to one of mutual tolerance, if not outright familial love. Her grandmother had taught her a lot about discipline, dedication, and hard work, and it had pleased her when Rae took to the lessons with a fervor sorely lacking in her only son.
Rae’s relationship with her had been a complicated dance of mutual antagonism and protective admiration. At once proud and condemning of her, Pearl was seemingly incapable of saying “good job” without following the compliment with advice on how to do better next time. Rae didn’t know how to explain the emotional soup surrounding her memories of her grandmother. Cori already looked shell-shocked without hearing the details. Norma had that effect on people.
“You girls thirsty? I have some iced tea in the fridge. Rae, get Cori a glass.”
Rae did as she was told but resisted when they were ushered toward the table. If they sat down, her mom would spend the day grilling Cori rather than completing the chores she had lined up. Rae couldn’t imagine any task less pleasant than listening to her mom tell Cori about the time she caught her kissing Jessie Parker in their tree house. Or, worse, she would probably love showing Cori pictures of three-year-old Rae blowing bubbles in the back yard, bare-ass naked.
“Mom, what’s on the agenda today?”
Norma finished snipping her flowers and organizing them in the vase. “Cleaning. You sure you girls want to spend the day cooped up in that dusty room?” She directed the question to Cori.
“It sounds perfect to me…Norma.”
Rae could think of a hundred other things she’d rather do, and most of them involved Cori naked and panting. “We’re your willing servants, Mom. Show us what you need done.”
Cori took another sip of the iced tea she hadn’t finished and started up the stairs at Norma’s urging. Rae smiled after her, musing at her good fortune. Very few women would choose to spend a day of their vacation cleaning out someone else’s junk room. She started to follow, but her mom held her back.
“What’s going on, sweetie?”
Rae feigned innocence. She wasn’t ready to have this conversation. “What do you mean?”
The shift in Norma’s face was almost imperceptible. The lines didn’t alter, her smile didn’t fade. Everything just…hardened. “Don’t bullshit me. Tell me what that girl is doing here or I’ll march upstairs and ask her myself.”
Rae smiled bitterly. Her mom didn’t fuck around when she wanted answers. “I don’t know, Mom. She’s a guest at the casino and I like her.” She shrugged, trying to soften the importance of her words. She couldn’t dwell on their significance for too long or she’d drown trying to sort it all out.
Norma’s face softened. “Really?”
Rae glanced up the stairs, checking to see if Cori was listening. She debated holding back, not giving her mom any more information. In the end, she couldn’t do that. Norma had always been there for her, taken care of her, pushed her to do better, and held her when it hurt. “Actually, I like her a lot, and I’m scared to death.”
Norma patted her arm. “Sweetie, you were always so serious about everything, unwilling to take a chance unless you knew the cards would fall in your favor. Sometimes you have to let go.” She smiled, the edges tight, almost sorrowful. “You deserve to be happy. I hope you can let it happen.”
She left Rae standing alone at the bottom of the stairs wondering how something that sounded so simple could be so complicated. Just let it happen. That was all she had to do but, God help her, she didn’t know what it was and she wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to trust the unknown.
*
Cori stood on the top step and stared around a landing with several closed doors. No way to know which one was right without taking a peek inside. It would be rude to do so, but the discussion taking place below was enough to tempt her. Clearly Rae and her mom needed a private moment or they would have followed her without delay. She tried to tune out of their whispered conversation but their words bounced up the hardwood stairs. Her only options were to listen or cover her ears. The latter just seemed silly.
Rae liked her. She knew that. But she had no idea what it meant for them. Now Rae, a woman Cori suspected was tight-lipped about her emotions, had told her mom. The fact seemed significant. Perhaps Norma’s approval would encourage Rae to trust her emotions.
Cori pressed her fingers to her eyes, rubbing away the tired tension. What the hell was she doing in this house, about to delve into someone else’s memories? She was on vacation. In Las Vegas. She was supposed to be gambling. Or drinking. Or relaxing by the pool. Not thinking about the wonderful possibility of a completely impossible relationship. Damn Rae and her sexy eyes and that cocky, flirty smile. Even as Cori cursed their meeting the first day, she felt herself go soft inside. Rae had entirely too much impact on her.
Tomorrow she had to climb on a plane and sit quietly while the pilot carried her away from the woman who constantly occupied her mind. A hard ache pulsed in Cori’s chest. She refused to give it purchase but, still, it was there, underlying everything she thought, everything she did. She should end this foolishness now, for that’s what it was, this self-torturing time spent with Rae. It would be over in—she glanced at her watch—less than twenty-four hours. There was no way she could carry hope beyond her time here. Rae was not the one-woman type.
And Cori didn’t think she could settle for anything less.
The memory of that blond head clutched in Rae’s hands loomed again, sending a surge of unwanted desire through her body. Cori shuddered and closed her mind off to the distracting image. Intellectually and emotionally, she didn’t think she was willing to share Rae, but her body sure seemed willing to explore the possibilities. Fuck. That complicated things even further.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a touch burned against the small of Cori’s back. “What? You haven’t finished yet?” Rae’s voice was light and teasing.
“Not yet.” Cori placed a careful, thankful kiss on Rae’s cheek.
Effortlessly, Rae had chased the tension from her body. All the arguments in the world wouldn’t convince her to spend the day anywhere but here. Not when Rae’s palm felt so right against the small of her back and her breath made the hair on Cori’s neck leap to attention.
“We’re going in here.” Rae opened a door on the left, revealing a dark room filled with boxes and furniture. Dust particles danced in the shaft of light filtering weakly through the sole time-darkened window.
“Tell me why we’re doing this?” Cori asked.
Rae’s fingers moved in lazy, unassuming circles, teasing her skin through the light cotton of her shirt. “Every year my mom gets this idea in her head that she should clear out all this junk. So, we spend a day up here with her memories, clean it out, and put most of the stuff back because she can’t bear to part with any of it.”
Cori examined her surroundings. A bucket of cleaning supplies sat conspicuously in the middle of the dust and boxes. “Then I suppose we should get started.”
Rae took her hand and kissed the fingers. “Be glad it’s the storage room. Last week she had me dig up a busted pipe in her back yard. That was not fun.”
“Okay, if we’re going to do this some fresh air would help.”
Rae released her and walked to the window. “It requires a little persuasion.” She tapped the wooden sill gently with her palm and eased the window up. “There we go. Fresh air.”
“That window’s filthy.” Cori selected a bottle of Windex and paper towels. “I’ll clean it.”
“Guess that leaves me with dusting.” Rae armed herself with a can of Pledge and an old cloth.
Wiping the first layer of grime off the glass pane, Cori asked, “Do you spend every Sunday out here?”
She thought of her own family, her severe papa and meek mama, her myriad brothers and sisters. They avoided getting together unless there was no choice. Major holidays, weddings, her parents’ anniversary. Even birthdays were spent with friends, not family. She couldn’t imagine dedicating one day each week to doing chores around her parents’ house. Her father’s condemning glare was enough to drive her to drink. A fact that history had proven true more times than Cori cared to remember.
Rae shrugged. “Sundays belong to her.”
“Hard to imagine.”
Rae stiffened. “Why?”
Cori rushed to explain. She didn’t know what upset Rae, but she wanted her reasons for saying that to be clear. “My family—well, my father, really—is a nightmare.” She debated saying more, but decided against it. If Rae wanted to know, she’d ask.
“What about your mom?”
Such a simple question, but it pleased Cori no end. Even if nothing ever came of their connection, they were having the kind of conversation people had when they wanted to find out about each other. She tried to come up with a concise description of the woman who raised her.
“I don’t know. It’s like she’s not really there. I have memories, just little snatches of her smiling at me, brushing my hair, teaching me to make tortillas. But then my father appears and she fades away into the shadows.”
Rae’s relationship with her mom was a stark contrast. They interacted with care and tenderness, even in the simplest things. That was obvious after just a few casual moments in the kitchen. Rae’s mom was part of her life and knew who she was. Cori wasn’t even certain if her mom knew what she did for a living or which side of town she lived on.
“I’m sorry.” Rae’s reflection greeted her in the window as she slid her arms around Cori’s waist from behind. She rested her chin on Cori’s shoulder.
Cori turned into her and kissed her waiting and willing lips. This kiss felt different than the ones they’d shared before. Cori had the impression that Rae was trying to heal her heart, long ago damaged by rough handling and neglect. Or maybe Cori just wanted to believe that was what motivated her. She wanted Rae to think of her as more than just a good fuck. Okay, an outstanding fuck, at least from Cori’s point of view.
With a soft moan, Rae broke away. Her eyes were glazed and wanting. “My mom is going to come up here any minute now. Think she’ll notice if I lock the door?”
“I’m willing to bet she’d notice,” Norma said dryly from the top of the stairs.
Cori jumped backward, tripping over her own feet and thudding against the wall. She choked down the scrambling apologies of a teenager found fumbling on the sofa in the dark. Rae helped her catch her balance and gave her a chaste peck on the nose.
“Sorry, Mom.” She winked at Norma. “Just couldn’t control myself.”
Cori went back to cleaning the window, mortified as Norma laughed easily along with her daughter. She couldn’t fathom being so cavalier with a member of her own family about anything even remotely related to sex. They were barely tolerant of her being a lesbian and coped only providing she never brought up the subject. Yet here was Rae, clearly at ease, not embarrassed to have been caught in a compromising position. Thank God her mom had come up the stairs now, rather than later. Cori’s clothes had a disturbing habit of falling off when Rae kissed her.
“Hey, Mom, remember this trip?” Rae sat on the trunk she’d been dusting, a photo album open in her lap.
Norma leaned over her shoulder, smiling. She gestured for Cori to join them. “That trip was horrible.” Her laughter belied her statement as she fingered the edges of a faded snapshot of Rae lost in a giant pile of loose straw. “How old were you that year? Ten? Eleven?”
Rae’s eyes were distant. “Ten, I think.” She turned to Cori. “We were supposed to go to the coast. Mom had filled my head with pictures of the ocean. I was expecting warm water that went on forever. And sand castles and seashells.”
Norma ruffled her hair. “Well, we made it halfway there. Damn car.”
“The radiator sprung a leak. Not hard to fix, unless you’re in the middle of nowhere. Which we were.” Rae pointed at another picture. “We broke down just past a long dirt driveway. At ten it felt like we walked forever to get to their house. Looking back, I bet it wasn’t more than a quarter of a mile.”
“I felt so bad because I knew we wouldn’t make it to the beach,” Norma said. “But the second you saw those kids, your tired legs were forgotten. You were off like a shot.”
Cori felt like a voyeur as she watched the exchange of memories between Rae and her mother. She wondered how many times they’d shared this ritual. Her heart swelled that she was included, even peripherally, in the special moment.
The rest of the afternoon passed too quickly, with the Sutherland women revisiting events of the past as they polished old medals, read newspaper clippings, and dusted mementos. Amazingly, this day would be the one Cori knew she’d remember most fondly from the whole trip. If her own mother saved similar trunks of memories, it was unbeknownst to her. The lack of physical reminders of their family’s past was another sacrifice to her father’s impatient will. There was never enough time to take a vacation. Never enough smiles to take a snapshot. Bittersweet sadness covered Cori like a blanket, and she wondered how she would ever be able board the plane and leave this behind.