Chapter 13

Am I walking bowlegged like Pops? Nora asked herself with a delighted, school-girl giggle as she walked through the parking garage connected to the Phoenix FBI Field Office. If not, I should be.

For the first time in a very long time, probably since her wild days while in college, she felt like she'd had all the sex she wanted and needed.

What a weekend! It started Friday night when she went dancing with David and didn't stop until a couple of hours ago when he dropped her off at her apartment so she could get ready for work. She'd spent the entire weekend with him, most of the time naked, participating in one delicious sex act after another.

Surprisingly, he was as insatiable as she, maybe more so. She might be able to run him into the ground, but she'd lose a fucking marathon with him, and even as competitive as she was, it would be a loss she'd cherish. It was the comas, she knew. They reduced his recovery time and enhanced his stamina. He'd phase out for an hour to check on his investments or do some work on the Hanna and Boynton murders, and when he'd return to his body, he'd be raring to go again.

And talk about inventive! Ooh, she shivered just thinking about the many, many ways he'd taken her. Sitting, standing, lying down, it didn't matter, and he'd fucked her while out of his body, too. What an experience that was!

"How large do you want it?" he'd asked.

"Not too much longer," she'd told him, "but thicken it a bit." She'd felt the invisible cock inside her expand until she felt completely full but not uncomfortable in the slightest. When he started to thrust, though, she had him shorten it just a touch. Talk about a sex toy! "Does it vibrate?" she'd asked. Yeah it did. She felt her well-fucked pussy dampen just thinking about it.

David had varied their environment, too. They'd spent Saturday night on his cruiser on Lake Powell, one of nature's wonders to her mind. David's, too. He loved the lake. Sunday morning, they'd flown to Sedona to have lunch, and he'd given her a tour of his summer home surrounded by lush greenery and graced with the soothing sound of Oak Creek as it rushed and gurgled down the canyon. Bedroom windows strategically framed astonishing views of red-rock landscapes, certainly more interesting than the ceiling in the room, but still she saw more of the ceiling than the glorious view. She hadn't minded in the least. Sunday night, she'd cooked their dinner in his home back in Scottsdale, and he'd praised her culinary skills, comparing them favorably to his mother's, which pleased her as much as his appreciation of her body. Well, almost.

They'd fucked over the hood of the Rolls, in a large chair bouncing to the rhythm of the bee, in his bed, his kitchen and his mother's hot tub, and that was just at his home in Scottsdale. She'd joined the mile-high club in his Cessna, made languorous love in the stateroom of his Searay as gentle waves lapped against the side of the boat. They'd fucked under the moon while skinny-dipping in the middle of the night in a beautiful bay on Lake Powell, and fucking while racing around on his WaveRunner was a blast. Nora decided she enjoyed his big-boy toys as much as he.

He'd chased her around his summer home in Sedona until she let him catch her on the wooden deck off the great room that overlooked Oak Creek. She'd loved how the leaf-dappled sunlight had danced over his body and hers while they danced to yet another mind-blowing orgasm. He had to carry her to his bed, where she looked up at the ceiling and his liquid dark eyes and ignored the magnificent view framed by the expansive wall of glass he called a window.

"Staff meeting in ten minutes," Pierce growled as he walked by her desk.

Situation normal. Or was it?

She'd fallen in lust, but Nora knew lust wasn't the only emotion she'd experienced that weekend. Her time with David was idealistic, honeymoon-like, but unreal, like his weird but wonderful ability. A bacchanalia, for sure, but more, much more. She'd never felt so wanted or adored. It was only three nights and two days, but she feared he'd spoiled her for other men, and that frightened her. Falling in love with David frightened her, too. She railed against the emotion, but still it kept bubbling to the surface.

Neither had expressed the L word, but she was in love with the adorable freak, and when he dumped her to move on to a more beautiful and worldly woman, no doubt he would break her heart, shatter it into so many pieces she worried she'd never put it together again.

Her cell phone rang. David? She couldn't allow him to visit her, not at that moment, but she wanted to feel his ghostly touch anyway.

"Hello," she said, both with anticipation and trepidation.

"I miss you already," David said.

She melted.

"And it just dawned on me that I didn't mention something very important about me during our weekend together."

She didn't speak. Couldn't.

"I've been trying to figure out when it happened, but for the life of me, I can't pin down the moment, but sometime while we were together, I fell deeply in love with you."

Tears stung her eyes as the melting process turned her into a puddle. He loved her! David loved her! Dare she admit she felt the same way about him? No, not yet. She didn't trust her feelings and wasn't sure about his, not yet.

When she didn't speak, David continued, "We've been invited to have dinner with my mother and your father this evening at my mother's house. Please say you'll join us."

"Of course. I'll even let you off the hook and catch a ride with Pops."

"Great. I'll see you tonight then."

"Uh-uh. That's too long. Visit me sometime today."

"All right. Goodbye, Nora-love."

Dial tone.

Dammit! He even disappears when he's on the phone. Still, she walked to the staff meeting with a satisfied smile on her face and a spring to her bowlegged steps.

David Stanley loved her!

"So that's how it is," Carol said. She'd listened to David's side of his telephone conversation with Nora.

"Yep, I love her, Mom."

"Hmm. You love Nora. I love her daddy." She suddenly took on a serious look. "Perhaps we should stop messing around with each other."

"Hah!" He stepped to her and took her in his arms. Using his fingertips, he lifted her chin until she looked up directly into his eyes. "I'll tell you like I told Darla. I love Nora, but I love you, too. You and I have a history, Mother, a bond of love and sex I can't deny. I've known for years that I'm capable of loving more than one woman at the same time. Right now the numbers at three: Nora, Darla and you. On the other hand, you told me the other day that you'd give me up if Joe asked. I appreciated your candor. If that's what you're getting at, spit it out. If not, hear this. I have no intention of giving you up as long as you want me."

Carol looked self-conscious, as though she'd been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. "What happens if Nora asks you to give me up? Or to give up Darla?"

"If she asked me today, I'd tell her no. If she asks me a month from now, I can't say. I'll deal with the circumstances and how I feel about everything at the time. How you feel and how Darla feels will affect my decision, too. I know I'll want to discuss the situation with you and Darla before I make a choice. I also know if I had to stop making love with either of you for the rest of my life, I'd feel cheated."

"Cheating is the subject of this conversation, son. Incidentally, Darla told me about your new arrangement. Same Time, Three Months From Now, indeed."

"You disapprove?"

"No. I'd be a hypocrite if I did. Darla and I made a similar arrangement."

David's jaw gaped, and then he slammed it shut. Why should he be surprised?

Carol twisted out of David's arms and sat at a kitchen chair. "I worry about my daughter, David. She's like a junky with two monkeys on her back: you and me. She has a beautiful baby boy and a loving husband. She's created a family. Still, the old urges build, and suddenly she needs a brother or mother fix. She tried cold turkey, gave us both up for over two years. Frankly, she made me proud. Now she wants one of us every six weeks." Carol shook her head. "She seized on your suggestion as if she were drowning and it was a lifeline. Yesterday morning, she arrived here worried I might have said something to Joe about my incestuous past with her, afraid if I'd blabbed, that somehow the sordid facts would find their way back to her husband. Then she proceeded to seduce me and make the past the present."

"Hah, again. Seduce you! Not likely."

She blushed deeply. "I didn't fight her urge, I admit. Do you honestly think she can meet one of us every six weeks and keep it from Steve? Perhaps the more important question is should she keep it from him? She's cheating, David. Sneaking around behind her husband's back. Cheating, lying, deceiving, breaking her marriage vows. And because we wanted her just as much as she wanted us, we caved in to her urges, helped her cheat, and that makes us just as guilty as she."

"If you're feeling guilty, back away from both of us, Mom."

"Will you back off if you feel guilty?"

"Yes. Guilt is destructive, like jealousy. It's certainly not a virtue, as some would lead you to believe. Guilt crushes all my emotional energy, sucks it up as if it were a black hole. It's a time thing for me. Guilt leaves me feeling immobilized in the present by something I did in the past. In other words, it's wasted energy. You didn't answer my question. Are you feeling guilty?"

She laid her head on her arms on the table. Dammit, George, if you hadn't left me, if you hadn't had the audacity to go out and get yourself killed, I wouldn't need to deal with this. "No," she said softly to David, straightened up and looked directly at him. "But I should." She shook her head. "I'm the same as you. I love Joe, but I love you, too, and I love Darla, and I don't want to give up any of you."

"Have you discussed your capacity for love with Joe?"

"Only in dribs and drabs, but I've opened the subject as wide as a two-car garage. So far he's refused to drive in. For instance, I told him I let you finger me while you out of your body when you were a teenager."

"You did! What did he say?"

"When I asked him if he thought badly of me for what I let you do, he told me he'd be a hypocrite if he condemned me. I took his comment to mean he'd had an incestuous experience of some kind in his past, but I didn't push him to elaborate. The subject hasn't come up again since."

"Do you think he and Nora... ?"

"No. If I were to guess, I'd say the experience took place between Joe and his mother, not his daughter."

David thought back over his many visits with Nora when her father was with her. They were very open with each other, and Nora was casual about her state of dress around him, but... no, if they were ever incestuous, whatever happened hadn't developed into a full-blown love affair like David enjoyed with his mother and sister.

"Peel another surface off Joe's protective outer shell, Mom. We need more information before we chart a course of action. For what it's worth, I agree with your assessment regarding Darla and her husband. She's cheating on him, but you and I are too embedded in her nature for her to give us up completely. Knowing how she is, I suggested the periodic meetings to protect her from herself, but she surprised me with the frequency she selected. Then she compounded the problem by making a similar arrangement with you. Meeting one of us every six weeks will get her in hot water with Steve eventually. Meeting one of us every six months would be a more manageable solution."

David slumped onto the chair next to his mother and took her hand in his. "I understand Darla's nature because mine isn't much different. Knowing I won't resist if either Darla or you want me, I can't and won't marry someone who doesn't know my nature. Doing so wouldn't be fair to either of us. I suspect you're more like me than Darla when you consider a possible future with Joe. Correct?"

"Uh-huh, maybe more so. I feel like I've been torn in three pieces. Darla has a piece of me I can't reveal to Joe because she forbids it. I sensed I could reveal the piece of me you hold in your hands, but if I do, Joe will feel obligated to inform Nora. He's a daddy first, my lover second, and I love that part of him dearly because I'm the same way. So, if and when you and I reveal we love each other more than a mother and son should, we'll need to make the announcement together."

"I see what you mean," David remarked with a nod.

"I love Joe, David. I love him a lot, but he hasn't asked me to marry him or even live with him, so I've felt no pressing need to tell him anything, not yet. But, I suspect I'll soon be duty-bound to tell all." She snorted a scornful laugh. "The rascal loves me to pieces, David, but he's still grappling with the misguided notion that I might be too good for him, which is silly, downright silly. He'll come around, though, and when he does, he'll pop the question." She squeezed her son's hand. "And I won't be able to say yes until he knows about my long-term love affair with my children. It's a real dilemma. If I tell him before you and Nora develop a strong enough bond to overcome the blow, I could destroy your chance for happiness. What's more, if Joe and Nora know about Darla and me, the odds that Steve will find out decrease to even money. I could destroy my daughter's happy life, too."

She paused and looked up at the ceiling. "This is your fault, George. Waddaya think I should do about it? Come on; spit it out. Make yourself useful for a change." She turned to her son and smiled. "He never gives me any answers. Useless as tits on a boar hog, that's what he is."

"I have the same dilemma, Mom. I can't tell all for the same reasons, and from watching the knot of deceit Darla has created with her marriage, I know remaining silent isn't the answer." He, too, glanced at the ceiling. "Give us a clue, Dad."

The phone rang. Both mother and son jumped at the sound, and then they broke out with laughter. Carol was still laughing when she picked up the phone.

"What's so funny?" Denise asked.

"Denise, please ignore my hilarity," Carol said when she gained a little control. "You would've had to be here to understand. How are you?"

"I'm fine, and being there is the subject of my call. I'll be in Phoenix the day after tomorrow for a few days. Colleen is coming with me. I'm scheduled for my final interview at A.S.U., and Colleen has some interviews set up with some accounting firms for a potential job. We've decided to move to Phoenix if we can."

"Wonderful! I'm dying to meet Colleen. Would it be too awkward if the two of you stayed here with me? I do have a comfortable guest suite, as you know, and you're certainly welcome."