Chapter 8

"So this is it?" Claire asked.

They had turned into the entry gate of a condominium complex, an expensive-looking property with a ten-foot high cast iron fence surrounding it. The gate itself was automated, and it only gave access to the community through a key card or a resident's electronic go-ahead. Will pulled up to the visitor gate, where a large computer screen displayed a long list of last names and condo numbers.

"Yep, this is the place," Will replied. "I think it's way too expensive, but mom likes not having to lift a finger for the upkeep."

He punched a button and scrolled through the screen pages until he found his mother's name. Then he entered her condo number on the keypad underneath the screen, and a moment later they heard a ring tone through the speaker.

"Hel-loo!"

Kate's voice sounded cheerful enough to make Will suspect that the bar was already open.

"Hey mom, it's Will."

"Oh, hi, honey!" She turned away from the phone, and her voice sounded muffled as she addressed whoever was in the room with her, presumably Bob and his branch of the family.

"It's Will, and his girlfriend!"

Then her voice turned clear again as she spoke into the receiver once more.

"Hang on, I'll buzz you in."

"Thanks, mom. See you in a second."

He rolled his eyes with a smile, and Claire grinned at him.

"I'm sure you've not been called anyone's 'girlfriend' since senior year in high school."

"That's about right," she agreed.

"Well, you'll have to hear more of that for the next few days. Once that pack latches on, they don't let go."

There was the sound of a few key presses from Kate's phone, and then the cast iron gate rolled aside silently, granting access into the complex.

The condominiums here were all detached townhouses with identical pseudo-Tudor exteriors, and well-maintained lawns that were undoubtedly spray-painted every year. In the parking lots, Mercedes and Lexus were far more represented than Toyota or Chevrolet, and the residents that were out and about all looked to be roughly in Kate's age group.

"Upscale retirement condos," Will explained as they drove around the complex, adhering to the five-mile-per-hour speed limit. "There are a few yuppies living here, but it's mostly older folks who don't want to worry about mowing lawns and shoveling snow anymore."

"It looks nice," Claire said, studying the houses that looked as identical as eggs in a crate. "Safe and clean."

"That it is," Will agreed. He steered the BMW into the lot in front of Kate's condo and parked next to her Chrysler minivan. He put the car in park, turned off the engine, and then turned to face Claire.

"Nervous?"

"A little," she admitted. "It'll be a long weekend if they end up hating me."

"Oh, they won't hate you, trust me," Will smiled.

The trip north by itself already qualified as the best vacation Will had taken in recent memory. They had stopped whenever the mood had struck them. Instead of eating fast food on the run, they had gone off the beaten path and tried out some local hole-in-the-wall restaurants and diners. Instead of sleeping in a motel off some Interstate exit, they had spent a night in a cozy bed & breakfast in southern Pennsylvania, and then they had spent a good four hours at the Gettysburg battleground, braving the cold December wind, taking in the sights, and discussing history and politics. Will found that Claire was extremely knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics, and that she had a razor-sharp wit and a bulletproof understanding of logic. In a debate team, she would have been an unbeatable opponent. She had the ability to convincingly take both sides of an argument just to play Devil's Advocate.

"You're living proof that college degrees are overrated," he had told her when they were back in the car and once again driving north.

"How so?" she had asked.

"Well," he had explained, "I have two Masters degrees and a Ph.D. in English, and I have to check my arguments three times before presenting them to you so you don't find any logical flaws to rub my nose into. I spent six years at the most prestigious Ivy League school in the country, and I can count the number of people there who could out-debate you on the fingers on one hand—and that includes the faculty."

She had smiled at him, obviously pleased, and he had the feeling that this compliment was worth more to her than any number of remarks about her looks.

"Come on," he said to her, amused by her sudden flash of insecurity at the prospect of meeting his family. "You'll knock them off their feet, I'm sure."

They took their bags out of the trunk, released Oliver from the back seat, and walked towards the door. Before they were on the top step, the door opened, and Kate stepped out, arms extended towards Claire in welcome.

"Well, hello there. You must be Claire. We've heard so much about you."

"Hi," Claire managed to squeeze out before Kate had embraced the taller woman in a hug.

"Gosh, you're gorgeous," Kate exclaimed as she finished her hug and then held Claire at arms length to inspect her.

"Mom," Will pleaded. "Let us at least get inside and put down our bags before we start the appraisal process, okay?"

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Liebkind," Claire said, and Will's mother waved her hand dismissively.

"Don't even start that 'Mrs. Liebkind' nonsense, honey. You just go ahead and call me Kate."

"Kate," Claire repeated. "Very nice to meet you, Kate. I'm Claire Connelly."

"And who is this little guy?" Kate asked, stooping to pet Oliver.

"This is Oliver," Claire smiled. "He's my roommate back home."

Kate ushered them into the house and steered them towards the guest bedroom on the ground floor. Will was glad to see that his mother had quartered Bob, Christa, and Erica in the upstairs bedrooms, which meant that Will and Claire would have the entire downstairs to themselves at night.

"You two are in here, unless Claire would rather have a separate bedroom of her own. I can clean out my room and sleep on the couch for a few nights."

"Oh, no, Kate—that's not necessary," Claire said. "If anything, I'd be the one sleeping on the couch, but I think we'll be just fine in here."

They stowed their bags by the side of the queen-sized bed, and Kate left them 'to freshen up'. The downstairs bedroom had its own little half bathroom, and Will saw that Kate had replaced the old tub and shower curtain with a nice little Plexiglas shower stall since he had last spent a night in this room. Kate kept the downstairs bedroom strictly for visitors, so the décor was neutral Pier One stuff in inoffensive pastel colors.

The rest of the Liebkind clan was spread out in the living room. Bob and Christa sat on Kate's spacious leather sofa, eggnog glasses on the coffee table in front of them, and Erica had curled up on Kate's recliner. There was a glass of eggnog in front of Erica as well, but Will strongly suspected that it lacked an ingredient present in the other glasses. Nonetheless, he gave her glass a sniff as he walked over to the couch. Oliver trotted into the living room behind them, eyed the congregation with a wary gaze, and then made a beeline over to the kitchen.

"Hey, kiddo. Getting sloshed with the 'rents?"

"Oh, don't I wish," Erica said, reaching up to reciprocate his hug. "Hi, Uncle Will. Have a good trip?"

"We had an awesome trip," he replied. Behind him, Claire walked into the living room, and Erica beamed at her.

"Hey, Claire!"

"Well, I didn't think this was going to happen until just now," Bob grinned as he rose from the couch to offer Claire his hand.

"I'm Bob. And you must be the poor soul Will managed to talk into that mind-numbing drive from Knoxville."

"I am that poor soul," Claire verified as she shook Bob's hand with a smile. "Claire Connelly. It's nice to meet you."

"This is Christa, my long-suffering spouse," Bob said, "and I believe you already know the bookworm over there."

"Yeah, we've met," Claire said, winking at Erica.

Will and Claire sat down on the couch, which was wide enough to accommodate half a football team, and Bob dropped back into the cushions. Will was happy to see that Bob wore a new pair of jeans and a suitably festive-looking wool sweater, instead of one of his usual freebie t-shirts from politically incorrect establishments.

"Claire's bummed because there's no snow on the ground yet," Will announced.

"Oh, you may get lucky yet," Kate said as she emerged from the kitchen, carrying two glasses of eggnog and nudging a reluctant Oliver back into the living room with a gentle foot.

"Didn't you watch the weather report before driving up here? There's a cold front moving in from the Great Lakes. They say we should be getting one to two inches by tomorrow morning, and the ground is cold enough for it to stick."

"See? You'll get to do your snow angels after all," Will said to Claire, taking a sip of the eggnog his mom had just handed him. He grimaced and put the glass down on the coffee table.

"Good grief, mom, this thing is half rum. It's not even four o'clock yet."

"Oh, you lightweight. It's just two fingers worth, that's all."

"Alcoholics," Will offered to Claire in explanation. She replied by picking up her own glass and taking a healthy sip without changing her expression, looking at Will over the rim of her glass with what he decided was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"Looks like you're outmatched," Bob said with an approving smile in Claire's direction.

"Well, if you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em," Will said, taking another sip from his own glass. "But if that's only two fingers worth of rum, it's that one-fifty-proof stuff. If you dropped a lit match into this eggnog, I'd lose my eyebrows."

They spent the evening talking and getting increasingly buzzed on the contents of Kate's liquor cabinet. Erica, the only sober person at a table of drinkers, spent an hour petting Oliver and conversing with Claire before excusing herself to resume her love affair with her new computer. Apparently, the Powerbook had not been out of her immediate reach since Will had given it to her a month ago.

"You have a very intelligent daughter," Claire said to Christa when Erica had retreated to her upstairs bedroom.

"Yeah," Bob chimed in. "I tell folks that she's got her smarts from her father, 'cause her mom still has hers."

"I wish I had the time to home-school her, or the money to put her in a decent private school," Christa said to Claire, ignoring her husband's quip. "The Knox County school system doesn't offer much of a challenge to her. Most of the time, she's bored to tears."

"And she's only fifteen," Claire mused. "If she keeps building her intellect at this rate, she'll be flooded with scholarship offers by the time she's ready for college. We were discussing the logical flaws of Pascal's Wager," she added.

"You should see the books she has on the shelves in her room," Will said. "She's already reading stuff that would be over the heads of most college seniors I've known."

"Someone like her, you just give her the tools she needs, and then get out of her way," Claire said. Christa smiled at this assessment of Erica, and Will guessed that Claire had already won over his sister-in-law. Bob, too, was clearly smitten, and Will noticed that his brother actually sat up a little more straight when Claire talked to him.

He's sucking his belly in a bit, too, Will thought, suppressing a grin.

"So Will tells us you run a bookstore back home?" Christa asked. Will chose to withhold comment on the fact that it had been Erica, not he, who had furnished the family with all Claire-related intelligence.

"The Lost Savant, on Merchants," Claire said. "It's really not much, but it's all mine. I figured out a good while ago that I'd rather work for myself than anyone else."

"Good for you," Kate replied. "I was fifty before I figured out that the most tolerable boss to work under is the person I see in the mirror every morning. That, and nobody can fire me if I have a margarita at lunchtime."

"Perks of being self-employed," Claire smiled. "For me, it's the occasional sangria over at the Mexican place."

"I've been known to have a beer or two while I'm working," Bob said. "In fact, I think three of my four last novels were composed with the aid of the folks over at Anheuser-Busch. I should really start acknowledging them."

"Ever notice how many of our family conversations revolve around the use of alcohol?" Will mused.

"That's because we start drinking the minute we're all in the same room," Kate said. "It's a family tradition. Just be glad Aunt Sadie couldn't make it to the East Coast this year, or I'd be three sheets to the wind already."

"Your family is great," Claire said from behind the bathroom door when they were getting ready for bed, after everyone had retreated to their various rooms for the night. Oliver had only made three half-hearted tries for the comfort of the bed before resigning himself to the little blanket nest Claire had built for him in a corner of the room.

"We're completely dysfunctional," Will said. "My mom drinks like an Irishman, my brother and I are like oil and water on the best of days, and our dad would make us all look like saints if he was still around."

"Every family meets the definition of 'dysfunctional', Will."

Claire emerged from the bathroom, and Will found himself openly staring. She was barefoot and barelegged, and the only clothing in evidence was one of those oversized sleep shirts that were designed to look like they were pilfered from a guy. Her hair was flowing freely onto her shoulders and back, released from the constraints of the elastic band that had held it in a ponytail all day.

"Like what you see?" she asked with a smile, amused by his open-mouthed stare.

"Yeah," he managed after a moment. "On a scale of one to ten, you're about a twenty-nine."

She walked over to where he sat on the edge of the bed, pulled his head towards hers with a firm but gentle hand, and kissed him. It was a long, sensuous kiss that was both tender and insistent, and when their lips parted again, Will found that he was suddenly short of breath.

"I will not be able to sleep next to you and keep my hands to myself all night," she announced. "So what do you say we skip the part where we both try and figure out whether to take the initiative?"

"Agreed," Will said, and reached up to pull her head towards him.

They kissed again, and Claire slowly straddled him, lowering herself onto his lap. He reached around her and pulled her closer without breaking the kiss. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, as their lips remained joined. Her tongue probed to find his own, and he met it with careful enthusiasm.

They remained like this for a while, exchanging increasingly heated kisses. Will lifted her shirt slightly to put his hands on her hips, and then he ran one hand over her smooth belly and up to her breasts. Claire sighed as he cupped one of them with his hand and brushed his palm gently across her erect nipple. He watched as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back slightly, enjoying his caress. Then she reached up and unbuttoned her nightshirt, letting the fabric fall away from her breasts.

Seeing her mostly naked for the first time, the word "voluptuous" came to Will's mind. She was a stealthy kind of curvy, the sort that wasn't immediately apparent even in lighter clothing. Her breasts were full, just on the far side of a handful. Her stomach had just a hint of feminine roundness to it, and the perfect curvature of her hips practically begged for a pair of hands on them.

She opened her eyes again, and smiled when she saw that he was studying her form with badly concealed desire.

"No fair, mister. I'm baring myself here, and you have almost all your clothes on."

She started unbuttoning his shirt, and he helped with the process, finishing the job and peeling his shirt off to drop it at the foot of the bed. Then he pulled his t-shirt over his head and discarded it as well.

"Hmmm. You're in pretty decent shape, mister."

Will silently congratulated himself on his ability to stick to his biweekly gym visits. He knew he was no underwear model, but he exercised for toning, and he watched what he ate most of the time.

"Right back at you, ma'am."

Claire slid her open shirt off her shoulders with casual grace, and then slipped her arms out of the sleeves before letting it drop to the floor. Now all the fabric remaining on her body was a pair of hip-hugger panties. She reached for his face and resumed her affections, giving him a hungry, open-mouthed kiss that made him go from semi-erect to marble hardness in an instant. He grabbed her butt and pulled her into himself until their sexes were pressed into one another, only separated by a few thin layers of cloth. Even through the fabric of his pants, he could tell by her warmth that she was just as aroused as he was. She gave her hips a little gyration, grinding herself into him, and he suppressed a groan only with difficulty.

"I want you inside of me," she murmured into his ear. "I swear, if you play Mister Considerate with me right now, I'll rip off your pants and have my way with you."

Instead of responding—what could a man answer to such a demand?—he lifted her by the butt and deposited her on the bed before reaching for the button of his pants. He stripped off his Dockers and the boxer briefs underneath with a speed that he wouldn't have managed otherwise unless they were on fire. She smiled approvingly at the sight of his suddenly jutting erection, and then hooked her thumbs behind the waistband of her hip huggers to slip them off.

"Allow me," he said, and pulled them off her hips and down Claire's legs in a swift and decisive motion. Then he held them up and flourished them briefly before dropping them on the floor, and she grinned.

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A Bettered Life

Michael Lindgren

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