Free Old Enough To Know Better by Carolyn Faulkner Page B

the floor of the kitchen, and that wasn’t where he wanted to make love to her the first time, so he set her down and stepped away from her, panting and unable to stop feasting his eyes on her.  “Dinner tomorrow in Bangor.  Think of an out of the way restaurant that none of your friends are likely to go to.  I’ll be here at six.”  He gave her that look, along with his card, on the back of which he’d sprawled his cell phone number.  “I’m not kidding about wanting you to eat that food,” he restated in a tone that made her butt tingle.
    Then, with one last long, luxurious kiss that had him biting at her lips near the end that had him barely able to pry himself away from her, he was gone.
    The phone rang while she was just standing there in the middle of her kitchen like some dazed schoolgirl who’d just had her first French kiss.  She’d forgotten what a Grand Central Station this place used to be. 
    Of course, it was Jane.  “Is my son still there?”
    “No,” Cat cleared her throat, hoping Jane wouldn’t notice the hoarseness of her voice.  “He left.”
    “Good.  We’re going over to see Meme.”
    “Oh, that’ll be good.  Listen, thank you for the chicken dish.   It’s my favorite.”
    “I know.  Did you have some?”
    “Yes.  Finn can be . . .”  she searched for the right words, “very persuasive.”
    Jane chuckled.  “Yeah, he can be, when he wants something.”
    Cat bit her lip and shut the hell up on that one.
    “He’s worried about you, and so am I.  He said he thought you’d lost some weight and were depressed again, are you?”
    She cleared her throat again.  “No, just sad.”
    “You’re clearing your throat.”
    Damnit.  That was a clear tell that she was hiding something, but she never realized it until after she’d done it a couple of times.  Bloody hell.
    “Okay, really sad.”
    “Oh, Cat, I’m really sorry but you’ve just gotta snap out of it.  Get out and do something.  You’re spending entirely too much time at that house.  Are you taking your antidepressants?”
    “Yes, mom.”
    “Good.  Well, then we need to get you out some.  Lemme see whose turn it is to have the girls over.”
    “Okay.”
    “And lemme ask you something, since you’ve spent some time with Finn.”
    Uh-oh.
    “Do you think my son is gay, but is just scared to tell me?  I mean, he hasn’t had a girlfriend in so long I don’t remember the last one’s name.  And he’s never even brought a girl home for me to meet . . . ”
    Dear God.  The absurdity of the question, and who she was asking it of, made her want to snort in Jane’s ear, but she managed not to.  “I don’t think so, Jane. Maybe he’s just not comfortable with being sexual around you at all – hetero or not.  And you’ve told me yourself that he’s been flat out, building his business.  He doesn’t have time for a girlfriend.  You know how those nerdy computer types are.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t want him to be alone, you know, especially since I’ve found my Ted.”  Jane had the “happy couple syndrome” that made her want everyone with whom she was close to have the happiness that she and Ted had found.
    “I understand.  But I don’t think you have anything to worry about with Finn.  He was out in California to make his way, make his mark in the business world.  Probably, since he’s back here, he’ll settle down, find a girl and have a family.”
    That was exactly what Jane, who was dying to become a grandmother, wanted to hear.  “Oh, from your lips to God’s ears!”
    They made plans to have lunch in a few days, then hung up.

 
    Chapter Six
     
    Cat decided that the two of them, for what it was worth, were right.  She needed to get out of the house.  So she took a ride to the top of Cadillac Mountain and walked around up there a bit, heartily enjoying the fact that the mountain kept trying to blow her back off.  Then she walked along the Acadia National Park Loop