inhaled the faint scent of her essence. Then she returned to her
methodical touching, finally reaching Leo’s nipple. After circling
it several times, she nudged the covers back to let the light from
the hallway stream across Leo’s chest.
Leo measured each breath as Claudia moved delicately
from one nipple to the other and back. The significance of the
moment—Claudia had never touched another woman before—
heightened her sensitivity, stirring not only her breasts but all of
her sexual senses.
Claudia didn’t exhibit even the slightest bit of trepidation or
doubt about what she was doing as she lowered her face and took
a nipple between her lips. As she gently sucked, her hand eased
lower and through the wetness that had gathered.
Leo was anxious at first about how her body would answer,
because no one had touched her intimately since Melissa. Over
the past few years she had honed her sexual response with her
own hand, but that didn’t hold a candle to the way it was reacting
now. She was pulled into a rhythm of rising and falling as they
both hissed with pleasure. When the tingling started between
her legs, she drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she rode
the wave over the top.
As her climax ebbed she seized Claudia’s face and pulled her
into another kiss. “I love you,” she said again, not caring whether
or not Claudia answered in kind. She was past the point of
guarding her feelings.
Claudia did answer, but not in words. Moaning as she rolled
onto her back, she pulled Leo on top and lustfully clutched
handfuls of the flesh on her backside and shoulders.
Leo took charge, lowering her mouth to the breast she had
worshipped in the photograph. It was all she could do not to
devour it. She tugged on the nipple with her teeth as Claudia
cried out, and rolled the other between her thumb and forefinger.
When Claudia’s hips bucked into her chest, she shifted lower
still, settling between her thighs where the first swipe of her
tongue elicited another moan. Looping one hand over Claudia’s
thigh, she spread the labia and fervently lapped deeper into the
folds. This time she was patient, backing off twice when Claudia’s
climax seemed imminent.
When she finally allowed Claudia to release, it came with a
muffled scream as she thrashed against the pillows.
Leo held on and kept up her voracious assault on the swollen
knot of nerves until a hand forcefully pushed her away.
“You’re killing me,” Claudia rasped.
“I thought it was the other way around,” Leo answered, her
head collapsing in Claudia’s lap. “That’s the most wonderful
thing I’ve ever done.”
She managed to drag her body alongside Claudia’s and pull
the quilt to their chins where they kissed for what felt like hours.
Then with one arm under Claudia’s neck and another around her
waist, she closed her eyes and surrendered peacefully to sleep for
the first time in three nights.
Chapter 23
Leo heaved the suitcase onto her guest bed and popped the
latches. The toiletries were right where Claudia had said, beneath
the shoes and zipped inside a vinyl pouch. She dumped the items
out on the bed, shuddering to see the diaphragm in a clear plastic
bag, along with a tube of spermicidal cream.
“Did you find it?” Claudia called from the shower.
She raced back into the bathroom and passed a small bottle
around the curtain. “Here.”
“Thanks. I’m worried about you, Leo. What kind of woman
doesn’t keep conditioner in her shower?”
“Why would I have conditioner? I hardly have any hair.” She
toweled her short locks, which had dripped down her shirt as she
dashed from the shower to retrieve Claudia’s suitcase from the
car. Her own wide grin greeted her from a circle on the steamy
mirror. Everything in her life that mattered was nearly perfect.
“Do you need anything else I don’t have?”
The pipes in the old house groaned as Claudia turned off
the shower. “Towels?” She flung aside the curtain and wrung the
water from her long hair.
Though a fresh towel was already in her hand, Leo froze as
dripping wet. She helped her dry off and followed her into the
guest room. “I have a sweatshirt if you want it.”
“I’ll take you up on that. All I have in my suitcase are shorts
and floral dresses.”
“I like you just fine in that towel.” She retrieved the sweatshirt
and stared indulgently as Claudia got dressed. “Do you want to
hit one of the after-Christmas sales and pick up a few things?”
Claudia’s face fell. “I don’t think so. I can only stay a couple of
days. I’m sure the shit’s already hit the fan because Mike probably
called his mother, and now I bet his mother and my mother are
having it out over whose fault this is. Except if I know Mom, she’s
probably blaming it all on me too. I’ll have to go back and face
the music.”
Leo’s spirits plummeted as it crossed her mind this might
only have been a fleeting escape for Claudia. “But you aren’t
going back to Cambria to live?”
“Let’s go talk.”
With a sinking feeling, she took Claudia’s hand and allowed
herself to be led into the den. Though they slumped side by side
on the couch, Leo was anything but relaxed.
Claudia laced her fingers through Leo’s. “You remember that
first day we walked along the wharf and you talked about your
dreams? You said you planned in your head all the things you
wanted to do and how you were going to make it happen. That’s
what I need to do now.”
Leo squeezed her hand and swallowed hard. “This is part of
your plan, though…right?”
“Of course it is, but I have to warn you that I don’t have my
head on straight yet. I screwed up with Mike and I’ve wasted
the past two years trying to arrange a life that never really had
a chance. I should have realized a long time ago that it wasn’t
going to work because we had different expectations.”
“Right, he expected you to do things his way.”
“And I expected him to do things my way. But the real
problem was that neither of us was willing to put the other one
first…which is something people are supposed to do when they
really love each other. It hit me on Thanksgiving Day that I felt
that way about you, not him.”
Leo pulsed with relief to hear Claudia admit her feelings. “I
feel that way about you too.”
“I know you do,” she said, her smile breaking the tension.
“But our dreams are bigger than who we’re going to love. You
want to do magazine layouts and I want to watch kids light up
whenever they learn something new. We need those things to
be happy, and what really matters is that we help each other get
them.”
“You’ve done that already for
me.”
“And I’m sure you’d do it for me. But I can’t make all of these
changes overnight. I’ve totally destroyed the trust of my family. I
have to show them I’m not doing this just on a whim.” She lifted
Leo’s hand and brushed her lips across her knuckles. “And I need
to prove it to you too.”
From a purely rational perspective, Leo understood what
Claudia needed and why. Her whole life had turned on its head
overnight. It didn’t matter how long it took for her to be certain
of what she wanted, as long as they stayed close. What scared her,
though, was the uncertainty of Claudia’s resolve should her family
not approve, which seemed likely. Then there was the matter of
Mike. What if he had a change of heart and decided to give her
the support she needed? “What do you need from me?”
“Just some patience and time. I need you to keep doing what
you’re doing. Chase your own dreams, but help me with mine.
I’m definitely going to apply for one of the jobs at Melrose next
year. Until that happens, though, I might have to stay in Cambria
with my folks.”
“You can stay here.”
Claudia shook her head. “No, I can’t. That’s the other part of
my dream. All my life, I’ve wanted to show that I could make it
by myself. I can’t reject that kind of life with Mike and then turn
around and accept it with you.”
“But what’s the difference between staying with your family
and staying with me? You’d have a lot more independence
here.”
“Maybe, but if I moved in here while I waited to get a job,
how could I ever justify moving back out? You’d feel like I didn’t
love you.”
Claudia was right that she would move heaven and earth to
persuade her to stay if she ever came to live here. And that was
the second time Claudia had mentioned love, though neither
reference had been direct or unequivocal. Still, Leo took comfort
in the roundabout insinuation. “So you’d move to Monterey if
you got a job?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“But what if you didn’t?”
“If I didn’t”—Claudia spun so that she could wrap her arms
around Leo’s neck—“I’d wear out the road between here and
there and keep trying until I did.”
With tears streaming down her face, Claudia stepped around
Leo in the kitchen to drop the onion peels into the trash. “Okay,
what else can I do?”
Leo tossed the chopped onions into the bowl of ground beef,
eggs, tomatoes and bread crumbs, and mixed it with her hands.
“Everything else is ready. I just have to bake this for about an
hour.”
“I’ve never made meat loaf in my life. If it weren’t for the
school cafeteria, I’m not sure I ever would have eaten it either.”
“Did you have Cornish hen every night at your house?”
“That was actually my father’s favorite and one of the few
things my mother made really well. She didn’t like to cook but she
was always trying these recipes her friends gave her. Except she’d
skip the tedious parts, like taking the seeds out of the tomatoes or
flipping something in the marinade every half hour.”
“That’s funny. The way you describe her, I thought she would
be a meticulous cook.”
“No, she just wants to look that way. When she has dinner
parties she buys most of it already prepared, puts it in her chafing
dishes and takes credit for it. My dad says people figured that out
years ago.”
Leo chuckled and patted the mixture into a loaf. She checked
her watch as she closed the oven, then washed her hands. “We
have time for a walk if you want to get out of the house for a
while.”
They had been holed up for two straight days, either making
love or lounging lazily on the couch to give their bodies a rest.
Claudia had talked exhaustively about how she expected to handle
the uproar once she returned home. While her parents digested
the news she would proceed with getting her application on file
in all of the school districts around Monterey. In the meantime,
she would go back to her high school and summer job, which was
typing up medical records from her father’s handwritten patient
notes. At least she would be free on the weekends to visit Leo,
which she planned to do every two weeks.
On their familiar route down to the wharf, Claudia wore
Leo’s smallest jacket, a flannel-lined barn coat that swallowed
her. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me wait two more
weeks to see the pictures.”
“I still haven’t done the application. I couldn’t concentrate
because you were gone, and now I can’t concentrate because
you’re here.”
“Are they good?”
“They’re fantastic.”
“Even the nude?”
Leo sighed dreamily. “Especially the nude.”
“You said shooting nudes wasn’t sexual.”
“I said it wasn’t sexual when I didn’t have a relationship with
the subject. It so happens I have a relationship with you.”
She squinted and feigned her best accusatory glare. “Maria
was right.”
“It was your idea!”
“You tricked me, though. You got me all hot and bothered
talking about seeing those other women naked.”
The wharf wasn’t as busy during the holiday week, but several
tourists strolled about.
A man’s voice called from behind. “Miss Galloway?”
It was the Eriksons from Melrose, Andrew and Susan, and
their son Jeremy. Claudia was delighted to see them together
again. “Hello.”
Leo shot her a worried look, obviously aware this was a boy
from her school. “I’ll meet you in the art gallery.”
“No, stay here,” she whispered, turning back to the family.
“Nice to see you all again. How are you, Jeremy?”
“Fine.” The boy beamed at her, his ears turning redder by
the second. Sandy had warned her about the children getting
silly whenever they saw her outside of the school, as if amazed to
realize teachers actually had lives.
“Do you remember Miss Westcott? She took our pictures at
school.”
He grinned at Leo and nodded, but was too bashful to
speak.
“We just got his school pictures last week,” Mrs. Erikson said.
“They were wonderful.”
“Thank you,” Leo said, “but I can’t take credit. He’s a
handsome fellow.”
The praise was Jeremy’s undoing, and he buried his face in
his mother’s side.
“Someone’s being bashful,” his father said. “Jeremy really
enjoyed having you as his teacher. He told us they had a party
when you left.”
“That’s right. I finished my internship about three weeks
ago.”“Will you be teaching around here?”
“I hope so. I’ll have to see what comes open next year.”
Mrs. Erikson piped up, smoothing her son’s hair. “Jeremy
would love it if he got to have you in four
th grade. So would
we.”Claudia pictured herself in Joan Palmer’s classroom and
leaned down to smile at the boy. “There’s nothing I’d like better
than to have you in my class again next year.”
Mr. Erikson moved next to his wife and put his arm around
her waist, a loving gesture that seemed entirely natural. Obviously,
they had worked out their differences, at least for now. “We don’t
want to keep you from your afternoon, but Jeremy was really
excited to see you again.”
“I’m very glad I got to see you all. Take care, and Happy New
Year.” She gave a final wave to Jeremy, who showed a burst of
excitement when he skipped ahead of his parents.
“Was that who I think it was?” Leo asked.
“I can’t believe it. They’re back together.”
Leo chuckled. “I wonder if Jeremy ran away like you did.”
She elbowed Leo but laughed along. “I don’t care how it
happened. Did you see how happy he was? What could be more
important than that?”
“I think you’re going to be one of those special teachers
people remember when somebody asks them who made an
impact on their lives.”
Claudia experienced a rush of warmth so strong she couldn’t
keep from planting an abrupt kiss on Leo’s cheek. “That might
be the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.”
Leo puffed out her chest and grinned. “Good to know. I’ll say
anything if it gets me a kiss.”
Chapter 24
Leo deposited the suitcase in the trunk and slogged back up
the steps to the second floor. She heard Claudia saying goodbye to
someone on the phone, which meant she was now ready to head
back to Cambria. The only thing that saved Leo from misery was
knowing she would return in two weeks, and that it wouldn’t be
the longest two weeks of her life. That distinction belonged to
the period right before Claudia had showed up at her back door.
Claudia met her at the top of the stairs dressed in khaki slacks,
a white silk blouse and navy vest, the same outfit she had worn
the night she arrived.
“I put your suitcase in the car.”
“Thanks.” She took Leo’s hand and led her to the couch in
the den. “I just want a few more minutes with you before I go.”
“A few more minutes…a few more decades. It’s all good.”