Champagne Rules. Susan Lyons

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СКАЧАТЬ cold, hard Vancouver earth.

      She waited until the waitress brought water for all of them, took a long, cold swallow, and spilled the truth. “Jen, I don’t know his name. And I’ll save all of you the trouble of asking the logical questions. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in his arms, in the cave. My memory picks up the next morning, in my hotel room, with the chambermaid and a doctor hovering. I had sunburn, heatstroke and felt like crap. I barely made my flight home. And…”

      Another gulp of water, then she confessed the last bit in one long rush. “I’m not even surehewasreallyreal.”

      “Huh?” Jenny said, and Suzanne realized the other women wore baffled expressions. She’d spoken so quickly her words had all slurred together.

      “I’m not sure he was real,” she repeated flatly.

      “But…” Ann frowned. “What are you talking about? You just told us what he looked like, everything you did together.”

      “I still dream about it every month or so.” And, each time she did, she had an orgasm in her sleep. Way better orgasms than she’d ever had with any man other than her cave-sex lover.

      She heaved a sigh of frustration. “Maybe it was just a dream in the first place. I’d drunk about a liter of wine. And yes, Rina, I’ve never had more than two drinks since then.

      “Anyhow, wandering around in my alcoholic haze, I found that nude beach and felt so risqué, taking my clothes off.” She thought of her own naïvety, and gave a snort. “Let’s face it, it’s more likely I fell asleep in the sun and fantasized the whole thing than that I had unprotected sex with a complete stranger.”

      For once, she seemed to have rendered her friends speechless.

      Grimly she went on. “I’ve no idea how I got dressed again, or got back to the hotel.”

      “You don’t remember saying good-bye to the nameless god?” Jenny asked.

      Suzanne shook her head. “And if the whole thing really happened, we’d have had to say something, right? Like, good-bye, it’s been a blast, let’s leave it at that because we could never in a million years replicate the experience? That would make sense. I mean, he wouldn’t exactly fit into my life. He’s not the guy I want to marry and settle down with. I’m fine with everything”—especially those orgasmic dreams—“except not knowing if he was real.”

      “A dream lover,” Rina breathed. “How romantic.”

      “Yeah, but how could you be fine with letting him go?” Jenny’s brow was wrinkled. “If he was real, I mean. Maybe you couldn’t—what was that amazingly literate phrase?—‘replicate the experience’? But maybe you could, Suze. Wouldn’t that be better than hot dreams?”

      “Weren’t you listening?” Suzanne said impatiently. “Even if he was real, I never knew anything about him.”

      “It’s hard to track down a person when you have no information,” Ann agreed.

      “Hmm.” Jenny drummed her fingernails—hot-pink, decorated with rhinestones—against the table. “How about a personals ad?”

      “Oh sure, Jen,” Rina said, “like there’s any chance the chocolate man lives in Vancouver.”

      Jenny groaned. “Duh. Not the Vancouver paper, you twit, the internet.”

      Suzanne’s breath caught. She used e-mail all the time, and the internet for veterinary research, but she’d never thought of using the worldwide web to try to track down her one-time, maybe lover.

      Ann frowned. “That could be dangerous. Freaks and weirdos hang out on the internet.”

      Jenny rolled her eyes. “Suze wouldn’t use her own internet address. We’ll get her a free account with Hotmail or Yahoo. Anonymous. So what if she gets some flaky replies to the ad? She just ignores them.”

      “The odds of him seeing the ad are incredibly slim, even if he does exist,” Ann pointed out. “This does not sound like the kind of man who needs the internet to find a date.” Frowning, she ran her fingers through her hair, then suddenly gave an impish grin. “Still, there’s nothing lost in trying.”

      Jenny and Ann were talking like this had gone beyond the hypothetical. Suzanne’s heart thumped nervously. She turned to Rina, who was staring off into space. “What do you have to say about this?”

      “Hmm?” Rina said dreamily. “You know, sometimes we let people go out of our lives too easily.”

      Suzanne groaned. “This is not a good idea. I can’t imagine marrying this guy, so what’s the point?”

      “Are you so sure he couldn’t be your Mr. Cleaver?” Ann asked.

      “I…Oh, come on, he was sexy and…outrageous. Definitely not husband material. I want a steady, reliable guy like my dad and my brother-in-law. Besides, I’m still in vet school, I’m nowhere near ready to settle down.”

      “Yeah,” Jenny said, “so it’s a perfect time to take a walk on the wild side. For once in your life.”

      “For twice, you mean,” Ann, the stickler for accuracy, said.

      “For twice,” Suzanne echoed. The idea was tempting. Or maybe that was the second margarita talking. “I’ll think about it. But if I do it, you guys have to help me.”

      Jax was standing at his secretary’s desk discussing a file, when her phone rang. Caitlin answered, then put her hand over the receiver. She looked like a cheeky elf with her trendy orange-tipped hair, freckles and wide grin. “Your wife.”

      “Ex,” he corrected automatically. Caitlin always teased that, because he rarely dated, she forgot he was divorced. “I’ll take it in my office.”

      He closed the door to his closet-sized office, slid into his chair and picked up the phone. His marriage to Tonya might have been a mistake, but their hard-won friendship was something he valued. “Hey, you. What’s up?”

      “Just calling to say happy anniversary.”

      “Ouch,” he said mildly. If they’d stayed married, it would have been three years on Sunday. “Sorry I didn’t send a card, but I figured Benjamin wouldn’t appreciate it.”

      “He’s cool. Especially now our marriage has lasted a whole month longer than yours and mine did.”

      They’d finally reached the point where the teasing was affectionate, even if occasionally barbed on her side.

      “Double ouch,” he said. So she and Benjamin had made seven whole months.

      “So, I’m curious. Did you even pause a moment in your work to remember it was our anniversary?”

      He smiled into the phone. Yup, there was a work barb. But it was kind of cute that, while she was happily married to another man, she didn’t want her ex to forget her.

      “Yeah,” he confessed. “Found myself thinking about our honeymoon. Sonoma, the wineries, the hot air balloon ride. It was a lot of fun.” It was also the last time СКАЧАТЬ