Wise Men Say (1 Night Stand Series) Read online

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  Wise Men Say

  Copyright © 2012 by Wendy Burke

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-442-3

  Cover art by Mina Carter

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

  Look for us online at:

  www.decadentpublishing.com

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  Also by Wendy Burke

  Respite

  1Night Stand Stories

  Haste Ye Back

  The One He Chose

  Wise Men Say

  A 1Night Stand Story

  by

  Wendy Burke

  ~DEDICATION~

  For anyone who’s ever put on a uniform and been far away from home and family—Godspeed.

  Readers please consider: www.greenbeanscoffee.com/coj. Send them a Cup of Joe and a note—let ’em know they’re not forgotten.

  Chapter One

  The owner of the downtown Milwaukee business stopped humming Blue Christmas and answered the ringing phone. “Third Street Gallery, Paul speaking.”

  “Hello, Paulie—I need your help.”

  Paul grinned at the sound of the hot Latino’s voice. “Well, Jagger Castillo, as I live and breathe!”

  “You know those amazing stained glass windows we bought for the properties?”

  “Sure do. Emmy Patterson wet her pants when you ordered them.”

  “My brother, Jackson, finally got off his sweet duff and ordered one for the Vegas hotel.”

  “I know, he called yesterday.”

  “And, he called me this morning—the two of you need to deliver and install it.”

  Just listening to the man forced Paul to check his reflection in a nearby mirror. He ran a hand through his hair assuring it was perfect. Like he can tell my cowlick’s acting up! “We have people who do that, Jagger.”

  “I know…but you and Ms. Patterson have been requested for the installation.”

  “What, Jackson doesn’t trust our installation specialists?”

  “Of course.” Jagger paused, as if searching for the proper words. “But it’s very important that she and you be here.”

  Hmmm. “I’ll talk to Emmy. Send me an email with the dates. I’ll have to talk her into it. She has certain family traditions at this time of year she’s pretty high on.”

  “It’ll be well worth her while…I promise.”

  “I’ll work on it, Jagger.”

  “I’ll send you an email with the specifics. Talk to you soon, Paul.”

  ***

  Emmy yanked hard on the rope wrapped around each arm. Jamming her feet against the wood at the end of the old-fashioned sled, she forced her butt into the slats beneath her. Strong arms gripped her midsection from behind drawing her back into Seth’s solid chest. He’s grown up so strong.

  “Hold on!” he ordered. Between her legs, the little girl squealed and grabbed Emmy’s knees. A swale separated their backsides from the toboggan, tossing the three riders into a moment of weightlessness. When the curved front of the sled hit the upside of the dip, they were airborne again, the snow squall filled with their delighted shrieks until they landed in a pile of powder, their wooden vehicle skidding another fifteen yards beyond them.

  “C’mon, Aunt Emmy, let’s do it again!”

  On her back, Emelia Patterson closed her eyes and breathed. Swirling snowflakes planted little stinging kisses on her cheeks, and she chuckled as her insistent niece tugged at her arm.

  When the demand slowed, Emmy grabbed six-year-old Parker, rolled her in the powder, and covered her face with wet smooches. “Race you to the top!” She feigned slipping and sliding, allowing her niece to get well ahead of her up the Kiwanis Park hill.

  “What took you two so long?” Leaning on the propped-up toboggan, Seth dusted hard pack from the seating area.

  “Hurry up, Aunt Emmy!”

  “I’m comin’, Parker.” Emmy huffed a bit, reaching the top of the hill. “Okay, last time. It’s starting to get dark.”

  Who am I kidding, it’s already dark! With heavy snow clouds and just two weeks before the winter solstice, five p.m. in Sheboygan, Wisconsin appeared black as midnight—except for the eerie yellowish glow of the city’s sodium lights reflecting against snow.

  That’s how she remembered her childhood—snowy and cold from Thanksgiving until the middle of March. No global warming this year, it’d been in the twenties and Christmas-card white since Black Friday, much to the incessant pissing and moaning of those who considered s-n-o-w a dirty, four-letter word.

  Then go to Florida. You’ll complain about the bugs!

  Some people were never happy.

  Unlike her. She didn’t care what the situation around her, or whether the sentiment in her heart held true or not, she put on a happy face. Except for two hours every year—eleven p.m. to midnight December 17th and nine to ten a.m. on March 28th. Those were her hours, and regardless of the encouragement of any family member or mental health professional, she would take those hours and cry her eyes out if she chose to.

  In military terms, 17 December 1990, 2300 hrs—the moment she received information Nick had gone missing; 28 March 1991, 0900 hrs—the hour the notification came that he was believed to be dead.

  Believed to be.

  She’d hold out to the very end, until someone put proof in her hands. But it had been more than twenty years since her fiancé, Navy SEAL Nicholas Klaussen—Hardbody as she called him—went missing in Iraq during the first Gulf War.

  The sled came to a slow stop as far from its starting point as it could get.

  “You okay?”

  She warmed when Seth put his strong arm about her shoulders to give her a squeeze. “Yeah, I think I’m just getting a little old for this.”

  Keeping his
arm about her, he grabbed the sled’s rope with the other hand. “Get on, Parker.”

  The three took the less steep route back to the top of the hill.

  ***

  Emmy dropped on her sofa with a happy sigh. It’d been a long day of sledding out in the cold, yet she still had work to do once she returned home.

  “I know, Paul, but….” Snugging the phone between her neck and shoulder, she freed her hands to yank the cork out of a bottle of wine.

  “You know how much money they spent, Em,” her friend and dealer said.

  “Patty will be irritated, but the kids won’t care. I guess we could do the family thing earlier. How long would we have to stay in Vegas?”

  “Three, four days max. The Castillos would really like you to be there for their New Year’s party, too.”

  Good God, that means I’ll have to dress up. “You’ll help me with my makeup?”

  Paul huffed, “Honey, I ain’t taking no dowdy Sheboyganite to the ball. I promise you’ll look faaaa-byooo-lus!”

  She chuckled. “You are so gay!”

  “Don’t I know it, sister! I’ll call you tomorrow. ‘Night.”

  “Goodnight, Paulie. Um….”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Uh, thank you—thank you for being part of my family.” Sniffling? Really, what’s wrong with me?

  “Love you, too. G’night.”

  She sucked in the unreasonable tears and took a long sip of Incognito White. Sitting back, she admired her handiwork. The kids will freak when they see this tree! She’d bedecked all nine feet of the Fraser fir in Christmas blue and silver. The delicate ornaments adorning the tree appeared too sophisticated to be handmade, yet were, in her own glass studio. It’d taken her three years to make all the matching globes, icicles and snowflakes.

  Music filled the quiet background of her home, a baritone voice intoned, I’ll have a blue Christmas….

  All she had to do was put the wrapped gifts under the low-hanging boughs. She couldn’t wait to see her niece’s face and knew her sister would take her aside and bend her ear about again spending too much money on a child who didn’t belong to her.

  But, in a way, Parker did. Despite her age, the little girl proved to be her sounding board, protector and safe harbor in her sometimes emotional sea. Parker would always be her little sweetie. An angelic child, she seemed to cling to Emmy more so than to her own mother. Only two other people in her life had gotten under her skin like her niece.

  Seth, already a strapping near-twenty-one year old—all six-foot-three of him. A great kid, he never caught that ‘holier than thou’ attitude which separated many children from their families, and from learning lessons by time spent with blood relation, but then again whatever young-adult minor ‘edge’ he may have had in his personality had been focused by two-and-a-half years in a military service academy. Emmy remembered her pride, shaking the U.S. Congressman’s hand after Seth’s acceptance to Annapolis.

  The two had turned out wonderfully, no doubt due to the great upbringing by their parents, grandparents, and her, the single, cat-loving, not-so-crazy and not-quite-old, glass-blowing artist.

  A small nose nudged her elbow. Boof. Considered a ‘senior’ feline, he still had his kitten-like moments at sixteen, although left most of the rough and tumble play to his three younger ‘siblings.’ The heavy furball climbed into her lap, bonking his large head against her cheek.

  “Love you too, buddy.” Dipping a finger into her wine, she presented it to the feline patriarch. His tongue has lost some of its kitten-like roughness over the years, but still tickled as he licked the sweet juice from her finger.

  The doorbell interrupted her content silence. Who the hell? She glanced at the antique clock above her mantle—nearly 9:30 p.m. Setting the glass down, she scooped up Boof and went to the door. The polished yellow-pine floorboards creaked when she popped up on her tiptoes to look through the beveled glass of the door’s window.

  Dressed in blue, the deliveryman turned to the side, yanking up his collar against the wind, his FedEx cap sprinkled with icy flakes.

  Cold and in an apparent hurry, he pulled on the old screen door. Emmy opened the inside door, just as he was about to rap on the heavy oak. “Yes?”

  “Emelia Patterson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sign here, please.” He handed over an electronic tablet.

  She opened the door a bit wider. “Come in out of the cold for a moment.”

  He sighed. “Thanks.” Brightness from the corner of the room caught his eye. “Wow, really nice tree!”

  “Thank you, just finished it.” She returned the device. “Hope I’m your last stop tonight….” She peeked at the patch on his jacket. “…Mike.”

  “Just a couple more—you know how this time of year is.” He turned to leave. “Well, good night then.”

  “Wait.” She went to her dining room table stacked high with holiday goodies and handed him a small festive bag. “Something to snack on while you’re working.”

  He grinned in gratitude. “Well, thank you, uh, Ms. Patterson. Good night, now. Merry Christmas.”

  “And to you, too. Drive safely.” Closing the door, she watched him through the leaded window as he sprinted to his delivery van, hopping the roadside snow pile like a young buck.

  That sucks, out on a night like this.

  “Rrrrrow, mrrryow.”

  “Okay, okay, Boof.”

  “Yeerow, yowyow.”

  “What, you too, Harry? You guys think you’re getting dinner again?”

  “Weeow!”

  Emmy put her hands over hear ears in exasperated entertainment, blocking out the chorus. She headed for the kitchen, Fritz and Marie dodging through her legs, gaining ground on Boof and Harry. Emmy chuckled at her whirling dervishes, as they began the tuna dance. The choir was in high form. Putting down four plates, she stroked four contented backsides then took a look at the FedEx mailer.

  Office of the Pentagon.

  She didn’t bother to open it, knowing what negative news the correspondence would bring. Tossing the envelope on the kitchen counter, she drained her glass and headed to bed.

  ***

  Usually after so much time in the cold, she’d be tired but instead she tossed and turned.

  Office of the Pentagon.

  Why did that have to come today?

  “Dammit.” Getting out of bed, she went to her closet. Dragging out a step stool, she reached for the box tucked in the furthest corner of the shelving. She got a hand on the container, and with reverence, she slipped it from its resting place. Careful, it’s almost all you have left of him.

  Cross-legged on her mattress, with the linens and comforter bunched about her, she smoothed a small area and placed the box there. She slipped off its lid. Inside sat a flat, vacuum-packed plastic bag holding a near-ratty sweatshirt. The word Navy printed on the front, faded and close to illegible, the article of clothing had seen many washings.

  But, yet, it hadn’t been washed in twenty years.

  Removing the shirt from the bag, she placed it in her lap where she stroked the decade’s old piece of clothing. Closing her eyes, she remembered Nick’s solid biceps filling out the jersey fabric, his well-cut pectorals curving the front. Slipping a hand into the pullover’s opening, she imagined his flat, muscled tummy meeting her touch and her finger tracing a dark trek of cottony down.

  She smiled, seeing his salacious grin in return, while his hand grasped hers, willing it further into his boxers.

  “Where are you, Nicky?”

  Stretching out, she kept the sweatshirt close to her face. It irritated her that she could barely discern his scent considering she’d taken such care to retain it.

  He filled her mind. Sure, she had photo upon photo of him, of them together, but those images captured not the essence of her Nick; his kindness, loyalty, dedication to her and to his country, and of course, the physical memories. She cursed herself, reaching far back into her memory, tryin
g to extract the sound of his voice. Would I even recognize it if I heard it?

  She clutched the fleece closer, her free hand caressing low on her belly. She fantasized his specter kisses on her neck. Burying her face further into his clothing, she dug her hand under the waistband of her flannel pajama pants.

  Even after so many years away, the mere thought of him aroused her; his beautiful, well-cut muscles flexing as he undressed, honed from workouts no gymrat could ever tolerate. The taste of his mouth, bright and pepperminty, his talented tongue, so insistent she swore he had the ability to suck her clit inside out. She gasped into the blue material as she slipped her finger deep between her folds, dreaming of him.

  Holding back tears, she recalled the first time Nick had touched her in such a manner. After they’d dated for about a year, Nick got relocated from Virginia to California for SEAL training. Meeting up in Las Vegas proved easy, a cheap flight for both of them—her from Milwaukee and him from San Diego. In her mind, she leaned back into Nick’s broad chest as hot tub bubbles tickled her bare skin. The sunset over the Vegas Strip had been magnificent. After emptying a bottle of Moet to toast Nick’s new career path, some extensive fooling around ensued. In her memory, he lifted her from the tub, carrying her to bed. That moment, he kissed her in a way he’d never done before—and with good reason, that night, with her permission, he he’d taken her virginity.

  She panted into the sweatshirt, her tissue swelling around her drenched finger. “Oh!” An electric burning sensation forced her finger from direct clitoral contact, but she forged through it, bringing herself over the edge. She cried out, her arms legs and torso trembling through her orgasm.

  “I miss you, Nicky….”

  She clutched the one remaining possession of her fiancé and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Two