Love On Call

“I…I don’t know. Whatever you’re doing. It’s wonderful. I never thought it would be like this.”

Glenn stilled, her palm pressed to the bare skin of Mari’s stomach. Something clawed at the surface of her addled brain, a warning bell, clear and sharp. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“God, I just want you to make it stop—whatever, anything, I don’t care.” Mari bent one leg over Glenn’s, lifted her hips, pressed full-length against her. God, she couldn’t get close enough. Couldn’t stand the churning fire between her thighs another second. “Anything.”

“This isn’t the first time?”

Mari struggled to make sense of words while drowning in sensation. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“Ever?”

Clarity rushed in, doused the fire melting Mari’s reason. She pulled back, read worry in the lines in Glenn’s brow. “Does it matter?”

“Hell, yes.” Glenn pushed herself off, leaned up on an elbow, and studied Mari’s face. “You were the one who said no involvement, no intimacies.”

“What difference does it make if I’m a virgin?”

“Because this is pretty damned intimate, especially if you’ve never done it before. Why now? What’s changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, neither do I.” Glenn didn’t know what she’d been hoping to hear—that Mari had changed her mind, that she’d discarded her self-imposed exile until she was sure she would remain disease free? Maybe, if she was honest with herself, she’d been hoping to hear Mari wanted her enough to say Fuck waiting. But Mari hadn’t changed her mind, she hadn’t even been aware of where they were headed, and she’d be damned if she’d take advantage of the heat of the moment. Not when Mari was likely to regret it before morning. “But I know you ought to think about what you’re doing.”

Mari sat up, anger and hurt twisting in her middle. “Don’t you mean you need to think?”

Glenn frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Mari drew her knees up and folded her arms around them. “You were willing to have sex a minute ago.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Glenn ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe I was, but I thought…I don’t know what the hell I thought.” Only what she’d hoped. She stood up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. Shouldn’t have started this.”

Mari jumped up on the other side of the bed and straightened her clothes with as much dignity as she could manage after being so soundly rejected. “Apparently I misread things. No need to apologize.”

“Mari, I didn’t mean—”

“Let’s not embarrass each other anymore. It was just a kiss, after all.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Glenn left Flann’s truck at the end of one of the back rows near the fairgrounds exit and texted Carrie and Abby with the location so they could find it when they were ready to leave. After locking up and sliding the keys between the front wheel and the wheel well, where they always stashed the keys, she cut across the dusty lot and threaded her way through the crowd. The celebration was in full swing and every few steps someone would call out her name. She waved and kept going, making a beeline for the big Future Farmers of America tent. The smell of grilling hamburgers hung over the crowd along with the almost palpable sense of good cheer. Neither penetrated the careful lock she kept on her thoughts and feelings. Her mind was a blank, her body registering neither hunger nor the heat of a mid-July afternoon. She spoke to no one as she stood in the line that slowly inched forward, and something about her air of indifference must have reached those around her. No one attempted conversation, and finally she reached the counter.

“I’ll have a beer,” she said to the balding, heavyset EMT she saw on average three times a week in the ER. When he wasn’t on shift with the local emergency response unit, he was a volunteer with the local FFA chapter. An all-around good guy.

“Hey, Glenn. Coming right up.”

A shoulder bumped hers. “Make that two, Jimmy.”

His smile broadened. “Sure thing, Doc.”

Glenn glanced at Flann. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

Flann grinned, not even bothering to pretend she’d shown up by accident. “Abby said she got a text from you and you ditched your designated driver status. I figured I’d catch you here.”

“Uh-huh.” Glenn took her beer and turned to go.

Flann grabbed hers and fell into step. “You just get here?”

Maybe if she ignored her, she’d go away. Glenn grunted.

“Big crowd.”

Glenn saw no reason to comment on the obvious. All the hospital gatherings drew big crowds. More than half the people in town either worked there, had friends who did, or came out to support what was essentially a fundraising event for the place.

“Where’s Mari?”