Chapter 9

Still pressed against her, Race felt his body respond to Chrissie’s enthusiasm for the kiss.  Normally, he’d scoop her up, carry her to bed -- or whatever soft surface was available at the moment -- and proceed with make the most out of that response.  But right now...there was a reason people always talked about “wrong time, wrong place,” and this happened to be one of them.

However, he was reluctant to let her go just yet, as well.  The kiss gently evolved to something sweet and mellow, taking a few seconds to ease apart as fluidly as he’d ever done.  Like floating on a soft feather made for two...taking them both down from that high place.

He had no idea where Dena ran off to, and he didn’t care.  And he didn’t know how Chrissie would react to him when she finally opened her eyes and realized she kissed him again.  So, he was hesitant to ease back, but he had to.  He couldn’t keep her trapped in the closet until her memory came back.  That surely won’t win him any brownie points.

When Chrissie blinked her eyes open, they were dilated -- either from his kiss or the dim light of the closet, and Race chose to believe it was because of the first reason.  Those eyes.  The exact shade of blue as her sister’s and her mother’s, but whereas Dena’s always had a sparkle of mischief and craziness glinting in the corners of her eyes and the Snow Dragon’s blue depths bore a shadow of grief, Chrissie’s were like gateways to another dimension.  Blue like the summer sky, clear and pure like the waters of the Caribbean, endless like his love for her that coursed through his system...

Race remembered the first time he looked into those eyes.  He’d been in Denver at a promotional conference for his sponsor and had to stay at this cheesy, out-of-date ski resort during a Spring Break week.  Not in a very good mood because he took a fall in his last race, resulting in damage to his bike and failure to cross the finish line, and he was forced to make nice with a bunch of college kids who only wanted to get drunk and get laid, so he commandeered a stool at the resort’s bar and ordered a double scotch.  That’s when he heard a crash -- a sound he became familiar with over the last two years.  

Dolly Hill, the resort’s owner and manager, an attractive, older woman he met briefly upon arrival, stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the bar and stared down another woman that was obviously her daughter.  The same blue eyes, the same feminine curves, the same smooth complexion...the only two differences in the ladies was their age and their hair.  Mrs. Hill’s hair shone with white-gold -- a testament to her Nordic ancestry -- in a stylish up-do, but Chrissie’s hair dark, reddish curls floated around her face in a tangled, tousled mess, and Race took one look at her and her flushed cheeks and thought, Sex.

This woman would look just like that after an long, all-night bout of sheet-twisting, sweaty, shake-the-rafters lovemaking.  Her eyes glazed over big and bright, her hair curling around his fingers as he rocked into her, her skin glowing, her body vibrating...  Race had gotten a hard-on, right there on that padded stool, the glass of scotch frozen halfway to his mouth.  He watched as the mother and daughter argued furiously under their breaths, something about redecorating the hotel.  Then the one he knew he had to have balled her fists, stamped her feet like a petulant child and stomped over the shattered wine goblet on the floor to plop a luscious bottom on the stool next to him.

In a hot, sullen, throaty voice she said to the bartender, “Ricky, I need another merlot...I seemed to lost my first one.”

Race drained his glass, set it down with a decisive click and turned to her with his best, winning smile, and said, “I don’t normally kiss women I don’t know, but for you, I’ll make an exception.”

She looked at him then, blinked for a sold five seconds and then smiled.  “I’d hate for you to break your own rule,” she said evenly.  “I’m Chrissie.  I’m twenty-eight, an interior decorator, I’m mortally afraid of spiders, and I throw things when I get mad.”

Race opened his mouth to make a reply, but she grabbed his collar, jerked him closer and locked lips with him.  He’d been addicted to her mouth ever since.  Of course, after she finished pillaging him that first time, she picked up her wine and left the bar, leaving him there, dazed, dizzy and horny as hell.  It was a year later that she admitted to never had done something that impetuous before.  But she said she couldn’t help herself.  She took one look at him, and kissing him seemed like the most requisite act she’d ever committed.  

Ricky, the bartender, poured him another scotch without asking.  “It’s on the house,” Ricky said with a grin.  “And watch out for the Snow Dragon.”  Ricky nodded toward the kitchen where Mrs. Hill narrowed her eyes at Race and slid a slow smile in place.  “You’ve just become the number one candidate for a son-in-law.”

Race saluted the Snow Dragon with his scotch, drained it dry, and left the bar to find some peace and solitude away from the partying co-eds all around the ski resort, half hoping to run into those magical lips again.  Two years later, he found himself thinking about those days up on that mountain as he stared down into his wife’s stupefied eyes.

“Why--”  She swallowed and said, “Why did you do that?”

“You dropped off the radar, Chris,” he said.  “It seemed wiser than dumping you in an ice bath.”

She scrunched her nose.  “I don’t know if I can agree with that.  I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do it again until...well, just until.”

“Oh, Chrissie...don’t you see?  We were meant for each other.  Even if you can’t remember, I do, and I know somewhere inside you, you love me, you do remember us.  I can feel it when you kissed me.”

“Don’t you mean when you kissed me?” she asked in a short tone.

“Tomatoes, tomatoes,” Race replied with a small smile.

“You can’t use me like that,” she said, pushing him away.  He stepped backward, releasing her.  Chrissie’s eyes darted to the clothes on the floor that she must have pulled off the hangers.  Race noticed that most of them were his, and he felt his heart break again.  She really freaked out to dismantle the closet this way.  The wedding dress was bad enough.  To attack his side of the closet seemed even more awful.

Race sighed and began putting shirts back on their hangers.  Chrissie snatched a t-shirt out of his hands.  “I made this mess.  I can clean it.”

With crazy, jerky motions and panting breaths, she stuffed a hanger through the neck of the shirt, causing a rip along a seam.  Chrissie froze.  Her gaze drifted over to him.  “I’m...I’m sorry...I didn’t mean...”

Gently, so not to scare her, he took the shirt and hanger from her.  “You’ve had a rough morning.  Let me do this.  Go lie down for a moment.”

Chrissie’s face drained of color as she glanced at the bed.  She took a step backward, bumping into him, and whipped around, startled and frightened.  Race reached up to caress her cheek, but she stumbled away.  “Chrissie...”

“I’ll...I’ll go lie down on the couch,” she said quickly and fled the closet and bedroom.

Dena poked her head into the closet.  “You’re a jerk, you know that?”  Race deemed it wise not to feed into a tongue lashing by his sister-in-law/Dr. Phillis just because he kissed his wife.  He picked up a black dress from the floor, fingering the silk embroidery along the neckline and remembering when Chrissie wore that on their anniversary.  The dark challis material hugged every curve from her shoulders to her waist and flared out from there.  He took one look at her that night and almost didn’t take her out to dinner.  He would have rather stayed in and snacked on her.

Yeah, laugh all you want, but Race Willard knew what challis was.  He paid attention during all those shopping excursions with Chrissie.

Dena watched him caress the soft material, running it through his fingers.  “But you’re a sweet jerk,” she added before disappearing again.

He finished re-organizing the closet as best as he could, making sure Chrissie’s clothes were hung in the appropriate places, barely touching to minimize wrinkles, and then just kicked her shoes out of the way.  That was what she did, after all.  His clothes were thrown on their hangers and stuffed on the rod.  What did he care about wrinkles?  Most of his stuff was pre-shrunk cotton t-shirts and jeans.  The few nicer items were hung up in garment bags anyway, rarely seen from unless Chrissie laid out an outfit for him to wear.  She liked him in slacks and button-up shirts that cut off circulation to his brain.  She always said he looked “dignified” garnished up like a Christmas turkey.  He’d just smile and refrain from tugging at his collar, because if this was the way she liked him, he could endure slow strangulation for a few hours.

Maybe he should change.

He unzipped a bag, drawing out a baby blue Italian cotton shirt.  Chrissie had been walking through Dillards one afternoon when she saw it, claimed it was “on sale,” an excuse she used a lot.  She brought it home, raised it up to his chest and grinned.  When he saw that smile spread across her face, he immediately stripped out of his cycling jersey and modeled her new find for her.  After the third twirl around the living room, she giggled and led him into the bedroom, undoing buttons as she went.  

Another good day that he remembered and she wouldn’t.

He barely hesitated as he donned the shirt and stepped in front of the full length mirror.  Okay, he’d admit it.  He looked kind of suave in the lightly sheened shirt, and with the top two buttons unfastened, he could still breathe.  He turned this way and that way, feeling like one of those pretty-boy runway models, but even Dena would acknowledge he had style in this get-up.  The dark denim of his jeans and the light blue of the shirt meshed well together, giving him a classy casual appearance.  

Race cocked a pose in the mirror, grunting wryly at his unmanly behavior, and almost tripped over his feet when he heard Dena’s giggle from the doorway.  “What are you doing?” she asked, still laughing at him.

Cheeks blooming with embarrassment, he managed to shrug innocently.  “Chrissie likes this shirt.”  He fumbled with the tails, indecisive on whether to tuck them in or leave them hanging.  Dena smirked jovially at him through the mirror.  He sighed.  “Am I trying too hard?”

Dena held up her first finger and her thumb, a smidgen of space between the two digits.  “Maybe just a little bit.  Come on...I think Chrissie’s calmed down enough to eat something.  And I’ll go pick up her prescriptions after lunch.  That should minimize further breakdowns.”

Race glanced at himself one more time before he followed Dena to the kitchen.  Maybe wearing the shirt would jostle his wife’s memory -- and maybe not -- but that didn’t mean he was about to sit back and wait for something to happen that would nudge a mental memoir loose.  

Upon entering the kitchen, Race’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.  Chrissie scooped a giant spoonful of Dena’s garlic salsa onto her fish taco.  She chomped down on her lunch and asked around a mouthful of taco, “This is really good.  What’s in it?”

“Garlic,” Race muttered, sure he was seeing things.

“It’s really good,” Chrissie repeated and ate another bite.  Race stood frozen in the doorway.  Dena had to squeeze beside him to get into the room, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow.  

“For a scrawny guy, you sure get in the way a lot,” she grumped.  Race ignored the scrawny remark because he knew he wasn’t scrawny at all.  He was lean and toned and streamlined for his sport.  Instead, he focused on his wife, dressed in that ridiculous, ratty Dr. Seuss shirt, her hair still damp from her bath, and devouring that god-awful garlic salsa as though she had found a chunk of Utopia on her plate.

Two years...he’d known Chrissie for two years, and never once did she eat anything with garlic in it.  All because she once overheard him say, “Garlic breath is the worst kind of foul pollution a person can endure.”  But she wouldn’t remember that, would she?

And what other things would change, now realizing that some of her choices were based on his opinions and enjoyment?  Would she go back to sleeping with her socks on since he wouldn’t be sharing her bed and playing footsie with her all night?  Would she continue to leave the lights on in every room she visited?  Or would she stop wearing that sexy lingerie under her clothes because he always relished in seeing that peek of lace cupping her breasts whenever she bent over, and go back to her plain-Jane, white bras?

He sighed heavily.  Patience.  

But he could smell the garlic from here and had to suppress pinching his nose.  So much for sneaking another kiss in today, he thought, moving slowly toward the table.  Then he saw her close her eyes with euphoria as she chewed on her food, and saw her mouth turn up in the corners in that little half smile he loved, and he came to a stop again and amended his previous thought.  We all have to make sacrifices.

He could give up the black lace underwear for just one more kiss today.

And she didn’t even raise an eyebrow at his shirt.