Reinventing Rose

Praise for Kandy Shepherd’s novels

Compelling lead characters and a deft hand at light humor.

—Publishers Weekly

Expertly spiced with a deliciously sharp sense of wit.

—Chicago Tribune

Delightful characters, witty dialogue, and an entertaining storyline.

—Fresh Fiction

Fabulous on so many levels.

—Night Owl Reviews

Shepherd gives readers their money’s worth.

—The Pilot

***

REINVENTING ROSE

By Kandy Shepherd

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Kandy Shepherd

Cover design by The Killion Group

***

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons living or dead, locales, businesses, or events is entirely coincidental.

***

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

Praise for Kandy Shepherd’s novels

Compelling lead characters and a deft hand at light humor.

Publishers Weekly

Expertly spiced with a deliciously sharp sense of wit.

Chicago Tribune

Delightful characters, witty dialogue, and an entertaining storyline.

Fresh Fiction

Fabulous on so many levels.

Night Owl Reviews

Shepherd gives readers their money’s worth.

The Pilot

***

REINVENTING ROSE

By Kandy Shepherd

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Kandy Shepherd

Cover design by The Killion Group

***

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons living or dead, locales, businesses, or events is entirely coincidental.

***

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CHAPTER ONE

To boost the size of my breasts with the inflatable inserts of a pump-up bra isn’t easy. To try it in the cramped confines of an airplane restroom calls for the skills of a contortionist. But I persevere, twisting and turning to manipulate the tiny pump that will—I hope—give me the illusion of curves where they count.

When I get to my destination I want to wow Scott with cleavage. Sexy, but not slutty, is the look I’m aiming for. The blurb for the bra seemed to promise plastic-surgery type enhancement without the pain or the expense. Trouble is, I find it hard to judge how much pumping is enough for a gain of a cup size or two. Result? One breast higher than the other.

I try again.

Not that there’s anything wrong with my breasts. Yes, they’re on the small side, but during the years I spent married to a leg man I never worried about their size.

I only started obsessing over them after I needled LG (for love-god) Scott into confessing he was a boob man. And as I’m so in love with Scott I can scarcely think straight, I’m keen to ensure I make a good impression when I see him again in just a couple of hours.

So I pump.

Then jump.

Thud, thud, thud. Someone pounds furiously on the restroom door. Again.

I feel bad at making them wait. After all, I was brought up to consider others and I’ve already twisted myself around in the tiny space and managed a top-to-toe wash. But I don’t feel bad enough to vacate the restroom. Freshening up is important as I anticipate I’ll be making love almost as soon as I arrive in Sydney, Australia. No, not just anticipate. I’m hanging out for it. Hanging out for my love-god Scott.

Sorry, I murmur under my breath to the person on the other side of the door, as I push and prod to make the final adjustments to my newly-inflated cleavage. Think I’ve finally got it figured. Not bad. Not up-to-the throat but definitely an improvement on nature, even if one breast is still pumped slightly higher than the other.

I first read about the pump-up bra in Louisa, one of my favorite magazines. Practically everything I know about girl stuff I learned from magazines.

I have a folder stuffed full of clippings on how to tame the type of unruly, wavy brown hair that combs get lost in. Another on how to deal with learn-to-love-them freckles. And, since my marriage split from Dean Dawson last year, a whole lot of pages on ways to bail out forever from the role of doormat woman.

Right now the piece of magazine advice I intend to follow to the letter is: Spritz perfume everywhere you expect to be kissed.

I burrow into my purse for my bottle of Ralph Lauren’s Romance. One of my first graders gave it to me for my birthday back in January—I suspect someone gave it to his mom and she didn’t like it.

But I like it and I was wearing it the first—and only time—I hooked up with Scott in San Francisco. When he said goodbye to fly back to Australia, he nuzzled into my neck and murmured in that so-seductive Australian accent: Rose, I’ll always think of you whenever I smell this perfume.

At first I took his words at face value and was flattered. Thrilled. It was only after he went that I wondered exactly what he’d meant. When would he think of me? When he smelt Romance on another woman?

But I put my doubts aside and decided to take his words as the wonderful compliment I was sure he’d meant it to be. After all, isn’t Scott the most romantic man I’ve ever met? And that’s apart from being the sexiest.

I spray Romance in the conventional places—behind my ears and on my wrists. The magazine has got its advice a little wrong here. I guess I most expect to be kissed on the mouth and I’m not likely to spray perfume there.

Then I think some before continuing. Where exactly has Scott kissed me? Where hasn’t he kissed me is more to the point.

After months of long-distance cyber flirtation, I finally met him for a drink and didn’t leave his hotel room on Union Square until the next afternoon. The only time we got out of bed was to let room service in. I blush at the memory of my totally out-of-character behavior.

My safely-married friends would be horrified if they knew. But I didn’t tell them, not even my sister Daisy, though I think she may have guessed.

I spray some scent on my throat, tilting back my head and remembering the shudder of sensation that shot through me when Scott kissed me there. I lift the edge of my new bra and spray it on each breast. I flinch as the cool spray hits my nipples. They tighten and tingle—which is exactly what they did when Scott so expertly kissed them.

Heat floods through me as I remember how good it felt. It sounds cheesy to say it, but Scott really awakened me as a woman. Made me aware for the first time of how wonderful two bodies in tune can be. What all those breathlessly written articles in my favorite magazines were getting at.

No wonder I’m hooked on him. The remaining hour until I land in Sydney and see him again seems endless.

Decision time. Shall I spray Romance where I expect to be kissed or where I hope to be kissed? I suck in my tummy as flat as I can and spray right where Scott kissed my navel, caressing me with his tongue in a way I’d never realized could be so exciting. I shiver at the memory.

Spray it everywhere? I pull out the elastic of the sexy lace thong—also new—and pause, the perfume spray poised. I definitely want to be kissed down there again. Oh yes! But mightn’t the perfume sting like hell?

Heck, I’m not so sure about this. I already reek of Romance. It’s making me want to sneeze. Problem is, I’m a novice at being naughty—a twenty-eight-year-old with the dating experience of an eighteen-year-old.

I snap the elastic back against my skin and squirt some Romance on the back of my knees instead.

THUD!

Someone bangs so hard on the restroom door that it’s in danger of sending the jet off course. Okay, okay, I mutter.

I struggle into the tight hipster jeans that—miraculously—make my too-big butt look better, banging my knee on the sink in the process. They design these restrooms for the vertically challenged, not five foot-nine women with long legs trying to get dressed in a hurry.

Butt girdle in place, I peer into the mirror, peer closer, then stifle a scream. No! That can’t, just can’t, be a zit on my chin. Not now. Not when I’m so close to my reunion with Scott.

It’s a zit all right, small but rapidly incubating into something spectacular. A veritable Vesuvius of a pimple. I itch to squeeze it but slap my own hand away. Years of experience tells me it will only look worse, and an angry red crater on my face is not what I want to present to LG Scott.

This is a classic Surefire Ways to Blitz a Breakout or Zap that Zit! magazine moment. But zit camouflage, make-up repair, and taming of out-of-control hair will have to wait until I’m back in my seat. There are mutinous mutters filtering through the door. I’m not usually so selfish and I really have taken up enough time in the restroom.

I push through the door to be met by the furious glare of a middle-aged woman. She starts to cough and splutter and put up her hands to ward off the wave of Romance that wafts out with me.

I feel myself color and I can’t meet her eyes—or those of the rest of the line of people with crossed legs and cross faces that snakes behind the woman down the aisle. I didn’t realize the other toilet in this section was out of order.

I still can’t believe I’m here on an airplane all by myself flying to—of all places—Australia.

I’ve flown back and forth a few times from San Francisco to Redding, the closest airport to my hometown of Bookerville in north-eastern California. There was once to see my grandparents in Austin, Texas while I was still in college. And when I married Dean, his grandparents paid for a five-day honeymoon in Hawaii.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t wanted to travel. I did. I do. But Dean always seemed to have us saving for something—mortgage, furniture, his new car. The most I managed with him was a hurried trip to New York City for his cousin’s wedding.

The place outside of the United States I most want to see is London, England. When I was fifteen my mom, a librarian, saw I was over teen-angst titles and handed me a stack of historical novels. I was hooked. For years I’ve yearned to go visit those history-steeped places I’ve visited so often in the pages of my favorite books.

Finally, I managed to convince Dean to book a seven-day trip to London for our anniversary last year. He caved in only because the family urged him to do something to help me over what they all call, in hushed tones, my disappointment.

I organized a passport and spent hours on the internet looking up the best deals for airfares, dreaming about visiting all the places I wanted to see. Made detailed itineraries to make sure we didn’t miss a thing.

But Dean took his girlfriend instead. Jennifer, his boss’s daughter who’d been to Europe a zillion times.

So flying on impulse to Australia is a big deal for me. My sister Daisy keeps telling me I’m out of my mind. Maybe I am. Out of my mind crazy in love with LG Scott.

Up until now I’ve always been the overly cautious type, dipping my toes in twice to test the waters before I make a decision. The way I see it, there are two parts to me: Cautious Rose and the lesser-known, more adventurous, Go-For-It Rose.

For most of my life Cautious Rose has ruled supreme. But what good has that done me—divorced at age twenty-eight and living back in my hometown with my sister and her husband?

Scott woke me up to what life could really be. When a last-minute internet special to Sydney came up right in time for my long summer vacation, Go-For-It Rose gave Cautious Rose a knock-out punch. I clicked-and-booked myself a fare at two days notice.

So here I am hurtling forward at 800 miles an hour to meet him. I can’t quite get my head around the time change. I fly out from San Francisco on Wednesday evening, fly for fourteen hours, and arrive in Sydney Friday morning. When I fly back I’ll get home on the same day I would have left. Weird.

It’s early morning when we finally land at Sydney. I’ve been too excited to sleep on the plane. I should be tired but I’m not, I’m hyper—counting the seconds until I see Scott.

There are long lines to get through Immigration control. I have a three-month tourist visa. Employment is prohibited. Employment? Get real. That’s not what I’ve come to Sydney for.

When the official asks me whether I’m here for business or pleasure I almost laugh out loud. Pleasure here I come!

It takes forever for my luggage to come off the carousal. While I wait, I take the opportunity for a last spray of Romance behind my ears. I check my makeup in my purse mirror. The zit is lurking under a half-inch armor of skin-toned concealer.

I don’t dare look at my hair. No amount of finger combing will fix that. It’s a mess after the long flight—all wild and wavy. I look like an extra from The Lion King. But I’m not overly worried. I hate my hair but Scott told me he thought untamed was sexy. Funnily enough, Dean used to, too. But I don’t want to think about Dean.

Finally my suitcase appears on the carousel and I haul it off. As I line up to go through Customs control I see the exit doors opening and closing, giving me tantalizing glimpses of an awaiting crowd.

Scott will be there. Is he as excited as I am? Now I’m counting down in minutes the time until I’ll be in his arms again. I remember how, when he went through the gates at the San Francisco terminal six weeks ago, he’d turned back to me and mouthed the words: I love you.

Wheeling my suitcase behind me, I walk through the doors. My heart is pounding in anticipation and my mouth feels dry.

He isn’t there.

There are five million people waving or holding up boards with peoples’ names on them. But no Scott. My feet drag as I reach the end of the smiling, waving crowd that lines the walkway.

And then I see him. Tall, blond, gorgeous Scott. He’s just as I remember him, the hottest of the hotties. My fantasy man in the flesh. A love-god in earnest. I actually start to tremble. The shaky knees, the whole thing.

So why is he lurking around a pillar, as if he doesn’t want to be seen?

Scott, I call, over here.

He rushes toward me—furtively looking from side to side. Has he planned a surprise for me?

Uh, Rose, you’ve arrived, he says, looking somewhere near my feet.

My heart jolts. It really jolts, I can feel it. Scott is to-die-for handsome. He’s wearing a business suit, but he looks born to be on a surfboard, his hair blond, his tan bringing out the blue of his eyes.

He works for an international bank but he’s striking enough to be in one of those professions where good looks are currency—model, movie star, rock idol. And he’s my lover. Mine. My stomach gives a lurch of excitement.

I let go my suitcase to fling my arms around his neck. I can’t think of anything clever to say that will let him know how I feel. I’m so glad to see you, is all I can manage.

But he holds me at a distance, gripping my elbows so tightly it hurts. Not here, Rose. Not in public. His blue eyes shine bluer with panic and he steps backward.

I’m bewildered. Is it the zit? Is he offended I made the first move? Back in San Francisco he’d shown no such inhibitions. While kissing a trail up my thighs he’d murmured how he got turned on by a woman who asked for what she wanted.

I don’t know whether to apologize or what. Scott I…uh…

C’mon over here. He drags my suitcase along until he gets behind the pillar again. Then breathes a heartfelt sigh of relief. That’s better.

Better? More private? So it’s okay to kiss him now?

I move closer. But he stands rigid in my embrace. This doesn’t feel right. Not at all like I’d dreamed it. I expect passion—I’m not even getting a friendly hug.

I force myself to speak lightly, flirtatiously as I look up into his face. Aren’t you glad to see me?

Finally, Scott meets my gaze and his eyes soften, become less wary. Of course I am.

He bends his head and, for a moment, his lips brush mine. At last! The moment I’ve longed for every minute of that fourteen-hour airplane ride. Every minute of the lonely, sex-starved weeks since I farewelled him at the San Francisco airport.

I close my eyes to relax into Scott’s kiss. Then abruptly he pushes me away. He starts to sniff the air like a demented tracker dog. That perfume. It’s so strong. Has it gotten on me? Frantically he brushes down the front of his jacket.

I stagger to regain my balance. Hey! Are we singing from the same hymn sheet? But Scott, you told me that you liked this perfume. That’s…that’s why I wore it.

Scott groans. But it’s no groan of passion and I begin to feel uneasy. Very uneasy.

You just don’t get it, do you Rose?

Get what, Scott? I’m bewildered by the mocking tone of his voice.

I can’t afford to go around smelling of your perfume.

He’s in his business suit. Will the scent of perfume on him be held against him in a conservative office? Because of your work? I venture.

He groans again. Because of my wife.

I stare at him. The world seems to spin around me and I have to grab onto the pillar for support. It feels like my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and I have to force the words out. Your…your wife? You’re married?

Of course I’m married.

He speaks to me as if I’m an idiot, and his Australian accent that I’d found so sexy now makes him seem a stranger. An alien.

What do you mean of course you’re married? You never told me you were married.

I assumed—

I had no idea you were married and you know it. I would never have gone to bed with a married man.

I thought you knew the score.

There’s an edge of panic to his voice that fills me with alarm. Suddenly everything falls into place. The disappointing number of phone calls—always blamed on the time difference. His lack of excitement when I emailed I was on my way to Sydney.

I feel like banging my head against the pillar Scott is hiding behind. How dumb am I not to have realized the truth before?

We were emailing each other for months and you never let on you were married. Either before we met or that time we had in San Francisco.

He can’t meet my eyes. But I look closely at him and what had seemed handsome now seems weak. His eyelashes and eyebrows are almost white against his tan. His mouth I’d thought so sensual is twisted with petulance.

It didn’t enter the conversation, he says.

I can’t help it; my voice starts to rise into what my father used to call my fishwife tone. "Because you didn’t put it in the conversation. I told you all about my marriage break up but you never told me you were married. Just all that stuff about how understanding you were. And I, like a sucker, fell for it.

He tries to hush me. But Rose I thought you—

Knew the score? Well I didn’t. Reality hits me and despite myself a tremor creeps into my voice. I…I thought we had…we had something special.

There’s an awkward pause. He goes to touch me but then backs away again—no doubt from the perfume he so fears will incriminate him.

Or maybe from the hurt I know I’m not masking.

But we did, babe, we did. It was cool that I wangled that trip to San Fran and we met. I thought…

Suddenly I get it—the chilling black-and-white reality of my love affair. You thought you could just fly in for a bootie call whenever you visited the States?

He shrugs. Doesn’t even try to deny it.

And what about this trip to visit you?

Scott’s eyes narrow, his lips thin and he doesn’t look handsome at all. I was out of the office. When I got your email I tried to stop you. But your auto reply told me you were already on vacation in Sydney. And your cell phone was out of range. You only gave me two days notice.

So…you didn’t want me to come? I know my words sound dopey even as they escape from my mouth.

Again he shrugs those broad, powerful shoulders that featured so strongly in my fantasies. His voice is cold. It’s not…convenient.

I can scarcely find my voice. Convenient? As if I’m a tele-marketer pressing for a face-to-face meeting. So, I’m an inconvenience, I say, dully. Of course I am. He’s married.

Scott seems to see me for the first time. He checks out my tight jeans and my pump-boosted cleavage. In San Francisco he’d never stopped telling me how he loved my wild hair, my brown eyes, my wide smile. His eyes become hot and his mouth curls in a way he obviously thinks I’ll find seductive. But now you’re here…if we’re discreet…

I don’t as a rule curse or swear, you have to be careful what you say when you work with young kids. Discreet? I swear my voice rises an octave. You asshole!

I make a swing for him with my shoulder bag but it doesn’t connect. Shame, as I really, really want to hurt him.

Scott grabs my wrist. He looks anxiously around him. People nearby are staring at us. Don’t make a scene here, he hisses. We’ll get back to your hotel and—

I twist my wrist free. I want to kick him in the shins—or higher, where it will really hurt him. I want to scream my pain and anger at him. But I don’t want to make a fool of myself in such a public arena. I force my voice low. You’re pathetic. Don’t think you’re getting anywhere near my hotel.

I’m bluffing. What hotel? I’d assumed I’d be staying with him.

I grab my suitcase. I’m outta here.

He puts out a hand to stop me. Rose, babe—

"Don’t you babe me. I try to think of a pithy insult but I’m in shock and my brain isn’t working very well. You…you adulterer."

He laughs, and it’s not a pleasant sound. What does that make you?

My divorce is through, that makes me single.

So you’re merely a fornicator, he sneers.

He really is an asshole and I must be the worst kind of idiot not to have seen it. And, outside of the Bible, I’m not too sure what a fornicator is. I’m just the innocent party here, I choke out.

Not so innocent. Scott leers at my enhanced cleavage. I flush as I think of what I shared so willingly with this man. How head-over-heels in love with him I’d been.

Asshole, I spit again, not caring who else hears me.

I turn to stride along through the diminishing ranks of meet-and-greeters. People make way for me, looking at me askance. I see sympathy in some of the women’s eyes but I’m too upset to acknowledge it.

Scott hurries along behind me. Keep it down, Rose, he hisses. Sydney’s a city of four million people but it’s a small place. Someone might see me with you.

Well, get lost then, Scott.

I stop and turn to face him. I mean it. Get lost. I don’t date married men.

Date? Can I dignify what I had with him by referring to it as a date?

He wavers and I can taste contempt for him bitter in my mouth. I’m drowning in humiliation and he’s worried about getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

How can I have been so wrong about this guy? But then I don’t exactly have a great track record with men.

I feel so sorry for Scott’s wife. Does she suspect him? He’s so slick I bet I wasn’t the first fling he’s had while on a business trip. Heaven knows how many other women he’s seduced in chat rooms. Made them fall in love with him while he was just looking for an extra-curricular boink.

I hurt, but I refuse to let him see it. We reach the exit doors of the airport.

Goodbye Scott, I say. I mean it.

He has the grace to look shamefaced. Will you be okay?

I’ll be fine, I say, with a lot more conviction than I feel.

The automatic doors open and I’m greeted by balmy air and bright blue skies. It’s not what I expect. Isn’t it winter down under? I blink against the intensity of the light.

Scott has followed me through the doors. Rose, he says, darting furtive glances around him. He’s obviously terrified at being seen in public with me. Rose I—

I don’t want to hear it. I won’t say it’s been nice knowing you, I mutter, because it hasn’t. I feel very sorry for your wife.

Panic flits across his face. You wouldn’t, surely you wouldn’t—

For a second I don’t understand what he means. Then it hits me. I clamp down on my disgust at this further example of his asshole-ness. "Of course I wouldn’t tell your wife about