The F-Word

“The real you. No disguise. You were always who you are, honey. You just hid the truth from the world.”

Bailey gets a serious look on her face. “Matthew. I don’t know how to thank you. For everything. For all you’ve done—for all you’re doing. I can never repay you. For the clothes, yes. But for all the rest…”

“Hey.” I smile at her as we crest the hill. “Who knows? You might have to do the same for me some day. Nobody can ever predict when these little family dramas are going to rear their ugly heads.”

She laughs. So do I.

Little do I know the dangerous truth of what I thought was just a throwaway line.

* * *

At first glance, the inn is not my kind of place.

I am, as you know, into structural simplicity. Clean lines. High ceilings. Lots of wood, glass and light.

The inn is pure Victoriana. Turrets. Gables. Asymmetrical porches. It’s gingerbread at its worst…Until you take a second look and realize that maybe it’s gingerbread at its best.

Somebody built this place in the late eighteenth century and somebody in the twenty-first is taking very good care of it. It’s an antique, after all, and if you have any feeling for history, you’ve got to admire its out-of-date beauty.

Our suite—and Bailey’s right, it’s really just one big room—is on the third floor with a nice view of what turns out to be a leafy bend in the Mohawk River. We even have a little balcony overlooking the water. The room itself is handsome. Is it the inn’s idea of a bridal suite? A presidential suite? It doesn’t matter because it is, as I say, handsome, which is a nice bonus. The walls are covered in what seems to be pale yellow silk; there’s some kind of Oriental carpet underfoot; the furniture is big, suitable for the room’s dimensions. The expected sofa bed is big as well, and I’m sure I won’t have any problem fitting my six feet three inch self into it…

But it’s going to be a lot to ask when the real bed, all the way at the opposite end of the room, is so spectacular.

For openers, it’s enormous. Did the Victorians go in for king-size beds? I don’t care; I only know that this thing is huge. And it’s handsome. The mahogany headboard is a masterpiece of carved leaves and unicorns. The comforter is white and lush. Gold pillows dot the snowy landscape.

And it has a canopy hung with gold silk.

My PA makes a little oooh sound. I don’t blame her. It’s the kind of bed that deserves an oooh. It deserves even more—and, dammit, I am not going to think about that.

I turn away, drop our luggage next to a bureau that’s at least half a mile long, and make the pilgrimage to the bathroom. I definitely don’t want to see Victorian plumbing fixtures.

And, man, I don’t.

The bathroom is almost the size of Bailey’s apartment. It’s a sea of white. White marble floor and walls. White fixtures, including an enormous soaking tub. But don’t get me wrong. There’s also glass. Plenty of it. As in a standalone glass shower stall with multiple spray heads and a teak bench so that the ten or twenty people showering in the stall could sit down and take

a break while they waited for the other team to come onto the field.

Or so that one man and one woman could make love with all those sprays going and then try something a little slower, a little more inventive, on that bench…

“It’s time,” Bailey says from behind me.

I turn and look at her.

“Time for what?” I ask, a little hoarsely.

“The rehearsal dinner. It’s at six, remember?”

I can hardly remember my own name, but I nod and mumble Yes, right, and I tell Bailey I’ll just check out the coffee alcove the desk clerk mentioned—and yes, he’s the guy she knew in high school although at first, he didn’t recognize her and when he did, I could damn near see his wisdom teeth when his mouth dropped open.

Forget that. I tell her I’ll get coffee while she gets ready, and then I make my exit.

* * *

The dinner is at a restaurant in Troy, which turns out to be a smallish city just a few miles away.

My PA looks fantastic.

The blue silk dress. The butterfly shoes we bought at Saks. Her hair is loose. She has on a black silk jacket and I’m almost sorry to see it because it means I won’t have any reason to take off my own jacket and wrap her in it later tonight, when we’re on our way back to our room, and for some crazy reason the thought of me taking something off and her putting it on is a turn-on.