Honeymooning Read Online Free Page B

out the spreadsheet she’d made, the one that itemized her net worth. She would go over this with him.
    Then Janet got out her knitting and clutched it against herself. She crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet up over her breasts, and started to knit, jerking tight, angry stitches that would show against the work later. She didn’t care.
    Biting her lip, Janet looked outside. She could just make him out through the louvered blinds—the stupid harmonica to his lips, the way he leaned forward. Damn, she loved him. But they still had to have a talk. Period.
    With clothes on.
     
    Janet raised the blinds to let in the sunset. White clouds puffed high into the air, the sky behind them painted bright red, coral pink, and pumpkin orange. To the east, the background turned from light blue to cerulean to a deep azure. As the clouds scudded across the horizon, the shades changed, and Janet was reminded of the one time she’d seen the Northern Lights—the hues here changed almost as quickly, and just as spectacularly.
    She’d pulled on her shirt and her pants when she’d gotten up, and when Tom had finally come back in, he’d put on jeans and button-down shirt. He hadn’t said anything as he’d dressed, and neither had she.
    He came over and stood next to her, still quiet. “That’s some sunset,” he finally said, and his voice was normal. Janet felt a surge of relief.
    She looked down at their bare feet, hers small, his wide and long.  
    “Cute toes,” said Tom.
    She accepted his unspoken apology. “Thank you.” She looked down at her toenails, gleaming dark red. “This is as naked as I want to be when we’re not in bed. Okay?” He could go outside naked as much as he wanted. But she would not. She would break the rules if she had to.
    “How are we getting the car to go eat?”
    Janet gaped. “Oh, they can’t expect us to drive naked. It’s not even our car!”
    “We’ll get dressed and make a run for it. We’ll go into town and have a good dinner, with all our clothes on. Then we’ll hit a store and buy everything we need to hole up here for a few days. And once a day, each of us will take a turn around the cabin.”
    “Excuse me?” Janet raised an eyebrow.
    “The full monty. Just as a show of good faith, y’know? We’ll moon ‘em. Hey, we’ll honeymoon ‘em! Then maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
    “Around the cabin?” Janet ran an experimental shot of hot water into the window-recessed bathtub, carefully not looking at Tom. She had a sudden image of herself, streaking around the cabin in nothing but her Fluevog Benatar heels. What would be more shocking? The paleness of her rear end or her white breasts that hadn’t seen daylight since a trip to Rio in the nineties? Even in Rio, she’d only taken her top off for seven minutes, before that unexpected shyness overcame her. No, no, no. Janet was not a shy person. Feeling that way again would not do.
    “And you,” she said, turning back to her husband, hoping he hadn’t noticed her ridiculous blush, “when did you get so comfortable with nudity?”
    “When I stood in front of that couple and realized that as long as I have my hat, I’m as good as fully clothed.”
    “But what about me? I don’t have a hat.”
    He appeared to consider the question thoughtfully. “You can wear mine. As long as I’m not using it.”
    Janet took a deep breath and pulled her shirt farther down. She considered tucking it in and regretted it was too warm to wear more. “Why do we even care what they think?”
    “Maybe seeing us being naked outside will keep people from coming to visit us. Word’ll get out it’s our honeymoon and maybe they’ll think we’re busy.”
    “We will be busy. Trying to stay clothed.”
    “Worst honeymoon ever,” said Tom, dropping a light kiss on her lips.
    She grinned, suddenly heart-happy that he was with her. No matter what, he was her husband. “The worst.”
     
    They ate dinner in a restaurant in which everyone