"G.o.d, no."

"I don't want my dress to wrinkle." Turning her back, she lowered the dress until she could step out of it. She would bet money Linda's gaze was on the white silk panties she wore and she smiled to herself. No one had ever made her feel as powerfully attractive. She hung the dress in the closet and finally turned around. Linda had taken off the T-shirt and for a moment Marissa couldn't breathe.

"Yummy-yum-yum. Worth waiting for."

Recovering her wits she crossed the short distance to the bed. "One last thing to take off."

"Need help with that?"

"Oh yes." Marissa adopted her best impression of a Southern belle. "Why, I just can't figure out how to take them off all by my little lonesome."

"It's easy." Linda practically purred as she slid to the edge of the bed. "You use your teeth."

Linda's unrestrained intensity never failed to melt Marissa's confidence into an ache of desire. No longer the stalking tigress, she felt abruptly the prey. Linda first nipped at her thigh before she bit into the front of her panties and pulled them down. Marissa cupped Linda's face as heat from Linda's breath seemed to float over her entire body. With a shiver of delight she helped lower her panties until they pooled around her ankles and she could kick them off. Linda opened her arms and Marissa settled into the shelter of their encircling strength.

b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stomachs, and thighs melted together as knees sorted themselves out with the ease of familiarity. The scratch of Linda's nails along the inside of one thigh drew a low moan from the back of Marissa's throat.

"Is this what you want, Marissa?"

She nodded, gaze locked with Linda's. When Linda dipped between her legs Marissa felt herself falling into the well of Linda's eyes. Entwined on their sides, Linda seemed intent on kissing Marissa until morning while her fingertips teased lightly. It was as languid as their lovemaking had been feverish the night before. With each new kiss and whispered affection Marissa grew more and more frantic for Linda's touch inside her.

"I love the way you can move for me," Linda whispered. Her hand shifted and Marissa felt the long, welcome stroke of her fingers. "I love the way your body feels against mine."

With a sudden, delicious spasm Marissa arched hard against Linda. The layers of sensation that radiated out from Linda's hand brought a tingle of electricity wherever her skin touched Linda's. There were stars behind her eyes, then all of that light folded inward until she glowed from the inside out.

"We could go to the lip sync contest," Marissa offered sleepily quite some time later.

"Sure."

Marissa knew that voice. Linda was asleep, but her brain's autopilot would mumble appropriate responses if Marissa kept talking.

"Will you get me a s.p.a.ce shuttle for my birthday?"

"Sure."

Marissa laughed softly to herself, then rose to turn out the lights. She studied the sweep of Linda's hair over the pillow before faint moonlight from the porthole replaced the lamp's last glow.

She slipped back into the circle of Linda's arms and melted at the warmth of Linda behind her. "Go dancing with me tomorrow night?"

"Sure."

"Marry me?"

"Sure."

"Love me forever?"

"Abso-freaking-lutely."

"You're not asleep."

"I was."

Marissa fondly tickled the arm around her waist. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"All the tomorrows."

Linda pulled her a little closer. "Finders keepers, sweetheart. You're mine now."

Making Up For Lost Time.

Published: 1998.

Characters: Jamie Ona.s.sis, master chef Valkyrie Valentine, home repair expert.

Setting: San Francisco and Mendocino, California The Eighth is for Eternity.

Happy New Year Too.

(10 years).

"Don't look at me that way. You know this is the way it has to be."

For the third morning in a row, the puppy scratched outside the kitchen door of the Waterview Inn. Jamie didn't know how long it had been on the streets-not long from the looks of the glossy brown and white spotted coat, and healthy, trimmed nails. Puppy was maybe not quite the right word, either. It was female, had a spay scar and was probably more than a year old, but not by much.

She didn't know her breeds well, but enough to know this dog was no pedigreed creature. As she told Val on the phone, it was a lot like the "lady dog" from Lady and the Tramp, but lacked the curly tendrils around the ears. The muzzle wasn't quite the same as her cartoon memory, either.

"You can't let it in," Val had warned her. "No animals in the restaurant."

"I know," Jamie had answered. She'd always had a soft spot for dogs, but Aunt Emily had never kept pets-same problem. It would be impossible to keep it out of the kitchen with their floor plan, and health inspectors would spot one in a surprise inspection. Shutting a dog up in a bedroom or office by itself for the better part of every day, especially a young, larger one used to s.p.a.ce, seemed cruel to her.

She looked down at the puppy and sighed. It wagged its tail, big brown eyes shiny and bright, and looked at her as if she were the sum total of its entire reason to exist. Sometimes, that was exactly the way Val looked at her, but Val was taping her latest season of A Month of Sundays and hadn't been home in over two months now, and it was still four weeks until Jamie went to New York for Thanksgiving.

She loved that her Val was the beloved hottie do-it-yourself queen Valkyrie Valentine. And they both loved the Waterview Inn and the little town of Mendocino too, the place where Jamie had grown up. Val had worked hard to make the Inn a showplace of relaxed elegance that was a "must-see" in tourist guides for the Northern California coast, while Jamie lived out her pa.s.sion for food creating bistro and homey fare for locals and travelers. The problem was that Val's network's studio and the Waterview Inn were three thousand miles apart.

On the fourth morning she couldn't stand it-the puppy definitely looked thinner and hungrier. A bowl of basic sc.r.a.ps and another of water was the humane thing to do. She put them at the very far end of the mud porch where the dog could come and go at will, and cursed tourists. Undoubtedly, someone had been traveling with the little sweetheart and either dumped it or it had gotten lost. They'd gone on their way and left the dog.

It was way off season now, and the chances of tourists coming back to remote Mendocino to look were slim to none. She'd post signs, though, just in case. The town was emptier every day as the other shop owners and locals headed to their winter haunts, so finding a home would be difficult.

Her "aunt" Liesel already had one such adopted dog, and Jamie got to pet Stubby several times a week. No doubt when she walked down to Liesel's house for their Thursday night dinner, Stubby would be very intrigued by the aroma of another dog on Jamie's pant legs. Maybe Liesel wanted another pet. Maybe she wouldn't have to call the humane society.

When Val called for their afternoon chat, just before dinner New York time, Jamie didn't tell her about the dog. Well, about feeding the dog. Val would stress about it, and say Jamie was headed down a slippery slope and she'd be right, and New York was really far away some nights.

"What shall we do for Christmas this year, honey?" It sounded like Val was sprawled across the ridiculous fuchsia fainting couch in the bedroom of the Greenwich Village loft. Her apartment was the occasional scene of a background shoot, and Val's own renovations combined with her network's designer had turned the place into a showpiece fit for Valkyrie Valentine, the woman-who-can-do-it-all. Val had hated that fainting couch until a memorable evening during one of Jamie's visits.

"Hawaii? It'll be warm and sunny, and we'd get tans to bring back to the fog. I can't leave until the fifteenth, though. The first through the fifteenth is my stint for checking the merchant premises for problems."

"Have there been any issues so far?"

"No-no signs of squatters, though Whispering Pines had an upper door blow open. Jacob spotted it." Jamie decided the piece of shortbread closest to her was far too ragged to sell, so she broke it in two and devoured half. The longer Val was away, the more sweets she consumed. "So what do you think of Hawaii?"

"That's tempting, very tempting. There are also great rentals on the French southern coast. You practically don't even have to cook-fresh fruit and veg and cheese and wine, just waiting for the picnic basket and the local markets."

Jamie heard the telltale scratch at the door. "Just when there's so little fresh here too-that sounds really good. Shall we flip a coin?"

"I'd rather flip you."

Ten years and she was still susceptible to the purr in Val's voice. She was about to suggest Val call her later, around bedtime maybe, when there was another scratch at the door. s.e.xy partner on phone and the adorable stray puppy vied for her focus. "That's sounding really good right now. I can't wait for Thanksgiving."

There was a short, sharp bark from the mud porch. Jamie peered out the screen and made a stern face. The puppy wagged its tail so hard it nearly fell over.

"Just you make sure there's no fog."

"No dog...fog. No fog. It hasn't been that bad for two years, so you can bet I'll be on that plane."

Val said a bad word, then, "Sorry, sweetie. Doorbell. I think it's Sheila and some phenom she's been trying to get a guest spot for. Some Top Chef finalist."

Jamie grinned into the phone. "Not from the show you guest judged?"

"Don't think so. Hang on."

Jamie could hear Val's side of a conversation, then the unmistakable cloying tones of Sheila's voice, though she couldn't make out the words. She never would like Sheila much, though she had grown to tolerate her over the last ten years.

"Sure-I haven't eaten yet. No, let me finish talking to my girl. There's wine. You know where." Into the phone, "I guess we're going out to dinner. She has a table at Craft booked."

"You lucky dog!"

"I will show you better at Thanksgiving, sweetie."

"I should hope you'd show me better than anything Sheila sees."

Val's voice plummeted to its most husky colors. "Why don't I call you when I get in?"

Jamie made her I-just-bit-into-chocolate-and-it's-melting-in-my-mouth sound. "It's a date."

Two sharp barks interrupted their goodbyes.

"What was that?"

Jamie could hear Val's arched eyebrow through the phone. "Not sure. You call me, don't forget."

She hung up hurriedly and slipped out onto the mud porch. "You can't do that. There's no barking when Val's on the phone. Got it?"

The lady dog puppy shivered all over, one big bag of wiggling rapturous Jell-O love.

Maybe she was lonely, and maybe she was a sucker for big brown eyes, but she got down on her knees and scratched the ears and chest and allowed a big slurp across her nose. It really didn't matter why. She fetched an old rug and made sure the water dish was full.

"Liesel's going to be here for all the folks dropping in to pick up their pies. That is, if I actually get to leave in the morning. Which doesn't seem likely. There are no tourists, either, so no Thanksgiving week b.u.mp because of it." Jamie cradled the phone on her shoulder as she savagely sc.r.a.ped whipped cream out of the copper bowl. "It's pea soup out there, and I'm not kidding, Val. I can't see the other side of the street. It's that eerie quiet-no cars, no sound of the ocean, no gull calls even."

"I'm so sorry, honey." Val's voice was reedy on the line, and she sounded as if she were calling from the moon. "I hate this more every year. I hate being here half the year, and you there."

"Lifestyles of the rich and famous." Jamie agreed completely with what Val was saying, but there was little point in complaining about what she couldn't change. "I want to be there tomorrow night. I want to wake up Thanksgiving morning next to you. I'm not exaggerating the d.a.m.ned fog."

She didn't glance out the window again. If she did, she'd start to cry and she didn't like to cry on the phone with Val. The cure for it was Val's arms around her and that wasn't going to happen, so crying was no good. She m.u.f.fled a sniff.

"I know you're not. Maybe I can get there."

"You'd have to be back Sunday evening, and you're even worse driving in the fog than I am. Jacob says it's all the way to Willits going inland, and doesn't break until Bodega Bay going south. The market has a sign up that trucking shipments are limited-no sane driver would try it. It's not supposed to lift until Sat.u.r.day night. Maybe."

"Don't you try it either," Val said sharply. "Don't even-I want you safe more than I want you here."

Jamie was not so good at hiding the sniff this time.

"Honey," Val said slowly. "Put down the bowl or pot or whatever. Now just breathe."

Fortunately, Val's voice sounded as thick with unshed tears as hers did. For a minute Jamie could only wipe away tears. Finally, she was able to say, "I miss you so much. It's worse than last year."

"I find myself hugging people," Val admitted. "Not...not in a sleazy, gamey way. Just for the warmth. The contact."

"I know what you mean."

"I'm trying every way I can think of to be away less."

You say that every year, Jamie could have said, but that wasn't the truth that mattered. "I love you, and watching you on TV is no subst.i.tute."

"I'm out of your ginger cookies and had the last of the marmalade this morning. I was going to do without for a day to want it all the more."

Jamie had to smile through her misty tears. "I swear you miss the marmalade more than me."

"Honey, after I ravished you for most of Wednesday night, I was going to slather you in the marmalade for Thanksgiving breakfast and consume you whole."

"Oh, that sounds delicious. Now if the fog will lift..." This time she did glance out the window. There was nothing but a white wall out there, pressing its cold misty face against the window screens.

"Not likely, is it?"