The Fix-It Man

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Darkness came slowly that evening, but at last the house was quiet except for the steady dripping of the kitchen faucet. Diana lay with the sheets thrown back and listened to the steady chirp of crickets and katydids. The room above hers was quiet. No pacing tonight.

  The almost sheer cotton nightgown stuck to her damp body. She rolled to one side and lifted the hair away from her neck. Maybe she should cut it. Or shave it off completely. She chuckled in the dark gray silence that surrounded her.

  What good would it do to shave her head or throw away the perfume or gain weight? Maybe Zach wouldn’t find her attractive, but she’d still want to mold herself to his sun-bronzed body. Was that so wrong? Her nipples tightened, and she pressed both hands against her breasts in an attempt to suppress the desire that welled up at the thought of him. Damn, it was hot!

  Impatiently she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and placed her bare feet on the oval braided rug next to her bed. Beethoven raised his head. “Stay, Beethoven,” she whispered, and the spaniel dropped to his paws with a sigh.

  She opened her door and crept noiselessly into the kitchen. A glass of lemonade would cool her down a little. She longed for a shower, but water running through the old pipes would wake up everyone in the house. Working with extreme care, she got ice and the lemonade pitcher out of the refrigerator with a minimum of noise and poured herself a tall glass of the chilled liquid.

  Before taking a drink, she ran the icy tumbler across her forehead and down each cheek. For a shivery moment she placed it in the moist valley between her breasts. Ahhh! She leaned against the counter and sipped the tart lemonade while she thought about the outing planned for the next day. Zach may have asked the girls along, but to her, it felt like a date. A date with an incredibly sexy man, who at this very moment was sleeping in the room at the top of the stairs.

  As if her thoughts had conjured him, she heard Zach’s bedroom door squeak and froze. Maybe he was headed for the bathroom. Then a stair groaned under his weight, and she knew he was on his way. She could run back to her room and hide with her half-full glass, or she could stay and brave it out. She stood her ground. Whose house was this, anyway?

  “Any left for me?” His shadowy figure loomed in the kitchen doorway.

  “Help yourself.” As he walked past her, she heard the rustle of his nylon running shorts, but she could tell from the vague outline of his body that he wore nothing else. His broad back gleamed, looking smooth and powerful in the faint light from the stars outside the window.

  “Couldn’t sleep. Too hot. And there’s a damn mosquito that keeps whining in my ear.”

  “You ought to turn on the light and kill it, or you’ll be covered with bites in the morning.”

  He laughed. “I think I’ve already got one on my rear end.” He took a glass from the cupboard.

  “That’s what you get for sleeping in the altogether.” She wondered if he deliberately turned to look at her when he opened the refrigerator door. She was standing right in the middle of the shaft of light, and she blinked at the glare.

  “Not much difference between that and what you’ve got on.”

  “It’s hot,” she said defensively.

  “You’re telling me.” He took out the lemonade pitcher and closed the door. “Need a refill?”

  “No, thank you. In fact —” she paused to drain her glass “—I think I’ll toddle off to bed now.”

  “Uh, Diana?” He glanced in her direction.

  “Yes?”

  “I forgot to ask Al to rewind my bandage. Could you possibly help?”

  “I thought you were taking it off tomorrow,” she hedged, reluctant to move closer and touch him. “Does it matter?”

  “Maybe not. I just thought —”

  She decided her cowardice was silly. “Okay. Sit down at the table.”

  He obeyed. “Do you need the light?”

  “No. My eyes are adjusted to the dark.”

  He placed his bandaged arm on the table, and she pulled up a chair and sat down. “I guess after the fair you’ll be able to start painting again.” She unfastened the metal clip, and he lifted his arm so that she could unwind the bandage.

  “Should be able to.”

  His fingers were within five inches of the thin material covering her breasts. “Do you think your wrist is healed?” She unwound the last of the bandage, and he lowered his hand, palm up, fingers curled slightly, in front of her. She stared at it in fascination as her imagination placed those fingers against her skin, stroking, arousing…

  “I think it’s healed.”

  “Good.” She placed the end of the bandage in his palm, held it there and began rewinding the elasticized strip over his thumb and back up his wrist. It took all the control she had to keep her hands steady. She thought his breathing became more rapid, and then he leaned back nonchalantly in the chair, as if her touch meant nothing to him.

  “Stop me if you’d rather not discuss this, but why didn’t you and the girls go to the fair last year? I can imagine the reason, but I need to know if any time bombs will go off while we’re there. Does it have to do with Jim?”

  “Yes. His death was only a few weeks before the fair. He was a tractor salesman, and the fair was a big deal for his company. They always have a large display and the annual tractor pull. I—we—thought it would be too much for us.” She finished winding the bandage and picked up the metal clip.

  “I figured that, and I’ve been a little concerned. The girls seem to be looking forward to tomorrow, but I wondered if you’ll be all right.” His soft murmuring voice seemed to caress her bare skin, and her heart began to thump crazily.

  She fastened the clip over the bandage. “I think so.”

  His free hand, cool from grasping the lemonade glass, covered hers as he leaned forward again. “Are you sure? I really want you to go, but I’ll be glad to take the girls if you’d rather stay home.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.” Her hand tingled under his, but she chose not to pull it away. The pressure of his hand on hers felt so right, so good.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” His thumb caressed the back of her hand. “I don’t want to step on memories.”

  “You’re not.” She heard the breathless note in her voice. Leave, Diana. Leave now.

  “We made it through another week.” He lifted his hand and brushed it lightly along her forearm. “How’re you holding up?”

  She watched the movement of his hand in trembling fascination. She should make him stop. She really should. “I—okay.”

  “I’m going crazy.”

  She glanced up at his shadowed face, and even in the dim light she could see the intensity there. “Me, too,” she admitted in a whisper.

  “Diana—” He rose from his chair and pulled her up with him.

  “Zach, we mustn’t —”

  One step brought him around the corner of the table, and his arms folded her against his lean body. “For God’s sake,” he muttered, just before his lips crushed down on hers.

  Six

  Diana’s gasp was swallowed by Zach’s forceful kiss, and then there was no turning back. He’d made the decision for both of them, and with a grateful moan she wrapped her arms around his strong neck and opened her mouth to his determined invasion.

  She reveled in the restrained strength of the muscular arms that held her tight, but not so tight that she couldn’t move. And to move was ecstasy, as the hard muscles of his strong body imprinted themselves against her. The thin cotton of her nightgown and the sleek nylon of his running shorts might have been nothing at all, making her aware of every inch of his lean torso, of the desire thrusting toward her.

  Boldly Zach slipped both hands beneath the cotton hem of her nightgown and stroked up her rib cage. Beyond rational thought, she leaned back to allow his fevered touch on her aching breasts, and the bandage across his right palm grazed her nipple as he caressed her. She began to shiver uncontrollably as the sensuous massage continued.

/>   He lifted his head, and his breath came in ragged spurts. “Now can we stop this nonsense and enjoy each other? Have we suffered enough?”

  Through a haze of passion she gazed at the dim contours of his face. Her body waited, damp and ready. She couldn’t remember ever wanting anything as much as she wanted this man to fill her, to take away the horrible ache of emptiness deep inside. But her throat closed over the words.

  “You aren’t going to say it, are you?” he accused hoarsely. “Dammit!” He dropped his arms and backed away. “Damn that prudish Midwestern mentality of yours. You wouldn’t stop me if I made love to you in that bedroom, but you’d sure as hell blame me afterward.”

  Her voice shook. “Do you care?”

  He walked away from her and gripped the back of a kitchen chair. Even in the dim light she could see the whitening of his knuckles. “I wish to hell I didn’t. I wish I could go into that bedroom with you right now and get rid of all my frustrations—yours, too, by the way—and then turn a deaf ear to your recriminations.”

  She swallowed hard, and tears misted her eyes. “I wouldn’t let you shoulder all the blame.”

  “Blame?” He whirled back toward her. “There shouldn’t be any blame. What kind of word is that? I’ll tell you what kind. Blame is a judgmental word that implies wrongdoing. I don’t happen to think our making love would be wrong, but obviously you do.”

  She wrapped her arms closely around her body as alternate waves of hot and cold washed over her. “In these circumstances, yes.”

  “If it weren’t for those girls, I’d pack my bags tonight.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll take care of the girls. I always have.”

  “No. I promised them the fair, and they’ll have their wonderful day.” He ran trembling fingers through his sandy-colored hair. “After that, I don’t know.” He glanced over at her. “Life could be so easy, Diana, if you’d turn loose from that outdated thinking.”

  “Outdated by whose standards?” she challenged in an unsteady voice. “Let’s suppose we became lovers. At first perhaps we’d be careful to return to our separate beds before morning. But one night both of us would fall asleep.”

  “No.”

  “It’s bound to happen, Zach. And then we’d come out of the room together, in front of Allison and Laurie.”

  “Let’s suppose you’re right. Are you sure they couldn’t handle it?”

  “You’ve been around those girls enough to know the answer. Think about their level of sophistication. Think about them, for a change, instead of our needs. They’re not ready for a mother with lovers.”

  “Lover,” he corrected.

  “Oh? After you leave town you’ll demand that I go back to my celibate state? Why should I? The girls will be properly broken in, and I can carry on like The Merry Widow!”

  “Stop it.”

  The idea of a string of men in her life following his departure seemed to put him into an unreasonable rage. “Stop what?” she said, perversely goading him further. “I don’t think you’re following this situation to its inevitable conclusion. Once you take me to bed, you can’t control the chain of events that will be set in motion. You won’t be here, anyway, so why be upset?”

  His hands curled into fists and his voice came out in a frustrated growl. “Well, I’m not taking you to bed, so we can drop the subject. Good night.”

  He stomped past her and up the stairs with such vehemence that she worried the girls might wake up. But the house was quiet as she sank back against the clammy sheets in her lonely bedroom. She lay staring at the ceiling as if her eyes could bore a hole through the old wood and provide a view of what Zach was doing. Eventually his steady tread back and forth told her. He was pacing away his thwarted desire. She tossed restlessly and wondered much later, when the pacing had stopped, if she’d have been wiser to follow his example.

  With the first glow of dawn came pulsing drumbeats from both the girls’ radios. Diana groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. She didn’t remember sleeping at all, but she must have drifted off in the early morning hours after Zach had stopped pacing above her head. How could she face him this morning, let alone spend the day with him?

  She lay listening to the girls scurrying around upstairs to the beat of their music. Their excited giggling filled her with remorse. Why hadn’t she left the kitchen last night before the inevitable had happened? She’d tempted fate and Zach, and only she could be blamed for what had followed. Blame. There was that word again.

  But she felt responsible for the kiss. More than a kiss, she admitted, flushing at the memory of Zach’s strong hands kneading the heated skin of her breasts. She’d let down the barriers to passion, and because she had, she dreaded the day that was to have been such a treat for all of them.

  Above her Allison pounded on Zach’s door. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Today’s fair day!” she chortled before bounding down the stairs.

  Diana sat up and threw the pillow to the far side of the room. Last night wouldn’t ruin Allison and Laurie’s outing, she vowed, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She’d paste a smile on her face and make sure the girls had the time of their lives. With renewed determination she marched into her bathroom to get ready for the day ahead.

  * * *

  “Where to first?” Zach asked as they stood inside the admission gate.

  Allison and Laurie began chattering at once.

  “Hold it,” Zach said, raising both hands. “One at a time.”

  Diana stood slightly apart from the threesome and watched Zach. To his credit, he appeared as relaxed and carefree in front of the girls as before. She could almost believe she had imagined last night’s kitchen scene, except for the look in his blue eyes when he had first seen her that morning. His gaze had swept over her flowered sundress hungrily, touching the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips under the summery material.

  “Better wear sunscreen on those shoulders,” he had said casually, but his eyes had been bright with the recently gained knowledge of her body. Innocence was gone forever.

  But here amid the sun-splashed color of the fairgrounds, the dark secrets of last night lost some of their potency. She smiled at her daughters’ enthusiasm.

  “Happy Hollow! Happy Hollow!” Allison chanted, jumping up and down.

  “Not yet, bimbo,” Laurie said. “We’re on a budget, don’t forget. If you blow your money on rides first thing, what will you do tonight?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Laurie’s right,” Zach said, putting an arm around Allison and hugging away her scowl as Laurie preened in triumph. “Besides, I’ve been on carnival rides before. I want to see the other stuff—the animals and handmade quilts, huge tomatoes—all that.”

  “Laurie and I know some kids in 4-H,” Allison said. “Let’s go over there.”

  “Sounds good. Okay with you, Diana?”

  “Fine.” She gave him a grateful smile. He really was terrific with the girls. He’d make a wonderful fa—Good God, what was she thinking? Oh, sure, Zach would be glad to give up his dream of a professorship at Stanford to live in dull little Springfield with a ready-made family. He’d turn in his surfboard and single lifestyle in a minute. Hah!

  “Wait!” Laurie called as they began walking in the direction of the building where the 4-H exhibits were housed. “Let me comb my hair if we’re going to see people we know.”

  “Laurie Thatcher, I’m going to stick your head in a threshing machine!” Allison put her hands on her hips and glared as her sister took a long-handled comb from the back pocket of her shorts and ran it methodically through her dark hair.

  “Hey, Al,” Zach teased, “don’t forget what I said about changes. You may have a comb stuck in your back pocket one of these days.”

  “Never.” Allison made a face and bounded several paces ahead of them, while Laurie hung behind to check her hair-combing job in the reflection of a refreshment-stand window.

  Zach reached over and took Diana’s hand as the
y walked. “Never,” he said with a chuckle. “How easily kids say that word.”

  She couldn’t decide how to react to his matter-of-fact gesture. Pulling her hand away would focus unwanted attention on what he’d done, but his touch was bringing back all the tumultuous emotions of the night before. She glanced up at him, a question in her eyes.

  He gave her a quizzical smile. “I think hand-holding’s allowed, don’t you?” he said in a low voice only she could hear.

  “I guess so.”

  “You look wonderful today, even with those little purple smudges under your eyes.”

  “You’re not still angry?”

  “I tried to be, but then I realized you’re only doing what you think is best for your children. How can I be angry about that?”

  “I shouldn’t have stayed in the kitchen last night.”

  “I shouldn’t have come down when I heard your door squeak.” He laced his fingers more firmly through hers. “Let’s try to put last night aside and have fun today. We’ll pretend we’re high school kids on our first date.”

  She smiled at the whimsy of his idea. “Okay.”

  “That’s my girl.” He squeezed her hand. “Chickens, pigs and cows, here we come!”

  Diana enjoyed this year’s livestock displays more than she could remember enjoying any other year’s, simply because Zach was so fascinated with everything. They watched milking contests and sheep judging, walked along endless rows of rabbit cages and goat pens. Laurie forgot to complain about the smell, and Allison laughed with delight every time Zach exclaimed over a new wonder.

  “Little chicks are coming out of those eggs!” he pronounced as they passed a large incubator. “Come here, Diana. Just look at this.”

  “Mom, they’re selling the chicks,” Allison said eagerly. “Only fifty cents. Look at those ones with the curly feathers!”

  “Aw, Mom. They’re darling,” cooed Laurie. “Couldn’t we each have one?”