She shook her head. “I think I’ll let it stand. Why not college? Because anybody can teach those people.”
“I beg your pardon, but—”
“Think about it, Spence. By the time someone gets to college age, he either wants to learn or he doesn’t. If he does, he can practically teach himself. If he doesn’t, he’s going to skip class and party — and what sort of teachers he has won’t matter much.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure I agree with that. I remember a few teachers—”
He stopped, and after half a minute Sharley prompted, “Yes?”
Spence said slowly, “My last year of high school, there was a teacher who gave me a really rough time. I was pretty much the kind of kid you were describing — the sort who always had an excuse instead of his homework, and who sometimes didn’t even bother with the excuse.”
Sharley nodded.
“My mother had died that year, and there just didn’t seem to be anything important about school. I certainly didn’t expect it to lead to anything, and in fact I was thinking about quitting.”
“But…?”
“I planned to end up working on cars. It seemed to be the only thing I had a talent for, so why shouldn’t I get started?”
“A bit short-sighted,” Sharley murmured.
“Maybe, but I was eighteen and it didn’t look as if there were any alternatives. I didn’t have an adoring aunt and uncle volunteering to pay for my college education.”
Sharley bit her lip. He hadn’t exactly sounded sarcastic, and surely he must realize that she knew how very lucky she was. Still...
“At any rate, I thought this teacher just had it in for me until she called me in one afternoon and laid the facts on the line. She told me that what happened to my father wasn’t enough of an excuse for me to waste my life.”
Sharley drew in a long, shocked breath.
Spence grinned, crookedly. “I told her if she’d been a man I’d have hit her, and she said she’d suspected I must have a sense of honor hidden somewhere and I’d just showed her where it was.”
“She was a pretty cool customer.”
“Very. She knew every pressure point and exactly how hard to push to get the desired result. After I’d studied a little psychology in college I could see exactly what she’d been up to, but that day — well, all I knew was that it was the first time anybody seemed to care. It was the first time someone held out a dream and said, ‘This can be yours, Spence.’”
Sharley put her hand over his.
Spence didn’t look at her. “That’s the first time I’ve told anybody about her.”
She could tell by his voice that he regretted it, too — at least partly — for fear that she would drown him in maudlin sympathy. She had to clear her throat before she could say, “But that proves my point, Spence. If you’d already been in college, that teacher might never have had a chance to know you well enough to figure out which buttons to push.”
He smiled a little at that.
“So you were going to work on cars,” Sharley mused. “Engines or bodies?”
“Engines. Why?”
“Too bad. The way yours looks, it’s going to need a good body man.” Sharley studied her remaining cards. “Or maybe two of them,” she added thoughtfully.
“No doubt I messed up the engine as well. It hit pretty hard.”
“Oh, that makes me feel much better.” Her voice was faintly ironic.
Spence smiled and played his final card. “Thanks, Sharley.”
“For what? The concern or the opportunity to trounce me? By the way, are you talking to me to check whether I’m still making sense, or to distract me from playing well?”
“Both.” Spence gathered up the cards and started to shuffle. “And it seems to be working. Are you certain you don’t want to play poker?”
“I’m sure.” She pulled herself up from the depths of the couch. It wasn’t easy; the cushions sagged, and her body ached all over. Perhaps sitting still hadn’t been such a wonderful idea after all; moving around might have kept her muscles loose. “I want something to eat. We never had breakfast.”
“Speak for yourself.”
She paused on her way to the kitchen and looked over her shoulder at him. “Is that why you were rummaging around the cabin this morning and making so much noise?”
“Rummaging?” He sounded offended. “I’ll have you know I was very quiet.”
Sharley cut a thick slice from a loaf of bread and spread jam on it. “Why? So I wouldn’t demand you share?”
“I resent that accusation. Of course I’d have shared.” He was leaning against the kitchen counter by then, watching as she nibbled at her slice of bread. “Are you going to?”
“Share? Fix it yourself, Spence. But I’ll make you a cup of coffee.” She refilled the kettle and put it on the stove.
“Only because you want one.”
“That’s the true spirit of cooperation, wouldn’t you say?”
Spence reached for the bread knife. “If that’s the case, I shouldn’t tell you that you have jam on your face.”
Sharley wiped at the corner of her mouth.
Spence shook his head. “You missed.”
“Where, exactly—”
He was leisurely spreading jam on his bread, making sure every molecule of the surface was covered. “Come here and I’ll show you. Out of the goodness of my heart, you understand.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but the slightly gruff note in his voice made Sharley’s insides flutter just a little. He couldn’t mean he intended to kiss the silly smear off her face — could he? After what he had said about playing with fire... No, of course he didn’t intend any such thing.
She didn’t realize she had moved toward him until he turned to face her. The kitchen was chilly, but Spence’s breath was warm against her forehead. Warm, and a little faster than normal...almost as it had been out there on the hilltop.
His arm was almost encircling her. Sharley’s stomach did a somersault. You know better, she told herself. But she closed her eyes anyway, and waited for the touch of his mouth against hers.
Instead she felt the chilly brush of fabric against her chin, and her eyelids flew open just as Spence drew a damp kitchen towel back from her face. “There,” he said matter-of-factly. “That takes care of it.” He tossed the towel over Sharley’s shoulder toward the sink, and went back to spreading his jam with infinite care.
That, she told herself, will teach you to think you’re irresistible.
She ate the rest of her bread slowly, taking small bites because the loaf was beginning to get dry and it threatened to choke her. Then she made the coffee.
But she was still thinking about the jam. She was overreacting to the whole situation, of course. Spence was right about the dangers of playing with fire. This whole mess was bad enough as it was. To add physical contact would be like turning up the flame of a Bunsen burner under a beaker of acid. Only an idiot would do that.
That knowledge didn’t stop her from being an idiot, she reflected.
It was almost as if that stunning kiss out on the hilltop had taken the lid off a box inside her mind —a little hiding place where she had hidden away the memories of every kiss, every caress, every touch. Now those memories were pouring out again, and everything he did seemed to strike a chord and call up an image...
Physical attraction isn’t everything, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t even the most important thing in a relationship. So why was she allowing herself to drown in old desires?
Habit, that was all. She simply must get her thinking straightened out, before it caused even more trouble.
Spence was searching through the food in the cabinet, and his off-key whistle was about to drive her around the bend by the time he decided on a can of ready-to-eat soup.
“Let’s have an early lunch,” he suggested. “Just to make up for the late breakfast. Where’s the can opener?”
Sharley tugged at the drawer where she had stashed it
. When the drawer stuck, she pulled harder, and the porcelain knob came off in her hand. She stood there for a moment looking incredulously from the handle to the drawer. The kitchen was old, and the drawer fronts were built flush with the face of the cabinets; there wasn’t even an edge to get hold of.
It was bad enough to be without refrigeration, but if they couldn’t get to the can opener, things were quickly going from bad to worse.
Spence turned around impatiently with one hand extended for the can opener, and his eyes narrowed. “Now what?”
Sharley shrugged and held up the knob. “Hand me the bread knife and I’ll try to pry it open.”
“And probably slit your wrists doing it.” He pushed up his sweater sleeves and pulled open the next drawer down, sliding both hands inside it and pressing his palms against the bottom of the trouble-maker. “Wooden runners,” he said. “That figures. They’ve warped or swelled somehow.”
The drawer groaned stubbornly, and Sharley watched as the tendons in his forearms tensed and strained. Finally the drawer creaked open an inch. Spence slid his fingers into the gap and yanked, but could only get it open another inch.
“Damn,” he said. “Can you get your hand in there? Mine’s too big.”
Sharley slipped her hands in and managed to snag the can opener. She had to dangle the tool between her index fingers and turn it at an angle to fit it through the narrow opening.
“No problem,” Spence said cheerfully. “If there’s anything else in there we might need, you may as well dig it out now. I doubt that drawer will open again till spring.”
Sharley fumbled around. “I’ll have to remember this little exercise for my kids at school. It’s a challenge to identify shapes without seeing them... Ouch!”
“Watch out for knives,” Spence warned.
“Now you mention it. I wouldn’t have thought we’d have sticky drawers in the winter, would you? It should be dry as tinder in here with the stove running and the fire blazing.”
“It’s probably all the water we’ve been boiling.”
Sharley shrugged. “One must have coffee.”
“It’s a wonder anything works at all in this cabin, you know. It’s cold all winter, probably full of mildew in summer, and neglected all year around. A little work with a plane and that drawer would never be any trouble again, but Martin would never think of doing that.”
Sharley gave up on the contents of the drawer and studied the knuckle she’d skinned. “No one ever accused Martin of being mechanically inclined. The last time he tried to mow the lawn he mixed the oil with the gas to save time, and ruined the mower.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, five years or so ago. That was when Charlotte hired the second gardener.”
“That figures.” Spence tossed the loose knob into the drawer.
Sharley started to protest, then thought better of it. He’d probably tell her that if she wanted it back, she could dig it out. “Is that why Martin is so fond of you?” she asked. “Because you do things like that so skillfully?”
“Getting that drawer open wasn’t skill, Sharley, that was brute strength. And I’d hate to think that was the only reason Martin keeps me around.” The comment was almost absent-minded.
Sharley perched on the corner of the table. “You know,” she said cautiously, “I’ve always wondered why you stayed in Hammond’s Point.”
He glanced at her and then turned back to stirring the soup. “Hudson Products was a good opportunity for me, sort of a mix between people management and practical problem-solving. I’m a hands-on kind of guy myself, but in most companies that size I’d never get onto the production floor.”
Sharley let the silence drag out for half a minute, but he didn’t seem inclined to continue. “No, I meant…” She stopped. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“Because of my father, you mean, and what he did?”
It was the first time Sharley could remember that he had ever opened up the subject. “Well, yes. I’d have thought it would be easier somewhere else.”
Spence shrugged. “I almost went away. I was practically blacklisted in Hammond’s Point, that’s sure. Nobody was willing to take much of a risk on John Greenfield’s kid. But I couldn’t quite forget something that teacher told me — that I couldn’t run away from what had happened, because no matter where I went, I had to live with myself. So when Martin gave me a chance…” His voice cracked a little.
“He’s a pretty special guy, isn’t he?” Sharley said softly. “I certainly can’t ever forget how much I owe him. Charlotte, too, of course — but Martin isn’t my family, as Charlotte is. He didn’t have to take me in and treat me like his own, but he did.”
“Yeah,” Spence said flatly. “I know.”
She wondered exactly what he meant by that, but before she could even begin to speculate, Spence had continued. “You’re even named for Charlotte, aren’t you?”
“Sort of. I had a godmother named Shirley, so it was an effort to include them both. Look!”
Spence jumped and swore as hot soup splashed onto his hand. “What?”
“The sun’s shining.” Sharley rushed over to the window. It had escaped the worst of the ice, and the center of the glass was still clear, obscured only by condensation on the inside. She grabbed the kitchen towel to wipe the moisture off, and grimaced at the resulting dirty stain on the towel. How long had it been since the windows were washed, anyway?
The light was pale and weak, but it was undeniably direct sun. It looked to Sharley as if color had suddenly come back into a black-and-white world, and shadows added depth and dimension to what had seemed an eerily flat and simplistic landscape. The ice coating on the branches gleamed like elongated diamonds and scattered tiny rainbows across the hillside.
Spence had followed her to the window.
“It won’t be long now before it starts to melt, will it?” Sharley said. In her enthusiasm, she grabbed his arm and gave it a shake. “Maybe we can even get out today!”
“If this keeps up.” He craned his neck toward the west. “I can’t tell if the sky is clearing or if that’s just a momentary break in the clouds.”
But even as he spoke, the shadows faded and blinked into oblivion, as if they had never been.
Sharley wailed, “Damn it, it isn’t fair!”
“It’s only been a day. It’s not forever.” Spence’s voice was dry.
She realized abruptly that she had let her head drop against his shoulder, and she jerked away. “Sorry.”
“What are shoulders for? The soup’s hot. Are there some more crackers?”
She dug through the cabinets, grateful for the chance to keep her back turned. What was the matter with her? She didn’t want the man; couldn’t she even keep her hands off him?
Spence dished up the soup and said, “What shall we do after lunch? Do you want your revenge at crazy eights?”
Sharley seized at the change of subject. “More cards? No, thanks. I was getting blisters on my fingers from shuffling.” And on my heart, from being too close to you. “I think I’ll clean the place up a little.”
Spence looked around. “Why bother?”
“Well, I don’t expect I’ll wipe out every speck of dirt. But ever since you mentioned the condition it’s in…” She shuddered. “It’s funny I hadn’t really noticed before.”
“No, it’s not. The light’s so dim in here that you wouldn’t see a snake unless you tripped over it.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring! I suppose when I used to come up here with Martin I didn’t notice whether the place was clean, because I was just a kid. Or maybe he had Mrs. Baxter give the place a good scrubbing now and then. Somehow I don’t think Joe is the kind who sees cobwebs till they’re big enough to strangle him.”
Spence grinned. “I think I’ll go looking for the main woodpile. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve made an awful dent in the one by the back door, and if the temperature drops again tonight we’ll need extra.�
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At least scrubbing the kitchen gave her something to do. It occupied her mind more fully than simply sitting by the fire would have done, and she attacked the dirt with fierce energy. But activity did not eliminate the headache which had been nagging at her all day. Now and then, she had to stop to rest and catch her breath, and almost every time she glanced out the window she saw Spence stacking yet another armful of wood on the back porch. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back inside. Despite the temperature, he even stopped now and then to study the sky — or perhaps he was watching the birds. Had he been as anxious to escape her as she had to keep her distance from him?
A Singular Honeymoon Page 10
