Bittersweet Passion

by Peggy Webb

  Then why was she standing barefoot at her closet trying to decide what to wear to Tranquility Manor?

  Don’t think about it, she told herself. In fact, that summed up her whole life. Move. Do something. Run. But don’t think. Never think.

  She put on tight black capris, a little yellow sweater and drop-dead shoes with four-inch heels and rhinestone straps across her toes.

  The first thing she noticed when she got to the nursing home was the car with the Georgia license plates. That brought a big smile to her face.

  She was still smiling when she went through the front door where Bob Clements, the janitor, was mopping the tiles.

  “Good morning, Bob.”

  “’Morning, Miss Skylar. Better watch your step, floor’s slick.”

  “How’s Harriet today?” Harriet was Bob’s wife and a resident in the nursing home. Almost blind from diabetes, and with one leg amputated.

  “Better, thank you. She sure does look forward to your visits. They cheer her up considerably.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You stayin’ in town long this time, Miss Skylar?”

  “That all depends, Bob.”

  On what, she didn’t exactly know. The band wouldn’t go on tour again until spring. They had a big Christmas concert in Huntsville, but, other than that, Skylar was free.

  A little voice inside her scoffed, Free?

  She lengthened her stride, trying to outrun the voice…and ran smack into the Reverend Daniel Westmoreland. She probably would have toppled off her shoes if he hadn’t caught her.

  And held on.

  And it felt good. Too good.

  “Whoa, there.” He smiled down at her, and she melted all the way down to her rhinestones. He had the kind of smile that would call angels from the heavens…if you believed in such things. Which she definitely did not, in spite of all her father’s efforts.

  “It’s a good thing I was here to catch you,” he said.

  “Hmmm, it’s a very good thing.”

  Daniel’s hands were still on her shoulders, and his body was too close for comfort.

  Or maybe not close enough. Skylar shifted closer, so close her hips brushed against him.

  Sooo, the reverend is all man, is he?

  She gave him a wicked knowing smile, then instantly wished she hadn’t. He stepped back quickly, his smile fading, and in its place was a look of genuine confusion.

  Dammitdammitdammit.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds.”

  Now she was getting mad. Whether at him or herself, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted to lash out.

  She knew better than to get involved with a preacher. Even for a two-minute chat in the hallway in front of Bob and Nurse Hatchet-face and anybody else who happened to be passing by.

  It just simply wasn’t safe. Especially when the preacher looked as good as Daniel Westmoreland.

  And so she was fixing to say something that would make him run as far and as fast as possible. Something that would disgust and shock him so much she’d be rid of him forever. No more temptation in her path. No more lying awake at night wondering about possibilities.

  “Why, Reverend,” she purred, running her hands down his chest. “Didn’t you know? There are no bounds with me.”

  A line of sweat popped up above his lip, but he didn’t budge. Not an inch.

  And so, for good measure, she unbuttoned the top button on his shirt and dipped her fingers inside.

  Chest hair.

  Lord. She loved it.

  It was an effort to make herself remember what she was trying to do. She gave a little swivel of her hips that turned out to be shockingly intimate considering his condition. And hers.

  If she didn’t move on soon, she’d be up in flames. They’d have to evacuate the sick and the maimed and call the fire department to save the nursing home.

  And who will save you, Skylar?

  “No bounds at all,” she murmured. “Just how close would you like to be, preacher?”

  That ought to cool his jets.

  And hers.

  Time stretched to eternity. He didn’t budge. Didn’t even flinch.

  She tried to read his expression but couldn’t. Did the preacher play poker?

  When he finally spoke, his voice was deep, husky, sexy.

  “Wrong time, wrong place.” With his hands on her shoulders, he half picked her up, half scooted her back.

  “You’re confusing what I do with what I am, Skylar,” he said, then turned and walked away.

  Good riddance.

  Then why did she feel so…bereft?

  Chapter Three

  From the diary of Anne Beaufort Westmoreland:

  September 21, 200l

  Tranquility Manor. What kind of name is that for a nursing home? Where did they get it anyhow? From that first moon landing? The one where Neil Armstrong radioed Houston and said, “Tranquility Base here. The Apollo mission has landed.”

  That’s what the nursing home feels like. The moon. Cut off from every familiar thing, severed from every loving tie and a long, long way from home. Millions of miles.

  With no way to get back.

  How am I ever going help bring Michael out of his coma if I don’t get out of this horrible negative mood? Thank goodness for Daniel. He came in this morning earlier than I expected and announced he was staying two weeks. Maybe three.

  “What brought this on?” I asked, and he said, “Mom, I haven’t had a vacation this year and only a few days off here and there over the last two years. It’s high time I took a real vacation.”

  Well, naturally I’m thrilled to death. Daniel is such a strong, cheerful person. I certainly need that right now, somebody to lean on, at least for a little while.

  And maybe Michael does, too. They were always so close. Maybe Daniel will do or say something that will wake his father up, propel him from that bed.

  Clarice thinks it’s a good thing, too—Daniel staying. She was still at the nursing home when he told me, and she got this cat-eating-cream look that I meant to ask her about, but then the staff started their comings and goings, and I never did get around to asking her why she was looking so smug.

  Maybe I’ll call her after lunch and ask her. Anyhow, I need to tell her thank you for last night. For the laughter. Lord, the way we carried on you’d think we were teenagers instead of fifty-something matrons with sagging bellies and crow’s feet.

  I think all that liveliness was good for Michael, too. Once when Clarice was telling one of her wild and funny tales I looked over at Michael and thought I saw his mouth twitch. As if he were trying to say something. Or trying to laugh.

  I said to Clarice, “Did you see that?” and she asked, “What?” I said, “Never mind. It was nothing, after all.”

  Clarice thinks I ought to be getting out more. Going places. Movies, concerts, dinner parties, things like that.

  I told her, “No, not yet.”

  It wouldn’t be so much a betrayal of Michael (Lord, knows, he wouldn’t want me to do nothing but sit) as a giving up. A loss of hope. An acceptance that life goes on somehow without him.

  I won’t accept that. Not yet.

  Not ever. I’m not ever going to act as if my future does not include having Michael by my side. Touching me. Holding me. Loving me.

  Chapter Four

  Daniel could hear her singing down the hall. Skylar. An unusual name for an unusual woman.

  Today she wasn’t singing bawdy lyrics, though. She was doing some nice, easy blues, the kind Daniel liked to listen to late at night after the neighbors had all turned out their lights and the traffic on the street outside his house had dwindled to an occasional car or two. “In the Wee Small Hours.” “Time after Time.” “It Only Takes a Moment.”

  “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

  Now there was a song that spoke to the heart. And Skylar was singing it with a particular longing that would haunt Daniel for a long tim
e.

  He replayed their encounter in the hallway. The sparks he’d felt when he touched her. The excitement. The desire.

  Amazing. He’d never experienced anything like it. Was that the thing that had kept his parents’ relationship so alive all those years? Some kind of electrical charge that passed between them whenever they touched?

  Heck, he’d felt the same charge just looking at Skylar.

  And then she’d retreated. Not physically. Definitely not physically. But emotionally.

  When she’d deliberately baited him with her provocative body language, he’d actually felt her pain. Was that why she’d retreated? Instinct told him that was part of it, and experience told him he was going to do something about it.

  He’d never been able to sit still while one of God’s creatures was hurting, and so he went to his father’s bedside and took his hand.

  “Dad, I’m going down the hall a minute.” Daniel studied his father closely for any signs that he had heard, but there was nothing. Not even a twitch. “I’ll be right back. And I hope to bring a surprise for you.”

  Following the sound of music, Daniel went down the hall then rounded the corner and came upon the open door. Skylar was standing at the bedside of a thin woman with wispy gray hair, holding her hand and singing in a soft hypnotic voice. She had her back to Daniel.

  Unnoticed, he stood in the doorway until the song ended, and then he spoke quietly.

  “That was very beautiful.”

  Skylar jerked as if she’d been shot, then turned slowly toward him.

  “It’s you.” Emotions played over her face. Quick joy, then caution and finally a cool indifference. More than cool. Cold.

  But Daniel was not deterred. He stepped inside the room saying, “I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “If I say yes will that stop you?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not.” Skylar bent over the woman in the bed, squeezing her hand and smiling. “Mrs. Clements, I want you to meet Daniel Westmoreland. Reverend Westmoreland.”

  “Don’t let Skylar’s cold shoulder bother you a bit, Reverend. Her bark’s worse than her bite.”

  “Ha!” Skylar bared her teeth and growled in a demonstration that was all bluster. There was not the least bit of animosity in her.

  Encouraged, but trying not to take it personally, Daniel smiled at both of them, his gaze lingering on Skylar. She was the most blatantly sensual woman he’d ever seen. The walls seemed closer with her in the room, the air hotter, the humidity higher. So high he could feel his shirt beginning to stick to his skin in wet patches.

  If he stopped to ponder, he’d probably discover motives he’d rather not think about. Best not to think. Best to go forward on the assumption that he was here with laudable intentions and a pure heart.

  “After you’ve finished here, I wonder if you’d join me for a cup of coffee?”

  “Why?”

  Her blunt question took him aback. If he’d opened his mouth he’d have sputtered like a schoolboy. Instead he did what his father had always taught him. Never speak before your brain is totally engaged, Daniel. You can avoid lots of hot spots that way.

  Skylar leaned slightly forward, and her sweater stretched tightly over her breasts, making it perfectly clear she was not wearing a bra.

  Daniel was certain the gesture was deliberate. If she thought she was going to send him running with those tactics, she was sorely mistaken. In the course of his ministry he’d seen worse. More than one distraught wife on the brink of divorce had tried to entice him to offer more than sage advice. But he’d never seen the ploy used more effectively.

  Though surely Skylar Tate had something more in mind for him than enticement. Being burned at the stake was more like it. And she was lighting the fire.

  “We got off on the wrong foot, and I’d like to change that. Also, there’s another matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “A…I don’t drink coffee. B…you can state your piece right here. I have no secrets from Harriet.”

  “Shoo.” Harriet made a waving motion with her hand. “Go on out of here. I’m going to rest now.” With that, she closed her eyes.

  “I’m not finished. There’s another song I want to sing for you. Your favorite.”

  Though her mouth twitched as if she were suppressing a grin, Harriet kept her eyes shut.

  “Harriet…” Skylar leaned over and smoothed back the old woman’s hair. “Don’t do this to me.”

  The indomitable Harriet lay still as a turtle on a log. Sighing, Skylar grabbed her purse and flounced out the door. Daniel followed.

  She sped up, keeping two paces ahead of him. Deliberately. Long angry strides. Provocative sway of hips.

  Increasing his pace, he drew alongside her and matched her stride for stride.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “Do what?” She glanced at him, her eyes shooting blue fire.

  “Run from me.”

  “Are all preachers this arrogant, or is it just you?”

  “Determined.”

  “Pigheaded.”

  “Sometimes.” That made her smile. “Especially when I’ve made a complete jackass of myself twice with you already.”

  Her smile got bigger. “I didn’t know preachers used words like that.”

  “I’m a man, not a profession.”

  “Okay. I deserved that.”

  She ran her hands through her long hair, tossing it back from her forehead. Daniel felt gut-punched. He was not seeing Skylar in the nursing home wearing a yellow sweater, but Skylar in his bedroom with a tiny bit of sequins decorating her breasts.

  “Just because I want people to judge me by what I do, that doesn’t mean everybody wants the same thing,” she said.

  Because of what Clarice had told him, Daniel could make several good guesses about her motives, but he didn’t pause to ask why? He would save that for later. Besides, she probably wouldn’t tell him.

  “So…” She glanced sideways at him, then quickly looked away. “Tell me about your bouts of jackassery.”

  “The first time was yesterday when I stood tongue-tied in the hallway while you passed right by me, and the second was my ignominious retreat this morning.”

  Her laughter was big and hearty. Refreshing.

  “I never once heard my daddy admit to being a jackass, though he was. The world’s biggest.”

  “Tell me about your father.”

  “He’s dead.” She stared straight ahead.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t need it.”

  “What do you need, Skylar?”

  She whirled on him, hands on hips, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare patronize me. Ever.”

  “I didn’t mean to be patronizing. I was…”

  “Being a preacher.” She marched ahead of him, but he caught up in two easy strides. She shot him an angry look. “Don’t ask questions, don’t get sanctimonious and don’t get too close. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.” Clearer than she knew.

  Here was a woman on the run from a past she found unbearable. Daniel wanted to reach out to her with compassion, just as he reached out to his flock in Atlanta.

  Then why didn’t he? What was holding him back?

  A sideways glance at Skylar followed by the quickening of his pulse gave him the answer. His interest in her was more than professional—far, far more.

  As they walked along in uneasy silence, Daniel struggled with temptation.

  You’re a long way from Atlanta, Daniel.

  I know.

  You could have a fling with her. Who would ever know?

  I would.

  He tried to think of something to say to her, anything to take his mind off the conversation that was playing in his head. Desperate, he latched on to the first thing that came into his mind.

  “The weather’s beautiful today, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I love this time of year.”

&nb
sp; “So do I.”

  It wasn’t brilliant repartee, but it did the trick. His pulse was almost back to normal.

  “Did you ever race outside naked and scrunch on the leaves?” she said.

  So much for normal pulse rates.

  “I can’t say that I ever have.”

  “You should. It might loosen you up a bit.”

  “Do you think I need loosening up?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “You act as if I’m going to bite you.”

  “I’m not so sure that you won’t.”

  “You aren’t?”

  “No. I’ve heard you growl. Remember?”

  “You’re not so bad for a…”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  They rounded the corner and when Daniel touched her elbow to guide her into the lounge, the sexual currents between them were so strong he felt burned. He immediately broke contact. Skylar glanced at him, but thankfully didn’t comment.

  Daniel hurried to the coffeemaker and poured two cups.

  “How do you like yours?” he asked.

  “Hot.”

  Was she baiting him? Toying with him? Steeling himself against further assault, Daniel set the two cups on the table then pulled out a chair for Skylar.

  “Are you always such a gentleman?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  What did she mean by that? That she wanted to see him in a situation where he was being less than well-bred? In bed, for instance?

  She leaned one elbow on the table and propped her chin in a cupped hand, smiling that little devil’s grin of hers.

  “You’re different from most men.”

  He wanted to ask if she meant that as a compliment, but he didn’t dare. After all, his interest in her wasn’t personal.

  Yeah, and cats don’t have climbing gears.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted to speak with you privately.”

  “Not really. Don’t all men want the same thing?”

  Refusing to be baited once more, Daniel leaned back in his chair, sipping coffee and studying Skylar. She remained perfectly still, chin cupped, staring at him with eyes so wide they reminded him of pieces of early night sky just after the rising of a full harvest moon. Dark, dark blue. Soft and velvety looking. Full of beauty and endless mystery.