by Pamela Morsi
“What is that wonderful smell?” Piney asked as he came through the door.
“Fried green tomatoes,” Aunt Will answered. “I had a feeling you boys might be headed up this way. Nothing draws bachelors up the mountain quicker than pretty girls and fine victuals.”
Piney blushed a little, but he was quick to assure Aunt Will that they were worried about her and that they’d only come to make sure everything was okay.
Beside her, Tree chuckled. “It was a joke, Dad.”
That seemed to embarrass Piney even more.
Aunt Will waved away everything that was said and herded everyone to the table to eat while the tomatoes were still hot.
Camryn scooted her chair as close to Tree as she could get. If it were possible, she’d have sat in his lap. She wanted—needed—to be close to him. Her thigh, a half inch distant from Tree’s, was a half inch too far away.
If he felt that way, too, Camryn didn’t think he showed it. Instead he dug into the food on his plate as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He made noises of appreciation with his mouth full.
“This is really, really good,” he managed to get out finally.
“I helped,” Camryn told him quickly. “In fact, I think that slice was one that I did.”
Even to her own ears she sounded stupid, desperate. But that was a lot of how she felt. The past twenty-four hours had been clear. If Tree left her behind, this was what her world would look like, endless days of endless drudgery among old women that nobody wanted.
In truth, she didn’t mind the work so much. She’d always liked being outside. The animals were fun and gardening always gave her a great sense of accomplishment. Both were far preferable to being trapped in her mother’s store. But Tree was going to go somewhere, he was going to do things and see things. And he was going to be in love with somebody. It had always been her. Camryn couldn’t bear for it to ever be anyone else.
Somewhat oblivious to Camryn’s tenuous emotional state, Piney was talking about the weather forecast.
“With the sky already this clear, no clouds to hold in the temperature, it’s going to keep it a little colder the next day or so,” he said. “But the ground’s still warm and the sun will melt everything off the exposed places.”
“Will the school be closed again tomorrow?” Camryn asked him.
He shrugged. “It’s going to be slick again tonight,” he said. “But the main roads are already clearing up. I don’t know if that’s good enough for the buses or not. I guess we’ll all have to wait to hear.”
“How are you going to know if you’re stuck up here?” Tree asked her.
Camryn shrugged. “I’m grounded. I don’t know how long I’m going to be up here. But my mom is not in any hurry.”
“Oh, your exile won’t be forever,” Aunt Will assured her. “I suspect you’ll need to go home by the weekend to help in the store. Once you’re there, it shouldn’t be that much trouble for a smart gal like you to talk Marcy into letting you do what you should.”
Jesse nodded agreement. She was cutting up her tomatoes with a knife, rather than forking them up to her mouth for a bite, as the rest of them did.
“It may seem like a GED is ‘good enough,’” she said. “But what if you start thinking about college? Colleges prefer students to finish actual classwork.”
Camryn stared down at her lunch, which had instantly become unappetizing. Was it her imagination or had things suddenly gotten very, very quiet around the table?
Defiantly she raised her chin and forced a tone that she hoped would reflect complete disinterest, along with a careless shrug. “I really hadn’t thought about it,” she lied.
“Well, it’s probably time that you should,” Jesse said. “Next spring may be far away, but lots of universities are already filling their slots. I’m sure you’ve started making plans, haven’t you, Tree?”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh…well, sure, I’ve looked at some programs. But I need to wait until we get through basketball season to see who might be willing to offer what.”
“What’s your first choice?” Jesse asked him.
“Gee, I’d love to go to U of A,” he answered. “But I doubt if I’ll be big enough to play there. So maybe I’ll go where I can play.”
Camryn caught sight of Piney watching Tree as he talked. He was really proud. You could see it in his eyes.
Her jaw tightened. She knew it was crazy, but Camryn felt somehow they were all ganging up against her. They all wanted him to take off. They wanted him to leave her behind.
She pushed her plate away and turned to punch Tree playfully in the shoulder. “Hurry up, slowpoke! I want to build a snowman.”
He stuffed two more slices of tomato in his mouth before getting up to retrieve his coat and boots.
Camryn put on heavy gear and gloves and the two made their retreat from the prying eyes of grown-ups.
“Where should we build our snowman?” he asked her.
“Near the bottom of the slope,” she answered quickly. “Rolling the snowballs downhill will be a lot easier and quicker.”
Tree laughed. “Are we in a hurry?”
Camryn eyed him up and down and gave him the most seductive look she could manage in Aunt Will’s black wool coat and a knitted cap. “The faster we get the snowman built, the more time I’ll have to give you a nice, vigorous rubdown, say…on the front of your jeans.”
Camryn watched him blanch and then blush vividly red. She knew the suggestion alone was enough to give him a hard-on. Tree began slapping snow together as if all the demons of hell were after him.
She didn’t bother to rush. She mostly enjoyed watching him hurry. It made her feel very powerful, very desired. Her head was clear that it was about sex and not about love. But she was not all that sure where one ended and the other began. Camryn was sure that she loved him. If sex was what she needed to bind her to him, then sex was what he was going to get. And he was getting it as soon as she could make it happen.
Not today, of course. His father was here and Jesse and Aunt Will. Someone was bound to notice. And it was daylight. She wasn’t sure she could do that in daylight. Besides, she couldn’t risk starting another fight. Today it would be exactly how he liked it. All fun. No risks.
Tree got the base and the middle of the snowman completed and set one upon the other. Camryn’s much smaller production was placed on top as the head.
“Now all we need is a face, maybe a hat,” Tree said.
“Let’s go up to the barn,” she told him. “I think you’ll find everything you’re wanting.”
The innuendo was plain and he grabbed her hand and trudged back up the hill. His pace was determined, but he didn’t break into a run. He was playing it cool, but she knew that he was hoping it was going to be hot.
Once inside they easily frightened the pigs and chickens out into the yard. The hayloft was too full of neat, wire-wrapped bales to be a good assignation spot. Instead, they piled loose hay in the back of the stall across from the cow. When it seemed enough to offer a bit of comfort, Tree lay back as if it were a lounge and reached a hand up to her to join him.
Camryn hung the wool coat on the hook outside the stall.
“I’m counting on you to keep me warm,” she told him as she snuggled up beside him.
He rubbed her sleeves energetically, as if that were what she was talking about.
Camryn unzipped his coat and ran her hands along the sweater-covered chest inside. He caught her chin in his hand and brought it down for a kiss. She loved the taste of his mouth. And the way he sort of sucked hers into his own. It was like he was starving for her, he wanted to devour her.
It was too cold to take her clothes off. And someone might walk into the barn any minute. So she pulled him tightly to her, pressing her breasts against him. Tree dragged her on top of him, allowing his hands to roam freely. But she had promised him something and she wanted to deliver. After all, she was the one who’d started the fight between them the
other night. She was the one who’d pushed him further than he was willing to go. She was going to restart, give him a little more to dream about and a little less frustration.
Camryn slipped out of his embrace and slid her body down his. By the time she arrived at the front of his jeans, he’d propped himself up on his elbows. He was watching her. He was holding his breath. She eyed the long, hard bulge outlined in heavy denim for a moment before running her hand along it. He closed his eyes then and bit down on his bottom lip. She stroked him, watching him. Watching his tightly set jaw, watching him fight for some kind of control.
He began to moan encouragement.
“Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yes…ooh…oh…”
She ran her fingernail teasingly along his zipper, but it was her other hand, tracing the outline of his erection, running her hand along it from base to tip again and again, that encouraged the strange-sounding catch in his throat.
She was making him do that. He was defenseless against what she did to him. She was in charge. She was choosing the moves. She was deciding what would, or wouldn’t, happen next. It was a heady, potent feeling. One that was way too rare in her life right now. Her choices, her options, had so quickly whittled down to so few. But here, with the power of her sexuality, she felt invincible. Tree was hers. He was completely, totally hers.
She watched him take a breath and open his eyes, steeling himself against her touch. Camryn gave him the very slightest of smiles before nipping at the denim with her teeth and lolling her tongue down the length of him.
He made a sharp, incoherent sound and buried his fingers in her hair. At first she thought he was trying to pull her away from him, but then just as quickly he was pressing her down against him. She felt the hot, wet result of her actions dampening the fabric next to her cheek. She jerked away from him.
The sophisticated seductress within her disappeared, leaving her suddenly very young, very scared and out of her depth.
Tree, still up on his elbows, had thrown his head back. He was making weird, sort of groaning sounds that somehow transformed into laughter.
He was laughing. Camryn felt bereft. Hurt. Was he laughing at her? Tears sprang to her eyes. Humiliation coursed through her in waves. She was ready to run away.
Then he looked up at her. In an instant he grabbed her to his chest and then rolled her beneath him. He was rough and strong. He handled her so forcefully, it shocked her. His embrace was so dominant and his kiss so masculine, so sexy she trembled in his arms. The power had shifted. He was now on top, literally and figuratively and she had no sense of where it might be going.
“I love you, Cammy,” he told her. “I love you so much.”
17
The conversation around the table lagged somewhat after the teenagers went outside. Aunt Will had mostly kept up the conversation, but she was beginning to tire. Piney couldn’t think of anything to say. That wasn’t typical for him. He would never have called himself an extrovert, but normally he was perfectly confident enough for chitchat. And whenever that didn’t work, he relied on his professional demeanor. Talking to people was as much a part of his job as assessing lab work or looking down a sore throat.
Today, however, even that qualification failed him. He felt shy around Jesse. That was new. Unexpected. He readily admitted to himself that he was attracted to her. But he found a lot of women attractive. And that observation didn’t usually make him tongue-tied.
He glanced up at her, so primly chewing small bits of tomato. Piney wanted very much to taste that mouth and have it open widely, lasciviously for him.
He choked slightly on his own thought and cleared his throat.
“You okay, Piney?” Aunt Will asked.
“Fine,” he assured her.
The old woman got up and made her way to her rocking chair by the fireplace. She seated herself heavily.
Piney was immediately concerned. He went to the coat hooks by the door and retrieved his backpack. Then he knelt on the small rug beside her. He pulled out his stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.
“Have you been overdoing it this morning?” he asked her quietly.
“Maybe a little,” she admitted.
Her pulse rate was higher than it should be, but everything sounded clear and her heart was beating strong.
“It’s time for my regular nap and I get worn out if I wait too long.”
He nodded acceptance. “Go ahead and rest,” he said. “All of us can manage for ourselves for an hour or two.”
“Would you let in that old dog?” she said.
Piney walked across to the door, expecting to call Lilly June from her romping with Camryn and Tree. The old dog, however, was waiting outside the threshold and hurried in to her place at Aunt Will’s feet.
“I guess she’s eager to find a warm place by the hearth,” he said.
Aunt Will nodded. “These afternoons are as much a habit for her as me.”
Jesse had risen from her place at the table and was gathering up the plates. “Are you finished?” she asked Piney.
“Yeah. Here, let me help you.”
“She’ll need more than merely a hand with the dishes,” Aunt Will told them both with a heavy sigh. “I’m counting on you to finish up that piccalilli. Piney can help you.”
He looked over at Jesse. Her jaw slacked open in surprise.
“Do you know how to make piccalilli?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“I don’t, either.”
“You’re both good readers, now, aren’t you?” the old woman asked rhetorically. “I wrote the instructs for you on a paper up there. And I put the seasoning ball together last night. I suspect the two of you together can mix up something pretty tasty.”
With those words, Aunt Will made a sound that was reminiscent of a giggle. Then she put her feet up on the dog’s back, crossed her arms and closed her eyes.
Jesse and Piney looked at each other.
“I guess we’re making piccalilli,” he said.
She shrugged acceptance.
They found the paper with Aunt Will’s directions written in large letters by a shaky hand. Jesse glanced through it before handing it to Piney. He read it nodding.
“So I guess we start with these jars,” he said, reaching into the vat sitting atop the stove. Immediately he jerked his hand back and swore vividly.
“I guess the term boilt jars is past tense, meaning the jars soaking are in really, really hot water.”
Piney opened the refrigerator and got a glob of fresh butter to smear on his scalded hand.
“Maybe it’s better if I let you tell me what to do,” he suggested. “That way, I’ll have someone to blame for any future injuries.”
“I don’t know if you should trust me,” Jesse said. “Aunt Will told us a story about one of my ancestors nearly poisoning someone with her bad piccalilli.”
“I know that story,” Piney said. “There’s probably enough chopped ingredients here to sicken the entire community.”
Jesse nodded. “She does give a lot of this stuff away, so that might be a real possibility.”
“At the risk of chasing business away from the clinic, I’m not all that keen on an outbreak of botulism.”
Jesse looked worriedly at the huge sieve full of chopped tomatoes and cabbage.
“Well, between the two of us, it will probably taste so bad, nobody will eat it.”
“Yeah, maybe it will pick up the scent of the poultice,” Piney said, eyebrows raised. “It’s the only thing I can smell in this cabin.”
Jesse punched him in the shoulder, laughing. “You wouldn’t believe how hard I wash this stuff off. And then I slather myself in scented lotion.”
Piney shook his head. “It’s no help. You’ll have to soak the stench off. And trust me, it takes a week or more to get rid of it.”
“Ugh,” she said.
“Ugh, indeed,” he agreed.
They found the tongs to get the jars out of the hot water and Piney filled them to a
bout a half inch from the top with the mix of chopped vegetables.
Jesse stirred together the pickling liquid, mostly brown sugar and vinegar, with the ball of spices boiling in it for ten minutes.
Piney got the jar rack seated in the bottom of the canner and located its cover. He sterilized the jar lids.
“You’re pretty handy around the kitchen,” Jesse told him. “Better at this than I am.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been a single parent for most of the past seventeen years. When you have kids, you have to cook.”
“I guess so,” Jesse agreed. “That’s a big surprise for a lot of divorced dads.”
“Even when I was married to Shauna,” he admitted. “She wasn’t really the happy homemaker type.”
“Oh?”
“She was more of the party type,” he told her. “Still is, I imagine. That’s why she’s not here. She’s out there somewhere, most likely partying.”
“I’m sorry.”
Piney shook his head. “Don’t be. She needed a ticket out of town and I was it. I’ve been bitter about it in the past. But not so much these days.”
“So this poultice must really work,” she said to him with a teasing grin.
Piney rolled his eyes. “I don’t think I was so much in love with her as kind of feeling that I deserved to have her love.”
“You deserved it?”
“Yeah, I thought that because of all that she’d deliberately taken from me, at least I deserved a devoted, faithful wife who was endlessly in my debt.”
“Wow,” Jesse said. “Sounds like a lot of anger.”
“It does now,” he agreed. “When it was going on, it was a lot more complicated. I did love her. I was devoted to her. But I was also very angry.”
“I guess nobody likes to be trapped into marriage,” Jesse said. “That’s probably why people don’t do that so much these days.”
“Around here, it still happens. Really it depends on the girl’s parents. If they say get married, then the couple often does.”
Jesse continued to stir the pickling liquid, staring into the pot thoughtfully.
