by Beverly Long
“You’ll drive yourself there?”
She nodded.
“Be careful,” he said.
She turned to look at him. Her eyes were dark and her lips pale. “You do care, don’t you, George?”
He wouldn’t lie. “I do, Melody. More than I’ve got a right to.” He walked past her and went into the bath. He shut the door behind him and then leaned his weary body against the door.
Yes, he cared. And he wanted. Neither of those things mattered. Not when the footprints that would take him home could come at any moment. He had to stay ready.
And he knew that if he took Melody Song to his bed, he might never be ready again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time George came downstairs for dinner, Melody had a plan. She was going to seduce him.
Now, given that she was five months pregnant, it was a fairly grand plan. But since the other alternative was going to the hardware store and buying lumber and nails and all kinds of other stuff, it seemed like the only logical plan.
Because without a wall, she was doomed.
She was no trembling virgin. Obviously. But neither was she terribly experienced. What she needed was another woman to talk to. She had Grandmother and Aunt Genevieve, of course. But given that they thought she was married to George, they’d have more questions than answers. Tilly didn’t count. That left her alone.
Which meant that she really needed to go to the place where she never felt lonely. She looked at her watch. It was another fifteen minutes before dinner. Plenty of time. She walked out the front door, past the length of the house, and turned the corner to get to the garden. She walked with purpose through the vine-covered arbor, past the colored stepping-stones, and didn’t stop until she reached her destination.
It was cooler than it had been at lunchtime, and the shadows were gathering. She could hear the frogs in the pond and could both hear and see the small yellows bees that jumped from flower to flower. The hour or two before sunset was absolutely the best time to be in the garden and she wished she had more time to relax and simply draw it in.
But she hadn’t come to relax. She’d come to confess and perhaps seek a little absolution. She sat down on the bench. “I think I love him,” she whispered. It seemed a fitting way to start the conversation. “He’s smart and funny and very kind. And he’s gorgeous and doesn’t even seem to realize it.”
She dug the toe of her sandal into the soft dirt. She needed to be honest. “He hasn’t said anything about staying. I don’t think he’s planning on it.”
She reached down, grabbed a handful of pebbles out of the dirt, and one-by-one, sent them skipping across the surface of the pond. “I’m not asking him to make promises that he can’t keep. I guess all I’m asking for is now.”
She could feel the wind pick up. The black-eyed Susans leaned to the right and the fresh scent of Russian sage traveled in the breeze. “Be happy for me, Momma. I know what I’m doing.”
The wind suddenly changed direction and she could have sworn that she heard the gentle call of a seagull. But she knew that was impossible.
She sat for a few more minutes before she wandered back to the house. She reached for the front door just as it swung open. George stood there, a worried look on his face.
“We were about to sit down to dinner. Where were you?” he asked.
“I just needed a walk,” she said. “To clear my head.”
She started to move past him and he reached out. He plucked at her sleeve and then handed her a small sprig of wisteria. “I don’t want to be the cause of your concerns,” he said.
“I’m not concerned,” she said honestly. She’d come to a decision. It felt peaceful. If George, on the other hand, knew what was in store for him, he’d be running for the next county.
She led him into the dining room. Grandmother was already seated as were Tilly and Louis. Across the table, Aunt Genevieve was just taking her chair. George pulled out Melody’s chair and she took her seat. Once he was seated, she scooted her chair in.
And a little to the right.
A few minutes later, when she leaned to reach for the rolls, she took some pleasure in hearing his breath catch when her bare leg brushed up against his pants. And she could barely keep a smile off her face when Grandmother had to repeat her question twice before George seemed to realize that she was talking to him.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “What was that you asked?”
“I wondered if there was anyone whom you wanted me to invite to our celebration?”
He shook his head.
“No family in the area?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Friends?”
He shook his head.
Uncle Louis laid down his fork and leaned forward. “Just where is it that you come from, George?”
George took his time cutting a piece of meat. “North Dakota,” he said finally.
Melody moved her leg away. George didn’t need her messing with his mind, not when Louis looked like he was just beginning.
“So you two met when Melody was in college?”
“Yes, that’s right,” George said.
Melody let out her breath. So far so good. But she tensed again when Louis opened his mouth. Before he could speak, she jumped in. “We. . .uh. . .met again. . .uh. . .late this fall and—”
George laid his hand on her arm. “Let me, darling. I’ll love telling this story.” He turned back to Louis. “I met your niece on a beach and I knew right away that she was something special. But I was a younger man then, full of ambition and dreams of faraway places. I let her get away and regretted it. When our paths crossed again, I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”
She made a conscious effort to close her mouth. The man made it look so easy. And if she had any knack in reading the faces around the table, they were buying it hook, line, and sinker.
Grandmother and Aunt Genevieve were smiling. Bernard was nodding his head. Tilly looked a little misty-eyed. Louis was dry-eyed but he had settled back in his chair.
Her grandmother raised her wineglass in the air and said, “To the happy couple.”
“Hear, hear,” Aunt Genevieve chimed in. Everyone at the table reached for their wineglasses. Melody picked up her water glass and drained it.
They’d missed a bullet and it was because George had pushed her out of the way. If he had let her talk, she’d have painted a target on their backs.
“Grandmother, whomever you want to invite will be fine,” Melody said, doing what she could to keep the conversation from coming back to George. “How about the menu?” she asked.
The ensuing discussion of possible appetizers and main courses and desserts got them all the way through that night’s dinner and dessert. Within seconds of finishing her apple pie, Melody put down her fork. “I’ve got a book I’ve started that’s calling my name. Will you all excuse me?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She pushed back her chair but George, as usual, beat her to the punch. He was already standing with a hand out to help her up. He followed her up the stairs.
“You were amazing,” she said, as soon as he’d closed the door behind them. “How do you do it?”
He looked uncomfortable with her praise. “All I did was tell them the truth.”
“What?”
“Everything I said was true. I just left out the part that it all happened in a span of less than twelve hours.”
What was it he’d said? That he knew she was something special? Her heart started to beat too fast and Jingle, having been sort of quiet during dinner, did a flutter kick. “So you meant everything you said?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Melody, do we need to talk about this?”
His meaning was clear. Nothing had changed. He still wasn’t going to act upon any attraction that he might feel for her.
The hell with that.
But there was no need for him to know about the Plan. “Of cours
e not. I’m sure we’re both tired. How about we get some sleep?”
She undressed in the bathroom and when she opened the door, George was in his usual spot, the quilt pulled up to his shoulders. She climbed into bed and turned away from him. Two minutes later, she rolled to her back. Five minutes later, to her other side. This time she let out a sigh. It was soft but definitely audible.
Five minutes later, she rolled back onto her back. Finally, with what she hoped was the appropriate note of apology in her voice, she said, “George?”
“Yes.”
“I hate to ask but my back is killing me. Do you think you could rub it?”
She heard the sound of him throwing back the quilt. With her back toward him, she edged toward the middle of the bed. “Have a seat,” she said.
She felt the mattress tip as he sat next to her. “Where does it hurt?” he asked.
“In the middle,” she said.
His hands were hot on her skin and his touch tentative. “Here?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s good,” she said. And it was. She tried not to feel guilty. Practically every book she’d picked up on the subject of pregnancy said a good backrub did wonders.
She knew exactly what else would do wonders, too. Maybe even bring a glow to her skin. Heck. She was just practicing good health. It was sort of like watching her cholesterol.
“Better?” he asked, sounding hopeful. She could feel his weight shift, like he was getting ready to spring off the bed, back to the safety of his quilt.
No way. He was not getting off the hook that easy. “Just a little bit lower,” she said.
He paused, then she felt his hands inch down the length of her back and finally settle at the base of her spine. “That’s it,” she said.
He kneaded her muscles with his thumbs and in the process, his fingers spread across the rise of her buttocks. Feeling bold, she arched her back. His hands stilled.
“Melody?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse.
“Yes.”
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
She was glad that she couldn’t see his face. “Stretching?” she replied.
He made some kind of noise. It wasn’t a laugh or a groan but some odd combination of the two. “You’ve no shame, do you?” he asked. He didn’t sound mad, just resigned.
She flipped over onto her back and looked at him. There was just a hint of light in the room coming from the bathroom light which always stayed on. He was shaking his head at her.
“So this is your new way to torment me?” he asked.
“What?”
“It takes everything I have to lie on this floor, to know that you’re just feet away from me. But I could do it because I could tell myself that we both knew it was wrong. But now, you expect me to lie here, my wanting only increased by the knowledge that you’d have me without protest. That you’d take me into your body, and have my heat warm you, and my sweat touch your skin. You would have me, all of me.”
Oh brother. Her lungs felt like she’d been running a marathon and moisture gathered between her legs. “George?” she whispered.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. He sounded weary. “I’m not that strong.”
She reached up and touched his face. “Take me to bed, George.”
His whole body shook and she thought that just maybe she had convinced him. Then he reached up, wrapped his hand around her wrist, and gently lowered her arm back to her side. “No.”
He stood up and gathered his pillow and quilt up off the floor. He placed the pillow next to her and laid the quilt at the end of the bed. Then he walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He put his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll sleep downstairs, in the piano room.”
She pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose, willing herself not to cry. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes, actually it does,” he said. He opened the door and walked out, closing the door softly behind him.
The room seemed suddenly empty and very quiet and she felt very alone. She rolled onto her side and pushed her body up. Then she walked over to the dresser, gently picked up the Raggedy Ann doll, and returned to bed.
Even so, it took a very long time to fall asleep.
***
At noon the next day, when George showed up for lunch, he had grease up to his elbows. Arturo didn’t look much better. Melody, who’d just finished her own lunch, sat on the front porch with her grandmother. She been enjoying watching the dogs play in the yard. They were now sunning themselves on the front step of the porch.
“What happened to you two?” Grandmother asked.
“Irrigation pump stopped working,” George said.
That wasn’t good. Grapes needed water, not too much, but definitely not too little, either. “Do you have the parts to fix it?” Melody asked, knowing that Gino kept reserve parts for almost everything.
“We’ve got everything but an extra pulley,” Arturo said, sounding disgusted. “I called around and Peterson’s Plumbing in Napa has one.”
“Then it’s your lucky day. I’m going that way,” Melody said. “I could pick it up for you.”
Arturo shook his head. “It weighs at least 50 pounds. There’s no guarantee there will be anybody there to help you lift it.”
She stood up. “I’m sure they have a cart or something.”
Grandmother shook her head. “You’ll still need help getting it into your car. Why doesn’t George just go with you?”
It was a reasonable question. One that should have been easy to answer. But how could she tell her grandmother that her “husband” had slept on the couch last night because he was unwilling or afraid or maybe a combination of both, to make love to her.
She didn’t risk a look a George. The thought of being in a car with her probably had him turning green around the gills. After all, in such a small space, he might actually brush up against her, actually have to touch her.
He didn’t want that. He couldn’t be much clearer. And the last thing she wanted was to make him uncomfortable.
Right?
“Well?” her grandmother prompted.
Melody looked at her new husband. Who was she kidding? She had almost lost her waist, her thighs felt flabbier every day, and if the pregnancy books told the truth, her breasts were minutes away from starting to sag.
But he had liked what he saw. He’d been turned on.
How cool was that?
Cool enough to make her warm in places that hadn’t been warmed by anybody in a long time. Cool enough that she’d walked around with a silly smile on her face for most of the morning even though she’d been flatly rejected last night.
Cool enough that she was willing to try again.
“Maybe Petersons Plumbing could deliver it?” George said, sounding hopeful.
Arturo shook his head. “For what it costs, you’d think they would.”
“You could pick it up,” George said, looking at Arturo.
“I could. But the vines are growing like a son of a gun in Lot E and we need to get those trellis wires raised.”
“Then you need to be here,” George said. His tone had an air of finality, as if it was midnight and carriages were going to start turning into pumpkins and horses into mice. “I’ll go with Melody,” he said.
She felt like the ugly stepsister. “Don’t bother,” she said. The words popped out, like pulp out of a squashed grape.
Her grandmother frowned at her.
George didn’t make eye contact. “Just give me a few minutes to get cleaned up and we can go.” He walked into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. Arturo went the other direction, toward the wine shed.
Her grandmother reached out and brushed the pad of her thumb across Melody’s cheek. “Are you feeling all right, sweetheart?”
She felt small and petty and very needy. “Maybe a little tired,” she said.
“Of course.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“When Bessie found out I was leaving, she made me a sack lunch.”
Proof that George, with his quiet ways and good manners, had wormed his way into the cook’s heart. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
Melody gave her grandmother a kiss and walked down the steps. When they got to the car, she yanked open the driver’s side. George waited until she got in and pulled her seatbelt tight, then he carefully shut the door. He walked around to his own side and got in with considerably more grace than the first time he’d ridden in her car.
She took deep breaths as she negotiated her way back to the highway. Getting to her grandmother’s from the main road was tricky. Getting back to the main road from her grandmother’s was downright dangerous. The decline and the sharp curves were nothing to mess with. It didn’t help that Dionysos and Hermes ran alongside the car for most of the way, making her even more nervous.
“Damn dogs,” she said under her breath.
“You won’t hit them,” he said. “They know how to stay out of the way.”
“I know you’re right, but Aunt Genevieve would be crushed so I don’t want to tempt fate. You’d think given that they’re named after Greek gods, they’d be a little smarter.”
“Greek gods?”
“Yes. Although I could never quite figure it out. Dionysos was the Greek god of wine, mysteries, and the theatre, so I guess his name makes some sense. Hermes was the Greek god of merchants and we are in the business of making money, so I can buy that.”
“What can’t you figure out?”
“Dionysos and Hermes were part of a trio. The missing one is Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.”
“Trio?” he repeated, sounding suddenly hoarse.
“Uh-huh.” She negotiated the last turn and eased her car onto the road to Napa. The dogs fell back, evidently intending to return home.
“But there’s never been a third dog?” George asked. “You’re sure?”
