by Carol Grace
“All right. Where were we?” she asked, looking around the room.
He couldn’t help it. He wanted to answer her question by taking up where they’d left off, by pulling her to him again, to taste her sweetness, to feel her body mold to his and lose himself in the sensations that swept through his body. But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. He clenched his fists at his sides, squared his shoulders and reminded her they had a problem with deer.
Laurie blinked rapidly to hide her disappointment, but he saw it and he felt terrible. But what could he do? He shouldn’t be there at all. If he felt an obligation to Steve, then he should pick apples and leave it at that. He couldn’t seem to do that. Carrying the baby in his arms, putting her to bed left him feeling shaken and aware. Aware of Laurie, aware of how it could be, of how it should be, if only... Aware of how she looked and how she felt in his arms.
Before he could say anything else, Laurie turned on her heel and left the nursery.
Chapter Eight
Cooper woke up early the next morning to the sound of rain on the roof. He peered out the window at the steady drops that fell and then dressed quickly to see what condition the orchard was in. Funny how concerned he’d become, how much a part of life on a farm he felt in such a short time. No, it wasn’t a bad life, he thought, stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and walking quietly down the hall. He paused at the door of Morgan’s room. She was sleeping soundly on her back, her arms flung straight out like a red-haired angel. Temperamentally, she was far from angelic, but right now— He smiled and continued to Gretel and Steve’s master bedroom.
He knocked softly on the door, but Laurie didn’t answer. He didn’t want to wake her. She needed her rest after picking apples and hauling Morgan around, but if she was awake... and if she did want to take a tour of the place, he wouldn’t mind the company.
He, the biggest loner around, looking for company on a rainy morning. He shook his head in dismay at what had happened to him. Without his even realizing, and definitely without his permission, he’d gotten used to her company. Sizzling sexual attraction aside, he liked being with her, teasing her, seeing her smile.
He opened the door very softly, just in case. But she was fast asleep, her golden hair spread across the pillow, her pale cheek resting on one hand. He stood there for a long moment watching her sleep alone in that huge bed that was meant for two, for two people who made love at night, who slept in each other’s arms, who woke up knowing each day would be as good as the day before, maybe even better. He gripped the doorknob tightly and closed the door behind him.
Outside the rain was falling steadily. With his hands jammed in his pockets he walked between rows of apple trees, the damp fragrant earth filling his senses. He had wondered over the years what made Steve buy an apple orchard, but even on a rainy fall day like this, he knew the answer. The feeling of peace and harmony with the earth, with the whole world in fact, filled his heart. Combine that with raising children and hard work and you had a pretty good life for yourself.
Not that he was envious. Steve deserved everything he had. And Cooper had everything he wanted in a job. Excitement, variety and success. So everybody was happy. Then why did he feel a sense of longing, a yearning here in the middle of Steve’s orchard?
Footsteps and the snap of a twig underfoot made him turn around. Laurie was walking toward him in a bright red vinyl rain jacket.
“Nice day,” she said as she approached, holding her palm up to catch the raindrops.
“For ducks,” he remarked, “but not for apple pickers.”
“You’re up early,” she noted.
He tucked her hair inside the hood of her jacket, wanting nothing more than to kiss the raindrops off her eyelashes, off her cheeks and lips. “Yep. I checked on you and Morgan to see if you wanted to come out with me, but you were both in dreamland.”
“You saw me sleeping?” she asked, gazing up at him through wet lashes.
“Just for a minute.” But long enough to wish he had an excuse to join her under those blankets, to kiss her awake, to watch the desire grow in her eyes.
“I was dreaming,” she said.
“About me?” he teased.
“How did you know?”
“That satisfied smile on your face.”
“I suppose a lot of women dream about you. After all, it’s not your fault you’re so all-fired attractive,” she said with a smile tilting the corner of her mouth. Damned if he wasn’t so all-fired attractive, she thought, even with the rain soaking his hair and his skin. It wouldn’t surprise her if she dreamed about him every night. But somehow dreams weren’t enough. Not anymore.
She was ready for real-life love, a day-and-night love, a forever-after love.
She might have stood there all day staring at him if the rain hadn’t started coming down in earnest, blowing the branches of the trees and knocking apples to the ground. With a brief glance at the darkening sky, they ran together back to the house.
After changing into dry clothes, bathing and dressing Morgan, she brought the baby into the kitchen and put her in her high chair. Then she sank down into a kitchen chair and looked across the room at Cooper, now dry and better-looking than ever, if that was possible.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I feel a little strange today.”
He nodded and looked up from a box of pancake mix. “It’s called hunger.”
“It’s more than that. I ache all over. I hate to say it, but I’m not sorry it’s too rainy to pick today.” She yawned. “I feel like I’ve already done a day’s work.”
He reached into the refrigerator for a carton of milk. “You looked like you were sleeping soundly.”
“Yes, even though I’m sleeping somewhere different every night.”
“You were a flight attendant. You should be used to that.”
“I’m used to hotels but despite what you think, we didn’t sleep with men we hardly knew.”
He set milk on the table. “Do you really hardly know me, Laurie?”
“Well, it hasn’t been very long,” she said, burying her face in Morgan’s red curls. She would not get caught again in that blatant sexy gaze of Cooper’s. He had the power to turn her steel resolve into mush, her best intentions into wisps of smoke. She sniffed the air. Smoke. Cooper had turned the heat on under the frying pan, but so far had neglected to make the batter for the pancakes.
“You need some help,” she decided, placing Morgan’s cereal bowl in front of her.
While Cooper turned off the stove Laurie sat down and read the instructions from the back of the box. But her mind wasn’t on pancakes. “I know you, but I can’t possibly know you because we just met. That’s why it’s so strange,” she explained under her breath.
An hour later after breaking a few eggs and stirring a lumpy batter, they had a stack of pancakes ready to eat. And just in the nick of time. Laurie’s stomach was grumbling in protest.
“This is good,” she proclaimed, sharing her pancake with Morgan. “Maybe you were right. It was hunger.”
He nodded. “I told you so.”
“I wish I knew how to cook,” she said wistfully.
“So do I.”
She set her fork down. “Wish I knew how to cook, or wish you did?”
“Both. It’s harder than it looks.”
She nodded. “Amen.” She paused, then took a deep breath. “Was your wife a good cook?”
He froze. Cooper was not in the mood to discuss the past. Especially his past. He set his fork down. “As a matter of fact, yes. Why?”
“I just wondered. Did she...is she... Never mind.” She turned to look at Morgan.
Laurie looked so uncertain, so hesitant, so uncomfortable Cooper’s heart went out to her. He should have told her before. Should have put all his cards on the table the way she’d done. Then there wouldn’t be all these false hopes, unrealistic dreams. Not for him or for her.
“My wife died,” he said. And once it was out he w
as relieved.
“I’m sorry,” Laurie murmured.
“It was two years ago,” he said. And then the words tumbled out. He hadn’t planned on telling her, but once he’d started he couldn’t seem to stop.
“She was four months pregnant. It was raining, sleeting in fact. She shouldn’t have gone out, but she did. Her car skidded and flipped over. They were both killed instantly. Her and the baby.”
The only sound in the room was the grandfather clock in Gretel’s living room chiming forlornly. Even Morgan was subdued by the tone of Cooper’s voice. He could have stopped there, but he hadn’t finished the story, and until he did, it would go round and round in his brain forever. “I wasn’t there or I would have taken her. And it never would have happened. I’ll never forgive myself.”
Laurie reached out to touch him, but suddenly he had to get out of there, to go somewhere where he could let it go. This room just wasn’t big enough. He grabbed his jacket from the hook on the wall and strode out once again into the healing, cleansing rain.
Laurie went to the window and stared after him. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than losing someone she loved. No wonder Cooper didn’t want to try again.
No wonder sadness welled up in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking. No wonder he didn’t want to get attached to Morgan who was so attached to him. She stood in the middle of the kitchen feeling the tears well up in her eyes and spill down her cheeks as the rain streaked the windows.
Only Morgan’s insistent cries brought her back to the present. She scooped her up from the high chair and plunked her into her playpen in the middle of the kitchen floor. She didn’t want to be alone right now and she was sure Morgan felt the same. She tried to imagine how she’d feel if she were Cooper, two years after a tragedy had happened. Then she made herself think of something else, anything or she’d dissolve into unbearable sadness.
With all the energy she could muster she washed the breakfast dishes and then took one of Gretel’s cookbooks from the shelf. It was called, appropriately enough, The Complete Apple Cookbook. “Apples, what else?” Laurie mumbled to herself.
“What do you think, Morgan?” she inquired, leafing through the pages. “Apple coffee cake, apple muffins, apple crisp? Not that I’m capable of making any of these, but I can try. After all, your mother was a flight attendant just like me, with all her meals coming on a tray or out of a restaurant kitchen. She learned to cook, so why can’t I?”
Morgan didn’t answer. She just peered through the slats of her playpen, her head tilted to one side.
While she assembled the ingredients for apple bar cake Laurie couldn’t help thinking of Cooper. Wondering where he was, how he was. How he must have suffered. As she measured the flour she imagined the squeal of brakes, the crunch of metal against metal. Wondering how he found out. Did a policeman come to the door or was it a phone call out of the blue? Forcing her attention back to the job at hand, she peeled apples with single-minded determination. Until she heard the back door open.
She wheeled around. Cooper was standing in the doorway, his jacket soaking wet, a grim smile on his face. She heaved a huge sigh of relief at the welcome sight of his wet face and the water running down the sides of his arms. She wanted so badly to hug him to her, rainwater and all, to hold him tightly, to ease his pain.
But she couldn’t do that. He didn’t want her sympathy. He’d made that quite clear. So she knotted her fingers together. She wouldn’t let anything show, but she couldn’t help the feelings.
“Where were you?” she asked lightly.
“Picking apples.”
“In the rain?”
He nodded, shaking water off his head. “What are you doing?”
She gave the batter a stir, dumped the apples into it and poured it into the cake pan. “Making a cake. But don’t get your hopes up. It’s my first attempt.” She opened the oven door and slid the pan in. “I figured if you can make pancakes, I can make a coffee cake.”
The expression in his eyes was unreadable. She wanted to believe things were back to normal. But what was normal? Certainly not this charade of playing house. In any case she had learned something this morning. She’d learned why Cooper was unavailable.
Now she understood why she couldn’t fall in love with him, couldn’t even get close to him, unless she wanted to give up her dream of marriage and children. And she didn’t. It had to stop now, this falling for the wrong person. She sat on the kitchen stool looking out at the rain, scarcely aware that Cooper had gone to change out of his wet clothes. When the oven timer went off she gingerly opened the oven door.
A wonderful smell of brown sugar and cinnamon came wafting into the room. Could it be? Could she have made something edible on her first try?
“Smells good,” Cooper said over her shoulder. She hadn’t heard him come in. “I thought you said you couldn’t-”
“I can’t. But I had to try.” She lifted the cake from the oven, set it on the counter and cut two pieces. Cooper poured two cups of leftover breakfast coffee and set them on the table. They sat across from each other without speaking, without eating, just looking off into space, anywhere but at each other.
After an eternity she wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and said, “I had no business asking about your past.”
He reached for her other hand and held it tightly. “It’s okay,” he said gruffly. “I should have told you before. You’ve been up-front with me. But it’s not something I wanted to talk about, or even think about.”
“I know, I know,” she stammered, gripping his fingers. “You would have made a wonderful father.”
“Maybe, who knows?” Cooper asked, trying to keep his voice steady. He thought he’d done all his crying two years ago. But this morning, in the orchard, he’d let the tears fall shamelessly, let them mix with the rain as he picked apples and carefully laid them in rows in a box. He was grateful for the repetitious, mindless work. Whether he’d been aware of it or not, it was time to let it all hang out. Get it out of his system. Hopefully for the last time.
He would stop wishing for what might have been. He would come to grips with what was. With what must be. And that was a solitary life. He managed to give her a half smile. “Maybe I’ll follow your example. Enjoy other people’s kids.”
“Do you know anybody with kids?” she asked, pulling her hand away and taking her cup to the stove for something else to do.
“Just Steve.” He was just as glad he wasn’t anybody’s uncle or even godfather. Morgan was as far as he could go.
Laurie wiped her hands on a towel and looked out the window. “I’m going to give Morgan a nap, then I’m going out to do some work in the orchard.”
Cooper gave Laurie a long, appraising look. He knew what it was like to be restless. Too restless to stay inside, to talk about feelings, about the past and think about the future. The trees called, the work, the picking and packing soothed the nerves. Laurie was trying to forget, too, trying not to think of a lost opportunity, a personal failure, of what might have been. Maybe that was why he understood her.
While Morgan napped, they worked together under a gentle rain, without speaking, in companionable silence. He hoped she wasn’t feeling sorry for him. For the past two years he’d avoided pity by never confiding in anyone. Then along came Laurie and he’d told her everything. He didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand his feelings for this woman.
He knew he wanted her with a fierce hunger even as she stood on a ladder in the rain, her hair hanging in wet strands from under her rain hat as she gently cupped, lifted and twisted each apple. He wanted to run with her through the rain to the house and strip off every inch of clothing and cover her body with his, warming, teasing, kissing, exploring... To lose himself in her warm, welcoming depths as they shared the ultimate intimacy. He wanted to bury himself in her, to find solace in her arms.
He reached for the tree trunk to brace himself. Enough, he told himself. But it was not enough to think abo
ut it, he wanted to do it. And yet he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to Laurie, He climbed down the ladder. “I’ll go check on Morgan,” he offered. He had to get away from Laurie, from the haunting expression in her warm hazel eyes, from her enticing curved body partly hidden by her rain jacket.
She looked up briefly, nodded and went back to work. He envied her concentration. His was gone. He couldn’t think of apples. He could only think of Laurie. As if their conversation this morning, as painful as it was, had given him permission to fantasize about what would happen if he were free of his past, of his memories. But he wasn’t.
Morgan’s cries greeted him as he opened the back door. He had a strange feeling of deja vu. Was it only last week that he’d gone to get her from her nap, changed her diaper for the first time and carried her out to Laurie in the orchard? He didn’t want to get attached to this baby. She had a way of reminding him of what he’d lost. But here she was, wide-awake, crying for something. A clean diaper, a drink... some company?
Her face was bright red, her screaming grew louder.
“Morgan,” he said, alarmed by her appearance. “What’s wrong?”
Usually she stopped crying when she saw him, but not today. Today she screamed even louder, her eyes red-rimmed and glazed with tears. He picked her up. She needed him. Now. He pressed his face to hers, feeling the heat radiate from her cheek to his. She was warm. Too warm. She gulped and whimpered pitifully.
Cooper felt his heart was being squeezed in an apple press. She looked so miserable. He felt so helpless. She was breathing unevenly, crying nonstop. He walked into the living room, holding the fleece-clad baby to his chest, feeling anxious, frustrated and worried. Where was Laurie, why didn’t she come in and tell him what to do? Morgan was burning up.
