She breathed his name. Oh, yes, erections were a male thing. Huge ones were a Ben thing. “Your place is tiny,” she managed, struggling to cling to the thought.
“So build on,” he rumbled against her cheek. “Renovate the tool shed.”
“What about law books? Mmmmm, Ben.” He had slipped inside and was filling her fuller, fuller, ahhhh.
“Buy the damn books,” he ground out, laying her back on the bed and following her down.
She wound her legs around his hips and took him deeper yet. “A secretary? Associates?”
“Hire them,” he said with a thrust that drove her up against the sheets.
She clung to his neck, panting, burning from the inside out. “What about…a partner?” She abandoned the thought when he drove into her again, because the outside world dissolved. Ben filled her senses, controlled her body, had her blushing and sweating and writhing, while he brought her from one level of pleasure to another. He had her crying for more and reduced to total dependency, before he finally allowed her release.
She might have been furious, if she hadn’t known how mutual the dependency was.
“God, did I miss you,” he whispered in the thread of a breath when his body finally relaxed.
“I wasn’t gone long.”
“Too much. Too far.”
“You’re gone longer and farther when you work.”
“Too much. Too far. All of it. I think I’m getting old.” He slipped to the side and rose on an elbow, still breathing unevenly, but intent. “Find a partner. Find two. Find ones you can trust.”
“What if I can’t find clients?”
“With your reputation? Fat chance.”
“Litigators don’t work on annual retainer. We have a constantly changing clientele. We never know from one year to the next how much or little work we’ll have, and the work comes in clumps.”
“What else is new?”
“But it’s different in a firm. The firm covers during the slow times.”
“So I’ll cover the slow times,” he said with a grin. “You can live the artist’s life with me, hand to mouth, struggling, starving, praying for a case to come along, any case—”
She put a hand to his mouth. They both knew money wasn’t the issue. “I don’t want to fail.”
Ben took a deep breath and kissed her fingertips away. “None of us does,” he said gently. “But failure is relative to whatever your goals are. If your primary goal is to show those bastards in the firm that you can play their game, and you resign your partnership, you’ve failed. On the other hand, if your primary goal is to be a good lawyer—”
“I haven’t been in control, have I?” she asked. “They have. I’ve been deluding myself.”
“No. You haven’t once compromised your integrity. That’s a critical form of control.”
“Ben?”
“Mmm?”
“How would our lives change if we were married?”
“Outwardly, not a whole lot. I assume you’d want to keep your name, since it’s the one the legal community knows you by. You’d keep your apartment, if you work in the city, and your car. The change would be more inside us. Knowing the other one’s waiting. Wanting the other one to be waiting.”
Caroline imagined herself preparing for trial, working long into the night and rising at dawn. She thought of all the lawyers she knew whose marriages hadn’t survived that. “Won’t that make you angry?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I have work of my own to do. I can keep busy. Besides, trials end. Even the best litigators have to take breaks. As long as I know you’re mine during those, I can wait.”
“What about kids?” she asked without planning to, but she couldn’t take back the words. She hadn’t ever wanted kids, before. But she had never been as close to being too old to have them, before.
“That’s up to you,” Ben said.
“Do you want them?”
“I can live without them. Then again, they’d be nice. I can go either way, babe. What I can’t go either way about is you.”
Annette tried to keep busy. She finished calling Virginia’s friends and family, so that Caroline might spend time with Ben. She called Portland to book hotel rooms for those who planned to attend the funeral, and called Downlee Taxi to arrange transportation for the same. She confirmed their plans with the minister, and passed word on to the undertaker.
The scents wafting up from the kitchen told her that Leah had finished her muffins and moved on to other things. She smelled apples baking. She smelled chicken frying. The latter, once cooled, turned out to be lunch, which was a quiet affair on the back deck, with Leah preparing and Ben serving, and the four of them sitting close, feeling the splendor of the setting and the sadness it brought. They talked of Ginny. They talked of flowers and the sea. They talked, openly and without apology, about wanting the funeral to be something Ginny would have approved of.
Caroline seemed quieter with Ben there, calmer, more peaceful. Annette felt an ache of envy as she watched them. They communed in subtle ways—with the touch of a hand, a shared glance—like old lovers whose familiarity bred contentment. It was the way Annette felt with Jean-Paul.
She missed him. The loneliness of losing Ginny seemed sharper for his absence. Still, it would have been foolish for him to come.
How lucky Caroline was to have Ben there.
It occurred to Annette that Jesse should have been there with Leah, but if Leah thought so, she wasn’t saying. Rather, she sat with her back to the lawn and the flower beds, the places where Jesse might have been. Poor Leah. She was as confused as Annette was lonely.
When Caroline led Ben off to show him around and Leah returned to the kitchen, Annette went upstairs. She might have called Jean-Paul, had she not specifically told him to take the children out. She wondered what they were doing. She wondered if they missed her.
Curling up on her unmade bed, she fell asleep. When she awoke, it was nearly five in the afternoon. Leah was still at it, cooking different things now, if her nose was correct. She caught fleeting impressions of wine and tomatoes and curry, and imagined a stew of some sort. And vegetables. A robust soup. Gwen’s specialty.
The smells were rich, as were the sounds of the sea, but still she felt empty. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the phone. Then she thought about the time difference between Maine and Missouri, and returned her hand to her lap.
She thought about Ginny, to whom time no longer held meaning. Rising, she went down the hall. Gwen must have indeed returned, because the bed had been neatly made, but everything else was as it had been at the moment of Ginny’s death.
Annette touched the linen runner that crossed the dresser top. A gold-edged tray lay centered there. On it were a tiny vase with its spray of phlox, a delicate gold frame with a picture of Annette and her sisters as young children, and a beautiful perfume bottle.
She raised the latter to her nose and marveled at the exactness with which Ginny’s perfumer had matched the scent of the beach roses. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for Ginny to have lived with the smell, year after year, to have with her always such a vivid clear picture of what she had lost.
Feeling that loss with a profundity that cut straight to her own soul, Annette made a mournful sound. She trailed her hand along the dresser, then the dressing table, then the back of the straight chair before it. She opened the closet and looked inside at the clothes the movers had brought, a collection of silk and linen and wool, all in Ginny’s muted colors—with the exception of a brighter something.
She pushed clothing aside to reach that brighter something. It was a dress with floral splashes of yellow and red, and as she looked at it, she felt an odd sense of the familiar. She had seen it before, a long, long time before, as a child playing in forbidden places. She remembered thinking at the time that it was beautiful, but that since Ginny never wore it, it must have belonged to h
er mother.
Only now she understood—and in that instant knew that the ivory suit they had given the undertaker would never do at all.
She turned quickly, desperate to remedy the situation before a horrible mistake was made. Then she gasped. Jean-Paul was at the door, looking hesitant, but more beautiful than she had ever seen him.
Her eyes filled. Brokenly, thinking, absurdly, that if she didn’t come up with a rational explanation for what she was holding, Jean-Paul might prove to be a mirage, too, she said, “Mother must have worn this that summer with Will. She should be buried in it.”
“Oui,” Jean-Paul said softly.
Not a mirage at all, but his voice, so quiet and reassuring. “Jean-Paul?”
“Being independent is fine, but for another time, okay?”
She smiled through her tears. “Jean-Paul.”
“You said to do something wonderful with the children to remember your Mother, and I couldn’t think of anything better. Nor could they.”
Nor, with the wisdom of hindsight, could Annette.
twenty-one
THOUGH THE FUNERAL WAS SET FOR MIDDAY Monday, the townsfolk began dropping by on Sunday afternoon. If there were curiosity seekers among them, they didn’t let on. No questions were asked. No stealthy eyes explored the house. Those who came were often shy, always pleasant and apologetic, and rarely stayed for long.
“Just offerin’ our condolences.”
“I remember your mother. She was all smiles.”
“Shame she didn’t have more time here.”
Rarely did they come empty-handed, such that when dinnertime arrived, the dining room table was laden with casseroles, salads, and more goodies than Leah could have baked in a week.
Not that she stopped. If she stopped, she would start to think, and she didn’t want to do that.
Mercifully Gwen understood, and while she put her own grief to work coordinating last-minute details that neither Caroline nor Annette had the heart for, she yielded the kitchen to Leah, who continued to cook—a chilled soup to be put out the next day, a poached salmon with dill sauce, a fruit compote, rolls of every shape, size, and flavor.
“Hi.”
The sound of his voice stirred a tingling inside. As confused as she was, as frightened, she couldn’t help but smile. “Hi,” she said without looking up. She was stuffing mushrooms. It was delicate work.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m okay.”
“Your sisters are worried.”
“Did they send you in?”
“No. I’m worried, too. There’s plenty of food, Leah. You don’t have to keep at this.”
“But we’ve invited the whole town. If they come here after the funeral, we’ll need all this and more.”
“They’ll bring more. Julia’s bringing a truck-load.”
“Mother would like the sound of that,” Leah remarked in a high voice, close to laughter and tears, a breath away from hysteria. “Her greatest fear was that she’d throw a party and run out of something.”
Jesse drew her close. Against her forehead, he said, “She would approve of all you’ve done. Now she’d want you to spend time with the others.”
“But I have to do this now. I won’t have time in the morning. I’ll be doing the flowers then.”
“I’ll do the flowers. It’s my job.”
“But I want to,” she said, only then raising her eyes. He was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a sweater, looking every bit as urbane as Jean-Paul or Ben. She started to say something but couldn’t.
He gave a small hitch of his chin. “What?”
She swallowed. “You don’t look like a gardener.” He didn’t act like one, either. In the course of the last twenty-four hours, he had talked light, shadow, and F-stops with Ben, debated ecosystem preservation with Jean-Paul, and taken Annette’s kids on a tour of the rocks that had given the adults a welcome breather.
He was a remarkable man, able to slip from one guise to another with apparent ease. She wished she could, too, but change had never been her forte. She liked doing things she knew she was good at. She didn’t like taking risks.
Loving Jesse was a major risk. Not that she could help it. One look at him and she ached inside for everything he was and might be in her life. The thought of it terrified her.
Not wanting to discuss it, not wanting to think about it, she asked, “What do you think of my family?”
“Nice people.”
“A little overpowering?”
“Nah.”
“I think they are.”
“That’s because you compare yourself to them. But you’re different, Leah. Softer.”
“Oh no. I’m the jet setter. I’m tough.”
“You were made for this place.”
“My friends in Washington would disagree. I throw the best parties around.”
“Yes. I can see that.”
“This isn’t a party, Jesse. It’s a funeral. It doesn’t count.”
“You could open Star’s End to the town once a month and a great party.”
“But I have to be in Washington.”
“You don’t have to.”
Want to.”
“Do you?”
Her dilemma in a nutshell. She made a small, bewildered sound and turned back to her mushrooms.
He didn’t say anything else, simply kissed her forehead, and let himself out.
Monday dawned the kind of brilliant June day that Virginia would have loved. Fighting the sadness of that, Leah was up early cutting and arranging flowers. She had a good eye and skilled hands, and found reward in what she did.
But she was tired. She hadn’t slept much the night before, what with cooking late, then sitting wide-eyed at her bedroom window for hours until she finally gave in and ran across the lawn to Jesse’s. Nor did she sleep there for more than a few minutes at a time. She couldn’t. Her mind wouldn’t settle.
By eleven, the out-of-town guests had arrived from Portland and were having coffee and danish on the deck. By eleven-thirty, the locals had started to wander up the drive. By eleven-forty-five, the minister arrived, and by eleven-fifty, the hearse. Flanked by those whose lives she had touched most closely, the casket was carried to the spot on the bluff where the beach roses bloomed.
At noon, with the sun high overhead, the gulls arcing widely and the waves spewing their froth up against the rocky headland, the minister said a few words, general words of love and attachment and return. Then began the slow walk along the bluff to the graveyard on the rise.
Leah barely heard the minister there. She was lost in thoughts of love and loss, drowning in them while tears filled her eyes and blurred the abyss of the grave and the vast horizon beyond.
She wept softly, pressing a tissue to her upper lip, leaning heavily against Jesse, who kept an arm around her. He was warm and alive, as nothing in a graveyard could be. She took the comfort he offered, able neither to resist it nor to hide it from anyone who cared to see.
Once back at the house, she was the hostess she had trained so long to be, greeting guests, generating small talk, seeing that the food was plentiful and the wine flowed. Later she couldn’t say to whom she had talked or what she ate. She could remember the gut-wrenching sadness she felt at the moment her mother’s casket was lowered into the ground, the roaring inside her head that was grief to the extreme, Jesse’s warmth.
She remembered fighting that need as the day wore on and losing the battle at night. Jesse’s cottage was a haven, a place where she could let the sensual blot out all else. There was forgetfulness in his arms, and love and security and excitement, and if she didn’t sleep there either, her time was well spent.
Inevitably morning came. She returned to the main house to shower and put on fresh jeans and a T-shirt. Lacking the taste for makeup or the strength to do anything with her hair but run a brush once through the wet strands, she joined the crowd in the kitchen.
She let Annette make breakfast. She let Caroli
ne make a pot of tea. Bone-tired and emotionally drained, she took refuge in a corner of the sofa, lay her head against its back, and tucked her bare feet beneath her. Eyes closed, she let herself be lulled by the banter between Annette and her kids.
“Are you okay, Aunt Leah?”
She opened her eyes to Devon and smiled. “I’m fine.”
“You look tired. And sad.”
“I am, both.”
“Want some tea?”
“Mmm. That sounds good.”
A short time later, a warm mug was nudged into her hand. A short time after that, the kitchen grew quiet. She heard the clink of dishes in the dishwasher and the splash of water in the sink. She heard silence, then soft footsteps. Then she felt movement beside her on the sofa.
“Leah? Let’s talk.” It was Caroline’s voice, but Leah sensed that she wasn’t alone. When she opened her eyes, she saw Annette perched on the coffee table.
She looked from one face to the other. “That serious?”
“That serious,” Annette said. “You and Jesse. Important stuff.”
Leah closed her eyes again. She wasn’t up for a serious talk, particularly not one about Jesse. She could think of him as she’d last seen him, sprawled buck naked on his bed. She couldn’t think further than that.
Caroline gave her knee a sharp shake. “Don’t tune us out. This is your future.”
“Right, My future. You needn’t worry about it.”
“If we don’t, who will?”
“The same person who always has. Me.”
“Well, you are clearly doing the worrying,” Caroline observed, “since you look like you’ve been through a wringer. The question is whether it’s getting you anywhere.”
“You can’t hold it in, Leah.”
“Maybe we can help.”
Ellen McKenna had tried to help. She had taught Leah to stand back and view her life objectively. But it was more easily said than done. Leah couldn’t be objective where Jesse was concerned. He stirred her so deeply and on such a visceral level that she couldn’t separate out the elements of the attraction.
For My Daughters Page 28
