by Sharon
She heard him breathe, "Don't stop," just before the sparklingly sweet meeting of their lips. It felt good to her, so good, as his mouth moved against the tautness of her smile. Gently, he stroked her tingling flesh with his lower lip and then brought his mouth into light contact with hers, rocking against her mouth, parting her. His hand skimmed up her back to the base of her neck in a light, tantalizing massage before it swept slowly down to cover her breast. The pressure of fabric and of his steady fingers pushed heavy flutters of sensation through her chest and her skin responded to each nuance of his cupping palm. Some impulse of the night's magic made her bring her arms up and clasp them around his neck, and lean into his body. One of his hands moved to accommodate her, pressing her close; and the other continued its lazily kindling motion against her coat and the flushing softness beneath.
"How long does it take"—she drew in a shaking gulp of air as his thumb discovered her nipple— "for this thing to happen to our eyes."
"In thirty minutes we'll be doing very well. In the meantime, tell me how you spent your day." His voice sounded slightly breathless as he nestled her against his jacket.
She protested with a startled, uncertain laugh that nobody's boredom threshold was high enough for that.
Smiling, he began to ask her questions. What time did she get up in the morning? Was getting up hard or easy for her? What did she eat for breakfast? Did she listen to music or was her house quiet? What did she sleep in? Some of the questions teased; others titillated. Some were serious and she began to find herself following the mood of them, explaining the flow of her day, her job, her thoughts, the people she saw and worked with. Never before had anyone explored her life in such lively detail. No one had cared before that she liked apple jelly and beds with fishnet lace canopies, or that she was making a Shaker chair from a kit in her spare time or that she stopped every morning on the way to work at Lake Park to feed the uneaten half of her English muffin to the mallards. No one but her mother had asked about the intricacies of settling into a new job and establishing oneself with a talented and experienced staff.
Not many minutes ago she had accused him of being thorough, and he was. He was probably the most thorough, observant listener she had ever conversed with. She stopped watching to learn whether or not this was only the elan of some surface charm. She forgot to worry.
His hands explored her with the same sympathetic seductiveness as his voice, which had become husky, a murmur. Time passed, a flowing gift. Her eyes became dark-adjusted. Her body became love-adjusted.
"I think you're ready now," he said softly.
She jumped.
Laughing gently at her belated alarm, he slid down the zipper of her coat, drew it down from her shoulders and then zipped her into his own parka. His warm sweet scent rose from the down lining, enveloping her as she watched him pull a wool melton jacket from the back seat and shrug into it. He climbed out of the car and held open her door invitingly.
She knew the hours that followed would live in her memory forever. The forest was a jeweled world. Snowflakes glittered from clumps of puffy snow caught on pine branches. The ground twinkled as if it were strewn with chipped stars. Night breezes lulled the high scalloped tree crowns and cast the incense of damp cedar into the moist, snow-spangled air.
She could pick out detail in the moonlight as if it were day. As she turned slowly, looking around her in the dazzling silence, Philip took buckets from the back of the car and filled them with kibble-style dog food. He handed her a stack of tin pie plates and began to walk with her toward an opening in the forest wall, their footsteps muffled in the dense snow carpet. She no longer noticed the cold.
"Where—"
A softly spoken word interrupted her. "Whisper."
"Where are we going?" Her low tone mated with his. "Do you have a kennel here?"
"No." He smiled. "I have wild friends."
Beyond, a meadow bathed in starlight. She watched Philip fill the pie plates and put them on the ground. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her once, slowly, and she tasted the mist of his breath and snowflakes.
Like a dreamer she walked hand-in-hand with him to the meadow's edge where he took her in his arms under the drooping canopy of a willow. Amid the ice droplets that glistened like tear-shaped gems at the tip of each branch, he caressed the snowflakes from her lashes with his lips. Then, gently, he turned her back toward the meadow, and stood close behind her, his hands spanning her waist to hold her comfortably.
His hushed whisper caressed her ear. "It's better not to stand behind a tree when you watch animals in the wild. Otherwise, you'll have to move to peer around the tree and animals find movement threatening. When you stand perfectly still, in the shadow of a tree, you become almost invisible. If you have to move, do it very slowly, and if you accidentally make a noise, freeze. Also, try not to stare head-on. Predators stare directly at their prey when they're sizing it up for attack, so for most animals staring has bad associations."
He didn't speak again, nor did she.
The meadow was alive. Her heart beat slowly, like the delicate and deliberate footsteps of the three does that came to drink from a spring-fed stream.
Raccoons emerged, masked bandits from the darkness. Trundling toward the pie plates with heads low, backs humped up, chittering to each other, they reminded Jennifer of the early crowd at a diner. They ate methodically, their paws working like little black hands. Some dipped the kibble in the stream, leaving the bank a smeary mess. Plentiful as the food was, once or twice there was some greediness and a spat broke out. It was hard not to laugh out loud at the indignant tremble of whiskers and upturned black noses. A skunk ambled out from a sway of grasses and took his place at the pie plates as though it were a cafeteria. She laughed again, softly, as the other diners withdrew to a disgruntled distance. Philip's voice, soft as the harp-song of the breeze in the pines, began to tell her about the animals; about the amiable little skunk who couldn't seem to understand why everyone avoided her, about the raccoons and how many seasons he had known them. Later he told her about the red fox that stole with alert concern across the meadow and the great horned owl that flew above the trees with the silence of a spirit. The winter night opened as a fresh universe, warm with personality and purity.
As the moon peered at them over the stark tree limbs, she watched muskrats take vegetable scraps from Philip's hands. A porcupine lumbered up to him eagerly and he fed salt to it.
Sitting on the wagon's tailgate, she drank coffee from his thermos, a red plaid wool blanket spread over her lap. She gazed in new wonder at the snowflakes he caught on his jacket and showed her through a small illuminated magnifying lens. Each separate crystal carried its own special beauty.
She was enraptured.
The same gentle hands that had given her his stillness under the willow laid her back on the wagon bed, stroking her cheeks, parting the zipper of her parka and his jacket to bring their bodies together. He held her, just held her, rubbing his body slowly against hers to warm her chilled flesh, and told her about the legends of the night, the forest; and about the spring that soon would come and the animal young that would fill the trees and streams.
And she was enraptured.
He returned her to her doorstep in the dewy mantle of a setting moon. Then and only then did he kiss her again, gathering her to him with heart-lifting care, bringing his mouth to hers, holding her in a deep, steady kiss that they both broke from breathing quickly and hard. For a long, helpless moment she met his wantonly beautiful gaze. Then he touched her forehead lightly with a graceful finger, whispered, "Sleep well," and left her.
CHAPTER 5
Habits die hard. By morning, Jennifer began to worry.
The reassurance of his presence might have helped, but by midweek he had not tried to see her. And that brought home the torments a relationship with a man like Philip Brooks would cause. He was not a stranger to her, and never would be again, and yet she had no way to know if he hadn't
called because he was busy, or indifferent, or complacent. Or if in that one night together he had satisfied whatever instinct had impelled him to pursue her. This wasn't going to be simple.
By the end of the week, two things had happened that made it seem impossible.
The first was a letter from her mother that arrived Wednesday.
My daughter—my refined, public-television addict of a daughter—at a strip show? I'm aghast!
I'm horrified. I'm coming down on the next bus to see it too. No, that was a joke, but I really may come sometime. A group of women from my office is talking about spending the weekend at the Maple Lodge near Emerald Lake, on their lovely cross-country ski trails, before the snow goes back up to heaven. Believe it or not, we might come on Friday night to see the show at the Cougar Club first. The others, young things in their thirties, are getting a big kick out of the idea of trying to corrupt me, and you know what? Just once before I die, I'd like the chance to leer at a man. After forty-one years in a sexist world, I have it coming. By the way, I have seen the most beautiful man in the world. My secretary was down at the Cougar Club last month, and brought back a Polaroid of their star. Which was the thing that got everyone here so set on coming. When I read your letter, I thought yes, the young Alexander. What a waste, when you think of it, someone with a face full of character like that. You'd think he could have done anything with his life. That aside, I think you should have kissed him.
The second incident occurred on Thursday afternoon when Jennifer almost walked into the staff room in search of the Publisher's Weekly that Annette had carried off earlier. It was Annette's voice sweeping around the slightly open door that froze Jennifer on the threshold.
"...that Jennifer was dating Philip Brooks? You could have knocked me over with an index card when Eleanor came out with it"—fingers snapped briskly—"just like that."
"You're the last soul in town to find out, then." The second voice belonged to Lydia's younger sister Tracy, a high-school senior earning extra credit by helping part time in the library. "Mr. Caras was out plowing snow in the storm last weekend and he saw Philip bringing her home in the wee hours. He said it was quite a goodnight kiss they had too. Ooo-la-la. He practically ran the old plow into the ditch."
"Too bad he didn't." It was Lydia's voice, the tone caustic. "The old poop. I can't tell you how sorry I feel for Philip Brooks. He can't sneeze without half the county betting on whether he's going to whip out a hanky or a tissue."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Annette said wryly. "Eleanor still doesn't realize he's dancing at the Cougar Club."
"Who'd dare to tell her? She'd die. You know how the old guard feels about that family. The Brooks name equals royalty."
"True enough," Annette answered. A pause filled with the trickle of pouring coffee. "Jennifer is about the last person in the world I expected to see next on the Brooks menu. He doesn't usually go in for—"
"Cold cuts." A chuckle from Tracy.
"That was mean." There was a frown in Lydia's voice.
"And not what I meant," Annette said coolly. "She may seem a little reserved sometimes but she's actually a very warm person. You should see her with the children."
"Like the Pied Piper," Lydia agreed around a swallow of coffee.
"She's wonderful. Pretty, too. Exquisite really, and I don't think she has any idea. She's so unassuming about herself. What I was going to say was that he usually doesn't make a meal of someone who's obviously tender." A lighter snapped. A whiff of cigarette smoke wafted through the doorway. "Where on earth do you think she could have met him?" The silence seemed to shrug. "I know she couldn't have met him before we took her to the Cougar Club. I mean, she surely would have said something, right? Listen, this is one sophisticated guy. Do you think we ought to warn her that the man has what understatement would call—a certain notoriety for letting almost no one into his life?"
"Ugh. Interference!" said Lydia. "Still—"
"You two are crazy!" Tracy sounded indignant. "If Philip Brooks asked either one of you out, you sure as heck wouldn't be listening to a lot of cautious advice from your friends. Ten minutes of Philip Brooks is better than no minutes of Philip Brooks. Notorious, my foot. Who cares? He's awesome."
Silence. "The kid's right," Annette said.
Tracy chuckled suddenly.
"What?"
"The kid knows something you don't know," Tracy's voice teased.
"What?" Annette said. "By gum, Lydia, look at how sly she looks. All right, young'un, tell."
A quick pause. Then, with significance, Tracy's voice. "He's July."
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"Philip Brooks. You know. In your calendar." Another chuckle. "You mean you haven't even looked in your own calendar? I thought you just got it to bug Eleanor. Philip Brooks is July."
"Are you kidding?" There was a short flurry of movement. Pages ruffled wildly. A silence. A burst of excited laughter, stifled painfully.
"Lordy, lordy. Will you look at that? She speaks no less than the truth. The man is July." Annette's voice sounded strange. "The man is July and I want him so much it makes my stomach hurt. What he does to my insides ought to be illegal."
"He's an aphrodisiac on legs." Lydia laughed. "Hey, cut it out, Trace. You're getting fingerprints on his thigh."
Jennifer was five feet away before she knew she was stepping backward. The children's section was a safe haven, where she scooped up somebody small in a quilted crawler, found a large book, and took both with her into the depths of a beanbag chair to read aloud, hiding her face and her scathing embarrassment behind the friendly pages.
That night brought her new restlessness, new unease. She tried to see herself clearly, with her strengths and weaknesses. She was romantic, amiable like the little skunk unless threatened, and filled with a thousand picture dreams of how the world ought to be... and only rarely was. Some of the most enchanting hours of her life had been spent in Philip's forest, but any relationship she had with him would have to be lived in the real world. And it would take a certain toughness, a certain quality of imperviousness that she would have to develop for the fleeting span of Philip's interest. Nor was she composed emotionally for the heady lightning of short spectacular love affairs. She needed things around her that grew and lasted. She needed security.
About the man himself, she tried not to think at all; not about the breathtaking physical countenance, the deft gentle hands, the generous mouth. Nor the engaging manner, nor the mystery of why anyone with his background had come to be July.
She shed tears and faced the truth that Philip Brooks and Jennifer Hamilton were not meant to work.
The glow of his remembered presence stayed with her, and their winter night together slept uneasily at the edge of her conscious thoughts. It hardly helped that the preschool story hour she had planned for Friday had the topic of "Animals."
At two o'clock on Friday afternoon, the three- and four-year-olds came tumbling into the children's section. Working hard to learn names, and smiling into little faces, she showed the thirty tots magazines with brightly colored animal pictures, a film strip about how puppies grew, and read aloud from books of animal stories. She admired and displayed on the bulletin board their crayon drawings and snapshots of their pets. She taught them the eensy-weensy-spider finger play. And rolling up the cuffs of her puff-sleeved pink striped blouse, hitching her pleated pants, she got right down on the carpet with them and became animals. They were elephants, swinging their arms for trunks, squirting themselves with water. They were bunnies, sitting up on their haunches, wriggling their noses to sniff for carrots, hopping through the grass. New animals entered her repertoire too: a waddling porcupine, and raccoons that ate with tiny dexterous fingers, and deer shaking snow-flakes from their tails.
Jennifer was a monkey, squatting on the floor beside a little girl in braids and a Smurf shirt, peeling an imaginary banana, making monkey noises through an outthrust simian jaw. When she curved a hand up
ward over her head to scratch lazily at an armpit, the sweep of her gaze caught a freeze-frame filled with Philip Brooks. He was standing twenty feet away, watching her, a slim hip in softly-stretched denim resting against a low case of encyclopedias.
Fate, do you have it in for me?
The need to maintain her slipping grasp on the precipice of sanity would not permit her to look back but she retained the impression of porcelain blue eyes, sensitive lips uptilted in amusement, an open down jacket, a shapely hand curved around a pair of cashmere gloves. She had the dreadful feeling that her skin was turning chalk white, but without missing a beat, she smacked her lips to finish the last of her pretend banana, offering the final bite to her little friend in the pigtails, who chewed solemnly.
In front of a sea of trusting faces and Philip Brooks, she did her final animal, a seal, showing the interested audience how to squirm across the floor on forearms that were flippers, dragging their lower body behind. She and thirty preschoolers barked and balanced balls on their noses.
Getting stiffly to her feet, walking around helping out little seals, she asked cheerfully, "How many of you have met Jinx, our new gerbil? I'm going to bring him out so that you can say 'hello.' "
Lydia, who had been helping her, was waiting with a very peculiar expression on her face beside the low pine table that held the refurbished aquarium where Jinx lived. Under her breath, out of the corner of her mouth like a B-movie mobster, she muttered, "Philip is here."
