“That’s the spot,” she whispered.
She rested her head on her pillow and tried to quiet her racing thoughts. He had said she was beautiful, she reminded herself. Multiple times. He had even said she was perfect.
The attention he paid to her was tender and complete, and soon she could think of nothing else but somehow getting him inside her. As if reading her thoughts, he moved up her belly, paused briefly at her breasts, then rose to her mouth and kissed her. The taste of him mixed with her drove her wild with need.
“I want you inside me now,” she said.
“Is that an order from the boss?” he asked, grinning.
“Yes. Dammit. Yes.”
He peeled off his shirt and shimmied out of his pants. The sight of his naked body in the golden light nearly brought her to climax. When he moved on top of her, she turned her head to the side, but he reached up and turned it back, looking deeply into her eyes. She could see endless pools of thought swirling in the depths of his green irises, and she suddenly felt as if she’d known him in another life—as if she’d been here waiting in this world for him to arrive, to find her purpose in his gaze.
A moan escaped her lips as he entered her.
Last night had been wild, hot, and exciting, but this was different. This morning, he was making love to her like no man ever had before. She could see the longing in his eyes, and he never once took them away from her. They rose together with perfect timing, and she saw his pupils dilate when he came; still he held her stare as she bucked and shivered beneath him. When the overwhelming release had faded, he leaned down and kissed her, then whispered in her ear.
“I love you.”
She couldn’t believe what she had heard. Had he just said he loved her? She studied his face, trying to read his intentions there. He just smiled and looked down on her and said it again.
“I love you, Jane.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re just infatuated with me because this is exciting. Because I’m an older woman. What did you call it? Mature.”
He sighed, rolled off of her, and flopped down on the bed beside her, his head propped on his hand.
“I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” he said.
“And if I could, what would I see?”
“You’d see the most amazing, kind, smart, and beautiful woman you’d ever been lucky enough to lay eyes on.”
“Doesn’t it seem a little soon to know if you love me?”
“Not for me,” he said. “And I wasn’t aware there was a required grace period before a person could acknowledge their feelings. I think I knew it the first time I saw you, and I think it scared the hell out of me. But I’m not going to live in fear.”
Jane remembered what Grace had said about not letting fear have a place in her life. But she wasn’t sure if she was ready to expose her whole heart to him yet. He was young. He could afford to be careless in love. Jane couldn’t. She knew she loved him already, and she knew there was no way to change that. But somehow saying it exposed her to a kind of heartbreak just the thought of which was more than she could bear.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to say it back right now. I’m patient. You’ll say it when you’re ready.”
“Is that right?” she asked, reaching out and brushing her nails across his bare chest. “Well, it seems like you have a good dose of confidence to go along with your patience.”
He laughed.
“Confidence is important when it’s all you’ve got.”
“Well, let’s just take it slow and see what happens.”
He leaned over and kissed her, saying:
“If last night and this morning are your idea of taking it slow, then I’m all in.”
Then he pulled away and looked at her.
“But there is one little thing I’m kind of worried about.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, we didn’t use any protection.”
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’m on the pill.”
“You are?”
“Yes. I take it religiously, every morning.”
He looked both relieved and a little sad.
“So, you’re pretty active then?”
“You mean sexually?”
“Yeah.”
Jane laughed. If he only knew, she thought.
“Are you active?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s been a long time for me.”
“How long’s a long time?”
“I dunno. Maybe six months. And she was a steady girl.”
Jane shook her head.
“If six months is a long time, then it’s been ever for me.”
“You mean: forever?”
“No. I mean ever. It’s been so long I can’t even put the for in front of it.”
Caleb laughed.
“Then why do you take the pill?”
“I don’t know. Wishful thinking, I guess. Or maybe habit. Plus, it’s good for my skin.”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.
“Well, in that case, I see no reason why we shouldn’t get some more practice in before I go back to work.”
Chapter 11
JANE SLOWED THE CAR and pulled to the side of the road.
“You sure this is it?”
“Yeah. That’s the fence that caught my leg.”
“So you just went in there and walked it out?”
“It was starving, Jane. Plus, the guy at the hardware store said they’d eat blackberries. What would you have done?”
She just shrugged.
“I think this is part of Mrs. Hawthorne’s property. We’ll have to circle around on Agate Drive to get to the house.”
After driving in circles for several minutes, they located the driveway at the far end of a wooded street. A rusty mailbox painted with the name HAWTHORNE hung from an iron post.
The drive was long. Gravel crunched beneath their tires and spit up inside the wheel wells, pinging loudly. As the trees thinned the drive widened, and they came upon an old yellow house from some bygone era. It was leaning pitifully to one side, with brown moss covering its cedar roof. The elaborate porch had once been painted white, but the paint had mostly peeled away, revealing the gray, weathered wood beneath.
“Nice place,” Caleb said as they got out of the car.
Jane looked around.
“Believe it or not, I came out here ten or eleven years ago to speak with Mrs. Hawthorne about long term care insurance, and it looked just the same back then.”
“Does she live here alone?”
“She did then. Her husband had died a few years before.”
“Maybe she’s gone and joined him then.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I dunno. She sure wasn’t feeding her goat.”
The porch steps bowed and creaked as they climbed them, and paint chips fell from the door when Jane knocked.
A long time passed and nothing happened.
Caleb reached past Jane and knocked again, only louder. There was a great clattering from inside the house, followed by a shout and then the sound of shuffling. The door creaked open, and an old woman stood before them with cats circling betwixt her slippered feet.
“Hi, Mrs. Hawthorne. I’m one of your neighbors—”
“I know who you are,” the old lady spat out, shrugging her shawl higher on her thin shoulders. “And the answer’s no. I still don’t want to buy any of that damn insurance you’re peddling. Money down the drain is all it is.”
Jane was a bit taken aback that she remembered her. Now she herself was beginning to remember just how difficult Mrs. Hawthorne had been to deal with.
“We’re actually here about something else.”
“The answer’s the same—No!”
Jane ignored her.
“May we at least come in?”
“I guess it would be rude to leave you standing on the porch, wo
uldn’t it?”
The house was piled with hoards of old possessions, and they had to weave their way into the living room. Dust billowed from the couch when Jane and Caleb sat, setting them both to coughing. The old woman lowered herself slowly into a thread-bare chair, propped her elbows on her knobby knees, rested her chin on her clasped hands, and stared at them. She had a long hooked nose and bright, beady eyes, giving Jane the impression of an old and wizened bird sizing them up from its perch.
“We’re here about your goat,” Jane said.
The old lady stirred.
“If it’s about his crazy hollering, there isn’t anything to be done about it.”
“It isn’t that,” Jane said. “It’s more like we’d like to rent him from you.”
“Rent him? What would you want with old Bill?”
“His name’s Bill?” Caleb asked, speaking for the first time.
“Bill Clinton, actually,” the old lady said.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “Why is he named Bill Clinton?”
“Because he tries to hump everything he sees. Crazy thing even mounted the neighbor’s Newfoundland once. And if you wanting to rent him has anything to do with those bestiality ranches I’ve seen talked about in the news, well, you can leave now. I don’t go in for all that, no matter what you’re offering.”
“No,” Jane said, containing a chuckle, “nothing like that. It’s just that we’ve got some blackberries to get rid of.”
“Well, I don’t get around to doing much yard work myself since my last hip replacement, so you can imagine it would be tough for me to part with old Bill without a pretty enticing offer. And, of course, you’d need to transport him yourselves.”
“Actually, he’s already at my place now.”
“Well, if he’s run off and done any damage to anything, I can’t be held responsible.”
“That’s the other thing,” Jane said, “Caleb here thought he was abandoned, so he took him home.”
“Because he was starving,” Caleb interjected.
The old lady’s eyes darted back and forth between them, calculating how this new piece of information might be useful.
“Now, that changes things. How long’s he been stolen?”
“Four days. And I didn’t steal him; I borrowed him is all.”
“That’s what Bernie Madoff tried to pull when he ran off with a third of my life savings. Stealing’s stealing, young fella. No matter how you dress it up.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Jane said. “We’d like to rent the goat from you and make it right.”
The old lady leaned back in her chair and absently reached a claw over its arm to pet a passing cat.
“Fifty bucks a day sounds fair to me.”
Caleb laughed.
“Fifty bucks a day? For that busted old goat? You’ve got to be kidding. I can get a goat that faints for that much and charge admission for the kids to see it. Besides, we ought to be charging you for feeding him.
“And I ought to turn you in to the sheriff for thieving him,” the old lady replied.
“Maybe we should turn you in for animal cruelty.”
Jane held up her hands.
“Whoa now, let’s not get all worked up here.”
“Forty dollars a day then,” the old lady said.
Caleb shook his head.
“You know what? I don’t trust you won’t leave him staked down there in the dirt to starve to death anyway. How about forty bucks to buy the goat?”
The old lady eyed him with interest.
“I might not be college-educated, young man, but I know how to hold the money. You see that lamp there on the table. Pick it up. Go ahead. Pick it up and tell me what’s written there beneath it?”
Caleb looked at Jane and shrugged. Then he reached and lifted the lamp and looked.
“There’s an old yellow piece of tape that reads 1976.”
“What else does it say?”
“It says two dollars and fifty-five cents.”
“That’s right. Now lift that clock there next to it. What’s that one say?”
“Says: 1982, five dollars.”
The old lady nodded.
“And if you’d like you can get up off that couch you’re sitting on and turn it over too.”
Caleb set the clock back down.
“I get the point.”
“Good. I know the price of everything I’ve ever bought. And I know the price of everything I’ve ever sold, too.”
“There’s a big difference between knowing the price of a thing and knowing its value,” Caleb replied.
Jane thought she saw the old lady smile.
“Maybe. But I know that goat is worth a lot more than forty lousy dollars.”
“Fine,” Caleb said. “Seventy-five.”
“I’ll take three hundred dollars for him.”
“Yeah, right. Maybe if it was five years younger and didn’t scream like it was being murdered all the time.”
“Well, what will you give?”
“We’ll pay one hundred.”
“Two-fifty.”
“One-twenty-five.”
“One seventy-five and it’s sold.”
“Done.”
Jane sat watching, riveted by Caleb’s negotiating. She was observing a side of him she hadn’t seen yet. She liked it.
After Caleb had paid the old woman from his envelope of money, and after she had made him change with rolls of old quarters and dimes that she kept in a coffee can, he had her sign a bill of sale. He wrote it on the back of an envelope that she fished from her recycling bin. Then they shook hands all around, and the old woman followed them to the door. As they descended the steps, she called to Caleb:
“Would you do an old lady a favor, young man?”
Caleb stopped and turned back. She lifted her bony finger and pointed to a huge pile of cut firewood lying in the grass.
“Would you mind bringing in an armload of that wood? It gets cold at night, and I like a fire.”
Jane followed Caleb to the woodpile and helped stack his arms with as much wood as he could hold. As he toted it up the steps past the old woman, he said:
“That firewood should be stacked up next to that shed and covered with a tarp. Otherwise it’ll go to rot before you get a chance to burn it.”
Mrs. Hawthorne shrugged, as if it couldn’t be helped.
When Caleb came out again, he was alone.
“That was sexy,” Jane said when they were in the car.
“It was just a little wood. I could’ve carried more.”
“Not that,” she said. “Watching you negotiate. Where were you when I was here trying to sell her insurance ten years ago?”
“I was fifteen is where I was.”
Jane laughed and shook her head.
“I keep forgetting how young you are.”
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time they got home, and Jane joined Caleb in the backyard to inspect his work. He had made remarkable progress while she was away in Portland. There was an enormous pile of dead blackberry vines, dried and browned on the tarp, and Caleb dragged them to a clear spot in the yard and stacked them up to burn. Jane found an old tin of lighter fluid in the garage, and Caleb dowsed the vines and lit them. Then they set out lawn chairs and sat looking at the flames as the sun went down. Their newly purchased goat stood at the end of its leash, just beyond the fire, twisting its head left and right as if to hear them better.
“It’s looking good back here,” Jane said.
“Thanks. I’ll need to rent a tiller maybe next week, buy some topsoil, and get it ready for seed.”
Jane was happy that he was making such fast progress, but part of her was worried about what would happen when he finished. She pushed the thought aside. She saw the rosebush her mother had given her, standing alone where Caleb had cleared the weeds around it, its branches thick with buds.
“I thought you were going to pull out that rosebush?”
“I can’t
bring myself to do it,” he said. “Are you sure you want it gone?”
Jane sighed.
“I don’t know. The roses are pink, and that was Melody’s favorite color. At least my mother got that right, I guess.”
“Is she really all that bad?”
“Just hope you never have to meet her and find out.”
“Well, I’d like to meet her anyway.”
Jane changed the subject, pointing beyond the rosebush.
“I think I’d like a little garden over there,” she said.
“That’s no problem. I found some railroad ties along the fence that I can border it with.”
“And I want a fountain.”
Caleb laughed.
“A fountain? Why not have me put in a swimming pool while you’re at it?”
“Sure. As long as you promise to swim in it naked.”
Caleb grinned at her, his face glowing in the soft light. He sure could turn her on with just a look.
“We could go practice in the bathtub right now.”
“Who will watch the fire?” she asked.
“Good point. Maybe we should practice right here.”
He leaned over and kissed her. Jane felt her own fire start, the need rising deep in her abdomen. She planted her hands on his chest and pushed him away.
“Not here with Bill Clinton over there watching,” she said. “You heard what Mrs. Hawthorne said. He might break free of his chain and try to join in.”
“Good point,” he said. “’Cause I don’t like sharing either.”
She stood and stretched.
“I’ll go make us some dinner. You watch the fire. When it burns down, we’ll see about lighting another one inside.”
THEY MADE LOVE TWICE THAT NIGHT—
When Caleb had finally kissed her one last time, and had rolled over exhausted and gone to sleep, Jane lay awake, propped up on her elbow, looking at him in the low light of her bedroom lamp—the sweet face that she already loved.
It was strange, but when he was awake something in his eyes made him appear older than he really was, but when he was sleeping, the years seemed to fade from his expression, and he looked like a kid dreaming of endless summers somewhere. His lips were curled into the hint of a smile, and strands of his dark hair lay across his relaxed brow. What did age matter, she wondered. Wasn’t love timeless? If it wasn’t, it should be.
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