Lee shifted in her seat, played with her knife, shook her head. “I'm sorry. I mean, about the baby thing.”
“It's been difficult, thinking I won't get to know what it feels like to be a father. My former shrink would probably say that's why I have this compulsion to help the kids in town. Y'know, fulfilling some kind of fatherly need.”
“Doesn't matter if that's the case. You're still doing a lot of good. When I was a kid, my mother was, well you know. It was the art department at school that saved me.”
He gazed at her for a moment. “May I ask you something?”
“As long as I don't have to answer if I don't want to.”
“Fair enough. Were you happy with your husband?”
She avoided his eyes by studying the Mexican print of a cross between a row of cactuses. “I didn't think much about it. Happy, not happy, what does that really mean? I was committed. We had a shared vision about the kind of life we wanted.”
“Vision?”
“Dan was obsessed with this mantra, ‘Millionaire by 30 and we made a lot of decisions around that idea.”
“Is that what you wanted too?”
Her face was damp with perspiration. “Honestly, I don't even know. I was afraid to spend my life in poverty. I craved security, stability, all the things I needed as a kid and didn't get.” She picked up the salsa bottle and rubbed her fingers over the ridges on the glass. “I was lonely a lot because he worked all the time. We weren't close like I imagined we should be but we never fought. He was always nice to me, generous, respectful. There was love but there was also a large distance between us. Looking back I see how disconnected we were and how willing I was to accept things the way they were without asking for more.”
“Why didn't you?” he asked her, his eyes probing but his voice gentle.
“I didn't know how, which he interpreted as remote, unemotional. But it's not the case and I always thought I'd have time to tell him, later. I didn't know there would be no later.”
“I'm sorry.”
She put down the salsa bottle. “There was no passion between us and I longed for that.”
He ran his fingers up the inside of her arm. “I find it hard to believe a man could keep his hands off you given half the chance.”
Her arm tingled with goose bumps. “In the beginning he worked hard at that part of our relationship but after awhile he gave up on me.”
He shook his head, grasping her arm in his hand. “Give me half a chance and I'll show you how good it can be.”
“I might disappoint you.”
“No way.”
“All the stuff you went through, did it make you this way?”
“What way is that?”
“So comfortable with yourself.”
“I know what I want. I know exactly who I am. That's what you get when you've lived and loved as deeply as I have. That's the prize.” He took a gulp of wine. “I don't want you to think I'm a stalker or anything but I saw you the morning before I met you at the restaurant.”
“Let me guess, was I wandering the streets looking for a job?”
“No, you were coming out of the grocery store and you had on this lime green pea coat and tall black boots. There was a little girl giving away puppies and you leaned over to pet them, so graceful, the way you move, and I could see the profile of your face as you held one of them and I can't explain it, because it's never happened to me before, but I sensed you on another level than just what I could see with my eyes. I thought, the man that's with that beautiful creature is the luckiest man on the planet. And then there you were that afternoon at the restaurant, beautiful even soaking wet, and I couldn't believe my luck that you didn't wear a ring.
“Then we got the call about your fire and finding you sick and scared and pregnant and, I don't know, I guess I thought it might be fate.”
“Fate?”
“I know. Everything logical says to give you time, but this feeling of urgency just keeps poking at me, like it has to be now or it will never be.”
She stared at him. “You don't know me.”
“I know you have a secret. I know it's something that scares the hell out of you because you have the look of a hunted animal. And I know you should tell me what it is so I can fix it and we can live happily ever after.”
She smiled. “You're a lunatic.”
He shrugged his shoulders, sighing without a hint of apology. “I know.”
On the way home they were quiet, listening to an old Emmylou Harris CD Lee remembered from her childhood. When they reached River Valley she should have insisted he drop her at her home, she knew that. Instead, she kept silent when he passed the turnoff for her driveway, closing her eyes and enjoying the rhythm of the car over the bumpy road and the lyrics of the song. “I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham, just to see you, to see your face.”
Inside his house, she sat on the couch, listening to his movements from the kitchen, the opening and closing of a cupboard, the whistle of his tea kettle, and the clank of a cup and saucer. He came into the room carrying a tray. “Just tell me I haven't scared you off.” He sighed, put the tray on the coffee table and ran his hand through his hair, looking like a worried puppy.
Right then she wanted to tell him about DeAngelo, how it hung over her and affected everything she did and thought but instead she motioned for him to sit with her. She brought his hand to her face and breathed in his skin, salty and clean. She played with the calluses on the tips of his fingers and pictured them moving on the neck of his guitar and then imagined them running along her skin. “I can't commit to anything. I'm leaving town as soon as I get on my feet.”
“Alone? With a baby?”
“I've been alone all my life.”
“I see that but everyone needs help at some point.”
“Last time I trusted someone, look where it got me. It's best to rely on yourself.”
“Like I said, I was born an optimist and I aim to change your mind.” He smiled, with an inkling of sadness around his eyes and kissed her, long and hard, until they were breathless and pressing into one another like crazed teenagers. He looked into her eyes, frightening her with his intensity and she moved her eyes to his mouth, wondering what and how much he saw when he gazed at her that way. “Stay with me tonight,” he said. She nodded, yes.
He pulled her from the couch and led her to his bedroom. The bed was a four poster King, elevated from the floor at least four feet and she wondered how she could get in it without looking like a clumsy ox. He lit two candles on the bedside tables, turned off the lamp and joined her in the middle of the room. “I want to be able to see you,” he said. He unzipped her dress and it fell to the floor around her feet. He ran his hands along the skin of her arms, gazing at her body and she stiffened, inert with fear, unable to step out of the discarded dress, naked and vulnerable.
“Have I scared you?”
“I was married for a long time.”
“We can stop right now and have tea.”
She whispered, “No.”
He smiled and pulled her close. “Alright then, put your arms around my neck.” He lifted her onto the bed and she collapsed onto the pillows, self-conscious of the slight swell of her stomach.
“Just remember I warned you that I'm no good at this,” she said.
He propped himself next to her on the bed, casual, like they had all the time in the world. He played with the lace of her bra and she felt her nipples harden and wished for his fingers to reach under the fabric. “When you say no good, what exactly do you mean?”
“I'm sort of stuck, in a manner of speaking.”
He kissed the inside of her arm. “Is that code word for orgasm?”
She smiled, blushing. “I guess.”
“I guarantee you will not be stuck by the time I'm done with you.” The way he spoke, his voice low in his throat, so self assured and good naturedly powerful, made her body ache for the feel of him. As if he read her mind, he slid her pantie
s down her legs, his mouth drifting along with his fingers as he tugged. He unbuttoned his own shirt and took off his pants, picked up her dress from the floor and draped them, like they were lovers themselves, on the back of a large armchair in the corner. He joined her on the bed, hands on her thighs, mouth hot against the cool skin of her neck. He unhooked the clasp of her bra and her heart beat inside her chest. He took an intake of breath when he slipped the bra from her shoulders, revealing her bare breasts. She moved her arm in front of them, blushing. “They're not always this big.”
“I'll enjoy them while I can then.” He pushed her back on the pillows, kissed her mouth again, this time pulling at her bottom lip with his own and then moved down to her breasts where his tongue flicked her nipples and something molten ran through her body and she drifted away from anything but the sensation of the electricity between them. He parted from her, breaking the spell for a moment and opened the drawer next to his bed. “I've been tested, but I'll use a condom until we can have a proper discussion,” he said. She stared at the ceiling, thinking how naive she was to not have thought about that kind of protection, and wondered how many women had been in this bed before her. She felt him crouch beside her and heard the snap of the condom but instead of jumping on her like Dan always had, he lay on his side and ran his fingers up and down her thighs and back to her breasts, commanding responses from somewhere inside her. His mouth made trails up her legs, between her legs, her breasts, until she heard herself whimper, and when she thought she couldn't stand another moment, he put his fingers between her legs and stroked her until she moaned. He moved on top of her, holding himself above her on his strong arms to avoid crushing the small roundness of her stomach and she raised her hips to meet him. Her mind blanked of coherent thought, except for the feeling that there was a seed at the core of her body, and it sprouted and grew with each of their movements until she was a throbbing, exploding blossom, pink and ripe.
The only sounds in the room were the low hum of the air conditioner and his ragged breath and her murmurs as they rocked against each other. She felt like an animal, and his movements next to her were like a wild creature too, unrestrained, ardent, and his excitement elevated her own until the climax made her cry out, back arched, legs wrapped around his, hands clutching the skin of his lower back. A split second later, he uttered a short, explosive breath, the side of his face on her neck.
He rolled to his side, his face relaxed, the corners of his mouth lifted in a half smile. He ran his hand over her thigh. “Like I said, his problem, not yours.”
She trembled and tears started at the corners of her eyes. He wrinkled his brow and wiped the tears with his thumb. His voice was soft, tender. “Lee, what is it?”
She shook her head, too shy to say she felt somehow unleashed, free, and most of all, grateful. “I've never, not with someone else anyway, had that before.”
“It's about time, then, isn't it?” He kissed the sides of her face. “Lee, I have to know something. Was the baby planned between you?”
She looked at the ceiling. “No. He didn't know about it before he died. A baby was never in our mission statement, so to speak.” Her voice was hollow. “We hadn't slept together in six months and the year before that it was a handful of times. I don't know if it was that he'd lost the attraction towards me or if it was just symptomatic of his stress over our company. I guess I'll never know.”
He swept her hair away from her face. “It wasn't you, trust me.” He pulled her to him and they made love again until they fell wet and spent onto the pillows. He turned on his other side and slept, his legs curled just slightly, one side of his face nestled in a soft pillow, the comforter covering the bottom half of his body.
Wide awake, she got out of bed, quiet so as not to wake him and put on his shirt from the chair, pausing for a moment to breathe in his aftershave from the collar. She tiptoed to the hallway and pulled from her purse a small notebook where she kept her lists and ideas for Riversong. She found a sharpened pencil in the bottom of her purse and tiptoed back to Tommy's room. She sat cross-legged in the oversized armchair and opened to a blank page. In sleep his face was soft and she imagined what he must have looked like as a child. His dark lashes lay against his high cheekbones. His mouth was slack and his breath moved his chest up and down in a steady rhythm.
She sketched the curve of his shoulder first, trying to capture the bulge and bristle of the developed muscle group. As she worked she told herself she should analyze why she was in the bedroom of a stranger after just burying her husband and carrying his child inside her. She should think about how she and Tommy were doomed to part and that she might hurt him and herself the longer she stayed. But those thoughts were so distant as to not even be real. Her mind seemed unlike her own; empty of the precise rational thought she'd built her life around. She was only a body. A body that only yesterday was drained of warm blood and soft tissue and was now rushing, pulsating with life. Her skin that had been reduced to dry crepe paper was replaced with the flush of sweet dewy cells. She was weak and thirsty for this love, for the touch of this man's hand, for this bloom. She would drink from the well as long as she could, as it would have to last her a lifetime.
She sketched until the dawn brought the first of the day's light, watching him, trying to capture every nuance of his face and torso on the page. She had four drawings by the time she heard the first morning bird's song and was suddenly tired and cold. She climbed into bed then, pulling the comforter up to her shoulders and resting her head on the pillow next to him. He stirred and reached out, pulling her to him. His fingers felt along her hip and down her leg like they were reading brail. She sighed and closed her eyes, putting her hand on the side of his torso. His skin was cold there and she pulled the comforter over him and moved so their bodies were against each other. He whispered in her ear. “You didn't sleep, did you?”
“No. It's just 5:00 now.”
“Sleep. I'll keep my hands off you until at least 9:00.
“How did you know I didn't sleep?”
“I don't know. I just did.”
Chapter Seventeen
On Sunday, in her backyard, Lee draped a white sheet over borrowed tables from the restaurant. She arranged canning jars filled with flowers and tea lights in the middle of the table. She set four places with plates, silverware, wine glasses and white table napkins folded like small hats. She smiled to herself, enjoying the simplistic beauty.
Annie, in Lee's kitchen, hummed along to the radio amidst the sounds of chopping and clanging pans. Alder kicked his soccer ball outside the gate in an imaginary game, his cries of triumph making their way over the fence.
She walked to the front yard as Alder dropped his ball and jumped up to a tree branch to hang like a monkey. Lee sat in the rocking chair on her repaired porch and watched a pair of hummingbirds drinking the nectar of the Hibiscus Ellen had planted in the hanging planters.
Two weeks into May now, the thermometer hanging by the door said seventy-six and the air smelled like promise and fresh grass. She heard a low hum of a truck engine and tires crunching on the gravel road and looked up to see Tommy's truck bouncing down the driveway. He stopped next to the patch of grass and jumping from his truck joined her on the porch. “What time you leave this morning? I woke up and there was no trace of you.”
“I had an early meeting with a supplier.”
“What's that smell?”
“Dinner. First meal cooked in there since 1972.”
He laughed. “That the chef?”
She nodded and pointed to Alder, who was now chasing his ball in a circle around the yard. “That's Alder. Her son.”
He sat on the new steps and stretched his legs. “What're we eating?”
“This is a work thing.”
His face sobered. “You sleep in my bed two nights in a row and I can't come for dinner?”
“It's not Mayberry supper club.”
He picked up a pebble from the flower bed next to the step and
lobbed it across the grass to the gravel road. “Dinner too much of an admission we're involved?”
“Don't make this complicated.”
“That's what you do.” He hoisted off the steps and stood. “Mike was at the rec. center this afternoon. Why didn't you tell me you committed to a partnership with him? He's talking crazy, like you're going to help us save the town.”
Riversong Page 18
