Sweets to the Sweet

by Jennifer Greene

  “What’s wrong with her?” Peter asked immediately.

  “Nothing,” Laura said swiftly. “She’s getting hungry, and she needs to be changed.” She darted an accusatory glance at Owen for jumping in. Lovingly cradling the baby to her shoulder, she said to Peter, “After that, she’ll sleep through the night. There’s no point in your staying.” The baby’s plaintive cries drowned out his answer, and when Peter moved to the front door, Laura turned toward the stairs to the left.

  When she was out of sight, the two men stood facing each other. The flare of anger in Peter’s eyes expressed the first honest emotion Owen had seen so far, and gave him a reason to respect the man.

  “I’m staying until I’ve had a word with her in private,” Peter said flatly.

  Owen shook his head. “Nope. You’re not.” His tone was still pleasant. “You had your word with her. And succeeded in making Laura feel bad—which is undoubtedly what you wanted to do.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know anything about Laura and me.”

  “You’re absolutely right. I know nothing about you, about why Laura moved, about why she wouldn’t see you in the hospital, about why she felt she had to drop old friends who were evidently important to her—but I do know about people who lay subtle guilt trips on others. You brought up every subject you knew would hurt her, didn’t you? Have a nice drive.”

  “I think you’ve misunderstood,” Peter said stiffly.

  “Sure I have.”

  A muscle in Peter’s jaw tightened, but just that abruptly, he backed off. Five seconds later, he left the house, slamming the screen door. Owen stood there, rubbing the back of his neck wearily, and then squinted up the steps to the loft.

  He expected Laura was furious with him.

  She certainly had reason to be. He’d interfered with all the subtlety of a bulldozer, and he wasn’t proud of himself. He’d had every intention of being civil to her ex-husband. It just hadn’t worked out that way.

  Laura was his. He hadn’t realized quite how much he cared until Peter tried to needle her. In other circumstances, maybe the guy was as gut-likable as he’d originally seemed—but a man didn’t lay a pile of emotional baggage on a vulnerable woman. Laura was far from her physical and emotional strongest, this soon after the birth. No one was going to hurt her. If that was a rather cavemanish attitude, Owen was guilty.

  He decided to give her a few minutes to cool down. Wandering toward the kitchen, he opened cupboards one after another. He wanted scotch, but it was one of those rare times he’d even settle for bourbon. As he expected, he found nothing.

  When the baby finished nursing, Laura rocked her until Mari nodded off to sleep. She hadn’t turned on a lamp. Pale moonlight flooded in the half-open window, spilling over the soft yellow carpeting, the gay pattern of yellow–and-white unicorns on the wall. Mari had both a regular crib and an infant cradle with a soft yellow canopy. It was a wonderful room, fit for a princess.

  Unfortunately, the princess was sound asleep, and didn’t need any more rocking. Laura would have liked an excuse to stay right where she was. Ten minutes before, she’d heard Owen’s footsteps on the loft stairs. He hadn’t looked in, but she knew he was waiting somewhere.

  She laid the baby in the cradle and waited a minute. If Mari wanted to be a sweetheart, she could wake up again…but Laura knew she wouldn’t. When Mari cried, she screamed; when she slept, an earthquake wouldn’t rouse her.

  She had the fleeting thought that earthquakes would be easier to deal with than Owen. She was darn furious with him for virtually ordering Peter out of the house, but that wasn’t the only reason she dreaded having to face him. The hardest task would be reneging on the commitment she’d made to him that afternoon.

  Nervously smoothing her hair, she left the baby’s door ajar, took a step into the hall and halted abruptly. The ceiling light was on in her bedroom, casting a rectangular pool of yellow light into the narrow hall.

  When she took a tentative step inside, her lips parted in surprise. Her mattress and box springs were standing upright against the wall. Owen was lying flat on his back with the frame of her William and Mary four-poster laid out in a square, a screwdriver in his hand.

  “Close Mari’s door, will you? I can’t guarantee this’ll be quiet.”

  “Owen—” She hadn’t expected to find him in her bedroom, much less…working.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been sleeping on the floor all this time? Close Mari’s door. Then if you’ll hold up the sides while I screw…” He lifted his head from the floor, his dark eyes daring her to argue with him.

  She debated several seconds before going back to close Mari’s door. Returning, she grasped the bed frame while Owen screwed the parts together. About a dozen lame conversational possibilities came to mind, but none seemed to get past her dry throat. Owen had no such problem. He delivered his comments military fashion, so fast she had no time to dissemble.

  “That too heavy for you?”

  “No.”

  “That man still cares about you.”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t looking at him.

  “He never physically harmed you.”

  Her eyes flickered up in surprise. “Peter would never physically harm anyone.”

  “Let that down, would you? And hand me another screw—I have never seen screws like this one.”

  “They’re old—it’s the way they used to put beds together…”

  “The baby’s room is fit for a princess. When were you going to get around to your own? Dammit, you’re entitled to a little comfort—and you sure as hell have the sense to know you need your rest.”

  He was angry, it seemed. Beads of sweat danced across his forehead as he struggled with the heavy frame. Halfway through the project, he paused long enough to strip off his shirt and toss it aside.

  Laura took an extra-deep breath. Bare-chested, Owen was rather intimidating. Peter was heavier; Owen was all sinew, his chest hair thicker, springier. Like everything else he did, he took on the bed project at full steam, all concentration and determination. His body moved with sleek grace, quiet and sure. Laura felt her eyes straying again and again to his chest, his throat, the smooth ripple of muscle in his upper arms and shoulders. Owen was a virile man. She couldn’t help being sexually aware of him, and felt momentarily grateful that he was angry. Anger she could deal with.

  Only he didn’t appear angry when the frame was finally finished and he sprang to his feet. In fact, his tone was decidedly gentle when he said, “Now, don’t try to help me lift these.”

  He heaved the box springs onto the frame, then hauled the mattress into place. Immediately, Laura hurried forward to straighten the tumble of sheets and blankets. Unmade beds and Owen—no.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, his mouth was twisted in a wry smile when she turned to face him. He waited a moment, standing in that doorway, his eyes piercing and sharp on her wary features. “You didn’t do much with that glass of wine downstairs except twirl it around. Do you want me to go down and bring it back up here?” Before we talk was understood.

  “No. I don’t need wine.” She changed her mind abruptly. She needed…a lot of wine. Owen was busy suddenly. He shrugged on his shirt, not bothering with the buttons, then flicked off the harsh ceiling light and switched on the softer lamp at her bedside. “Owen…” She drew a breath. “I’m afraid I made a mistake this afternoon. In…letting you believe that I—”

  “I like this room, with the slanted ceiling and the four-poster. It’s like you, Laura—or it will be when you get curtains up. Blue and white again? You like blue and white.”

  She said helplessly, “Yes.”

  He slipped off his shoes and, as casually as if this were his own house, fluffed the pillows and flopped on the comforter. “Over here.” He motioned to the pillow next to him.

  She sighed with exasperation. “I think not.”

  “Beds are good places to talk,” he coaxed.

  “Said the s
pider to the fly. Owen—”

  “Now, I can understand your feelings,” Owen said mildly, throwing an arm behind his head. “You think I want you over here just so I can get my hands on you—and I would love to have my hands on you, sweet, but not now. Nothing’s going to happen on this bed but a little easy conversation…with you providing most of it. But if worse comes to worst and I can’t control my baser impulses, you can always remind me of your stitches again.”

  “That’s supposed to be comforting?” But she could feel the corners of her mouth starting to turn up. What she had to say to him wasn’t going to be easy, but she couldn’t keep on feeling traumatized and nervous when Owen was so ceaselessly natural. “Owen, thank you for putting up the bed.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ve earned a back rub. Collectible at another time.” He raised a pillow in the air as if presenting a trophy, then deliberately squashed it down in the center of the bed. “See? A bundling board. The thing the Puritans used to keep the sexes separate in bed. Isn’t that what they were called?”

  She sighed, giving in, moving quietly to the other side of the bed only because she couldn’t continue to just stand there. There was no place else to sit. “Somehow, I have trouble believing you want to talk about early New England courting customs,” she said dryly.

  “It’ll do.” Until she relaxed. So gingerly she sat down next to him. So gingerly she leaned back against a pillow a good twelve inches from any part of his body. And very quietly, Owen reached up to switch off the lamp next to the bed. Darkness flooded the room. “So…bundling boards were a courting custom?”

  “Actually…no. Bundling boards were just a way of dealing with bed shortages. In those days, there were too many people and not enough beds, so unmarried men and women had to sleep together, separated by a bundling board.” Laura hesitated, then determinedly went on. “Courting customs were more interesting, actually. When a boy came calling, they used to tie him up in bed with the girl.”

  “The Puritans?”

  “Funny, isn’t it. The father would hog-tie them and then wrap them up in separate blankets. They weren’t supposed to touch, just talk. It was really the only way to give a young couple privacy—New England nights were cold; the rest of the family huddled around a fire that didn’t provide enough warmth as it was.” Laura took a breath. “Why did you turn out the light?”

  “So you’d find it easier to talk. Why’d you divorce him?”

  “I’ll bet little boys learned to untie knots before they were weaned in those times.”

  Owen turned his head on the pillow. “All right, Laura. We’ll start with an easier question. How did you meet him?”

  She was glad he’d turned out the light. Moonlight poured into the room, and the scent of flowers and grass and earth drifted through the open window. She was unbelievably tired, and the privacy of darkness was soothing. The man next to her, in a strange way, was also soothing. She could see the shape of Owen’s long legs, the stretch of dark chest, the shadow of his night beard by moonlight. His eyes stayed on her, steady and relentlessly…gentle.

  The temptation was incredibly strong to reach out, to be enfolded in his long, strong arms, to believe in love again the way he’d almost made her believe that afternoon.

  “Laura? Are you still carrying a torch for him?”

  She found her voice suddenly. There was no hesitation. “No torch.”

  “There could be. The divorce hasn’t been final for that long.”

  “I don’t care if it was over yesterday. There’s no torch.”

  “Good.” Owen let out a massive sigh, revealing he hadn’t been so sure of that as he’d let on. “So why is it so hard for you to talk about him, honey?”

  That answer, too, was very simple. “It’s an ugly story, Owen. And I don’t want to tell you…ugly things.”

  Like a thief, he stole the pillow between them and sent it hurtling to the far side of the room. She’d known he couldn’t be trusted, and mute betrayal was in her eyes when he leaned over her. “Arms up,” he said swiftly.

  He did it for her, roped her arms around his neck. Faster than she could breathe, he had cradled her close, one long leg pinning hers, his fingers brushing her hair into the pillow. “Now,” he murmured, “fast and sweet, love. Let’s just get it over with. And let’s hear no more foolishness about ‘ugly things.’ Know right now that nothing you say or do could be ugly to me, Laura, so get that thought right out of your head.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I know. Damn it, give me an enemy to fight, Laura. You think I couldn’t see you pull away from me the minute he appeared?”

  Crystals blurred her eyes. “He isn’t an enemy. He’s a kind, warm man, Owen. A good man, and from the day I met him, I never doubted that he loved me.” Owen gently brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. Suddenly, the words came out in a rush. “I was a virgin when I met him. A stupid thing to be at twenty-two years of age, but my family had always traveled so much…and maybe I was afraid of strong feelings I hadn’t learned to handle yet. Maybe I just needed to believe I was loved first.”

  “Go on,” he said softly.

  But she couldn’t. There was a lump locked in her throat that simply wouldn’t go away. “You just met him,” she said finally. “You saw him. He’s a big man, a gentle man. He’s artistic by nature, but he’s also muscular. He watches football; he plays racquetball; he drinks beer—Owen, I’m not so sure I can tell you the rest.”

  Suddenly, Owen wasn’t either. Laura was trembling; in the moonlight he could see the waxen paleness of her features.

  “It seemed fine at first,” she said with artificial brightness. “I didn’t have a lot of experience, so it was hard for me to judge…certain things I thought we had a good marriage. He was good to me; he encouraged me to do things I wanted to do with my life; he was considerate in a thousand ways. It was just… We were married more than three years. And sometimes weeks would go by, and then sometimes months…”

  Owen gently shifted up on one elbow. Leaning over her, he quietly combed back her hair over and over, his eyes never leaving her face. He was listening to raw pain.

  “I found him in bed with another man,” she said with abrupt harshness. “Isn’t that a stitch, Owen? I thought that only happened to people…on the fringe. Gay bars and men who dressed funny. It’s not supposed to happen to just ordinary people.”

  “My God, honey—” He moved to draw her close, but Laura pushed his arms away.

  “He never told me before we were married, or later, and heaven knows, I never once guessed.” She shook her head with a hoarse laugh. “That kind of naiveté is a joke in this day and age. He expected me to understand. I didn’t understand. I don’t understand—”

  “Laura. Enough, love. You don’t have to tell me any more…”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He didn’t want the divorce. He’d produced Mari, hadn’t he? That was normal, wasn’t it? But it only took five minutes of…seeing him like that to explain so much. Why we’d lived like brother and sister most of the time. How inadequate I’d been as a woman for him. Living a ‘normal’ life was terribly important to him; he said he loved me and he’d tried—and if it hadn’t worked, it was my fault. He kept saying I was ‘not woman enough.’ Do you want to get involved with a woman who’s ‘not woman enough,’ Owen? Please. Just get out of here and leave me alone.”

  She sprang from the bed before he could stop her. Arms locked around her chest, she retreated to a dark corner in the bedroom. Owen could hear her breathing, haunted and uneven. “Please…just go,” she whispered.

  Owen’s response was swift and immediate. “No way.”

  Chapter 6

  Owen swung his legs off the bed, his eyes trying to pierce the shadows where Laura was standing. He caught a glint of her moonlit hair, the curve, of her shoulders, the utter stillness of her. Every pulse, every muscle, every nerve in his body wanted to go to her, hold her…dammit, make love to her.
/>
  For the tick of a second there was silence. Unfortunately, his lady wasn’t physically ready to be made love to. And Owen had the fleeting intuition that emotionally, too, she would reject his touch right now. Any man’s touch.

  His head reeled with the implications of the story she’d told him. He had a clear picture of what the marriage had been like for her. Too clear. And whether or not Laura wanted to be held, he had a very good idea that she needed to be.

  “Owen…please go home!”

  “Yes.” He crossed the dark room in four long strides, took her hands and pulled her back with him toward the bed. She stiffened at his touch, but she didn’t fight him.

  “You don’t need to stay just because you think…I’m upset. I’m not upset—”

  “I know you’re not.” Sitting down, he drew her on his lap and simply let his warmth penetrate the trembling chill of her. She was upset and exhausted and very easily overpowered with gentleness. Her cheek sank on his shoulder, and his heart ached, loving her.

  “It was all over a long time ago. I feel so foolish…telling you any of it. It’s my problem, not yours. I want you to go home, Owen.”

  “Yes.” Her hair was tangled, falling over her forehead. He brushed it back, his lips on the crown of her head.

  Laura made a move to get off his lap, but his arms simply tightened around her. She sighed, feeling impossibly confused. She should be leading him downstairs, not wrapping her arms around him as if he were the only safe harbor in a hurricane. She wanted to talk to him calmly and sensibly, and instead heard her voice come out as shaky as a butterfly in the wind. “All I meant to talk about was the two of us, and that has nothing to do with Peter. I never meant to tell you any of that…”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s just that for a while…I have to make Mari my life. Mari and my work, and setting up a home. I don’t want to hurt you. It has nothing to do with Peter,” she repeated.

  “Of course not.”