Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance)

by Geeta Kakade

  She watched the waves as they raced to shore, sped over the sand and receded, leaving behind a pristine beauty. If only she could be like the sand, let the waves erase every hard lesson imprinted on her mind, diffuse all the bitterness and leave her unmarked.

  Brady got out of the water and as he approached Kate took in the sight of his brown body from behind the safety of her glasses. Broad shoulders tapered down to a flat stomach and long well-muscled legs. The triangular mat of hair on his chest glistened with the drops of water it harbored. His boxer type swimsuit clung to him and Kate swallowed hard, averted her eyes and blushed. Brady sank down on the blanket, a foot behind her and she tensed with the longing to pick up the other towel and pat his back dry.

  For a while there was silence while he rubbed himself down cursorily and threw the towel down. Kate stared out at the water fixedly, flinching when his shoulder touched hers and made as if to move away. But his hand came up around her holding her.

  “Don’t Katie,” he admonished gently, “please don’t shut me out again.”

  She sank into him then, letting her back draw comfort from his lean warmth closing her eyes, powerless to resist the gnawing ache inside her.

  Oh God, what a mess.

  Whipcord tense, Brady felt the softness of Katie’s back press into his chest. The temptation to turn her into his arms and kiss her again was overwhelming, but he resisted it.

  Drawing her back with a gentle pressure on her shoulder till they were both lying full length on the rug, pillowing her head on the curve of his left shoulder Brady put his right hand on Katie’s head, rubbing a curl between thumb and forefinger, examining it’s texture, it’s springiness.

  "It’s so soft,” he said wonderingly, "Somehow I thought it would be coarser. Do you perm it?”

  Kate laughed glad to have something so normal to talk about.

  "Uh-uh. It’s always been like that. When I was young, my mother kept it braided and it didn’t seem so awful, but since I cut it the first time it’s always coiled itself into these corkscrew curls. There’s nothing I can do with it except have it cut and shaped from time to time.”

  "What about when it’s wet?” asked Brady.

  “It’s the same. As if I’ve just had a perm. I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “I like it,” Brady’s hand slid slowly down the side of her face, resting for a second on her neck where it curved into her shoulder, before he removed it and Kate stiffened, but Brady lay there quietly, no other contact between their bodies except for her head resting on his sinewy shoulder.

  Gradually the ocean breeze and his stillness calmed her and she relaxed bit by bit feeling the knots of tension unravel within her body.

  “Katie, tell me about when you were young.” The request startled her. No one had ever asked her for that information.

  Nan Kettle had been content with the terse comment, "It was the pits,” and not probed further. Harold had not mentioned the subject other than eliciting the fact that both her parents were dead.

  About to inform Brady that it was none of his business, she paused. His skin was a heartbeat away from her lips should she choose to turn her head, every sensory nerve ending in her body ached for the small distance between them to be closed, for the license to avail herself of the liberty of running her hands over every inch of him. She couldn’t evade the truth any longer. Brady held her in the palm of his hand. Denying him was like denying herself.

  “My father never worked as far as I could remember. My mother told me he had been a mechanic once but he had a drinking problem so he was always the first one laid off. We lived on welfare, charity, and whatever she made when she was well enough to work. He left home when I turned sixteen and she died four years later.”

  There it was out. Kate closed her eyes.

  Brady’s fingers stilled as he stared blankly overhead at their striped canopy. The stark sentences, the absence of any kind of emotion in that silvery voice, told its own story.

  His heart was constricting as if some giant tentacle held it in a vice. Closing his eyes, Brady tried to picture what it must have been like for her and failed. Nothing could really plumb the depths of despair of living a life like that, day in, day out, year in, year out. Had she ever known family love, had a birthday party, got what she wanted at Christmas? Brady doubted it.

  His partner had told him last week of a case like this, except that the family in question was well to do and aware of their options. The woman had left her husband. Brady had got a glimpse of mother and daughter in the waiting room. They had looked like two people old beyond their years, burdened by experience and suffering no human being should be subjected to. And his Katie had been through all that and more.

  “Why didn’t your mother leave him?” Brady asked.

  “She never thought about it,” came the disembodied reply. “The funny thing was, she always acted as if nothing was wrong. Till I was about eight, I thought everybody lived like we did. I tried to talk to her about it once and all she said was, `Leave it be.’ I didn’t hear her complain once, not even when he hit her but she always told me I had to get away from there and never come back. Always.”

  Emotion paralyzed Brady’s throat and he realized the moisture that stung his eyes were tears he didn’t know he could still shed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  Turning his head so his lips were against her hair he held Katie to him, willing his body to convey the empathy she didn’t want to hear in words.

  That explained Harold, he thought in the next instant. No, scratch that. That explained everything. Katie wasn’t an enigma anymore. She was the thousand pieces of an unsolved puzzle and he had no picture to help put her together.

  To look at Katie now, no one would ever suspect the paucity of her early years. She had done a tremendous job of filling in the blanks circumstances had awarded her. The Katie he knew could hold her own in any society and emerge a winner. Her soft spokenness, faultless manners, undoubted intelligence had all been cultivated with unquestionable success. But the very extent of her success warned him the lovely body sheltered a mind not easily swayed.

  Kate opened her eyes and blinked. It took an instant to place the picnic basket she was staring at, the hopeful gull a few feet away, the red rug under her, the sand and the water.

  Brady.

  She was lying on her side and he was curved to her back spoon fashion, one arm over her resting on her midriff. His even breathing ruffled the top of her head and told her he was still asleep. Her throat clogged at the memory of his reaction to her reminisces. Kate marveled again at the way he could project himself into the very core of her being. Sensing immediately that she didn’t want to conduct a detailed post mortem on her early years, he had offered solace without saying a word. For the first time in her life she felt as if some of the weight of her early years had diminished, leaving her curiously light hearted.

  She closed her eyes, snuggling into him carefully, loving the feel of him against her. How could touching Harold have been such a chore whereas with Brady she couldn’t get enough?

  When he awoke Brady unpacked the hamper and they ate a late lunch of roast chicken, asparagus, potato salad, buttermilk biscuits and a heavenly dessert of port wine peaches and vanilla ice cream in its own cooler. A chilled bottle of sparkling cider washed it all down. Brady didn’t tell her what everything was in a lofty tone like Harold would have to impress her good fortune upon her; he just named the dessert when she asked what it was.

  Brady told her what growing up with Cody’s Mum had been like, making her laugh at his insistence that his sister had accused him of more things than he had been capable of.

  The laugh arrested Brady. She was so beautiful when she laughed like that. He loved her so much. At times like this, he wished they had never progressed from the Neolithic Age. He would have loved to throw Katie over his shoulder and take her back to his cave right that minute.

  Listening to him, Kate didn’t feel like G
rimm’s little match girl on the outside staring in. Instead she felt warmed by the happiness woven through Brady’s voice. She prayed that one day her children would use the same tone when they talked of their growing up years. Raising a happy family would be her own salvation.

  Brady carried the basket back to the car after feeding the faithful gull the remaining food, giving Kate the time she needed to slip on her pants.

  They collected shells, competing to find the best. Brady filled an empty grocery bag he’d found in the trunk of his car with the fine white sand for her.

  At four, prodded by an incipient chill in the air he reluctantly suggested they leave, fiercely glad when he saw a reflection of the same reluctance in her eyes as she looked out onto the water as if taking a final picture to remember the day by.

  “We’ll come back,” he thought, "but it will never be the same .”

  Like a schoolboy, he wanted to carve the date on a rock with the inscription, leave it there for the world to see, `This is the day Katie let me into her heart.'

  “Katie, have dinner with me,” he said as they reached her apartment.

  “No,” she said firmly and for a moment he thought she had retreated behind the stony barrier again. "You have dinner with me tonight Brady. You can’t keep spending money like this.”

  Disproportionately pleased at the first invitation from her Brady grinned, “I’ll take a rain check on that Katie. You’re not slaving over a hot stove on your birthday, woman. I’ve got a really special place in mind. We’re going out tonight and if you say one word about going Dutch I’ll strangle you.”

  Kate stared out of the windshield at the Pacific Coast Highway as if it had suddenly turned into Dorothy’s yellow brick road. She hated being bossed around. Any words couched like an order inspired the fiercest resentment in her. Yet here she was, meekly complying with whatever Brady said and what was even worse, liking it thoroughly. Soon he’d have her purring with delight.

  “I’ll pick you up in an hour’s time,” Brady said as he drew up in front of the Guthrie's' place.

  Kate showered and dried her hair a bit before going through her wardrobe. Nothing she had seemed right for this evening. Pushing each outfit aside she stared at the last dress on the hanger. She had bought it last year for a wedding and worn it only once. The girl who’d got married had invited all the preschool staff to her wedding and Kate had bought the dress on the off chance of meeting Mr. Right at the affair. Pulling it out, she ripped the dry cleaner’s plastic cover off and held it against her.

  The color of a green blue Australian opal, the silk whispered sensuously against her skin. The halter neckline tied in a provocative bow, the ends of which peeked saucily out on either side of her neck, the bodice draping elegantly over her breasts while the slim straight skirt stopped just above her knees.

  With the wearing of the dress, she seemed to become that other woman, the one she almost feared. Cool, practical Kathryn McArthur vanished, swallowed up by this full blooded woman with a tremendous awareness of her body’s needs. Brady’s Katie.

  Struggling with the impulse to rip off the dress and don her one alternative, the black skirt and peach blouson top, Kate hesitated staring at herself in the mirror. Her chin tilted a fraction and she decided to leave it on. It was her birthday after all, the first she’d ever celebrated. Ever had cause to celebrate.

  She had a right to make it memorable.

  Brady took her to a restaurant that looked like an English cottage on the outside. Even the flower beds had been faithfully reproduced to enhance the feeling. The table in the window he had reserved earlier looked out on a manmade stream with a small bridge over it banked by a riot of spring flowers. The call of birds in the spring air made the sweetest music Kate had ever heard. A black swan sailed past and Kate’s breath caught in her throat. She turned to Brady and the stars outside seemed to have slipped into her eyes.

  “Like it?” asked Brady inordinately pleased by her reaction.

  Katie’s zest for enjoyment surprised him. She was like a child with her responses, spontaneous, untrammeled. He wanted to share the world with her not just a day on the beach, dinner in this place.

  Kate nodded in reply to his question but said nothing as the wine waiter approached them and Brady ordered champagne.

  “Brady,” she hissed duty bound as soon as the man had glided away. “You can’t keep on like this.”

  “Like what, sweetheart?”

  He watched the nervous flicker in her eyes at his use of the endearment. His Katie looked so beautiful tonight. She always did but today in that silky thing she was wearing she looked as if she ought to be on the top ten list of most beautiful women in the world. Her freshly washed curls glimmered in the subdued lighting and her skin had the radiance of a pink pearl.

  He’d liked to have given her a string of those, seen them nestling against her skin, reflect some of its silky sheen. Brady made a mental note to get a string and give it to her after they made love the first time.

  “Brady you can’t carry on spending money as if it were water. I don’t want you to run up huge bills because of me.”

  It was an effort to concentrate on her words when her lips curved so seductively, the glimmer of her gloss a personal invitation to taste their ripeness.

  “This isn’t because of you,” Brady assured Katie, “This is because of me. I wanted to take you out tonight very badly, believe me. As for the bills what’s money for if you can’t enjoy it?”

  The minute the words were out, he wished them unsaid. Kate stared at him as if he had sprouted two horns and her face paled.

  Will you never learn Kate McArthur? You know he’s kin to Grasshopper Green and you still let him talk you into spending time with him?

  “Katie,” Brady reached for the hand on the table, calling for the spirit of his Irish grandfather to help him out of this one. In person. “Katie I’m not running up big bills. I got some money back in taxes this year and I wanted to celebrate your birthday with you.”

  Kate stared at him the anger draining out of her and Brady quickly caught the change in her face.

  “Believe me sweetheart,” he said earnestly, “I can afford it. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

  She smiled uncertainly and Brady let out a long silent breath and gave thanks to his obliging ancestor. Kissing that blarney stone helped one no end at times like this.

  “Katie you’re so beautiful.”

  His touch on her bare skin as he’d guided her to their table, the freshly showered smell emanating from his body, the utter handsomeness of him in the dark suit he had put on, strummed her senses into an urgent tempestuous melody at odds with the restrained ambience of their surroundings.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, Brady,” she mocked conscious all the while of the hummingbird doing it’s act in her throat.

  She wanted to burrow against him and smell the cologne directly off his skin, inhale too the scent of him mixed in with it, as she had earlier that day.

  It was Brady who broke the spell by telling her about the American couple who had fallen in love with England and returned to start this restaurant, making it an exact replica of the cottage they had stayed at in Surrey.

  Kate’s thoughts wandered as Brady spoke. This was the second time today he was deliberately transferring sexual tension into the plains of normalcy. The first time was when he had awakened on the beach and pressed his mouth into the back of her neck and she had frozen. If he had turned her over and taken her then and there she would have been a willing accomplice. But he had jumped up and reached for his shirt and the picnic basket. Kate wished she knew why he was taking this new line. To throw her off guard?

  Brady persuaded her to try the duckling a la orange with peas and cauliflower and as he was obviously familiar with the house specialties Kate was content to leave the ordering of their meal to him. The menu, fortunately for her peace of mind held no prices. It would be no use reasoning with Brady once he made up his mind anyw
ay so Kate did just as he asked and relaxed.

  All through dinner, her awareness of the man opposite mounted. Brady was the perfect gentleman, anticipating her every need before she voiced it, keeping the conversation light, asking her about the preschool, genuinely enjoying the stories she related. He was drawing her out and soon, thought Kate, he’d know as much as she did about herself, whereas the only thing she could add to her scanty string of facts about Brady was that he had spent most, if not all, of his tax returns on her today.

  They were lingering over their Pavlova when Kate said, "Tell me about your parents Brady. What does your father do?”

  A strange shadow crossed Brady’s face almost as if he was embarrassed and then he said, “He was in business. He’s retired now. Spends a lot of time with Cody and grows roses.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She works part time, says it’s the only way to keep young and refrain from driving my Dad crazy.”

  “Brady...” he loved the way she said his name, the silvery notes making it sound special.

  “Yes, Katie?”

  “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,” she took a sip of water as if it would help ease the words out, “but do your parents love each other?”

  “Very much.” There was nothing he could be more sure of.

  “Oh.” Just that. Nothing else.

  “They met when my Mum was eighteen,” Brady said, aware of Katie’s need to know more. “She had just been taken on as a salesgirl in his father’s store and was very nervous because her supervisor was a real martinet type. Mum muddled through her first day and then she was told to take a couple of boxes to the manager’s office before she went home. She went there, shaking in her shoes, sure she was going to be told not to return. My Dad took one look at her scared face and it was love at first sight for both of them, though it took them quite a while to acknowledge how they felt about each other. They were married six months later and have lived happily ever after since.”