Her explanations and stories helped to make the work go by quickly, but there was no way they would get the entire barge cleared that day. They allowed Feathers to sprint down the beach and gather the sheep, watching as the dog expertly circled the animals. Feathers was thwarted only when Barkley scattered them. Finally, the boys captured the eager pup and let Feathers work. Neither Barbara or Marion knew the commands to get the sheep in, but Grady knew a few, and they finally had the sheep heading up the path.
“Need a step or two here,” Grady said as she slipped up the steep path carrying a sleeping bag and some other things she would need during her stay.
“Yep, that’s in our plans,” Marion admitted. She was a little embarrassed, feeling almost as though they should be further along than they were. The few steps they had managed to put in were nothing compared to the work that remained.
The sheep fell to cropping grass and Feathers eagerly sat down, panting happily, to watch her charges. They put Barkley on a leash and let the enthusiastic pup sit next to her but would let him get any closer to the sheep, which outweighed him by a considerable amount. One of the ewes eyed him angrily, taking a couple of swipes with her hoof on the grass as though she was going to charge. The others placidly ignored him, more worried about the bigger, adult dog, who was watching them avidly. Feathers was in her element; she had found her calling.
“You got a good bargain in that there dog. Now, if you can only teach that pup some manners.” Grady watched them momentarily.
“Well, we’ve rather let him go while we were working on the cabin,” Barbara admitted, seeing the children taking turns holding his leash and keeping him from going after the sheep, which had him fascinated.
“Yep, that can happen quickly,” she admitted as she looked over the work they’d done.
Grady didn’t even seem to mind them cooking over the camp stove as she had also brought a couple dozen eggs with her for their consumption. She settled down by their fire as though she was going to sleep there. Fortunately, for the first few days, it didn’t rain, and when it did, she didn’t need asking twice to join them in the now overcrowded tent.
* * * * *
Grady wasn’t too keen on only using dead or seasoned trees to chop down, but she helped sharpen the axes and chipped in. Both Marion and Barbara protested all her hard work, but she was there, she was willing, and they got a lot done with her additional help.
The walls were high enough, and they even managed to do the walls around where the bedrooms would eventually go. The large rectangular box with two doors and several window spaces looked proudly over the meadow and gave them the most beautiful view of their cove.
“Get a nice porch and some steps on here, and you’ll be all set,” Grady said as they managed the last logs up skids to the top of the wall.
“And the roof,” Barbara laughed with her as they looked up at the tree branches above the cabin and the sky above that.
Grady knew a lot more than they and helped them get the joists up to lay down some of the flat boards they had collected. “Now, we need that there tar sheetin’ and shingles. You can make yer own,” she advised, knowing they were tight for cash. If that hadn’t been apparent before, it had become very clear during her stay with them. They’d subsisted mostly on fresh fish and canned vegetables. “That won’t do at all,” Grady mentioned and made sure to help them dig an area they had decided on for the garden. Once the boards were on the roof and the tarp was over them and waiting for the tarpaper, she insisted they all work on repeatedly turning over the turf for the garden. She’d brought a few fruit trees, which she helped them plant on the far side of the meadow: two each of apple, pear, and cherry. “How they’s grown!” she mentioned after they dug up all the ground around the rather large trees. “These war bigger’n saplins,” she told them as they grunted to get them into the holes. She explained she had dug them up from her own yard, wanting to get them out and knowing that the two women could use them.
“Got to get this well-tilled,” she asserted, really pitching in on the garden and inspiring them all to work even harder than they had before. Although they had done a lot of labor on their own, her knowledge and expertise made them feel as though they hadn’t really been working.
“You know, you can probably get one of them loans since yer men were in the army,” she mentioned one night as they rested from all the hard work she had organized. “It’d go a long way to buying boards for them cottages you want.”
Marion and Barbara exchanged looks. They’d tried to buy a house back in the village in Massachusetts, but none of their bankers would give them a loan. Maybe this needed looking into again? Since they were now building in Franklin, their bank might give them the loan. They nodded in reply to Grady’s suggestion.
Using the boards from varying lengths of pallets, they built a nice front porch, two actually. One they planned on screening in to keep out bugs, and the second would be beyond that one.
“Now, hain’t that a nice shine,” Grady complimented Marion as she finished up with sandpaper on her favorite cast iron stove after removing the last of the rust and dirt. “We just gotta get ‘er up that slope.” She used her chin to point up the steep grade.
Together, the three women managed to get the stove up to the meadow and sideways into the cabin by pulling, pushing, and using the tackle that had been so helpful on the cut trees. It was too big to get through the doorway, so they temporarily removed the framing. It made the kitchen area of their living room look almost finished. They planned to purchase some ready-made cabinets and other things, so they could unpack their many boxes under the tarp.
“Now, don’t that look purty,” she drawled, grinning because she knew her English wasn’t posh or proper.
She helped them get started on their pier too. Using their idea of placing large stumps in the holes, they quickly dug right after the tide had receded. “That cement,” she said, making it sound like ‘see ment,’ “oughta hold right well.” They all knew some of it wouldn’t dry before the tide returned and would wash away, but they hoped most of it would harden, so they could use it. Using more boards from the pallets, they quickly constructed sturdy sections while the tide was in, which they carried out to the pilons and placed over them. Bolting everything together, it started to take on a durable and neat appearance. “You better paint this one white too. You got all the townies’ tongues a waggin’ with that there white pier,” she admitted with a laugh.
They painted it white once they were finished, laughing all the while but knowing it protected the neatly sawn wood that would have soon been weather-worn from the elements. It went out farther than the tide receded, but they used longer logs to set on the bed of the cove. They planned to use floats when they had the money to go out even farther. Now, for the first time, their Runabout didn’t need to be drawn up on the sand and was tied tightly to their own sturdy pier.
“We should start on one of them summer cabins,” Grady advised as they collected rocks for the foundation. She was having the time of her life helping her friends.
“We don’t want to use logs for these cabins,” Barbara explained. “We’d rather use planks, which will be thinner.”
“Yeah, but you’re gonna want a good solid foundation,” Grady agreed, pointing out the obvious and then explaining that having a log around the tops of these foundations would look good. Barbara set off to cut down some more trees.
Marion found her there later as she took a break. She was sick of Grady riding them to work so hard and left the children to be entertained by the woman for a while. “Hey, there,” she said, admiring her girlfriend as she chopped down the tree, her muscles rippling under the flannel shirt she was wearing. The sweat was beading on her forehead, and her dark brown hair was curling across it. Marion found her very attractive and the need to touch her just then was irresistible.
Stopping for a moment, her chest heaving from her exertions, Barbara smiled when she saw Marion. Feathers got up from
where she was laying out of the way to greet the other woman. Normally, it was hard to pry her away from the sheep, but they were eating in a grove nearby as the women didn’t want them to eat all the grass in the meadow. Sheep would eat the grass right down to the roots if they weren’t careful, or so Grady had explained.
“Hi, there,” she said in return, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her shirt. She began to pull it off. It was getting too hot to wear flannel. She had been working hard chopping down the additional trees Grady suggested. “Playing hooky?” she teased, seeing the blonde.
“Yep, had to get away from collecting rocks for a while,” she answered with a smile that dazzled Barbara. “I wanted to see you for a moment,” she added softly, her meaning clear.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, as she finished taking off the shirt, revealing a man’s white t-shirt underneath, her bra visible through the fabric. Her muscles bulged along her arms, and they rippled across her back as she bent to retrieve the shirt when it fell to the forest floor.
“Yeah,” Marion repeated as she took advantage of them being alone for a moment to walk confidently into Barbara’s arms.
“Careful, I’m sweaty,” she warned, but she was soon caught up in kissing the blonde, something they didn’t get to do as often as either wished since they were surrounded by children most of the time.
“I don’t care,” Marion murmured against her lips as she held her close and began kissing her ardently.
Barbara couldn’t help but respond as she crushed the smaller blonde against her heated body. Instantly, she was aroused, and her hands wandered over the petite frame of her girlfriend. Many was the time she had become aroused and had thought of this very situation with this woman as she worked hard at chopping and sawing down the trees they needed to build their cabin.
“I need to feel you,” Marion murmured, reaching for Barbara’s belt.
“No, not here,” she protested weakly; however, her words lacked conviction because it had been so long since they were together.
Marion reached for the dungarees once the belt was unbuckled, and the buttons at the front released beneath her nimble fingers. “What do we have here?” she asked as her hand plunged into the warmth, finding instant wet. “Oh, I think someone’s been thinking about me,” Marion murmured against the lips she was avidly kissing, plunging her tongue inside to increase both their ardor.
What else do I have to think about? Barbara thought as she arched back against the tree and into Marion’s hot palm. It had been too long since she’d had release, and it didn’t take long for Marion’s fingers to find her erect clit and the hole that was gushing wetness into her palm. Her fingers pistoned inside and Barbara quickly flung her head back against the tree, trying to muffle her cries of delight at being taken like this by her partner. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, my God!”
“That’s it. That’s what I want to hear,” Marion assured her, smiling at her prowess as she got exactly the response she wanted from this woman. She desperately wanted to get naked and crawl against her, rubbing and extracting the same excitement from her own needy body. For now, she was just enjoying making her partner lose control, even if only for this short moment as Marion made Barbara come. She leaned over her partner and pulled her shirt down, the bra following as she bared an erect and very aroused nipple to her lips.
There were unaware another set of eyes was watching them warily. The dog, Feathers never let on that Grady had come up. She was looking for Marion to ask about an outcropping of rocks she had found, and when she couldn’t find her, she decided to look in to see how Barbara was progressing. She had been shocked to see them kissing passionately. She was further shocked when she realized what Marion was doing to the taller woman. A piece of the puzzle slipped into place as she realized what the women were to each other. She’d heard of such women but had never personally known any lesbians. She found herself unable to look away as Marion pumped emotions from the bigger woman and made her come. She found herself strangely aroused by what she was watching and only moved to hide herself farther behind the trees when Barbara turned on Marion and stripped her pants down, burying her face between the blonde’s legs as she boosted her agilely onto the tree she had cut down.
“Careful there, baby,” she warned as her buttocks contacted the harsh wood of the tree. Marion was loving it. Barbara’s agile tongue was cleaning up the mess that had been made by her own arousal. She held onto her partner’s wide shoulder with one hand, the other slipping into her dark brown hair, grasping it hard as she was quickly aroused even more by Barbara’s ministrations. Was that Barbara’s tongue fucking her? The thought of it made her excitement soar. Oh, God, the sensations were sending her over the edge.
Barbara carefully balanced Marion on the wide tree trunk, holding her there where it was easiest to access her. She’d yearned for this intimate taste for so long. She plunged her face in, delighting in the odors that assailed her nostrils, her tongue cleaning up the mess that had been made and then slipping inside her partner. She plunged deep, holding her breath as her nose was covered by the lush folds of Marion’s womanhood. Over and over, she pulled out, so she could take a deep breath, only to plunge in again when she had filled her lungs with oxygen.
Soon, almost too soon, Marion was coming with her hand on Barbara’s head and the other in the brunette’s hair, squeezing painfully.
Barbara nearly stopped as her hair came out by the roots, but she carried on, not caring. She was going to enjoy this pleasure-pain for as long as they could get away with it.
“Stop! Stop!” Marion said quickly, her legs coming together and squeezing painfully on both sides of the brunette’s head. “I think I hear the children,” she warned and released Barbara.
Barbara allowed her to slide down her body and then let her deal with her own clothes as she pulled her pants up from where they had pooled around her ankles. She quickly fastened the buttons to her dungarees and then buckled her belt as Marion pulled her own pants up, an unrepentant grin on her face over their hurried lovemaking.
“You better wash your face,” Marion warned, seeing the moisture of her come all over the tall brunette’s face.
Barbara reached for her canteen and poured water into her hand to splash against her face, rubbing with the same hand repeatedly and then drying it on her shirt. It splashed down the man’s t-shirt she was wearing, which helped cool her perspiration. She adjusted the shirt, making sure her breast was neatly tucked back inside the brassiere, then reached for her cigarette pack and a lighter.
“Oh, my God, you look incredible,” Marion murmured as Barbara lit two cigarettes and handed her one. She looked puzzled that the children hadn’t arrived.
“If you wanted to stop, you could have just said so,” Barbara said low, amused.
“No, I really did hear the children, but it looks like they’ve gone off elsewhere,” she was surprised and not at all disappointed. They were underfoot all hours of the day, and as much as she loved them, they interrupted any time she had with this amazing woman.
Neither of them noticed as Grady too heard the children and the pup coming along looking for the adults. She turned and headed them off, redirecting them to an outcropping of stone, so they could help her gather rocks for the foundation to the next cabin. She had a lot to think about as they gathered rocks. By the time Marion returned carrying rocks, she’d decided she would never give any indication she had stopped searching, and Grady had also decided she would never let on what she now knew.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“We do appreciate all your advice and help,” Barbara repeated something they had already said, in some form or another, one night at the fire. What had started out as a week’s stay had turned into two as the boat that was to come and retrieve the barge hadn’t shown up. They were planning on returning Grady to Franklin in their own boat the following day. They were also planning on going to the bank and finding out if they could get a loan now that their cabin was built. They had enough m
oney left from their savings to buy the wood to finish their own cabin as well as one of the rental cabins, but they were determined to learn if they qualified for more.
“Maybe the bankers here in Maine will be different?” Marion had reasoned when Barbara brought up how they had been thwarted back in Massachusetts.
They were dressed in nice trousers that they had ironed using a flat iron they heated over the fire. They would have worn dresses but hadn’t been able to unpack them yet.
“This is a nice boat,” Grady complimented them as she sat down on the damaged cushions, the children on either side of her not willing to let go of the new friend they had made.
“Are you sure they won’t have done anything to your place?” Barbara asked. She had wanted to return Grady a week ago, but she had appreciated the extra help. They had gotten so much more done with a third adult helping.
“Naw, I hain’t worried,” she assured them as she enjoyed the boat ride. On the way to the second island, they saw another boat and were hailed when Grady was recognized.
“Sorry, we got hung up while we repaired our engine. We’re heading to pick up the barge now,” they called across the water.
“I didn’t mind,” Grady assured them as they waved them on their way. She hadn’t minded. She’d enjoyed helping the girls, and it had been a truly eye-opening experience. She wanted to ask them questions but didn’t know how to begin. She knew it wouldn’t be proper to bring up what she had observed in their private moment together. She was now questioning her own sexuality. She had loved her husband, but it had been a short marriage, and she’d never had the opportunity to have children as these two had. It made her rethink some of the prejudices people had on many levels. Living alone, she knew she’d been called names, and she had always thought it was just because of the junk yard. Now, she wondered at other things too. Maybe people saw things in her that she hadn’t even thought of before.
An Island Between Us Page 14
