Love, Lust, and The Lassiters

by Merrill, McKenna

  Mairead laughed, a sweet tinkling sound. “Oh, girl, don’t be ashamed. Twenty minutes after my husband met me I was letting him paw all over me. I couldn’t help it, I loved him so from the very start. That’s how it always is, didn’t they tell you?” she asked, sitting daintily in the chair that Suzie had vacated.

  “They did,” Suzie said, still embarrassed. “And every time I meet another Lassiter, I end up feeling younger. Soon I’ll be an emotional embryo.”

  Pat laughed. “Isn’t she wonderful, Mum?” he asked.

  Mairead looked at Suzie. The women exchanged a significant glance. “She is, indeed, Son. You have the nicest taste, I must say. First Janet, and now Suzie.” She arranged the jacket of her pantsuit around her, adjusted a pin on her lapel, and said, “I’m sure you gave us quite a scare, young Patrick.”

  “Sorry, Mum.”

  “Had to be a hero, and almost a dead one.”

  “It most likely won’t happen again, Mum.” Pat grinned from ear to ear, and his hand ran up and down Suzie’s arm, making her blissfully relaxed.

  A nurse came in and looked scandalized at the sight of Pat’s women. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave now, ladies. Mr. Lassiter needs his rest.”

  Pat scowled at her, clutching at Suzie as she slipped off the bed. “Come back soon, Love,” he called. “And bring me something to wear other than this ass-baring contraption.”

  Suzie laughed. “I wouldn’t mind getting one peek first,” she said, right in front of his mother. Mairead laughed again, and gathered up her purse.

  “We’ll go then, young Patrick. You be a good boy, and do as Nurse says. I must visit your girlfriend’s daughter, and then Simon is going to take us to the inn. It was a long ride, and we’re glad to find you on the mend. We’ll take you for dinner when you get out.” She leaned over and gave him her sweet Mother’s kiss. He felt healed.

  He heard her talking to Suzie in the hallway. “He’s always been such a headstrong boy . . . .”

  Pat grinned. It would all be fine, he thought. Everything would be all right. He closed his eyes, remembering that Suzie had kissed them.

  Veronica was being discharged, in a wheelchair. They said it was hospital policy. In her lap she held the roses from Simon, the teddy bear from Lilah, the butterfly from Sally and Logan, the chocolates from her mother, the balloons from Juli and Rick. “I look like a spoiled little girl,” she said from behind the gifts to Simon, who wheeled her.

  “It’s all a sign of how much you’re loved,” he told her. “I know you are smug as a bug about them.”

  She laughed. “What I’m smug about is getting to go home. Our home. You and me. Are we going to live in your suite when we get married?” she said.

  He stopped pushing and knelt down. “Would you like that?” he asked.

  She ran a hand through his dark hair. “I don’t care. All I want is a bed, really. And a window to look out of sometimes. So it should be fine.”

  Simon laughed, then looked thoughtful. “And yet it won’t be big enough for all the kids we’re going to have.”

  “Really? How many are we going to have?”

  “Six?” he asked.

  “Let’s start with one,” she said, “and see how good we are at being parents.”

  He kissed her lips. “You’ll be wonderful. Lilah is madly in love with you, and she speaks for children everywhere.”

  She smiled. After a pause, and another kiss, she said, “Simon. I’m sorry about the dance. We were going to have such a special evening.”

  He shrugged, stood up, and wheeled her to the door. “We’ll have thousands of special evenings. Thank God.” Their car was at the door, and he stowed all her presents in the back seat before helping her into her place and carefully buckling her in. “Does that touch your neck? Here, we’ll put it under your arm. Is that okay, Beauty?”

  She nodded. “Did you know you’re the sweetest man in the world?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled the car out of the circle drive and let out a breath of relief. “All right. I don’t want to see this place again until the first baby is born.”

  She smiled, leaned her head back, watched the scenery flash by. The car stopped, but not at home. She looked up, surprised.

  “I think this is the place,” Simon said.

  “What place?” she asked.

  “Isn’t this where we parked, and you sat in my lap, and we kissed?” he asked.

  Veronica looked around, and blushed at the memory. “Yes it is. Can you believe what a forward girl I was? And why are we here? For a spot of kissing?”

  He turned to her. “You know I love you. You know I want to marry you, and that I almost died when that lunatic took you away.”

  “Simon,” she admonished gently. She hated to hear him relive the nightmare.

  “Let me finish. That night, at the dance, I was going to give you something. Didn’t you look at your roses?”

  She smiled eagerly. “Oh, yes, they’re beautiful, and they smell wonderful.”

  “Look again,” he suggested, taking them from the back seat and setting them in her lap. There were two dozen red roses, with one pink rose in the center. They were all in full bloom, and their fragrance filled the car. She peered at them, looked at the vase in which they sat, studied the ribbon wrapped around it, and found the tiny box hanging from the ribbon. “Oh,” she said, surprised. She unhooked it, brought it up to her face, and opened it.

  Inside winked a heart-shaped diamond on a platinum band. A tiny note in the top of the box read, “You have my heart, Beauty.” Veronica, much to her own shock and embarrassment, started to cry. “Oh, Simon,” she said, reaching for him.

  He set the roses in the back seat again, then pulled her carefully into his embrace, whispering in her ear while she cried softly on his shoulder. Finally he took the ring and slid it onto her finger. “This is what I wanted to do, Beauty, and I thank God I have the second chance to do it,” he said solemnly. “I love you, and I want you to be my wife.”

  “Simon,” she breathed, looking at her hand. “It’s perfect. Beautiful. I’ll never take it off until the day I die. Do you know what your grandmother told me, when I was lying there in bed? She said that Lassiter men never gave their women a moment’s unhappiness, and that from this day on I’d be the most blissful woman on earth.” Her face was radiant.

  “And she’s right, Veronica, she’s right. Now, I believe we were going to do some kissing?” He pulled her into his lap, just as he had before, and this time she didn’t worry about her reputation. After all, she had a ring on her finger.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Christmas, 2011

  Clearview, Vermont

  Veronica stood at the stove of her new house, making a pot of tea. She moved carefully, because her eight-month-old nephew Charles Richard was crawling around her ankles, occasionally biting them gently. He had four teeth, and he liked to put them on things. “Ow! that one hurt,” said his aunt lovingly, scooping him up. “But I won’t tell your mommy. She’s still under the mistletoe with your daddy, anyway. I think they’ve been there about twenty minutes.”

  Charles drooled at her in a friendly manner. “Dah!’ he yelled.

  “That’s right! And Mommy, too.”

  Simon walked in with Lilah, fresh from the airport. “Merry Christmas, Lilah!” Veronica called, hugging her, and then relinquishing the baby. “How was your visit in Chicago?”

  Lilah shrugged. She was a woman of the world now, a weary traveler who knew the airport inside out. And her new best friend Tilly had gone home with her. “It was fine. Mommy gave me just hugely expensive presents, and Daddy says the best one he got me didn’t cost anything at all,” Lilah said excitedly, hugging little Charles to her chest.

  Veronica smiled at her. “I happen to know that’s true,” she said. “But you have to eat
dinner before you open it.”

  Lilah wailed. “That’s not fair, Mommy-Vee!” They had compromised on this form of address when Lilah had said she wanted to call Veronica “Mom,” just like she called her real mother. Veronica had been uncomfortable usurping Elizabeth in this way, but Lilah assured her Elizabeth didn’t mind. “She just says that when I have children, they can call you Grandma, but they have to call her “Miss Liz.” Veronica had laughed at that. She hadn’t met Elizabeth yet, but she was actually looking forward to it.

  “It’s fair and it’s tradition. Besides, I’m sure you haven’t had a real meal today, in all the excitement, and the travel. Am I right, husband?” she asked, as Simon approached her.

  “You are right, wife, as always.” He kissed her tenderly, and Lilah snorted at the baby in her arms.

  “We’re getting out of here, aren’t we, Charlie?” she said softly, and off she went into the living room, to look at the giant tree that her father had chopped down himself, with some help from Logan.

  Simon smiled. “She’s a great kid, if I do say so myself,” he commented.

  “You make good kids,” she said.

  He touched her stomach, intimately, making her feel weak with desire. “We’ll know in about seven months, won’t we, lover?” His mouth was on hers, and even the whistle of the tea kettle didn’t distract her from the intensity of his kiss. It was only when Logan burst in, all bluster and good cheer, that she peeled Simon off of her so that he could accept Logan’s bottle of wine.

  “How’s the inn?” asked Simon.

  “Wonderful. Peter is a rock. He had his family dinner, and now he awaits our two scheduled evening arrivals, wearing a Santa hat and a scarf of tinsel.”

  “We need to give him a raise.”

  “So he told me,” Logan said, peering into the oven. “Hey, where’s the food?” he said.

  “It’s already on the table,” Veronica said. “Where’s your wife?”

  “She’s coming. She’s struggling with all her packages in the car, but she wouldn’t let me help. She says they’re fragile, and I might damage them with my big bear hands. She didn’t mind my big bear hands last night,” he muttered, so predictably that Veronica and Simon laughed at him.

  “You have to give women their way,” Simon said placidly. “It’s God’s plan. Plus they know what they’re doing, and we rarely do.”

  “When are our parents coming?” Veronica asked.

  Simon winked at her. “They said not to expect them until present-opening time. They have their own little ritual, Dad says. After one whole year of married life.”

  Veronica sighed happily, leading her guests to the table. They were all here with her, in her house on the bluff near the inn, and snow fell gently outside, giving them the White Christmas Bing Crosby had sung about every year since she could remember. Her husband, her daughter Lilah, her nephew Charlie, her sister Juli and her doting husband Rick, her good friend Logan and his wife Sally, and, of course, the little Lassiter who swam in her womb, currently no larger than a grape.

  Her life before this time seemed foggy now, an out-of-focus print, and only what she was living was vibrant and real for her. She felt no need to go anywhere, do anything, but to be with Simon and the babies they would make. It was such a happy, cozy, Christmasy feeling that she was the first to toast, with the only eggnog that wasn’t spiked (besides Lilah’s). “Here’s to the Lassiters, and the Marches, and the Santellis, and to families, and the love they share, at Christmastime and always.”

  Everyone clapped at the completeness of the toast, especially Charlie, who had just learned how. The men joked, and the women talked with their heads close together. Their diamonds glinted in the light of the Lassiter’s chandelier, making prisms of color that flashed here and there, reminding them of the love that had brought that light to their lives. Dishes were passed, silverware clinked softly, glasses were raised again and again as people made increasingly tipsy toasts.

  Outside the snow fell, covering everything until it was unrecognizable. Inside a fire crackled in the grate, the lights winked on the Christmas tree, and neatly labeled presents sat beneath, waiting for people to exchange them in laughter and love.

  Across town, in a spacious apartment atop a Clearview hill, two lovers exchanged a toast, pledging their devotion for the thousandth time. Pat thanked Suzie for the sweater she’d knitted him, and for the chocolates she’d imported from Germany (Only Suzie knew of the terrible sweet tooth that was his guilty secret), and for the framed picture of her which he had specially requested, and which she’d had done professionally. “You’re beautiful, girl, and here’s your evidence,” Pat said, admiring the portrait.

  Suzie thanked Pat for the copy of Romeo and Juliet, for the cornflower blue earrings that he said reminded him of her eyes, and the nightgown which seemed as much a gift for him as for her, but by which Suzie had found herself particularly delighted.

  “All right, enough mushy stuff,” said Suzie, rising from her husband’s lap. “You’re wearing more of my lipstick than I am,” she said, rubbing it off of his lips.

  “I don’t care,” he said, grabbing a package that had been left for him the day before. “Let’s see what Veronica dropped off for me.” He tore the paper with a boy’s eagerness and read the name of the slim volume: A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “She was right. She’ll have me reading Dylan Thomas, even if he’s not an Irishman. Would you like me to read you this tonight, love, when we’re in bed?”

  Suzie paused in her present-gathering, kneeling beneath their little tree, lit with white lights and red bows. “Mmmm, that would be nice. After.”

  Pat’s eyebrows hoisted up in surprise. “Well, aren’t you a naughty little girl. Santa might not bring you anything.”

  “I don’t need Santa. I’ve got my own white-haired man who gives me anything I want. Mostly all I want is him,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Until someone younger and smarter comes along,” he joked.

  “There’s no one like you,” she told him, her eyes burning into him from across the room.

  Pat smiled slowly, then looked at his watch. “We’re expected in about half an hour. I imagine that’s time for one quick present for me, over in the bedroom there? I thought maybe you could model that pretty lacy thing I got you. I had to look like a dirty old man in that shop to get it. I think everyone thought it was for my high school aged girlfriend, or maybe for myself,” he said.

  “Why, Pat Lassiter, it’s not even dark out. What sort of wife do you think I am?”

  He stood, walked to her, pulled her up to join him. “You know what sort of wife I think you are. That’s why we’re going in there.” He nodded toward the bedroom. “I like to give my thank yous in the nude,” he quipped, sliding his hands down to her jean-clad bottom.

  “Pat,” she laughed, pushing ineffectually at him. “You are a crazy old man.”

  “Crazy in love.”

  “That’s all right, then,” she said, pulling his head down and kissing him. “And I am thankful. You know how much, but I’ll be happy to show you again.”

  “That’s my girl,” Pat said. “Last one to the bed has to dance the jig.”

  She ran after him, laughing like a child. It was only later, after her new nightgown had been flung unceremoniously in a corner of their snug room, that she realized it had been the best Christmas of her life.

  Simon peered out the window. “I hope they didn’t get snowed in,” he said. “Poor Lilah is going crazy looking at those presents, and if we wait much longer Charlie is going to eat them.”

  Veronica hugged him from behind. “You know what they’re doing,” she said in a low voice, half laughing.

  Simon turned into her embrace. “Yeah. What they’re always doing. But we understand, don’t we, Beauty?”

 
“Mmmm. I know what I want as my last Christmas present.”

  “Something special?”

  “It’s always special.” His wife looked at him, the Christmas tree lights reflected in her chocolate-brown eyes. He felt euphoric. He couldn’t think of anything in the world he wanted; he hadn’t even made a Christmas list. His wife was here, carrying his child, their child; Lilah was staying for the school year, and after the initial resistance, Liz had actually been rather relieved. She and her new husband seemed to have a nice relationship, and Simon wished them well.

  He and Logan had made a substantial profit on the inn this year, and Logan was planning to build a house for himself. Simon had purchased this one, this perfect place perched on a Clearview bluff, with his money and some of his father’s.

  “Suzie and I don’t need a house, son,” Pat had said. “And she has her own money from the sale of her place in Iowa. We’re set; we’re quite well off.”

  So Simon and Veronica and Lilah had moved into their lovely dream home, and the suite in the inn had become a luxury suite for higher-paying guests. They’d hired new staff, someone to replace Sally, and another desk clerk.

  Juliana had come out a few times in the year, and she and Rick planned to move closer, as soon as a transfer to New England became a possibility for Rick, which they believed it would. They wanted Charlie to live near his grandma and his aunt and uncle, as well as near Rick’s family, who were in Massachusetts. They were staying until the New Year, and they were having a wonderful time, actually able to leave the baby with Veronica and go out on dates, which they hadn’t done since Charlie’s birth.

  Simon reflected on all of these fine family issues as he hugged his wife. He spotted his father’s car lights in the picture window, and smiled at the thought of the two of them, probably holding hands as they drove.

  “Okay, everyone, they’re finally here!” Simon yelled into Veronica’s ear. She jumped away, laughing, and he stroked her hair in apology.

  “Yea!” cried Lilah, who had been incredibly patient. “I’ll go meet them at the door!”