Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  “Wait,” she said, and he stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Could you wait?” she asked him. “Ugh. I need to finish milking. I can’t even have a…” She was tearing up. Her stupid, oversensitive heart again. “I can’t even have a fight, or whatever this is. I need to finish this first. Goats don’t wait. I’m no good at fighting anyway, especially when I know I’m wrong. You’ll win.”

  “Go on and finish,” he said. “I’ll come back. You can say what you have to say. There’s no winning and losing, not if we do it right. A fight doesn’t have to mean somebody walks away hurting.”

  He was back in a minute, before she even had time to digest that, and was silent as he spread fresh straw in the stall, then picked up the egg basket and dirty milking pans and walked beside her to the house. She took her boots off at the back door while he did the same, and when they were in the kitchen, he said, “Now. Tell me.”

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to rewind to last night, to the lover who’d eaten a lazy picnic in bed with her, had fed her bites of his chocolate mousse when she’d said she didn’t want a whole serving, “just a taste.” Who’d smiled at that, and hadn’t cared that she’d eaten half. Who’d kissed her with so much sweetness and made love to her with so much patience and so much hunger. She didn’t want to try to explain herself to another too-successful man who had it all, because he’d earned it.

  When she didn’t go on, he said, “Maybe you could start by telling me why you didn’t want me to keep Chuck. Not yesterday when I offered, and not today.” The animal in question was banging his cone against Rafe’s leg at the moment, until he dropped to one knee and put an arm around him.

  Kindness. Kindness still killed her.

  She placed eggs into cartons and stacked them for the food bank, put the milk pans into the dishwasher, and tried to think about what to say. The only thing she could think of, though, was the truth.

  “Having him here at night helps me,” she finally said, not looking at Rafe. “This…thing happened last year, when Paige was here. It’s been hard to sleep ever since. It comes back at night. Last night, it didn’t, because you were here. Because of the way you held me. And it’s so…” She tried to shove her hair back, but it was already in a ponytail. “So stupid.” The tears were there again. Damn it. “Like I need a security blanket. But Chuck helps, and I don’t have to tell him why. He makes me feel safe, which is dumb, because I know there’s nobody after me anymore. But he does.”

  “Tell me,” Rafe said. Still on a knee beside Chuck, his hand stroking the dog’s shorn fur. Chuck clearly recognized a security blanket when he saw one, because he lay down with a loud sigh and laid his cone on Rafe’s bare foot.

  “I don’t know how much you know about what happened, with Jace and Paige and me,” Lily said. “But it’s been hard for me to go into your cabin ever since, because that was where it ended, and I don’t want to go upstairs at all. That was where the scariest stuff happened, you see. I ran there in the dark, through the woods, to be safe, and I wasn’t safe at all. Every time I’m in that house, I feel it again. Waiting to…to die. Hearing that voice call out, telling me I was a coward for hiding. I knew I was a coward. I was frozen, hearing that I was dead. I was waiting to be dead. Knowing I’d be dead.”

  She was shaking. Just saying the words brought it back.

  Now, Rafe got up, came to her where she stood in the kitchen in her overalls, wrapped his arms around her, and said, “Shh.” His hand on her head, stroking over her hair.

  She lost it. Her throat closed, and the tears came. She stood and shook and sobbed, and Rafe rocked from foot to foot, held her tight, and didn’t say a word.

  “I…can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t.”

  “Shh,” Rafe said. “You can. No worries, baby. No worries. Go on and cry.”

  So she did.

  Rafe hadn’t wanted a woman with baggage. But he wanted this one anyway.

  Even Lily’s drama, though, was controlled. Curtailed. In about two minutes, she was stepping away, grabbing for a tea towel, mopping her face, and trying to laugh. “Wow. I didn’t know that was happening. Sorry. Emotional, I guess. First sex in a long time, or something, letting the feelings loose. Is that a thing?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon it is. Stirring those waters. I imagine the sex is part of it, too, bringing back memories of its own. Tell me about the cabin, though.”

  She filled a glass of water and took a long drink, then said, “Jace didn’t tell you?”

  “No. Just another day of combat to Jace. I know something happened, but he’s always sparing with the after-action reports.”

  “Just like Paige. They’re so brave.”

  Ah. “Yeah,” he said. “They are. I’m still waiting here.”

  She started in halting fashion, like she was waiting for him to break in and tell her that she was overreacting, that she was silly, that she was weak. What she said, though, had his heart racing.

  “I could hear the voice,” she said. “Searching for me. Talking to me. I knew it was going to find me, that I wasn’t hidden nearly well enough. It was like one of those dreams, when you’re running and somebody’s chasing you, trying to kill you, but it was real. I knew I was dead. I was dead. I was going to fight as hard as I could, though. I wasn’t going to make it easy. That was all I could think to do. And then, when I thought Paige was going to die instead, I had to do something. I had to try, no matter what, and I did. I jumped out. I tried. But ever since then…” She swallowed hard enough that he saw it.

  “Oh, baby,” he said helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head violently, making her ponytail swing. “But don’t you see? That’s not the scariest thing that’s ever happened to Paige. It’s not even close. But me? I remember every single thing. All I keep remembering is the fear. I was shaking. I was frozen. And I’m so…” Another shuddering breath, and she whispered the word. “Ashamed.”

  “Wait,” he said. “I thought you said you jumped out. And Paige didn’t die.”

  “No.” She made that motion again, like she was pulling back her hair. “I got madder than I was scared, is why. I was so mad. At myself, too. With Antonio, I was scared like that. So afraid, always, of messing up, of not doing it right, of what he’d say, because he always said something. Did something. Hit so hard, and hurt so bad. So I hid. That’s all I’ve ever done. Hide.”

  “At Jace’s,” Rafe said, “that last night with you. I thought you were hiding behind a mask. Smiling. Untouchable. Was that how you were with him?”

  Another hard swallow, and she nodded. He sighed and took her in his arms again, and then he kissed her mouth. “Thank you, then.”

  “For what?” A breathless laugh. “For crying on you?”

  “For not putting on the mask with me. I was so frustrated that night. I couldn’t crack the glass. I’d hurt you, and you wouldn’t even let me see.”

  “It hurts…less,” she said slowly, “if you don’t let him see. It hurts less not to feel like he got to you. Not to feel like a fool.”

  “Oh, Lily,” he said again. Helpless. “I want to see. Because I’m exactly like you, don’t you know that?”

  “You are?” She rested her head on his shoulder, finally. “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes. Why do you think I told you my snakebite story?”

  He could nearly feel the smile. “Because it was impressive?”

  “No. Because I have a brother who’s stronger than me. Braver than me. Tougher than me. I know what courage looks like, because I know Jace. I play courage, and I play toughness. I play a man whose response every time is to pick up and go on, one foot in front of the other, when he wants to quit. When he’s bleeding, when he’s exhausted, and all he wants is to lie down and rest, and he can’t, because somebody else needs his help. A man who runs into danger when everybody else is running away. Do you know what I realized, though?”

  “No,” she said. “What?”

  “I realized that w
hen my brother was in danger and I could help, I did. Even though I was nine years old. I didn’t think about it, and neither did you. Nobody’s shooting at me, no. I’m not saving lives, and I’m not running into enemy fire. But when I saw it, I grabbed for that snake, because my brother mattered most. And I think you sell yourself short. Set aside that night. Set aside physical courage, because that’s only one kind. Jace would tell you it’s the easy kind. I think that picking up and going on is exactly what you’ve done. A soldier’s willing to go on, to face that fear down and move forward again and again, and you’re a soldier. You’re scared, and you go on anyway.”

  “If that’s the test,” she said with a hint of a laugh, “I pass. Not much of a test, though. I haven’t felt like it’s a choice.”

  “Oh,” he said, “it’s a choice. Of that, I’m sure. I’m guessing that Paige thinks she’s got a pretty good sister. I’m guessing she’s glad to have her twin, that she’s got somebody who’s there to the end. You’ve been focusing on how scared you were. I think you should focus on the way you jumped anyway. I think you should focus on the way you protected your sister. That night, and ever since. The way you didn’t tell her what happened between us, because you didn’t want to make things hard for her, because you thought she deserved her happiness. Paige may have a brave heart, but you’ve got something, too, and it matters. You’ve got a loyal heart.” He kissed her, soft and sweet, and smiled down into her brown eyes. She looked like she didn’t believe him, and his chest was so tight, it hurt. “A kind heart,” he told her. “A loving heart. And there’s nothing more important than that.”

  Bailey turned into Lily’s driveway, saw Clay’s car there, and wondered if she should leave.

  Lily had said she should come, though. She was supposed to take care of Chuck and dig up the weeds in Lily’s garden. Lily had showed her how two days ago. She was also supposed to pick the strawberries and peas and cherry tomatoes that were ripe, and to thin out the carrots. Lily had called Bailey’s grandma and everything, and her grandma had said yes. Lily had said she could eat as much of everything as she wanted, too. Bailey hadn’t ever had strawberries before, but she liked them a lot, even though they were kind of squishy. She liked tomatoes better, and she liked peas best of all. You opened up the pod with your thumbnail and scraped out the peas, which looked like green BB’s, and then you ate them raw.

  Her mom had made peas sometimes, when she was feeling good, after she got paid and she got happy, but the peas came in a package in the freezer and didn’t taste all that good. Bailey hadn’t known they grew on vines and were crunchy, or that strawberries hid in the dark under the leaves, or that you could harvest carrots when they were only as big as your finger, to give the other ones room to grow bigger. The things that said “baby carrots” in the store, Lily had told her, were just big carrots cut down small, which was wasteful. Real baby carrots tasted almost as good as peas, even though you had to wash them, because they grew in the dirt.

  Plants were really interesting. Fruits were things that had seeds, so strawberries were fruit, and so were tomatoes, even though people thought they were vegetables. Vegetables were the other things, without seeds. Leaves and stems and roots. Carrots were roots, and so were potatoes. Lettuce was leaves, so that was a vegetable, too.

  She let her bike drop beside the winding path up to Lily’s front door, which always looked like a fairy tale in a book, took off her bike helmet, wiped her hands on her new shorts, and looked at the house some more, but the door was closed. She went over to the goats’ pen, and they came running over, jumping while they ran like they were on a trampoline, because, Lily had said, goats were just silly on purpose, worse than Chuck. Bailey gave them scratches for a little while, but Lily’s door was still closed, so finally, she went up on the porch and knocked.

  If Lily didn’t want her after all, she could always go home. Even though Chuck was here, and Chuck was supposed to be quiet, so he needed her to stay with him and keep him quiet.

  Lily opened the door. She was dressed up fancy like always when she went to her store, and Chuck was with her. He had a big white plastic cone around his head, so it was harder for him to lick Bailey’s hand, and he wasn’t running like usual, but his tail was still wagging. Bailey came inside, dropped to her knees, and asked Lily, “Can I pet him under the cone?”

  “You sure can,” Lily said. Clay was behind her, but Bailey didn’t look at him. She wasn’t sure yet what was going on. Lily said, “He wants to be petted. The cone confuses him. He keeps bumping into things.”

  “Does it hurt him?” Bailey asked. She scratched Chuck behind the ears, and he flopped down and rolled over. When she scratched his belly, he started kicking with his back leg in the way that always looked funny, like he was trying to scratch himself, and she felt better.

  “No,” Lily said. “It’s so he doesn’t lick his incisions, where he’s stitched up, because that would keep them from healing. He needs to wear it today and tomorrow, and then we can take it off, if everything looks good.”

  “Did they cut his balls off?” Bailey asked. “It looks like they’re still there.”

  Clay made a sort of choking sound and said, “Yeah. They did. He may be a little, ah, swollen just now. Hard to tell what’s missing.”

  “My mom’s old boyfriend Ray said he’d never cut a dog’s balls off,” Bailey said. “Dogs who have their balls cut off won’t fight.”

  “Some people would say that’s a good thing,” Clay said.

  He was Lily’s boyfriend now. Bailey could tell. Probably Lily wouldn’t want Bailey to come here very much anymore. When you got a boyfriend, you didn’t want kids around. That was OK. Bailey didn’t have to come, as long as she could still take Chuck. It was OK.

  Lily said, “I need to leave for the shop pretty soon. You’ll get your new clothes dirty doing my gardening, but you’ll have clean ones to change into.”

  Bailey had made another pair of shorts yesterday, dark blue this time, and a yellow T-shirt. They’d been easier to do, even though Hailey had still sewed the special parts on the neck and the sleeves. She’d said that they could do another shirt next week, and she’d show Bailey and she could do that one herself, because she was talented. “Talented” was usually for girl things like gymnastics and ballet, but Hailey said you could be talented at sewing, too.

  Lily said, “At least, you’ll have clean clothes if that’s your laundry in those bags.” She was wearing a long skirt today, sort of silky and flouncy, and high heels like always. Lily always wore different clothes, and she always looked like a popular girl, but she didn’t talk like it, not in that mean way, like everybody knew the joke except you.

  “Yeah,” Bailey said. She picked up the two plastic bags she’d hung over her handlebars.

  “Come on,” Lily said. “I’ll show you how the washer works.”

  “I know how,” Bailey said. “I do it for my grandma.”

  Lily stopped. “You do?”

  “Uh…yeah.” Bailey wished Clay would say something. He was making her nervous. His eyes were that shiny color again. He was definitely Lily’s boyfriend now. “But she has to drive me in the car to the Laundromat and then come back at the end, and she doesn’t like to go out that many times. Because of her disease. If she walks too many steps, she coughs a lot.” She knew her clothes didn’t smell good. They smelled like cigarettes and sort of like Chuck used to, not like detergent. Chanel Parker had pinched her nose shut every time when Bailey was in her reading group, and said, “P.U. Something stinks.” And most of the girls had laughed.

  She told Lily, “I don’t have any quarters, though. You need quarters for laundry.”

  Lily dropped down beside her. Bailey thought she was going to hug her, and she stayed still and pulled her arms close to her body. But all Lily did, after a second, was pet Chuck and say, “You don’t need quarters. My washing machine is free. This looks like it’ll all fit in one load. Come on.” She stood up. “Let’s go get that started.
My machine could be different from the Laundromat’s, you never know. Rafe’s—Clay’s going to stay around today some, too, and do some yard work for me, since he has a day off. He can switch the load to the dryer when it’s done, since it’s up too high for you to reach.”

  Bailey stood up and backed off a step. “That’s OK. I don’t need him to.” She was supposed to stay with Chuck. It was supposed to just be her and Chuck. She wasn’t sure what to do.

  Clay was still standing away from Lily. He finally said something, and his voice was really calm, like the guys on the news on TV. “I have an idea,” he told Lily. “I have some things I need to do at the cabin. Why don’t we have Bailey take the morning shift, in the garden and with Chuck? You can leave after lunch, Bailey, and I’ll come by this afternoon, feed Chuck, and take over the dog-sitting. As for the dryer, all we need to do is move a stepstool up there, and you can reach it yourself.”

  “Perfect idea,” Lily said, in a too-cheerful voice like a social worker, and Bailey wanted to run again, except she couldn’t, because of Chuck. “Come down the hill when you’re done, Bailey. I have a secret plan for the two of us this afternoon. We’re sneaking away for half an hour.”

  Something was weird. Bailey took another step back. Lily said, “Well, not a secret plan. I’m getting my hair trimmed by my friend Rhonda, and I thought you might want to get yours done, too.”

  Bailey looked at her for minute, trying to figure it out, and Lily said, “Or I’ll just get mine done, if you’d rather not, and you can hang out with Hailey.”

  “OK,” Bailey said. She liked Hailey. She was like her friend Crystal’s great-grandma. Crystal had been her friend in Arizona, and her great-grandma was like on a TV show. Kind of fat, like Bailey’s grandma, but jolly, and her hair was white and puffy, like cotton balls. She had glasses on a chain around her neck with beads like Hailey, too. Lily was nice, but she was fancy. Hailey was more normal.