“Oh,” Sara said, blinking at the small room. A twin bed with green sheets and no blanket was pushed into the corner under a window. Posters of half-naked women were taped around the walls, with Farrah Fawcett given a place of prominence over the bed. The closet door was the only departure from the decorating scheme: a poster showed a cherry red convertible Mustang with an exaggerated blonde leaning over the hood—probably because the weight of her enhanced breasts prevented her from standing up straight.
“Lovely,” Sara managed, wondering how bad the hotel was.
Jeffrey seemed embarrassed for the first time since she had met him. “My mother hasn’t changed things much since I left.”
“I can see that,” she said. Still, part of Sara was intrigued. As a teenager, her parents had made it clear that boys’ rooms were off-limits and Sara had therefore missed the experience. While the Farah Fawcett poster was predictable, there was something else to the room, some sort of essence. The smell of cigarette smoke and bourbon did not exist here. Testosterone and sweat had muscled it out.
Jeffrey put her suitcase flat on the floor and unzipped it for her. “I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he said, still sounding embarrassed. She tried to catch his eye, but he was busy sorting through his duffel bag. She realized from his posture that he was ashamed of the house and what she must be thinking about him for growing up here. The room looked different in light of this, and Sara noticed how neatly everything had been arranged and the fact that the posters were hung equidistant, as if he had used a ruler. His house back in Grant County reflected this need for orderliness. Sara had only been there a few times, but from what she had seen, he kept everything exactly in its place.
“It’s fine,” she assured him.
“Yeah,” he said, though not in agreement. He found his toothbrush. “I’ll be right back.”
Sara watched him leave, pulling the door shut quietly behind him. She took advantage of the situation and quickly changed into her pajamas, all the while keeping her eye on the door in case his mother walked in. Nell had not sounded exactly complimentary when she had talked about May Tolliver, and Sara did not want to meet the woman with her pants down.
Sara sat on the floor and went through her suitcase, looking for her hairbrush. She found it wrapped up in a pair of shorts and managed to remove her hair clip without tearing out too much of her curly, tangled hair. She looked around the room as she brushed her hair, taking in the posters and the various items Jeffrey had collected throughout his childhood. On the windowsill were several dried bones that had once been in a small animal. The bedside table, which looked homemade, had a small lamp and a green bowl with a handful of loose change. Track ribbons were scattered on a bulletin board, and a milk crate held cassette tapes with song titles typewritten neatly across the labels. Across from where she sat was a makeshift bookshelf of two-by-fours and bricks, stacked end to end with books. Where Sara had been expecting comic books and the occasional Hardy Boys, she found thick tomes with titles such as Strategic Battles of the Civil War and The Socio-Political Ramifications of Reconstruction in the Rural South.
She put down the brush and picked up the least intimidating-looking textbook. Flipping to the front, she found Jeffrey’s name, followed by a date and course information. Thumbing through the pages, she saw where he had taken copious notes in the margins, underlining and highlighting passages that were of interest. Sara was slightly shocked to realize that she was completely unfamiliar with Jeffrey’s handwriting. He had never left her notes or written lists in her presence. Contrary to her own cramped printing, he wrote in a beautiful, flowing script, the kind they no longer taught in school. His w’s were impeccable, transitioning neatly into adjoining vowels. The loops on his g’s were all the same identical pattern, as if he had used a stencil to make them. He even wrote in a straight line, not diagonally like most people did without a baseline to follow.
She traced her finger along his notations, feeling the indentation the pencil had made in the page. The words seemed almost engraved, as if he had gripped the pencil too tightly.
“What are you doing?”
Sara felt a flicker of guilt, as if she had been caught reading his diary instead of a textbook from long ago. “The Civil War?”
He kneeled beside her, taking the book. “I majored in American History.”
“You’re just full of surprises, Slick.”
He winced at the name as he slid the book back into place, lining it up carefully so that it was flush with the others. A thin line of dust marked the exact spot. He pulled out a slim leather-bound volume. Gold letters stamped the cover, saying, simply, LETTERS.
“Soldiers wrote these to their sweethearts back home.” Jeffrey said, thumbing through the fragile-looking book, turning to a page he must have known from heart. He cleared his throat and read, “ ‘My darling. Night comes and I lay awake, wondering at the character of the man I have become. I look at the velvet sky and wonder if you look up on these same stars, and pray that your mind holds on to the image of the man I was to you. I pray that you still see me.’ ”
Jeffrey stared at the words, a smile at his lips like he shared something secret with the book. He read the way he made love: deliberately, passionately, eloquently. Sara wanted him to continue, to lull her to sleep with the deep cadence of his voice, but he broke the spell with a heavy sigh.
“Anyway.” He tucked the book back into place, saying, “I should have sold these back when the classes ended, but I didn’t have the heart.”
She wanted to ask him to continue, but said, “I kept some of mine, too.”
He sat down behind Sara, his legs on either side of her. “I couldn’t afford to.”
“I wasn’t exactly rich,” she told him, feeling defensive. “My father’s a plumber.”
“Who owns half the town.”
Sara did not comment, hoping he would drop it. Eddie Linton had invested well in real estate down by the college, which Jeffrey had found out on a couple of landlord calls about soon-to-be-evicted noisy tenants. She supposed by Jeffrey’s standards the Linton family was wealthy, but Sara and Tessa had grown up with the impression that they should never spend more money than what they had in their pockets—which was never much.
Jeffrey said, “I guess Nell told you about my dad.”
“A little.”
His laugh had a harsh edge to it. “Jimmy Tolliver was a small-time crook who thought he was walking into a big score. Two men were shot and killed robbing that bank, and now he’s locked up with no chance of parole.” Jeffrey picked up the hairbrush. “You talk to anybody in town, they’ll tell you I’m just as bad as he is.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Sara countered. She had worked with Jeffrey for a while now, and knew that he always went out of his way to do the right thing. His integrity was one of the main things that had attracted her to him.
He said, “I got into trouble a lot when I was a kid.”
“Most boys do.”
“Not with the police,” he countered, and she did not know what to say. He couldn’t have been that bad or there was no police force in the country that would have accepted him, let alone given him the keys to the station house.
He added, “I imagine Nell gave you an earful about my mother.”
Sara did not answer.
He started to brush her hair. “Is that why you sucked at Trivial Pursuit? You were too busy trying to follow what Nell was saying?”
“I’ve never been good at board games.”
“What about other games?”
She closed her eyes, enjoying the stroking bristles. “I beat you at tennis,” she reminded him.
“I let you,” he said, though she knew he had nearly killed himself trying to win.
Jeffrey pulled back her hair and gently kissed her neck.
“We could have a rematch?” she suggested.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. He did something with his tongue that made her sink
back into him without thinking.
She tried to sit up but he would not let her. She whispered, “Your mother is in the next room.”
“The toilet’s in the next room,” he told her, slipping his hands under her shirt.
“Jeff—” She gasped as his hand dipped below her pajama bottoms. She stopped him before he could go any farther.
Jeffrey said, “Trust me, she can sleep through anything.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I locked the door.”
“Why did you lock it if she can sleep through anything?”
He growled at her much the way he had growled over his high school teacher. “Do you know how many nights I laid awake in this very room when I was a kid, wishing I had a beautiful woman in here with me?”
“I seriously doubt I’m the first woman you’ve had here.”
“Here?” he asked, indicating the floor.
She twisted around so she could see him. “Do you think that’s some kind of aphrodisiac, telling me how many women you’ve had in your bedroom?”
He scooted a few inches across the floor, dragging her with him. “You’re the first one I’ve ever had here.”
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Finally, a way to distinguish myself.”
“Stop that,” he said, suddenly serious.
“Or what?” she teased.
“I’m not playing around.”
“According to what I’ve heard—”
“I mean it, Sara. I’m not having fun.”
She stared at him, not following.
“What you said to your mother,” he told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not just having fun with you.” He paused before looking away from her, staring at the bookshelf. “I know that’s what you’re doing, but I’m not, and I want you to stop saying stuff like that.”
Every warning Sara had heard over the last few months came flooding into her brain, and she bit back the raging impulse to throw her arms around him and declare her love. Instinctively, she knew that part of the reason Jeffrey was saying this to her now was because he had no idea how she felt. Sara was not foolish enough to tell him.
Her silence obviously unnerved him. She saw his jaw work, and he stared somewhere over her shoulder.
Sara tried to face him, but he would not look at her. She traced her finger along his lips, smiling as she realized he had shaved for her. His skin was smooth, and she smelled his aftershave along with something like oatmeal.
He said, “Tell me how you feel.”
Sara could not trust herself to answer. She kissed his jaw, then his neck. When he did not respond, she kissed the palm of his hand, knowing better than to tell him that was exactly where he held her.
Jeffrey put his hands on either side of her face, his eyes intense and unreadable. He gave her a long, sensual kiss as he pushed her back, and Sara felt herself melt to the floor. He cupped her breasts, using his tongue to bring out chills along her skin. Slowly, he started to work his way down, his breath a feathery kiss across her belly, then lower. He put his tongue inside of her, and Sara felt a momentary weight-lessness as everything in her body focused on that one spot. She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him up toward her, making him stop.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. “What?”
She drew him closer, kissing him, tasting herself in his mouth. Nothing was rushed, but Sara felt the need for urgency as she fumbled with the zip on his jeans. He tried to help, but Sara told him, “No,” relishing the weight of him in her hand.
“Inside me,” she said, biting his ear until a guttural sound caught in his throat. “I want you inside me.”
“Christ,” he whispered, his body shaking as he tried to hold himself back. He reached for his pocket, trying to find a condom, but she pulled his attention sharply back to focus, guiding him inside her.
She arched up as he entered her. At first, he moved slowly, almost painfully so, until Sara’s entire body was tense as a violin string. The muscles along his back were equally taut, and she could not help digging her nails in as she tried to pull him in deeper. Jeffrey kept the rhythm slow, watching her every move, tuning his body to hers so that several times she was taken to the edge, only to be gently brought back. Finally the rhythm increased, his hips grinding into hers, the weight of his body pressing her to the limit until the release forced her head back, her mouth open. He kissed her, stifling the sounds she made, even as his own body shuddered against hers.
“Sara,” he breathed into her ear, finally letting himself go.
She held him inside her, and he started kissing her again, slow and sensual, his hand stroking the side of her face like a cat. Her body pulsed with aftershocks, and she slid her arms around him, holding him close, kissing his lips, his face, his eyelids, until he finally rolled to his side, resting his weight on his elbow.
She let out a short breath, feeling her body slowly come down from the high. Her head was still swimming and she could not keep her eyes open no matter how hard she tried.
He stroked his fingers along her temple, touching her eyelids, her cheeks. “I love the way your skin feels,” he said, letting his hand slide down her body.
She rested her hand on his, letting out a content sigh. She could stay like this all night—maybe even for the rest of her life. She felt closer to Jeffrey now than she had ever felt with a man in her life. Sara knew that she should be scared, should try to hold part of herself back, but right now all she could think to do was lie there and let him do whatever he liked.
His fingers found the scar on her left side, and he said, “Tell me about this.”
Sara’s mind reeled with white-hot panic, and she forced herself not to jerk away from him. “Appendix,” she said, though the injury had come from a hunting knife.
He opened his mouth, and she was sure he would ask how she could be a doctor and not know that the appendix was on the right side, but what he said was, “Did it burst?”
She nodded, hoping that would suffice. Lying was not a normal habit of Sara’s, and she knew better than to invent a complicated story.
“How old were you?”
She shrugged, watching him watch his finger trace along the scar. The edge was jagged, far from the precision slice of a surgeon’s scalpel. A serrated blade had made the cut as the knife was buried nearly to the hilt in her side.
“It’s kind of sexy,” he told her, leaning down to kiss it.
Sara put her hand to the back of his head, staring up at the ceiling as the enormity of the lie began to sink in. This was just the beginning. If she ever wanted any kind of future with Jeffrey, she should tell him now before it was too late.
He brushed his lips across hers. “I thought we’d get out early tomorrow.”
Her mouth opened, but instead of telling him the truth, she said, “You don’t want to say goodbye to your friends?”
He shrugged. “We can call them when we get to Florida.”
“Crap.” Sara sat up, looking for a clock. “What time is it?”
He tried to pull her back but Sara was too fast. She rifled through her suitcase, asking, “Where’s my watch?”
He folded his hands behind his head. “Women don’t need to wear watches.”
“Why is that?”
He gave a smug, deeply satisfied smile. “There’s a clock on the stove.”
“Very funny,” she said, throwing her brush at him. He caught it with one hand. “I told my mother I’d call as soon as we got to Florida.”
“So call her tomorrow.”
Sara found her watch, cursing under her breath. “It’s past midnight. She’ll be worried.”
“There’s a phone in the kitchen.”
Her underwear was still wrapped around her ankle from where she had not quite managed to kick it off. Sara tried to look as graceful as possible as she pulled them back on, followed by her pajama bottoms.
“Hey,” he said.
She looked up, but he shook his head, in
dicating he had changed his mind.
She buttoned her shirt as she walked toward the door. Her hand was on the knob before she realized, “It doesn’t have a lock.”
He feigned surprise. “Is that so?”
Sara walked into the hall and pulled the door to behind her. She felt her way along the wall, stopping when she remembered the dining room table. The nightlight did not illuminate much this far from the bathroom, and Sara used her hands to feel her way toward the kitchen. Outside the room, the smell of nicotine was even stronger than she had remembered. By sheer luck, she found the telephone on the wall by the refrigerator.
She dialed her parents’ house collect, whispering her name when the operator asked, hoping she would not wake up Jeffrey’s mother. The call was put through and the phone rang once before her father picked up.
“Sara?” Eddie said, his voice like a croak.
She leaned against the counter, relieved to hear him. “Hey, Daddy.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“We stopped in Sylacauga.”
“What the hell is that?”
She started to explain, but he would not let her.
“It’s past midnight,” he said, his tone sharp now that he realized she was okay. “What the hell have you been doing? Your mother and I have been worried sick.”
She heard Cathy murmur something in the background, and Eddie said, “I don’t want to hear that bastard’s name. She never used to call late before him.”
Sara braced herself for a tirade, but her mother managed to wrestle the phone from her father before he could get another word out.
“Baby?” Cathy sounded equally worried, and Sara felt guilty for how she had spent the last two hours when she could have taken two minutes to call her parents and let them know she was okay.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call before,” Sara told her. “We stopped in Sylacauga.”
“And that is?”
“A town,” Sara said, still not sure she was pronouncing it correctly. “It’s where Jeffrey grew up.”
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