Until Tomorrow

by Abbie Williams

  “You won’t!” I never, ever raised my voice like this. “Liam doesn’t deserve that.”

  “He’s using every tactic he can to make you feel like shit!”

  “I told you, I deserve it!”

  “No you don’t! Stop saying that!”

  “What do you want me to say?” I yelled.

  “You know what I want?” Marshall yelled right back. “I want to drive to Minnesota and then I want to drive my fist straight into Paul Bunyan’s face!”

  “For what?” I demanded. I felt hot and sweaty, my body vibrating with emotion.

  “For thinking he has the right to tell you he still loves you, that’s what,” Marshall seethed, and then turned to run both hands over his face. He admitted, more quietly, “And I hate that you’re so protective of him.”

  I closed my fingers around his wrists and jerked them as best I could from his face, so that I could see his eyes again. I ordered fiercely, “Don’t look away from me!” I raged, “Dammit, Marshall! Can’t you see that I’m in love with you? Are you blind?”

  Marshall blinked slowly and his eyes were so intense on mine that I gasped a little. Tears sparked in my eyes, infuriating me, and I snapped, “In case you hadn’t realized.”

  “Ruthann,” he whispered and he took my face between his hands, holding fast to me. He said passionately, “I’ve been in love with you for so long now that I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. Oh God, I love you.”

  “Marshall,” I said, crying now, trying to explain this to him as I said, “I don’t mean to cry…I love you so much…I don’t know why you make me so mad…”

  He used his thumbs to brush away my flowing tears. He said, “I wish I could promise that I won’t make you mad ever again, but that would be a lie…I have such a bad temper…I’m so sorry…please don’t cry…”

  “I’m still mad,” I said then, laughing and weeping at once, and Marshall laughed too. He was shaking a little.

  He implored, “Come here, Ruthann Marie, my darlin’, come here into my arms. You just told me you love me…”

  I kissed his mouth, my lips wet with stray tears, and then whispered, “You don’t have to go anywhere today, do you?”

  ***

  Curled together on the twin mattress later that same day, Marshall pressed his face against my stomach, kissing me, his hands cradling my hips. I played my fingers over his left ear, my other arm tucked beneath my head as we sprawled naked and sublime.

  “I love how you smell,” he whispered. “Right here, on your sweet soft belly. You smell so good. This is my favorite place on the earth.”

  “That tickles,” I admonished, giggling, as he breathed against me, trailing kisses to the soft triangle of my pubic hair.

  There, he pressed his face and murmured, “And here. I just want to stay between your legs for all time. Will you let me?”

  I giggled as he teased me with his tongue, and then gasped a little as his teasing became something else. He shifted and settled me just where he wanted, sliding both hands around to hold me, from beneath. His intent was serious now, and my breath grew short as I spread my legs even farther, falling into the sweet wet world that he had shown me, a world of such sensual pleasure, one that I had never known existed. For a time we were safely cocooned within it, this intimate place that heard my moaning cries and his panting breath, this place where he at last surged back above to enter me fully, and I held him close and shuddered with the joy of it.

  “Yes, you may,” I said primly, later, when he had collapsed atop me and I held fast to his strong, wiry shoulders, sleek with sweat.

  “May what, angel?” he whispered against my neck, his voice hoarse with exertion.

  “Stay between my legs for all time,” I whispered back, flushing a little.

  Marshall laughed, soft and low. He said, “I love to hear those words come from your sweet angel-mouth.” He spread his hands wide upon my back, nuzzling kisses on my bare skin.

  I pulled his ear closer to my mouth and whispered something else, and then he snorted a laugh and bit my earlobe. He said, “And those words. Though no one would believe that an angel talked that way.”

  I giggled and bit his chin, urging just a little with my hips, and he bit me back, on the side of my neck. I shivered and Marshall whispered, “But you’re my angel, and I love how you talk.”

  “More,” I ordered him, smiling into his gray eyes, running my calves along the sides of his hips.

  Marshall’s answering grin made me even hotter. He licked my bottom lip, then took it between his teeth, slowly beginning to move within me. He whispered, his voice vibrating along my nerves, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is it like this…for everyone?” I whispered, even though I knew the answer. I shivered; he was so hard inside of me.

  He shook his head in response, slowly. His eyelids were at half-mast, his forearms on either side of my head as he braced above me, moving with long, deliberate strokes. I curled my arms around him, anchoring beneath his arms to grip his back with my fingernails. Instinctively Marshall knew I craved slow and deep, and I lifted my mouth to his, kissing him accordingly.

  Much later, nearly crushed beneath his exhausted weight, I hugged him to me and whispered, “Marshall…”

  “Even if you beg for more, I gotta rest a minute,” he whispered back, and then I giggled.

  I kissed his jaw, where sweat had trickled down from his temple, and then roughed up his dark hair. I told him, “You just know.”

  “I told you I see you,” he murmured, rolling us to the side so that I fit against him rather than beneath. Half asleep, he kissed my ear. I lay awake for another minute, marveling at the way the lazy afternoon sun coming through the single window in my room dusted his forearms, which were crossed beneath my breasts, how it glinted scarlet over his dark hair there. His deeply-tanned skin was such a contrast to the milk-white of my breasts and belly. Blissfully content in this moment, I pressed my thumbs to his wrist bones and then joined him in sleep.

  ***

  I didn’t wake until my phone buzzed with an incoming call, just after dawn the next morning. It was Monday, and there appeared to be the promise of sun on the horizon. I was terribly reluctant to move, mostly because moving would take me from Marshall’s arms and the warmth of his embrace, but partly because I was squeamish about discovering who was calling me so early. My phone was out in the kitchen and went to voicemail anyway.

  Please don’t let it be Liam, I thought.

  Marshall snuggled me closer and kissed the top of my bare shoulder, then resumed a light snoring. I giggled a little, rubbing sleep from my eyes, and mumbled, “I think there might be an intruder in here…camping out…”

  “Hmmm?” he wondered, still half-asleep.

  I pressed my hips even closer to him and insisted, “Yeah, he’s camping out beneath the sheets…I can feel his tent pole,” and then Marshall snorted and started laughing, shifting over me so that he could kiss my mouth.

  He grinned down at me, the covers still drawn to our shoulders.

  “Woman,” he said softly, but with enough intent that my stomach went all woozy with delight. He whispered, “Might you have a suggestion for where I could…” he was momentarily overcome with laughter, before managing, “Where I could maybe…pop this tent?”

  And then we were both laughing so hard that we could barely kiss.

  ***

  Tish had left me the voicemail, I saw to my relief after Marshall and I showered together. As it was a single stall rather than a shower head positioned over a tub, it was a lesson in body positioning; Marshall joked, “Good thing neither of us is claustrophobic.” Then I almost drowned attempting to give him head. He tugged me back up and we clung together laughing, warm water splashing over us, my wet hair hanging past my waist.

  He teased, “I won’t have you risking yourself to bring me pleasure.”

  Marshall slid his hands up and down my body; likewise, I could not keep my hands from him, curling my finge
rs into his chest hair, licking water from his neck, clutching his ass. Being near him was wildly sensual in a way I almost could not describe, feeling his warmth, his strength, the shape of his bones beneath his darkly-tanned skin, his wavy hair falling nearly to his shoulders when wet.

  “That feels so good,” he murmured, as we kissed sweetly and lazily, his fingers curled into my hair. He drew away enough to see my eyes and traced his thumbs over my chin and lips, asking softly, “You know what word I think of when I look at you?”

  I stroked his hair, smiling at him, our bodies nearly suctioned together with the warm water flowing over us. Between kisses, I whispered, “Tell me…”

  “‘Lavish,’ that’s what word,” he said. “I want to lavish you with kisses, and with love…plus, you’re lavishly beautiful…”

  I bit his chin and then teased, “Come lavish me with your cock…”

  Marshall lifted me up against the shower wall so we could make love, quick and intense.

  Clinging to him, I reflected, “It’s like we’ve been deprived for years instead of a few weeks.”

  Still inside me, Marshall licked a slow line along my jaw, closing his teeth over my earlobe. He whispered, “We have been deprived for years, of each other. I can’t get enough of you. I’m like a starving man…”

  I roughed up his wet hair and smiled into his eyes; his crinkled at the corners as he grinned back. I told him, “I promise to feed you. As best I can.” I traced the sensitive skin just behind his ears with my fingertips and said, “But right now we have to get ready for work.”

  He kissed my lips one last time and then we hustled, as it was already edging on eight.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later Tish greeted me as I entered the law office with, “Did you listen to my message?”

  “No,” I admitted, straightening the bottom edge of my sleeveless yellow blouse. Mom had mailed me several boxes from Landon, sending my clothes, including all my cold-weather ones, a few kitchen and bathroom towels, my jewelry (not that I had much) in a sealed envelope tucked into the pocket of my winter coat. In addition, Mom had included a container of things she thought I might need, such as ink pens, stamps, rubber bands and adhesive tape, Band-aids and mosquito repellant, some of my old CDs. In the very bottom of one box, Grandma and Aunt Ellen had included two enormous, covered tin-foil pans, loaded with peanut-butter chocolate-chip cookies and marshmallow bars, my two favorites.

  My family loved me a great deal and I knew that to the bottom of my heart.

  “Good morning, Ruthann!” Al called from his desk, looking up from whatever he was writing.

  “Morning, Al,” I said, and at her own desk, Tish had just opened her mouth to deliver the message I’d missed when I looked at her a little more closely and asked, infusing my tone with suggestion, “A scarf?”

  Tish’s face was instantly inundated with a fiery-pink flush.

  I went directly to my sister’s side.

  “You have a hickey, don’t you?” I pressed.

  Al was watching us with an amused grin. He said to Tish, “I didn’t think I’d ever seen you in a scarf before today.”

  Tish retained as much dignity as someone the color of a ripe tomato is able. Ignoring our teasing she said, “I was going to drive out to talk with a woman who might know something about what was going on in the power plant. I wanted you to come with.”

  “That scarf is so…classy,” I teased, loving tormenting her.

  “Fine, stay here then,” she said haughtily.

  “It must be huge,” I couldn’t resist.

  Five minutes later we were cruising west, having taken the second right on Main Street and out towards the country, headed to visit family whose acreage abutted Highland Power.

  Tish explained as we drove, “Last night we got a call from this woman, Janice Mayne. She called our landline, not my cell, and she asked if I could come out to her place to talk. She didn’t want to tell me anything over the phone and she didn’t want to come into the office. Her husband has already sold out to Capital Overland, unfortunately, and isn’t interested in rescinding the purchase. It sounds like they’re moving to Idaho this fall.”

  “What does she have to tell you?” I asked, studying the foothills out the window, the breeze blowing over my face. The air was scented with the tang of sagebrush; I’d asked Marshall what it was on one of our horseback rides. He’d plucked a couple of sprigs for my car, as it smelled so good. As my eyes continued to wander the landscape, I felt a small, cold knot of fear in my gut, inadvertently reminded of riding Arrow last Saturday night – I’d not told Tish what had happened and wasn’t eager to, either.

  It won’t do any good to tell her. She’ll just worry and I can avoid the old homestead the way I will avoid the letters, from now on.

  It’s all right.

  You’re not crazy.

  “She was hesitant. I’m hoping for anything at this point,” Tish said, turning onto a gravel road that wound beneath a wooden arch painted with the words Highlands Ranch, founded 1922. She parked near a low-slung fieldstone house and the two of us climbed out to the barking of several dogs. A woman appeared in the doorway seconds later and watched us approach.

  “Janice Mayne?” Tish asked.

  The woman nodded. She was perhaps in her early fifties, thin and with shadows beneath her eyes. It didn’t take a detective to observe that she was stressed. Without a smile of welcome, she held open the door.

  “Patricia Spicer,” my sister said, shaking Janice’s hand firmly. “This is my sister and our legal secretary, Ruthann Gordon.”

  “Secretary?” the woman repeated, the first she’d spoken, studying me warily. I sensed the reason behind her worry immediately.

  “I’m not here to record anything,” I assured her.

  “We would just like to hear what you have to say,” Tish said. “If you’re willing to tell us.”

  We sat near the front windows, at a kitchen table covered by a checkered cloth. In the background the dishwasher was running; the house was otherwise silent, and meticulously clean. Janice Mayne sat and folded her hands together, but immediately said, “Forgive my manners. May I offer you an iced tea?”

  “No, thank you,” Tish said, leaning forward on her forearms, ready to get down to business. I knew Tish didn’t realize how intense she could be, especially when she directed her brilliantly-blue gaze on someone. I tried to fix a reassuring smile on my own face.

  “I won’t keep you girls long,” Janice said, winding her fingers together. “I called you, Mrs. Spicer, because I once knew your husband’s mother Melinda. She was my good friend as a girl.”

  Tish’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “Melinda was a dear, sweet girl,” Janice went on. “And I know her boys by sight, the both of them, with that red-gold hair just like their mama’s. Your husband Charles made a good argument in July, at the council meeting, but we’d already sold to that goddamn Overland company by then, and Bill refused to go back on the deal. We’ll be gone by September.”

  “How long have you lived here?” Tish asked.

  “I’ve lived in Jalesville my whole life. Here on the ranch since I was a bride. Bill and I raised our children in this house, and Bill’s family ranched this land for generations. And now we have a deposit in our bank account but our land is gone. I feel like a ghost here, tending a place that’s no longer really mine.”

  “It’s not too late,” Tish said quietly.

  Janice sighed and looked more desolate than ever, scanning the view out the big, beveled-glass window near the table as though she was trapped in a dream, just on the edge of waking. She said quietly, “No, it’s time for us to go. I don’t feel safe here anymore, if you want the truth.”

  I sat completely still, watching this woman’s face with a coldness creeping even more insidiously into my gut, while Tish demanded, “What do you mean?”

  Janice blinked rapidly and though no one was about, lowered her voice. She said, “I love
d Melinda Dalton like a sister. It’s for her boys, and for you, that I want to tell you to stop looking into business you shouldn’t.” She put her hand over Tish’s. “You’re a smart girl, I can tell, and you have a good man in Charles Spicer. Please, let this go. Don’t keep asking around, don’t keep pushing.”

  “Tell me why you think these things,” Tish said earnestly, using all of her willpower to keep the emotion from her voice. “Please, tell me why…”

  “My brother – Glen Westgaard — used to live in Miles City and worked as a warden for the local Fish, Wildlife and Parks chapter,” Janice said, still speaking in a hushed voice. My heart clenched at her words, as this was where Marshall was hoping to work after graduating next May. The FWP – we’d talked about it many times.

  “And?” Tish pressed, when Janice paused.

  “A year and a half ago, Glen started hearing rumors,” Janice said. “Rumors about illegal waste dumping at Highland Power. Rumors about illegal workers taking care of the dirty work, people here in the country without visas, this sort of thing. Illegal workers would be a federal matter, not Glen’s jurisdiction, though he called a few people he knew, to make them aware. But he decided to ask around about the waste dumping itself, started making inquiries. By last November, he felt he’d gathered enough evidence from plant workers to determine that there was something suspicious happening at Highland Power. Enough evidence to at least make an allegation.”

  Janice paused and brought her free hand, the one not gripping my sister’s, up to her lips. She whispered, “He was doing the right thing.”

  “Would he be willing to talk to me?” Tish asked. “I’ll drive to his place, that’s no problem, I just want to –”

  “He’s gone,” Janice said.

  “Gone where?” Tish asked, apparently not jumping to the same conclusion I had – that this woman’s brother Glen was dead. I prayed that he was just on vacation, that maybe he’d moved out of state, as Janice and her husband were planning to do.