Just a Little Bit Guilty

by Deborah Smith

  For an uncertain moment, he waited for her response.

  “If my Pop were still alive,” she said finally, her voice warm, “I think he’d invite you over for dinner, and he’d make his fancy spaghetti sauce for you. With extra olive oil He never invited any of my boyfriends over for his extra-olive-oil spaghetti.”

  “Good. I’d be honored to eat spaghetti your daddy made.” He looked at her gently. “Think you’re ready to let me share some of that space of yours?” he asked. A hint of a smile touched his mouth.

  Vivian slowly put her head on his shoulder then settled into a comfortable position in his arms. Jake sighed. “We’re a good pair, Viv,” he whispered. “Like ham and grits.”

  “Like ham and spaghetti,” she whispered back.

  Chapter Six

  VIVIAN HURRIED around her condo, trying to make its eclectic clutter look neat. She was in the midst of rearranging the army of saucepans that hung on brass hooks over her stove when the doorbell chimed.

  “Dammit, Jake, you’re on time!”

  She shoved two saucepans into the white cabinet nearby and ran to the guest bath to peer at herself in the mirror. “You better like this outfit,” she muttered, smoothing her hands over her soft, gray sweater interwoven with glittering silver. “I don’t twinkle for just any man.” She wore loose, gray, brushed-denim trousers with the sweater, and gray leather flats. She preferred to think of all that gray as pewter, and considered it elegant.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she began, swinging the door open. “Te presento la casa mia. Welcome to my home for your first visit . . . Jake?”

  He stood awkwardly on the brick doorstep—she thought it was him, at least. It could have been a philodendron with long legs. Two huge plants in clay pots hid his handsome face and torso.

  “I already made a salad,” she quipped, taking one of the pots. He laughed, the sound so robust that it seemed to warm the icy air that swept in the open door around him. He stepped inside, juggled the remaining plant, and leaned toward her. After a moment’s hesitation, she gave him a quick, soft kiss. Their plants intertwined. Vivian smiled as she untangled the philodendron tendrils.

  “I asked Roberto what I could bring you, and he said you like plants,” Jake explained.

  Vivian nodded, then eyed the plants distractedly and Jake seriously as she took his coat. He did more for jeans and cotton work shirts than any other man on earth. “You’re very thoughtful. Let’s put them on my sun porch. Then I’ll play Barefoot Contessa.”

  “Who?”

  “She’s a chef on the Food Network.”

  “With bare feet?”

  She shut the door and guided him forward, one hand on his shoulder. “Never mind.”

  He followed her through the living room to a glassed-in porch filled with white wicker furniture and colorful Indian rugs. And plants. Dozens of them. All kinds—hanging, drooping, standing, menacing the furniture, some of them plastered against the windows as if they wanted out. Jake stopped at the entrance and gazed at them in despair.

  “Bringin’ you more plants is like throwin’ alligator eggs into a swamp,” he moaned. “I should have got you somethin’ else.”

  “Oh, I love plants. Two more will be just terrific.” She lowered his gift plants into one of the last clear spots. “You boys behave there, now.” Vivian squatted beside them and stroked their leaves. “Don’t make any trouble, or I’ll sic the cacti on you. I’ll water you tomorrow, after you’ve settled in and relaxed.”

  When she stood up, Jake was smiling at her so rapturously that she blushed. “What’s a matter?” she grumbled. “You’re a farmer. Don’t you believe in talking to plants?”

  “Not like they’re gonna talk back.” He held out his arms. “Come here and gimme a hug, you little turnip green.”

  “No, no, no. I have to go check the ravioli.”

  “Chicken.”

  “No, beef,” she countered, trying to slide by him without touching.

  “There you go, runnin’ off to that safe little place you keep inside somewhere.”

  “I’m only seductive when I drink Jack Daniels.”

  “You need to learn to snuggle, Viv. Just cause we took a vow of chastity doesn’t mean we can’t giggle and tickle.”

  She looked up at him wistfully. “I was raised to be totally good or totally bad. I don’t understand this odd thing called courtship on your planet, stranger.”

  He smiled. “Why are we standin’ here weighin’ the world when we could be havin’ a good time? Let’s stop all this serious talk. It makes my head hurt.”

  “Mine, too,” Vivian said firmly. “Come on, I have to continue your education in Italian cuisine.”

  They walked back into the living room. Soft jazz spilled out of the iPod berthed atop speakers in one corner. A flat-screen TV dominated one wall. Jake held one hand out to test the cozy warmth of the fake logs that crackled in her faux fireplace.

  “You build a great fire for a city girl. I’m impressed. Who knew ceramic oak kindling could catch a flame so well. Hope the ravioli weren’t baked in a kiln.”

  “You have to learn to appreciate our differences,” Vivian retorted, but she smiled. “And that’s why I have a surprise for you after dinner.”

  HE LOOKED AWKWARD sitting on her overstuffed white couch in the dim light of the fire and the glow of one soft lamp in a distant corner. Vivian sat down on the hearth across from him and sipped her after-dinner coffee as she studied him.

  “Nice place you got here,” he said politely.

  “You look like—” she gave him a thoughtful frown—“like a Norman Rockwell character who wandered into the wrong painting.”

  “I feel like one.”

  He looked at her white recliner and white couch, her sleek brass lamps and rare law books, her collection of ceramic dragons, her stacks of medieval fantasy novels and—with a satisfied smile, as if he’d found some friends—at her country-quilt throw pillows. Vivian set her cup down on the gleaming glass coffee table between them and rubbed her hands together briskly.

  “I’ll be back in a second. I told you about the surprise for tonight.”

  “I don’t like that look in your eyes, Viv.”

  Chuckling softly, she left the room. When she came back ten minutes later, she still wore her shimmering sweater, but she’d traded her slacks for a black leather miniskirt and lacy white hose. Black ankle boots with slender heels now replaced her flats.

  He stood up to hide his arousal. “And what’d you do to your hair?”

  “I just fluffed it up and put some hair spray in it,” she answered patiently.

  “What are you holdin’ behind your back?”

  “Stop looking at me like I just grew fangs. Bend over so I can work on your hair.”

  “Well . . . sure.”

  When he bowed his head to her she whipped out a can of spray gel. Quickly she formed his short, dense and wavy red hair into a spiky masterpiece. “There. Just enough to be edgy; not so much it says ‘boy band.’”

  “My hair is protestin’, either way.”

  They stared at each other in portentous silence.

  “Hair can’t talk,” she deadpanned.

  “Mine is too upset to say a word,” he countered.

  THE MUSIC WAS loud and had no melody, the crowd was pierced and tattooed, and the drinks came in plastic mugs with BITE ME stenciled on their sides.

  “Just like Vacation Bible School,” Jake yelled over the clang of amped-up guitars.

  He kept his hand under Vivian’s elbow in his usual gentlemanly way as they angled through tables looking for a place to sit in throbbing darkness. A drunk with plugs the size of lug nuts in his ear lobes screamed at Viv, “YOU MAKE ME WANT TO TOUCH MYSELF.”

  Jake calmly raised a big, callused han
d, intending to clamp it over his face and shove his head down inside his rib cage. Vivian grabbed Jake’s arm just in time. The drunk turned even paler than his white makeup and scurried away.

  They finally found a table and sat down. Vivian studied Jake anxiously. This nightclub was considered one of the best alternative-music venues in the South. Despite the grungy warehouse setting in an industrial part of the city, the club had a good reputation among music critics, and it drew a diverse crowd. About half the clubbers looked as if they’d just come from a sale at Pottery Barn. Not exactly a wild group.

  She watched Jake watch the action. He leaned toward her and yelled, “I’ve seen rougher crowds at Garth Brooks concerts.”

  She laughed. They ordered drinks—beer for her, straight bourbon for him. And he continued his examination of the place.

  An elegant, tall brunette with perfect makeup and a broad-shouldered figure outlined by a gorgeous black jumpsuit sidled up to their table and smiled at Jake. He stood politely.

  “Can I ask him to dance?” the woman asked Vivian in a throaty voice.

  Vivian looked closely at the beautiful creature trying to whisk Jake away. She rose languidly and draped an arm atop Jake’s broad shoulder. “Thank you, baby, but I just go sick crazy when I see him with another girl.”

  The woman shrugged and glided away. Jake stared after her, his mouth open. Vivian elbowed him. “Sit down, Coltrane. That was a guy.”

  He sank into the chair and turned to look at her. His eyes filled with a pleased glow. “You really didn’t want me to dance with her? With him? I mean, it matters to you if I dance with another . . . well, someone who looks like a woman?”

  She looked furtive, rolled her eyes, tsked, then tossed up a hand. “Okay. You caught me. Yeah.”

  “I shoulda danced with him. Just to impress you. To prove I fit in here.”

  A tender fire began to burn inside Vivian. “I don’t want you to fit in here.”

  “But then why . . .”

  “I’m a jerk. I wanted to impress you with my sophisticated tastes.” She nodded toward the weirdness around them. “But this isn’t for me, either.”

  The smile seemed to start somewhere inside his chest and grow out of him until it transformed his face. Vivian caught her breath at the look in his eyes. He took her hands and brought each one to his lips for generous kisses. Vivian’s eyelids fluttered down to half-mast and her mouth parted in a sigh.

  Jake’s eyes gleamed. “You and me, we aren’t from such different worlds. I bet you’d be right at home up in Tuna Creek.”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “Fair trade, darlin’. Now it’s my turn to educate you.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said dryly. “I don’t know…”

  “Don’t go hollerin’ about your space, now. I’m gonna go visit my Aunt Vanessa next weekend—go up on Saturday and stay overnight. Why don’t you come along?”

  Vivian thought for a second, her instincts warning her that a visit to Aunt Vanessa and Tuna Creek would be another turning point in this relationship—either toward dangerous intimacy or toward the harsh reality that things would never work.

  She had to know.

  “All right.” She raised her chin. “It’s a date.”

  He leaped up from the chair. “I can’t sit still, darlin’! Let’s dance!”

  Vivian tilted her head toward the floor crowded with people slamming and bouncing around.

  “You want to do that?”

  “No! I want to dance!”

  She laughed until her sides hurt. In the meantime he pulled her gently into his arms. What he called dancing, as it turned out, involved holding her with her head on his chest and his rough chin resting against her widow’s peak. It was slow dancing, totally inappropriate considering the music and the fact that everyone else was funking out. Jake lowered his head and let his lips brush her ear.

  “Do you mind my kind of dancin’?”

  Vivian turned her face up to the warm hollow of his throat and planted a kiss there.

  “I love it.”

  And I’m beginning to love you, she added silently.

  Chapter Seven

  SHE BECAME AWARE of bright morning sun all around her and a bear snapping at the hem of her judicial robes as she drove a tractor that looked oddly like her Prius through a field of corn. She gave the bear a karate chop, and it laughed. Vivian’s eyes flew open.

  “Back! Back!” she gasped, jerking upright.

  “What’s the matter?” Jake asked. Wild-eyed and ruffled, Vivian glanced vaguely at the highway flashing past with winter-brown mountains in the distance. She looked at him blankly.

  “A bear was after me in Tuna Creek!”

  He smiled, chuckled softly, and took one hand off his truck’s steering wheel to stroke her disheveled hair into place. His hand settled along her cheek, his fingertips feather-light and soothing.

  “Go back to snoozin’. Well be at Aunt Vanessa’s about lunchtime.”

  “Uhmmm.” A week of hectic court during the day and the mayor’s committee on midtown crime at night had kept her contact with Jake to one lunch and five late-night telephone conversations. “Where are we?”

  “Oh, somewhere northeast of Nashville and west of Soddy-Daisy.”

  “And Soddy-Daisy is where?”

  “South of Shoe Bin and east of Catterwaul.”

  She stared at his amused profile. “Gee, freakin’ thanks.”

  He laughed.

  Vivian settled back on the truck’s seat. “So we’re getting into the blank part of the Tennessee state map. I’m sorry I slept so long. I haven’t seen you all week, and I didn’t mean to keel over as soon as I got in the truck. But it was five a.m.”

  “Ssssh.” He guided her head back to his shoulder, where she had slept cozily for almost three hours. “I like hearin’ you breathe. And you make cute little sounds, like a kitten.”

  “A city kitten. Do you think I’m dressed right?” She looked from his standard outfit—heavy flannel shirt, jeans, work boots, and sheepskin jacket—to hers. Vivian wore a short, unstructured tweed coat over loose tan trousers, and a sweater splashed with abstract earth-tone images. Chestnut-brown boots with high heels finished the outfit, along with the brown fedora she’d tucked on top of the truck’s faded dashboard.

  Jake glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled tentatively. “You’re . . . fine. I like your clothes real well.”

  “Aren’t you sleepy? Do you want me to drive?”

  “Nah, morning’s my best time. I feel great when I get up before dawn. On the farm, I’d have fifty head milked by seven a.m. every day.”

  “Well, if you’re just doing their heads, of course you can work that fast.”

  His laughter mingled with the crisp sunshine to wrap her in unaccustomed contentment. Jake made her feel that everything had a calm purpose in life, that the world didn’t need as much supervision as she’d always thought.

  She fell asleep again on his shoulder, listening to him hum along with a bluegrass gospel song pouring from the truck’s satellite radio feed. In Jake’s world, no contrast seemed ironic, and contentment simmered on the magic of the moment.

  AUNT VANESSA’S BLUE, two-story farmhouse sat snuggly in a wooded hollow, surrounded by the winter skeletons of old fruit trees and giant oaks. A dozen fat chickens scurried out of the front yard as they drove up. Vivian opened the truck door and was immediately surrounded by a mountain silence she found almost eerie. Smoke rose from a stone chimney on the house. A small barn with a peaked roof sat a hundred yards away, behind a split-rail fence that curved on either side into the woods. Vivian inhaled aromatic, smoke-tinted air.

  Abruptly, Aunt Vanessa burst out of her clapboard farmhouse with a white sweater flapping around her wiry body and h
er arms thrown out to Jake.

  “My little honey, come give Aunt Vanny a kiss!”

  “You got it, darlin’!”

  Jake loped up to her, and Vivian followed slowly. She stopped behind him and watched with a smile as Jake swept the small, white-haired woman into his arms and swung her around. Aunt Vanessa pounded his broad back with work-gnarled hands, giggling like a child. He put her down gently.

  “Aunt Vanny, you’re still one of the prettiest girls in Tuna Creek.”

  “No, no, Lord, let me see your intended!”

  Vivian didn’t quite know what to say to that remark—his intended?—so she just smiled awkwardly. Aunt Vanessa’s Coltrane eyes—warm and blue—scanned her from toe to head and seemed to approve.

  “Can Aunt Vanny get a hug from you too, darlin’?”

  Before Vivian could answer she found herself being bear-hugged by a fellow short person who smelled of lilac talc and butter. Vivian hugged back uncomfortably. Apparently, the Coltranes never considered anyone a stranger. They grinned at each other. “Oh, this is a special day! Jacob, you’ve got such a pretty fiancée!”

  As Aunt Vanny tugged Vivian up a fieldstone path to the house, Vivian gave Jake a sharply inquiring look, to which he cleared his throat and shook his head in mute denial.

  HE HAD NO chance to explain until two hours later. They sat in Aunt Vanessa’s living room, sipping hot cups of tea thick with fresh cream while Vivian admired antique chairs and hand-embroidered pillows. Aunt Vanessa excused herself to take a blood-pressure pill. As soon as she left the room, Jake slid close to Vivian on the couch.

  “I didn’t tell her we’re engaged. She frets all the time about me bein’ alone, and she just got carried away when she heard you were comin’. I’ll tell her the truth when she gets back.”

  “I can see that your marital status means a lot to her. Don’t ruin her weekend, just tell her later.”

  A mischievous glint came in his eyes. “So you like the idea?”

  “Beat it,” she ordered, and pointed to an opposing chair.

  Chuckling, he moved.