By the Book

by Mary Kay McComas

  “Oh,” she heard the old woman say, and she continued up the stairs. “That’s fine. Another time perhaps.”

  Ellen smiled. Good ol’ Mrs. Phipps. She should have known she’d understand.

  Nearing the top step, she heard the distinctive squeak of a door and her gaze darted to Eugene’s. It was cracked slightly; she could see the iridescent green light from his computer shining through the slit.

  “Forget it, Eugene,” she said, saving herself some time and him the effort of leaving his apartment. “My cupboards are bare and I’m eating out tonight. Seafood,” she added, to warn him against waiting for a doggy bag. “Salmonella, you know.”

  The door squeaked closed again.

  Was life grand or what?

  Unlocking the door to her apartment, she spotted fat Bubba at her feet, waiting patiently to go in. It niggled at the back of her mind that he wasn’t her cat and she didn’t have to have cat hair on her couch if she didn’t want it there. But ... well, he was a cat after all. He wouldn’t understand being locked out. Mildly resenting that which was still a little too nice in her, she opened the door wide to him.

  “Your days in here are numbered, pal,” she told him. “So watch where you drop your hair, okay?”

  Like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower in the sunshine, she picked up here, straightened there, fluffed this, patted that, until her little apartment was just the way she wanted it, neat and cozy. Then like a spider, she moved from bedroom to bath, spinning her seductive web.

  Her skin tingled and her heart fluttered thinking of it. She folded the thin teal blue silk carefully in tissue paper. She emptied most everything out of her handbag and carefully placed the negligee inside it, using her wallet and sunglasses case to keep it from sliding and crumpling at the bottom. She threw in perfume and an extra toothbrush. She wasn’t sure where it would happen, only that it would, and she wanted to be prepared.

  Of course, there was every chance in the world she wouldn’t need half of it. Her breath came quick and a bit ragged, thinking of a first encounter that was all hot wet kissing and the shredding of clothes. But it caught in her throat and her heart thumped hard and painfully as she dreamt of a slow, sensuous, shared seduction. She sighed, slipping chin deep into a tepid bubble bath that cooled her skin, soothed her muscles, and touched something very feminine in her soul.

  Who would have thought Ellen Webster could feel so good? Not that she’d actually been suffering a horrible, tortured life before. She hadn’t. Her life had been okay—but just okay. She simply hadn’t known life could feel so good. Didn’t know a little control could awaken the power and the courage to take more control. Wasn’t aware that love could heighten all the senses, make life seem so much more precious and valuable.

  As for the niggling little nit of guilt that wheedled its way to her consciousness now and then, she easily squelched it. It was her right to be happy. She deserved to be happy. She didn’t have to let people walk all over her. She didn’t have to sit quietly by while others took what belonged to her. Didn’t have to help them prosper. She didn’t have to shop for and have tea with someone just because they were old and sweet. Didn’t have to feed the lazy and strange. She didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do. Didn’t have to do anything that wasn’t in her own best interests. This was her life, and in it, she was the only one who mattered.

  And so it was that when she opened the door to Jonah a short time later, she wasn’t feeling self-conscious but extremely conscious of self. She had an itch she wanted scratched and a man she loved and wanted to possess. She deserved to have everything she wanted. It was her right to be happy.

  Every atom of her body was singing its own rendition of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” The long cotton gauze dress she wore swirled and brushed against her skin like a hundred little feathers. The breeze through the open window kissed the back of her neck like a lover. Her heart was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird—not with fear or anxiety but with excitement and determination. She was all tingles and goose bumps. Pulsing hot blood and desire. She could actually smell her own lust mingling with the citrus scent of her bath.

  “Come in,” to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

  With barely a foot inside the room, he scooped her up and kissed her thoroughly. She laughed and reciprocated. If she’d had the slightest doubt about the outcome of this evening—and she couldn’t really recall one—it was gone before his lips touched hers a second time. She pressed herself close to him, gorged herself with the taste and smell of him, reveled in his touch.

  She was killing him. She’d smiled her intent when she’d opened the door and now she was so pliant and giving in his arms, he was hard-pressed to control himself. Her mouth was a rare fine wine to be sipped and savored and yet he gulped like a rummy sailor, and it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him. He left her gasping for air to deliver hot, searing kisses to her throat. The warm scent of her filled his head like a thick fog. She moaned, low and throaty, and trembled in his arms when his hand covered her breast. He whimpered at the painful pressure between his legs and forced himself to push her away.

  “Ellen, Ellen,” he said, panting as he shook his head, his forehead propped against hers. “Stop. You’re killing me.” He tried to relieve some of his tension with a laugh, but it was weak and ineffective. “It was a great idea, but I have to tell you, the timing stinks.”

  “The timing?” Timing? Granted, her mind was so muddled she barely recognized the word but ... well, it seemed like a great time to her. “What timing?”

  He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He still had his eyes closed and couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mind.

  “I want you so much. I ... I’m crazy about you. I love you,” he said, his hands gripping her upper arms, tighter every time he was tempted to reach out and undress her. “I think the very first time I saw you, I loved you.”

  And their timing stunk how?

  “I know,” she said breathlessly, her hand at his waist, drawing him toward her. “Well, I didn’t know about you, how you felt at first, I mean ... but I know now. And I think maybe I loved you, too, before I actually met you. I know I do now.” She was babbling and he wasn’t budging. She felt like a baby that someone was teasing with a pacifier, holding it close to her mouth then swooping it away, just out of reach. She curled her fingers through his belt loops and tugged a little harder. “I love you, Jonah.”

  He made a sobbing noise, then growled.

  “Let’s get this over with, then,” he said, releasing her, taking a step back and shoving his hands deep in his pockets. He shook his head and smiled at her, almost as amused as he was frustrated.

  First, his words had her pulling up short, hurt and bewildered. Get it over with? And then to stand there, looking at her expectantly ... Tears stung her eyes as real, true anger rumbled in her stomach. Seductress and strumpet started with the same letter, but that’s where the similarities ended in Ellen’s book. She didn’t like his attitude.

  “What?” he asked, leaning forward to see her expression better. “Hey. It’s not that I don’t want to do this. I do. I was just hoping ... well, I wasn’t expecting to do it tonight, is all. I had other plans.”

  “We don’t have to do it tonight,” she said, seething. “We don’t have to do it ever.”

  “No. No. I want to. I do.”

  “Forget it. You had other plans”—she waved a hand in the air—“go.”

  He frowned at her. He was missing some data.

  “I’m supposed to go to dinner with your brother alone?” he asked, wondering if it was some weird midwestern courtship ritual he’d never heard of before. He’d do it if he had to, but he preferred to have her there.

  “What?”

  “Your brother?” He tipped his thumb behind him. “Felix? Down on the front porch, waiting for us?”

  “What?” She stepped around him to look out the door and down the stairs.

  �
��He’s sitting on the front porch. He said you invited him to dinner tonight to meet me, to determine my intentions toward you.”

  “Your what?” She turned back to him even madder than before. “I’m going to kill him.”

  It didn’t take an intelligence analyst to figure the situation out.

  “Don’t you dare laugh, Jonah. This isn’t funny. Your intentions?” she sputtered.

  “I know,” he said, chuckling. “If he’d come up with me, he’d know my intentions.”

  “Oh. I really am going to kill him,” she said, adding up her grievances. Impersonating a concerned brother. Spoiling her seduction. “Stop laughing. People always laugh and forgive him for just this sort of behavior and it makes me crazy.”

  “I’m sorry. It just seems like a very brotherly thing to do, any way you look at it.”

  “Well, he isn’t going to get away with it this time,” she said, grabbing her nightie-stuffed purse. “All he’s getting to eat tonight is his teeth.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, latching onto her wrist when she would have stormed out the door. “I don’t really mind.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “I don’t,” he said again, soft and firm. “Because when dinner’s over, you and I will have dessert alone.”

  How could she stay mad at him with a proposition like that on her plate?

  “But you don’t know Felix.”

  “Then this is as good a time as any to get to know him,” he said, watching the war of emotions on her face. “I want to know your family. I want to know everything about you.”

  It was foolish to think she could hide Felix from him forever.

  It did strange things to his insides to watch her give in to her more generous nature. He loved that she couldn’t hold on to a good mad for very long. He let go of her wrist to loop his arm around her waist. She was still a little stiff. He pressed a kiss to her temple, felt her go slack and lean against him. His lips moved into a smile against her hair, and he closed his eyes, deeply and profoundly happy.

  “Spy stuff, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Spy stuff,” Jonah told Felix after the briefest hesitation. It was all in how you looked at it, he supposed. “It’s more like playing with hidden picture puzzles and figuring out riddles. You see or ... pick up on something different or out of place; you get curious; figure out what it is, why it’s there, who done it.” He grinned.

  “Just like in the movies.”

  Jonah nodded, caught Ellen’s eye, and smiled. “Except I don’t sew things into the lining of my jackets or fold them into the heel of my shoes.” He winked at her, and she twinkled back at him over the rim of her water glass.

  He’d deliberately driven them by the junkyard on their way to the restaurant, curious to see her reaction. She’d been telling him an amusing anecdote about Felix’s brief high school football career and hadn’t skipped a beat, hadn’t noticed the place at all in fact. But through his rearview mirror he would have sworn he saw her brother salute the place with his middle finger. He became curiouser and curiouser.

  “Course not,” Felix said, leaning forward to set his fresh glass of beer on the table, preparing to talk in earnest now. “But you make pretty good money, right?”

  Evidently it had been too much to hope that he could act like a normal, healthy human being for the duration of a single meal. Still, she’d done exactly that—hoped. And she’d been pleased when he’d ordered beer instead of his usual Jack Daniels—until he started drinking it like water.

  “Felix,” she said, a warning in her voice. Both men glanced at her. One amused, the other a bit blurry-eyed.

  “I make captain’s wages. It’s not too bad,” Jonah told him, playing along with the concerned-brother act. He was in love with this guy’s sister and would tell him anything he wanted to know, but he couldn’t get over the feeling that there was more going on than a simple brotherly inquisition.

  Ellen, though pleasant and chatty at the beginning of the meal, had become quiet, tense, and vigilant as her brother ordered beer after beer, his voice growing louder and louder, his gestures larger and more clumsy. Felix, on the other hand, in spite of his heavy drinking and the fact that he was sitting in the middle of a room full of people, appeared to be in hiding. He was watchful—of the front door, the people behind them, and the other customers’ movements around the restaurant. He was jumpy, startling at the slightest noise, at the sudden appearance of a waiter, and frequently for no reason at all. And he was distracted, going through the motions of a routine getting-to-know-you conversation, showing no real interest—until now.

  “But you’re a single guy, never been married. You probably have a good bit stashed away. For a rainy day. A little nest egg.”

  “Some,” he said, nodding.

  “Felix. This isn’t any of your business.”

  “It is if he plans to marry my sister.” He tipped his glass back and poured the second half of the amber fluid down his throat. Licking his lips, he added, “With Dad gone, it’s up to me to make sure her future is ... uh ... um ...”

  “Secure?” Jonah suggested helpfully.

  “Yes. Exactly. Secure.”

  “Felix.” For pity’s sake, she hadn’t managed to seduce him yet, much less get a marriage proposal. “That’s enough. You wanted to meet him, you’ve met, him. His personal life, and especially his finances, aren’t your concern.”

  “They are if he plans to—”

  “We’ve known each other less than a week,” she said, hurrying to cut him off before he said it again. “We haven’t even discussed marriage.” Her gaze snagged Jonah’s. “Yet.”

  He grinned at her and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together, thumbs propped pad to pad as he watched her. She was suddenly too warm and felt like squirming in her chair. He didn’t appear particularly sensitive to the subject; looked pleased even that she’d added that last word.

  Felix, looking from one to the other with a drunken astuteness, rolled his eyes.

  “I need another beer.”

  “Try the water,” she suggested, reluctantly tearing her eyes from Jonah’s. “You haven’t asked about Jonah’s father yet.”

  “I don’t know his father,” he muttered, then recalling his role, he came up with, “Oh. The bloodline. Right.” He wagged his finger at her, then at Jonah. “You got any nuts in your tree?”

  Her eyes closed slowly as she heard Jonah laugh.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, chuckling. “What about you? Anything I should know about your family gene pool?”

  Her eyes popped open again. If he was referring to alcoholism, he was doing so casually and with great good humor.

  Felix thought about it while he waved to get the waitress’s attention for another drink. “I always thought Uncle Lou was a weird fish. Didn’t you, El? You did, I remember.” To Jonah, he said, “Elly used to think he was possessed by the devil because no dog would approach him. He’d call to them and they’d run the other way. Throw sticks for them, and they’d just keep on running. But I think that was because he smelled bad. That guy used to eat cloves of garlic like they were chocolates. Remember that, Elly?”

  She nodded. She could have brought up his disease then, laid it out on the table. If Jonah hadn’t guessed at it yet, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be appalled by it. Maybe the three of them could discuss it? Maybe he could help? Maybe ... maybe another time, she thought, her courage losing out to a deep-seated, irrational shame she had no control over.

  “Course, he was my dad’s uncle by marriage, I think,” Felix was saying, his mind clearly befuddled. “You wouldn’t have to worry about the garlic thing unless you were planning to marry my cousin Dotty. Now, there’s a weird one. ...”

  “Felix,” she said, quietly. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that Jonah’s father has been ill and you haven’t asked how he is yet. It would be polite.”

  “Oh. Well, I didn’t know he was sick,” he said, though he’d been
told several times earlier in the conversation. He looked at Jonah. “How’s your dad?”

  Jonah reached out to toy with an unused dinner knife. “No different. He’s had a stroke,” he said for Felix’s re-edification. He looked at Ellen. “But more interesting.”

  She’d been waiting all night to hear about Earl’s mysterious lady. She perked up instantly, forgetting Felix even existed. That didn’t seem a difficult task for Jonah either, as he spoke directly to her.

  “More human, I guess.”

  “Tell me,” she said, leaning forward. “Mr. Gunther’s daughter-in-law, what’s she like? What did she say?”

  He met her halfway across the table, the tips of his fingers instinctively seeking hers to create a connection between them.

  “She didn’t know what to say at first. She didn’t know I was here,” he said, then added, “But she knew who I was.”

  Ellen grinned. She could tell it meant the earth and stars to him to know his father had claimed him, even in some small way, as his son. That the woman knew he existed was all the proof he needed.

  “She lives on a small nonworking farm outside town. She’s planning to move though. Two of her three children are grown and gone and the third is finishing college, and the place is too big for her to handle alone.” He shrugged. That was neither here nor there, but he had to start somewhere, right? “A real nice lady. She said she’d only spoken to my father a couple of times in person, but that she’d owed him such a huge debt for so long that she felt like she’d known him for most of her life.”

  “Because he saved her husband’s life.”

  He nodded. “They’d just gotten married when he left for Vietnam. No children till after the war.” He could see she understood the significance in that. “We went down to the hospital cafeteria and had coffee. She told me the whole story.”

  She didn’t have to ask him to repeat the story for her. He could have told the whole world, he was so happy to know it, but she was the one he wanted to tell first. So, in a voice that Felix could listen to—or not—he told her the only solid, personal history he knew about his father.