King of the Mountain

by Fran Baker

Carol freed her hand and reached into her coat pocket for a tissue. She wiped her face as best she could without removing her sunglasses, then turned her head in the direction of the gym door. “Jamie thinks the sun rises and sets in him.”

  Kitty knew before she even looked that Carol was referring to Ben. Her heart did a handstand when he came through the door, but she kept her tone deliberately casual. “So does Jessie.”

  “He sure gives the lie to that old adage, Shirtsleeves to shirt-sleeves in three generations. And he’s easy on the eyes too.”

  Kitty agreed on both counts, though she addressed only the first. “That power plant he wants to build would certainly guarantee our jobs for a long time to come.”

  But Carol wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “Wouldn’t your daddy and grandpa spin in their graves if they knew you were seeing the coal baron?”

  “It’s just a basketball game.”

  “Plus a picnic, and dinner afterwards.”

  “A couple of dates, and you make it sound like we’ve posted bans or something,” Kitty said defensively.

  Carol shrugged. “Stranger things have been known to happen.”

  “Don’t read more into this than there is.” If it were any man but Ben, Kitty would have confided in Carol, poured out her feelings and her confusion and her fears. But Carol’s past barbs, coupled with her current marital problems, prevented any personal discussions.

  Besides, Kitty thought dismally, there would be nothing to read—only a blank page in the memory book of her heart—when the bargaining talks resumed and the pay cut issue reared its divisive head.

  Tennis shoes squeaking determinedly, the Cougars streamed out of their dressing room at one end of the court and their opponents from the opposite end. Carol’s boys clambered up the bleachers, arguing all the way about who’d spilled the soda they’d shared.

  “You call me if you need anything, you hear?” Kitty admonished her friend as she stood.

  Carol nodded her assurance and set one squabbling son down on each side of her.

  “How was the popcorn?” Kitty asked when she got back.

  “It was good,” Ben admitted, “but I’m still hungry.”

  “Men,” she muttered with an entirely new meaning as she clapped along with the pep band. “They’re never satisfied.”

  “I can think of something that would satisfy me completely,” he said with a sidelong glance that made her knees go wobbly.

  Saved by the buzzer, she thought gratefully as the teams took the court for the second half.

  The excitement built to a frenzy as the game went down to the wire when the minutes dwindled to seconds and the Cougars remained a point behind.

  Kitty grew hoarse from yelling, Ben from cursing the refs.

  They had been jumping up and down as the occasion warranted, but they rose to their feet to stay—as did everyone else in the gym—when the time clock showed this might well be the final play of the game.

  “Steal it, steal it!” everyone screamed as a girl on the opposing team dribbled the ball toward her own basket.

  Jamie reached to take it away, but the ref blew his whistle and called a foul on her. The fans groaned in unison and her young face crumpled.

  “She never touched her!” Ben hollered in Jamie’s defense.

  “She looks like she’s going to cry,” Kitty noted compassionately.

  Jessie gave Jamie a sportsmanlike pat on the back to perk up her spirits and whispered something in her ear before pointing to a spot directly under the basket and then dropping back from the lineup herself.

  It was a one-and-one, meaning the girl who’d been fouled had to make the first free throw in order to get a second. Standing at the line, she bounced the ball. Once, twice …

  The gym fell as silent as a tomb and the tension mounted unbearably when the ball arced toward the basket.

  “I can’t watch.” Kitty closed her eyes and buried her face against the sleeve of Ben’s navy suit jacket. “You’ll have to tell me what happens.”

  “She missed!” he shouted as the ball hit the rim and then ricocheted off into Jamie’s outstretched hands.

  Kitty looked up just in time to see Jamie spin and throw the ball downcourt to Jessie, who was wide open. She glanced at the clock—eight seconds left!—then back at her daughter and screamed, “Go, Jessie, go!”

  “She made it,” Ben bellowed when Jessie executed a textbook jump shot that put the Cougars one point ahead just as the buzzer sounded.

  Pure pandemonium broke out on the basketball court as the fans swarmed down from the bleachers and surrounded the players.

  “We won!” Laughing and crying at the same time, Kitty turned and threw her arms around Ben.

  “Way to go!” He lifted her off her feet and whirled her till her head spun.

  She looked down at him, dizzy with exhilaration, and he looked up at her, dazzled by the sheer beauty of her smile.

  The crowd, the noise, the lack of privacy … none of it mattered when their eyes connected.

  Like the changing patterns of a kaleidoscope, their emotions shifted and reformed into a vivid rainbow as they each realized that she’d reached out to him. In sharing the thrill of one victory, they’d found another to celebrate.

  He either had to kiss her or let her go, so he lowered her gently to the floor.

  She either had to remove her arms from around his neck or risk making a spectacle of herself, so she released him.

  “Let’s go congratulate the girls,” he said huskily.

  “Yes,” she agreed softly, “let’s.”

  He slipped her coat over her shoulders but carried his own. She preceded him down the aisle and across the floor, thankful that their echoing footsteps covered the thundering of her heart.

  Jessie and Jamie had set a new record for showering and changing their clothes. They were standing by the doors to the parking lot, wearing jeans and faded denim jackets, rehashing the game as they waited for Carol to pick them up.

  “Great play,” Ben said to both of them.

  “Radical,” Kitty seconded.

  Jessie grinned. “It was do or die, you know?”

  Jamie frowned. “Especially after I fouled.”

  “You’ll bring it off next time,” Ben reassured her.

  Carol pulled up to the curb in a car that was as old and as rusty as the one Kitty had lost in the accident.

  “Bye, Ben,” the girls chorused, starting out to the car.

  “See you at noon tomorrow, Mom,” Jessie added over her shoulder.

  The smile that kindled in Ben’s eyes at that news made Kitty’s stomach do a slam-dunk. “I gather you’re free this evening?”

  She nodded, suddenly feeling as tongue-tied as a teenage girl being asked for a first date.

  He put his trench coat on, more to keep his hands occupied than because of the weather. “Would you like to go somewhere and get a bite to eat or listen to some music?”

  She remembered Dottie’s announcement from the week before and latched on to his last suggestion. “There’s an Elvis impersonator performing at Old King Coal’s tonight.”

  Ben curled his lip in perfect imitation of The King. “ ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’ ”

  Kitty groaned at his pun, but came up with one of her own. “Or we could always go back to the sheriffs office and do the ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ ”

  “Now look what you’ve done.” He gave a comical shudder that broke her up. “You’ve got me ‘All Shook Up.’ ”

  They engaged in this ridiculous exchange of song titles made famous by Elvis Presley, while the rest of the fans filtered past them.

  Finally, the school janitor came along and all but swept them out the door and into the parking lot with his push broom.

  The rain had stopped during the game, and a frosted moon smiled behind a scrim of mist. The air smelled of woodsmoke and new beginnings, so pungent Kitty could almost taste them.

  More by accident than by design, they’d parked their cars a few spaces
and several puddles apart. The smooth, dark water reflected stars as brilliant points of light—a mirror couldn’t have shown a crisper image.

  Ben bypassed the Cadillac and walked her to the Blazer, his solicitous hand steering her around the worst of the puddles. “Do you want to go to Old King Cole’s?”

  Kitty hadn’t been out socially in so long, she had no idea where people went for entertainment. “Anywhere … you choose.”

  “All right.” He gave her a quick, assessing glance. “I know of a quiet place where you can pick the music and I can get something to eat.”

  She thought she knew what he was going to suggest and silently blessed the darkness that hid her burning cheeks. “Where?”

  “My house.”

  That’s what she’d both feared and hoped he’d say.

  “It isn’t what you think.”

  “Said the spider to the fly,” she returned wryly.

  “You’ll have your own car,” he pointed out. “You can leave anytime you want.”

  That was some consolation, she thought as he opened the door to the Blazer for her. But a reservoir of hurt prevented her from coming right out and saying yes.

  Ben reached over and lightly brushed her cheek with the knuckles of his free hand, his voice dropping a decible. “Follow me home, Kitty.”

  She felt the voltage rising between them and, right or wrong, decided to go with the flow. “Lead the way.”

  Nine

  “Here?”

  “Lower.”

  “Here?”

  “Oooh, yes.” Kitty sighed and arched like a cat when his fingers found the spot.

  Ben laughed as he scratched her back. “Lucky for you I walked in when I did.”

  “Don’t remind me.” She’d carried her soup kettle to the kitchen while he’d carted his luggage upstairs. When he’d come down, sans suit coat and tie and with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, she’d been frantically scratching her back against the doorjamb. Remembering the time she’d spilled her coffee, she’d wondered if the fates were conspiring against her.

  “Turnabout’s fair play, you know.” Through her corduroy dress, he could feel the delicate sculpture of her shoulder blade and spine, and found himself worrying anew at the man-killing work she did. “If I have an itch I can’t reach …”

  Kitty realized he was alluding to something besides his back and straightened abruptly. “Soup’s on.”

  Ben was hungry, but the sight of her hips as she moved to the stove stirred up another of his appetites, one more ravenous than that in his stomach.

  When she lifted the lid off the soup kettle, a rich aroma wafted through the kitchen and she took a foil-wrapped loaf of bread from the oven. He tamped down his desire for the time being and crossed to the cupboard, saying resignedly, “I’ll get the wine.”

  She ladled their soup into cream-colored Wedgwood bowls; he sliced the bread, then poured their wine into hand-cut Waterford stemware.

  His kitchen table was twice the size of the one in her dining room, and the silverware had probably been handed down from Paul Revere. But they sat at cozy right angles to each other, conversing easily as they ate.

  “Now, aren’t you glad I thought to go by my house and get this?” she asked when he’d finished his second helping of the soup she’d made that morning. A warm sense of satisfaction crept over her when she noted that he had put away a fair amount of the sourdough bread she’d brought, too.

  “It beats all to hell those cheeseburgers and fries I was going to buy.” After leaving the school parking lot, Ben had detoured by the local drive-in to get something to eat, and Kitty had followed him inside.

  He chuckled now, recalling the scene she’d made. “But I don’t think the counter girl appreciated you clutching your heart and saying ‘Holy cholesterol, Batman’ in front of the other customers.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “A ten-dollar tip covers a lot of embarrassment.”

  “That was the smallest bill I had.” He raised his wineglass to his lips, and she caught herself watching his full mouth upon the rim.

  Her heart thumped crazily as her eyes traveled to his hand, strong yet gentle, with its long fingers curled around the lead crystal stem. A speck of coal dust, eternally embedded now but hardly distinguishable from the shading of hair on his wrist, made for a tantalizing contrast with his well-trimmed nails.

  She’d thought she had effectively stomped down any fantasies she’d ever harbored. But she could suddenly see that hand reaching out to caress her breasts, feel it sliding down her stomach to her thighs, to—

  “Refill?” he asked, setting his glass back on the table and shaking her from her state of suspended animation.

  “Oh—no, thanks.” She glanced down, trying to recover her equanimity, and found she hadn’t finished her first glass. “One is my limit, especially when I’m driving.”

  “Let’s go listen to some music then.” He hitched his chin toward the sun room, only a few steps away, drawing her gaze in the same direction.

  A torcherie lamp cast an intimate glow behind the seductive suede sofa, triggering an instant panic attack on her part. She’d come to his house of her own accord, fully aware of where it might lead. But here she sat, racking her brain for a plausible excuse to delay the moment of truth.

  “The dishes!” she remembered aloud.

  “They’re not going anywhere.”

  She rose and reached for his bowl. “It won’t take me a minute to—”

  He grabbed her slender wrist, holding it loosely but effectively. “The maid will wash them tomorrow.”

  She looked down, pleading her case to his dark, imprisoning fingers. “The least we can do is put them in the sink.”

  He released her, sensing she needed some more time to come to terms with what was happening between them, and stood to help her. “But this is all the work we’re going to do.”

  While they cleared the table, Ben told her about the week he’d spent in Washington seeking federal approval for his power plant. The kitchen lights glanced off his high cheekbones, softening the hard edges, and Kitty realized he defied pigeonholing—getting grubby with the miners one week and suiting up with senators the next.

  A smoldering desire fired her as she recalled another, more tender side of the man. But sadness seeped in to take its place when he mentioned visiting his godfather, unwittingly driving the stake of their differences through her heart.

  She pushed aside her reservations, determined to make the most of the time they had. Pertly she informed him that she’d voted for the other candidate, and would again if she had the opportunity. He laughed and said he never argued politics or religion with his dates.

  “Besides, it doesn’t matter what political party you belong to,” he added, pouring himself a second glass of wine before recorking the bottle and turning off the kitchen light. “What really matters is that you voted.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed, still nursing the glass of wine she’d begun at dinner as she followed him into the sun room. “I know people who’ll go on and on about a certain candidate, but they can’t be bothered to go to the polls.”

  “What would you like to hear?” He walked over to the entertainment center and pointed to the wooden rack that contained his extensive collection of compact discs, leaving the choice to her.

  “Oh, gosh, I don’t know.” Looking through them, she was surprised to find they had similar tastes in music. She finally picked two discs, a Roy Orbison and—she couldn’t resist—an Elvis Presley. “Either one of these.” “How about both of them?” He studied her selections; smiling when he saw the second one, then turned on the machine and adjusted the volume to suit him. “That way I won’t have to keep jumping up and changing discs.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Kitty settled herself on the sofa as the forthright lyrics of “Pretty Woman” filled the sun room.

  Ben sat down so that he was facing her and rested his bent elbow on the back of the soft cushion. “I just reali
zed I haven’t told you how beautiful you look tonight.”

  She smiled and ducked her head shyly. “Thank you.”

  “Red is really your color.”

  “I bought this dress when I was still a secretary.”

  “Do you miss working in an office?”

  “I don’t miss it on payday.”

  His gray eyes grew cloudy with concern. “It’s too bad you can’t make the same money doing something safer for a living.”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “It’s too bad employers don’t place a higher premium on ‘women’s work.’ ”

  The hard-driving rhythm of “Mean Woman Blues” cut through the silence, and they tacitly changed the subject.

  His glass touched hers, and the dark knuckle of his second finger grazed her fairer one as he proposed a toast. “To the Cooperville Cougars. May they go all the way.”

  She wondered if she was reading too much into the brushing of hands, not to mention that last bit of phrasing, but she touched his glass in return. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Their eyes met over the rims of their raised glasses, and, though she took only a sip, she felt the crisp white wine rushing to her head.

  Ben drained his glass, then set it on the antique cartwheel that served as a cocktail table. “Jessie’s a terrific kid.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And one hell of a basketball player.”

  Kitty looked down at the pale gold liquid remaining in her glass. “I told her if she’d keep her grades up and her skills sharp through high school, she might get a college scholarship.”

  “You’ve done a magnificent job with her,” he said. “I mean that. Whether she gets a college scholarship or not, you can be proud of her.”

  “She’s been a real joy to me,” she said softly. “But every time I read one of those articles about the long-term effects of coming from a broken home, I feel guilty all over again about my divorce.”

  The haunting strains of “Only the Lonely” underscored already-bruised emotions.

  He got to his feet and walked over to the sound system to turn Orbison off and Presley on. “Better to come from a broken home than to live in one,” he said.

  She heard the bitterness in his voice and waited for an explanation. But none came. There’d been other hints of friction in his family, most notably the night he’d eaten dinner at her house.