The old overgrown trees and bushes would have to be taken out, roots and all, so that a good, smooth, lasting sidewalk could be put down. Just as Brad’s old habits and wariness would have to be torn aside if a new relationship was going to bind them.
And was one? By the time noon rolled around, Penny was pretty sure she wanted to try. All she needed was a plan. A workable plan. She drove over to Barbeque Bill’s to pick up some lunch before she headed back to the nursery. But as she was about to pull into the drive-through lane, she saw Dorothy at the restaurant door, waving at her. With a little fast maneuvering. Penny pulled into a parking space.
Dorothy came rushing over, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “I’ve been trying to find a minute to call you,” she said. “You’ll never guess what happened?”
Penny felt her heart leap with hope as she got out of the truck. Were things falling into place for all of them? “Toto proposed?”
Dorothy gave her an odd look. “No, the Boys and Girls Club float got funded. And we’re going to need some press releases on it.”
“Sure.” That was great, really it was, but a different kind of great. They walked toward the restaurant. “What happened?”
“I have no idea. I got a call from the bank yesterday afternoon that a donation had been sent in.”
“From whom?”
Dorothy shook her head and pulled open the door. “Mr. Anony Mous.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t help but laugh and give Dorothy a hug. This was an answer to their prayers. “Any clue as to who it is?”
“Five thousand dollars was wired in from some bank in Colorado so I don’t think it’s somebody local. Maybe somebody sent it because of you being on that TV show.”
“Five thousand!” Penny cried. “Good golly!” This was so exciting, especially if she had a hand in it. “I suppose it’s possible it was because of the TV show.” They got into line to order their lunches and reality caught up with her. “Unless it was specifically sent for the float. That came up after I was on TV.”
“Oh, yeah.” Dorothy frowned. “And nobody knew about it except a few people.”
“So, it’s got to be somebody local.”
“But who?”
“Good question.” They moved up a few feet. “I thought we had tapped all the local sources of funding ages ago. Hard to believe there’s somebody out there we didn’t know about.”
Dorothy’s eyes narrowed with thought. “What about Brad? He’s sort of local and sort of not.”
“Brad?” Penny laughed. “Brad doesn’t have five thousand dollars to give anyone. You saw his car.”
“But maybe—”
The soft ringing of Penny’s cell phone interrupted them and Penny unclipped her phone from her belt while the other people in line turned to look at her.
“They calling you for dates while you’re getting lunch, Penny?” someone farther back in line called out.
“Maybe it’s Hollywood asking her to star in some Mel Gibson movie,” someone else said.
Penny just laughed. “It’s probably Carl. Or Gran reminding me to have some lunch.” She opened the connection. “Penny here.”
“Ms. Donnelly?” It was a stranger’s voice. “This is Jane Danvers of the Smithsonian—”
Penny stopped breathing as the woman rattled on about The Wizard of Oz in Retrospect conference, then about the prestigious nature of the event and the eminent scholars that would be there. Fear clutched at Penny’s stomach. They were telling her she wasn’t good enough to even have applied. That she should just withdraw her abstract quietly or they would make a laughingstock of her.
Penny felt her heart drop to her feet as Dorothy dragged her a little farther up the food line.
“—and we’d like you to lead that workshop.”
“I beg your pardon?” Penny must have missed something. Her ears must not work when her feet were moving. For a minute it sounded like they wanted her to speak at the conference. “I’m sorry I didn’t quite hear what...”
The woman was going on. “We were really impressed by the way you were able to relate the whole Oz theme to today’s culture.”
“Oh?”
“And so we were hoping you would be able to present at the conference.”
“I see.” She was feeling light-headed, like she had when she’d been under the klieg lights too long when modeling. Maybe this was all a hallucination.
“I can understand if you want to think about it,” the woman said. “But—”
“No,” Penny said quickly.
“No?” The woman’s voice was regretful. “I’m so sony—”
Oh, heavens, what had she done? “No, I mean I don’t have to think about it,” Penny said. “I’d be happy to.”
“Wonderful,” the woman replied. “We’ll have the specifics out in the mail to you sometime after Labor Day.”
The connection was broken, but Penny just stood there, holding her phone. She had done it! She had been asked to be part of the conference.
“Penny?” Dorothy touched her arm. “You okay?”
Penny took a deep breath and turned her phone off, then carefully clipped it back on her belt. Okay? She was better than okay, she was great! But how did she play this?
Gran had already told everyone she was speaking at the conference, like it was a done deal, so to start screaming and jumping up and down would make people ask questions.
“Yeah. Sure. I’m fine,” she said, lightly, offhandedly. “That was just a call inviting me to speak at that Oz conference I told you about ages ago.”
“Really? How cool!”
But Penny just looked ahead of them at the line as if the call had been nothing. “Oh, terrific, it’s almost our turn. I’m starving.”
It was one thing to pretend nonchalance for a few minutes, but something in her needed to celebrate. She had to share this with someone—someone who knew the true situation.
Brad.
Dorothy pulled out first, taking a left out of the parking lot. Penny gave her a honk for good luck, then she took a right onto Calumet and headed for Brad’s uncle’s house. The truck smelled of barbeque chicken but it wasn’t her stomach that was hungry.
She parked the truck in the alley behind the old redbrick house, then grabbed up the lunch and got out. The yard was weedy and overgrown, and the paint trim on the house was flaking, but the place looked like a palace. And she was Cinderella arriving for the ball.
She cut across the yard, skipped up the front porch and through the wide-open front door. “Hello,” she called out. “Anybody home?”
There was a moment of silence, then Brad appeared at the top of the grand old staircase. Looking pretty darn grand himself.
“Penny?”
“You look disappointed. What’s the matter? Did you order a redhead?”
He gave her a questioning look as he came down the stairs, then stared pointedly at the covered paper cups in her hand. “What’s in the glasses?” he asked. “Or would it be more appropriate to ask what used to be in them? You look like you’ve been sampling the happy juice.”
“Don’t be a fuddy-duddy,” she said and brought the lunch into the living room where she put it down on a sheet-draped end table. “Here I come, ready to celebrate and you’re trying to put a damper on things.”
He had closed the front door and come into the living room doorway, leaning against the door frame. “What are we celebrating?”
She just grinned at him and spread her arms wide. “I’m in. I’m in.”
His expression was so befuddled that Penny burst into laughter and danced across the floor to throw her arms around him.
“Oh, I am so happy, I can’t stand it,” she said.
His arms came around her, maybe to steady her, maybe to hold her, but she didn’t care the reasons. This was the right place to celebrate her triumph and this was the right person to celebrate it with. She leaned forward and brushed his mouth with hers.
It was supposed to be a celebrat
ory kiss. A kiss between friends. A kiss that was like the clinking of champagne glasses. But the soft sweetness of his lips caught her by surprise and something moved in her soul. She felt a stirring that had little to do with her invitation to the conference and absolutely nothing to do with Oz.
She moved closer into his arms. A fire exploded inside her, engulfing all her senses into a hot, burning torrent of need, even as warning lights went on in her head. That fire wanted to consume her as she wanted to consume him, but she needed to think this through.
They pulled apart slowly, and a measure of sanity returned. But only a small measure. And even that was not too strong as she saw echoes of her own confusion in his eyes.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I don’t know what for, but I’ve always liked to see you happy.”
Her joy came rushing back, almost sending her teetering out of control. What was she so worried about? This wasn’t forever, it was just now. And wasn’t that all she wanted?
She threw her arms back around him, needing him near, needing to hear his heart beating so close to hers. “I’m going to speak at The Wizard of Oz conference next year.”
His arms came around her in a gentle enfolding. “That’s great.”
His voice was so soft, but the emotion in it was so strong. He knew how much she had wanted this, and he seemed as pleased as if he had done it himself. The honor was even more special because she could share it with him. Of all her friends and family, Brad was the person who best knew what a struggle was. And what a victory. Not even Alex realized how long or how desperately she’d dreamed of this sort of recognition. How had fate sent Brad to her at this time?
“I almost can’t believe it.” She let go of him enough to look up into his eyes, to revel in the joy there. “I never expected to hear this soon. All they have is my abstract.”
“They just knew a good thing when they saw it.”
She laughed and cuddled up close again. “Maybe they hardly got any and everyone who submitted got accepted.”
“Hey!” He held her away from him, a frown on his face and anger in his eyes. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”
She’d only been joking, but laughed at the outrage in his voice. He was so cute. She pulled him back into her arms. “It’s okay,” she said. “’Cause I’m going to wow them with my paper. They won’t know what hit them.”
“I can relate to that,” he murmured.
All of a sudden everything changed. They weren’t talking about the conference anymore. She looked up at him, her smile fading slightly. Or maybe it went inward somehow so that it warmed her heart instead of her lips.
A bemused look rode on his face, but his eyes kept straying to her mouth. Kept flickering with a hint of the fire she felt in his hands. A burning that was flickering deep in her own heart. When had longing turned to need and wishing turned to necessity? When had his arms become her haven of happiness? When had childish dreams become an adult reality?
“I brought us lunch,” she said. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“That might be a good idea.”
But his arms did not release her, his gaze did not let her go. His eyes just searched hers for aeons of time, asking questions his lips dared not say.
“It might be,” she agreed. “Though there’s no need to rush it.”
“It might spoil.”
“Not for ages.”
“Are you sure?”
The question wasn’t about feeding their bodies but feeding their souls. It was about the touch of their hands, the hunger on their lips, the brief union of their souls. It was about a moment of passion and a moment of ecstasy.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said softly.
But neither moved. They stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed forever. Long enough for the angels to gather a choir. Long enough for Penny to change her mind a hundred thousand times, if she had wanted to. Which she didn’t.
“You sure you’re hungry?” she asked.
“More than you can imagine.”
She went ever so slowly back into his embrace. It was ever so sweet. A thousand times more perfect than she could have dreamed. His lips were water to her parched soul. His touch was the sun to her chilled heart. She felt as if she had been asleep and was now coming back to life.
The touch of his mouth on hers had been tender, gentle, and then grew harder and more demanding. She felt an answering hunger deep in her soul. A hunger that could not, would not, be contained.
She ran her hands over his back, pulling him close, delighting in the feel of him. Her fingers slid over the soft fabric of his shirt, but underneath she could feel the warmth of his skin and the steel of his muscles. She could feel, too, in some way, the racing of his heart. Maybe it was through her touch, or maybe through her lips still on his. Or maybe it was as an echo of the pounding of her own heart.
His hands were on her, awakening a passion she’d never known before, but his was a need less patient than hers. He pulled her shirt from her jeans and let his fingers feel her skin. Over her back in a slow and steady caress. Up toward her shoulders, and down below her waist. His hands were on fire, and spreading heat over her. The slightest touch, the merest whisper of his hand on her, left a fiery trail for her heart to follow.
They pulled slightly apart as if of one mind, but still lay in each other’s arms. Hearts pounding. Breath a memory. But the blaze still consumed them.
“This isn’t how I planned to spend the lunch hour,” Brad whispered into her hair.
“We can still stop,” she said.
He laughed. She could feel his body tremble though he barely made a sound. “You think so?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s enough cold water in all of Indiana.”
She turned back to his lips, heady with the knowledge that she stirred him. And heavy with the hunger that his nearness arose in her.
Her touch was less patient and slow as her hands ran over his body. Under his shirt they slid, to feel the magic of his bare skin. His back, his chest, then down across his stomach, her splayed fingers felt a tremor deep within him. Or within her. An explosion building.
He undid her bra, then pulled it and her T-shirt off so that his lips could move from hers, to capture the tips of her breasts. First one, tugged and sucked at, licked and teased and tormented. Then the other, as her heart raced out of control. Her hands, somehow still able to move even as her body cried out for Brad’s, tugged at the buttons of his shirt until she finally freed him of it.
But then Brad stopped and looked around them. “Are you game for this?” he asked. “We can go upstairs.”
“Maybe you can,” she said. “But I’m not in the mood for a walk.” She took him over to the sofa and tossed back the sheet covering it, then pulled him down with her.
Lying on the old sofa, their bodies pressed together, seemed to shorten their fuses and added urgency to their every move. His kiss was hot and hungry, searing and searching as his tongue probed into her mouth. Her hands were demanding as they clutched at him, held him, pulled him closer than it was possible to be.
Then he was tugging off her jeans, she was pulling off his shorts until there was nothing between them. Flesh against flesh. Hot need against moist hungry heat. Entwined, heart to heart, their bodies spoke to the other. Racing pulse to racing pulse. Hungry lips to hungry lips. Burning soul to burning soul.
She’d never known such hunger, such elemental need. It was as if part of her had been missing and now was found. Her hands wondered at the feel of him, her lips marveled at his taste. She wanted to touch him all over, to caress every inch of him, and to know he came alive at her stroking.
But his hands cupped her breasts and he took the tender tips into his mouth, and she forgot everything else. She was all hunger and need. The fire she’d felt earlier was nothing compared to the desire shooting through her now. She melted under his touch, becoming one with him in spirit and in time.
Moving beneath him, she opened her heart and took
him in, and they became one in body. As they lay together, their bodies pulsed to a timeless rhythm. A symphony fashioned in the stars. Locked in each other’s arms, they let the heat engulf them and throw them into the heavens in a wild spray of shooting stars.
It was magic and more. It was the world coming to an end, or maybe beginning. It was wonderful.
Then afterward, as their hearts slowed to a mere mortal speed, they still lay on the old sofa. As if neither could break the spell.
“This wasn’t how I had pictured this,” he said after a long moment.
“Oh?” She was still trying to catch her breath, her mind was still fuzzy. She had thought it was perfect. Magic. Heaven here in Chesterton. “What do you mean?”
He smiled down at her, planting gentle little kisses along her neck. “I had thought maybe candlelight and soft music. A romantic setting.”
“This isn’t romantic?” she teased and let her fingers slide down his jaw.
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “Actually, it’s perfect. Me and you.”
“What more do we need?”
“Exactly,” he said as he leaned down to take her lips with his once again.
Brad looked across the VFW hall at the couples forming up their squares for a dance. This had to be a nightmare. Or some diabolical form of punishment. He’d had his moment of ecstasy earlier that day in Penny’s arms and now he was paying for it by having to go to a square dance.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Her eyes were like two lakes, radiating pools of soft concern as they had back in the seventh grade when she’d ask him why he came to school so early. He used to worry back then that she knew Mrs. Hartman was secretly slipping extra food into his lunch and that, in gratitude for both the extra food and the fact she never said a word to him about it, he’d started coming early to help the teacher with classroom chores. After a time though, he realized Penny just wanted everyone to be happy. And she still did.
“I’m fine,” he said, though his heart was heavy. Remorse was the only feeling he could put a finger on, not annoyance at being here. How could he be annoyed at anything when he was with Penny? “Ginger, peachy dandy fine.”
If I Only Had A...Husband (The Bridal Circle #1) Page 17