by Jackie Weger
“Save your breath. We’re going the distance today. That is, if you think you can keep up.”
It was a frontal attack, roughly done, and to Justine’s way of thinking, wholly unjust. All she had said yesterday was that she wasn’t into men. Had he dwelled on that? Taken it so personally that his ego was bent out of shape? Game playing! Damn it! She couldn’t juggle him along with all else.
“I’ll try,” she said. “If I fall behind, you go on. Don’t wait for me.”
“Suits me.”
Justine let him pull ahead. He was being downright nasty. With no good reason. A few yards farther on and he missed her at his side.
“Fagged already?” he called over his shoulder.
That did it. “I think I’ll pass today.”
“Can’t handle it?”
He was challenging her as if she were guilty of some infraction of the rules, his rules.
“Guess not,” she said, mustering a superficial smile.
He hesitated long enough to track her once from head to toe. As if suddenly he did not wish her to see what might lie in his eyes, he turned and went on down the road.
She walked back to the house.
Deep down she expected Tucker to follow.
He didn’t.
She was disappointed. Keep it in perspective, an inner voice cautioned. Considering the upsets in her life during the past year, it was little more than the irritation of a pesky fly.
She had wanted it nipped. It was nipped.
She opened the thermos and poured coffee. There was nothing that said she couldn’t enjoy the morning, the hour or so she had to herself before others in the household awakened. It was just as pleasant without Tucker as with him.
No, it wasn’t.
He made her feel alive.
When he looked at her, she felt a woman again. He made her forget she was a discard.
But what was the point of thinking about him? She had decided against him at the very outset. Events had proved that decision wise. The only thing left to her was to come to terms with her future as a woman—what her life might be like without the chance of ever remarrying.
The craving for a cigarette overtook her.
The craving to be loved and wanted, to be held dear came on just as strong. In that context she no longer thought so much about Philip as the center of her existence. What she did miss, what she mourned most was the cushion, the shelter of being married, and the sharing of life’s burdens. Oh, give it up. Things are the way they are. Accept it.
She took her second refill and sat on the front porch steps.
The shade was thicker there, the dome of trees hugging the house seeming to create a hush. It fit her mood.
She stared into her cup and forced every single thought out of her brain. It was a trick she had learned in college to make her brain a clean slate upon which to cram for exams.
Bit by bit Tucker’s image crossed her mind’s eye. His dark hair, brushed back from his face, yet curling about his ears and at the nape, filled the slate. The nose, straight and narrow between dark eyes that could glare with unnamed fury or light with disarming humor.
She began the technique again, trying to obliterate his image. It hung on as if nailed in place.
What a fool you are, Justine! If the man knew how much he was in your thoughts, he would think you ridiculous.
Becoming obsessed with a man she hardly knew was outside all boundaries of good sense.
The bottom step squeaked. Her introspection faded, her eyes lighting on the size eleven, Nike-clad foot. Her gaze traveled upward until she was looking at his face.
“You give up too easily,” he said.
“I didn’t know I was being tested. Anyway, I promised myself to avoid negative vibes. You were bristling with them.”
“Yep. Guilty as charged.”
He looked as if it cost him everything he owned in the world to say it.
“Why?”
He sat down on the step beside her. “I’ll tell you why. You’re driving me crazy. I haven’t had a decent light’s sleep since you moved in. I don’t know what it is with you. I’ve seen hundreds of attractive women—not one of them ever caused me a sleepless night.”
“We make too much noise? The kids are disturbing you? You’re the one who encourages them to visit you every afternoon after work.”
“Coyness doesn’t suit you. You know what I mean.”
She was afraid she did. He was dispensing with trivialities, insisting that she do the same. An airy sensation in her stomach made her sit up straight. “On the off chance that I do know what you’re talking about, what do you suggest?”
He shrugged, shifting uncomfortably. “Nothing. You gonna drink that coffee?”
She passed it to him. “Nothing?”
“Some relationships are all chemical—”
“I told you I don’t feel—”
“I have a hunch you do.” The coffee was lukewarm. He drank it down in a couple of swallows.
She stared at his hands holding the cup, masculine hands with blunt, trimmed nails. She had an urge to trace the prominent veins running the length of his arm. Despite her denials it was too easy to imagine herself folded into his arms, those hands moving over her body, caressing her breasts, her thighs, the parts of her that made her wholly woman. Her throat tightened so that when she spoke the words were barely audible.
“There’s no law that says we have to get involved. We’re not at all suited.”
“Believe me, I agree with that on more than one front. I’m just a country boy with one year of college under my belt. I work for the telephone company.” He was supervisor of a crew that laid cable to commercial buildings now, but early on he had worked residential properties. He had seen all manner of houses, all manner of furnishings. Justine’s furniture bespoke affluence far beyond his own. That gave a cautious man pause. He went on doggedly. “I can’t dance more than a two-step—”
“What does dancing—?”
“I’ve got my dad to look after—”
Justine felt a swell of panic, an excruciating awareness of his nearness. Their arms were almost touching. “Maybe we’re on the same wavelength because I have my mother and Agnes—that puts us in the same boat. You’re just misreading the signals. You know the old saying ‘Misery loves company.’ It’s the wave of the future—children caring for their elderly parents. We’re part of that. Maybe—”
“What a bunch of crock. C’mon, give me credit where credit’s due. I’ve got eyes and ears.” He looked at the slow rise and fall of her breasts and had the idea that she would be astonishing in bed—lovely and surprising and ardent. He tried to split his senses, keep that image to himself, and failed abysmally.
“If you think I’ve led you on, you’re wrong.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he said hoarsely. “It’s the law of nature that’s worrying me. I’m having a damned hard time of it just sitting here next to you without reaching for you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” He couldn’t believe he was blurting out what was on his mind. That was another thing she was doing—loosening his tongue as if it was slick with whale oil. He felt he could tell her anything. Even about the book. He was all at once drawn to the long line of her throat, the shape of her mouth.
He drew closer to her, hesitated a fraction, put an arm around her, and touched his mouth to hers. Briefly, but it was enough.
A vein pounded in his temple. “See what I mean? I felt that in my gut.”
Numbed, all her senses thrown into chaos, Justine sat utterly still.
Someone called her name. It took a few seconds before she realized the voice was not Tucker’s.
Justine started, then leaped guiltily to her feet. Agnes stood just inside the screened door Milo had rehung, clutching her robe closed with her gnarled fingers.
“I thought I heard voices. What’re you doing?” She eyed Tucker with open disapproval, her mouth drawn down at the corners. “What
’s he doing here at this time of morning? It’s hardly light.”
“We—” Justine wavered and appealed to Tucker with her eyes.
He didn’t help her. He judged the hearing distance between Agnes and themselves and lowered his voice. “I want you, but it is too fast, too—” He left the rest unsaid, raising his voice for Agnes’s benefit. “I was just leaving.” He thrust the cup at Justine and retreated before he did some dangerous, stupid thing like ask her for a date or feel her out on what she thought about tattooed rednecks who aspired to write cookbooks. And in front of an audience yet!
Free floating, legs rubbery, Justine sidled through the screen door held open by Agnes. She felt robbed by the interruption and tried to keep her exasperation in check.
“It’s too early for you to be up and about, Agnes. Why don’t you try for another hour or two of sleep?”
“Justine, are you seeing that man on the sly?”
On the sly? Justin’s mouth opened with the shock of such an accusation. “No. Though, if I want to see him, I’m free to do it.” A trace of anger crept into her voice. “I’m single. And it wasn’t my doing.”
“Are you implying—”
“I’m not implying anything. Don’t you see? I’m trying to put our lives together. I need your support, not innuendo.”
“I’m… I’m sorry. I was only curious.”
“Please go back to bed. I’d like to get some work done this morning before the whole house is roused.”
“Perhaps I ought to start looking for my own place.”
“Don’t talk silly. Your home is with us. You’re family.”
“I’m not blind. That man finds you attractive. I think you like him, too.”
The old woman was begging for reassurance. Justine did her best to give it. “Agnes, should I ever get involved with a man, and I say ever because right now it’s the farthest thing from my mind, you would still have a home with me, with us.”
“That’s what you say, but what man would want a reminder of your past hanging about?”
“What would you call Pip and Judy Ann?”
“That’s different.”
“I have no intention of playing games with my children’s lives or yours. Now, please, I do need to get to work.”
“All right. But if ever you want me to go, you have only to ask.” She went back to her room and closed the door with a soft swish.
Justine went into her office, opened the French doors, sat at her desk, booted up, and spent a melancholy half hour staring at the blinking cursor on the computer screen.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that moment when he had put his mouth to hers. For those few moments she’d been suspended, finding herself on the brink of believing that all things were possible.
But of course they weren’t. Loneliness was a potent illness, its cure, addictive. Tucker was not the cure. She was going to have to get past this.
One of the unspoken reasons for taking the lease-purchase on this house far away from all she had known was to remove herself from temptation. She was determined not to become a divorcee who scurried to every dinner party in hopes of an available strong shoulder to lean on, or one who hung out in singles bars just to avoid a lonely night. Worse, she did not want to find herself sitting by a phone waiting for a call that seldom came, or if it did, was only to set up an hour in some seedy motel.
No, that scene was not for her.
She was high-minded. Work was going to salvage her life.
High-minded? An interior voice laughed.
Justine heard Tucker’s truck rev up, caught a glimpse of it on the lane as it went past the persimmon trees.
So, get to work! Get busy. Forget Tucker Highsmith. His whispered words were nothing more than laying groundwork. He just wanted someone to sleep with. That’s what the conversational minuet was all about. Couldn’t do more than a two-step. Pooh! The man had danced a verbal circle around her and punctuated it with a kiss. For one brief moment she had hoped for the kiss to go on, become deeper. The only excuse she could offer was that she had no previous experience with any man even remotely like Tucker.
She leaned back in her chair and massaged the back of her neck. Four solid hours of work. And well-done, too. The program was taking shape, and with far less difficulty than she had imagined. Her computer skills were up to the task. It was a good feeling.
She put her fingers back on the keyboard. The screen suddenly went blank. “No!” she yelped.
Pip stuck his head into the office. “The TV went off.”
“Justine!” called Pauline. “The toaster just died.”
“Something’s the matter with the washer,” informed Agnes. “It stopped right in the middle of a spin cycle.”
Justine tried a light switch. “The electricity has gone off. I’ve lost a whole morning’s worth of work!”
Pauline went through the rest of the rooms in the house. “All the lights work in the bedrooms.”
“Let’s find the breaker box,” said Justine.
There was no such thing as a modern-day circuit breaker. They located a fuse cabinet in the bathroom. None of them knew how to change the fuses, and even if one of them had known, there weren’t any extras.
“Don’t touch it, Justine. You might get electrocuted.”
“Couldn’t we unscrew the ones meant for bedrooms and put them—”
“How do you know which are blown?”
Defeated, Justine put in a call to Mr. Kessler. “It’s an old house,” he told her in his high, thin voice. “It’s not wired two-twenty. You can’t run a half-dozen different appliances at once.”
“Why didn’t you mention that before?”
“Well, little lady, you didn’t ask. Tell you what—I’ll run some fuses out and show you how to change them.”
“When?” She had an entire morning’s worth of work to reconstruct. She felt jinxed.
“Today. Later this afternoon.”
She thanked him and rang off.
“Well,” Pauline said, “Agnes and I might as well get to my driving lesson.”
Justine was filled with a negative energy. It would be a useless waste of time to sit and stare at the computer while she waited for the estate agent.
She cornered the kids.
“Why don’t we three go for a walk? Pip, you can show us your fishing hole.”
“Wheeler says if a woman gets her smell on the place the fish won’t bite.”
“That’s drivel. But if you want to keep it your secret place, fine with me. It’s time we investigated the storage buildings out back anyway. There may be a lawnmower. You can cut the grass.”
“All right. I’ll show it to you, but you can’t get too close.”
Judy Ann gathered scraps to feed the chickens.
Milo Roberts was in the backyard. Justine peered at the line of holes he was digging.
“You must be after a whole nest of gophers,” she said by way of greeting.
Frowning, he held the shovel poised over a deep hole. “Yes’um.”
“You do fill those up again, don’t you? If someone were to step into one, they’d likely break an ankle.”
“Yes’um.”
He seemed disinclined to be sociable. An eccentric old man, Justine thought, hurrying the children along. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Milo was watching them. She lifted her hand.
Judy Ann insisted on taking the short cut onto Tucker’s property.
“No, sweetheart. He isn’t home. We shouldn’t—”
“He doesn’t care, Mommy. He said so. He said I could feed the chickens anytime I like. How can I feed them if we don’t go where they are?”
That excuse was all Justine needed to linger at the edge of the yard to study the renovated tobacco barn.
One entire downstairs wall had been given over to windows capped with brown-and-white striped awnings. She could see through to the opposite yard, the view made possible by a sliding glass door in the back wall. It seemed large an
d cheerily sunlit.
Just looking at where he lived, ate, and slept made her feel light-headed and weightless, made her heart thud like a trapped bird.
Judy Ann took her hand. “C’mon, I want to show you the baby chicks. And the garden. I want a garden, too, Mommy. You’ll have to buy me some seeds. I can grow all our food.”
Pip retrieved a fishing pole lying along the side of an outbuilding and, from beneath an old square of damp canvas, a can of bait.
“No sense wasting a trip to the river,” he said.
Justine envied than their familiarity with the place, their apparent easy friendship with its owner.
Consciously she avoided the idea that she might be falling in love with Tucker, while another part of her was infused with a hopeless yearning.
She couldn’t let Tucker into her heart. Well, she could, but only as a friend, a neighbor. She needed time—time to sort everything out, time to make it on her own, to be her own person. She had to answer the question for herself, see if she could break the boundaries into success and support herself and the children. Independence. She would never give it up again. The cost of losing it was too high.
“Hurry up, Mom!”
Displaying a counterfeit show of gaiety, Justine ran to catch up with her children. Together they followed the path to the river.
— • —
Lottie had ideas going six ways to a dozen, trying with all her might to focus on just one that would do her some good. Distractions were everywhere.
The one bothering her most at the moment was that mule-faced Milo Roberts! From her perch at the window she could see him poking about. Dig, dig, dig, that’s all he did. In all the years he’d been looking, he had never even come close.
There had been lonely times when watching Milo search for her money and silver had been her only entertainment. Things were different now. She wished he’d go away.
He was so many cousins removed from Elmer he could hardly count himself a Roberts, but he did it anyway, no doubt thinking that gave him the right to go poking about for things that didn’t belong to him. It galled her to think her house and land had been handed down to him. ’Course, he was sly about it, never once telling a tenant.
She remembered clearly the day Milo had first arrived in the house. He had brought a newspaper with him that announced in bold black that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United States, had died.