Instructions for Love

by June Shaw

  Chapter Twelve

  Erin sat in the master bedroom, staring but seeing nothing. She had never let go of anything of importance, not her first stuffed doll with the missing eye that still sat on her bed in the apartment or the stories she’d written in school that made her proudest, all sealed in a box on the top shelf of her closet. She still had her prom dress, although the boy she’d gone to the dance with had been her buddy. She had sewn that royal blue dress and felt good about her accomplishment.

  Now she was letting go of her screenwriting job?

  She sighed and gazed at the green shuttered door to the porch. Shadowed Lives might not be the best of programs, but she felt some success working for it. And while its star and staff might not be the most supportive, the position had given her a start to express herself creatively with writing. She earned a decent enough salary to let her get by on her own in the Big Apple and even managed to put a little aside. But the money she had saved wouldn’t be enough to tide her over for long while she searched for another job. Being fired from the one she had wouldn’t help.

  “Oh, Aunt Tilly,” she said with a slow shake of her head, “I wish I knew why you wanted to create such a stir in my life.”

  Possibly Tilly had given her attorney a note of explanation for Erin. Or, Erin hoped, one of the next pages her aunt wrote would explain.

  Pushing up to her feet, Erin heard the floorboards squeak while she crossed to the mantle. She lifted the manila envelope, ran a finger over its crisp closed top, and pressed it to her chest. She breathed in, let her out breath slowly, and touched the white silk dove as her eyes warmed. “I miss you so much.”

  The aroma of fried foods swept into the room, its smell inviting. The man preparing that meal held as much appeal as the tantalizing scent of dishes he was putting together. If only he knew how much their brief kiss had meant, how the touch of his lips against hers had sent joy through her, making her feel as though she were at the exact place she had been born to reach.

  “How ridiculous,” she said, giving her head a shake. She’d been in a boat in the swamp. And if Dane Cancienne had any idea of how she had been affected by their one brief kiss—over a fish—he would surely think of her as a lovelorn pup, unable to attract any man.

  She lifted her head, straightened her shoulders, and walked to the kitchen, its enticing aromas spreading through the house. “That smells terrific.”

  Dane faced the stove, where frying food sizzled. He turned, spatula in hand, his smile bright. “I wondered if you were coming back, or if you were too scared of my cooking to come in here and try it.”

  She laughed. “I live in the big city, remember? I’m not scared of much.” Her thoughts rounded to where they had just been, fearing for the loss of her job. She amended her statement. “Usually.”

  “Glad to hear it. If any gators come after me, I’ll know who to call.”

  Her mood lightened. She enjoyed his humor, at least the brief flashes of it he allowed. He removed a tray filled with golden fried fish out of the unlit oven and used his spatula to get more fish from his frying pan. “That looks great. Can I help?” Erin said.

  “So now you ask.” He grinned at her. “This’ll only take a few minutes. I really wanted to do it alone to show off my cooking skills.”

  Dane Cancienne was, it seemed to Erin, a man of many skills.

  But she couldn’t care. She would be leaving him soon, to his own element, and she’d be returning to hers. “Then if you don’t want my help, I’ll go and make a phone call.”

  His smile wiped away.

  “It shouldn’t take long,” she said and hurried to the dining room. She set the manila envelope on the lower shelf of the phone table, reversed the charge to her own phone, took in a breath, and waited while the other line rang.

  “This is Trevor.”

  She smiled, but slightly. “And this is Erin, in case the humid air down here made my voice change.” Maybe her attempt at levity would make him laugh.

  He didn’t. “So you stayed.” The comment sounded like an accusation.

  “My aunt wanted me to, so for a couple of more days. I have to be here. I thought you might understand and not fire me.”

  He didn’t respond, so she moved on with chatter. The weather, exceedingly hot, the huge oak trees filled with moss, pretty, and the man cooking at the stove—she didn’t mention. No sizzling sounds came from there, so the meal must be ready.

  “I need to go,” she said, not getting more feedback from the other end of the line, “but I’ll call you again.”

  “And you forgot about your job?”

  “I didn’t forget.” By tomorrow evening, she wouldn’t have it. She avoided discussion about what was about to happen or thinking about the repercussions. “I’ll stay in touch.”

  He released a loud sigh. “Erin, I don’t know what’s really going on with you, but I wonder. I have to believe you don’t care about your position.”

  “I care.” She made a mental check. Yes, she did care. She just wasn’t sure how much.

  “Do you know what an awkward position you’ve put me in? I told everyone they couldn’t miss work this week.”

  “I know. I needed to come to my aunt’s funeral. And now I need to stay here a couple of days more.”

  He was quiet a moment. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. Give me a call back tomorrow during afternoon break. Three o’clock. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Three o’clock. Right.”

  “I’ll talk to you then. And Erin, behave while you’re down there.”

  She laughed. When did she ever not behave?

  Hanging up, she traipsed back to the kitchen. Dane was placing the tray of fish on the table. Concern etched his face. “Did you talk to your boyfriend again?”

  She squeezed her lips together. Why did he keep thinking Trevor was her boyfriend? Well, no matter. He didn’t need to know everything about her personal life. She had told him enough about her job.

  He raised one eyebrow, waiting. When she didn’t explain her phone call, Dane’s expression changed to hardness. “Everything’s ready,” he said, turning away. “Go ahead, try it.”

  He had set the table. Instead of placing the rose vase near their places, he’d pushed it farther aside. Erin sat, and he took his chair. “It looks like you’ve had practice with your cooking skills.”

  A bitter chill reached his eyes. When he gave no other reaction, she selected two small pieces of fish from the tray. She served herself some of his French fries, which also looked battered. “If I ate like this all the time,” she said, having to break the silence, “I’d need to shop for more clothes. Bigger ones.”

  His stern expression faded while he selected food, her change of topic possibly causing him to relax. “I doubt that you’d ever need big clothes,” he said, holding a fry and nodding toward her torso. “You’re extra slim.”

  “Slim? Why, thank you, sir. Maybe I’ll start using that as my nickname. It’ll make me feel better on those days when I’m feeling fat.”

  “You, fat?” He snickered and ate his fry.

  Pleased to see him not so angry, Erin used her fork to slice a slab of fish. She speared the piece she’d cut. Its meat flaked and fell apart. She used a fry to push a bit of fish against. Scooping her fork beneath the fish, she was able to get it to her mouth. The crunchy batter accented the tender flakes of fish. “Yum. How do you get this so tasty?”

  “A quick marinade in hot sauce.”

  Her eyes widened, making him grin and shake his head. “It cooks out. You don’t taste its bite, but it gives a lot of dishes a nice flavor.”

  “Hot sauce. I’ll have to remember.” She almost asked more about his knowledge of cooking, but had discerned from his harsh eyes before that the topic was not one he liked to discuss.

  He stared at her, not eating. “Erin,” he said, making her believe he was about to make some profound statement about the subject she’d skirted, “you don’t have to eat fried fish with a fork. It�
��s much easier with your fingers.”

  She grinned and set down her fork. “Thanks. I was starting to believe I’d starve before I could get much of this food in my stomach.”

  Their shared laughter made the moment special. She felt more at ease while they ate more, with her picking fish from the pan with her fingers, and him doing the same. Her stomach was full and satisfied once they finally gave up on eating any more. “I’ll wash,” she insisted, “and you can dry, since you know where to put things.”

  “Our dishes can dry themselves, remember?” He gave her a wink. “And we’d put them up tomorrow.”

  “I know. But since we’re both here and doing nothing else, why don’t we get the kitchen all straight?”

  He offered an exaggerated sigh. “All right. But only this time.”

  She smiled. “Agreed.”

  While they worked in companionable silence on the dishes, Erin imagined this was what she would want with a mate. They’d work in tune together, sharing household duties and outdoor chores. Together they’d create a comfortable home, where they would enjoy sharing each other’s company. And hopefully, children.

  She washed the final piece, a skillet, and then wiped off the table, noticing the rose vase shoved to the opposite end. Men, she thought, getting the vase and centering it on the table. Most men didn’t pay attention to such things.

  “You were holding flowers similar to this when I first saw you,” she said, recalling that image while she rinsed her towel. She peered at Dane, who rose from where he’d bent to put away the skillet. “And you put your roses on a grave not far from Aunt Tilly’s.”

  His face went as cold as the tomb’s marble front. His gaze skid over the flowers and his body stiffened. He rubbed a hand down the bridge of his nose and across his tight lips.

  He turned away. “Anything else you want to do in here?” he asked with a brief glance around the room.

  Whose death had brought him such anguish? A parent? A woman he adored? Obviously he didn’t want to discuss it with her. “I think we’re done,” she said.

  Dane stomped from the kitchen toward the back entrance. Seconds later the screen door slammed.

  Erin listened for the sound of his truck starting up. He’d wanted escape. From her? Or the pain that remembering brought him?

  When he returned, she would remind him of her own grief from her aunt’s death. Supposedly if you shared your pain from mourning with another person, you would heal faster. She’d try to get Dane to open up about it when he came back.

  Still no motor revved up outside. Erin peered out a window.

  Darkness cloaked everything, with the spotlights from the trees making her think of beacons of hope. The light from the back door stoop allowed her to see that Dane wasn’t in that area. He wasn’t near the garage, where his truck sat, parked next to the late-model car. Erin’s rental remained at the edge of the shell driveway.

  She moved away from the window and through the house. The man may have needed to mourn, she considered, going toward her bedroom. She understood. Maybe he, like her, was requiring time to get over the loss of someone special.

  Sitting on the edge of the poster bed, Erin scanned the master bedroom. She tried to envision her lively aunt inside it, getting ready to share this mattress with Cliff, whom she obviously cherished. Erin shook her head, that picture of her aunt here, somehow not right.

  She peered at the shut louvered doors. An imagined scene came to her of a woman in flowing nightwear holding those doors open and then stepping out to the porch, where she would view the lovely scene out front with the man she had married.

  The woman, however, did not seem to be Erin’s aunt. The woman was much younger in Erin’s imaginings, and the sturdy man beside her strong and youthful.

  “Oh, that’s enough,” she told herself, rising from the bed. Exhaustion from fishing in the sun swept through her, along with weariness brought on by trying to reminisce. Erin dug her nightgown out of her suitcase and carried it into the bathroom.

  Tap-tap sounded from outside the bathroom walls.

  She shrank back, her big-city instinct taking over. It was pitch black out there, and a person must be out in the dark. The flower garden was beyond that wall, which held no other window besides the stained-glass one high above the tub.

  Reeling in her fear, she pressed her ear to the wall, curiosity taking over.

  The occasional tap sounded like a large rock striking the outer wall.

  She quieted her breathing to listen.

  Words in a deep voice were uttered. Some sounded like cursing.

  Dane, she decided, pulling away. He’d gone back there, and for whatever reason, was now angrily throwing things.

  He didn’t need her trying to butt in to whatever was bothering him, and she needed a soak in cool water to get rid of the sticky feel of too much humidity that even the air condition had problems wiping out.

  She filled the tub and stepped inside.

  The deep fresh water surrounding her skin made her recall the bayous and swamps, and she smiled. Alligators. Maybe they weren’t such scary creatures. Unless you found yourself in the water next to them.

  The water lulled her, and no more noise came from outside. Erin found herself on the verge of drifting to sleep. The temptation came to just toss on her gown and crawl into bed. But if she was going to have clean clothes for tomorrow, she had better wash some of them. She hadn’t brought enough things to wear for days.

  Dressing in her nightgown and robe, she gathered her towels and the clothes she’d worn. She headed toward the back room where she’d seen the washer and dryer.

  “Erin,” Dane said. He stood in the dining room, his eyes growing wider when he saw her. His hands held the open manila envelope and the pages her Aunt Tilly wrote.

  She stopped in her tracks, anger flaring through her. “What are you doing with that?”

  His gaze swerved from her face to the papers. “You must’ve left this here by the phone.”

  “Maybe. But I didn’t leave the envelope open.”

  He set the envelope down on the phone table. With a hand free, he flipped up the bottom edges of the pages. “Well Tilly told you not to look at whatever nonsense she instructed you to do each day here, but she didn’t say I couldn’t look.”

  Erin grabbed the papers. “Those are personal.”

  “I know I shouldn’t have tried to read them. But I needed to know what she had in mind for you to do around this place tomorrow.”

  “I don’t see how that could be any of your business.”

  His chest rose with deeper breaths. He stared at her eyes, looking like he was building up to say something challenging.

  Dane’s gaze slid away from her face. His body language changed from a stand-off stance. “I’m sorry.” He turned and walked away.

  Erin stayed in place, waiting for her anger to abate. What an annoying man. Every time she thought good things about him, he went and did something that chafed her. She waited until he’d gone off toward the kitchen area. Then she started to slide the papers back into the envelope.

  Her grip tightened on the clamped-together pages. What did Aunt Tilly want her to do tomorrow? Erin would be losing her job and giving up her income by carrying out those wishes.

  She glanced at the doorway toward the kitchen. With no sign of Dane, she turned the papers from her aunt until she reached the page headed Day 3 Instructions.

  Reading what it said, Erin shuddered. She sank back to the phone desk and shook her head, unable to believe what she read.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day was starting to sprinkle a few light rays through the banana trees’ branches when Dane drove off from the house in the morning. He glanced through the rearview mirror at her car parked in the driveway. Maybe by the time he returned, it would be gone, and so would she.

  “Man,” he uttered, raking a hand across the top of his head and down the back of his neck. Why did that woman still have to be here? And making ange
r expand even more in his chest, why had he let her stay?

  He’d wanted her to, but only briefly, after she’d left his house and gone out to stay in the cottage. That loneliness he’d experienced during the hour or so she was gone surely stemmed from having her company in the boat earlier in the day. He had enjoyed their friendly banter and liked having Erin to tease.

  Dane found himself grinning, considering her and the gators.

  He tightened his lips, shucking off the pleased face. At least during the brief time she’d spent in Tilly’s cottage, he had been able to gather his clothes from his closet. But how stupid. Without thinking, he’d brought those clothes into the first guest bedroom, even when he’d thought she wouldn’t come back to sleep in his room again. Who did she think she was, telling him he had no business checking into whatever Tilly wanted her to do this day? This was his place; whatever concerned Erin about staying on his plantation concerned him.

  Remorse flooded through him, and he silently apologized to Tilly. He would never read her personal papers. She’d been a delightful woman, all spry and full of life. Recalling her made an ache knot up in his throat. He noted that discomfort and sent thoughts of Tilly away.

  If only that woman from up north hadn’t fooled with Anna’s roses. Erin’s attractiveness made him distracted. But after she did that, centering the rose vase on the table, he realized how swept up he’d felt with her company. He had shared that one kiss with her, making him want more of them. He’d also wanted much more of her warmth and natural charm around him.

  Anna’s roses. Erin had gone into the garden and snipped the buds as though they meant nothing, except blooming flowers. And she had almost made him forget about Anna.

  Dane gritted his teeth. He’d almost allowed another woman to lure him and make him forget about his wife. But no more. At one time the North and South had been enemies. Maybe it was time to treat his guest as though that time had returned.

  Curving up the incline, he spotted the vet’s truck parked close to the barn. Dane pulled over to talk to its owner. Snorts from the hogs outside and clucks from the chickens greeted him. He’d raised livestock as kid. His grandpa let him keep them here. He had slopped hogs and milked cows. Now he paid others who needed jobs to tend to the animals.