I slowed down. His truck was like driving a small tank; instead of a bed, it had a customized compartment outfitted with a fridge for medicines, a sterilized water tank, specialized implements, and even an ultrasound unit.
Eve launched into a description of the “Be A Safety Bee” talk she’d gone to while Lucy and I went to the bunker. There were several children Eve’s age at the farm, and Macy regularly gathered them into one of the small classrooms for chats and homeschooling.
“ . . . and so Macy says that that’s what to do if someone scary comes to see your mommy.”
“ . . . that’s exactly right, sweetheart,” Doug was telling her. “You call . . .”
A herd of deer leapt across the lane in front of us, and I concentrated on slowing down without stomping the brake.
It didn’t help my nervous mood that, as we were climbing into the truck, Macy had furtively tucked a special present into the pocket of my hoodie. “Condoms,” she whispered, winking. “In case you need to keep any purple sprinkles out of your fondant.”
It was going to be an interesting night.
Chapter Five
It begins with another kiss
NINE O’CLOCK on that rainy November night, and all was going my way. I had my oldest soft gray sweats on, the ones that I’ve owned since the boxing team at university—okay, I admit it, a full seventeen years ago. I’ve washed them so much that they’ve gone thin and clingy around my best parts. A legacy!
My eyes were pretending to be asleep. The fat wooden lamp on my night table was putting out a warm glow of light, and I was cozy-hard under a king-sized plaid quilt (Firth clan colors) that the Rainbow gang had stitched for me the spring before in barter for delivering five calves and treating an abscess on Ripley, Alberta’s chow-poodle rescue. Ripley is named after Sigourney Weaver’s kick-ass character in the Alien movies.
Ripley bit me.
Tal eased into my bedroom every two hours to make sure I wasn’t dead. To be precise, she woke me up long enough to count her upheld fingers and prove she wasn’t blurry. Sure, it could be that I’d suffered a mild concussion, yes.
Around seven p.m. I’d mumbled about getting up to feed Zanadu and Pammy their evening oats, but she’d already done that. She’d also fed Teasel, the pigs, plus all the dogs and kitties.
What a woman.
Honestly, I felt good except for the sore knot at the edge of my rusty-red hairline. It was about an inch wide but had gone down from an equal inch tall to oh, just a half-inch tall. The color was ripening into a deep pink filigreed with darker pink splotches. Teasel hopped up on my bed from time to time and licked it. Maybe he thought I was growing an apple.
Once again, I heard Tal’s footsteps on the hall floor then muffled on the braided rug beside my bed. I inhaled her feminine scent, her cooking aroma, too. Something lemony. Sweet. Cookies? A pie? My stomach growled. The aura of her body’s warmth merged with mine. A cool, soft pressure caressed my cheek: the backs of her fingers, testing my okay-ness.
I shifted and made a low sound of pleasure in my throat, just enough to indicate I was sleepy and comfortable but not come across as hard as a rock and wanting so badly to hold her. She stroked my cheek, brushed the hair back from my forehead without hurting the knot, smoothed my quilt and sheets over my chest, then bent closer. Her lips brushed my hair; I heard the delicate smuff of her kiss as they met and pulled apart.
I opened my eyes. I think she knew I had been awake the whole time. We traded a look that said it all. I gave the slightest jerk of my head. Come on, come here. Wince. Maybe she’d feel sorry for me?
“Oh, Doug,” she whispered, “what are we going to do?”
“I have plenty o’ suggestions for tonight.”
“Tonight’s choices are simple. I can’t resist. But the rest is hard.”
Aye, it’s very hard, but not in the way you think. The rest is easy.
I pulled an arm free of the covers and clasped her hand as it lay gently on my chest. She wound her fingers through mine. A good sign. “If you’ll be my guest here in this bed after Eve is sound asleep, I swear that your mind can rest at ease. I’m not himself, that bastard up in New York. I won’t trick you, use you, or desert you—or Eve. To be blunt about it, I’m armed with protection, and I know how to use it.”
She smiled and looked a bit awkward but told me Macy had given her some defenses as well.
“Good, then. We’ve an understanding. And if those efforts fail, I’ll not run from the responsibility. I think I’d make a good dah, although you might find me letting the wee ones run wild with the goats and such.” She began chuckling. “And, just so you know, I’ve taken a shine to Eve, and I believe that’s mutual. I’d be proud for her to think of me as her dah.”
She looked down at me tenderly. “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”
“I see one—and only one—woman before my eyes.”
She gently kissed the bump on my forehead. Something about the mix of pain nerves and pleasure nerves nearly lifted me off the mattress. Before I could finish my gasp she put her mouth to mine. I curled my arm around her as we sank together, trading the kind of deep, wet, hot kiss that put us inside each other’s bodies.
When we broke apart, breathing hard, she said hoarsely, “We have to think this through . . . we have to . . .”
I pulled her down to me, and we kissed another long time, barely moving except for our heads, her sitting beside me on the bed but not laying next to me. All very demure except for the act of joining with kisses and the promise of joining in other ways.
She tore away from me, smooched me hard on the nose, and ordered, “Get up now, for dinner. Eve’s in your office coloring on a note pad with your crayons.” She laughed weakly, looking down at me with tearful and lustful eyes. “I need to know why you own a giant pack of crayons. I need to know a lot more about you. Please.”
I sat up, catching her around the shoulders with the crook of my arm, her not pulling away, and I said, “They’re treats. For Teasel. He eats them like candy.”
She burst out laughing again, took my face between her hands, and kissed me a dozen times while holding me at bay. She let me go, but then I pulled her back. By the next time we escaped from each other, we were panting.
“Dinner,” she said, pleading. I let her go, and she scrambled off the bed and left the room.
Foreplay with scrapbooks
UNAWARE THAT Doug and I were trading an entire Kama Sutra full of coded glances over plates of my made-from-scratch chicken pot pie, Eve merrily crayoned sheep, cupcakes, and naked stone ladies onto a notepad while watching Finding Nemo for the fiftieth time, thanks to Doug’s Netflix subscription. Every pet on the place was sprawled or curled or draped around her. Cats, dogs, pigs.
Teasel nuzzled her for crayons. Doug told him, No more. Teasel had reached his limit for the day.
Doug’s office-den was a wonderfully cozy world of soft leather couches, an old desk with a brass giraffe-head lamp, shelves stuffed with books, and woodsy keepsakes. I tried to believe that the raccoon skull next to the bird’s nest was not staring at us. A fire crackled on a stone hearth near our feet, which were propped on a coffee table he’d built from weathered shipping pallets and decorated with rusty hinges.
He’d changed the top of his gray sweatsuit for a long flannel shirt. Good idea, since the thin material of the bottoms needed a privacy curtain. My pink-socked feet looked so right next his nubbly gray socks. The couch was like sinking into a leather marshmallow. The cushions sloped toward the couch’s middle, inspiring us to slide closer to each other, caught in a supercharged lull between discovery and fulfillment. Serene anticipation. I worried about the future, not about tonight.
“Come closer,” he said coyly, setting his empty plate down and crooking a finger at me. With his other hand he reached for a thick three
-ring binder he’d placed on the coffee table. “I want to show you my scrapbook collection.”
I set my plate down too, then eased across the last six inches separating us. When my denimed thigh met his thinly cottoned one, we both exhaled silent ah’s. “I’m a very sheltered lady,” I protested in a fey tone. “So I do hope you’re not planning to show me anything shocking.”
He opened the binder with a flourish. “Naked bicycles.”
Free Wheeler came to life in all its sketched and photographed glory.
My face grew warm and the rest of me even warmer. I busied myself turning scrapbook pages. “I’d love to have seen it first-hand. To have been there.”
“Ah, me, too.”
“What I said to Jay Wakefield about his personality?”
“Smelling like a mushroom. I loved it.”
“There’s a good person hiding inside him. Maybe he’ll reconsider his plan.”
“We’ll enlist Delta to talk to him. She claims he’s another of her cousins. Like you, like me, like everyone on the planet.”
“So . . . you and I are cousins?”
“Not of the seriously genetical kind.”
“Genetical?”
“Lovely word. I made it up.”
“You don’t let the rules of English stand in your way when a made-up word is better?”
“I’m Scots. Barely speak English as it is, and proud of that fact.”
“Do you speak Scottish?”
“By that you mean Gaelic. Yes, I do. A bit.”
“Say something to me.”
He thought for a moment, touched my hand, and said quietly, “Tha gaol agam ort.”
I managed a rough sound-alike. “Hah GEUL AH-kum orsht. What does it mean?”
“It’s a secret. I’ll tell you later.”
“Ah hah.”
A soft snore came from in front of the television. Teasel was stretched out on his side, little hooves twitching in a goatly dream. Snoring. Eve was sound asleep also, her notepad and crayons in her lap. She used Teasel’s shoulder as a pillow. The pit bulls were curled on either side of her, and Leo, the orange Maine coon, was draped over both them and Eve.
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing too loudly, and Doug said to the rest of the menagerie—dogs, cats, the two small pigs—“Can you not get up and dance about, you slackards? Play yon piano, or look grumpy, or ride a Roomba? Do you not understand that we’re on the verge of YouTube gold, here?”
Suddenly, I realized I was happy. Serene in a way I barely recognized. My childhood had been filled with sadness and insecurity, even after the Rodriquez’s became our foster family. Gus, Gabby, and I were close-knit but had very different personalities, and as soon as Gus turned eighteen, he left us—deserted us, is how Gabby puts it when she’s in a mood—for the army. He wanted to honor Daddy’s service in the military and police, but also, there was trouble between him and our foster parents. Their seventeen-year-old daughter, Miranda, announced that she intended to marry him and/or have his baby. Was he guilty of encouraging her to love him? Did he have feelings for her? Had he resisted the urge to sample the intimate cupcake she offered him? Yes, yes but no.
His family bond with the Rodriquez’s snapped the moment they learned that their Catholic school honor student had been deflowered by him. They felt betrayed, and he admitted they were right to feel that way. Gus makes mistakes, but he takes full responsibility, sometimes too much so. He was banished from their home, but Gabby and I were still underage and remained behind, treated with affection and respect. Gus joined the army, putting a permanent kink in Gabby’s relationship with him, and left me feeling lonelier than ever. I wandered through high school, bounced out of college, headed to New York for culinary school, went to work for Mark, got pregnant, raised Eve (I can’t imagine my life without her, and I feel blessed to have her), and struggled to keep us afloat via my tiny bakery. Never feeling settled, never feeling comfortable. Never having a plan except to keep working and hope that someday I’d figure out who and what and why I was.
Now I had landed where I belonged.
Home. Hearth. Doug.
At least, for tonight.
The man of the family
I CARRIED EVE to the guest bedroom, watched Tal tuck her and Teasel under the covers, then fetched a baby monitor I kept in my truck for nights when I dozed in barns next to a seriously ill patient. “As long as we hear Teasel snoring,” I told Tal, “we’ll know Eve’s still fast asleep.”
“Mommy?” Eve said, squinting up at us and yawning, thus putting the lie to still fast asleep.
Tal bent over her, stroking her red hair. “Yes, sweetie?” The sight of them together, in my house, depending on me and comfortable with my presence made me feel more like a man than I’d ever felt before in my life.
“Are you going to stay awake and make sure Doug doesn’t die?”
Tal went “Uht,” in surprise, and then, “Well . . .”
I put in, “Would you mind if she did, Eve? If she visited with me awhile? Would that be all right with you?”
Eve nodded and yawned again. “Sure. That’s what grown-ups do.”
Tal softly explained about the monitor I’d put on the nightstand. “If you need anything, just yell ‘Mommy,’ and I’ll come running.”
“Hmmm.” Eve draped an arm over Teasel. “Love you.”
Tal kissed her forehead. “Love you too, sweetie.”
Eve opened one eye and looked up at me. “Love you, Doug. You don’t have to say it back. You’re a boy.”
My throat closed and some sort of dust got into my eyes. If I promised her something Tal wasn’t ready for me to promise, I’d be sorry. But how could I not say it back? Tal shook her head at me but didn’t seem upset. In fact, she looked awkwardly concerned. Not good for a woman’s love life when her child starts verbally stalking a new boyfriend.
I gave her a reassuring look. And then to Eve, I said, “If I say it back, will I turn into a girl?”
She giggled. “I don’t think so.”
“Then I love you, too.”
She smiled. “I knew it.” The smile faded. Her breath slowed. She slept.
Teasel snored.
I held out my hand to Tal. Her eyes gleamed. I’d said the right thing. And I’d meant it.
She took my hand, and I led her out of the room, gently closing the door behind us.
A time for passion
“WHAT’S YOUR favorite color?” he whispered. He was on top of me, inside me, his face softly lit in the glow of a small bedside lamp. We were both dewy and limp—well, not completely limp, ever.
“Pale blue,” I whispered. I stroked my bare toes down the backs of his legs, giving special TLC to the scars. He had several nasty ones from being dragged, kicked, or bitten in his work. I’d kissed them all.
“Favorite sport?”
“This one. You’ve turned me into an avid fan.”
He smiled. “Favorite sport second to this one, though ’tis hard to think of anything remotely as fun.”
“Your brogue gets deeper at times, you know?”
“Aye, when I’m excited. You’ve near got me speakin’ in tongues.” He shifted inside me, and I squeezed him with my thighs. “Stop it, ya wild lass! I’ll na be kin to spake ta me clients aboot their wee beasties!”
I laughed. He groaned and nudged me so deeply I gasped. “Your fav’rite sport, woman! Talk!”
“Baseball.”
“Good! I was afraid you’d say soccer or golf.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone thinks that’s all a Scotsman cares about.”
“You don’t like soccer or golf?”
“I like them fine, but American baseball has won my heart.”
“What team?”<
br />
“National? The Cardinals. Local? The Asheville Tourists.”
“Asheville has a pro baseball team now?” I ran my fingers over his shoulders and neck then up into his damp, russet hair.
“Farm team of the Colorado Rockies.”
“That’s amazing. The city has grown a lot since we left.”
He stroked my wildly messed-up hair and studied me tenderly. “Tell me about that time. When you were a child.”
“Right now? No. It’s . . . it’s too sad. I don’t want to change the mood.”
He smiled gently. “You underestimate my ability to ignore every emotion except the one you feel twitching down yon.” His smile segued into something quieter, more serious. “Tell me one little bit, then. Don’t think about it. Say the one thing that comes to your mind the easiest. That’s usually what’s most important. All right? When I say ‘Tell,’ you say it?”
I nodded, already feeling tears sting my eyes.
He cupped my face between his hands, kissed me on the nose, then said gruffly, “Tell.”
“After Mama died, we were sent to foster parents who ran a farm outside Asheville. Delta tried to get custody of us, but there were screw-ups in the paperwork. An elderly neighbor tried to take us in, but he was an alcoholic with a criminal history, so that went nowhere. We were in limbo and ended up with strangers. The man was mean to us; he just wanted free labor. When Gus backtalked him, he locked Gabby and me in an unlit, cold shed. Told Gus we could stay there until we starved unless Gus apologized. Gus hit him with a tractor wrench. Hurt him, probably badly. I remember seeing a lot of blood before Gabby covered my eyes.
“Gus loaded us into the man’s truck and drove us back to Asheville. We went to our elderly neighbor—I wish I could remember his name. He took us to the bus station and bought us tickets for California. He knew some people there, the Rodriquez’s. He never told anyone where he’d sent us. Not even Delta.” I took a deep breath. “None of us came back to North Carolina again, until now. It’s the reason we’ve sidestepped all of Delta’s invitations. Bad memories.”
The Biscuit Witch Page 11