After nearly thirty minutes Paul asked, "How is everything back here?" Only then did he notice the shadows in her expression. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"
"Yes, Paul, something's very wrong. You aren't going to like it when I tell you, but I promised myself I would, immediately. It's bad news for us, and it's going to hurt you, I'm afraid. For that I'm sorry."
He leaned forward and took her hands in his, studying her with a look of deep concern. "What's wrong, Winn?"
She'd rehearsed it dozens of times. She took a deep breath, gripped his fingers and said straightforwardly, "I want to call our wedding off."
He blanched and went speechless for several seconds. "Temporarily?" he asked.
"No… permanently," she answered quietly, releasing his hands.
To Paul's great credit he reacted with poise in spite of the fact that his face went from bleached white to peony pink in a matter of five seconds. "Oh… I see." When Winn remained silent, he amended, "No, I don't see! I thought everything was so great between us."
"Paul, answer me honestly. Which brings you greater-" she searched for the proper term "-ongoing joy-me or your work?" He considered for a moment and turned a brighter red than before. "See?" she insisted, leaning forward. "I'm not criticizing you for it. I'm telling you something we both should have recognized long ago. We joined forces because of mother, because you and she had so much in common that when she met you, she thought she just had to have you for me. But, Paul… I… I don't think I love you. I admire you. I respect you. But I don't love you." She paused, then asked, "Will you be very, very honest and tell me if you really love me. Or did we fall together because it worked so smoothly, having the support of our parents as we did? And consider if you wouldn't enjoy me much, much more if I played chess and loved to tinker with computers myself, and enjoyed talking about them with you like mother does. Paul, that's the kind of woman you need. Somebody with an analytical mind that's as inquisitive as yours."
"I can tell you've been thinking about this for a long time."
"It's been… coming on for a few weeks, yes. But I was caught up in the crazy whirlwind preparations for the wedding and couldn't face telling the world-not to mention my mother-that I was canceling everything."
"Can you really do that at this late date? What about all the invitations you sent out already?"
"I'll handle everything, Paul. And I'll make it clear whose fault it was."
His eyebrows took on a frosty expression. "Is there someone else, Winnie?"
This was the most difficult question of all, for Paul didn't deserve to be hurt. "Yes, Paul, there is."
He inhaled deeply, held the breath long, then released it in a giant whoosh, his shoulders sagging. "Well, that settles that."
"Paul, I'm terribly sorry. And if it's any consolation, mother is furious with me. She isn't even talking to me." Winn reached out and touched the back of his hand. "Please don't take this in the wrong way, Paul, because I don't mean any disrespect, but it's too bad you and mother aren't closer to the same age. You'd make the most wonderful husband for her." Then she leaned across the table and kissed his cheek while Paul grew totally flustered and seemed unable to meet her eyes. That's when she knew she'd guessed right.
* * *
It was shortly after eight-thirty that evening when Winn Gardner stepped on the back stoop of Joseph Duggan's house. The radio was on in the kitchen. Tammy Wynette was belting out "Stand By Your Man" in her inimitable cracky voice, and water ran for a moment, then was turned off. Winn angled a peek through the screen and saw the left half of a Duggan back, dressed in a gold-and-black baseball uniform, shoeless, with a black cap pushed onto the back of his head, washing dishes. She waited until she was sure which Duggan it was, and when his profile appeared for a second, she smiled, opened the screen door silently and slipped inside. Even his back turns me on, she thought, watching as he rinsed a cup, set it on the drain board, then plunged his hands into the soapy water. The stretchy gold fabric of his breeches clung to his legs like an orange rind, displaying each dent and bulge. There was a grass stain on his left bun, and she smiled, picturing him as a boy, though loving him as a man. When at last she spoke, her voice was soft and quavery. "Hiya, Jo-Jo."
He spun around. Detergent bubbles flew from his fingertips and drifted to the floor. His stockinged feet, in their black baseball leggings, were braced wide apart, like an outfielder waiting for a fly. There was a puff of dust on his right cheek, and his shirt was filthy, as if he'd managed a beauty of a slide, belly first. His conglomerate appearance was totally incongruous-the soiled virile athlete with his hands in soapsuds. He gaped at her as if she were a ghost, while she tried to act as if every cell in her body wasn't leaping to get at him. In the same trembling voice she asked, "Need somebody to wipe for you?"
"Winn… my God… Winn."
"Is that all you can say is Winn? After all I've been through today just to get out of one very fast-approaching wedding for you?"
In one leap he slammed against her, nearly knocking her breath out while taking her off her feet and against his chest, with both of his detergent hands leaving wet prints on the back of her yellow cotton blouse. "Really? Oh, babe, really?" But he didn't give her time to answer. His mouth crushed hers, wide and wet and celebratory as he whirled them both in a circle.
Her arms made a nest for his head, knocking the baseball cap askew while they kissed and kissed and kissed, moving their heads in impatient and wondrous circles, yet still unable to satiate themselves fast enough to believe it was real. When at last she drew her mouth back to say, "Yes, really," her smile was as wide as center field, yet his was even wider. His beautiful bedroom eyes sparkled with the smile she loved, the one that half-closed them while his perfect teeth peeked from behind upturned lips. While he still held her aloft, she appropriated his black baseball cap and put it on her own head so she could get her fingers into that wonderful wealth of fine curls she loved so much.
"You really called it off?" he demanded one more time.
"I really called it off. I told mother to cease and desist. I gave my apologies to Paul. I told the realtor to come and get his damned sign out of my yard and sent the buyers packing, then came to you as fast as my car could get me here."
His mouth possessed hers again, and while they kissed, he let her slide down the front of him with very deliberate slowness. Her blouse caught on his uniform buttons and shimmied up her tummy, and his hands slid beneath it to caress her bare back and ribs.
Tommy Duggan, dressed in a uniform matching Jo-Jo's, turned the corner into the kitchen, came up short at the sight greeting him, folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the archway, smiling.
"Well, well, well," he drawled, "what do we have here?"
Joseph's hands stayed right where they were while he craned around to look at his brother. Winn kept her arms around Jo-Jo's neck, unwilling to release him in spite of the interruption.
"What we have here is Killer Gardner, the woman who's made my life pure misery for the last two months."
"She gonna join the team?" Tommy inquired drolly, eyeing Joseph's cap that was too big for Winn's head and thus rested low against her ears.
Jo-Jo grinned down at her. "Whaddya say, Killer, wanna join the Duggan team?"
She kissed him boldly on the mouth, ending with a loud smack. "That depends. Who won tonight?"
Jo-Jo seemed unaware of his brother's presence as he smiled at the woman in his arms and rubbed her spine. "Me."
Tommy's eyes followed Joseph's hands, then he pulled his shoulder away from the doorway and picked up his own black hat from the kitchen table, settled its bill low over his eyes and remarked, "Well, I can see I'm not needed around here. Might as well go join the guys at Dick's Bar."
Then he slammed out the back door, and a minute later they heard his car start.
Alone again, Joseph and Winn gazed lovingly into each other's eyes, standing just where Tommy had left them, only now his hands were
inside her waistband, caressing the slope of her spine. "I can't believe you're here," he said in a gruff whisper, letting his eyes caress her face.
"Neither can I. The last four days have been absolute hell."
This kiss was different. Deliberate, measured, beginning with the lazy lowering of Joseph's mouth to Winn's, the gradual intrusion of tongues, building in ardor as their hands started roaming each other's backs, shoulders, buttocks, breasts, until it was a total bodily clinging as they pressed yearningly against each other, as if never would they get enough… never.
He tore his mouth from hers long enough to utter, "I was so scared I'd lose you, and there wasn't anything I could do about it."
"I was scared, too." A hot weakening kiss cut her off for several seconds, then Joseph's face was on her neck, his hands releasing the catch of her bra while she went on. "From the night of the wedding practice I've been scared. I fell for you so hard it terrified me. I thought you were a flirt, and flirts always seem insincere. Then I got to know you better and realized I was falling in love with you…" She clung to him harder. "Oh, Joseph, you have no idea how awful it is to be engaged to one man and in love with another."
His palm slid to ensconce her free breast in its warm curve. "It can't be any worse than being the one on the outside, watching it happen. God, I felt so helpless!"
Again they kissed, allowing their bodies full greed. He caressed and toyed with her nipple until it stood out proudly, then ran his hand down the stomach of her white jeans, slipping down between her legs where it was warm and slightly damp.
Her hand, too, ran down his body. "Mmm… I like you in your baseball uniform. You can't hide anything from me in pants this tight."
"Who's trying to hide?"
"Not me."
"Me, either."
She rested her forehead against his nose, laughed then, and did her Mae West imitation: "So, uh, tell me, big boy, where's your brother John?"
"Up at Dick's Bar with the rest of the team, having a few beers."
"Wanna join them?" she teased, stroking him ardently now.
"Yeah, sure, I was thinking about it. Nothing a man loves better than a nice cold beer on a summer evening."
"Well, don't let me… uh, stop you." His eyes sparkled and crinkled at the corners. She'd never get enough of his eyes, not if they lived to be seventy. Or of the rest of him, for that matter.
"I'll head over there in a minute. There's something I've got to do first, though." He had her by both buns and was dancing her backward toward the archway and the stairway around the corner.
"How much time before your brothers get home?"
His tongue teased the corner of her mouth. "They'll be gone till midnight." She felt him grin against her lips. "The beer's damn good at Dick's."
Her heels struck the bottom step and brought them both up short. With her arms looped about his neck she ordered huskily, "Hurry up, Jo-Jo Duggan. The past four days have seemed like years. Show me your bedroom."
He bent and picked her up like a sack of potatoes and took the steps at a leisurely pace while she caressed his backside. "I will. But I'll show you my bathroom first. I played a tough game and took a hard slide into home in the eighth inning. I'm dust from one end to the other."
The bathroom was Classic Grandma: no shower, but a tub with a rubber plug on the end of a chain. The room was painted aqua blue and trimmed with white swan decals on one wall, while that behind the vanityless sink was paneled with some marbly gray stuff that looked like plastic. There was a water heater in one corner and a clothes hamper next to the stool, and the floor was covered with pure unadulterated grade-B hardware-store linoleum, its worn spot covered with an aqua blue scatter rug.
But it mattered not in the least, for anywhere Joseph and Winn shared was their own private heaven. She watched him drop his dusty uniform in the hamper. Then the body that had taken a hard slide into home took a soft slide into the tub. And she came to know the texture of his slick, soapy skin both above and below the surface of the water.
Her Joseph. How she loved him. Kneeling beside the tub, with her eyes caught in his, she lifted her wet hand from the water and laid it on his cheek. His eyes were dark, lustrous, close to hers. "Joseph Duggan, I love you," she whispered thickly.
All was silent but for the soft blip of the ancient, dripping tap. Then he brought his hands from the water to her jaws. His wet thumbs caressed her lips before he gently eradicated the space between their mouths, kissing her gently, wonderingly, the touch filled with praise and promise.
"And I love you, Winn Gardner. Marry me."
Her murmured agreement was lost in his kiss, but neither heard nor cared. For it could be no other way: the choice had never been theirs, not from the first night they'd met to walk down an aisle together.
* * *
The wedding invitations numbered twenty-two. Each was handwritten on plain typing paper, but not all in the same pen. Half were written in Winn's neat forward slant and half in Joseph's rather chicken-scratchy semi-legibility. They began with the words, "Joseph Duggan and Winnifred Gardner invite you to join them in Elm Creek Park…"
Joseph and Winn chose a Friday afternoon for their wedding. She wore a white summer dress of airy pique, and fixed her hair in a Gibson Girl doughnut, trimming it with a simple sprig of baby's breath they found blooming in Joseph's grandma's garden.
Joseph and Winn rode out together in his Haynes a half hour before the scheduled time of the service to walk through the woods and gather a bouquet of brown-eyed Susans, wild buttercups and fragrant wild roses, conveniently abloom now in this month of roses.
The guests were waiting when they returned from their walk to the chosen spot, a grassy knoll in a break between the trees where birds were their only music and the grass their aisle. Around them were those they loved most dearly, including a surprised Sandy and Mick, Joseph's parents and brothers, as well as Fern Gardner, still in a state of shock, but present nevertheless.
The service lasted seven minutes and thirty-five seconds, approximately one-third the length of time it had taken most of the assembled to drive out from town.
When Winn kissed her mother's cheek, there was a radiant smile upon the bride's face. That smile was reflected upon the faces of several others close enough to hear the following words. "Mother, I'd like you to meet my husband, Joseph Duggan."
The two shook hands while Joseph spoke his first words to Fern. "Mrs. Gardner, I promise to love your daughter and keep her ecstatic at least until we're seventy years old. After that it depends on whether she lets our grandchildren overrun us or not."
* * *
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duggan honeymooned in a log cabin on Lake Bemidji. On their first afternoon there they went out fishing, something Winn had never tried before. With typical beginner's luck she caught the only fish of the day-a seven-pound walleyed pike. Within an hour, when the lake provided no more action, she lost all interest in the sport and asked Joseph to head the boat back to the cabin. There, inside, Jo-Jo warned, "Hands off, Killer, I have to clean the fish first."
"Throw him away."
"But he's such a big one."
"I caught one big one. I can catch another…" Then she ran her hands down his body and giggled. "Oh-oh! Here comes one now!"
But in the end Joseph cleaned the walleye, and by the time he finished it was time for dinner. They ate at The Seasons, then returned to their private retreat amid the lakeshore pines. When they faced each other at the side of their bed, Winn felt oddly timid. Joseph was dressed in cotton pajama pants and she in a long white nightgown with tiny satin straps and a bow beneath her breasts. Her cheeks were flushed and his eyes sparkly. His callused hand reached for hers and gave one gentle tug.
"Come here, Mrs. Duggan."
She lifted her arms, and his closed about her, bringing their wispily clad bodies close. His neck smelled of the cedar after-shave she now knew so well. She closed her eyes against the warm skin there and slipped her fingers into h
is soft curls, cradling his head as her eyes drifted closed. "Mrs. Duggan," she repeated rapturously. "I really am." She backed away and found his eyes with her own. "I'm Mrs. Joseph Duggan."
He slipped one satin strap over a narrow shoulder. "From now till you're at least seventy," he replied with gruff tenderness.
Her fingers brushed the hair on his chest, trembling upon it. "And then?"
The second strap fell slack as he pushed it down. "And then…" His eyes dropped to the satin bow as his fingers freed it. The gown shimmied into an ivory puddle at her feet. Just before his lips and arms claimed her Joseph chided raspily, "Don't ask foolish questions, my love."
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