Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Mac swung one leg over the seat and dismounted. "That's all right; I was just going in anyway." He accepted the sweater from her and tossed it over his shoulder. "It's looking like my help is a no-show; I've got to call my customer and warn them that I'll be late with the delivery. Damn," he muttered, more to himself than to her.

  "Why 'damn'? Is it critical?"

  "Yeah, you could say that. A family has planned a big reunion around a mass planting on their property. All of 'em — kids, cousins, grandparents — are supposed to take up shovels and help. They've been planning this for a year. I've pruned the roots; everything's ready to lift out. I shouldn't have waited until the last day to do it, shouldn't have counted on someone else."

  She knew he'd been running himself ragged with his Uncle Easy; the patient himself had told her that. "I could give you a hand."

  He smiled. "Thanks, but it's — don't be offended — pretty much a man's job. Someone has to tie up the burlap, tag 'em —"

  "Oh, my! Exhausting!"

  "And then help load 'em in the truck."

  "I could do that, too."

  "You might break a nail."

  With a withering look, she held up what was left of her fingernails after weeks of scraping paint.

  "Okay," he said with a look that was half bemused and clearly desperate. "You pass. Come in and I'll give you some coveralls," he added, casting an appraising look over her snug-fitting denims. "Thin jeans won't cut it in the field. Plus, it would help things out if you could bend."

  She blushed at that one, but decided she had it coming because it was true: She couldn't bend. In the house he handed her a workshirt and a pair of heavy bib overalls and she changed in the downstairs bath while he made the call to the customer. She studied herself in the mirror and didn't like what she saw: no curves, no tan, no hint that a woman was underneath it all. The maddening refrain from "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" dropped into her head and stayed there as she rolled up the cuffs of the overalls, then twisted her long auburn hair into a quick braid. Ee-aye-ee-aye-oh.

  Nuts. This was no way to impress a man.

  She walked into his kitchen with a sheepish smile. "This doesn't feel terribly feminine," she confessed.

  Mac gave her a wry and utterly penetrating look. "If you'd rather run home for the little halter and shorts, feel free."

  He had noticed her all those times. Somehow it made her feel almost as bad as if he'd driven past without seeing her. Coloring, she said, "No thanks. I wouldn't look any more feminine with bloody knees."

  He liked her answer; she could see the hard-edged glint in his eyes soften to grudging approval. "We'll make a soldier of you yet," he said, taking her by the shoulders and marching her out of the house.

  Mac was clearly in a hurry to get the job done. He showed her how to fold the burlap square around the rootball, then tie a series of rolling half-hitches around it with manila twine. He handed her a sod knife and a pair of gloves and said, "You're on your own."

  Jane dropped to her knees in her nice, thick overalls and got to work. The first three pines seemed to take her forever to bundle; she tossed the gloves aside almost immediately, preferring to work barehanded with the rough manila and knowing she'd pay for it later. It was hot, hard work. The beads of sweat on her forehead soon became rivulets. The scratchy branches of the pines seemed bent on a search-and-destroy mission for bare skin.

  Whenever she glanced up, Mac had popped another pine out of the ground. She was getting farther and farther behind. When he reached the end of the row, she breathed a sigh of relief. But no; on to the next row he went. She became increasingly embarrassed by her performance; the greenest migrant worker could have done a better job. Maybe that's what Mac was after. Maybe he wanted to show her once and for all what a lousy arborist she'd make.

  She wished she had a hat. If she had a hat to shade her face, things would be different. Mac could have given her a hat. Or a visor. Even a sweatband. Something. She wiped her brow with her dusty shirtsleeve, dirtying her face. She didn't care how she looked; that mood was long gone. She glared at Mac's broad back, at those compact buns sitting comfortably on the seat of the backhoe. Oh, sure. Sit-down work for the overseer, pick-and-shovel duty for the help. If that wasn't the way of the world.

  The sun climbed higher. She was desperately thirsty, and she would have liked to pee. But Mac wasn't offering to take a break, and she'd die before she asked for one. By now her hands were chafed and cut from the manila. She had no choice but to put the gloves on, though she dreaded being slowed down even more by the awkwardness of wearing them. It came as a complete and very pleasant surprise that she began working faster than before because her hands no longer hurt as much.

  Eventually — finally! — Mac shut down the noisy little backhoe and got to work at the other end of the line, bagging the pines at about twice her speed. Jane picked up the pace, focusing on her task as if she were conducting a nuclear experiment. They got down to one pine between them. She lunged for the burlap ahead of him and began folding it over the rootball.

  He watched her lasso the rootball like the drugstore cowboy she was, which made her intensely self-conscious. "Do you want to take a break?" he asked when she was done.

  "Who, me?" she said, bounding up. "Not unless you do," she said offhandedly, trying not to wheeze.

  The corner of his mouth turned up in a one-dimpled smile. Then he shrugged and turned away. "Nope. I'm fine."

  Jane dropped her chin on her chest with a silent groan. But at least she could slow down now. Labeling the little critters would be downright fun.

  "The next thing we have to do is get those half-dozen pines out of there," he said, pointing to a thicket of evergreens. "It's too tight for the forklift, or even the nursery truck. The trees are already bagged, but we'll have to carry them out to the forklift by hand. They're heavy. Are you sure you're up to this?" he asked blandly. "You don't have to —"

  "Lead the way," she said in a voice that was utterly grim. Mac got the shrub-caddy, a kind of metal stretcher for trees, and they squeezed their way through the densely planted area. "I overplanted," Mac said tersely. "I hadn't counted on the crash in new-home building. I have to just about give these away now." He was just ahead of her, picking the path through the dense branches, holding an occasional bough back for her.

  "Why don't you just have a live Christmas tree sale this December?" Jane asked. "You could have people cut their own. It would be a nice family event; kids adore that kind of thing. I did."

  "I told you," he said as they stopped in front of the first balled evergreen. "I only do wholesale."

  "But your stock needs thinning. You can see some of the trees are growing misshapen."

  "That's not today's problem. Tomorrow's reunion is today's problem."

  "I don't understand you." Jane was sitting on the ground now, pushing at the root ball with both feet to tip it so that Mac could slip the caddy under it. It was like pushing on a granite block. She rearranged her arms behind her to get better leverage. "You can be so ... oof" she said, her foot slipping right over the top of the root ball.

  She fell flat on her back. She was so tired that it felt good. She closed her eyes and sighed, and when she opened them Mac was on one knee alongside her, chuckling. He offered her his hand to pull her up.

  "Thanks," she said, taking it. But something — the glint in his eye, the rich, piney scent of the fallen needles underneath her — made her reach out her other hand to him as well. She didn't want him to help her up. She knew he understood that, as surely as he understood that she wanted to be the one to run his Christmas tree sale, and every other sale besides. She was being so obvious about both.

  "Oh, Mac ..." she said, her voice breaking with desire. He made a sound low in his throat. "Jesus, woman, don't do that ... don't invite me ...."

  In one fluid motion he was on the ground alongside her, cradling her head in his hands, pinning her to the ground in his embrace, his mouth invading hers with a kind of
fierceness that would've frightened her if she hadn't been feeling the same fierce passion herself.

  He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her mouth again — hot, tortured kisses — and she kissed him back, her mouth dragging across the slippery surface of his work-heated skin. Everywhere, everywhere there was salt from the sweat of their hard labor. It was a potent aphrodisiac, utterly different from the perfumed encounters she'd had with other men.

  Here, together, it was impossible to tell where the earth ended and where they began. She felt a natural overload of the senses, a confusion of human and wild: of pine needles and his scratchy beard; of loamy softness and the rough weave of their clothing; of acid soil and the rich, true smell of them both; and with it all, the taste of salt. She was reeling from it, from the uniqueness of it all.

  He was struggling with the brass clips at the top of her overalls; it was plain that he'd never had to remove them from someone else's body before. "My beloved ... I've bundled you up too well," he said shakily, and she was lost in joy that he'd called her his beloved.

  She wanted to help him, to hasten the undressing of her, because she'd waited so long for him already; all of her life. So she fumbled at the other brass clip, and succeeded just before he did.

  If Jane had set off a car alarm, she could not have broken the mood more thoroughly.

  Mac rolled away from her and sat up, a stunned look on his face. "My God. What're we doing? I'm taking you like some ... some fieldhand in a cornpatch."

  Something inside Jane — some tiny, green shoot of hope — began to wither and die when she saw his face. She knew that the next words she spoke would be absolutely critical; she was terrified that she would not choose them well.

  "I love being here with you," she said, moved to inexpressible emotion. "I want to be."

  "No good. No good," he murmured distractedly. He ran his hands through his sweat-damp hair. "God, this is a nightmare. Every promise I've ever made to myself ...."

  He turned back to her. She was still lying there, brass clips undone, hoping. He lifted some strands of hair that were caught on her damp skin as if he were lifting a butterfly from a flower petal, and wiped a dirt smudge from her cheek as if he were setting it back down again. Her eyes glazed over with tears; she wanted so much to hold him against her breast.

  "It's never going to be you," he said in a voice that was low and rich and aching. "It just can't be." She could see the desire, see the tenderness in his eyes.

  And she could see the strength, the willpower. She'd simply not known another man like him. He'd made up his mind that they weren't suitable for one another, and nothing on earth was going to change that.

  "I can't force you to make love to me," she said, unable to keep the despair from her voice. She reached up for the brass clips on her overalls and slipped them over the buttons herself, trying to salvage what she could of her pride.

  There was a dark flush of emotion in Mac's cheeks; he understood perfectly what he was putting her through. He stood up, and she stood up, and he said, "I'll take you home."

  "I'm not going."

  The words slipped out before Jane had time to think about them, but after she said them their meaning became clear enough to her. "This has nothing to do with ... there," she said, pointing to the ground on which they both had lain. "But it has everything to do with keeping my end of a bargain. I'm not being a martyr," she said quickly when he began to object. "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm just finishing the job. The family is counting on us. Let's get to work."

  She'd left absolutely no room for argument. With a nod, Mac said, "I'll push. You hold."

  He tilted the root ball for Jane and she held it in position with her feet until they got the caddy underneath. Then they lifted it together, with Mac showing her how to use her legs and not her back, and they carried it to the nearest clearing, where the forklift waited. From there they loaded it onto the truck. Jane was more limber than Mac, although she lacked his raw strength. By sitting down and using her legs to push and prod the trees into place, she managed to do a creditable job of keeping things moving.

  And all the while they exchanged hardly a word. It seemed inconceivable to Jane that after all this time, after all that had passed between them, they had less to say to one another than ever. And yet they seemed more aware of one another than ever. Every move he made, every glance he stole, she saw. As for Mac, he seemed to know her thoughts before she did: If she needed more labels, or couldn't find the sod knife, he was there for her. They worked so well together; it amazed her that he couldn't see it.

  The truck was filled to capacity, but it was still only half the total load to be delivered. Jane assumed that they'd be making a second trip and went into the house to use the bathroom. When she came back outside she saw that Mac had stripped down to his pants and was hosing off his arms. She tried to look away, to pay attention instead to the beautiful waterview. But the view a few feet from her was far more riveting: a man with a smooth, powerful torso, deeply bronzed and gym-free. Mac was so completely at ease with his body. It was obvious in every move he made that he'd got his strength the old-fashioned way: with hard work.

  He threw the hose to the ground and dried his arms quickly with a towel that hung on an outside hook, then grabbed his shirt and shot his arms through it in that strangely efficient way men have with shirts. "All set?" he asked, buttoning it hurriedly. His mind seemed to be completely on the delivery now.

  Jane wondered what he'd do if she walked up to him and tore the shirt off. But she wouldn't dream now of taking the risk, and so she climbed dutifully into the front seat for the delivery. It wasn't until Mac stopped the truck in front of her house that she realized he had other plans for her.

  "There are four generations of men over there," he said. "I should be able to draft a couple of 'em for the second load. If I can't find any volunteers I'll give a holler — unless you've had all the fun you can stand by now," he added dryly.

  "Sure," she said without looking at him. But she knew she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being needed by him.

  And she was right. A couple of hours later she heard his truck go roaring by, and the sound of young men's laughter inside.

  Chapter 23

  They had three days of sun followed by three days of fog. On the good days Jane and Billy painted from dawn to dusk. On the bad days, Jane wandered around in a fog of her own.

  Billy was winding down at Lilac Cottage. He'd lined up a nice renovation job which would pay his bills for the next ten weeks. As for Bing, he'd gone back to work in the City; he was giving her time to regroup. Phillip was off the island, too. He'd gone from Grand Cayman directly to Minneapolis, where he was helping his aunt and uncle clean up their affairs. When Phillip called to find out whether Jane had made a decision, she told him she'd accept the offer after all. Phillip said his aunt and uncle would be thrilled.

  They weren't the only ones. Jane's mother was ecstatic when she heard the news. She ran to put Jane's father on an extension phone.

  "Nice work, lambkins," Neal Drew said, thoroughly impressed. "That's a damn sight higher than they told me you could get. With that start, the world's your oyster. You'll be hanging out your own shingle in no time. I'm proud of you, honey."

  Jane couldn't have asked for higher praise.

  There was, however, one little thing: Jane never did tell Mac that she'd had an offer from Phillip, much less that she'd accepted it. Paranoid or not, Mac deserved to be told. The question was how. Jane tried doing it in a note. She tore it up. She tried calling Mac, but hung up at the sound of his voice. She got halfway down the lane to his house, then turned around when she heard the tractor. Phillip wasn't due back for two whole days. She had time.

  In the meantime she wandered around the island, brooding over her imminent departure, trying to absorb the moors, the beaches, the cobbled streets, and the crooked lanes into her permanent consciousness. It was devastating to her to think she'd soon be leaving all
of it.

  She was leaving, but the summer colony was arriving, in force. Like Mac, Jane wanted to send them all packing on the first boat out. What did they know about Nantucket's winter moods and rich history? She and Mac had shared that, if nothing else. Mac had two centuries of Nantucket in his blood; Jane, in her soul.

  And yet her connection to it all was growing fainter. Judith seemed to have abandoned Lilac Cottage. Not since the night of Uncle Easy's party had Jane had any sign from her. The gravesite was equally quiet. The buds on the rugosa rose were bursting into fragrant bloom — Jane had some of them in a vase in the fireplace room right now — but that was all.

  That left the house on Pine Street. Jane went back to it several times. Whatever there was left for her to know, Jane felt certain she would know it there. She became something of a loiterer, admiring an arrangement in a flower box, bending over a picket fence for a closer look at a delphinium, pausing before a door painted an especially subtle color.

  The neighborhood began to wonder about her: Jane heard a mother say sharply through an open window, "Timothy, go play in the back yard, right now."

  Through it all, no Judith. No anyone, in fact. The house on Pine was still shuttered tight, despite the fact that its south-facing roses, warmed and coddled by the house itself, were in full bloom. What a waste, Jane thought. Granted, passersby like her could admire the colorful blooms. But one or two of the shrubs were old-garden roses; undoubtedly, they would have a seductive fragrance.

  The owner should be here, filling up his house with their scent, she told herself. It's a sin not to.

  Which is how Jane rationalized the nipping of a dozen or so blooms with the pruning shears she just happened to have with her, and tucking them into a canvas shoulder bag she just happened to be carrying.

  ****