Man From Tennessee

by Jennifer Greene

  She sighed, closing her exhausted eyes deliberately, curling her leg just so and her shoulder in a certain pattern to assure sleep. A lump was lodged in her throat, an anguished knot of too many memories in that other bedroom. One short embrace in the night didn’t change that. Only a fool would read something into a few simple kisses. She’d been exhausted, disoriented, not herself, she told herself wearily. Yet the question plagued her long into the night. Did he actually still want her?

  At five minutes to six the next morning, Trisha tiptoed down the stairs, determined to have a cup of coffee in silence before either Kern or Julia woke up. Swinging from her hand was a pair of red sandals with ribbon-thin straps. The navy jersey she wore had red piping for trim and a slash of red belt that cinched in her narrow waist. The dress was an old favorite and she loved the way the material flowed softly around her knees when she walked; more relevant at the moment was that it was unbeatable to travel in. Going home was second on the list of priorities, directly after coffee.

  She slipped on the sandals at the closed door to the kitchen and stifled a yawn. An early riser by nature when she was rested, she found it difficult to wake after a long, restless night. She pushed open the swinging door and two startled pair of eyes met each other.

  Rhea had a huge coffee pot in her hand. She, too, wore red and navy, a red chamois shirt and a tight pair of navy jeans. Besides the colors there was no resemblance to be found between the two women. Rhea was the image of a country woman next to Trisha’s crisp city freshness. “I-good morning,” Rhea said hesitantly. “I was just making coffee.”

  “Good morning.” The look of surprise was unmistakable in Rhea’s eyes. Kern evidently had neglected to mention he was having overnight guests. “I’ve been coming over to make Kern breakfast in the mornings. He hasn’t been able to do much for himself with his right wrist out of commission. If you want something…”

  It was just six o’clock but the floor already looked scrubbed and the dishes in the dishwasher from the night before had been put away. Trisha felt relieved that she had decided to go home this day. The lady was a prize, a living composite of all the things Trisha had not been once upon a time-efficient, devoted, marvelously beddable.

  “I asked if I could get you anything?” Rhea repeated.

  “I-yes.” The bedroom-eyed brunette might even be nice, but every nerve in Trisha’s body tensed defensively. She had no right to Kern, not after five years, but a cup of coffee in solitude surely wasn’t too much to ask. She smiled stiffly at Rhea. “I’m leaving in a few hours with Kern’s mother. If you don’t mind, I can put on the pot of coffee myself. Mrs. Lowery is rather fussy and she hasn’t been well, so I’d have to make her breakfast anyway-”

  “Oh, but this isn’t for-”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Trisha said with pleasant firmness.

  “Well.” Rhea was a good six inches taller than Trisha, but she backed down like a lamb. With a little shrug of her shoulders she set down the coffee pot. “You can tell Kern I’ll see him later today.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that.”

  With a pleasant smile Trisha closed the door on the none-too-happy Rhea. At the moment she wasn’t too happy either and her smile faded as she turned back to the kitchen. The huge pot of coffee seemed an enormous amount for three people, but it was already started. Perhaps Kern had fallen into the habit of drinking coffee during the day.

  Waiting for the coffee to finish perking, Trisha leaned on the counter, looking out the long low window over the sink. The sun was catching the dew from the grass and trees, glittering brightly on the exact spot where Kern had kissed her. The night had been full of that echoing image. She had barely slept. But in the morning light she had a sudden picture in her mind of Rhea and Kern in that same spot. Rhea, with her earthy looks and sleepy dark eyes, was a much more suitable mate for Kern than she had ever been.

  She turned away when the pot finally finished perking and the steamy aroma pervaded the kitchen. She found a mug in the cupboard and was pouring herself a cup when the back door opened.

  “Well, howdy, ma’am!”

  The invader was a tall lanky Westerner with mustache and wide-brimmed hat which he hastily removed. He was followed by a blonde little wren of a woman, then two men with fishing gear propped at the door, a freckled and pigtailed sprite of a child, a teenager with lazy green eyes, an austerely handsome grandfatherly and banker type, and finally Kern.

  The morning light gave his eyes a smoky cast as they surveyed her from head to toe and back again, taking in everything from the chignon and startled expression to the tailored dress. His eyes fixed for a moment on her shapely legs and longer yet on the curve of her hips. He moved so quickly toward her that she froze, his look so damned sexual that it made her feel stalked.

  “Just sit down everyone,” he drawled lazily. “Have breakfast up in a minute. Nate, Barb, Robert, Ed, Mrs. Anther, little Georgia, Bill-this is Trisha. My wife.” One other man entered the kitchen; a stocky blond about her own age with a pair of puppy-soft brown eyes. “And this is Jack, who has been living and working at the camp for the last three months. He’s aiming toward a forestry degree.”

  She was trying to attach names to faces when Kern’s hand brushed her shoulder. “Is the coffee ready? Where’s Rhea?”

  She thought it odd that he had introduced her as his wife, when it was bound to raise questions for him when she was gone. At the moment she simply set down her coffee, understanding all too quickly that Rhea had been trying to tell her she was there for more reasons than just Kern’s coffee. “It didn’t take two of us to handle a little breakfast,” she murmured awkwardly.

  “You mean she’s gone? Why on earth would she take off now when she knew there would be a group coming in?”

  Why on earth indeed? She flashed him an irritated look. Five years ago he had occasionally brought in people at a moment’s notice. She had a clear-cut memory of six people waiting while she burned a dozen eggs and fled in tears from her failure. “How many heads?” Trisha called out over the sound of scraping chairs as people sat down.

  “Eleven,” volunteered the freckled urchin.

  Kern was already lining up paper cups on a counter. When he went to lift the heavy coffee pot with his left hand, it wobbled. “Just sit down,” she ordered him under her breath.

  “Look, Tish, no one asked you to do anything like this. You don’t need to-”

  “Hush, Kern,” she whispered crisply, “and just get out of my way.”

  There was some sort of wretched humor in history repeating itself, although this time around she at least knew what she was doing in a kitchen. The sausages were prepared for the microwave and coffee poured for eleven. Little Georgia was enlisted to carefully deliver the cups and the cream and sugar. Two dozen eggs were cracked, blended with milk, grated cheese, green pepper and fresh pepper. The toast popped out in fours, was buttered and stashed in a warming oven as the eggs started cooking.

  “Mrs. Lowery, if you should be wanting some help…” offered the fragile little blonde woman.

  “Please call me Trisha. And there’s nothing, really.” As she set a knife and fork in front of Kern, he was talking about the hiking trails to one couple, wildflowers to another. He was answering every question about fishing, wildlife and mountain lore, but he was aware of her. She could feel it. There was the faintest hint of a smile in that beard that had nothing to do with the subjects at hand. Was he amused that she was coping so easily? Worse than that, she feared she was creating an impression of enjoying herself.

  With a little pang she realized that she was enjoying herself, the chaos and good cooking smells, the diversity of people and laughter. It was only Kern who threw her, so irritably virile-looking in a gold pullover and tan pants, his skin like dark honey, his brilliantly alert eyes beneath bushy brows following her every movement.

  She flew back to stir the eggs, took out the next round of toast, popped the microwave button for the sausages and pulled out p
lates from the shelf. Five minutes later it was all served, and with one long sigh of satisfaction Trisha turned to pour herself that suddenly, desperately needed cup of coffee.

  Kern’s chair suddenly grated on the floor behind her.

  “Sit here, Tish,” he ordered. “You seem to have forgotten a plate for yourself. I’m already done.”

  She shook her head. “I never eat breakfast. All I want-”

  His eyes glittered mischief. “Now, now. Just sit down.” He laced his arm around her neck and propelled her forward to the table. “We’ve got to get you fed and out in the sun. You’re city pale, sweets.” His man Jack was staring curiously. He was the only one present who obviously should have known about Kern’s “wife.” Trisha flushed, stiffly refusing to sit down for a meal she didn’t want, awkward in front of so many eyes. Kern’s palm smoothed down her spine, patted her fanny in what must have looked like affection and what felt distinctly like a shocking intimacy. She sat down promptly. “That’s a good girl.”

  Are you ill? she said distinctly with her eyes, both angry and bewildered by his actions. It was obviously not the occasion to speak out loud, and in spite of herself in a few minutes she nearly forgot her irritation. Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, New York and Mississippi were represented at the table, plus CPAs, farmers and a college professor. It was really an intriguing mix of people and she was drawn in to their conversations, managing a bite or two of breakfast in between, again ruefully finding that she was enjoying herself.

  Finally the group started filtering out. As Kern stood at the door answering last-minute questions, Trisha quickly jumped up to start shuffling dishes back into the dishwasher. In minutes she had been thrown pell-mell into Kern’s life again as if she belonged, and Kern’s lazy familiarity confused her. Just what kind of game did he think he was playing?

  With lightning speed she hurried to put the kitchen back in reasonable order, finally pausing to pour her second cup of cold coffee down the drain.

  “I heard voices,” Julia said reproachfully from the doorway.

  “Morning, Mother.” Kern’s tone was casual, but his eyes were instantly and shrewdly assessing his mother’s health just as Trisha’s were.

  Julia was dressed meticulously in one of her favored raw silks. Her hair was groomed strictly back and her eyes were steely blue…and battle-sharp ready. But the step was uneven and a makeup foundation could not hide the pallor of her complexion.

  Unconsciously Trisha glanced at Kern, her eyes a soft mirror of worry and shared compassion she couldn’t help. Truthfully she felt a measure of relief that Kern would handle his mother. She had never been successful at making a blend of Julia and doctors. And how Kern could conceivably do so she didn’t know. Julia looked prepared for a battle to the death, as if she knew the subject were going to come up.

  “Could you eat some breakfast, darling?” Trisha asked.

  “An omelet, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Mrs. Lowery requested. “No salt-you know, Patricia.”

  But Kern made it to the refrigerator before she did, scooping out two eggs from a new carton with his left hand. They would have immediately rolled off the counter if she hadn’t swooped for them, for he was already bending down to get a bowl. “Tish, you’ve waited long enough for that coffee. Now just sit down,” he ordered flatly.

  “It’s no problem, Kern,” she insisted, but he was already cracking the eggs. The lithe animal grace he carried with him in the woods didn’t seem to extend to the kitchen. More than half the eggs slopped over the side of the bowl and the other half dripped stickily from his palm. For an instant he looked at his hand as if shocked he could conceivably make such a mess, and Trisha could not hold back a full-throated chuckle.

  “You’re not meant to be a lefty, Kern,” she chided teasingly and chuckled all over again when he glared at her.

  “I’ve been holding my own in a kitchen for some time.”

  “Have you?” she said dryly, remembering all too well how expertly acquainted Rhea was with his kitchen.

  “Just sit down and have your coffee!”

  Well, she was willing, but she watched. The cleaned mushrooms were already on the counter from before. He got out a paring knife, and just as Trisha had the caffeine inches from her lips he sliced through his finger with all the skill of a two-year-old in a china shop. She put down her coffee for the third time, half pushed him to the sink and turned on the cold-water tap to the point where it splashed back, spraying Kern and Trisha equally. Kern burst out laughing.

  “Well, I’ve never seen anyone so inept in my entire life.” Trisha defended herself as she adjusted the water and propelled the cut beneath the spray. “Of all the idiotic…when you know you can’t use your right hand…”

  “I think the idea is to clean a cut, not drown it.”

  “And knowing you, all the first-aid supplies are down at the camp!”

  “Trisha,” he said dryly, “it’s nothing. The only reason it hurts is because you’re cutting off all the circulation in my wrist.”

  Both her hands were enclosed tightly on Kern’s hand to keep his finger under the water. Her shoulder was half tucked under his, her bottom pressed to his thigh. His face was only inches from hers when she half turned in sudden startled awareness of him. Devilment shone from his gray eyes; his mouth, nearly hidden in the dark beard, was twitching-but there was something else. For a moment she felt caught up in the circle of his arms, and his bandaged wrist lifted to the nape of her neck, chafed and yet seemed to caress the soft skin there. “How surprising-that you’re so concerned,” he whispered.

  She stepped back from him as if burned. “Well, it isn’t ‘nothing.’ It’s still bleeding. You need a Band-Aid.”

  “Do you think there’s a remote possibility between the two of you that I could at least have a cup of coffee?” Julia interrupted, with a smug little smile as she surveyed the two of them.

  Trisha moved to stir the eggs in the bowl again, but Kern followed, reaching above her, one hand balancing on the curve of her hip. Like hell it was balancing. She jerked away, glaring up at him.

  “I was just getting a Band-Aid. If you wouldn’t mind putting it on for me-”

  “Your mother will do it,” Trisha said sharply. What was this? Her specialty was emotional cool. She hadn’t felt that particular brand of sheer sexual nervousness around any man since…five years ago. It was appalling, and she concentrated totally on Julia’s breakfast, finally serving it as she brought her now-cool coffee to the table. Kern and Julia had been talking. Avoiding Kern’s eyes, she sat next to Julia, grasping her coffee cup as if subconsciously she was afraid someone would take it away from her. An addict without her fix, she knew coffee would put everything back in perspective again.

  “…so about eleven, I’ll take you around the place, Mother. I would take you earlier, but Trisha insists you see a doctor this morning.”

  Her jaw dropped, and Julia laid wounded eyes on her. “Patricia, I am perfectly all right! I told you that yesterday. I’ve had my rest-”

  “And you’re looking wonderful,” Kern lied, seeming completely sympathetic to his mother’s cause. “But when Tish made such a fuss this morning I called Ted. At least he’s a friend, mother, not some stranger. Having been through a round of doctors after this little accident, I’m beginning to understand how you feel about the medical profession.”

  “They all want something to be wrong with you,” Julia said with an injured tone. “Just so they can keep you coming back-”

  Kern nodded. “Always poking needles-”

  “You don’t know the half of it at your age. You reach sixty and all they talk is angiograms, and the cost…”

  Trisha hadn’t known Julia had had an angiogram. Julia switched doctors like dresses. If she didn’t like the diagnosis, she changed the doctor. It was difficult not to forgive Kern for making her the scapegoat, when his method of extracting information from his mother gleaned more than her coaxing or scolding.

  �
��Well, I’ve never been overnight in a hospital…” Kern continued.

  “But I have, Kern. The food is horrible, people poking and prodding all the time. And consultants-now that’s another dreadful racket. You can’t have just one doctor; an internist won’t even talk to you unless there’s a heart man there…”

  Kern reached for his coffee cup with a casually interested expression toward his mother that didn’t fool Trisha at all. “Well, you don’t have to do a thing you don’t want to. It’s Tish’s problem if she wants to hightail it out of here this morning. So you can just stay here with me. I’ll be driving back north at the end of August anyway.”

  Julia nearly choked on her coffee. “Stay, Kern? A few days perhaps, but I have a club meeting on Friday. Trisha, you can surely stay until-”

  “Tish said she was leaving this morning, with you or without you…unless you saw a doctor this morning,” Kern continued sadly. “Actually, I thought I had her all talked into staying a few days, too, Mother, but…”

  Lord, he was good at it. Trisha marveled, not just at his ability to maneuver his mother. He already had her jumpy around him, making his breakfast, taking care of his cuts, now somehow staying longer than she wanted to. He was the same overwhelming Kern. The old Trisha had been lost in that power of his, but it didn’t feel quite the same now. She could see what he was doing, for one thing, and more important, she understood why.

  “Well, if you’ll agree to stay a few days, Patricia,” Julia said petulantly. “I must say it’s all a mountain for a molehill, but if you really must be so ridiculously obstinate about it…”

  “I am,” she said frankly and turned with an impish smile to Kern. “Just what time is this appointment I insisted on making, Kern?”