My memory’s a little shaky, but I still say he kissed me back. When I trailed my hands down his bare chest, though, he grabbed my wrists.
“What are you doing?” he panted.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I tried to pull my hands free, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Why?”
“I’m not turning you down.” This time when I kissed him I had enough wits about me to make it tender, framing his face with my hands before letting them wander. He refused to give in. My hands wrapped around him and traveled down his back to his ass. Boxer briefs, not tighty whities. I giggled, but he growled.
He pulled me inside and slammed the door hard enough that somewhere a picture fell off the wall. Pushing me against the door, he gave in completely, kissing his way from my neck back up to my lips and across my other jawline.
“Be my David,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I’ll be Bathsheba, and you . . . you can be my David.”
His eyes shone intensely. I sucked in a deep breath while he weighed his options. He muttered something under his breath, but I drew him close again. Finally, his lips found mine and his hand started a steady climb from my waist. My heart did a somersault at being wanted, at being chosen after all.
His hands roamed all over my body, while mine remained fascinated by his arms, his chest, and his powerful shoulders. He backed us in the direction of the living room, and I let him pull me. When we reached the couch, he pulled me down on top of him. What few brain cells I had snapped and popped until I thought my brain might explode from the sheer bliss of my body resting on top of his.
And then he ripped his lips from mine with a ragged sigh.
Before I could fully process what was going on, he stood at the end of the couch looking down. “If Eve was anything like you, no wonder Adam was a goner.”
“Then why don’t you come down here and take a bite?”
He leaned forward, but stepped back with a “Dammit, no!” then muttered what I thought was “Not again. Not this time.” He ran a hand through his hair, and this time a few strands didn’t make it back into place. I would’ve cheered if my head hadn’t been spinning and I hadn’t been so afraid I’d done something wrong yet again.
“Beulah, I can’t be your David.”
“Luke, that was me flirting. I want you for you.” My response startled me. Apparently, I’d had more than enough beer to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
His eyes looked gray in the dim kitchen light shining over his shoulder. “But for how long?”
Forever.
My quick answer scared me. What was I saying? Hell, I was too drunk to know what I was saying. Or drunk enough to tell the truth.
If I gave him the answer he was looking for, I would probably get exactly what I wanted—even more, if his response to my kiss was any indication. If I gave him the wrong answer, though, I knew he was going to send me packing. My brain swam.
To my credit, I stuck with the truth. “I don’t know.”
His strong shoulders slumped. “The intern said no, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
He released my wrists. “And you’ve had too much to drink, haven’t you?”
“Probably, but—”
“Then your heart’s not in the right place. I’ll get my keys and drive you home.” He walked down a short hallway and returned shrugging into a T-shirt.
He pulled me to my feet, and I stood there in his living room, mouth agape. The world had slowed down considerably, almost enough for the embarrassment to creep in.
We didn’t say anything on the way home. He never once chastised me nor did he tease me. He killed the engine in the driveway, and he turned to look at me. “Beulah, I’m not the saint you seem to think I am. I don’t know what’s between us, but I think it’d be best to forget tonight happened for now.”
Fat chance. But I swallowed hard and nodded affirmatively.
“And don’t drink so much. Not when you’re sad—especially not when you’re sad.”
I nodded again. He had reverted to preacher mode, a stilted, authoritarian tone far different from his whisper of “And for the record, it was you who turned me down.”
I suppose we’re even now.
“I care a lot about you.” He reached for my cheek, but his hand landed on my shoulder instead. “We all do.”
My eyes met his but quickly looked away. He hadn’t been willing to give me the help I needed—at least not the help I thought I needed.
“Thanks for the ride.” I scooted out of his car before he could tell me anything else that might make me want to cry.
Ever the gentleman, he waited until I made it inside before starting his car and backing down the drive. I closed the door behind me and leaned against its solidity. I had kissed a minister. I had had every intention of fornicating with a minister. No fewer than twelve of my Baptist ancestors were rotating in their graves like pigs on spits while demons readied my room in hell.
I tiptoed across the foyer and made it as far as the bottom step before I heard Ginger’s voice.
“Beulah Lou,” she said softly. “I think you need to come in here and have a seat with me.”
My head whipped around, but it took me a few seconds to adjust enough to the dark to see her. She sat in the recliner, with her hands splayed at the end of the armrests and her fingers digging into their cushioning.
“Are you okay? What are you still doing up?”
“I’m fine.” She grimaced, and the pain etched in lines above her would-be eyebrows proved her a liar.
“You are not okay. Let me take you to the doctor.”
“Nothing they can do. It’s this damn itching. I itch all over, but there’s not a scratch in this world that will fix it.”
I had some idea of what that was like. Well, but there was a cure for me. I just couldn’t seem to get my hands on him. “Can’t we do something?”
“Oh, baby, it’ll pass. It always does.” Ginger shifted in her seat. “Celebrating too much?”
“No. The intern didn’t think our little group was marketable. He said we might be able to rent a studio and do it ourselves, maybe sell copies out of the trunk of our car.”
“Well, then. Do that!”
“Now, Ginger. Can you imagine me loading everyone up for a trip to Nashville?”
“Then do a recording at the church or the bar or something. There’s no rule that says it has to be fancy.”
“That’s not the worst idea. I’ll think about it.” I didn’t tell her about his studio musician suggestion. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet.
She grunted as she shifted again. “His loss. Who drove you home?”
I opened my mouth to ask her how she knew that, but Ginger never missed a beat. She had heard the car pull up, kill its engine, then start up again. “Luke.”
She nodded, her eyes closed. She had known the answer before she asked the question.
“That was nice of him,” she said. Her grip eased on the arms of the chair, and the creases in her brow lessened as her eyes remained closed.
“Yes,” I said softly. “Yes, it was.”
“Turned you down, huh?”
I plopped on the end of the couch closest to her chair. “He turned me down flat. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You weren’t, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Luke’s too much of a gentleman to sleep with you while you’re drunk,” Ginger’s words were slurred. She turned to shine her bleary eyes on me for a moment before looking back at the ceiling and letting her eyelids droop.
“He’s too much of a gentleman in general.” Your heart’s not in the right place.
“Take off the ‘gentle,’ and you’ll have what Luke is, and there are damn precious few of those running around.” A few of the lines in her brow disappeared. Whatever had caused the itch was receding.
“Ginger, do you think Luke could ever fall in love with a girl like me?”
But she didn’t answer because she’d fallen asleep.
That night I sat on the couch to be near her. I had no desire to sleep, but I needed to be close to her, to hear the sound of her breathing. She would inhale, hold her breath, then let it go with a snore. Each time she held her breath I held mine.
I wanted to tell her more. I wanted to tell her about knocking on a preacher’s door for a booty call. I wanted to ask her what she thought about Luke’s conversation in the driveway. Did she think we could forget what happened? Did she think we should?
In the end, I couldn’t bear to wake her up once she was peaceful. And I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing her, of showing her how I hadn’t learned from my mistakes. She would’ve understood me, though. She would have told me I staggered across that parking lot due to a primal need I’d never had the chance to figure out on my own. She would have pointed out that Bathsheba’s tale of losing one baby but gaining another had given me hope.
But Ginger wasn’t awake to counsel me through my feelings.
Nor was she at the parsonage to assure Luke my intentions had been purer than even I had intended.
Tears coursed silently down my cheeks because life without Ginger was going to be a life without someone to champion me, without someone to explain to me why I did the things I did.
I reached over to squeeze her hand, but I couldn’t bring myself to possibly interrupt her hard-won sleep. Instead I whispered, “Ginger Belmont, I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Chapter 22
The next Sunday I considered faking my own death to get out of playing piano at the church. How in heaven’s name was I supposed to pretend that things were okay between me and Luke?
I’d chickened out of telling the Happy Hour Choir what happened with Derek the intern. I’d told Tiffany, though, certain that she would tell anyone else who would listen because she was so indignant on my behalf.
“Beulah Lou, time to go!”
I plodded down the stairs in the lowest-cut sundress I had, halfheartedly hoping Ginger would send me back upstairs and not let me come back down.
She didn’t say a word.
At the church, we had to park on the outer edges of the parking lot. “Hey, Tiff, what’s this all about?”
She offered me a hand, and I helped her slide out of the backseat. She tried to hide her blush by walking around the car to help Ginger. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I know you’re a horrible liar.”
Once we had Ginger in the choir loft, Tiffany turned me toward the congregation and faced the wall while she spoke softly in my ear. “The flower shop is next door to the beauty parlor, and I heard that Goat Cheese has been talking about the choir, telling everyone they need to come see us. Then Miss Lottie has been telling anyone who will listen that you and Luke are an item.”
My stomach bottomed out around my toes.
“I don’t think her rumors have done what she intended,” Tiffany continued before I could stop her. “Kari, for one, said she thought the two of you would make a handsome couple.”
My heart knocked around in my chest. Maybe we would’ve made a handsome couple if I weren’t so screwed up. As I stood there willing my body to continue with the basic function of breathing, I realized there were more people than I could count.
“Tiffany,” I whispered. “All those people are here to see the choir?”
She bit her lip as she nodded yes.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. “Then let’s give them something to remember.”
She took her seat, and I laid the jazz thickly to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Half the congregation sang softly along with the glory, glory, hallelujahs. If Luke minded I had just called an audible with the prelude, he didn’t say anything.
Sam provided the perfect touch to “The Church in the Wild-wood” and, blessedly, kept the kazoo out of it. Tiffany and I sang an even better version of “Ivory Palaces” for the offertory than we had in practice. Then Luke started to read from the same passage about David and Bathsheba that the Bible study had covered that week.
It was all I could do to school my face into indifference. I couldn’t hear his words for analyzing that night six ways from Sunday. Had he been repulsed? Had I given the wrong answer? What was the right answer? If my heart hadn’t been in the right place, then where could I put it? My mind went around and around in circles, and I tried not to blush too fiercely when Jason Utley caught me daydreaming instead of starting the invitation.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As the church sang about being weary and heavyhearted, I led them through their paces. I refused to turn around to watch Luke shaking hands at the door, but I could hear a crowd—it had to be more than fifty people. And was that the giggle of a child? There were children at County Line?
Well, Luke had what he wanted, what he needed.
I slipped out the back door trying not to be so sad that what he needed hadn’t included me. I didn’t need him, either. I’d made it just fine before he came along, and I would have my hands full with Tiffany and Ginger.
The next month passed in a flurry of taking care of Ginger and playing at The Fountain. Luke and I managed to be cordial with each other, but he didn’t request that I stay for Bible study anymore. Even though staying after choir was the last thing I wanted, I irrationally wanted him to ask me to stay. He’d finally realized he was better off without me, the very thing I’d tried to tell him at the beginning.
Most days Ginger felt okay, but there were bad days, too. I had the feeling the only thing really keeping her with us was her desire to see Tiffany through her pregnancy. Well, that and her innate stubbornness. If the doctor said she only had six months to live, then she was going to live seven just to spite him.
Then somewhere at the beginning of August she had to go back to the hospital because the blood thinner that had cleared the clot from her spleen then caused her spleen to rupture. She joked with the doctor, saying, “Can’t you folks fix one problem without causing another?” She was less forgiving of the hospital food, though, and threatened to launch a campaign for caffeinated coffee on all morning trays.
She came home mid-August and had a few days where she went on a ridiculous cleaning spree. Tiffany and I had to practically tie her down to keep her from hurting herself. We couldn’t stop her as she worked in the little planter boxes on the front porch or started freezing meals for when she was gone. One day, I even caught her putting labels on the backs of pictures, plates, and other household items. I didn’t let her see me, but when I came back later to find she was dividing up her possessions and marking to whom they should go, I ran upstairs and cried yet again. I sobbed into my pillow so no one could hear me because I didn’t want to be the one that sent that first domino of sorrow toppling over.
At the end of August, she started to walk with a limp. The doctors determined she had developed a tumor on her spine, a tumor that was pinching the nerves of her right leg. I begged her to take treatment to ease the pain. She refused. Her only request? She wanted to go to choir practice then stick around for the Sinners to Saints Bible study.
I couldn’t tell her no for a couple of reasons. First, she was getting so thin I was beginning to fear I might lose her at any moment. I wanted to keep her in my sight at all times even if it meant facing Luke at Bible study. Also, I couldn’t tell her no without admitting that Luke and I weren’t on the best of terms. Despite my best efforts, I only held her off until early September just after Labor Day.
She used her cane to enter The Fountain. “Never thought I’d see the day I came in here,” she said.
“That makes two of us,” I muttered under my breath.
“Quit holding my arm. That’s what I’ve got this cane for.”
I let go, and she trudged across the room, her leg obviously hurting her. She sat down behind Tiffany. Sam sat down on her left. “Hey, there, tall boy!”
“Hey, Miss Ginger,” he sa
id. “Can I get you a beer?”
“Yes, you can. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a beer, and I think I’ll try one before, well, you know. Not getting any younger here. What do you suggest?”
“Uh, Heineken?”
“Would you mind getting me one of those?” Ginger batted her eyelashes, and Sam jumped to his feet as if Scarlett O’Hara herself had sent him on a sacred mission. He procured a Heineken longneck and popped off the cap before handing it to her.
Ginger looked at the bottle, smelled its contents, then held it out with her face scrunched up in disgust. She yelled up to me at the piano. “Do you really drink this stuff?”
“Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Go ahead and taste it. If you don’t like it, I’ll drink it.”
“I wish I could have a beer.” Tiffany sighed mournfully.
“Oh, you’re underage anyway, so quit your bitching,” Ginger said to a collective gasp.
Sam spewed his beer.
“It’s only a few more months.” She studied the label of her beer.
“But then there’ll be breast-feeding and—” Tiffany began.
Sam almost spewed again, but Ginger didn’t miss a beat as she switched from battle-ax to grandmother and gave Tiffany a gentle pat on the knee. “But it will all be worth it. That much I promise you.”
Tiffany struggled to turn sideways and placed a hand on Ginger’s arm. She teared up for no reason, as she’d been doing often the past few weeks. “Miss Ginger, then you drink and enjoy that beer for me.”
“Cheers!” Ginger turned the bottle up and chugged more than she should have. As a result she belched loudly and, instead of apologizing, said, “That tastes like shit.”
The entire Happy Hour Choir hooted and hollered, really rolling in the aisles. Old Mac laughed so hard he had to wipe away tears, and the Gates brothers were both about to bust a gut. Ginger’s eyes twinkled, and she took another swig. “Hey, Beulah, I think I should have been coming to these practices. These folks are fun.”
I grinned. “I told you they weren’t so bad.”
“No, but the beer is.” Ginger took another drink, then looked at the label and up at Bill. “Maybe I’m not a beer drinker. Bill?”
The Happy Hour Choir Page 18