Tess had been part of his world for as long as he could remember. So had the rest of her family, giving him the brothers and sister he’d always longed for. But Tess had always been the one he’d felt closest to. Maybe it was all those Halloweens together when she’d insisted he be Raggedy Andy to her Raggedy Ann, Han Solo to her Princess Leia, Superman to her Lois Lane. Or maybe it was the Easter-egg hunts, or the Monopoly games that lasted for days, or tag football—Tess had been there for everything. Every Christmas she dragged him out to go caroling even though he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
He’d die before admitting to her how much he’d miss her. In the first place, they’d never been mushy and sentimental with each other, and in the second place, he didn’t want to be a spoilsport right when she had this exciting chapter opening in her life. He was happy for her. He was jealous as hell and he’d have a hard time adjusting to her being gone, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t glad she had this chance.
“I’m glad you got the job,” he said.
“Me, too. But I asked you to come here with me because I have this one problem, and I think you can help me.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“It’s a different world there in New York, and I don’t feel exactly…ready for it.”
Her voice sounded funny as if she was having trouble getting the words out.
“You’re ready.” He broke off a blade of grass and chewed on the end of it. “You’ve been working up to this all your life. I’ve always known you’d go out there and do something special.” He turned to her. “It’s your ultimate quest, Tess. You might have butterflies, but you’ll be great.”
“Thanks.” She smiled, but she looked preoccupied and very nervous.
He hoped she wasn’t about to break their code and get sentimental. Sure, they wouldn’t be able to see each other much, but they’d survive it.
She cleared her throat and turned to stare straight ahead at the river, concentrating on the water as if she’d never seen it flow before. God, he hoped she wouldn’t start crying. She wasn’t a crier, for which he’d always been grateful. He’d only see her cry a couple of times—when Chewbacca died and when that sleaze Bobby Hitchcock dumped her right before the senior prom. Good thing he hadn’t had a date that night and had been able to fill in.
They’d had a terrific time, and he’d even considered asking her out again, for real. She’d looked so beautiful in her daffodil-yellow dress that it had made his throat tight, and to his surprise he’d been a little turned on by her when they’d danced. He’d almost kissed her on the dance floor, until he’d come to his senses and realized how that would be received by the Blakely brothers. Then, too, he might gross himself out, kissing a girl who was practically his sister.
She continued to gaze at the river. “Mac, I—”
“Hey, me, too,” he said, desperate to stave off whatever sappy thing she might be about to say. If she got started down that road, no telling what sort of blubbering he’d do himself. He chewed more vigorously on the blade of grass.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said in a strained voice. “The thing is, Mac…I’m still a virgin.”
In his surprise he spit the blade of grass clear into the river. Then he was taken with a fit of coughing that brought tears to his eyes.
She pounded him on the back, but the feel of her hand on him only made him cough harder. Ever since he’d discovered the wonders of sex, he’d made sure that he and Tess didn’t talk about the subject. Life was a lot safer that way, and he wished to hell she hadn’t decided to confess her situation to him this morning.
As he sat there wondering if he’d choke to death, she stood up and walked toward the river. Taking off her hat, she scooped water into it and brought it back to him. She held it in front of his nose. “Drink this.”
He drank and then he took off his hat and poured the rest of the cool water over his head. As he shook the moisture from his eyes and drew in a deep breath, he felt marginally better.
She remained crouched in front of him, and he finally found the courage to look at her. “So what?” he said hoarsely.
“I’m twenty-six years old.”
“So?” His response lacked imagination, but she’d short-circuited his brain. If he’d ever thought about this, which he’d been careful not to, he’d have figured out that she was probably still a virgin. The Blakely boys had fenced her in from the day she’d entered puberty.
“I can’t go to the big city like this. I can’t counsel girls who’ve been sexually active since they were twelve if I’ve never, ever—”
“I get the picture.” Much too graphically for his tastes. His mind had leaped ahead to a horrible possibility—that she would ask him to take care of her problem. And the horrible part was that he felt an urge stirring in him to grant her request. He pushed away the traitorous thought. “I think you could certainly go to New York without…experience. Chastity’s catching on these days. You could be a role model.”
“Oh, Mac! I don’t want to be a role model for chastity! I didn’t choose to be a virgin because of some deeply held belief. You know as well as I do that my brothers are the whole reason I’m in this fix.”
Her brothers. God, they would skin him alive if he so much as laid a finger on her. “Well, your brothers aren’t going to New York!” He knew the minute he said it that he’d stepped from the frying pan into the fire.
“No, they’re not. And that’s another point. I’ll be clueless about sex and unchaperoned in a city full of sophisticated men. Is that what you want for me, to be swept off my feet by some fast-talking city slicker who’ll play me for a fool because I don’t know the score?”
This was a trap made in hell. And damned if he wasn’t tempted. “Of course not, but—”
“I need a nice man, Mac. Somebody who can take care of this problem for me before I leave.”
Oh, God. She was going to ask him. His heart hammered as he wondered if he’d have the strength to refuse her. “Listen, Tess. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. And you’re the only person I trust to help me find that man.”
2
“ARE YOU CRAZY?” Mac leaped to his feet so fast he knocked Tess over. The only thing worse than imagining him involved in this dirty deed was imagining some other guy involved. “Sorry.” He reached down and gave her a hand up. Once she was steady on her feet, he released her hand quickly.
She dusted off the seat of her jeans. “Mac, please. I can’t stay a virgin forever.”
“Why not?” So he was being unreasonable. He couldn’t help it. And dammit, now he’d caught himself watching her dust off her fanny and thinking that it was a very nice fanny. Dammit.
She sighed and lowered her head. “I was so counting on your help.”
“Aw, jeez.” Not only was he having inappropriate thoughts about her, he also felt as if he’d abandoned her. But he couldn’t imagine how in hell he could diffuse either situation. “Tess, you know I’d do anything in the world for you, but I can’t see how this would work.”
Her head came up, and hope gleamed in her gray eyes.
He backed a step away from her. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Here’s how it will work. We’ll brainstorm the possibilities and come up with a shortlist. Then you can find out if any of the guys are seeing anyone, because I don’t want to break up any—”
“Whoa.” Panic gripped him. “I never said I’d do this.”
“You said you’d do anything for me.”
“Anything but find you a lover!” Just saying it gave him the shivers. He’d worked so hard to keep from thinking of Tess in a sexual way, and now the barriers were coming down. For the first time he acknowledged the sweet stretch of her T-shirt across her breasts and the inviting curve of her hips. “I think that’s a little more than a reasonable person should expect, don’t you?”
“This is perfectly reasonable! Why should I search around on
my own and end up with some clumsy nerdling who makes my first experience a nightmare, when I can rely on your advice and have a really nice time instead?”
There had to be a good answer to that one. He just needed a moment to think of it. And he couldn’t think while he was picturing Tess having a “really nice time.”
“See?” She gave him the superior little smile that she reserved for the times she’d won either an argument or a game of Monopoly. “You have to admit it makes sense.”
“I don’t have to admit anything. And why me? Why not one of your girlfriends? I thought women exchanged notes on guys all the time.”
“They do, but you’re a better source of info.” She stuck her hands in her hip pockets. “You’ve dated more people around here than anyone I know. You’d know what women say about a guy, and you’ve had a chance to get to know the guys themselves and what they’re really like. You’d know if they brag in the locker room, for example. Besides all that, there’s not a single person, man or woman, I trust to keep my secret as much as I trust you.”
He gulped. When she put it that way, he didn’t know how he could refuse. And he wished she wouldn’t stand like that, with her hands in her hip pockets and her chest thrust forward. He didn’t like it. Okay, he liked it too much.
“Mac.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm.
He tried not to flinch. Tess had put her hand on his arm a million times. She’d grabbed him for various reasons, usually to inflict injury, and he’d grabbed her back. He’d held her hand when she was a little kid and they’d gone trick-or-treating, and they’d clutched each other and screamed when they rode the Twister at the state fair. Touching had never been a big deal. Until now.
“Listen, Mac,” she said. “You pulled out my first tooth, remember?”
“Different case.”
“And you taught me to drive.” She grinned. “You also gave me my first drink of whisky.”
“You begged me for it, and then you threw up.”
“And you held my head. You see, at all those important moments in my life, you were there to guide me.”
“This is way different.”
“Not if you stop being a prude.”
“I’m not a—”
“What about Donny?”
“Donny Beauford?” He snorted. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why? What’s wrong with Donny?”
Mac couldn’t say exactly, except that when he thought of Donny in an intimate embrace with Tess, his skin began to crawl. He passed a hand over his face and gazed up through the leaves of the sycamore. Finally he glanced at her. “He wouldn’t…take care of you.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks grew pink, but she faced him bravely. “You mean sexually?”
“In any way.”
“Oh. Now, see, that’s exactly what I need to know. How about Stu?”
“Oh, God, he’s worse.”
“Buck?”
“Nope.”
“I know who. Jerry.”
“Definitely not! Jerry’s a dweeb. He’d probably—” Mac thought of some raunchy revelations he’d been privy to and decided to censor them. “Never mind. Not Jerry.”
“Okay, then you make a suggestion.”
He gazed at her as the silence filled with the sound of the river and the shuffling hooves of Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. The horses were becoming restless in the growing heat. Moisture trickled down his back, but he didn’t think it was only the weather making him sweat. “I can’t think of anybody.” The truth was, he didn’t want to think of anybody.
“Maybe you just need some time. I caught you by surprise.”
“You certainly did that.”
“Tell you what. Let’s postpone the discussion. Maybe we could meet for dinner tonight.”
“It’s poker night.”
“You’re right. I can’t, either. I’m playing pinochle at Joan’s. Okay, then tomorrow night.”
He decided a delay was the best he could hope for. He couldn’t imagine what would occur to him to get him out of this mess in thirty-six hours, but maybe he’d stumble onto a miracle. “I’ll meet you at the Nugget Café.” He smiled. “It’s meat-loaf night.” Meat-loaf night at the Nugget was one of their shared treats.
“So it is. About six?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.” He glanced up at the sun. “It’s late. We’d better get back. I’ve got tons to do today.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Like what?”
“Research. I bought some books in Phoenix.”
Mac had a feeling he shouldn’t ask the question, but he did, anyway. “What sort of books?”
“On sexual techniques. When the time comes, I want to make sure I know as much as possible.”
He felt as if somebody had kicked him in the stomach. “This is your summer project?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
Mac groaned. It was even worse than he’d thought. When Tess settled on a summer project, a truckload of dynamite wouldn’t dislodge her from her chosen path. If he knew Tess, and he thought he did, she would not be a virgin by the end of the summer. He could help her or not, but she would persevere until she’d checked off everything on her list.
TESS REALIZED how lucky she was that she liked each of the women her brothers had chosen to marry, and they liked her. When the guys got together for poker every Wednesday night, the wives hired baby-sitters and met at one of the other brothers’ houses for pinochle. Tess was always invited. She’d miss the friendly, raucous evenings when she went to New York, but some sacrifices had to be made if she planned to live up to her own expectations.
Tonight the women were meeting at Rhino and Joan’s. Rhino, originally named Ryan but indelibly stamped with a macho nickname in high school, was Tess’s oldest brother and the acknowledged leader of the five siblings. He’d been the first to get married, buy a house and have kids.
From the moment Tess’s niece Sarah had arrived in the world, Tess had decided being an aunt was the coolest thing in the world, although she was a little tired of being a maiden aunt. She arrived at Joan’s early so she could see Sarah, who was now eight, and six-year-old Joe before Joan tucked them into bed.
After giving each of the kids the game she’d bought for them in Phoenix and joining in as Joan sang them silly good-night songs, she followed her dark-haired sister-in-law downstairs to the kitchen to help her get out chips and drinks for the party.
“Thanks for bringing them the game,” Joan said as she took glasses out of the cupboard. “They’re really going to miss you when you go to New York.”
“I’m going to miss them.” Tess emptied tortilla chips into a bowl and opened the refrigerator to search for the homemade salsa Joan always kept on hand.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ll be living such an exciting life, I don’t know if you’ll miss anything from back here.”
“Sure I will. I love this place, and my family and friends.”
“Me, too.” Joan turned to look at her. “But I’d give anything to be in your shoes.”
“Really?” Tess gazed at her sister-in-law. With Joan’s Hispanic, family-oriented background and her obvious dedication to her home and children, she seemed to have found her dream. “I thought you were the original Earth Mother.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy. But the challenge has gone. When we first got married, everything was new. Sex was new, and then having kids was new, and then buying this house and fixing it up was new. But now it’s all just a comfortable routine. And I want—” she paused to laugh “—more worlds to conquer, I guess.”
“I so understand. That’s the whole reason I’m going to New York. It’s my Mount Everest.” She hesitated, then decided to risk a suggestion. “Have you thought of going back to school?”
“I’ve already got the catalogs. I’m thinking—now don’t laugh—of becoming a marriage counselor.”
“No kidding! Joan, that would be wonderful. Obviously you know wh
at goes into making a good marriage.”
Joan gave her a rueful glance. “I wouldn’t call me an expert. But I understand what happens when a couple gets to this point and sort of loses interest in each other.”
Tess’s jaw dropped. “You mean…”
“I mean things are getting really dull in the bedroom. I’ve been thinking of driving to Phoenix and getting some how-to books. I wouldn’t dare buy anything like that in Copperville or the whole town would think I’d become a nymphomaniac.”
“Amen to that. You know, I—” Tess stopped herself before she offered Joan a couple of her research books. She loved and trusted Joan, but she wasn’t quite ready to tell her sister-in-law about her summer project. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“I figured you would. Listen, I’m not saying anything against your brother. He’s a great guy. It’s just that we could probably both use some pointers.”
“Sure. Most people can.”
“I mean, you know how it is. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then it all becomes mechanical.”
“Absolutely.” Tess felt like an impostor, having this discussion with Joan, who assumed Tess had some experience. If she needed any further proof she was doing the right thing, here it was.
Joan came over and gave her a hug. “Thanks for listening and encouraging me. Even though you’re younger than I am, I always think of you as being more sophisticated, for some reason. Maybe it’s your college degree.”
Tess returned the hug. “Book learning isn’t everything.”
“No.” Joan stepped back and smiled at her. “The ideal thing would be to have both.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” And if Mac would help her, she would have both, at last.
THE POKER GAME was held at Tiny Tim’s, the youngest and the largest of the Blakely clan. Tim was a newlywed, proud to show off the new digs he shared with Suzie in an apartment complex near the edge of town.
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