Here With Me

by Beverly Long

  Or like a new rose in the garden in early June.

  She was a champagne bubble.

  She was fine.

  ***

  When she finally got out of the bathroom, after changing into her pajamas, and running cold water across her wrists for about three minutes, he was already on the floor, covered up by the quilt. He lay on his back, his dark hair brushed back from his face, a stark contract to the yellow pillowcase.

  She looked at her watch and then back at him. He had an eight o’clock shadow. She knew he’d shaved that morning at Target so he must be the kind of guy who could go about twelve hours before he started taking on the very sexy, I-need-a-woman-to remind-me-to-shave look.

  “I can’t believe we’re going to bed and it’s only eight o’clock,” she said.

  “I’ll try to be quiet when I get up in the morning.”

  “I’ll set the alarm.”

  He looked confused.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’re one of those people who just know what time it is. You don’t even need an alarm clock to wake you up?”

  He shook his head. “Not usually,” he said, sounding wary again.

  She walked over and lowered both shades. The room darkened, lit only by the bathroom light, which she'd left on. She climbed into bed. “Even before I got pregnant, I hated to get up in the morning. Now, it takes something just shy of dynamite to get me up.”

  He didn’t answer. She lay on her back and stared upward, looking somewhere past the darkness.

  She hadn’t bought him any pajamas.

  So, he was either sleeping in his clothes or something less. And it was the something else that was causing her to feel sort of hot and bothered, even though the air-conditioning appeared to be working just fine.

  She matched her breathing to his. It was crazy, she knew, but she didn’t want him to hear her breathing. It was too intimate. She’d never heard Gavin Blake breathe.

  Because there’d been a wall.

  “Melody.”

  His voice was quiet, like he wasn’t sure she was awake.

  “Yes.”

  “I like your grandmother.”

  She smiled in the darkness. “That’s cool. I think she likes you, too.”

  ***

  George woke up when he heard Melody cry out. He threw back the quilt, stumbled over to the bed, just in time to see her grabbing at her bare lower leg. She’d thrown back her covers and her normally smooth face was twisted in pain.

  “Jesus. What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Leg. Cramp,” she said, between clenched teeth. She massaged her leg with the heel of her hand.

  “Let me,” he said. He moved quickly, sitting cross-legged on the bed with her leg across his lap. With both hands, he rubbed the back of her leg, from the hollow behind her knee, all the way to her delicate ankle.

  He could feel the tension in her whole body. He’d had a leg cramp or two in his lifetime. He knew she had to be in terrible pain and that knowledge pinched at his heart.

  It took all of three minutes before her body relaxed and she lay back in the bed, clearly exhausted. He continued to rub her leg, although with less force, knowing that even though the cramp had passed, it would have left her muscles sore. He skimmed the bottom of her foot with his knuckles.

  She laughed and he realized that he’d tickled her. He did it again, grateful to hear her joy rather than her pain.

  She opened her eyes. “Stop that,” she said. “I’m ticklish.” She pulled her leg back, resting her foot on his thigh.

  Oh Lord. Another three inches higher and her toes would be tickling his balls. He didn’t need them to start laughing right now. He gently shifted her foot toward his knee.

  There was enough light in the room that he could see that the wisps of hair around her face were dampened with her own sweat. She was smiling but the leg cramp had taken its toll. “This happen often, Melody?”

  She shook her head. “Not often. Usually just when I’ve worked an extra-long shift at the restaurant. Also, I read that leg cramps sometimes happen to pregnant women if they haven’t had enough water to drink during the day.”

  He hated to think that she’d been alone dealing with this kind of pain. “You need to be more careful. Make sure you’re not on your feet too much.”

  “I know.”

  “And that you drink enough water.”

  “Yes, Mother.” She smiled at him and using her hands, scooted herself up to a sitting position.

  His lap felt suddenly empty. And when her eyes settled on his bare chest and then drifted lower still, to linger on his unsnapped jeans, he could feel his body react in a most expected way.

  He got hard—for the second time that day, proof positive that the first time hadn’t been a fluke. He felt warm and wondered if it was lust flowing through his body or simply relief that he could want again for a woman.

  “I’ll get you some water,” he said, shifting and moving, making sure that his need wasn’t staring her in the face. He stood next to the bed, his body half-turned away from her, while he pretended to be busy straightening up the quilt.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  What? Get water or act like a man who’d taken leave of his senses? He wasn’t about to ask for clarification. He picked his shirt up from the chair where he’d hung it the night before and put it on. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, never looking at her.

  He took the steps quickly but quietly. The house was dark but several of the blinds had been left partly open and bright moonlight slipped in. He passed the piano room and looked longingly at the newspaper that Melody’s grandmother had left next to her chair. He badly wanted to read it, to try to figure out this world he’d been thrown into, but he didn’t stop. Melody needed water first.

  When he got to the kitchen, he got the biggest glass out of the cupboard and filled it completely. Then he set it aside and splashed cold water on his face and ran his hands and wrists under the steady stream.

  He needed to cool off, to get control. He sure as hell couldn’t be reacting like some randy bull in a pasture full of heifers every time he touched her or she happened to touch him.

  He was thirty-four years old and his cock was acting like he was fourteen again—jumping up and down like a damn puppet on a string. At fourteen, he’d gone behind the barn and handled it the way he figured most fourteen-year-old boys did. At seventeen, he’d had his first woman and that had been the last time, so to speak, that he’d taken matters into his own hands.

  Hannah had wanted to wait until they were married. He’d taken her to bed that first night and almost exploded in her hand.

  But as much as he’d wanted her, he’d never, ever, hardened so fast as he had when Melody had touched him. There was probably only one thing he could do. He picked up the glass and started walking back upstairs.

  He had to make sure that the two of them didn’t touch again.

  When he got back to the room, she had the light on and was sitting up in bed, a notepad of sorts on her lap. She was scribbling furiously on it. He paid her activity scarce attention, he was more interested that she’d pulled the sheet up, covering her almost to her neck. Had she seen his cock about to burst out of his pants? He thought about apologizing but decided it might be better if they both just ignored it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She looked up, clearly startled at his sudden appearance, and flipped the pad over. “Nothing. Just. . .making a list of things the baby needs.”

  “Drink it all,” he said, as he handed her the glass.

  She looked at the glass, then at him. “I’ll wet the bed if I do that.”

  He knew he was in trouble when even that made his cock twitch.

  “Drink what you can,” he said. He stood there and she obediently tipped the glass up. She drank about half of it and then handed him the glass.

  “If you leave it on the nightstand, I promise I’ll finish it by morning,
” she said.

  Not wanting the glass to leave a mark on the fine wood, he reached for the notebook that Melody had tossed aside. He heard a squeak from the bed.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He flipped the notepad over, set the glass on it, and was about to walk away when the words caught his eye. Nails. Boards. Screws. Trim. Drywall. Paint. Wallpaper. Then she written the word wall about ten times. He glanced at her. Her face was pink but she didn’t look like she was in pain. If he’d had to guess, she was embarrassed.

  “These are things for your baby?”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  She sounded a bit flustered. He looked at the list again.

  “I’m really tired,” she said. “Can we just turn off the light?”

  It had been a long day. They could both use the sleep. He turned off the lamp and lay on the floor, his back to the bed. Even though it was too warm for the quilt, he got under it.

  “Melody,” he said, his voice soft. “If your baby needs a wall, I’ll help you build it.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment. Finally, she said, “That would be great, George. Goodnight.”

  He lay perfectly still. It was maybe ten minutes later when he was certain by the steadiness of her breathing that she was back asleep. He waited another five. Then he eased out from under the quilt and stood up, as silent as if he was stalking a deer.

  He knew what he should do. But he couldn’t walk out the door. Not without looking at her one more time. She was on her back, with the sheet still pulled up all the way to her neck.

  It didn’t make any difference. He didn’t need to see her skin to remember the silkiness or the soft warmth. He didn’t need to see her breasts to remember their fullness. He didn’t need to see her body to imagine what she looked like naked, beginning to ripen with child.

  Her long hair spread across the pillow and he couldn’t stop himself. Ever since he’d woken up on the beach and seen her walking toward him, her light brown hair blowing in the wind, he’d been aching to touch her hair.

  He knew what it smelled like. Her scent had surrounded him when he held her in the wine shed. He lifted a long strand and gently rubbed his fingers together.

  Silk. And for the third time that day, he felt his body react. Christ, but wasn’t he making up for lost time, then.

  He dropped her hair and took a big step back, then another, until he was safely out of the room. He took the stairs fast, staying close to the edges to avoid any creaking in the middle.

  On his way to the newspaper, he passed the big window in the piano room. The drapes had been left open. With the house being like it was, perched on a hill, he knew on a clear day he would be able to see for miles into the valley.

  Tonight, with just a quarter-moon to guide him, he could make out the grapevines that grew closest to the house. And he knew from when he and Melody had driven up the long and winding road, that rows and rows of grapes extended far beyond what his eye could see.

  He’d arrived on the beach just a little more than twenty-four hours ago and had stared at the same moon that was now lingering over the valley. He’d waited for the footprints to take him home and had been disappointed when he’d woken up, still on the beach.

  Then Melody had come and everything had changed. Suddenly, he had a place to stay and work to do.

  Not that he wanted to stay. He belonged in his own time, in his own town, in his old job. When the footprints came back, he would put his feet in them and let them take him back.

  In the meantime, he’d do the best he could to take care of Melody and her unborn child. He’d feel better prepared to do so if he understood this time better. He gave the valley one last glance and was about to turn away when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dogs.

  There were three of them, running hard, their strides long, their motion fluid. They were not more than three hundred yards from the house, at the very edge of the lawn. He was sure that he recognized Dionysos and Hermes, but wondered just how that could be. There’d been no mention of a third dog. But the dog running alongside them looked enough like them to be a brother or sister.

  He watched until he lost sight of them as they moved farther around the house. He sat down in the chair, turning on the small light next to the chair, just the way he’d seen Melody’s grandmother do.

  He read for at least an hour until his head was almost spinning on his shoulders. There were soldiers dying in countries he’d never heard of, there was concern about something called the ozone layer, and a hundred thousand people had had their identities stolen when hackers had breached some company’s firewall. What the hell?

  Yet not everything was different. There was news about robberies, and weddings, and deaths. Articles about people doing the things that people did.

  His eyes felt heavy by the time he got to the glossy pages that were clearly advertisements. He thought at first that he must be seeing things. How could a pair of ladies’ shoes cost most than a hundred dollars? And when he looked at the food advertisements, he wondered how a man could afford to feed his family.

  He closed the newspaper, set it aside, and felt even more unsettled than before. He understood the present a little better now and he surely wasn’t convinced that things were better than they’d been in 1888.

  Feeling weary, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the high back of the chair. When the front door opened it startled him so, that he dropped the newspaper.

  It was Genevieve, with Dionysos and Hermes at her side. The dogs’ fur gleamed with sweat that came from a hard run. He stood up and the woman stopped suddenly, looking very surprised.

  “I didn’t realize you were up,” she said.

  “Melody needed a glass of water,” he said.

  “Of course.” She looked at her dogs. “Dionysos and Hermes needed some exercise.”

  He didn’t tell her that he thought he’d seen the dogs earlier or that there’d been a third dog with them. He couldn’t. He could barely speak at all, because his tired mind was playing tricks with him.

  How had he not noticed before that her hair, stick-straight that it was, was the very same color as the dark coat of the dogs? And her eyes, the same gold brown.

  Damn it. It wasn’t possible. A woman couldn’t turn herself into a dog and then back again. But then again, he’d never believed a person could travel a hundred-plus years forward either.

  “Doing some late-night reading?” she asked, looking at the newspaper.

  “Yeah,” he managed.

  “You might want to get a few hours of sleep. You’re going to have a big day tomorrow.”

  Couldn’t be much bigger than today. He’d woken up on a beach outside of Los Angeles, decided to play at being a husband, and suddenly found himself in charge of fifteen men.

  The only thing that seemed right about it was meeting Melody. She was sunshine and sugar and a hot drink on a cold day. She was perfect.

  And hopefully still asleep. “I should turn in for the night,” he said.

  “Be on the front steps at half-past four. I’ll take you down to meet Arturo.”

  “Gino seems to think he’s a good man,” George said.

  “Gino’s generally right. But I suspect, George, what somebody else thinks doesn’t sway you much. You’re the type who needs to make those kinds of judgements for himself.”

  There was something in her voice, a challenge of sorts.

  “With all due respect, ma’am. I suspect you’re the same.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. The dogs lifted their heads in surprise and Dionysos growled softly. “Shush,” she said to him, putting out her hand and rubbing his head. “It’s all right. George and I are just coming to a mutual understanding of our strengths and weaknesses.”

  He wasn’t sure anymore what his strength was but he was damn certain his weakness was lying up in her bed. He nodded his head at Genevieve. “Goodnight, ma’am.
”

  She smiled and looked very satisfied. “You’re going to do just fine George, just fine.”

  “Beg pardon?” he asked.

  She threw her head back and laughed for the second time that night. "Go to bed, George,” she said, as she left the room with the dogs close on her heels.

  CHAPTER NINE

  George had been getting up at the crack of dawn since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Even in the days following Hannah’s death, when well after midnight he’d drunk himself to sleep, he hadn’t had any trouble waking up. So why he didn’t crack an eye open until he heard a knock on his door was beyond him.

  It took him just seconds to realize that night was passing and full-blown day beckoned. It meant that he was living up to Louis’s low expectations.

  He threw off the quilt, grabbed his shirt off the chair, and was halfway to the door before he realized that the quilt and his pillow were still on the floor. Moving fast, but quietly, so as not to wake Melody, he placed the pillow next to her. He made the mistake of looking at her and that stopped him.

  She was so damn pretty. She’d kicked off her sheet sometime during the night and her pale yellow nightgown was wrapped around her body. She lay on her side, her knees pulled up, her shoulders rounded slightly. Her long hair was bunched underneath her head and for one crazy minute he thought about lifting her head and spreading her hair out across the pillow.

  Then he remembered. No touching.

  He moved away, throwing the quilt at the bottom of the bed. When he opened the door, Aunt Genevieve, wearing black trousers, a loose black shirt, and a black hat, stood outside. She wore yellow gloves with the fingertips cut off. She had purple feathers behind her ear and a green and yellow bandanna draped over one arm.

  “It’s time,” she said. She handed him the bandanna.

  He tied it around his neck. “I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I must have overslept.”

  She stretched, not even pretending that she wasn’t looking past him. He was grateful that he’d remembered the pillow and the quilt.

  “Melody looks more like her mother every day,” Aunt Genevieve said, her voice soft to match his. “It’s good to have her home.”