by Lynn Shurr
“It’s Newt that sounds nasty. I bet it would be nicer between Winnie and Adam. Come on. When will we get another chance this good? It’s you and me against the rest of them, remember?”
“You can’t brag about it to anyone, or we will be in big, big trouble.”
“This is for my own information,” Stacy sniffed in her most superior manner. “Be right back.”
She grabbed Titi and caught up with the triplets filing into the house. “Lorena, would you watch my puppy for a while? I need to help Teddy do something.”
“Sure. I love your doggie.” Innocently, the little girl held out her arms to accept the fuzzy bundle.
“Thanks, Lori.” Stacy dashed back to Teddy who had wheeled farther down the path and around a bend to avoid people stopping to ask if he needed help.
“It’s getting dark. You won’t be able to see much,” he said, still trying to talk her out of it.
“The pool and the pathway have lights, but we’d better wait here a little and let them get good and started.”
****
Deep in the grove beneath the same crossed palms, Adam flicked open their blanket and spread it out. Judging by the many small footprints in the sand, the visiting children had enjoyed his gift, but now the place belonged to them. As soon as he stood again, Winnie unbuttoned his aloha shirt and ran her hands over the smooth contours of his chest. Adam shoved down his jeans and stepped out of them, athletic shoes and all. He immediately went to work unknotting the flowered blouse Winnie had tied at her small waist. With his erection pressing hard between them, he divested her of the top and bra. Sliding her slacks and panties down to her ankles, he held them while she kicked free of the rest of her clothes. On the way up, he licked the inside of her thigh and tested her response with the tip of his tongue. She leaned back against one of the palms as if her legs could no longer support her.
“Ready so soon?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.”
They sank onto the blanket, but he kissed her lips and teased her nipples before going any farther. Winnie dug her nails into his back and flexed her hips against his erection. He sank into her depths. She raked her fingers through his hair with abandon. Adam began moving over her, but suddenly Winnie put a staying hand on his chest.
“Am I hurting you?” He leaned close to ask his question.
“No, I heard something in the bushes,” she whispered.
“Probably a raccoon or one of those crazy mockingbirds. They never sleep. I have one near my cottage that sings all night.”
“I doubt even a mockingbird can simulate whispers and giggles.”
With his lips against her ear, he said quietly, “Probably that damned Dean and maybe Tommy spying on us. Give me a second. I’m going to scare the hell right out of them.”
Slowly, he withdrew from her, but remained lying down. Then with one sudden spring, he jumped to his feet and flexed his muscles. His erection pressed against the maze of his dark tattoos. The rising moon backlit the fury of his wild hair. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue before uttering a war cry that did flush a mockingbird from a nearby tree and at least one child from the closest thicket of short palms and red-leafed bananas. Running footsteps beat against the sand.
Adam whipped on his jeans. Winnie huddled under the blanket she’d drawn over her nakedness. “I’m going to catch that snotty brat while you get dressed.”
He dug in with his toes as if starting a sprint, but went no farther than the clump of concealing plants. “Looks like we have a bird in the bush after all.”
Putting on her clothes under the cover, Winnie asked, “Who?”
“You won’t believe it.”
With his hands over his eyes as if covering them would make him disappear, Teddy sat in his red wheelchair mired in the sand. Obviously, he’d tried to escape and only gotten himself in deeper. In the distance, the sharp slap of footsteps fleeing on the concrete path sounded clearly through the grove.
Winnie rounded the bushes and stared at the culprit. “Teddy! How could you? Did Dean talk you into this?”
“No,” the boy mumbled, still shielding his eyes. “I didn’t watch. I swear I didn’t.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t get out here on your own, so who was watching?”
Adam squatted down by the wheelchair where the moonlight made shadows of two deep indents in the sand. Unlike the flat patterns made by other children’s sneakers, these betrayed the unmistakable sign of the heels on a pair of small party shoes. Only Stacy had worn dressy footwear with her designer jeans and frilly blouse to the pig roast. He answered Winnie’s question. “The Princess Anastasia, right?”
“I can’t tell you. I promise I didn’t look until you yelled, Mr. Adam. You were like the Incredible Hulk out there, really scary.” His small shoulders trembled under the weight of Adam’s hand.
“Sorry, I was trying to frighten the older boys. But, we’re both dudes, right? You’ve seen naked guys before, so no big deal.”
“Yeah, Newt, my mama’s boyfriend, liked to lay nekkid on the sofa when she wasn’t around to complain. He never shut the bathroom door either.”
“Sounds like a great fellow. I’m glad you didn’t peek on Miss Winnie, but still you should apologize to her.”
“I didn’t want to do it, Miss Winnie. Stacy pushed me over here. Please, please forgive me and don’t tell Daddy Joe or Mama Nell. They’ll put me out on the side of the road.”
Winnie knelt by Teddy’s side and took his hands. “They will do no such thing. You have a home here for as long as you need it. Still, what you did was a very naughty deal, and they need to know. I blame myself, too, for letting Stacy take my place. I should have watched over you. We’ll both accept our punishments. I might have to leave.”
“No!”
“It’s up to your foster parents. I don’t want to wreck the party, so until it is over, I won’t say a word. Let’s get you back to the house. We’ll watch the game and forget for a while.”
****
Nell did a child count as anyone with ten children would do. Joe sat in one oversized recliner, sleepy Mack and Trin tucked in beside him. Her eyes skimmed over Precious and Calvin Armitage and the Rev overwhelming the large sofa with Mintay squeezed into one corner. Sharlette and Asa Dobbs claimed the loveseat with their son, Prince, between them. Connor Riley had possession of the other recliner. He held his two blond children while Stevie lounged on the floor between his legs and rested her neck against the seat. Nell spotted the twins’ curly heads next to Xochi’s braids in the swarm of girl cousins and guests of all ages sitting on cushions in front of the big screen TV. Lorena was with them petting Stacy’s dog.
That accounted for six. Nell made her way to the theater. Dean and Tommy sat in the last row with their feet up on the seats in front of them and a large bowl of popcorn on an adjacent seat. Eight. She searched for two blond heads among the dark Billodeauxs filling the rest of the space. Cassie was removing her tiny fury of a daughter in the midst of a hissy fit from the theater. Her husband attempted to rock Wayne to sleep despite the uproar. Near him in a very dark corner, she picked out Stacy by her white, ruffled blouse in the dim theater. Nine.
Retracing her steps, she went to the elevator and rode it up to Teddy’s room. No sign of him. She tried the kitchen where Corazon and Knox Polk attempted to explain American football to Brinsley as they watched on the set the housekeeper used for her Spanish language soap operas. Chubby Junior Polk worked on a mound of desserts at the table. “Have you seen Teddy?” she asked.
Four heads shook and showed immediate concern. “Should we start a search?” Knox asked as head of security among other duties at the ranch.
“Let me get Joe, then we’ll go looking.”
In the overcrowded den, Joe was up on his feet and shouting, “You call that a block?” The instant replay showed the quarterback suffering a tremendous sack. “My mother could do better than that!”
Mawmaw Nadine probably could if riled e
nough, Nell reflected. She tugged Joe’s arm. “Teddy is missing,” she told him over the angry roar of the crowd in the distant stadium.
“Save my seat for me, guys,” he said to Mack and Trin before following his wife to the kitchen.
They caught Knox strapping on a very official utility belt holding a weapon and a flashlight heavy enough to be used as a club. Brinsley, still in his absurd tropical shirt, offered to help. “Could he be with Miss Stacy?” he asked. “I noticed them together shortly before we came inside.”
“No, she’s in the theater. Must have come in the front door without him. Do we have any more flashlights?” Nell started searching drawers until Corazon handed her the one she kept handy for power outages. “Let’s go!”
Joe pushed her into a kitchen chair. “You stay here. I’ll get the camp lanterns in the barn. No sense in all of us tripping over tree roots.” He turned the doorknob only to find Teddy, Winnie, and Adam on the other side.
“Thank God!” Nell raced over to the wheelchair bound boy. “We were so worried about you.”
“He went with us for a walk in the palm grove,” Winnie claimed.
Nell and Joe exchanged another of those married people, mind-reading glances. “Really?” they said simultaneously.
“Hey, we’re missing the game. How about some dessert, Teddy? I have my eye on the coconut cake. What do you like?” Adam said cheerfully.
“I guess dessert would be good. I like red velvet.”
Adam steered the boy away. Winnie faced her employers, her friends. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. I promise.”
Chapter Sixteen
By the time the chaos involved with getting ten children off to school and waiting with Teddy at the gate passed, Winnie missed her chance to confess. On her walk back to the house, Nell whizzed by in her small, red car on her way to provide free psychological services at Dr. Bullock’s clinic. She thought to find Joe in the barn, but he’d already ridden out on Lazy Boy to check his small herd of Charolais cattle and take an extended morning ride. Adam policed the picnic area, picking up stray trash and shoving the party debris into a black plastic garbage bag, probably already doing community service for their sin.
By his grin and his greeting, he had sinning more on his mind than punishment. “Hey, lovely lady, help me to finish here, then we can go over to my cabin and complete what we started last night.”
“Why am I the only one deeply concerned about this?”
Adam heaved his big shoulders. “Strict upbringing, overdeveloped conscience? They were worried about Teddy. He’s fine. Kids get curious about sex. No big deal.”
“Egged on by Stacy, he spied on us doing something we shouldn’t when he needed my attention.”
“In Samoa we have lots of children running around the village and not so much privacy. So they learn by hiding in the bushes and watching. Normal curiosity, that’s all. They just better not get caught. That’s how I learned. I mean they weren’t going to teach me in Sunday school, though come to think of it, the first woman who took me to her bed did teach catechism at the church.”
Shocked, Winnie squeezed an abandoned cup of beer too hard before dumping the contents on the ground. Watery amber liquid oozed through her fingers. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen, closer to fifteen, but big for my age. Miss Lola was a widow who enjoyed turning boys into men. Kept us from getting the village girls pregnant.”
“That’s child abuse!”
“The guys she took in didn’t think so. I mean she wasn’t one of those sad, sicko forty-year-old teachers who want to marry a teenage boy and have his babies. When she finished with us, we got a pat on the behind and her blessing. She moved on to someone else.”
“No one stopped her?”
“When a place has little privacy, people pretend not to see and hear. Works for everyone. Speaking of privacy, my cottage door locks.”
“We should finish here first.” Winnie looked around desperately for more garbage to collect.
“We’re pretty much done. The guests were a tidy bunch and used the trash barrels.”
“As they should.”
The family van came down the lane bearing the household maids. Brinsley met them at the kitchen door. “Dulcita to the theater to sweep up the popcorn and mop. Isabella, vacuum and wax in the den. The dining room also needs attention.” They went to work promptly without stopping in the kitchen for coffee and a chat, as had been their habit.
Knox Polk parked the van and sauntered over to the couple. “Good work. Help me get a burn pile together, Adam, then you two have the rest of the day off.”
Adam lugged trash bags four at a time to an open area bald of grass and dry leaves. Winnie watched as Knox set the pile afire. “Are you sure we can’t help with anything else?” she asked.
“Definitely. Got it all under control.” Knox gave them a half-smile, his equivalent of an ear-to-ear grin in anyone else. “The rental folks will be here soon to take down the bouncer and the rock wall. We about got it licked. You two go on and enjoy the beach. No security cameras installed out there yet.”
“Cameras?” Winnie’s eyes widened.
“Sure, all over the place to protect the kids. But, we haven’t gotten around to wiring the beach yet.” Knox prodded the fire with a poker to encourage the flames.
“Not in the daylight!” Winnie whispered to Adam.
“My place,” he answered, hardly lowering his voice. He took her hand and pulled her along. Behind them, Winnie swore Knox chuckled—or maybe the noise was merely the dry crackling of the flames.
At the cottage, Adam locked the door and drew the blinds. He took Winnie into his arms beside his unmade bed and ran his hands soothingly up and down her ribs. His lips nuzzled the corner of her neck beneath the soft curl of her hair. He paused when she failed to respond.
“Beautiful Winnie, are you always so tense with your lovers? I thought we passed this point the other night on our beach.”
She stiffened like the rib of a palm leaf beneath his hands. “Other lovers? I’ve only been with you and my ex-husband. He did say I’m a lot of work in bed.”
“Not work, pleasure. Sorry. Palagi women have a reputation for being loose like in the movies. That does not apply to you, I know.”
“Palagi?”
“Not from the islands, a foreigner.”
“We aren’t on the island now, so you are the foreigner.”
“Please, lovely Winnie. Let’s not argue. Lie down, and we will—”
“I can’t. Not when last night is still on my mind.”
“Wait! Will you come with me to Samoa when all this is sorted out?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
She turned the lock and retreated to her own room in the big house far from the allure of Adam and the chattering of the maids downstairs.
****
Corazon called Winnie for lunch. “Barbecued pork sandwiches and white or baked beans to go with them.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be right down.” She’d washed her hair, painted her nails with clear polish, and started reading the Harry Potter books, all to pass the time when she truly yearned to return to Adam’s cottage. Nell would probably label it self-inflicted punishment.
Everyone sat around the table doctoring their sandwiches in any way they chose with a choice of sauces, Joe Dean’s Hot and Spicy or Connor’s Mild and Sweet, the products that supported Camp Love Letter, and toppings ranging from sliced onions and green peppers to leftover coleslaw.
Corazon passed the bean pots. “So much puerco to use up. Tonight we have shredded pork enchiladas with rice and tropical fruit salad.”
“Sounds good to me.” Joe, not a picky eater, added a few extra drops of hot sauce to his sandwich since his Joe Dean’s Hot and Spicy Barbecue Sauce had been toned down for the commercial market.
“One pig would have been enough. I guess I was showing off.” Adam slapped together two sandwiches and piled beans onto his plate
. “On the other hand, you can never have too much pork.”
“You paid for them. We’ll freeze a bunch of it. Now, about last night, Adam says the two of you went to the palm grove for a little together time and Stacy and Teddy spied on you.”
Winnie’s face heated, and not only from choosing Joe’s special sauce. “I let my own desires get in the way of my duty. I should not have allowed Stacy to take Teddy into the house, which she lied about. Nothing would have happened if I’d stayed with the boy as I am paid to do. If you feel you need to fire me, I understand.”
“I keep telling her it was no big deal. Kids get curious. Teddy is fine being alone sometimes. He even said he didn’t want a babysitter. Sorry I flashed Stacy, but she sort of had it coming. I thought we only had boys in those bushes.” Adam bit into his overstuffed bun and bits of pork dropped back onto his plate.
Nell set down a much smaller version of his sandwich topped with coleslaw. “I never intended that you spend every second with Teddy when other adults are around to watch him. Heaven knows his mother left him alone with that boyfriend of hers, no prize, that one. I should be learning about his care, and I’ve put it off. I didn’t want to get too attached if Maydell came back to claim him.”
“You are being far too understanding. I failed you because I wanted to be with Adam.”
“Hell, Nell and me used to sneak off all kinds of places. Once we did it in the cab of my daddy’s cane tractor during the lunch break.” Joe got an elbow in the ribs from his wife.
“Before we had children,” Nell corrected. “Winnie, you came to help us at a moment’s notice. I hope you will stay on another week. Nurse Wickersham called me at the clinic today and said her patient passed away during the Super Bowl. Too much excitement for him. She wants to stay with the family until the funeral but can be here by the weekend. Does that work for you?”
“Yes, I’d be happy to stay, and I promise I won’t neglect Teddy again. He is a dear child.”