by Alicia Scott
He’d put newspaper under the table and rigged some sheets along the open sides of the porch to enclose his work area on at least three sides.
“Looks like it’s nearly done,” she said at last, squinting at the piece in the failing light. She reached over and snapped on the bright porch light.
His brush paused, then resumed its work.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t be out for another fifteen minutes or so,” he said.
She shrugged, sticking her hands into her skirt pockets and admiring her white sandals as if she had no place else to look. “Well, I guess I can go back inside if you’d like.”
“No. I just didn’t want you to see it until it was done.”
His brush completed its last stroke. With a small grunt, he rose to tower over the small oval table. He’d used a light, red-toned varnish to complement the cherry wood, and the table, rich and glistening, gleamed under the porch light. A thin seam of black walnut circled the table in a simple but effective design.
Still, Suzanne didn’t say anything, and finally he looked at her with impatient eyes. “I know it isn’t much, but I made it for you, you know. As a thank-you.”
Her eyes widened, then slowly she nodded as she walked around the piece. Maybe he didn’t think much of it, but it looked beautiful to her. The four legs were gracefully rounded, the tabletop shiny and elegant with its black beading. Certainly it looked better than anything she currently owned. She didn’t even have chairs that would do it justice. On impulse, she reached out to touch the small treasure, then realized the varnish would still be wet. She pulled her hand back to her side.
“You must have learned a lot from your father.” Her voice sounded quiet and thick.
Garret stared at her, shifting from side to side. He looked back at the table, then at her again. Well, he knew it wasn’t a masterpiece, but hell, he’d thought it was worth more comment than that.
“I just wanted to thank you,” he grated, gesturing to the table almost in dismissal. “For putting me up and everything. You know. You don’t have to use it or anything. Hell, I don’t even have time left to make some chairs.”
She looked at him sharply. “A parting gift, then?”
He shrugged. “It’s whatever you want it to be,” he said at last. It must not have been the right thing to say, because her lips thinned into that narrow line he knew too well.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said shortly. She turned sharply, and not knowing what else to do, he followed her back into the house.
The tension remained through dinner, however. Suzanne seemed hell-bent on not saying a word, and for once, the silence bothered him. She wasn’t happy with him; he was astute enough to realize that. Maybe what he hadn’t anticipated was the fact he wasn’t happy with himself, either.
His stomach kept knotting, the uncomfortable silence building. He liked it better when she fought with him. And he definitely preferred the seducing. Now, she just seemed uptight and withdrawn.
A lot of women had looked at him like that before. A lot of women had tried sobbing or arguing or carrying on at the last minute when they realized he really was going to leave. It never bothered him, because he was a man who spelled things out in the beginning and made sure the message remained consistent. If they wanted to try to manipulate him with tears or silent treatments, that was their prerogative but he didn’t let it affect him. He always knew where he was going, and he always knew what he was doing.
So Suzanne’s behavior shouldn’t mean a thing. Except…except he couldn’t imagine her ever begging him to stay, and he couldn’t imagine her ever trying to manipulate him. Instead, it seemed as if her withdrawal worked to distance him before he even had a chance to leave.
He’d once made the assumption that she was simple and guileless; he was beginning to realize that he was wrong. In the end, she might be much better at holding things back than he was himself.
Hell, he hadn’t even realized she was a virgin.
He found himself frowning again and rose to collect the dishes instead. Suzanne never said a word.
After dinner, he followed her onto the back porch, a glass of minted iced tea in hand. She didn’t invite him, but he was feeling perverse. When she sat down on the first step and leaned back to look at the clear canopy of stars, he simply followed suit.
“Nice night,” he said at last.
She nodded, sipping from her tea. “Nights and mornings are about the only bearable times during July.” She fanned her face with one hand, the little wisps of hair framing her cheeks scattering nicely. “Even then, it’s hotter than hell.”
“Still, you’ve got to love the sound of crickets and the scent of roses in the North Carolina air.”
She looked at him sideways with speculative hazel eyes. “You ever miss home, Garret? You ever think of Maddensfield when you’re off playing your war games?”
He shrugged, examining his tea. “Sure I do. I grew up here. My family’s here.”
She nodded. “Dotti says you’re pretty good at dropping postcards.”
“Yeah, well, it seems it’s the least I can do. I don’t get much leave time.”
“That’s funny considering I heard there were some Navy training programs in the Carolinas.”
She kept looking up at the stars, but she could feel him shift uneasily beside her. “There are,” he said after a long pause. He rotated the sweating glass, then took a long sip of tea. “Training’s not the same as a break, though. And I suppose…I suppose there’s a lot more out there I’d like to do—”
“Than come home to Maddensfield,” she finished for him dryly. “I never did understand that about you, Garret.”
He stood abruptly, but she didn’t shy away. Instead, she kept her head up and her eyes challenging as he walked to the railing.
“There’s a lot out there, Suzanne. A lot I want to see, a lot I still know nothing about.” He looked up at the night, turning his glass restlessly. “You know,” he said pensively, “somewhere, in some country, right now there is a war going on. And right under these same stars, men are getting ready to fight men, and good is taking on evil, and by morning—though maybe not this morning—someone will win that war. I don’t want to read about it. I want to be there. I want to be doing something.”
“Why, Garret? It’s not your fight.”
He looked at her impatiently. “Sure it is. I’ve got ideas. I’ve got values. I can tell right from wrong. That makes it my fight. I fight for what I believe in.”
“And you have to go to another country to do that?”
He looked at her warily. “What do you mean?”
She set down her glass of tea and looked at him with a level gaze. “I never understood men’s concept of war,” she told him, standing up so she could meet him eye-to-eye. “I never understood why you had to go to some foreign country to prove you were brave. Women fight all the time and we don’t even have to leave home. We fight to balance budgets, feed our families and keep our marriages together. We fight to take back our communities from criminals and we fight to create a world worth raising our children in. The only difference is that we don’t earn medals.”
“That’s not what it’s about,” he tried to say.
“Then what’s it about, Garret? What’s so important you haven’t spent Christmas with your family for the past five years? What’s so important that your idea of quality time is dropping a postcard?”
“The challenge,” he fired back, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing, “is putting all of yourself on the line because you know you can do it and you can make a difference. I don’t expect you to understand, Suzanne. You have your roses, you have your kindergarten classes. Well, I guess I have my demolition team.”
Her lips thinned even tighter, and for one moment, her eyes burned so brightly he couldn’t tell if she was furious or hurt. Abruptly, she spun around. Just as abruptly, he caught her arm and spun her back.
“You started this. Don’t walk away now
.”
Her eyes narrowed, her jaw worked, but she seemed unable to settle upon an appropriate reply.
“There is so much more here,” she protested at last, her voice low and raspy with the effort. “So much more you’ve given up because you’re running everywhere else.”
“Tell me what, Suzanne. Tell me.”
Me. The word burned her throat so badly she had to deliberately bite her tongue to keep it back. The warm, salty taste of blood tingled forth, but it only reminded her of the taste of tears.
“People,” she returned heatedly. “Sharing. Family and friends, people who understand your victories because they know your defeats. People who really know you.”
“Trust me, Suzanne, you don’t know anyone on the face of this earth as well as you know your teammates. Hell, Austin’s like a brother to me.”
Suzanne looked at him helplessly, shaking her head. She didn’t care about his military buddies; she just wanted him to see her, damn it. She just wanted him to look once and really see her. Didn’t he realize all the things she held back? All the stories she kept from him precisely because she wanted him to know? She wanted him to understand the defeats so he could understand her victories. So he could love her.
This time when she stepped back, he didn’t try to stop her.
“It’s getting late,” she said, not looking at him anymore. She could still smell her roses in the air, but their fragrance no longer brought her any pleasure. “I’m going to bed.”
“You’re angry with me,” he said quietly, his eyes level on her face. “I’m just telling you who I am, Suzanne. You understood fifteen years ago.”
She smiled, but her eyes stung. “You’re a fool, Garret Guiness,” she said finally, her voice low and cutting. “You are a damn fool.”
“Suzanne—”
“I didn’t understand, Garret!” She whirled so suddenly her skirt whipped around and nearly tangled in her legs. She advanced forward in spite of the crinkled folds, her hazel eyes flashing golden fire. “How can you be so naive as to expect a sixteen-year-old girl to understand? I waited for you, you idiot. I waited each and every night for you to come back for me. And I woke up each and every morning all alone in the same damn house in the same damn room. I didn’t understand, Garret.”
He stilled against the railing, his dark eyes widening. She smiled at his expression, shaking her head with frustration.
“Ah…so now you’re getting it. What did you really expect, Garret? You were young and wild and all the girls wanted you. You had everything and I had…” She waved her arms uselessly in the air. “I guess I had this.”
“I didn’t know,” he said quietly. She still looked cynical and sad, and he didn’t like seeing that expression on her soft face. He tried to step forward, but the look she gave him clearly halted the action. “Suzanne…”
She walked away from him, pattering down the steps and towards the soft embrace of her roses, while he looked on helplessly. Just when he was about to follow anyway, she turned.
“Don’t say anything, all right, Garret? I don’t want to hear any lines. I don’t want you to make up platitudes on my account. You never meant any promises, and I really was just a fool.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, staring out at the velvety outlines of her roses by night. The porch light cast her profile into a soft mix of shadow and light, emphasizing her high, rounded cheeks and the delicate curve of her neck. In a flowing crimson skirt and off-white poet’s shirt, she looked unbearably lovely. And suddenly, he was struck by the image of her at sixteen, her hair long and fine, her shoulders thin and hunched. Nothing of that awkward girl remained, but her face had struck him even then.
He thought it might haunt him now.
He walked down the steps. “It must have been hard back then,” he said at last. She still wouldn’t turn and face him. “I don’t think I used to appreciate my parents at all,” he continued on casually, making a fist at his side to resist touching her. “We all grew up in such a…happy home, I guess. Our parents were always there for us. We just took them for granted. You didn’t have any of that.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Do you think about your mother much?”
Suzanne stilled, and he could feel uncertainty grip her. He reached out very slowly and laid one hand upon her shoulder.
“Suzanne?”
“I planted the first rosebush when she entered the hospital,” she said suddenly, the words so soft he had to lean forward to hear them. “We’d tried before to get her into treatment, but she’d never go. Then she started hallucinating. I think sometimes she thought she was with our father. I was never sure. She never said much except that he’d died and left her alone. But then she was hallucinating he was alive, and it scared her enough to enter.
“I planted the first bush and told her she could watch it bloom when she came home.”
She turned and looked at him, her eyes calm while his own throat felt tight. Slowly, she closed her hand over his on her shoulder.
“I never knew what to feel about her. She was never much of a mother, and yet she was the only mother I ever had. Rachel and I were so embarrassed by her. And there were days I hated her so much for needing the alcohol more than she ever needed us. But…but I think I really did want her to see the roses.”
He nodded, his black eyes searching her own gold-flecked depths. “She kept drinking?”
Suzanne shook her head. “No. She died. Her liver failed, her kidneys collapsed. I buried her next to my father. I imagine she’s happy with that. But then, she never said enough to be sure.”
“I’m sorry,” he said simply, the words feeling woefully inadequate.
As if she knew that, she cocked her head and looked at him with eyes that were suddenly sad. “Why, Garret? Because you got away from all that? Because you got to travel like you’d always wanted to travel, because you got to do all the things you’d wanted to do?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not that. But maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at the bus stop. I don’t know. I never meant to hurt you.”
Suzanne took a deep breath and focused on the stars overhead. She could feel his hand, large, warm and strong beneath her own. And she wanted to take just one more step, until she could lean her cheek on his shoulder and feel his arms wrap tightly around her. So many nights, so many years ago, she’d dreamed of falling into his arms. Now he was here, and the tears were simply memories.
She’d grown up, and learned how to stand on her own two feet. But that didn’t seem to matter. She wanted him anyway, and the longing scared her.
“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she said at last. She looked at him through lowered lashes and shrugged. “I suppose you’re not eighteen anymore, either.”
He smiled, running a hand self-consciously through his hair. “No, I suppose not. But then, I wasn’t good for much at eighteen.”
She gave him a small smile. “You could beat up old Tank.”
“Yeah, I could beat up Nemeth.”
Suzanne laughed, then squeezed his hand and slowly took it off her shoulder. She brushed her skirt, picking at unseen lint and glanced back up at the lush July night. “I really should be going to bed.”
“It’s not that late.”
“It is if you get up at five in the morning.”
He shook his head. “You should be the one in the military.”
“Being a kindergarten teacher is close enough.”
“I bet you’re good at it,” he said softly.
She shrugged, still fidgeting with her skirt. “I try.”
“I still remember you leading Rachel to and from school. You were the only one who could ever make her stop crying.”
“She was my sister.”
“Still. You really tried for her. You really tried to make things better.”
“And we saw what that accomplished.” Suzanne buried her hands in her pockets, and hated herself for the sudden weakness washing through her. She
wanted his hand on her shoulder again. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and pretend that maybe she was sixteen and maybe he had come back.
If I close my eyes, can it just be once upon a time?
She turned toward the door, feeling her hands start to tremble.
If I close my eyes, can you just hold me forever?
“Suzanne?”
She half rotated, not able to see his face through the burning in her eyes. She felt his hands on her shoulders, the soft whisper of his breath as he drifted near.
“Don’t go.”
His lips brushed her forehead, teasing the corner of her eye. And all of a sudden, her hands were clutching his shoulders, her lips seeking his own with the flood of longing that made her pulse race and tightened her throat. His mouth slanted across her own and she welcomed him in, feasting on his lips, demanding his taste.
He brought her against him hard, and she wrapped her arms around his neck in response.
“Make love to me.” Her voice was urgent; she didn’t care. She pressed herself against him shamelessly, feeling his hardening length through the thin folds of her skirt. She rotated her hips suggestively and heard him groan. “I want you, Garret. Please.”
“Sweetheart, you couldn’t stop me if you tried.” He swung her up into his arms, sweeping back up the porch steps and into the house before either of them could regain sanity. He could feel her trembling against his chest, her hands tight and demanding around his neck. The desire to touch her, the need to possess her, was so strong it scared him.
He barely made it to his room before she was sliding down his body while he was reaching for her blouse. They shed their clothes quickly, needing them gone so bare skin could press against bare skin. His tongue dueled with her own, drawing out faint gasps of hunger while her nails raked down his arms. The sensitive nubs of her breasts rubbed against his darkly furred chest, her smooth leg sliding up and down his muscled thigh.
He had just enough presence of mind left to find and use a condom, then he surrendered once more to the generous promise of her arms. He curved his large hands down her back, sliding back up the front to trace her lush, heavy breasts. She felt warm and full in his hands; he couldn’t stop from bending down and claiming the first nipple with his mouth. He drew it in delicately, rolling it with his tongue while her hands tangled in his hair. He licked the nub, and she pressed him closer. He grazed it exquisitely, and she moaned her need.