A Memory Away

by Melinda Curtis

  Duffy had a serious look on his face. Eunice couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she hoped he was going to take advantage of this opportunity to win Jessica over.

  Jessica and Duffy turned to face each other. Jessica planted her hands on either side of her hips as if she needed stabilization so she wouldn’t fall over backward.

  Duffy reached out. Jessica started when Duffy’s hands touched her belly. Eunice would have started, too. Duffy had big hands and a big temper. No wonder Jessica had asked her to come. She looked as if someone had plugged her into a live socket. Her face was flushed as red as Eunice’s cornmeal mush.

  Eunice leaned down and whispered, “If you need to practice on me, Duffy, you can.” Because, clearly, he needed practice.

  * * *

  DUFFY’S PALMS MADE small circles on Jessica’s enormous belly, sending a myriad of signals—all of which Jess tried hard to ignore.

  His touch soothed Baby. His touch heated her skin. His touch magnetized her gaze to his.

  There wasn’t surprise in his eyes. Or detachment.

  There was heat and interest and a bit—just a hint—of mischief.

  It was the deviltry that got to Jess. They’d been dancing around this attraction of theirs. Now they were waltzing right into it with intimate touches, soft sighs and a hint of a grin. Right there! At the corner of his mouth.

  Didn’t he realize that they needed to get past this? Didn’t he understand that she valued him more as Baby’s uncle rather than a boyfriend? If they kissed, if they dated, if they spent time together as a couple, there was no guarantee that it would be long-term.

  And then there was his aversion to commitment and his declaration that she didn’t know how to accept help or gifts from friends. They were as incompatible as bananas and ham and hollandaise sauce.

  Jess drew a breath, prepared to stop this.

  “Time to change positions.” Kiki was the harbinger of good cheer. She had no idea that Jess was on the verge of a panic attack. “Supporting partners are going to sit with their legs in a V, knees bent for support. Moms will sit in that V, which is a great position to relieve the stress of back labor by receiving deep massage.”

  Jess felt no stress relief from the first position. She doubted she’d feel any more relaxed from the second position.

  “Need help?” Duffy asked when Jess didn’t move to sit with him.

  Again, she prepared to call this off.

  Eunice leaned forward, whispering, “This is more physically demanding than I realized. I’m going to have to go into training and lift weights or something.”

  Duffy had his back to Eunice. His grin. So rare.

  Without a word, Jess moved between his legs. She carefully kept her distance, looping her arms around his knees, looping a hold on her heart.

  Kiki talked about different massage techniques and focal points.

  Jess had a focusing thought: Baby needs an uncle.

  At Kiki’s instruction, Duffy’s fingers kneaded the muscles of her shoulders. “Geez, you’re tense.”

  You think?

  At Kiki’s instruction, Duffy ran his big hands up and down her arms. “Tell me if this bothers you.”

  It bothered her peace of mind.

  At Kiki’s instruction, Duffy used his thumbs to loosen the muscles at the small of her back.

  Heaven, help me.

  “Give me my pillow. I’m ready for bed.” Jessica’s confession gave everyone in the room a good laugh.

  Somehow, Jess made it through the rest of class without making a fool of herself. Somehow, Jess made the drive without interrupting Eunice’s monologue about the raw nature of the birthing process and how hard it was going to be to assist her. Somehow, Jess didn’t protest when Duffy dropped Eunice off first.

  And then they parked in front of the bakery.

  Duffy helped Jess out of the truck and walked her to the door.

  Jessica’s blood was humming. And the tune wasn’t a lullaby. “Good night,” she said, fumbling with her keys.

  Duffy took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him.

  Now was the time to protest. Now was the time for common sense to prevail.

  Jessica’s eyes drifted closed as Duffy’s lips neared hers.

  Their first kiss had been a surprise, a reaction. It had been spontaneous and unexpected.

  This kiss was as deliberate as the man himself. A gentle meeting, a warm greeting. And then the kiss deepened. His arms came around her as she sagged against him, clung to him for support, gave herself up to the moment and the man.

  This, her heart murmured. This man.

  She knew she could love Duffy, but she’d been holding back. Images flashed in her head, not of Greg, but of Duffy. His hand on hers as he helped her down from the truck. His smile when she said something he found humorous. His words of encouragement, even when her choices made him uncomfortable. This man. He was a man to love, a man to risk for.

  I love him.

  Baby kicked in agreement.

  He was kissing her. That had to mean he’d gotten over his relationship phobia. They’d go out on Valentine’s Day. She’d swallow her pride and cook for his parents on Easter.

  Love extended the kiss, dragged time to a standstill, fogged her brain.

  He drew back, his face lost in disorientating shadow. Greg or Duffy?

  Was she dreaming? Her pregnant brain groped for memory and context. She was in Duffy’s arms. She loved Duffy. It was a love that forgave and trusted. She hadn’t loved Duffy’s brother, not like she was supposed to, not with faith and confidence, not like a man deserved to be loved.

  “Oh, Greg,” she whispered, saddened.

  Duffy’s arms stiffened and then he released her, striding back to his truck.

  “Wait. It’s not what it sounded like.” She stumbled forward, thought better of it and placed her feet solidly on the ground. “I didn’t think you were Greg.”

  “That’s not what it sounded like.” His voice. She had knives that weren’t as sharp.

  “I just realized something about Greg that I should have before.” Her heart seemed to have dropped to the vicinity of her baby-heavy belly. She placed a hand there for support. “It’s pregnant brain.”

  “You were thinking about my brother while I was kissing you.” He opened the door. “No man wants to hear that.”

  “But...wait... I...” What else could she say? That she’d just realized she loved him? That was the last thing Duffy wanted to hear.

  As requested, Duffy stood. Waiting.

  Until he couldn’t wait anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IT WAS LIKE Greg stealing Dad’s money all over again.

  The pit in Duffy’s stomach. The pounding in his temples. The broken record in his head: This isn’t happening.

  He’d tried to set aside his aversion to obligation, and look where it had got him. Bested by Greg.

  His brother must be laughing wherever he was.

  Duffy stayed away from the bakery. He threw himself into his work, bringing in extra crews so he’d be exhausted by day’s end. The one vineyard he didn’t work was Parish Hill. If it was infected, Duffy didn’t want to risk spreading the disease.

  On Monday when he opened his front door, he found a thermos of coffee and a bag with a warm Danish on the porch. On Tuesday, he found a travel mug full of coffee and a bag with a chocolate chip croissant. By Thursday, he was expecting a morning payment. It was just like Jess to stick to their deal for payoff of the redwood planters. They hadn’t spoken since last Friday. Duffy had to make a decision about Lamaze class Friday night. Would he live up to the obligation he’d begun with her or bail?

  The easy route was to bail. But Duffy had never bought into easy outs.

>   “The results are in.” Christine ran down the stairs to where Duffy was rinsing out his travel mug. She waved a sheet of paper. “It’s leaf roll, just like you suspected.”

  Ryan came down the steps, sitting midway, gangly legs stretching toward the first floor. Goldie trotted over to sniff his sneakers.

  “I’m sorry I was right.” Almost as sorry as Duffy had been to have kissed Jess and hear her murmur his brother’s name.

  Christine didn’t seem to be bummed out by the news. “The university wanted to know if we’re open to experimental treatments. I told them yes.”

  “It’s the perfect location,” Duffy agreed, not able to work up the enthusiasm Christine had.

  “Isolated.” Christine nodded.

  “If you don’t count Rutgar,” Duffy said. The old man was going to be a pain to whoever went up there.

  “You can handle Rutgar.” Ryan grinned as if they shared a secret. “He likes you.”

  Oh, no. “He likes Jess.”

  Christine laughed. “A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. And Jessica’s scones can soothe the savage beast. Take her up there and break the news to him gently. He’s going to be invaded on a regular basis and we don’t want him to chase anyone away.”

  Duffy only agreed because he feared Rutgar might take his shotgun to deter a stranger from hanging around up there. It had nothing to do with it being an excuse to talk to Jess.

  He found her balancing on a ladder, writing on the chalkboard behind the pastry case.

  Duffy’s heart leaped into his throat, leapfrogging higher and higher, until his voice—when he needed it most—was low and croaky. “What are you doing?”

  She grabbed at the top rung of the ladder, sending him racing across the room, ready to catch her if she fell.

  “Get down.” He couldn’t look her in the eye, afraid she’d recognize Greg in his features. “Get down before I have a heart attack.”

  She didn’t move. “I need to change the sign. It’s February. I’m not making pumpkin scones and that’s what it says the special is.” Her voice. Amazingly put-together considering Duffy was about to unravel.

  “Get down.” The bullfrog was back. “I’ll do it. Whatever it is. I’ll do it.”

  Jess came down the ladder slowly. “I’m done.”

  “Next time, call me. I’ll do it.” He still couldn’t look her in the eye. Goldie sat at his feet. Her he could look at.

  “Do you have neat handwriting?” Jess asked.

  “People can read it.”

  “Customers prefer lettering with character. It says you put thought into what you’re going to say and what you’ve baked.”

  Well. He was no calligrapher. He didn’t even have good penmanship.

  Goldie cocked an ear, as if by doing so she could hear the undertones of the dead-in-the-water conversation. Duffy saying you hurt me. Jess admitting being unable to tell the difference between him and his brother.

  “Thanks for stopping by.” Her feet disappeared into the kitchen. “Goldie looks good. Take care.”

  He looked at Goldie. Goldie padded toward the swinging door and looked back at him.

  Duffy desperately wanted to leave, to protect his wounded pride. He didn’t. Instead, Duffy pushed through to the kitchen and the awkward conversation that awaited him. “I didn’t stop by to be the safety police. I need a favor.” He should tell her about the flour on the floor near the sink.

  “I don’t grant favors to people who can’t look me in the eye.”

  He’d missed her straight-shooting talk far too much. He manned up and met her gaze squarely.

  “Much better.” She gestured toward a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. “You can view that as my peace offering or a bribe to get you to stay while we talk this through.”

  “I don’t want to rehash the crime.”

  “Now, see. That’s where we differ. I made a mistake, but it wasn’t a crime.” She was joking, until she wasn’t. “I was befuddled.”

  “You confused me with Greg.” He didn’t touch her supposed peace offering.

  She wrapped her arms around her belly, which seemed to be sagging more than it had nearly a week prior. “I didn’t. I was lost in your kiss. So lost that I found something I’d been hiding away from myself.” She worried her lip, before having the courage to say, “I have feelings for you and when I compared them to how I felt for Greg, well...my feelings for him came up wanting.”

  Duffy took a step back, nearly stumbling over Goldie. This was worse than he thought. “You said you loved Greg.”

  “There you go. I knew you’d have that reaction.” Other than the deep blush on her cheeks, she didn’t betray any form of lovesick emotion or disappointment in Duffy. “It’s why I didn’t want to fall for you. I mean, just look at me. I’m a package deal. And you want to sow some wild oats and maybe settle down without so much as a goldfish in the house.”

  “I’m flattered.” And terrified. “And confused. What does it mean?”

  “Nothing.” Her voice flattened. “Just because my feelings for you run deeper than they ever did for your brother means nothing.”

  Duffy was sure needles poking in his eye might be less painful.

  “Greg was my first true love and of course I’d get it wrong. But I was so desperate to be with someone that I didn’t recognize how shallow what we had was. And so when I looked up at you that night, when your face was in shadow and I was tired and floating in a state of awe over everything I’d realized, I felt the need to apologize to Greg.”

  “To Greg.” Croaker was back.

  She nodded. “He deserved better than what I gave him.”

  “He stole from you!” Duffy would never understand this woman. “He lied to you. He betrayed your trust. He chose his path. You should hate him.”

  “What good do those feelings serve? They make me sick to my stomach. Greg is dead. Struck by lightning. Maybe the same thing happened to my mother.” Jessica’s voice pitched higher. Her determination to be strong was enviable, the tremor in her words wrenching. “Maybe my mother’s alive and enjoying her life, the one she got from a do-over by abandoning me. Maybe I should go on forever letting the choices of someone else eat at me and eat at me until there’s nothing left inside. Is that how I should live? Hating the man who let me buy his affection? Hating a mother who disappeared? Hating you because you can never love me back?”

  He didn’t think she had a hateful bone in her body.

  She sagged against the island counter, spent and gasping for air. “I’m just so tired, Duffy. I’m tired of being used. I’m tired of being pitied. I’m so tired that I... I wish I could get over these feelings I have for you.”

  Duffy felt run-through-the-ringer tired, too.

  “Listen.” She took a cookie and the glass of milk. “You keep people at a distance to avoid obligation. I’ll do anything to bring them closer. And I want to be in on the closeness too as long as I’m included because I’ve earned a spot in the crowd. And not just because people are being nice to the pregnant woman.” A hint of sadness passed behind her eyes. “We’re not compatible. So don’t worry. I’ll move on from this...infatuation.”

  Infatuation?

  “Baby will never know.” She took a generous bite of cookie, and then washed it down with milk. “I’m not going to be a burden to you, Duff. I probably shouldn’t have said a word about how I feel, but I couldn’t let you go on believing I was thinking about Greg when I was kissing you.” She finished her cookie.

  “Thanks. I think.” Honestly, he didn’t know what to think. He’d never had a woman tell him she loved him before, much less apologize for it and promise to fall out of love with him. All without the drama of tears. If it had been any woman other than Jess, he’d—

  “Now, what was this favor y
ou came to ask for?”

  * * *

  JESS SUPPOSED THERE came a point in your pregnancy where you lost all decorum and bared everything, stretch marks and all. Without jaw-dropping embarrassment or heart-stopping mortification. Hadn’t she seen it in the live childbirth video the other night? That woman had spread her legs to the camera and then bared her breast when it came time to breastfeed.

  Jess had done the same thing with Duffy. Laid herself bare. Emotionally, that is.

  She hadn’t expected him to wrap his arms around her and declare his love.

  Neither had she expected him to calmly stick to his beliefs and ask her to go to Rutgar’s, without much more fuss than the suggestion that she “bring the cookies.”

  And so she stood next to Duffy on Rutgar’s front porch, a plateful of cookies in hand and her heart hanging by a fraying thread.

  The door swung open. “Well, well, well. You brought your woman to see me.” Rutgar’s voice was like a bullhorn. “And bribes, too.”

  “Glad to see you didn’t greet us with the shotgun.” There were equal parts levity and gravity in Duffy’s voice.

  Having been on the business end of Rutgar’s shotgun and agreeing with Duffy on the import of keeping university researchers safe on the mountain, Jess put on her sweetest smile, her sweetest voice and revealed her sweetest creation—death by chocolate cookies. They were still warm. “You’re right. We’re here to bribe you.”

  Duffy rolled his eyes.

  “I like you.” Rutgar claimed a cookie and took a bite, swallowing half. “Him, not so much.”

  “He grows on you.”

  “He can’t have grown on you too much. Didn’t put a ring on your finger. Haven’t heard you’re moving in together.” Rutgar shook his shaggy, gold-gray mane. “Stubborn, that one. Can’t take advice.”

  “All true,” Jess agreed, because it was. “Some people take longer to get to the truth than others.”

  Duffy made an unintelligible noise.

  “And some people get smart and don’t wait around.” Rutgar popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth and reached for another. “If you’re ready for a real man, you just let me know. I’d renovate my house for a woman like you.”