Born in the Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “How’s Dorothy?” Bonnie asked, getting a damp cloth to wipe Katie’s cheeks.

  “She doesn’t need a hip replacement.” Keith didn’t look too happy.

  “That’s good news.”

  It was testimony to the changes in their little family when, without a fuss, Katie lifted her face and only blinked when Bonnie wiped her clean.

  “She’ll be home next week.”

  Bonnie set Katie on the floor before tending to the mess on the booster chair and table. “Wow,” she said to her husband, never missing a beat in their conversation. “That’s a fast recovery, isn’t it? She’ll be able to get around that soon?”

  “No.”

  Cloth in hand, Bonnie stopped. “No?”

  “The doctor suggested long-term care. Grandma’s determined to bring her home.”

  “Who’s going to…” Bonnie didn’t need to finish the question. She knew the answer. Lonna Nielson was.

  “She says she’s sure she can get people to come in shifts—at least for meals.”

  And who would do the rest? Bonnie’s heart lurched when she thought of her adored grandmother-in-law doing any lifting or carrying while her old friend recovered. Hips could take months to heal.

  “Is she coming over?” she asked Keith, satisfied that Katie was safely ensconced in front of her favorite animated video before she started the dishes.

  Grandma usually joined them for a game of canasta on Friday nights. Maybe she could talk to her.

  “She says she has paperwork to do.”

  “You going to get her?”

  “Of course.”

  Bonnie grinned, her troubled heart filled with warmth as she heard her husband’s exasperated tone. It was always the same.

  When Keith started college, his parents left Shelter Valley on a church service mission in Cairo. His father was Grandma’s only child. Consumed by their jobs as house parents at an orphanage there, they’d returned to Shelter Valley just once in fifteen years. Their deaths in a bus accident shortly after Katie was born had left Grandma and Keith as the only surviving members of their family. But no matter how lonely Grandma might feel, or how much she might want to be with the kids, she always made excuses. When Bonnie and Keith got married more than six years before, Grandma had determined that she would not interfere with their lives. Which was why her car was never seen in her grandson’s driveway. Whether for Sunday dinner, Friday-night canasta, holidays or anything in between, Keith more often than not had to go and get her or she wouldn’t come.

  Wet hands in the sink, Bonnie looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting his.

  “You’re a good man, Keith Nielson.” The whispered words came from her very depths.

  Almost as if they drew him, Keith moved toward her, then bent to press his lips to hers. The wealth of love she’d been feeling since she’d walked in the door that evening just continued, fueling the kiss. God, she loved this man. Wanted him.

  There was never any doubt about that.

  “Gotta go,” Keith muttered, obviously reluctant.

  He kissed her again, raising a longing in Bonnie that could easily have consumed her. A longing for life to be only this. A sure knowledge of what was.

  He pulled back slowly, his eyes searching hers.

  “I’ll, uh, make brownies for when you get back.” She stumbled over the words.

  They were the right ones. Keith’s face softened, the question in his eyes fading as he nodded, grabbed his keys and strode out the door.

  Making brownies. Kind of a code.

  It had all started that first time she’d made brownies after they were married. They’d been in the kitchen of the little house they’d rented on the back of the Weber property. The Webers were the owners of Shelter Valley’s only department store, and their son, Jim, had graduated from high school a couple of years behind Bonnie.

  It hadn’t been after dinner then, but fairly late on a Sunday morning. She and Keith had missed church because they’d been unable to keep their hands off each other long enough to get out of bed. But they couldn’t miss the lunch Grandma had invited them to share with her, and Bonnie had promised to bring brownies.

  She’d started the project fully dressed in a completely respectable, unsexy pair of sweats and a T-shirt. She’d even had a bra and panties on underneath.

  And then Keith had announced that for every ingredient she added to the brownies, she had to take something off.

  She’d been using a mix and had ended up naked when all the ingredients were in the bowl.

  The batter had been delicious.

  They’d had to stop and buy brownies at the grocery store on their way to Grandma’s.

  Pretty much ever since, whenever she made brownies, they also made love.

  Bonnie finished the dishes, a smile on her face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GRANDMA DISCARDED the two of diamonds. And she had no meld. When she’d picked up a couple of fours and then discarded a four, Bonnie had wondered—in canasta you could never have too many of whatever you were saving. But to discard a wild card without a meld…

  “You want to skip the rest of the game and go straight to the brownies?” Keith asked her.

  “I can finish.”

  “But do you want to?” Bonnie pushed. Though she’d obviously freshened her makeup, Grandma still looked exhausted. Her slacks and blouse were wrinkled, her shoulders slumped, and her gaze not as open and clear as usual.

  “Yes, I want to.” But she obviously didn’t.

  Sending her concerned husband a reassuring smile, Bonnie packed up the cards and cut the brownies. Grandma asked about Katie, who’d been going to bed when she’d arrived, asked if Bonnie had seen Becca Parsons that day and if Becca had said anything about a long-range planning committee meeting the next morning. She asked about Keith’s work.

  And she avoided Keith’s attempts to tell her to slow down. When they asked about Dorothy, her answers were brief and seemingly carefree.

  After two brownies, Grandma was ready to go home.

  Keith rose to get his keys.

  “Why don’t you stay and finish up in here,” she told her grandson, waving toward the dessert plates and napkins, half-empty milk glasses and score card still on the table. “Bonnie can take me home.”

  Exchanging one more silent look with her husband, Bonnie followed the older woman out the garage door to her van.

  “YOU’VE GOT TO TELL that grandson of mine to let up on me.”

  Bonnie hadn’t even backed out of the garage before Grandma spoke.

  Easing the van into the quiet street, she flipped on her headlights and put it in drive. “He just cares about you, Grandma.”

  “I know that. I care about him, too. Far more than he’ll probably ever know. Which is why it’s so hard to keep fighting him. I have enough to do without expending energy fighting with him.” Bonnie was amazed at how the older woman could take a much-repeated grumble and speak it with such convincing authority.

  “He won’t listen to me on this one.” Bonnie said the same thing she always did.

  “I mean it, Bonnie. I need his support right now.”

  Turning a corner, Bonnie slowed and glanced at Grandma, a knot in her stomach. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I will not turn my back on my friends.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m seventy-six years old, not dead.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “But do you?” Grandma asked. Bonnie had pulled into Grandma’s drive, but the old woman made no move to get out of the car. She stared at Bonnie through the semidarkness, her eyes faded and watery. “Do you have any idea how it feels to have lived a full, productive life and then to discover that because you’ve had one too many birthdays, everyone suddenly thinks you no longer have anything significant to offer?”

  Grandma’s words, though softly spoken, reverberated through the van, knocking the breath out of Bonnie.

  “I think I do,” she w
hispered. She didn’t know which was worse—thinking that you were giving nothing significant, or having others think you were incapable of giving.

  She wasn’t sure it even mattered.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  She watched Grandma to her door with a new understanding, one that effected a change she wasn’t sure she fully grasped. Grandma wasn’t the only person who got older. There was an entire community of elderly citizens in Shelter Valley.

  She wondered how many of them were fighting the same frustrations she’d been fighting these past months. The need to be needed. Or to make a difference in a world that cried out for help.

  And wondered if there were answers for any of them.

  KEITH WAS WAITING for her when she got home. Only the small light over the kitchen sink was glowing. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” played on the stereo behind her.

  Bonnie smiled.

  He walked toward her, unbuttoning his shirt. His longish blond hair was mussed.

  “Got Grandma home safe and sound?”

  She nodded. That short car ride had left her with too much to think about. And no conclusions other than a determination to somehow talk Keith into letting Grandma do what she had to do, even if it killed her.

  Later.

  Forcing thoughts of the disturbing conversation from her mind, Bonnie focused on the lithe male body slowly approaching.

  As always, a rush of delicious anticipation leaped in Bonnie’s abdomen. This man had the power to change her in some elemental way. And if, tonight, there was a bit of desperation in her eagerness for him, it wasn’t something she was going to dwell on.

  She unbuttoned her blouse, as well, exposing the teddy she’d slipped on when he’d gone to get Grandma.

  “Oh, God, Bon, you’re so beautiful it hurts.”

  She ran her fingers up his chest, his throat and into his hair, every nerve in her hands heightened so that she felt each silky strand slide between her knuckles and fall across her skin.

  “Kiss me,” she begged, standing on tiptoe to reach for his mouth as she pulled his head down to hers.

  He did. Again and again. His hunger was insatiable. His taste excitingly familiar. Hers. Bonnie groaned. There were so many feelings pulsating between them, so much to say.

  Love into eternity. Trust and an honest desire—stronger than self—to provide happiness. Forever.

  Keith had always aroused her. But tonight, as he loved her urgently, his body was perfect, in tune with every physical sensation she had. And his spirit was there, too, communicating without using the words she was so afraid to speak.

  Words were too messy. Left too many things un-said, or said wrong. But this—this all-consuming absorption in each other—was more vital than any conscious thought.

  By the third time they made love, they were stretched out on the family-room carpet on a quilt pulled from the back of the couch. Keith had turned on the gas fire and flames danced lazily in the fireplace in front of them. This time their loving was traditional, slow, soothing raw places deep inside Bonnie’s heart.

  Bonnie savored the love she knew she was so lucky to have.

  “You’ve brought me to my knees, woman,” he grumbled beside her on the carpet. “I love you so damn much.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He rolled to his side, head propped on one hand.

  “Thank you.”

  His words startled her. She was the one who should be expressing gratitude.

  “For what?”

  “Tonight.”

  She kissed Keith gently, wishing she wasn’t too exhausted to make love again. She didn’t want this feeling to end.

  And knew that it would.

  Her stomach tightened. She’d be kidding herself if she thought her dissatisfaction with life would just disappear when she woke up in the morning.

  Settling down onto the quilt, she pushed herself up against Keith so that his hips were cradling her bottom, his arms around her.

  “You know, that first time in the kitchen tonight, while I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting inside you, it still hit me hard that you didn’t insist on using protection. I had this huge urge to laugh out loud.”

  He paused and Bonnie lay frozen, willing him not to think what she knew he was thinking. “Of course, other urges were much stronger than laughter….”

  She chuckled with him and felt no laughter at all.

  “I know it took a while for us to get pregnant with Katie,” Keith continued, his voice sleepy, content, happier than she’d heard him in far too long. “I’m not expecting anything to come of tonight. I’m just glad we’re getting started.”

  Bonnie moved her head. It could have been a nod. Or a protest. She wanted so badly to want what Keith wanted, what they’d always wanted together.

  A family. This house. This life.

  Tied up in knots, she lay there beside him. Did she tell him she hadn’t stopped an incredibly spontaneous moment because she hadn’t had to? That it was a safe time for her?

  The admission would hurt him, ruin the best evening they’d had in months. And for what?

  She wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to have another child. And didn’t want him to think she didn’t want one. Because maybe she did. She loved being a mother. And a wife. She just had to figure out what she needed to do for Bonnie, the woman, before she committed herself any further.

  Or figure out how to convince that woman to feel completely fulfilled with the life she had.

  But how did she tell her husband that? How could she look into those gorgeous blue eyes and tell this man that the life he loved, the one they’d built together, wasn’t enough for her?

  They could lose everything. And for what?

  So maybe they wouldn’t use protection the next time they made love. Or the time after that.

  Rolling over, she studied Keith’s familiar features. Those eyes, half-closed, slumbrous and sexy, the jaw with the familiar dark shadow, a mouth that wasn’t quite grinning but somehow expressing complete satisfaction. She loved him so much.

  And couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  “I SAW THIS FILM in the studio today.”

  Keith and Bonnie were sitting up, wrapped in the quilt. Reflection from the flames swayed across Bonnie’s skin, clothing her in a mysterious beauty. It was after midnight and they both had to work early, but Keith had absolutely no desire to go to bed.

  “Previewing?” she asked, glancing sideways at him.

  He nodded. It wasn’t often a film stayed with him, coming to mind again and again, as this one had.

  Keith wasn’t sure if it was the film itself or Martha’s reaction to it that was nagging at him. While he appreciated what the dancers and the filmmaker were saying, he still didn’t think it fit their programming mission.

  “It’s bothering you?” Bonnie asked, understanding, even though he’d said nothing.

  He nodded a second time, his gaze moving from her face to the fire.

  He told her about the suffering he’d seen. The death and hopelessness that pervaded the film. “It was too much.”

  “The movie showed them dying?” Bonnie asked.

  “No.” And then, “They were dancing.”

  “Dancing.” He could feel her looking at him. “Even at the end? They were dancing?”

  “Yeah, but you had to see it, Bon. These guys were like shells of men, their bodies so thin you wondered how they had the strength to move.”

  “But obviously they did have the strength, or they wouldn’t have been able to dance.”

  She’d know about that, having been a dancer for years before she’d stopped to study early-childhood education.

  “Yeah.” Elbows on his knees, Keith stared down a particular feisty flame.

  “I think that’s inspiring. Like they weren’t going to quit until it was over.”

  “So you think it would be okay to broadcast?”

  “Of course!”

  Keith turned his head to see Bonnie
frowning at him. “Don’t you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” More so now.

  “What did Martha have to say about it?”

  “Pretty much the same thing you did.”

  “I’m not surprised. We think a lot alike.”

  Keith nodded.

  He’d noticed that, too.

  SHANE BELLOWS’S HEART sped up as he walked down the deserted hallway in Little Spirits. A light was still on in the playroom. That meant Bonnie was there.

  According to the note he’d left on his mirror last night, she’d mentioned that she planned to move the reading corner to the other side of the room today.

  He could help.

  He could talk to her.

  “Hi,” he said, trying to force his voice to respond to the commands he was giving it—trying to sound the way he had when he’d spoken to her during high school.

  She’d wanted him then.

  Facing a ceiling-high shelf, her arms full of the books she was pulling down, Bonnie turned to look at him over one shoulder.

  “Hi, Shane.” Her easy grin settled so much of the uncertainty that was constantly there inside him.

  He wanted to grin back, but was afraid his mouth would get that crooked hitch that came and went for no reason he could figure out. He didn’t want her to see that stupid look. Not ever.

  “I can help,” he said, keeping his words to a minimum, as he always did around her. He hated the way his speech slowed and slurred. He’d never get used to that.

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “You’ve been working all day.”

  “So have you.”

  She’d let him stay. She always did. And she always talked to him. Bonnie was the only person in his hometown who still treated him like a man.

  She didn’t smother him with the pity that stripped him of what little pride he had left.

  He removed some books from the shelves, taking care to keep his movements slow so he could control them. Bumbling around in front of Bonnie was humiliating.