by Honey
As Camille listened to them, she wondered if Captain knew how poignant—and true—his words were.
They approached the gate and Cap said, "So let's eat a whole cherry pie together."
They strolled down the street, their voices fading just after Hildegarde said, "All right, Captain. Let's eat a whole cherry pie together. I'll make one tomorrow."
Their shoulders met and a pang of envy held Camille in the doorway, where she looked out the screen mesh, watching the couple disappear around the corner. She wished she could be so open with her affections, could have that feeling of pure bliss. She wanted to know the discovery of love and its promises, of being courted and returning shy glances and gentle touches. If only she and Alex had met under different circumstances. If only they could openly be sweethearts.
If only...
Closing the door, she moved through the house and into the kitchen to clean up. She checked the temperature in the hope that it had gone down a few degrees. It had actually gone up three. An oscillating fan rested on the countertop and she turned up the speed with the intention of staying cool while doing the dishes. But the only breeze that reached her was warm, dry air.
As she looked out the window into the backyard, a figure caught her gaze.
Alex hadn't left.
He crouched by the paintbrushes and was soaking several in a can of thinner. His wrist moved as he worked the paint out of them. Camille took two Virgil's root beers from the icebox, then went through the back door and outside. She watched him for a moment from the porch. The color of his skin had deepened to a rich brown from having been without his shirt all day. He still hadn't put it back on, and a tiny circle of light gleamed from the chain around his neck. The St. Christopher medal.
His head was down, spilling black hair over the bridge of his nose as he worked the bristles between his fingers Well-defined forearms and biceps moved with a quiet strength that came from hitting baseballs out of the park.
"I thought you'd gone home," she said, walking over the grass to meet him.
He lifted his chin and looked through the wet hair that had fallen in his eyes. When he saw her, he raked it back, muscles rippling, showing a flash of dark underarm hair. He'd removed his hat and red bandana and it appeared as if he'd drenched his head with water from the garden hose. A burning cigarette was clamped between his lips and he talked around it. "Did you want to get rid of me?"
"I—no. I brought root beer." She wanted him to stay.
With his chin, he motioned to the pile of brushes closest to her. Then he gazed back down and continued working on the few he had in the thinner can. "Hand me those, would you, honey?"
When he called her that... honey... the word evoked a rush of heat through her body. Nobody said it like he did. Nobody meant it like he did.
Camille gave Alex his root beer, then set her own bottle down on an iron garden table. She got the brushes and came back.
"Put them in."
She arched a brow. "In the can?"
"Where else?"
"It's dirty in there." She peered inside where swirls of green and red and russet had made a murky pool of what looked like syrup.
Alex's mouth carried a hint of a smile as he gazed at her. Sweat trickled down his unshaven cheek, and he blew a stream of smoke through his lips. "That's the way this works, honey. To get the paint off the brushes, you clean them in the turpentine. Then the turpentine gets dirty."
"I know that."
"So put the brushes in."
She hesitated. Alex leaned back on his heels and flicked the butt of his cigarette into the hedges. He pulled the porcelain swing-top stopper off the root beer and took long swallows until he'd emptied the bottle on one breath. Her gaze was drawn to his mouth, the glistening sweat above his lip and the dewy droplets of root beer that he licked off with his tongue. She thought about how it had felt to have his tongue in her mouth, sensuously dancing with her. How good it felt with his lips on her skin, sucking her nipples. Her mouth went dry as she remembered the sensations he'd given her that night in the hotel room. She shivered, pure fire shooting through her body. If he kissed her right now, in plain sight, she wouldn't care. She'd—
"Have you had enough time to think it over?"
"What?" she blurted, brought out of her erotic thoughts.
He tilted his head, an unspoken question reflected in his brown eyes.
She didn't want him asking her anything else, so she quickly said, "I was going to." Then she knelt down across from him and plunged the two brushes she held into the turpentine.
"Go ahead. Clean some of them. If I do them all, I might be here until morning." He presented her with a deliberate smile. "Then again, staying until morning would be nice."
The suggestion nearly knocked her over. Every bit of common sense she had told her to run in the opposite direction. And suddenly, she saw him lying on her bed with her, and them both—
"But if I spent the night," he said, intruding on her imagination, "I'd miss the train tomorrow and then my manager would fine me even though I'm suspended. I have rules to follow."
She knew he was teasing her, but her mind was still someplace else. She had to pull it to what he was saying now. "You won't be suspended the entire seventeen days on the road." She pressed the brush to the bottom of the can, careful not to dip it so far she'd get oily paint on her fingers. "I'll put you in on the eighth against Boston."
"I always look forward to seeing Cy."
She knew he didn't mean that.
Their knuckles met in the narrow opening and Camille refused to let the touch affect her. It didn't, not really. Or so she told herself. It was his voice, low and husky, that warmed her skin through the thin sleeves of her dress. "You really want the pennant, don't you?"
She let out a slow breath. "I really do."
"How come?"
Pressing the bristles against the edge of the can, she deliberated giving him the real answer. To pull her father into the conversation would bring up an embarrassing subject for Camille. She didn't want to look like she was in this just to get his approval. Her reasons for wanting the win had less and less to do with Daddy.
After a long pause, she dared to confess, "Because I'm twenty-two and I've never been good at anything that's really mattered."
His head bent low over hers, the fringe of his hair teasing her forehead. The near touch caught a droplet of water against her skin and it rolled in a slow path down the hollow of her cheek. She stilled, feeling the heat cling to her.
"From what I know about you, I'll bet you made good grades in school," he said.
She managed to speak. "I did, and that's the whole point. That was expected of me. I want to do something unexpected." The thickness of her braid lay heavily on her neck; her chemise felt as if it had been plastered on. The afternoon sun was unkind, bringing beads of perspiration to her brows.
"And baseball defines unexpected?"
Her skin burned like the smoldering end of one of his cigarettes; the trickle of perspiration rolling between her breasts felt annoying and almost unbearable. Is he as aware of my presence as I am of his? "If I bring the Keystones to the pennant and we win, I'll prove to myself, my family, and my friends that I can succeed at something that depended on my decisions." She was acutely conscious of the way he watched her, looked into her eyes. "My father started his own store from nothing and made it successful. Edwina Wolcott opened her own finishing school for young ladies and gained the respect of every lady in town. And what about Meg's grandmother, Mrs. Rothman? She fights for women's rights. You can't do anything of more value."
"Sewing a straight stitch doesn't matter?"
That he would even offer such an obtuse statement made her jaw drop open. "Well, I like that. What a thing to say."
"I'm saying it because you shouldn't have to put aside other things just to prove yourself in another direction. I saw those little wall-hanging goodies in your house. I like the one with the bluebirds on it."
&nbs
p; "That bellpull?"
"I don't know what it's called."
"It's a bellpull and I could make one in my sleep. Who cares? There is no effort required," she responded sharply, using more vigor than necessary to clean the brush. "The year you left baseball, you were batting two-twenty-one. That's the kind of success I'm looking for. You know what it's like."
"Hand me that other brush," he said, seemingly ignoring her comment.
Absently, she reached for it and smacked the handle into his open palm. She didn't move away in time; a smear of Indian red paint marked the backside of her hand. They looked at the spot together. Her skin seemed so pale next to his, appear even lighter by the luminous white sun above their heads. The sunshine scent of him was like an intoxicant through her blood. Crazy thoughts scudded through her mind as he put his fingertip into the blotch and made a small pattern. A heart.
"Sometimes," he said, her own heart jumping in her chest, "things that seem so great really aren't. Sometimes just being with somebody you care about is the only thing that matters."
His words snatched her breath away.
How had the conversation about baseball turned into this? The hot air surrounding them seemed to be combustible.
"I..." She gazed about, then locked onto a distraction. "Somebody took the cushions off the lawn swing."
She rose to her feet, nearly stumbling in the process, and quickly went to the swing. Her breath came in short choking gasps and she told herself to quit acting so ridiculous. So... in lust with the man. It was shameless. Her thoughts about him were shameless.
Picking up one of the cushions, she leaned into the framework to deposit the molded horsehair back in place. As she turned for the other one, she stopped. White paint made a crisscross pattern down the front of her lavender dress—an imprint from the wooden slats of the swing.
"When did somebody paint the swing?" she blurted in Alex's direction.
A smile caught the corners of Alex's mouth. "Doc and Specs slapped a quick coat of whitewash over it when you and Hildegarde were in the house."
"You could have warned me."
"Yeah." He straightened. "I could have. But I liked you with that dirt smudge you had on the tip of your nose, and I liked you with the plumber's grease smeared under it. I wanted to see what you'd look like really messy. Because I knew I'd love it."
Love? Even though he hadn't said the word as an endearment, as a promise, it settled into her heart, bringing with it a pang of longing. She blinked, unwilling to think of the reference as anything more than casual.
She held her arms out, careful not to get any more on herself than she already had, noting the white stripes on her sleeves and on her wrists. There was even a thick line across her breasts over two of the pearl bodice buttons. "Get the turpentine. Quick."
"Whitewash is harmless. It'll come off with water."
"Get the hose. Quick."
Alex's amused laughter didn't help matters; it only served to prickle her. He moved—slowly—to the spigot and the coil of garden hose by the side of the house. He took his own sweet time about it, as if he wanted her to stand there as long as possible and feel sticky.
The spray nozzle must have gotten knocked into the bushes, because he moved the edge of her boxwood to the left, then right. She called out to him.
"Forget about the nozzle."
"I have to put the nozzle on."
"You don't need it."
"I need it."
He continued his search, wearing an easy smile on his mouth that she wanted to cover with paint.
Beside the porch, on the pile of pebbles she put in the bottoms of her houseplant containers, she spied the paintbrushes that had been used on the swing. Walking with care, she went over to them and grasped the handle of one.
"You don't need the nozzle," she said one more time.
"I need the nozzle." His voice held a hint of mischief, as if he planned on hosing her down like one of the firehouse horses.
On second thought, she didn't want him coming anywhere near her with the garden hose. As he scrounged around in the hedges, she crept toward him, determined. With a bite of her lower hp, she aimed the paint-coated bristles at Alex, flicked her wrist, and let the spatters fly in his direction.
"What the hell?" Fast on his feet, he faced her, hose in his grasp.
He'd found the nozzle.
The paint splashes caught him on the side of the arm, down his torso and one thigh of his pants. His gaze lowered, and he gave himself a perusal that seemed to drag on forever. Then he surveyed her from head to toe, his eyes looking lazily seductive. His broad shoulder dipped right as he leaned to the house.
"Don't you turn on that hose," she cautioned.
His large hand came down on the spigot and gave it a blatant twist.
Camille bolted. Water sprayed the small of her back, causing her to shriek. As hot as her skin was from the sun, the water felt like just-melted ice as it hit her. She screamed as a fresh assault doused her neck and the backs of her arms. Running in a circle around the old elm, she yelled. But even she had to admit there wasn't much terror to the sounds coming out of her throat. They were more akin to giggles.
"Turn it off!" she begged. "Turn it off!"
"I don't think so."
She caught a glimpse of him as she ran through her graveyard of a garden. Paint speckled the hair on his chest, dotted his skin, and was smeared over his flat nipples. Black hair framed his face in a wild, untamed way that was both wicked and alluring. She hid behind the tree, its rough bark next to her cheek. But the sound of the water hissing over the grass reached her ears as he approached. She made no effort to dodge him. She was trapped.
His voice came to her in a low rasp. "I think you need to cool off."
Looking into his eyes, she said, "I am cooled off."
"I'm not."
Then the water showered over them both as he kissed her beneath the sweet rain. His mouth covered hers with a passion she had felt only a few times in her life—all with Alex. Her neck arched to meet his lips more firmly. She would have clung to him if she could have moved. The hose was slowly lowered, her skirts and his pants legs drenched from the stream as he ignored it. He forced her mouth open with his tongue, sliding it between her lips and deepening the kiss. He tasted of root beer.
She groaned into his mouth. She was incapable of thinking clearly. She stood there like a statue, her body hot and blood flowing. The scent of his skin filled her nostrils. They touched only at the lips, which made her grow restless. Yearning ran deep inside her. She wanted him—wanted more than his kiss. She wanted him as she'd wanted him in Boston—and more. This time, she wanted him to feel the way she had.
If he hadn't broken the kiss, she would have let him kiss her forever, outside, with no regard to consequence. His eyes bore into hers with dark desire that made her pulse skip. He had to be used to women swooning in his arms; she was no different. Why couldn't she resist him?
Water dripped off the tendrils of her hair that had come undone from her braid. She stood before him, her breasts rising and falling.
Seconds ticked by before she felt she could trust her voice.
"You get to me, Alex..." She still held the whitewash paintbrush, she painted an X on his chest. "Right here."
She didn't want him to say anything. She was afraid he might not feel the same way. So she quickly went on, "I have a cake of scouring soap in the house. Come in and clean up."
Walking swiftly, she left him and climbed the porch steps. She shouldn't have invited him in. She was courting danger. But it was the very danger that lured her to him, that made her crave him.
Would he follow her?
Chapter 21
Camille took her shoes and stockings off outside the door so she wouldn't track paint inside. She went to the sink but didn't touch it. Murky drops of diluted whitewash trickled off her hair and dripped over her collarbone and edge of her neckline. She should have gone to the pantry first and found a towel to dr
y her face. Instead, she stood still, liking the feeling of cool water on her bare toes as it ran off her skirt hem.
The blades of the fan stirred the thick kitchen air as the oscillator turned the grill first toward her, then away. The soap was beneath her in the cupboard, but she didn't go for it. Never mind the fact that she was making a mess on the floor. She wanted to be messy. She wanted...
She heard the back door open and close. On a shaky sigh, she reached out to hold on to the edge of the sink. Her breath held in her throat as Alex's footsteps sounded on the floor. Closer. Closer.
Closing her eyes, she lowered her head. Waiting.
She felt him behind her and she fought against turning around to take him into her arms. Could he tell her world was turning upside down? From the day she'd first spoken to him, he'd worked his magic on her until all the barriers she'd tried to put up against him had been dissolved. He aroused in her a need nobody else ever had. She was a hopeless case. She was in love with him.
He slid his fingers over her shoulders, up her neck, and to the sides of her face, where he caressed her cheeks. The quiet and unassuming power of his fingers was gentle as he cradled her face in his hands. Tenderly, he brought his mouth to the column of her neck and kissed her, his hair tickling her ear. Expelling a breath, she leaned into his chest, the warmth of his body seeping through to her back and the damp fabric that clung to her. She could feel the hard length of him pressed against the fly of his pants. Against her.
Without turning her body, she lifted her face to his for a kiss. Their mouths came together. His tongue glided over the seam of her lips, tasting and teasing. He taught her things she had never imagined. His slow and silken strokes swept through her mouth and she kissed him back in the same way. Erotic. Intimate. She loved the hard feel of his chest next to her.
A quickening deep in her stomach made her knees grow weak. His hands skimmed over her shoulders, and down her arms and locked around her waist. She felt the strong arms that held her, the light sprinkling of dark hair that roughened them. She ran her palms up his biceps, up the smooth and warm skin, feeling every contour.