She was glad when Deke went on talking. “I was standing right here in this very spot twelve years ago or so when a towhee landed on that stump over there, and his cry sounded to me like, Feelgood’s tea, Feelgood’s tea. The name Dr. Feelgood popped into my mind and I even dropped a few coins, which I could barely spare at the time, into the well to ensure my new venture’s success. Then I went out and worked like hell. I was twenty-one years old, and all things seemed possible.”
Dorian was unacquainted with this reflective side of Deke. She leaned on the crumbling brick and smiled up at him. “Maybe I should throw a few coins in the wishing well and wish that my career will take off after the Dr. Feelgood campaign.”
“Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing her a few pennies and nickels.
She held them in her hand, thinking about how to phrase the wish.
“You’re taking so long I’m wondering if you’ll need more change,” Deke prompted with a wry look.
“No,” she said. “I’m ready.” She tossed the handful of coins, and for a moment they seemed suspended in the air before they fell with a glimmer and a splash into the water.
Deke smiled at her, his eyes a tawny sparkle. “I don’t know if it counts, but I wished good things for you, too,” he said, and for a moment the warmth of his smile seemed all tangled up with the sunshine and the sweet-scented flowers so that she couldn’t breathe. Backlighted by the sun, his head wore a crown of light.
She looked away quickly, but he slid his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s sit over here under this old oak tree,” he said.
Fallen leaves, dry and whispery, rustled as they sat down. Dorian leaned against the wide mossy trunk, trying to get a grip on herself. She couldn’t think of any lighthearted remarks. Deke was giving her no openings for sarcasm or wit or any of the deflecting mechanisms that she always tossed out when the atmosphere became too intense.
Her eyes focused on the distant gentle curves of the mountaintops. “What were some of the other wishes you wished when you came here as a boy?” she asked for something to say.
Deke, leaning on one elbow, his face dappled by sunlight penetrating the heavy canopy of leaves, grinned up at her. “You probably wouldn’t want to know.”
“Try me,” she said.
He rolled over on his stomach, pulling a leaf apart with his fingers. “I was a daydreamer when I was a boy. This island became Fantasyland as far as a kid from Georgia was concerned. When I sat under this tree, the whole world seemed far away, and I lost myself in reverie. I suppose my dreams weren’t all that different. They probably consisted of all the things a typical kid thinks about.”
“Such as?”
“Such as how I would someday sail away on the ocean on a raft, crossing all the way to Ireland, where I’d be greeted by a brass band and a few hundred dancing leprechauns. Such as becoming the first astronaut to land on Mars and finding it populated with beautiful women, all of whom wanted me for their own. Such as winning a new car and enticing Judy Boggs to go in it with me to the prom,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
“Did she? Judy, I mean?” Dorian couldn’t help being curious about Deke’s former girlfriends.
“She did. And shortly thereafter, she married a guy I disliked intensely. They now have five kids,” he said with a little laugh.
“Do you see her often?”
He raised his eyebrows. “About as often as I see anyone else in this little town, which is to say frequently. There aren’t that many people living in Mabry, you know.”
“I gathered that.” She paused delicately. “Haven’t there been other women from Mabry that you’ve liked since then?”
He seemed amused. “Sure. So many that I couldn’t beat all of them off with a stick,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.
“You told me you were lonely.”
“I was.”
“So I guess you never had any serious relationships,” she said. She couldn’t have said why it seemed so important to know.
“Nope, just plain old relationships, some of them awful. There was one woman who moved in with me and refused to leave, even after it was over. There was a schoolteacher who hit me over the head with a beer bottle, requiring a visit to the hospital emergency room. Then there was a secretary whose five-year-old son hated me and put dismembered grasshoppers in a batch of tea I was assembling in my kitchen. There were a couple more that I ditched when they got too serious. Things haven’t been dull.”
“How many did you ditch?” she asked as if it didn’t really matter.
“Two or three. Maybe four. What difference does it make?”
“Just wondered,” she said, watching the bees buzzing in the tall grass. “What, um, made you think that they were getting too serious?”
He expelled a lungful of air and rolled over so that his head rested in her lap. This took her by surprise, but she didn’t object.
He looked up at her. “They kept asking me questions with the word `serious’ in the middle. Like, `I bet you could never get serious with a woman who’ and then they’d name something they did, such as wearing magenta nail polish with sparkles in it. It didn’t take a brilliant mind to realize that they were testing me. Another favorite tactic was to say that so-and-so was `getting serious’ about so-and-so. That would introduce the topic, and I was supposed to say something about our getting serious. Only I never did.”
A butterfly danced out of the woods and fluttered around Deke’s forehead. Dorian shooed it away, and he went on talking.
“Women would find out that I wasn’t serious at all. And they’d get angry. So, since I don’t enjoy living in a war zone, I’d break it off.” He focused his eyes on her face. “What I never thought of,” he said softly, “was finding a like-minded woman, one who had no intention of getting seriously involved.”
He reached for her hand and turned it over so that it faced palm up. Slowly he traced one of the lines with his fingernail; her love line, she thought, although she wasn’t up on such things.
“Stop, Deke, that tickles,” she said, trying to pull her hand away, but he didn’t let her. He clasped her hand firmly between both of his, and she continued to be distracted by his touch.
He sat up suddenly and was quiet for a long moment before he said, “Dorian, have you ever heard about the elephant in the living room?”
“No,” she said, shifting uncomfortably.
He leaned close, supporting himself with one arm. “It’s in the middle of the living room, but no one ever talks about it. With us, the elephant in the living room is the relationship that we could have. We walk around it, we tiptoe so we won’t wake it up, and all the time we’re feeding it and it grows. I think we need to talk about where we’re headed.”
“Couldn’t we discuss it later?” she asked irritably, springing to her feet.
He stared up at her reproachfully, not saying a word.
She longed for the butterfly to come out of the woods again, something to distract both of them so she wouldn’t have to face the elephant.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Didn’t I notice you unloading a picnic basket back at the house?” She turned abruptly and started for the path.
Behind her, she heard Deke get up and follow. She didn’t turn around to look at him all the way back to the boat, but she heard him crashing through the woods behind her, knocking away tree limbs as if they were objections, clomping over stumps as though they were excuses, barging through thickets as if they were protests. He sounded for all the world like an elephant, following her, following her, following her.
Chapter Eight
On the way back across the lake, Dorian sat far away from Deke in the stern of the boat and thought about how much she disliked deep conversations about relationships. She liked things to stay superficial and on the surface. She’d thought that Deke, with all his talk about not being one for serious relationships, did, too.
When they got back to the house,
no mention was made of their discussion. Deke unpacked the picnic basket as soon as they went inside. Larissa had provided chicken-and-watercress sandwiches and cold grapes and homemade shortbread and even a bottle of wine, for which Dorian was especially grateful. She drank enough to feel slightly removed from the situation. When Deke suggested afterward that they go to the end of the dock and dabble their feet in the water, she felt mellow enough to follow him along the crooked little path and to sit down beside him, though not too near.
On the far side of the lake, the water was bordered by a sickle of woodland. Beyond the trees the shadowed forest was shot through with golden threads of sunlight.
“I haven’t sat here like this since I was a kid,” Deke said, swishing his feet back and forth to send ripples to the middle of the lake.
“I’ll bet you were a cute little boy.”
“I was a terror,” he said in all seriousness. “That’s how my mother happened to send me to live with Granny Nan for a couple of years to straighten me out.” He shook his head ruefully.
“Straighten out what?” she asked, frankly curious.
“I wasn’t achieving in school, and I was making everyone’s lives miserable by disrupting class. Mom was at her wit’s end with me. By that time, Bob, who is ten years older than I am, was already at the University of Georgia, and my father had died. Mom was a widow and trying to earn enough money to help Bob get through school. Granny Nan got me on the right track. She read me the riot act and cut a hickory switch and set it on the mantel in case she needed to use it, which she never did. She even got me a dog.”
“I’ve never had a pet,” Dorian said softly.
“Well, I grew to love Tuffy, although at first I really didn’t want a dog. At the time, I considered them to have appalling bathroom habits, and I asked Granny Nan for a pushmi-pullyu instead. You know, like in the Doctor Dolittle story.”
Dorian laughed. “You thought the pushmi-pullyu was a real animal?”
He laughed, too. “I wasn’t sure, but I certainly hoped so. Since the pushmi-pullyu had heads at both ends, which didn’t seem to leave room for any of the other bodily orifices, I figured that it wasn’t an animal that would have to be paper-trained or taken for walks,” he said, and she laughed again.
“You always talk as if you loved your grandmother very much.”
“I did. She understood me. For instance, after I moved here, she figured out that I wasn’t challenged in school and convinced the local principal to move me ahead two grades. After that, I dug in and en-joyed studying. I even won that scholarship to Beckett College.”
“But you didn’t stay.”
“Nope. Anyway, nobody at Beckett knew what to make of a good old boy from north Georgia. They laughed at my accent. All except the STUDs, that is. Those guys took me under their wings, made me feel at home so far away from home. I can never repay them for that. Never.” He stretched and leaned back, his elbows propping him up on the wooden boards.
After a while, he glanced at her. “Say, I thought you wanted to work on your suntan.”
“I am,” she said, turning so that she faced the sun.
“You’ll never get a tan through your blouse and shorts,” he pointed out. He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head, revealing a well-defined chest lightly furred with dark hair.
When he noticed how she was looking at him, he grinned down at her. He knew how he affected her. It was apparent in the way he drew himself up to his considerable height and threw his shoulders back.
Dorian looked away.
“Let’s go for a swim,” he said.
“I think I’ll stay here,” she said, drawing her feet out of the water and hugging her knees to her chest. She felt suddenly shy about showing him her body in a bikini, which was odd since the first time he’d seen her she’d been wearing a sarong and not much else.
“Coward,” he said before he dived off the end of the dock. For a moment, his body seemed to soar in midair, golden in the sun, before it knifed through the silvery skin of the lake. He surfaced, blowing a spume of water like a whale.
“How’s the water temperature?” she called to him.
“Fine. Come on in,” he called back.
Maybe the physical activity was what she needed to dispel the unwelcome thoughts she was having about Deke. Slowly she stood up and stripped off her shirt, then her shorts. She felt too revealed in her brief swimsuit, though she knew she looked good in it.
“Do you like to get in by degrees, or do you prefer The Big Splash?” he asked. The hair on his chest was curled into tight whorls by the water. She couldn’t see what he looked like below the waist. Perhaps it was just as well.
“I’ll jump in. Or dive.”
“Dive off the end of the dock where it’s deep,” he said. He was scrutinizing her from head to foot.
“Here goes,” she said, and ran to the end of the dock. She hit the water with a splash and came up sputtering.
“The water’s cold!”
Deke lolled back, letting the water buoy him up. “You’ll have to keep swimming to warm up. Want to race?”
“To where?”
“Until I win,” he said, whereupon she splashed water in his direction.
He took off then, exhibiting a strong, powerful crawl. She followed, her strokes slower and more sedate. He stopped finally and she did, too. Her feet sought the bottom and found it.
“See? You’re warmer now, right?” he said, moving toward her. Beads of water shimmered at the ends of his eyelashes and gathered in the cleft of his chin. Suddenly she wasn’t thinking about water tem-perature anymore.
Dorian gazed up at Deke tremulously, bemused by the flicker in the depths of his eyes. It was like a low flame, fanned by his attraction to her, and she was mesmerized by it.
He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand, tilting her face toward the sun.
“Dorian,” he said.
She only stared at him, but she knew her heart was in her eyes.
“Dorian,” he said again, pronouncing her name with slow and sensuous nuances she had never heard before. “I’m glad you’re here with me.” Slowly he lowered his head and captured her lips with his. It was a gentle kiss, delivered as if they had all the time in the world. All the time in the world, and maybe that wasn’t even enough if she continued to feel the way she did at this moment. A trembling surged up from somewhere deep inside her, and she shivered.
“Don’t be cold, Dorian.” He pulled her closer. She was aware of his body, taut and lean, only inches from hers. Tentatively she reached out and braced herself against his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath her palm.
He wrapped his arms around her. Droplets of water ran from their bodies, disturbing the smooth surface of the lake. There may have been other sounds, but Dorian didn’t hear them. There may have been onlookers, but Dorian didn’t see them. Only Deke filled her senses—Deke, looking down at her as if caught in a trance, as if there were no other people in the world. They stood motionless in the water, their eyes locked in a gaze that neither of them tried to break.
As if by instinct, Dorian lifted her head and his lips found hers. Softly insistent, he swept his tongue across her lips until they parted.
She should have melted within his embrace, but she couldn’t. Despite the passion of the moment, Dorian was shivering too hard—so hard that her teeth began to chatter and Deke reared back. Embarrassed, she bit down on her lower lip in a futile effort to keep her teeth still.
“If you keep that up, you could do one of us a serious injury,” he said in a droll tone.
“I c-can’t h-help it,” she chattered.
“I think we’d better go in,” he said, releasing her so that her knees almost buckled. “Race you to the dock!” he yelled as she regained her balance.
There was nothing to do but plunge in his wake, hoping that she hadn’t made such a fool of herself that she had spoiled the rest of the day for both of them. Deke was halfway to the dock the next time sh
e raised her head for a breath of air. And of course, he won.
But as she clung to the ladder, he reached down to give her a hand, and his eyes lingered on her breasts as he pulled her out of the water. In that moment, she knew with a certain exultation that she had neither dampened nor cooled his ardor.
It seemed as if nothing did. His perseverance, which was the very thing that had repelled her in the beginning, was beginning to be his most appealing trait.
* * *
DEKE FOUND DORIAN a warm sweatshirt and made sure she sat in a patch of sunlight on the west side of the living room opening onto the deck. He also broke out another bottle of wine for good measure.
“Warm?” he asked as she settled amid couch cushions covered in pastel patchwork.
She nodded. “Warm enough,” she said. She looked as if she didn’t know what to expect. Deke told himself to go slowly, to take it easy. He didn’t want to frighten her away now that she was allowing him to touch her, to kiss her, to—but he’d better not take anything for granted. One thing he had learned was that you never knew what was going to happen next with Dorian Carr.
He sat down at her feet, resting his arm on the edge of the couch. He wanted to talk about the elephant in the living room—the sexual tension in their relationship that drove him to distraction. He wanted to discuss what they were going to do about it, and she was avoiding any and all discussion. It was frustrating, to say the least.
Her bare foot dangled before him, and he took it between his hands. He ran a forefinger over a callus on her heel.
“That was a blister once,” she said. He half expected her to pull her foot away, but she didn’t. He stroked it gently, wondering why women wore shoes that didn’t fit. He preferred cross-trainers himself, and he didn’t own a pair of dress shoes. Dock-Sides were as formal as he ever got.
She took a sip of wine. “You’ll be interested to know,” she said, “that one of the first things I did when I got the initial check after signing the Dr. Feelgood contract was to go out and buy twenty new pairs of shoes that fit.”
The World's Last Bachelor Page 11