My head was buzzing from the champagne. I led us down the next path, and he followed. “What brought that on?” I asked. I knew the answer, but I wanted him to know I needed to hear his reasons for things.
“I mean, I’m sure there’s a world of things I don’t know about you, but I don’t want us to hide things from each other intentionally. Can we have that agreement?”
He stopped then, by a wooden bench that seemed to mark the center of the maze. A neat square clearing surrounded us, only ten feet or so of space. He sat and pulled me onto his lap, sliding his arm around my waist.
“Say something,” he said.
“I don’t like secrets, either,” I said. And I didn’t. They ate me up inside.
He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and kept his eyes on mine. I couldn’t look away. If I did, he’d know I was still hiding something. But if I stared at him too long, he’d see it in my eyes.
He kissed me gently and slid his other arm around my hips. “I hate it when Lucille keeps things from me. Josie does too, usually trying to stop me from worrying about Buck, she says, but it never works out that way. The wondering makes me crazy. The wondering makes me worry more.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. I wanted to tell him the rest of it, right there. About Lucille, about Toph, about this debt she thought she owed him. I wanted to tell Jack everything she told me, but when I opened my mouth, I saw her face, felt the tug of her hand on my arm, the way she’d dug her fingers into my skin and begged me not to tell.
It was not my secret to tell. But I couldn’t say nothing.
“You’re right about Toph. But it’s more complicated than you think.”
His jaw tightened.
“Things will make sense in a couple more days.” I squeezed his arm until his face softened. “She told me some things in confidence, but I can’t break her trust. You just need to trust me and have some faith in her.”
He studied me for a long moment.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You need to trust her too. Trust her to do what she needs to do. You can’t always gallop in on your big white horse, even though I love you for wanting to.”
He smiled a little at that. “OK.”
I slid my fingers through his hair and kissed him on the forehead. “I don’t want to make you worry,” I said, and his arms tightened around me. “I love you.”
“Come here,” he said, and shifted me on his lap so I was straddling him. As I moved, my shoes fell off and landed in the grass with a thump. His hands were warm against my back, pulling me against his chest. I rested my hands on his collarbones as he slid his fingers along my cheek and kissed me, gently at first. He still tasted faintly of wine.
“I miss this,” he said, his hands sliding beneath my dress. “I miss having you all to myself.”
“Our house will be empty again soon enough,” I said. “We just have to make it through Christmas dinner.”
He laughed his throaty laugh. “I think we can manage that one.”
I slid my fingers through his hair and kissed his neck.
He sighed. “Do you think everyone in that big old house has gone to bed?”
I unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, bright white in the moonlight. “Probably.”
“That bed upstairs is awfully creaky. I bet we’d knock every single slat out and wake the whole place.”
“We’d be blacklisted forever.” I caught his earlobe in my teeth. “And this is such a nice place. I think I’d like to come back some day.”
His hands tightened over my hips, and he kissed me harder.
“We should probably just stay out here,” I said.
His grin was wicked. “But you’ll ruin that lovely dress.”
“Not if you take it off.”
I tugged at the zipper, and he pulled the dress over my head in one fluid motion, then folded it in half and draped it on the bench beside him. His eyes were dark and wide in the dim light. His hands roamed over my skin, warming me.
“Nice lace,” he mumbled, tracing his fingers along the front of my bra. He slid his lips along my neck, in the way he knew made me shiver down to my toes. My squirming made him chuckle and hold me tighter in place. He was merciless in his teasing.
When I’d had enough, I wriggled off his lap and got to my feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said, his hand still squeezing my hip.
“Come here,” I said, tugging on the lapel of his jacket.
When he stood, I eased the jacket off his shoulders and laid it on the bench with my dress. He stepped closer, sliding his fingers along the small of my back as I slowly undid the buttons of his shirt. When he moved to shrug it off, I said, “Wait. Let me.”
He sighed as I eased the shirt down his arms, letting my palms linger over the taut muscles of his forearms. He stood still as I unfastened his belt and pants. As soon as the belt buckle clanged against the frame of the bench, he moved toward me, quick as a cat, and his body was hard against mine, one arm tight against my hips, his other hand tangled in my hair. He kissed me as he nudged us toward one of the boxwoods. My hands clawed at his shoulders. My heart banged against my ribs. His teeth pinched my lip as he kissed me with an urgency I hadn’t felt in weeks. He chuckled as I tugged at his hair and then he eased me onto the grass. The ground was cool, the grass prickly, but I forgot that as soon as I felt the warmth of his body pressing into mine.
One of his hands slid along my cheek. The other he trailed along my side, over my hip, and slid into the fabric of my panties.
“What are these still doing on?” he said. “Such bothersome things, these undergarments.”
I laughed as he slid them down to my ankles, shivering in the chilly air. Before I could complain, he was back on top of me, teasing me with his fingers. I gasped as he traced tiny circles, and I caught myself before I cried out.
He grinned, fixing me with his eyes. “I’d love to make you howl out here in the dark, Miz Parker.”
I gasped again as he moved inside me, one quick motion that made my entire body arch beneath him. He traced his lips along the curve of my neck, his words falling as softly on my skin as his tongue. Above us, the sky was as black as the inside of an ink bottle, the stars scattered above us like pinholes of light.
“Jack,” I whispered, and heard the ragged edge to my voice. I struggled to keep my breathing even as he moved faster, his hips keeping a circular motion that would certainly unravel me. I tightened my legs around his waist, and he groaned, a rough sound that sent a shiver along my arms. He pinned my hands into the grass, his fingers laced in mine, and gazed down at me as he slowed his movements.
My head still buzzed from the champagne, my chest tingled from the cool night air. I squeezed my thighs tighter around him, and he gasped, tilting his head toward the stars. When he looked back at me, his eyes were wide, a crooked smile on his face.
“God, you make me crazy,” he whispered.
I bit my lip, trying not to call his name into the night. He only grinned as he watched me struggle, my body shuddering under his. Then he leaned down, his forearms resting by my ears. He kissed me lightly on the lips, and I felt his heart hammering against my skin.
He tangled his fingers in mine again, then brought them to his lips. After a minute, he said, “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?”
“An inkling,” I said.
He smiled so wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. “Surely it’s more than an inkling.” He slid over to my side, wrapping his arm over my chest, draping his leg over mine. We lay like that for a while, staring up at the moon, and I thought of the prickly grass, the dappled light, the cluster of stars directly above: If I thought of those things, I didn’t think of Lucille and the words I’d said that I hoped were true.
~~~~
He stood slowly, then pulled me to my feet, brushing the grass from my backside.
I slipped my panties back on as he ste
pped into his boxers and then the suit pants. He buttoned his shirt, smiling as I struggled to get my dress on the right way in the dark. He draped his jacket over my shoulders and then retrieved my shoes. When we were convinced we weren’t leaving any traces of us behind, we wound our way back to the outside of the maze, where the air was crisper, the light brighter.
Late in the night, when we lay with our limbs tangled in the big four-poster bed, he traced his fingers from my shoulder to my hip, over and over, lulling me to sleep. “I’m glad you came away with me,” he said.
“So am I.” I laughed then, still a bit giddy from the wine.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
I giggled again, and he slid his fingers along my ribs, making me squirm.
“Tell me,” he said. “Or I’ll be forced to tickle it out of you.”
“It’s just the champagne,” I said. “Do you even like champagne? Did you order it tonight?”
“No,” he said. “She surprised me when she brought it out.”
“I thought you had it sent over. It scared me for a second.”
“Champagne scared you?”
“I thought you were about to propose,” I blurted out before my brain had time to filter the thought. I immediately regretted it and wished I could snatch those words out of the air and stuff them right back in my head where they belonged.
I turned to face him, and his eyebrows shot up.
“Oh,” he said.
I stared at him, trying to think of anything I might say to fix this.
After a long pause, he said, “And that scared you?”
“Scared is the wrong word. Startled.”
“Why would that be startling?”
“Startlingly romantic, but sort of sudden.” I bit my lip, wishing I’d just rolled over and gone to sleep without another word.
“I see.”
“I’m just saying, six months is a little fast. You wouldn’t move that fast.”
He shrugged. There was a hint of a smile. “So if I’d asked you, you would have said no?”
“No. I mean yes. I mean—never mind.” I sighed, sliding a pillow over my head.
“You don’t want to get married,” he said.
“It wrecked my parents. Sometimes I think it would wreck us too.” I studied his face, but whatever he was feeling, he was hiding it well.
“I see.”
“I love you, Jack. I love being with you, and I love what’s happening between us. But marriage terrifies me.”
He pulled me against him and kissed my forehead. “I get it.”
“Why are we talking about this? You didn’t even ask. We had a perfect day.”
He chuckled, and I relaxed a little. For an instant, I was afraid I’d hurt his feelings, but he squeezed me tighter and said, “I wouldn’t do it like that. I know you hate big scenes.”
My body relaxed as he folded his arms over my chest, and I fell asleep before I could think of anything else to say.
Chapter 11
We stayed at the inn as long as we could the next day, but had to get back in time for Jack’s five o’clock shift. He took the long way home, driving us through the bayous, stretching out this last bit of time we had alone together. “We should start thinking of taking a real vacation,” he said. “In the summer, when it’s so blazing hot. We could go somewhere for a week or two.”
“Sounds nice.”
“I think we can do better than nice,” he said, pulling my hand to his lips. He kissed my knuckles and grinned. “Start making your list, cher. Let’s figure out where we can run away to.”
As we wound through the countryside, I lay my head back against the seat, taking in as much of the salty breeze as I could. The ribbon of pavement was pale against the dark green of the brush along the roadside, the nearly black water that stretched as far as I could see.
~~~~
I knew something was wrong the second I set foot in the house. Kate was in the kitchen, whisking something in a bowl with all the fury she could muster. An open bottle of liquor sat on the counter next to a shot glass. Jack took one look at her and disappeared down the hall into the bedroom.
“What on earth’s happened?” I asked.
“I’m making a sponge cake,” she said. The kitchen window was open, but it still felt like it was ninety degrees. Kate had stripped down to a tank top and jogging shorts. Her hair was piled high on her head, a dusting of flour in her bangs.
“So I see.”
She dumped the contents of the bowl into a cake pan and shoved it into the oven.
“I thought sponge cakes were delicate,” I said.
“They are!” She slammed the door to the oven. “Benjamin called me. The nerve of that guy. Honestly.”
I sat down at the table. “And?”
“Get this.” She poured herself a shot of whiskey. “The son of a bitch told me he wanted to get back together. That he forgave me for invading his privacy and that he thought we should try again.”
“Please tell me you told him where he could shove that idea.”
She laughed, smashing the empty shot glass down. “Oh my, yes. You’d have been proud of my command of the filthy underbelly of our native tongue.”
This was clearly not Kate’s first shot of whiskey. She only got verbose when she was well-lit, preferably on her favorite, George Dickel No. 12. I’d snagged a bottle to welcome her here, and said bottle was now half empty, sitting on the counter next to a plate of gingerbread cookies.
“So,” she said, gesturing with the shot glass, “now I feel like I must have been the biggest idiot in history to have ever found this ass-hat attractive, and also a little bit like Superwoman for telling him what he could do with himself and his lame attempt to blame me for the failure of this sham of a relationship.”
“Are those gingerbread men?” I asked, nodding toward the plate.
“You know I’m a stress baker,” she said, thrusting the plate at me. “You didn’t have a cookie cutter for gingerbread girls, so I had to settle.”
She’d piped icing on them, detailing little shirts and pants. A few wore suits, and some had little polka-dot ties.
“You snapped all their heads off,” I said.
“They started to remind me of Benjamin. He was always a little too bronzed.”
I popped one in my mouth. “Not bad. Spicy.”
“I was going to take a plate of them over to Buck,” she said. “But now I think I should probably just take the sponge cake.”
~~~~
I was shocked that her famous sponge cake didn’t cave in completely, with Kate slamming it around the way she did. But it came out fluffy and tall, because of “tough love” she’d said, and after it cooled, we took it to Buck’s.
I drove us over in the Jeep, Kate up front with me, Jack in the backseat with the chocolate-frosted wonder in his lap. He hardly said a word to Kate, aside from “yes, ma’am,” when she’d ordered him to sit in the back and keep the cake upright. He’d seen the gingerbread men, after all.
When we got to Buck and Josie’s, we rang the bell, but there was no answer. After a couple of rings, Jack handed me the cake and fished his keys out of his pocket.
“Hey,” he yelled, opening the door. “Anybody home?”
We followed him inside, and I set the dish in the kitchen. Josie was almost certainly at the store, but there was no sign of anyone else. Jack knocked on the back bedroom door and went inside when he got no answer.
I checked the backyard with Kate, and then rushed back inside when I heard Jack shout for me. He had led Buck into the living room, and now was seating him down slowly in the recliner. “Enza, get the first aid kit from the bathroom, would you?”
There was a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, but not much in the way of first aid. I found a few bandages and some peroxide and carried them back to the living room.
Jack had removed Buck’s shirt and was leaning over the recliner, examining the older man’s back in the lamp
light. Jack took the peroxide from me and dabbed a little on a napkin. When he stepped aside, I saw a cut on Buck’s shoulder.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He fell in the bathroom. Somehow clipped the countertop.”
“It’s nothing,” Buck said, waving his hand in the air between them. “Don’t get all bent out of shape.”
“You’re bleeding,” Jack said, his voice low. “And there’s nobody here. I’ve a right to be bent out of shape. Did you hit your head too?”
“No, I just stepped the wrong way and fell sideways on the floor.”
Buck flinched as Jack held the peroxide on the wound. It didn’t look that deep, but there were a couple of other scratches, probably from hardware on the bathroom cabinets. Only when the wound was clean did Jack agree it didn’t need stitches. He placed a bandage over it and helped Buck button his shirt. Then he sat down on the hearth next to the recliner.
Kate brought Buck a glass of water, and he took small sips. His hand shook a little as he drank, though he tried to hide it.
“Where’s Lucille?” Jack asked.
“She went to the store with Josie today,” he said.
“And left you here by yourself?”
“She needs some extra money,” Buck said. “Lord knows she won’t take it from us, even if we put it in her wallet. So Josie asked her to help at the store so she could pay her.”
“Toph,” Jack said. “They left him here to look out for you.” His brow was furrowed, like the name tasted sour in his mouth.
Buck leaned back in the chair, irritated. “He just went out for a while. I don’t want to spend my day with that little prick anyway.” He glanced at me. “Sorry for my coarse language, Enza.”
Jack’s eyes darkened, and I laid my hand on his shoulder.
“I can take care of myself,” Buck said. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Jack crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well I don’t!” Buck said. “I just tripped in the bathroom is all. Could have happened any time.”
Bayou, Whispers from the Past: A Novel Page 12