by Rie Warren
“I’m countin’ on it, baby.”
His lopsided grin was endearing as he backed down the steps, his eyes on me the entire time.
I did the girly thing instead of the woman with a hot, mouth-watering man thing, who wanted to call him back and haul him to bed. I stayed put until he backed down the driveway and turned the corner. Then I went inside, quietly closed the door, and squealed like a pre-teen with a mad crush on baby-faced Bieber. Afterward, I proceeded to giggle, hand pressed to my heart, which accelerated to the tune of Reardon Dade Boone loves me!
When I finally settled down, I realized I was truly home alone. There was no Palmer, and I’d sent Reardon packing. It was new and sort of wonderful.
Relief was overshadowed by oppressive regret for the way I’d treated Palmer.
Climbing into bed, I remembered Reardon’s words. There was hope, too.
After punching my pillow into a Reardon-shaped mold, I lay awake for a long time. Long enough to see the moon arc across the sky. Long enough to drift into a future of happy what-ifs.
Long enough to answer the phone and hear a low voice rumble, “I love you, Shay. Goodnight.”
Chapter 16
Pro Bono
When the phone rang a week or so later, I expected more of the same awesomeness in regards to my daily wake-up calls from Reardon. I still wasn’t comfortable staying the night at the Tides. I felt it would be discourteous to Palmer. Refusing to talk to me–rightly so–beyond curt conversations over the necessities of disentangling our lives, he’d made it clear he’d hold off on divorce proceedings for a year, ending our marriage with a No Fault ruling.
Nothing stopped me from being completely head over high heels in love with Reardon but a super-sized serving of guilt, even if it was a day late and a dollar short.
We were dating, and it was so goddamn good. He continued to pay my wages, which didn’t set right at all. Constance usually made a crack about it, but I ignored her until she slunk off to a far corner, bellyaching about my unconscionable behavior.
Instead of morning wood, I woke to the sound of Reardon’s low murmurs, and that was damn good too. So I answered the phone as usual, “Mmm, hey baby, have any steamy dreams about me last night?”
The response I got was anything but the rough caress I anticipated. It was the shrill screech of a harpy, “Caroline Shay Greer!”
Shee-it. I knew her tone. It was The Tone that Brooked No Disobedience. The very same she’d used in the old days, calling me in for dinner or bedtime or homework from halfway across the Old Village. It was the voice threatening a whuppin’ with a willow switch.
One I’d be forced to choose myself.
Fuck.
I’d intended to woman up. Six days ago. Until I’d chickened out. “Momma.”
“Don’t you Momma me. I expected to hear from you a lot sooner than this, girl. But here I am, the one callin’ you.”
“I figured we could talk after church on Sunday.”
I could hear her eyebrows ratchet another five notches. “I am not discussin’ your adultery on the Lord’s Day, Shay.”
I retaliated, because we were separated by about ten miles, and even she couldn’t reach through the telephone. “What? You wanna come berate me in my House of Floozies instead?”
“Girl, you best drop the attitude, y’here?”
Abashed, I whispered, “Yes’m.”
“I gotta read about you takin’ up with some South of Broad scoundrel–my ladies know all about it–you know how your behavior makes me feel?”
“No’m.” He’s not from South of Broad, though a scoundrel he may be.
“Not as bad as Palmer does, I’d wager.”
“Momma!”
“It’s the truth. How can I defend you when I–” I went through it myself with your Daddy.
“You told me not to settle.”
“Then you said your vows.”
“I know.” I hung my head.
Her voice less strident, she relented. “I’m sorry, Sunshine.”
“Me too.”
“Couldn’t be fixed, could it?”
“Not anymore.”
“I was caught up in what happened between Zanny and me, how I felt when he…” She sighed. “When your daddy cheated on me. I know how betrayed Palmer is now. I feel for him.”
“Me too.”
“Y’all can’t blame me for caring about him after all these years.”
I shook my head.
There was a silence before she came back on. “You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I want happiness for you, my girl. I knew somethin’ was making you feel better recently, and that’s nothing to shake a stick at.” She gave her blessing, after a fashion.
I snuffed and smiled. “Reardon’s somethin’ else, Momma. It’s not the same as it was with Palmer. It’s–”
“New.” The sour tone of her voice told me she had her lemon-sucking face back on.
“But that’s not all. It’s only been a few months, but it’s deeper. Remember when Palmer proposed? I was so excited, he brought me flowers, and he took me to–”
“The Trawler.”
“That’s right.” I sat back on the bed, pulling a pillow to my chest. “My first time there, out on Shem Creek. Afterward, he couldn’t wait. We were right outside the restaurant, people coming and going, stopping and congratulatin’ us when he bent to one knee. We were so hopeful.” I shut my eyes, reliving my dopey smile. “You know, he gave me his Warriors jacket before our first time. We were a steady item, it was the night of the Ladson Fair. “
“You always were a smart girl.”
The raw truth scraped my throat. “Not anymore.”
“People do change, baby girl.”
Releasing a breath, I dragged my knees to my chest. “Maybe we were too young. We didn’t know anything else, anyone else. I don’t think there’s any way we could’ve made it through Delilah’s death.”
“I imagine not.”
“Not like you and Daddy.”
“And you know how well that played out.”
“It was only the once,” I reassured her. “He wasn’t in love with anyone but you.”
It was her turn to be mollified. “That’s true.” She was appeased for less than a second. “What about this fancy fella then? You and him stand a better chance?”
“It won’t be easy. We’re too old for fairy tales, Momma. Besides.” My voice dropped. “His little boy died of cancer five years ago.”
“Oh no. Not another one!”
“I imagine the two of us gonna get through the hardships, you see? I know from the start we’re gonna try.”
After we cried it out, Momma asked, “Reardon, huh?”
“Momma.” I was stern, knowing where she was headed.
“Sounds very downtown.”
“He ain’t.”
“When can I meet him?”
“Can you give me a few weeks? We just started dating.”
“A bit backwards, ain’t it?”
“We like to call it unorthodox.”
“Speakin’ of unorthodox…”
Changing subjects like I changed my panties–on account of Reardon Boone getting me so hot–Momma went from serious chitchat to chin-wagging in the blink of an eye. “’Bout this broker buyin’ the Jussely house, they’re not tellin’ me much about him. But Charleston folk are like the Chinese, they eat lots of rice, worship their ancestors, and come home to die. I reckon he’s an old Village boy. Or one of them moneyed New Yorkers.”
I was scandalized. “Momma!”
“Hush up, girl. I gave you leave for your trespasses, so what if I make an off-color remark? Besides, Saint Joseph sure took his dandy time. Two weeks, I was told. Instead I had to leave that heathen statue in the ground for two months. Two months!” She kept on fussing, “Bet the man is Catholic. Just bet he is. I oughta dig up Saint Joseph and set him on the porch as a housewarming.”
“You got a spade?”
“Nah, but I bet I can borrow one off Sharon Hawke’s workmen, and get ’em to do it for free. You know she’s still on the board down there? One would think she was the grand poobah of the Old Village, but I believe she skunked the council so’s she could…”
By that time, I’d crumpled all my tissues and tossed them into the garbage. I tuned her out and turned on the shower.
I smiled because Momma’s chattering at me meant she might be able to forgive me.
* * * *
Slamming my front door and pressing me against it, Reardon looked at me like he had sex-ray vision.
I welcomed his lips, the hard thrust of his hips. “Hi.”
“Hmm.”
I peeked over his shoulder. “You’re drivin’ a mighty fine car for what I got in mind.”
Sealing his lips on my collarbone, he kissed me until my nipples stood to attention in a smart salute. “Where you taking me, darlin’?”
I wriggled out of his arms and skipped down the steps. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Shimmying my hips, I flicked my hair over my shoulder.
He helped me into the passenger side. “All I need to know is I’ll be with you.”
“Ooh, smooth talker.” I leered at his legs and taut rear end while he crossed in front of the bulbous black hood. I fisted the gearshift lasciviously when he sat inside. Dark blue and rangy, his eyes were drawn to my hands. “You bring the nets?” I asked.
“In the trunk.”
I teased the sleek silver pole. “Perfect.”
“Shay.” His breath was trapped in his chest.
“What, baby?”
“We haven’t been together for over a week.”
“I know.” I pouted and played my fingertips across his chest.
He watched warily, hungrily.
“A few more hours?”
“How few?”
“A couple?”
He reversed down the drive, awaiting my directions.
Under the cargo shorts, his thighs moved with every clutch, and his capable hands cupped the shift, molding it like he’d done my breasts so many times.
“Talked to my momma this mornin’.”
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t think okay’s in her vocabulary, but yeah, we’ll be fine.” Rearranging all the shit in my purse, I added, “She mistook you for an over-privileged pretty boy.”
He worried the corner of his mouth. “So did you.”
“Never said you were pretty at first, more like hot and handsome and hung.” I snorted. “Anyway, you intentionally misled me. All distant and–”
He gripped my fingers. “I was never cold to you, was I?”
“No. You’ve never been cold. Haughty, naughty...reticent…”
His lips brushed the back of my hand. “Not anymore though.”
“Reticent? No. Naughty?” Leaning over the armrests, I sampled the sweet taste of his throat, gloating when his neck stretched back. “Always.”
By the time we hit 526, he groaned, halting my nibbles on his earlobe, throat, and the sinewy indent where the big muscles of his shoulder began. “Which direction?”
“Take me to the bridge, baby.” I sat back, crossing my legs.
“Which one?” He tried damn hard not to stare at my bared thighs below the hem of my shorts.
He failed.
“Pitt Street Bridge.”
“Night shrimping?”
A big, harvest moon winked at us in hazy heated colors, half hiding behind the shadowy sentinels of southern pines. It hung so close to the horizon, I wondered if I could touch it. “That’d be right.”
“You understand, darlin’, if you don’t stop angling your legs towards me, we’re not even going to make it to the Old Village.” His voice was gritty, his knuckles white.
“You hard up?” My fingers strolled up the inside of his thigh, massaging the muscles, teasing under the bottom of his shorts.
“Jesus, Shay.” He punched the gas compulsively.
I wound my hand around the stiff length thickening inside his shorts.
His fingers clamped down on mine. “You gotta stop.”
Biting my bottom lip, I moved next to him, my breasts skimming his bicep. “Do I?”
“I’ll come in my–”
His cell rang.
My fingers leisurely stroked.
He glared, eyes crackling. “Not answering it.”
I laughed. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Guess I will, then.” Pressing everything at once, I managed to receive the call.
“Get back here and finish what you started, wench.”
“He just call you ‘wench’?”
I sniggered when I heard who was calling. “Yeah, he did.”
“That ain’t no way to treat a lady, Miss Shay.”
“I quite agree, Ransome.” I grinned at Reardon. He glowered out the windshield.
Settling into the plush seat, I toed off my sandals. “Though sometimes a lady likes to be taken in hand.”
Reardon snarled something indecent under his breath.
“Glad you answered. I didn’t really wanna talk to the son-of-a-gun anyway.”
“That a fact now? You don’t want to speak to your big brother?”
“He listenin’?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Y’all are bad, Miss Shay.”
“Yes, I am.” I slunk my toes along Reardon’s calf. “Very, very bad.”
“I know you’re in love and all, but you ever get an itch for somethin’ new, you know where I am. I’m stuck in this wheelchair, so I’m not goin’ anywhere. But don’t let that put you off, darlin’. I don’t need my legs to rock your–”
Grabbing the cell from my ear, Reardon growled, “I don’t know what you were saying to Shay, but I’m hanging up now, brother.”
“G’night, Ransome,” I shouted before Reardon ended the call.
The phone clamped in his hand, he pulled over as soon as we hit McCants Drive, looking like he was gonna throw the thing out the window. “Was all that necessary?”
“Not a damn bit, but I like playin’ with you.”
Sending a meaningful look to his lap, he smirked. “You were playing with something else before.”
The engine purred like a fat, well-fed cat, the moon a saffron sphere held aloft in a belly of pitch-black night. His berry red lips glistened; my tummy contracted.
“You wanna do a little necking?”
He lifted me half over his lap until my breasts were compressed against his chest, his fingers threading through my hair, withholding his lips from mine.
Slanting my eyes to his, I cajoled, “Y’all gonna screw me in this racy car? What’s it called again?”
“Maserati.” He delved to my lips. “Farina.” His mouth moved down my neck, suckling the sensitive skin beneath my ear. I moaned, much louder than the idling engine.
Sitting back, he surveyed my swollen lips. “I wanted to take you home, make love to you, sleep with you all night long knowing you wouldn’t have to leave me.” He tugged my ponytail, chuckling darkly. “That’s still what I intend to do.”
Darn it all!
Pausing at the intersection of McCants and Pitt, the sold sign on Mimi Flossie’s house sat front and center, and sudden sadness tightened my throat. I’d all but grown up in her cottage, and now I’d never set foot in it again.
Reardon brushed his hand down my cheek while I looked out the window. “You okay over there?”
“Yeah, it’s just my Mimi still owned that house until a few weeks ago.”
“You used to come out to Cove Inlet often?”
“All the time. Diving off the overhangs at high tide in the summer, gettin’ oysters, wadin’ in the mudflats…”
We ambled along the alley of palm trees lining the footbridge at Cove Inlet, then jumped onto the marsh flats. Tall reeds skimmed our legs, fiddler crabs dodged our bare feet. Nets and a bucket between us, the low tide lapped our toes from the Intracoast
al Waterway before it rolled onto the open waters of Charleston Harbor.
The humidity of the September day melted into welcome warmth. Before we began, Reardon whipped off his shirt, tossing it toward the bridge. Bare-chested, bathed in moonlight, there was no finer sight.
“We shrimping? Because if you keep staring at me like that, I’m gonna rethink what I said earlier about cars and sex,” he said when he caught me drooling.
I reeled in my tongue. “Let’s do it.”
He quirked an eyebrow.
I blushed. “Shrimpin’, I mean.”
As we toiled side by side, working up a sweat, he had the audacity to give me lessons on technique. Pressed firmly behind me, he took my hands in his, wound our arms back and let fly the net over the bay to sink in the form of a jellyfish into its depths.
“Just like that, darlin’.”
Hand over hand, we pulled in the casting net, finding nothing inside but several long pods of slimy seaweed and one very pissed off crab.
“That’s how you do it, huh?” I jostled him with my elbow.
Suppressing his grin, he shrugged. “Maybe they’re not running tonight.”
“How about you go over there?” I pointed a few yards over. “And I’ll stay here, and we’ll see who gets the biggest haul.”
“A challenge, Miss Greer?”
“Sounds like it, Mr. Boone.”
Swatting my bottom, he leaped past me. “May the best–”
“Woman!”
He winked. “Win.”
Calling across the oyster shoals, we spent the next hour heckling and hounding, our jests rebounding in the salty air:
“You get a good catch?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Darlin’, I’m not so far away I can’t tell you’re coming up empty.”
“You wish.”
“Want to know what I really wish for?” He pointed to the sky, draped in a cascade of starry lace.
“G’on then.”
Dropping the webby net, he ranged toward me. His loose gait at odds with his longing expression, fixed on me. The final paces were covered by both of us, my hands reaching for his face, his curving around my back.
Husky words spilled from his lips. “I wish this night could go on forever.”