by Bonnie Pega
Though he hadn’t said anything, it had been a first for him as well—the first time he’d ever made love with someone he was really in love with. The experience had been shattering in its intensity, and as he’d lain awake long after she’d fallen asleep in his arms, he’d allowed himself to dream and to plan.
First they’d move in together. After he graduated and secured a job—maybe with Greenpeace or the Save the Bay Foundation—they’d get married. It would be tough financially for a while, at least until Annabelle had finished college, too, but they’d make it. They’d make it because their love would last forever. They would last forever.
They’d only lasted four more months.
Gregory peered out from beneath his pillow at the lighted dial of his clock. It was a quarter past three, only ten minutes since he’d last checked. He grunted and sat up, running his hand through his hair, then swung his feet out of bed. He’d never been one to sit idly, especially when his brain was wide-awake. And right now his brain seemed intent on torturing him with thoughts of Annabelle. Death by Annabelle, he thought wryly.
He tugged on a T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, intending to try jogging. When he began his jog, he didn’t intentionally head in Annabelle’s direction, but suddenly found himself more than halfway there. He gave a mental shrug. Since he’d already come this far, he might as well go the rest of the way.
It would be interesting to see if all the lights were out as Virgie and Annabelle slumbered peacefully or if somewhere, in some window, a light burned that would indicate Annabelle wasn’t sleeping any better than he. And, with a distinct lack of Christian charity, he hoped it was the latter.
Charity was important, but fair was fair. If he couldn’t sleep, neither should she.
She was awake. Gregory stood on the street outside Virgie’s hundred-year-old farmhouse and looked at the lighted window, the lacy curtains filtering the soft glow into floral patterns on the lawn. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stared up at the light. He knew it wasn’t Virgie’s bedroom. It had to be Annabelle.
Maybe she’d simply fallen asleep reading. She used to do that, usually over some textbook she’d been studying. He would save her place, lay the book aside, and slide off her shoes before tucking her into his bed. Often she’d awaken then and they’d put the time to better use than studying. It was a wonder neither of them had flunked a single subject that year. He’d certainly done less studying once he’d met her. He’d been more intrigued with Annabelle—intrigued with the passion between them, but also with her ideas and opinions.
He wondered what she was doing now. Maybe she’d only gotten up to get a drink of water. He pictured her stumbling downstairs to the kitchen, hair tousled, eyes at half-mast. She had always been so cute when she’d awakened from a dead sleep—as soft and cuddly and boneless as a drowsy kitten. She’d also been a danger to herself, always walking into doors or stubbing her toes. He’d loved playing knight to his sleepy-eyed lady, leading her in the right direction while she mumbled that her eyes didn’t function when she first woke up.
She used to sleep in his T-shirts—on the rare occasions she wore anything at all. Did she still sleep in the nude? His body quickened again at the thought. Maybe she wore lacy nightgowns. No, she wasn’t the type. She was more the silky pajamas or the cotton nightshirt type.
It was silly to stand down here on the street and wonder. Chances were, she’d fallen asleep on her bed still dressed in jeans, with an open book in her hands. He turned to jog back home, then froze as he saw a figure moving in her room. Yes, she was awake, after all.
She moved closer to the window, and Gregory withdrew into the shadows as she pulled back the lace curtains and opened the window higher. She leaned out, bracing her hands on the sill.
Gregory drew in his breath. Well, that was one question answered. It wasn’t satin pajamas or a cotton nightshirt that she slept in. His gaze caressed the spaghetti straps and minuscule bodice of the slinky nightgown that skimmed over the generous curves of her breasts. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. This was certainly enough to keep him awake for the rest of the night.
She turned to look in his direction, and even though he was fairly certain she couldn’t see him, he backed up, right into the waiting embrace of the holly bush that provided the church with a bountiful supply of decorative branches every Christmas. He gritted his teeth as the prickly leaves scratched him, and moved forward a few inches. That movement was enough to catch Annabelle’s eye.
She leaned farther out the window, and a sliver of moonlight caught the pale skin of her bare shoulders and danced off the soft curls of her hair. Moonlight loved Annabelle, turning her skin to silver and shimmering in her hair like stardust. Of course, sunlight loved Annabelle, too, kissing her creamy skin with gold and sparkling from her eyes.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Gregory stiffened his back and stepped out where she could see him. “Just me, Annabelle.”
“Gregory? What are you doing skulking around in the shrubbery?”
“I’m not skulking,” he said defensively. “I was out jogging and noticed your light was on, that’s all.”
“Do you always jog into holly bushes?” Threads of amusement ran through her voice. “And after three in the morning, no less?”
He walked to just under her window as she leaned on her forearms and looked down at him. For a breathless moment he watched as her breasts strained against the low-cut top of her gown. He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “Can’t sleep either?”
She shrugged, and he swallowed hard as one silky strap slid off her shoulder. “I was reading.”
“You’re reading at this hour?”
“You’re jogging at this hour?”
“Touché.” He looked up at her for a moment, then said impulsively, “Come down and walk with me.”
She hesitated for so long, he figured she was going to say no, but she said, “I’ll be right down.” Five minutes later she stepped out the front door, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
“So, let’s walk,” she said, and headed down the street at a brisk pace.
Gregory hastened to catch up and they walked in companionable silence for several minutes. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” he finally asked.
“Why couldn’t you?” she countered.
“I don’t know. I had things on my mind, I guess.”
She sent him an oblique look. “Yeah. Me too.”
SIX
As they walked along, Gregory thought several times that he might ask Annabelle what he so desperately wanted to know, but the night was beautiful and the silence between them companionable. He didn’t want to spoil it. The warm night air was heady with the scent of honeysuckle and stars sparkled in the black velvet of the sky. It seemed as if they were the only two people in the world.
He reached out and took her hand, and although she looked at him in surprise, she didn’t pull away. They walked past the Food Mart, the hardware store, the dry cleaners.
They walked as far as the new shopping center, which was White Creek’s main concession to the 1990s. The center consisted of a tiny video store that was part of the equally tiny drugstore, Caterina Jones’s children’s-wear shop, Muriel Parker’s Beauty Salon, Manny Parker’s Barbershop, and Dr. Bill Parker’s Pain-free Dentistry.
“I see the Parkers are the leading entrepreneurs in White Creek,” Annabelle murmured.
“Next to the Wilsons, I guess.”
“Don’t Muriel and Manny also have a daughter? I wonder what she’s up to these days.”
“Trying to get a husband,” Gregory muttered.
Annabelle grinned in comprehension. “Trying to get a preacher husband, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” Gregory’s voice was so dry that Annabelle laughed outright.
“Your fault, you know,” she said. “You should have taken ugly classes before becoming a minister. It’s such a respectable occupation and all. I would imagine that minister
s rank right up there on the desirable husband list.”
“Right behind doctors and lawyers,” he said.
“And dentists?” Annabelle gestured at Bill Parker’s sign.
“And dentists. He hadn’t been out of dental college for a month before he got snatched up by Maud Greeley’s daughter.”
“So how have you managed to escape unscathed? Your single status must grate on the nerves of every self-respecting mother and grandmother in the whole town.”
“I guess I just evade faster than they can matchmake,” he said lightly. “But they do seem to make marrying me off one of their civic duties, along with soliciting donations for the volunteer fire department.”
They walked silently for a few more minutes, then Annabelle said, “You know, it’s funny, but I’ve missed it here. I’ve missed Lute Simpson and Magda, Bosco Wilson’s Food Mart, even Clara Walling and her silly Brahma bull. And I’ve missed Danni. She and I used to be so close, not only cousins, but best friends. We’ve talked on the phone a lot and she’s come to Raleigh on occasion, but somehow it’s not the same.”
“Then why haven’t you been back to visit more often? I know Virgie has missed you a great deal.”
Annabelle pulled her hand from his and kept walking. “I call her every week and I always saw her when she came to Raleigh,” she said defensively. “She’s always come at least twice a year to visit Mother and Dad.”
“I’m not accusing you of neglecting your grandmother, Annabelle. I know you talked to her a lot and sent her little gifts now and then, but if you missed White Creek so much, then why didn’t you come back to visit more?” He fell silent a moment, then added, “I’ve sometimes thought that you didn’t come back because of me.”
“I came back for Danni and Sebastian’s wedding.”
“Five years ago. And you only stayed a week.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Right.”
“Besides, I’m here now.”
He reached out and captured her hand again. “Yes, you are. And I’m glad you’re back.” He was afraid the words rang too true and hastened to add, “The town really needs someone like you here, someone who’s so good with children. We have so few activities for kids. I do what I can at the church, but I don’t always have the time and I know I don’t have the kind of imagination to think up creative and challenging ideas to keep kids interested.”
He pulled her to a stop. “Since you’re thinking about living here now that you’re going to be working in Norfolk, maybe you wouldn’t mind taking on a Sunday-school class. We really need one for the ten-to-thirteen-year-olds.”
“I hardly think I’m the Sunday-school-teacher type,” she protested.
“And what is the Sunday-school-teacher type?”
“You know. Sweet and nice and old-fashioned.”
“And no one in their right mind would ever call you sweet or nice,” he teased. “C’mon, Annabelle. Danni has a Sunday-school class and she’s certainly not a Sunday-school-teacher type—not unless Sunday-school teachers wear pink and purple all the time and have husbands who talk to animals. There are no stereotypical Sunday-school teachers. At least not here. And, after all, I’m not exactly your stereotypical preacher type.”
She smiled a little. “I guess you’re not, at that. How many preachers get arrested as animal-rights activists or”—she gestured at his hair—“wear the flames of hell on their heads?”
Gregory grinned. “Or get benched during a church baseball game for yelling at the umpire. Just think about it, Annabelle. Or if you’d rather not teach Sunday school, maybe you wouldn’t mind being youth activity coordinator.”
Annabelle considered that. Youth activity coordinator. The idea appealed to her, but she wouldn’t do it unless she knew she could handle being around Gregory without her emotions becoming further entangled. “I’ll think about it,” was all she said.
They walked a little ways farther to the banks of Denning’s Creek, where the clear water bubbled and frothed over a bed of stones. Annabelle leaned back against Taylor’s Rock, one of the large granite boulders that flanked the creek on either side just before it widened at Willard’s Pasture. Gregory climbed on top of the rock and sat, legs drawn up.
“Did you ever used to swim here?” he asked.
“Danni and I used to, but it was up farther, just past Willard’s. It’s wider there and deeper. That was the local skinny-dipping hole.”
“Skinny-dipping? I can’t picture you skinny-dipping.” The thoughtful tone in his voice, however, told Annabelle that was exactly what he was doing.
“I was a kid, what can I say? Surely you did your share. I remember you telling me about the pond on your parents’ property. Didn’t you and your siblings ever take advantage of it?”
“Oh, maybe once or twice,” he said, and she could hear the laughter in his voice.
“More than once or twice, I bet. You probably—” She broke off with a squeal.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something moving on the ground near my foot. I think it’s a snake,” she said, her voice low and tight. “A big one.”
Gregory grasped her beneath her arms and hoisted her up onto the rock, then peered closely at the ground, well illuminated by the nearly full moon. Suddenly he let out a hoot of laughter and slid down from the rock. He held up a gecko that couldn’t have been longer than six or seven inches. “Here’s your python.” The little lizard wiggled until he set it back down and it scurried off.
Annabelle shrugged. “Looked like a snake to me. And it’s closely enough related that I don’t care if it has legs or not. Had I been Eve in the Garden of Eden, we’d still be there, because I never would have gotten close enough to the serpent to take a bite of that apple.”
Gregory looked up at her, her hair soft and tousled, glowing with silver streaks of moonlight, her features shadowed and mysterious. He was hit with another stab of the desire that had awakened him earlier.
He remembered his first date with Annabelle—not counting the shared hot dog at the rally. They had gone to a movie, then for a walk. It had been a brisk, chilly night in early October, and Annabelle had sworn she’d seen a snake. Even though Gregory had assured her there wouldn’t have been any snakes out at that time of year, she’d still clung to his arm. He’d already been turned on by sitting next to her in the dark theater, their jeans-clad legs touching, her hair—longer then—brushing his arm, their fingers entwined.
He’d felt her breast press against him. It hadn’t mattered that she wore a sweater and he a jacket, he’d felt it as strongly as if it had been bare skin on bare skin. He’d looked down at her and she’d turned her face up to his. In the streetlight, her cheeks had been flushed pink with cold, her eyes sparkling, her lips parted. Gregory had known he wouldn’t last another minute without kissing her.
As much as he’d wanted to kiss her then, he wanted to kiss her more now. In the moonlight, she looked almost the same as she had nine years ago, and what he couldn’t see well, he had no trouble imagining. Her cheeks would still be pink, though from laughter, not cold, her eyes sparkling with merriment. A man would have to be made of stone not to kiss her now. And Gregory certainly wasn’t made of stone. At least not all of him, he thought as he noticed the increasingly snug fit of his shorts.
He climbed back up on the rock and sat, legs outstretched, and tried to tell himself that kissing her was a bad idea. He could think of lots of reasons not to kiss her. Weren’t things confused enough? Did they really know each other anymore? Wasn’t it better to let sleeping dogs lie? Would kissing her really change anything? Would she still run away afterward, leaving him more bewildered than before?
He could think of only one reason to kiss her. It was inevitable. And he’d never been one to fight the inevitable. Still, that was assuming she’d allow him to kiss her. He turned to her and touched her face, angling it so it caught the glow from the moon. Still, he couldn’t read anything from her expression.
She might have meant her words to sound belligerent, he thought, but to him they merely sounded breathless. “For a minute there,” he said softly, “you looked like you did on our first date.”
“The rally?”
“No, the movie. It was that Italian movie that won an Oscar for best foreign-language film and we went for a walk afterward.”
Annabelle remembered. They’d shared their first kiss that night. They’d been standing under a streetlight while Gregory had tried to convince her that snakes weren’t active in cold weather. Only she hadn’t thought it was cold. She’d looked at him and felt warm all over. He’d touched her and her blood had grown hotter still. She’d leaned back against the lamppost and looked up at him, silently wishing he’d kiss her. And he had, with lips that were firm, moist, seeking.
She contrasted that with the kiss she’d received after the rehearsal on Tuesday night. Gregory’s lips had again been firm, moist, and seeking. They had also been knowledgeable, infinitely more experienced, and demanding. Heaven help her, she wanted to feel those lips now. She knew it was crazy, she knew it could only make a complicated situation worse. She didn’t care.
His hand still lingered on her cheek, and she looked at him, wondering if he could see the longing on her face. Maybe he did, because he slid his hand around the back of her neck and gently urged her closer. She balanced herself with her hands as she leaned forward. When their faces were only a few inches apart, Gregory paused and his gaze searched hers.
He always seemed to have a question in his eyes, she thought, and one day she’d ask him what answer it was he kept searching for. But not now. Now she wanted him to kiss her. He did.
Their lips touched, tentatively at first, lightly, tenderly. But they grew hungrier, wanting to taste, to savor, to devour. His tongue slid over and around hers, and hers returned the intimate caress. His hand wove through her hair and tugged her nearer, and she lost her balance and fell against him.
Her breasts nestled against his chest as if they’d come home, her legs straddled his hard-muscled thigh. She knew he could feel her feminine heat by the way he shifted, enabling her to settle more fully against him. She looked at him, and the soft silver moonlight revealed his face—his nostrils flaring as if he were a male animal scenting his mate, his lips parting, ready to taste, his features tight with wanting.