Your Dream and Mine

by Susan Kirby

  Trace crossed his arms and shook his head. “You’re a pushover, Tommy Rose.”

  “Not at all. It’s a business arrangement. Antoinette’s paying me.” Thomasina handed him the mug and waved him toward the coffeepot. “Make yourself at home while I fix my hair.”

  Trace poured coffee, and sat down at the table across from her open Bible. Today there was no romance novel tucked inside. He read the front page of the paper and was turning to the sports section when Thomasina returned, all puffed and powdered. A gold locket and matching earrings relieved the starkness of a fitted white uniform.

  “How’d your romance turn out?”

  She blinked. “Beg your pardon?”

  “Novel,” he amended.

  “Oh, that! I’m saving it for dinner conversation, remember?” she said.

  “You aren’t going to embarrass me, are you?”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  Trace laughed and spooned more sugar into his coffee. “Do you have Ricky’s phone number? If he wants to come early, I could use him over at the house while he’s waiting for the dew to burn off.”

  “Doing carpenter stuff? I doubt he knows how.”

  “All I really need is an extra pair of hands.”

  “Now I feel guilty.” Thomasina glanced up from jotting down Ricky’s number. “You were so nice about helping me move. You need help, and I’m on days. Hardly seems fair.”

  “If it’d ease your conscience, I’ve got a sink full of dishes and a pile of laundry needing attention.”

  “Not that guilty.”

  “Ah, the good life!” he teased.

  Thomasina laughed. She jotted out Ricky’s phone number and glanced at the wall clock as she passed the number to him. “Seven already! I have to dash.”

  “You’re turning me out without a second cup of coffee?”

  “Sorry. But duty calls.” She stopped and turned back. “I’ll pour you one to go, if you’d like!”

  “Just for that, I’ll work on your door,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “If I knew that, I’d fix it.”

  Trace chuckled. “Never mind. I’ll check it out,” he said, and paused on the threshold between kitchen and living room as she came to him with a full cup of coffee. He stretched an arm across the door, blocking her path.

  Thomasina gave up his cup and flashed a questioning smile. He didn’t respond accordingly. Or move his arm. Running out of time, she ducked under.

  “No fair, Tommy Rose.”

  The quiet way he spoke her name brought blood to her face. She turned to see the same exposed expression in his eyes she’d seen in the woods on Saturday when he spoke of his hopes for Milt’s farm.

  “What is it?” she said, breath quickening.

  “Nothing. Just looking forward to tomorrow night.”

  Soft surprise parted her lips. He was surprised, too. He hadn’t meant to say it in words. Just to touch her, and reassure himself that he hadn’t imagined the attraction was mutual. Her eyes melted like fudge, but her voice was firm and practical. “I don’t get off until five-thirty.”

  “That’s going to be tight for you, isn’t it?” he said. “Would eight o’clock be better?”

  “We’ll starve by then,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll stay in town, and meet you at Seven Gardens.”

  “At seven?”

  She nodded and went on her way, in a seventh heaven glow.

  Thomasina was dressed, her hair pinned in a loose chignon, and waiting when Antoinette came to pick the children up at six on Saturday morning.

  “The kids enjoyed VBS.” Antoinette lingered in the entry way as the children ambled out onto the porch. “Thanks for taking them. And for keeping them this week. Dad’s home now. He’ll take over again, starting Monday.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “I thought you had a date with Trace.”

  “I do.”

  “Then Fred will manage.”

  “You’re leaving them with him?” blurted Thomasina.

  “I don’t have a lot of options,” Antoinette replied.

  “I was thinking of the children.”

  “Like I don’t?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” said Thomasina, alarmed to see the other woman’s eyes flash.

  “So what gives?” demanded Antoinette, her voice high. “Have you been listening to the old windbags at the store. Is that it? You think I don’t know what they say about me? The merry widow! As if it’s a big joke, my trying to raise two kids on my own!”

  “I’m sorry. What I meant to say was—”

  “You’re not listening!” interrupted Antoinette. “I appreciate your being nice to the kids. But that doesn’t give you the right to tell me who I should and shouldn’t leave them with.”

  It would be so easy to back down and smooth her ruffled feathers. But at what cost? Gently Thomasina said, “It’s not a question of telling. It’s a question of asking. Ask the kids. That’s all I’m saying. Ask them how they feel about Fred. Please? I’m only trying to help.”

  “Yeah? Well, who died and made you queen?” Antoinette flounced out the door and snapped at the children to get in the car.

  Startled into swift obedience, Winny and Pauly spilled out of the swing and raced across the yard. Pauly stopped at the car and looked back at Thomasina. His eyes made her think of a war orphan. But Winny tossed her head just like her mother.

  Heart twisting, Thomasina retreated inside only to find her door had closed behind her. Locked out. She sagged against the door just as Trace’s door opened.

  Thomasina’s watery eyes met his blue gaze, then fell away. “I’ve locked myself out. Do you have an extra key?”

  “Someplace.”

  “Would you look, please?” she said, and turned her back. “I need to grab my things. I’m going to be late for work.”

  “What’s the matter, Tommy?”

  “Feeling stupid is all.”

  “What’s that feel like exactly?” he cajoled, and tried to turn her around.

  She shrugged his hand off her arm. “Just get the key, okay?”

  It was quiet. Thinking he’d gone, Thomasina lifted her hand to wipe away gathering tears.

  “You and Antoinette have a fight?” he said from behind her.

  Thomasina jumped. Face burning, she kept her back to him.

  Into her silence, he added, “Let me guess—something to do with the kids?” He sighed and said, “I wouldn’t take it too much to heart. I told you—Antoinette’s a hothead.”

  “It isn’t her anger so much as…they’re just kids,” said Thomasina, fresh tears rising.

  “They’re her responsibility.”

  “That’s pretty much what she said.”

  “Then let it go,” he reasoned.

  Thomasina rested her hot forehead against the locked door, haunted by demons from the past. She blinked back tears and turned to ask, “Would you want to stay with someone who says ‘Get out of here’?”

  “Oh, that,” he said, remembering.

  “Does it seem right to you?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with me, or you, either.”

  “Of course it does!”

  “No it doesn’t,” he reasoned. “They’re her kids.”

  “They’re God’s, too.”

  “Then let Him look after them.”

  “He uses human hands.”

  “Yours, I suppose,” Trace sighed. “Tommy, when you take that line, you hang your heart out there and give the world license to whack it.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t I?” Trace slipped closer, so close his breath stirred her hair. “You’re too soft for your own good.”

  “It isn’t softness.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Humiliated by her frailties, not the least of which was a growing weakness for him, she muttered, “Forget it.”

  “Now wait a second. We’re into it, we may as well think it
through,” he reasoned. “Do you know the boyfriend?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Then what makes you think he’s a loser?”

  “I didn’t say he was a loser. But the kids…they trust me and…” Her words trailed off. “I was just t-trying to help.”

  “Some things are beyond help. You’ve just got to let go, and trust…well, you know.”

  She turned and tipped her damp face. “God?”

  Trace’s nod was abrupt. Grudging, even, as if he’d shot holes in his own argument. He turned and walked out on the front porch. The pain of disappointment in her reckless tongue found relief in the discovery he was more than he seemed.

  They trust me.

  Trust God.

  Thomasina warmed herself at that unexpected spark of faith. Let it reprove and teach and remind her that trusting God was the first line of defense. Had she taken it? Or had she been trying to help Pauly and Winny in her own strength?

  Thomasina shifted out of the door as Trace came back with the morning paper, and caught her hand in his. “Let’s finish this, shall we?”

  He let her go, leaving it up to her. Thomasina followed him into his apartment. He gathered a stadium blanket off the sofa, tossed it toward the nearest chair and fumbled in the cushions for the remote. The TV went dead.

  “Antoinette’s had a rough time, I won’t deny it. But she’s stiff-necked, Tommy. She always has been and that makes her hard to help because she won’t listen to anyone. She’ll take your help as long as it comes her way,” he said, and motioned for her to have a seat. “I can tell you where it’s going to lead if you play by her rules. You’ll be spending more time with those kids than she does, and she’ll think she’s doing you the favor.”

  “I don’t mind. I like children. I want to have a camp someday for…”

  “I’m wasting my breath, aren’t I?” Trace flung his hands in the air. “That’s it. I tried. Let her walk all over you if you want to. I won’t even say I told you so.”

  But he’d think it. His blue eyes said as much. Thomasina wasn’t sure why he felt like he had to keep warning her. Or why it irritated him, to think she wasn’t listening. She was. She disagreed, was all.

  Wanting to explain why she felt the way she felt without revealing too much about her own past, Thomasina sat down. The sofa was still warm from his body. He’d slept here. His T-shirt was rumpled, his cheek bore the imprint of the raised design in the sofa cushion. His untamed cowlick was boyish, his whisker shadow virile, his blue gaze unnerving. She caught her breath and came to her feet like a jack in the box.

  “Thomasina?”

  “I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to be at work by seven, and I’m a mess.” She flung an excuse over her shoulder.

  “You look all right to me,” said Trace.

  “I look like a raccoon!” she cried, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

  A smile got away from him. “Tommy, you’re going to have to toughen up.”

  “Shut up.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  “I mean it. We disagree about Antoinette. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “You’ve never lived in a little town before, have you?”

  “Just get the key.”

  Trace got it and unlocked the door for her and went out on the porch. She streaked past a few moments later with a shoulder bag, an overnight case and a black dress dangling from a hanger. A preview of coming attractions? Trace knew he ought to feel guilty looking forward to tonight, when she looked so miserable. Instead, he had to tamp down his rising expectations.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The nursing assistant who relieved Thomasina at five-thirty was a close personal friend. They had shared an apartment several years earlier.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said when Thomasina asked if she might change at her apartment.

  It was a ten-minute drive to the haven of the cool apartment. Thomasina enjoyed a long bath in scented water. She relinquished Antoinette and the children to God in prayer as she wrapped herself in a thick thirsty towel.

  The black, sleeveless dress she had chosen had a simple bodice and a straight skirt that closed down the back. The hemline struck below the knee, but a small slit revealed an additional inch of black-silk-clad legs. Trendy black heels completed the sleek line.

  Thomasina swept her hair into a relaxed knot at the back of her head, leaving a trail of loose tendrils. She adorned it with a pearl comb that matched her earrings. An elegant silk shawl added a splash of color.

  Seven Gardens was on the east edge of town, a mile from the airport where an air show was to be held the following day. Trace was waiting when she arrived. Broad-shouldered, bronze and fit, he leaned against the door of his truck in his dark trousers, turtleneck and open jacket. She tooted her horn and pulled into the nearest available space. He uncrossed his arms and ankles and came to open her door.

  “Am I late?” asked Thomasina.

  “Johnny on the spot.” Smile crinkles framed eyes that lit up like neon as he handed her out of the car and caught a good look at her. “I was hoping this was what you had in mind when you left the house this morning, hanger in hand,” he said of her dress. “Wouldn’t want you giving your patients a heart attack.”

  “No danger of that.”

  With a wordless grin, Trace carried her hand to his heart. Heat swept up Thomasina’s cheeks at the strong swift beat beneath the sauna warmth of his jacket.

  “An aspirin a day, and watch your cholesterol,” she quipped, and withdrew her hand under cover of his laughter. “So what are we having? American? Italian? Oriental? Greek?” she asked in a voice at odds with the topsy-turvy antics of her heart.

  “Are you talking garden or food?”

  “Both,” she said. “Or don’t you care about matching cuisine to setting?”

  “It may get a little noisy,” he warned. “The fly boys are practicing for tomorrow’s show. Would you rather eat inside?”

  “Oh, but the gardens are so much nicer.”

  Trace smiled at the disappointment shaping her mouth. “All right, then. It’s your call.”

  Pleased, Thomasina said, “Tell me first what you’re hungry for.”

  “Anything on the menu, so long as it’s steak.”

  “To go with your country music and your red…”

  “Neck?” he inserted, looking askance.

  “I was going to say truck,” she said.

  “Sure you were.” Trace laughed to see her turn as red. He caught her hand. “Hold on a second. I almost forgot. I brought you something.” He turned her toward his truck, then freed her hand to reach across the seat for a florist box. Nestled in colored tissue was a cluster of red rosebuds surrounded by baby’s breath.

  “Red roses. My favorites!” Thomasina noted the attached hair clip as she lowered her face to the cluster of buds. “Mmm. Here. Smell.”

  Trace’s clean-shaven cheek grazed hers as he complied. She was petal soft, and wearing a scent as subtle as the roses. Her eyes shone with repressed laughter as they bumped noses over the rosebuds. She whisked the roses away, and tried by touch to nestle the clip in place in her hair.

  “Let me,” said Trace, stepping behind her.

  His breath fanned goose bumps from the base of her neck. It spread to the hollow between her shoulder blades as he worked, securing the clustered rosebuds in her hair. Thomasina lifted her shoulders to dispel the tingles.

  Misunderstanding, he asked, “Hard day?”

  “No. Just a long one,” said Thomasina.

  A light brightened the blue sea of his eyes as he reached for her hand. Fingers laced, he asked, “Ready?”

  She answered his smile and the pressure of his hand.

  Seven Gardens was a popular evening spot, offering outdoor dining in the summertime when the gardens were in full bloom. The menu featured ethnic specials that correlated with gardens from different parts of the world. The restaurant was like a jewel within a seven-ga
rden setting.

  At Thomasina’s request, the hostess lead them to a table in the Biblical Garden. A fountain was the centerpiece of the garden. Lush greenery surrounded it. The setting was so lifelike, it was hard to believe that a parking lot lay just beyond the low-stone wall and the vine-draped wroughtiron fence enclosing the garden on the west.

  Tables were arranged on cobblestone in cloistered spaces fragrant with anise, corriander, mint and cumin. There was hyssop, too. Once used in the temple for ceremonial cleansing, it bloomed blue on square sturdy stalks. A mideastern lamp burned fragrant oil on the linen-spread table tucked amidst the lush greenery. Harp music and soft choral chants played in the background.

  “Warned you,” said Trace, and tipped his face as planes droned overhead.

  Thomasina followed his glance. Rectangles of light shone through the green arbor overhead. Beyond was a patchwork of silvery clouds and two open-cockpit biplanes. “Winged angels in the heavenlies. All part of the ambience,” she said.

  “Noisy ambience.”

  Thomasina smiled and fingered the costmary leaf flanking her napkin and thought of Mary, who kept such a leaf in her Bible as a bookmark. “Bible leaf. That’s what Mary calls it,” she told Trace, after the waiter had taken their order, “Have you seen anything of Mary and Milt?”

  “Just yesterday. I dropped by Milt’s before going to work. They’re busy making plans,” said Trace.

  The waiter brought lentil soup, teeming with olives and thyme, crumbled marjoram and lovage leaves. When he had gone, they resumed their conversation, “Milt’s going through with it, then? He and Mary are going to sell out and move to town?” she asked.

  “Yes. I think Will and the girls are relieved not to have to make the decision.”

  There was no mistaking his growing anticipation. Thomasina had to confide her competing interest in the farm. But how did she broach it? Why did the dread of contention silence her tongue?

  “The retirement village you took Mary to see last Saturday phoned to say they have a vacancy.” Trace gave her another opening a short while later as they were finishing watercress salads smothered in an olive oil and chive vinegar dressing.

  Thomasina pushed her salad plate aside and fished for words that never came. The waiter came with Trace’s steak and Thomasina’s lamb in dill sauce. When he had gone, Thomasina picked up the thread of the conversation. “Spanish Cove was Mary’s first pick. But they had a waiting list”