by Baker, Fran
“Am I bothering you?” he asked when he felt her pulse accelerate.
“A little,” she admitted breathlessly.
“Should I move my hand?” He started to do so.
She shook her head, and he put it back where it belonged. “By the way, did Harley like that tin of Christmas goodies I sent home with you the other day?”
“The bourbon balls were fantastic.”
“Maybe I should rephrase my question.” Dovie laughed. “Did Harley receive that tin of Christmas goodies I sent home with you the other day?”
“We shared them that same night. He loved the peanut brittle, but it played havoc with his false teeth.” The tip of Nick’s middle finger drew lazy circles on the tingling flesh of her nape. “You got your hair cut.”
“Styled,” she corrected throatily.
“Cut, styled, whatever, I like it.”
“You do?”
“Sure. Why? Don’t you?”
“Yes, but …” A shudder rippled through her when his thumb traced the sequined neckline of her sweater.
“But you thought men preferred women with long hair?” Sensitive fingers felt her nod. “Now, I ask you, what man in his right mind would prefer long hair to this lovely neck?”
His words touched her in a way his hands and kisses had not, deep within. She struggled for a reply, then settled for a simple and sincere, “Thank you.”
They rode in silence, Nick’s hand bridging the distance between them, until they reached the city limits. Then cool air replaced his warm palm on her neck. And through the back of her thighs Dovie felt his weight shift on the car seat as he removed his sunglasses from his coat pocket and put them on. Maybe it was only her imagination, but it seemed to her that he used them like a mask.
Following his directions, she turned right and headed down Monument Avenue. Lined with towering statues of General Lee and other Southern heroes, bordered by skeletal trees strung with white lights, and fine old houses in various stages of restoration, the broad boulevard had touches of sorrow, pride, and dignity, all at once.
“I hope you know where we’re going, because I sure don’t,” she said as they entered a neighborhood of elegant, snow-swept lawns that bespoke estates rather than lots.
“Have I ever steered you wrong?” he asked teasingly.
“There’s always a first time.” She followed the curving street until she found the cobblestoned driveway he’d warned her to watch for.
Nick unbuckled his seat belt and turned sideways, his nostrils almost flaring because of the light rose fragrance emanating from her. “Well, what do you think?”
Dovie couldn’t control a soft gasp of delight as they rolled to a stop in front of the beautiful red brick house sitting atop a gentle hill. “Law, it looks like a miniature Monticello!”
The windows were all ablaze, throwing oblique patches of golden light across the snow of early evening. Each of the four columns supporting the second-floor balcony wore twining streamers of greenery studded with small red bows, while a large wreath trimmed with rubrum lilies, clusters of Christmas balls, and tiny wrapped gifts decorated the front door. A liveried attendant stepped off the portico, as though anxious to hand the lady from her coach-and-four.
Shiny Cadillacs and sleek Mercedeses lined the drive. As the attendant rounded the rusting bumper of her ancient station wagon, Dovie panicked. “There are so many fancy cars here that maybe I should let you out and go park around the corner.”
Nick laughed and leaned down to retrieve her shoes from the floor. “No way.”
Visions of melted nylons danced in her head as incendiary fingers captured her ankle and fevered hands replaced her black satin pumps. When her car door swung open, she could have sworn she heard violins.
“Come on, Cinderella.” Nick fairly waltzed her through the moonlit night and into another world. “They’re playing our song.”
* * *
The middle-aged physician smiled and delivered the punch line. “So I said, ‘Socialized medicine is when the doctor takes his clothes off too!’ ”
Dovie looked around with studied casualness, then slowly backed away from the laughing crowd. Nobody seemed to miss her, which wasn’t the least bit surprising, but still—
She accidentally bumped into a couple making a fast turn around the dance floor. Her glass fell from her hand, and Dovie watched in speechless horror as the white wine she’d been nursing for the last half hour spread down the front of her new dress.
The couple came to a dismayed halt. The man murmured helpless apologies, but the woman grabbed the handkerchief from her partner’s pocket and started mopping the stain.
“Such a shame,” the woman said sympathetically.
“I’m sorry; I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Feeling miserable, Dovie caught sight of Nick across the room. He stood near the buffet table with a remarkably beautiful blonde, whose lustrous hair cascaded down to the middle of her back. Tall and slender and looking like some expensive Christmas ornament in a chic creation of pale lavender shot with silver, she was everything Dovie was not.
She was also one of a half-dozen women—maybe more—who seemed to have decided that Nick needed them to take care of him. All evening these beautiful women with their perfect figures and designer clothes had cleverly elbowed Dovie aside to feed him, lead him, mother him in cool, elegant ways. When the blonde raised a forkful of caviar-stuffed potato to his firm lips, Dovie’s spirits plunged so low that she seemed to hear them hit the ground with a thud.
“Maybe if you went to the bathroom and put some water on it …” the woman she’d bumped into suggested.
“Yes, thank you; I’ll try that.” She turned her back on Nick and the blonde, but the picture rankled until something pinched her throat and made it difficult to speak. After dabbing at the silk with water, she went in search of a place to dry out.
Dovie stood in the library door. If the rest of the Rodgerses’ house suggested hospitality on the grandest scale, this room breathed privilege the likes of which she’d never known. There were thousands of books here, packed tightly on shelf after shelf, holding much of the wisdom and storied charm of the ages.
Enchanted, she approached a book-lined wall as reverently as one approaches an altar. The wonderful smell of leather bindings might even have been incense. Awed fingers touched titles stamped in gold. Humbled eyes scanned works ranging from one end of the literary scope to the other.
A voracious reader who wasn’t above perusing the backs of cereal boxes when money for books was in short supply, Dovie felt sure she’d died and gone to heaven.
Impetuously she kicked off the black satin pumps that had her hobbling like Chester in “Gunsmoke” reruns and took Gray’s Anatomy from the shelf. Then she curled up in one of the chairs facing the hearth.
She was so deeply absorbed in the medical book that she almost jumped out of her skin when, about half an hour later, Nick called her name. Embarrassed by her skittish reaction, she closed the book on one index finger and sat up straighter. “What?”
“I said I’ve been looking high and low for you.” He crossed the library with the confident grace of a frequent, welcome guest.
“Oh.” Dovie watched him come toward her. He was so tall and strong and perfectly groomed, and she was suddenly, painfully conscious of her damp dress and bare feet. She put the book back on the shelf and began scrounging around for her shoes.
Nick heard her crawling around on the carpet and stopped so he wouldn’t step on her hand. “Would you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing down there?”
“Looking for my shoes.”
“Of course,” he muttered wryly. When she stood, the strength of her “eau de Chablis” nearly knocked him backward. “Have you been drinking?”
“No.” She worked her feet back into those uncomfortable pumps. “But it’s safe to say my dress is sloshed.”
A smile touched the corners of his sensuous mouth. “I’m afraid to ask.”
> Quite suddenly then she began to cry.
“Dovie.” Moving swiftly, he drew her into his arms. “What’s the matter?”
She shook her head, feeling miserable.
Nick cupped her chin with a commanding hand and kissed her tear-streaked face, tasting salt and roses and maybe her mascara. “You know I can’t see you shaking your head, so tell me what’s wrong.”
Finally she blurted it out. “They’re all so beautiful, and they can take care of you and I can’t.”
As he rocked her back and forth, silently encouraging her to continue, he became aware of a resonance deep inside him, a sense of rightness that he didn’t even try to understand.
“I’m just a burden,” she sobbed against his shirtfront. “Falling in the river and tripping over your fly rod and spilling wine on my new dress in front of your friends. And I never can think of anything to say at parties!”
He stroked her bare back, her shoulder, amazed anew by the delicacy of her bones. “Don’t you realize you’re more beautiful than all the others combined? I know because I have my own way of measuring. And damned if I want any woman mothering me.”
With shaking hands she reached up and removed his sunglasses.
He drew back a bit when she put them in his pocket. “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.” She pressed both palms against his lean, deeply tanned cheeks, loving the feel of him, and brought his face down to hers. When their mouths were but a whisper apart she murmured, “Thank you.”
His body sprang to life as her lips brushed his, and his breath scraped harshly when she withdrew. “You’re welcome.”
Dovie ducked her head self-consciously and wiped her eyes. Finding her fingers smeared with mascara, she grimaced. “Yech! I must look a mess.”
Nick dropped a kiss on her hair. “Not to me.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked teasingly as she grabbed some tissues from the boutique-sized box that sat on the library table and removed the rest of her carefully applied makeup.
“You know what they say.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Remind me to introduce you to my ophthalmologist.”
His rich laugher played counterpoint to the tinkle of a piano. As the music wafted in more loudly from the living room, he caught her hand and led her out the door. “Let’s go.”
“Home?” she asked hopefully.
“Dancing.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “But I don’t know how to dance.”
“Then it’s time you learned.”
“Please …” Her voice held the same plaintive tremor as the musical notes that haunted the hallway. “Not in front of all those people.”
Without another word Nick pulled her into the circle of his arms, holding her in the traditional waltz position. As he drew her into his rhythm, her spine went rigid beneath his hand, and it took all his self-control not to smile. “Lesson number one: Relax.”
“Right.” She released a pent-up breath.
“Lesson number two …” He brought his hand up from her waistline and increased the pressure on her back until the full mounds of her breasts were flattened against his chest. “Now, follow my lead.”
Dovie felt awkward and graceful both at once, as her lower body instinctively molded itself to his. Her feet were killing her, and she knew she looked a fright. Gradually, though, her awareness of this man blotted out all other thoughts, sounds, sights.
And as they glided around the hallway as if they’d been designed to flow together, she decided that whoever said fairy tales can come true must have danced with Nick.
Seven
* * *
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Monroe.” The greengrocer gave him an energetic handshake, though Nick could feel the bulbous charge of arthritis in every joint.
Dovie set a dozen oranges, a bunch of bananas, and a pound of pecans on the bleached-maple counter top. “Have you got my freshly grated coconut, Charlie?”
“Bagged it special just this morning, as a matter of fact.” He shuffled off to the back room and returned with a small plastic sackful. “Now, what else can I do you for?”
“Let’s see …” Dovie checked her shopping list, trying to make sure she had all the ingredients for ambrosia. She’d abandoned the idea of having trout for her Christmas dinner and settled on the more traditional Smithfield ham and beaten biscuits, with the usual trimmings.
When the bell above the door jangled she looked up in idle curiosity, then dropped to her knees to greet the two incoming children. “Rachel! Rebecca!”
“Aunt Granny!” they squealed in unison. Their rubber-soled galoshes flapped against the oaken floor as they ran straight into her open arms.
“Oh, I’ve missed you little devils!” Dovie loved her nieces as dearly as if they were her own, and it grieved her no end that her brother Jack hadn’t asked her to baby-sit lately. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come to get carrots!” four-year-old Rachel exclaimed.
“So Santa can feed them to his reindeer,” five-year-old Rebecca explained.
“Well, now, I’d say you need some pretty special carrots for something as important as that.” Dovie released the girls reluctantly and got to her feet. How many Christmas Eves had she eaten carrots till she thought she’d turn orange in the face? Too many to count! She steered her nieces toward the vegetable display. “Here, I’ll help you pick them out.”
Behind the counter, Charlie chuckled. “Never saw a woman cotton to kids the way she does.”
Nick knew damned good and well where the grocer was heading, so he steered him in another direction. “Dovie tells me you’re quite the fisherman.”
Charlie drew a deep, quivering breath. “That was before I started fading away.”
“Ah, the arthritis.”
“I’m not one to complain, mind you, but I’m so crippled up that I just ain’t the angler I was.”
“Maybe you ought to see a doctor.”
“Shut down my store, drive a hundred miles round trip, and give a doctor fifty hard-earned dollars so he can tell me to take aspirin?” Air hissed agonizingly through the old man’s false teeth as he began bagging Dovie’s groceries. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m already taking so many of ’em now, I rattle when I walk.”
Nick could read pain in Charlie’s words but realized he was too proud to seek free advice. So he followed his nose to the fruit stand, picked up a paper sack, and started filling it with plump, pungent oranges. “If I had arthritis, I’d cut back on my salt intake.”
“You don’t say?” The greengrocer hobbled over, shook open another sack, and dropped some large lemons into it. “Now, why would you want to do a thing like that?”
“Because salt increases the body’s retention of fluids, which can accumulate in the joints and aggravate the arthritis.”
Several shiny green limes joined the lemons in the second sack. “That makes sense.”
It did Dovie’s heart a world of good to watch the two men, one all grizzled and the other all gristle. To her knowledge, it was the first time Charlie had ever discussed his condition with a doctor, even though he’d been in misery for years.
“That’s not a cure, of course.” Nick placed a wide brown hand on Charlie’s stooped shoulder, and Dovie understood the gift of dignity he was giving. “You really need to see a doctor, maybe have him prescribe a muscle relaxant and some mild form of exercise for you.”
“I’ll do that, first chance I get.” Charlie laid a gnarled hand on Nick’s hard forearm, pulling the comforting palm more firmly against his shoulder for a moment. “In the meantime, what have I got to lose except a lot of pain?”
They turned then, each of them carrying a bulging grocery bag, and started back to the counter.
“Aunt Granny?” Rachel tugged impatiently at the hem of Dovie’s sweater. “I asked you if this was a good carrot.”
“Oh!” s
he exclaimed, bending over to examine it from leafy green top to nicely pointed tip. “It’s a wonderful carrot.”
“How about this one?” Rebecca demanded.
“Perfect,” Dovie pronounced. “How many does that make?”
“Eight!” the girls chorused excitedly.
“That’s all we need.”
Rachel and Rebecca raced each other to the counter, singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at the top of their lungs.
Dovie dug into her change purse as she trailed after her nieces, but Charlie wouldn’t hear of her paying for the carrots. When he also refused to take any money for the rest of her things, she closed the clasp on her purse and promised, “I’ll bring you a bowl of ambrosia, then.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed.
“And salt-free,” Nick added.
That drew another chuckle and another handshake. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Merry Christmas, Charlie!” Dovie herded her nieces out the door, then held it open for Nick, whose arms were full of grocery sacks.
“Will you tell me what I’m supposed to do with all these oranges?” he asked as he loaded everything except the carrots into her station wagon.
Rachel licked her lips. “I like oranges.”
Rebecca rubbed her tummy. “Me too.”
“Well, now …” Nick laughed, jubilant and handsome, capturing Dovie’s heart as he managed to reach into a sack and produce two plump oranges.
“Let’s eat them in the park,” Rachel said.
“Oh, please,” Rebecca added, her shiny, shoe-button eyes wide with excitement.
Dovie left the decision up to Nick. “What do you think?”
He knew how much she’d missed the energetic little girls. And besides, with the sun beating warm upon his face and the snow beginning to melt under his feet, it was one of those rare winter days that just begged to be enjoyed. “Why not?”
“Last one there is a rotten egg!” Rachel challenged.
“First one takes her place!” Rebecca countered.
“Shall we?” Nick invited as her nieces scampered ahead.