Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  Clay said, “I’ll take off, then.” He bent down near Bailey, and she stood still, but he just thumped Chuck on the shoulder and said, “Hang in there, buddy.” Then he put an arm around Lily, kissed her on the cheek, said, “Consider your lawn mowed,” and left.

  Twenty minutes later, Lily punched buttons, then pulled out of the driveway and headed down the hill as she listened to the phone ring.

  Three rings, and Rafe’s voice over the speakers. “Hey.”

  One word, and half her tension left her. Nobody did “calm” like Rafe. “Was that as bad as I thought?” she asked him.

  “Yeah,” Rafe said. “I think it was. Poor kid. Good thing her grandma’s got her, I’d say. She’s tough, though, and you’ve got enough heart for two. It’ll work out.”

  “Will it?” Lily asked. “I’m so…so bothered. It was like she picked up on the sexuality, and she shut down. Isn’t that what I was seeing? And you were wonderful.” She was tearing up again. Great. She pressed two fingers under an eye to push the tears back and said, “Your mother must be an amazing woman.”

  She could hear the smile in Rafe’s voice. “My mother, eh. She is, of course.”

  “I wish, though,” Lily said, “that there was more I could do. Her grandmother’s too unhealthy. Those cigarettes. The oxygen. What if…”

  “I don’t think,” Rafe said, “that you need to go to ‘what if’ just yet. When I met you, I thought you were like a wild bird. Two steps forward, one step back. I think Bailey’s like that, too. Give it a bit of time.”

  “I thought a fawn,” Lily said.

  “Or a fawn,” he agreed. “The deer family, that’s us. You’re doing enough. Baby steps. That’s what’s going to work. Trust. It’s a slow build thing, same as with you. We got it sorted for today, and that’s all good. Focus on that.”

  “Tomorrow, though,” she said. “Riding. Should we invite her? I was thinking that she’d love it, but now, I’m not at all sure what’s best to do.”

  “Ask her to come look after Chuck instead,” he suggested. “She’ll be useful, which is her comfort zone. I’ll be gone as well, and she can relax. We’ll take her riding another time, maybe, once she knows she’s safe with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t blame you for being insulted.”

  “I’m not insulted.” He didn’t sound quite so calm anymore. “I’m bloody furious. I’d like to kick somebody’s arse. I just wish I knew whose to kick.”

  “I know what you mean.” She pulled onto a side street and parked. “So do I.”

  The next morning, Bailey wasn’t sure if she should go to Lily’s. The TV had been on all night, and when she came out in the morning, her grandma was on the couch like usual, but her feet were on a pillow on the coffee table, and she had a blanket over her. She was smoking like usual, and coughing even harder than normal. She was still wearing the same yellow dress as yesterday, and Bailey was pretty sure she hadn’t gone to bed. But then, her mom hadn’t always gone to bed, either. She’d said if you felt good, sometimes you wanted to stay up. Her grandma didn’t seem like her mom on those nights, though, not all busy and jumping around.

  She made her grandma’s coffee like always, dipping the spoon in the jar just right and putting the right amount of Coffee-Mate and sugar in, but when she brought it over, her grandma flapped her hand at her and said, “I don’t want it. Bring me a glass of water.” Her voice was scratchy and weak, like she was really tired, but Bailey’s mom had sounded like that sometimes, too.

  Bailey brought the water and the bag of powdered donuts. It was almost empty. They hadn’t been to Walmart in a long time. She said, “I could cook scrambled eggs if you wanted. Lily’s eggs taste way better than the ones from the store, because the chickens lay them every day. Lily says eggs should be fresh.”

  She could cook eggs really well, even fried eggs without breaking the yolk. She knew how to cook lots of things. Hot dogs wrapped in a wet paper towel in the microwave, but not too long or they busted. Macaroni and cheese and Tuna Helper and Hamburger Helper, even though you needed hamburger for that, and they didn’t have it, even in the freezer. She could make frozen pizza, which you had to pay attention to, or it burned. She could even do spaghetti. Usually, she cooked dinner, because her grandma was tired at night. But her grandma hadn’t wanted any dinner for the past two days, not even strawberries or raspberries, which Lily said everybody liked best, especially if they were sick.

  “I don’t want eggs,” her grandma said. She coughed a while more, then said, “You better not have stolen those, or that Lily isn’t going to let you come around anymore.”

  Bailey’s face got hot. She was wearing her gray shorts and her favorite shirt, the one with the stars on it, but they felt itchy, like she was trying to pretend to be a popular girl and should be wearing her jeans instead. But it was going to be hot again, she could tell. She’d opened the window last night, but it had still been almost too hot to sleep. She got more mosquito bites in the shorts, but they were more comfortable.

  She said, “I didn’t steal them. Lily says I can take any kind of food things, like goat cheese or spinach or tomatoes or raspberries or anything else I can put in my backpack. She has too much for her to eat. That’s why she has to take it to the food bank. The tomatoes are really good. They taste like candy. I could cook them with the eggs. I could put goat cheese in, too. It’s good for you. It has vitamins and protein. The more color there is in vegetables, the more vitamins they have, Lily says. Vitamins are good if you’re sick.”

  “I don’t want tomatoes,” her grandma said. “I don’t want eggs, either. Vitamins aren’t going to fix my lungs. I don’t want goat cheese, and I don’t want any other kind of hippie food. Cheese is supposed to be orange.” The commercials ended, and her show came back on. It didn’t look exciting—just a bunch of ladies sitting on a couch and talking—but her grandma started watching anyway, and Bailey stood there a minute more, then left.

  Bailey was late, which had Lily a little concerned.

  Other than that, though, life was fine. Fine. She was going riding today, and what could be better than that? She didn’t have to think about the future. She’d done enough of that.

  Rafe hadn’t been there when she’d gotten home at six-thirty last night, but her lawn had been mowed, and the downed branches had been sawed into stove-sized pieces and stacked on the woodpile, too. But he hadn’t been there demanding her attention, demanding her admiration. Demanding anything at all. Which was perfect, right? It was what she’d wanted.

  She’d texted him, Wow. Thanks, then hadn’t waited for his answer, maybe because she hadn’t wanted to need it. Instead, she’d changed her clothes, taken Chuck with her to do the evening chores, then had come back in, fed the dog, and opened her fridge. And had found more food in there. A couscous salad, surely made with her own goat cheese, tiny cherry tomatoes, herbs, and some shredded chicken. Meaning somebody had made it, and made it here, not just bought it. There was a fresh loaf of the good bread, and a brand-new bottle of white wine chilling. Chardonnay. Not fashionable these days, and her favorite anyway. How had he known?

  One way to find out. She called him.

  Two rings, and he picked up. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. How did you know I liked Chardonnay best? Not to mention couscous salad? Wow, does that look good. I didn’t have time for lunch. You even picked and washed my spinach. I can’t believe it. Did you do all that? Or was it Martin?”

  “Couldn’t be that I rang your sister and asked,” he said. “And do me a favor. I’m capable of that much cooking, and as my mum always says, food is—ah, caring. Of course, Martin may have done the shopping again, lessening my contribution sadly. The whole thing took me half an hour.”

  “Oh.” She had a goofy smile on her face, and it didn’t matter. He couldn’t see. “But you didn’t stay. And she doesn’t say food is caring.”

  “No, I didn’t. I had a workout to do. And if you must know, food i
s love, according to my mum. But we won’t say the scary L-word.”

  She was having a hard time breathing. It was too soon, and she knew it. So why didn’t it feel that way? “A workout beyond my yard work.”

  “Six more pounds to lose before I look like a sheriff. Long, lean muscle, and not as much of it, that’s the idea.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Ran up the mountain for a couple hours, then a few other things.”

  “I keep forgetting,” she said, “that you’re here to do a job. And how much you care about it. Is it about the Oscar?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s about getting better.”

  Absolute conviction. If he wasn’t here, demanding that she pay attention to him? It was because he had something else to do, and it mattered. He didn’t want to take her air. That was why he took her breath. “What are you doing now?” she asked.

  “More of that preparation. Which is a flash way of saying that I’m watching a Western and thinking about cooking a steak.”

  “I have paperwork to do myself. Could I interest you,” she asked, setting the words down carefully, like a row of pearls, “in coming over and doing all that here? We could sit on the couch together and do our homework. Keep each other company.”

  He didn’t hesitate, and he sure didn’t kick those pearls aside. He picked them up like he wanted them. “Yes,” he said. “You could.”

  Which was why he was still here this morning. He had learned to milk her goats, and he’d picked up on that fast, too. When she’d said something, he’d looked at her sidelong, a hint of a smile playing around his beautiful mouth, and she’d sighed and said, “Yes, thanks for refraining from the obvious. That you’re good with women.”

  “A perfect opportunity to kiss you,” he said, his clever fingers still coaxing milk out of a boy-crazy little black goat who was so in tune with him, she was practically purring, begging him to touch her some more, “except that we’re in a barn.”

  So that was all very nice, just like it had been nice to sit on the couch with him while he focused all that low-key energy on his movie, a faint frown on his face, and she’d worked on her spreadsheets, Chuck had snored in the corner, and she’d felt it all wrapping around her. The fall of dusk. The chill of night coming to the mountain, and the light and warmth and companionship within. Security. Contentment. Peace.

  Another good night. Now, though, it was time to leave for Rafe’s trail ride, and Bailey hadn’t shown up.

  “No worries,” Rafe said, interpreting Lily’s glance at her watch. “Whatever Jo thinks, I’m the client. I’ll bet I’ve already paid the feed bill for the summer. She can wait. And if Bailey isn’t here in five minutes, we’ll go down and collect her.”

  “She doesn’t have to come before we leave, of course,” Lily said. “I showed her where I hide the key. It’s just that I’m wondering why.”

  Chuck lifted his head and barked, and Lily looked out the door. “Never mind,” she said. “She’s here.”

  When Bailey appeared, Rafe listened along with her to Lily’s list of instructions. Food in the fridge, lunch for Chuck, what was newly ripe in the garden, and where she hadn’t weeded yet. The girl’s expression was one of clear bemusement, like she’d never had somebody pay that much attention to her before, which was probably true. When Lily finished, Rafe told Bailey, “Never tell me you needed to know all that. I’m guessing you’ve read a book about gardening already and know all the names of the weeds and their seed-releasing patterns. Probably a couple books about dogs, too.”

  Bailey looked at him with her usual skepticism and not quite as much wariness as the day before and said, “I read three books about dogs. It’s good to have your dog on a leash a lot at the beginning, like Lily said, because he learns that he’s supposed to listen to you. But you’re not supposed to hit him, because that just makes him scared. Ray always hit his dogs, but that’s probably because he didn’t cut their balls off. Neutering is better for dogs, this one book said, because they don’t pee in the house or run away or bite people as much. So I guess Ray should have done that instead of hitting.”

  “Probably,” Rafe said, torn between smiling and wanting to punch the absent Ray. “I’ve got some news for you that you’ll like. The vet told Martin yesterday that Chuck looks to be part German Shepherd—the source of the big black nose, maybe—part Golden Retriever, which may be the swimmer and the general goofiness, and part what the vet calls ‘Heinz 57 pure mutt.’ Probably some giant breed in there, he says. Wolfhound, maybe, which is another sobering thought. Chuck could be nearly a hundred pounds by the time he’s done. I may have to hunt an elk after all to feed him.”

  “No,” Bailey said, “you just have to buy lots of dog food.”

  “Could be,” Rafe said, “but so much less exciting. If you want to read about breeds, though, those would be a few to study. Dogs are bred for different things. I don’t think Chuck has a lot of fighter in him. Some protectiveness, though, I reckon, despite his friendly nature.”

  Bailey said, “Maybe,” but sounded dubious.

  “Don’t tell me,” Rafe said. “You already read about it, and correctly identified Chuck’s breed. Can’t keep up, can I. I reckon I still know more about Australia, so there’s that.”

  He got an almost-giggle out of Bailey at last. “Except you weren’t exactly right about the blue-ringed octopus,” she told him. “It’s really poisonous, but it doesn’t sting on purpose, so hardly any people die from it.” She sounded disappointed about that, then more cheerful as she said, “There’s two kinds of jellyfish in Australia that are way worse, and there’s one of them you can barely even see. There can be hundreds. Right where you’re swimming.”

  “Irukandji,” Rafe agreed. “Yeah, that’s a nasty little bugger. If you’re stung, you probably won’t die. You’ll just wish you had. More people die of box jellyfish stings. I mention that in case you haven’t read it yet, so you can add it to your scorecard. Most venomous sea creature in the world.”

  “Everybody’s most scared of sharks,” Bailey said. “But jellyfish hurt the most, and crocodiles kill as many people as sharks do in Australia. Snakes, too. And spiders. They all kill about the same amount of people. There’s a snail that’s poison, too. I read that, but I don’t see how a snail can be poison. Anyway, sharks don’t want to kill you, they just think you’re a seal. Crocodiles want to kill you, and jellyfish sting you every time if you brush against them. Snakes and spiders mostly crawl away.”

  “True,” Rafe said. “There’s also a poison fish. Stonefish. You don’t want to step on a stonefish. Unfortunately, they lie on the bottom of the sea where you can step on them. Water shoes can be a good thing. Also stinger suits, for those jellies. And boots, if you’re on land. Very covered-up place, Aussie.”

  “Australia has leeches, too,” Bailey said. “Even though they’re not poison. People used to use them for medicine, because they thought getting your blood sucked was good for you, which is weird. You can think you’re going swimming in a nice place, but when you get out of the water, there can be leeches all over your body sucking your blood. They swell way up, they drink so much blood. You have to pull them off, and you still bleed anyway, because they put something into your skin. It’s really gross. Worse than ticks.” She sounded extremely happy about it.

  “Anticoagulant,” Rafe said. “Very nasty indeed.”

  “I don’t swim very much,” Bailey said, “because I don’t exactly know how. Not over my head. But if there were leeches in the lake, I don’t think I’d go in at all.”

  “Fair enough,” Rafe said.

  “If you can’t swim,” Lily put in, looking alarmed, “don’t try. I’ll bet Clay will tell us that more people die of drowning in Australia than all those things put together.”

  “A hundred times more, probably,” Rafe said. “Lily’s right.” A girl who spent every day at the beach, and didn’t swim? It made him nervous, and it wasn’t doing anything for Lily.


  It was time for them to leave, and Lily wasn’t making any move to do it. Rafe knew why. Right now, he had the doe and the fawn, both of them losing their wariness and settling in, which was pretty satisfying. Lily was sitting on a kitchen stool, her hair tied back in a neat braid, dressed in jeans, high black boots that said more “English” than “cowboy,” a collared blue shirt, and not a bit of makeup. Looking neat and trim and composed, as if the woman he’d made long, slow love to on the couch the night before had been tucked away again, his own special secret. As for Bailey, she was wearing her new clothes and sitting cross-legged on the rug with Chuck’s cone head in her lap, giving him pats and scratches that made his hind leg twitch and the rest of his semi-wolfhound self go limp with pleasure, and looking happy. Looking secure.

  Lily said, “Clay’s been bitten by a poisonous snake in Australia. Show her, Clay.”

  He showed Bailey his knuckles, which she looked absolutely unimpressed with, and didn’t show her his shoulder. She didn’t need a man taking his clothes off in front of her. He did pull up his trouser leg, though, pointed out the scar that took up the entire back of his calf, and said, “You’re right about the crocs. If this had been a croc, he’d have taken me down in a death roll, and I’d be nothing but a beautiful memory. Fortunately, it was a bull shark, and he let me go. I’m not that tasty, apparently.”

  Bailey’s mouth made a Wow shape, and Rafe dropped the trouser leg and said, “Always a good one to impress the girls. Never mind. It happens. I was in his back yard, surfing, and he was looking for his picnic.”

  “That’s some track record you’ve got,” Lily said. “Do I want to go riding with you?”

  “We’ll call it animal magnetism.” He stood up. “As in—the animal kingdom wants to bite me. Speaking of which, it’s about time to go see my horse. Thunderbolt’s had a whole day off from my company. I’m sure he can’t wait. If he does bite me, instead of just trying to throw me, do me a favor and don’t laugh.”