by Moriah Jovan
His hand gently pressed her cheek to his chest, and she drew in a deep breath to catch his scent: soap, her brand, and a remnant of his cologne. She sighed and entwined her legs with his. He ran his fingers through her hair, petting her, stroking her until she went to sleep, feeling loved.
* * * * *
30: The Sacred Grove
Eric dropped into bed the next Saturday night, exhausted, having worked harder the past ten days than he’d ever worked in his life; having slept naked with a gorgeous woman in her bed; having showered with same gorgeous woman and dressed her and made her come with his mouth. Not once had he been able to spare a minute to truly make love with her, to seduce her the way he enjoyed, to spend the time and care she deserved.
Vanessa snuggled up against him and fell asleep with a sigh, leaving Eric awake with his thoughts.
He’d learned almost everything he needed to know to run that place except for the cooking. He’d ended up hiring six people, firing two more, rearranging shifts, finding a decent headhunter and lining up interviews for concierge, and getting out the payroll.
He’d contracted a painting crew to scrape and paint the rails, posts, trim, eaves, and shutters of every building on the property. The veranda got a new coat of floor paint, to boot.
He’d learned how to clean, gut, and fillet fish against his will; how raccoon tasted when served at Whittaker House, also against his will; how to cook and eat crawdads (“No, I won’t suck the heads, Vachel”)—yet again forced to prove that he wasn’t, as Vachel informed him, a pussy.
Eric had finally balked, with great vehemence, at going with Vachel to get the crawdads.
I went to law school so I wouldn’t have to stick my hand in mud and get my fingers chopped off by a bunch of fucking micro lobsters. I am not touching those fuckers until they’re cooked, and even then I’m going to use a fork like civilized people. With drawn butter. You do that here, right?
He’d read the entire Little House series and understood how a twelve-year-old girl could suck up the kind of courage Vanessa had claimed from them. He found it charming that she would arrange her dreams, her whole life, around one woman’s fictionalized memoirs classified as children’s literature. He’d even gone to the home and taken the tour when he found himself with a free hour. In a roundabout way, he owed his life to that woman and he hoped that wherever she was, she’d heard him say, “Thank you, Mrs. Wilder.”
He’d read an essay Mrs. Wilder had written on what real independence meant, how a farm wife was actually a businesswoman and needed to value herself as such, and her philosophies on the return-on-investment of time in agriculture. The nuances of her essay had escaped him at first, but as the week rolled on and he watched Vanessa work, he began to see the kind of independence she had that he didn’t. Every morning, he’d awakened to hear Vanessa reciting her to-do list under her breath as she dressed, prioritizing, rearranging, and abandoning items.
However much Eric appreciated Mrs. Wilder, though, it was her daughter’s work that had punched him in the gut. Rose Wilder Lane, one of the first thinkers of the libertarian movement, gave Eric context for his beliefs: the ones old man Jenkins had pounded into the juvenile delinquent with a preternatural talent for management, the ones that had taken on new meaning over Eric’s freshman history and political science classes.
“Vanessa,” Eric had said Thursday morning, interrupting her morning ritual. She stood in front of him naked, her hair up in a towel, but he’d awakened with too much on his mind to care about sex. “Do you read Rose?”
“Oh, sure,” she returned as she began to dress, stepping into panties and capris, then bra and pink tee shirt. “But she’s more conceptual. I need day-to-day guidance and that’s what Laura gives me.” She plopped down on the bed to put on her Keds. “Rose and Laura,” she grunted as she tied her laces, “didn’t get along. In some places, you read that Rose was completely out of control and others you read that Laura was manipulative and controlling. It’s kind of like they spent Rose’s whole life in this big catfight. I don’t know what to believe, but I’m not sure it makes any difference. I want to dismiss Rose because it tarnishes my view of Laura, but I can’t. Not really. I mean, the Little House books wouldn’t have happened without Rose’s editing and some people think she edited them so heavily she may as well have written them herself, so . . . That was a hard pill to swallow.”
Vanessa stopped and looked at Eric. “Don’t you know? Rose is one of the three women credited for starting the libertarian movement. I mean, if you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that an entire political philosophy based on unfettered liberty has no fathers. Just mothers.”
“No, I didn’t know,” Eric murmured, now embarrassed by how much he didn’t know about his philosophy’s history. They didn’t teach that stuff in political science classes, and it got lost in the day-to-day politicking. “Who are the other two?”
“Isabel Paterson and Ayn Rand. They were all contemporaries and they were all fans of each other until they had a falling out, but . . . ” She shrugged. “You get women like that in the same room and let them talk for a while, they’re going to come to blows eventually. That’s why I don’t take the Rose-versus-Laura debate too seriously. If their issues went that deep, I think it was because they were both free spirits and stubborn to a fault.”
“What was the falling out?”
“Rand and Paterson had the falling out. Rand— She’s such a drama queen, I swear. I just can’t take her seriously— Rand was livid that Paterson wouldn’t let go of the idea of a creator deity and just kind of flounced out of her life.”
“What do you think?”
She grinned. “I grew up Irish Catholic and Mormon, reading Laura, then went to an Irish Catholic university. What do you think I think?” Then she’d turned and pointed out her window to the manicured fields beyond, bounded by forest, and all barely tinged in the peach shade of sunrise. “Look at that. In its raw state it looks chaotic, like it could’ve just sprung up out of nothing, but when you start looking at the patterns and arrangements of a forest, of the scales of a fish— Sebastian taught me about the Fibonacci sequence in nature and art, and ever since, I see it everywhere. So I just don’t know how anybody could think it wasn’t created. I don’t find Rand . . . ” She paused and gestured as if searching for a word. “ . . . applicable to my life. She was a pure idealist and not a nice person. Paterson, now. She’s helpful, but still conceptual. Rose encoded her philosophies in the Little House books, but Laura was more about doing and then explaining the practicalities of how and why afterward, in her farm newspaper articles. That’s really all I reference now.”
Eric had to think about that, because it was so simple, yet so profound. “And you just . . . do.”
Vanessa nodded. “I have too much to do to debate philosophy. It doesn’t mean I can’t; it means I’d rather do something else with my time that’s more productive.”
“Like Laura did.”
“Right.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird we both came to the same philosophy independent of each other?”
“Not really,” she said thoughtfully. “We might have had different catalysts and motivations, but we had essentially the same influences. And it’s not like we agree totally, either. You find value in being a public servant and I don’t get that. I find value in maximizing my profits while protecting my resources as well as I can. You don’t seem interested in profit.”
“I am, too,” he protested. “I do have a business, you know.”
“Well, yeah, but you’re not dedicating your life to that business. You’re dedicating it to being a politician.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Vanessa shrugged. “Politics— Politicians get in my way and I resent that. I had to work way too hard to get my golf course approved. It’s my land. I paid for it. I pay taxes on it. I employ people—who also pay taxes—on it. I take care of it. This county makes a lot of money off me, so w
hy can’t I do what I want with it?”
“Think about it, Vanessa. It’s because of politicians like me that you got your golf course. We work to keep the politicians you don’t like out of your way.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Well,” she murmured, turning away, her mood visibly darkening, “I can’t argue with that.”
“Vanessa,” he said, swinging out of bed to catch her before she went down the stairs, “what did I say? What’s wrong?”
“The same thing as it’s ever been for us, Eric,” she answered wearily before she left the cottage with a slam of her screen door. He sighed with the knowledge she was right and dressed for that day’s work.
Sunday morning, Eric awakened to find himself alone in bed, alone in the cottage. As he had every morning for the past week when he’d awakened to crises that needed tending, he threw on shorts and tee shirt and tennis shoes. He walked down the driveway to the mansion, past the garage, only to find it empty of one purple Prowler.
He stopped short.
“She went to see Laura.”
Eric turned to see Vachel in buckskins, walking out of the orchard, filthy, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Six o’clock in the morning: Vachel’s normal bedtime.
“What does that mean?” Eric asked when Vachel drew abreast of him.
“She goes out to Rocky Ridge Farm. I don’t know what she does there. Usually she takes cookies to the ladies in the gift shop, but it’s too early.”
“Then how do you know that’s where she went?”
“She was crying. She goes there when she’s upset. Night.”
Eric grabbed his car keys, fired up his engine, then headed up the highway to Mansfield proper. He roared through town and out to Rocky Ridge Farm. There, in the lot across the highway from the gravel drive sat one purple Prowler.
He parked and headed toward the museum. With one vault, he was over the gate, then jogged up the hill. At this time of morning in May, the grass was soaked in dew and the air was chilly. The woods surrounding the farmhouse-museum-gift shop complex fluttered with the sounds of birds and other woodland creatures, the breeze drifting through the leaves to rustle them.
Eric hesitated to disturb this peace and, in fact, it stopped him from going farther. It was different from the peace at Whittaker House, where Vanessa’s cottage was removed from the day-to-day noise of business but still part of it. This was complete.
If he had not had business to tend to, he would have found a solitary place to meditate and pray. “Oh, Vanessa,” he whispered, understanding now.
As quietly as he could, he walked around the farmhouse and went into the woods, methodically tracking her, following a path that didn’t exist.
There, kneeling in a small grove, her hands fisted on her knees. Her head bowed.
Shoulders quaking.
Eric’s heart stopped.
She gasped when he dropped to the grass beside her. He watched her red, tear-stained face as she tried to find words, but what came out—
“I wish you hadn’t come,” she whispered.
“Vanessa,” he croaked, shocked, hurt.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Eric’s mind spun, totally unable to make sense of any of this and said the first thing that sounded halfway reasonable. “I’ll come back.”
“No, you won’t.” She sniffed. “You shouldn’t. You have your life. You’ve worked hard for your life and you’re going places. When you go home, you’ll see it with fresh eyes and be grateful for it. Grateful it’s not as hard as this, not constant crisis management and hard work—some of it backbreaking. I’ve been thinking about what you said about politicians like you and you’re right. You’re important. Governor Cipriani. President Cipriani. It’s just— Here, it’s— This isn’t where you need to be. You have so much to give to the world, things it needs. Leadership. Philosophy. Sacrifice. Protection for people like me, while I . . . cook for rich people.”
“Vanessa—”
Her lips tightened and she shook her head. Eric leaned in to her then and touched his mouth to hers, tasting the salt. She opened her mouth with a soft sigh, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into the wet grass.
Vanessa kissed him with the hunger of a woman long denied, her hunger matching his. With her soft curves pressed against him, a wave of violent need rushed through him—not the need of sex or love, but something deeper—the need to connect with her here in the woods of the Ozark mountains, early on a spring morning, the sounds of wind and water and wildlife their only music.
He pulled away from her a bit and she opened her eyes to watch him warily, but her expression softened when he pulled her soft pink tee shirt out of her shorts. She sat up a bit to help him pull it off her, and then he simply looked at her bare torso.
Caressed her breast confined by nothing, the nipple puckered in the chill.
She released a ragged breath when he licked it, sucked it into his mouth gently, rolled it around on his tongue like a sorbet and tasted her, earth and Vanessa and soap. She clutched him to her.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Eric whispered reverently. “Wild, like the Ozarks.”
She dug at his shirt, then the rest of his clothes. Kissed him feverishly between the shedding of each garment. He unbuttoned her shorts and slid them down those long curvy legs. Once they were both nude, he dug his hand in her hair, pulled her close for a harsh kiss and rolled onto his back, taking her with him until she straddled him.
Eric released a ragged breath when she took him in hand, guided him into her.
Draped herself over him and kissed him again, connected in the most primal way. He wrapped his hands around her buttocks and her breath hitched when he thrust up into her a tiny bit, and she met him.
“Stay,” she whispered against his mouth. “Don’t move. Listen.”
Yes, listen.
The grass whispering. The coo of the mourning doves. The notes of the breeze that flowed over and around them.
Eric looked up into the canopy of green, the late sunrise just touching the leaves, limning them in gold and sky.
Vanessa moved against him, the sweat between their bodies easing the friction a bit so that he felt the slope of her generous breasts against his chest, her hard nipples scraping against him, his nipples sensitive to her softness.
With Eric held tight inside Vanessa’s body, no latex between them, every shift in, out, another word of their prayer, Eric couldn’t imagine separating himself from Vanessa again. And with any luck—
She kissed him again, hard, and began to move in earnest, whimpering with each thrust, Eric’s hips meeting hers with exquisite precision.
They were not making love, he abruptly realized. They were meditating together, praying to a God more ancient than religion, more ancient than Eric’s people, more ancient than anything man had ever built, as the sun rose over them.
“Eric!”
Her cry echoed around the forest, bounced off the rough shale walls that rose up behind the copse.
He rolled her over once again so she cradled him.
“You fit me so right,” he breathed, filling her time and again, hoping for more . . .
Eric felt himself growl, animal, possessive, when he came, burying himself in her one last time.
“Stay,” she whispered again while holding him to her, as he kissed and licked the skin in the crook of her neck, tasting the salt of sweat, of sex and . . . tears. He didn’t know if she asked him to stay inside her or stay with her in the Ozarks, but he couldn’t do either.
He could only promise to return.
* * * * *
31: Begging Hands
He kissed her well before he left. In the garage. Before he climbed in his car. She held her fingers tight to her lips and blinked tears away.
Eric watched her in his rearview mirror, her beautiful turquoise eyes filled with the same devastation he’d seen when she was thirteen and he had walked away from her.
He had t
o go, but he would come back.
Management’s management.
How many times had he said, thought, heard that sentiment these past ten days, the phrase respectfully targeted at him as he went about Whittaker House business as if he had an actual investment in it.
It had taken one afternoon of cleaning fish under Vachel’s tutelage for the boy’s residual resentment to begin to fade. This boy—not the one who had borne Eric’s name for the first twelve years of his life and made himself a pain in the ass just to get some attention—this boy Eric liked. And respected. As a man.
As the week progressed and Vachel swaggered in and out of the mansion dressed in either buckskins or a leather kilt, tending to his self-appointed Whittaker House tasks, Eric had realized that Vanessa wanted to spoil the kid, to give him whatever he wanted, asking only for obedience in the very few things that were important to her. Yet what Vachel wanted most was to feel valued—and it was important enough to him that he’d reluctantly approached Eric and hinted around about his distress until Eric figured it out.
Eric had found her in the butchery.
“Vanessa, you have to ask him to carry his weight. He wants that from you more than anything else.”
“He’s thirteen,” she snapped as she wielded her knife with great precision. “He doesn’t need to. He needs to be a child and play video games and surf the ’net and have friends come over and have pool parties. He bags all the wild game for my dishes, from chipmunk to deer. He catches all the fish and crawfish we serve. Do you know how much that’s worth? How much he’s added to Whittaker House’s profits? That’s more than enough, Eric. Too much. I don’t even like that he feels obligated to do that much and I had to fight him so he would take payment.”
“He doesn’t want to be paid! He doesn’t understand what you’re trying to teach him. His goal is to earn your approval and he doesn’t get that cash is your way of showing approval. His goal is fighting with your goal and neither one of you are getting anywhere.”