by L. B. Dunbar
“I’m sorry, Garrett. I’m so sorry.” She tips up and takes my mouth with hers, speaking back to me with her sorrow and her fears. I want to believe she’s telling me she wants me to be with her. She needs me. When she slowly pulls back, she tugs my lower lip with hers. “We’ll figure it out, right? Together.”
My lips press into her forehead as I confirm, “Together, sweetheart.”
30
Puppy love
[Dolores]
We remain kissing in the cold field, our mouths keeping us warm until a brick of body thuds into the side of us. Garrett stumbles, and my legs tangle with his, and in the bulking winter clothing, we go down to the hard, snow-covered ground.
“Oof,” he says, landing in such a way so he takes most of my weight. Wally dances around us, yipping and yelping, and a déjà vu happens although this time it isn’t sand.
“Are you okay?” I stare down at Garrett under me as he rolls his eyes and turns his head.
“I just need a minute,” he grunts, and I slip off him.
“Wally,” I ground out. “You stupid, bad dog,” I say in that voice he loves, wagging his tail harder as he races around us. Garrett twists his head as he chuckles at his pet.
“I think he’s trying to tell us something, like get out of the cold, dumbasses.”
I huff in response and stand slowly, holding out my hands for Garrett so I can pull him up. He pushes off the ground with one hand, the other placed in mine. Swiping at his backside, he knocks the snow off his jeans.
“I’m wet,” he states.
“I think that’s my line.”
He stills for the briefest of seconds and then his cold hands cup my face, and he’s kissing me again. I don’t mind the sting of his cool fingers as his mouth is warm and tender. He’s swallowing my tease, and I want to be closer to him, connect like he said. But sex isn’t our only connection. Garrett has this crazy idea about a vineyard—here—at Magnolia’s, and he wants me to be a part of it. For a moment, I can see it. Us together. And my heart races with the thrill of it.
I pull back and slip my arm around his waist. “Let’s go inside.”
He nods and wraps an arm over my shoulders.
We still aren’t close enough. I accused Garrett of wanting to distract me with sex, but right now, I want the distraction. I want to believe it’s all real. What he says. What he wants.
I love you.
My heart cartwheels in my chest. For the past forty-seven years, I’ve rarely heard those words. Never heard them from a man unless he was using them to reel me into bed.
But this man? He wants more than just me in bed. He wants a freaking vineyard. And me.
We enter the back door and hang up our coats. Wally shakes himself before heading up the short number of steps to the first floor.
“Dolores?” Magnolia calls out.
“Magnolia,” I respond, my voice carrying. Who else is going to walk in her back door?
“Still got that man with you?”
“Still here, Magnolia,” I shout back as Garrett wraps his arms around me from behind and kisses under my ear.
“Take me upstairs,” he whispers, and I still.
“What? Here?”
He murmurs into my neck, “I need to be inside you.”
The words race through my body, instantly heating me. Reaching for his hand, I tug him forward, up the stairs and down the hall until I find Magnolia in the front room knitting. Wally lies at her feet. Her hands shake, but she still works the needles. Slowly.
“Hey, we fell in the snow, and I’m taking Garrett upstairs so we can change.”
“Uh-huh.” She nods, not looking up from her yarn work. She doesn’t believe me, but I don’t have time to argue. “Just remember those old beds make a lot of noise, and your room is above this one.” She peers through her magnifying glasses in the direction of Garrett.
Oh. My. God.
“Magnolia!” I shriek in shock—and guilt. She knows exactly what I intend to do, but she’s warning Garrett.
“Then we won’t use the bed, ma’am.” Garrett winks at her, but his face is serious, and I spin to bury mine in his chest. I can’t believe he just told my grandmother he’s going to have sex with me. Without another word to Magnolia, Garrett turns us for the hall, and with both arms around me, he tugs me down it to the stairs. There we break apart, and I reach down for his hand. I take one step up, and Garrett stills me, his eyes on mine as he clears his throat.
“Magnolia,” he calls out. She doesn’t answer, but I’ve no doubt she’s listening. “I’d like to take Dolores upstairs with your permission.” He pauses. “See, I just told her I love her, but I think she needs some further convincing. I have a proposal for her, and then I have a proposition for you.” He winks at me.
Proposal? He can’t be serious.
“I’m not into anything kinky,” she bellows back, and I want to die on the stairs. My mouth falls open, and Garrett laughs, his face pinking under his two-day-old scruff. “That’s not to say you aren’t nice looking, though.”
“Is your grandmother flirting with me?” Garrett whispers, his face even more flush. I’m biting my lip, fighting the laughter at his embarrassment and this conversation. A giggle escapes, and I tug at his hand to encourage him to follow me up the stairs. We practically race, and the bedroom door echoes when we close it harder than we intend.
“Oops,” he says as I fall against the wall beside the door. Instantly, he’s on me. Hands in hair. Lips on lips. My hips buck forward, and he presses me back, sliding his hands down the curve of my body. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Realistically, it’s only been two days, but I know what he means. I didn’t like sleeping without him, being without him. We remove each other’s clothes in a frenzy of sweaters and socks and jeans. Once naked, I remain against the wall, shivering with the chill in the room and the anticipation of Garrett. His mouth returns to mine, his hands cupping the sides of my neck and then skimming over my shoulders. He drops one to my thigh and curls around it, lifting my leg to hitch high against his hip. Then he slips into me without foreplay. I don’t need it. He’s taller than me and needs to bend at the knees. His head lowers for a breast, sucking at my nipple. His hips aren’t moving, and I tip mine forward for friction. A firm hand halts my hip.
“I need a second,” he mutters into the skin he’s covering in kisses. Perched on one leg with my back against the wall, my body vibrates for balance. I quiver in his arms, and he releases my thigh and slips out of me. “Down on the floor.”
I fall to my hands and knees, and he thumps down behind me. I lower to my elbows, pressing my forehead to the rug. Garrett spreads my knees by placing both of his between mine and slams into me, sending me forward. With a rapid-fire, pummeling action, he repeats the motion, quick and sharp, and I meet him thrust for thrust, arching back against him, taking what suddenly feels like a punishment.
“Don’t.” He huffs. “Ever.” He puffs. “Leave me.” His voice fills with anguish with each slapping movement. The hammering motion emphasizes each word and his need, his fear.
“I’m sorry,” I grunt, taking my penance and loving it. He slips out of me, and I whimper from the loss. A hand at my hip curls around my belly, and he flips me. I land softly on my back, the short fibers of the rug scratchy under my skin. Garrett hardly misses a beat, and he’s inside me again. My knees draw upward until Garrett finds my shins. Pressing at my legs, he forces them to my chest. I’m open for him, and he drills deeper, deeper, deeper. The thrusts come hard and quick, but the orgasm races faster, slamming into me within seconds of this new position. I bite my tongue, holding back a scream as the thought of Magnolia the floor below flashes through my head.
“Dorothy,” he hisses, drawing me back to him instantly. With a strained voice, he speaks. “There’s no place like home. And this is mine.” I want to laugh. The giggle rolls up my belly, and my mouth pops open, but then he covers mine with his and stills. Pulsing commences. Once. T
wice. Three times. He fills me while a strangled growl crawls into my throat. His arms wrap around me, and he holds me, awkwardly arching my back and pressing me to him as if he doesn’t want to let me go. My fingers slide up his back and delve into his hair, holding his head as he releases my mouth and dips his face into the crook of my neck. We remain on the floor, a tangle of limbs, racing hearts, and clutching arms until I hear Garrett sniff.
“Babe,” I whisper, tugging at his short hair, hoping to see his face. He shakes his head, holding me tighter, squeezing me. Another inch and I’m not going to be able to breathe. He wipes his face against my shoulder and then draws up, going for my lips again, but I stop him with hands on his cheeks. “Garrett?”
His eyes remain closed, his forehead coming to mine. “I love you.” Three simple words yet so much emotion is tied up in them. “I love you, Dolores.”
He sounds surprised, questioning—hesitant even—and then he pulls back, his eyes liquid fire, and repeats them again. Confident. Definite. Honest. His mouth comes to mine, and this time, I allow the kiss, a soft, tender meeting of our lips.
“I love you, too,” I whisper against his mouth as he slowly releases mine.
“I’m so tired,” he says, not letting me go as he slips out of me, followed by a surge of fluid.
“Why don’t you rest?”
“Come with me,” he mutters. I should. I’m tired too. The emotional stress has caught up to me. The diner. Garrett being here. His declaration. I need a minute, or my thoughts will haunt me, preventing me from sleep.
“You climb into bed. I’ll be up in a bit. I should check on Magnolia.”
Garrett stares down at me, his brows pinched, but he doesn’t argue. His knees crack as he kneels back and tugs me to sit. Then he stands and helps me up. Naked and sweaty, he climbs into the full bed and looks at me over his shoulder.
“You’ll come back.” There are a question and a warning in his voice. “A rainbow isn’t going to keep me away from you.”
A rainbow? And then it hits me again. He really is a Wizard.
+ + +
I slip back into my leggings and the oversized sweatshirt and steal down the stairs to the breakfast nook, which is acting as the kitchen. I use the Keurig to make two cups of tea, taking one to Magnolia. Of her two front rooms, one receives more sunlight than the other. It has bookshelves and two antique couches in need of repair. Magnolia prefers the other parlor, which is darker on this gloomy afternoon. It opens to a screened-in porch, which looks sad and lonely on a winter day. Magnolia sits in a chair, staring out the window with Wally at her feet. I take a chair opposite her.
“I brought you some tea.”
She nods in gratitude, and a small smile graces her thin lips. I love this woman more than anything, and I’ve done her wrong by running off like I did. She took me back easily when I showed up yesterday morning and left me alone as I rolled restlessly in my bed most of the night. We haven’t been alone since I arrived.
“I’m sorry, Magnolia,” I say, offering so much more than the apology.
“Whatever for, girl?”
“For running away.” For leaving her when she needed me most after my mother’s death, after her child’s death. For escaping across the country and hardly having any contact for weeks. For not telling her how overwhelmed I felt.
“Honey, you think I didn’t want to run away from life on more than one occasion?”
Actually, I didn’t ever think that. A pillar of strength, my grandmother owned her own business before women did such a thing, and without a man by her side as he had died young, leaving her with two small girls. They were spoiled and unappreciative of their mother—one running after a preacher man and the other marrying the future town mayor. She lived through the Great Depression, wars, and controversy in this town, supporting most of it with her businesses.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking a break. We all deserve one. And we all need one once in a while if we are going to survive life in general.”
I sigh. She’s right. I’ve just never known how to slow down. I don’t know how to relax. There was always the diner. My mother. Her. Rusty. Everything else came first.
“I heard about the diner although I haven’t seen it. I don’t think Denton was in the right, but his heart was. He’s trying to make up for things beyond his control. At least you came back.” She chuckles, and I find the humor in her words, though she isn’t joking. When Denton left, he never looked back. Not for twenty-some-odd years, leaving me with our horrid father and our sick mother. Leaving me to hold things together while he followed a dream and saw the world. I didn’t dream outside my own backyard, so I couldn’t fault him for the wanderlust of a rock band, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to get out of Blue Ridge once in a while and live a little.
“It’s a huge mess,” I say, running fingers over my hair, which I pulled into a knot on top of my head. I hold the steaming mug of tea in my other hand.
“Messes are what men make, and that’s why God created women. To clean them up.” She leans forward and pats my knee.
“I don’t really know where to start with this one.” I lightly chuckle with nerves.
“How about the one upstairs?”
It takes me a moment to realize what she means—or rather who?
“Oh, he’s not a mess.” I chuckle, this time with more humor. Garrett’s one of the most pulled together people I know, but then I think of his face buried in my neck as we lay on the floor of my room. Did he shed a tear?
“That man’s all kinds of messed up over you,” Magnolia states, her head lowering, and she glares at me through those pop-bottle glasses. “He flew across the country, chasing you.”
Chasing you. It’s like an echo in my head. No man has ever chased me, yet Garrett did.
“I don’t know what he wants from me.”
Land, whispers through my thoughts, but so does the word, together.
“Your heart,” Magnolia says softly. “And it’s about time someone does.” She never liked Rusty Miller, though he hardly came around here, and she knows all about my heartbreak over James Harrington.
“I guess I don’t understand why,” I return quietly, thinking of the diner and the project before me. Garrett is a successful businessman in his own right. He lives in California. And he wants a vineyard here with you. “Nothing makes sense lately.”
“Nothing ever does when you love someone. You’ll do things you never thought you’d do and say things you never meant to say. You’ll feel heartache like you’ve never felt before and joy like your heart might burst. And you’ll never make sense of any of it. That’s the great thing about love. It doesn’t need to make sense. It just happens.”
My grandmother has been alone for almost six decades. I’ve never known a man in her life, yet she speaks like her husband, who died so long ago, still lives as the love of her life.
“How’d you get so smart, Magnolia?” I tease, never finding it strange to call her by her first name as I became an adult. This woman is one of my best friends, and I have the honor to call her family as well.
“Always have been,” she teases. “I listened to both here”—she taps her temple—“and here.” She pats her chest near her heart. “Sometimes one wins over the other, but it all evens out eventually.”
I chuckle, and she reaches down to pat Wally snoozing over her feet.
“He’s a good dog,” she says without the mocking tone I use, and Wally wags once as if he agrees.
+ + +
I excuse myself from Magnolia and head back upstairs. Garrett is still crashed under the ancient quilt and two blankets on the bed. His California blood runs thin, and he looks peaceful tucked under the old bed coverings. I kiss his temple and mutter that I’m going to take a bath. I decide a soak will help me relax. He murmurs in his sleep, and I leave the room.
The bathroom is down the hall, and something Denton should consider if he’s going to renovate the whole house. My mother’s room
was the back bedroom, and I always thought it would make a beautiful master bedroom with a view overlooking the fields beyond. My room is a front room, and the one next door has a boarded-up window. Even though the tandem door between the rooms remains closed and a towel rests at the seam on the floor, the room stays chilly.
Once the tub is filled, I sink into the claw foot porcelain, resting under an etched glass window. The draft doesn’t deter me as the heat of the water fills the room. I lay my head back and close my eyes.
Garrett wants to own a vineyard. Here. The idea plays on repeat in my head. What does that even mean? I let my thoughts drift until I hear the quiet click of the latch on the door. Turning my head, I see Garrett entering with a ratty bathrobe of mine over his body.
“Well, you’re a vision,” I joke. His hair stands up a little, and he chuckles as he runs his hands through it. “My jeans are still wet, even though I set them over the radiator.” He peers down at me in the tub. There aren’t any bubbles in the water, so he can see all of me.
“Whatcha thinking about in that pretty head of yours?” he asks, perching his backside against the single sink on chrome legs. He crosses his feet at the ankles like wearing an old dingy-white terrycloth robe with a giant daisy stitched over the left breast isn’t unusual. It’s a far cry from his three-piece suits.
“So much,” I mutter as I observe him. He’s contemplative as well with his arms crossed over his chest and his fingers on his lip. He nods once and then removes the robe. Holding the edges of the tub, he steps in, facing me, forcing my legs over his thighs. I always considered this tub large until he settled in with me. He can’t be comfortable with the faucet at his back, but he sits forward, stroking my thighs under the water.
“Tell me what you’re worried about.”
“Everything,” I sigh. “The diner. The vineyard. You.”
He nods again. “I find it’s always best to start at the top of the list. Number one. The diner. Concerns.” He’s serious—like business-mode serious—and I want to giggle, but then I realize…he’s serious.