Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  He didn’t say a word as he manhandled the flat-tired wheelbarrow down the aisle, but his entire being radiated disgust. He seemed to be trying to soften his demeanor and act less irked with her, but it wasn’t really working.

  Fine. Heather knew she’d done wrong, and she planned to do better. Adrian could judge her all day long, but he didn’t know what she’d been through. He might not be so high-and-mighty if he knew what it was like to lose the love of his life. He could bang that wheelbarrow around and shoot narrow-eyed glances all he liked. It wouldn’t bother her.

  Heather patted Charlie and kissed him on his velvet-soft nose, then took the buckets around to the hose outside the barn—which was thankfully located opposite the door where Adrian was dumping the wheelbarrow’s contents. She rinsed the buckets, then left them to soak while she located a scrub brush and a squirt bottle labeled in Sharpie: 50% Dawn / 50% Clorox. She worked on the buckets till they felt clean, then rinsed them again and filled the water bucket to the brim.

  As she tilted the feed bucket upside down on a shelf to drip-dry, she noticed an old metal currycomb on the shelf above the food bins. It was rusted and warped, the wooden handle peeling and cracked. She’d go by the feed store and get a new one tomorrow, but for now, this one would do just fine. She went up to Charlie and started brushing his salt-caked brown hide with slow, smooth strokes.

  Charlie’s eyes drifted closed, and he shifted his weight to rest one back leg, then blew out a soft chuffing sound. As Heather worked the currycomb over Charlie’s coarse brown hair, she felt his unconditional love and acceptance pour into the jagged fissures of her wounded heart. “I’m so sorry I didn’t take better care of you.”

  She imagined that if he could have replied, he’d have said, “I forgive you.” And in that moment, she felt his forgiveness as clearly as she felt his love. She realized then that she had no reason to be afraid of Charlie.

  His love had cured her fear, and his forgiveness was beginning to cure her sorrow.

  ***

  Adrian finished cleaning Charlie’s stall and added fresh bedding. While he’d been doing all that, Heather had cleaned and filled Charlie’s water bucket and hung it on the hook inside his stall. Now, she was brushing him with a currycomb, dropping great gobs of horsehair onto the barn’s dirt floor and leaving his coat slick and shiny. She cleared the comb’s serrated metal edge by tapping it on the stall’s thick wood wall. “Should we give him anything to eat?”

  “Mack said to just give him water for now.” He untied the lead rope and led Charlie into the stall. “You were walking Charlie when Mack left, so he gave me instructions to relay to you.” Adrian removed the horse’s halter with the lead rope still attached and handed them both to Heather.

  “And?” She hung the halter and rope on a nail outside the stall. “What else did Mack say?”

  Adrian closed the stall door and slid the latch home. “Wait until after he checks Charlie out to feed him. Mack will swing by around noon thirty tomorrow on his way home from the vet’s office. You’re supposed to call the office and report how Charlie is doing in the morning.” He glanced at his watch. “In about four hours.”

  Heather sighed. “I am so sorry.” She put a hand on his arm. “And I really appreciate your help.”

  He shrugged. “I did it for Charlie.” Then he realized how cold that sounded, how dismissive of Heather’s feelings. She shouldn’t have let Charlie’s stall get in such bad shape, but he knew she didn’t harm the horse on purpose. And even perfectly well-cared-for horses could come down with colic for no discernible reason. It might not have happened because of anything Erin and Heather did or didn’t do. He patted her hand. “I’m glad I was here to help.” A wide yawn caught him by surprise, and he covered his mouth. “Sorry.”

  She yawned too, then smiled behind her hand. “It’s contagious.”

  “It’s no wonder we’re yawning. I don’t know about you, but it’s way past my bedtime, and the clean sheets I put on my bed yesterday are calling me.” He dug the car keys out of his pocket. At the sound, Jasper hopped down from the hay bale and sat next to Heather, wagging his stub tail. Clearly ready for a car ride, if one was imminent.

  “My guest room has clean sheets too,” Heather said. “Egyptian cotton. They might give your sheets a run for the money, especially since they’re here instead of an hour away.”

  He looked at her sideways.

  “Really. You should spend the rest of the night here instead of driving back to New Orleans.”

  He hadn’t been looking forward to the long trip home. “You sure it won’t be an imposition?”

  “Positive.” She smiled. “The guest bedroom is all made up and ready for you.”

  “In that case…” He yawned again. “I’ll gratefully take you up on the offer.”

  “I’ll even make your breakfast in the morning.” She turned toward the house, and in a way that felt entirely natural—though he wasn’t expecting it—she slipped her arm through his. Linked at the elbows, they leaned against each other on the short walk between the barn and the house. “What’s your opinion of pancakes with whipped cream, strawberries, and organic maple syrup?”

  His mouth watered, and his stomach growled. Suddenly, he realized he was even more hungry than he was sleepy. “That depends on whether I have to wait till morning to eat them.”

  “You don’t have to wait.” A security light outside the garage door illuminated the gravel path and the concrete driveway. They walked toward the house, a traditional red-brick structure that managed to be squatty and imposing at the same time. It was one of those 3,000-square-foot mushrooms that had popped up in dozens of new suburban subdivisions outside New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. “We can eat first and then sleep.”

  In the two-car garage, she released his arm to open the door into the house. “Come on in.” Jasper charged past, and Heather laughed. “It’s past his bedtime too. He’ll be under the covers with Josh in another minute.”

  The door from the garage opened into a wide hallway. Heather flipped a light switch, illuminating a long bench seat across from the door with a row of shoes underneath, while school backpacks hung on a row of hooks above. Cubbies on the wall above the hooks held fabric baskets with little brass-edged chalkboard charms dangling from the handles, each marked with someone’s name in bright block letters. All very neat and organized.

  To the left, he could see an open doorway with a metal sign above: DO YOUR OWN LAUNDRY HERE! Heather turned right and led the way into a large kitchen with a granite-topped island in the center. She took down two glasses from the neat rows he could see when she opened a cupboard door. “You want ice in your water?”

  “Just water is fine, thanks.”

  She dispensed water from the fridge door. When he took the glass, their fingers touched, igniting a feeling of connection he hadn’t felt with anyone for a very long time. He didn’t know why such a simple touch felt so compelling, but time slowed in the moment their fingers touched. Her lips parted, and he thought he heard her draw in a soft breath.

  Then she turned away to fill her own glass. “I’ll start cooking before we faint and fall over. But maybe you’d like to take a shower first? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to stand next to myself much longer.”

  Adrian couldn’t help but laugh; he was drunk on exhaustion. “Is that your diplomatic way of telling me that I stink?”

  “Not at all.” She let out a surprised giggle, and her cheeks turned pink. “I would never.”

  “Just kidding. I would love a quick shower before breakfast.”

  She slid a sheepish glance his way. “You had me worried for a minute.” Then she straightened and smiled. “Let me show you to the guest suite.”

  She led him through a large family room with a fireplace to a formal entryway with a carpeted staircase on one side. He followed her up the stairs, watc
hing the hypnotic sway of her hips. He couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to reach out, to put his hand on her waist and turn her toward him… He shook his head to dispel the thought of touching her and just about bumped into her when she stopped beside an open door.

  “Why are you shaking your head?” She reached around the doorjamb to turn on the light.

  He shook his head again, this time to clear the strange, almost floating sensation of being asleep on his feet. “I have no idea. I think my brain quit functioning a few hours ago.”

  She laughed. “I know what you mean. Mine too.”

  The bedroom she walked into looked like it belonged on the cover of a Southern Living magazine. The queen-sized bed was made up with fancy pillows and a homemade quilt, each scrap of fabric edged in embroidery thread with many different stitching patterns.

  She opened the door to the guest bathroom. Simple, clean lines, white or off-white everything, including white, lace-edged towels on the bronze towel bar. “I feel like I’m too dirty to touch anything in here.” And it just occurred to him that he had no clean clothes to change into. He was beginning to rethink his decision to stay here for the rest of the night. If he had headed home when they first put Charlie back in his stall, he’d have reached the interstate by now.

  “These white towels don’t mind bleach. There’s soap and shampoo and everything you need, new toothbrushes in the top drawer…” Her voice got quiet. “Oh. You’ll need clean clothes to change into.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Being clean inside dirty clothes would at least be a slight improvement.

  But she had already turned away. “I’ll be right back,” she said softly.

  She came back holding a stack of folded clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “Sorry, there’s no underwear.” Her cheeks, the visible barometer of her feelings, registered something between attraction and embarrassment. “I only kept the things I could wear myself.”

  Or, okay, maybe just embarrassment.

  So did that mean that all the times he had entertained the idea that she might be attracted to him, he’d been wrong? Maybe the subtle flirting he’d managed to tease her into doing didn’t mean anything. Maybe he wasn’t as all that as he thought he was. He took the clothes from her, feeling an uncomfortable twinge in the region of his heart. Yes, they were just clothes, and they would wash up as clean as new after he returned them. But he knew it must feel like a sacrifice for her to lend them out. “Thank you.”

  She smiled—a sunny smile that made her pink cheeks go as round as apples under her clear green eyes. That smile made him wonder how often she smiled and acted like nothing was wrong to put others at ease when she was still hurting inside. “If you’ll leave your clothes outside the bathroom door, I’ll put them in the washer before I start cooking.”

  “If you’re tired, you can wait on cooking breakfast until we’ve had some sleep.”

  “Nah, this works. The kids will be up soon, so I can feed them their breakfast too. Then you and I can take a nap before Mack gets here to check on Charlie—” Her eyes got wide and her cheeks flared crimson as a double meaning for her innocent words dawned. “I mean, we can each take naps separately. In different rooms.”

  He wanted nothing more than to take her sweet face in his hands and kiss those hot-pink cheeks until her blush subsided. But that would be the pinnacle of idiocy, wouldn’t it? So he turned away and set the neatly folded stack of clothes on the bathroom counter. “I’ll put my clothes outside the door. See you downstairs.”

  ***

  Heather backed out of the guest bathroom and closed the door behind her. She paused a second to put her hands against her cheeks. Their heat burned into her cool palms.

  Why did Adrian affect her so much?

  She heard a soft sound—Adrian’s clothing hitting the floor in the bathroom, brushing the door on the way down. She scooted out of the guest bedroom, grateful that the carpeting muffled her footsteps. Easing the guest room door closed behind her, she hurried downstairs to the master bathroom to take the world’s fastest shower.

  Her hair dripped on her shoulders when she dressed in a fresh pair of denim shorts and a boat-neck tee with Yo mama’s a llama in sparkly pink letters above an ironed-on image of two llamas kissing. She gave her hair a last squeeze from the towel she’d left hanging over the shower stall door, then went back upstairs to grab Adrian’s dirty clothes.

  She paused in the hallway outside the closed guest room door. Shouldn’t have shut that door, she realized. What if she got caught traipsing toward the bathroom door when he just happened to come out?

  That didn’t bear thinking about. But… She put her hand on the doorknob. What if…

  The knob turned under her hand, and in the next second, she stood face-to-face with Adrian. Fresh from the shower, wearing clothes that she had worn enough times to call them hers, Adrian took a step back. His dark-blue eyes widened, no more shocked than if she’d taken a flying leap at him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and plastered her lips to his.

  “Oh, hey.” He held the balled-up wad of his dirty clothes.

  She took the clothes from him. “I was just coming to get these.” She wondered, just for a second, whether he’d left his underwear in this mass of dirty clothing or put them back on. She resolved not to look. Not at the wad of clothing and not at him. At least, not at any part of him that was located south of his chin. “I’ll put these in the wash. Do you want coffee? Tea? Juice?”

  “The water you already gave me is fine for now.”

  “Okay. I’ll drop these in the wash, then start cooking.” Thank goodness, she didn’t feel the prickle of a blush rushing to color her fair skin and give her discomfort away. She turned her back on him and headed down the stairs, not quite congratulating herself but at least feeling that maybe she was getting a grip on her runaway emotions around him. Maybe, if she were lucky, she was beginning to become immune to him.

  ***

  In the kitchen, Adrian watched from a seat at the kitchen island’s raised bar while Heather rummaged in the large pantry. The sky outside the window above the sink had lightened to a pearl gray near the horizon, merging into a deeper gray above. Soon, it would be morning. “Can I do anything to help?”

  She came out of the pantry with a mason jar of syrup and a box of pancake mix. “You could reach the big mixing bowl for me, if you don’t mind.” She opened a cabinet door and pointed. “It’s up there, top shelf.”

  He came around the counter and reached past her to grab the bowl. Her hair, damp but drying, smelled like lemons. Her skin…

  He stepped back before he could decide what her skin smelled like. “What else can I do?”

  “Not a thing.” She touched his arm. “Sit. Keep me company while I cook.”

  Yeah, he could do that, but staying busy would be easier. He leaned against the counter and watched her take a bunch of ingredients out of the refrigerator. She lined everything up in a row on the counter, setting the eggs on a folded dish towel so they wouldn’t roll. She measured and poured batter mix into the bowl and cracked an egg one-handed over the bowl. Adrian came around behind her and snagged the container of strawberries. “I don’t find relaxing relaxing. So maybe you’ll allow me to wash the strawberries and slice them up?”

  “Sure. Knife’s in the—”

  “Yep, I see it.” Her kitchen was very organized, with a big set of chef’s knives in a wood-block holder and a whole bunch of other kitchen implements right next to it in a big, homey-looking ceramic crock. He rinsed the strawberries, then took a paring knife from the block. The cutting board was easily accessible too, right next to the knives. Everything laid out in an ergonomic fashion, closest to the first point of use. “You must cook a lot.”

  She looked at him sideways, a teasing little smirk on her lips. “Three kids, yo.”

  He started slicing off
the berries’ green ends, and she handed him a couple of bowls. “One for the strawberries, one for the ends. I compost.”

  He popped a plump strawberry into his mouth. Then, without overthinking it, held one up to her lips. “You don’t feed your kids prepackaged box food?”

  She took the strawberry into her mouth, her lips barely touching the tips of his fingers. Closing her eyes, she savored the taste. When she opened her eyes and smiled at him, her lips glistened with a hint of berry juice. “Not often. Fresh strawberries beat strawberry Pop Tarts any day of the week. And I want my kids to have a healthy relationship with food. So I cook.” She covered the strawberry bowl with some kind of waxy-looking cloth, molded it to the bowl’s edge, then handed the bowl back. “What about you? You look pretty comfortable in the kitchen.”

  “I can cook.” He’d be a lot more comfortable if he could just go ahead and kiss her. Get it over with. “But I do live minutes away from the best restaurants on the planet. And most of them deliver.” He put the bowl of sliced strawberries in the fridge, then rubbed his palms together and glanced around the kitchen. “What else can I do?” Anything to get his mind off the thought of touching her.

  She hefted an iron skillet onto the stove, drizzled a bit of oil, and turned on the gas burner. “If the cream cheese is soft enough, you can make the whipped cream.”

  “Um…okay. Just tell me how.”

  “One block of cream cheese, one container of whipping cream, and a half cup of confectioner’s sugar. The blender is in the cabinet right in front of you.”

  They made breakfast together. She coached him on what to do and how to do it, the tension between them eased, and Adrian was able to stop thinking of their close proximity with such unfamiliar longing.

  Difficult when everything about her was sexy—from her lush curves to her lemon-scented hair to her fresh-washed skin. But working with her this way was easy. They found a natural rhythm, reaching this, handing that, quietly moving together in an almost-dance of synchronicity. Standing at the stove, she pivoted and reached back to turn on the sink tap.