Honeysuckle Season

by Mary Ellen Taylor

  “Do you want to dance?” Malcolm asked.

  “I don’t know how,” Sadie said.

  “I can teach you.”

  “I’m not sure my body knows how to move that way.”

  “Everybody’s body moves that way. It’s easy.”

  Nerves fluttered in her stomach. “I don’t know.”

  Malcolm took her glass from her and set it on the table beside him. He took her hand in his and pulled her toward the dance floor. She hesitated but then smiled.

  Challenge sparked in his gaze. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “You look worried.”

  “I don’t want to make a fool of myself, is all.”

  Malcolm looked toward the band and signaled them with a wave. One of the guitarists nodded, and he said something to the band. They wrapped up the song several notes later, and the music turned to a much slower pace.

  “How does that work for you?” Malcolm said. “It’ll be easier to learn now.”

  Some of her trepidation eased, and she figured everyone had to learn at some point. “All right.”

  The smile grew wider. The color burned in her cheeks, and before she knew it, she was in the middle of a dozen couples. Malcolm put a hand on her hip, and her first reaction was to push it away. He stood still, waiting for her body to relax, and when she drew in a breath and ordered the worry to go away, he placed his other hand on the small of her back and coaxed her body toward his.

  She stiffened, resisting the urge to touch him any more than she already was right now. He chuckled. “Put your hands on my shoulders, and I’ll guide us around.”

  Sadie laid her hands on his wide shoulders. His gaze was filled with amusement as he started to move their bodies in time with the music. Several times she stepped on his feet, and her gaze dropped from his to her feet.

  It took all her concentration to figure out the moves of the dance, but finally after several minutes she began to relax into the steps.

  “You’re a natural,” he said.

  “I don’t know how I could be. My feet have no idea where they really are going.”

  “You’re doing just fine, Sadie.”

  They continued to move through this slow song, right into another just like it. Somewhere along the way, her body moved closer and closer to his until her breasts were pressed against his chest.

  She thought about her mother. Good Lord, the hell she would pay if her mother saw this. She should pull away. Take a break. Where the devil was Ruth? But each time she either looked around or tried to put distance between them, Malcolm held her tight.

  When the song ended, the crowd called for another quick dance, and Sadie saw that as her opportunity to take a break. “I believe I’ll have that lemonade right now,” she said.

  “Sure. I’ll refresh our glasses.” Malcolm took her hand in his and guided her off the floor. As he refilled their cups, she looked out on the floor, watching the quick steps of the couples. She tapped her foot.

  Malcolm returned and handed her a brimming glass of punch. “Drink up, Sadie.”

  She took a sip. It was sweeter than she remembered, and the tang of citrus had more bite to it. “You put something in this.”

  “A little bit.”

  The shine she had sipped before had had a bite to it, and it had burned on the way down. This was sweet and smooth and did not taste strong at all. Before she knew it, she had finished the glass, and he had pressed a second into her hand.

  When he was refilling her glass for the third time, Ruth and her beau broke away from the group and came toward her. “Looks like you’re having a good time.”

  “I am.” Her muscles had relaxed, and she was fairly sure she could dance as fast as any of the other couples.

  Ruth raised a brow and smiled at her beau, as if they shared a private joke. “Yes, some girls always have a good time, don’t they?”

  “What’s that mean?” Sadie asked.

  “Nothing. Have a good evening.”

  When Ruth and her date vanished out the front door, Malcolm returned. “Would you like to step outside? You look a little flushed.”

  She sipped her punch. The idea of stepping into the cool air did appeal to her. Not only did she feel a little flushed, but she realized if she was going to kiss Malcolm, then she better do it outside, where there were no prying eyes.

  “Sure, I’d like that.”

  His grin returned. He watched as she drank the last of her punch and then set their glasses aside. A hand on the small of her back, he guided her outside. She was aware of some of the people staring at her. They were judging her again, but like Ruth, they always were judging her. That was the way in Bluestone. No matter how fancy her dress, she would always be Sadie Thompson.

  She followed Malcolm into the darkness broken up only by the stars in the clear night sky. The moon was just a sliver. It would have been a good night to make a run of shine. Just enough light so that the driver did not need headlights, but dark enough to hide you from the law.

  Malcolm walked her over the dirt patch of land toward a polished Pontiac coupe parked off by itself. The paint was faded, and she could see that it was an older car. “This your car?”

  “Yes.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lit it with the strike of a match against his heel. Smoke rose up around his face, and he reminded her of Clark Gable.

  A slight wave of dizziness rolled over her, and she leaned against the shiny black roadster to steady herself. Malcolm was beside her, staring at her as if she was the only person in the world for him.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said.

  She raised her fingertips to her warm cheeks. “No one has ever said that to me.”

  “That’s because the boys in this town are blind fools,” he said.

  She pulled her shoulders back a fraction. “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “It’s true.” He inhaled and then dropped the remainder of his cigarette into the dirt. He exhaled as he ground the glowing tip into the soil. “I’d like to kiss you, Sadie.”

  The music and the lights of the party faded, and she felt as if she were a million miles away, and it was only just Malcolm and her.

  “Why do you want to kiss me?” She wanted him to tell her she was pretty again.

  He moved in front of her and tipped her chin up with his fingers. He smelled of tobacco and a faint aftershave. She stared into his dark eyes and moistened her lips. She’d said she wanted a kiss.

  “You want just a kiss?” she asked.

  “That’s all.” His voice was smooth, and he was staring at her lips.

  “And then we go back to the dance?” Her voice sounded distant and far away.

  “That’s right.”

  Before she could answer, he lowered his lips to hers and pressed slowly against hers. A heady rush washed over her, trailing down from her lips all the way to her toes. She knew now why Ruth liked kissing her boyfriend.

  “Was that nice?” His lips were close, and she could feel his warm breath on her face.

  “Yes,” she said honestly.

  “Want to do it again?”

  The temptation was strong—but not enough to override her mother’s words about staying out of trouble.

  “Afraid of what your mama would say?” His tone was light, as if he was teasing an old friend. “You must be her baby girl.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  Boyish dimples appeared when he grinned. “I know you’re not.”

  Just to prove it, she kissed him on the lips. It was a quick peck designed more to prove she was grown up.

  He pressed his hand into the small of her back and this time covered her body with the full length of his own. He felt hard all over, and she could sense an urgency in him that was as thrilling as it was unsettling.

  “I want to show you something,” he said.

  “What?”

  He took her hand in his and tugged gently. She resisted at
first, but the challenge returned to his dark gaze, so she followed just to prove she was her own woman. Malcolm opened the door to the back seat of his car and nodded for her to get inside. When she hesitated, he pushed her gently.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  She angled her body forward and sat on the smooth leather seats. They were nicer than her truck but not as fine as the leather seats of the Carters’ Pontiac. She scooted toward the other side as he sat and closed the door.

  Inside the car, his midsize frame seemed to grow larger. He laid his hand on her thigh. She pushed it away.

  “You want me to kiss you again?” Malcolm asked.

  “No.” But she did not really mean it. She liked kissing. It was just that the car made her feel trapped, which made her nervous.

  “I think you do want me to kiss you, Sadie Thompson.” Without waiting this time, he leaned forward and pressed her back against the seat. He kissed her lips and slammed his tongue into her mouth.

  This time her head spun, and she was certain this was far more kissing than she had bargained for. She tried to sit up, but his weight kept her back pressed against the seat.

  His hand trailed over her thigh, down to the hem of her dress. He tugged so quickly it was halfway up her thigh before she could protest.

  “I don’t like that,” she said as she pressed her hands against his chest.

  “Sure you do. Or you wouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “I want to go back to the dance.”

  “I’ll take you back in a few minutes. Don’t you like being here?”

  His fingers slid up under her skirt, and he fumbled with her drawers. She tried to push his hand away. “Stop. I don’t like it.”

  “That’s because you’ve never tried it.” He rose up slightly, reached for the center button on his pants, and was on top of her again.

  Her head swirled. The music outside was so far away she wondered if it had stopped. “I don’t want to try anything else.”

  He covered her mouth with his. “You asked me to kiss you. And that’s what I’m doing.”

  What happened in the next few minutes stunned her entire body and soul. He tugged down her underwear and reached for the most intimate part of her. Desire had abandoned her completely, and all she felt was shame. “I don’t want this.”

  In her struggles, her skirt twisted up by her waist, and she could see her bare legs glowing in the moonlight.

  He pushed her left leg to the side, and for a brief flash she saw his most private parts. He shoved inside her with a hard push, and she cried out. Pain seared her body as tears pooled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  He moved inside of her, back and forth, tearing at her insides. The tempo quickened, and all she could do was draw within herself and try to convince herself that she was not going to die. He went rigid and then collapsed against her.

  She stared over his shoulder out the car window at the stars. For some reason, they all looked different now. They had been pretty before, but now she found their sparkle annoying.

  “Ready for another dance.” He sat up and fixed his pants.

  She scrambled to a sitting position and tugged her skirt down. “What?”

  “It’s only nine o’clock. The night is young. Let’s dance.”

  He opened the car door and stepped out. He lit a cigarette. “Better hurry. The longer we’re gone, the more questions you’ll face later.”

  Her insides ached as she scooted across the seat and stumbled to her feet. When she found her voice, it sounded far off and foreign to her. “I’m going to tell Miss Olivia.”

  Malcolm grinned as he straightened his tie. “You’ll not tell a soul. No one will believe you. And if someone did believe I would sleep with you, there would be plenty of people who would tell the sheriff about the green dress you wore. No girl dresses like that without wanting a man’s attention.”

  “I didn’t want that!” she shouted.

  “Shh. Of course you did. Otherwise you would not have gotten in the car. And I’d be careful whom you tell. It’ll make you look like a whore, and you’re already in trouble with Edward. The Carters will run you out of town without a second thought.”

  Outrage burned inside her as she stared at his smug face. “This was your fault.”

  “No, darling. This is the kind of thing that happens to troublemakers.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  LIBBY

  Sunday, June 14, 2020

  Bluestone, Virginia

  So how did Libby handle the news that Elaine Carter Grant was her birth mother?

  She walked out her back door and toward the shed, where she had left her newly rediscovered photography equipment. With thoughts of storming Woodmont Estate chewing on her, she pulled all the remaining covers off the equipment and tossed them in the trash. The dustcovers had not exactly done their job, so she grabbed a rag and started wiping down the black bellows camera that sat on a tripod. Next, she hauled out the glass negative-development box and set it at the end of a slightly shorter workstation that she and her father had built when she was fifteen. Neither had carpentry skills, so the bench had always been a little lopsided and required shims under the back-right leg.

  Testing the table for sturdiness, she was pleased it did not wobble. Her father had gone out of his way not to leave her any problems, except the birth-mother-identity issue. “No biggie, right, Dad? Just a minor damn detail.”

  Until she bought developing chemicals, the best she could do now was wipe down the enlarger that she used to develop thirty-five-millimeter film. Again, no chemicals to actually develop the negatives and prints, but that problem was easily fixed with a couple of online orders.

  “Jesus, Dad,” she muttered as she settled a box of old cameras on her workbench. “All the things you could have told me while you were sick!”

  It was all she could do not to slam down the box of old cameras, coughing as dust plumed around her. “I could have done with less talk about where the water shutoff valve to the house was and more talk about genetics.”

  Libby quickly did the math and realized that Elaine would have been about twenty-two when she’d had Libby. Young, but certainly not a teen mother. And her family were hardly paupers.

  “And what the hell was Elaine doing in New Jersey?” she shouted to the empty room.

  Had Elaine been shacking up with her birth daddy or taking summer school or hiding out in a group home for unwed mothers? The last theory would have held true if Libby had been born in the 1960s or even the 1970s. But in 1989 people were pretty cool about an unwed pregnancy, right?

  It was clear her great-grandmother Olivia had known about her. But what about her great-granddaddy? Was he some kind of throwback judgmental ass? Was that why she was such a big secret? She rubbed the back of her neck. Nothing like finding out that she had not been wanted by a family with the means to care for her.

  And what about her birth daddy? Did he figure into the equation at all, or was he just an afterthought?

  When her phone rang at one o’clock in the morning, Libby fished it out of her back pocket. “Sierra.”

  “Why are the shed lights on?” She yawned. “My mother is concerned that you’re doing something dangerous.”

  Libby drew in a deep breath. “Setting up my photography equipment.”

  “Again, why this time of night?”

  “Haven’t you been after me for months about this?” Libby asked.

  “Not in the middle of the night, dear. Did something happen at Woodmont?”

  She rolled her head from side to side. “Nothing happened at Woodmont. Elaine’s daughter was a little rude, but it was no big deal.”

  “What did she say?”

  Olivia’s letter explained a lot about Lofton’s behavior at dinner. Libby would bet that Lofton, her baby sister, knew about the adoption. (God, had she really strung those words together?) Which led to the next question: Who else knew? Ted? What about Colton or Margaret?

&n
bsp; Libby swatted away the buzzing thoughts. Too much to process. “I found my dad’s deed to the house.” She took the coward’s way, but she simply was not ready to talk about this. It had taken her months to speak about her miscarriages, and though finding a birth mother certainly was a different kind of gut strike, it hurt so bad she could not begin to voice her feelings.

  “Set up an appointment with the bank,” Libby said. “The sooner the better.”

  “Are you sure about this? I mean we’re talking about putting your father’s house up for collateral.”

  She lifted a Brownie camera out of the box. It was small and compact. She had never found film to test it out. Turning away from the equipment, she shut off the light and shut the shed door on her way out. “It’s my house now, Sierra. And you’re right. I can’t just let it collect dust.”

  “Yeah, but this is not what I was aiming for.”

  “I know. And I’m glad it can come to some good use. Set up the meeting. The sooner you can start your business, the better.”

  “Do you want me to come over? You sound a little weird.”

  She started back to the house she had grown up in, wondering if it had all been a lie. “What do you know about Elaine Grant?”

  “What brought her up? Wait. Something did happen at dinner.”

  “No. Dinner was fine. I’m just curious about Elaine.”

  Sierra sighed, as if sensing now was not the time to press. “I know she moved away after college. After her grandfather died, she inherited the property but really didn’t start visiting regularly until after her grandmother died. My mother always thought Elaine must have had a falling-out with her grandmother.”

  “Like what?” Libby asked.

  “Not privy to the workings of the Carter family. I know Elaine didn’t show any interest in Woodmont until a year or two ago.”

  “Why did she come back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe older and wiser, and the old wounds had healed. Shame your dad isn’t still around. I think she and your dad were friends.”

  She climbed the back steps and into her kitchen. “Why do you say that?”