If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  Her eyes widened in surprise at his words, and he began to rock against her once more, this time with more effect.

  "Do you like that?" he asked.

  Her eyes had become dreamy. "Yes, yes, I like that."

  He withdrew slightly.

  "Don't . . . !" she admonished him boldly.

  He did laugh then, for all that it was difficult. "Oh, my Gertrude. No need to worry." He drew ever closer than before.

  She sighed.

  She had begun to squirm again beneath him. "It feels . . . it feels ... I don't know how it feels," she whispered. "But I do like it."

  "I like it, too," he told her, trembling as he smoothed her hair from her face, wanting to watch her expression, wanting to see the need in her eyes become fulfillment.

  "Then don't stop," she begged.

  He didn't.

  Slowly, steadily, with determination, he slid into a mutual rhythm that both assuaged the sharp edge of his need and further spurred his desires.

  Gertrude was no fainting flower in his arms. She quickly grasped the steps of the dance and moved with him in eager, passionate cadence. Less and less carefully, more and more lustily, he thrust inside her.

  She was moaning, startled, awestruck, beneath him. He could feel that change inside her as she clenched and pulled him to her. Still, he was not prepared for the power of her zenith when she reached it. He held her fast, welding himself to her.

  Her creature cry was untamed, frenzied. He was hers. No longer aware of where his body ended and hers began, she was wild motion beneath him. She was the beating of his own heart. Her eyes were wide, wide with disbelief. Disbelief, yes, and pleasure.

  Her name was ripped from his throat as the molten fire inside was released, his very being joining with hers. Taking with it all thought, all control, all restraint.

  "I love you," he cried.

  And he did.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  IN THE WARM afterglow of their loving, they held each other and giggled and sighed. The slanting light of afternoon revealing their bodies in unshadowed reality, they examined each other like scientists on a geographic exploration.

  Gertrude pulled gray hairs from his chest, until he complained that she would make him hairless as a boy. He finally managed to get her camisole off and assured her that her still-firm bosom would be the envy of women half her age.

  "Women half my age have no bosom yet," she told him with feigned petulance.

  He grinned, that grin that had suddenly become so familiar and so dear. "That just proves my point," he answered.

  Cuddling, caressing, kissing, they were loath to leave the secret hideaway that they had discovered and made their own. But eventually they rose and dressed and he kissed her hand and told her good-bye.

  They decided to meet every Thursday. Prudence always went to the Algonquin Society meeting on Thursday and Gertrude wouldn't be missed.

  It was a good plan, a very good plan. But by Monday, Mikolai was too anxious to see her to wait four more days and he slipped out to the Barkley garden to ask her to meet him on Tuesday.

  She had been more than eager to do so. And after that afternoon of exploring, loving, teasing, they decided that they should meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  But on Thursday they hadn't been able to get enough of each other, so they met again on Friday.

  By Saturday, Gertrude Barkley was walking around in a daze of sensual desire. She hardly ate, never worked, and couldn't put together a coherent thought. Still, life for the rest of the world went on at its regular pace.

  "Do hurry, Aunt Gertrude," her niece called out from the doorway of her apartment. "We don't want to be late for the kickoff."

  Venice was playing Rolla that afternoon, and after some coaxing from Claire, Gertrude had agreed to attend the game. She was fully dressed and ready to go, except for her shoes. As she bent over to fumble with the laces her hand trembled. In and out. In and out.

  "I'm wearing my button-tops," she declared suddenly.

  When Claire looked at her curiously, Gertrude flushed.

  "Go on downstairs, I can't get ready with you staring at me."

  She knew her words were cross, but she couldn't quite help herself. It was extremely difficult to do or say anything coherent in Barkley House when all her thoughts and visions resided across town in a small room above the cigar store on Second Street.

  Yesterday they had played sweet games together within their safe little haven. He taught her what he had called "tricks." The memory of them had her head spinning. She'd had no idea that people, lovers, could do such things. And she'd certainly never thought such excess of sensual joy existed. She found his body to be rather fascinating. And she found his ability to make hers respond intensely pleasurable. She sighed out loud with the memory of his lips upon her. And trembled with the resulting desire it evoked. How did married women manage? However did they get anything done? They were free to be with their gentlemen all night, every night. They never had to race the afternoon sun, or jump up and dress so they wouldn't be missed.

  They had dallied overlong with such frequency that Mikolai had become quite adept at helping her with all her hooks and buttons. And she had found that with the appropriate incentive she could don her clothing in a quarter of her usual dressing time. Still, they often became distracted by the sight of a soft feminine shoulder or the lean muscles of well-curved masculine buttock.

  "We must be very careful," he told her. ‘Too many people know us. And they know we have no reason to be in this part of town."

  Gertrude smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Maybe they would believe that I've taking up smoking if I am noticed frequenting a cigar store."

  Mikolai was not amused. "We must not allow anything to cheapen what we have here together. I would not wish any disgrace attached to your name."

  "For myself, I wouldn't care," she told him honestly. "But I wouldn't want to bring shame down upon my family. And I'd never want to embarrass you."

  "I would not be embarrassed," he answered. "If it were not a scandal, I would shout it from the housetops that Gertrude Barkley allows me to hold her in my arms and love her with my body. I can hardly believe my good fortune."

  She looked up into his eyes and read the truth written there.

  She felt the elation of pure good fortune, also. But she put her feeling into a kiss instead of words.

  "The man who owns the cigar store owes me a favor," he said later as he checked the alleyway to ensure that no one was around. "He will never mention that I rent this little place. Still, I don't want him to ever see you."

  "I will be careful," she promised as she slipped past him through the doorway and hurried down the stairs. She stopped at the bottom, somehow compelled to look back.

  He was still standing in the doorway. He was watching her. His expression was solemn. He seemed lost suddenly and so alone. Her heart ached and she wanted to return to him. She wanted to run back up the stairs and into his arms. She wanted never to leave.

  The light was fading. She must walk the five blocks to the library and catch the Interurban when it went by. No one must ever know that she had not spent her afternoon perusing dusty books and dreaming about life instead of living it.

  'Tuesday?" she had asked in a quiet whisper.

  "Monday," he had replied. And he had blown her a kiss.

  How could she wait?

  Gertrude walked across the confines of her lonely, narrow apartment and sat down at the window. She stared at the bright brick house next door. It was so close. She could throw a stone and hit his window. Yet, it was as far away as it had ever been.

  She loved Mikolai Stefanski. And she knew that in his own way he must love her, too. He certainly wanted her. She smiled at her memories of that evidence. And she wanted him. All of him. His days. His nights. His triumphs. His fears. She even wanted his children. She turned away from the window, scolding herself for her own thoughts. She had no chance for such things. Some thing
s were just not meant to be.

  For seventeen years she had craved a place in his life. She had that place now. Their secret hideaway, their illicit afternoons, that was what she had with him. What had he called it? A time out of life. He desired her body. He chuckled at her jokes. He even liked her conversation. She should be grateful for what she had.

  She had the pleasure of his hot, passionate afternoons. Why did she covet his cool evenings and lazy mornings and his darkest, bleakest nights? She had his love. Why did she still long for his name?

  Once more she stared out the window through the branches of the hazel tree to the big brick house next door. Mikolai Stefanski had given her more joy and pleasure and happiness than she had ever found in her life. But she knew, with certainty, that the burden of her long-held unrequited love for him could spoil everything. He had told her once that he'd never remarried because a wife would expect more than he was prepared to give. She must continue to pretend, as she had all these years, that she had no expectations. The strain of that deception might well break her heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE FOOTBALL TEAM trounced Rolla handily. Now the talk was flying that if they could beat the powerhouse at Springfield, Venice High School could win the state championship. Claire Barkley found this to be a terrific prospect, but not nearly so terrific as the certain-to-be-forthcoming confession that she was the daughter of an illicit relationship between her Aunt Gertrude and Teddy's father.

  As the days passed she had become increasingly impatient to hear the truth. To have it said, once and for all, that she was not simply George and Pru's oldest child, a human being of little concern and less consequence. That she was the unsanctioned issue of a passionate union betwixt two star-crossed lovers made her existence seem so much more purposeful, so much more important.

  Claire sighed with appreciable drama at the thought. She could hardly wait for the revelations to begin.

  This evening, however, she didn't anticipate any of those revelations to occur. George Barkley, the man who called himself her father, was giving a victory party for the parents of the boys on the football team. This was, Claire concluded, not at all because of his love of football or his team spirit. George Barkley wanted to be Sublime Kalifa of the Crusading Knights of the Mystic Circle. By opening his house to the "less fortunate"—meaning the working-class men and women whose children made up the majority of the football team—he hoped to garner votes for his ultimate election to that noble post.

  It was quite easy for George Barkley to throw a fancy party, Claire thought unkindly. It was a wonder that he didn't do it more often. All he had to do was announce that it would be given. Everything else would be taken care of by his wife. After all, it was Prudence's duty to plan parties and do most of the work, too. It was unfair. But Prudence never seemed to mind it. Claire did.

  She was stuck in the kitchen helping her mother make the precision cuts of the delicate ladyfingers when she decided to speak her mind.

  "You shouldn't let him treat you like this, Prudence," Claire said in a tone that was patently condescending. "George takes you for granted. You are like a slave in this house."

  "What a terrible thing to say! Taking care of a man's house and his children is a wife's joy," she said.

  Her words sounded to Claire like something her mother had read in Home Journal.

  "And it is very disrespectful to call your father by his given name," she added.

  Claire made a very impolite face before she commented shrewdly, "It's disrespectful to call him George, but not to call you Prudence. I see how it is. You can't be disrespected? Is that how this works?"

  "Oh, Claire, why do you have to twist my words?" Her mother sighed in exasperation. "It is just as disrespectful to me. But I know that it's just your way of being grown-up. Mothers understand that," she said with a smile that was far too pert and cheerful. "Your father simply wouldn't know to interpret it that way."

  "He doesn't understand anything except what he wants to understand," Claire answered. "He's so eternally grumpy. All the time he complains about Lester the Pester, but he leaves that brat totally to you."

  "Your little brother is not a brat, Claire, and I don't want to hear you say that," Pru admonished.

  Claire grinned. "Remember, brat means brother in Polish."

  Her mother was adamant. "But we do not speak Polish," she said.

  Claire couldn't really argue with that and didn't try.

  "I don't know why you even put up with him," she said.

  "Little Lester?" Prudence sounded truly shocked. "Why, he is my darling boy! Being a scamp is just his little-boy ways, underneath he is a sweet angel."

  Claire rolled her eyes in disgust. "I wasn't talking about Lester. I was talking about George. I don't know why you put up with him. He's so selfish."

  "Your father is not selfish," Prudence defended. "He just . . . he just has a lot of things on his mind."

  "Yes, and everything that's on his mind is about him. What's best for him. What he wants. Where he should be. You should face the truth, Prudence. In the universe of George Barkley, it is not the earth that revolves around the sun. It is the earth that revolves around George Barkley."

  "What a horrible thing to say!" her mother scolded. "Claire Barkley, I have a mind to wash your mouth out with soap."

  "It wouldn't change the facts, Prudence."

  "You don't even know what the facts are," she answered sharply. She began the very delicate process of transferring the ladyfingers to a silver tray. She was so stirred up by her daughter's talk, she was positively heedless of the fragile nature of her creations.

  "Your father is a fine, decent, honorable man," she declared sternly. "He has been through things and done things that you can never know about. You think you know all there is to know about him. But you are far too young to understand."

  Claire hated her mother's you'll-know-better-when-you-grow-up tone. She answered quickly and with little thought to the consequences of her words. "I think you'd be surprised to find out that I know and understand a great deal more than you think I do," she said.

  "What on earth do you mean?" Pru asked.

  "I mean that I already know all about the scandal," she snapped.

  "What scandal?"

  "Prudence, you know what scandal," she said, lowering her voice to a more prudent whisper and glaring at her mother accusingly. "I'm talking about the scandal when I was born."

  Prudence's eyes widened with shock and her complexion turned as pale as the crust on the delicate ladyfingers that she dropped unnoticed from her hand onto the gleaming maple flooring at her feet.

  "Who told you?" she asked, horrified.

  "I figured it out on my own," Claire answered proudly.

  "I . . . I . . . oh . . ."

  Prudence stood as still as a stone for a long moment gazing at her daughter. Claire kept her expression reproachful. She was not about to allow her mother to brush off what had happened.

  To Claire's dismay, Prudence's eyes welled up in tears. She staggered across to the kitchen table and collapsed into a chair as if her legs would no longer hold her.

  "I had hoped," she whispered so very quietly, "that you would never find out." Prudence straightened her apron, unwilling to raise her head. "I know what you must think of me.”

  "What I must think of you?" Claire's question was punctuated by a puzzled humorless laugh. Her mother's obvious great upset surprised her. For all that Prudence was a watering pot and a dishrag, she had been just like a mother to Claire all her life.

  "I think you are kind and courageous and did what you thought was best," she said with real sincerity.

  Prudence glanced up at her. Her expression was guilt-ridden. Her words contrite. "You don't blame me?" she asked.

  Momentarily startled by the question, Claire stared at her in disbelief for an instant before she huffed with annoyance. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Prudence. You aren't to blame for anything," Claire said.

&
nbsp; "I'm not?"

  "Of course not! I know that George tries to lay everything that happens in this house at your feet," she said. "But surely you can't possibly think of any way that this could be your fault."

  Pru's eyes widened at her daughter's words.

  "If I blame anyone," Claire said. "It's George Barkley! And Grandfather, too. He was just as much in the wrong himself."

  "You blame your grandfather?"

  "Don't you?"

  Prudence appeared confused. "Well, your grandfather was certainly difficult," she conceded. "But he, and George too, they both made sure that we did the right thing."

  Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm not at all sure that it was the right thing," she said.

  "B-b-b-but, darling," Pru stuttered. "What else could we do?"

  "You could have simply left things alone," Claire answered. "I'm sure everyone concerned would have been much happier."

  Prudence was dumbfounded. "You think you would have been happier not growing up here? Not living in this house, not having Barkley as your name?"

  "Is that what you thought? That calling this house my home and being named Barkley would be worth what I have suffered?"

  "You've suffered?"

  "Of course I've suffered," Claire declared dramatically. "Haven't we all suffered? You've suffered. Aunt Gertrude has suffered."

  "Gertrude has suffered?"

  "Certainly she has. Living in this house, watching you and George, pretending, it's been horrible for all of us."

  Prudence covered her face with her hands and began to sob. Taken aback, Claire stood frozen in place for a moment before she dragged up a chair beside her and pulled the crying woman into her arms.

  "Mama, don't cry, don't cry," Claire whispered softly. She had seen Prudence weep many times, but this time was somehow different. It was as if her heart were breaking. "Please don't cry, Mama."

  "I had hoped," she managed to blubber out. "All these years ... I had hoped that maybe George wasn't just pretending."

  Claire didn't completely understand the meaning of her words, but held her tightly and comforted her just the same. She had never meant to hurt Prudence. It hadn't occurred to her that she might be hurt. That Prudence might actually want Claire as her daughter, that she might be sad that she was not, had never entered the young girl's mind. Lester was Pru's favorite. She was simply Claire. She'd never thought that her mother cared that much. But apparently she did.