The House on Persimmon Road (13 page)

“That’s because you were married to a snake. Got bit, too.”

She turned frosty. “I’m glad we see eye to eye on the subject.”

“You’ve somehow got the idea that I like you and now you’re trying to put me off. I haven’t felt any chemistry bubbling between us. Have you?”

Yes, she had
. A cauldron of the stuff
. Add a frog wart, a lizard tail and chopped parsley and she’d end up in his bed. Her smile was lofty. “Not a bit.”

Liar. Tucker considered the issue. Justine was a woman with two children to raise, a mother, and an ex-mother-in-law on board—responsibilities with a capital
R.
He owned a few of those miseries himself. He liked the family well enough,
but
—and therein lay the crux of the matter.

It was enough to scare a man. Make him think twice about starting something. He looked at his watch. It was six fifteen already. “Are we gonna run, or jaw all morning?”

To Justine’s surprise he spun off back down the road.

“I thought we were going to play Hansel and Gretel,” she said when she caught up to him.

“Left it too late.”

She was winded by the time they reached her drive, but she managed, “Coffee?”

She was prepared today. The coffee was perked and in a thermos on the table, waiting to be poured.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said and left her with only a brief backward glance.

Justine sighed and had never meant a sigh more.

She had been looking forward to their tete-a-tete, expected it to become a pleasant morning ritual, one that she could reflect upon during odd moments as the day wore on. In her mind, sharing coffee and conversation with Tucker had taken on a special significance. That was probably because she had not mentioned it to her family. Not that she was keeping it a secret, exactly. It was only that pleasures were few and far between these days.

It was foolish, almost adolescent, wasn’t it? To hoard and hold private those few moments spent with Tucker. Of course she felt the chemistry between them. Yet what good could come of encouraging it?

An affair?

Impossible. Affairs were but a temporary panacea for the misery of being lonely. Anyway, where would she find the time? Even if she did manage time, how could she face herself? The children? Her mother? Agnes?

Suppose she actually fell in love? Not that she would, but suppose?

It was one thing to take children by a previous marriage into a relationship—but a mother and ex-mother-in-law? Would a man sit still for that? Not if he had an ounce of common sense.

There was another strike against it happening. His age. Thirty-six. Which made him eminently unsuitable. If only he were even one minute past forty.

Nip it in the bud, avoid temptation, avoid heartache. Don’t run with him again. Be friendly, yet distant.

He was smart. He’d get the message loud and clear—especially when she wasn’t waiting for him tomorrow morning at the top of the drive.

Issue settled. Solomon couldn’t have done better. With an immense sense of virtue and not a little of the martyr, Justine went about her daily life.

The sun shone. Leaves washed clean of dust appeared greener, the grass higher. Milo Roberts arrived and hooked up the washing machine, though there was no electrical outlet for the dryer. Justine took it in stride and directed Milo to string a clothesline. She allowed Pip to go fishing, Judy Ann played house in the yard, fed scraps to the chicks. Pauline, with Agnes at her side, spent an hour in the station wagon familiarizing herself with gears and brake and gas pedal. Wonder of wonders, when they came back into the house, they were still on speaking terms.

The telephone was installed, and the estate agent, Jim Kessler, alerted that they had arrived and settled in. Their newspaper subscriptions started arriving, and the mailman brought Agnes’s social security check.

Justine booted up the computers, found them all working to her satisfaction, then spent an hour after supper arranging her desk and files and planning a work schedule.

It was one of those days when all went right, making her feel good about the world.

She went to bed feeling noble, honorable, and righteous.

Her dreams were pleasant and all of Tucker Highsmith.

She awakened with the notion that she was in absolute control of her life and her emotions.

Her earlier thoughts about Tucker had been foolish. She took things too seriously these days.

The man flirted with her. So what? Men did that. It was meaningless chitchat, done solely to boost their own egos. The only reason she had taken it so to heart, made an issue out of it, was that she hadn’t engaged in flirtations in years. It may have been the done thing in some marriages, but not in her own.

Heavens! She had no grandiose designs on the man, her thoughts and dreams were nothing more than flights of fancy—entertainment, really.

There was no good reason to stop jogging with the man.

She did, after all, have those five pounds to trim.

Having no wish whatsoever to attempt to bedazzle, she donned her oldest sweatshirt, faded blue shorts, and tied her hair back in a style she considered most unflattering.

At 5:42 ante meridiem the sky began to lighten, birds chattered and a rooster crowed as if he were the bugle that called up the sun.

At 5:50 a.m. Justine was at the top of the drive. Waiting.

—  •  —

Tucker stared bleary-eyed into the mirror. He’d had a bad night. Dreams of Justine had been interspersed with scenes from his youth—scenes he had not recalled in years.

He fingered the beard stubble on his jaw, but his mind was filled with images of himself as a ten-year-old.

His mother had been dead a month. The only food in the shack was a sack of potatoes. He’d peeled and boiled them while his dad holed up on the bed with a bottle of whiskey.

When the potatoes ran out, terrified that he was going to starve to death, he gathered up the peelings he’d tossed out, washed them and fried them, surviving on them until his dad had sobered up enough to scrounge a few dollars.

He hadn’t starved, but harking back to those years still called up the stark terror he had suffered.

He knew he was stronger for the experience. He had learned early on to look after himself, to persevere in the face of adversity. He had managed a year of college, got himself a good job, had a little money in the bank and his own home, such as it was. Not to mention fried potato peelings were
in
these days. Add a dab of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives. Hell, in the matter of food, he’d just been ahead of the times.

The image of himself as a boy faded, replaced by one of Justine. A small spark of terror stayed with him. He tried to dismiss it.

He wasn’t scared of a woman. Especially her. There was no way, even given the opportunity, she was going to change his plans, the goals he had set for himself.

So what if he was taken with her? Couldn’t stop thinking about her? He had seen women he couldn’t have before. Hell’s bells! She was just a neighbor with a good-looking pair of legs. Nothing to get excited about. It wasn’t
as
if she had become a drug he couldn’t do without. What a hoot! He hadn’t even
touched
her.

Better to stop all this willful thinking before he made a grave mistake.

Women hated to be stood up. That’s how he’d handle it. He’d take the back path, jog along the river instead. Leave her standing at the mailbox high ‘n’ dry with a case of the furies. That’d be the end of it.

Feeling as if he had culled a millstone from around his neck, Tucker brushed his teeth but stopped short of shaving since he wasn’t out to impress anybody.

Before he set off, he scooped up a pail of corn and scattered it for the hens. Then he loped down the track toward the river. He had only gone a few yards when an unacceptable idea slowed his pace to a walk.

He was running from a woman! Like a weak-kneed ninny with his tail between his legs.

It was an image of himself that Tucker Highsmith could not countenance. His rebel-warrior self-image was already stretched thin by the knowledge that he was involved—to his way of thinking—in the very feminine action of gathering recipes and putting them in a book.

Two dents in his self-esteem were more than he could bear.

The truth of the matter was that he had let his libido catch him off guard—do his thinking for him. He had a lock on it now. Grit to withstand seduction of any sort. Justine Hale could stand buck naked before him and he wouldn’t be stirred. Not a chance.

The oddly fluttering sensation in his chest he put down to indigestion. Too many spicy foods.

He reversed his direction.

Tucker signaled her to fall in as he jogged past. His expression was as hard and dark as slate. Justine’s cheery good-morning died on her lips.

“Get up on the wrong side of the bed?” she asked.

“Save your breath. We’re going the distance today. That is, if you think you can keep up.”

It was a frontal attack, roughly done, and to Justine’s way of thinking, wholly unjust. All she had said yesterday was that she wasn’t into men. Had he dwelled on that? Taken it so personally that his ego was bent out of shape? Game playing! Damn it! She couldn’t juggle him along with all else.

“I’ll try,” she said. “If I fall behind, you go on. Don’t wait for me.”

“Suits me.”

Justine let him pull ahead. He was being downright nasty. With no good reason. A few yards farther on and he missed her at his side.

“Fagged already?” he called over his shoulder.

That did it. “I think I’ll pass today.”

“Can’t handle it?”

He was challenging her as if she were guilty of some infraction of the rules,
his
rules.

“Guess not,” she said, mustering a superficial smile.

He hesitated long enough to track her once from head to toe. As if suddenly he did not wish her to see what might lie in his eyes, he turned and went on down the road.

She walked back to the house.

Deep down she expected Tucker to follow.

He didn’t.

She was disappointed.
Keep it in perspective,
an inner voice cautioned. Considering the upsets in her life during the past year, it was little more than the irritation of a pesky fly.

She had wanted it nipped. It was nipped.

She opened the thermos and poured coffee. There was nothing that said she couldn’t enjoy the morning, the hour or so she had to herself before others in the household awakened. It was just as pleasant without Tucker as with him.

No, it wasn’t.

He made her feel alive.

When he looked at her, she felt a woman again. He made her forget she was a discard.

But what was the point of thinking about him? She had decided against him at the very outset. Events had proved that decision wise. The only thing left to her was to come to terms with her future as a woman—what her life might be like without the chance of ever remarrying.

The craving for a cigarette overtook her.

The craving to be loved and wanted, to be held dear came on just as strong. In that context she no longer thought so much about Philip as the center of her existence. What she did miss, what she mourned most was the cushion, the shelter of being married, and the sharing of life’s burdens. Oh, give it up. Things are the way they are. Accept it.

She took her second refill and sat on the front porch steps.

The shade was thicker there, the dome of trees hugging the house seeming to create a hush. It fit her mood.

She stared into her cup and forced every single thought out of her brain. It was a trick she had learned in college to make her brain a clean slate upon which to cram for exams.

Bit by bit Tucker’s image crossed her mind’s eye. His dark hair, brushed back from his face, yet curling about his ears and at the nape, filled the slate. The nose, straight and narrow between dark eyes that could glare with unnamed fury or light with disarming humor.

She began the technique again, trying to obliterate his image. It hung on as if nailed in place.

What a fool you are, Justine! If the man knew how much he was in your thoughts, he would think you ridiculous.

Becoming obsessed with a man she hardly knew was outside all boundaries of good sense.

The bottom step squeaked. Her introspection faded, her eyes lighting on the size eleven, Nike-clad foot. Her gaze traveled upward until she was looking at his face.

“You give up too easily,” he said.

“I didn’t know I was being tested. Anyway, I promised myself to avoid negative vibes. You were bristling with them.”

“Yep. Guilty as charged.”

He looked as if it cost him everything he owned in the world to say it.

“Why?”

He sat down on the step beside her. “I’ll tell you why. You’re driving me crazy. I haven’t had a decent light’s sleep since you moved in. I don’t know what it is with you. I’ve seen hundreds of attractive women—not one of them ever caused me a sleepless night.”

“We make too much noise? The kids are disturbing you? You’re the one who encourages them to visit you every afternoon after work.”

“Coyness doesn’t suit you. You know what I mean.”

She was afraid she did. He was dispensing with trivialities, insisting that she do the same. An airy sensation in her stomach made her sit up straight. “On the off chance that I do know what you’re talking about, what do you suggest?”

He shrugged, shifting uncomfortably. “Nothing. You gonna drink that coffee?”

She passed it to him. “Nothing?”

“Some relationships are all chemical—”

“I told you I don’t feel—”

“I have a hunch you do.” The coffee was lukewarm. He drank it down in a couple of swallows.

She stared at his hands holding the cup, masculine hands with blunt, trimmed nails. She had an urge to trace the prominent veins running the length of his arm. Despite her denials it was too easy to imagine herself folded into his arms, those hands moving over her body, caressing her breasts, her thighs, the parts of her that made her wholly woman. Her throat tightened so that when she spoke the words were barely audible.