Here With Me (31 page)

She’d been a cakewalk up to this point.
“What’s it going to be, George?” she prodded. “Are you a watcher or
a doer?”

He covered the distance between the door and
the bed fast enough but once he was there, he took his time. He
stood over her and looked down. He started with her face, then
almost inch by inch, his gaze traveled her naked body.

And it dawned on her that the balance of
power had shifted. She forced herself to lie still, her hands at
her side.

It was the most intimate thing she’d ever
experienced. It was the middle of the day, the room was bursting
with sunshine, and she was watching the man she loved devour her
with his eyes.

Her breasts felt tight and moisture gathered
between her legs. Her skin felt super-sensitive, like she could
feel every thread in the sheet that she lay on.

He was so quiet that she wasn’t sure he was
even breathing. Finally, he licked his dry lips. “You are the most
beautiful woman.”

She realized that he’d always made her feel
beautiful, that his eyes had always told her how much he desired
her.

“But I am afraid,” he added.

His honesty touched her heart and she knew if
she hadn’t loved him before, that would have done it. She reached
for his hand. His skin was warm and the light dusting of hair
tickled her palm. She laced her fingers with his. “I know. But you
don’t need to be. I won’t break.”

“I don’t want to hurt you or your child.”

“We’ll take it slow,” she promised and pulled
him to the bed.

***

When George woke up, the afternoon sun was
well over to the west. He looked at the clock on the bedside table
and saw that it was just after five.

He’d spent the afternoon making love to
Melody. She’d lied to him. They hadn’t taken it slow. It might have
started that way, as they’d learned each other’s bodies, as they’d
discovered the little touches that delighted the other, but in the
end, he’d lain on his back and she’d settled her warmth on him and
he’d been a lost man.

The second time had been much the same and
then finally, the third time, she’d let him watch. Until, of
course, he’d been compelled to take over at the end.

He couldn’t remember being happier. She’d
been generous and giving and even now, as she lay sleeping in his
arms, her back pressed up to his front, he felt himself
stiffen.

Would there ever be a time when he didn’t
want her desperately? But he knew she was tired, knew that her body
had to be craving rest.

He slipped his arm from underneath her and
rolled to the side of the bed. Then he walked toward the bath,
picking up the clothes he’d tossed earlier.

“What time is it?” she asked.

He turned around. Her eyes were open but she
hadn’t moved. “It’s after five,” he said. “I’m going to get cleaned
up and go downstairs.” Earlier Arturo had had no news for him but
the man had intended to spend the afternoon in town. George had
wanted to go, too, but Arturo had explained that he would be at
places that would welcome him but would only consider George an
outsider. People would scatter, leads would vanish.

“I don’t think I’m going to make dinner,” she
said. “Will you make my excuses to Grandmother?” She stretched and
the sheet fell below her breasts.

They were lovely and he couldn’t help
staring.

She shook her head. “Don’t get used to these.
They’re almost a size bigger than normal.”

He couldn’t resist teasing her. “So after you
have your child, it will be like making love to a different
woman?”

She reached over, grabbed his pillow off the
bed, and threw it at him. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to get out of
this bed,” she said.

He was lucky. Damn lucky. He’d turned his
back on love but she’d managed to find a way into his heart. “I’ll
tell your grandmother that you’re still sleeping,” he said.

She smiled. “Why don’t you tell her the
truth? That you spent the afternoon ravishing my body?” She sat up
suddenly, causing the sheet to fall below her very sexy stomach.
“No, wait,” she said. “Save that for Tilly. But wait until I’m
there to see her reaction.”

She was something. “I’ve said it before but
it’s never been more true: You’ve no shame.”

She winked at him. “You weren’t complaining
earlier.”

“I’m not stupid, Melody.”

She looked very satisfied and she lay back in
the bed. But then her expression changed and she looked serious.
She turned toward him and propped her body up on one elbow. “I
suppose it’s a little late to ask but there’s nothing I need to
know about you, right? I mean, I told you about Alexander and how
he sort of just forgot to tell me about his wife and two children.
I can’t make that mistake again.”

This was his chance. He could tell her
everything. About Sarah and the footprints. That he’d been born in
1854.

She should avoid sudden shocks or other
stressful situations.

It was as if the doctor was in the room,
standing at his shoulder. How could he tell her the truth? Her
life. Her child’s life. They both hung in the balance.

He looked her in the eye. “You know
everything about me that’s important to know,” he said.

Her pretty violet eyes cleared. She settled
back on the pillow. He walked into the bath and had almost closed
the door when he heard her say, “I know one thing you never
mentioned. You’ve got a very nice ass.”

***

Arturo’s news was unsettling. There was talk
of a man, recently arrived from Mexico who had been bragging in one
of the saloons that he was soon going to be rich. That he’d met a
gringo who needed some business taken care of. They told Arturo
that they’d seen this man driving a light blue truck with a darker
blue side panel.

Nobody claimed to have seen the truck or the
man for several days. Arturo had left word that they should call
him if the man showed again.

It was nothing more than what the police
already knew, so George did not feel compelled to tell them. Plus,
he knew that if the authorities started snooping around at the
saloon, Arturo’s sources would dry up faster than a creek in July.
Arturo had trusted him once. Now he needed to trust that Arturo
knew what he was doing.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Bernard was absent
again and Louis and Tilly hardly said a word to anyone. Both of
them drank several glass of wine, and he noticed that Tilly
especially looked very tired. Pearl accepted without question the
news that Melody was sleeping and made pleasant conversation with
him throughout the meal.

If possible, Genevieve was even odder than
usual. Several times he looked up from his steak to find her
staring at him. When dinner was over, she practically ran from the
table, the dogs on her heels.

He excused himself equally fast and caught
her on the stairs to her room.

“May I have a word with you?” he asked,
edging in front of her. Both dogs growled at him.

“I’m tired,” she said and tried to step
around him.

“I’ll be quick,” he said, blocking her way.
Dionysos bared his teeth and gathered his muscles, like he was
ready to spring.

She made the familiar hand motion. “That’s
enough,” she said. Both immediately stopped growling but George
swore they were still glaring at him.

He was grateful for her intercession. Melody
had been appreciative of certain parts and he’d have been sorely
pressed to have to tell her that they’d been bitten off.

“Follow me,” Genevieve said. They walked past
her bedroom and she motioned for the dogs to lie down. Then she led
him to a small room that was next to her bedroom. There were three
chairs in the room but nothing else. She sat and he followed her
lead. The room was hot and even though there was a window open, the
air seemed heavy.

“I hear there’s supposed to be a hell of
storm tomorrow night,” she said.

He wasn’t here to talk about the weather. “I
want to know how you knew about the accident,” he said.

She shrugged. “Melody called and left a
message on the machine. I’d let you listen to it but I think I
deleted it.”

“I know she left that message long after you
and I were already on the road to Napa.”

She didn’t even look rattled. “That’s
impossible.”

“Bullshit,” he said.

She had the nerve to look amused. He stood up
and undid the button on his shirt pocket. He pulled out the bright
green feather with the orange ring around the bottom. He handed it
to her. She didn’t look amused any longer. “Where did you get
that?”

“Off your dresser. Look, you and I both know
you weren’t in your room the night of the party. I want to know
where the hell you were.”

She shrugged. “Traveling.”

“Where?”

“Wherever I like,” she said smugly. “I’ve had
a certain fondness for eighteenth-century Paris lately. Last year
it was fifteenth-century Scotland. I can be fickle like that.”

It felt like all the air in the room had been
sucked up. His vision started to grow gray at the edges. “You know
where I came from, don’t you?” he managed to ask.

She smiled. “Where and when.”

“You brought me here?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no. That’s not
true.”

He didn’t think she was lying. She’d said it
with conviction. But how could that be?

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Damn. He had no more answers than he did
before. Suddenly, it dawned on him that he hadn’t asked the most
important question. “Could you take me back?”

“No.” She got up and opened the door. “I’m
tired, George.”

“I want to know how you knew about the
accident.”

She considered him. “Dionysos and Hermes told
me.”

It should have shocked him but it didn’t.
Maybe he was way past ever being shocked again. “Stay away from
Melody,” he said.

She poked him in the chest with a long, bony
finger. “Don’t be an idiot, George. I love my niece. You can’t
actually think I’d ever do anything to hurt her.”

He knew better. Had known even when he made
the crazy demand. But he was getting tired of things happening that
he couldn’t explain or connect. “I don’t know what kind of game
you’re playing.”

He was out the door and halfway down the hall
before she spoke again. “It’s not a game, George. It never
was.”

He turned. Just what the hell did she mean by
that?

But she’d already gone into her room and
closed the door behind her.

***

George was not expecting to look up and see
Pearl Song making her way down the narrow, long row that separated
the grapevines. It scared him at first, thinking that there must be
something wrong with Melody but then he realized that she didn’t
walk with the purpose of a woman needing help, but rather she
wandered with the abandon of a woman enjoying a morning stroll.

Although the sky was overcast with
threatening black clouds in the distance, she wore a big hat. Her
loose trousers and shirt looked as if they’d seen their share of
wash days. “Morning, Pearl,” he said

“Good morning, George. It’s warmer than I
expected.”

It was damn hot. And the air was so heavy it
was hard to breathe. The wind had changed directions four or five
times since early morning when he’d arrived in the vineyard.
Genevieve had predicted a hell of storm and it looked like she was
going to be right.

He and Arturo had begun their day by checking
the pump to make sure it was still working and then had started
irrigation in the far-western patch of grapes.

Then they’d gotten in Arturo’s truck and
driven around to check the progress of the workers. There were
three teams of four men each working in different areas of Pearl
Song’s two-hundred-acre vineyard. While they were driving, he’d
insisted that Arturo again go over what each person at the saloon
had told him. At the end of their drive, George hadn’t known
anything more than he’d known to start with.

What he did know was that he was going to
figure out who’d tried to harm Melody. For the last hour, he’d been
walking up and down the rows, his sickle swinging side to side as
he mowed down the mustard plants that grew between the rows. With
each swing, he’d vowed that he was going to make sure that whoever
had tried, never had another chance.

Pearl reached out a hand and touched his arm,
which was slick with sweat. “Be careful in heat like this, George.
I’ve had it sneak up on me.” She looked rather longingly at the
grapevines which crawled up the hillsides. “There was a time when I
would spend all day out here, doing exactly what you’re doing now.
I loved it. It was the best kind of tired in the world, the kind
where your muscles ache but your mind is clear and worry-free.”

He obviously needed to work harder. Most of
the morning his mind was cluttered up with images of Melody’s naked
body and the two times they’d lain together last night after he’d
left Genevieve’s room. He hadn’t been with a woman for six months
and yesterday, he’d spilled his seed five times. No wonder he was
tired and he had an ache or two. But he didn’t think it would be
all that helpful to explain it to Melody’s grandmother.

She tilted her hat back on her head and
looked up at him. “But now I think I’m a bit like a child whose
eyes are bigger than her stomach and she’s taken a piece of cake
she can never manage. Will you walk me back, George? We’re starting
blending trials today and Bernard will be fluttering around like a
mad bird if I delay the process.”

He took off his leather gloves, stuffed them
in his pocket, and leaned the sickle up against the wire that ran
between the vines. He put his arm out and she looped her arm
through his. They started to make their way down the row. “What’s a
blending trial?” he asked.