Love in a Small Town (31 page)

“We should make a shrine out of this place,” he said as he zipped up his jeans.

He spoke low and huskily, and she looked over to see him cast her a shy smile. She smiled back at him.

And then she went to him, pressed herself tight against his chest. “Thank you, Tommy Lee.”

His arms tightened around her. “Thank you, darlin’.”

He hadn’t called her darlin’ in so long. He held her and kissed the top of her head.

Molly wished they could hold on to each other forever and was annoyed when Tommy Lee pulled away. How long could a couple hold each other? How much heat could they endure? How long before their legs gave out and mosquitoes ate them up? Molly didn’t care at all for reality, which seemed to be crashing down on her.

While Tommy Lee put on his shirt, she tugged on her jeans and slipped into her shoes. She left him searching for his boots from where he’d thrown them and went out the barn gate, hurrying. She picked up her rose bush at the fence and walked quickly across the shadowy ground beneath the elms and in the back door of the dark cottage, where music still played softly.

Tommy Lee wondered at Molly’s abrupt departure, as he stomped his left foot into his boot. He couldn’t think of what he had done to anger her . . . but maybe she wasn’t angry. Maybe she was simply being practical and getting away from the heat and mosquitoes.

He straightened, looked down at the strewn hay and then up at the orange horizon. He tried to imprint the past moments into his memory, having a feeling that he would need the memory, not wanting it to get away, as had the one so long ago.

It had been somewhat barbaric, he thought, a little awed at the passion that had taken hold of him. He thought that it was a good thing such passion didn’t take hold of a man every day, because like as not, he’d be dead quite quickly. Sweet death, he supposed, as he walked slowly toward the cottage.

He searched the window screens, black squares in the cottage walls now, but he didn’t see any old women’s faces. A soft light fell out the back door, and faint music came with it. He stood there a moment, gathering himself to go inside, thinking of how Molly had raced away from the barn.

Inside he found her watering the little rose bush. His gaze slipped down the neckline of her shirt, where it hung loose and he could see her pale flesh. He remembered how her skin had looked in the glow of the setting sun. How it had felt beneath his hand . . . beneath his body.

Then he glanced back into the living room and wondered where Sam’s roses were, if they weren’t anywhere in the cottage. He wasn’t going to ask. She offered him some ice tea, and he said that would be nice. It seemed strange to be talking about ice tea with her scent and sweat still clinging to him.

When her gaze met his, he knew she was remembering how they had been only a few minutes earlier.

“Let’s take it out on the front porch,” he suggested, experiencing again that peculiar sensation that something was about to fly off the cottage wall and hit him.

He had assumed that, after what had just happened between them, Molly would quickly pack herself up and come home, but he began to fear that he had been jumping to conclusions. She didn’t seem as if she was going to pack.

Instead, the two of them sat on the small wicker settee—so old and fine that Tommy Lee was careful when he sat and didn’t move much either—on the screened porch of the cottage where Molly now resided, having cold glasses of sweet tea and watching the sky shift from red to coral to purple and saying stupid things like: “The sky is beautiful . . . mosquitoes are thick this year . . . cicadas are loud," while the heat of passion was still whispering around them.

Tommy Lee decided he was absolutely not going to ask Molly to come home. He sure hoped she said something. He laid his arm along the back of the settee and made circles on her shoulder with his thumb, while he thought up a dozen ideas of what to say but couldn’t get any of it to his tongue.

After what seemed an eternity, she said softly, “Maybe we can love each other but not live together.”

“I thought we were doin’ okay a few minutes ago,” he said. “In fact, I thought we were livin’ together mighty well.”

“We were”—and she smiled a smile she tried to hold back—"but that isn’t everything, Tommy Lee.”

“It’s a hell of a lot.” He felt her blush, felt the heat in her eyes. He knew she was thinking about it and still feeling him inside her and thinking about doing it again, just as he was. He kept circling his thumb on her shoulder, needing to keep touching her.

She said, “You thought that we had sex, so everything was going to be okay.”

“It seems logical, Molly.” He started to get mad, mad enough to say, “Especially the kind of sex we just had. God, Molly, I know you felt what I did.” He drew his arm from around her then and leaned forward.

“I did,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

They sat there, each falling into taut silence. He was glad she had admitted it. He’d begun to worry that maybe he’d been mistaken. He felt more confused than ever, however, and he thought hard, trying to figure out what he was leaving undone. “Molly, what do you want me to do?”

She didn’t know what to tell him. She had begged him often in the past year to spend more time with her. She had tried to explain that she needed him. Each time he would get angry at her, then would end up promising to give her more of his time, and she knew he tried, he really did, but it was his having to try that hurt most of all. She didn’t want him to have to
try
to be attentive. And somehow whatever he gave her wasn’t enough. How could she say that to him?

“I don’t think there is anything you can do,” she said. “It’s me, Tommy Lee.”

After a long minute he said, “You’ve been like this since Colter went off to college.”

“It was before . . . only I just never had time to think of it. The kids kept me busy.” Then she added, “They filled the hole.”

She sat very still, waiting for him to leave, because she knew he was going to.

Tommy Lee got up and went to the screen door. When it simply fell off in his hand, he was momentarily startled away from his anger.

“We haven’t gotten it fixed,” Molly said. “Rennie and I just propped it up there. It still more or less keeps out flies and mosquitoes."

Tommy Lee shifted the door aside, tossed the melted ice from his glass outside, and set the glass on the plant stand. He didn’t know what to do then. He had intended to just leave, but the broken screen door had somehow distracted him from a grand exit.

Finally he said, “It’s been fun,” and left, striding out and around to his Corvette.

Molly watched his back disappear into the darkness. Then she put her head down on her arms. She felt as if all life were leaving her. She thought of running after him, but that just didn’t seem right. She had to let him go. She could not try to change him for her needs. That wasn’t fair, and it would never work anyway. Good Lord, they were entering middle age. Neither of them could change.

A limb snapped, and she jerked upward. Tommy Lee came striding back into the faint light.

He gazed down at her, and then his hand came up and he pointed a finger at her.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll just do it your way. You know where I am, when you’re ready to come home. I’ll
wait.”

The next instant he crouched in front of her, grabbed her head, and kissed her soundly, taking her breath and her senses.

“You know where to find more of that any time you want it.” Then he stalked off again.

Molly started crying. Jumping to her feet, she pushed out the doorway and called after him, “You know where to find it, too!”

Chapter 21

Life’s A Dance

The next morning Tommy Lee called Molly and woke her before the sun was fully up. She had to roll out of bed, sending Ace flying with a loud meow, and find the telephone.

“You awake?” Tommy Lee said, laughter in his voice.

“I am now.” But maybe she wasn’t, she thought as she wandered with the phone. Maybe she was dreaming. Was that really Tommy Lee?

“Well, I’m awake. I’m havin’ breakfast . . . sausage and eggs and biscuits. And I’m naked, darlin’. . . and willin’.”

His voice held all the memories from the previous evening, and they came through the telephone line and down Molly’s spine, making her begin to throb.

“Where would you get biscuits?” She lowered herself to the sofa edge, her legs feeling weak. Her legs suddenly feeling Tommy Lee’s hands upon them.

“It is amazin’ what they can do with frozen food. Heat ‘em up, put butter on ‘em . . . umm, good.”

“You are actually heatin’ yourself biscuits?”

“A man can do a lot of things, with the correct motivation. I think yesterday was a prime example of that.”

Molly didn’t know what to say. This was Tommy Lee, talking to her like this?

“Well, I just called to wish you good mornin’,” he said. “And to let you know what you are missin’. You have a good day.”

“You, too, Tommy Lee,” she said at first faintly, ending ardently.

Molly slowly replaced the receiver. Her heart beat rapidly. She went into the kitchen, got a glass of water, and dribbled it onto the tiny rose bush. With the tip of one finger, she touched the edge of a blossom and gazed at it.

He had called her.
Her heart swelled and she felt a tremendous smile all over.
Oh, my, he had called her.

She had to wonder why he had never done this when she had been home . . . never gotten her breakfast or suggested sex first thing in the morning. She had. She had worn a sexy nightgown and asked him to have breakfast with her, and he was always too busy.

Mama used to say that it was up to a woman to make a man chase her. Molly never had understood that, never had cared for the attitude. Why would people need to play games? Also, she had been with Tommy Lee since way before the age of chasing; he never had had to go looking for her. She had always been hanging on to him.

She thought all this as she set the rose bush into the morning sunlight on the back step. She stood there, looking out over the trees and pasture.

Was she making Tommy Lee chase her now? she wondered. Was that all this was? She didn’t like the idea. Well, maybe she did, a little bit. It made her feel vibrant, powerful. So much a woman.

She didn’t have much faith in it, though. What would happen once the chasing stopped? That was the trouble with playing games. It was much better all around to be open and know exactly where one stood. But this was fun. And maybe it was good for Tommy Lee, too. Was that what Mama had meant?

* * * *

Mama knew! She had not even been home when Tommy Lee had come the evening before, but she knew that Molly had had sex with him.

“It shows,” Mama said airily. “After a woman has had a wondrous affair, the emotion makes her glow. For you to glow like that, it had to be Tommy Lee, because he is the man you want so badly.” Her eyes twinkled, and she added, “Besides, I came home from Wichita Falls and saw Tommy Lee’s Corvette here. I left, so I wouldn’t inhibit you two. Still, it shows on you, always does after a woman has been . . ."

Molly jolted up straight. “Mama, I really don’t want to talk basic with you.”

Mama shrugged. “I know all about it, Molly. You won’t shock me.”

Molly knew virtually nothing would shock her mother; her mother had long ago perfected not being shocked.

They were having breakfast in Mama’s kitchen. Molly had brought over her brewed coffee, and together they made toast, neither feeling like running up to Hardee’s. The days were growing so warm that even the mornings dawned sticky and lazy.

“I could go home now,” Molly said. “Tommy Lee would like me to.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow and waited.

“He’s payin’ me attention now, but after I was home a few days, everything would fall back into the same pattern. I don’t want that. I want to get an understanding.”

“It’s been my experience that the ground for understanding between men and women is poor,” Mama said dryly. “The best way for us to go is accepting. Then one doesn’t wear oneself out tryin’ to understand. One has more energy left over for accommodating accepted facts.”

Molly thought about that. “I don’t know if I can accommodate. I have tried, and I really want to. It just doesn’t seem like either Tommy Lee or I can, and in tryin’ we seem to be makin’ both of our lives miserable. Maybe it’s best that Tommy Lee and I live apart.”

In truth, Molly had been giving the idea more and more serious thought. She rather liked not having to pick up after anyone but herself, and not even that if she didn’t want to, and doing what she liked when she liked.

Mama shook her head. “Not you two.”

“Mama, all my life I’ve looked to Tommy Lee to make me happy. And I’ve spent most of my life thinkin’ that if Tommy Lee leaves me, I’ll
die.
That’s a burden for any man . . . and it isn’t how I want to live the remainder of my life.”

She looked at her mother, trying to understand her own confusion. It was like opening a cabinet door and searching inside on dim, crowded shelves.

“Mama, I have spent all my life twisting myself around, trying to be what I thought Tommy Lee
wanted
me to be. He has never asked me to do that—I have just done it automatically, for whatever reason. Well, I can’t do that any longer, and I can’t go on thinkin’ he’s all that will make me happy, either. I have to find what I need inside myself. Tommy Lee can’t give it to me. And for some reason I can’t find it when I’m livin’ with him, because I keep expectin’ him to provide it, and he keeps tryin', because he thinks he should provide everything for me.” Then she added, “And when I’m alone, I’m sort of content. I’m not expecting things from him and continually bein’ disappointed.”

Mama sighed, a deep, sad sigh. “Molly, I did this very thing with Stirling.”

She shut her mouth tight and looked past Molly’s shoulder, and Molly was startled to see regret in her mother’s face. She wasn’t certain she had ever seen regret in her mother’s face. At least not so profoundly.