Morning Glory (29 page)

Diametric opposites, they found in each other the perfect conversational complement, and by the time they reached town their mutual respect was cemented.

The library was closed that afternoon in memory of Levander Sprague, who’d worked there nearly a third of his life. It was a cloudy day, but inside the building was warm and bright. Entering, Will looked at the place through new eyes—gleaming wood, towering windows and flawless order. How incredible that he could work in such a place.

Miss Beasley walked him through, explained his duties, showed him the janitor’s supplies, the furnace, asked that he arrive each day five minutes before closing so she could give him any special instructions, then extended a key.

“For me?” He stared as if it were her great-grandfather’s gold watch.

“You’ll be locking up when you leave each night.”

The key. My God, she was willing to trust him with the key. In all his life he’d had no place. Now he had a house
and
a library he could walk into anytime he chose.

Staring at the cool metal in his palm, he told her quietly, “Miss Beasley, this library is public property. Some folks around here might object to your giving the key to an excon.”

She puffed out her chest until her bosom jutted, and locked her wrists beneath it. “Just let them try, Mr. Parker. I’d welcome the war.” She reached down and closed his fingers over the key. “And I’d win it.”

Without a doubt, she was right. In his palm the brass warmed while a smile lifted one corner of his lips and spread to the other. Some poor damn fool could have had her behind him all his life and had passed up the opportunity, he thought. This town had to be filled with some mighty stupid men.

She left him, then, went home to spend the remainder of her rare day off. He walked through the silent rooms in wonder, realizing there’d be no supervisor, foreman or guard; he could do things his way, at his own pace. He liked the silence, the smell, the spaciousness and purpose of the place. It seemed to represent a facet of life he’d missed. Stationary people came here, secure ones. From now on he’d be one of them—leaving his comfortable home and coming here to work each day, picking up a paycheck each week, knowing he’d do the same next week and the next and the next. Brimming with feelings he could find no other way to express, he pressed both hands flat on one of the study tables—solid, functional, necessary, as he’d be now. Good wood, good hard oak in a table built to last. He’d last, too, at this job because he’d found in Miss Beasley a person who judged a man for what he was, not what he had been. He stood at one of the enormous fanlight windows and looked out on the street below.
Levander Sprague, wherever you are, thank you.

The janitor’s room smelled of lemon oil and sweeping compound. Will loved it and the idea that it was his own domain. Gathering supplies, he went eagerly into the public area and upended chairs and swept the hardwood floors with an oiled rag-tail mop. He dusted the windowsills, the furniture, the top of Miss Beasley’s neat desk, emptied the wastebasket, burned the papers in the incinerator and felt as if he’d just been elected governor.

At six-thirty, he headed home.

Home.

The word had never held such promise. She was waiting there, the woman who’d called him dear. The one whose cheek he’d kissed. The one whose bed he shared. At the thought of returning to her, visions filled his head—of walking into her arms, feeling her hands close over his shoulders, burying his face in her neck. Of being held as if he mattered.

He felt different now that he had a job. Bolder, worthier. Perhaps tonight he’d kiss her and to hell with the consequences.

The kitchen was empty when he arrived, but his supper waited in a pie tin on the reservoir lid. The birthday cake sat in the middle of the cleared table. From the boys’ room came a spill of light and the murmur of voices. He carried his plate and fork to the doorway and found Elly sitting beneath the covers in Donald Wade’s bed, an arm around each of the boys.

“... took a scamper ‘round that hen house a-yowlin’ at that fox fit to kill, and when he—” She glanced up. “Oh... Will.... hi.” Her face registered pleasure. “I was tellin’ the boys a bedtime story.”

“Don’t stop.”

Their eyes held for several electric beats while her color heightened and she tucked a stray hair behind one ear. Finally, she continued her tale. He lounged against the doorframe, eating his leftover hash and black-eyed peas, listening and chuckling while she entertained the boys with a sprightly story peopled with furry critters. When the tale ended she gave each of her sons a kiss, then edged off the bed and held out her hands for Thomas.

Will pushed off the doorway. “You shouldn’t be lifting him. Here, hold this.” He handed her his plate and swung Thomas up, transferring him to the crib. There followed the ritual goodnight kisses, then they left the boys’ door ajar and ambled toward the kitchen.

“So, how was it at the library?”

“Do you know what she did?” he asked, amazed.

“What?”

“She gave me the key. Feature that. Me with a key to anything.”

Eleanor was touched, not only by his astonishment, but by Miss Beasley’s trust in him. He rinsed his dish and described his duties while she settled into a rocker and pressed one of the Madeira doilies into an embroidery hoop. He dragged a kitchen chair near, sipped a cup of coffee and watched her fingers create colored flowers where only blue ink had been. They talked quietly, calm on the surface but with an underlying tension simmering as the clock inched closer to bedtime.

When it arrived, Will arched and stretched while Eleanor tucked her handiwork away. They made their trips outside, battened down the house for the night and retired to their room to undress, back to back, as had become their habit. When he had stripped to his underwear, Will turned to glance over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of her naked back and the side of one breast as she threw a white nightgown over her head.

Dear.
The memory of the simple word gripped him with all its attendant possibilities. Had she meant it? Was he really dear to someone for the first time in his life?

He sat on the edge of the bed and wound the alarm clock, waiting for the feel of her weight dipping the mattress before he settled back and lowered the lantern wick.

They lay memorizing the ceiling while memories of the day returned—a birthday gift, an endearment, a handclasp, a parting kiss—none very remarkable on the surface. The remarkable was happening within.

They lay flat, quivering inside, disciplining themselves into motionlessness. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed his bare chest, the looming elbows, the hands folded behind his head. From the corner of his eye he saw her pregnant girth and her high-buttoned nightie with the quilts covering her to the ribs. Beneath her hands she felt her own heartbeat driving up through the quilt. On the back of his skull he felt the accelerated rhythm of his pulse.

The minutes dragged on. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Both worried.

One kiss—is that so hard?

Just a kiss—please.

But what if she pushes you away?

What is there for him in a woman so pregnant she can scarcely waddle?

What woman wants a man with so many tramps under his bridge?

What man wants to roll up against someone else’s baby?

But most of them were paid, Elly, all of them meaningless.

Yes, it’s Glendon’s baby, but he never made me feel like this.

I’m unworthy.

I’m undesirable.

I’m unlovable.

I’m lonely.

Turn to her, he thought.

Turn to him, she thought.

The lantern wick sputtered. The flame twisted, distorting the impression of the chimney rim on the ceiling. The mattress seemed to tremble with their uncertainties. And when it seemed the very air would sizzle with heat lightning, they spoke simultaneously.

“Will?”

“Elly?”

Their heads turned and their eyes met.

“What?”

A pause. Then, “I... I forgot what I was going to say.”

Ten seconds of beating silence before she said softly, “Me too.”

They stared at each other, feeling as if they were choking, each afraid... each desperate...

Then all of his past, all of her shortcomings, billowed up in a conflagration and exploded as might some distant star.

Her lips parted in unconscious invitation. His shoulder came off the bed and he rolled toward her, slowly enough to give her time to skitter if she would.

Instead her lips shaped his name. “Will...” But it escaped without a sound as he bent above her and touched her mouth with his own.

No passionate kiss, this, but a touch fraught with insecurities.
Tentative. Uncertain. A mingling of breath more than of skin. A thousand questions encapsulated in the tremulous brushing of two timid mouths while their hearts thundered, their souls sought.

He lifted... looked... into eyes the color of acceptance, deep-sea green in the shadow of his head. She, too, studied his eyes at close range... brown, vulnerable eyes which he’d hidden so often beneath the brim of a battered hat. She saw the doubts that had accompanied him to this brink and marveled that someone so good, so inwardly and outwardly beautiful, should have harbored them when she was the one... she. Plain and pregnant Elly See, the brunt of laughter and pointed fingers. But in his eyes she saw no laughter, only a deep mystification to match her own.

He kissed her again... lightly... lightly... the brush of a jaconet wing upon a petal while her fingertips brushed his chest.

And at long, long last the loneliness of Will Parker’s life stopped hurting. He thought her name over and over—Elly... Elly—a benediction, as the kiss deepened, firmer, fuller, but still with a certain reserve—two people schooled to reject the possibility of miracles now forced to change their beliefs.

His hand closed over her arm and hers flattened on the silken hairs of his chest, but he remained a space apart as he urged her lips open with his own, bringing the first touch of tongues—warm, wet and still atremble. Hearts that had hammered with uncertainty did so now in exultation. They searched for and found a more intimate fit, enhanced by the sway and nod of heads that built the kiss into something more than either had expected. Sweet sweet commingling, bringing more than the rush of blood and the thrust of hearts, bringing too, the assurance that Will and Eleanor were to one another beings of great moment.

He hovered above her, bearing his weight on both elbows, afraid of hurting her. But she bade him come. Nearer... heavier... to the spot where her heart lifted toward his. And he rested upon her breasts, gingerly at first, until her acquiescence seemed unmistakable.

For long wondrous minutes they sated themselves with
what both had known too little of before Will broke away, looked down into her face to find the same expression of wonder he himself was feeling. They stared—renewed—then wrapped each other tight and rocked because kissing hardly seemed an adequate expression of all they felt.

In time he hauled them safely to their sides, pressing his face to her throat, folding himself like a jackknife around her protruding stomach.

“Elly... Elly... I was so scared.”

“So was I.”

“I thought you’d turn me away.”

“But that’s what I thought you’d do.”

He pulled back to see her face. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m not very pretty. And I’m pregnant and awkward.”

He cradled her cheek tenderly. “No... no. You’re a beautiful person. I saw that the first morning I was here.”

She held the back of his hand and hid her eyes in its palm. These things were easier to admit behind closed eyes. “And I’m not very bright, and maybe I’m crazy. You knew all that.”

He made her lift her chin and look at him. “But I killed a woman. And I’ve been in prison and in whorehouses. You knew that.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Most people never forget.”

“I thought because it was Glendon’s baby inside me you wouldn’t want to touch me.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Her heart seemed too small to contain such joy. “Oh, Will.”

He asked, “Could I touch it once? Your stomach? I never touched a woman who was pregnant.”

She felt warm and shy but nodded.

His hands molded the sides of her stomach as if it were a bouquet of crushable flowers. “It’s hard... you’re hard. I thought it’d be soft. Oh God, Elly, you feel so good.”

“So do you.” She touched his hair, thick and springy and
smelling of his unmistakable individual scent. “I’ve missed this.”

He closed his eyes and gave her license. If he lived to be a thousand he’d never get enough of the feeling of her hands in his hair.

In time he let his eyes drift open and they lay for minutes, gazing, taking their fill. She of his incredible eyes and jumbled hair. He of her softly swollen lips and green, green eyes. He found himself unreasonably jealous of her early years with Glendon Dinsmore. “Do you still think of him?”

“I haven’t for weeks.”

“I thought you still loved him.”

She drew courage and repeated his words. “What does that have to do with anything? Do you think I’ll love this baby any less, just because two others came before it?”

He braced up on an elbow, stared at her and swallowed. He felt as if a great fist had closed around his chest. When he spoke the words sounded pinched. “Elly, nobody ever—” Abashed, he couldn’t go on.

“Nobody ever loved you, before?” She tenderly cupped his cheek. “Well, I do.”

His eyes slid closed and he turned his mouth hard into her palm, clasping it to his face. “Nobody. Ever,” he reiterated. “Not in my whole life. No mother, no woman, no man.”

“Well, your life ain’t even half over yet, Will Parker. The second half’s gonna be much better’n the first, I promise.”

“Oh, Elly...” Above all the things he’d missed, this had left the greatest void. Just once in his life he wanted to hear it, the way he’d dreamed of hearing it during five long years in a cell, and all the lonely years he had drifted, and all through childhood while he watched other children—the lucky ones—pass the orphanage and gawk from the security of their parents’ carriages and cars. “Could you say it once,” he entreated, “like they say people do?”