Pamela Morsi (21 page)

Kate Holiday’s sign was a good deal more dramatic and had the reverend coughing down a naughty chuckle. It read:
KISS A GIRL, SET OFF SOME FIREWORKS
.

The ladies were roundly praised for their efforts, and accepted the accolades with good humor and exaggerated humility. It was all much fun. Not the least of which was the little private picnic.

“I can’t tell you how long it’s been since we’ve done something like this,” Madge observed as she handed her husband another chicken leg.

“We go for a lot of picnics,” Constance said. “But we have children underfoot all the time. It’s just not the same.”

“It’s sure not,” Pete Davies agreed. “Once a woman has children, she just has no need for a husband, except to bring home the paycheck.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Madge Simpson replied. “Children take a lot of time and energy. It may look like a wife doesn’t need her husband, but I think she may need him more than ever.”

“But children do change things,” Wade Pearsall pointed out.

“Oh, but they’ll be grown and gone before you know it,” Reverend Holiday told them all, waving away both complaints and concerns. “And once they are out on their own, you miss them.”

“Of course,” Constance agreed.

“And you’ll hope that you and your husband can still remember why it was that you wanted to spend your life together,” Kate Holiday added.

The pastor looked over at his wife, apparently a little
surprised at her words, but he made no comment.

Rome had nothing to say either. He’d made a point of seating Miss Gussie directly opposite Amos Dewey. Then he sat down next to her, closer than propriety would normally allow. He was pretty sure that no one could fail to notice. Dewey was certainly looking daggers at them.

With his fingers, Rome plucked out a nice tender piece of white meat. He held it up to show Miss Gussie. She looked at him, puzzled. He held her gaze, willing her to trust him. He brought the piece of chicken to her mouth, never breaking eye contact. As he neared her lips, she opened them for him, showing a pretty pink tongue and white, even teeth. She took the offered tidbit with her teeth and he watched her as she chewed it.

“Good?” he asked her.

“Very good,” she replied.

Rome glanced over at the group and noted that several people were actually watching. Amos Dewey, with his back now to them, was deliberately not.

“Who fried this chicken?” Rome asked. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s my chicken,” Constance answered. “I’m glad you like it. Perry still says it’s not as good as his mother’s.”

“Your mother makes better chicken than this?” Rome asked him. “Isn’t she a widow woman now? Maybe I should go sit a Sunday or two on her front porch.”

The idea of young Rome courting the ancient and disagreeable Mrs. Wilhelm brought delighted chuckles all around. Except for Amos Dewey, who turned back around to make a joke that had no hint of humor in its tone.

“Seems to me the right widow woman might suit you perfectly,” he said.

“Maybe so,” Rome told him, grinning amiably.

“So, Rome,” Pete Davies asked, “when are you going to let us all in on this big surprise that’s coming tomorrow?”

Rome studied the group. A couple of the women looked guilty and sheepish, but not so much that their mates would take notice.

“The surprise tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it … tomorrow.”

Everybody laughed.

“Joe and I think we’ve figured it out already,” Perry said. “We think he’s invited the girls down at Nellie’s to participate.”

That statement brought guffaws of laughter from the men and little titters of embarrassed giggles from the ladies.

“More likely,” Wade Pearsall put in, “he’s asked the grieving Widow Richardson to participate.”

The gathering found that remark equally humorous. Rome did not. He glanced toward Amos Dewey. His jaw was set grimly.

Rome took another swig of lemonade and sidled up a little closer to Miss Gussie. If the idea that he was seeing Mrs. Richardson and courting Miss Gussie didn’t sit well with Amos, then so much the better. The more he was disturbed, the sooner he’d be brought to the point. Besides, it was nice to be next to Miss Gussie. She was warm and cheerful and smelled really nice. And she made him feel at ease. Rome hadn’t realized until he was talking with Pansy how much had actually changed between them. A few short weeks ago she was his employer. Liked and respected, certainly, but he had not thought her capable of finer, gentler
feelings. He did now. He understood how lonesome and filled with longing she must have been.

He felt some of that too. Someday he wanted to be settled down like the couples around him; he wanted to be making a life with someone, dreaming of the future ahead, persisting through the adversities of parenthood. He wanted that. Every man did, sooner or later. Once he was settled with his partnership and his life was his own, Rome decided he might begin looking for the right woman.

She would have to match him in ambition and intellect. That was more important to him than a pretty face and a fine figure, though he certainly could appreciate those as well. But he didn’t think he could bear being tied to someone who didn’t strive or didn’t think. He wanted a woman who would truly be able to share his life, he thought. To share it the way Miss Gussie could share it. A wife who could talk with him and laugh with him and allow him to be just the man he was, without shame or pretense. That could be a heaven on earth. And if she could move beneath him like Pansy Richardson, that would be even better.

“What are you smiling about?”

He looked into Miss Gussie’s trusting brown eyes and realized that some daydreams were never meant to be shared.

He leaned close and whispered, “I’m just thinking about tomorrow.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes. He had meant that he was thinking about the great trick they were playing upon the husbands. He realized Miss Gussie must think he was referring to their personal plans, sharing kisses in front of the whole town.

That could be very frightening for her. Rome wondered if she had ever been kissed. Surely she had. The
woman must be getting close to thirty. In all that time some man must have found his way to those sweet pink lips. He glanced over at Amos. Had he kissed her? They’d kept company for nearly three years. Could a man resist a woman that long? Rome suspected that if any man could, it might be Amos Dewey.

He realized, however, that it didn’t matter who had kissed or when or not. She had never kissed him and that made what they were going to do tomorrow distracting.

He observed that she was daintily wiping her mouth on a napkin.

“Walk with me,” he said, rising to his feet.

He offered his hand and she took it. He helped her up and then kept hold of her arm, weaving it with his own in such a way that he appeared to be an elegant escort, but he could, with virtually no effort, brush the side of her breast with his forearm and elbow. It was a trick boys learned when they were just out of knee pants, when no other contact with the female gender was remotely possible.

The gentlemen in the group, if they were paying attention, would undoubtedly notice the less than sterling handclasp. The ladies, he hoped, would remain ignorant.

“I’m going to show her our handiwork,” he announced and began walking toward the little booth.

“Don’t be telling her you did all the work yourself,” Joe called out. “We all know how men in love are known to lie.”

There was some good-humored laughter behind them. Rome chose not to make a retort.

“Men in love,” he repeated quietly to Miss Gussie. “We’ve certainly come a long way in a short time if that is the kind of thing they are saying about me.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I remember worrying that nobody would believe it. Now it seems that everybody does.”

Rome smiled down at her.

“I wish I could have seen Dewey’s face when I fed you that chicken,” he said. “The fellow was so put out he turned his back to us completely.”

“Yes, he did,” she said quietly.

Her tone was not light or victorious. She sounded worried, or maybe confused.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine,” she assured him. But he didn’t think it was true.

He released his grasp upon her arm and took it again in the more traditional and respectful manner, thinking he might have offended her. She didn’t seem to notice.

They reached the booth and he walked her into it through the open south wall. She dutifully admired the solid workmanship and listened to his explanation of the design. She even laughed at the two separate counters, wide for the young unmarried girls, more narrow for the wives intent on costing their husbands a pretty penny.

“I suppose I should be here at the corner,” she said, standing at the joining to the two counters. “I’m neither one of the young girls nor a married woman.”

“You’ll be a married woman soon enough,” he promised. “Remember, you wanted the Fourth of July to be your wedding day.”

She smiled for the first time since they’d left the group.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked her. “Tomorrow?”

“Kissing in front of all the people in town.”

From the blush that stained her cheek, it was clear that even the idea of it was embarrassing.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he assured her.

“I know,” she answered. “I know you would never … take advantage.”

He was silent for a moment, surprised as he took in the import of her statement Then he smiled.

“Well, I might actually,” he suggested mischievously. “But probably not in front of every man and woman in town.”

She jerked her head up, startled. When she saw that he was teasing, she gave him a clench-fisted blow to the belly.

“Oh! You’ve wounded me, woman,” he complained. “It’s a knockout punch. I don’t think I can stand.”

She giggled at his exaggerated reaction until she realized that he had backed her further into the corner, clutching the wooden counters to maintain his footing, and had a supporting, entrapping arm on either side of her.

Miss Gussie gazed at him, wariness in her eyes.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he warned her quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you or take advantage of you. I’m just going to kiss you.”

“Now?”

“Dewey is probably watching us,” he said. “But even so, I think that we should get past the awkwardness of this first kiss in relative privacy.”

She swallowed bravely, as if she were readying herself for some terrible ordeal.

“All right,” she said.

Closing her eyes, she pursed her lips tightly together and raised her chin to offer them to Rome.

He thanked his own foresight in getting her alone for this. It would have been downright shaming had
she tried to kiss him like that tomorrow. The whole town would know that she was no sweetheart of his.

It should have been humorous, but it was not It was an unpardonable world in which this sweet, warm woman with so much to give should have been surrounded by babies already, but didn’t yet even know how to kiss a man.

He laid his hand upon her jaw. Her eyes opened.

“That’s not quite how you do it, Miss Gussie,” he said.

Her brow furrowed. “Oh, I’m sure it is, Mr. Akers,” she answered. “I have seen people kiss and they do their lips just like this.”

“Perhaps when they kiss an aunt or a mother-in-law,” he said. “But a man doesn’t kiss a woman like that.”

She wasn’t convinced. “Are you certain?”

“I am absolutely certain,” he assured her.

His hand still upon her jaw, he allowed his thumb to caress the very edge of her lips.

“You need to open your mouth,” he said.

“Open my mouth?”

“Just a little bit. Not a big O, like you were visiting a dentist Just a little o, as if you were drinking from a narrow-necked bottle.”

“What kind of woman would drink from a bottle?”

“The kind who would like to be kissed,” he replied.

“Now come on, try it.”

Courageously, with brow furrowed in concentration, she attempted just the right opening. It was nearly perfect.

“That’s good,” he praised her. “That’s very good.”

She didn’t acknowledge his words but held her mouth firmly in place, as if concerned that she might be unable to achieve the same result again.

Rome raised her chin a little higher and leaned forward, angling his head slightly and bringing his lips down upon her own.

“It’s just me,” he whispered a hairbreadth away. “You don’t need to be nervous or afraid with me.”

His lips touched hers. That was all he intended. Just a touch of mouths, a very tender gesture, intimate but not impassioned. But as he tasted the warm sweetness of her mouth, he lingered. The reality of her nearness was so much more beguiling than he’d expected. For a moment he forgot that he was only favoring a friend and became entranced by the absolute perfection of Gussie in his arms. And she
was
in his arms. He would never know if she had stepped forward or if he had pulled her into his grasp, but somehow his hands had ceased their grip upon the counters and she was pressed close against him.

He took a gasp of much-needed breath and deepened the kiss. Her mouth was eager and infinitely ardent. The soft curve of her bosom against his chest was enticing. His hands trembled with the need to clench her buttocks and grind her body into the aching erection in the front of his trousers.

That thought stopped him in his tracks. He jerked away immediately and turned his back from her so she would not see what, perhaps, she had felt. He was as inappropriately hard as if he were a boy in knickers hiding under the meeting-house steps to get a glimpse beneath the ladies’ skirts.

“Oh, my!” Miss Gussie said, behind him. “Oh, my goodness, I … well, I never imagined it was like that. No wonder people make such a fuss about it. I always wondered. It just never seemed … my goodness, I’m tingly all over.”

Rome was regaining his control and composure. Her
last statement caught so in his throat that he was forced to cough. He turned back to her.

“Are you sure we should be so … so shocking in public?” she asked him.