Passionate Pleasures (17 page)

“Well, that certainly puts us in our place,” Kathryn murmured.

The farmer who owned the field was giving hayrides in a big wagon through his apple orchard.

“Come on,” Tim said to her. “I’ve never been on a hayride.” Pulling her over to the half-filled wagon, he pulled out ten dollars and put it in the contributions jar being held up by the farmer’s wife, boosted Kathryn into the wagon, and then climbed up to join her. “Look!” he remarked as they started off. “The moon is coming up over the bay.”

The sun was setting in a blaze of fiery colors to the west, and a round moon was rising over the water. It was a real autumn moon, large, symmetrical, and deep gold in color because of the reflecting rays of the setting sun opposite it in the deep blue darkening sky. The planet Venus twinkled large and bright mid-heaven.

“It’s perfect,” Kathryn said. “Oh, I’m so glad, Tim! Your first Harvest Festival, and everything has been ideal for you. You’ll always remember it that way. Warm sun, cool breeze, big old butter yellow moon.”

“And the prettiest woman in Egret Pointe sitting next to me,” he said softly.

Kathryn felt her cheeks warm.

The hay wagon rumbled across the meadow and amid the trees of an apple orchard. There were still some leaves on the trees, and unharvested apples that were bruised or otherwise slightly damaged left on the ground, the farmer told them, for the deer and other animals. On the other side of the orchard was another small field that rolled down to the bay. The moon was now shining a beam of gold across the gently rippling waters. They traveled a short distance along the beach, and then turned back.

Tim’s arm was now about Kathryn’s shoulders, and she had her head on his shoulder. They spoke little, simply enjoying the beauty of the early evening. The few other passengers in the wagon weren’t local.

Returning to the festival again, they saw it was almost six o’clock, and people were beginning to stream into the big tent for supper. Hallock had already commandeered a table, and waved to them to join him. To Kathryn’s delight, Dr. Sam and his wife, Rina, were there, along with the Mulcahys, the Devlins, the Pietro d’Angelos, and the Johnsons. Everyone shouted a welcome as Tim and Kathryn joined them.

“Where were you?” her brother asked, but his tone was pleasant. “I thought you might have forgotten us.”

“Tim had never been on a hayride,” Kathryn said. “We took one.”

“I couldn’t resist the harvest moon,” Tim said.

“Not the harvest moon,” Emily Devlin said. “That’s the September full moon. The October one is called the hunter’s moon.”

“Oh,” Tim remarked, “I didn’t know that.”

“The romance author knows her moons,” Mick Devlin said with a grin. “I hear you taught English in the city.”

“I did,” Tim replied. “Next year I plan to introduce and teach a literature class for the seventh and eighth grades.”

He fit in, Kathryn thought. He spoke to Mick about editing, Ryan about restoration, her brother about education in general.

“A nice man,” Dr. Sam remarked quietly.

“Yes, he is,” Kathryn agreed.

Rina Seligmann looked knowingly toward Carla Johnson and Tiffy Pietro d’Angelo and nodded. They grinned back. Rina had a matchmaker’s heart, and she had always wanted to see Kathryn St. John married happily.

“You didn’t come to the Dr. Sam Dunk today,” Dr. Sam said.

“I can never dunk you,” Kathryn replied.

“I know,” he chuckled, “but you always spend a great deal of money trying to, Kathy. Still, you had other things to do with your young man.”

“We’re not so young, either of us,” she remarked with a smile.

“To me you’re young,” he said.

“I’m just ten years younger than you, Sam Seligmann,” Kathryn responded. “But since you missed me I’ll come back tomorrow, and spend a lot of money trying to get you off your perch and into the Jell-O.”

The traditional Harvest Festival supper was being served. Rowdy lay quietly by Tim’s feet. There was country ham, sweet-potato casserole, creamed corn, cut green beans, rolls and butter. For dessert, dishes of baked apples were brought to each place by the servers, who were all volunteers from the local churches, and teenagers from the High School. The meal had been cooked by the local volunteer fire department and the ladies auxiliary. The apples were large. They swam in heavy cream and were rich with brown sugar and cinnamon. Coffee and tea were offered the diners. The gathering began to break up as everyone got ready to go home.

Tim and Kathryn carefully picked their way across the field to where Tim’s car was parked, bidding farewell to their friends as they went. Rowdy bounded along on his lead.

“Don’t stay out any longer,” Hallock V said to his sister. “You don’t want people to talk, sister.”

“Since I have appeared two nights in a row in Tim’s company I think the talk has already begun, Hallock,” Kathryn teased her elder brother gently.

He was silent a moment, and then he said, “Do you like him, Kathy?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered simply.

He nodded. “No scandal,” he said. “Remember that you are a St. John.”

“I never forget it, Hallock,” Kathryn said. Then she kissed his cheek. “Good night now, big brother.”

“Good night,” he replied, returning the kiss. “Come, Debora,” he addressed his very pregnant wife, taking her by the arm.

Debora turned and winked mischievously at her sister-in-law. “Have fun,” she mouthed at Kathryn.

“What was that about?” Tim asked. He had gone to open the car and turn on the lights so she might see more easily.

“Hallock warning me to cause no scandal with you,” she told him wickedly.

Timothy Blair reached out and pulled her into his arms. “What we do together is our business, and I mean no disrespect to your brother when I say it.” Then he kissed her, a long slow kiss, his mouth playing across hers softly. Releasing her, he opened the car door for her. The kiss had been pure heaven, he thought. She tasted of autumn.

Kathryn was astounded. “Oh my!” she said softly as she got into the car. It had been the first real kiss she had had in years. Her heart had hammered. Her stomach had roiled. It was just as if she were a girl once again, being kissed for the first time.

“Make that a double
oh my,
” Tim said getting into the driver’s side of the car.

“You liked it?”

“Didn’t you?” he countered as he settled Rowdy in the backseat.

“Uh-huh, but it’s been a while, Tim,” she admitted to him.

“Me too,” he said. “Not since Phoebe,” he told her. “Can we try it again to see if we really like it?” He reached out for her, but Kathryn held up her hand.

“Not in public, please.”

“My place? Your place?” he asked.

“Mine,” she said softly. “I’ll turn on the fire.”

“And we’ll sit in front of it talking, and necking,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” she responded. She felt absolutely giddy with excitement, and surprised by her own reaction.
Hold on, Kathryn,
she said to herself. It was a kiss. A simple kiss. But he wanted more kisses, didn’t he? And kisses could lead to . . . Oh God! She wasn’t ready for this. Not yet. Not ready? The woman who had programmed six wild fantasies with Romans, barbarians, a fairy-tale prince, and a couple of eighteenth-century rapscallions? That woman wasn’t ready for some kissing games?

But the men in her life had all been fantasy creations. The man sitting next to her driving back to her cottage was flesh-and-blood real. Some women might have been fearful of the fantasies in The Channel, but Kathryn St. John wasn’t. It was real-life men, and the thought of sex with them, that scared her to death.

Was her body good enough? Could she reach orgasm? Would she have to fake it, and what if it turned out she didn’t really like him? She no longer had a fall-back position.
Nicholas! Nicholas! What have you done to me?
she asked him silently.

“Did you have fun today?” he asked her. “I did.”

Startled out of her reverie she said, “Yes, yes, I did have fun. I love the Harvest Festival. It seems to be more fun each year.”

“How long has it been going on?” he queried.

“Ever since the town was founded in the 1700s there has been a Harvest Festival at the end of October,” Kathryn said. “It became a fund-raiser for the hospital in 1902, when the hospital had been here for a couple of years and the need to raise money to keep it going became apparent,” she explained. “The hospital began in a large Victorian house donated by two widowed sisters who had lost their only sons in the Spanish-American war. They died within a year of each other and both wills had stipulated that their house and their monies go to giving Egret Pointe a hospital of its own. The current building was built after World War Two, and it gets updated as we get the cash to do it. Little town like ours needs a hospital. The county seat with its big medical facility is forty miles away.”

“You forget about the importance of community when you live in a big city,” Tim said as he pulled up into the library’s small parking lot. He loved how earnest she was when she spoke of all things Egret Pointe.

“Do you think you’ll like living here, Tim?” she asked. “I know you’ve only been here two and a half months, but it must be a big change for you. You’ve lived all your life in the city, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said as he came around to open the door and help her out. “Stay, Rowdy. I like what I’ve seen so far, and I really love the school. The staff is great, and most of them are open to new ideas. Gloria Sullivan has really paved the way for me.” He took her hand firmly in his, and they began to walk through the library garden to her cottage. “Have you any idea how cute you are when you talk about this town, Kathy?”

She laughed. “It’s been a long time since anyone has called me cute,” she told him. “Isn’t there a cutoff age for cute? I must be way past it.”

He grinned. “You look sexy and sophisticated, I’ll admit, but there are certain times when you speak about the town when you are so enthusiastic and damned cute it tickles the dickens out of me.” Then he stopped and pulled her into his arms, looking down into her face from his six-foot-four height. “Kathy St. John, I really, really like you. And if you really, really like me, then eventually we are going to need to take this a whole lot further. I know we haven’t known each other a long time, but I feel as if I’ve known you forever.” Then, kissing her lips softly, he continued walking toward her front door.

Kathryn stopped him by standing stock still after they had moved just a few steps forward. “Hey,” she said, “you can’t expect me to wait to get into the house before I answer you, Timothy Blair. I haven’t wanted to get involved with anyone for a lot of reasons you may or may not understand. But something is different about you, and maybe we ought to get to know one another better. If it doesn’t work out, then I hope we can stay friends at least. That okay with you?”

“Yep,” he said quietly. “Now can we go inside, so I can kiss you a whole lot more without the town being in on our secret?”

“Yep,” she agreed, and pulling out her keys, opened the front door.

He practically pushed her through it, pulling her back into his embrace, his mouth fusing onto to her mouth in a hot, passionate kiss that seemed to go on and on and on.

Wow,
Kathryn thought, matching him kiss for kiss for kiss. He’s every bit as good as the boys in The Channel. Maybe even better, she considered, as she pushed off his jacket. “Mmmmmm!” she murmured as he released her lips briefly before kissing her again. Ohhh, way better than the boys in The Channel. Finally she pulled away. “Don’t you want a fire for atmosphere?” she teased, drawing him into her living room. They fell onto her comfortable couch together, and Kathryn grabbed at the remote that would start the fireplace and pushed the button. “There,” she said, “isn’t that more romantic?”

“You are not going to be an easy woman, Kathy, are you?” he said, smiling at her. His blue eyes got crinkly at the corners when he smiled. A big finger ran down her nose.

“Probably not,” she agreed.

“Want to tell me some of the reasons you haven’t wanted to be involved?” he asked her gently. He picked up her hand and kissed it.

“You first,” she said. “I’m not the only one who’s been avoiding the opposite sex.” She looked directly at him.

“My folks loved each other. Really loved each other. I want the same thing. Women say they have to kiss a lot of frogs before they find a prince. Well, the same thing holds true for men. We kiss a lot of lady frogs before we find the princess. Phoebe was my princess. I was thirty-one, and she was twenty-six when we met. It was love at first sight for both of us. We dated six months, and set a wedding date. And then she was killed in that hit-and-run accident.

“Then my mother got sick. She wasn’t a woman for doctors, and it took us a while to convince her she needed to see the family doctor. He diagnosed her with osteoporosis, and prescribed calcium in large doses. She continued to feel lousy, and her pain got worse. My dad was suddenly helpless. This tough lawyer went to pieces. I finally stepped in and insisted on some serious testing. The first thing they found was that she had bone cancer. And the second thing they found was that all the calcium had virtually killed her kidney function. She went on dialysis, but it was too much for her. She died a few months after her diagnosis. Dad went to pieces for a while, and I moved back in to look after him. When you’re taking care of your father there isn’t too much time for wine, women and song.” He grew quiet a moment, and then said, “Now, what’s your story, Kathy?”

“Everyone in town thinks I’m the usual St. John spinster,” she began.

“But you’re not?”

Kathryn shook her head. “A long time ago I was in love with Jonathan Curtis, Mavis’s older brother. We kept it a secret because the St. Johns wouldn’t have thought the Curtises good enough for one of their women. The family ‘were in trade,’ as my grandfather would have said. They owned what had been the General Store in Egret Pointe. The IGA now sits on the property. Like a lot of men in this town, Jonathan belonged to the local National Guard unit. We’re a patriotic bunch here. He asked me to marry him just before he went off to the Gulf War. We were going to brave my family when he came back.”