Stef Ann Holm (27 page)

“I better go.”

“Yeah…”

Smiling, she gazed into his face. “Thanks for everything.”

He gulped, shook his head, his eyes momentarily closing. “No,
thank you.
Thank you for giving me a chance.”

“Thank you for giving
me
a chance,” she said, with such grace and warmth, it was all he could do not to crush her in his arms.

“Well…” she said, her smile waning and emotions swimming in her eyes.

Drew reached out, held her firmly, kissed the top of her head, the soft strands of her hair. “You be good, Mackenzie.”

“I will, Daddy.”

Daddy.

The word was like a balm. It soothed old wounds, made him feel as if he were the best thing on the face of the earth.

“Love you.” He spoke into her hair.

“Love you, too.”

They broke apart; he brushed her smooth cheek. “You’re so pretty, sugar. You tell those boys to stay away from you.”

She laughed, a honeyed sound. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend right now.”

“Good.”

Her flight was called once more and she had to head through the security check. She gave him a final hug and he squeezed her firmly, but gently. Backing out of his arms, she waved, walked to the clearance area and put her backpack on the conveyer.

Drew didn’t move until he watched her wave from the doorway to the boarding ramp. And not even then.

He waited until the small plane taxied and left his view. Only then did he turn around and head home, already missing his little girl.

From the airplane window, I can see the town of Red Duck disappearing like a small speck in the distance, and somewhere on that gray ribbon of road, my dad is in his Hummer, driving to his house.

He’s going to find Momma’s letter on his bed, just where I left it when he wasn’t looking. It was a letter she wrote to me just before she died, saying she thought it would be a good idea if, when the time came, and I said it would be okay, that I took Daddy’s last name.

Momma said I’d had hers for a long time, and she didn’t mind sharing and letting me use Daddy’s once he and I made our peace.

Momma always hoped we would. I wish she could know right now that we worked things out. I think she does know from Heaven.

I left Drew a note saying I’d like to take Tolman as my last name.

I think my dad will say it’s okay. In fact, I know he’ll be happy about it. Me, too.

He’s going be fine and so am I.

T
he last week in September, the annual Little League dinner at Woolly Burgers wasn’t as lively as it had been in past years, since the team hadn’t gone to the play-offs. But the boys still got achievement awards from their parents and coaches. It was just an off season this year and Drew looked forward to the next one. Before this summer, he would have been bummed out about it, taken on some pressure over not producing a better outcome. But he realized it didn’t matter.

There were so many more things to life than baseball.

“Are you heading out?” Drew asked Lucy as she left her boys with Nutter’s parents.

“Yep. Jason and Matt are spending the night with Nutter and I have the house all to myself tonight. I may just have to stand in the middle of the living room and stare at the ceiling.” She laughed.

He smiled at her, liking the way her teeth contrasted with the darker lipstick she wore. She had on a sleeveless, form-fitting white dress with a scoop neck. It looked nice on her. Some of her tan had faded, but she was a strikingly beautiful woman no matter what her skin tone.

She’d pulled half her hair up into a claw; the rest spilled over her shoulders. The rich brown color had brightened from the sun and strands were highlighted a reddish-bronze.

“You just don’t know how noisy your house is until the kids leave. I never get a day off.” She fitted her purse on her shoulder. “I’m always on duty.”

She didn’t say it with bitterness, but rather fondness. And with a hint of anticipation about not being a parent tonight, but a woman who was going to go home and enjoy her surroundings without parental responsibilities.

“Bye, boys,” she called, waving to them.

“See ya, Mom!” Matt was trying to juggle three baseballs at a time. They fell to the floor and then Jason tried.

Lucy went toward the door and Drew followed. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

The outside air was warm and lazy.

“Actually, I came with Sue and Dave. I told her I was going to walk home.” Lucy gazed at the horizon. “It’s so nice out.”

An Indian summer had crept into September, the day filled with a warm breeze. The sunset was heavy with fall colors, the sky aflame with an orange-and-red wash.

The muted golds reflected on Lucy’s face. He remembered what her body felt like next to his, the way her breasts looked in her bikini top. The scent of her perfume hung in the air.

His heart raced as he thought about how she’d feel up tight to him, flesh to flesh. How it would feel to run his hands across her body right now, the smooth cotton of that dress. Her back and waist, then her butt.

She glanced at him, her eyes darkening as if she was having a thought she struggled with. “How’d you get here?”

“I drove. I can drive you home if you want.”

“Okay.”

The drive to Lucy’s house was short, and neither of them said a word. They didn’t have to. He cut the engine, went around to open the SUV door for her. She hopped down and didn’t look at him.

Lucy could feel the soft cotton of her dress move over her skin as she walked to the porch. A delicious sense of anticipation surged through her body. She stopped at the door, turned to say something—then cut herself off.

Drew leaned toward her, brought his face over hers. She felt her backside pressing into the screen door, and that was the last conscious thought she had as Drew’s mouth covered hers.

They kissed, quick yet lingering.

After a minute, she managed to get the lock open and let him inside. She kicked the door closed with her foot, stood a distance away from him and tried to figure out what exactly was going on.

She knew exactly what was going to happen. And she wanted it to. But she just hadn’t known when or where.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” she offered, the words lame even to her own ears.

He made no reply. He just looked at her as if she were the best boat on the dock—something he wanted. Quite badly.

Her face was flushed and she pushed aside a stray lock that had come loose from her hair claw. She threw her shoulders back and forced herself into a calm she didn’t feel.

Anxiousness churned in the pit of her stomach. Her smile wavered a little. She had a hard time concentrating when he looked at her. She hadn’t been with anyone other than her husband for nineteen years. Nobody since her divorce. This was new.

It must have showed.

He pulled her to him and murmured, with his face in her hair. “I can leave.”

“No,” she said, clinging to his shoulders, not wanting to let him go. Her hand slipped into his jeans and she found him straining against the fabric. “Stay….”

He reached under her dress and began to stroke her thighs and then in between her thighs. A moan rose from her throat when his fingertips reached into her panties. It had been a long time since a man touched her intimately, and she arched her back as the feeling rose and rose. She shut her eyes tight and grabbed on to the front of Drew’s shirt.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

Her head started to spin; her mind reached places she’d long since forgotten about. She let herself go, riding the feelings that rose. Suddenly, she let out a cry as a burst of pulsing heat pleasured her body.

Her breathing grew jagged; her legs went numb.

Drew scooped her into his arms, carried her down the hall. She pressed herself to him, eyes closed.

He set her on her feet and undid the nylon zipper of her dress. He pulled it over her head. The dress landed on the floor.

She moved her face to he could kiss her cheek, the corner of her mouth. He stroked her bare back and she shivered.

A dozen different thoughts went through her head. She didn’t want to talk about anything, but she had to say something.

“Drew…I haven’t been with anyone since Gary, and when he had the affair, I made sure that I was okay.” That was the best way she could phrase it without coming right out and saying she’d had a panel of STD tests run on her.

“I know what you mean, Lucy.” He brushed her hair from her forehead. “I did the same after me and Jacquie.”

She nodded.

“And when Mackenzie was fourteen, I got a vasectomy.”

That news pulled Lucy slightly out of the moment. “You did?”

“I should have done it years before.” He kissed her neck softly, his mouth warm. “So I’m okay…if you’re okay with everything.”

“I am….” She reached out and undid the buttons on his fly, then helped him shrug out of his jeans. He kicked off his shoes. She undid his soft shirt, and the fabric flowed like a teal-blue river onto the floor.

His callused fingers unhooked her bra and peeled her panties down her legs. His roughened hands felt every inch of her, working over her breasts, both nipples between his fingers, then softly down her stomach.

He laid her on the bed, kissed the curves and dips of her skin until she felt as if she had no bones. She melted into the duvet cover as his mouth found the underside of her breasts, the crook of her elbow and the dimple of her navel. She shivered deep inside herself, the sensations almost overwhelming.

She arched her back, waiting for him, wanting him.

Her hands skimmed across his skin, so smooth and cool, like fine marble on a summer’s day. His muscles felt like slabs of steel, and bunched and tightened when he moved. In spite of wanting this to last forever, she moaned, impatient. She’d waited so long to feel like this with someone. With Drew.

She kissed his shoulder, the curve of it where the skin was too delicious for words. Her heartbeat raced as she reached out and wrapped her hand around him. He pulsed, that part of him thick and hard, heavy in her hand.

Then he entered her, finally, filling her as she pushed up to feel him deeper inside her. The tip of him reached a place that rubbed a spot she’d never felt before. Her legs wrapped around his thighs, and the pleasure intensified as he moved back and forth.

Her body danced to the rhythm he set. Back and forth until she felt the release that had been building inside him. She chased it, found one of her own, her hands splaying his back, holding him close.

She wrapped herself around him, letting the sensations linger, pulse and reach the ends of waves until she could begin to think a little more clearly.

She already knew she wanted him. Again. And again.

He moved onto his back and took her with him, still joined. He kissed her fingertips. She kissed his mouth. Softly. Tenderly.

Gazing into his face, she uttered the first thought on her mind, completely ludicrous. “Hello.” Her voice was a mere whisper.

“Hey, sugar.”

She smiled at him, at them still locked together. A myriad of rampant thoughts rained through her mind.

From here, were would they go?

Drew tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, causing her to shiver with longing. “I think we should go out on a date,” he said in a long, audible breath. “Dinner. At a restaurant.”

The absurdity of his timing broadened her smile. All summer, they’d been eyeing each other, interested, touching, kissing—and it had never crossed her mind to go out on a date with him. Sleeping with him—yes.

She knew beyond a lingering shadow of doubt she did want to get to know him much better. All the complexities. They’d done this backward. Physical first. But she wouldn’t have changed anything. Sometimes life worked best unscripted, and this was what had felt natural and right to her.

“I’d like to go to dinner with you, Drew,” she said, running her fingertip over his brow, then caressing his cheek.

“There are things I want to know about you, Lucy. I want to learn who you are. Everything. What your favorite thing to cook for yourself is, what you like to do for you. Where you like to go. I don’t even know if you have any brothers and sisters, or if your parents are living.”

“I’d like to share all that with you,” she said softly, not wanting to move.

He murmured, “But I don’t want to talk about it right now. I want to kiss you. Touch you. Learn your body.”

His arm slipped tighter around her waist and she felt a pull of wild abandon spring to life within her. Something she hadn’t felt in too many years.

J
acquie had been contemplating giving up smoking. What the hell. She’d given up sex—a major accomplishment for her. So how tricky could nicotine be?

Tricky, she mused as she gnawed every last ounce of flavor out of a stick of peppermint gum.

Cigarettes were readily available at the grocery store. But, she also reasoned, so were single men around the dinner hour. And she’d gone right through the checkout without one man in her cart, so there was hope. All she’d gotten at the grocery these days were single-serve frozen dinners and expensive wines. So with the right willpower, she could forgo the cigarettes.

Then again, a cup of coffee or a glass of wine just wouldn’t have the same taste without a cigarette.

A decision like this was too much to contemplate at the moment. There was always a New Year’s resolution. If she made hers on the 30th, maybe it would stick better than last year’s on the 31st, which had not.

Walking the polished linoleum floor of the Sunrise Trail Creek Seniors Home, Jacquie thought about their class today. Salsa dancing. Good Lord, but it was going to be a hoot watching Spin shake her skinny ass.

Jacquie turned the corner into Spin’s room.

“Spin, you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had. My stupid cell died and this fabulous listing of mine—” She cut the sentence off.

Spin’s bed was empty.

Not just empty-unmade, as if she were in the restroom or in the dining hall…but empty of her favorite floral-print linens. Empty of Spin’s rose-colored, twin-size chenille bedspread, her TV pillow, her pink fuzzy slippers.

Panic welled in Jacquie. Her chest constricted and she felt as if she was suffocating.

No, no, no!

Running out of the room, she went to the nurse’s station and found one of the familiar charge nurses for Spin’s unit.

“Hi, you know me. I come here all the time,” Jacquie said in a rush. “I’m looking for Fern Goodey-Leonard. She’s tall, skinny as a broom handle and…”

The nurse’s expression was one of sympathy.

Jacquie refused to acknowledge it.
No!
She continued in a fast slur of words. “Her bed’s not made the way she likes it. Where are her sheets? And what h-happened…t-to her s-slippers?”

Jacquie’s shoulders began to quake, her body trembled. Tears splashed down her cheeks, onto the front of her blouse, wet spots on the fine silk.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, her mouth creasing with empathy. “They tried to call you this morning to tell you, but we couldn’t get hold of you.”

“Spin…” Jacquie let go of the sobs. “Ohmygod… Spin.”

Jacquie lifted her chin, her vision blurry. The nurse’s gentle tone had been placating, but Jacquie’s pulse threatened to pump out of control.

“She died in her sleep,” the nurse murmured. “She wasn’t in any pain and she lived a good, long life. Everyone here loved her.” Even the nurse got a tissue and blew her nose. “She was a real kick in the pants.”

The words simply refused to register. All Jacquie knew was that the best friend she’d ever had in her life wasn’t in her room, in her bed, with the television blaring with a
Bonanza
rerun.

Vaguely hearing herself talk, Jacquie said, “We were supposed to have salsa lessons today.”

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said, sympathy etched on her young face. She went to a white cabinet, came back with a large manilla envelope and handed it to Jacquie. “She left us instructions to give this to you on her passing. She also has something in the art room for you. We left it just as it was.”

Unable to speak, Jacquie took the offered envelope and walked numbly down the hallway.

Grief had never been one of her strong suits. When her mom died, Jacquie hadn’t done well at the funeral. She didn’t like sad or depressing things. Which was why she sometimes filled herself with artificial happiness, anything to rid herself of lonely realities that, at times, were too much for her.

Without Spin, Jacquie didn’t know how she would have gotten through her breakup with Drew. Oh, hell…she would have done it, she was strong. But my God…Spin.

Spin…you saved me.

Jacquie gulped hard, yielding once more to the compulsive sobs that shook her shoulders. Her hand grabbed the hall railing. She couldn’t move forward. She had to lean into the wall for support, her cheek against the cool surface.

She’d known this day would come. And yet, no matter how much she’d told herself she could deal with it, she couldn’t face the pain of losing someone who’d meant so much to her. Who’d actually taught her to value herself more than a relationship, to place her wants and desires before that of a man.

If she’d just jumped right into the next affair without healing from the last one, she never would have understood that she was worth the wait for the right man. That even with her faults and flaws, she was worthy of being loved and cherished for who she was, not who someone wanted her to be.

Thank you, Spin.

Once in the art room with its multitude of windows flashing in sunshine, she went to the corner where Spin’s easel was set up. All the paint tubes and the waxed-paper palette were just as she’d left them; a canvas was on the easel, but covered with a paint-smeared cloth.

Using just her fingertip, Jacquie slowly lifted the cloth and took a peek underneath. Seeing mostly an area of candlelight-white on the canvas, she lifted the cloth higher until the entire painting was revealed and the cloth fell to the floor.

Even Jacquie Santini knew what the Lord’s Supper was.

The painting was blotchy and some areas not sharp, as if filled in by sections. But the spiritual feeling was there, godly, dominant and meaningful.

Fresh tears fell down Jacquie’s face, her heart melting into a puddle of nothing. Emptiness. Loneliness. Despair. They hit her all at once.

“Spin…” she uttered, her voice cracking.

Jacquie lowered herself into a chair and rested the manilla envelop on her lap. Swallowing hard, she stared at the painting.

After a long moment, she opened the envelope and took out the contents. Sheets of papers. On the very top, a letter. Handwritten. Spin had kept her good penmanship, even in her declining years. The woman had perfect form on all the curls and loops, the legibility still impressive.

Unsure if she could read the letter yet, Jacquie gazed out the window and recalled her first meeting with Spin. The veranda, the pond and geese.

Hot tears silently stole down Jacquie’s face, her neck, into the collar of her blouse. She dug into her purse for a tissue and couldn’t find one. She ended up using the easel cloth to wipe her nose.

She began to read the letter, slowly…blinking several times to clear her vision….

Jacquie—

    If you are reading this, then that means I’m gone. Don’t ruin your makeup and cry for me. I was old. I lived a long time. Now I’m with my Wally and we are happy to be back together.

    I left you my painting. It was a bitch to finish, my eyes just not what they used to be. It’s the Lord’s Supper and it gave me comfort knowing I was painting Jesus as we know Him on earth. I’m almost anxious to see what He looks like in Heaven. It will be one of my defining moments, right up there with Willard Scott putting me on the TV.

    Morris Leonard, my great-nephew, will be handling my estate. I know I’ve said I wanted my ashes baked into a loaf of bread and fed to the pigeons, but that was just a load of bull. Morris knows where I want to be buried.

   There is one thing, though, that I’d like you to do for me, Jacquie. You’ll need to take a drive to Boise. On my art desk is a tube of geranium-red paint. I want you to paint lipstick on Judge Harrison’s statue. Right in the kisser. That man was a sexist asshole and deserves to be painted like a woman.

    Well, that’s about all. The other papers in here are case transcripts I had representing women who struggled for equality back in the old days. You’ll find their stories interesting reading. They paved the way for you to do a woman’s job in what was once a man’s world.

    You are a fine woman and I am proud of who you are, Jacquie. You’ve come a long way and you’re ready for the next chapter of your life.

    I give you my full blessing. You’ll know what I mean when the moment arises.

     With all my love,

     Fern Goodey-Leonard

With her head down, Jacquie watched as her tears splattered onto the letter, fat drops of love, gratitude and fondness for a real lady of quality.

“Did you set out the cheez?” Raul asked, his voice respectfully low.

Lucy nodded, motioning to the platter of cheeses and fruits on the reception table. “All that’s left is to light the candles in the chafing dishes.”

Raul and Lucy were the only two in the large banquet room at the Elks’ Lodge. In light of Fern’s death, they’d called a truce and had catered the reception together. Lucy couldn’t recall whose idea it had been—hers or Raul’s.

They’d been at Sutter’s Grocery in the bread department, Raul eyeing the same loaf of focaccia that she’d been ready to nab, when word fanned through the store that Spin had passed away.

When Raul’s and Lucy’s groceries were being rung up in two different lines, their eyes had met and they’d agreed to combine forces and do this one last thing for Spin.

“It looks good,” Raul remarked, his complexion appearing more olive-toned in his all-black suit with black shirt. “What is that over there?”

“Chicken broccoli bake. Simple, but a crowd pleaser.” Lucy gazed at several of the dishes Raul had set up. “What’s that?”

“Pork Chops Olé.”

She examined the hot dish. Its top was sprinkled with melted cheese.

“It’s nothing special,” Raul said. “Any moron could make it. I got the recipe off the soup can.”

Lucy smiled. “Slumming, Raul?”

“C’hew know how it goes. Sometimes simple is better. Spin was a simple lady.”

Nodding, Lucy gave a sigh. They lit the chafing candles to keep the hot dishes warm, and made one last check of all the foods. “Well, I guess we should go to the funeral now. I can drive—”

“No, no—I can drive,” he insisted with a slight bow. “I’m a gentleman and I insist. Besides, c’hew haven’t lived until you’ve experienced a Cadillac with velour upholstery.”

Trying not to let him know that his humor put a lightness in her heart, Lucy said somberly, “All right, Raul.”

Fern “Spindly” Goodey-Leonard’s funeral was simple, yet a classy goodbye from those who’d known her. People had come up from Boise to join all of Red Duck in the Chapel of the Woods Funeral Parlor to pay their fond farewells.

Jacquie hadn’t been able to give a eulogy. She just wasn’t up for it. She had the director of the home read the meager words she had typed on her computer and printed. They were almost an embarrassment. Expressing how she felt about Spin wasn’t easy to convey in a written statement. The feelings in her heart didn’t easily translate into words.

Spin had a plot beside Wallace Leonard in the old Timberline cemetery, not ten spaces down from the town’s famous writer who had committed suicide in the early 1970s.

There had been one time when Spin had had Jacquie take her to the cemetery to visit Wally. They’d stopped into Sutter’s Grocery and bought bouquets for the urn, and Spin had gotten down on her knees and lovingly arranged the carnations and mums. At the time, Jacquie had even asked her why she wanted to be cremated and not laid to rest by Wally. Spin never gave an answer. She just put that familiar smile on her face, crooked lipstick and all.

So now Jacquie knew the whole story.

Spin was a romantic and there was no way she’d end up as pigeon crap on a statue. She wanted to be by her Wally.

The very idea was so poetic that Jacquie had a moment of feeling sorry for herself that she’d come to the funeral alone, without any male prospects in her life to take a journey with over the next fifty-some-odd years. That she even let the thought hit her, for a mere second, was so wrong.

Jacquie slipped her sunglasses back on, her black gloves blurring in her vision as she covered her eyes. She’d been crying all morning and looked like death warmed over herself.

The weather had finally turned cool, with a bite to the air that had arrived overnight.

The graveside gathering began to thin, and people returned to their cars. Jacquie had already said her goodbyes in private, and now she simply smiled at the opening in the ground, where Spin’s dark wood casket had already been lowered. She gave the quietly serene scene her best parting nod and turned toward her Jaguar.

Inhaling the clear air, she forced herself to rise out of her sorrow.

At the edge of the road, a man in a classic black suit waited by her car. He had clipped-short dark hair, and smoky sunglasses covered his eyes. She’d seen him at the chapel. He’d remained in the last row and, if she hadn’t been mistaken, he’d stared at her throughout the service. At least he’d been looking whenever she glanced behind her. But God only knew. Her man transmitter was screwed up. It had been so long since she’d even tossed her hair over her shoulder to get a man’s attention. For all she knew, he was looking to buy a house and wanted her card.

As she made her way to him, she realized his shoulders were quite broad and impressive. He was very tall. Handsome in an elegant way. Yet he didn’t come across as brash or arrogant. She liked that about him.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her work voice coming into play. If he were a prospective client, she was going to tell him this was a wholly inappropriate place to discuss real estate.

“You’re Jacquie.”

“Yes, I am.” She gazed at him through the tinted lenses of her sunglasses, knowing he could see her roving eyes taking in the angle of his jaw, the dark slashes of brows just above the frame of his own sunglasses. When he removed them, she was fascinated by a pair of unique gray-blue eyes.