The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (81 page)

Matt cast her a sidelong glance. “How’s your mom?” He seemed to have read her mind.

“Sitting up doing needlepoint when I left.” Her gaze dropped. The hole in his pocket was large enough now to wiggle a finger through.

“A heart attack’s nothing to fool around with.”

“Actually, it was a false alarm.” Before Matt could comment she found herself adding, “But guess what, it worked—I came running, didn’t I?” Claire immediately felt ashamed. Had she really said that? Oh, God, what must he think.

But if Matt thought she was a terrible person, it didn’t show. “People do strange things in the name of love, even when they don’t know they’re doing them,” he said in a soft, considering voice. “Like this girl I knew in high school who got knocked up. When she told her folks, they went ballistic. Talked about disowning her and the kid, and how she might as well be dead. Well, to make a long story short, she lost it, the baby. Started bleeding right there on the spot.”

“What an awful story. Are you sure it’s true?”

He flipped on the turn signal and edged into the right lane as they approached the turnoff for 33. “I oughta know. I married her—the minute she turned eighteen.”

“That was your
wife
?” Claire stared at him. “Then …”

“Yep. My kid, too.” He shrugged, but she could see from the tightening of his mouth that he wasn’t completely over it, even after all these years. “The damnedest thing is they were right: It probably would’ve ruined our lives, though we did a pretty good job of that on our own. But, hell, I got two great kids out of it.”

“I guess that’s all that matters.”

The sky was beginning to cloud over by the time they made it to the outskirts of town. She said she hoped it wouldn’t rain, at least not until the gutters were replaced, and Matt had assured her there was very little likelihood of it this time of year. When he suggested they pick up a pizza on the way, she didn’t have the heart to say no. He’d gone out of his way to pick her up; the least she could do was see that he got fed.

The moment she walked in the door, she saw why he’d been so eager to accompany her home. The front room that had been in shambles when she’d left was swept clean, the wainscoting gleaming with a coat of wax and the newly installed shelves varnished. Claire did a slow circuit of the room, running her hand along the woodwork, breathing in the scent of turpentine.

“Oh, Matt, it’s beautiful.” She turned to him. “How on earth did you manage to get it done in time?”

“Me and Gil, we worked most of last night. I wanted to surprise you.”

She watched him place the pizza box gingerly atop the table by the door, and thought of the care that had gone into leveling every surface and hammering every nail. If this were a boat, it would be seaworthy.

Claire had a sudden image of Matt and her adrift on the open sea, and for an instant could almost feel the floor rocking gently beneath her feet—an illusion aided by the fact that she hadn’t bothered to switch on the lights. Outside, dusk had faded into twilight, and the ghost of a moon floated on a raft of clouds above the distant hilltops.

When Matt slipped an arm about her waist, she didn’t pull away. She dropped her head onto his shoulder instead, as if they’d stood like this on many a night, looking out at the lengthening shadows and listening to the call and response of dogs up and down the street. He smelled of shaving cream and pepperoni.

“Thank you,” she said.

Matt drew her around and put a hand under her chin, tipping her head up to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark and unreadable, glimmering with the reflected glow from the porch light.
He’s going to kiss me,
she thought with a mild panic that ran through her like a faint electrical current.
He’s going to kiss me and I have to stop him before he does because if I don’t
—

His head dipped. His mouth closed over hers, warm and firm, lips parting just enough to feel the tip of his tongue. His mustache tickled her upper lip, sending the current amping up a notch. Oh, God. She’d only just come from Byron’s arms … his bed …

Matt made a noise deep in his throat, holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. She could feel how much he wanted her, and all the resistance went out of her then. He could have picked her up with one arm and slung her over his shoulder like a goose-down pillow.

“Don’t you have to be somewhere?” she murmured.

“The kids are with their mom.” He studied her in the half-light, his eyes pooled with shadow, his mustache drooping at the ends. “Listen, if you’re not sure …”

She let out a cracked little laugh. “I’ve never been less sure of anything in my life.”

He grinned, his teeth white below the dark line of his mustache. “Should I take that as a no?”

“Would it matter what I said?”

“No, I don’t believe it would.”

He kissed her again, more slowly this time, cradling her head in one huge hand as his mouth moved lower, exploring her throat. The prickling of his mustache, coupled with the softness of his lips and barest hint of tongue, shot through her like sparks from a frayed cord. Small muscles and nerves buzzed below her skin. She was melting, her insides flowing downward.
This isn’t happening,
she thought in some distant part of her brain. But right now Byron was the furthest thing from her mind.

Matt unbuttoned her blouse and ran his thumb along the soft curve of a breast just above the line of her brassiere. She felt her knees start to buckle, and she might have sagged to the floor if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly. His hugeness made her feel small, almost dainty.

Silently she took his hand and led him into the bedroom. She hadn’t gotten around to buying a frame for her mattress—the old one, a hand-me-down from her parents, she’d left on the curb when she moved—but from the look on Matt’s face, it could have been a haystack for all he cared. She watched with a smile as he tugged off his boots, awkwardly hopping about on one foot.

Moments later they were lying on the mattress, their clothes heaped on the rug. They kissed some more, and she was reminded of when she’d been a kid in an amusement park, dizzy from the rides, not knowing which one to go on next. He guided her hand until she was touching him, but after a minute pulled away.

“I want to be inside you when I come,” he murmured.

Then he was touching her. Down there. And oh, how sweet … his big fingers that might have looked clumsy moving with expert feather strokes. The heat between her legs built to an exquisite point. She moaned, threading her fingers through his hair.

“Now,” she whispered. “Make love to me now.”

He groped blindly on the floor in search of his jeans. In the minute or so it took for him to fish out a condom and put it on, her head cleared and she thought,
Do I want this? Am I ready for what it will mean?

The hell with it,
a voice whispered back.

She gasped a little as he entered her—he was so big—then it was okay. He was going slow, taking care not to hurt her. She tilted her hips up, wrapping her legs about him. It ached a little when he drove in, but she was past the point of separating pain from pleasure. Yet Matt wasn’t in any hurry. She’d start to slip over the edge and he’d slow his strokes. When she couldn’t hold back a moment longer, she gripped hard, pulling him in tight.

She came with a dull white roar, only dimly aware of Matt’s coming, too. It was like a dream—mindless, wordless, nothing but this heady rush of sensation.

Matt’s face hovering above her in the dark only gradually came into focus, his broad cheekbones polished with sweat, his eyes blackened by shadow.

He rolled over onto his back. They were both drenched with sweat and breathing hard. It felt as if her heart would never stop pounding. “God in heaven, where did you learn to do that?” She hiked herself onto her elbow facing him, placing her fingertips lightly over his mouth. “No, don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know.”

He pulled her hand away, and she saw that he was grinning. “Look who’s talking.”

“For your information,” she informed him, “I’ve been with exactly four men in my life, counting you.”

“Does
he
know?”

But she didn’t want to think about Byron. There would be plenty of time for that later on. She laid her head on Matt’s shoulder, and he drew her close. She could hear the steady thumping of his heart, like an engine built before the days of planned obsolescence. Everything about Matt was like that: solid, dependable, built to last.

Except the wild streak that ran through him like a vein of gypsum through bedrock.

The second time was slower, like savoring dessert at the end of a meal. Matt touched and licked her all over, even down there. When she’d had her fill, she took him into her. Her climax was less explosive than before, but more satisfying somehow. They were both gasping by the time they came up for air.

After a while they roused themselves and Matt went to fetch the pizza, long since gone cold. They washed it down with beers from the fridge, and she thought she’d never tasted anything quite so good. Tomorrow would be a different story, she knew, but at this moment, seated cross-legged on the mattress across from a naked bear of a man with a slice of pizza drooping over one knee, she thought,
Lord, it doesn’t get any better than this.

S
INCE HER ARRIVAL
the week before, Sister Clement’s presence had been felt like a sudden cold spell after an endless stretch of sunny days. A plain-faced woman whose only distinguishing feature was a port stain that covered half of one cheek, she sat in silently on community meetings and appeared to mentally take note of every confessed failing in Faults. In chapel, her sharp ears took in every rustle and cough, and during the chanting of lauds the sisters who were off-key would suddenly become conscious of the fact, their cheeks warming. She seemed to know who was quick to return from sext and whose lengthy meditations spoke of a fully examined conscience. Now, as she toured the honey house, her apparent lack of interest had the feel of a foregone conclusion: Sister Clement’s mind was already made up.

Gerry had taken her through the packing process and showed her how orders were tracked on the computer. As they headed into the next room, she felt a sense of doom settle over her, thick and pervasive as the honey sticking to every surface. It was all she could do to put on a cheerful face.

“This is where the decapping is done.” She gestured toward a large stainless tank in the center of the room, where a pink-cheeked novice held a frame from one of the hives propped on the board across the middle and was deftly running a trowel-like device over its thickly crusted comb. Beeswax peeled away in long, curly strips, sending honey dribbling into the tank.

“Rather warm in here, isn’t it?” Sister Clement fanned herself with her notebook. Her face was flushed, the stain on her cheek darker than usual.

Gerry was so used to it, she hardly noticed. “It makes the honey easier to handle,” she explained, leading the way to the corner where a pair of radial extractors stood on cinder blocks. She raised her voice to be heard over their whine. “Each one holds fifty combs. The runoff goes into a straining tank.” She pointed toward a large heated tub lined with nylon mesh. “It sits for a day or so; then whatever’s floated to the surface is skimmed off. What we’re left with is one hundred percent pure Grade-A honey.”

Sister Clement gave a perfunctory nod, scribbling something in her notebook. Gerry noted that while the rest of her was plain, even ungainly, her hands were oddly delicate, their pearly nails deeply embedded in the soft pink flesh of her fingertips. Gerry thought of a large cat, its claws sheathed.

Sister Clement looked up, surveying the room where half a dozen sisters in long aprons, their sleeves rolled up and veils neatly safety-pinned in back, worked side by side, each at her designated task: among them wiry Sister Andrew filling a fifty-gallon tin from the tap at the base of an extractor, and portly Sister Pius hefting a full one from the warming cabinet—honey that would go into the rows of sparkling jars fresh from the sterilizer.

“What’s the annual output?”

“In a good year, two thousand pounds or more.” Gerry couldn’t keep from boasting. In the years since she’d taken over as lay manager, production had more than doubled. “Though with bees, it’s hard to predict.”

“I’ve never thought of them as anything other than pests.”

“They’re fairly harmless if you know how to handle them.” Gerry had a sudden inspiration. Maybe Sister Clement would understand when she saw them in action. “Come, I’ll show you.” When they reached the door, where a row of pegs along the wall held half a dozen white canvas suits and netted hoods, she said blithely, “We won’t be needing those.” They’d be far enough away, and the bees were still a little sluggish from winter.

Outside, the mild spring air felt cool after the overheated confines of the honey house. They struck out along the narrow path, worn to a groove by decades of sandaled feet, that cut in a diagonal across the meadow. The dry brown stalks of winter had been replaced by new grass that swished about Gerry’s knees. Everywhere she looked wildflowers were in bloom—bird’s foot, blue thistle, alfalfa, sweet clover, wild licorice—the rich potpourri that gave Blessed Bee honey the distinctive flavor for which it was known. As they approached the grove of eucalyptus on the far side, she could hear the faint drone of bees, and caught sight of Sister Carmela waving a tin smoker over one of the hives, puffs of smoke drifting up into the branches overhead.

“It’s mating season.” Gerry turned to Sister Clement. “Do you know how bees mate?”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t among the courses being offered when I was at Notre Dame,” Sister Clement answered dryly. It was the closest she’d come to showing that she had a sense of humor.

Gerry knew she should quit while she was ahead, but some inner demon egged her on. “Every spring the queen embarks on her annual flight, chased by lovesick drones. As soon as one impregnates her, he explodes.”

“How charming.” Sister Clement wore a look of disgust.