It was an environmentally friendly frame house, designed to blend in to its rustic setting with the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop. The interior was contemporary but warm and embracing. The rooms were spacious and bright. It smelled of new lumber and fresh paint.
This moment held special significance for Kendall. This was to be her home, she hoped for the rest of her life. She and Matt would rear their children here. In this house they would live and grow old together, a simple privilege her young parents had been denied. She wanted her happiness to be so abundant that it would make up for their loss.
She hugged herself. "I love it."
Matt had shrugged off his tuxedo jacket and was standing with his hands in his pockets, taking in the appointments of the house. The furniture still had factory tags attached. The rooms hadn't been accessorized. "It's a little stark, isn't it?"
"It's not a home yet," she said. "We'll put our stamp on it, make it more than just a house. I know it doesn't look like much now, but I'll fix it up. I can't wait to get started."
Moved by her own speech, she laid her hands on the pleats of his tuxedo shirt and leaned in to him. "Oh, Matt, I love my life here."
He slid his arms around her waist. "I'm doing okay myself," he teased. He gave her a quick, hard kiss. "But I'm starving.
Dad said there'd be food in the fridge."
He released her and made his way t o the kitchen. Kendall caught up with him as he was removing a bottle of champagne from the wide refrigerator. "I'll pop the cork and pour. You read the gift card. Good Lord, when Dad said there'd be food, he wasn't kidding. Most supermarkets don't have this much inventory."
He tossed the card onto the kitchen table. Kendall picked it up and read aloud: " 'You two do me proud. All my love, Dad. P.S. Chilled glasses in the freezer."
Matt laughed. "He thinks of everything, doesn't he?"
"If we'd wanted to go to Mars on our honeymoon, I think he would have tried to arrange it."
Matt stopped wrestling with the cork and looked at her with a sad smile. "I'm sorry about that, Kendall. Bad timing."
"I understand," she said softly.
Quite unexpectedly, Matt's managing editor had died recently. Mr. Gregory's passing had left a void in Matt's life, personally and professionally. He hadn't yet found a suitable replacement for the job. Until he did, he couldn't leave his newspaper, even to take a honeymoon. Naturally, Kendall sympathized with his situation.
She couldn't complain about forgoing a honeymoon, because she was enjoying such a wealth of riches. Her husband was all she had ever dreamed he would be. Her father-in-law was generous to a fault, and not only in material things. Gibb had welcomed her into their family without so much as a hint of reservation or resentment. For years he'd had Matt all to him self. Now he had to share him, and he was doing so graciously.
They chatted about the ceremony and reception while they sipped champagne and built ham sandwiches. Matt was ravenous, but Kendall was still too excited to eat.
She was picking at the crust of her bread and gazing out the windows when she said, "I want to landscape only half the yard and leave the back part of it wild, like it is now. I'd like to put bird feeders in the trees. I'll have the squirrels domesticated in no time. I hope we have raccoons, too."
"They make a mess."
"Not our raccoons. They'll be neat because they'll get regular meals and won't have to forage. And deer," she continued, her enthusiasm undimmed by his groan. "We might even get deer to come close to the house."
"Kendall, if we have deer in our yard, our friends will be over here shooting them on the first day of hunting season."
"Oh, don't say that! And don't even think of mounting a stuffed head on any of our walls."
"I don't understand your aversion to hunting. It's a sport Dad and I enjoy very much, and we're not alone."
"Well, I don't understand how someone can get a charge out of killing innocent animals."
"You're a sortie."
"I suppose." She smiled wistfully. "One summer Grand mother and I saved a fawn's life. We found him at our favorite spot near a waterfall. It's actually not much more than a trickle, but when I was very young, I thought it was awesome. And there's this long-forgotten Confederate war memorial there. I used to play on that rusty old cannon whenever we picnicked there, which was at least once a week.
"Anyway, we came across this fawn in the woods. He had a broken leg. The two of us carried him all the way back to the car and took him home. We set his leg and nursed him until he was well enough to be returned to the forest."
"Where he was fair game the next hunting season."
"Matt!"
"I'm sorry." He reached across the table and stroked her cheek. "How can I make it up to you?"
She captured his hand and kissed the palm, then lightly worked the fleshy part of his thumb between her teeth. "Take me to bed," she whispered seductively.
The bed had already been turned down. Vases of flowers had been placed on the nightstands and dresser. Gibb's handiwork, no doubt. But even knowing that her father-in-law had invaded the privacy of their master bedroom didn't diminish Kendall's desire.
As they faced each other, undressing each other, laughing as they fumbled with the dozens of buttons on her gown, barely containing their impatience, which only heightened their anticipation, she now was glad that this was their first time together.
Matt hadn't slept with her during their courtship and engagement.
Abstinence to that degree almost deserved banner headline. Nowadays, how many couples waited until their wedding night to make love? It was a custom on the brink of extinction.
She wasn't a virgin and neither was he, but while they were dating he had remained a gentleman, apparently adhering to a code of honor that prohibited him from sleeping with the woman he had chosen for his wife, elevating Kendall lo a level above all the women with whom he had previously Been involved.
It was an old-fashioned tradition that went hand in glove with the unfair double standard that women had been subjected to for centuries. But, in a way, Kendall had found his restraint sweet, endearing, and terribly romantic.
Many times, when they had said good night at the door of her apartment, sexually charged and frustrated, she had wished he would relax his stance on that principle. She had even encouraged him to. He never had.
Now as his hands moved over her skin, eagerly exploring the shape of her body, she thought there was distinct Value in waiting for this moment, when their wedding attire lay at their feet and their nakedness was as new to then as (heir status as husband and wife.
"You're going to be exactly the wife I wanted," he murmured as he kissed her breasts. "I know it."
"I promise I will be."
For several seconds after Kendall awoke, she couldn't remember why she was suffused with such a feeling of euphoria. When she blinked her surroundings into focus, her smile smug. She all but purred with satisfaction.
This was the morning following her wedding night, ant she was the luckiest woman in the world. Her husband was a tender and considerate lover. They'd made love until, exhausted, they'd fallen asleep.
Matt was an habitual early riser, not one to sleep late. The slant of sunlight coming through the window indicated that it was well past dawn. The thought that she must have worn him out last night brought a smile to her lips.
Not wanting to disturb him, she turned cautiously. For a few moments, she wanted to watch and adore him without his being aware of it. He was sleeping on his back, his lips slightly parted, his torso rising and falling rhythmically. The sheet was pulled up to his waist.
Memories of last night's intimacy reawakened her passions.
Desire curled through her, stirring her blood, shortening her breath, bringing back that dull, delicious, bittersweet ache to her lower body. Last night Matt had treated her like a cherished bride. This morning, she wanted to be treated like a woman.
Slipping her hand beneath the sheet, she whispered, "Good morning."
He grunted.
Her hand closed around his flaccid penis. "I said good morning."
He smiled, mumbled something unintelligible, then opened his eyes. "Kendall."
"Well, thank you for remembering. You sound surprised."
"I am. An alarm clock usually gets me up."
"You can throw away your alarm clock. Get used to this."
"Every morning?"
"Why not? Are we on rations?" She kneaded him while nibbling her way down the center of his chest and stomach.
"Kendall . . ."
She pulled away the sheet and took a love bite out of the skin beneath his navel.
"Kendall, it's Dad."
"Hmm?"
"Dad." Pushing her aside, he got out of bed and moved to the window. "I heard his pickup in the driveway."
Kendall had barely come out of her sexual haze when there was a knock on the front door. Matt removed a pair of jeans from the bureau. As he pulled them on he said, "You'd better get up and get dressed."
Dumbstruck, she sat up and watched him leave the room.
"Coming, Dad," he called from the hallway. Then she heard him opening the front door. "Good morning."
"Am I disturbing you?"
"Of course not. I was just about to make coffee. Come on in."
They headed for the kitchen. Kendall followed their voices until she could no longer distinguish the words, then she raised her knees and bowed her head over them, trying to quell her dismay and disappointment.
When it became obvious that Matt had no intention of returning to bed, she got up and showered.
Ten minutes later, she joined them in the kitchen. Gibb was turning bacon in a skillet. "Ah, here comes the bride!" he sang when he saw her.
He stepped around the table to give her an affectionate hug.
Then, setting her away from him, he looked her straight in the eye. "You don't mind my coming over and cooking your breakfast, do you?"
Was that supposed to be a joke? Hell, yes, she minded. If this was all the honeymoon she was going to get, she wanted to enjoy it alone with Matt.
But Gibb was smiling so guilelessly that she didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. With a feeble grin, she said, "Of course not, Gibb."
She disengaged herself from his embrace and moved to the coffeemaker. Apparently she had failed to mask her rancor, as her unenthusiastic greeting was followed by an awkward silence.
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Gibb began untying the apron around his waist.
"Don't be silly, Dad," Matt objected. "Kendall's not her best in the morning. She warned me to expect some grumpiness. Right, darling?"
She smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid that's a flaw I must own up to, Gibb. I'm a bear when I first wake up."
"Hungry as a bear, too, I hope." He replaced the apron and returned to the sizzling skillet on the stove. "Do you like waffles?
I make the batter from scratch and add a secret ingredient."
"What?"
He winked. "I guess I can share it with you, now that you're family. Vanilla," he whispered. "Add a teaspoon of vanilla to the batte r. It makes all the difference."
"Thanks for the tip."
Matt stood up and offered her his chair. Kissing her hand in a courtly gesture, he said, "Mrs. Burnwood, please be seated. Let us wait on you."
She sat down, only then noticing the gift-wrapped packages on the table. "More gifts? There couldn't possibly be. We've received so many already."
"Dad brought them over."
"They were left at my house. Why don't you open them while your breakfast is cooking?"
She and Matt divided the presents and began unwrapping them. They received a Waterford candy dish, a pair of silver candlesticks, and a lacquered serving tray. Matt handed the last gift to her. "You may do the honors."
"Roscoe Calloway delivered that present this morning," Gibb informed them.
"Oh, how sweet of him!" Kendall exclaimed. Roscoe was the courthouse janitor. He'd been an institution there for thirty years. During her tenure as public defender, Kendall and he had formed a friendship. She opened the gift and found a picture frame inside.
" 'Best wishes,' " she read off the gift card. "It's signed Roscoe and Henrietta Calloway." Her smile turned into a puzzled frown. "Now that I think of it, I don't remember seeing them at the wedding. I wonder why they couldn't come?"
"I advised you not to invite them," Matt reminded her softly.
"But I did, because I wanted to," she insisted. "Roscoe is so nice to me. He's always leaving a fresh rose on my desk, or doing something special like that. He was so excited when we became engaged. He speaks highly of you, Matt. You, too, Gibb."
"Roscoe's a good one."
Gibb turned away from the stove to bring her a plate. The waffle was perfect thick and golden brown with a square pad of butter melting in its center.
But Gibb's comment had ruined her appetite.
" 'A good one'?" she repeated, hoping that he wasn't implying what she feared he was.
"Roscoe knew that he and his wife would be . . . well, out of place at your wedding," her father-in-law explained.
She looked at her husband, who nodded in solemn agreement. "They would have been the only nonwhites there, Kendall."
"I'm sure Roscoe appreciated your invitation, even though he knew better than to show up. He knows the score, even if you don't." Gibb gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze as he added, "But you'll learn."
