Windswept (42 page)

She mentally reviewed their statements before the interruption. She didn’t agree with the “backed down” interpretation, but she’d concede the point for the moment. She wouldn’t give in on the real question, though. “As I recall, the major subject in our discussion concerned the issue of trust.”

“Yes,” he said with the damn straight face she still couldn’t read.

“I didn’t think that you trusted me.”

“And I thought you weren’t trusting me.”

She took a deep breath. He was correct: she hadn’t been. Better to get it over with so they could move on. “Looking back now, I see that you are correct. I apologize, Davis. I shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion you were going to deny me the use of the journals. All I could see was my plans for tenure and promotion slipping through my fingers. I should have been more sensitive to the situation with your family, more understanding of the shock Mary Maude’s confession caused. I should have had more faith in you.”

“No, don’t apologize. You were right to worry,” he said with a rueful smile. “I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do until I talked to Lloyd about your discovery. As I was explaining to him, I told him we could handle the resulting publicity and had time to prepare good responses. I knew then I trusted you to tell the story, but the family kept hounding me, and the next thing I knew you were telling me you were going to bed alone.”

“You were so tied up with the phone, and I was trying to keep some distance between us just in case . . .”

“In case . . . ?” he said with raised eyebrows.

She couldn’t tell him the truth about guarding her heart. She wasn’t ready to make such an admission without knowing how he felt about her, so she answered in a small voice, “In case you tossed me out.”

“Barrett,” he said, taking her hands in his, “I am not going to throw you out. I want you here together with me, forever.”

“Forever? Here?” He did want her. His answer thrilled her but at the same time shocked all rules for proper negotiating tactics right out of her head. “Here? In Houston?” she repeated and spoke the first thoughts that made their way through her mind. “But what about tenure? My career?”

He smiled, a little quirk of his mustache. “What about it? I want you to have a career and tenure, if that’s what you want. I’m not asking you to give up anything. On the contrary, I asking you to add something to your life--me.”

What he was asking was wonderful, but . . . “Davis, how can we be together if I’m up there and you’re down here? I can’t be here and teach my classes or work on committees or do all I have to do to gain tenure.”

“We’ll work something out.” He squeezed her hands, leaned in and gave her a light kiss.

“It’s easy to say, but difficult to bring off,” she answered. One portion of her brain registered the golden glints in his hazel eyes while the other, larger part whirled around in her skull trying to analyze the ramifications of what he was saying. “I’ve thought about this, and a long-distance relationship is so difficult, so taxing, and we both work so hard . . .”

“You’ve thought about it already?” He grinned now, a full-fledged “Ah Ha!” upturn of mouth and mustache. His grandfather’s roguish glint was back in his eyes, too. “Then your answer’s yes?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know.” She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Wait,” she said on the exhale. She opened her eyes and looked at him. She spoke slowly, feeling her way through her earlier introspection. “Yes, I thought about it and you, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion about how to make it all work.”

She jiggled their clasped hands for emphasis. “You have to understand my situation. If I want to get anywhere in my profession, I need tenure and the title Associate Professor. Once those are granted to me, they give me a legitimacy, they’re proof I’m a historian of substance, not someone hanging on to the fringes or incapable of doing the work. Without them, I may not be rehired the next year or be able to do a number of things connected with the History Department and the university. With them, if I change schools, I’ll be able to bargain for a tenured place as a condition of my contract.

“But to get any of it, I need to be there, at my school, working with my department, with my college. I’m under a deadline for publications. I need to spend long hours writing, researching, teaching, and grading. Travel will eat drastically into that time, and driving or flying back and forth every week is exhausting, no matter who’s doing it. Your work requires travel, too. Our schedules could keep us apart for a month or more. When would we have time for us?”

“Trust me,” he answered. “We’ll work it out.”

“You’re not listening to me, Davis,” she said. He was so damn smug, as though they had nothing to worry about. “Look, this time I’m the one who needs details, information. I’m the one who needs a plan. It’s your turn to let me think the situation through.”

He frowned, and the smug look slid off his face. “All right,” he said, “but no more of this separate bedroom shit.”

“Fine.” She’d go to his bed, but she didn’t know if she’d gotten through to him. They still had so much to discuss about logistics and timing. When would she find time to write? Did he really understand her? At least he wasn’t saying things like, “You don’t need a career when you’ve got me.” But would he become jealous of the demands on her time?

Before she could put any of her thoughts into words, Gonzales appeared at the doorway. “Excuse me,” he said, “but Mrs. Cecilia Walker is on the phone, and she sounds frantic.”

Davis groaned. “She’s probably looking for Lloyd. Thank you, I’ll take the call.”

While he attempted to calm Lloyd’s mother, Barrett went into her office and began to tidy up, moving Mary Maude’s journals from where she’d been showing them to their visitors to a small side table. When she picked up the volume she knew was the final one, she didn’t get a good grip and the back cover swung open. An envelope fell out.

She turned it over and read the names on it.
“Davis Jamison and Barrett Browning”
were clearly written in Edgar Jamison’s hand.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Oh, my God.” She spun around and rushed to Davis’s office. He took one look at her waving the letter and said into the phone, “Lloyd and Grace are on their way back home, Aunt Cecilia. They’ll explain everything. I have to go now. Good-bye.” He hung up over her sputterings. “What’s the matter? You’re pale.”

Barrett held up the envelope in front of him so he could read their names.

“Where did this come from?” he asked, rising as he took it from her. He walked around the desk.

“It fell out of the last journal.”

“Granddaddy was playing tricks with us, the old rascal.” He tore open the envelope, took out the contents and held the letter so they could read it together. It was dated a month before the old man’s death.

Dear Barrett and Davis,

If you have found this letter, then you have discovered how Edgar Sr. died by Mary Maude’s hand. I read her journals in the 1960s, but wasn’t sure what to do with the information. At that time of social upheaval, the ensuing scandal could have affected the livelihoods of several members of the family, mostly because of the self-righteous old biddies (both male and female) who ran the parish. Note I said livelihoods. You know I’ve never given a good God-damn about what people have merely said about us, but I wasn’t going to be the cause of difficulties costing our relatives their jobs or businesses.

Times have changed. It’s time to tell the story.

It took me a long time to find you, Barrett, a smart, able historian, one who would care about the characters and could do justice to them.

I wish to hell I could have been there to see the look on your face, Barrett, when you opened the trunk. And when you read the journal. And when you told Davis about his great-great-great grandparents.

I particularly wanted to be present when you told the family, Davis. I know you can handle them, but I planned on being the one to take the brunt of their anger.

I’m not there, but, Davis, you are.

Don’t go all over protective, now. The family is strong, you know that. Oh, Cecilia and Phyllis will give you some static, but they’ll get over it. Don’t let Cecilia make Lloyd crazy either. He’s had enough to do, getting over those two parents of his. Thank the Good Lord for Grace.

Davis, make sure Barrett publishes our story. It’s a doozy and will help her with her career.

Barrett, you use every bit of those papers you can in your history.

You both have my love.

Take care of each other.

With much love,

Edgar Jamison

P.S. If you don’t, I’ll come back to haunt you.

“Oh, Davis,” Barrett said as she blinked to hold back her tears.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little hoarse also. He cleared his throat before continuing, “Now we know what he wanted to do. And what he wanted you to do: Write the Windswept story.”

“I do miss him. I wish he could have been here.”

“Me too.” He laughed. “It certainly would have saved us some wear and tear.” He laid the letter on the desk and took her into his arms. “Speaking of wear and tear?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Yes?”

“Did you really think I’d go back on my word?”

She thought over the past day for a minute. “No, not really,” she said. “Although you scared me badly. I was more upset because I thought you didn’t trust me to do a good job.”

“Why would you think that?”

“First, because when people ask for time ‘to think things over,’ it usually means they’re looking for a way out. Second, because I didn’t know how protective you would be about your family, or how much influence they had over you. I am an outsider, after all.”

A funny look passed over his face for a second, and a gleam came to his eye, but then he seemed to shift gear. “I know how you can make it up to me.”

“Make up what to you?”

“Your lack of trust in me.”

“Wait a minute. What about your lack of trust in me?”

“I never mistrusted you.”

She knew she wasn’t that far off, so she gave him one of her “teacher” looks.

“Not really,” he said.

“Okay, how can I make it, whatever it is, up to you?”

“Let’s go upstairs, and I’ll show you.” He waggled his eyebrows and rubbed against her.

She started laughing. He truly was such a rogue.

Then he leaned down and kissed her, and she stopped laughing.

***

The next morning Barrett lay on her back and watched Davis’s bedroom grow slowly lighter until she could make out a few colors and details. She’d lain awake for over an hour now, trying to reconcile her ambition with her love for Davis. What was at stake here? His love for her and subsequent happiness versus success in her chosen field.

She’d been focused on her career for so long. She’d gone through undergraduate and graduate school in a blaze of work, had subordinated everything to get her Ph.D. as fast as she could. She hadn’t dated, had barely taken time to come home to visit. Then she’d accepted the offer from Texas at Grand Prairie with the goals first of tenure and then of making a name for herself. She’d worked like a fiend for several years. True, she’d made the mistake of dating Wendell Truman, rising star in economics, but he’d turned out to be a dismal scientist indeed and jealous of her successes to boot.

Davis would not be dismal. Would he be jealous of her career? No, she really didn’t think so; he seemed so proud to introduce her to his friends and clients at the party. He’d be protective, probably overly so, but, after her experience with her brothers, she knew how to handle him. Would he understand her need to do research and write, both basically solitary endeavors? Probably, because he’d seen her work habits since she arrived and he seldom interrupted her. In fact, he worked as hard as she did.

What was she so afraid of? Why couldn’t she throw caution to the wind, stop worrying, and tell him, yes, she wanted to be with him forever, too? All her life she’d jumped to conclusions on very little evidence, or so her family told her, and now that she’d taught herself not to--well, almost--here she was dithering.

It had to come down to her feeling a loss of control. She had everything to do with her career all lined up in a nice little order, her life planned out, and here came Davis into it.

And she loved him. A rush of warmth ran through her as the thought, the reality of loving him settled into her brain and her body. She’d be a fool to push him away. No, worse than a fool, a complete idiot.

He’d said, “Trust me, we’ll work it out.”

She’d take him at his word and tell him yes when he woke up. Together they’d manage the distance and the time.

She grinned to herself as she turned over on her side away from Davis.

The sun was peeking through a gap in the curtains when Davis woke up. He reached for Barrett and drew her into his body spoon fashion. His bottom arm was under her head and his top curved around so his hand could find her breast. The feel of her in his arms was so right, so complete. He knew she felt the same way.

All that business about their being separated had shaken him at first. Would she say no because of a few miles and a little time? He’d surprised her when he’d said forever, but that’s exactly what he meant. He’d showed her last night how much he loved her.

The words of his sister came back to him. “I know this will be hard for you to comprehend,” she’d said more than once, “but women cannot read men’s minds. Tell me what you want, and we’ll negotiate.” Good advice, Martha.

He kissed Barrett’s shoulder as he tweaked her nipple.

“Mmmmph!” was all she said, but she captured his hand and held it with both of hers. She snuggled closer.

“Barrett,” he whispered.

“Mmmmph?” came the reply and another wiggle.

“I love you,” he murmured in her ear, rising up just enough to see her profile.