A Trashy Affair (32 page)

Merlin stalked to the ornate coat rack and shrugged into his peacoat. He checked the pockets for the keys and the small box, both still there. While reaching to retrieve his black watch cap, Ellen summoned him to the parlor. He tucked his hat in a pocket and went to see what she wanted.

“Come here, dear boy. I’m not going along because I do fear falling, but you must learn to dress for the cold. Bend down.” When he complied, she wrapped the striped scarf around his neck several times and pulled the hat with the pompom down over his ears. “And don’t forget your mittens.”

“No, ma’am.” He shoved them deep into the opposite pocket of his jacket figuring he could switch them out with his driving gloves in the truck.

Wearing her long, red coat, fuzzy white mittens and a cap made of the same furry yarn with pompoms on the strings that tied beneath her chin, Jane appeared in the archway of the parlor. On her, the outfit looked cute, but she smirked a little at his appearance.

“Heath shoveled a path to the truck. We should get going. It gets dark early here.”

He didn’t want to look at himself in the mirror of the coat rack when he passed, so he kept his eyes on Jane. He knew the exact moment when she noticed his duffel by the door. She spun and faced him.

“You were going to run out on me this morning! I can’t trust you to stay, and you have the gall to get that beak of a nose out of joint because I didn’t tell you about the job interview.” Jane stamped outside, slamming the door in his face so hard that when he opened it again, the large Christmas wreath lay on the porch.

Merlin replaced the wreath on its hook and held the door for Kathleen and Roy to pass. The couple exchanged glances the way the long married often did—as if they could read each other’s minds. His grandparents used to do that kind of thing. Probably, he would never get to that point with Jane where they understood each other so well words weren’t needed. She should know why the job interview and her lack of faith in him mattered more than his going home early for her own good so as not to embarrass her in front of her family. He’d blown it with her again.

As Merlin walked down the narrow path scooped in the snow to his truck, Heath mocked, “Looks like we’ve found Waldo,” referring to the picture book character given to wearing red and white stripes and a pompom cap.

Merlin got right in his face. “I know a man named Waldo I truly despise. Never call me that again, you hear? It’s Merlin or Blackie and nothing else. Now get in the truck, Heathcliff.” He opened the doors.

“Touchy,” Heath said.

“You leave my brother alone.” Jane pointedly climbed into the backseat without assistance.

Looking rather pleased, Heath joined her there. Roy lifted his short, round goddess inside and took the shotgun seat. He gave the directions going south out of town to an area where the earth lay disturbed under shallow drifts between stakes in the ground marking out the plats of the new condos. A steep hill without a road rose directly behind the graded area. The twisted black trunks of old apple trees spread out in even rows, their branches so coated with snow they might have been in bloom.

“Want me to take you to the top, because I could do that,” Merlin offered.

“No. We should get out and walk to spare the roots of the trees. Jane knows where we’re going,” Kathleen told him.

As soon as he unlocked the doors, Jane and Heath got down and raced off nimble as arctic hares. Their warm breath sent white plumes into the air as they ran. Merlin started after them, but Kathleen held him back.

“I’m going to need some help getting up there. It’s icy, and I don’t want to break a hip anymore than my mother does. Gentlemen.” She hooked one arm around her husband’s elbow and snagged Merlin with the other. They set off at a sedate pace.

“Talk to him, Roy.”

“Son, we know you’re brave. You proved that by serving your country. But, there is also emotional courage. Sometimes, you just have to put yourself out there and say what’s on your mind.”

“Even when a woman just told you off?”

“Oh hell, yes. How do you think I got Kathy to marry me? She was screaming at me about raping the earth with my oil wells, and I got on my knees and said we might have different opinions on that issue, but I knew we loved each other and could make it work.”

“And we have,” Kathleen added.

“I have to say marrying a very opinionated woman will change you,” Roy continued.

“For the better,” his wife said.

“You don’t have to tell me that. I already noticed. Are you saying I have your blessing?”

“We’re saying go for it. Go, go, go.” Kathleen dropped Merlin’s arm and gave him a little shove forward toward the spot where Jane and her brother waited by the biggest tree with a long, low spread of branches in the center of the frozen orchard. “That’s where we were married. I can’t think of a better place.”

Merlin strode forward. He shed the absurd hat, stuffed it in his pocket with the mittens, and replaced it with his black watch cap. Unwinding the scarf, he shoved that inside his coat. When he took his chance, he did not intend to look like Waldo, any Waldo. Reaching Jane, he dropped to his knees as suddenly as a hawk stooping from the sky above and grasped her hand in its fuzzy, white mitten.

“Jane Marshall, will you marry me? I love you and never want to be without you for the rest of my life. I know I’m not good enough, but have mercy.” He took the deep blue velvet box from his pocket, flicked it open, and offered her the ring he’d carried for two weeks, unable to find the right time or the right words to present it. He believed the first part of the proposal went well, but wasn’t sure about the rest. Too bad because that was how he felt—unworthy and at her mercy.

Jane’s other hand flew to her mouth, then fluttered in the air. “Oh, get up, get up. It must be ten degrees out here. You’ll freeze to the ground, and your jeans aren’t lined. I’m wearing mittens. How can I be wearing a pair of Gran’s mittens at a time like this? I didn’t expect a proposal, not now, not at all!”

Still clutching her hand and completely perplexed, Merlin rose slowly. “Is that a no or a yes? Should I put this away?” He offered her the ring again.

Jane pulled off a mitten with her teeth and held out her ring finger. Her dad got a picture on his digital camera just before she remembered to spit out the mitten and say, “Yes, oh yes!”

That one would make the family album whether she liked it or not. The most embarrassing photos always did, but Roy took another of Merlin placing the ring on Jane’s finger and kissing her before the backdrop of real apple trees lacy with snow. He made them pose again in the same stance as the fake apple blossom picture and then another gazing outward down the valley with Merlin’s arm around Jane’s shoulder.

There might have been more poses, but Heath began to complain, “Dad, it is cold as a witch’s tit out here. Can we go now?”

“For shame, Heath Cliff Marshall. Some of my best friends are witches, very nice ones, though I don’t go in for that sort of thing myself,” Kathleen reprimanded him.

“Sorry, Mom. Still freezing. The sun is getting low.”

Reluctantly, Jane covered her hands with her mittens. Merlin fished out the scarf, wrapped it around his neck and the lower half of his face, grateful for its warmth if not for its style. Kathleen claimed both her husband and Merlin to assist her again as the way had grown icier and more tricky going down. Heath and Jane went ahead. Over his wife’s head, Roy whispered to his son-in-law to be, “If Jane takes after her mother you will never be disappointed in bed.”

“I heard that. My silver wolf is absolutely right,” Kathleen agreed. Merlin nodded and did not let on what he already knew.

Back at the house, Jane immediately ran to show her grandmother the ring. “Most unusual,” Ellen said as if she might have preferred something more traditional.

Merlin took Jane’s hand and displayed the ring. “Mr. LeClerc designed it for me. The center diamond isn’t very big, but it is perfect and old, so the cut has more sparkle than most today, the jeweler told me. It belonged to my Granny. She gave it to me after she met Jane and claimed she couldn’t get the ring over her knuckle anymore. I should give it to my bride someday.”

“I do understand that.” Ellen gazed down on the swollen joints of her own ringless hands. “I’ll save mine for Heath.”

“Shouldn’t she have passed it along to your mother or Brittney?” Jane said with just a twinge of guilt.

“No. My mother could lose it, and Brittney would sell it. Granny knows that. I had it reset. These little yellow stones in the half circle around the diamond are topazes. They represent the rays of the setting sun. The emerald slivers running along band, that’s supposed to be sugarcane.” Seized with a moment of doubt, Merlin asked, “Do you think it’s too gaudy? Mr. LeClerc said he’d take it back if you didn’t like it, but he seemed fairly sure you would.”

“I love it right down to its recycled center stone. It’s unique, like you.” Jane grasped his bearded chin to lower his head for a kiss.

“Manly yet sensitive like your father,” Kathleen sighed. “Where is my own dear man?”

“In the kitchen setting out the leftovers for dinner,” Heath answered. “I think we should eat before it gets anymore sickly sweet in here.”

“Your day will come, Heathcliff. I guarantee you me,” Merlin said.

They ate. They listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on PBS and watched
It’s a Wonderful Life
playing endlessly on another channel. When Jane and Merlin decided to go up to bed at exactly the same time, no one commented. They chose to spend the night in Merlin’s designated room at the far end of the hall away from parents and brother and kept the lovemaking quiet. In the morning, he told Jane to stay in bed and tucked the feather comforter tight around her. He wanted to make an early start without waking anyone. She listened to his big-ass truck roar toward the sunrise until she could hear it no more before going back to sleep.

Merlin Tauzin went back to Louisiana sure of one thing. Jane would be coming home to him.

Chapter Thirty-One

Merlin waited for her at the airport gate. Jane saw him standing at the foot of the escalator as she left the security area. He looked up, clean-shaven, fresh haircut, and wearing a blue dress shirt open at the collar with new khakis possessing a razor-sharp crease. The middle-aged woman with whom she’d shared the cramped seats on the small jet from Dallas said, “Wish he was waiting for me.”

“I’m afraid he’s all mine.”

Impatient with the queue forming at the escalator, she took the stairs straight into his arms. After a gratifying kiss long enough to draw embarrassed stares from other passengers, they walked hand in hand to the baggage carousel to wait for the beep and roll of the luggage. Jane studied his long face. The electric blue eyes held something she’d never seen there before—happiness backed up with an instant broad smile that said the same.

“You look wonderful, Merlin.”

“You, too.”

He lied. She had poorly concealed circles under her eyes, chapped lips slathered with gloss, and a pale face amped up with a little blusher. No matter how hard she tried, her curling iron failed to turn all the ends of her straight hair under in a becoming way. She wore a touch of gold jewelry donated by her grandmother, her engagement ring, and a slinky black travel knit ensemble guaranteed not to wrinkle. Unfortunately, the coffee she’d spilled with her nervous hands on the plane left stains on the apple green turtleneck shell she wore under it. With the jacket worn buttoned, only she would know the difference, but still.

Having spent the night in Dallas in order to arrive early enough for the unemployment hearing today, she’d let her nerves keep her up going over and over what she would say. Her mother rehearsed her for days as if preparing her for a Supreme Court testimony, always emphasizing that her daughter needed to do this for her fellow employees. Kathleen had some experience with the process having once been fired for her unorthodox views, but she’d proved beyond a doubt that her personal beliefs did not intrude into her classroom. Not only had she won against the school board, she’d collected compensation and a settlement as well. A less rigid community college soon gave her a contract. Jane prayed, not for her sake so much as for Merlin’s, that her outcome would be as successful. What if recycling was not restored? What if the parish did not rehire her? She refused to be a drain on his resources.

They drove back to Chapelle in the big-ass truck, though he could have used her hybrid. She declined to mention that. Other things mattered more.

“Thanks for taking today off to meet me. Did you get to see Doyle again before he left?”

“Yep. I feel good about his chances of coming home now. While we were on our way to Montana, he met up with a girl who’d been writing to him, one of these deals to support our troops they set up at Holy Mom’s. They went to high school together, and I think he had a little crush on her, but being a fat kid with mostly just nice going for him, he didn’t stand a chance. Now, he’s a trim man in a uniform who wants to start his own trucking business once he gets out of the service. She has secretarial training and could run an office. Courtney Plaisance, you know her?”

“Yes, a very nice young woman, pretty, too. She’s May Robin’s grandniece. She came to the retirement party.”

Merlin answered, “Right,” as if he held something back, but he continued. “She was working for Bernard Freeman when I went to visit with him, but I set her straight on what kind of snake he is. She quit. Looks like she might be part of our family in the future. Having someone to come home to makes a man overseas a lot more cautious and a lot less stupid. I doubt if they would have called me The Magician for my exploits if you’d been waiting for me.”

“Then, we probably would not have met at all since you would have been a different man. I love you as you are.” She did mean that, but knew her answer came out distracted by the looming hearing.

“Your dad said you’d change me for the better.”

“No, you will change yourself. You already have.”

“Thanks for canceling that job interview.”