Entwined - SF5 (5 page)

"Just once," Jamie laughed softly, rubbing her head against Ryan’s chin. "But I got a face full when the wind shifted."

"It goes well with the salt on your skin," Ryan teased, allowing her tongue to swipe across her partner’s neck. She shifted a bit on the seat and leaned in heavily, pinning her partner to the seat back. When her leg moved between Jamie’s, the smirking blonde knew how they would spend the rest of the afternoon. Ryan was practically straddling her, but Jamie didn’t have any intention of complaining. Their lips met softly, but the softness quickly progressed to firm, and then rough, kisses, Ryan’s desire clearly in overdrive. Her kisses were nearly consuming, and Jamie managed to wedge her hands between their bodies and push her back just an inch or two.

"Slow down, Tiger," she soothed, smiling as Ryan continued to kiss and nibble on her lips. "We’ve got all day. We don’t have to rush."

"I like to rush," Ryan’s deep voice rumbled, as she pushed back against her lover, trapping her hands between them. "First I wanna rush," she murmured, capturing Jamie’s lips in a flurry of hungry kisses. "Then I wanna go slow." Another round of kisses followed, this time slow and soft and delicate–so different from the first, but just as heavy with the promise of an afternoon of lovemaking.

Ryan’s determined hand slipped between Jamie’s thighs and as she felt the humid dampness underneath the thin cotton shorts, she considered having their first round of passion be al fresco. No one was home, and even though they were facing the street, their position atop the garage made it impossible for pedestrians to observe them. She knew that the house directly across the street could see the entire deck, since a friend from grammar school had previously lived in the little Victorian, and he and Ryan had spent many hours in his room playing with his Sega video games. She didn’t know the current occupants very well since they had only lived in the house a short time. They were a young couple with a new baby, and Ryan guessed they had better things to do on a Saturday than sit in their bedroom looking at her.
Still, Jamie wouldn’t like it if we could be observed…

All of these thoughts flitted through her mind as Jamie lay quietly beneath her. The smaller woman had a hunch that Ryan wasn’t going to allow her to enter the house without some satisfaction, and even though she didn’t really enjoy being intimate when they could be discovered, she thought she could give Ryan a little pleasure without much risk of exposure. She shifted beneath her heavier partner, wedging her leg tightly between Ryan’s thighs, smiling to herself when Ryan groaned, twitching her hips to intensify the contact. "Oooh, you read my mind," the dark-haired woman said.

"Your intentions couldn’t be more transparent if you tried, Tiger," Jamie murmured as Ryan started to push against her. She was almost at a good rhythm when Duffy let out a low growl and scampered to his feet. He was standing at the top of the stairs, tail wagging hesitantly, ears up, head cocked, by the time Ryan heard the first footstep on the stairs.

"Shit," she growled, rolling off Jamie to compose herself as much as possible. "Duffy, sit!" she ordered, and without hesitation he did so, now looking very happy at the prospect of greeting their guest.

"Um…hello," called out a hesitant voice, seconds before Mary Elizabeth Andrews’ dark brown head peeked up from the staircase.

"Mrs. Andrews," Ryan gasped, hopping up from the chair as though she’d been pinched. "Uhh…hello." Ryan strode across the deck, her hand extended.

The older woman grasped it as she reached the deck, allowing Ryan to give her a firm handshake. "I’m sorry I didn’t call first, or let you know I was coming…" she trailed off, looking at the stairs rather helplessly, and Ryan mentally cursed Conor for failing to put a doorbell at the bottom of the stairs as he had often promised to do

"No problem," Ryan said, with a cordial smile affixed to her face. "You remember my partner Jamie, don’t you?"

Jamie hopped up and shook the older woman’s hand, adding a practiced smile that did not include her eyes. "Good to see you again," Jamie said, all of her normal warmth absent.

"Yes, yes, it’s good to see you too, Jamie," she murmured, looking like she would rather be almost anywhere else. Returning her eyes to Ryan she asked, "Do you have a few minutes, Ryan?"

"Sure," she said graciously. "Have a seat." The hesitant woman did so, casting a quick glance at Jamie to determine if she would join them. Ryan grasped her partner’s hand, pulling her down next to her on the loveseat, settling that question rather decisively. "I was planning on calling you sometime this weekend," Ryan stated. "I suppose your visit is for the same purpose."

The older woman nodded briefly. Her brow was knit, her expression contrite and earnest. "Sara told me what you two had discussed, and even though I have much to regret, I wanted to assure you that I did not tell anyone about what happened, Ryan. I would never do that to you."

Ryan’s expression grew chilly, and she fixed the woman with an ice blue gaze. "Haven’t you caused me enough harm, Mrs. Andrews? I would think that after all of this time you could admit your role and be done with it."

Their visitor looked completely taken aback. She sat up a little taller in her chair and leaned forward, returning Ryan’s gaze. "Ryan, I’ve known you since you were a small child. I knew your mother…I’m proud to say she was my friend. I would not tarnish the relationship she and I had by hurting you intentionally. I know that my actions hurt you, and I’m terribly sorry for them. But I did not--I swear--tell anyone about you."

Ryan gazed deeply into her warm brown eyes and let the memories of their long relationship flow through her mind. She remembered how close she had been to the woman who now faced her, and she acknowledged that it wasn’t in her character to do what she had suspected her of. In fact, one of the reasons that she had been so stunned by her betrayal was because it was so completely unexpected. "So who did?" Ryan whispered, a stab of pain lodging in her chest when she hit upon the only other possibility. Her eyes filled with tears as she considered that Sara must have been the one lying to her. Jamie’s arm came to circle her waist, providing much needed support, and Ryan leaned against her heavily.

"I don’t know," the older woman muttered, her own eyes now filled with tears. "I know I didn’t, and I know Sara didn’t. Please…please believe me, Ryan."

"How can I?" Ryan said in a loud voice as she jumped to her feet, causing Duffy to scramble behind the loveseat in alarm. "I certainly didn’t tell anyone! It wasn’t written on my forehead! Either I told, you told, or Sara told."

Mrs. Andrews closed her eyes tightly, her lips pressed together as she tried to come up with a possible explanation for the rumor. "I’ve been thinking about this constantly since Sara told me, Ryan, and I think that it might have been written on your forehead." At Ryan’s shocked look she hastened to explain. "I don’t mean that literally, of course, but when I think back to that time I’m amazed that I didn’t put a label on the way you behaved around Sara."

Ryan flopped down onto the chair, her legs feeling too weak to hold her any longer. She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her face briskly, an unconscious habit indicating complete frustration that Jamie had seen far too often lately. "What do you mean, Mrs. Andrews?" Jamie asked softly.

The older woman looked a little uncomfortable to be discussing this in front of a near-stranger, but Ryan obviously wanted the woman by her side, so she gathered her courage and said, "In retrospect, Ryan had begun to act more like a…a boyfriend towards Sara than a girlfriend. She hung on her every word…laughed uproariously at the slightest joke…" She looked at the embarrassed blush that was suffusing Ryan’s face and assured her, "I don’t mean to embarrass you, Ryan, and I swear it didn’t register at the time…but looking back on it, I have to acknowledge that it was fairly obvious. You treated Sara much like you treat Jamie now."

The younger women were holding hands, and Jamie unconsciously tightened her grip around Ryan’s waist.

"I just wish that I had spoken to you about it then…to save you both so much pain," Mrs. Andrews added. "Maybe you wouldn’t have…" she left the statement unfinished, not knowing how to characterize Ryan’s physical overtures towards her daughter.

Ryan wasn’t sure how to respond to the comment. Since she was sure that Sara had not come out to her mother, she obviously couldn’t state her wish that Mrs. Andrews had brought it up–so that she and Sara could have admitted their love and worked through the problems associated with it. Instead, she just nodded briefly, deciding that saying nothing was the best option at this point.

"So…" Jamie led, "you think what--that other people just guessed?" The skepticism in her voice was blatant, and Mrs. Andrews wished she had been able to speak to Ryan alone, to avoid being questioned by both of these strong-minded women.

She nodded quickly, saying, "Something like that. Sara and Ryan were much more than friends, Jamie, you have to remember that. They were absolutely inseparable–they never had the usual fights that most girls do. I can only imagine that when they stopped seeing each other so abruptly, some of the other girls might have guessed what had torn them apart." She looked at Jamie rather helplessly and said, "It’s the only thing that I can think of."

Ryan let out a massive sigh, causing both women to turn their attention to her. Jamie was just on the verge of telling Mrs. Andrews that her idea was ridiculous, when her partner surprised her by saying, "It’s a long shot…but I guess it’s within the realm of possibility." She looked at Mrs. Andrews for a full minute, the older woman’s gaze never wavering. "I wish I could let this rest…but I can’t. I’m going to find out what happened–if I have to track down every girl in that school."

A small smile played at the corners of Mrs. Andrews’ mouth and she nodded her head slightly. "I’ve never seen you back down from a challenge, Ryan. I’ll help you in any way that I can. I let you down once…I promise I won’t do it again."

Jamie couldn’t help but ask the obvious question. "If you didn’t spread the rumors about Ryan, what do you feel so guilty about?"

Her brown eyes fluttered closed, and a look of genuine pain crossed her face. "I can still see the look on Ryan’s face when I sent her away." She stared at her folded hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I regret that more than anything I’ve ever done. Ryan needed somebody to help her get through that troubling time–and I abandoned her." She lifted her head and stared directly into Ryan’s red-rimmed eyes and whispered, "I’m so very sorry, Ryan. Just because Sara didn’t feel that way towards you was no reason to turn my back on you. I just didn’t know what to do–and I let my fear take over. Can you ever forgive me?"

Ryan got to her feet and closed the short distance, squatting down in front of the sobbing woman who threw her arms around Ryan’s neck. "I forgive you," she whispered, just loud enough for Jamie to hear.

Jamie was moved by Ryan’s enormous capacity to forgive, but she was still not convinced of their visitor’s veracity. She held her tongue while the two women embraced each other and cried a bit, finally going into the house to fetch a box of tissues. When she returned, Ryan was standing, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She gratefully accepted the box, and they both spent a few minutes composing themselves. When it seemed safe, Jamie asked the question that had been lingering in the back of her mind. "Why have you avoided Martin and Brendan and even Maeve all of these years, Mrs. Andrews?"

Ryan rolled her eyes, wishing her little district attorney would give this one a rest, but the older woman didn’t seem offended in the least. "At first, I didn’t know if Ryan had told her family about what had happened," she offered. "I certainly wasn’t going to say anything if she hadn't. I guess I just started going out of my way to avoid them, and after a while they started avoiding me," she admitted. "I felt guilty enough to know that I deserved their anger, and I suppose I took the coward’s way out. I just hate to cause a scene," she murmured self-consciously, and Ryan had to acknowledge that while Mrs. Andrews had many good qualities, she was never one to stand up for herself. Thinking back, Ryan also had to admit that seeing a pair of cold blue eyes boring into them was not something that most people would seek out, and she acknowledged that once Da knew about the issue he would not have been very welcoming when he encountered the woman.

"That makes sense," Ryan admitted, sparing a small smile for the obviously relieved woman. "What’s done is done," she said. "Let’s try to start over. Jamie and I are going to start attending Mass regularly, and I’d really like to feel like we can all be friends once again."

A warm smile lit up Mrs. Andrews’ face and she said, "I can’t tell you how much I’d like that, Ryan. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll stroll down the street and try to make amends with your aunt right now."

"She’s the easy one," Ryan laughed gently, not bothering to add that her father would be a tougher sell.

"Practice makes perfect," Mrs. Andrews smiled. "By the time I work up to your father, I should be pretty good at this."

"Don’t worry," Ryan assured her. "I’ll put Jamie on the job. She has him wrapped around her little finger."

A teasing grin preceded her rejoinder. "You’re going to run out of little fingers, Jamie, with Martin around one and Ryan around the other."

"Is it that obvious?" Ryan wailed, dropping her face into her hands. "I’m older, I’m taller, I’m bigger…it just doesn’t make any sense!"