Just the Man She Needs (23 page)

She sprinted across the small tent, threw herself into his waiting arms, and his heart hammered out an erratic rhythm as she locked herself to him. Her sweetness and her soft and yielding body were his. Shudders ricocheted through him when his libido signaled its arousal. He grabbed her buttocks with one hand, wrapped his other one around her shoulders and lowered his head. She parted her lips and took him in, and he thought he would incinerate as she gave herself to him. He looked around for a place to…Good Lord, he couldn’t do that. With her head against his shoulder, he inhaled deeply time and again until he had himself under control.

“I thought you said don’t pour it on. With that kind of loving, you could make a man lose his head,” he told her. “These tents are reasonably secure, but they can’t be locked. If I could have locked this thing, I’d be making love to you right now.”

“I know, and I wanted it as badly as you did.”

He hugged her, stroked her back and longed for privacy. Every cell in his body begged for relief from the sexual tension that gripped him. “It’s not past tense with me, sweetheart.”

“Me, neither.” She moved out of his arms.

“Are you here because you didn’t want me to be disappointed or because you believe in helping others? I need to know.”

Looking him in the eye, she said, “Both, but I can find other ways to help people.”

He stared down at her, uneasy in the presence of her extraordinary calm. “So you are here because of me. If it’s that and that alone, I want to know it.”

“I’m here because of you. Period.”

“The more I know you, the more you mean to me. I didn’t want you to come because I feared you’d get hurt, but you’re here and I’m glad. Don’t overextend yourself. If anything happened to you, I don’t think I could bear it.” He let his hand drift slowly down her cheek in as intimate a gesture as he dared. At that moment, he felt as if he would burst with love for her.

“I’ll see you at supper,” he said. “Turn left from your tent, walk straight up the road, and you’ll see the food tent. It’s the big yellow one. Always carry your bell and flashlight.” He leaned over, kissed her nose and hobbled off with the aid of his crutches.

Inside his tent, three doors from Felicia’s and next to the food and service tent, Ashton moved as quickly as he could to wash up, light his kerosene lamps and his citronella candles and head to the food tent. Felicia was not aware that she’d be the only woman in the camp and, although he hadn’t worried about that aspect of her being here, it occurred to him that he didn’t know these men personally. If any of them was short on morals, he could have a problem on his hands.

When Felicia arrived for supper, it pleased him to see that she had deglamorized herself to the extent possible. Nonetheless, she received appreciative stares from several of the men, married ones among them. At that moment, he knew he had to let them know that Felicia was off limits. She looked around, saw him and hesitated, so he beckoned for her to join him.

“Hi,” she said. “Am I the only woman in this crew?”

He nodded. “Right, and I’ve just decided that I’d better let them know you’re off limits. If I had full use of both legs, I wouldn’t worry, but I don’t have, and I don’t want to have to kill anybody.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that. I know how to dust off a man. Trust me.”

“Oh, I would if you were in New York City, but out here…” She could figure out the rest of the thought.

He stood and rapped a fork against his glass. “This is Felicia Parker. Felicia is a columnist for the Skate newspaper chain, but she’s here to help me finish my share of the work on house two-thirty. Felicia Parker is also my significant other.” He heard a couple of groans, but ignored them. “I tried to persuade her not to come, but she can be stubborn. She’s a hard worker, and I’d appreciate it if you would all welcome her.”

Gratified by the enthusiastic applause, he gave the group a thumbs-up sign, sat down and focused on his supper. “At least they know where they stand,” he told Felicia. “If any of them steps out of line, he’ll get it from me. If I’m not around, report any problems to Matt.”

She wrinkled her nose in a flirtatious frown, a gesture he hadn’t previously seen her exhibit. “What if it’s Matt who’s the problem?”

“It won’t be. Matt’s as straight as a born-again-Baptist preacher.”

“Which is your tent, Ashton?”

“The one next door to this food tent heading in the direction of yours,” he said. “Why? Planning to visit me when nobody’s looking?” he asked, and thought for a minute that she’d sock him.

Her glare slowly faded into a grin behind which there seemed to be the beginning of desire. Quickly, she banished it and he marveled at her self-control. “Don’t put ideas into my head. I thought you said these tents don’t lock.”

“They don’t, but if I try, I can make it impossible for anybody to enter it without tearing it down. Give me a reason, sweetheart, and for you I’ll move mountains.” He didn’t mean that as a light comment, but having said it, he mused about it for a bit. Wasn’t he moving closer and closer to ending his days as a bachelor, and wasn’t he increasingly less reluctant to do that?

“What are you thinking?” she asked him, then held up her right hand as if to halt his words. “If you’re not thinking about me, I want to know who she is.”

He hadn’t realized that his facial expression reflected his feelings and said as much. “Not to worry. You’re queen of this castle. I’m ready to turn in. Don’t forget that we have breakfast at six, and start work at seven. I’ll walk you to your tent.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can see how difficult it is for you to move around on those crutches.”

“I’ll walk you to your tent, Felicia.” However, he didn’t go in, for he knew that because of his announcement they would be the center of attention. “Good night, sweetheart.” He leaned down and kissed her lips, as much for any onlookers as for them. “See you in the morning.”

Felicia slept fitfully, unaccustomed as she was to the night sounds. The sound of crickets, the croaking of bull frogs, the cracking of sticks and dry leaves caused, to her mind, by human or animal feet, kept her awake much of the night. Nonetheless, she got up around five o’clock, hastened to the bath tent, hung out the “occupied” sign, washed up, brushed her teeth and hurried back to her tent. At six o’clock, she walked into the food hall and sat at the table she occupied the night before.

“What kind of column do you write?” a male voice asked her, and she looked up just as the man placed his tray on the table at which she sat.

“A political column,” she replied, “and I also report straight news. Oh, here’s Ashton. Hi, darling. Sit down and I’ll get a tray of food for you. What do you want this morning?”

He sat down, placed his crutches against the empty chair, leaned over and kissed her lips. “Hi, sweetheart. Orange juice, grits, rope sausage, scrambled eggs and three biscuits, please.”

“Am I interrupting something?” the man said.

“Not at all,” Felicia replied. “Ashton explained our relationship at supper last night. We’re all here for the same good cause. What’s your name?”

“Jack. I wasn’t sure he was serious.”

“Oh, I was serious, all right. I announced that so every man here would know precisely who this woman is. She isn’t looking for a man. She’s got one, and I’m he.”

Jack showed his perfect teeth in a wide grin. “I got the message, brother, but you can’t blame me for getting it straight.”

“Do you have a family, Jack?” Felicia asked.

“Who hasn’t? One’s at Howard, and two are at University of Michigan. In a couple of years, I’ll be able to buy a new car.” He laughed, and she didn’t believe he thought it amusing.

“Where’s their mother?”

“She’s home. She’d never do what you’re doing. My wife has to go to the hairdresser every Thursday, the manicurist every Tuesday, the matinee every Wednesday, and so on, ad infinitum.”

“In this case, I’m sure you came to this table because you wanted to talk with
me,
” Ashton said, looking the man in the eye.

“Touché,” Jack said. “I play, but I’ve got my first time to follow through. If things don’t get better at home, who knows?”

“They won’t get better starting here,” Felicia said. “So keep it between the lines, Jack. I have everything I need.”

Ashton finished eating, leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee, slowly and deliberately. “Is everything clear, Jack?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Clear as clean crystal.”

“I’m glad to know it,” Ashton said. He looked at Felicia who enjoyed her sautéed salmon, scrambled eggs and grits as if she were dining on it in Buckingham Palace. “If you’d like, I’ll show you where we start this morning.”

She picked up a biscuit, buttered it and smiled. “This food is off the chain. I’m going wherever you take me—otherwise, I’ll get lost.”

“If you stick with me,” he said, “you’ll never get lost and you’ll never lose. I’ll always be there for you.” He didn’t smile, because he meant every word.

“I know that very well,” she said as if Jack wasn’t present.

“And I hope you never forget it,” he said, and reached for his crutches.

Jack looked at Felicia with narrowed eyes. “You sure you’re Underwood’s girl?”

Felicia finished chewing her food, took a few sips of coffee and drank the remainder of the water in her glass. Then without saying a word she stood and, to his astonishment, she reached up, opened her lips over his and gripped his shoulders with both hands. Shock reverberated through him and, without giving it a thought, he plunged his tongue into her waiting mouth and locked her body to his. As easily as she started the fire that raged inside of him, she squelched it, moved away and looked at Jack.

“If you need more evidence, pal, I’ll move into his tent.” To Ashton, she said, “Let’s go, hon. I’ll only be here ten days.” Ten days that he prayed would be uneventful.

W
hen the crew stopped for lunch—or dinner as Southerners called it—Felicia thought she had half a dozen muscles in her arms and shoulders that she hadn’t known existed. “How do you feel?” Ashton asked.

“Great,” she said, and that was true. She had used a plane to smooth a door, and her coworkers had congratulated her on a job flawlessly done. She’d also made a window that hung straight, and she’d had no trouble banging the nails. What a great way to release stress and tension, she’d said to herself, as she’d hammered the ten-penny nails into the door frame.

“Ashton, I have such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment.”

He rested an arm around her shoulder. “And you should have. Don’t forget that you can rest whenever you feel you need it.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, but she had no intention of stopping until the remainder of the crew stopped. She figured she was younger than at least half of them and, for that reason alone, she could hold her own. She ate a lunch of Swiss steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, string beans cooked with smoked ham hocks, baked corn bread and for dessert, the best apple pie she’d ever tasted.

“This cook deserves a medal,” she said to Matt, who joined them at the table.

“He sure does. The food is always first-class. You surprised all of us, Felicia. Mind if I call you Felicia? The men told me to ask if you’d care to join the crew as a regular member. We only do one project a year. If you join, it might encourage some of our wives to do the same.” He looked at Ashton. “It must give you a lot of satisfaction to know she supports you in something that’s so important to you.”

“You can’t imagine how much. When I saw her measure for that window, put it together and hang it, I was prouder than I was when I received my M.B.A.”

“You have a right to be proud. I meant to tell you, Felicia, you’ll probably need a hot shower after we knock off. Would five-fifteen suit you? If so, I’ll reserve the time for you.”

“Thanks, Matt. I’ll take whatever time is available. And thank the guys for inviting me to join the crew. I appreciate it, and I’ll give it serious consideration.”

“Five-fifteen, it is, then. Well, I want some cheddar cheese to go with my pie. Either one of you want some?”

Felicia shook her head. “I’ve had enough calories, thanks. What are we doing after lunch?” she asked Ashton. “Do we start on the roof?”

They discussed plans for the afternoon’s work, but she had a feeling that his thoughts were elsewhere. “What is it, Ashton? You’re not with me.”

“You amaze me. I’m…admiring the way you jumped into this as if you’d done it for years. Don’t you feel sore?”

“A little, but I haven’t stretched myself, Ashton. I’m going to enjoy that hot shower, though. And Matt made an everlasting friend of me when he mentioned it. I’d been wondering how I’d get one.”

“How do you like sleeping in the tent?”

“I told myself I’d get used to it, and enjoying sleeping on the ground will happen before I get accustomed to those crickets and things chitchatting all night.”

“It’s weird, all right.”

After supper that evening, Felicia and Ashton strolled over to the little river that promised to make the settlement attractive and inviting to those fortunate enough to occupy the houses. Ashton leaned against a huge magnolia tree and propped his crutches against its trunk.

“What’s that?” she asked him as she watched their reflections in the water, clear as a picture in the moonlight.

“I think it’s a mockingbird, but I’m not sure. I heard some of them last night.”

“It must be,” she said. “Oh, Ashton, this is so idyllic. Imagine what this will be like after the houses are painted, the roads paved, flowers everywhere and children laughing and playing. It will be a heavenly oasis.” She looked up at him and gasped, for she had caught him with his feelings bare, naked and vulnerable.

“Do you want children?” His question stunned her, and her words came out as a stammer, honest and revealing.

“M-more than anything in this w-world.”

His big hands gripped her waist. “Do you want my children?” he asked in a voice muffled with emotion.

“If you give them to me willingly. Yes. I want yours and only yours, but I’ll take what I can get.”

His fingers pressed the edges of her breasts. “You’d have another man’s child?”

“I want to be a mother, and I don’t want to wait until I’m fifty.”

“I don’t want another man near you. You’re
my
woman, and your children will be
my
children.” He wrapped her in his arms, lowered his head and, with his lips an inch from hers, he gazed down at her with stormy, passion-filled eyes. She tingled from head to foot waiting while the expression on his face changed to that of a man anticipating a feast. She eased her hand up to his nape, and his mouth came down on hers strong and sweet. Possessive.

He gripped her buttocks with one hand and her shoulder with the other and shoved his tongue into her mouth. She welcomed him, greedy for the feel of him inside of her. He stroked and squeezed her buttocks and her back while he tortured her with the thrusts of his tongue, intentionally reminding her of the way she felt lying beneath him helpless while he stormed inside of her.

Without thinking of what she did, she widened her stance, pressed her pelvis to him and began to rock. Suddenly he put her away from him. “What’s that?” he said, his left arm tight around her waist and one of his crutches in the other hand. “Who’s that?” he repeated. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “It may be a wild animal, and I don’t know what kind live here.”

She marveled at her lack of fear. The night before, she shuddered at every sound, and that night was full of strange sounds, but even with his limited capacity, she knew that whatever came, Ashton would deal with it. The sound of steps approached them, and Ashton released her, braced himself and prepared for whatever adversary appeared. She looked around to note the position of his other crutch; if a problem arose, she didn’t intend to let him fight it alone.

She stared at the sight of a white-tailed deer and the little fawn that followed close behind. “Well, just look at that,” Ashton said when the doe looked around before nudging her fawn to the stream. They drank and then walked on, evidently unaware of their audience. “What a sight,” he said. “It could have been a wildcat or some other fierce animal, so I think we’d better get back.”

She wished she could hold his hand as they walked. When they reached her tent, he said, “I’m not going to tempt myself or punish myself, but I’ll wait here until you look around carefully and then secure your tent. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

She searched the area with a flashlight, called good-night to Ashton and secured her tent for the night. If she stayed here long enough, she would get over her craving for midnight snacks. Without a refrigerator to raid, and with her meager supply of miniature Baby Ruths rapidly dwindling, she was about to experience a bout of enforced self-discipline.

She needed something, anything, to distract her from her longing for Ashton and to move her mind off the night around her and its strange creatures. If only she had a window and she could see the moon and the stars as they were when she walked earlier with Ashton and as she had never seen them before. Silent and majestic on a clear summer night when not a single leaf moved on the trees. She put on a pair of pajamas—not daring to sleep in the skimpy teddies that she usually wore to bed for fear that she might have to get out of the tent in a hurry—and got into bed.

She didn’t ache, although her body told her that it had been well used. After an hour of twisting and turning, crossing her legs in frustration, and trying to ignore the jabbering of the night creatures, she began counting white-tailed fawns. When her clock alarmed at five o’clock, she crawled out of bed, washed her face in the basin of water she put in her tent the night before, brushed her teeth and dressed. On the way to the food tent, she stopped at the lavatory and gave thanks that it was unoccupied.

“Did you sleep well?” Ashton asked her when they met near the entrance to the food tent.

“No, but I might have if you had minded your own business.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“The problem was not what you did, but what you didn’t do.”

He looked down at her and closed his eyes. “I’m not going near that right now, but I promise you that won’t be a complaint when I get you back to New York City.”

Ashton hadn’t slept well and for the same reason that she hadn’t, although he at least was not afraid of sleeping alone in a tent in a half-wild area. Felicia seemed to tire as the morning wore on, and he counseled her to rest, though she paid little or no attention to that request.

“I want you to sit down here and rest for ten minutes,” he said to her around two o’clock that afternoon. “You may not be tired, but after dragging that bag of cement over here, I am. Let’s sit here for a minute.” He knew she was tired, but that she didn’t want to be a drag on the crew, so she didn’t stop. He reached out and took her hand. “I know we shouldn’t be affectionate in the presence of others—though you made a show of it at breakfast the first morning you were here—but I need you close to me right now. I need to feel that you need me.”

“I do need you,” she said. “I need to share things with you, to laugh with you. I love the way you laugh and the way your eyes sparkle. I need you when I’m not happy, too, Ashton, and I need you when I’m lonely.”

He wanted to wrap her in his arms, hold her and protect her. “I don’t want you to be lonely,” he said, “and if you’ll let me, I’ll try to prevent it as much as I can.”

“I know,” she said, but she looked beyond his shoulder at something in the distance. “We’d better get back to work, hon. Before you know it, it will be time to…to knock off.”

He stood, tried his weight on his foot and decided against pressuring it further. At the end of the working day, he figured that their share of the work had progressed almost as much as if he weren’t handicapped. “You needn’t worry about the walls,” he told Felicia. “They’re the least of our problems. A professional plasterer does that after we finish the exterior.”

“Is he a volunteer?”

Ashton nodded. “You bet.”

After supper, he walked Felicia to her tent and kissed her quickly. Lingering over a kiss would only add fuel to the furnace that already raged inside of him. He needed more, so much more. Impulsively, he hugged her to him and held her for a minute.

“See you at breakfast,” he said in deep guttural tones that he hardly recognized as his own voice. Her smile seemed to him as false as thirteen gongs from a grandfather clock, but if he didn’t ignore it, they could find themselves in an embarrassing situation. He went to his tent, lit his kerosene lamps and citronella candles, and prepared to read for a few minutes before going to sleep. He got into bed, put the lamps nearby, turned to page one fifty-six of Robert Fleming’s
Fever In The Blood
and began to read. At eleven o’clock, he forced himself to put the book aside, dimmed the lamp and went to sleep.

“What the…” He rubbed his eyes, turned up the lamp’s wick and sat up. What the hell! Felicia! What on earth? Quickly, he calmed himself. “What is it, baby?”

She said nothing, and he watched her move a chair, put down her bedroll and bedding, get in bed and go to sleep. He wanted her in there with him as much as he wanted to breathe. Surely he must be hallucinating. He considered getting up and shining the light on her face to be sure he wasn’t dreaming, and thought better of it. For whatever reason, she was here with him, and he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He got out of bed, secured the tent—something that he rarely bothered to do, but did now to protect Felicia—returned to bed and looked at his watch. Two-thirty. He wondered what caused her to come to his tent.

“I’ll know in a few hours,” he told himself, dimmed the lamp and went to sleep.

Felicia awakened at five o’clock, dressed and went to the lavatory tent to take care of her ablutions. She didn’t spend time wondering about Ashton’s reaction to her moving into his tent in the middle of the night. She did know that she wasn’t sleeping anywhere else as long as she worked on that project. “I’m through with punishing myself,” she said out loud as she walked toward the food tent. “I finally had two and a half hours of solid, undisturbed sleep for the first time since I came here. I don’t care what these people think, from now on, I’m bunking with Ashton.”

Ashton arrived for breakfast promptly at six o’clock, and it delighted her to see that he walked with only one crutch. Instead of going immediately to the table at which she sat, he got in line with his tray, got his food and then joined her.

“You’re welcome to sleep in my tent,” he began without bothering to say good morning, “especially since that’s where I’ve wanted you to sleep all the time. But would you mind telling me why you joined me at two-thirty in the morning and without so much as a glance in my direction? I’m glad to have you with me, and I promise that you may sleep there undisturbed, if that’s what you want. Humor me, Felicia. I want to know what happened.”

“I was scared. I heard footsteps. Somebody walked back and forth in front of my tent half a dozen times. Before that, I had already had enough of that hooting owl and those other things that make noise all night—”