No Place Like Home (19 page)

Me, too.

There was really no alternative. Sex now or sex later, it was going to happen. As I turned, he picked me up and put me on the counter and I instinctively wrapped my legs around him, working my own buttons as he worked his. “This is inappropriate,” I whispered, shedding my shirt, then the bra.

“Life is inappropriate,” he said, but then he was kissing me and moving those fantastic hands. I worked his belt, then the buttons of his jeans, wanting him all the way naked, and he was glad to help, shifting his body backward to let me push the jeans off of his hips—oh, and I did love the feel of that high, hard, naked rear end against my hands. It was sleek and powerful with the movements of his body, and when he kicked off his jeans, I raised my head.

“Oh,” I said softly, admiring him. “You are so much more gorgeous than I thought.”

He gave me a sleepy cat blink. “It’s all yours.”

But first he bent that big lion head of his and breathed over my breasts. Didn’t touch. Just admired for one long minute, then sighed and bent close and put his mouth on me. And I couldn’t remember why or what or anything, I just put my hands in his hair and let him work his magic, let the heat and sizzle of it rise through me, burn my skin, the back of my neck, my lower spine.

Then I was kissing him again, and touching him, stroking that lovely work of art that I’d known would be just as aggressive as it turned out to be.

Shane’s voice broke through the glaze like a baseball through a window. “Hello!”

For the space of an agonizing half second, Malachi and I stared at each other. Then, in a move I would be forever grateful for, he pulled me off the counter, pointed toward the pantry, gathered our clothes, and dashed in behind me, closing the door just as Shane reached the kitchen, calling out again, “Hello?”

It was a small pantry, especially when I was sharing it with Malachi. He turned toward me in the dark, his shoulders shaking with laughter, and I punched him a little, feeling around for the clothes he’d brought in with us. But instead of letting me have them, he raised his arm and put the bundle on the topmost shelf.

“Oh, this is too good,” he murmured close against my ear, and I heard the glee, the anticipation of it, just before he dropped down to his knees. I started to push away, but he captured my wrists in one giant hand and pulled them behind my back, pressing me into the wall behind.

And started licking. Openmouthed, across my belly, my ribs, my breasts, up my throat. When I struggled, he tightened his grip and I felt the curve of his smile. Behind the door, Shane flipped on the television, and I barely repressed a groan.

It was so wicked and terrifying, so decadent and delicious, that I couldn’t have stopped him on a bet. The chances of Shane opening that pantry door were slim to none, since he’d never done it as long as we’d been there, so the only challenge was being quiet.

Not such a simple thing, because Malachi got serious. Long and slow, up and down. His free hand played bass to the lead of his mouth, arousing every cell from my forehead to my toes until I was literally shaking all over.

Only then did he stand and kiss me, pressing that naked body into my half-clothed one, kissing and kissing and kissing, rubbing himself across me in the most erotic way. “I need my hands,” I whispered urgently, trying to pull them free. My breasts and his chest slid sweatily together and apart. He pressed his hips tight for a minute, tightening his grip on my wrists, and it was one of those little things, those tiny, tiny gestures that distinguish a good lover from a truly splendid one. A new rush of erotic anticipation danced through my body. I struggled against him, wanting to touch him.

“Not yet.” He bent close enough to kiss me and worked his hand into my jeans, worked his way between my legs, and found the heart of the matter, and I was so weak, so aroused that it was last night all over again, only more intense, so intense that it brought back my hangover headache.

In the dark, thick and close, he took my hand and put it on him, kissing me with nearly violent thrusts as I relaxed and gave back what he’d given me. It was tight and hot in there, and our chests got slick with sweat, prickling and slippery. Part of me was aware of Shane, just on the other side of that door, hearing his little noises as he poured a glass of milk, rattled around in the cupboards, and finally—thank God—tromped up the stairs over our heads.

Malachi moved immediately at the first step on that stair. He shoved off my jeans, lifted me up in his powerful arms, and slid home. Hard. I wrapped myself around him, holding on around his shoulders, legs tight around his waist, knowing I’d have a bruise on my back from where I banged the wall at that first, dazzling thrust.

Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing in the world comes anywhere close to that moment, that instant of joining. After so long, so very, very long, all I wanted was to stay right there, in that single, hilt-deep thrust, holding on to a big, sexy, sweating man who was kissing me like he’d die if he didn’t keep it up. My hair fell around us, brushing his arms, mine, our shoulders, whispering down my back. His hands and arms were amazingly powerful, and we held there, suspended for an exquisite, brilliant stretch of time.

Nothing, nothing, nothing in the world comes close to that moment. Except the moments afterward. We moved, constrained by the environment but lent great athleticism by desire, in a vivid, intense, amazing kind of sex. And when he made it to the finish line, it was violent and intense and he nearly bit my lip in his satisfaction, his fingers almost painful on my buttocks, and he held there so hard and sharp and deep that I could finally make it
with
him, instead of selfishly taking my own pleasure.

It could have been weird, after, but it wasn’t. I slumped against his shoulder, letting my heart slow down, hearing his pound against my ribs, and closed my eyes. “I knew it would be that great.”

He moved his scratchy chin against my forehead. “Me, too.” I felt him swallow, and his arms were starting to tremble. I eased my feet down, took my weight. Smiled in the dark, knowing he couldn’t see it, but he’d hear it.

“Maybe you can make it to my bed one of these times.”

He made a soft sound of regret. “I want it to be now.” He touched my back, my arm. “I want more.”

“Tonight.”

“It’s a deal.” He leaned there against me for another long minute. “I guess you want me to get your clothes?”

“That would be good.”

“No, it’s very bad.” But he did it anyway, reaching up to pull the tangled jumble off the shelf. I felt around for my bra, then my shirt. My jeans were tangled on the floor with my underwear, and it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get them back on. I started chuckling when I had to use his arm to brace myself. “It was a lot easier to get everything off.”

“Motivation is everything.”

When we’d put ourselves more or less back together, Malachi eased open the door to make sure the kitchen was empty, and we slipped out. His hair was wild, and I giggled and smoothed it. He swung me around and pushed me against the fridge and kissed me again, a fierceness to it that didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “All I’m gonna be thinking about all day is tonight.”

“Ditto.” At a movement from upstairs, we pulled apart. “I’m going to go freshen up.”

He let me go. At the door, I paused and looked back at him, and saw the strangest expression on his face. Not the wicked gleaming I would have expected, or the flushed pleasure of a man who’d just had really great wild sex in a closet.

No, when I glanced back, he was standing by the window with his hands on his hips, his face in profile to me. And I would have sworn that what he most wanted to do was weep. Pierced, I rushed up the stairs, not wanting to know if it was joy or sorrow that put that emotion there—in the end, it didn’t really matter. The result would be the same. I’d found my man and he’d found his woman, but life would never let him take that gift.

At the top of the stairs, I ran into Shane coming out of his room. A guilty flush burned from my breasts to my eyebrows and I hoped he didn’t notice. “Where were you?” he demanded. “I called and called.”

“Um. I was outside.”

“I thought we could make Michael breakfast,” he said, “take it to him at the hospital.”

“All right. Let me grab a shower.”

His eyes narrowed suddenly, and he shook his head in disgust. “Never mind,” he said, then went to his room and slammed the door.

I looked down. My shirt was inside out.

MICHAEL

They tried to make it festive, a celebration, an occasion of joy—Nana Lucy and Jewel’s mother and the sisters who blurred when he tried to rasp out their names in thanks. Nana held his hand tight and chanted the rosary, the cadence of her voice weaving into the rhythm of the breathing machine, which blurred into memory.

Andre was with him only when he slid farthest away, an angelic figure with his eyes alight in humor. Andre the angel, he said in his mind, and it made the angel laugh. Michael wasn’t sure sometimes if it was Andre, actually, or if it was the form the angel had taken to comfort him, but he figured it didn’t matter all that much. The purpose was comfort, and comfort he did.

In between the short visits, he lay alone and trussed, tied to the earthly realm by needles and tubes, and the truth was, now he had no choice but to get through the pneumonia this time. He’d promised Andre he would not die in a hospital, the most solemn vow he’d made in all his life. He intended to keep it.

To keep his despair at bay, he thought of the timing. There was the wedding. And the state fair. That was important, part of the circle.

When Jewel came, her hair down and free, her hands full of food, she put her head down on his chest. “I’m sorry, love.”

He touched that wild hair, the hair that had snared Billy so long ago and would snare Malachi now, feeling a great rush of love. He couldn’t speak, so he squeezed her arm.

The smell of her filled his head, the scent of cloves and shampoo, a scent he’d always thought of as red, as vivid and warm, like Jewel. Everything in him just eased as he breathed it in and he closed his eyes.

FROM THE COLORADO STATE FAIR CONTEST BOOKLET

“QUEEN OF THE KITCHEN”:

To be eligible, an exhibitor must be a Colorado resident. Competitors must enter at least twelve of the competitive Pantry Department categories shown below and place in ten. Exhibitors are automatically entered in this special contest when entries are made in the following categories: Canned Fruit, Canned Vegetables, Jellies, Preserves and Marmalades, Butters and Jams, Pickles, Yeast Breads, Microwave Cookery, Nutritious Snacks, Quick Breads, Round the World Baked Goods, Pies, Cakes and Sponge Cakes, Cookies, Dried Foods, Candy, Baked Goods with Honey.

The Queen of the Kitchen Award will be determined on the basis of total ribbon points won, with points to be counted as follows: first . . . three points, second . . . two points, third . . . one point.

Chapter 14

Late that afternoon, I drove Shane to Falconi’s for the dinner shift. He didn’t speak to me the whole way, and my attempts at conversation died in a syllable.

Instead of going home afterward, I went out to Jordan’s place. The low buttery light of early evening gilded the world as I got out of the car, splashing across the trunks of trees, making the tall stands of dry grass look soft. From the old juniper by the house came the sound of wrens and sparrows at supper, the chittering, squealing excitement seeming out of proportion until I climbed on to the porch and saw Jordan’s cat, an aging gray tabby, sprawled beneath the tree. He raised his head at my approach, squeaking in his ruined little voice, and I paused to scratch his big head. He purred a smile.

From within came the sound of a dog whining, and Jordan popped her head out. “Jewel! Hi!” She pushed open the screen door to let her monster dog out to greet me—an enormous mutt with the lean shape of a Great Dane and the sweet face and fur of a golden retriever. He leapt out to greet me, lifting on his hind legs to gently put his forepaws on my shoulders and give me a kiss if I were willing. Charmed as always, I offered my chin, and he let me hug his neck. “Ah, you’re a good dog, Wolfenstein.”

Jordan had a handful of red grapes and offered me one. “What’s up? How’s Michael?”

“Okay.” I felt vaguely ashamed that I had dragged my distress and upheaveal into this peaceful place, but we all did it. All ran to Jordan with cuts and bruises and weary hearts, and she—like Sylvia before her, I suddenly realized—always had some plaster to put over it, a tea or a song or a medicine.

“But?”

I stuck my hands in my back pockets. “I kinda want to talk. You have time?”

“Ooh,” she said with a wicked lift of her eyebrows, “I hope it’s about Malachi.”

I lifted a shoulder. “Sort of.”

“Come on in. I’m trying to get my herbs ready for the fair.”

I laughed. “Not really? For a bracelet?” If you enter goods into the pantry contests, you could buy a bracelet to get into the fair every day, much cheaper than paying admission.

“Yep. They don’t do bracelets anymore, though—it’s a little card now.”

“What could be that interesting that you’d need a pass for the whole time?”

“Tradition,” she said with a grin, and I followed her to the kitchen. “It’s what we do, you know?”

I settled at the heavy table and watched as she trimmed and tied hanks of rosemary. “Does everyone still enter something to get the passes?”

She nodded. “Every year. Jane did really well last year—especially in the canning. She took three blue ribbons and two reds.” Twisting heavy white thread tightly and neatly around the stems, she brushed out some imperfections from the branches, and the scent filled the room. “Mark my words, she’ll be Queen of the Kitchen one day.”

I rolled my eyes. “When I was away, I had a whole spiel on the state fair and Queen of the Kitchen. It’s so unbelievably corny.”

She looked at me steadily, a little smile on her lips. “Is it?”

“Queen of the Kitchen?” I said. “A state fair, for God’s sake? How provincial is that?”

“Probably a lot.” Still that smile lingered, secretive and somehow knowing. “You’ve just forgotten, Jewel. Remember how excited we were the year Auntie won Queen?”

And suddenly, I did. It had been Sylvia. She had spent weeks and weeks getting ready. To take Queen of the Kitchen, the cook had to win the most blue ribbons in the entire scope of the Pantry division of the state fair contests—and that meant a huge number of entries. Pickles and canning, jellies and jams and preserves, quick breads and yeast breads, cookies, pies, and cakes.

“I think I was ten or eleven,” I said, and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead, remembering the constant heat in that kitchen, the rounds of dark brown breads, the shine of jars wiped down with vinegar water, the careful wrapping and transportation of the goods for the judging. And then we’d sat on bleachers in the Creative Arts building, hot and sleepy, watching the judges take a teeny nibble of this, another of that. They pinched the breads and rolled the dough into little balls, scowled and conferred, tapped and broke. “Okay,” I admitted, “that was pretty cool.”

“I was ten, so you had to be eleven. I wanted to be the judges so bad, so I could eat all that stuff!”

She’d been plump in those days and far too fond of sweets. “That’s only because Mama deprived you.”

“No, it’s because I was greedy!” She laughed. “I still am—I just keep temptation out of the house. I don’t know how you do it, cooking all those pies.” She looked up. “You should enter, Jewel!”

“It’s too late, isn’t it?”

“No!” She opened a drawer and pulled out a little book, flipping open the pages of contest regulations. “You can’t do your pies because you do that professionally, but maybe something else? Tomorrow is the deadline for entering, and you have to pay for the pass when you pay for the entries.”

“I can’t see how I’d want to go to the fair ten days in a row.”

“Seventeen. They extended it.”

“Oh, even better!” I shook my head. “How many funnel cakes can you eat, after all?”

“It’s something to do. People-watching and all the music and the booths—we go every day usually. And even if you didn’t use it, Shane would love it.”

“True.” I chuckled and picked up a lavender wand to smell. “Wonder if he’ll run off with some wild chick?”

Jordan looked at me in horror. “Oh, I forgot, Jewel. I forgot that’s how you guys all met. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” But the lingering shame of that rebellious act made me remember why I’d come over in the first place. “I seem to have a talent for screwing up.”

“No, you don’t, Jewel. It’s just that everyone always wanted you to be somebody else. I hate it that you’re sinking back into that apologetic mode. You had so much fire while you were gone—and your bravery made me brave.”

“It did?”

“Of course it did. Do you think I could have let myself fall in love with Henry if I hadn’t had you ahead of me? Do you think Mama and Pop would have accepted him if they hadn’t seen how much worse it could get?”

“I never thought of that.” Henry was of mixed race, the son of a West Indian mother and a Hispanic father who’d met his wife on a Caribbean cruise he’d won from a radio station. “So I’ve been bad to pave the way for you.” I grinned. “At least somebody got something out of it.”

“You got a lot, Jewel. Don’t give me that.” She began lacing together a new collection of herbs, matching the stems by length. “Shane. Michael. Even Billy, before he lost it so bad.”

I brushed lavender over my nose. “Yeah.”

“What’s eating you?”

“Shane is not speaking to me.”

“Mmm. How unusual in a seventeen-year-old. Why?”

Now that I had come right to it, I didn’t know if I could tell her. Or if I should. Or if she’d be shocked. I picked up three pieces of yarn and started braiding them.

“Ooh,” she said in throaty voice. “This is about Malachi, isn’t it?”

I lowered my eyes. Nodded.

“Jewel, the minute I laid eyes on him, I knew you’d sleep with him.” She laughed. “He’s
so
your type.”

Stung, I protested, “I don’t go around sleeping with every guy I meet, Jordan!”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know. What did you mean, then?”

With that particularly exasperated huff of a sister, she said, “You like sex, Jewel. You always have—and what’s wrong with that?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” I stood up and paced three steps to the wall, turned around. “Ask my dad. Ask my grandmother, who told me I’m too old to wear my hair down anymore.” Flinging up one arm, then bringing it back down, I said, “Ask my son, who didn’t speak to me the entire day because he came home and wanted to make breakfast for Michael, and he couldn’t find me because I was in the pantry with Malachi, and then didn’t even have the sense to get my shirt back on right side out.”

Her shoulders were shaking with laughter before I made it to the end of the story. “Oh, that’s priceless! In Sylvia’s pantry? With the Jolly Green Giant?”

“Yes.” I started to smile.

“Oh, I never thought of that. Can me and Henry borrow it sometime?”

“For the full, erotic effect, you really should be hiding from a kid who almost surprised you.” I strove for a light tone, but it came out edged with misery.

“Jewel, kids don’t like to think of their parents having sex. It’s a fact of life. It’s also a fact that parents do.”

“I’m sure he’s getting an earful at the restaurant.”

“Probably,” she agreed, “but that’s not your problem. You can’t live your life trying to please other people. Sooner or later, you have to accept who you are, warts and all.”

“I have more warts than most people.”

“No, you don’t.”

I sank back down in the chair. She just didn’t know. Because she loved me, because she was a champion born, she championed me. “Thank you.”

Quiet fell between us, and I heard the wind starting to blow. “You know, Jordan,” I said, “I really like him. Malachi.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

I shook my head.

“He’s kind of a lost soul, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. My other specialty.”

She smiled fondly. “You always have collected the lost ones. What was that kid’s name who lived by the school?”

I hadn’t thought of him in thirty years, but his name popped into my head instantly. “Francisco Vigil.” A sturdy, dark brown boy whose parents spoke no English. They lived in a tumbledown, two-bedroom house, all nine of them. Francisco was in my class, and because I was a good reader and he wasn’t, the teacher put me to work helping him sometimes. Casting myself as a saintly girl upon whom the Madonna would smile benevolently for my Good Works, I threw myself into teaching him better skills.

But he tugged at my heartstrings. His hair was badly cut, and he had exactly one pair of pants and two shirts. By Friday, they were always grimy, but he wet-combed his hair every morning, and his hands and face were clean every day. It really hurt me that my lunch box was crammed full of good things to eat and he always unwrapped a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread. Not even Wonder—just the plain loaves that sold three for a dollar at the local convenience store. I started saving my oranges for him and splitting my cookies. I asked my mother about putting the family on the church poor list.

I laughed a little, remembering. “Poor thing. I can’t imagine what he thought of me.”

“Jewel, he was crazy about you! And we were all kind of jealous in the end, because he was kind of dangerous and you seemed brave.”

“He was hardly dangerous.” I thought of his big dark eyes, so steady and clear, his earnestness as he labored over his reader. “He did learn to read, though. I guess that’s good.” At the end of the year, he moved away, and no one ever saw him again. The city condemned the house—actually three houses in a row, owned by a rat of a slumlord—the following spring and tore them down.

“Malachi isn’t lost like that, though,” she said. “He’s running hard.”

“He’d run now, if it weren’t for Michael.”

“What makes you say that?”

I hadn’t even known I believed it until I said it aloud. “It’s hard to stay aloof from community here, you know what I mean? He’s getting sucked in and he’s afraid of it.”

“Is that it?” she asked quietly.

I thought of his low, deep sigh when I fell on his shoulder. Thought of my instinctive need to put my arms around him when he’d come to the bridal shop, and the deep trembling need in him when I had. I thought of the ease with which we’d kissed and played the night out by the reservoir. Thought of the long, long time we’d spent looking into each other’s eyes while we danced.

But those things were too deep and personal to share. “I don’t know,” I said. “But if he lasts one day here beyond Michael’s funeral, it will be a long stay indeed.”

“Poor thing. I’d hate to have to run like that my whole life.”

“Not everybody wants roots like ours, Jordan.” I chuckled. “I’m not even sure I want them most of the time.”

“They may not want them,” she said, “but everyone needs them.” A wink. “And there is something between nothing and way too much.”

I laughed. “True.”

When Henry came home, obviously tired from a long day in the sun, I made myself drive back to the house. All the way there, I tried to figure out what I’d do about Malachi, how I should act, what we needed to say to each other or if we needed to say anything. We were alone in the house again tonight, at least until Shane got home, and that seemed to put a lot of pressure on the idea that we should have sex again.