Tea and Primroses (19 page)

“She’s beautiful.”

“I think so too. I look like my dad except I have her eyes, don’t you think?”

I observed him for a moment and then looked back at the photo. “Yes, you’re right.”

Taking the photo from me, he set it back on the mantle, in the exact spot he’d taken it from. He pointed at the photo on the left. “This is dad and me when I was about six. I don’t know who took it.” They stood next to a truck, circa 1957, I guessed. My father always told me the year and make of cars and trucks we passed on the highway and for some reason these always stuck in my mind. Patrick’s father wore a work jumpsuit and held a wrench; Patrick was in jeans and a flannel shirt and had a stack of books in his arms. “I think I’d just come from the library. My best friend’s mother used to take us every Friday afternoon. My father was a mechanic, could make any old car or truck run with some tinkering of his tools. But he encouraged me to do well in school and insisted I go to college. He wanted me to have all the opportunities he didn’t have.”

Patrick took a match from the box and struck it against one of the stones before kneeling on the floor and lighting the paper. It flamed and the kindling caught fire easily. The smell of burning wood brought the sensation of familiarity to me. I’d watched my father light our woodstove every morning of my childhood, his fisherman hands raw and red, before he left for work. I’d sit on the bottom step of the stairs that led up to the second floor and watch him light the fire. The room would then smell of burning wood intermingled with freshly brewed coffee. In the background were the angry sounds of my mother slamming breakfast together. After the fire was lit and burning, he would close the door of the woodstove and turn to me. “Don’t want my Sweets to be cold while I’m gone, now do I. So you keep an eye on this while I’m gone. You don’t want to let the fire burn out.”

I glanced up to find Patrick watching me. “What were you thinking of just then?” he asked.

“The way you lit the fire reminded me of my dad. He’s the same as your dad. Wants me to have all the opportunities he never had.”

“Why does it make you sad?”

“I miss him. And I wish he had a happier life.”

He motioned for me to come closer and held out his hands. “Give me your coat. I’ll make us some tea.”

I shrugged out of my coat and handed it to him. “Do you have anything stronger?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oregon! A mid-day drink?”

I flushed. “A beer, maybe? It’s the weekend.”

“I’m just teasing. I can rustle up a beer for you.” He headed toward the kitchen. I took a moment to take in the room. The first floor of the cabin was one large room with a kitchen on one end and the sitting room space on the other, separated by two large wooden beams. The kitchen had plain wood cabinets and shelves built into the wall, with neatly arranged stacks of white dishes, a dozen white cups hanging from clips, and various pitchers of green and white. There were two perfectly square windows above the shelves, set too high to see out of. Captured in their squares was blue sky between scarlet leaves, like paintings.

He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Miller. Peeping between his outstretched arm and his torso, I snuck a peak into his neatly arranged refrigerator: a package of steaks, a whole chicken still in its plastic wrapping, a chunk of cheddar cheese, a glass container of milk, and a carton of eggs. Vegetables packed one crisper drawer, with apples and a head of lettuce in the other. The door held beer and various condiments, most notably several varieties of hot sauce. He grabbed the package of steaks and tossed it onto the counter next to the sink. Apparently he planned to feed me.

Closing the refrigerator, he took a pocketknife from his jeans pocket, the same variety my father used, and popped off the cap of the beer with the bottle opener attachment. Grinning, he handed the beer to me. “You Oregon girls are probably used to a man popping a beer with his teeth.”

I laughed, tilting back my head slightly as I did so. “Hardly.”

He leaned against the table, watching me. “You’re beautiful when you laugh. You should do it more often.”

“I laugh all the time.”

“Yes, I suppose it’s me who needs to laugh more.” He smiled in a way that made him look sad. He was the only person then or now whose smile made them look sadder than when their face was sober. Reaching up to the cabinet above the refrigerator, he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured some of the amber drink into a glass tumbler from another cabinet. His large hand seemed even larger grasping the small glass. His hair flopped over his eyes and he brushed it aside in a way that made me think I could see the little boy he once was, growing up here motherless amidst these lonely trees. I ached to touch him. Perhaps it was the way he appeared both strong and vulnerable. Patrick Waters: a man of contradictions. This flashed behind my eyes like a tagline on a product. I thought of things in terms of words, always, even the man I loved.

I took a large swallow of beer and almost spit it out. I didn’t have beer often, my budget being what it was, and it made my throat burn. I coughed and then blushed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

He chuckled, leaning against the table, watching me. “Drink much, Oregon?”

I ignored him and wandered over to stand in front of the fireplace. A chair of worn, brown leather in the corner next to a window looked out to the side of the house. Next to the chair was a side table with a stack of books. He joined me in the sitting area, plopping onto the couch and resting his feet on the coffee table. “Oregon, I love the new beginning.”

“Of my manuscript?”

“Yeah, Oregon, jeez. What else would I be referring to?”

“I don’t know, one of the hundred books you have here.” I gestured toward the wall next to the front door. It was floor to ceiling bookshelves, all full. When he didn’t respond except to tilt back his glass and drink from it, I went to the couch and sat on the opposite end from him. “I’m terribly relieved, I have to admit. I wanted to please you.” This was out of my mouth before I could analyze whether it was what I wanted to say. At once I felt childish, amateurish.

“You already have.”

I couldn’t think what to say. How had I pleased him, exactly?

“You’ve written a beautiful book,” he said, as if I’d asked the question out loud. “This is just the finish work.” He pointed to the cabinets. “Like the woodwork in here. Sanding and staining, fitting each piece together perfectly.”

“Did you do all this?”

“Yes. Over time, of course. I started with the kitchen and worked my way to the rest of the house. I finished the upstairs two summers ago.”

“What’s upstairs?” I asked.

“Bedroom and an office. The office was my room when I was a kid.” He took a sip of whiskey, smoothing his hand over the couch cushion. The material appeared soft, with whisker-like fibers I didn’t know the name of. He made a back and forth motion with his fingers over the material until it made a pattern that looked like crop lines in a field.

“Has your mother read your manuscript?”

“No. She doesn’t read. My stuff or anything else.”

He nodded, sipping his whiskey and looking into the fire. “Her loss.”

I drank more of my beer, having grown accustomed to the taste now that it was almost half gone. My cheeks were warm and Patrick’s sweater suddenly felt itchy. I got up and slipped out of it, tossing it on the back of the chair adjacent to the couch. Still holding my beer, I meandered over to the bookshelf. What books did he have? What would they tell me about him? The bookshelves were remarkably neat, like stacks at the library. I thought, briefly, of the books in my bedroom at my mother’s, all piled up haphazardly, this way and that, and yet I knew exactly where every one of them was located. They were the friends who never let me down, regardless of what happened in my real life. The last several years the characters in my own stories had become friends as well, albeit sometimes rebellious, thinking they were in charge of the story instead of me, their creator. But I forgave them.
Keep whispering your stories to me
, I said to them in the blank spaces between the words.
I will make sure you’re heard.

Behind me, I heard Patrick moving around the room. Then music. Emmy Lou Harris.
Blue Kentucky Girl.

I ran my fingers along the books on the left side, second row of Patrick’s shelves. The books were alphabetized by author. This was a row of H’s: Hardy, Hemingway, Herriot, Huxley. Did he have full collections of each author?

I realized Patrick was behind me. I turned to look up at him, teasing. “Alphabetized?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were hooded. “Dance with me?”

I turned around. We were inches apart. I breathed in his smell. “Patrick, are we going to talk about this?”

“This?”

“This thing between us.” I looked him directly in the eyes, feeling bold and raw. “Is it just me?”

He opened his mouth as if to speak and then shut it. Time slowed; my heart pounded hard in my chest. I set my beer on the edge of the bookshelf, near the F’s. His gaze shifted between my hands and face. He shook his head, sadly. “I feel it too. Of course I do. Jesus, Oregon, you’ve made me lose my mind.” He touched the side of my face with the back of his hand. “It’s your writing. And you. Just everything.”

I held my breath, my eyes on his mouth.

“I’m afraid I may not be strong enough to resist you.”

“Then don’t.” I surprised myself with that.

He made a primal sound, halfway between a groan and a grunt and, with force, pulled me into his arms, hoisting me up around his torso like I weighed no more than a feather. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, feeling like a precious package in his arms.

“I’m sorry, Oregon.” He kissed me then, long and hard, like I’d never been kissed before. At first it was delightful and strange, the taste of him unfamiliar, tinged with whiskey and cherries. I don’t know the precise moment, because time ceased and the universe was nothing but his mouth and arms and hard body, but suddenly my mouth knew his and our breath intermingled and the taste of my mouth became his. I thought:
Oh, so this is it. This is my life, my love
.
This is what all the fuss is about
. At which point I no longer had a coherent thought, for the wanting of him overwhelmed everything else and I whispered against his mouth, “Please don’t ever stop.”

He turned then, pushing me against the bookshelf, kissing me and sliding one hand up the back of my T-shirt before slipping his thumb around the curve of my torso to my breast, teasing my nipple until I broke away from his mouth, moaning as my head tilted back.

“I’ve never wanted a woman more than I want you.” His voice was ragged; he flicked his tongue against my earlobe. I was lost in pure instinct and no longer thought of anything but how I wanted him. I pushed my pelvis into him and he groaned, moving back to my mouth with his and kissing me for a moment before breaking away and looking me in the eyes. “Can I take you to my bed?”

“Yes.” Just that one word, yes. But everything in my body was screaming, now, now, now.

With my legs still wrapped around him, he crossed the room and climbed up the stairs, holding onto me with one arm under the back of my thighs and the railing with the other.

I thought he might set me down when we reached the second floor but he didn’t, pushing me against the wall instead. My legs were still wrapped around his hips and he adjusted me down so I was a little lower as he kissed me again, this time his tongue darting in and out and pulling on my upper lip with his teeth. I felt his erection against me and I was both excited and frightened. “I’ve only been with one other person,” I whispered against his mouth, cringing at how innocent I sounded.

“Good,” he growled, moving his mouth to my neck where he teased my skin with his tongue. “I hate the thought of anyone else touching you.”

With that, he carried me into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. I had a vague notion of a four-poster bed and something soft under me, like a feather quilt, but I didn’t think much after that, lost in his touch.

LOST IN HIS TOUCH,
Sutton thought, feeling nauseous. She had listened to her mother’s story with her eyes closed, but she opened them and looked over at Declan as he read the last sentence of the chapter.

“You feel all right?” He chuckled. “You look like you did that time when we were kids and you threw up after that roller coaster. Remember that?”

She rolled her eyes, smiling. “Laugh it up. I can’t believe we’re reading this about my mother. She doesn’t describe more, does she? Please say,‘no.’”

He ruffled through the next several pages. “You’re in luck. She doesn’t go into any further detail on the sex stuff.”

“Thank God.” She moved her feet from his lap and sat up, bending her knees and wrapping her arms around her bare legs.

“Do you want me to keep going?”

She rested her chin on her knees. “I don’t know. Does it seem right, to read this? I’m terrified to hear what’s coming next. It’s all so intimate. Thinking of her this way is confusing.”

“You mean as a young woman?” Declan set the manuscript on the coffee table.

“Yes, a young woman talking about sex.” She felt the tears coming, only this time they came from a feeling of betrayal instead of grief. “How many secrets did she have?”

“She was a person, not just your mother.” They were quiet for a moment. “Do you ever regret coming back here?” He asked this delicately, like someone not wanting to spook a wild animal.

“No. I missed it here. And mother.”

“You always said you never wanted to leave. But you did. At least for a while.” Was his tone accusatory? She couldn’t be sure.

“Yeah, and I loved my time in Portland but I knew eventually I would come back here to open my business.”