The Hellion (15 page)

Instead of bobbing up, he caught her ankles and hauled her under. She grabbed enough air to survive, but felt as if her lungs would explode as they struggled. His teeth nibbled the arch of one foot and his chin tickled it while she writhed and fought, needing to laugh. Their antics stirred up a froth of bubbles in the silent blue depths until at last she coiled around and pinched his nipple hard. He released her and they shot to the surface like geysers, both of them gasping and laughing, hair slicked down and gleaming.

"Ouch, damn you!" he scolded, rubbing the wounded spot.

"Good enough for you! You nearly drowned me, pulling me under like that."

"I just wanted to find out if you were still ticklish."

"Now you know, so leave me alone," she spouted in mock indignation, striking out for the ladder with him right behind her.

"In all the same old spots?" he teased as she lunged up onto the first rung, streaming water into his face. He caught her around the

waist and hauled her back down with an
    
173 enormous splash. Again they became a tangle of arms and legs and slithery skin as his hands snaked along her ribs and his arms circled her playfully. But in the midst of the skirmish they suddenly fell still, staring at each other with a gripping sense of rediscovery while the only sound was that of water lapping against the boat. One of Tommy Lee's hands held a ladder rung, the other arm circled her waist, and her hands quite naturally had fallen against his chest where the wet hair felt as elusive as mercury. Their eyes remained fixed upon each other, taking in gleaming skin, tangled hair, dripping faces, and rapt expressions. Their drifting thighs brushed. A drop of water slipped down Rachel's cheek and his eyes followed till it fell over her lip and the pink tip of her tongue curled up to sip it away. "Oh, Rachel," he breathed softly, spreading his palm wide and warm on her cool, sleek back, drawing her infinitesimally closer ... closer ...

But she pressed a palm to his chest and turned aside. "Please," she begged breathlessly, "don't kiss me again, Tommy Lee.

Please."

Beneath the water their limbs brushed again, washed by the current they'd stirred up. His thighs were silicon-sleek and distractingly inviting. His gaze covered her face and she knew it beseeched her for more than she'd come here to give. At the small of her back his hand caressed the bare skin, then slid up between her shoulderblades.

"Are you sure you mean that?"

"Be sensible, Tommy Lee."

"I've never been sensible in forty-one years. Why should I start now?"

And though she, too, would have welcomed an excuse to toss sense aside for a brief time with him, she realized she had the power to wound him terribly. "Listen, I came out here today because I was very lonely and I ... I needed someone. But I never meant for this to happen. Honestly I didn't, Tommy Lee."

His eyes traveled across her face, as if memorizing each feature. "If you needed me, only to make you laugh for one afternoon, that's a start."

A start of what? she wondered, but realized if she continued seeing him the answer would be understood.

Yet he had made her laugh, for the first
  
175 time in months. And in the end, he'd made her forget Owen and the cares that had besieged her for so long. And though his kiss had been startling, and not unwelcome, much of the excitement had been generated by nostalgia and by the fact that he was socially off limits to a woman like her.

"I'm starved," he said, with an abrupt swing of mood and a crooked smile. "What do you say to some catfish and hush puppies?"

"You still go wild for catfish and hush puppies?"

He grinned, squeezed her waist once, and answered in one of his favorite catchphrases from long ago, "You betchum, Red Ryder." And once again Rachel was laughing, charmed by the Tommy Lee she'd known so long ago. And, oh, he could be so charming. It was no wonder the ladies like him.

            
CHAPTER SIX

  
They went to Catfish Corner, a tin-roofed shanty out in the country at the intersection of two county roads off the Huntsville Highway. They took his car, and he drove it exactly the

way they all said he did--too fast, too carelessly, and always with that everlasting cigarette crooked through one finger. Yet Rachel felt safe with him.

At Catfish Corner the crowd was mostly black, friendly, and vocal. "Hey, Tommy Lee!" someone shouted as soon as they entered the smoky, low-ceilinged room. "Been wonderin' when we'd see y'all around these parts again. C'mon over, boy, and bring yer lady with ya!"

Tommy Lee waved at the gregarious black man whose backside was twice as wide as the red plastic seat of the bar stool, but he took Rachel's elbow and guided her to a table instead. "If it's all the same to you, Eugene, I'm gonna keep my lady away from a sweet talker like you. No sense takin' chances."

A chorus of laughter went up from the group at the bar, while Tommy Lee directed Rachel to a vintage kitchen set with chrome legs and gray-marbled plastic seats amid a group of others much like it. He pulled out her chair, then seated himself across from her. Beside the table a crude window tilted outward, hinged at the top and propped open with a stick of wood. The trees

pressed close to the building and insects
  
177 worried themselves against the screen. A potted candle in a red glass snifter sent flickering light up to join that from the neon beer signs around the bar and the weak splashes of color from bare gold bulbs overhead.

When they were seated, Tommy Lee grinned teasingly. "Well, there's one thing you can't accuse me of, and that's trying to impress a lady with atmosphere. I brought you here because Big Sam fries the meanest catfish this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. And I don't know about you, but I worked up an appetite swimming."

Rachel studied the handwritten menu to cover her disappointment with his choice of restaurant. "Mmm ... me, too." But she felt she needn't put catfish in her mouth to taste it--the smell was everywhere, mixed with a strong odor of onions and grease.

"Rachel?"

She met his eyes and found him still grinning, one shoulder pitched lower than the other as he leaned back against the chair. "Don't judge until you've eaten, okay?"

Before she could answer, a buxom woman

appeared, her breasts the size of cantaloupes, earrings the size of handcuffs. She laid her hand familiarly on Tommy Lee's shoulder. "Well, I declare, if it isn't the most handsome honky to put foot in Catfish Corner since the last time he was here. What you mean by stayin' scarce all this time?" And she shamelessly leaned over and kissed Tommy Lee full on the lips.

Rachel watched, shocked, as his hand rested on her hip while her breasts brushed his chest. She checked to see if others were watching, but just then the man behind the rectangular window dividing the main room from the kitchen bellowed, "Hey, Daisy, you leave off kissin' the customers so's they can order catfish, you hear?"

Everyone at the bar laughed, and Daisy slowly raised her head, cocked a wrist on one hip, and toyed with the hair above Tommy Lee's ear. Her eyes appeared hooded and sultry as she looked down into his smiling face and drawled, "We want him to come back, now, don't we?"

Rachel was horrified. Never in her life had she seen a white man kiss a black woman, yet Tommy Lee did it with obvious relish.

When Daisy finally disengaged herself, he
   
179 belatedly reminded her, "I've got a lady with me tonight, Daisy. Meet Rachel."

Daisy turned laconically, still with one hand on her hip, the other cocked at the wrist. "Don't pay no never-mind to me, honey. I been kissin' your man since before there was catfish in that creek outside. He's like a son to me."

Tommy Lee gave her a nudge and ordered, "Get out of here, Daisy, and bring us two orders of the usual, and a glass of lime water for the lady."

"Lime water! What you think we runnin' here, a fruit stand?"

"Just ice water then. Now, scat."

She turned away with a chuckle and sauntered off while Rachel watched her bulging backside wriggle in tight cerise pants. When her eyes returned to Tommy Lee, she found him smirking at her.

"Just like a son, huh?" she repeated dryly, cocking an eyebrow.

"That's right."

Rachel pulled a hard paper napkin from a metal dispenser, held it between two fingers, and

cocked her wrist while handing it to him. "I think you'd better wipe that shiny purple lipstick off ... son. We wouldn't want it to get in your food and poison you."

Tommy Lee laughed while rubbing the garish lipstick off his mouth. "Don't think anything of Daisy. She's Big Sam's wife--that was him hollering through the porthole from the kitchen."

"His wife!" Rachel was shocked at the familiarity the woman had just displayed under her husband's nose.

"She kisses all the customers that way. And every time she does, Big Sam hollers through the kitchen window, and everybody at the bar laughs on cue. That's how it is out here. We're all friends."

But Rachel couldn't help harboring reservations about his choice of friends.

During their wait for the meal, Tommy Lee had two drinks, then another while they ate. The food was exceptional, and served in such sumptuous portions that Rachel barely put a dent in hers. Tommy Lee eyed her plate and asked, "You all done?" At her nod he inquired, "Mind if I clean up the rest?"

While he did, she thought about his
      
181 eating habits, probably fasting all day, living on alcohol and ice, then feeding on fatty foods in periodic spurts of excess. It was no wonder his physique had suffered. After some consideration she asked, "When was the last time you ate a decent meal?"

He glanced from his plate to her and back again.

"Oh, I didn't mean including this one," she said. "It's delicious, really. I just have a feeling your diet is rather slapdash."

He only shrugged, wiped his mouth, and lifted his eyes to find her studying him contemplatively. "You don't like it here, do you?"

"Oh, the food was wonderful!" she replied brightly, but coloring.

"You don't have to say it. I know what you're thinking. But I wanted you to know where I've been, who my friends are ... no secrets."

"Why?"

"Just so you'll know. I find people like these far more genuine than the bigots in town." He tossed his napkin onto his plate. "The country club set --you can have 'em."

Just then a small black boy bounded up to the

table and flung himself across Tommy Lee's lap. He looked to be no more than seven years old, had a front tooth missing, and wore a stretched-out T-shirt with a picture of Darth Vader on the back.

"Hey, Tommy Lee, Tommy Lee, where you been, huh? Been savin' them rocks like you said to, so you'n me can show Darla she ain't so hot! Got a-a-a-little these." He dumped a double fistful of rocks on the tabletop. "See? They just as flat as pee on a plate."

Tommy Lee's face lit up with laughter, ending with a grin as he gently scolded the youngster, "Hey, hey, mustn't talk like that around a lady." He roughed the child's hair and asked, "Where have you been hiding?"

"Mama, she wouldn't let me come out till you was done eatin'.was The boy reached up to loop an elbow around Tommy Lee's neck. "You reckon we can make eleven?" He beamed into the man's face with excitement and obvious hero worship.

With one arm coiled around the little boy's waist, Tommy Lee looked across at Rachel and explained, "Darrel and I are trying to find the

perfect stone that'll skip eleven times.
  
183 So far the best we've done is nine. But his sister, Darla, claims she's done ten."

"She ain't done no ten--I know she ain't! She lyin!" spouted Darrel. "And besides, lookit these what I found."

Tommy Lee sifted through the collection of prize stones, nudging them around the table while his dark wavy head bent near the much smaller one of black close-cropped curls. "Whoa! This one looks like a prize!" Tommy Lee held it aloft.

"Can we go out and try it now?"

Tommy Lee smiled down at the boy. "Reckon it's too dark to see tonight."

"You come back on Sunday? Then we c'n show Darla? Please, Tommy Lee?"

"Today's Sunday," he reminded the child.

"But I mean next Sunday, like we used to. And you can stay for dinner after church and we can all play ball and--was

"Come to think of it, I do have next Sunday free. You tell Darla she'd better be ready to put her money where her mouth is." He affectionately swatted the boy's backside and

watched him barrel off toward the kitchen. "He's Sam and Daisy's boy. A bundle of dynamite." At last he dragged his eyes back to Rachel, who wore a slightly amazed expression. "Something wrong, Rachel?"

"No ..." Rachel sat up straighter. "No." But after adding it all up she queried, "You come out here and go to church with them on Sundays?"

He deliberated silently for some time and finally answered, "Sometimes. They've got a nice little white clapboard church out in the pines about a mile from here. Well, you know what those little Baptist country churches are like. Peaceful. I prefer it to the brick one downtown."