A Trashy Affair (30 page)

Jane nodded. “The hillside with all the gnarled old trees is a beautiful place.”

“If you had married in a church like regular people instead of barefoot in an orchard this would not be a problem. The place would still be standing,” her grandmother snapped. “Now you’ve distracted me. I meant to talk to Jane about this Merlin fellow. He is rather a great big brute, isn’t he?”

“He’s a hunk, in my opinion,” Kathleen said.

“Yes, crude and hunky on the outside, but inside he cares deeply for his family and the land. He torments himself about things he cannot fix or change. Merlin is trying to get my old job back and restore recycling in the parish. He bought my house to help me. I mean there is much more to him than his looks and his big-ass truck,” Jane tried to explain.

“Such raw language, Jane. Well, I’ll give him credit for helping you and for loving his grandmother and Red Skelton, but otherwise…” her grandmother started in again.

“The man is a freakin’ war hero, Mother. The Distinguished Flying Cross, flies helicopters for a living, two years of college, no real criminal record, only a small brush with the law in high school and a sentence of community service. Jane is twenty-four, and the man pool is drying up, especially in a small town like Chapelle. Don’t you want to see your great-grandchildren?”

“Of course I do, but this man—”

Jane held up a hand. “Wait, wait! How do you know so much about Merlin?”

“Google, a great big article in the hometown newspaper about him when he came home from the war all decorated with a DFC medal and the silver star, too. A contact of your father’s at the police department checked on him for us. Well, you wouldn’t tell me anything about him. I got curious.”

“Because I wanted to avoid having everyone judge him before you met him. You might as well know he suffers from PTSD, has terrible nightmares and some depression all because he served his country. He is gradually getting better.”

“Yes, war destroys more than countries. You know how I feel about war, but when I looked into his very striking blue eyes, I saw a man who had always been a fighter of one kind or another. Mother, you can’t deny his bravery.”

Her grandmother sniffed, but not as she had earlier in the evening. “I thought you saw the spirits of the air in his eyes, Kathleen. A tissue please,” she said, but the elderly woman’s voice wobbled.

Jane handed Ellen a tissue from a porcelain caddy on the nightstand. She took a deep breath and a sip of her rapidly cooling tea. Fat chance she’d get any sleep after this discussion.

“I wrote to your grandfather all during World War II. We were high school sweethearts before he got drafted. I married him the minute he returned from the war—nothing fancy but in a church, not an apple orchard.” Ellen’s eyes blurred with nostalgia.

“I was eighteen and wore a gray suit with a white orchid on the collar. He was twenty-one, so handsome in his uniform. But he fought at Normandy and had nightmares about that for the rest of his life, though they faded with time. Do you remember, Kathleen? He’d get to feeling low in early June and shut himself up in our library for a day or two and drink. I’d hide the guns.”

Kathleen nodded. “Another reason I’m anti-war.”

“Your father worked so hard rebuilding the family business. Having a purpose helped, he said. Of course, we couldn’t sell supplies to miners anymore. That market was long gone. He branched out at the store. Do you recall our lovely gift department? I used to select the items. Then late in his life along comes these big box stores and poof! No more business. You’d think there would be some customer loyalty to a store that gave free gift wrap and delivery, but no. I’m not sure which killed him, losing the store or the trip we made to the World War II monument that made him cry.”

“I think flying helps Merlin to cope, Gran. He’s given up drinking.”

“Of course his hawk spirit would be soothed by open skies,” Kathleen remarked.

“Nonsense. It’s Jane who made a difference in his life. Even I can see that.”

Glad the little snit with her mother had dried Gran’s tears, Jane stood. “I should try to sleep.”

“Go to Merlin. Love is all that matters. I could see how he feels about you in his beautiful eyes,” her mother said, placing gentle fingers over Ellen’s lips to hold the protest back.

The dappled, arthritic hand pushed the fingers away. “Those eyes of his are getting awfully crowded with all the things you’ve seen in them, Kathleen. The point is do you love him, Jane?”

“Yes, though how I fell for a man with a big-ass truck I will never know.”

“Then go with my blessing, too.”

“Thanks, both of you.”

She went upstairs and headed directly for the last room at the end of the hall. He’d left the door unlocked. She smiled tenderly and entered. Missing. For a moment she thought he’d gotten in his truck and fled her family, but no, she would have heard the roar of his huge Ford engine in her deepest sleep. His duffel still sat half collapsed on the freezing floor, the clothes he’d worn earlier heaped beside it. Maybe he’d put on something warmer and gone for a walk. Snow would be a novelty to him even though he’d been cursing it for hours. Or maybe just a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the hall. She checked that out. Not there. Might as well go back to her own bed.

She found Merlin, a very rugged version of Prince Charming, clutching one pillow to his chest and hogging the other, sound asleep. Jane slipped in beside him very tempted to put her icy feet on his backside. He slept so deeply and needed the rest so badly she refrained and settled for reclaiming half a pillow and placing her arm over his side.

“Jane,” he murmured and tucked the arm under his without completely waking.

Now that she had what she desired, sleep came quick and heavy, but when she woke far too late in the morning, Merlin the Magician had vanished again.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

He left her bed as soon as he woke and placing a kiss on Jane’s cheek, went to the bathroom to clean up, but didn’t shower for fear of waking her and everyone else in the house. With four days growth of beard, he fit right in with the men of the house in looks if nothing else. They knew he wasn’t good enough for their family, especially for Jane. He realized that himself when he entered their house and saw how they lived. Hell, if they got to know him any better, the whole bunch of them would convince her not to return to Louisiana at all. He should let her go, stop trying to get her to stay in Chapelle until he got his act together.

In his isolated bedroom, he put on his heaviest jeans, thick socks and boots, a dark blue T-shirt, and topped it with green, blue and white flannel. Rummaging in the duffel, he found the Christmas gift and laid it aside on the bed while he shoved his dirty clothes on top and cinched it shut. An early morning Santa with a black beard, he threw the sack over his shoulder and took it and the present downstairs. Setting the duffel in a corner by the front door, he went into the parlor.

The tiny LED lights on the tall, fresh tree glowed amid the branches. Had the Marshalls left them on all night? He placed the gift for Jane far under its bows and noticed on the way up that all the decorations were homemade or handmade: glittering curlicues cut from aluminum pie tins, reindeer made from clothes pins, beaded candy canes, needlepoint angels, and a little picture frame created from puzzle pieces containing a snapshot of Jane in first or second grade with almost the same haircut she wore now.

He held it up for a closer look and nearly tipped the tree over when a hearty voice behind him said, “Up early? Great. I’m making waffles for the ladies who are all still in bed. I heard them down here having a hen party around two a.m. How are you with a skillet? I need a man on the bacon. This way to the kitchen,” Mr. Marshall beckoned.

Merlin steadied the wobbling fir tree. “I can manage a frying pan.”

He followed the leader down the hall past a closed door. Roy Marshall put a finger to his lips rimmed by that short, gray professorial beard and mouthed, “Mother-in-law.” They entered a large airy kitchen, and Roy quietly closed the door behind them.

“Your skillet, sir.” He presented Merlin with a heavy piece of cast iron.

“My granny had one just like this. My mother owns it now. Where’s the bacon?”

Roy pointed to a slab on the cutting board. “Slice it thick and fry it greasy since I’m cooking today. When you’re done, pour the fat into that orange juice can. Kathy puts it outside to harden, then rolls it in seeds for the birds.”

Merlin turned up the gas under the skillet giving it time to heat while he cut the bacon to order. The view from the window over the sink showed a large backyard full of mature, leafless trees coated with an icing of snow and a backdrop of dark firs similarly capped. Bird feeders, wind chimes, and shining glass baubles hung from all the low branches. He suspected the drifts hid other yard art probably made from scraps. A pair of nuthatches crept up a bare trunk toward a wire basket filled with suet, and chickadees flitted with other small birds, dashing to and from the feeders and back into the bushes again.

“A wonder the birds aren’t chased off by the decorations and all that tinging,” he remarked.

“They get used to the noise exactly like us. Food trumps fear in the dead of winter.”

Merlin laid the bacon on the well-seasoned cast iron. In moments, the fat began to spit and sizzle. He turned the first batch over with a long fork Roy put in his hand. A second door on the far end of the kitchen opened, and Heath entered yawning from the hallway that skirted the other side of the staircase.

“I smelled bacon. When’s breakfast?”

“After you squeeze the orange juice and make the coffee, son. We’re treating the ladies today.” Roy retrieved a bottle of maple syrup from a shelf and poured it into a saucepan. “Hot syrup is the way to their hearts.” He put it over a low flame. “That and fresh orange juice, so get squeezing.”

Reluctantly, Heath took a bag of oranges from the fridge, began cutting them in half and reaming out the juice. He took a half-hearted break from that to set up a fancy coffeemaker with enough buttons on it to please a barista. Roy whisked his from-scratch waffle batter in a huge yellow bowl and tested a griddle ready to produce four deep Belgians at a time. Merlin drained the bacon on paper towels and started another batch.

He thought people like this would eat in a fancy dining room, but a large butcher block table surrounded by six ladder back chairs filled much of the space. Placemats made from woven reeds and a large wooden bowl filled with fresh fruit showed the family ate here often. He could see where Jane got her nice ways. The light, color, and warmth were the same in her small kitchen.

“Not much of a talker, are you, Merlin?” Roy said as he poured the batter.

“Nope. Jane said the same about you—that you were quiet.”

But not today. Jane’s father chatted away nonstop.

“I live with three women who never stop talking. They only think I’m quiet. Once Heath moved out, no way I could compete. I have to get my talking out when I teach my geology classes.” Roy rummaged in a drawer and took out flatware and white huck cloth napkins with a lacy blue pattern woven in and out around the edges. He set the table, went back to check his waffles, and figured he had enough time to light a candle in a small warmer and set a little white pitcher of hot maple syrup on it.

“Yeah, Jane always wants me to use my words.” Merlin finished frying the bacon, poured the grease into the juice can, and turned down the flame. He set the skillet aside to cool.

“Which brings me to what words you might want to say to my daughter. What are your intentions toward Jane, young man?”

“Yeah, what are they? I heard a lot of creeping around last night,” Heath chimed in belligerently.

Jane’s brother severed another orange with a very sharp knife taken from a block full of them. The amber eyes of father and son bored into Merlin’s heart. He was not prey. He did not run—except from Jane when his feelings got too strong to handle.

“If I was good enough, I’d ask her to marry me. She deserves better.”

“Damn straight,” Heath agreed.

Roy Marshall sampled the batch of bacon. He chewed thoughtfully. “Good job. Not burnt, meaty, rich. Despite this house, we aren’t wealthy, just comfortable. We don’t think we’re better than other folks. Now, I got the impression last night you despise cowards, but isn’t this a form of cowardice? Not asking so Jane has no chance to turn you down—or accept.”

“Right! Man up or get out.” Heath pressed a button on the coffeemaker and filled a metal pot with steamed milk. Artfully, he made himself a latte letting the steam rise in Merlin’s face.

Eye to eye, Merlin said to Jane’s brother, “Unless you have proposed to a woman or dodged an RPG, do not tell me to man up.” Heath leaned back a little but refused to budge.

They might as well have been exchanging growls when the far kitchen door opened and Jane entered wearing bunny slippers and a fluffy pink chenille robe far heavier than she wore in Louisiana. Though she hadn’t dressed, Merlin noticed she’d put on makeup and fixed her hair.

“
Bon jour
, bun…Jane,” he said casually, relaxing his stance and stepping away from her brother. He almost slipped there and said something sexist.

“Merlin, are you intimidating my brother with your crazy act?”

“Maybe.”

“Good, he deserves to be taken down a notch. Waffles! Dad, you are so great.”

“With hot maple syrup and some very good bacon fried up by our guest.”

Roy rated a big hug. Evidently, bacon got you nothing. Or maybe Jane didn’t want to hug him in front of her family. He had no time to consider which because the other door opened to let in a slowly progressing Ellen using a three-pronged cane. Kathleen walked behind her. Both women were attired exactly the same as last evening.

Merlin pulled out a chair for Jane’s grandmother who responded with, “How nice of you. I will limber up later in the day. I always wake with stiff joints.”

“He does nice things like that all the time,” Jane hurried to say.

Not to be outdone, Roy provided the same service for his wife, but Heath let his sister seat herself. Roy opened the waffle maker.