Beloved (61 page)

Whenever she glanced up, Mac had popped another pine out of the ground. She was getting farther and farther behind. When he reached the end of the row, she breathed a sigh of relief. But no; on to the next row he went. She became increasingly embarrassed by her performance; the greenest migrant worker could have done a better job. Maybe that
'
s what Mac was after. Maybe he wanted to show her once and for all what a lousy arborist she
'
d make.

She wished she had a hat. If she had a hat to shade her face, things would be different. Mac could have given her a hat. Or a visor. Even a sweatband. Something. She wiped her brow with her dusty shirtsleeve, dirtying her face. She didn
'
t care how she looked;
that
mood was long gone. She glared at Mac
'
s broad back, at those compact buns sitting comfortably on the seat of the backhoe.
Oh, sure. Sit-down work for the overseer, pick-and-shovel duty for the help. If
that
wasn
'
t the way of the world.

The sun climbed higher. She was desperately thirsty, and she would have liked to pee. But Mac wasn
'
t offering to take a break, and she
'
d die before she asked for one. By now her hands were chafed and cut from the manila. She had no choice but to put the gloves on, though she dreaded being slowed down even more by the awkwardness of wearing them. It came as a complete and very pleasant surprise that she began working faster than before beca
use her hands no longer hurt as
much.

Eventually
—
finally!
—
Mac shut down the noisy little backhoe and got to work at the other end of the line, bagging the pines at about twice her speed. Jane picked up the pace, focusing on her task
as if she were conducting a nu
clea
r
experiment. They got down to one pine between them. She lunged for the burlap ahead of him and began folding it over the rootball.

He watched her lasso the rootball like the drugstore cowboy she was, which made her intensely self-conscious.
"
Do you want to take a break?
"
he asked when she was done.

"
Who, me?
"
she said, bounding up.
"
Not unless you do,
" she said of
f
h
andedly, trying not to wheeze.

The corner of his mouth turned up in a one-dimpled smile. Then he shrugged and turned away.
"
Nope. I
'
m fine.
"

Jane dropped her chin on her chest with a silent groan. But at least she could slow down now. Labeling the little critters would be downright fun.

"
The next thing we have to do is get those half-dozen pines out of there,
"
he said, pointing to a thicket of evergreens.
"
It
'
s too tight for the forklift, or even the nursery truck. The trees are already bagged, but we
'
ll have to carry them out to the forklift by hand. They
'
re heavy. Are you sure you
'
re up to this?
"
he asked blandly.
"
You don
'
t have to
—
"

"
Lead the way,
"
she said in a voice that was utterly grim. Mac got the shrub-caddy, a kind of metal stretcher for trees, and they squeezed their way through the densely planted area.
"
I overplanted,
"
Mac said tersely.
"
I hadn
'
t counted on the crash in new-home building. I have to just about give these away now.
"
He was just ahead of her, picking the path through the dense branches, holding an occasional bough back for her.

"
Why don
'
t you just have a live Christmas tree sale this December?
"
Jane asked.
"
You could have people cut their own. It would be a nice family event; kids adore that kind of thing.
I
did.
"

"
I told you,
" he said as they stopped
in front of the first balled evergreen.
"
I only do wholesale.
"

"
But your stock needs thinning
.
You can see some of the trees are growing misshapen.
"

"
That
'
s not today
'
s problem. Tomorrow
'
s reunion is today
'
s problem.
"

"
I don
'
t understand you.
"
Jane was sitting on the ground now, pushing at the root ball with both feet to tip it so that Mac could slip the caddy under it. It was like pushing on a granite block. She rearranged her arms behind her to get better leverage.
"You can be so ...
oof
"
she said, her foot slipping right over the top of the root ball.

She fell flat on her back. She was so tired that it felt good. She closed her eyes and sighed, and when she opened them Mac was on one knee alongside her, chuckling. He offered her his hand to pull her up.

"
Thanks,
"
she said, taking it. But something
—
the glint in his eye, the rich, piney scent of the fallen needles underneath her
—
made her reach out her other hand to him as well. She didn
'
t want him to help her up. She knew he understood that, as surely as he understood that
she
wanted to be the one to run his Christmas tree sale, and every other sale besides. She was being so obvious about both.

"Oh, Mac ..
.
"
she said, her voice breaking with desire. He made a sound low in his throat.
"
Jesus, woman, don
't do that ..
. don
't invite me ...
.
"

In one fluid motion he was on the ground alongside her, cradling her head in his hands, pinning her to the ground in his embrace, his mouth invading hers with a kind of fierceness that would
've
frightened her if she hadn
'
t been feeling the same fierce passion herself.

He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her mouth again
—
hot, tortured kisses
—
and she kissed him back, her mouth dragging across the slippery surface of his work-heated skin. Everywhere, everywhere there was salt from the sweat of their hard labor. It was a potent aphrodisiac, utterly different from the perfumed encounters she
'
d had with other men.

Here, together, it was impossible to tell where the earth ended and where they began. She felt a natural overload of the senses, a confusion of human and wild: of pine needles and his scratchy beard; of loamy softness and the rough weave of their clothing; of acid soil and the rich, true smell of them both; and with it all, the taste of salt. She was reeling from it, from the uniqueness of it all.

He was struggling with the brass clips at the top of her overalls; it was plain that he
'
d never had to remove them from someone else
'
s body before.
"My
beloved ...
I
'
ve bundled you up too well,
"
he said shakily, and she was lost in joy that he
'
d called her
his beloved.

She wanted to help him, to hasten the undressing of her, because she
'
d waited so long for him already; all of her life. So she fumbled at the other brass clip, and succeeded just before he did.

If Jane had set off a car alarm, she could not have broken the mood more thoroughly.

Mac rolled away from her and sat up, a stunned look on his face.
"
My God. What
'
re we doing? I
'm taking you like some ..
. some f
i
eldhand in a cornpatch.
"

Something inside Jane
—
some tiny, green shoot of hope —
began to wither and die when she saw his face. She knew that the next words she spoke would be absolutely critical; she was terrified that she would not choose them well.

"
I love being here with you,
"
she said, moved to inexpressible emotion.
"
I
want
to be.
"

"
No good. No good,
"
he murmured distractedly. He ran his hands through his sweat-damp hair.
"
God, this is a nightmare. Every promise I
'
ve ever made to myself
...."

He turned back to her. She was still lying there, brass clips undone, hoping. He lifted some strands of hair that were caught on her damp skin as if he were lifting a butterfly from a flower petal, and wiped a dirt smudge from her
cheek as if he were setting it back down again. Her eyes glazed over with tears; she wanted so much to hold him against her breast.

"
It
'
s never going to be you,
"
he said in a voice that was low and rich and aching.
"
It just can
'
t be.
"
She could see the desire, see the tenderness in his eyes.

And she could see the strength, the willpower. She
'
d simply not known another man like him. He
'
d made up his mind that they weren
'
t suitable for one another, and nothing on
earth
was going to change that.

"
I can
'
t force you to make love to me,
"
she said, unable to keep the despair from her voice. She reached up for the brass clips on her overalls and slipped them over the buttons herself, trying to salvage what she could of her pride.

There was a dark flush of emotion in Mac
'
s cheeks; he understood perfectly what he was putting her through. He stood up, and she stood up, and he said,
"
I
'
ll take you home.
"

"
I
'
m not going.
"

The words slipped out before Jane had time to think about them, but after she said them their meaning became clear enough to her.
"This has nothing to do with ...
there,
"
she said, pointing to the ground on which they both had lain.
"
But it has everything to do with keeping my end of a bargain. I
'
m not being a martyr,
"
she said quickly when he began to object.
"
I
'
m not trying to make you feel guilty. I
'
m just finishing the job. The family is counting on us. Let
'
s get to work.
"

She
'
d left absolutely no room for argument. With a nod, Mac said,
"
I
'
ll push. You hold.
"

He tilted the root ball for Jane and she held it in position with her feet until they got the caddy underneath. Then they lifted it together, with Mac showing her how to use her legs and not her back, and they carried it to the nearest clearing, where the forklift waited. From there they loaded it onto the truck. Jane was more limber than Mac,
although she lacked his raw strength. By sitting down and using her legs to push and prod the trees into place, she managed to do a creditable job of keeping things moving.

And all the while they exchanged hardly a word. It seemed inconceivable to Jane that after all this time, after all that had passed between them, they had less to say to one another than ever. And yet they seemed more aware of one another than ever. Every move he made, every glance he stole, she saw. As for Mac, he seemed to know her thoughts before she did: If she needed more labels, or couldn
'
t find the sod knife, he was there for her. They worked so well together; it amazed her that he couldn
'
t see it.