Cold Tea on a Hot Day (34 page)

“I can’t,” she said, anger flaring because he was pressing her for something she did not feel capable of giving.

“I’m not going to stand here and beg for your attention. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your motherin’ of Parker. Apparently you need that more than you can appreciate some attention from a man.”

He stalked off to the kitchen, and she called after him, “Go ahead. I never asked you to come around here…and that is what men do—they leave. Better sooner than later.” She shut her mouth then, afraid she might have awakened the children.

The sound of the back door shutting caused her to just about double over, as if from a blow.

What Tate said was true, she realized, her spirit sinking to depths so dark she ached with despair. She simply could never seem to get herself out of mother mode. She had always been a mother, from the age of nine, when she’d had to be a mother to Anita, and on to becoming a mother to her own mother. It was all she knew.

Likely she attracted men who needed her to mother them—like Stuart and Parker—and repelled men, like Tate, who did not require her mothering talents but wanted her to be a full woman and mate, which was something she could not seem to grasp. She could not be
a woman to a man, because she did not know how. Probably she did not have some sort of gene required to be a woman to a man. It was as if she were learning disabled in this area, the same as her Willie Lee was in the rest of life.

A voice came from the receiver: “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again.”

She was still standing there, holding the receiver. She stretched a finger to depress the button and start again, but her inclination to call Parker had faded. Suddenly she did not think she could speak, she was so totally discouraged. Likely Parker was close to figuring out that there was no emergency with a horse, anyway. Surely another ten minutes and he would know this. He would be furious and feel the fool, and she did not feel up to taking on his emotions.

Tate, at the back gate, stopped in his tracks. It was as if a hand had come down on his shoulder and turned him around, and he distinctly heard a command to get back in there.

He had come too far to give up now. And he wouldn’t leave her his tea, in any case. By golly, he was not wasting any more tea on the woman. He would just march right in there and get his pitcher. He went up the stairs and burst in the doorway.

Marilee, hearing the back door open, threw the receiver onto the hook and hurried to the kitchen doorway, from which she saw Tate stalking across the room toward the counter.

“I forgot my tea.” His tone and manner were furious.
He snatched up the pitcher sitting there. “I’m takin’ it back.” He had lost his mind, he thought.

Marilee, standing with her hand on the door frame, tried to drag herself from her odd paralysis of emotion, a course she had seemingly been on all her life.
He had driven six hours for her…for a woman like her.

The phone rang, and this jarred her into motion. Two steps and she lifted the receiver.

But then Tate was there, taking hold of her and jerking the receiver from her hand. He said into it, “Go away,” then let it drop, where it bobbed and banged against the wall, while Tate took her by her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes.

“Let me in, Marilee. Open up and let me in.”

His eyes entreated her; his voice commanded her.

“I can’t…. I don’t know how.” Crying, shaking her head, trying to avoid his lips, but still he went to kissing her cheeks and her eyes. She hit his chest with her balled fists. “I don’t want to be married…I can’t go there again…it hurts too bad…I don’t know how.”

He found her mouth and stopped her words with his kiss, which caused an immediate and enormous response from deep inside of her. Quite suddenly she found herself kissing him in return, with the passion of a woman come to life, full of desire that burned away the fear. They became all hot breath and pounding blood and passionate bodies. When finally Tate lifted his head, so that she could see his luminous grey eyes, she could not stand up and had to hold on to him.

“That’s how,” he whispered against her lips, and then
kissed her again, having to hold her up against him to do it.

When at last the kiss ended and she was staring up at him through dazed eyes, she said what popped into her mind. “I’ve wanted to know what it would be like to kiss you from the moment I saw you.”

“I’ve wanted to know, too,” said Tate, with a ragged chuckle. Then, “Let’s do it again.”

And he kissed her again.

When at last he raised his head, she gasped for breath. “I won’t,” she managed to say, meaning she would not sleep with him, she would not marry him, she would not go any further.

He merely chuckled again and gave her yet another kiss, deeply and expertly, making her know in that minute that she would follow the delicious passion wherever it led. He kissed her, and she kissed him, until they were both about to burst into flame.

She had never in all her life been so thoroughly kissed, so that she felt it in every cell in her body.

“Now, what were you sayin’?” he whispered in her ear, his breath warm and moist upon her tender skin.

“I can’t remember.” She felt helpless. Never had she felt helpless with a man. She did not know if she liked the feeling.

“The phone’s still off the hook.” The recording was speaking about hanging up.

“Leave it.”

“Okay.” She could not think a coherent thought.

Tate scooped her up into his arms and carried her
through to the living room, where he sat in the big chair, holding her across his lap.

“Why not the sofa?” she asked, as getting down into the chair proved to take some doing.

“You and Parker used to be on the sofa.”

“Oh.” She laid her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into his neck. “I cannot have sex with you. I have two children in the other room.”

“Quit blaming it all on the children. I’ll wait until you are ready.” He stroked her head, and she felt ready.

“I want to marry you,” he said. “That’s what I want.”

She realized that Tate was a little struck silly by passion, too. “I don’t know if I can marry you. I don’t think we should even try to think about it right now.” Heaven knew she could not think.

She added after a moment, “I don’t know if I can ever marry anyone.”

“I’ll wait for you to find out.”

“I don’t know how to be a wife. I’m a good mother, but I am awful at being a woman with a man.”

She began to cry. She could not figure out her emotions. They were no longer paralyzed but now felt as if they were fighting to go in all directions. She cried harder, so hard that she soaked his shirt, while he held her to him and kissed her hair and murmured that she was just the sort of woman he needed.

“What sort is that?” she asked, sniffing. “What did you mean—a woman like me?”

It seemed a very long time before he answered. She pulled back and looked at him. He looked puzzled, and at last he said, “That you are a full and passionate woman
who demands that a man stand up on equal footing. I have to be a better man when I’m around you. I have to be all the man I can be.”

“Oh, Tate.” Had ever a woman been so complimented? Her heart felt as if it had cracked in two. She kissed him full and hard.

After that kiss, he said, “Will you be my girl?”

“Yes.” At first the word would only come in a whisper. She tried again. “Yes, I’ll be your girl. But I am not making any further promises.”

She lay back in his arms then, and he kissed her softly, and then held her. They sat there, and it was both sensual and comfortable. She listened to his heart beating and inhaled his scent, imprinting it on her mind, imprinting the feel of his body through their clothing. He stroked her leg, and it was in such a tender and worshipful manner that she began to cry again.

Tate did not say so, but he had a feeling that Marilee had never known a man to truly make love to her. Obviously she had experienced sex, but quite possibly never experienced having a man make love to her as a woman enjoyed by a man. This thought excited him, but it made him a little nervous, too. He hoped he would be up to the job. It would take a hell of a man to give Marilee what she needed. Maybe he would need to study books or something.

He was thinking so hard on this matter, that it was some minutes before he realized she had fallen asleep. He sat there, for that space of time, as if he had opened wide the door and was staring into the full secret of life in his heart.

Life is Good

T
he night lifted, and the light of a new day dawned on the roofs and trees of town and across the land, west to where a long, white limousine turned off the interstate and onto the state highway, gliding past the sign that read: Valentine, 10 miles. The driver, commanded by his employer, who did not like speed, went at a slow pace.

In town, garbage trucks started their run, the City Works crew were gathering to make another attack on the sinkhole, and Winston Valentine, putting on his glasses, looked out the kitchen window at the thermometer; the needle pointed already at eighty degrees.

“Summer’s here,” he said, and turned, heading through the long hall, where he took up his flags from the hall table and went out the front door. He was early, and this seemed prudent, with the heat coming. Everett had apparently made the same decision; he was just coming out his door, too.

As Winston went to his flagpole, his gaze focused in the distance at the Blaines’ driveway across the meadow, and Perry’s black Lincoln sitting there, still. That seemed a promising sign. Vella had called Winston last night to say that Perry had moved back in. He would go down there later and see how things had gone. He had not felt up to being all Vella wanted of him, but he was a little sad to lose her attention. Oh, well, aggravating Perry would give him something worthwhile to do.

Down on Porter, Tate, minus Bubba, who was sulking, jogged past Marilee’s cottage; it was quiet. He knew better than to stop in, because he knew Marilee was not a morning person.

At the house on the corner, the young UPS man was coming down his front walk. He had a black eye.

“Woo-ee, that’s a beaut,” Tate said, admiring, but not breaking stride.

“You should see the other guy.” The young man grinned and then winced.

Tate, sweat already beginning to wet his hair, turned left instead of right on First, and jogged down to where a burly City Works employee was guiding a concrete truck into position some feet away from the sinkhole site. Apparently they were going to run a tube from the truck, so as to not take a chance of getting the truck stuck in the hole.

Tate took a second look at the big elm tree in the front yard of the Methodist Church parsonage; it seemed to be leaning toward the sinkhole.

“We got a handle on this thing now, Editor,” the burly City Works worker told him. “We are fixin’ to pump
thirty-five yards of concrete into this sucker. That’s gotta stop it.”

Tate gave the worker Reggie’s phone number and requested the man call her immediately on his cell phone, so she could get a shot for the Sunday paper. Then he headed back along to Main Street, waving at Bonita Embree through the bakery window. The flag was not yet flying at the
Voice;
Charlotte was much later than usual this morning. He wondered what that was about. Turning the corner at the police station, he headed up Church, keeping an eye out in the distance.

There came Lindsey down the hill.

They met at the intersection. Tate was prepared to defend himself. He had not had a fight in a long time, so he hoped he could come out of it in decent shape.

Lindsey stopped to stretch his legs, and Tate followed suit.

“Guess you think you’re pretty funny, don’t you, Editor.”

“
Clever
is the better word. Actually, I think it could be considered outmaneuvering.” He was warming to the descriptions, yet still keeping a watchful eye on Lindsey’s demeanor.

At that moment, there came Leanne Overton, flying down the hill on her bicycle. She cast a nod directed at both men as she zipped between them and curved around to Porter heading east, the cheeks of her lovely derriere moving in rhythm as she pedaled.

“If you hurry, maybe you could catch up with her,” Tate suggested, a little puzzled at how Lindsey was just standing there, as if out of energy.

Lindsey shook his head. “Her looks hide some other stuff. You know?”

“Ah, well, that’s not too good.” Tate felt a twinge of pity for the guy.

But suddenly Lindsey straightened his shoulders and looked straight at Tate. “I’m goin’ to get you back, Editor. It may take me a while, but I’m goin’ to pay you back for last night.”

It was a firm promise, and with that, the veterinarian swung into motion, heading away east on Porter at an easy jog with his powerful tanned legs.

Tate decided to cut his jog short and went on around, entering through the back door. The phone was ringing.

“Would you like to come to breakfast?” It was Marilee!

“Do you know your voice is very sexy first thing in the morning?” he said. “And I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”

Life is good, he thought as he hurried upstairs to shower. He had a woman who liked to cook, and who had a sexy voice, too.

He ran his shower quite cold.

The long white limousine glided to a stop in front of the James house. The neighbor across the street saw it and kneeled on her couch to get a better look out her front window.

Marilee was putting homemade biscuits in the oven when the doorbell rang. Corrine was setting the table.

“Now, who could that be so early in the morning?” It was too quick for it to be Tate.

Marilee brushed her hair back from her face, and then
realized her hands were coated with flour. She asked Corrine to go see who was at the door. She was annoyed for being interrupted in cooking biscuits and gravy. She had not cooked both from scratch in a long time, and the effort required all her concentration.

The doorbell rang again. Corrine, skipping through the living room, saw a head peering in the front window.

“It is the dog-catch-ers!” said Willie Lee, who had come from the hallway and had his shirt buttoned crooked over his pajama pants. He raced back into the bedroom, calling Munro with him, and slammed the door.

“What in the world?” Aunt Marilee came from the kitchen. “Who is it, Corrine?”

Corrine, who had made it to the door but was hesitant to open it, gazed at Marilee and blinked her deep-brown eyes.

Marilee went to open the front door herself. A man with a shock of thick and rather long white hair, and dressed in a crisp, pale-blue suit, smiled at her.

“Hello. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mrs. James?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a little boy who has a rather splotchy type of dog, an Australian shepherd, I believe?”

“Well, yes…what is this about?”

She did not know the man, but she recognized the tall, slick blond man, the one Belinda had said was from Tell-In Technologies. He stood behind one of the white-haired man’s shoulders, while a very sophisticated woman stood behind the other shoulder. All three were gazing at her.

“I’m Thomas Gerard, president of the Tell-In Tech
nologies. May I have a few minutes of your time? If you would not mind, I would like to come in and sit down, and explain in detail.”

The man and woman behind him were now peering around his shoulders, as if looking at something behind Marilee.

“Well, okay.” She opened the door for them to step inside.

Quite slowly, the man went to sit on her sofa. Marilee wondered how old he was. His face was not old, but he was stooped. Corrine, who was stuck to Marilee like glue, squeezed herself down in the big chair beside Marilee, and Marilee put an arm around her niece. Glancing downward, she saw she had streaks of flour on her dress.

“You are familiar with the facts of our case?” The man spoke slowly and in a very gentle manner. “That a former Tell-In employee died of a heart attack just outside of town?”

Marilee said she was familiar with the incident, and that the former employee apparently had some sort of company property.

“Yes.” The man nodded. “We believe your son now possesses a dog that belonged to that former employee, and we have reason to believe this dog may be the key to us locating…something…our former employee stole from our company. Could you please tell us—was the dog wearing a collar when your son found him?”

“Yes. It had his name on it.”

“And is he still wearing that collar?”

“Well…yes.”

The man nodded some more and said, “We need to see that collar. It is possible that what we are looking for is in the collar, or may even be implanted in the dog itself.”

“Implanted in the dog?” Marilee repeated. She looked at Corrine, as if to make note of the child in order to be certain she was not imagining this conversation.

“Yes, possibly,” said Mr. Gerard in his distinctive manner. “Could we see your son’s dog? I promise that we mean the dog no harm. We do not want to take the dog, only to examine him.”

When Marilee sat there, thinking and gazing at the three sitting on her couch, he added, “This means a great deal to my company, Mrs. James.”

“I have no doubt. As my son means a great deal to me, and for some reason, he is afraid of you.” She added, “Let me speak to my son.”

Marilee went to Willie Lee’s bedroom door. It was locked. “Willie Lee? Honey, I need to talk to you.”

Corrine was right beside her. “He thinks they want to take Munro.” At Marilee’s questioning gaze, she said, “They tried to, one day in town. Munro ran away. He does not like them,” she added in a pointed manner.

Marilee called to Willie Lee again, but there was no answer.

Then Tate came from the kitchen. “What’s going on over here? Willie Lee said the dogcatchers are in his house.” He looked from Marilee in the hallway to the people on the couch and back at Marilee.

“You’ve seen Willie Lee?” She looked back at the door and realized her son must have gone out the window.

“Yes, but I told him I wouldn’t tell where he and
Munro are.” He turned a questioning eye on the three strangers, who were now getting to their feet.

“Ah,” Tate said to the younger man and woman. “I believe we have met…in the police station. You were waiting to talk to the sheriff. I’m the editor of
The Valentine Voice,
who you said couldn’t help you. I might be able to now, it seems.”

Tate went out to talk to Willie Lee.

Corrine stood guarding the closed swinging kitchen door, while Marilee, watching through the window, saw Tate go across the yard to the tree containing Willie Lee’s tree house. He looked upward, speaking, and there was an exchange for some minutes, after which an object came dropping out of the tree. Munro’s collar, which Tate brought back in to the people sitting on Marilee’s couch.

The blond man reached for the collar, and all three on the couch bent their heads to look at it. Marilee and Tate and Corrine hovered, trying to see, too.

“There it is,” the blond man said with triumph. “Oh, and here’s the—”

Whatever it was, was gone from sight in an instant, as the blond man pocketed the collar.

Thomas Gerard, getting to his feet, said, “I would like to thank your son personally. I owe him my company’s future. I’d like to give him a reward.”

Willie Lee, assured that Munro was still safely his dog, came back inside and into the living room and right up to Thomas Gerard, holding up his hand for a shake. “Hello, Mr. Ger-aard,” he said very carefully when introduced.

“Hello, Mr. James. I thank you for taking such good care of this dog.”

“He takes care of me, and Cor-rine, and Ma-ma,” Willie Lee interrupted.

“Ah, so he does.” The man’s pale eyes fell on the dog sitting at Willie Lee’s legs. “I had a dog such as this once, when I was a boy. A long time ago. I wish so much to have another.”

“Ask God. That is what I did.”

“Ah…I shall.” Thomas Gerard pulled a paper from his inner suit pocket. “Here you are, Mr. James. Please accept this with my gratitude for returning to me something very important. Good day to you all.”

Marilee saw the three people to the door and watched a moment as the white-haired gentleman went carefully down her porch steps. There was no rushing or excess of movement in Mr. Gerard.

When she turned around, she saw Tate examining the paper the Tell-In president had given Willie Lee. “Stock,” he told Marilee. “Looks like Thomas Gerard just gave Willie Lee thirty-thousand dollars worth of stock.”

Marilee had to sit down. She looked at Willie Lee.
He will have something for when I’m gone.
Tears came into her eyes.
Thank you, God.

Suddenly the smoke detector started going off, and all of them raced to the kitchen to see smoke rolling out of the oven. Her biscuits had burned right up.

Tate told her. “Well, get yourselves fixed up. I’m takin’ us all down to the Main Street Café for breakfast. I’d like to start showin’ everyone that you’re my girl.”

She jerked her head up and looked at him, and his
luminous eyes smiled a deep smile at her. Slowly she returned the smile. Maybe she could be a woman to him.

Maybe for her to be the right sort of woman for a man, she needed the right sort of man to bring her out. And maybe she had at last found him.