Read Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] Online
Authors: With Hope
Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (40 page)
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“He has a poor way of showing it. Do you think that he’s the one who raped Opal?”
“He likes to brag about the women he’s had and talk nasty about them, but I don’t think he ever raped anyone. He likes to make a woman come to him.”
“That’s one thing in his favor.”
At sundown, Johnny went back to town to get Aunt Dozie. Henry Ann fixed supper for Jay, thinking that she would wait and eat when Johnny returned. After he ate she gave the child a bath. He’d had an exciting day and was asleep as soon as she put him to bed. She sat beside him for a while, his small hand in hers, knowing that she couldn’t love him more if he were her own.
Johnny returned not only with Aunt Dozie, but with Karen and Grant.
“Surprise!” Karen called as soon as she got out of the car. “Daddy didn’t want me to bring the car. He may have to use it to go out to the Hudsons. Grandpa Hudson is awful bad. So I’m here to spend the night, and I’ve brought food.”
All through high school and in the years following, neither girl had needed an invitation when she wanted to visit and to stay overnight at the other’s home.
“You’re the kind of guest I like to have—one who brings food.” Being with Karen always lifted Henry Ann’s spirits. “Put the basket on the table, Grant. Did you have a good time today, Aunt Dozie?”
“I had me a fine time, and I is wore to a nubbin. I is takin’ me off to dat bed.”
“Eat supper first, Aunty,” Karen urged. “I brought baked ham, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, and I don’t know what all. Daddy’s ladies, the ones hoping to catch him”—Karen giggled—“loaded us up with food for the holiday.”
“Honey, dis day I done et till I ’bout to pop open. I goin’ to go and get off’n’ my feet.”
“I wonder what Tom had to eat today.” Henry Ann and Karen were unloading the food basket. The words came from Henry Ann’s mouth as she thought them.
There was such longing in her friend’s voice that Karen thought a few seconds before she spoke.
“Why don't we send Grant and Johnny over to see. He could come back and eat supper. That is if . . . well, if he can.”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask them to go over there and—”
“I can. Johnny, Grant,” Karen called as she went through the house to the porch.
Henry Ann stroked a strand of hair behind her ear and felt a delirious rush of joy at the prospect of seeing him. In the recesses of her mind she knew that it was dangerous. But the pleasure of seeing him outweighed the misery of not seeing him.
Karen had guessed her secret.
Had she discussed it with Grant? How long had it taken them to recognize the signs that had evidently been there for the noticing?
Had she discussed it with Grant? How long had it taken them to recognize the signs that had evidently been there for the noticing?
“They’ll drive over and see if he can come,” Karen said, when she came back to the kitchen. She continued to slice the ham she’d taken from the basket. “I’m hungry for some of Aunt Dozie’s beet pickles.”
* * *
When Johnny turned the car into the yard of the Dolan farm, Tom hopped off the porch and hurried toward them.
“Is something wrong?” he asked before he reached the car.
“Nothing’s wrong. Karen and Henry Ann sent us to fetch you over for supper, that is if you can come.” Johnny turned off the motor.
“It scared hell out of me when you drove in.” Tom wiped his hand across his face, then forked his fingers through his hair.
“They thought you might be able to get away for a while,” Grant said.
“I’d like nothing more, but I don’t know—”
“I need to put some water in the radiator while you’re making up your mind.” Johnny climbed over the closed door of the Model T.
“Sure. There’s a bucket hanging there by the well. Need a light?”
“I’ll leave the car lights on.”
“How is Mrs. Dolan?” Grant asked.
“She was just the same until a couple of days ago. Do you know anything about dementia? It’s what Doc Hendricks calls what’s wrong with Emmajean.”
“Not much. Most of the unbalanced people I’ve run into were in jail. Some were violent and others appeared to be in a deep, trancelike state.”
“She seems to go from one to the other. One day she’s all wound up and today she’s been like she was sleepwalking.”
“Have you had the doctor out?”
“A few days ago. He said there wasn’t much to be done unless I commit her to an asylum. I’ve sent word to her folks by that jelly-bean brother of hers. If he kept his word and took my message, they should be here in a day or two.”
Johnny filled the radiator and returned the bucket to the well.
“I’ll go look in on her,” Tom said. “The last couple of nights she’s slept like a log.”
He lit the lantern he kept on the porch and went into the house. Emmajean lay on her side, her hands beneath her cheek. She hadn’t moved since he last looked in on her. Her eyes were closed. Tom stepped back and failed to see, as the light left the bed, Emmajean’s eyes flicker open, then close.
The temptation to go to Henry Ann’s was so great that Tom couldn’t resist. He blew out the lantern, left it on the porch beside the door, and went to the car.
“She’s just as I left her a couple of hours ago. She should sleep for two or three hours more. I think she’ll be all right.”
* * *
Henry Ann’s ears were attuned to the sound of the car. When it drove in, she busied herself chipping ice and filling glasses for tea. The men, led by Johnny, came into the front door. He and Grant were laughing.
“Don’t you two wake up Jay,” Henry Ann scolded, glad that she had something to say when she raised her eyes to see Tom’s large frame filling the doorway. His eyes, glued to her face, were like deep dark wells with little lights on the water.
“Hello, Tom. Glad you could come over for a while.” Her heart thumped in her throat as she spoke.
“Thank you for asking me.”
“Food is courtesy of Karen.”
“Not actually, but almost,” Karen said quickly.
“Sit down, everyone.”
Henry Ann was grateful for Karen’s ability to keep conversation going. They talked about the big event of the day—the sheriff taking Isabel off the dance floor.
“It was more excitement than Red Rock’s had for a while,” Henry Ann said, feeling that she had to contribute to the conversation.
“It’ll be the talk of the town for months.” Karen passed the potato salad. “Help yourself, Tom. After it goes past Grant, there’ll be nothing left.”
“Why’er you picking on me?” Grant’s face was happy, relaxed, younger. His gaze went often to Karen. “How about old Hollow Legs? The kid eats like a horse.”
Tom listened to the good-natured teasing, grateful that he could be here for this little while. He tried to keep his eyes off Henry Ann’s calm, beautiful face, but they seemed to wander there when he lifted them from his plate. Did the others notice?
“Jay rode the merry-go-round,” Henry Ann said during a lull in the conversation. “Johnny stood by him and held him on the horse.”
“I wish I could have seen him.” Tom’s eyes held hers as if they were the only two people in the room.
“Maybe next year . . . if the carnival comes back.”
As soon as the meal was over, Henry Ann asked Tom if he wanted to see his son. He nodded. She led the way to the bedroom and opened the door. When she stood aside for him to enter, he took her hand and drew her into the semidarkened room with him. As they stood beside the bed, he reached down to touch his son’s thick dark hair.
“I’m glad he has you.” The whispered words came out on a breath.
“He has you, too.”
Tom looked from his son to her. “I’m going to have to put his mother in an asylum.”
“Oh, no!”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t worry about Jay—”
“I don’t. I envy him. Is that selfish of me?”
“There’s nothing selfish about you.”
“I need to be alone with you for a little while.”
“We’re alone.”
“Will you walk out back with me . . . later?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“I know, but will you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She didn’t have the strength to refuse him.
Grant and Karen had cleared the table and put the dishes in a pan to soak by the time they returned to the kitchen. Henry Ann stood in the doorway, loving the feeling of Tom’s hand on her back.
“This is the bossiest woman I’ve ever known,” Grant complained, spreading a cloth over the necessaries on the table. “She’s got me doing woman’s work.”
“You bragged that you were a jack-of-all-trades.”
“Doing dishes isn’t a trade. It’s drudgery.”
“Now maybe you can understand how a woman feels,” Karen retorted.
“Come on.” Grant waited for Karen to hang up a cloth. “You’ve promised to entertain me tonight. What are you going to do? Sing or dance?”
“Don’t be smug. I can dance, and I sing quite well. We’ll be on the porch,” Karen said to Henry Ann, as she and Grant left the kitchen.
Tom reached up and turned off the bulb hanging over the table. Henry Ann felt his arm around her urging her toward the back door.
An early moon climbed above the pecan trees. In its luminous glow Tom led her across the yard and stopped beneath the branches of the giant oak.
“We shouldn’t—”
“Shhhh. Don’t think about it. I want to hold you for just a little while . . . and kiss you before I go.” His hand wandered over her back, pressing her closer.
Her heart was pounding with the urge to press her lips to his. All her senses were filled with his overwhelming male presence. She could feel his mouth at the side of her neck and smell the woodsmoke in his hair.
“Henry Ann, sweetheart!” The words seemed torn out of him. “How will I live without you?” He placed quick kisses along her jaw. “You’ve woven a wonderful web around me, drawing me to you.” He took a deep quivering breath.
Her hand cupped his cheek and turned his lips to hers. He embraced her roughly, but there was nothing rough about the way he kissed her. There was a wild, sweet singing in her heart as his lips worked sweet magic with hers. He kissed her tenderly, holding her like some newfound treasure. Mindless, unconscious of time or place, she leaned on him. His mouth played on hers with infinite passion and tenderness. His tongue made small forays between her lips as his hand traversed her body from her hips to her soft round breasts.
“Tell me to stop—”
She opened her mouth to whisper her fears, but it was too late. He covered her parted lips, his tongue darting warmly in and out of her mouth, exploring every curve of the sweetness that trembled beneath his demanding kiss. Her arms tightened and she kissed him back feverishly, as though swept away on some wild force totally beyond her control.
“I . . . ache for you . . .” Tom sank down on the ground beneath the tree and pulled her down with him. She half lay at an angle across his lap. His free hand burrowed into the loose top of her dress, sliding over her bare breast. He took the lobe of her ear between his teeth and growled, “I think about you all the time.”
She shivered at the touch of his exploring fingers. She was in a timeless void where there were only Tom’s hands, Tom’s lips, Tom’s whispered words.
“This is a little bit of heaven, my beautiful, my precious—” His rough fingertips caressed her nipple into hardness, and she trembled with the need to have him fill the empty ache within her.
She threw her arms around his neck and scattered kisses over his face. In a small part of her mind she knew that what she was doing was not right, but it was what she wanted, had wanted since the first time he had kissed her. It was as though it was bound to happen, and she had been waiting for him all her life.
Now she would know what she had been waiting for. With this wild, wonderful man she would learn the mysteries she had read about and imagined. When years of ingrained teaching of moral standards surfaced to plague her, she brushed them aside. She loved Tom Dolan, wanted him, needed him.
“I want you to love me like you would . . . if . . . if we were free to spend our lives together.” A powerful, sweeping tide of love flowed over her, making her feel stronger than the hard-muscled man holding her tightly in his arms.
It was too dark for her to see his eyes, but she knew they were searching hers. Her breathing and her heartbeat were all mixed up. Her stomach muscles clenched and relaxed, clenched again.
“I want you more than . . . anything—” he whispered hoarsely; then his ragged breath was trapped inside her mouth as his lips plundered hers. The world seemed to fade away.
“You were made to be loved and . . . treasured. You are a treasure. My treasure.” His hungry mouth found hers again and held it with fierce possession. His hands moved urgently over her. “God help me! I want to bury myself in you, become one with you. But I can’t do it. I can’t leave you with the memory of having given this precious gift of yourself here in the grass. I want to hold your naked body in my arms all night long, loving you, making you mine.”
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