She was up to her waist when she saw him looking at them. She didn’t blush this time.
“Your husband do that?” he said.
She nodded.
“You going back to him?”
She stood where she was, fingertips making circles in the water. On the opposite side of the pond, a lone brant honked at them and then was silent. “I don’t know. He’s my husband.”
“He shouldn’t hurt you,” he said, and he was filled with a sudden and welcome anger. “Nobody should hurt anybody.”
She looked at him then. “Somebody hurt you, too.”
“My mother.” He swallowed, and said as much as he could. “My uncles.”
She nodded, understanding without words.
“Nobody should hurt anybody,” he repeated, and he turned and dived, as if the water could wash away all the bad memories.
They paddled around the pool, quietly at first, until he accidentally splashed her and, after a moment’s surprise, she retaliated. The battle was on, and before it was over a good third of the pool had wound up on the bank. It was an hour before they came out, giggling and shoving like a couple of kids.
With her wet hair sleeked back from her face and her skin flushed and damp, she looked like she was barely old enough for the sixth grade. He finished dressing first and tapped her on the shoulder. “Tag, you’re it!”
“No fair!” she yelled, and charged after him.
They chased each other down the path, laughing, startling ducks out of the brush at the side of the river and an otter family into the water. She tagged him and surged ahead, and he pounded after her, skidding around a corner and running into her full tilt where she’d stopped abruptly at the end of the path. They both crashed to the ground at the edge of the trees.
“Shh,” she said, putting her hand over his mouth when he would have yelled.
He looked up and saw.
Bill and Moses. On the porch. Without any clothes on. Bill was on top, her hair a silver curtain around Moses’ face. His hands were on her hips, muscles flexing in his arms as they moved together. They were so caught up in each other they didn’t hear anything else.
Tim’s jaw dropped and he turned to Amelia. Whatever he had been about to say was halted by the look on her face.
She held one finger to her lips and crept backward, one noiseless movement at a time. Tim followed. She halted in a clearing, out of earshot of the cabin.
He stood still, hands dangling, awed, confused, aroused.
“Is that how it’s supposed to be?” she said, her face bright with wonder.
He told the truth. “I don’t know.” Liam had come into his mother’s life only five months before. He’d caught them a few times in an embrace that was more than a kiss, but nothing like this.
“She was really liking it.” Her voice rose to a squeak. “She was ontop.”
“Yeah,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t get the picture out of his mind, the man and the woman doing the nasty, only it hadn’t looked nasty, or sounded nasty. It had looked-well, he didn’t know how it had looked. All he knew was that it was nothing like what he had grown up hearing from the other side of the curtain. His body stirred. “Yeah,” he said again, his voice husky.
She looked at him, suddenly aware.
They reached for each other at the same time. He was almost as tall as she was, and glad for it. She smelled good. She felt good. She tasted better than good, although their teeth kept bumping. He was afraid of hurting her, and she was afraid of being hurt. She looked a little like Christine, which helped him, and he was younger and smaller than she was, which helped her.
In the end, she stared up at him in amazement. “It doesn’t have to hurt,” she said.
He shifted on his elbows, careful not to let his whole weight lie on her, mindful of her bruises. “I guess not.”
She moved experimentally. “There’s something else, though.”
“Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes and adjusting his body to match with hers.
“Tim?”
He opened his eyes. “What?”
“Did you-?”
“Yeah,” he said, reddening.
“Was it-did it feel good?”
He tucked his hot face into the curve between her shoulder and her neck. “Yes. I think so. I don’t know.”
She was silent for a moment. “Tim?”
“What?”
“Could we do it again?”
Sunshine Valley, September 4
He rose with the sun and built up the fire in the stove. There was a pump handle on the edge of the sink. He saw her looking down from the loft as he filled the kettle. “The well’s right under the house,” he said. “Long as we’ve got a fire in the stove, the pipes won’t freeze in winter. Fresh water all year round, and you don’t have to go down to the creek to get it.”
She murmured something, something humble, acquiescent, admiring. It seemed to be enough; he nodded, satisfied, and put the kettle on the stove. He smiled up at her. “Elaine the fair,” he said softly.
She had already learned to be afraid of that tone of his voice, and her body went very still beneath the covers.
“You’ll make us some breakfast, won’t you, Elaine? You’re such a good cook, I can hardly wait to taste those pancakes of yours again.” He went to the door. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said, and went out the door, closing it behind him.
She rose, scrambling into her clothes, buttoning her shirt up to the last button beneath her chin, cinching her belt in to the last possible notch. She could barely stand to look at the bed they had shared, but she knew enough to make it.
She climbed down the ladder and went to the little kitchen, all hardwood cabinets and counter, the same wood from which the furniture and the cabin itself was made. There was a Coleman stove on the counter, very similar to the one she had cooked on for Mark, and the sight of it should have moved her to tears.
The door, the only door into the cabin, a meticulously finished slab of wood allowed to retain its natural color, remained shut and mute.
She located the ingredients and the frying pan, and mixed pancake dough. There was no syrup, but there was brown sugar and maple flavoring and water, so she made some. She found a cone filter and a carafe and filters and coffee. All she had to do was wait for the kettle to boil.
The minutes ticked by, one by one, and still he hadn’t come back. She looked at the door, looked away.
She found stoneware plates in a pretty Delft pattern and set the table. There was a full set of stainless steel flatware in a drawer, pristine and polished. She used paper towels for napkins, folded into perfect little triangles.
Something tapped at the window, and she looked up to see a spruce bough scrape at the glass. It was a tiny window, with four panes, barely big enough for a dog to climb through. Bears, she thought numbly.
The shadow of the bough shifted on the glass and she saw a faint smear of something. She found a bottle of Windex and washed it off. She washed the other window in the opposite wall, too.
The door had no window.
She swept the floor, depositing the dirt carefully in the plastic trash can. She dusted the shelf. It held three books, a collection of Shakespeare, the Bible, andIdylls of the King.
A small wooden box stood next to the Tennyson, a light layer of dust covering its hand-carved lid. She was clumsy and knocked the box to the floor, scattering its contents. A shaft of pure terror speared through her. She waited for the footsteps to sound. For the door to push open.
After a moment the racing of her heart slowed and she managed to kneel down and collect the items and put them back in the box. A cheap Claddagh ring, a wide silver bracelet that looked Southwestern, a plain gold wedding band. Five pairs of earrings. Two crosses on chains, one gold, one silver. A choker of crystals strung between tiny silver spacers.