For some unknown reason, tears were trying to well up in her eyes. Hurriedly, she turned away, and in two steps had reached the door. The handle refused to give for a minute, but she managed to open the door on the second try. She took a step down and strode off, only vaguely aware that her next-door neighbor was pulling grocery bags from the trunk of her car, which she’d parked behind the motor home.
“Anne?” Jake’s voice came from behind her.
All regal pride, she turned with the utmost patience.
“I’m leaving the motor home here, so you can put your clothes and things in place.”
“You can’t park here. The condo rules-”
“I fixed that.”
She sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
Jake had his hand on the door. His silver wolverine eyes held hers, and she felt all the fascination of captured prey. “Run your tub full of very hot water, Anne,” he tossed after her thoughtfully. “I want you completely naked, darling. Leave all the lights off. Just darkness, just those petals floating all around you, clinging to that ivory skin of yours…”
He slowly shook his head, obviously in reverent appreciation of his fantasy, then closed the door. Thankfully, Anne noted, with him on the inside. She suddenly found herself staring at her neighbor, who was just as intently staring back at her, wide-eyed.
“He’s a total stranger,” Anne said weakly. “I’ve never met that man before in my life.”
Her neighbor nodded.
Mesmerized, Anne stared at the ocean of slow-waving corn that rippled on all sides from east to west, north to south. There was nothing else. Just the black strip of road, a blue sky that kept on coming, and the endless cornfields. It wasn’t a view she’d expected when they’d started out at two that morning.
“You haven’t said a word in an hour,” Jake remarked to her from the driver’s seat.
Absently, she fingered the lace ruffle at the throat of her pale blue blouse. “I’ve either fallen in love with Iowa or I’m suffering from culture shock.” Glancing at Jake, she smiled ruefully. “I just keep looking out there… Somewhere down those side roads are the people who feed this country. Survivors. And suddenly I feel like a parasite.”
“Because you work at a bank?” His brows shot up.
“Because I just sit at a bank, and usually think of corn as a commodity that fluctuates on the market. Of course, banking is exactly what I want to do, but I never considered how far removed my life really is from…I don’t know…real work.”
He shook his head. “You do real work, foolish one. You make it possible for that farmer out there to buy his farm, to keep operating through the bad years, to build up a heritage for his kids.”
His instant defense of her work surprised her; she’d always thought Jake felt more amusement than respect for anyone who worked at a desk. “That was almost a nice thing to say,” she ventured casually.
Jake shot her a crooked grin. “You love what you do, and you’re good at it. Did you think I never noticed?”
“Good Lord, I think that was another nice thing to say.”
Jake chuckled. “Maybe you could blend both worlds, and open up your bank vault in bib overalls.”
Anne smoothed her mauve wool skirt and thought, We have to stop having these nice, easy conversations. She’d chattered to him all morning, laughing over absolutely nothing, forgetting completely that it wasn’t just Jake next to her, but Jake-who-came-back-threatening-marriage-this-time. “Do you want a snack?” she asked suddenly.
“Restless, Anne?”
“Terribly,” she lied, as she got up, ducking under the overhead berth to head to the back of the motor home. “I warned you I wasn’t a very good traveler, Jake, much less a camper. I can’t imagine where we’re going to find a place to stay in country like this tonight.”
“Fildekirky, Iowa,” Jake called back to her.
In spite of herself, she chuckled at the sound of the name, and started opening cupboards.
“If you find a doughnut back there…”
She brought him a bag of dried pineapple slices, which would be much better for him than a doughnut and would still satisfy his sweet tooth, then returned to the miniature kitchen to make herself a cup of peppermint tea. It still amazed her that she could get up anytime she liked and make a cup of peppermint tea while driving.
A moment later, she took a sip of her brew, glancing around before going back to sit by Jake. The motor home, she decided, was a symbol of the impermanence of Jake’s lifestyle. It represented the unbridgeable distance between them…but she seemed to be falling in love with the darned thing. Everything was so meticulously neat; there was a place for everything, home comforts begging to be taken advantage of.
She’d had three days to rearrange everything, of course. Her yogurt had joined his beer, fresh fruits and vegetables supplemented his canned goods, sleeping bags had been replaced by percale sheets on both the double bed and her berth. Next to his paper plates and plastic forks were china and sterling. Her wardrobe provided a contrast to his; traveling suits to his jeans, high-heeled shoes to his tennies.
She’d deliberately gone overboard, right down to the brands of toothpaste she’d chosen, in an effort to impress Jake that their values were terribly different even in the little things. Taking a minute to reapply lipstick in their tiny bathroom, Anne took in her reflection, from the high-throated blouse and modest violet skirt to the prim coil of hair at the nape of her neck. The image was honestly Anne, soft fabrics and gentle colors and classic styles. She was not flamboyant and never would be; she was not at all the kind of woman she expected Jake to end up with.
Fleetingly, her soft jade eyes met their reflection in the mirror; her expression was oddly distressed at that moment. Surprisingly, she was happy to be with Jake. She had always been all too happy to be with Jake, at least until he’d brought up the subject of marriage. She knew that yogurt versus beer wasn’t the issue; rather, the crux of the matter was their different systems of values. Her craving for roots and stability and order… Lord, you’re boring, she told the mirror wryly.
And the man hadn’t touched her since she’d agreed to the trip. His restraint was making her nervous. She’d heard what he said about proving they had something more than sex between them, but Jake’s blood had certainly never run tepid before… You’re supposed to be boring him, she reminded herself. You should be happy he’s keeping his hands to himself.
Still, though, a little kiss wouldn’t cost him much, her libido grumbled. Would you stop that? Grabbing a newspaper, she walked back to the captain’s chair next to Jake, wearing her most formal, boring smile. “I’m going to read aloud to you from the Wall Street Journal so you won’t get restless,” she announced to him cheerfully. “Do you want to hear about common stocks or blue chips first, Jake?”
His crooked grin had a little too much Chesire cat in it for Anne to feel comfortable. She decided on blue chips. Most days, they even bored her.
The dot on the map for Fildekirky was an overstatement. Anne, buried under campground directories and road maps, was by now heartily sick of cornfields. Once she’d directed Jake to the expressway exit he wanted, her nerves quieted down with an expectation that never materialized.