Bea (9 page)

“You would?” She knew darned well that he was making it all up, and she never liked him as much as she did at that moment.

“I truly would.” A flash of lightning illuminated his smile.

Without giving herself time to think too much about what she was doing, she scooted across the tent floor and onto his warm pallet. He took charge, arranging her so she was tucked under his arm with her head resting on his shoulder.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.”

He felt her shiver as nature vented its wrath on the mountains. He started to talk then, for he guessed that what she was feeling was much akin to what he’d been feeling not so long ago—an intense lonesomeness that sometimes disguised itself as fear.

“When I was a little boy, not much more than four, I’d guess, my mother used to tell me stories every time it came a thunderstorm. My favorites were the ones about Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“And the Hundred Acre Wood,” Bea said. “I loved those stories, too.”

“Did you sing the songs?”

“Yes. But not very well.”

“I was marvelous.”

He gave her a demonstration, his great rich voice wrapping about the simple, silly little words of the Winnie-the-Pooh songs until they weren’t silly anymore, until they were words of great truth and wisdom. He sang of friendship and of how it always made the world seem a kinder, more forgiving place.

And soon Bea felt safe. Her head nodded and she went to sleep, resting on Russ’s shoulder. Outside, the storm continued to lash the mountain.

Russ wrapped both arms around Bea, thinking about the home he’d had when he’d been four—green shutters at the windows and a white fence with roses that smelled good in the summertime. Strange that Bea should bring all that to mind.

As the storm abated, he thought of tucking her back into her sleeping bag on her side of the tent. But it felt good to be touching her. In the end he decided he would ease down onto his pallet and let her sleep there at his side.

“One night won’t hurt.” He slid downward, being careful not to wake her. “What can one night hurt?”

She sighed and cuddled close to him, settling against his side as if she belonged there. Russ had a sudden vision of how different his life could be, of coming home to logs burning in the fireplace and chicken stewing on the stove, of walking through the door and straight into the arms of a woman much like Bea. Not exactly, mind you. Someone sweeter, gentler. Perhaps someone who put Bea’s fragrance on the blue-veined arch of her foot. Yes. Surely that.

If he were looking for a woman, he’d like a woman who smelled exactly like Bea. She reminded him of flowers in the springtime when the earth was green with promise.

Of course, he wasn’t looking—

o0o

Bea stretched and wiggled herself awake.

At first she didn’t know where she was. She snuggled down under her covers feeling warm and safe. Then slowly she became aware of the body next to her, a big muscular body radiating heat and giving off the friendly aroma of wool blankets and clean cotton T-shirts.

Russ.
She gave a guilty start. She was piled all over him like whipped cream on a cake, her head burrowed into the warm curve where his arm joined his shoulder, one arm draped across his chest and one leg flung across his hips.

His hips,
mind you. She carefully eased her leg off him. She felt hot all over, especially in the region of poor, deprived Virginia. Waking in such a predicament didn’t improve her temper one bit.

She had to get on her side of the tent—and fast. What if he woke up and found her draped all over him? One thing might lead to another and then he’d find out that in a day of easy sex and downright promiscuity she still lived by Rule Four – a rule the
she
had made up, mind you, all those years ago at Camp Piomingo.
If the boys from Camp Geronimo come over, don’t let them near your Virginia.

Shoot!
How had Belinda and Janet and Molly managed to hang onto their Virginias when Mr. Right came along? And why in the devil was she suddenly thinking of Russ as Mr. Right?
Good grief!
He couldn’t be more of a Mr. Wrong!

Suddenly he stretched and rolled, pinning her underneath him. His eyes flew open.

“Well, good morning.” He smiled at her. “Did you sleep well?”

“It’s hard to tell from this position. You’re squashing my chest.”

“Sorry.” He rolled back over and propped his hands behind his head, smiling up at the canvas ceiling. “It’s a remarkable day, don’t you think?”

“What’s so remarkable about it?” She scooted over to her side of the tent and tried to look seriously busy folding up her sleeping bag.

“Well... Here we are on this mountain with the morning sun out there shining down as if it didn’t have anybody else to shine for except the two of us. Don’t you find that remarkable?”

“I suppose...if you thought about it that way... hmm.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look him directly in the eye. Not after the way she’d been spread all over him this morning, like butter on toast. The thing that was so bad about it all was that she had actually enjoyed the feeling.
Enjoyed it,
mind you. And him
totally wrong
for her. He was a drifter who would likely to go no-telling-where at any minute without even giving her a backward glance.

Oh, he was terribly unsuitable and highly risky. She cursed her own judgment in starting such a journey with him. The very idea, going home, all the way to Florence, Alabama, with a man she hardly knew.

She supposed she’d been desperate when she made that decision. Yes, that was it.
Desperate.
And a little bit scared.

“Bea?”

“Hmm?” She slowly turned to face him.

His smile reminded her of baseball games in the summertime, sitting on the bleachers and cheering for the home team, of buttered popcorn in front of the fire with the family dog curled like a pretzel on the hearth, of two people in the kitchen, their hands sticky with dough, their fingers touching in the bowl as they made pizza crust together.

“Why don’t you leave the sleeping bag rolled out?” he said. “I don’t expect we’ll be going anywhere today.”

“Why not?”

“There’s that big rock pile on the road, remember? It will take another day and a half to clear it out of the way.”

“With me helping, the work will go faster.”

She turned away from him so she wouldn’t have to see his face. It reminded her of home.

“Hmm,” he said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Maybe.”

He contemplated her back. Such a prideful, straight back she had. You wouldn’t know to look at her now that she could feel so good cuddled up next to you at night, he thought.

Of course, he was going to leave her as soon as they got to Memphis. It would be better all the way around if he remembered that. No use getting sentimental over one night.

“Listen,” he said. “Do you have anything in that suitcase besides skirts and high-heeled boots?”

“A pair of slacks and some tennis shoes.”

“Wear them. I’ll get out of here and let you get dressed.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’ll scout around, see what this place looks like, gather some firewood so we can have hot coffee…”

His voice trailed off. She looked so good in the morning, so fresh, her black eyes shining the way eyes on a woman ought to shine.

He left the tent quickly, but when he got outside he wished he’d stayed just a minute longer. Just long enough to reach out and touch her.

Turning his back, he stomped off. There was too much temptation inside that tent.

o0o

They spent all day trying to clear the rocks off the mountain road. Before they got started, they discussed going back down the mountain to a dirt side road Russ had spotted about a mile back, but they decided the rains would have made it impassable, and anyhow, they had no idea where it led. It would be best all around to press forward.

After that, neither of them talked much. For one thing, they were too busy working. For another, neither of them wanted the other to get the wrong idea. But they frequently sneaked glances when one of them thought the other wasn’t looking.

Under the guise of wiping sweat off her face, Bea glanced at Russ from behind her hand. The day had turned hot, and he had taken off his T-shirt. The sun was slicking his skin and shining down on his blond hair, giving him a sort of halo.

Come to think of it, a halo wasn’t such an inappropriate headpiece for him. After all, he’d rescued her more than once.

She tried not to need guardian angels. If she could just get to her email, Janet would remind her in no uncertain terms that all the Dixie Virgins were
independent women.
Bea supposed once in her life she could be scared and pitiful and dependent. Besides, she didn’t have to tell the Dixie Virgins
everything.
Janet and Belinda and Molly certainly weren’t doing any tell-alls now that they’d landed Mr. Right.

If Bea could just get through two more days with Russ, she’d be in Alabama and everything would fall right back into place.
Then
she’d be strong and independent and so bossy even her mother would call her down.

Smiling as she thought about seeing Glory Ethel, again, she turned back to clearing the road.

o0o

By the time nightfall came, they were both too tired to do much more than eat some of his canned rations and flop into the canvas chairs.

After supper Russ lifted his face toward the evening sky.

“It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful night,” he said. “Warm, balmy. Even for the mountains.”

“I don’t know. I think the mountains are capricious.”

“Like a woman.”

“Women are not capricious.”

“The ones I know are.”

“I guess you’ve known the wrong women. Up till now.” She figured the devil made her add that last part, but it was too late to take it back.

Russ sat very still, looking at her in that watchful, expectant way of his. And then he smiled.

“Are you the right woman, Bea?”

“I’m the right woman for lots of things—for my ad agency, for my family, for my friends. Any way you look at it, I’m the right woman.”

“Are you the right woman for me, Bea?”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Of course, I didn’t.”

“I heard you, plain as day.”

“Then you misunderstood.’’

She stood up, stretching and yawning elaborately so he’d see how sleepy she was and stop talking to her.

“I guess it’s time for us to turn in,” he said.

He made it sound as if they were a team or worse yet, husband and wife, heading toward a four-poster with a feather mattress and a fuzzy blanket. In fact, he made the pair of them sound so inviting it scared her.
Imagine.
Her paired with a
him.
.
Ridiculous.

She hurried inside the tent, grabbed the sleeping bag and made a dignified exit. Strike
dignified.
The darned bag got caught in the tent flap and she wrestled with it for two full minutes while her audience sat there laughing his head off.

When she finally got it free, she just stood there and glared at him. Unfortunately, he was not the kind of man to be subdued by a nasty look from a woman.

“What are you doing?” He spoke in such a maddeningly pleasant voice she wanted to shoot him.

“I’m moving my sleeping bag.”

“And where do you plan to move it to?”

“Oh, just someplace nice and breezy. It’s too stuffy to sleep in a tent tonight.”

“It will get colder later on.”

“If I’m not mistaken, this bag is duck down.”

“You don’t want to sleep on the ground,” he said. “Something you don’t want is liable to crawl in there with you.”

Something she hadn’t wanted had crawled in there with her last night, she thought. But she didn’t say it aloud. Actually, he hadn’t crawled in with her; she’d crawled in with him. And she’d liked it more than she cared to admit.

“I’ll sleep in the truck. Nothing is going to crawl in with me in the truck.”

He didn’t say anything, merely tightened his jaw and stalked off to the tent.

Once Bea was headed toward his truck, she didn’t look back. She hadn’t meant to sleep in the truck; she had meant to spread her bag under that huge pine on the other side of their campfire. But she supposed sleeping in the truck wasn’t such a bad idea. At least she wouldn’t find herself curled around Russ Hammond in the morning—curled around him and
liking
it.

First she spread her bag in the cab and tried sleeping there. But she kept bumping her elbows on the steering wheel, and her feet kept getting tangled in the door handles.