Cupid's Confederates (5 page)

By the time the “so glad you’re here” stuff was over with, the three of them were inside. “Perhaps a slight libation to relax all of us before we begin,” the reverend suggested soothingly as he led them through a carpetless hall, lit only faintly by a dangling lightbulb.

“Thanks, but we’re not much into libations, Reverend,” Zach said pleasantly. “Before we go any further, though, I wonder if I could have a private word with you.”

“Certainly, certainly.”

First, Zach took a cursory look at the room into which Reverend Moody was ushering the two women. It was square and dark, lit only by candles, and held a circular table in the center of it, covered, not surprisingly, with a black tablecloth. Harmless. Bett shot him a startled look, but he closed the door on her and faced the reverend without any more smiles.

“How much?” he demanded flatly.

“I sense,” the tall man said soothingly, “a slight skepticism, which I assure you I have encountered before. Once you’ve seen—”

“I’m sure,” Zach agreed. “How much?”

The reverend shook his head sadly. “A really very nominal contribution.” He cleared his throat. “Twenty-five dollars.”

Zach dug into his pocket, handed the man his fee and leveled him an iceberg stare. “Rev? Just so we both know what I’m paying for. You lay any hocus-pocus on those two, and I guarantee you’ll have a real vision of the spirit world—direct. Got it?”

“Sir—”

“And you’ll also see that Mrs. Cordell gets enough out of this
experience
that she will have absolutely no need ever to return here.
Ever.
Now, are we clear on that, too?”

“You may just be surprised with what the spirit world can come up with, Mr. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said acidly. Under Zach’s steely stare, he turned away. “I think we’re all very clear on what to expect this evening.”

Bett felt a zigzag of apprehension tickle her spine as the door opened and Zach finally returned with Reverend Moody. The whole room, the whole house and grounds, gave her the creeps. Rationally, she knew very well that the “Reverend,” though no man of the cloth, was only a harmless character and that there was nothing to be afraid of. In college, she’d even fooled around with ESP, a fascinating experience. But this was different. Her brain seemed to be functioning at only half the speed of the pulse beating in her throat.
Cobwebs
was what this place suggested to her—she felt as though they were going to cover her head any minute and smother her. She couldn’t really shake the idiotic feeling until Zach sat down rather heavily beside her and laid a possessive hand on her thigh.

The reverend sat down, took Elizabeth’s hands in his own and stared deeply into the lady’s eyes for several silent minutes. “I sense,” he said slowly, “the most wonderful, loving aura around you, Mrs. Cordell…”

After a time, Bett’s spine gradually unglued from the back of the straight chair. The rev really wasn’t so bad; she was even beginning to be rather taken by his low, sonorous voice. He was actually very comforting, in a spooky sort of way.

He related a number of incidents in the life of her mother and father that he could not possibly have known—if, that is, Bett weren’t already aware that Elizabeth had spent time on the phone with him. Her mother seemed suspended in that world of wanting to believe. Bett felt a rush of protective love for her…but it wasn’t necessary. The reverend wasn’t doing any harm.

He claimed Chet loved Elizabeth and would always love her, that he wanted her to be happy. That he would be waiting for her in another world, but in this one he wanted his wife to take up the reins of life again, even to find someone else to love…

Elizabeth stiffened indignantly at that.

Bett didn’t. Her dad, who would have deplored this whole scene almost as much as Zach did, would probably have offered those same words, and meant them. The reverend went on a little longer, surprising Bett when he assured Elizabeth that Chet didn’t need to talk with her again through any medium when he was always in her heart. Didn’t the rev count on repeat visits for his money? Bett was even more surprised when he finished with her mother and, before she could rise from the table, grasped both
her
hands.

“Oh, really, this isn’t necessary. I—”

“There’s a spirit calling you, too, Mrs. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said soothingly. “All you have to do is relax and let it happen.”

“I am relaxed, thank you, but I—”

“Brittany,” her mother hissed scoldingly.

Bett sighed.

The reverend’s eyes focused dead behind her on Zach for one long, level moment before they closed. “A living, loving spirit,” said the low seductive undertone. “Someone from your past. A lover? Yes, I think a past lover, Mrs. Monroe…”

Bett stiffened as if she’d been doused with ice water. What
else
had her mother told the reverend in those phone calls? And actually, Elizabeth couldn’t have
known
that Bett had lost her virginity to Zach when she was nineteen.…

“A long time ago…before you were married, for certain…. well, this marriage…it’s one of the strongest auras I’ve ever felt, Mrs. Monroe. It’s a man—I’m trying to picture him—a very tall, very handsome young man. The two of you were so very young, so very much in love, so very eager to explore all the meanings of love together. I see long, blissful nights of passion. I see him taking you in his arms that first time—”

Zach’s chair scraped behind her. Her right hand was plucked from the reverend’s grasp, then her left one. “Thank, so much, Rev,” Zach said crisply. “We’re leaving now.”

Bett considered mentioning that Andrew had hardly been “very tall” and that the reverend certainly had enough creative imagination to sell swampland in Arizona. After one glance at Zach’s face, though, she decided it just wasn’t the right time.

“A lot of nonsense, really,” Elizabeth said virtuously. “I knew that ahead of time. You don’t think I didn’t?”

“Of course you did,” Bett agreed.

“You think I needed some stranger to tell me your father loved me?”

“No, Mom,” Bett agreed.

“And what a shyster he was, with all that business implying you weren’t a virgin when you married. Honestly, Brittany! I remember now that he asked me on the phone all about the family, and maybe I even mentioned Andrew’s name, heaven knows why. I know I can get to talking on occasion…but I certainly
never
would have intimated such a thing. I know perfectly well you were a good girl when you married Zach…”

Bett removed her tongue from her cheek long enough to reply, “Yes, Mom.” The last one in, she closed the front door and dropped her purse and sweater on the couch. Zach was already heading upstairs. He had barely said a word the entire drive home, not that he wasn’t exhausted. After working a twelve-hour day, he’d needed that ridiculous outing like a hole in the head. It was after midnight, and no wonder he was a bit…taciturn.

It undoubtedly had nothing at all to do with that slight oversensitivity he’d always had on the subject of one Andrew Alexander.

“Brittany, wouldn’t you like to have a cup of tea with me before we go to sleep?” Elizabeth paused hopefully in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Honestly, not tonight.” Bett gave her mother a hug and a smile. “I’m really bushed, and the alarm will be ringing at five-thirty.”

“Maybe I should go to bed then, too,” Elizabeth said absently.

“Good idea.”

“Is it supposed to be nice tomorrow? I didn’t hear a weather report after dinner.”

Bett put one foot on the stairs. “Good night, Mom.” One could get drawn into these rambling conversations for an endless period of time. Elizabeth could discuss for up to an hour whether or not she wanted to go to bed. Bett understood; night was the loneliest time, the time when Elizabeth missed her husband most, the time when she needed someone close to her. Tonight, though, she was stuck with a daughter who felt somewhere between old-rag tired and porcupine edgy.

“Maybe I should work on one of the afghans for a while. If I don’t get started, they’ll never get done.” Elizabeth peered up at her daughter at the top of the stairs.

Bett turned the corner out of sight, that slight prick of guilt gnawing inside the way it always gnawed when she failed her mother, even in the littlest things. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, she washed her face, rugged off the smocked dress and tossed it in the wicker laundry bin. To accuse her mother of selfishness was absurd, when the lady would positively break her back to “do for” and please her loved ones. But it
did
seem that Elizabeth always needed something from Bett, and Bett hadn’t stopped feeling drained for a week.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. Silently, Bett turned the knob and tiptoed into the dark room wearing only her bra and half-slip. Zach had crashed; she could see his long frame sprawled on the bed in the shadows. Slipping off the rest of her clothes, she slid slowly down between the cool sheets. The mattress and pillow cushioned her weary body. For a moment, she lay on her back, and then instinctively turned, sliding an arm around Zach’s waist to cuddle next to him.

It was difficult to cuddle next to steel.

Zach, though totally still and silent, was not asleep. Every muscle from his neck to his spine could have won an award for stiffness. Since he hadn’t said anything, Bett knew he didn’t want to talk. She hesitated unhappily. There were times to give a mate space, and times when that space only made things worse. After putting in the grueling workdays he’d been putting in, and after a fiasco like the evening just past, Zach was certainly entitled to a little “let me alone” time. Only she had the feeling he was annoyed by something completely different.

She leaned back a little, staying on her side. Slowly, with an almost imperceptible touch, her palms smoothed up Zach’s back and her fingers curled on both sides of his neck. His muscles actually tightened at her touch. She paid no attention. Letting the heels of her hands rest on his bare shoulders, she pressed her fingers lightly around his collarbones, her thumbs rubbing gently into the nape of his neck and his scalp.

Gradually, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to the black and white and gray of moonlight. Her hands looked very white next to Zach’s dark skin, a sensuous contrast. Her gentle touch turned bolder, as she massaged muscles that didn’t want to unknot, concentrating on his most vulnerable spots, absorbed in the challenge. Her fingertips slowly took on the warmth of his skin and fed it back to him. As the knots smoothed out, her own tension eased and turned into lazy pleasure at the touch of him. She tested the effectiveness of her treatment with her forefinger. She pushed just slightly at his back; he immediately collapsed on his stomach. Zach was a disgraceful sucker for a back rub.

Silently, she tugged the sheet off altogether and straddled his back, feeling a thousand totally sexual nerve endings tingle with interest at the feel of her bare thighs against his bare hips. It was so very dark. Barely a hint of moonlight strayed in through the windows; not a sound intruded in the still room. Her hands rubbed and kneaded and smoothed. Arching forward, she massaged his shoulders, the tips of her breasts gently teasing the smooth skin of his back. Then she worked down, vertebra by vertebra, her legs tightening around his hips in natural balance as she moved. Her hands seemed to become part of his skin, and when she heard his groan of pleasure she smiled, but didn’t stop.

Only when she was certain every tendon had gone limp, every muscle had relaxed, did her fingertips change their rhythm to a slow caress of circles and butterfly patterns.

“About a hundred years ago,” she whispered lazily, “I understand that a woman used chicken blood to convince a lover that he was the first.” She traced the line of his spine with a long, gentle finger. “I don’t think they sell it at the drugstores nowadays.”

Even in the darkness, she could see his thick black lashes flutter upward. So he thought she didn’t know what was bothering him? She leaned forward, letting her nipples rub back and forth between his shoulder blades.

“So maybe I never should have told you about Andrew? Or maybe you shouldn’t have asked. How was I to know it was going to bother you so much?” Her lips pressed tightly on the nape of his neck, then trailed along the curl of his shoulder in a series of very light kisses. “Or I could have told you he was a bastard. That the sex was dreadful.” Bett took a breath, and then let her tongue erase all those little kisses on the way back to his neck. “Loving with you is perfect, you know. There isn’t any comparison, and never has been. But I refuse to lie to you, Zach, out of…pride. Yes, I had another relationship, and it was a very good one. I grew up because of it; I was ready to learn what love was and what I wanted from a relationship because of it. Without Andrew, Zach, the two of us might never have been. So if you expect me to be ashamed of what happened before I even met you—”

One instant Bett was perched on his back and the next she was sprawled beneath him. Amazingly, Zach no longer had the lazily relaxed qualities of a man ready for sleep. Something very definitely alive and unyieldingly firm was pressing against her abdomen. Zach’s skin was warm and vibrant, and his mouth anchored on hers, interrupting her speculative monologue. Her arms slid lightly around his neck as she savored all the allure in that kiss, all the tender, sweet, intimate taste of her lover. Only after an age did his mouth lift from hers. “There are times you make me feel like a fool, Bett. So the old mountebank got to me,” he grumbled softly. “Haven’t you ever felt jealousy?”

Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Definitely. When I see a woman look at you in a certain way, I feel this ugly, smothering urge to lock you up out of harm’s way. And when I think of women you slept with before we met, I could paint my fingernails emerald. But, Zach, it’s not the same.”

He raised some of his weight from her by balancing on his elbows, his lips still dipping down to her nose, her cheek, into her hair. “
How
is it not the same when I feel jealous of you?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

His smile pressed on her smile in a lazy kiss. “Two bits, that isn’t rational.”

“So?”

Zach’s laughter rumbled from deep in his chest. He drew her closer to him, holding her tight, engulfing her with his warmth. His leg slid between hers as they rolled to their sides. The motion was intimate, their change of mood mutual. Bett’s breasts swelled against him, aching as his palm possessively captured one sensitive orb.

She nearly jumped to the ceiling when she heard the gentle tap on the door. The door opened just a crack, about the time the top sheet was hurriedly being rustled into place.

“Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered. “Don’t wake Zach, darling. I figured you wouldn’t be asleep just yet…”

She couldn’t find her crochet hook. Surely Bett had seen it? And in the meantime, Bett used to stock cinnamon tea; Elizabeth had looked all over the kitchen…

Bett rose, grabbed her robe and belted it around her on the way downstairs. A half hour later, she returned to bed. Zach was still awake, but the mood was clearly broken. Exhaustion claimed both of them as she curled at his side.

“Bett?” Zach murmured just before sleep overcame them.

“Hmm?”

“Your mother is a very nice lady.”

“Hmm,” Bett responded again.

“That’s the third time this week that she’s prevented her daughter from being ravished. Now, is it me, or does she have ESP?”

Bett smiled, her eyes closed. “Zach, when she gets…lonely, she just doesn’t think. That, and I wouldn’t be an acceptable member of the family if I didn’t have insomnia.”

“Try that again.”

“My mother has insomnia. So did her mother; so did
her
mother; so did
her
mother; ad infinitum. Obviously, I have it, too. So she doesn’t think she’s waking me—”

“You’ve mentioned that you sleep like a brick?”

“No more than sixty-two times.”

His arm draped lazily over her side, pulling her closer. “All right,” he said sleepily after a time. “We’ll live with it, regardless, Bett. Give or take her ridiculous psychic, she’s a ton better. So we knew that a little disruption in our lives was inevitable. It won’t kill us to live with it for a while.”

Bett didn’t answer, but simply curled closer to him. Zach, most of the time so very easygoing and patient, was unquestionably faring better through the “disruption” than she was. How could she feel disgruntled, when the problem was her own mother? She felt grateful that he wasn’t angry over the interruptions in their love life. She felt resentful, as well, for her own sake. How
could
he not mind?
She
did.

***

Bett slipped a Debussy tape into the tape deck, let out the clutch, glanced in the rearview mirror of the tractor cab and steered toward the orchard. A fine white cloud billowed from the spray rig behind her, covering tree after tree. The gentle strains of classical music didn’t blend too badly with the soft whine of the sprayer.

Bett relaxed. The Massey was the best tractor they owned, and a beauty to work with. In the glass-windowed cab high above the ground, she was in her own private tower, loftily surveying the world she loved so well. She hummed an accompaniment to the rhythms around her. Every time one of their baby trees was covered, she felt a ridiculous surge of maternal relief. Got you, bug 9110. Safe, my sweethearts.

In college, she’d been an ardent ecologist; so had Zach. When they’d started farming, they’d made a solemn pledge not to use chemicals. They’d soon been forced to absolve each other of the pledge. No one wanted to buy wormy peaches. And there was no fun in watching a tiny tree one had planted, fed, watered and nurtured with love wither because of a fungus.

She and Zach were careful with their chemicals, their idealism not so much lost as tempered with realism. Grady told them regularly they were fools to be so fussy. Grady, on the other hand, didn’t view those rows of shiny green leaves and spreading branches as babies.

In two hours, she was done with the young block. There was another block to do in the afternoon, but it was almost lunch time. Vaulting down the three steps of the tractor, Bett hopped to the ground, stuck her hands in her back pockets and headed for the pickup.

She had left the driver’s door of the vehicle open, on the off chance that Sniper wanted out. Sniper hadn’t. In fact, the cat had picked up a hitchhiker, a saggy, tawny mutt with four inches of hanging jowls and mournful eyes.

“Baby!” A wet tongue lapped her cheeks as Bett hugged the hound. “So you’re looking for a ride, are you?” Lap, lap, lap. Bett grimaced. “Would you mind washing the cat for a minute or two? You’ll get your bone—you know there’s no need to butter me up.”

With a mournful sigh, Baby settled his head on Bett’s lap, making it extra difficult to drive. She hadn’t gone a hundred yards before she heard an odd sound in the engine. She braked to a stop, petted Sniper, shifted Baby’s head and stepped out to open the truck’s hood. The fan belt had a habit of jumping off at will. Five years ago, Bett would have been collecting competitive bids from the local garages while waiting for a tow truck. But now, with a glove on one hand, she slipped the belt back in place and returned to the driver’s seat.

The animals tussled for dominance, Sniper ending up on Bett’s lap this time and Baby announcing his hurt feelings by moaning through the open passenger window. Both animals made Bett chuckle. She was exhausted but didn’t care. The whole morning had been a joy of work she loved to do. She switched on the radio to an oldie about a song that made the whole world sing, and belted out the harmony in a husky alto. Baby joined in.

It was a joy just to get out of the house. In the two weeks since her mother had been with them, Bett hadn’t often been able to escape. The ceilings were now all washed. Grout sparkled in the bathrooms. Cans of soup were lined up in the cupboard. Everything was put away. Bett couldn’t find a thing, but her mother couldn’t conceivably take on another project that involved scaling heights, acquiring blisters or expending great amounts of elbow grease. Luckily, Bett had intervened in most such instances. Since even the closet corners now reeked of disinfectant, Bett had felt reasonably safe in leaving the house that morning. Her mother couldn’t possibly find anything more strenuous to do than make a peach pie.