Donovan’s Angel (17 page)

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” Martie
protested. “It’s your bed and those are my friends. I’ll curl up
with a blanket on the floor.”

“Absolutely not. And that’s my final word on
the subject.” Paul spun around and tried to cover his turmoil by
taking his pajamas from the bureau drawer. He felt a smothering
sensation, as if his heart were expanding right out of his chest.
With unaccustomed haste he marched into the bathroom and emerged a
few minutes later wearing his pajamas, tops and bottoms. He hoped
he didn’t suffocate in the things.

Martie was still standing beside the bed when
he returned. “Paul, we have a small problem,” she said, her mouth
so dry she could hardly speak. If fainting had been fashionable,
she would have keeled over on the carpet. “I don’t own any pajamas.
I always sleep in the nude.”

Paul already knew that, but hearing her say
it made his blood pressure skyrocket. His knuckles turned white as
he gripped the back of the chair.

“You can use my pajama tops,” he offered.
With trembling hands he removed the garment and handed it to
her.

Their hands touched briefly, and the contact
burned through her, singeing her heart. If she hadn’t been so
certain that she would be the ruination of his career, she would
have pulled him down onto the bed and seduced him. She was fed up
with martyrdom, and living under the same roof with the man she
loved and not being able to have him was making her crazy.

Taking the pajama tops, she hurried to the
bathroom before she did something they would both regret. When she
returned, the lights were off and Paul was huddled uncomfortably
under the blanket in the chair.

Silently she crawled between the sheets and
held herself rigid, trying not to give herself away by restless
movements. She lay in the dark, listening to the sound of his
breathing, trying to decide if he was asleep or awake. She listened
to the tick of the hall clock, the one they had moved from her
house, and to the scratching of the oleander bush outside the
bedroom window as it was buffeted by the November wind. Sounds that
were usually comforting to her grated across her nerves like
sandpaper, and she thought she might explode from frustration.

At last she could stand the widening pit of
loneliness no longer.

“Paul?” she whispered. “Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“You know that kiss you gave me? The one that
was supposed to last a lifetime?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, it wore off.”

With a strangled cry, Paul shoved his blanket
aside and came to the bed. Kneeling on the floor beside her, he
gently pushed her hair back from her face.

“I’m sorry, angel. I’m so sorry it had to be
like this.” He gathered her in his arms and pulled her fiercely
against his chest.

She clung to him, moving her face against the
glorious nakedness of his chest. Neither of them knew when the kiss
began; they only knew that the burning thirst welling up inside
them had to be quenched.

It was a hungry kiss, full of passion too
long denied and dynamite set to explode. It was a time bomb ticking
between them, a dangerous weapon that could only be defused by
superhuman effort.

When their mouths were love slick and
swollen, when the enchantment had provided small relief, when the
giant named Desire had taken his tidbit and returned unwillingly to
his chains, Paul made that effort. He got onto the bed and lay on
top of the covers beside her. Taking her in his arms, he cradled
her head against his shoulder.

“I’ll keep the loneliness away, angel.”

“Thank you, Paul.” She fell asleep listening
to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.

But for Paul, sleep didn’t come. Listening to
Martie’s quiet breathing and the scratching of the oleander bush,
he wrestled the giant all night long.

Martie held the book up to her face and
pretended she didn’t hear the conversation on the other side of the
stacks. It was impossible not to hear, however, because the voices
were crystal clear and she was the topic of conversation.

“Where did Reverend Donovan and his new wife
go on a honeymoon?”

“They didn’t take one.”

“You don’t mean to say it! How come?”

“Maybe the poor man just couldn’t afford it,
what with having to buy her all that fancy jewelry and stuff. Lord,
do you notice the way she dresses? Like a peacock.”

Martie couldn’t stand to hear any more. She
shoved the book back onto the stacks and left the library without
checking out a single thing. Pulling her sweater around herself
against the November chill, she fumed all the way home. How dare
they speculate about her honeymoon! Her marriage was torture
enough. She just didn’t think she could survive a honeymoon with
her sanity intact.

Her steps slowed as she neared the parsonage
and saw three cars parked in the yard. She hadn’t been aware of any
meetings scheduled for this afternoon; Paul would have told her if
there were. Suddenly a terrible possibility occurred to her.
Something had happened to Paul!

She raced over the sidewalk, pounded through
the parsonage yard, and burst into the kitchen, breathless.

Paul looked up from a chair beside the table.
“You’re just in time, Martie,” he said, smiling.

She sank weakly into a chair. “Just in time
for what?” She really didn’t care what she was in time for as long
as Paul was all right.

Bob Taylor grinned at her.

“Some of us got together and decided that the
preacher is working too hard. He’s so dedicated that he didn’t even
take time for a honeymoon.”

Was there something in the air? she wondered.
Was everybody in town afflicted with the preacher’s honeymoon bug?
A hundred different emotions rushed over her—joy, excitement, fear,
longing, desire, despair. She felt Paul watching her and tried to
keep her face from mirroring her feelings.

“He certainly is dedicated,” she agreed.
“He’s the most dedicated minister I’ve ever seen. I’m very proud of
him.”

“You haven’t heard the best part,” said
Skeeter’s dad, who’d been a fan of the preacher’s new wife ever
since the night of the Halloween festival. Anybody who could get
Skeeter as fired up about coming to church as she could was
top-notch in his book. He didn’t care what anybody else said.
“We’ve contacted a lay speaker to fill the pulpit this Sunday so
that you and Reverend Donovan can take a honeymoon trip. We even
got together a little donation so you can go in style.”

Martie couldn’t look at Paul. She felt as if
she were on a roller coaster headed toward some unknown fate. She
didn’t know which awaited her at the end of the ride, wonder or
despair. She could only be sure of one thing: with Paul at her
side, the journey would be worth it.

“That’s great,” she managed to say in what
she hoped was a properly enthusiastic tone.

“Didn’t I tell you she’d be tickled pink!”
the postman said, beaming. “Just like the Reverend was. Nothing’s
too good for our Reverend Donovan, I tell you! We want him to be
happy.”

“I guess we’ll be going, so you two lovebirds
can decide where to spend your belated honeymoon.” Bob Taylor
clapped his felt cap on his head and started for the door. “Jolene
likes The Peabody in Memphis.” He winked at Paul. “See you when you
get back.”

“Have fun,” said Skeeter’s dad.

“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” the postman
added.

Silence descended on the kitchen after the
door had closed behind the well-meaning committee. Martie inspected
the ceiling, the walls, and the floor, looking everywhere except at
Paul.

“Well, what do you think?” he finally
asked.

“I don’t know. I never have known the meaning
of that phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“Don’t take any wooden nickels. What does it
mean, Paul?”

“Don’t settle for less than the real
thing.”

“Is that what we did?” she asked quietly.

“There’s only one way to find out.” He stood
up, solemn-faced, and came around the table. “Pinch you and see if
you’re real.”

“Paul!” Playfully she ducked out of his
way.

He lightly pinched her cheek. “Yep. You’re
real all right.”

“And you’re crazy.”

Suddenly their eyes locked and the air around
them sizzled. Their honeymoon loomed in front of them, unavoidable
and awesome.

“What will we do?” she whispered.

“We have to go.”

“I know.”

“Get separate rooms I suppose,” he said,
watching her.

Her heart sank. “I suppose.” She didn’t know
what she’d expected. Certainly not a real honeymoon. Theirs was not
even a real marriage. And they’d already tried one room—that was
too much temptation for anybody to bear.

“With a connecting door,” he added.

She didn’t know why, but if he hadn’t said
that, she would have hit him.

o0o

The Peabody was a grand old hotel, recently
restored, that had seen its heyday during the late thirties when
cotton was king in the South. Martie and Paul deposited their
luggage in separate bedrooms and began their enforced
honeymoon.

There was a knock at the connecting door, and
Martie unlocked it to let her husband in. The restraint that had
possessed them on their wedding day had returned, making them
stilted and almost shy. Behind them the curtained bed took on a
mystic quality as it pervaded their minds, spawning rainbow
fantasies and impossible dreams.

“I think we’re in time to see the parade of
ducks in the lobby,” Paul said, carefully avoiding looking at the
bed.

“I’ve never seen a parade of ducks.”

Martie was suddenly filled with an urge to
pull all their tail feathers out. She had developed this violent
streak, she decided, about the time she’d been forced into a
celibate marriage with Paul. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair, but
she would feel better about it if she could pull out a few tail
feathers, Miss Beulah’s included.

“Do they toot horns and play drums?” she
asked.

“They make do with a record, a John Philip
Sousa march, I think.”

“I wonder if they would prefer honky-tonk
music?”

“Why don’t we ask the ducks?”

He took her elbow and together they went down
to the lobby. Away from the influence of the curtained bed, they
became themselves again, Martie and Paul, two people who lived each
day to the hilt.

As the elevator opened and the ducks paraded
to the fountain on a red carpet, Martie pointed to the last one, a
large drake.

“I think I saw that duck down in Mexico
once,” she commented.

“What was he doing?”

“Drinking champagne out of a silver
slipper.”

Paul laughed. “That must have been some
party.”

After the parade of ducks they decided to
visit Libertyland. The theme park was still open because the
weather, a notorious prankster in the South, was balmy and
beautiful, November pretending to be summer.

“I want to ride the roller coaster until I’m
dizzy and eat funnel cakes until I’m stuffed,” Martie told
Paul.

“Roller coasters are on par with go-carts,
but for you, I’ll make the supreme sacrifice.”

She boldly assessed him from head to toe.

“You don’t look like a sacrifice to me. You
look like a big, strapping man who should enjoy the finer things of
life.”

He scrunched his long legs into the small
roller coaster car. “You call this the finer things of life?” he
asked doubtfully.

“Certainly. Anything that’s fun falls into
that category.”

“I married a woman who is easy to
please.”

If the roller coaster hadn’t whizzed off on
its clackety tracks, the subject of marriage might have gotten a
proper hearing. But it fell by the wayside as Paul and Martie clung
to their seats and laughed in the sudden breeze that whipped the
scarlet ribbon from her hair.

True to her word, Martie ate funnel cakes
until Paul observed that she might turn into one herself and become
a permanent part of the theme park. They watched the dolphins,
listened to a good country band, applauded a sensational honky-tonk
pianist, and rode the roller coaster again.

Except for the specter of the curtained bed,
which kept creeping into their thoughts, they had a wonderful time.
Paul was enchanted all over again with the high-spirited child that
was so much a part of Martie, and she became more and more obsessed
with the generous-hearted man who was forbidden to her.

o0o

Hoping to wear themselves out so that they
could fall asleep quickly in their separate beds, they returned to
The Peabody and dressed to go dancing. Martie soaked in her
summer-scented bubble bath, dreaming of the “if onlys,” and Paul
stood under a cold shower thinking of the “what ifs.”

She was still pinning the blue sequined
butterfly in her topknot of silver curls when Paul knocked at the
adjoining door. She almost dropped the butterfly when she saw him
in his tuxedo.

“I didn’t know you were so gorgeous,” she
said with a straightforwardness that didn’t surprise him at all. “I
think you should preach in your tuxedo. Everybody in Pontotoc would
come just to look.”

“That’s an innovative idea. I’ll keep it in
mind.” His eyes roamed over her blue chiffon dress. “You are
lovely, Martie. But then, I always knew that.”

As they looked at each other, the air sizzled
around them and the bed played its siren song. “Paul,” she said
softly, “if we don’t go dancing now, I’m afraid we never will.”

He cleared the huskiness from his throat.

“I think you’re right.” His hand trembled on
her waist as he led her from the room, and he was careful not to
hold her too tight lest he be tempted to never let go.

o0o

The tiny mirrors on the ceiling of the
Continental Ballroom sparkled like a million stars.