The Shop on Blossom Street (26 page)

JACQUELINE DONOVAN

J
acqueline knew she should give her son and daughter-in-law time alone with Amelia, but she couldn’t make herself stay away. The baby had filled a deep emotional void in her, one she’d ignored for years. But the love that blossomed in her heart refused to be ignored. Whenever she held Amelia, the ties that bound her to her granddaughter seemed to grow stronger, more constant and enduring.

Amelia was in her arms now as Jacqueline gently rocked her to sleep. She breathed in the baby’s pure scent, and in a rush of nostalgia remembered holding Paul just this way.

“You look so peaceful,” Tammie Lee said, coming into the nursery with a new package of disposable diapers. She set them on the dresser and turned to watch Jacqueline with Amelia.

Jacqueline glanced up. “Peaceful is how I feel.” She supposed she should apologize for dominating so much of Tammie Lee’s time. She’d been over to the house every day since Amelia had come home from the hospital, and some days she visited twice.

“I don’t mean to make a pest of myself,” Jacqueline murmured, a bit embarrassed at her own behavior.

“Nonsense.” Tammie Lee dismissed her concern with a wave of her hand. “I don’t think it’s possible to give a baby too much love.” She walked to the dresser and pulled out a new infant’s outfit. “Too many clothes, though—that’s something else. I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to wear everything you bought her.”

Jacqueline tried to hide her amusement. “I did go a little crazy.”

“Paul says he’s never seen you like this.”

“I had no idea I was going to love her so much.” Jacqueline cringed whenever she thought about her long-held resentment of Tammie Lee, and her anger when she’d first learned about the pregnancy. To her horror, she remembered calling Tammie Lee a “breeder,” certain she was manipulating Paul. Instead, Jacqueline had finally discovered what everyone else had seen about Tammie Lee from the beginning—she was a genuine and compassionate woman.

“You can love her for my mama,” Tammie Lee whispered. “I so wish she was well enough to travel.”

The idea of sharing Amelia with another grandmother made her feel shockingly possessive, but Jacqueline couldn’t begrudge Tammie Lee’s mother her precious granddaughter.

“Mama already has five granddaughters, though. And three grandsons.”

“A bounty of riches.”

“That’s what my mama says, too. She says she’s the luckiest woman in the world to be blessed with such beautiful, talented grandchildren.”

“Amelia’s the most incredible baby in the universe,” Jacqueline insisted. Tammie Lee chuckled, and Jacqueline didn’t bother to explain that she wasn’t joking. This was one special baby to have four sensible adults completely wrapped around her little finger. Denying this child anything was incomprehensible.

Tammie Lee sat on the end of the bed. “Between you and Paul, I swear Amelia’s in someone’s arms twenty hours a day.”

Jacqueline smiled as the infant slept contentedly. Her tiny mouth moved in a small sucking motion in her sleep.

“Even Reese wants to hold her.”

“Reese has been over?”

“Almost every day, and he always brings her a gift. It’s so sweet the way you two spoil her. Amelia’s just a week old.”

Jacqueline pinched her lips together at this news about her husband’s visits. She hadn’t known that Reese was regularly dropping by, but then she knew very little about his comings and goings. Resolving not to dwell on it, she glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. Paul would be back from work soon and it was time for her to leave.

“I should be heading home,” she said reluctantly. The house had never felt emptier than it had in the last few weeks, nor had she experienced such bitter loneliness. Ever since the night Reese had left her so abruptly, claiming a work emergency when she’d
known
what he was really doing…She refused to imagine Reese with that other woman.

“Is Reese like his son? Does he like to have dinner precisely an hour after he gets home?”

Tammie Lee asked the question in a joking manner, and that was the way Jacqueline should have responded, but at the moment, her granddaughter in her arms, pretense was beyond her. She’d been living a lie for so long, anyone might think it would be second nature. But she discovered, to her dismay, that she couldn’t do it. It was as if holding this innocent child made anything other than the truth seem wrong.

“Reese doesn’t come home on Tuesday nights,” she said starkly.

“Oh, I didn’t know. Does he bowl?”

The question brought a brief smile. Only Tammie Lee would assume that Reese was part of a bowling team. Jacqueline shook her head.

“Mom?”

For a long time Jacqueline had disliked the easy way Tammie Lee had slipped into the habit of calling her “Mom.” Now it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“He…has another commitment,” she said.

Tammie Lee didn’t say anything for at least a minute. Then she did something completely unexpected. She sank down on the carpet next to the rocking chair and put her hand on Jacqueline’s knee. The gesture was simple and comforting, and it touched her deeply.

“Did I ever tell you about my uncle Bubba and my aunt Frieda?” She didn’t wait for Jacqueline to answer. “It seems that Bubba—well, actually, that’s not his name, it’s really Othello, but everybody calls him Bubba. It’s a southern thing. Anyway, he took a fancy to the waitress over at the Eat, Gas & Go off Pecan Avenue. Started hanging out there at all hours of the day.”

Six months ago, Jacqueline would have stopped her, but after hearing Tammie Lee’s stories, she’d grown accustomed to the folksy wisdom her daughter-in-law freely dispensed.

“Anyway, Aunt Frieda got wind of what was happening, and she put up the biggest fuss you can imagine.”

“Did she go after the waitress?”

“Aunt Frieda? No way. She tackled my uncle Bubba. She told him she was all the woman he could handle, and if he didn’t believe her, then she’d just have to prove it to him. She told my mama she’d married Bubba and by golly, she wasn’t going to let any waitress lure him away. Next thing I knew, Uncle Bubba was walkin’ around town with a grin as big as a sink hole. Far as I know, he never went near that Eat, Gas & Go again.”

Jacqueline was amused by the story but she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that making a fuss over Reese would change anything. “More power to your aunt Frieda,” she said.

“No, Mom,” Tammie Lee said, staring up at her intently. “The power is yours, too. And you can use it as you wish.”

Her daughter-in-law’s words still rang in her mind as Jacqueline drove home. She pulled into the garage and entered the dark and silent house. Martha had left a chef’s salad in the refrigerator for her dinner; she sat down at the kitchen table and nibbled at it, but she didn’t have much appetite. The house seemed full of little sounds. Creaks and moans. They only emphasized the emptiness of the place, and she put on some music to distract herself.

Twenty minutes later, she gave up, deciding to have a bath earlier than usual. After her bath, she generally went to bed to read—and to listen for Reese. Some nights she read until the morning hours without hearing him at all. She’d never acknowledged that she waited for him, but tonight the truth was like an intruder standing in the middle of her bedroom.

Despite all her husband’s years of infidelity, the pain was almost overwhelming. At this very moment, he was with another woman and she’d allowed his philandering to continue, accepted it as if it were normal. Jacqueline realized she couldn’t pretend any longer. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t!

Half-undressed, the bathwater running in the tub, she walked into the kitchen, each step filled with righteous indignation. She jerked open a drawer and reached for the country club directory. Tossing it on the kitchen counter, she searched for Allan Anderson’s number. They’d been good friends for years, and he was the best divorce attorney in town. Once he got his hands on this case, her husband would pay dearly for what he’d done to her and to their lives.

All at once, the virtuous anger left her and she closed the directory, but her hand lingered there.

Dear God in heaven, what was she thinking? She didn’t want a divorce, she wanted her husband. She wanted Reese!

Somehow, some way, she’d have to win him back.

Slowly now, lost in her thoughts, she walked into the bathroom again and turned off the water. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she pressed her fingers to her temples as she considered what to do.

The sound of the garage door closing startled her. Jacqueline stood, her heart pounding at a furious pace. It couldn’t possibly be Reese. Not this early. He was rarely home before nine.

“Reese, is that you?” she called out, then silently chastised herself. Who else could it be? A burglar wasn’t likely to announce his arrival.

“I’m home,” her husband called back flatly.

Slipping on her robe, Jacqueline came out of the bathroom to see her husband standing at the kitchen counter, sorting through the mail. He seemed surprised to see her.

Where she found the courage, Jacqueline didn’t know, but she stepped boldly forward.

Reese casually glanced up. “Yes?”

“It’s over. I want that understood here and now. I won’t put up with this any longer.”

He blinked and stared at her. Thankfully he didn’t make a pretense of not knowing what she meant.

“I won’t,” she repeated.

He continued to stare, his expression incredulous.

“First of all,” she went on, “it’s demeaning to me as your wife. I’ve looked the other way for the last time. I won’t do it again. I tried to pretend it doesn’t matter and for a while I managed to convince myself—but it does. It matters very much.”

“What—”

Jacqueline kept talking. If she didn’t finish this now, while she had the courage, she might not have another chance. “I’ve never been the kind of wife to issue ultimatums or make demands, but I’m doing it now. Whoever she is, get rid of her. I don’t care what it costs. I want her out of your life and mine.”

Reese shook his head, apparently speechless.

“I won’t allow our grandchildren to grow up seeing me treated with that kind of disrespect.” Here she was, having what was possibly the most important discussion of her marriage, while standing barefoot in the middle of her kitchen dressed only in a robe.

Frowning, Reese went back to sorting the mail.

Tammie Lee’s story rolled through her mind and Jacqueline dragged in a fortifying breath. Since she’d come this far, she might as well go for broke. “There’s more,” she announced with as much dignity as she could muster.

“More?”

She nodded and stepped closer. “As a matter of fact, there’s a great deal more. I happen to love you, Reese. I don’t know what went wrong between us and…and whatever it was, I share the blame. But I’m lonely, Reese, and I want you back in my bed.” Her voice caught. For one crazy moment, Jacqueline imagined herself as Tammie Lee’s Aunt Frieda. She propped one hand on her hip, jutted out her shoulder and lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “I promise I’ll be all the woman you’ll ever need.”

The look in her husband’s eyes was beyond description as he dropped the mail. “Jacquie? Are you serious?”

She laughed in a way she hoped sounded sexy and sensuous. “Don’t take my word for it. Come and find out for yourself.”

Reese’s mouth sagged, his face so comically eager that she nearly laughed out loud.

“Jacquie?” He reached for her then, and when his mouth covered hers, it was with the same openmouthed passion they’d experienced in their twenties. In the later years of their marriage, before he’d moved out of her bedroom, their lovemaking had become staid and controlled. Not now. Reese all but ruined her robe in his eagerness to undress her.

When they stumbled into the bedroom and fell onto the bed, they were giggling like teenagers. Their lovemaking was explosive, primal, thrilling. The only sounds to be heard were their moans and deep satisfied sighs.

After they’d finished, Jacqueline lay cradled in her husband’s arms, her eyes moist as she listened to the solid, even beat of Reese’s heart. There was so much that needed to be said, but in the contentment of the moment, none of it seemed important. What mattered was savoring this time, treasuring each other. If nothing else, Jacqueline would have this one night with her husband to remind her that she was very much alive and every inch a woman.

“I never dreamed,” Reese whispered close to her ear. “I’d given up hope that we’d ever share a bed again. I love you. I’ve always loved you, but I didn’t know how to make things different.”

She sighed and kissed his bare chest. “I’m not giving you up.”

“There’s no one else who wants me.”

Jacqueline froze. “What do you mean?”

He gave a resigned sigh. “We’ll speak of this only once and then never again. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“I had an affair ten years ago. Which I realize you knew about. It ended quickly and badly. I felt terrible and I still can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“But every Tuesday night—”

He didn’t let her finish. “I know. I wanted you to think I was still involved. It was stupid and childish, and I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was looking for a reaction from you. Something—anything—that showed me you cared.”

“The night I made dinner for you and the phone rang and you left….”

“I know what you thought, but you were wrong. It
was
business. We’d blown a transformer. I swear to you there wasn’t another woman that night or any other night in a very long time.”

“All these years…” She had trouble taking it in.

“Once I started this, I didn’t know how to stop.”

“We’ve both been such fools.” Jacqueline wrapped her arms around his neck and wondered how she’d ever survived outside her husband’s embrace. All this time, the only thing that had stood between them was pride.

“I don’t know what came over you tonight, but I thank God for it,” Reese said.

“You can thank Tammie Lee’s Aunt Frieda.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She pressed her head against his shoulder and smiled. Every day, she found more reasons to be grateful to her daughter-in-law. Reese had been right about that. She finally did have her daughter, and even if Tammie Lee happened to speak with a southern drawl, she was as precious to her as any daughter could be to a mother.