Oh, misery! She had thought this night of Brian’s homecoming would see them close, loving, reveling in being together once again. She felt drained and depleted and unsure of how to deal with his anger. Perhaps he had a right to it; perhaps he didn’t. She was no psychologist. She should have discussed it with Catherine McDonald and sought her advice regarding whether or not to tell Brian her intentions.
The merry-go-round was set off kilter, so centrifugal force kept it moving in what seemed a perpetual, lazy twirl. The tears gathered in Theresa’s throat and then in her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her wrist, turning away so he couldn’t tell what she was doing.
But somehow he sensed it. A hand closed around her bare elbow and pulled her back and to one side. “Hey ...” he cajoled softly. “Come here.”
She draped backward across the domed center of the merry-go-round. The steel was icy beneath her bare arms as she angled toward him until only their shoulders touched, and the backs of their heads were pressed against the hard, hard metal as they studied the stars. Around and around. Dots of light on the blue-black sky twinkled like reflections of a revolving mirrored ball above a ballroom floor. Crickets had set up their endless chirping, and the night was growing damp, but it felt good against Theresa’s hot face. The incandescent moon lit their draped bodies, the bars of the swing set and the crowns of the oak trees that passed slowly as Brian’s foot kept nudging the beaten earth.
“I’m sorry, Theresa. I shouldn’t have shouted.”
“I am too.” She sobbed once, and in an instant, he’d pulled her close.
“Listen, sweets, could I have a couple days to get used to it? Hell, I don’t know whether I’m allowed to look at them or not. I do, and I feel guilty. I don’t, and I feel guiltier. And your family, all avoiding the issue as if you’d never had any other shape. Anyway, I guess I built my hopes up too high, thinking about tonight and what it was going to be like, seeing you again.”
“Me too. I certainly didn’t want us to fight this way.”
“Then let’s not, not anymore. Let’s go back and see if everybody else is as tired as I am. I’ve been awake since two
A.M.
I was too excited to sleep.”
“You too?” She offered a shaky smile.
He smiled down at her in return, brushed a knuckle over the end of her nose and kissed her lightly.
He’d meant to give her only that single light kiss, but in the end, he couldn’t let her go with just that. Slowly, deliberately, he returned his mouth to hers, dipping his tongue into the secret warmth of her lips, which opened in welcome. His body spurted to life, and his shoulders quivered as he pressed his elbows to the metal surface on either side of her head. God, the things he wanted to do to her, to feel with her, to have her do to him. How long would he have to wait? The kiss lingered and lengthened, growing more dizzying than the slow circling of their perch. The way Theresa lay, sprawled backward over the curved metal, the outline of her breasts was lined by moonlight as they jutted forward. It was as sexy a pose as he’d ever seen her in, and he knew it would take no more than a quick shift of his palm, and he’d feel the relief of touching her intimately. He needn’t touch her breast about which he was so unsure—her stomach looked hollow and inviting, and her white slacks were very taut and alluring. He thought about running his hand down her ribs, exploring the warm inviting length of her zipper, and the sheltered spot between her legs as he’d done once before. But one thing might lead to another, and he had no idea if she was allowed to move, twist, thrust, if she had stitches, and where, and how many ....
And once he started something, he had no intentions of drawing back.
In the end, Brian pacified himself with the kiss alone. When it ended, he regretfully lurched to his feet, dragging Theresa with him, crossing the shadowy park toward the house where they could mingle with people and wouldn’t have to confront the remaining issue ... at least for a while.
Chapter Fourteen
THE OTHERS HAD GONE INSIDE
where they were visiting and having second pieces of cake when Brian and Theresa walked up the driveway. The kitchen lights slanted out across the darkened yard and back step in oblique slashes of creamy brightness. Mosquitoes hummed and buzzed against the back screen door, and a June bug threw its crusty shell at the light time and again. Frogs and crickets competed for first chair in the nighttime orchestra. The moon was a pristine ball of white.
From inside came the voice of the group Theresa and Brian could see as they walked up the driveway. They were clustered around the kitchen table, but outside it was peaceful and private. Just short of the back step, Brian stopped Theresa with a hand on her arm.
“Listen, there were a lot of things I wanted to talk about tonight but ....” The thought remained unfinished.
“I know.” Theresa recalled the many subjects she had stored up and was eager to share with him.
“And just because I didn’t get into any of them doesn’t mean I’m still mad, okay?”
She was studying the middle button on his shirt, which faced her and the moon. By its light the gauze appeared brilliant white while her own face was cast in shadow. He touched her beneath the chin with a single finger, forcing her to tilt her head up. “Okay?” he asked softly.
“Okay.”
“And I probably won’t see you for a while after tonight, because Jeff and I have a lot of running to do. I have to find an apartment and buy some furniture, and we want to start working on getting a band together right away. We have to renew our union cards and try to find a decent agent and audition the new drummer and bass guitarist and maybe a keyboard man, too. Anyway, I’m going to be jumping for a while. I just wanted you to know.”
“Thanks for telling me.” But her heart felt heavy with disappointment. Now that he was back, she wanted to be with him as much as possible. In his letters he’d suggested she could come along with him and help pick out furniture, but now he was eliminating her from that excursion. She could understand that he had a lot of mundane arrangements to make, just to get settled into an apartment, and that she’d only be in the way when they were auditioning new players, but somehow she’d thought they’d find time each day to see each other. But she smiled and hid the fact that she was crushed by his advance warning. Was this how fellows turned girls down gently.
No,
she reprimanded herself,
you’re being unfair to Brian. He’s not like that. He’s honest and honorable. That’s why he’s warning you in the first place.
The finger beneath her chin curled, and he brushed her jaw with his knuckles. “I’ll call as soon as I’ve got my feet planted.”
“Fine.” She began turning toward the back step, but his hand detained her a second time.
“Wait a minute. You’re not getting away without one more kiss.”
She was swung around and encircled in warm, hard arms and pulled against his moonlit gauze shirt. While his lips closed over hers, the picture of the naked V of skin at his neck came into Theresa’s mind, and she suddenly wanted to touch it. Hesitantly, she slipped her hand to find it, resting her palm on the sleek hair and warm flesh, then sliding it upward to rest at the side of his neck while her thumb touched the hollow of his throat. The thudding of his pulse there surprised her. Lightly, lightly, she stroked the warm, pliant depression. He made a soft, throaty sound, and his mouth moved over hers more hungrily. He clasped the back of her head and swept the interior of her mouth with lusty, intimate strokes of his tongue that sent liquid fire racing across her skin.
Some queer surge of latent feminine knowledge pulsed through Theresa. In her entire life, she’d never actively provoked a sexual response from a man. Instead, she’d always been too busy fighting off the bombardment of unwanted physical advances her partners seemed always too eager to display. Now, for the first time,
she
touched—a hesitant touch at best. But the response it kindled in Brian was at once surprising and telling. All she had done was stroke the hollow of his throat with her thumb, yet he reacted as if she’d done far more. The tenor of his kiss changed with a swift, swirling suddenness, and became totally sexual, not the insipid good-night gesture that it had begun to be.
It came as a surprise to think she, Theresa Brubaker, elementary music teacher, freckled redhead, inexperienced paramour, could generate such an immediate and passionate response by only the briefest of encouragements. Especially when she considered that he was a guitar man, a performer who had, admittedly, enjoyed all the adulation that went with his career. He must have known a great many very experienced women, far more experienced than her. Yet, he thrilled to her very inexperienced touch, and this in turn thrilled Theresa.
Realizing the power she possessed to stimulate this man, she suddenly grew impatient to test it further.
But she hadn’t the chance, for as quickly as his ardor grew, he controlled it, lifting his head to suck in a great gulp of damp night air and push her gently away. “Lord, woman, do you know how good you are at that?”
“Me?” she asked, surprised.
“You.”
“I’m not good at that at all. I’ve barely had any practice.”
“Well, we’ll remedy that when the time is right. But if practice makes perfect, I think you’ll end up being more than I can handle.”
She smiled and in the dark felt herself flush with pleasure at his words. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you it’s not nice to start things like that when you don’t intend to finish them?” came Brian’s husky teasing.
“I didn’t start it. You did. I was heading into the house when you stopped me. But if you’re done now, let’s go in.” Smiling, she turned toward the step again.
“Not so fast.” Once more she was brought up short. “I can’t go in just now.”
“You can’t?” She turned back to face him.
“Uh-uh. I’ll need a couple of minutes.”
“Oh!” Suddenly she understood and whirled around, presenting her shoulder blades. As she pressed her palms to embarrassed cheeks, he chuckled softly behind her shoulder, audaciously kissed the side of her neck and captured her hand. “Come on, let’s go for a little walk through the backyard. That should cool me down. You can talk about school, and I’ll talk about the Air Force. Those are two nice, safe, deflating subjects.”
Brian treated sexuality with such frankness. Theresa wondered if she’d ever be as open about it as he was. Her body felt flushed with awareness, equally as charged as his. Thank heavens it didn’t show on women!
They entered the kitchen five minutes later and pulled up chairs to join the others around the table, while Margaret sliced cake for them, and the conversation continued. When ten-thirty arrived, Jeff pushed his chair back, lifted his elbows toward the ceiling and gave a broad, shivering stretch while twisting at the waist.
“Well, I guess it’s time I get Patricia home.”
“Want to take the van?”
“Thanks, I’d love to.”
Brian tossed Jeff the keys. “We’d better unload our suitcases first, cause I’m ready for the sack. I’ll need my stuff.”
While the unloading was being done, Theresa escaped to the lower level of the house to put out clean sheets and blankets for Brian’s bed. She experienced a feeling of déjà vu, recalling the intimacies she and Brian had exchanged on this davenport, both on New Year’s Eve and the following morning. Somehow, she realized it would be best not to have Brian encounter her here, with the mattress opened up and the bed between them, ready for use. So she left the bedding and the light on and said her goodnight to him along with the rest of her family in the kitchen, before they each retired to their respective beds.
__________
I
N
THE MORNING,
Theresa was disappointed to discover both Brian and Jeff gone when she woke up. It was only a little before nine, so they must have been up early. The day stretched before her with an emptiness she hadn’t anticipated. Many times she paused to wonder at how the absence of a single person could create a void this distracting. But it was true: knowing Brian was in town made it all the harder to be apart from him. It seemed he was never absent from her thoughts for more than an hour before his image popped up again, speaking, gesturing, sharing intimate caresses and kisses. And, too, angry.
It was the first time she’d seen his anger, and in the way of most lovers, Theresa found it now stimulating to remember how he’d looked and sounded when he was upset. Knowing this new facet of him seemed almost a relief. Everybody has his angry moments, and the way she was feeling about Brian, she thought it imperative to see both his best and worst sides, and the sooner the better. She had fallen totally in love with the man. If he asked her to make a commitment today, she’d do it without hesitation.
But the first day passed, and a second, and a third, and still she hadn’t seen Brian again. Jeff reported he’d found a one-bedroom apartment in the nearby suburb of Bloomington. It was vacant, so Brian had paid his money and taken immediate occupancy. The two men had wasted no time going off to a furniture store to buy the single item that was essential: a bed. A water bed, Jeff said. The news brought Theresa’s glance sharply up to her brother, but Jeff rambled on, relating the story of how the two of them had hauled the bed to Brian’s apartment in the van, then borrowed a hose from the apartment caretaker to fill the thing. The heater hadn’t had time to get the water warmed up the first night, so Brian had ended up spreading his new bedding on the carpeted living-room floor to sleep.
Theresa pictured him there, alone, while she lay in her bed alone, wondering if he thought of her as strongly as she thought of him each time she slipped between the sheets for the night. It was late June, the nights hot and muggy, and she blamed her restlessness on that. It seemed she never managed to sleep straight through a night anymore, but awakened several times and spent long, sleepless hours staring at the streetlight outside her window, thinking of Brian, and wondering when she’d see him again.