Ain't She Sweet? Part 35

"I don't believe this." He smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. "She set me up?"

"She's a devil, all right."

"I don't like that admiration I hear in your voice."

"She's aggressive, but she's not mean-spirited-not the way she used to be. And she's great with Gigi. I want to know her better."

"You don't have to stay at the carriage house for that. You can meet her for lunch, for G.o.d's sake. Go shopping together."

"It wouldn't be the same. It needs to be just Sugar Beth and me, sink or swim, n.o.body else around." She kissed the corner of his mouth. "I have to do this."

"For how long?" he said begrudgingly.

"I'm not sure."

"What about us? Our marriage?"

"That's lookin' real good to me right now." She dabbled with his bottom lip. "Would you mind so much if we dated for a while?"

"Dated?"

"For a while."

"You want to date?"

"Just for a little while."

"d.a.m.ned right I'd mind."

"Then we're going to have a fight about it, and as much as the idea appeals to me, can we wait until tomorrow to do it?"

"You want to fight with me?"

"Oh, yes."

He shook his head. "I know that someday I'll understand this, but right now I'm too wrung out from trying to satisfy your insatiable l.u.s.t."

"Get used to it."

He laughed, started the car, and drove her back to the carriage house where he walked her to the front door and kissed her good night like a perfect Southern gentleman. With a pair of blue panties tucked in his pocket.

Sugar Beth didn't see Colin again until Wednesday morning. As she left for the bookstore, she spotted him pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with stone toward the tree line behind Frenchman's Bride. Gordon trotted off to join him, and Sugar Beth frowned. Colin should be writing.

When it was time for her lunch break, she carried her bag of taco chips and a c.o.ke across the street to Yesterday's Treasures. The store had reopened for business the day before, and there'd been a steady stream of customers ever since, including the same busload of senior citizens who'd visited the bookstore a few hours earlier. She still couldn't get used to the idea of Parrish being a tourist destination.

She greeted Donna, Winnie's a.s.sistant, then headed for the back of the store where she found Winnie sitting at her desk looking starry-eyed and sleepy. Sugar Beth pulled up a straight-backed chair, propped her feet on the desk, and opened the taco chips. "I heard you sneak in again in the middle of the night. Why don't you just move back home?"

"I'm not done torturing you." Winnie yawned, then smiled. "Ryan and I had a huge fight last night."

"Ah, well, that explains the look of bliss."

"We never used to fight." She smiled as she reached across the desk to swipe some chips. "Fighting's wonderful."

"Each to his own. Although the two of you are such big pansies, I can't imagine it gets too dangerous."

"We yell," she said defensively. "Or at least he did last night. He really wants me to come home. He's trying to be understanding, but he's getting frustrated."

"Not from lack of s.e.x, that's for sure."

Winnie actually giggled. "I never thought we'd have so much pa.s.sion."

"You are a lot weirder than me."

Twenty minutes later, when Sugar Beth returned to work, Jewel pa.s.sed over an envelope. "This came for madam while she was out."

Sugar Beth opened it and found a round-trip air ticket to Houston. She gazed at the date. The ticket was for tomorrow, her day off, a flight leaving in the morning and returning that same night. She pulled out a separate sheet of paper and found a confirmation number for a rental car.

She bit her bottom lip and gazed across the street at Yesterday's Treasures. It could have been Winnie who'd done this, but she was too preoccupied now to have thought of it. Sugar Beth pressed the envelope to her breast. Colin.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Sugar Beth stood in the doorway of the second-floor lounge at Brookdale and gazed at Delilah bent over a jigsaw puzzle. Her gray hair fell straight and smooth to just below her ears, and a headband printed with ladybugs held it back from her chubby face. Today she wore the pink jumper Sugar Beth had brought her several months ago, along with a lavender T-shirt. For a moment Sugar Beth simply gazed at her, then she spoke softly. "Hey, sweetheart."

Delilah stiffened. Her head came up slowly, her eyes already filled with hope. "My Sugar Beth?"

A moment later they were in each other's arms, with Delilah saying her name over and over again.

For the next half hour, she couldn't seem to stop talking. "I didn't think you'd ever come...You said you wasn't mad, but...And then I gave Henry my extra m.u.f.fin...Dr. Brent filled my tooth...And Shirley knows you're only allowed to smoke outside..." As she spoke, she held Sugar Beth's hand, and she continued to hold it as they took a walk across the grounds. She chose Taco Bell for lunch, and afterward they went on a shopping expedition that finished off Sugar Beth's paycheck. She didn't let herself dwell on the fact that she had only six more weeks until the next payment was due.

Delilah's anxiety finally set in, and she wanted to go back to Brookdale. "Meesie gets worried if I'm gone too long." Meesie Baker was Delilah's favorite aide.

"I think it's harder on you bein' so far away than it is on her," Meesie said later when Sugar Beth caught her alone. "She misses you, but she's doin' fine."

Sugar Beth stroked Delilah's hair as they said good-bye. "I'll call you on Sunday. And I'll think about you every day."

"I know you will, my Sugar Beth. Because you love me so much."

"You got that right, ace," she replied, which made Delilah giggle.

On the flight back, Sugar Beth gazed out the window and fought the lump in her throat. How many people were lucky enough to have someone in their lives who loved them so unconditionally?

As she drove home in the dark, she tried to figure out how she could thank Colin. In the end, she took the coward's way out and wrote him a note. Her first three attempts revealed too much and ended up in the wastebasket, but the version she stuck in his mailbox as she left for work on Friday morning did the job without the sentiment.

Dear Colin, I saw Delilah yesterday. Thank you. Being with her meant everything to me, and I take back nearly every bad thing I've said about you.

Gratefully, Sugar Beth (Please do not mark for spelling and punctuation.) Colin crumpled the letter in his fist and tossed it on the ground next to the wheelbarrow. He didn't want her grat.i.tude, d.a.m.n it, he wanted her company, her smiles. He wanted her body-he couldn't deny that-but also her quirky point of view, that irreverent humor, those sideways glances she gave him when she didn't think he was looking.

He threw down his shovel. Ever since Sunday, he'd been tense and irritable. He couldn't write, couldn't sleep. No big mystery why. Guilt wasn't a comfortable companion, and it was time he did something about it.

The phone call came at three o'clock on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, an hour before the bookstore closed. "Gemima's Books," Sugar Beth said.

"If you want to see your dog alive again, be at Rowan Oak at five o'clock. And come alone."

"Rowan Oak?"

"If you call the police, the dog's...dog meat."

"I dumped you!"

But he'd already hung up.

She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't let him manipulate her. But not long after the store closed, she found herself on the highway heading toward William Faulkner's legendary home in Oxford. Colin had made it possible for her to see Delilah, and she owed him this. Still, she wished he didn't have to make everything so hard.

The house and grounds closed to the public at four o'clock, but someone obviously had important connections because a burgundy Lexus sat in the otherwise empty parking lot and the wooden gate was open. Having grown up in northeastern Mississippi, Sugar Beth had been to Rowan Oak many times-with a Girl Scout troop, church youth groups, the Seawillows, and during senior year, in a big yellow bus with Mr. Byrne's English cla.s.ses. William Faulkner had bought the decrepit Greek Revival plantation in the early 1930s. At the time the house had no indoor plumbing or electricity, and Faulkner's wife was rumored to have spent her days sitting on the stoop crying while her husband began making the house livable. Until his death in 1962, Faulkner had lived here, gotten drunk here, frightened his children with stories of a ghost he invented, and written the novels that had eventually won him the n.o.bel Prize for literature. In the early 1970s, his daughter had sold the house and grounds to the University of Mississippi, and since then, visitors from all over the world had come to see the state's most famous literary landmark.

She approached the two-story white frame house through the imposing avenue of cedars that had been planted during the nineteenth century. Long before she reached the end of the old brick walk, she saw Colin leaning against one of the house's square columns with Gordon lying at his feet.

"Pat Conroy called Oxford the Vatican City of Southern letters," he said as he stepped off the porch.

"I didn't know that, but I do love the man's books." She scratched Gordon's head. "My dog's still alive, I see."

"I'm nothing if not merciful."

He wore a white sweater and an immaculate pair of gray slacks. The outdoor work had left him tan, and she was once again struck by the contrast between his masculinity and his elegance. He was a ma.s.s of contradictions, haughty and cynical, but also tender and a lot more sentimental than he let anyone see. How his wife's suicide must have devastated him. "What's this about?" she asked.

"I have something I want to give you."

"You've given me more than enough. That plane ticket-"

"Faulkner has always been my favorite American writer," he said, cutting her off.

"Not surprising. You share a fascination for the same literary landscape."

"We don't, however, share the same facility with language. The man was a genius."

"I suppose."

"Don't even contemplate saying anything disrespectful about William Faulkner."

"As long as I don't have to read another one of his books, I'll be completely respectful."

"How can you say that? Faulkner is-"

"He's a man, and I have a limited patience with dead white male writers. Or even living ones for that matter, you and Mr. Conroy being notable exceptions. Now Jane Austen, Harper Lee, Alice Walker, their books deal with things women care about." She let herself rattle on. "Margaret Mitch.e.l.l isn't p.c. anymore, but that was one heck of a page-turner. Then there's Mary Stewart, Daphne du Maurier, LaVyrle Spencer, Georgette Heyer, Helen Fielding-but only the first Bridget Jones. Nope, Faulkner just doesn't make my final cut."

"Your list is a little heavy on romance for my tastes."

"You try spending six months sitting at somebody's bedside waiting for them to die and then tell me that the happy-ending love story isn't one of G.o.d's good gifts."

He planted a quick kiss on her forehead, and the tenderness of the gesture nearly undid her. "Let's go inside."

He opened the door for her, and as they entered the empty house, she gazed at the foyer, where a set of stairs led to the second floor. "Can you get me into George Clooney's place, too?"

"Some other time."

They wandered through the hallways of Faulkner's home, gazing into each room but not entering. She couldn't resist pointing out the stack of paperback potboilers on display in Faulkner's bedside bookshelves, but Colin was more fascinated by his office. As he took in the old Underwood typewriter, he contemplated how modern word processing might have changed Faulkner's writing. Sugar Beth refrained from pointing out that Microsoft wasn't doing a thing for Colin's output, and the only work being done at Frenchman's Bride these days involved stone.

They left the house and walked around the grounds. Dusk was settling in, but she could still see the forsythia and wild plum blooming in Bailey's Woods behind the house. Before long, the dogwood would be in flower. Gordon waddled at Colin's side, occasionally stopping to investigate a shrub or sniff at a clump of gra.s.s. As they returned to the house, Colin took her hand. "I've missed you this week."

She felt the hard ridge of calluses on his palm and didn't want to draw away, but what was the point in torturing herself. "You're just h.o.r.n.y."

He stopped walking and ran his finger along her cheek, regarding her with such tenderness that her heart missed a beat. "I want more from you than s.e.x, Sugar Beth."

She had a saucy comeback all loaded and ready to fire, but she fumbled with the trigger. "You...you know I don't do windows."

"Please stop it, darling." The request was gently uttered, and the endearment, which would have sounded pompous coming from anyone else, fell over her like cherry blossoms.

She swatted an imaginary bug to give herself an excuse to move a few steps away. "What do you want?"

"I want you to give us time. Is that too much to ask?"

"Time for what? I'm a three-time loser, Colin. Four if you count Ryan." She tried to sound saucy, but she was afraid she'd merely sounded sad. "I feed off men. I lure them with my s.e.xual tricks, then bite off their heads while they sleep."

"Is that how Emmett felt about you?"

"He was the exception that proved the rule."

"I'm not too worried about my untimely decapitation, so I don't see why you should be."

"Okay, I finally understand why you're being so persistent about this. You want to make me fall so desperately in love with you that I can't think of anything else. Then, when I've turned into a big bowl of mush, and I'm begging for a few crumbs of your affection, you'll laugh in my face and walk away. This is what you've been planning from the beginning, isn't it? Your ultimate revenge for what I did to you in high school?"

He sighed. "Sugar Beth. The romance novels..."

"Well, it's not going to happen, bucko, because I've spent way too much cla.s.s time in the school of hard knocks. I'm past my obsessive need to center my life around another piece of beefcake."

"As much as I appreciate the description, I think you're just afraid."

Something snapped inside her. "Of course I'm afraid! Relationships do bad things to me." He started to respond, but the pain had gone on long enough, and she didn't want to hear it. "You know what I want? I want peace. I want a good job and a decent place to live. I want to read books and listen to music and have time to make some female friendships that are going to last. When I wake up in the morning, I want to know that I have a decent shot at being happy. And here's what's really sad. Until I met you, I was almost there."

His face set in hard lines. She knew she'd hurt him, but better this sharp, quick pain than a dull ache that never stopped. "I'm sick of this," she forced herself to say. "I told you I didn't want to see you anymore, but you wouldn't listen. Well, it's time to pay attention. I'm tired of you stalking me. Now get the message and leave me alone."

His face paled, and his eyes emptied of all expression. "My apologies. It wasn't my intention to stalk." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a manila envelope from behind one of the columns and thrust it at her. "I know you've been looking for this, and now you have your very own copy."

She watched him walk away, proud and haughty, his powerful stride devouring Faulkner's lawn. "Gordon! Come back here," she cried.

But her dog had a new master, and he paid no attention.

She heard the sound of his car driving away. Finally, she gazed down at the envelope and drew out what he'd brought her.

A copy of Reflections.