Beloved (60 page)

"
Jane,
"
he said, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze,
"
you know how I feel about you. Maybe losing Cissy has crystallized those feelings, but I would
'
ve made it to this stage anyway, I
'
m sure I would have.
"

"
Bing
—
"

"
No. Let me ask.
Will
you marry me? Will you consider it?
"
he said quickly when she began to shake her head.

"
Bing, I haven
'
t let myself think about
—
"

"
No, no, of course not. You
'
re ambitious; you have plans. I know that. And I can help you realize them. The children would have to wait. Or maybe you don
'
t want children at all
—
I hope you do
—
but if you don
'
t, I
'
ll understand that too.
"

"
Well, no,
I
want children, sooner or later,
"
Jane said in confusion.
"
But we
'
re putting the cart before the horse.
"

He took her by her shoulders and said,
"
Jane
—
don
'
t you see? If we don
'
t grab at life now, if we don
'
t just take love when we find it and hold on to it, it
'
ll be gone.
We
'
ll
be gone."

There was a look of fear in his eyes that made her say,
"
Bing, don
'
t. You
'
re letting your sister
'
s death stampede you
—
"

"
I
'
m not being stampeded. I love you, darling. I love you. I want you to love
me.
"

He was drowning; she had to reach out to him, to keep him from going under in grief and panic.
"
I
do
care for you, Bing; I do. It must be love
...."

His blue eyes lit up in triumphant relief as he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard. If Jane needed proof that Bing was not The One, the kiss was it. There was a time when she thought he made her hear bells ring. Now, after Mac, it was like listening to a compact disc after she
'
d stood in the bell tower itself.

"
But it
'
s not the love you mean,
"
she said softly, taking his hands in her own.

And he knew it; he could tell by the kiss. Jane was afraid he might be angry, but he was mostly puzzled.
"
I don
'
t get it,
"
he confessed.
"
We
'
re a perfect fit, completely in gear with one another.
"

"
True. We make great pals. But maybe there need to be one or two sharp edges between a man and a woman. It creates some pretty good sparks as they rub one another smooth.
"

Bing laughed skeptically.
"
Tell
that
to a machinist.
"

He didn
'
t give up right away. They went round and round and round, until one or so in the morning. The last thing Bing told Jane was that he considered his proposal to be still pending. The last thing Jane said to Bing was,
"
Please
don
'
t tell my mother that.
"
He laughed, and she closed the door after him and leaned tiredly against it.

So. Bing Andrews wants to take me away from all this. Philip Harrow wants to
send
me away from all this. And Mac McKenzie just wants us all to go away.

"
Nantucket
,
"
she said with a sigh,
"
you
'
re breaking my heart.
"

* * *
*

Early the next morning Jane struck out down the lane to Mac
'
s place, his sweater draped over her arm. She would
'
ve returned it sooner but she had too much sense than to throw her body in front of his speeding truck, trying to get him to stop for her. Secretly she hoped it was his favorite sweater, and that he
'
d be forced to come begging for it; but trying to outlast Mac McKenzie was a fool
'
s game, and Jane Drew knew it.

Her excuse was the sweater, but her mission was to tell Mac that she planned to accept Phillip
'
s offer on the house. She had no choice; it was an offer most people would kill for. She felt obliged to let Mac know first, even though she still wasn
'
t one hundred percent sure she
'
d accept. Funny, how she was able to decline the hand of a demigod without a second thought, and yet was still hemming and hawing over a house that made no sense to keep. Pretty funny.

She saw Mac before he saw her. He was on a backhoe, scooping a four-foot Austrian pine out of the earth. He
'
d already removed three others; each sat neatly with its root ball on an open square of burlap. Buster was lying nearby, paws stretched out in front of him, tongue heaving contentedly. It was impossible for Jane to look at the dog without thinking of Cissy chasing madly after him, an empty leash dangling from her hand. Maybe that was a good thing: Buster kept the memory of her alive.

The dog got to his feet and came toward her with his tail wagging, ready and willing to knock down small buildings with it. Mac, still seated, swung partway round on the seat of his backhoe. He was surprised to see Jane there; the muscles working in his jaw were a dead giveaway. Then he saw the sweater, and seemed relieved.
Okay, you have a socially correct reason for being here,
was how she read the sun-squint look under his baseball cap.

"
You
'
re up early,
"
he said, turning off the noisy engine of the backhoe.
"
And how was
Rome
? Still eternal?
"
Obviously he knew that Bing had been over and stayed late.

"
I think Bing said something to that effect,
"
she said.
"
I brought you your sweater,
"
she added, ho
lding it up for his inspection. "
I
'
d forgotten all about it.
"
Except for all the times I buried my face in it as I passed it on the hook by the kitchen door.
"
Would you like me to put it somewhere for you?
"
she asked, seeing that there was no place on the small backhoe for it.

Mac swung one leg over the seat and dismounted.
"
That
'
s all right; I was just going in anyway.
"
He accepted the sweater from her and tossed it over his shoulder.
"
It
'
s looking like my help is a no-show; I
'
ve got to call my customer and warn them that I
'
ll be late with the delivery.
Damn,
"
he muttered, more to himself than to her.

"
Why
'
damn
'
? Is it critical?
"

"
Yeah, you could say that. A family has planned a big reunion around a mass planting on their property. All of
'
em
—
kids, cousins, grandparents
—
are supposed to take up shovels and help. They
'
ve been planning this for a year. I
'
ve pruned the roots; everything
'
s ready to lift out. I shouldn
'
t have waited until the last day to do it, shouldn
'
t have counted on someone else.
"

She knew he
'
d been running himself ragged with his Uncle Easy; the patient himself had told her that.
"
I could give you a hand.
"

He smiled.
"
Thanks, but it
'
s
—
don
'
t be offended
—
pretty much a man
'
s job. Someone has to tie up the burlap, tag
'
em
—
"

"
Oh, my! Exhausting!
"

"
And then help load
'
em in the truck.
"

"
I could do that, too.
"

"
You might break a nail.
"

With a withering look, she held up what was left of her fingernails after weeks of scraping paint.

"
Okay,
"
he said with a look that was half bemused and clearly desperate.
"
You pass. Come in and I
'
ll give you some coveralls,
"
he added, casting an appraising look over her snug-fitting denims.
"
Thin jeans won
'
t cut it in the field.
Plus,
it would help things out if you could bend.
"

She blushed at that one, but decided she had it coming because it was true: She
couldn
'
t
bend. In the house he handed her a workshirt and a pair of heavy bib overalls and she changed in the downstairs bath while he made the call to the customer. She studied herself in the mirror and didn
'
t like what she saw: no curves, no tan, no
hint
that a woman was underneath it all. The maddening refrain from
"
Old MacDonald Had a Farm
"
dropped into her head and stayed there as she
rolled up the cuffs of the overalls, then
twisted her long auburn hair into a quick braid.
Ee-aye-ee-aye-oh.

Nuts.
This was no way to impress a man.

She walked into his kitchen with a sheepish smile.
"
This doesn
'
t feel terribly feminine,
"
she confessed.

Mac gave her a wry and utterly penetrating look.
"
If you
'
d rather run home for the little halter and shorts, feel free.
"

He
had
noticed her all those times. Somehow it made her feel almost as bad as if he
'
d driven past without seeing her. Coloring, she said,
"
No thanks. I wouldn
'
t look any more feminine with bloody knees.
"

He liked her answer; she could see the hard-edged glint in his eyes soften to grudging approval.
"
We
'
ll make a soldier of you yet,
"
he said, taking her by the shoulders and marching her out of the house.

Mac was clearly in a hurry to get the job done. He showed her how to fold the burlap square around the rootball, then tie a series of rolling half-hitches around it with manila twine. He handed her a sod knife and a pair of gloves and said,
"
You
'
re on your own.
"

Jane dropped to her knees in her nice, thick overalls and got to work. The first three pines seemed to take her forever to bundle; she tossed the gloves aside almost immediately, preferring to work barehanded with the rough manila and knowing she
'
d pay for it later. It was hot, hard work. The beads of sweat on her forehead soon became rivulets. The scratchy branches of the pines seemed bent on a search-and-destroy mission for bare skin.