Sunny wondered how such an unromantic setting as Fran’s cluttered kitchen with its loud, daisy-print wallpaper could be so redolent with sexuality. Yet the atmosphere teemed with it.
“I’ll wash,” she said, coming out of her chair as though ejected by a mechanical spring. At the sink she began rinsing the dishes and placing them in the dishwasher.
“Can I tell you something friend to friend?” he asked as he carried a tray of dirty dishes from the table.
“Sure.”
“You’ve got a terrific fanny.”
Sunny was bending over the dishwasher. She popped erect and spun around to face him, slinging soapy water onto the front of his shirt. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“You don’t believe your fanny is terrific? Take my word for it.”
“I mean,” Sunny said impatiently, “that you call yourself a friend and yet say something so ... so ...”
“Sexist?”
“Yes!”
“Well, hey, I only learned how to be a friend tonight. You can’t expect me to change from a woman-denigrating chauvinist to a good buddy in the space of a few hours.”
“That reminds me of a saying, something about a leopard and his spots.”
“It’s not like I was trying to pick you up in a singles’ bar,” he said easily. “Then I could understand it if you objected to my saying something like, ‘You’ve got a terrific fanny.’ But I was just being honest, friend to friend.”
“Well then, friend to friend, thank you.”
“If you didn’t want people to notice your behind, you shouldn’t wear tight white jeans that cup—”
“All right! Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind. Now, can we talk about something else?”
“Okay. How about your tits?”
She rounded on him, ready to do battle. Instead, when she looked into his teasing eyes, she started laughing. “That’s better,” he said. “I was getting worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way. You look as beautiful as always. But when you came into the church tonight, you looked tired.” With the tip of his finger, he traced the violet crescent shadows beneath her eyes.
“I didn’t have a very good day,” she confessed.
“Or night?”
“Or night.”
“Are you sorry we didn’t sleep together?”
“No!” She took a step back.
“Sure about that?” he drawled. “I know my mood would have been greatly improved if we had. The atmosphere is oppressive. Barring a good, drenching rain, I think some raunchy sex would help clear the air.”
“Is that your cure for everything?”
“Not for everything.” He closed the distance between them. “But it sure as hell is for what’s ailing me.”
Fighting the magnetic pull of his eyes, Sunny turned away. “I had my mind on other things today.”
“Did you see Jenkins?”
Sunny was surprised by his harsh question. “Of course not. Why should I?”
“I thought that maybe after seeing each other last night, you two might be on again.”
“He’s married!”
“That doesn’t seem to matter these days.”
“It does to me.”
“According to gossip, Jenkins’s marital status is subject to change,” he said. “He might be free soon.”
“I don’t care. I still wouldn’t want—”
Sunny heard her spontaneous protest, but couldn’t believe she’d spoken it. Ty reacted by looming over her like a predatory animal about to pounce. His eyes zeroed in on her face. “You still wouldn’t want what, Sunny?”
“Thank heavens, they’re down for the night,” Fran said, as she and Steve made an untimely entrance into the kitchen.
Ty and Sunny sprang apart.
“Maybe the girls will let you sleep late in the morning.” Steve said, kissing Fran’s forehead.
Sunny tore her gaze away from Ty’s penetrating stare. Nervously she clasped her hands together in an effort to get a grip on herself. “I’ll see that they do. You stay in bed, Frannie, for as long as you can. I’ll fix their breakfast and try to keep them quiet.”
“You’re taking the word brides
maid
in the most literal sense,” Fran said, smiling her gratitude.
“It’s getting late,” Steve said, “and Ty can’t go home until I drive him back to his office for his car. So ...” He turned to Fran, a wistful expression on his face.
“Sunny, we haven’t carried your stuff in yet,” Ty said suddenly. “Remember you asked me to help you with it?”
Puzzled, she stared at him. His eyebrows were sliding up and down like an elevator that had run amok. “Oh,” she said, getting his drift. “Yes, I would appreciate your help, Ty. Excuse us a minute.”
She slipped through the screened back door. Ty followed closely on her heels. Both were shaking with suppressed laughter. “They needed a few minutes of privacy but were too polite to ask for it. Was I subtle enough?” he asked.
“Before I caught on, I wondered what in heaven’s name was the matter with your eyebrows.”
When they reached her car, she opened the rear door and began transferring her belongings to his waiting hands. She had an overnight bag, the dress she was going to wear in the wedding, and a change of street clothes.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You travel light.”
They retraced their steps across the lawn. When they were still a distance from the house, they saw Steve and Fran through the screen door. They were in each other’s arms, their mouths locked in a fervent kiss.
“Uh, maybe we ought to wait a minute before barging in.” Ty stopped at the redwood picnic table and set Sunny’s things on it. He sat down on the bench and guided her to sit down beside him.
The warm night closed in around them. The branches of the tree overhead were dense. From them cicadas sang their mating songs. There was just enough moon to cast wavering shadows over their faces in ever-changing patterns.
“You heard from Smithie, didn’t you?” Ty asked quietly.
Sunny looked up at him. His intuition had hit the bull’s-eye again. “How did you know?”
“And the news wasn’t good.”
Her mouth twisted with remorse. “No. The news wasn’t good. Amid a lot of effusive apologies and well-wishing, he turned me down.”
“Damn!”
She smiled humorlessly. “I’ve already said as much.”
“So what will you do?”
“I haven’t decided.” There was a vertical dent of worry between her brows. Her posture, the slight pucker of her lips, were testimonies to her dejection.
Ty propped his elbows on the table behind them and leaned back. “Why sweat it? Why put yourself through the humiliation of begging for money? Give up on the idea and consider yourself lucky that you won’t be responsible for a business. It would probably have been one colossal pain in the butt anyway. You would—”
“I can’t give it up,” she cried angrily. “What are you talking about? Consider myself lucky,” she scoffed. “I
want
to be responsible. I want—” She broke off when she noticed his wide, white smile. “You were playing devil’s advocate, weren’t you?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
She ducked her head shyly. “I guess I just made up my mind.”
“No, your mind was made up a long time ago. You won’t quit until you have succeeded. All I did was remind you of that.”
“I can’t give up yet, Ty, I just can’t,” she said fiercely. When she realized that her hand was on his thigh, squeezing it to emphasize her determination, she hastily removed it.
After a long, quiet moment, he said, “Must be nice.”
“What?” Sunny raised her head to look at him, then followed his steadfast gaze to the back of the house, where Fran and Steve, still with their arms around each other and rocking slightly back and forth, were whispering together.
“Oh. Yes.” Sunny was uncomfortably aware that Ty’s hand was idly strumming her back.
“In a way I envy them,” he said. “The love affair. The marriage.”
“Yeah, it must be really tough, being the town stud.”
“Is that what I am?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I get my share.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
Still looking through the screen door at the embracing couple, Ty said musingly, “Sometimes I think it might be nice to sleep with the same woman every night. But I suppose it would eventually get boring.”
“It wouldn’t have to.” Sunny was dismayed over his caustic attitude toward marriage.
“You don’t think so?” He seemed to ponder that for several moments. “You might be right, but you’d be swapping the exciting and unique for the familiar.”
“Personally I think there’s something to be said for the intimacy that comes with familiarity,” Sunny said defensively.
“Maybe. That ease with each other is certainly missing in brief affairs. If you were married, the getting-naked step wouldn’t be so awkward. A married man could walk right up to his wife and start undressing her without either of them feeling self-conscious. In fact, if they were sexually harmonious, they’d probably get a helluva lot of pleasure just out of the undressing ritual.”
“I think so.”
“He could lift her hand, kiss the palm of it, then press it right against his ...” He glanced down at her. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Good. I thought you did,” he said, smiling. “He would show her how to caress him for maximum pleasure, because he would want her to feel how hard he could get, how badly he wanted her. He could bend down and kiss her breasts, caress them with his mouth and tongue, without having to wonder if she was going to like it. He would already know that that was one of her favorite forms of foreplay. Right?”
Sunny opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She merely nodded, then managed a hoarse “Right.”
A wayward strand of hair was lying on her cheek. He leaned forward and blew on it gently until it relocated and settled in front of her ear, the one with the two diamond studs in it. He seemed entranced with the way the diamonds sparkled through that wispy strand of hair.
“Yeah, I see what you mean, Sunny. Marriage has its benefits,” he said. “But after a while, the same old thing night after night would no doubt get tiresome.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh?” He tilted his head back to see her better.
Sunny wet her lips. “Not if they wanted to please each other.”
“Hmm, and not if both of them had a spirit of adventure.”
“Yes, and ... and if they cared enough to make each other happy in and out of bed.”
“That almost sounds like love, Sunny.” He took her earlobe between his thumb and index finger and toyed with the two diamond earrings. “Are you talking about love?”
“I ... I guess I am.”
“Then it really wouldn’t matter how they went about it, would it?” His gaze met hers. The heat rising out of them melded their gazes together. “Anything they did would be making love. When he put his body inside hers, it would be more than sex. Though, God knows, that would be great. But it would entail love and trust and commitment, things like that.” Visually, he feasted on her face. “And there wouldn’t be any reason for him to rush it. He could stay nestled inside her for a long, long time, as long as he liked. Even after they fell asleep lying face-to-face.” He pressed his forehead hard against hers and squeezed his eyes shut. “Damn, Sunny, talking about it has made me want it really bad.”
Sunny knew the feeling. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to be experiencing exactly the kind of intimacy Ty had painted in word pictures. She wanted to tilt her face up to his, touch his lips, take his tongue into her mouth. She even made a yearning sound and the initial movement to do so.
But he raised his head away from hers and with a rueful smile said, “But that’s not for us. You’re happy living independently in New Orleans. And, as you’ve said, I’m the town stud.” He stood up. “Well, here comes Steve. G’night, Sunny. See you at the wedding.”
No one could tell from Sunny’s appearance just how dark and gloomy her mood was. On the outside, wearing the dress that perfectly complemented her coloring, she looked like a sunbeam. Radiant. Glowing. But within, she felt as lifeless and dull as cold metal.
When she had walked down the aisle, she had held her head up proudly, but standing through the ceremony at the altar had been pure hell. She had felt just as many stares boring into her back as there had been watching the bride and groom exchanging their vows.
She had avoided looking directly at the best man, but, like moths to a flame, her eyes seemed determined to die in the fire of his steady, blue gaze.
Then she took Ty’s arm and left the church by the center aisle; she kept several inches between her body and his. Her attitude was unfriendly and stoic. They might have been strangers. Speculative stares followed them, some laced with resentment and envy. She wanted to stop and tell those women she had laid no claim to their sheriff, and they could fight over him for all she cared. She wasn’t in the competition. As soon as this wedding was over she would never have to look at him again and that suited her just fine.
Only another half-hour
, she thought to herself now as she surreptitously checked her wristwatch. Fran had told her the reception would last no more than an hour. She and Steve planned to make a quick getaway because they were taking an evening flight to St. Thomas out of New Orleans.
The whole ordeal couldn’t be over soon enough for Sunny, whose feet ached from the tight new pumps, almost as much as her cheeks ached from smiling insincerely. Lord, she couldn’t wait to leave this town. She planned never to cross the city limit signs of Latham Green again after she escaped them this time.
Maybe she would leave tonight instead of tomorrow as she’d originally planned. Why wait? There was nothing to keep her here. If she got back to the cabin by—
“Sunny?”
Her head snapped up at the familiar voice. “Hello, Don.”
She had seen him and Gretchen on the church lawn after the ceremony and several times during the reception, drifting in and out of her range of vision as they mingled with the other guests. Gretchen wouldn’t meet Sunny’s eyes. Sunny had felt a pang of regret over the loss of that friendship, but knew it couldn’t be helped.
Don asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“We are talking.”
“I mean in private.” She was about to tell him no, but he rushed to say, “Please, Sunny. We owe each other that much, don’t we?”