He reached for the button of her faded jeans, paused, then took a deep breath and unfastened them, pulling them off and down her legs. She was so tenderly-formed; shapely thighs, pretty calves, dainty ankles. She wore panties with tiny hearts all over them. Her skin still had a trace of the tan she’d acquired over the summer.
She overwhelmed him. He didn’t know where to touch, first. He forgot about taking off his clothes. Travis could do nothing but stare down at Annie in amazement at how lovely she was. He feathered his fingertips over her stomach and felt it flutter. Nerves, anticipation, he had no idea which, but it excited him. He couldn’t stop looking at her.
When she tugged at his own sweater, his gaze snapped back to hers. She swallowed, hard. “I want to see. Travis, can I—?” The words seemed to stick in her throat.
“Oh, God, sorry.” He fought the urge to fidget and tried to remain still while she undressed him. Somehow she got everything unbuttoned, and soon he wore only his briefs. The heat rose in his cheeks and felt almost as warm as the pretty blush he saw on Annie’s soft skin. For a few seconds they remained side by side, their hands clasped, hardly daring to breathe.
With hesitant touches and shy caresses they came together on the cool sheets. He trailed kisses over her, and each one tasted like heaven. He touched her, marveling at the differences between a woman and a man, how skin could take on such a sheen of silk when it stretched over slender bones.
“Annie—” He wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. Permission to continue, assurance she wasn’t scared? It didn’t matter because she seemed to understand without further words. She stroked her fingers over him and made him shudder. This time when he kissed her, she clutched his hair with both hands and held him tightly. A moan slipped from her lips, and he swallowed the breathy sound.
He wanted to inhale her, absorb her right through his skin. And he was glad he’d waited for her, glad he’d never given his innocence to another girl. Annie was the only one who could appreciate it. They’d waited for each other. What could be more perfect?
Her muscles quivered as he brushed his lips along her navel, and her legs moved restlessly when he nibbled on the tender curve of her breast. When he pressed against her, instinct took over. Their bodies blended together as easily as their love, sweet and true.
He’d never belong to anyone else.
She turned her face into his neck; her fingers gripped his shoulders. Her breath came in short, hot bursts. He found her mouth with his and kissed her deeply as their bodies moved, clung, shuddered. How could something this amazing be anything but right?
He looked into her face and saw the same wonder he could feel. He slipped his hands beneath her hips and pulled her closer. Closer. And just like that, the final link—the one stretched between their souls—forged and held. Permanent.
In the quiet, warm room, he made love to Annie with the eagerness and endurance of youth. The shadows at the window deepened into evening as they lost themselves in each other.
Ruth sat wedged between Martha and Phoebe in the waiting room outside ICU. Martha tried to get her to drink a cup of coffee, but she’d knocked it away. She didn’t want any damned coffee. She wanted to go home.
This wasn’t supposed to happen again. After the first stroke, Dr. Perkins, their family physician, told her Ronald would be fine. That all she had to do was alter his diet and add daily rehabilitation. Well, she’d done all he’d prescribed, hadn’t she?
She had Martha prepare special meals. She’d hired Phoebe—much as she hated to have another domestic in the house—to assume live-in status and to assure he received that daily rehabilitation the quack doctor had ordered. She’d even contracted to have a goddamn elevator installed. And for what? So Ronald could still be in danger of having another stroke? Forcing her to leave the security of her own home and sit in a hospital, in a stuffy room that smelled of stale coffee, smelly feet, and worse? Expecting more doctors to come forward and tell her that Ronald was now a vegetable. That’s what happened when someone suffered another stroke, they became little more than a rutabaga.
It was intolerable. She needed to go home.
“I have to go.” No one seemed to hear her, so she felt compelled to repeat herself. “I need to go home. I have to leave now.
I want to go,
now
.” With each repetition, her voice grew in volume and resolve, from a whisper to a shriek.
Martha slapped a hand on her shoulder and trapped her in the chair with one strong hand. On the other side, Phoebe gripped Ruth’s arm.
“Are you insane? Take your hands
off
me.
Don’t touch me
.” Ruth twisted in their grasp.
“Sit still, Ruth.” Martha’s tone bordered on the insubordinate. Incensed, Ruth struggled with Martha and pulled against Phoebe’s hands.
With a muttered curse, Martha leaned into Ruth and pressed an arm across her body. “Shut the hell up. I’ve had it with you. Show some spine. And while you’re looking for that spine, show some love and dedication to your husband. We’re waiting right here until Travis comes. Your son, remember him? You need to be strong for him.”
Ruth glared at Martha. “My son is a traitor. My husband is dying, and where is his son? Out somewhere, God only knows where, consorting with filth—”
Martha pinned her down. “Ronnie isn’t dying. Get that thought right out of your head, Ruth. He’ll be fine. We’ll take him home where we’ll all care for him. Including you. If I hear you speak one word about him dying when we get in there to see him, I will personally pop you one, right between your eyes. I mean it. You watch your mouth when we go see Ronnie.”
“He won’t even be aware that we’re in there, I tell you. He’s a vegetable, he’s—”
Martha’s open hand smacked across her cheek, snapping her head back. Ruth gasped in shock. Phoebe froze in her seat, gaping at both of them.
A light rain misted the air, but the temperature wasn’t cold enough to form ice on the roads. Two more miles and they’d be at Annie’s house. Travis drove slowly, reluctant for the evening to end.
The hours they’d spent together at the Shenandoah Inn hadn’t been enough. They’d used all of their time in a fever, making love as if they’d never get another chance.
He wanted more time with Annie but couldn’t anger her parents by traipsing in late, looking as if they’d been doing exactly what they
had
been doing. Her folks liked him, but her father also had a gun.
“I don’t want to leave you.” Annie’s soft voice roused him from his own bleak thoughts, and he turned to smile at her as they stopped for a red light.
“I don’t want to leave you, either. But I have to get you home, before your parents worry.” He signaled left and took the last street toward her neighborhood.
“Will you come in for a minute, Travis? Will you walk in and speak to my parents?” She didn’t have to say anything more. He knew what she meant. Talk to her folks, show them the ring, and ask for their blessing. The necessity of it made him nervous as hell. He knew when they looked at their daughter, they saw a girl barely old enough to have a serious boyfriend, much less a fiancé. It could go either way, and added to the mix was the knowledge they’d sealed their engagement with far more than a kiss.
Could her mother tell what they’d been doing, look into Annie’s eyes and sense it? Some people claimed they could see lost innocence in the eyes. Not for a second did he regret the hours they’d spent in each other’s arms. But he didn’t want to cause her mother any added worries, either.
“Travis?”
He shook off the panic and smiled at her. “I’ll come in. I’ll ask your parents, Annie. We’ll do it the right way.”
They pulled up in front of the house, and he helped Annie out of the car. Hand in hand they walked toward the house. Before they could even step inside, Mary met them at the door, her face etched with worry. “I’m so glad you finally made it back. Travis, your father is in the hospital in Harrisonburg. He had a stroke. You need to get there, right now. Mr. Turner and I will take you, but we have to go, immediately.”
All the color drained from Travis’s face as he tried to process what she’d said. “My dad? Another stroke? But how? When?”
Henry came up behind his wife. “Late this morning, son. After you and Annie left for Charlottesville. We have to go, Travis. I’ll drive. I don’t want you going by yourself. Come on, now.”
His mind blank with shock, Travis moved toward the driveway as Mary locked the front door behind them and Annie started to cry.
In the Turner’s old station wagon, Travis sat in the back with Annie close to his side, while Henry headed for the freeway. Guilt piled itself on, until Travis’s shoulders slumped with despair.
I shouldn’t have left the house. I should have stayed right by Dad’s side
.
What the hell had he been thinking? He knew his mother, knew the kind of awful things she could say when angered.
A warm hand engulfed the fist he clenched on the edge of the front passenger seat, and Travis blinked through blurred eyes at Mary as she turned in her seat. She soothed her palm over his tight knuckles. “Honey, there wasn’t a thing you could have done. A stroke hits hard and fast. You could have been sitting right next to him, and he’d have still had it. You understand me? Don’t you take this on, Travis. Don’t.”
“I could have been there when he had it. I could have been by his side.” Travis spoke low, but the adults in the front seat heard him.
“Travis, honey, that kind of thinking weakens you, and right now you need to be strong. Your mama especially will need you to help her—”
Instant fury boiled through him. “Help her? She did it to him. I know it. They were fighting last night.” He turned an agonized face to Annie. “And this morning, too. It was bad. My mother caused this.”
“Oh, Travis, no. Please don’t say that.” Annie slid her arm around him.
Mary tightened her grip on his hand, until his tense fingers relaxed. “Travis, listen to me. Your mama and daddy might have been arguing, but that’s not what caused this. Married folks argue all the time, and it doesn’t cause anything but maybe some hard feelings. Mr. Turner and I have our spats, and we get over it. Your folks will, too. There isn’t any blame, here.”
“Yes, there is. I shouldn’t have left him alone with her. So the blame’s mine, for doing that. She shouldn’t have said the things she did. You don’t know—you can’t imagine—” He couldn’t finish for the anguish that clogged his throat. He dropped his head on Annie’s shoulder and sobbed as she held him.
Twenty minutes later, Travis rushed out of the ICU elevator ahead of Annie and her parents, and straight into Martha’s arms. In her embrace he started to tremble, suddenly a child again, trying to accept the bitter knowledge his father wasn’t Superman, after all.
“How is he? He’ll be all right, won’t he?” Travis’s voice was deep but hoarse. A young man held her, but a boy's fright was behind the words he spoke.
Martha rubbed his back to soothe him. “He’s stable now. It was touch and go for a little while. Phoebe got the oxygen to him fast, so that’s a good thing.” She cradled his face in her palms, her thumbs brushing over his wet cheeks. “Now, you take a moment and calm yourself before you go in there, Travis. You stand here and take a few deep breaths, and you go in without tears. Your daddy might not be awake, but I believe he’s aware, and you don’t need to be crying all over him. Okay?” She released him.
Travis nodded and hurried toward the private ICU room. Martha fished a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. She’d cried more than her share today. When Annie and her family walked toward her, she wiped away fresh tears.
“How’s he doing?” Henry kept his arms around his family as he greeted Martha.
“He hasn’t regained consciousness yet, and that’s not always a bad sign. His vitals are better, that’s a real relief. Thing is,” Martha glanced at the open door of Ronald’s room and spoke quietly, “we don’t know how long he was upstairs after he had the stroke. We don’t know for certain how long he might have been deprived of oxygen.”
“He’s not going to die,” Annie burst out. “God wouldn’t let him die. It would kill Travis to lose his daddy.”
Her father hugged her close. “Honey, the doctors here are very good. They’ll do everything they can to help Travis’s daddy. Now, I want you to go sit down with your mama, okay?” Henry passed Annie to Mary, who led her into the waiting room.
He turned to Martha with a more serious expression. “How’s he really doing? I figure you didn’t want to get into it with either of the kids.”
She heaved a worried sigh. “It doesn’t look good, Henry. This stroke caused more damage than the first one he suffered two years ago. His right side was affected this time. He’ll probably be bedridden for the rest of his life. The cardiologist assigned to Ronnie is positive some brain damage occurred due to restriction of oxygen.”
She dabbed at her sore nose. “Ruth has been a handful, I can tell you. She fought us every step of the way when we drove here. Phoebe and I had to babysit her like a two-year-old.”
“Can she take over for Ronald temporarily, concerning the businesses?”
Martha’s shoulders lifted in a weary shrug. “As far as I know, Ruth never concerned herself with the legacy and its holdings. She only left the Hall maybe six or seven times, total, after she and Ronnie were married, and for the last few years, she’s never walked beyond the front door for any reason.”
“I had no idea her agoraphobia had gotten so bad.” Henry shook his head. “If there’s anything we can do, you have only to ask.” The sincerity in his voice was almost Martha’s undoing, and she battled her own emotion. It was vital to remain as strong as she could, for Travis. God knew the boy would need some added strength, and it was a sure bet he wouldn’t get it from his mother.
Ruth hurried along the ICU corridor. She couldn’t have taken one more minute in that airless room, listening to yet another doctor drone on about nursing homes and hospice care. She’d needed to escape. The ladies’ room had been the only place she could think to go where she might be alone for a few minutes.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ruth noted Phoebe walking toward her, and she sped up. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She strode past another, larger waiting room where the low ebb of voices briefly caught her attention. One of the voices sounded like Martha’s. And why on earth should she care, anyhow? Martha had been horrid to her.
As for her errant son, she’d decided to forgive him for the appalling way he’d behaved earlier. He was still such a child, despite his adult appearance. She’d take him in hand as soon as he arrived at the hospital.