At the third drawer, William jumped up from the table, frowning. “You’re doing this out of defiance, but it makes much more sense to have an organized kitchen, an organized life, for that matter. The way I have everything, you could find things if you were blind.”
“But I’m not blind, am I?”
She opened drawer number four, but William caught her hand. “Stop that.” When she tried to pull her hand away he held it and pulled her against him.
“There is no excuse for disorganization!” William snapped and Jackie began to laugh, and her laughter made him smile. “I’m not going to let you do that,” he said. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to sort everything in those drawers?”
“Less time than it took me to put them in order in the first place.” Within seconds t
heir disagreement turned into a playful tug-of-war, with William pulling her hand back every time she reached for a drawer knob.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” she said, laughing, pulling against him. “This is a stupid idea of organization. I put things where I use them.”
“Ha! You may have started out that way, but now you just put things wherever you happen to be standing. Ninety-nine percent of this stuff was in one drawer, the drawer closest to the sink where you take them out of the dish rack. Laziness is your organizer.”
So what if there was more than a little truth to his words? It was dreadful when people got to know you well enough to see your faults. It was so much better before they knew you well and thought you were perfect.
“Let me go,” she said, wriggling against him. Then somehow she was fully in his arms, facing him, her arms pinned between them.
“I like this,” he said, beginning to nuzzle her neck. “You smell good, like sleepy perfume.”
“Like what?”
William was kissing her neck. His hands were firmly on her back, pressing against the thin fabric of her robe and pajamas.
“I…I don’t think you should do that.” Her head was back and her eyes closed. She should stop him, she thought. But it was the ol’ ice cream subterfuge. How could she stop a fully grown man when she was so weak from loss of blood? She’d stop him when she felt better.
“Jackie, you are so beautiful. Do you have any idea what you look like in the morning?”
“Like I slept in the barn?”
“Yes.” His lips were on her earlobe now. “You look warm and soft and sweet, so very sweet. Your voice is a little husky, and your eyes are only half open.” His hands slid down her back to the curve of her buttocks, moving no farther, just resting firmly on that curvaceous area, as his lips crept to the center of her throat.
“William, I, ah, I think I’d better get, ah, dressed.”
“Sure,” he said, and stepped away from her so quickly she staggered back against the sink, where she caught herself with her good hand. He walked toward the doorway of the kitchen and stood there a moment, his back to her. She could see his shoulders moving as he took one deep breath after another as though to calm himself.
“I don’t think we should do that again,” she said softly.
“Me neither.” His voice was firm, as though he was telling himself that he could not again do what he had just done. When he turned back to her, he was smiling once again. The only difference she could see was that the skin around his neck seemed to be a little pinker than usual.
With a detached air, William took a step forward and deftly, swiftly, unbuttoned her pajama top all the way down. “Now go get dressed. I’ll do the buttoning and tie your shoelaces.” His head came up and there was a look of pleading in his eyes. “But, Jackie, please try to close your own zippers.”
She started to laugh, but the look in his eyes was too serious. “I’ll do my best,” she said solemnly, but she was bubbling with joy inside. It was lovely to feel desirable, she thought as she practically skipped to the bedroom. When you’re seventeen and men desire you, it’s frightening. You have no idea what to do with them. At that age you want to be thought of as an intelligent woman, no longer a child. At seventeen you want to prove to your mother that you are an adult, that you can get a man, just as she did, and that you are adult enough to be able to run a house and take care of that man—just as she did. It annoys you that all a man can think of is putting his hands inside your clothes. Why weren’t seventeen-year-old boys serious about life and the future? Didn’t they know what lay ahead for them? There were few things in life more serious, more earnest, more confused, than a seventeen-year-old girl.
But at thirty-eight, you no longer had to prove yourself to your mother. By thirty-eight you knew that running a house and taking care of a man wasn’t some great challenge; it was just repetition. Over and over again, washing his socks, figuring out what to feed him, doing the same things again and again. At thirty-eight you wanted to feel desirable—and you wondered what had happened to all the seventeen-year-old boys who couldn’t keep their hands off girls. Just as a woman began to relax and want to have a little fun, she found herself married to a man whose only desire in life was to sleep until dinner, then sleep until bedtime. What happened to all that energy? All that lust?
Sometimes it seemed to Jackie that men and women were mismatched. When she had first married Charley, she wanted to prove to him that she was worth his having married her. To her this meant cooking and keeping his clothes clean and, of course, flying. She so wanted to impress him with her flying. But Charley liked to spend afternoons in bed; Jackie wanted to spend afternoons in a plane.
Now, many years later, Jackie felt that she was where Charley had been years ago. She’d proved herself to herself—to the world, actually—and now she wouldn’t mind…She wouldn’t mind spending an afternoon or so in bed with a man.
Of course, she reminded herself, not this man. This man, this very young man, William Montgomery, was off limits. If she missed the company of a man she should look for someone more…appropriate. Yes, that was the right word. Appropriate meant the right age, the right social background, the right everything. It meant a man who could help her along life’s pathways. Yes, that was right. An older man would have the wisdom to help a woman. At that thought Jackie snorted. She’d had one man in her life who was as much a father as a husband. She didn’t need a third father in her life.
Jackie shook her head to clear it. Just enjoy this, she thought. As an elementary school teacher’s students might fall in love with her, so William thought he was in love with an older woman. And she was mature enough to enjoy his attention, wasn’t she? Enjoy it and handle it.
Smiling, feeling that she was being a mature adult, she did the best she could at getting out of her pajamas and into a pair of loose gabardine trousers, a rayon shirt with patch pockets, and a big white cardigan tied about her shoulders. She managed the zipper on her trousers, but the buttons were impossible. She took just a bit longer with her hair and face than she would have on an ordinary day, but she excused herself for that. Every woman wanted to look nice when she went out, didn’t she? Never mind that many times in the past Jackie had laughed at women who fixed their hair just so before flying an airplane. An hour in a dust storm and you were lucky to have any hair left, much less have it arranged.
Holding her shirt together, she walked into the living room where William was occupying himself by rearranging the drawers of her desk. When she let out an exclamation, he turned and told her she looked beautiful, and there was honesty in his eyes.