Cupid’s Confederates

Chapter 5

“A lot of nonsense, really,” Elizabeth said virtuously. “I knew that ahead of time. You don’t think I didn’t?”

“Of course you did,” Bett agreed.

“You think I needed some stranger to tell me your father loved me?”

“No, Mom,” Bett agreed.

“And what a shyster he was, with all that business implying you weren’t a virgin when you married. Honestly, Brittany! I remember now that he asked me on the phone all about the family, and maybe I even mentioned Andrew’s name, heaven knows why. I know I can get to talking on occasion…but I certainly never would have intimated such a thing. I know perfectly well you were a good girl when you married Zach…”

Bett removed her tongue from her cheek long enough to reply, “Yes, Mom.” The last one in, she closed the front door and dropped her purse and sweater on the couch. Zach was already heading upstairs. He had barely said a word the entire drive home, not that he wasn’t exhausted. After working a twelve-hour day, he’d needed that ridiculous outing like a hole in the head. It was after midnight, and no wonder he was a bit…taciturn.

It undoubtedly had nothing at all to do with that slight oversensitivity he’d always had on the subject of one Andrew Alexander.

“Brittany, wouldn’t you like to have a cup of tea with me before we go to sleep?” Elizabeth paused hopefully in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Honestly, not tonight.” Bett gave her mother a hug and a smile. “I’m really bushed, and the alarm will be ringing at five-thirty.”

“Maybe I should go to bed then, too,” Elizabeth said absently.

“Good idea.”

“Is it supposed to be nice tomorrow? I didn’t hear a weather report after dinner.”

Bett put one foot on the stairs. “Good night, Mom.” One could get drawn into these rambling conversations for an endless period of time. Elizabeth could discuss for up to an hour whether or not she wanted to go to bed. Bett understood; night was the loneliest time, the time when Elizabeth missed her husband most, the time when she needed someone close to her. Tonight, though, she was stuck with a daughter who felt somewhere between old-rag tired and porcupine edgy.

“Maybe I should work on one of the afghans for a while. If I don’t get started, they’ll never get done.” Elizabeth peered up at her daughter at the top of the stairs.

Bett turned the corner out of sight, that slight prick of guilt gnawing inside the way it always gnawed when she failed her mother, even in the littlest things. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, she washed her face, rugged off the smocked dress and tossed it in the wicker laundry bin. To accuse her mother of selfishness was absurd, when the lady would positively break her back to “do for” and please her loved ones. But it did seem that Elizabeth always needed something from Bett, and Bett hadn’t stopped feeling drained for a week.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. Silently, Bett turned the knob and tiptoed into the dark room wearing only her bra and half-slip. Zach had crashed; she could see his long frame sprawled on the bed in the shadows. Slipping off the rest of her clothes, she slid slowly down between the cool sheets. The mattress and pillow cushioned her weary body. For a moment, she lay on her back, and then instinctively turned, sliding an arm around Zach’s waist to cuddle next to him.

It was difficult to cuddle next to steel.

Zach, though totally still and silent, was not asleep. Every muscle from his neck to his spine could have won an award for stiffness. Since he hadn’t said anything, Bett knew he didn’t want to talk. She hesitated unhappily. There were times to give a mate space, and times when that space only made things worse. After putting in the grueling workdays he’d been putting in, and after a fiasco like the evening just past, Zach was certainly entitled to a little “let me alone” time. Only she had the feeling he was annoyed by something completely different.

She leaned back a little, staying on her side. Slowly, with an almost imperceptible touch, her palms smoothed up Zach’s back and her fingers curled on both sides of his neck. His muscles actually tightened at her touch. She paid no attention. Letting the heels of her hands rest on his bare shoulders, she pressed her fingers lightly around his collarbones, her thumbs rubbing gently into the nape of his neck and his scalp.

Gradually, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to the black and white and gray of moonlight. Her hands looked very white next to Zach’s dark skin, a sensuous contrast. Her gentle touch turned bolder, as she massaged muscles that didn’t want to unknot, concentrating on his most vulnerable spots, absorbed in the challenge. Her fingertips slowly took on the warmth of his skin and fed it back to him. As the knots smoothed out, her own tension eased and turned into lazy pleasure at the touch of him. She tested the effectiveness of her treatment with her forefinger. She pushed just slightly at his back; he immediately collapsed on his stomach. Zach was a disgraceful sucker for a back rub.

Silently, she tugged the sheet off altogether and straddled his back, feeling a thousand totally sexual nerve endings tingle with interest at the feel of her bare thighs against his bare hips. It was so very dark. Barely a hint of moonlight strayed in through the windows; not a sound intruded in the still room. Her hands rubbed and kneaded and smoothed. Arching forward, she massaged his shoulders, the tips of her breasts gently teasing the smooth skin of his back. Then she worked down, vertebra by vertebra, her legs tightening around his hips in natural balance as she moved. Her hands seemed to become part of his skin, and when she heard his groan of pleasure she smiled, but didn’t stop.

Only when she was certain every tendon had gone limp, every muscle had relaxed, did her fingertips change their rhythm to a slow caress of circles and butterfly patterns.

“About a hundred years ago,” she whispered lazily, “I understand that a woman used chicken blood to convince a lover that he was the first.” She traced the line of his spine with a long, gentle finger. “I don’t think they sell it at the drugstores nowadays.”

Even in the darkness, she could see his thick black lashes flutter upward. So he thought she didn’t know what was bothering him? She leaned forward, letting her nipples rub back and forth between his shoulder blades.

“So maybe I never should have told you about Andrew? Or maybe you shouldn’t have asked. How was I to know it was going to bother you so much?” Her lips pressed tightly on the nape of his neck, then trailed along the curl of his shoulder in a series of very light kisses. “Or I could have told you he was a bastard. That the sex was dreadful.” Bett took a breath, and then let her tongue erase all those little kisses on the way back to his neck. “Loving with you is perfect, you know. There isn’t any comparison, and never has been. But I refuse to lie to you, Zach, out of…pride. Yes, I had another relationship, and it was a very good one. I grew up because of it; I was ready to learn what love was and what I wanted from a relationship because of it. Without Andrew, Zach, the two of us might never have been. So if you expect me to be ashamed of what happened before I even met you-”

One instant Bett was perched on his back and the next she was sprawled beneath him. Amazingly, Zach no longer had the lazily relaxed qualities of a man ready for sleep. Something very definitely alive and unyieldingly firm was pressing against her abdomen. Zach’s skin was warm and vibrant, and his mouth anchored on hers, interrupting her speculative monologue. Her arms slid lightly around his neck as she savored all the allure in that kiss, all the tender, sweet, intimate taste of her lover. Only after an age did his mouth lift from hers. “There are times you make me feel like a fool, Bett. So the old mountebank got to me,” he grumbled softly. “Haven’t you ever felt jealousy?”

Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Definitely. When I see a woman look at you in a certain way, I feel this ugly, smothering urge to lock you up out of harm’s way. And when I think of women you slept with before we met, I could paint my fingernails emerald. But, Zach, it’s not the same.”

He raised some of his weight from her by balancing on his elbows, his lips still dipping down to her nose, her cheek, into her hair. “How is it not the same when I feel jealous of you?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

His smile pressed on her smile in a lazy kiss. “Two bits, that isn’t rational.”

“So?”

Zach’s laughter rumbled from deep in his chest. He drew her closer to him, holding her tight, engulfing her with his warmth. His leg slid between hers as they rolled to their sides. The motion was intimate, their change of mood mutual. Bett’s breasts swelled against him, aching as his palm possessively captured one sensitive orb.

She nearly jumped to the ceiling when she heard the gentle tap on the door. The door opened just a crack, about the time the top sheet was hurriedly being rustled into place.

“Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered. “Don’t wake Zach, darling. I figured you wouldn’t be asleep just yet…”

She couldn’t find her crochet hook. Surely Bett had seen it? And in the meantime, Bett used to stock cinnamon tea; Elizabeth had looked all over the kitchen…

Bett rose, grabbed her robe and belted it around her on the way downstairs. A half hour later, she returned to bed. Zach was still awake, but the mood was clearly broken. Exhaustion claimed both of them as she curled at his side.

“Bett?” Zach murmured just before sleep overcame them.

“Hmm?”

“Your mother is a very nice lady.”

“Hmm,” Bett responded again.

“That’s the third time this week that she’s prevented her daughter from being ravished. Now, is it me, or does she have ESP?”

Bett smiled, her eyes closed. “Zach, when she gets…lonely, she just doesn’t think. That, and I wouldn’t be an acceptable member of the family if I didn’t have insomnia.”

“Try that again.”

“My mother has insomnia. So did her mother; so did her mother; so did her mother; ad infinitum. Obviously, I have it, too. So she doesn’t think she’s waking me-”

“You’ve mentioned that you sleep like a brick?”

“No more than sixty-two times.”

His arm draped lazily over her side, pulling her closer. “All right,” he said sleepily after a time. “We’ll live with it, regardless, Bett. Give or take her ridiculous psychic, she’s a ton better. So we knew that a little disruption in our lives was inevitable. It won’t kill us to live with it for a while.”

Bett didn’t answer, but simply curled closer to him. Zach, most of the time so very easygoing and patient, was unquestionably faring better through the “disruption” than she was. How could she feel disgruntled, when the problem was her own mother? She felt grateful that he wasn’t angry over the interruptions in their love life. She felt resentful, as well, for her own sake. How could he not mind? She did.

Bett slipped a Debussy tape into the tape deck, let out the clutch, glanced in the rearview mirror of the tractor cab and steered toward the orchard. A fine white cloud billowed from the spray rig behind her, covering tree after tree. The gentle strains of classical music didn’t blend too badly with the soft whine of the sprayer.

Bett relaxed. The Massey was the best tractor they owned, and a beauty to work with. In the glass-windowed cab high above the ground, she was in her own private tower, loftily surveying the world she loved so well. She hummed an accompaniment to the rhythms around her. Every time one of their baby trees was covered, she felt a ridiculous surge of maternal relief. Got you, bug 9110. Safe, my sweethearts.

In college, she’d been an ardent ecologist; so had Zach. When they’d started farming, they’d made a solemn pledge not to use chemicals. They’d soon been forced to absolve each other of the pledge. No one wanted to buy wormy peaches. And there was no fun in watching a tiny tree one had planted, fed, watered and nurtured with love wither because of a fungus.

She and Zach were careful with their chemicals, their idealism not so much lost as tempered with realism. Grady told them regularly they were fools to be so fussy. Grady, on the other hand, didn’t view those rows of shiny green leaves and spreading branches as babies.

In two hours, she was done with the young block. There was another block to do in the afternoon, but it was almost lunch time. Vaulting down the three steps of the tractor, Bett hopped to the ground, stuck her hands in her back pockets and headed for the pickup.

She had left the driver’s door of the vehicle open, on the off chance that Sniper wanted out. Sniper hadn’t. In fact, the cat had picked up a hitchhiker, a saggy, tawny mutt with four inches of hanging jowls and mournful eyes.

“Baby!” A wet tongue lapped her cheeks as Bett hugged the hound. “So you’re looking for a ride, are you?” Lap, lap, lap. Bett grimaced. “Would you mind washing the cat for a minute or two? You’ll get your bone-you know there’s no need to butter me up.”

With a mournful sigh, Baby settled his head on Bett’s lap, making it extra difficult to drive. She hadn’t gone a hundred yards before she heard an odd sound in the engine. She braked to a stop, petted Sniper, shifted Baby’s head and stepped out to open the truck’s hood. The fan belt had a habit of jumping off at will. Five years ago, Bett would have been collecting competitive bids from the local garages while waiting for a tow truck. But now, with a glove on one hand, she slipped the belt back in place and returned to the driver’s seat.

The animals tussled for dominance, Sniper ending up on Bett’s lap this time and Baby announcing his hurt feelings by moaning through the open passenger window. Both animals made Bett chuckle. She was exhausted but didn’t care. The whole morning had been a joy of work she loved to do. She switched on the radio to an oldie about a song that made the whole world sing, and belted out the harmony in a husky alto. Baby joined in.

It was a joy just to get out of the house. In the two weeks since her mother had been with them, Bett hadn’t often been able to escape. The ceilings were now all washed. Grout sparkled in the bathrooms. Cans of soup were lined up in the cupboard. Everything was put away. Bett couldn’t find a thing, but her mother couldn’t conceivably take on another project that involved scaling heights, acquiring blisters or expending great amounts of elbow grease. Luckily, Bett had intervened in most such instances. Since even the closet corners now reeked of disinfectant, Bett had felt reasonably safe in leaving the house that morning. Her mother couldn’t possibly find anything more strenuous to do than make a peach pie.

“Mom?” she called absently as she let herself in the front door. Still humming, she took off her boots and made her way to the downstairs bathroom to wash her hands, using the same hand cleaner Zach did, the only product that really worked on grease. Unlike Zach, though, she finished the job with apricot hand cream. Still rubbing it in, she wandered back to the kitchen.

“Mom?”

With a slight frown, Bett poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip as she wandered back out of the kitchen toward her desk. Setting the cup down, she curled up with one leg under her and reached for the week’s receipts for orders of peaches and plums. Three receipts into the pile, Bett reached for the coffee cup, then set it down again. “Mom?”

The prickling up her spine felt like a mother bird’s instinct of danger to its young. Bett stood up, knowing full well Elizabeth’s Lincoln was in the yard. Her mother generally considered fresh air a trial one had to endure in order to go to and from shopping. Hence, the lady was in the house.

And the lady was not answering.

Bett took the stairs two at a time. She peered first into her mother’s bedroom, then her own, then the bathroom. The door at the end of the hall was closed, that spare room that was eventually to be the nursery.

Bett opened the door, stopped short and swallowed a long, deep breath.

Her mother was wearing her pink tennis shoes, aqua pedal pushers and an orange bandanna. A ladder was perched in the middle of the floor, surrounded by tarps and old sheets. A jumble of rollers and paintbrushes dripped paint. Mint-green paint. Three gallons of it.

“Brittany! How could you come in here! I had planned this to be a total surprise!” Elizabeth glared at her daughter in comic dismay, though somewhere in those doe-soft eyes was a bouncing anticipation of Bett’s sure response.

Bett, for the moment, couldn’t give it. “Mom.” She rushed forward as Elizabeth came down the last two steps of the teetery ladder. “What are you doing?”

“You can see what I’m doing, silly one. Honestly, Brittany, I knew you had this room in mind for a baby sooner or later, and I thought this was one way I could pay you and Zach back. Zach just will not take any money from me, and here I am staying in your house, eating your food…” Elizabeth rubbed the knuckles of both hands into the small of her back, a gesture that indicated how physically difficult such a project was for her. “Aren’t you pleased?” she asked suddenly, the smile on her face fading as she noted Bett’s stillness.

Pleased? If she’d known her mother was using the most rickety ladder on the farm, she would have been developing ulcers. “Mom. I don’t want you doing anything like this-”

“I know that. What does that have to do with anything? Brittany?” Elizabeth’s face rapidly took on an unsure look. “You don’t like the color?”

Bett hated the color, but that was neither here nor there. She felt possessive about this room. Her mother could have absolutely anything Bett had, but this room had been a private thing for Bett from the instant she and Zach had made plans for the house. She and Zach were going to do it together, when it was time for the baby. A gentle cream color for the walls, with murals of kittens and raccoons and gentle lions, big and bold and soft. Not green.

Elizabeth’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You didn’t like it? I felt so sure you’d be thrilled-”

Bett moved forward helplessly. “I am,” she assured her mother, and forced a smile as she hugged her. “I am…I was just…overwhelmed for a moment. And angry with you.”

“Angry with me?”

“For taking on something like this with your arthritis. Dammit, look at you, Mom.”

“Don’t swear.” But unconsciously, Elizabeth had been trying to rotate a swollen wrist. She stopped the instant Bett mentioned her arthritis. “It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing. Mom…” Bett stared in despair at the half-painted room. The bright mint green caught the morning light. Some greens did well in sunlight. This one turned putrid. What was she going to do about her mother? In the meantime, she had an orchard to spray that afternoon; Zach had taken on enough jobs in the past two weeks. And she really had to tackle that bookkeeping; the workers had to be paid tomorrow.

“You don’t like the color.” Elizabeth’s lip was quivering.

Bett whirled. “Of course I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

“I was so sure you would love it.”

“Mom. I do!” Elizabeth was rubbing her sore wrist again, a waif at fifty-four in her orange bandanna and pedal pushers. “Mom, I really do,” Bett said softly. “And I’m grateful for the thought, really I am. You’re a very special, generous lady and I love you for it. But you’re not going to paint this room; it’s just too much for you.”

“Well, you don’t have time.” Elizabeth tugged down her blouse. “I admit it was a little more of a job than I had originally anticipated, but I’ll manage, Brittany. I’ll just take it slower-”

“What I’m counting on you to manage is Zach’s lunch,” Bett intervened swiftly. She tried out an impish smile. “I was looking for an excuse to play hooky this afternoon anyway.”

“You always have so much to do…”

“Not this afternoon, I don’t,” Bett lied blithely.

Her mother allowed herself to be gradually bullied downstairs. Then Bett returned alone to the nursery and stared at the green walls for a few moments in silence.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know exactly why her mother continually upset her-and why she kept letting it happen. Mother and daughter were coming from two different generations, and worse, two different systems of values. Because Bett didn’t live her mother’s lifestyle, Elizabeth seemed to feel she was being criticized for her own choices. You must see that what I’ve done all my life is important, she continually told Bett ever so unconsciously. A feminine woman, by the standards of Elizabeth’s generation, kept a clean house, prepared for babies and didn’t ride tractors.

Two weeks of subtle criticism, though, had depressed Bett. Not because she was unhappy with her own choice of lifestyle, however. It just wasn’t a simple thing, two women’s different definitions of “woman.” She couldn’t conceivably argue with her mother when Elizabeth was going through a rough period. And her mother really couldn’t see that Bett had anything more important to do than paint a room in ultimate preparation for a baby.

Bett picked up the paintbrush, stared at the strange green color dripping from it, and sighed.

Zach strode through the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. At the sound of his footsteps, Bett glanced down from her perch on the ladder, regarding her husband’s flinty blue eyes with a sick fluttering in her stomach. Surely he realized Elizabeth was responsible for the painting? He knew his wife well enough to realize mint green was not among her favorite colors. So why did he look angry?

“Hi there,” she tried brightly.

Zach said nothing. He often walked into this empty room at the end of the hall, for no reason, really. This odd feeling would hit him sometimes, and he’d find himself by the window in here…

“Zach?”

An odd uneven pulse was beating in his throat. They’d argued about finishing this room or not. They’d argued over the architectural plans for it; they’d argued square footage and the shape of the window. They had agreed to let it stand empty until they were ready to start a family, which had made perfect sense to both of them. At least, he’d believed it made sense to both of them. The pulse in his throat kept throbbing. It seemed very foolish to feel hurt about this; Zach had never considered himself in any way oversensitive. It was just…Bett was his whole family. And he could have sworn she’d understood his need to be involved when a baby was made part of that unit.

“You know if you’d waited just a couple more weeks until the harvest was over,” he said quietly, “I would have helped you.”

“We can do it over,” she said swiftly. She realized suddenly that he hadn’t even noticed the color. She had to explain, and yet she didn’t want to sound as if she were accusing Elizabeth. It was bad enough to be harboring uncharitable thoughts about her own mother…

“It doesn’t matter.” Zach turned toward the door. “Be back in for dinner.”

He was gone; Bett was still swallowing the huge lump in her throat, trying to find the right words to say.