Late Blooming Lily Read online

  Harry leaned forward to whiff at the steam. "Smells good. I like the matcha, though. You ever have that?"

  Lily blinked, having more expected to have to reconcile the old woman to the stuff than be criticized for its tameness. But an inquiry revealed that Harry was rather an ardent admirer of Japanese culture, and soon the two were talking with the animation and ease of old friends.

  "You don't wear a wedding ring," Harry observed. "Divorced, or too modern?"

  "Divorced. I'm not really very modern. He..." The light, practiced answer she'd given Rob earlier wouldn't satisfy Harry, she knew. "He never made me feel safe. I suppose that's as un-modern a thing to want as anything."

  Harry rubbed her nose. "Maybe, but what else is a man for? My husband, George, is just like a big, furry, old bear. May be a little gray now, but let anyone come near and watch his hackles rise!"

  Lily looked a little wistful at that. "Brian, he... I don't know. I didn't mind everything else. Or I did, but I could have lived with it. But... his boss felt me up at his company's Christmas party. And when I told him...."

  "Well, what? Did he blame you for it?"

  "No, not that. He didn't blame anyone. He, uh... wondered out loud if it would help his chances for promotion if I fucked the man. He pretended he was joking, but I couldn't believe he was. And it was sad enough that he'd do that to himself, but to think that he'd use me like that... well. I couldn't even stand to look at him after that."

  "Well, you're at an age where a lot of men are in the same boat like you are. I bet you could find another husband easy if you wanted one. God knows if I had an ass like that I'd take it out on the town for a little fun."

  Lily blushed and couldn't help saying, "Maybe. What about Rob Elgar? Is he divorced?"

  "Oh!" Harry looked rather tickled. "Met Rob, have we? Ain't he handsome? No, Rob isn't divorced. He could have had any girl around here easy, but he never paid anyone much mind. I guess he ran around some when he was younger, but he was too slippery to ever get caught. You got your mind set that way?"

  "Not set—and certainly not set on catching anyone! But, he is coming over for dinner tomorrow," Lily confessed.

  Harry gave a wide grin. "Yeah, but what are you going to cook him for breakfast?"

  Chapter Two

  In matters of importance, Lily was a meticulous planner, and though she didn't like the idea much, this dinner had somehow become very important to her. Therefore, when she heard Rob's truck outside and his heavy tread on the front porch, it only took a quick look around to assure her that everything was as it should be. The pork chops were waiting to go in the skillet, potatoes baking nicely in the oven, and the table was set and graced with an artful little arrangement of wildflowers. She opened the door only a moment after he knocked, and if she'd begun to doubt her immediate, unbridled reaction to the man in his presence, to doubt and dismiss it, the wave of hunger on seeing him confirmed that it had been no singular impulse. He looked so good, with a crisp, yet well-worn white shirt and those jeans that made her want to touch every muscular contour.

  Made shy and uneasy by her own desire, Lily didn't say much as she brought him into the kitchen. "Would you like wine or beer?"

  "Let's have wine with dinner," he said, and she couldn't help comparing him, again, to Brian, who would have dithered and asked which she was having.

  "Sounds good. Do you mind getting the bottle while I put the pork chops on?"

  "For the woman who's feeding me pork chops, I'd do a lot more than man a corkscrew, Lily," Rob grinned.

  "Really? Maybe I should've asked you to help me scrape wallpaper. If only I'd known!"

  He brought her a glass of wine while she manned the hissing, spitting chops at the stove, and his big hand folded over her fingers for a moment till he made sure she had it secure. The casual, natural intimacy of the gesture made her breath catch. They had never been like that, she and Brian. After their youthful ardor wore off, they were polite strangers who shared a home and a table while giving as little of their attention as possible to one another. "Thank you."

  "So, I hear you charmed the hell outta Harry Olsen the other day."

  "Did I? She's amazing. I hope I'm like that in thirty years."

  "She's a sweetheart. Some folks think she talks too plain, but there's never any harm in it. She's a good lady. She was real good to Pauline," he said, looking around the kitchen thoughtfully.

  "I'm glad. She and my mother were never close. I guess that after Mom left Montana, most of her family wouldn't speak to her at all. I think we came here twice when I was a kid—maybe three times. I'm not sure."

  "Surprised I don't remember you. Lived my whole life here," he said.

  "I don't think we met any neighbors. I know once was when my grandfather was dying. I was very young, I didn't understand anything that was going on, really. He wouldn't see her, even then. We flew out from Seattle, and flew back the same day when he wouldn't see us. And then we came out again, later, so I could meet my grandmother." There was a pause while Lily plated the food and brought it to the table. "That kind of thing usually doesn't mean much to either party, but I do remember her. I remember I was about nine, and I told her I liked to draw. And she said that I'd better do it well, then. That life was too short to waste doing anything badly."

  "That sounds like her," he nodded. "Real serious, but a good woman." He took a long whiff of the savory meat, surveyed the colorful array of roasted vegetables, and then began to eat with gusto. After a minute of serious chewing and contented noises, he said, "Lily, I'd like to pretend to be a civilized gentleman, but this is so damn good I'm like to eat the plate." Then he returned to attacking his food.

  Lily was delighted, taking it for the compliment it was. "I made an extra chop—if you don't eat it here, you can take it home." She took a deep swallow of the red wine, letting it warm her even as Rob's terse, unaffected appreciation did. For the next hour or so, they ate, and talked, and laughed. They didn't have a lot in common, unsurprisingly, but she liked listening to him talk about his herd, his rather satiric descriptions of their neighbors, and everything else. He listened too, asking her questions about her work, her life in Seattle, and her plans. Lily talked easily and animatedly with him, as she usually didn't. And when the conversation hit a lull when the plates were clean and they were lingering over wine, it was a comfortable quiet with no awkwardness.

  He was... beautiful wasn't the right word, or was it? Not a classic, Michelangelo beauty—yet Lily imagined that artist might have seen some of what she did in the strong, rather sinewy body, the tough face that could yet dissolve into smiles and tenderness, the big hands whose callouses and tiny scars spoke to a lifetime of hard work. "Can I draw you?" she blurted out, quite suddenly and without at all meaning to.

  He paused for a moment, then said, "Do I have to take my clothes off?"

  "No!" Lily was so startled she missed the gleam of wry humor in his eyes. "No, I just meant—I—no."

  "Damn. And here I'd thought some slick Seattle seductress was going to talk me outta my pants and my virtue in the name of art." He grinned, letting Lily see that he was only teasing her. "I'd be real honored. Guess no one ever liked my face well enough to make a picture of it before."

  But Lily didn't laugh, or follow the exit route he'd made for her. "I like it," she said quietly, her eyes fixed on her plate, cutting up a beet very small. "I like the... the wrinkles around your mouth. And your hands." When he was silent, she looked up shyly to see his eyes, darkly intent, upon her face.

  "What do you like about them?" There was that husk she'd imagined, making his voice raspy, and she gave a quick, sharp shiver.

  Lily laid down her knife and fork, and then reached out to take one of the big hands in hers. "Look at them. They're like roots—not gnarled, cramped ones, but strong. The kind that can split cement as they dig into the earth. Like the hand of some strange forest god." She was talking rather wildly, but she couldn't help it. Her blood was humming loudly in h
er ears and before she could talk herself out of it, she lifted his fingers to her lips for a soft kiss.

  "Lily," he said in a low voice, and when she looked up again, he let his hand slide over her jaw, caressing the soft skin there, into the sensitive area where her scalp met the nape of her neck. She waited, breathlessly, for him to kiss her, but then he pulled away. At her look of surprise and hurt, he smiled. "Go put that other pork chop in the icebox. I'd sure hate it to be wasted, and I've a mind we'll be a bit busy to be thinking of food safety."

  She nodded then and laughed a bit. "I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted," she said ruefully, getting up to obey.

  Rob shrugged a little. "Can't help it—guess I was born practical."

  "I can see that." Lily wasn't less enchanted with him, not exactly, but the pause, though not dimming her ardor, created a vulnerability, and fear came flooding in. What was she doing? They'd hardly talked, hardly spent any time together, and now she was going to... what? What exactly did she think would come of this? Orgasms weren't unknown to Lily, but it had been a very long time since she'd had one during sex. So she'd get a fuck. A fuck didn't sound bad, but—oh, the mess, the complication, the stupidity of it. The excuses he'd make after he found out how cold she was, how unable to really engage. The awkwardness if they ran into each other in town. The sight of chilled strawberries and whipped cream showed her an escape. "But we forgot dessert. What a poor hostess I am! This is my mother's shortcake recipe, and Harry brought me fresh strawberries from her garden—you'll love it," she babbled nervously, pulling out the fruit and cream and moving to get dessert plates.

  "What?" He looked startled. "I thought—" He stood up, but Lily didn't turn around, continued fixing the simple, lovely dessert.

  "If you're so practical, I can't think you'd turn down a good shortcake for no reason," she said, trying to sound light about it. "Unless one of your hands is secretly a pastry chef."

  "Hey." A single step closed the space between them, and he laid his hand on her arm, not forcing her to turn around, but urging her to. "What's wrong? It's—are you mad? I guess... I guess I wasn't real romantic. I'm not—" he struggled to articulate, to try and follow where her anxious mind had taken her.

  "Romance is for kids," Lily said dismissively. She turned towards him, but didn't look up, not sure she could manage the sight of his face just then. "It's me—I'm making a fool of myself. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to start something I can't finish... but I did. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." She spoke rapidly, a little tonelessly.

  He was quiet for a long moment. His big hand still rested on her bicep, lightly, and Lily felt so stupid and ashamed and angry with herself she could have died. She was near to tears, her breathing quick and distressed. Her head dropped further forward, the soft, lightly silvered gilt wave of hair hiding most of her face. "Please forgive me," she said again, her voice shaking.

  His hand slid down her arm, then curled around her hand. "Where are your pencils?"

  "My—" The question took her entirely aback, and it took her a moment to even remember what a pencil was. "I don't…."

  "Where are they?" he said again, more firmly. "You said you wanted to draw me, and that's what you're going to do. You're going to sit down and draw me, and we're going to talk."

  "Rob, please." Her voice came out higher, weaker than she meant. "I'm sorry, I know I made you think I would... that I could...." Her eyes were closed now, stinging at the pressure of salt tears behind them.

  His other hand came up to her face again, and his fingers slipped under her chin, forcing her head up. "Open your eyes, Lily. Look at me."

  It wasn't easy to obey. Even thus, shutting him out with every means at her disposal, she could smell his soap, the warm, fresh man scent of him. She could feel every centimeter of skin that touched his. Even without looking, he was too much. But she couldn't pull away—couldn't force herself to disobey. Finally, she opened her eyes, looking up at him, letting him see the tearful panic that held her fast.

  His own face was calm, inscrutable almost. Yet there was a strange tenderness to it that softened the overwhelmed feeling that scratched and tore within her. There was something safe there, some place of refuge in that gentleness. She waited, terrified yet strangely hopeful, for him to speak.

  "Go and get your pencils," he repeated, then released her and walked out of the kitchen and into the little sitting room.

  Numbly, Lily went out onto the front porch, where she'd left her sketching supplies after some work that morning. Standing out there, in the cool night air, she paused for just a moment to breathe. Why was he so insistent? He had no right to order her about and yet... and yet each tiny obedience brought a strange, unsettling thrill to it. She didn't have to go back into the house. She could stay out here. Hell, she could grab her keys off the hall table and just drive away from this place until she sorted out what was going on in her unhappy heart.

  But instead she picked up her sketchpad and the little pouch of charcoals and pencils that always accompanied it, and went into the sitting room. He was sitting in an armchair, and Lily was relieved, because if she'd had to face the prospect of sitting next to him on the couch, she wasn't sure she wouldn't have run after all. Instead, she sat down on an ottoman a little distance away. "I'm not sure it'll be anything worth looking at," she said, very softly. "I—shouldn't have let myself get so worked up."

  He didn't answer, and Lily sharpened a pencil carefully, and then slipped off her shoes, pulling her feet up under her as she turned to a fresh page in her sketchpad. The little rituals—the smell of the freshly-cut pencil, the posture of concentration, all of it—helped calm her more, letting the confident Lily who knew her business take over in some measure from the frightened, confused Lily. She didn't try to even look at his face yet, sensed it might spoil what he was trying to give her. Instead, she focused again on his hands, beginning first with quick sketches to judge the angles and shapes, then turning the page for a more detailed, careful approach.

  Rob was silent, and Lily knew he was waiting for her to speak. At last, she said, "I'm not frigid." It came out hard and defensive, and it wasn't quite what she wanted to say, but it came out all the same. "But... I can't... I won't like it," she said miserably. "And I would hate, you see, I would hate not to like it with you because..." she paused a long pause, and swallowed hard. "I like you."

  There was a long pause while Rob turned over her words, and then he said, "Does it hurt you? Have you seen a doctor?"

  Lily shook her head vigorously. "It's not—it's not like that. Everything works fine, but... I just can't like it. When I'm alone, I can relax and just feel good, but even with Brian, I never enjoyed it, not after the first little bit when I was so young and horny and crazy. It's... it's like looking out a window at people in the sunshine. You can see it on their faces and how warm and lovely it is, but you can't feel it. You... I meant what I said. You're so beautiful. And I want... but I can't. I just can't." Lily let the miserable, helpless refusal fall between them, laying her inadequacy, her worthlessness bare before him. Her pencil kept moving. Once the lines were laid out, she worked to add contour and shading, to try to do justice to the flesh that had so seduced her gaze even as she obstinately rejected the claim it had laid on her.

  "Tell me a story," he said, very unexpectedly.

  That was surprising enough to make her look up, and it was easier this time, now that she was calmer. The strange gentleness was still there, and Lily clung to it, even though she hadn't deserved it and never would. "I don't understand," she whispered. "What kind of story?"

  "Tell me a story you like. Tell me the story you tell yourself in bed when you touch yourself. Tell me the one that you never told anyone."

  Lily understood then, and if she had not been still and grounded by the task, she would have run away, very likely, rather than face that request. But with her hands moving, her mind was quieter, and slowly, she began to speak. "Once upon a time there was a girl. And her na
me was... Anne." She paused, trying to gather together the strands of fantasy.

  "How old was she?" Rob asked quietly.

  "Maybe sixteen?" Lily said uncomfortably. She hurried on, not wanting to dwell on the embarrassing point. "She lost her parents, and after they died, she had to go live with a friend of her father's, who was to be her guardian. And because she'd been raised very differently, she was upset and scared when she began to understand what her new life would be like. Anne wasn't a bad girl, and so her parents had never been very strict with her, but her guardian was. He gave her so many rules—an earlier bedtime than she was used to, lots of chores to do every day—things like that. He wasn't mean about it," she said judiciously. "It was for her own good. But he was very stern, and he made it clear that if she disobeyed, she'd be punished." She trailed off, having come to the shameful crux of the thing.

  "Punished how?"

  "At first he just made her write lines, or would send her to bed early. But she kept pushing. She didn't mean to be bad, I don't think, not really. But she missed her parents, and she was upset that he wasn't more understanding with her. And... and so she did something naughty—snuck out after curfew, I suppose. She got caught. She climbed back in through her window and found him there waiting in her bedroom. Maybe she'd never realized he would check on her when she was asleep." Lily swallowed hard, because it was becoming more difficult to maintain her focus. Just telling the story to him, and his wanting to hear it was making her almost more aroused than she'd been before with his hand in her hair. She still had no expectations that he would do anything more than laugh at her once he understood, but... he had asked. He wanted to know the story.