Nobody's Baby but Mine(125)

They stopped near an old white ash he’d climbed when he was a kid. His father pressed his mother against the trunk. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and the next thing he knew, they were going at it like a couple of teenagers.

His parents’ estrangement was finally over, and he smiled for the first time in days. But his smile faded as he saw the direction his father’s hands were taking and realized he was getting ready to feel up his mother!

With a shudder, he turned the rocker around. There were some things he didn’t want to witness, and that was right at the top of his list.

For the next couple of hours he dozed on and off between brief visits from Kevin and Ethan, neither of whom seemed to have any idea what to talk about. Ethan settled on politics, while Kevin rather predictably picked football. His father was noticeably missing, but he didn’t let himself dwell on what the old man and his mother might be doing. He heard nothing from Jane.

It was close to dusk when his mother appeared. She was badly mussed, and the redness on her neck looked suspiciously like beard burn. A bit of dried leaf clung to her hair, just behind her ear, giving further evidence that she and the old man had been doing something more than collecting wildflowers out in those woods.

She gazed down at him, and her forehead creased with worry. “Are you hungry? Would you like me to bring you a plate of food?”

“Don’t do me any favors.” He knew he sounded surly, but he felt as if she had betrayed him.

“I’d invite you inside, but Annie won’t allow it.”

“You mean Jane won’t allow it.”

“You’ve hurt her, Cal. What do you expect her to do?”

“I expect her to come out here so we can talk.”

“So you can yell at her, you mean?”

Yelling was the last thing on his mind, and he started to tell her that only to find himself once again alone on the front porch. For someone who’d set out to protect his parents from his personal life, he’d made an unholy mess of it.

Night settled over the mountain, and failure twisted at his belly. He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. She wasn’t going to come out. How had he screwed things up so badly?

The screen door creaked on its hinges, and he looked up to see her. His boots dropped to the floor, and he straightened in the chair.

She had on the same thing she’d worn the day she’d left him: that buttery cotton dress with the big tan buttons down the front. This evening there was no headband in her hair. It fell helter-skelter around her beautiful face and looked just as it did when they’d finished making love.

She slipped her hands into the pockets. “Why are you doing this?”

He wanted to sweep her right off the porch and into the woods where he’d love her until she was the one with beard burn and dry leaves in her hair. “You’re not leaving, Jane. Not without giving us a chance to work this out.”

“We’ve had lots of chances, and we’ve blown every one.”

“You mean I have. I promise you I won’t blow the next one.”

He rose from the rocker and moved toward her. She took an instinctive step back against the railing. He forced himself not to go any closer. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t like being backed into a corner.

“I love you, Jane.”

If he’d expected his announcement to sweep her off her feet, he’d badly miscalculated. Instead of showing pleasure, her big, sad eyes seemed to swallow her face.

“You don’t love me, Cal. Don’t you see? This has turned into another game for you. Last night you finally realized that you were going to lose, but you’re a champion, and losing isn’t acceptable. Champions do whatever it takes to win, even saying things they don’t really mean.”

He stared at her, flabbergasted. She didn’t believe him! How could she think this was just about winning? “You’re wrong. That’s not it at all. I mean what I said.”

“Maybe right this second you do, but remember what happened after you saw me naked. The game was over, Cal, and you lost interest. This is the same way. If I agreed to take you back, you’d lose interest.”

“I didn’t lose interest after I saw you naked! Where did you get that crazy idea?” He realized he was yelling, and frustration made him want to yell even louder. Why was it so impossible for him to communicate like a normal person?

He swallowed hard and ignored the film of sweat that was breaking out on his forehead. “I love you, Jane, and once I make up my mind about something, it’s made up for good. We’re alike that way. Call off your watchdogs.”

“They’re not my watchdogs, they’re yours!” Agitation showed in her expression. “I’ve tried to get them to leave, but they won’t do it. They’ve got this idea that you need them. You! Ethan’s told me all the sentimental stories from your childhood, and Kevin has described every touchdown you’ve ever made or even thought about making. As if I care! Your father’s narrowed in on your academic accomplishments, which is the last thing I want to hear about!”