“Come with me,” Rhea invited. “I’ll show you my special back room.”
It was certainly a better choice than behaving like an idiot in front of Kern. The first two gin and tonics were working and the third she clung to like a security blanket, following the tall woman down a long, narrow hall.
“When my husband died, I got into this,” Rhea said quietly. “For six months I barely left this room. Kern mentioned yesterday that you used to be interested in this sort of thing…”
The “little something he thought she’d be interested in” was a quilting frame, and momentarily Trisha rallied. The frame took up most of the room, and she had an immediate picture of history, of mountain women seated around the diamond-star pattern, buzzing of their lives and loves a hundred years before. A long low trunk stood in one corner, and Rhea opened it, taking out a dozen finished quilts. Some had well-known designs and others were obviously Rhea’s own.
“I’m sorry about your husband,” Trisha offered quietly. She heard what wasn’t said, that six months of shutting herself away with painstaking work must have been the only way Rhea knew to deal with her grief.
Compassion touched Trisha for the other woman. It had nothing to do with Kern. “I’ve never seen some of these patterns except in books. I’ve got one I made at home, Rhea, but I could never match your skill with a needle.”
“I thought at first about selling them, but somehow at the time I just put them away and sort of forgot about them.”
Trisha fingered the lovely work. “I don’t know how you could sell them. They’re more like heirlooms.”
Rhea half smiled. “Not these. These I’d like to get off my hands, to tell you the truth. They remind me of a very bad time. Kern told me yesterday that you had something to do with marketing clothes. If you have any ideas…”
The confession she’d made to Kern flashed back to Trisha, of the shop of mountain crafts she’d once wanted to have. It was a passing comment at that moment, but he had heard. As a buyer she had a flair for marketing, far more than direct skill with a needle herself. And the old dream? In her mind she could already see a shop and feel the joy of being her own boss. Rhea would know others who wanted their crafts sold… Trisha looked up, about to say something to Rhea, and then stopped herself, finishing her drink instead. How many times did she have to remind herself that her time in the mountains was short-lived? It must be the alcohol that made her want to suggest something to Rhea as if they could be friends.
They lingered for a time in the room, talking the neutral subject of crafts. Words flowed with surprising easiness, though surely they were both equally aware of a second layer of tension in the room. Finally Rhea stood up to leave.
“Kern was good to me when my husband died,” she mentioned a little awkwardly. “I was holed up here for one whole winter and might have been here still if he hadn’t pushed me back into the outside world. People think a lot of him in this area.”
“I know,” Trisha said quietly.
Still Rhea hesitated in the doorway. “I didn’t know he was married before. And I don’t know why the two of you were separated. Nor do I want to; it’s none of my business. But I would like to ask you…” Rhea hesitated. “I would like to ask you if you’re staying here or going north.” Those liquid dark eyes bored into hers, clear and still. “I’ve always spoken plain English,” she said quietly. “I won’t lie to you. Kern’s never offered me anything but friendship, and I would never come between husband and wife. But if you are returning…”
That the woman was being fair nagged at Trisha like a headache. Her earlier impressions of Rhea were already dropping like hot cakes. It was a great deal easier to rack up dislike for a sultry femme fatale. Instead Rhea was simply a very quiet woman, radiating integrity, requesting an honest answer to an honest question that Trisha didn’t know how to give her. Yes, she was going north again. No, she didn’t want Rhea anywhere near her husband. “Perhaps we could talk another time,” Trisha said awkwardly, miserably remembering the morning she’d all but thrown Rhea out of Kern’s kitchen.
For a few more minutes they congregated in Rhea’s kitchen, a cozy little room made more so by the three bodies trying to move in it. Rhea fixed some sort of snack that she and Kern devoured and Trisha pretended to. Food just wasn’t going to get past the lump in her throat, but the alcohol kept trying to, and one of them seemed to have stuck yet another drink in her hand.
“I almost forgot, Kern,” Rhea said. “You mentioned you’d look at Satin for me the next time you were over. The vet was just here, but the closer she comes to foaling…”
“Of course.”
“I know it’s late,” Rhea said apologetically to Trisha.
“I don’t mind,” Trisha assured her. “I’ll just stay and wait on the back porch.” She followed them out, smoothing her skirt behind her as she perched on the top step, leaning wearily against the porch railing. The porch was weaving beneath her after the last drink she’d had, but the sky above was salted with clear-cut stars. The other two walked off into the yard, two distinct black heads, silhouetted as a pair by the yard light.
It struck her later that she only saw one. The one she loved. The shape of his head and the way he walked, the way his jeans fit, his hands. She watched until he disappeared into the building. Then something akin to fear braced through her system when she could no longer see him. The idea of no longer being able to see him when she left and how she had wasted the time five years ago, too blind to see who he was and what he was offering her so freely then, swept into her mind. She closed her eyes, troubled, weary, unforgivably dizzy.
The two of them strode back from the horse barn just a short time later. Kern had his hand on Rhea’s shoulder, offering her a goodbye as they neared the porch. Trisha stood up so quickly her head reeled. It seemed there were two Rheas she politely thanked before gratefully heading for the car. Something caught on her sandaled toe and she tripped, righting herself promptly, a stain of embarrassed color shadowing her cheeks. “Clumsy,” she murmured to Kern.
“Is that the problem,” he responded dryly. A not ungentle hand folded around her slim shoulders, curling her easily in the hollow of his body. Her hand slipped around his waist, the clean male scent of him suddenly far more intoxicating to her senses than anything she had had to drink. He opened the car door, encouraging her inside.
“Wait a minute, I…” She touched her head dizzily. “I think I forgot my purse.”
“It’s next to you.” He was chuckling at her as he closed the door. He opened his own and slid in, surveying her from head to toe with another chuckle. “Lord, are you tipsy, Tish!”
“I’ve never in my life had too much drink,” she informed him with dignity, and promptly leaned her head back against the seat so the car would stop spinning. Gold strands of hair fanned the seat back. Her skirt seemed to have slipped up to her thigh. Her shoes had slipped to the car floor. Humiliation was intense for being such a total fool as to over drink-no less for everything she seemed to have done or said the entire evening-but glancing down at herself there just seemed so very many little things to try to correct…
He leaned over before starting the engine, brushing her soft lips with his own, so gently, so sweetly that she melted against him, eyes closed, her fingertips just barely caressing his neck. “And aren’t you human,” he murmured against her. “The civilized veneer keeps disappearing, Tish…” He pulled back, starting the engine, and then as if on second thought pulled her deliberately closer to him, her head encouraged to lean against his shoulder and her feet tucked under her on the seat.