nineteen

Way off in the distance, a dog barked and barked. I opened my eyes. Sunlight dappled along the walls like minnows caught in a tide pool. I pulled back the covers. I was wearing the pilgrim dress and brown shoes. But where the blazes was I? A blue room with white windows that looked out into more blue.

Coop’s house.

I bathed and put on my brown dress; then I walked into the hall. Doors were lined up on both sides. I opened one and saw a room filled with plants: maidenhair ferns, baby’s tears, spider plants, orchids, African violets. A humidifier purred in the corner. Grow lights cast a blue tint over metal shelves, a watering can, and clay pots. Mama used to say, “If you ever find a man with a green thumb, keep him.”

Good advice. But what if that man doesn’t want you?

I turned back into the hall and let my nose guide me to the kitchen. Coop was forking up bacon and laying it on a paper towel. T-Bone stretched on the floor. Both of them glanced up when I walked into the room.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Coop grinned.

“What time is it?” I pulled back my hair, wishing I had a rubber band.

“7:00 a.m.”

“I slept that long?”

“You needed to. You want toast and coffee, sweetheart?”

There was that word again. I smiled. “Love some,” I said.

We ate breakfast on the deck, watching gulls wheel in and out of bright sun. The tide was falling. I set my empty mug on the rail and turned away from the beach. I could see our reflections in the glass doors. We looked so normal, like two people on a date, not a criminal and her lawyer.

“A couple of things you need to know about probation,” he said. “You can’t carry a firearm. The police can search your home without probable cause. And you can’t consort with other criminals.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” The wind caught my dress and I smoothed it. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Right now, the police are doing forensics. They’ll test your clothes for gunpowder residue and for blood. I’m confident the tests will show a contact transfer versus blood splatter.”

“What’s that?”

“You got blood on your clothing from your dog. If you’d shot Bing, chances are you’d have gotten sprayed with blood droplets. It would depend on the range, of course.”

“What about the gunpowder? I should be in the clear on that one. The test won’t show a false positive, right?”

“In your case, I don’t think it’ll show a damn thing. Unfortunately, it won’t clear you. We’ll know the results in about ten days. Longer if the lab is backed up. I wouldn’t fret over it. GPR is corroborative evidence, but it doesn’t give the whole picture.” He paused. “More coffee?”

“Sure,” I said, but I was still mulling over “corroborative.” I remembered hearing that word on CSI: Miami.

He reached around for my mug, and our eyes met. He stared so long I began to worry.

“Anything wrong?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. I don’t meant to gawk. But I’d forgotten how pretty you are.”

I smiled. A nice girl would have averted her gaze in a flattered but saintly way and go powder her nose, but not me. He put his hands on my face and kissed me. He tasted sweet and salty, and I sucked his lower lip into my mouth. His cotton shirt felt warm and rough as I slid my hands over his shoulders. My mind was like the surface of a pond, reflecting chaos instead of sky. Making love to Coop would be like throwing a rock into the water, the ripples breaking up the turmoil for just a few moments. Then the water would settle and life would go back to the way it was.

His lips brushed over mine. I pulled back. I couldn’t let this go further until I knew how the last eleven years had changed him, and especially why he’d dumped me for Barb.

“Remember the summer we dated?” I asked.

“Every bit of it. I still have that daisy you picked.”

That startled me, but I pressed on. “I bought you a birthday present. It’s probably still sitting in Aunt Bluette’s closet.” I paused. “Remember that day you broke up with me?”

“You had an asthma attack,” he said. “Scared me to death.”

“I really, really cared for you.”

“You did?”

I nodded.

“I had feelings for you, too. But I couldn’t tell you what happened.”

“Tell me now.”

“Well, it’s like this. One night Barb’s car broke down on Broad River Road. She couldn’t find anyone to help. Her parents were in Savannah. She called me, and I went. It caught me off guard when she started hitting on me. I tried to resist. I cared about you, Teeny. I really did. Barb must have sensed I wasn’t interested in her anymore, so she took off her clothes. My hormones collided with hers in the backseat of her mama’s Chrysler.”

“I got thrown over for nookie?”

“She blackmailed me. She said if I kept seeing you, she’d tell you what we’d done. But if I dropped you, I could have more of the same. I was blindsided by the sex. And I didn’t know how to tell you. I couldn’t look you in the eye. I was young and stupid.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to get laid. My penis took control of my brain.”

He looked up at the sky. I looked, too. Clouds gathered over the water, all bunched up like sheep.

“Barb and I became a cliché,” he said. “Boy goes to college. Girl stays home. Boy goes wild with a whole campus full of girls. The girl back home gets mad. Truth is, Barb and I were apart more than we were together. It’s a long way from Bonaventure to Chapel Hill. And she was crazy-jealous, so I stopped seeing her.”

I knew the rest of the story. He’d broken Barb’s heart, and she’d up and married Lester Philpot, a local sports legend who blew out his shoulder and became a pharmacist. Then Barb’s mom passed away. Because I’d admired Mrs. Browning, I went to the funeral home. Barb stood next to the casket with her new husband. She wore a loose-fitting black dress, and when people came up to pay their respects, the first thing she said was, “I’m pregnant, not fat!”

“I didn’t really let you know me back then,” Coop said, bringing me back to the present. “But now I want you to know everything.”

My formerly favorite subject was offering himself, all of his warts and accolades. I picked up his hand. I liked the way the dark hair lay on his wrists and how blue veins branched across his knuckles.

“So, tell me all about yourself, Cooper O’Malley.” I spread my arms.

“I like oysters on the half shell and old trucks.” He grinned. “Big dogs. Kindness. Truth. Babies. St. Patrick’s Day. Sleeping late. Guinness. Forgiveness. Orchids. Justice. Empathy. Reliability. A woman who really listens. Brown-eyed girls who bake peach cobblers and carry inhalers.”

I laughed. He leaned forward like he was going to kiss me again, but I leaned back. He was into truth and justice. And I kept track of my lies.

“What makes you sad?” I asked.

“Cruelty.” He tipped back his head. “Law breakers. Funerals. Lies.”

Just my luck. He ran his thumb over the rim of his mug.

“What about you?” he asked. “What makes you happy?”

This caught me off guard. Other than Aunt Bluette, no one had ever asked me what I thought about anything, much less what thrilled me. The wind caught my hair and it streamed across my face. I started to ask if Coop had a rubber band when he tucked a lock behind my ear.

“I’m a sucker for dogs with smashed-in faces,” I said. “I love laughter. Courage. The color blue. Don’t get me started about old movies, peaches, or cast-iron skillets. Or the smell of sweet almond because it reminds me of Mama. And I can’t drive by McDonald’s without getting a McFlurry.”

“What about bêtes noires? Your pet hates?”

I smiled. “Men who use foreign words.”

He bowed. “Touché, ma petite.”

“I don’t like limbo,” I said. “Or breaking things that don’t belong to me. It kills me to eat the last cookie in the jar. I don’t like people who hold back the truth because they think they’re sparing my feelings. I don’t like unfinished business, either.”

“Maybe we should finish what we started.” He cupped the back of my head as if I were a boneless infant. His irises were gray, and the soft, neutral color pulled me in. My pulse tapped out a rhythm, Don’t You Dare. Make Him Wait. There was still enough Baptist inside me to know it wasn’t proper to think what I was thinking. But I wasn’t a fool. I’d been waiting too damn long for this moment.

We walked into the house. After being in the hot sun, the cool air conditioning felt good on my face. He caught my hand and led me down a short hall. We stopped to kiss under the skylights, where sun fell in broad stripes, then we turned into a white bedroom. T-Bone ran after us, but Coop shut the door.

“Sorry, old buddy,” he told the dog through the door. I had the feeling T-Bone knew the routine. Coop put his hands on my waist. His head dropped to my neck, and he pushed his face against my dress. Each time he exhaled, little bursts of air moved through the fabric, warming my skin and leaving damp circles on the fabric. I kept touching his hair, feeling the strands glide between my fingers.

This wasn’t a dream. It was real. We were going to make love for the first time.

“I want you so much, Teeny,” he said, his voice muffled by my dress. He lifted his head and reached around to unzip me. I moved into the warm space between us and unbuttoned his shirt slowly, letting my palms linger on the crisp linen. His shirt fluttered off; then he pressed against me. I could feel him through my clothes, hard as alder wood.

“I want you, too,” I said. I lowered my hand, grabbed his belt, and tugged him closer. He reached down to help. The buckle jangled, and his trousers slid over his hips and hit the floor. Then my dress came off just as fast.

“Can I push Bing from your mind?” He kissed me again. “Can I make you forget him?”

Never in my life had I wanted a man the way I wanted him, but I was scared to put my feelings into words. I turned back the covers and stretched out on the bed. The sheets rustled as he slipped in beside me. I kissed him, tasting sugar and coffee. A thousand times I had imagined him in my arms, and I wanted to remember every detail. The back of my hand traced the dark hairs that ran down the center of his belly, into his boxer shorts. Then I reversed the direction, barely grazing his skin, drawing hearts, I ♥ you, Coop O’Malley. I’ll always ♥ you.

“It’s going to be so good, Teeny,” he said.

His hand slipped between my thighs, a place he’d never felt before. My fingers moved through the gap in his shorts and brushed against the damp bead on his tip.

He inched down his shorts, then he cupped my hand between his legs; the flesh was smooth and textured like corduroy. My panties were off in a flash, but he took his time, tracing his thumb over my collarbones, curving down between my breasts. The sheets rustled as he slid down and moved his tongue over my nipples.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he said. His hand dropped between my legs, moving them apart. I lifted my hips and his hands slipped behind me. He bit his lower lip and pushed his hips forward.

I gasped.

He pressed deeper and deeper.

We moved the way wind shapes dunes, shifting and gathering, ripples molding into peaks, faster and faster, each grain separate yet together.