Finding Home Read online

  ~~~~

  “I couldn’t’ve done a better job of it myself,” Phoebe said, admiring the manner in which Gage had welded her bumper back onto the truck. She also admired the way his biceps tightened, the way his back muscles rippled. Her heart fluttered, but she restrained herself. “I reckon I’ll go get it gassed up before we harvest crabs this morning.”

  “I’m not getting in that skiff with you again. Take Maydean or Dorie.”

  “But I let you sleep all night and I didn’t pester you before breakfast either.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Phoebe paid no attention to his doleful glare. “You’re back to thinkin’ I’m too skinny.”

  “Nope, I’m thinking survival.”

  “Don’t you want to do it even the least little bit?”

  Sweat began to bead on his upper lip. “I have work to do.”

  “You’re so strong-willed, Gage. I admire that in a man.”

  “Just so long as you admire from a distance.”

  “I can’t promise.” Phoebe thought about his body in her power and felt her insides begin to tremble. But the yard was open for business and the kids were running loose. Privacy was not assured. Practicality swayed her. The letter from Ma suddenly loomed large in her mind. “Anyway, I’m glad we got the truck fixed. It don’t belong to me, you know. It’s Pa’s. I got to return it.”

  Gage wiped his hands on a rag, taking an inordinate amount of time doing it. “Don’t think I want you going off anywhere. I’m feeling possessive.”

  “Oh. Well, what about if Pa came and got it?”

  “That’d be better.”

  All of Phoebe’s nerve endings began to hum. “Maybe Ma and Erlene could come down with Pa on the bus. Ma wouldn’t countenance me getting married without her being there. She’d like to know it’s so.”

  “That sounds reasonable. But Phoebe, don’t go planning a big wedding.”

  “I thought just family.”

  He looked at her from beneath his thick sweep of dark lashes. “You’re too agreeable, too fast. I get the feeling you’re somehow putting something over on me.”

  “I’m agreeable because I’m so happy,” she reassured with a grand air, gliding toward him, putting her hand on his arm. “Gage, let me kiss you. I won’t put my tongue in your mouth and make you crazy. I just want to feel your lips on mine.”

  “You’re dodging the issue. Just family.” His gaze bent hard on her face. “How many aunts, uncles and cousins have you got back up in those gullies and hills?”

  “There’s just Ma and Pa and Erlene. Joey and his wife won’t come because of the baby.”

  “I don’t want to spend a lot of money on frou frous getting married.”

  “Me, either. I want us to save our money for solid things. And I aim to use my crab money for the particulars. We got to have a weddin’ feast, but Ma and I can cook that. Ma can bake the cake. The only outsiders ought to be the preacher and his wife. It wouldn’t be polite to slight them.”

  The questioning in his eyes faded, then brightened once again. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding let’s agree right now. I’ll set aside four hundred dollars for us getting married outside of your ring. Not a penny more.”

  Four hundred dollars. Lor! She could get married ten times over for that. It descended on her with a shock that his idea of parsimony was far more generous than her own. “I’ll make that do,” she said solemnly. “I’ll eke out every dime.” She slid her hand up his arm. “Now, will you kiss me, or do you aim to make me suffer daylight to dusk?”

  He bent his head and pressed his mouth lightly to hers. Phoebe nibbled on his lower lip.

  “Lord have mercy, woman. Stop that.” But he laughed and his arms tightened his embrace. Phoebe pressed her thigh to his, felt the quicksilver stirring in his loins. She was aglow with feminine power. All would be well. Even when Ma and Pa arrived. She just knew it. Gage ended the kiss, but Phoebe stayed put in his arms.

  Her heart filled with tenderness. “Gage, I’m going to make you the best wife in the universe.”

  “You don’t have to be the best, Phoebe. Just belong to me.”

  There was an underlying insistence in his voice. Phoebe stepped out of his arms. “God put you in my path, Gage. There was never a man before you and there won’t be after. Married to you I’m going to be the envy of every woman between here and Mobile. I ain’t givin’ that up.”

  Gage laughed. “I wouldn’t put it all on God, Phoebe. Blame some of it on a woman driver that didn’t look where she was going. Now, get out of here and go crabbing before my willpower fails me.”

  “Is it about to?” she asked, all hope and letting the snide remark about her driving fritter away on the breeze wafting through the welding shed and proud of herself for not stomping on it with Hawley pride.

  “Mr. Gage!” Willie-Boy shouted as he hurried into the shop. “Did you get that bike fixed for me yet?”

  “Reprieve.” Gage grinned.

  Phoebe tilted her head and returned his grin. “Wait until after dark.”

  ~~~~

  “It’s been dark for hours.” Gage stood on the threshold of Phoebe’s bedroom, peering in. “Isn’t there some little promise or other you wanted to make good on?”

  “I was waitin’ for the kids to get hard asleep.” She stretched sinuously, arching; the line of her throat was compellingly vulnerable. She was stopped for a moment by Gage’s gaze riveted on her, then she smiled. For modesty’s sake he wore pajama bottoms, but they did little to hide his aroused state. “Have you been layin’ abed thinkin’ of me?”

  “I was reading the paper.”

  Phoebe laughed. She felt so bold. “Tell me one thing you read.”

  “I read my horoscope. It said for me not to tolerate any teasing.” He crossed the room, scooped her into his arms. “It said I should be creative in an affair of the heart.”

  Cradled in his arms, Phoebe felt no more substantial than a willow. “What else did it say?”

  He nuzzled her neck as he carried her into his own room and placed her on his bed. “It said I should drag you by the hair on your head into my lair and strip you naked.” He took the hem of her gown, pulled it up. Phoebe’s arms slid out.

  “Did it say anything about closin’ and lockin’ the door to the lair?”

  “Leave it to you to be the practical one. Good thing you don’t write horoscopes.”

  “Good thing I’m here so you can make it come true.”

  His eyes, opaque with passion, took in her shoulders, the tidy mounds of her breasts. Small breasts, rounded with dainty pink nipples.

  When he returned to bed after locking the door, he lay down beside her, pressing his lips into the curve of her neck and began to stroke every inch of her.

  His hot kisses distracted Phoebe. She couldn’t keep track of where his hands were going, what they were doing. His hands, then his lips closed over her exposed breasts, and a pleased sound erupted from him as he pulled her against him, forcing her to feel him jutting against her thighs. He was making her body dance, flooding her with heat.

  “Gage!” she cried, her voice small, vanishing as his tongue dipped into a most intimate crevice. He ignored her protests. Something extraordinary seemed to be happening inside her. Air escaped her lungs, blood seemed to suffuse her head, her muscles rippled as if they were separate entities borne haphazardly on a sudden wind; an unfamiliar interior fluttering seemed to warn her of something about to take place, some desperate event needing completion. A sensation, unlike anything she’d ever experienced pierced her brain, then radiated out until all of her being was seized, frozen. There was a tremendous swelling, a building pressure in her loins, and a startled cry broke from her throat as the immense feeling savagely exploded.

  She was dying, separating into different selves, she could scarcely breathe. She felt all at once lighter and as limp as boiled noodles.

  As if attuned to the shuddering waves, Gage whispered, “Babe...finally...”
r />   Phoebe wondered how he could know, feeling as if the secret was exposed, on display. “I like you calling me Babe.” She touched his face with her fingertips and whispered his name.

  He came up over her, kissing her breasts, her throat, her mouth so that she opened to his thrusting presence, captured by the hardness riding between her thighs. Whatever had happened inside her body seemed to have created in him a surging ardor, some higher level of stimulation. She gave herself up to him and closed her mind to all else.

  ~~~~

  “I thought I was dyin’“ Phoebe said in an awed, ragged voice that was hers but not hers. Gage had tilted the lamp shade so that the circle of light was aimed outward and they lay within softly lit shadows. Phoebe risked a look at him. His eyes were narrowed, but he was smiling.

  “Somethin’s funny?”

  “Nope. I’m happy. Would you rather I frowned?”

  “You don’t look happy. You look smug. Do you know what happened to me?”

  “Sure do.”

  She let her gaze wander over his face, reading every nuance of his expression, searching for truth. “Does it happen to you? Every time?”

  “Sure does.”

  “I don’t think I could bear it again.”

  “Oh? That’s too bad. Most women suffer themselves to get used to it.”

  “Most women? What most women?”

  “Tell you what. I’ll buy twin beds for after we’re married. That way you won’t be tempted.”

  “But I like bein’ in bed with you. I like—I ain’t spendin’ my whole married life in separate beds. Anyway, it just took me by surprise. I didn’t know there was more than...than what I’d already felt.”

  “What’s the solution then? I don’t want to force you to do something you find unbearable.” As if the subject were finished, he lifted her hand and inspected her ring finger. “Remind me, I’ll measure this with a string tomorrow.”

  “I could get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to buy something that doesn’t fit.”

  “I didn’t think I was really goin’ to die.”

  “White gold, I think.”

  Phoebe jerked her hand from his. “Pay attention!”

  “Attention? Oh, you mean like this?” He secured her body to his with a powerful arm, savoring the prominence of her pelvic bones pressed to his.

  “I’m thinkin’ I could probably bear it if it happened again.”

  He played with her body, probed and kissed and caressed, offering her pleasure, torture. “Just tell me if it gets to be unbearable and I’ll stop.”

  “If you stop,” Phoebe said, meaning it, “I’ll go out and buy those twin beds myself.”

  ~~~~

  Up until the Friday before the Saturday Ma and Pa and Erlene were set to arrive, Phoebe felt she was dangling on a string from heaven. The crab catches continued to be profitable, more so when she allowed the traps to soak two nights instead of one. She’d divided with Gage, paid for bait and ice and still she had hundreds of dollars. It was more money than she’d ever had in her life that wasn’t spoken for before she got it into her purse. She kept going into her room and reaching beneath the pillow just to take the bills out and count them.

  She hadn’t yet mentioned to Gage just how imminent was the arrival of the remaining members of her family. Every opening to say just slipped on by, sometimes when she and Gage were wonderfully occupied in his bed and other times just by the sheer amount of work it took to keep up with crabbing, washing, ironing and cooking and Maydean, Willie-Boy and Dorie.

  Ma would be expecting to live in Gage’s house, but Phoebe could see now that wasn’t going to work. She and Gage hardly had privacy to snatch a stolen kiss during the day as it was. With Ma and Pa and Erlene underfoot, even nights would be impossible. Especially with Erlene, who had a tendency to wander through every unlatched door and had to be watched tighter than Willie-Boy lest she get into mischief. Still, Ma couldn’t take care of Erlene and Pa and Maydean and Willie-Boy by herself. The dilemma preyed on her mind.

  Maybe Vinnie would begrudge the bus fare and decide Ma and Pa could stay on. It was a dim hope, but that at least would give Phoebe time to sort it all out. Time to put by enough money to get Ma and Pa started in their own place, one close enough that Phoebe could be of help. She wished Vinnie and Joey had a telephone. She’d go this minute and call and tell Ma to stay put. But they didn’t and all that was left to her was to get the house ready, and to tell Gage.

  But no matter how she practiced the words in her mind, in his presence they refused to be uttered. She was caught hopelessly in the undertow of love and wanting to do nothing to jeopardize the happiness of the moment.

  “I have the urge to step out tonight,” Gage said when he came into the house for a glass of ice water.

  “I don’t hold with a man goin’ out and leavin’ his intended long-jawed and mopin’.”

  “Long-jawed and moping.” Gage laughed. “I don’t think I hold with it myself. Anyhow, I don’t dare leave you alone. You might find some other man to drive out of his mind. What do you say we go into Mobile, treat the kids to a movie while we window shop?”

  “After supper?”

  “Let’s just make an evening of it. Eat at McDonald’s. Dorie likes hamburgers and I want to soften her up before I mention getting married.”

  “I imagine she’ll take it okay. She likes me. She likes Maydean and Willie-Boy. And I just know she’s going to like Ma and Pa and Erlene.”

  “Dorie does seem to stay in Maydean’s pocket, so to speak. I guess it’s good for her. I wouldn’t mind if Willie-Boy and Maydean finished out the summer with us.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “If your folks don’t mind.”

  “I don’t think they’ll mind. As a matter of fact...” Her hand fluttered as if to erase her unspoken thought.

  ~~~~

  Gage got the impression that Phoebe was concentrating hard on the moment while another part of her was staring into something of such compelling importance it couldn’t be ignored. A personal vision, zealously guarded. He waited for her to go on, but when she didn’t he said, “As a matter of fact, what?”

  “Oh, nothing. I’d better get the clothes off the line, round up everybody. What time do you want us ready?”

  “About five.”

  When she came out of the laundry room with the empty clothes basket he stopped her. “Phoebe, tell. What’s on your mind?”

  “Gettin’ the clothes folded and put away.”

  “Look, we’re going to be learning things about each other the rest of our lives. At least, I hope we are. But one thing we have to have from the start is trust. So why don’t you trust me with whatever is bothering you?”

  Phoebe exhaled. “Nothin’s botherin’ me. I’m just a worrier is all.” The lie slipped off her tongue like the devil was hauling on it.

  “Are you having second thoughts about getting married? About me? Was I too rough last—”

  Phoebe threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. “I love you more than myself. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want anythin’ to happen—”

  “Is that all? You’re not going to lose me—unless you beat me to death with that clothes bask—”

  “Are y’all kissin’?”

  They jerked apart. “Where’d you come from, Willie-Boy?”

  “Nowhere. Were you trying to kiss Phoebe? BoBo Gardner tried to kiss her once and she threw a pot of beans on him.”

  “I hope I don’t suffer the same fate.”

  “I got work to do,” said Phoebe. “Willie-Boy, you find Dorie and Maydean. Gage is treatin’ all of you to a movie.”

  Willie-Boy turned pale. “No!”

  Gage laughed. “Yes.”

  “I only been to a movie once and I was too little to remember.” He sprawled on the porch. “I’ve got to lay down here and savor my good fortune.”

  “Savor your good fortune?” Gage repeated. “That’s a mouth
ful.”

  “That’s what Pa says. He sets in his rocking chair and savors his good fortune.”

  “What else does your dad do?”

  “What Ma tells him to.”

  “Hawley women might like to rule the roost, but one of them better keep in mind I’m a man who rules his own roost.”

  Phoebe felt her cheeks go warm, but for perhaps the second time in her life, she kept her mouth shut.

  ~~~~

  The shopping mall proved to be an adventure in prudence and self-control. Phoebe held tightly to her purse full of money against every lure and inducement.

  There were candy shops, ice-cream parlors, dress shops, gold shops, shoe shops, toy shops, beauty shops, pet stores, book stores, and department stores with counter after counter of cosmetics from which they had to drag Maydean. McDonald’s was at one end of the mall, the movie theater at the other. Gage bought the movie tickets and passed out cash for popcorn and soft drinks.

  “Those kids are gonna be sick,” warned Phoebe. Willie-Boy was so excited she feared an attack of asthma.

  “I’ll do my breathing exercises, I promise,” he wailed.

  “I’ll take care of him,” insisted Dorie.

  Phoebe gave in, but waited outside the theater ten minutes on the chance Willie-Boy would swoon and have to be carried out.

  “I’m going to Penny’s to pick out a suit,” Gage said.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No you won’t. I like to buy my own clothes. I’ll meet you back here in an hour or so.”

  The beauty shop lured Phoebe like a magnet. She stood outside and watched men and women coming out looking groomed and happy. Not a frowner in the bunch. She had her hair cut in the manner suggested by the stylist. She walked out of the shop with her curls tamed and hugging her head. She stopped in front of every display window admiring her reflection. Tilting her head this way and that until a sales clerk came out and asked did she want to try it on.