Man From Tennessee (6 page)

“You really weren’t planning on even seeing me if you could help it, were you, Tish?”

There was more than a hint of harshness in his voice. She set down the brush. Her hair was simply brushed back from her forehead, a style that accented the proud line of her bone structure. “No,” she admitted quietly. “And now I’ve promised your mother I’ll stay until Thursday. Even if I hadn’t promised, I couldn’t leave now without knowing how she was. I’m sure it will be awkward for you with Rhea. I’ll just move to a motel, Kern—”

“Rhea? What does she have to do with anything?”

Trisha rearranged the collar on her blouse and aimed for the door. She favored Kern with a cool glance she was frankly proud of. “I wasn’t criticizing,” she said evenly. “Or trying to pry.”

His jaw tightened. As she walked down the stairs, she sensed that Kern was leashing whatever he was feeling, whatever he might have wanted to say. “You’ll stay here. And if that’s all the clothes you’ve got with you, the next thing on the agenda is something for you to wear.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“The two outfits you brought with you won’t last five minutes outside in this country. Or are you planning on being cooped up indoors for two days like you used to?”

She considered how very nice it would have been to be a man on a football team pitted against Kern in his college days. One of those fellows who butted a hard-helmeted head directly into the opposition’s stomach.

“All right,” she said testily. “I’ll go out and get a pair of jeans.”

“How…sensible. I’ll go with you.”

Her eyes flashed exasperation with him. “Thanks, but no thanks. I pick out my own clothes these days, Kern, imagine that!”

“It’s raining like hell. I can’t get any work done in this weather, so we’ll go out to dinner afterward.” Irritatingly calm gray eyes surveyed her increasingly troubled ones. “All upset, bright eyes,” he chided scoldingly. “When you know damn well you didn’t bring any more money than you needed for the trip home. So the clothes will be on me, Tish, and you’re even driving: I had enough of one-handed driving this afternoon. Surely that’s enough to rate a smile?”

They raced to the Mercedes in the pelting rain. Breathless, they both slammed their doors against the storm at the same time and Trisha reached for her key. Flipping back her hair from her cheeks, she turned on the wipers and lights, and backed out of the driveway. There was a tension locked inside the car’s small interior that made the Mercedes feel like a cage. It was a tension that had been building from the moment she’d arrived. Trisha had had enough of it.

“Kern?”

He arched a questioning eyebrow in her direction. Both of her hands stayed firmly on the wheel, her eyes boring straight ahead. “Just stop it, would you?”

“Stop what?”

“All of it…your telling people I’m your wife…your kissing me…the way you look at me. You couldn’t conceivably have been glad to see me, Kern, and I didn’t expect you to be.” She hesitated, biting her lip as she reached to turn on the defroster. “So you’re stuck with me and maybe we both have to make the best of it for a short time. But I’ve felt like…you’ve been playing some game with me.”

He didn’t answer, simply stared at her as she continued to drive. By the time they stopped at a shopping center in Gatlinburg, Trisha was a blend of chin-up pride and anxiety. She had spoken what she felt. That was no crime. Yet no one accused Kern of playing games. He radiated integrity from the core. Which was all the more confusing…

Inside the store, Kern was without question the strangest patron there, a tall, bearded giant threading through size fives with the same interest he took in doing anything new—at least once. It took Trisha less than five minutes to find what she wanted and cart it to the dressing room. The tan designer jeans fit perfectly, a match for the dark blond of her hair. A silky pale blue blouse with tan at the gathered-yolk bodice matched it. Slipping her cream pantsuit back on, she was soon out of the dressing room carrying her potential purchases over one arm.

And Kern was standing right there, with potential purchases over his arm and a salesgirl hovering with hopeful enthusiasm just behind him. “Now don’t get snippy,” he said the moment he saw the expression on her face. “One pair of jeans may very well do for the morning, but afternoons are hot; you may need something to swim in, and since it’s my money I don’t see why you should care anyway.”

But it was precisely because it
was
his money that she did care. Why he even wanted to buy her the mound of clothes didn’t really register. The feeling of owing him for one outfit already grated, and the pile of fabric was almost enough to induce a ridiculous sense of panic that she couldn’t quite explain. Worse than that was the inalterable feeling that he wanted her to bicker, wanted her to show that she was afraid of…what? Staying? Her lips pressed in a tight smile, Trisha handed the slacks and blouse she had chosen to the waiting salesgirl and turned smoothly to his pile.

“It’s very nice of you, Kern, I’m sure.” Her tone said that she thought differently, as she took the bright orange outfit from his arm and laid it on the counter. “That’s really a color for a brunette. This one, the manufacturer specializes in short waists and I’m long-waisted, I’m afraid. I like this one, I really do, but I’ve never been able to wear that style blouse…” The pile on the counter kept mounting. Her polite, cheerful tone never altered until she came to the last of the clothes and then she faltered, a blush stealing onto her cheeks as she picked up the lemon open-weave bikini with two fingers and tossed it on top of the pile.

“You always look good in yellow.” His eyes dared her to name her excuse. With a glance intended to wither steel, she stalked out of the store.

He met her outside all too soon with her bag in his hand. His full-throated chuckle vibrated between them as he grabbed her arm and they raced again through the rain to the car. “You’re still a prude, Tish,” he teased as she slammed the door on her side.

She pulled out in traffic in the direction of the restaurant he’d named, her chin stiffly in the air. “That isn’t fair. The only reason I don’t wear that kind of thing is because I don’t have the figure for it.”

“And that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Sexy’s the way the whole shape’s put together, not just a pair of pendulous breasts—”

“I don’t believe this conversation!”

“I don’t believe you just went through a red light.”

Her eyes flickered anxiously to the rearview mirror, and he burst into laughter when she shot back daggers at him. It was the first red light she had ever run in her life.

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to wear it in public anyway,” he consoled.

“If I had wanted to wear something like that, I would have worn it whether or not you or anyone else approved,” she said snappishly.

“I see. You’re going to argue no matter what I say.” He sighed. “And I suppose the next thing you’re probably thinking to do is to go back to the shop to get it. Just to prove I’m wrong.”

He had an unforgivable understanding of her exact frame of mind. Belatedly she realized that Kern had not worried about the entire pile of clothes. It was that little lemon confection at the bottom that he had staged to unsettle her. Or was it to find out if she really was the same prudish, self-conscious little nitwit she used to be? Somehow, it mattered that he believed she had changed, really changed. It was a question of pride.

“You misunderstand, Kern,” she said more calmly. “I have no real objections to the suit—only to wearing something like it in a public place, like the swimming hole by the camp where there are so many strangers. Of course if you consider that prudish, I have to admit…” She shrugged carelessly, and followed his motioning hand to the parking-lot entrance near the restaurant.

“But one-on-one is just fine, is that it, Tish?”

His voice told of his displeasure, and for no reason as far as she could surmise. She sighed, giving up. She did not understand the man or his attitude. But she was exceedingly hungry.

The restaurant was new to her. Huge from the outside, from within it was divided into at least half a dozen smaller dining rooms. Neither of them was dressed formally, but Kern chose to lead them to a small, hushed room in the back. Blood-red linen tablecloths and flickering candles graced each table. The menus were impressively two-feet long, and Trisha promptly hid behind hers.

For a few minutes they were both quiet, and in spite of herself Trisha found that she was relaxing. Perhaps it was the pent-up sigh from the other side of the table that signaled a truce, and finally Kern spoke from behind his menu. “Are we going polite or are we going for fingers, Tish?”

She could not help a smile as she peered around the menu. “Fingers.”

“Fine.” He closed the menu, took hers from her, and set them aside. “You’re having frog legs and I’m having lobster. There’s really no need to look at the rest of the list.” He paused, a small flame in his eyes from the reflection of the candle. “I’m already picturing you in one of those big bibs…”

“And I’m picturing you with your beard, managing lobster dripping with butter,” she quipped back.

They both ate without a lot of talk, devouring their favorite delicacies as if starved. A small decanter of white wine was placed between them and was nearly empty by the time they finished. There was the sound of laughter and muted conversation from the other rooms, but the small dining area they claimed was virtually empty except for the two of them. When the bibs and bones and shells and debris from their meal were removed, the dark-coated waiter served coffee, and they both leaned back in their chairs, replete to the point of a lazy kind of tiredness.

“Ready?” Kern asked finally, and she nodded. His arm brushed the small of her back as they walked from the restaurant, and when they reached the car Kern slipped into the driver’s seat. Taking control, she thought fleetingly, the way Kern found it hard not to take control of a setting. At the moment it just didn’t matter. She was too full, feeling perfectly lazy, to let anything matter. She slipped down in the passenger seat, resting her head against the back, half closing her eyes as he started the engine. The torrential rain had finally stopped and night had descended on the valley. They were through the flashing neon lights of the town in minutes and back on the mountain road that invoked an intense, peaceful quiet.

“I haven’t seen you wear the sling since yesterday,” she commented idly.

Kern smiled ruefully. “Ted told me the wrist would have healed a week ago if I’d just done what he told me. The sling was a penance that afternoon for overdoing it. Bothered by my driving, Tish?”

“Of course not,” she said sleepily. “You drove the truck earlier, Kern. Besides, you wouldn’t take the wheel if you couldn’t handle it.”

He glanced at her. “Blind trust used to be your specialty,” he chided.

She looked back at him, and then away, silent the rest of the half-hour drive. Blind trust had been the instinct from the moment she met him, she couldn’t deny it. Though, thank God, she wasn’t naive any longer. But that trust, she realized, was still there. She did trust Kern and his integrity. She couldn’t really say the same for anyone else she’d ever known in her life.

On the way up the long drive to his place, Kern turned the car midway, taking a narrow gravel road she was unfamiliar with. “Where?” she asked.

“To walk off a bit of dinner, if you don’t mind.”

“I…no.” She stepped out of the car stiffly, aware of Kern and the fact that they were alone. Somehow in all the worry over Julia she had failed to remind herself that staying at his place meant staying
alone
with him for the two nights.

“This way.”

He helped her over a rocky patch, and then his hand fell away, leaving her to set her own pace ahead of him. Trees rustled on her left, but the path followed a stream on the right, a gurgling rush of silver in the moonlight, a sprinkling of stars overhead reflected in the water. Wildflowers crouched low all around the banks, a sweet, potent, night-rich scent after the rain.

They walked without talking. The darkness made for a meandering pace, but it was not pitch black. The rain had cooled the sultry heat of the day, just a faint warm breeze rippling the stream. When she tired of walking, she wandered to a low flat rock that jutted over the water and perched on it with her legs crossed, bending to look in the stream.

Kern stopped just behind her, leaning back against the rough-barked surface of a hickory tree in the shadow. She glanced back once, all too aware of him, but he seemed no more inclined to talk than she did. Every limb gradually relaxed as she simply stared out over the water, absorbing the scene. The restfulness was so different from the city life she’d adjusted to—the life she had convinced herself was all and exactly what she wanted. But the convincing had taken a long time.

Finally she stood back up and dusted off her pants. She looked again to Kern. He hadn’t moved. His eyes had a gleam in the dusty shadows beneath the tree. She felt uneasy.

“You accused me of playing with you before.”

She nodded, pushing her hair back where the breeze was trying to curl it to her cheeks.

“I knew we’d see each other again sometime, Tish. For the first year after you left, I probably would have slammed the door in your face if you had come back.” He stepped out from the shadows toward her, and she dug her hands in her pockets. “It took a long time to accept failure. I blamed you first and then me…and then no one. There was certainly no way to take back those six months, was there?”

She shook her head, and he added quietly, “You were very young, Tish. I knew sooner or later I would want to know what you would be like when you grew up.”

She took a breath, still staring at him. “I kept expecting you to ask for a divorce.”

“I want children. If I’d found someone along the way I’d wanted to have children with, I would have gotten a divorce. Until then, it didn’t really matter.”

He might as well have said that she didn’t matter, beyond sheer curiosity as to what had happened to her. She felt an unexpected curl of pain in her stomach.