'Well, well, well,' he drawled, 'what do we have here?'
Joseph's hands stayed right where they were while he craned around to look at his brother. Winn kept her arms around Jo-Jo's neck, unwilling to release him in spite of the interruption.
'What we have here is Killer Gardner, the woman who's made my life pure misery for the last two months.'
'She gonna join the team?' Tommy inquired drolly, eyeing Joseph's cap that was too big for Winn's head and thus rested low against her ears.
Jo-Jo grinned down at her. 'Whaddya say, Killer, wanna join the Duggan team?'
She kissed him boldly on the mouth, ending with a loud smack. 'That depends. Who won tonight?'
Jo-Jo seemed unaware of his brother's presence as he smiled at the woman in his arms and rubbed her spine. 'Me.'
Tommy's eyes followed Joseph's hands, then he pulled his shoulder away from the doorway and picked up his own black hat from the kitchen table, settled its bill low over his eyes and remarked, 'Well, I can see I'm not needed around here. Might as well go join the guys at Dick's Bar.'
Then he slammed out the back door, and a minute later they heard his car start.
Alone again, Joseph and Winn gazed lovingly into each other's eyes, standing just where Tommy had left them, only now his hands were inside her waistband, caressing the slope of her spine. 'I can't believe you're here,' he said in a gruff whisper, letting his eyes caress her face.
'Neither can I. The last four days have been absolute hell.'
This kiss was different. Deliberate, measured, beginning with the lazy lowering of Joseph's mouth to Winn's, the gradual intrusion of tongues, building in ardor as their hands started roaming each other's backs, shoulders, buttocks, breasts, until it was a total bodily clinging as they pressed yearningly against each other, as if never would they get enough… never.
He tore his mouth from hers long enough to utter, 'I was so scared I'd lose you, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.'
'I was scared, too.' A hot weakening kiss cut her off for several seconds, then Joseph's face was on her neck, his hands releasing the catch of her bra while she went on. 'From the night of the wedding practice I've been scared. I fell for you so hard it terrified me. I thought you were a flirt, and flirts always seem insincere. Then I got to know you better and realized I was falling in love with you…' She clung to him harder. 'Oh, Joseph, you have no idea how awful it is to be engaged to one man and in love with another.'
His palm slid to ensconce her free breast in its warm curve. 'It can't be any worse than being the one on the outside, watching it happen. God, I felt so helpless!'
Again they kissed, allowing their bodies full greed. He caressed and toyed with her nipple until it stood out proudly, then ran his hand down the stomach of her white jeans, slipping down between her legs where it was warm and slightly damp.
Her hand, too, ran down his body. 'Mmm… I like you in your baseball uniform. You can't hide anything from me in pants this tight.'
'Who's trying to hide?'
'Not me.'
'Me, either.'
She rested her forehead against his nose, laughed then, and did her Mae West imitation:
'Up at Dick's Bar with the rest of the team, having a few beers.'
'Wanna join them?' she teased, stroking him ardently now.
'Yeah, sure, I was thinking about it. Nothing a man loves better than a nice cold beer on a summer evening.'
'Well, don't let me… uh, stop you.' His eyes sparkled and crinkled at the corners. She'd never get enough of his eyes, not if they lived to be seventy. Or of the rest of him, for that matter.
'I'll head over there in a minute. There's something I've got to do first, though.' He had her by both buns and was dancing her backward toward the archway and the stairway around the corner.
'How much time before your brothers get home?'
His tongue teased the corner of her mouth. 'They'll be gone till midnight.' She felt him grin against her lips. 'The beer's damn good at Dick's.'
Her heels struck the bottom step and brought them both up short. With her arms looped about his neck she ordered huskily, 'Hurry up, Jo-Jo Duggan. The past four days have seemed like years. Show me your bedroom.'
He bent and picked her up like a sack of potatoes and took the steps at a leisurely pace while she caressed his backside. 'I will. But I'll show you my bathroom first. I played a tough game and took a hard slide into home in the eighth inning. I'm dust from one end to the other.'
The bathroom was Classic Grandma: no shower, but a tub with a rubber plug on the end of a chain. The room was painted aqua blue and trimmed with white swan decals on one wall, while that behind the vanityless sink was paneled with some marbly gray stuff that looked like plastic. There was a water heater in one corner and a clothes hamper next to the stool, and the floor was covered with pure unadulterated grade-B hardware-store linoleum, its worn spot covered with an aqua blue scatter rug.
But it mattered not in the least, for anywhere Joseph and Winn shared was their own private heaven. She watched him drop his dusty uniform in the hamper. Then the body that had taken a hard slide into home took a soft slide into the tub. And she came to know the texture of his slick, soapy skin both above and below the surface of the water.
Her Joseph. How she loved him. Kneeling beside the tub, with her eyes caught in his, she lifted her wet hand from the water and laid it on his cheek. His eyes were dark, lustrous, close to hers. 'Joseph Duggan, I love you,' she whispered thickly.
All was silent but for the soft blip of the ancient, dripping tap. Then he brought his hands from the water to her jaws. His wet thumbs caressed her lips before he gently eradicated the space between their mouths, kissing her gently, wonderingly, the touch filled with praise and promise.
'And I love you, Winn Gardner. Marry me.'
Her murmured agreement was lost in his kiss, but neither heard nor cared. For it could be no other way: the choice had never been theirs, not from the first night they'd met to walk down an aisle together.
The wedding invitations numbered twenty-two. Each was handwritten on plain typing paper, but not all in the same pen. Half were written in Winn's neat forward slant and half in Joseph's rather chicken-scratchy semi- legibility. They began with the words, 'Joseph Duggan and Winnifred Gardner invite you to join them in Elm Creek Park…'
Joseph and Winn chose a Friday afternoon for their wedding. She wore a white summer dress of airy pique, and fixed her hair in a Gibson Girl doughnut, trimming it with a simple sprig of baby's breath they found blooming in Joseph's grandma's garden.
Joseph and Winn rode out together in his Haynes a half hour before the scheduled time of the service to walk through the woods and gather a bouquet of brown-eyed Susans, wild buttercups and fragrant wild roses, conveniently abloom now in this month of roses.
The guests were waiting when they returned from their walk to the chosen spot, a grassy knoll in a break between the trees where birds were their only music and the grass their aisle. Around them were those they loved most dearly, including a surprised Sandy and Mick, Joseph's parents and brothers, as well as Fern Gardner, still in a state of shock, but present nevertheless.
The service lasted seven minutes and thirty-five seconds, approximately one-third the length of time it had taken most of the assembled to drive out from town.
When Winn kissed her mother's cheek, there was a radiant smile upon the bride's face. That smile was reflected upon the faces of several others close enough to hear the following words. 'Mother, I'd like you to meet my husband, Joseph Duggan.'
The two shook hands while Joseph spoke his first words to Fern. 'Mrs. Gardner, I promise to love your
