“You smell like violets,” he murmured, and fell asleep.
With a frown, Griff rose from his desk, snatched up the September bank statement he’d been working on and went in search of Susan. After dinner, she’d retreated to the living room, surrounding herself with a cupful of tailor’s tacks, yards of embossed material, scissors and a newly refinished Queen Anne chair. The mess was still there, but Susan wasn’t.
Nor was she upstairs, or in the kitchen. He stood there exasperated for a moment, noticing again the blazing flutter of gold leaves on the elms outside the window. That had happened almost overnight after an early October frost. On his trip north three weeks ago, the color change had not yet started… He heard a faint sound coming from the basement, strode to the cellar door and took a few steps down; if he leaned over, he could see into the huge storage room.
She was there. On top of the dryer sat a small cage, and Susan was bending over it. In the pink ruffled blouse and cranberry skirt she’d worn to work, his wife looked alluringly feminine and distinctly unsuited to the task of cleaning an animal’s cage. With a small sigh, he folded the sheet of paper in his hand and stuck it in his back pocket. He had been irritated with Susan a moment ago, but the determination to express his annoyance seemed to have vanished.
She winced suddenly and jumped back, away from the cage. Rapidly shaking her hand, she suddenly turned and spotted Griff halfway down the stairs. A guilty smile hovered on her lips. “Hi. I thought you were busy doing paperwork.”
“What on earth is that?”
“You mean the cage?” She motioned vaguely in the direction of the animal who’d just taken such a nasty little nip out of her finger. “That’s a hamster for Tiger, a special type of hamster from Peru…or is it Venezuela? I was going to tell you about it when you were in a good mood.” She peered up at him with dancing eyes. “Are you in a good mood?”
He was, she decided. Maybe a wee bit on the impatient side, but he’d had that kind of work week. She scampered up the stairs to offer him a kiss to make up for going against his wishes on the subject of hamsters. Her palms lingered unnecessarily long on his jeaned hips. She did like the look of Griff in jeans.
“You were right,” she said cheerfully. “They smell terrible. The cage has to be cleaned all the time, and the little stinker bites. So if you
She waited. Griff removed her hands from dangerous territory and placed them on his shoulders, bending his forehead to hers. “That meek, submissive line sounds pretty good,” he growled.
“You like that?”
“I like that. I just can’t imagine why I have the feeling that you’re going to keep the hamster no matter what I say.”
Susan grinned. “But I’ll be much smarter next time,” she assured him.
He shook his head. “I doubt that.” He trailed her lithe hips as they darted up the stairs ahead of him, a burst of love shooting through him as he watched her. Susan refused to acknowledge that she was doing too much and worrying too much about his kids. Take last night, when she’d dragged him outside to practice catching baseballs. His wife was not totally unathletic, but she had the worst depth perception of anyone he’d ever met. If they hadn’t had so much fun laughing, he would have called her on her maternal worries then. Now just didn’t seem to be the time.
“What are you up to for the moment?” he asked.
Susan made a vague motion in the direction of the living room and then huddled over the refrigerator. She poured them both fruit juice, added ice cubes, and handed Griff his glass. He understood her to mean that she wanted to finish reupholstering the Queen Anne chair. “You’re doing too much,” he complained. “Thirty more minutes, lady, while I finish my paperwork. Then we’ll make a fire and warm some cider. Sound good?”
“Sounds very good,” she agreed, as she set down her glass. “What was wrong?” she asked curiously.
“What do you mean?”
“When you came downstairs to the basement, I had the feeling you were about to say something.”
“I was.” Griff sighed, having difficulty trying to dredge up the annoyance he had felt earlier. “Honey, you’re still wearing jeans you had in high school, you suffer over every lightbulb left burning in the house unattended and if I remember correctly, you dragged me to a total of seven stores before you found an acceptable price for the carpeting in the library.”
She remembered that shopping expedition. They’d had a terrific time, testing carpeting in their stockinged feet-obviously a major consideration, how carpeting felt on bare feet-as the salesman had ranted on about the number of fibers per square inch. “Are you tactfully trying to suggest I might be stingy with a dollar?”
“Tight as a fist. And on that basis, I’d normally invite you to overdraw the checking account anytime, Susan. Actually, I was rather pleased to see you splurge…”
Wheels clicked in her head. Last weekend, Tom was supposed to finally make up his postponed weekend alone with them. He hadn’t come-something about a party, although Susan was afraid the real reason Tom had canceled for the third time was more complex than the boy’s unusually busy social schedule. He’d called her specially…but Tiger and Barbara had both come in his stead that weekend. Knowing a few days ahead about the change in plans, Susan had had the brilliant, impromptu idea of trying another time to take on Barbara in a one-on-one situation. “Actually, I spent a little money on Barbara,” Susan admitted quietly, a troubled look in her eyes before she quickly reached for Griff’s glass, to wash it out.
“Barbara?”
“I just forgot to tell you, Griff.”
“Susan. My daughter has three times more clothes than you do, and since that episode with Tiger, you know damn well that each of my children has an adequate clothing allowance.”
“More than adequate,” Susan agreed, setting the clean glasses back in the cupboard. “And I certainly wasn’t trying to buy her, Griff. But she wears such damn tight jeans, along with all the other faddish horrors she feels she needs to be popular with her crowd. And girls do like shopping, so I thought I could kind of subtly show her there were alternatives. You know. Being part of the crowd, but still keeping one’s own sense of style.” Susan hesitated, remembering all too well the shopping spree with Barbara. For a time, the excursion had seemed to go swimmingly…until Barbara saw a spangly T-shirt that seemed perfect…for a hooker. End of rapport. Susan glanced up at her husband, to find Griff’s eyes intensely pinning hers, a frown grooved into his forehead.
“She’s giving you a hard time, isn’t she?” he demanded, very quietly.
“No.”
“She’s turned incredibly sassy since she became a teenager. Don’t protect her, Susan. If she’s giving you trouble-”
“She isn’t,” Susan denied emphatically, and willed sincerity to radiate from her clear gray eyes.
“We were so close when she was little. But after the divorce, she acted as if I had deserted
At the same time, he desperately wanted to give his daughter love, not discipline. Susan understood, so very clearly that she blinked back tears. No, she was not going to add to Griff’s worries about his children by burdening him with her own. The thing to do, she’d decided weeks ago, was simply to try harder herself.
“Barbara will be fine,” she assured him. “She’s smart and pretty, and I haven’t met a happy teenager yet, Griff. It’s absolutely no fun being well adjusted when everyone else is suffering growing pains and has a wealth of trouble to complain about. She’ll turn out fine.”
Susan honestly believed that. The issue only became clouded when she thought of herself in relation to Griff’s daughter. As she headed back to the living room, her upholstering project seemed a lesser priority. When Griff walked in a half hour later, he found her ensconced on the couch with a book. That she was relaxing pleased him, though he was mildly surprised at the refuse of upholstery trimmings still scattered on the floor. Susan was normally a confirmed neatnik.
