this baby was mine.'
He explored her skin as if it were braille, leaving no further secrets. 'Ah, Elly… Elly…' he murmured throatily. Then he found her hand and placed it upon himself and his breathing became a battle for air. He shuddered and ejaculated in her hand. Swiftly. Afterward he felt healed and renewed and reached for her again, to repay her in kind. But she pushed his hand away, sighed and curled close against him.
He lay holding her while emotions came to cleanse him. He thought of thanking her, but considered himself inarticulate in a moment too precious to jade with words. So he enfolded her, rubbed her back, her spine, her hair, pressing her even closer at intervals when his sense of fulfillment cried for expression.
Outside a solitary woodcock called, rising on whistling wings. The wind rested, stilling the tree tips. Off in the distance a barred owl called, like the bark of a dog at first, then, as if questioning,
Inside, entwined, Will and Elly drifted to sleep.
And neither of them thought to turn the light back on.
Chapter 13
Elly went into labor near noon of December fourth. She’d had a low backache all morning, then a bloody show, and by dinnertime her first two distinguishable contractions had come, fifteen minutes apart. The second hit hard enough to perch her on the edge of a chair, trying to catch her breath for the better part of a minute. When it ended she braced her back and rose awkwardly, then waddled into the front room.
Will was working on the bathroom, sitting crosslegged on the floor, whistling. He had cut a doorway through the front-room wall and sectioned off an end of the porch, which already had a window installed and the pipes jutting up from the crawl space underneath. With his first check he had proudly purchased bathroom fixtures-used, though neither Will nor Elly cared in their excitement over the prospect of having such a room. The sink and stool were stored elsewhere, but the tub was in place, standing inside the skeletal walls which, too, awaited finishing after the pipework was done.
Elly paused in the bathroom doorway, watching Will, listening to him whistle 'In My Adobe Hacienda,' which they’d been hearing on the radio lately. Wielding a pipe wrench, he faced the far wall. His cowboy hat sat at a jaunty angle on the back of his head. Sawdust coated its brim, and the back of his blue shirt was smudged with dirt from lying on his back in the crawl space. She smiled as he hit several sour notes.
He gave the wrench a last mighty tug that interrupted his song, then set it down with a clatter and tested the pipe junction with his fingers, picking up the tune again, softly, through his teeth. He got to one knee and picked up a copper elbow joint, bending forward while figuring the height at which it should adjoin the pipe connections on the tub.
'Hey, you,' she greeted amiably, wearing an appreciative smile.
He twisted at the waist and sent her an answering grin. 'Hiya, doll.'
She laughed and leaned against the doorframe. 'Some doll, shaped like a bloated horse.'
'C’m’ere.' He fell to his seat, legs outstretched, leaning against a wall stud and reaching out one dirty hand. They grinned at each other silently for a long moment. 'Over here.' He patted his lap.
She boosted off the doorframe and picked her way through tools and pipes scattered upon the floor to stand above him.
'Right here.' He patted his lap again as she turned sideways.
'No, not that way-this way.' He grabbed her ankle and planted it beyond his far hip, grinning suggestively. 'Come on down here.'
'Will… the boys,' she whispered, throwing a cautious glance over her shoulder at the doorway.
'So what?' Gripping her hands he forced her to straddle him with her skirt bunched up to midthigh.
'But they might come in.'
'So they find me kissing their mother. Be good for ’em.' He linked his wrists behind her waist and settled her paunch against his belly while she crossed her arms behind his neck.
'Will Parker…' She smiled into his upraised face. 'You’re the crazy one, not me.'
'Damn right, woman. Crazy for you.' He lifted his mouth for a long, involved kiss-lips, tongues, and plenty of head motion. It was something new for Eleanor, necking in the middle of the day. With Glendon there had been restraint during daylight hours, perhaps even less than restraint, for the idea of an interlude like this never entered their heads. But with Will… oh, her Will. He was insatiable. She couldn’t carry a stack of clean laundry through his vicinity without being waylaid, and pleasantly so. He was a devilishly good kisser. She’d never before given much consideration to the quality of kisses. But straddling Will’s lap, with his mouth wide, sucking gently on hers, with his silky tongue stroking everything reachable within her mouth, she appreciated his skill. He didn’t simply kiss. He lavished, then lingered, then drew away by slow degrees, as if he would never tire of her. Sometimes he murmured wordlessly, often nuzzled, making parting as sweet as joining had been.
The kiss ended with all due reluctance, and with Will’s nose buried in her collar, his hat fallen to the floor.
'My hands are dirty or you know where they’d be, don’t you?'
Eyes closed, face tilted up, she held his head and lightly raked his skull the way he loved. 'Where?'
He closed his teeth on her collarbone, chuckled and teased, 'In the kitchen, building a sandwich. I’m starved.'
She laughed and pushed away in mock rebuff. 'You’re always starved. What do you think I came in here for?'
'To call me for dinner?' He leaned back and grinned into her happy green eyes.
'What else?'
'And instead you pinned me to the floor and wasted all this time when I could’ve been eating?'
'Who wants to eat when you can neck?'
He feigned disgust and reached for his hat, plunking it on his head. 'Here I am, minding my own business, puttin’ in a bathroom, when out of nowhere this woman jumps me. I mean, I got my wrench out and I’m connectin’ pipe and not botherin’ a livin’ soul when-'
'Hey, Will?' she interrupted teasingly. 'Guess what.'
'What?'
'Dinner’s ready.'
'Well, it’s about time.' He tried to rise, but she remained on his lap.
'Guess what else.'
'I dunno.'
'My labor’s started.'
His face flattened as if she’d struck him across the Adam’s apple with the pipe wrench.
'Elly. Oh, my God, you shouldn’t be sitting here. Lord, did I hurt you, pulling you down? Can you get up?'
She chuckled at his overzealous reaction. 'It’s all right. I’m between pains. And sitting here took my mind off ’em.'
'Elly, are you sure? I mean, is it really time?'
'I’m sure.'
'But how can it be? It’s only December fourth.'
'I said December, didn’t I?'
'Yeah, but-well, December’s a long month!' His brow furrowed as he carefully boosted her up and followed. 'I mean, I thought it’d be later. I thought I’d have time to finish the bathroom so it’d be ready when the baby came.'
'It’s a funny thing about babies.' She held his dirty hands and lifted a reassuring smile. 'They don’t wait for things to get done. They just come whenever they feel like it. Now listen, I got some things to get ready, so if you’d fix the boys’ plates and your own it’d sure be a help.'
Will became a bundle of nerves. She shouldn’t have found it amusing, but couldn’t help smiling covertly. He balked at being out of her sight, even for the short time it took him to settle the kids at the table with their plates. Instead of filling a plate for himself he followed her to the bedroom, where he found her stripping the bed.
