nuzzling her neck. “Mmmm… they smell almost as good as you do.”
Rachel scooped up a handful and rubbed them down his bare back. “Where did you get them?”
He smiled as he rose up above her, but his gaze was hot as he lowered the thin straps of her peachy-pink negligee, baring her breasts. “Magic,” he said, his voice turning low and velvety as desire flared anew in his eyes.
As Rachel had done, he scooped up wildflowers in his hands and caressed her with them, crushing them as he cupped her breasts. He lowered his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking at that tender bud of flesh and the pansy petal that clung to it. His hands swept down her hips, tugging her nightgown up out of his way.
He turned onto his side and admired the view as he showered a handful of flower petals down on the bare skin of her belly and thighs. Sliding down on the bed, he blew gently across her abdomen, sending the buds skittering. With a purposeful look on his handsome face, he parted her legs and settled himself between them, planting kisses on the petals that clung to her inner thighs.
Rachel raised herself up on her elbows, her hair tumbling around her as she watched him, wrapped in sensual fascination stronger than any narcotic. With gentle fingers Bryan parted her most tender flesh and caressed her intimately with the bud of a wild rose. She gasped at the feel of velvet brushing her, cool and damp against her heat. He caressed her again, then lowered his head and tasted her, kissing her softly at first, hesitantly, increasing the pressure slowly, opening his mouth over her and stroking her with his tongue until she was sobbing at the intensity of her pleasure.
He kneeled then, and lifted her into his arms, pulling her against him and kissing her deeply. His lips trailed to her ear, where he traced the danity shell with the tip of his tongue and whispered, “And they taste almost as good as you do too.”
Rachel purred and arched against him. A languid smile lifted one corner of her mouth as she reached between them and undid Bryan’s zipper. She tugged the denim down his lean hips, scooped up two handfuls of flowers, and encased his manhood in cool soft petals, wringing a gasp from him. She stroked him with them as she planted kisses across his chest. Then it was her turn to gasp as he lifted her against him. She dropped the flowers, her hands going up automatically to his broad shoulders as he pulled her hips to his and joined their bodies once more.
The light in the room was considerably brighter when Rachel awoke for the second time. Bryan’s tousled head was on her breast, one of his long, hairy legs was thrown across both of her considerably smoother ones. He was humming the Notre Dame fight song in his sleep.
“Bryan,” she murmured softly. “Wake up.”
He grumbled and growled, finally lifting his head and pushing his glasses up on his nose. “What time is it?”
Rachel reached to the nightstand for his wrist-watch and peered at it, shaking her head. “Three-ten, Bryan Hennessy time. Do you ever intend to set this thing correctly?”
“Oh, sure,” Bryan said, hauling himself up to lean back against the ornately carved headboard. “I’m sure I wrote myself a note to do it.” He scratched his kneecap through the sheet, looking puzzled. “I wonder what became of that note.”
“It’s quarter to seven,” Rachel said, consulting her travel alarm.
Time to get up and face the day, she thought. Her gaze roamed over the tangle of sheets and flower petals, and she smiled. With a night like this last one to remember, the day wasn’t going to be quite so hard to face.
She yawned, stretched, and scratched her arm. Snuggling against Bryan’s hard shoulder, she said coyly, “Thank you for the flowers. I loved them.”
Bryan turned his head and kissed her temple. “And I love you.”
Rachel’s heart jumped. She couldn’t get used to hearing him say that. She was afraid to say it back for fear the spell would be broken somehow, afraid she would be putting too much pressure on him, expecting too much of him.
She sifted a handful of petals through her fingers and scratched absently at her left hip. “Making love in flowers is the most romantic thing I can think of.”
“Flowers are romantic,” Bryan agreed absently. He shoved the sheet down and stared, frowning at his belly as he scratched it. “Ants aren’t.”
“Ants?” Rachel questioned, scratching her shoulder.
“Hmmm, yes,” he said. “It seems we have a bed full of them. They must have ridden in on the flowers,” he ventured, but his explanation was lost on Rachel, who shrieked and leapt from the bed, shaking herself like a wet dog. He watched her grab up her robe, thrust her arms into the sleeves, and bolt for the door.
“Have a nice shower!” he called, laughing, then he found a scrap of paper and a pen on the nightstand and he wrote himself a note-Beware of Ants.
NINE
Rachel stood outside the door to her mother’s bedroom, as nervous as she had been at fifteen when she had needed to ask permission to go on her first date. She was freshly showered, debugged, and looked as presentable, in her black dirndl skirt and lavender cotton blouse, as any voice teacher she had ever encountered. Her hair was secured in its knot at the back of her head and only a few tendrils had as yet escaped to frame her face.
It occurred to her that she shouldn’t have had to go to such pains to see her own mother. A mother wasn’t supposed to care about appearances. A mother was supposed to be accepting of her children whether they were in rags or designer wear. But it was that line of thinking that had caused the problems between her and Addie in the first place, so Rachel stopped that train of thought before it ran out of control.
It was a new day, a day for beginnings. She felt fresh and strong, rested despite the precious little sleep she’d had. Spending the night in Bryan’s arms had revitalized her, recharged her. She was brimming with energy and ready to take on whatever the day had in store for her. As she had showered the flower petals and ants from her skin, she had come to the conclusion that she would redouble her efforts to solve the problem with Addie.
Rachel raised her hand to knock at the door, but it suddenly fell open as if someone on the other side had jerked it back. Addie, however, was standing across the room in a yellow flowered housedress, scowling into her mirror as she struggled with the task of braiding her hair. She crossed one strand over, twisted it around again, pulled another across, then swore and let go the entire mess to start again.
It was clear to Rachel that her mother had either forgotten how to braid or the message from her brain to her hands was getting lost somewhere along the way; apraxia was the term the doctors used for it. In either case, it was sad, and it reminded Rachel yet again of how their roles were being reversed. She could easily remember Addie painstakingly plaiting her long hair on her first day of kindergarten, how she had sat very still on the wire vanity stool in her mother’s bedroom, staring wide-eyed into the mirror as her mother’s fingers had magically tamed her wild locks.
“Mother?” she asked softly, forcing herselt to step into the room before her memories could steal her courage from her. “Can I help you with that?”
Addie stared at her daughter, wondering just how much Rachel had seen. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
“It was open.”
Addie muttered, “Wimsey. Meddling old coot.”
Rachel ignored the odd remark. Taking a brush from the cluttered dresser, she went to stand behind her mother and began working on the hair that had once been as golden as her own, but had now paled to silver.
“I can do my own hair,” Addie said, staring at their reflections in the mirror.
“I know you can. I just want to help. Like you used to help me.”
Their gazes met in the glass, and Addie’s heart lurched. She had done everything for Rachel. She had been both mother and father. She had raised her daughter without help from anyone. She had held down two jobs at a time and had never run out of energy or drive. Now that daughter was standing behind her, braiding her hair because she suddenly wasn’t able to manage so simple a task herself.
“I believe I’ll wear it down today,” she said, moving away from the dresser. In the mirror she could see Rachel
