LaVyrle Spencer - Spring Fancy

"Paul, I'm terribly sorry. And if it's any consolation, mother is furious with me. She isn't even talking to me." Winn reached out and touched the back of his hand. "Please don't take this in the wrong way, Paul, because I don't mean any disrespect, but it's too bad you and mother aren't closer to the same age. You'd make the most wonderful husband for her." Then she leaned across the table and kissed his cheek while Paul grew totally flustered and seemed unable to meet her eyes. That's when she knew she'd guessed right.

It was shortly after eight-thirty that evening when Winn Gardner stepped on the back stoop of Joseph Duggan's house. The radio was on in the kitchen. Tammy Wynette was belting out "Stand By Your Man" in her inimitable cracky voice, and water ran for a moment, then was turned off. Winn angled a peek through the screen and saw the left half of a Duggan back, dressed in a gold-and-black baseball uniform, shoeless, with a black cap pushed onto the back of his head, washing dishes. She waited until she was sure which Duggan it was, and when his profile appeared for a second, she smiled, opened the screen door silently and slipped inside. Even his back turns me on, she thought, watching as he rinsed a cup, set it on the drain board, then plunged his hands into the soapy water. The stretchy gold fabric of his breeches clung to his legs like an orange rind, displaying each dent and bulge. There was a grass stain on his left bun, and she smiled, picturing him as a boy, though loving him as a man. When at last she spoke, her voice was soft and quavery. "Hiya, Jo-Jo."

He spun around. Detergent bubbles flew from his fingertips and drifted to the floor. His stockinged feet, in their black baseball leggings, were braced wide apart, like an outfielder waiting for a fly. There was a puff of dust on his right cheek, and his shirt was filthy, as if he'd managed a beauty of a slide, belly first. His conglomerate appearance was totally incongruous-the soiled virile athlete with his hands in soapsuds. He gaped at her as if she were a ghost, while she tried to act as if every cell in her body wasn't leaping to get at him. In the same trembling voice she asked, "Need somebody to wipe for you?"

"Winn… my God… Winn."

"Is that all you can say is Winn? After all I've been through today just to get out of one very fast-approaching wedding for you?"

In one leap he slammed against her, nearly knocking her breath out while taking her off her feet and against his chest, with both of his detergent hands leaving wet prints on the back of her yellow cotton blouse. "Really? Oh, babe, really?" But he didn't give her time to answer. His mouth crushed hers, wide and wet and celebratory as he whirled them both in a circle.

Her arms made a nest for his head, knocking the baseball cap askew while they kissed and kissed and kissed, moving their heads in impatient and wondrous circles, yet still unable to satiate themselves fast enough to believe it was real. When at last she drew her mouth back to say, "Yes, really," her smile was as wide as center field, yet his was even wider. His beautiful bedroom eyes sparkled with the smile she loved, the one that half-closed them while his perfect teeth peeked from behind upturned lips. While he still held her aloft, she appropriated his black baseball cap and put it on her own head so she could get her fingers into that wonderful wealth of fine curls she loved so much.

"You really called it off?" he demanded one more time.

"I really called it off. I told mother to cease and desist. I gave my apologies to Paul. I told the realtor to come and get his damned sign out of my yard and sent the buyers packing, then came to you as fast as my car could get me here."

His mouth possessed hers again, and while they kissed, he let her slide down the front of him with very deliberate slowness. Her blouse caught on his uniform buttons and shimmied up her tummy, and his hands slid beneath it to caress her bare back and ribs.

Tommy Duggan, dressed in a uniform matching Jo-Jo's, turned the corner into the kitchen, came up short at the sight greeting him, folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the archway, smiling.

"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: "So, uh, tell me, big boy, where's your brother John?"

"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.