Jennifer Greene - Man From Tennessee

The door snapped open at the far end of the room; two drunken revelers trying to find privacy. “Get out of here,” the stranger snapped, making Trisha jump warily at the instant autocratic order in his voice. They left promptly, and Trisha, suddenly uneasy, stirred to get up.

“Stay.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Stay. I have a mountain I want to tell you about. If you’re so young that you still believe in dreams you should like hearing about it.”

She fell in love hearing about it. At midnight there were New Year’s fireworks, shouts and a hullabaloo from below that destroyed their conversation. The tall dark man stopped talking, pulled her up from her sitting position and held her hand as they watched the fireworks over Lake Saint Clair from the window. When he turned to her finally, every instinct already guessed what he was going to do. The dark grave look in his eyes was oddly possessive, searing as his face moved closer. The secrets shared, of dreams both wanted to believe in, felt like the kiss that happened. She had never felt as protected as she did with his arms around her, the first sweet yearnings of desire burning inside of her.

Sometime after that the raucous dance music slowed and mellowed for the tired, thinning crowd below. Old nostalgic love songs floated into the hushed dark room. For two hours they danced alone in the stillness. On occasion he would lift her head and just look at her, and she held nothing back in the way she looked back at him. She wasn’t so young that she didn’t realize she could be hurt; she just didn’t care. He was a man of dreams, a man to protect as she had never felt protected. She felt cherished, desired. She curled close like a kitten, her arms around his waist, her forehead against the soft new bristle of beard forming on his chin at the late hour.

Three weeks later he met with her uncle, while Trisha waited outside the study wringing her hands. The wedding was hastily planned. But there was no choice. He had come to the breaking point in his executive world. A merger had been accomplished that would move him from the president’s chair to the chairman’s seat, permitting him to maintain his finger in all the Lowery pies but enabling him to relinquish direct control. It was his chance. She understood. He was free, and he wasn’t willing to wait any longer for anything he really wanted. If she really believed in his dream of the mountains, she had to go with him now. There would be no second chances with a man like Kern.

It was after midnight when Kern emerged alone and angry from her uncle’s study. He caught her up in that dark hall and pressed his mouth on hers until her neck ached and she felt dizzy and frightened and deliciously possessed. When he let her go she held on to his arms, too shy even to look at him. “I can’t get you out of this house soon enough, Tish,” he said gratingly. “Your uncle’s got a lot to answer for as far as you’re concerned, the cold-blooded…” He shook his head, and his voice lowered, using the gentler tone he always used with her. “I need you, Tish. You’re pure nectar to me, almost too pure… I know it’s too soon for you, but you’re better off with me than where you are now. We’ll make it work. I know you’re young, Tish, but I can’t wait. Won’t…”

Kern had been impatient through the ceremony, impatient with his mother, impatient still to be in the city they were leaving on the morrow. He had piled two weeks of work into a single week. She understood his urgency, but he was different…a stranger. Kern was used to making mountains move at the snap of his fingers, but Tish knew only the quieter, gentler man.

The honeymoon suite was lavish, with thick gold carpeting and filled with flowers. They had a view of the Detroit River at night. He had ordered a late dinner to be sent up to the room and then turned around and canceled it. He had sat on the bed and watched her standing still at the window, looking out. In the pale pink silky dress, her profile delicate, her shining gold hair hanging almost to her waist, her unsureness was a fragile and lovely portrait to him. “Come here, Tish.” She had looked at him with frozen eyes, and he had smiled, motioning her closer. “It will be all right.” He had come to her, bent her cheek to his chest and slowly unzipped the dress, kissing her forehead when he felt her trembling. “I love you, Tish…it’s going to be all right…”

But it wasn’t. Kern was still impatient and she knew it. She lost all of her confidence with her clothes, and Kern, formidable in his tailored suits, stripped off his civilized veneer when he took them off. Suddenly there was so much of him all at once, so much intimacy all at once. Wanting desperately to please him and not having the least idea how, she felt more sick than sensual, and Kern had been on fire. A primitive wildfire she had never guessed at was inside him, earthy in lust, with none of the control she had seen in him before.

The pain was a shock and she had struggled mindlessly to get away from the stranger that was Kern. He had hushed her, soothed her, tried to be gentle, but she sensed he was unhappy with her responses. And she couldn’t blame him. When it was over, she knew it hadn’t been right and was almost out of her mind with unhappiness, for his sake, for theirs. Until then she had a tentative but very optimistic confidence that she was a mate for Kern, that he needed her softness and gentle understanding to bring him strength, to be the kind of man he wanted to be. After that it was downhill.

The mountain was fantastically beautiful, better than her dream, but living there had been a nightmare. There was only a cold-water well that had to be pumped and a cabin to camp out in while Kern set about building the house. He didn’t want to live off the Lowerys so he set up a campground for the trailer trade, in order for them to be self-sufficient. It was all he wanted; the hard work didn’t daunt him. He was happy. Happy with everything but his new wife.

She was becoming obsessively sure of that. He worked sixteen-hour days in which she barely saw him. Rationally she understood it would have to be that way at the start. Emotionally she couldn’t cope. She didn’t know how to keep house in the primitive conditions. She didn’t know how to cook, much less on a wood stove. She was painfully shy with the strangers and local people. And she hadn’t been prepared for the snakes and bears. By the end of the day she was as exhausted as he, and when they came together at night she was frozen with the fear that she wouldn’t please him. Passion and anxiety were not a blend that went well together, and every morning she looked up at the tall, virile, healthy man that was her husband and saw his eyes shying away from her.

It was then that she had walked out. Emotionally destroyed, a bundle of inadequacy, a pale wraith of the fragile loveliness she once was. All the pieces had to be put back together because she was shattered, and it had taken a long time. She had not pursued a divorce. She didn’t want that piece of paper that would have given her her freedom. The thin band of gold had stayed on her finger. Not because she had any illusions of getting back with Kern, but because it served as a protection and kept other men away.

With Julia’s help in the beginning she had made it on her own. She was proud of her job and the life she had made for herself. The confidence she had in herself was real this time, not based on dreams.

The kettle whistled, and Trisha removed it from the burner. Just for a moment, seeing Kern hurt had brought back the old memories of a strong man who had his moments of vulnerability, who she had believed even needed her. Of course he really didn’t then and he certainly didn’t now.

“Damn it. I’ve been trying to get my mother here for ages. But not now, Tish.”