Jennifer Greene - Can’t Say No

“Wouldn’t be no trouble at all…”

The real problem with lying was the endless trouble the little fibs could get her into. It took twenty more minutes before Bree was free to sidle through the door with her arms aching from the weight of her grocery bags.

The car had been preheated under a South Carolina midafternoon sun. There was barely room for Bree-the backseat, the floor and the passenger seat were crammed with parcels. She’d known after the first fifteen minutes in town that this was going to be her one and only trip for a while-unless those temperamental vocal chords of hers decided to function again.

The main street of Mapleville was dusty and quiet. The post office was brick, but the old flour mill and general store and pharmacy were frame buildings that hadn’t seen fresh paint in a decade or two. Bree had always loved the sleepy, lazy town, and the people in it as well, but heading home was a relief. Patience, Dr. Willming had counseled her.

She was fresh out of the commodity. She’d hurt several people’s feelings that morning by not responding to their friendly questions. She’d earned a good headache simply by traveling a few miles and being unable to communicate. And a man she thoroughly detested had walked all over her while she just kept taking it like some helpless ninny. Bree was not helpless, and she was damned tired of feeling helpless.

Hot and miserable, she carried sack after sack into the cabin. Gradually, as she unpacked her purchases, she began to feel better. If the three hours of shopping had been grueling emotionally, she had found everything she needed to keep her busy for the next few weeks. Buying groceries had been a nuisance, but the rest of her purchases were sheer luxuries, memories of things she’d once loved to do. Gram had taught her to use the old spinning wheel, and she’d bought two sacks of wool from the old mountain man up the rise who raised sheep. She’d also purchased dye to color the wool once it was spun. And baking-on the immediate agenda was fussing with Gram’s old recipe for rich bride cake, and for days after that she had equally delectable plans. Her sacks were full of wheat flour and rye flour and yeast, ground rice, mace and nutmeg and currants; ginger and molasses and hops-things that few cooks used anymore.

And the old witch from the north of town-well, she claimed she was a witch-had yielded bergamot and vitriolic acid and citronella, some of the old-fashioned ingredients needed for making perfume. Gram had taught Bree the craft as a child, and as she grew older Bree started to create her own scents-better than those of the professionals, according to Gram. That, of course, was silly, just as silly as her frivolous childhood dream of making perfumes as a career. But for these few weeks, she was free to be just as silly and impractical as she pleased, to do only the things she really loved doing. She might even have time to get one brew of scent going before she started baking.

If she weren’t so hot. Thank heaven Claire had managed to come up with a bathing suit from the far back of the store. The style of the suit had almost made Bree laugh, but at least until her luggage arrived she could get clean in the pond without risking exposure to any loudly vocal exhibitionists.

When she had put away all her purchases, Bree squeezed some fresh lemons for lemonade, downed two glasses of the refreshing drink and tapped a bare toe in the silent room. Hot sunlight poured through the windowpanes, peaceful and cheery, yet she couldn’t seem to settle into doing anything.

The heat must be causing this nagging restlessness. The night would cool up fine, but right now her jeans were sticking to her legs and her hair was curling damply around her temples. Popping up to the loft, she peeled off the stiff denims and camisole and dug out the bathing suit she’d just put away.

She put it on and grimaced at herself in the cracked old mirror in the corner. The suit was a one-piece black number with a little skirt, high necked with thick straps, the kind that had gone out of style several decades ago. The general store didn’t exactly stock the height of fashion. Furthermore, the built-in bra seemed to be made of whalebone. It was cool, Bree reminded herself, and that was all she’d wanted at the time, something that was cool and concealing. No one was around to care or see…Her eyes flickered abruptly to the telescope still lying by the window.

Gram had spent hours with that telescope, looking for white-crowned sparrows and ruby-throated hummingbirds. Bree adjusted the lens, quickly scanned the trees for Gram’s old favorites and zoomed in…accidentally on the house at the top of the hill.

He’d taken the boards off the windows, she noticed. The yard had been mowed, not an easy task on that steep rise. A chaise longue now stood on the patio that jutted out over the ravine. And there was someone in the upstairs window, rubbing a cloth on the dusty panes…

Bree abruptly lowered the telescope, readjusted the lens and held it to her eye again. Not someone. A woman. In a shocking pink confection that a brazen hussy might have the nerve to call a bathing suit.

It certainly hadn’t taken him long to get established in the neighborhood.

Actually, that model of housekeeper looked imported.

She blinked again, squinting harder into the lens. Good Lord, there were two of them. The second came with tiger stripes. And that child didn’t know enough to buy a suit that fit her.

Bree lowered the telescope, and grabbed a towel.

Downstairs, she picked up a bottle of shampoo and headed for the door. Her suit, she thought wryly, was hardly necessary. She was going to get her skinny-dipping bath in freedom after all. He’d found someone else to play with. More than enough to keep him busy.

A little bath, a couple hours of sunbathing, then her projects… Safe echoed through Bree in one huge, disgruntled yawn.

At the pond, she abandoned the bathing suit and flung it toward the nearest bush. The sun caressed her bare skin as she walked with head thrown back to the shoreline. She waded knee-deep into the icy water, then thigh-deep, then arched into a shallow racing dive.

Water rushed around her limbs like icy silk. She flipped over and began a lazy backstroke, swimming the length of the pond once, and then again. Her senses seemed to burst into life, senses that had been dormant for weeks now. She was conscious of everything-the heat of sun and the chill of water, the whispered softness of trees and woods, the look of her own white skin under clear water, the feel of her hair sensuously streaming around her face when she slipped underwater.

In time, she stretched her limbs to the sun like a sensual kitten and then waded to shore for her shampoo. As she wandered back to waist-deep water, she spilled a little of the soft liquid into her palm and soon had a mound of sweet-smelling lather in her hair. Such luxuriousness felt delightful. A dollop of white foam fell between her breasts and trickled down; she arched her breasts for the sun and kneaded the shampoo into her hair and felt utterly, deliciously, wantonly wicked.

Richard would have been appalled to see her standing naked in the woods. So, come to think of it, would her parents. And anyone else she knew. Bree was not a brazen, sensual lady and never had been. She was just…Bree. All her life she had been just…Bree.

Maybe the shampoo bottle held a secret formula for washing away dissatisfaction, because at the moment she exulted in playing mermaid. When she dived to rinse off, her hair streamed behind her, and she played a few minutes more, although her flesh was starting to feel cold. A half hour later, shivering, she shook the water from her skin as she waded back to shore. Bending to pick up the towel, she straightened, loving the warmth of sunlight on her bare skin.