The Four Seasons. Mary Monroe Alice

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СКАЧАТЬ and strong; he could knead knots out of her shoulders like no one else. They’d started dating in college when she was a champion swimmer for the team. He used to massage her shoulders after her swim meets. She still teased him that she married him for his hands.

      “God, that feels good,” she groaned.

      “You’re all knotted up. You need to relax.” He leaned closer and said in a seductive tone by her ear, “I know what will loosen you up. When do we have to leave?”

      Birdie cringed and moved out from under his hands. The last thing she was interested in right then was sex and she was irked that Dennis would even think she would be. “For God’s sake, Dennis, we have to leave in forty minutes.”

      Dennis held his hands in the air for a moment, then let them drop to his sides with resignation. When he spoke, his voice was lackluster. “I thought we weren’t leaving till four.”

      “Did you forget we’re supposed to pick up Jilly from O’Hare?” Her exasperation rang in her voice. He could remember the dates of every foreign war the United States was ever in, but he never seemed capable of remembering one family date on the calendar. “If this front becomes the storm the weathermen predict, traffic will be snarled up all along the interstate and Jilly’s flight will be delayed, if not canceled. Who knows what time she’ll get in? It’s crazy for us to pick her up. We could sit there for hours.”

      “So why doesn’t Rose pick her up?”

      Birdie snorted and shook her head. “I’m not even sure Rose knows how to get to the airport. She never leaves Evanston, and as far as I can tell she rarely leaves the house! She doesn’t much care for talking on the phone, either. She screens calls on the answering machine before picking up. Who does she think is going to call her, anyway? She doesn’t have any friends. Rose is a dear heart but I swear she’s becoming more and more isolated every year.”

      Birdie rubbed the stiffness in her neck. After the funeral was over and the family house was sold, she’d have to have a serious talk with her sister about her future. Rose had to face up to leaving the house, and she’d have to get a full-time job, one that would support her. At least she had her computer skills. But Rose was such a stay-at-home she’d have a hard time making new friends and a new life. It wasn’t good that she had locked herself away as caretaker for Merry all those years.

      “Tell Jilly to take a cab.”

      “What? Oh yeah…well, I suggested that to her on the phone but she complained and reminded me how long it’d been since she’d been home and told me how much luggage she had and so on and so on. Get this. She wanted to be picked up by a family member—at the gate!”

      His shook his head. “And you relented….”

      “Who doesn’t with Jilly?”

      “Well, even you can’t order a blizzard around.”

      Birdie chuckled then pursed her lips, considering her options. Her first priority was to get to Evanston and make certain the funeral arrangements she’d spent hours—days—on the phone making were going smoothly. She rested her hands on the counter and leaned against them. “God, this is going to be a nightmare. Who knows what to expect from her? Do you remember the scene Jillian made at Mother’s funeral?”

      He shrugged. “Jillian lives to make a scene. I don’t see what the commotion is about. She’ll arrive in a state, stay long enough to make another scene, then leave and we won’t see her for another ten years. God willing.”

      “I don’t see why you dislike her so. She’s never done anything to you.”

      “She doesn’t have to. It’s what she does to you that makes me dislike her.”

      “What do you mean?” Birdie replied, genuinely surprised. Dennis never made any pretense over the fact that he didn’t like her more glamorous sister.

      “She puts you on edge,” he replied, looking Birdie directly in the eye. “She makes you feel somehow less.” He lowered his gaze. “You’re not the same whenever she’s around.”

      Birdie wanted to tell him that was because he was never the same when she was around. Dennis had dated Jilly for a brief period in high school, something Birdie never felt comfortable about. Neither of them ever mentioned it, but sometimes, when he didn’t think anyone was looking, she caught him gazing at Jilly with an odd expression on his face. She’d wondered if the gaze was merely speculative, or, and she shuddered to think this, if it was lust she saw under his heavy, hooded eyes.

      “If she makes me feel less,” she replied, loading ice blocks into the cooler, “it’s only in the arena of beauty. Let’s face it. Jilly is gorgeous.”

      “So are you.”

      “No, I’m not.” She wasn’t being coy. Birdie knew that age and the additional twenty pounds that crept on over the past decade had not improved her already large frame. In the looks department, nothing she had could compare to Jilly. Birdie’s eyes were pale blue, not a vivid green like Jilly’s. All she had of the famous red Season hair were a few red highlights in the dull brown. Worst of all, she had her father’s nose. He told her to be proud of the aristocratic though slightly askew family inheritance, and in fact, she was. But it did nothing to enhance her beauty.

      “You are to me.”

      When he said things like that Birdie’s heart did a quick flip and she felt a sudden gush of love for him. She turned and busied her hands rinsing a few cups in the sink, flustered. “That’s sweet. But really, Dennis, I’m over forty years old and a success in my own right. I don’t need to pretend I’m beautiful for my self-esteem.”

      Dennis just shook his head sadly.

      She turned off the water and made a snap decision. “We’ll skip the airport. I’ll call Rose and see what else can be arranged. But we’ll still have to leave early in this storm. Where were you, anyway?” she asked, turning to face Dennis. “You said you’d be home by twelve.”

      “What time is it now?”

      “It’s almost three.”

      He shrugged and raised his brows in a gesture of innocence. “I had a lot to do to leave town for several days. Midterm grades need to be averaged before spring break. Then there was an emergency meeting with the chairman.”

      He loosened his tie and tugged it off with a frustrated yank. “I got out as quickly as I could.”

      “Didn’t it occur to you that I’ve got a lot to do, too? While you were arranging your schedule, I was doing the same plus shopping for the trip, packing up and taking the dog to the kennel.”

      He turned his back to her and grabbed the beer bottle from the counter along with the stack of mail. “Well, we can’t all be as efficient as you.”

      She felt the sting of his words as she watched him lean casually against the counter and sift through the mail as though he had all the time in the world. He could be oblivious to everyone’s needs but his own, she thought. Hannah may not have inherited his lean physique, but she had certainly inherited his temperament.

      “Where’s Hannah?” he asked, as though reading her mind.

      “She’d better be upstairs packing. Would you go up and СКАЧАТЬ