Born in the Valley. Tara Quinn Taylor

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      Sending her concerned husband a reassuring smile, Bonnie packed up the cards and cut the brownies. Grandma asked about Katie, who’d been going to bed when she’d arrived, asked if Bonnie had seen Becca Parsons that day and if Becca had said anything about a long-range planning committee meeting the next morning. She asked about Keith’s work.

      And she avoided Keith’s attempts to tell her to slow down. When they asked about Dorothy, her answers were brief and seemingly carefree.

      After two brownies, Grandma was ready to go home.

      Keith rose to get his keys.

      “Why don’t you stay and finish up in here,” she told her grandson, waving toward the dessert plates and napkins, half-empty milk glasses and score card still on the table. “Bonnie can take me home.”

      Exchanging one more silent look with her husband, Bonnie followed the older woman out the garage door to her van.

      “YOU’VE GOT TO TELL that grandson of mine to let up on me.”

      Bonnie hadn’t even backed out of the garage before Grandma spoke.

      Easing the van into the quiet street, she flipped on her headlights and put it in drive. “He just cares about you, Grandma.”

      “I know that. I care about him, too. Far more than he’ll probably ever know. Which is why it’s so hard to keep fighting him. I have enough to do without expending energy fighting with him.” Bonnie was amazed at how the older woman could take a much-repeated grumble and speak it with such convincing authority.

      “He won’t listen to me on this one.” Bonnie said the same thing she always did.

      “I mean it, Bonnie. I need his support right now.”

      Turning a corner, Bonnie slowed and glanced at Grandma, a knot in her stomach. “What’s up?” she asked.

      “I will not turn my back on my friends.”

      “I know that.”

      “I’m seventy-six years old, not dead.”

      “I know that, too.”

      “But do you?” Grandma asked. Bonnie had pulled into Grandma’s drive, but the old woman made no move to get out of the car. She stared at Bonnie through the semidarkness, her eyes faded and watery. “Do you have any idea how it feels to have lived a full, productive life and then to discover that because you’ve had one too many birthdays, everyone suddenly thinks you no longer have anything significant to offer?”

      Grandma’s words, though softly spoken, reverberated through the van, knocking the breath out of Bonnie.

      “I think I do,” she whispered. She didn’t know which was worse—thinking that you were giving nothing significant, or having others think you were incapable of giving.

      She wasn’t sure it even mattered.

      “I’ll talk to him.”

      She watched Grandma to her door with a new understanding, one that effected a change she wasn’t sure she fully grasped. Grandma wasn’t the only person who got older. There was an entire community of elderly citizens in Shelter Valley.

      She wondered how many of them were fighting the same frustrations she’d been fighting these past months. The need to be needed. Or to make a difference in a world that cried out for help.

      And wondered if there were answers for any of them.

      KEITH WAS WAITING for her when she got home. Only the small light over the kitchen sink was glowing. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” played on the stereo behind her.

      Bonnie smiled.

      He walked toward her, unbuttoning his shirt. His longish blond hair was mussed.

      “Got Grandma home safe and sound?”

      She nodded. That short car ride had left her with too much to think about. And no conclusions other than a determination to somehow talk Keith into letting Grandma do what she had to do, even if it killed her.

      Later.

      Forcing thoughts of the disturbing conversation from her mind, Bonnie focused on the lithe male body slowly approaching.

      As always, a rush of delicious anticipation leaped in Bonnie’s abdomen. This man had the power to change her in some elemental way. And if, tonight, there was a bit of desperation in her eagerness for him, it wasn’t something she was going to dwell on.

      She unbuttoned her blouse, as well, exposing the teddy she’d slipped on when he’d gone to get Grandma.

      “Oh, God, Bon, you’re so beautiful it hurts.”

      She ran her fingers up his chest, his throat and into his hair, every nerve in her hands heightened so that she felt each silky strand slide between her knuckles and fall across her skin.

      “Kiss me,” she begged, standing on tiptoe to reach for his mouth as she pulled his head down to hers.

      He did. Again and again. His hunger was insatiable. His taste excitingly familiar. Hers. Bonnie groaned. There were so many feelings pulsating between them, so much to say.

      Love into eternity. Trust and an honest desire—stronger than self—to provide happiness. Forever.

      Keith had always aroused her. But tonight, as he loved her urgently, his body was perfect, in tune with every physical sensation she had. And his spirit was there, too, communicating without using the words she was so afraid to speak.

      Words were too messy. Left too many things un-said, or said wrong. But this—this all-consuming absorption in each other—was more vital than any conscious thought.

      By the third time they made love, they were stretched out on the family-room carpet on a quilt pulled from the back of the couch. Keith had turned on the gas fire and flames danced lazily in the fireplace in front of them. This time their loving was traditional, slow, soothing raw places deep inside Bonnie’s heart.

      Bonnie savored the love she knew she was so lucky to have.

      “You’ve brought me to my knees, woman,” he grumbled beside her on the carpet. “I love you so damn much.”

      “I love you, too.”

      He rolled to his side, head propped on one hand.

      “Thank you.”

      His words startled her. She was the one who should be expressing gratitude.

      “For what?”

      “Tonight.”

      She kissed Keith gently, wishing she wasn’t too exhausted to make love again. She didn’t want this feeling to end.

      And knew that it would.

      Her stomach tightened. She’d be kidding herself if she thought her dissatisfaction СКАЧАТЬ