It Pours Page 24

  “Well, son.” Ned stretched his back and slid down in the chair. For a moment, I wondered if he had unbuttoned his pants to accommodate the swelling in his belly. He had stopped the caterers twice already as they walked by with the entrée dishes. “Since Charlie Grace opened the can of worms, I’m going to put my two cents worth in. Me and your momma weren’t going to say anything until it was closer to your hitching date but we’ve started clearing the land out behind that field your grandpa used to farm. It’s right nice back there. A piece away from us but close enough Nadine can watch them babies of yours.”

  Nadine squealed and clapped her hands, squeezing her large bosoms together. “I sure can. You doctors can just drop them beautiful babies off every single day. I’ll spoil ‘em some kind of rotten before you take them home.”

  Babies?

  Jacques chuckled, trying not to choke on the scotch he had sipped from his fresh drink. “Between all of us those kids are going to be so rotten they’ll smell.”

  Nadine saw the dessert being brought into the room and pushed her plate to the side. “Ya’ll aren’t going to want for a sitter. And just think of all the weekends you’ll get to work on more babies when they stay over at our house.”

  Grant laughed. “They have surgeries for that now, Mom. But we can still practice, eh Rayne?”

  Are you fucking kidding me right now?

  The nausea turned into a sickening taste in my mouth. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here listening to this. Flossie across from me fidgeted with something in her lap. Jacques kept eating at the remaining piece of turkey on his plate. Cora was practically spoon feeding Harold. And here I sat wondering what in the hell was going on with this conversation. I looked at Charlie Grace. Why, I have no idea but I did? The smile on her face was the smirk I was accustom to. It was what I saw most. She sipped her wine and tipped it toward me. What? What is she saying? I felt Grant’s hand on the top of my thigh and my knee hit the underside of the table.

  His look was controlling. His eyes were on the verge of stern. “Isn’t that right, honey? But we’ve got a couple of years before we start popping out kids.” His grip tightened and I looked up at him.

  Honey? Popping out kids? Had some medical miracle occurred to where he was going to start popping out kids? This would surely be news to me.

  “Ned, I didn’t know you and Nadine were planning on the kids building out on your land.” Charlie Grace used her fork to cut a bite off of the pecan praline semifreddo. She spread the bite across the bourbon caramel that had pooled around the bottom of the dessert but left the fork resting across the plate.

  “Yep, me and the Mrs. been racking our brain, trying to figure out what to get these lovebirds for their wedding present. Figured this would be graduation and wedding all wrapped up.”

  Not much one for dessert, Jacques folded his napkin onto the plate. “I say we all take a drive out to the land tomorrow to take a look around.”

  “That’s an excellent idea, Jacques.” Grant shoved a loaded fork into his mouth and wiped at the caramel dripping off of his lip.

  My head snapped up. I could take no more of this. These lies of omission Grant obviously found to be okay to leave on the table. Lies of omission. The words stuck a chord and held heavy in my mind. I searched the table again before landing on Flossie’s eyes as they held me. A simple nod was all she gave me. It was all I needed--a simple nod from one who knew the tumult soul beneath my shell.

  Listen to the voices. Different but the same.

  The table kept with its conversation. The voices became an unconscious understanding of mumbled words. The massage of my fingertips against my temple didn’t quiet nor add comprehension to the growing agitation of words around me. Words of lies of omission grated on me like sandpaper on raw skin. Pain. Omission—I was no better than the voice of Grant’s that was causing a cringe in my soul. Under the table, I felt the edge of the diamond dig into my finger as I held it with a tightened pinch. I was no better than Grant. I had fallen in love with a woman. I had given my body all the pleasures I had for so long denied it in the arms of another woman. Lies of omission that I could ever go back to a man’s arms—to Grant’s arms.

  “She know’d you. She loved you more than anything.” I heard Flossie’s voice calling me to listen.

  Mo’s face appeared so perfectly in my mind I thought for a moment I could reach out to trace the bottom lip of the smile I was being given. Sam’s tear-streaked face was a vision right behind hers. Then with all the strength I needed, Meems with her blue eyes smiling at me…loving me for who I was came into my sight.

  Listen to the voices.

  I pulled at the band of gold and stone until my finger was free of it. Among the intermingling voices, I slowly brought my hand from under the tablecloth. The gold snapped against the cloth-covered wood as I placed the ring on the table.

  “I can’t do this anymore.” I heard the flatness in my voice. I heard the tone to its words.

  No one stopped chattering.

  A smile played at Flossie’s lips as she gave me another supportive nod. “I’m right here. You can do this,” she mouthed.

  I cleared my throat. “I said I can’t do this anymore.”

  Charlie Grace blinked at me. “Can’t do what?”

  Shit. I had their attention. Can’t do what—can’t marry Grant? Can’t pretend I’m someone I’m not? Can’t do what, Rayne?

  I lifted my hand from the table to reveal the jewelry hidden in my palm. “I can’t pretend anymore.”

  Grant stared at the ring on the table.

  I caught his eyes as he looked away from the gold. “I can’t pretend we want the same things anymore, Grant.”

  His eyes closed for longer than a blink. He opened them and was no longer looking at me.

  I gently placed my hand on his arm. The rest of the room was silent. “We’ve grown to want other things.” The rest of the truth could stay private until the time we both saw fit to reveal it. This was not the time for me. Yet I knew its time was closer than I had once thought. “We’ve grown to see a different direction in our lives and I can’t pretend that isn’t there. I can’t keep going down a path that sees us married when we both know in our hearts we’ve grown to want different futures.”

  He shook his head silently but didn’t look up.

  “What on earth are you talking about, Rayne Amber?” Charlie Grace asked, her voice laced with irritation.

  Listen to the voices.

  “Mother, this is between Grant and me.”

  “It would seem we could argue that point as you are saying this in front of all of us.”

  “Charlie Grace.” Grant looked up at her. “It’s okay.” He held his hand up as if to tell her he had the understanding to all of this.

  “What?” Cora had awakened from her ogling over Harold. “It most certainly is not okay. You can’t do this to yo’ poor momma. She needs this wedding.”

  Flossie turned to Cora. “Then you be giving her a wedding to plan. Dis Rayne’s life not yo’s or her momma’s.”

  “Wait a minute here. Let’s just wait a minute.” Nadine put her fork down next to her plate. “What is happening here?”

  “I believe our boy is getting dumped.” Ned reached over, grabbed Jacque’s scotch and slammed the rest of its contents back.

  “Mom…Dad…it’s nothing like that.” Grant’s voice was calm if not emotionless. “Rayne and I have some things to be discussed. I don’t think she is trying to say we are splitting up. We just have some things we need to talk about.” He looked at me. “Right?”

  Not the place. Not the time.

  “We have many things we need to talk about. Yes.”

  “Well, at least you haven’t lost your sense of drama.” Charlie Grace crumbled her napkin into a ball and tossed it across her plate. “Must the attention always center on you that we can’t have a decent meal with friends and family without it being about you?”

  “Drama?” Had she just called me d
ramatic? “I’m dramatic. I’m the one demanding attention? You walk around here snapping at everyone. Changing every single tradition about our Thanksgiving all on your own and I’m the one who is ruining our holiday?”

  “Well pardon me for not living up to your standards.” Charlie Grace stood from the table.

  I followed. “Are you kidding me right now? As if you’ve ever shown me I lived up to yours?”

  Jacques stood up and waved his hands between us. “Now…now…let’s take a breather.” He put his hand on Charlie Grace’s shoulder. “Honey, sit down. Let’s not do this right now. It’s Thanksgiving.”

  Her stare didn’t falter. Her gaze burned through me. “I’m fine and will not be man handled thank you very much,” she said through gritted teeth as she shrugged his hand from her shoulder. “Let’s have it. Let’s all hear about how I’ve wronged you as a mother. How you’re breaking this man’s heart, throwing all of the hard work we have put into establishing a future for you here in our faces because of me being a failure as a mother. Let’s hear it, Rayne. You think you could hurt me anymore at this point?”

  Hurt you? How have I hurt you?

  I felt the caress of a hand within mine and realized Flossie had come to stand by me. “Come on, baby girl. Let’s let dis breathe for a minute.” She led me from the table.

  “Oh sure, Flossie. Take over where mom left off.”

  “Not like dis, Charlie Grace.” Flossie’s voice was as tender as the eyes that held Charlie Grace. “Not here. Not like dis.” She softly shook her head as she led me into the kitchen.

  I heard chair legs scrape across the hardwood floor as Charlie Grace said, “Happy Thanksgiving everyone.”

  “What just happened?” Nadine’s was the last voice I heard before Flossie had me outside on the back porch.

  “Well…that was a complete disaster.”

  “Come on, sis. I gots something to sho’ you.” Flossie’s hand was soft with the thinness of her skin over the prominent bones in her hand. “Thinkin’ this may make you feel better.”

  She led me around the corner of the house to the circle drive. A full moon’s light reflected off of the faded yellow paint of Memaw’s Silverado pickup truck. My knees buckled with surprise and sadness. Meems.

  “Flossie? How?”

  “Old fart left’n for me.” Her smile was edged with grief. “Dat lawyer, you know the one dat read her will, gave me the keys and a note in her scribble. All’n she put on dat paper was ‘get outta dat damn home’. I do it too. I drive dis piece a junk around for her.”

  She walked to the driver’s door and opened it for me. In the stillness of the night, the horrendous screech sounded for miles. A light-hearted laugh tickled my heart before it escaped my mouth. I let the smile play upon my lips as I traced the vinyl bench seat with my hand.

  “I didn’t think I would see this truck again. I’ve wondered what happened to it but I was scared to know the answer. I guess I thought Mother had it taken to the wrecking yard to be sold for scrap.”

  Flossie dropped the keys in my hand and I swear she skipped around the front of the truck to climb into the passenger seat. I sat in the seat and ran my hand along the narrow steering wheel letting my fingers slid over the notches along the back. The cold vinyl seat quickly cooled the back of my legs as my blue jeans were little barrier for the November chill that had dropped the temperature twenty degrees earlier in the day. The sound of the engine caused another ripple of happiness to course through me. I pushed the levers of the thermostat to the right which released the smell of heat into the cab. I pulled the knob on the bottom left of the dashboard and smiled at the headlights shining across the yard. Meems was here. She lifted my soul…lifted my spirits. She was here. I let my forehead rest against the wheel once held in her hands. Deep breaths filled my lungs.

  “Let’s take her for a spin,” Flossie said as she rubbed my back.

  Chapter 22

  “Hi.”

  “Hi, yourself.”

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  “Are you sure you want that?” Mo said as she straddled across my waist. She leaned her back against my legs when I bent them behind her. “I mean I sort of thought you liked meeting like this.” She raised up off of my legs and let her fingers travel down my bare stomach. “Or so it seemed into the early hours of this morning.”

  My tongue ran across the sore spot at the corner of my lower lip as I remembered her surprise knock at the door. She had hardly waited for the taxi to pull away before taking my breath with a kiss filled with passionate need. We had not made it further than the couch before she had me undressed and totally surrendered to her control.

  She touched the break in the skin my tongue had roamed over. She made a face of remorse. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I am. I didn’t mean to bite you.” She placed a small kiss at the corner of my lip and whispered, “I just needed those clothes off so bad but I couldn’t stop kissing you.”

  Butterflies swarmed across my belly when I remembered her teeth biting into my lip. “I’m serious…don’t be. It was ummmmm.”

  She gave me a mischievous smile. “It was ummmmm what?”

  “I’ll show you what.” I pulled her lips to mine and kissed her with the matching intensity she had given me the night before.

  “Oh, that?”

  “Yes…that.” I unzipped the leather at the wrist of her jacket. “I like this outfit you’ve got going on here.”

  “Well, I had to put something on to call and order the pizza.”

  “I’m not sure if a leather jacket and,” I slipped my finger underneath the waist band of her black boy cut briefs, “these constitutes putting something on.”

  “Would you like for me to put something else on?”

  I kissed the tattoo at her wrist and traced my tongue over ink. “Oh, I didn’t say that.”

  She started to slip her arm from the jacket. “Would you like for me to take some of this off?”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Oh, I didn’t say that either.” I dropped my hand to rove the exposed skin between her breasts and down her belly to her right hip. “How about you stay just like that.”

  The muscles of her belly tightened as I trailed my fingertip along the musical notes leading over the side of her hip. “How much time do we have until the pizza gets here?”

  Her breath was shallow and rapid through parted lips. Her eyes were filled with desire as she guided my hand to where she needed it most. “Enough.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she gave herself to me…as she let me watch what my touch did to her body. It was so open, so exposed and raw to let me see all she felt. My heart beat wildly against my chest. I didn’t need her to touch me as I couldn’t have felt more had her hands been on me.

  She let me hold her with my eyes…with my hands…with my body until she collapsed next to me, struggling to catch her breath. “Holy…cow.” She labored to slow her breaths. “That…was…incredible.” She bent her arm over her forehead. “Give…me…a…second…to…catch…my…breath.”

  The knock on the door was loud and we both jumped.

  I laughed. “Take your time.” I stood up to put on a robe.

  She attempted to reach for my body but her hand plopped down on the bed. “Yes, I need sustenance.”

  I skipped down the hallway, calling over my shoulder, “I’ll be back and then you really are in trouble.”

  “Someone call an ambulance.”

  Thankfully both a twenty and a five dollar bill lay on the table next to the door, saving the need for change or further delay from climbing back into bed with Mo. “Here you go. Keep the change,” I said as I slung the door open.

  “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. Why on earth are you still in your robe?” Charlie Grace stood at the door.

  “Mother?”

  “Why are you still in bed this late in the afternoon? Were you on call last night?�
� She started to step inside the door but stopped when I hadn’t moved away for her entrance. She gripped the leather strap of her purse that hung over her shoulder. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  “Mother? What are you doing here? And no I wasn’t on call last night.”

  She stepped back on her heels. “Our phone calls have been sparse, short, and tense since Thanksgiving. I was hoping we could talk face to face. Perhaps over a day of Christmas shopping. Grant told me when I talked with him that you weren’t on call so I was hoping my timing would be good.”

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  There’s a half dressed Mo in my bed. This really isn’t a good time.

  “Let me get dressed and I’ll come pick you up. Where are you staying?”

  Charlie Grace took a side step to reveal a small suitcase that had been hidden behind her.

  “Oh?”

  Shit.

  “I can go find a hotel if you don’t want me staying here.”

  Shit.

  “No, I didn’t say that. I just…you’ve never stayed here before so I assumed this was no different.”

  “I think we could use the time. Don’t you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I mean yes. Just let me think for a second.” I held my hand in the air in a failed attempt to hold onto anything that would steady my jerking knees.

  “Think?”

  “I’m starving over here. Wear a girl out and then hold food from her. So wrong.”

  NO!

  Charlie Grace’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

  I winced at the sight flashing before my eyes of Mo dressed in leather and cotton briefs. Surely that was the sight causing the look on Charlie Grace’s face.