Wild Orchids Part 18

I grabbed the towel, threw it in the sink, and ran water over it.

When I turned around, there was a little boy, wearing cowboy pajamas, standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, and looking at Jackie and me.

Jackie put her finger to her lips for the child to be quiet, then we backed out of the kitchen and ran around the house to the truck.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Jackie

Maybe I was jealous of Dessie, but I didn't think so. First of all, why would I be jealous? If I were madly in love with Ford Newcombe and some woman was about to take him away, I would, yes, be very jealous. Or if Dessie were the type of woman who wanted to "do" for a man, that old Southern term that meant wait on him hand and foot, and I thought my job was in jeopardy, I'd probably try to break them up.

But Dessie Mason wasn't like that. True, I could imagine her marrying Ford and a.s.suming that I was to be her slave. And of course she'd move me out of the best bedroom and into the servants' quarters at the top of the house, but I couldn't see her firing me. No, I did too much work to be fired.

I ran the house, was Ford's social secretary, was cook and purchasing agent.

I did everything except have s.e.x with him-and I was sure that Dessie would take over that job.

So why would I be jealous, as Ford constantly let me know he thought I was? He smirked at me so much I was afraid his face was going to s.h.i.+ft to one side.

The problem I saw on that first day was that Dessie was setting her cap for him and she meant to have him. And if she got him, I was sure she'd make him miserable.

Yes, Dessie was beautiful. Actually, she was more than beautiful. She was luscious. I could imagine that over the years thousands of men had declared undying love for her. My personal opinion was that she'd probably left L.A.

because there were too many beautiful women there. Her beauty combined with her formidable talent as a sculptor made her the Queen of Cole Creek.

The residents mentioned her name in whispers.

So now Dessie had decided she wanted my boss and I had no doubt she'd get him. Ford was smart when it came to books, but he didn't seem too smart about women. On the night Dessie came to dinner, Ford was after her like she was in heat. Truthfully, I thought it was disgusting.

First of all, Dessie made a big production of showing Ford a sculpture she'd created. It was good, true, and maybe I was being petty when I thought she was presuming too much, but I didn't think a sculpture of Ford's late wife and mother-in-law was something she should have made without asking his permission.

But since she did make it, why hadn't she shown it to him in private?

Why did she have to make a big production in front of other people and make Ford cry like a baby? That poor man had tears rolling down his cheeks from the moment he saw the sculpture until the lid was put back on.

I'm sure I'm just being cynical, but I bet she'd never made an uncommissioned sculpture for a poor man. It was all too much of a coincidence that Ford was rich and she'd made a 3-D portrait of two women he'd written millions of love words about.

When he told me he was going to her house on Sunday to discuss casting the sculpture in bronze, I was anxious to see how many other pieces he'd order from her. Ford and Tessa had already littered the garden with about fifty hideous little concrete statues, and I'd seen Dessie looking at them with calculating eyes. She's probably planning to replace them with something of hers that she'll charge Ford six figures for, I thought.

I told myself that none of it was my business. Ford had a right to have an affair with or marry any woman he wanted to. My job was to-Well, the truth of the matter was that I was beginning to wonder exactly what my job was.

For the last week, any time I mentioned research, Ford changed the subject. He said he was working on something else and he'd get to the devil story "later."

But I felt that the truth was, he was afraid for me. Since we'd both decided that my devil story was probably based on something I may have seen when I was a kid, I wasn't unhappy when he didn't pursue it.

Besides, I was happy working on my photography studio. And, okay, I was happy living with Ford. He could be very funny sometimes, and if anything had to do with books, he was a great companion. Every night while I fixed dinner, he read to me from one of the many books on photography he'd ordered, and both of us were learning a lot.

And his generosity was boundless. I made out an order for the bare essentials of photography equipment I'd need, but Ford added to the list and upgraded it until the total price was something that made me sick to my stomach.

"I can never pay this back," I said, handing the list back to him.

Ford shrugged. "We'll work out something."

Earlier, I would have thought that meant s.e.x, but I'd come to realize that Ford didn't think of me in that way. Actually, I was beginning to think he thought of me as the daughter he'd never had. And, truthfully, that was beginning to depress me. So, okay, maybe I'd been pretty adamant about there being no s.e.x between us when I first met him. But at the time I'd been engaged to Kirk, and when I left for Cole Creek with Ford, I'd just been ripped off by a man. My distrust of men was understandable. But since then... Well, since then, I'd come to find Ford rather attractive. But ever since we'd arrived in Cole Creek he'd been l.u.s.ting after other women, first Rebecca and now Dessie. All I could do was be his a.s.sistant and his business partner.

On Sat.u.r.day our little household was shaken. First of all, I was in a bad mood about the way Ford had made a fool of himself over Dessie the night before. I didn't mind his crying in front of everyone-that was kind of sweet -but I did mind the way he couldn't stop looking at her. She had on a dress that showed her enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s about as much as was legal, a wide belt that cinched in her spreading waist, and a full skirt that attempted to camouflage a rear end that had to be forty-five inches around. Dessie talked and laughed all night, but Ford just sat there nursing a beer and looking at her. He stared at her little pink toenails until I moved the chair she had her feet propped on, so she had to put her lacquered toes out of sight under the table.

But no, I don't think I was jealous. I think that if Dessie had acted like a woman on the verge of falling in love, I would have been happy. Or even if I'd seen that she was in l.u.s.t with Ford it would have been okay. But Allie told me that everyone in Cole Creek knew that Dessie was sleeping with her twenty-five-year-old gardener. One time I saw her looking at Nate, and both Nate's grandmother and I stepped between her and the beautiful boy.

When Dessie laughed, it was the only honest emotion I saw on her face all evening.

Anyway, Sat.u.r.day morning I wasn't in a good mood, so I decided to take my camera and go shoot some flowers. But just as I was leaving, Ford showed up and insisted he go with me.

He has some good points, but he can also be the most infuriating man on earth. By the time I got him outfitted, the sun was high in the sky, which meant I wouldn't get interesting shadows on the flowers, and I wished with all my might I'd let him spend the day with Dessie. Let her do whatever she wanted to with him.

Worse, when we finally got on the trail, he complained every step of the way. We didn't go more than a mile, if that, but to hear Ford's grumbling, you would have thought we'd hiked thirty miles on a survival trek. He ate and drank every step of the way, grunted and groaned over every twig in his path, and even whined about cobwebs across the trail. I felt like smacking him!

In the end, though, it was good he went with me because I had another one of those disaster-dreams. Only this time I was fully awake. Sort of awake. I think I blacked out for a few minutes. When I came to myself, Ford had a fire going and had heated water in a cup, and he started feeding me one of those pseudo-nutritional bars he eats by the dozen.

He was the one who figured out that I'd had another vision, and the second he said it, I knew he was right. Thirty minutes before, he'd been lying down, with all the energy of a dead slug, but suddenly he was a jet engine. He grabbed both packs, put one on his back, one on his front, and started running back to the truck. Yes, running.

When he got behind the wheel of the truck, I had to hold on for dear life.

He was asking me a million questions about my dream-vision, but I could hardly concentrate for fear he was going to turn the truck over. What really amazed me was that he drove like that with one hand on the wheel and didn't seem to think it was at all unusual. All his books ran it home that he (in a fictional guise) wasn't like his redneck relatives, but all he needed that day was a cigarette in his mouth and a rifle across the back window, and I would have put him up against any Billy Joe Bob in the U.S.

In spite of my head repeatedly hitting the roof of the truck, I managed to get Dessie on his cell phone. I called her because I felt sure she wouldn't care about anything outside herself. Allie would have asked me a hundred questions, none of which I wanted to answer.

Thanks to Dessie, we found the house of my dream-vision in record time, then slipped in the backdoor and put out the fire before the house went up in flames.

I must say that the whole thing was exhilarating. The wild ride, then accomplis.h.i.+ng a task that saved the lives of two children... Well, truthfully, it turned me on. I wanted to get naked, pour champagne over my body, and make love until the sun came up. With Ford. Yeah, that shocked me a bit, but when we were laughing on the way home, it seemed possible that we could end up fooling around. Maybe not all night with a man his age and in his physical condition, but still...

At my suggestion, we stopped and got pizza and beer and took it home, and I was contemplating the best way to suggest that we could... Well...

But when we arrived at that beautiful house, Dessie was on our front porch with a basketful of champagne and smoked oysters, and she was saying how she'd been so worried about Ford that she'd just been sick. Her accent had deepened into Cla.s.sic Southern Belle, and she'd even managed to pull in her belt another notch. I wondered if she'd had a colonic.

Ford gave me an I'm-helpless-to-do-anything-about-this look, so I said I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He started to get all fatherly on me, but I pushed his hand away from my forehead, and went upstairs. I had to close all my windows to keep from hearing Dessie's exaggerated laugh as she and Ford sat in the garden talking for most of the night.

Even if I wasn't jealous, I was certainly lonely on Sunday. Because he'd stayed up so late, Ford didn't get out of bed until noon, and even then I could see that his mind was elsewhere. I made him a big cheesy omelet, put it on the plate in front of him, then went outside to the garden to reread one of the new books on photography. I'd meant to go to church, but the truth was that I was feeling so lazy I couldn't seem to work up any interest in going. At twelve-thirty I called Allie but no one answered the phone.

It was while the phone was ringing that I heard Ford's car and looked out the window to see him driving away. He hadn't even said goodbye!

I sat down on the little upholstered chair by the telephone and suddenly felt bereft. No, actually, for the first time, I felt like an employee. Yes, I know he gave me a paycheck, but still...

It was absurd of me and I knew I was acting like a kid, but it was the first time Ford and I had been apart since we'd arrived. Would Dessie cook something divine for him? Would she wear black toreador pants and a red blouse? Would she show a cleavage four and a half feet long?

I gave a great sigh of disgust at myself. For someone who wasn't jealous, I was certainly acting like I was.

Maybe I was just bored. I called Nate's house. Maybe he and his grandmother would like to come over for lunch, or invite me to their house.

She was a nice woman and I'd enjoyed telling Ford that the grandmother was his age. Ford had replied that he wasn't going to marry her and that Nate wasn't going to be forced to bunk with me so I might as well stop trying. As always, we'd laughed together.

There was no answer at Nate's house.

"Where is everyone?" I said aloud. Was there another tea party and I hadn't been invited? Maybe that's where Ford was now, I thought. Maybe he and Dessie were going to the party without me.

I told myself that I needed to get a grip. And I needed to find something to do with myself that didn't involve other people. Which, of course, meant taking pictures.

For a moment I hesitated and had to work to stamp down a feeling of panic. What if I went into the woods and had another vision? Who would be there to help me if I blacked out again? And even more important, who would help me undo the horror of what I saw?

Sitting there for a second, I lectured myself on codependency. I'd had twenty-six years before I met Ford Newcombe, so I could certainly spend an afternoon without him.

I got up from the chair and went upstairs to my bedroom. Empty, the house seemed too big, too old, and too creaky. And it seemed that I heard sounds from every corner. The exterminators had rid the house of the bees, but now I wondered if there were wasps in the attic. Or birds.

I checked my big camera backpack for film and batteries, picked it up and went downstairs. I didn't know where I was going, but I certainly needed to get out of that vacant house.

As it turned out, I only walked about a mile down a narrow road when I came to a little sign that said "trail." It was one of those signs that looked hand carved-and maybe was for all I knew-and made a person feel as though she was about to embark on an adventure.

The trail was wide and worn down, the bare earth hard packed, the tree roots exposed and worn smooth by many feet. Why don't I remember this trail? I thought, then laughed at myself. I felt eerie when I did remember things and confused when I didn't remember them.

It didn't take me but minutes to find flowers worth preserving forever. I mounted my F100 on the tripod, used Fuji Velvia ISO 50, and shot some Downy Rattlesnake Plantain standing in a tiny spot of sunlight. I clicked the cable release and held my breath that no wind would move a leaf and blur the picture. But it was dead still at the moment so I had hopes that the photo would come out sharp-edged.

I really loved to photograph flowers. Their colors were so gaudy that I could satisfy the child in me who still loved the brightest crayons in the box.

I could look at pictures of brilliant reds and pinks and greens and still feel I was doing something "natural."

When I photographed people, I liked just the opposite. The expressions on people's faces and the emotions they showed were, to me, the pyrotechnic "color" of the picture. But I'd found that color film too often drew attention to skin that was too red, or blotched with age spots, and so hid the emotion I wanted to show. And with a child, how could you look at a face when it was competing with a s.h.i.+rt that had four orange rhinos dancing across it?

Over the years I'd learned to satisfy my color l.u.s.t with photos of brilliant flowers taken with film of the finest grain. I could blow up a stamen to 9 x 12 and still have it crystal clear. And I indulged my love of seeing the insides of people by using black-and-white film-true black-and-white, the kind that had to be developed by hand instead of churned out by some giant machine.

I shot four rolls of Velvia and two of Ektachrome, then packed up and headed back toward the house. It was nearly four o'clock and I was hungry and thirsty, but I'd brought nothing to eat with me. I guess that in the last weeks I'd grown used to being with Ford because wherever he went food and drink followed close behind.

I allowed myself a great, self-pitying sigh as I shouldered my pack and headed back down the trail. But the truth was, I was feeling better. I wasn't feeling lonely anymore, and I was no longer angry at Ford. I'd had a nice afternoon and I felt sure I'd taken some good photos. Maybe I could start a line of greeting cards and sell them to tourists pa.s.sing through the Appalachians, I thought. Maybe I could- Suddenly, I halted and looked around me because I didn't recognize where I was. There was a narrow stream in front of me, but I knew I hadn't crossed a stream on my way in. Turning back, I looked for the trail I'd come in on-all the while imagining how very sorry Ford Newcombe was going to be when the National Guard had to be called out to look for me. "I shouldn't have left her alone," he'd say.

I walked for about twenty minutes, but still saw nothing I remembered. I was beginning to be concerned when I looked to my left and saw the sunlight flash off something that was moving.

Curious, but also a little frightened because I didn't know where I was, I stepped off the path and into the forest. I tried to move as quietly as possible on the soft earth and succeeded in making little noise. The forest was quite dark; there was a great deal of underbrush, but I could see the sunlight ahead. I saw the flash again and my heart leaped into my throat.

What was I going to see? Thoughts of Jack the Ripper and a flas.h.i.+ng knife went through my mind.

When I got to the edge and could see through the trees, I nearly laughed out loud. I was looking at someone's backyard. On the far side was an old fence nearly broken by the weight of the pink roses that covered it. When a slight breeze came up, rose petals fluttered softly to the ground.

The gra.s.s had been recently mowed and I closed my eyes for a moment at the heavenly smell. The forest I was in was on one side, the fence on two sides. The fourth side, to my right, had shade trees so dense that I couldn't see the house that I a.s.sumed was farther up the hill.

But the truth was that the White House could have been up there and I wouldn't have seen it, because I was distracted.

Under a huge shade tree was a wooden park bench and sitting on it was a man. A very, very handsome man. He was tall and slim, his neck resting on the back of the bench, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was wearing blue jeans, gray hiking boots, and a dark blue denim s.h.i.+rt, the kind with snaps down the front. His thick hair was as black as a crow's wing and it didn't look as though it had been dyed. The silver flash I'd seen was a cup.

He was drinking something hot and steamy out of the top of a tall aluminum Thermos that stood on the ground by his feet.

Also on the ground was a blue canvas bag with a loaf of long, skinny French bread sticking out of it. Beside the bag was-I drew in my breath and my eyes widened until they hurt-a Billingham camera bag. Billingham bags were made in England and they looked like something the duke of somewhere would carry, something handed down from his ancestors.

Prince Charles once said he didn't think anyone actually bought tweeds, that tweeds were just something people had. That's the way Billingham bags looked: as though they'd always been there. They were made of canvas and leather, with bra.s.s buckles. Prince Charles aside, the truth was that Billingham bags could be bought, but, like tweeds, they cost dearly.

I was standing there, skulking in the trees like a voyeur, l.u.s.ting after his big camera bag, when I felt the man looking at me. Sure enough, when I looked up, he was staring directly at me, a faint smile on his lips, his dark eyes warm.

I turned at least four shades of red and wanted to flee into the forest. Like a unicorn, I thought. But then, unicorns probably knew how to find their way out of the forest.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to pretend I was an adult as I walked toward him. "I didn't mean to spy on you," I said. "I just-"

"Wanted to make sure I wasn't the local ma.s.s murderer?"

Full face, he was even better looking, and he had a beautiful voice: rich and creamy. Oh, no, I thought. I'm in trouble.

Moving to one side of the bench, he motioned for me to sit down beside him. He was so beautiful in such a sophisticated, elegant way, that as I removed my pack, I made myself keep my eyes on the roses. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

"Yes," he said, turning to look at them. "I knew they'd be blooming now so I made a point of coming today."

I put my vinyl and canvas camera bag on the ground beside the Billingham and they seemed to make a New World versus Olde Worlde statement.

As I sat down on the far end of the bench, I kept looking at the roses, but the man was between them and my eyes, so my vision strayed.

He turned toward me, eyes twinkling, the sweetest smile on his face. As I'd come to know Ford, I'd grown used to his looks, but this man made me feel like a nerdy teenager alone with the captain of the football team.

"You must be Jackie Maxwell," he said.

I groaned. "Small town."

"Oh, yes. Very small. I'm Russell Dunne," he said, holding out his hand to shake mine.

I gave his hand a little shake then released it. That's my self-discipline for the year, I thought. Releasing that big, warm hand had not been easy to do.

"Is that your house up there?" I asked, looking back through the trees, but all I could see was more trees.

"No," he said. "At least not anymore."

I wanted to ask what he meant but didn't. I was so attracted to the man that I seemed to have electricity running through me.