Read Online Kathleen Valentine by My Last Romance, other passions - Free Book Online

railings drinking wine and, when he remembers my handicap, translating the conversation for me. He goes fishing early in the morning and returns slightly drunk bearing lines of the ugliest looking fish I have ever seen. He takes me to the only clothing shop in town and buys me dresses of soft, gossamer-light cotton in luscious colors—deep rose, violet and seafoam green. They drift over my body making me look wanton and voluptuous. He presents me with a pair of gold hoop earrings big enough to wear as bracelets.

And we dance. Every night there is a party. Everyone goes—children, old people, teenagers and long-married couples. The food is surpassed in quantity only by its quality. The music is lively filled with guitars, violins and accordions. My husband does not miss a dance. I have never danced with him before except for a polite waltz at some company function. I watch his face and the laugh lines I never noticed before are deep and beautiful. He holds me tightly when we dance, carrying me with him. There is such joy in him. I cannot stop looking at him—at the way he moves and talks and laughs amid these people. He flirts with all the women and banters with all the men. He is proud to bring me among them. He caresses my face when he talks to me, holds me close against him as we walk together as he would never do in the city. He kisses me often. Everyone looks at us and smiles but he only looks at me.

After the parties he brings me home to his parents house and makes love to me so slowly, lingeringly, taking half the night. He has become a man I scarcely glimpsed before.

Tomorrow we leave for New Orleans. I will be more at ease in a city, a place more familiar to me but I fear to lose this man who captivates me so. This morning he woke me early and took me down to the bayou. In a wooden boat we rowed out into the gray mists rising through veils of Spanish moss sweeping the still waters. He made love to me as soft coral light infused the pale morning haze and brown pelicans watched from tree branches.

I am wearing the rose-colored dress tonight. Because it pleases him so. I sit on the porch rail as I wait watching flashes of heat lightning in the distance, wondering if I could ever be part of this world. I feel the brush of his thigh as he steps over the rail and straddles it behind me. He snuggles me tightly against him lifting a glass of wine to my lips.

"Très adorable, Bebe," he whispers in my ear. He brushes aside my hair and kisses my neck.

"I love you, Jean-Luc," I say turning.

He kisses the wine from my lips and says, "J’taime, Bebe." His hands caress my hips and thighs. I melt from the heat of my love and the night, longing for this dreamworld to claim us both.

Inside the music begins again. I turn to him hungry for his mouth. He pulls away, stands and takes my hands.

"
Danse avec moi, Bebe
."

"What would you rather do?" I gasp. "Dance or make love?"

He laughs and pulls me to my feet. "
Ce qui est la différence?
" he asks.
     

 
    WAITING FOR LINDY
    He walks through his shop and tugs back the harbor side door. It is too late in the year to keep the doors open but at least when he is looking out over the harbor he isn’t watching for her blue Thunderbird. Business is dead. A dense October fog rolled in at noon swaddling the pastel tourist shops along the Neck in a blanket of gray. Fog horns moan through the swirling wall of dampness and he wishes he could see his son’s boat. He taught the boy how to fish and how to navigate—he taught him well—but he still worries. Worrying, he thinks, is one of the humiliations of growing older—he worries about everything now it seems. At the moment he is worrying about Hugh being out on the ocean in this fog, about Lindy driving down from Boston, about the lack of customers ... about Hugh arriving at the same time Lindy does...

He pours himself a third cup of coffee and carries it to the rocking chair by the front door. From there he can watch the