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something technical. You impress me tremendously. The way you took care of my children "
"They're great kids. I'll be glad to stay with them again, any time. And of course I want to come in
daytime and keep house and cook for you and just be here, you know."
Josh looked at her face, as he sat up, and suddenly he was aware of the tremendous aloneness that had
closed in about him and his children in these recent months. At first there had been the shock of
Wilhelmina's death, alternately numbing and devastating them all. They had gone through the stages of
adjustment together: denial, anger, bargaining with God, depression, acceptance. The last two had really
occurred since they moved here. Yet as that sequence passed, the fundamental loss remained. They were
a family, with one vital element missing. They were lonely, they needed the companionship and services
Mina had provided. They needed a woman.
Brenna was very close, and infernally lovely. Josh slowly leaned forward and kissed her.
Her lips, like her hands, were firm and gentle. She was good at this, too.
Josh drew back, abruptly appalled at himself. But she anticipated him. "Don't say a word, Mr. Pinson. I
know what you're thinking. You're thirty-eight years old and I'm nineteen, and you're taking advantage of
an innocent girl and you feel guilty and you didn't mean to do it and it will never happen again. Right?"
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Dumbly, he nodded.
"I have news for you," she continued. "I may not be able to figure out about Mary and Ann or X and Y,
but I'm past the age of consent and I do have a pretty good notion what that's all about. Maybe in your
day boys took girls on dates and kissed them and took them home and said good night and figured they
were well off. Today boys expect more, and girls give more, and it's no big thing, usually. I've been the
route. I know about VD and pregnancy and who and when are safe. You and now are safe. I know what
family life is like and what makes a household operate and about men and women too."
"Evidently so," he agreed, still numbed.
"I think you're coming into a lot of money, Mr. Pinson. I'm mentioning that because I want you to know I
was turned on to you before I realized that. You've got nice children and you're a nice man and you may
not realize it yet but you can't go on like this. You need someone to run your house and do for you, and I
know you think I'm young but I'd really like to try for it. Because you're the kind of man I've been
looking for. It's not just because you're mature, though that certainly helps. I like a smart man who can
handle the sort of thing I can't, like mortgage interest rates and income tax forms, and who cares about
people. I'd like you any age, but this age is fine. We don't know each other well enough yet to be sure, so
we have to talk more and be together, and maybe it won't work out and if it doesn't then I'll be sorry, but
I'll never be sorry for trying. Mr. Pinson, I want to show you what I can do for you, so you can decide."
Josh felt a little like having been hit by an avalanche. "Brenna, this you're right, this isn't the way my
generation does it. I can't just I wouldn't sometimes young women get unrealistic notions "
"Mr. Pinson, I'm about as realistic as they come. If your wife were alive, believe me, I'd never make a
move on you. But you need someone maybe not me, but someone and I want to try out for the part.
Now, tonight, before the rain stops."
Her implication was absolutely clear, but he couldn't believe it.
"Mr. Pinson, I want to make it with you."
His mind balked. She was not about to let him hem and haw and stall while he made up his mind. It was
make or break, on the spot, the way the modern generation did it. "You planned on this all along?"
"No, of course not. I was ready to go home, tonight, and see how things worked out. This could've come
next week or next month, when it seemed right. But the car wouldn't start, and I got to know you more
and more, and rain sort of turns me on, you know, it's so wet, and I do believe a little in fate.
I guess I didn't know I was going to put it to you so fast there's something about this house that hypes
me up. Anyway, maybe the car won't start until we do what we're here for. We'll never have a better
chance. I'm willing."
Josh shook his head. "Brenna, I believe you believe what you're saying, at this moment, but I can't take a
girl to to bed just because she's curious how it would be. I don't I wouldn't unless I were prepared to
marry "
"That's the leading option," she agreed.
She was serious! She had found a house she liked, and she was ready to marry into it. Yet she made a
compelling case, and he wanted her more then he dared show. In fact, he was amazed at the emotion she
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had roused in him. No fool like a middle-aged fool!
"I just don't want to risk hurting you," he said inadequately.
"I wish you would risk it," Brenna said. "I'm sort of going out on a branch, telling you like this. It hurts to
get rejected."
"Don't think of it as a rejection. I just don't operate that way. My generation I "
He paused. She was sitting there gazing at him, her expression unchanged but a tear was starting down
her left cheek.
"Oh, now, don't do that," he protested. He put his arm around her shoulders, and she turned her face to
him and kissed him, her way.
It was as though a dam inside him cracked and then burst apart. The emotion came out in a torrent. He
kissed her repeatedly, holding her close, and she responded warmly. The time for excuses and
protestations had passed; there was no longer any question where they were going.
"Upstairs is better," she said. "The kids sleep like logs, once they're down."
"Yes." He followed her up the spiral, this time not ashamed to look at her shapely legs and derriere. If this
be sin, he thought, so let it be. If she got to know him as thoroughly as she was about to, and still wanted
to make it permanent, she just might after all be the one to fill his need, despite the age differential. He
did need a woman, for all the things a woman did. Love did not have to be a part of it. He was not ready
for love, not while the memory and hurt of Wilhelmina remained strong. But Brenna understood that
and in time there could be love for her, too.
She paused at the upper landing, by the night-light. "But maybe no lights," she murmured. "Just in
case."
"Yes."
They stood at the foot of the bed, disrobing. In the wan glow of the hall's night-light he saw the obscure
highlights of her breast and flank. She was a completely endowed woman, fuller and firmer than Mina
had been. In fact she had the kind of body normally photographed for male magazines.
That daunted him somewhat; he was not used to sex appeal of that potency. Not in the flesh. He began to
feel guilty he found this woman more attractive than his wife. Even than his wife as she had been at [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]