A Loving Man by Cait London Page B

couldn’t afford any unexpected sexual developments, not when she was just sliding safely into midlife’s home plate. She’d already paid high prices for believing in love and romance. Whatever Stefan was offering, she couldn’t afford to take. She didn’t trust him, rather she didn’t trust her startling reaction to him—as if she wanted to grab those wide shoulders and hold tight to see where the ride would take her.
    Well, she had tried that with Mike, in a desperate effort to find romance. She’d had all the heartbreak she wanted in this lifetime. She tried to change the topic from Stefan, because he occupied enough of her thoughts already and her senses started jumping just at the mention of his name. “Dad and I are going to start shingling the roof next week. He is feeling better.”
    Her father seemed almost boyish when he talked about Yvette; he no longer seemed to mull the past. Yvette fascinated most of the men in Waterville and the barbershop gossip had changed from crops and machines to current feminine fashions. In the grocery store, older women were humming and bright and cheerful, the result of more attentive husbands. In the post office, the scramble for new catalogs was fierce, the demand for soft flowing dresses increased. The local dry goods store started ordering more dress fabric and sewing machines were whirring. Yvette and Estelle fitted easily into the community. Stefan seemed apart and distant; his tense argument with the cook at Danny’s Café about the correct cooking of pasta had started an immediate scandal. The cook went on strike during dinner hour, and as a result, Stefan was immediately banned from Danny’s, which had already excluded him from the men’s morning coffee group.
    “My dad is grumpy,” Estelle noted as Yvette was silent, her floppy straw hat hiding her expression. “It can’t be Louie, because he hasn’t called for some reason. It can’tbe business, because according to the office secretary everything is just fine. He works late every night to keep the business running smoothly, and on top of problems. I don’t know what his problem is apart from that, but he’s not talking. Sometimes he just sits on the front porch and stares into the night. He looks so lonesome, sitting there alone. Sometimes I think that if he didn’t have us to cook for, he’d just sit there forever.”
    Rose stilled; “alone” meant Stefan hadn’t taken up with Maggie, because she never let a man be alone until he was wrung-out and used up. Rose inhaled and her hand trembled on her trowel—but then there was plenty of Stefan to use up.
    “Some things are private, ma chérie, ” Yvette returned gently. “I’m so happy our new friend is helping us. This flower rustling is so much fun. Your papa is also having fun, I think, on that old tractor, plowing that field so early this morning. And he adores that old pickup. It’s really his first chance to enjoy something he should have been allowed to do as a teenager.”
    Estelle stood and shaded her eyes against the mid-May sunlight, staring toward the farm road. “What’s going on?”
    Rose pushed herself upright, then reached to help Yvette rise to her feet. They watched a flood of piglets tear across the field; Zeb Black, a burly farmer, hurried behind them, panting and trying to catch his breath. Rose rubbed her hands together. “This calls for action.”
    “Count me in.” Estelle grinned. With her black, gleaming hair in a ponytail and wearing a T-shirt and shorts and joggers, she looked like any farm girl. “Let’s go!”
    “Thanks, Rose,” Zeb called as the two women ran after the five squealing piglets. “Old Mary, the sow, broke through the fence again, and those rascals just decided totake off…chased ’em a fair piece with the pickup. Bring ’em back to me and I’ll put those little rascals in it.”
    Rose caught three squirming piglets, and Estelle caught one, and Zeb seemed flustered when Yvette came to the