Sunburst by Jennifer Greene

swimming pool. I like what we have.” She stood up, too, suddenly feeling as vulnerable as satin under the blade of a knife. He had shut himself away from her again; she could feel it.
    “I don’t,” he said flatly. “Erica, look at your hands.”
    She looked. Of necessity, the nails were short, unpolished. At the moment, the skin seemed to be at its worst, after a solid week of working with varnish and turpentine. She could tolerate gloves for only so long.
    “You’ve been working like a slave. That’s going to stop,” he said harshly. “I couldn’t do anything before…” He raked his hand through his hair, his head flung back, and for a second his eyes closed. When they opened again, they focused so intensely on hers that she felt frozen. “There’s no going back to the way we were in Florida, Erica. You know that, don’t you?”
    She felt the color leave her face. The way they were in Florida? When he had invited her to take his love for her for granted, she had never doubted that love. Now she was beginning to feel there was nothing she could be sure of.
    His voice grated like sandpaper against the grain, reacting to her silence. “I can imagine what you’re thinking. The swimming pool—that was a stupid thing for me to say, Erica; you haven’t a materialistic bone in your body. I know that. But you grew up in a certain environment…any child in your family had a choice of Yale or Harvard; financial security was an automatic given in life; fine paintings, sterling… beauty is what you grew up to. A softness no one can understand as much as I can…”
    “Those things mattered to me. I can’t deny it,” she said warily. The midday sun glared down on her strawberry-blond hair. The heat seared, odd hot beams that prickled her skin, seemed to deplete her energy. She didn’t know how to convince him of anything. “Yet not as much as I thought they did,” she said finally. “Kyle, I like it here—”
    “I know you do. For now.”
    “For more than now. Safety isn’t money, Kyle. You’re the one who’s working like a slave. You’re going to drive yourself into the ground if you keep on this way…” Her voice faltered; she was aware that she was making no headway. Aware that they’d begun the whole conversation with his asking for her support for something he believed he needed to do.
    Confused, her mind stepped back five paces. Suddenly, nothing was simple. She loved his idea for the new building, and they were bursting the seams of the old shop as it was. Hold the man back? Never. And as far as fear of the actual venture in terms of security—no, just as she had never felt any fear at their change in financial circumstances. Shock, yes; fear, no. In a world of famine, she knew Kyle would find the last loaf of bread, and give her the larger portion. And if he thought the expansion a good business proposition, she knew it was.
    Unconsciously, they’d both fallen in step together, walking back toward the shop. “Kyle?” They were about to veer in different directions, and she didn’t know how to stop it. He turned at the insistence in her tone. “We haven’t argued in a long time,” she said softly.
    “Honey…” He sighed, though none of the stiffness left his features.
    “I don’t want to argue with you. I’m with you, Kyle, if you’re sure taking on more is what you want to do right now. I love your ideas…”
    They stood facing each other. He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose, his fingertips lingering on her cheeks. “Prove it, then,” he whispered. “Play hooky for the afternoon. Forget all about working completely. Erica…”
    She cocked her head. “I’ll need a bribe.”
    The kiss sustained her as she walked back to the house and into the kitchen. But her euphoria didn’t last. As she mixed a batch of cookie batter, flour mixed with sugar mixed with butter mixed with an occasional salt tear. Stupid, the tears. She was furious with herself. Everything was fine.