The Short, Hot Summer Page 3

  Once again he sighed his resignation, hoping he didn’t end up hyperventilating over the next two days with all the deep sighing of resignation he seemed to be doing. “The library will be fine,” he told her.

  “Okeydokey,” Mamie said.

  Preston smiled. No self-respecting New Yorker would ever say…that.

  “Well, I’ll just let you get settled,” she said. “If you need anything, Mr. Atherton—”

  “Preston,” he interjected before he could stop himself. Which was weird, because he never extended that courtesy to people so quickly after meeting them…unless they had the potential to be profitable in his business dealings.

  She smiled again, and something inside Preston went zing. “Okay,” she said. “Preston. And you can call me Mamie. If you need anything, just let me know.”

  He battled a couple of inappropriate thoughts and said, “Thanks. Mamie. I will.”

  She spun around and strode slowly out of the room, her lush lower body swaying to a tune Preston couldn’t hear himself. Still, it was a remarkable walk. It made him want to follow her wherever she might lead him. He just hoped when they got there—wherever they ended up—it wasn’t quite so hot.

  Then again, he was beginning to think maybe Butternut, Alabama, was a place he should explore. And what better guide to have than Miss Mamie Calhoun? Really, when all was said and done, there might be one or two things to be said for heat.

  Under the right circumstances.

  And these circumstances, he couldn’t help thinking, were feeling righter all the time.

  ‘Boy, what lousy circumstances,’ Mamie thought as she stood behind the registration desk watching Preston gaze gloomily at his dinner plate. First, he found out when he went to meet Jack Butternut that Jack took off on one of his infamous fishing jaunts to parts unknown and wouldn’t be back ’til the end of the week. Then Mamie had had to explain to him that Jack’s infamous fishing jaunts were famous for lasting a heckuva lot longer than “’til the end of the week.” Then Preston had gone upstairs to his room to work and had fallen asleep, face-first, on his itty-bitty little computer.

  Even though the waffle-weave design from the keyboard eventually faded—and hadn’t been what Mamie was laughing at in the first place, honest—his catnap left him feeling surprisingly frustrated and foul-tempered. She herself usually felt pretty dang good after a nap during the hotter parts of the summer. But not Preston. Noooo. All he’d been able to do was grumble about how much he’d veered from his schedule by catching a few zzzs. Although Mamie had tried to lighten his mood by reminding him how much catching up he could do now that Jack had disappeared indefinitely, she had to admit he hadn’t been much cheered.

  Now, on top of all that, he hadn’t enjoyed his dinner. Oh, he tried to fake it—very polite of him—and did his best to assure Mamie that each and every item on his plate was one of his most favorite dishes in the whole wide world. But she was beginning to think he’d never even had chicken ’n’ dumplins before. Not only had he not eaten a bite of it, saying the heat had ruined his appetite—like she was supposed to believe something as dumb as heat could make a man like him lose anything—he actually said he was worried about his cholesterol.

  His cholesterol, she thought again. Like who cared about that if it meant giving up chicken ’n’ dumplins? The man must be crazy. Or else a Northerner. There were those in Butternut who considered those two things totally interchangeable.

  Fortunately for Preston, Mamie wasn’t one of them. She was confident that there were some Northerners who weren’t crazy. At least, she was willing to suspend her judgment on that score until she actually met some Northerners. Well, more than one, anyway. She just figured Preston’s problem was that he needed a little time to adapt to his new surroundings. Of Course, with Jack gone fishing, it was looking like Preston would have plenty of time for adapting.

  Thankfully, her thoughts were scattered then, because Preston pushed his plate forward and stood. She supposed she should feel gratified he’d at least finished his iced tea, but honestly. At this rate, he’d fade to nothing but skin and bones before the week was through.

  Then again, Mamie reconsidered when she studied him again, it would probably take more than a week without food to diminish that man. There was just way too much of him. Every last inch of which was quite delicious-looking, she couldn’t help noticing.

  Oh, dear. Now where had that thought come from? Actually, she knew perfectly well where that thought had come from, and it wasn’t her head. That thought had come from a different body part entirely, and it wasn’t one that should be doing any thinking. It was one that was made for a whole ‘nother activity, one Mamie hadn’t participated in for quite some time. Which went a long way toward explaining why that body part was thinking the things it was.

  Or something like that.

  She pushed a fistful of curls off her forehead and moved out from behind the registration desk, where she’d been watching Preston not eat his dinner. “All done?” she asked as she strode toward him.

  She’d changed her clothes earlier that afternoon, hoping to make herself look a little more like the Bide-a-Wee’s owner, as opposed to the hotel gardener, and not because she just wanted to look nice for Preston. Really. She hadn’t. That had been the furthest thing from her mind when she put on this dress that just so happened to be the one that showed off her eyes better than anything else in her wardrobe. Truly, it had. No fooling.

  Now she wiped her damp palms against the lightweight green-and-yellow-print sundress that had been all she could tolerate having against her body in this heat. Well, she supposed she could tolerate something else against her body in this heat, if she had to, but only if she was naked at the time, and only if that something just happened to be someone, namely Pres—

  Stop it, she ordered herself with such vehemence that she came to a halt midway between the registration desk and the object of her desires. Um, or rather, the object of her affections. No, wait, the object of her, uh, attention. Yeah. That was it. The object of her attention. She squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment and had a quick chat with that body part that ought not to be thinking. Then she opened her eyes again and found Preston standing barely a foot away from her, and she totally forgot what she had just said to that body part, or whether or not it had agreed with her anyway.

  “Dinner was delicious,” he told her with a smile that was clearly forced. “I appreciate your going to all the trouble you did.”

  His dark hair was damp with perspiration just from sitting down at the table, and she had to curl her fingers into her palms to keep herself from reaching up and gently pushing the wayward tresses back from his forehead. When he’d realized he wouldn’t be eating with Jack, he had changed out of his businessman clothes and into a loose-fitting, short-sleeved white shirt of some breezy, gauzy fabric and baggy khaki trousers. Now, much to her dismay, Mamie found him to be even more attractive than before.

  She really had to work hard to not be attracted.

  “You barely touched it,” she replied, telling herself she didn’t sound accusatory or hurt when she said it. Just because she made that particular dinner special for him, because it was the best thing she knew how to make, that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it, now, did he?

  He glanced over his shoulder, toward the table he had just vacated, then back at Mamie. “It’s the heat,” he told her again. “I just don’t have much of an appetite.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t really believe him. “I’m sorry Jack took off without telling you.”

  “It’s not your fault. There’s no reason you should apologize.”

  “I kinda feel like I’m a representative of Butternut, since this is your first visit here and all. Jack’s taking off to go fishing, when he had an appointment with you? Even if it’s not surprising, it was rude of him to do it. So, on his behalf, I apologize.”

  Preston smiled. “Then I accept your gracious apology. And I’ll just hope Mr. Butternut c
omes back soon.”

  Mamie hoped so too. The sooner Jack came back, then the sooner he could get down to business with Preston. And the sooner the two men got down to business, the sooner that business would be concluded. And the sooner that business was concluded, the sooner Preston would go back to New York City. And the sooner Preston went back to New York City, well…

  The sooner Mamie could go back to feeling the way she’d felt this morning, before she made his acquaintance. Namely: ordinary, average, and normal. And, of course, hot. Then again, she was starting to realize that it wasn’t just the heat wave wrapping Butternut that was making her feel so hot.

  “Well, I’ll just go clean up,” she said, taking a few hesitant steps past him.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, surprising her.

  He seemed surprised by the offer himself, she noted when she spun around to face him. The look on his face suggested he’d never intended to say what he had.

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. “Nah, that’s okay. You’re a guest, and even though I know you Northerners think we have funny ways down here, I assure you that we do know how to be hospitable. There’s no way I’d make you do your own dishes.” She smiled. “Not unless I catch you trying to skip out without paying your bill.”

  “There’s little chance of that happening,” he assured her with another one of those toe-curling smiles of his. “I do still have to meet up with someone very important before the week is through.”

  There was a mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes when he said it, Mamie noticed, and a funny little warmth spiraled through her. Somehow she knew he wasn’t just talking about Jack Butternut when he said what he did. Humming lightly under her breath, for no reason she could rightly name, Mamie went off to clear the table and clean up. As she went, much to her surprise, from behind herself, she heard Preston humming too.

  Four

  Just because the sun went down in Butternut, that didn’t mean there was much relief from the heat. But the evenings held other, less tangible, benefits for Mamie, and they made the heavy air a bit more bearable. Things like the melodic trilling of late-feeding birds, the chip-chip-chipping of the cicadas, and the indolent, balmy breezes that at least offered the illusion of falling temperatures. The sky darkened first to pink silk, then purple satin, then black velvet, and the stars…oh, the stars. They lay scattered across the night sky as if someone had spilled a fistful of diamonds there. And they seemed to go on forever.

  She sighed with much contentment as she collapsed into the white wicker swing that hung at one end of the Bide-a-Wee’s big wraparound porch. With the tips of her toes, she pushed herself into motion, smiling at the familiar creak and jangle of swing and its chain that chorused as one with each lazy motion.

  Back…forth…back…forth…

  Creak. Jangle. Creak. Jangle.

  Now this, she thought, was livin’. Nothing came close to a casual country night, even in summertime, when the heat was so, well, hot. After a day of hard work and physical labor, there was nothing that brought more satisfaction than taking a break and focusing on what was truly important.

  Doin’ nothin’. It was life’s greatest reward.

  She closed her eyes and hummed to herself the same tuneless song she had hummed throughout the after-dinner cleanup. She inhaled deeply the aromas of honeysuckle and juniper—and, of course, her roses—along with the lingering scent of chicken ’n’ dumplins.

  She couldn’t help smiling when she recalled again the horror-stricken expression on Preston’s face when she announced the dinner menu that evening. Northerners sure did have funny ways about them. She couldn’t think of a single person in Butternut who wouldn’t jump at the chance to have fried corn and creamed onions in the very same meal. But Preston Atherton IV had been too worried about his cholesterol.

  Shoot, everybody knew it was your lifestyle that would kill you faster than anything else. High stress levels were way more deadly than high cholesterol levels. Preston’s lifestyle seemed like it was one that was loaded with stress. If he didn’t learn to relax and stop worrying so much about sticking to his dang schedule—and things like his cholesterol—he was going to drop dead of a heart attack.

  Back…forth…back…forth…

  Creak. Jangle. Creak. Jangle.

  Thinking about him must have conjured him up, because Mamie heard the squeak and slap of the screen door just as her thoughts were fading. Slowly she opened her eyes and saw him striding across the porch toward her, but where earlier that day he had walked with such brisk purpose and unmistakable intent, his steps now were a bit more leisurely and unfocused. All in all, he looked a little less uncomfortable than he had earlier. Then again, that wasn’t saying much. Earlier, he’d been rigid enough to snap clean in two.

  “Hey,” Mamie greeted him, still toeing the swing lazily.

  Back…forth…back…forth…

  Creak. Jangle. Creak. Jangle.

  “Hello.” He came to a halt when a good four feet still separated them, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets and leaning against one of the porch supports. “I was proofreading Atherton Industries’ upcoming annual report when I heard the swing through my window upstairs,” he said, nodding his head in that direction.

  “I hope it wasn’t too distracting,” she told him. Not that she did anything to slow her swinging. A little distraction might be a good thing for Mr. Preston Atherton IV. He seemed to have so few of them in his life.

  “No, no,” he hastened to assure her. “Not at all. In fact, it was oddly soothing.”

  That was good to hear. Maybe there was hope for him yet. Mamie nodded her agreement. “There’ve been a few nights when it’s gotten so unbearably hot, that I’ve come down here and slept on the swing.” She smiled. “’Course, it’s not all that unbearable right now.”

  He chuckled. “Speak for yourself. I’ve never felt anything like this before. I mean, it gets hot in New York, but not like this.”

  “It’s the humidity,” she told him. “I know that sounds like a cliché and an easy way out, but it’s true. The humidity makes the air real heavy, and harder to breathe. That’s what makes it so miserable.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Really. You should come back down here in the fall or spring. It’s real nice then. Even when the temperatures get up there.”

  He eyed her curiously, and only then did Mamie realize she’d just pretty much extended him an invitation to come back down and see her sometime. Hastily, she added, “Once we get the Danny Jim Robinson Festival all organized and official-like, Butternut’s gonna be a real tourist attraction. You mark my words.”

  Preston nodded, then sighed. “I wish you luck with that. Me, I don’t think I’ll be able to manage another trip down here. Not unless something comes up with Butternut Industries that would require my presence.”

  Of course, Mamie thought. He’d never do anything unless it was for business reasons. “Well, then, you better make sure you see the best of Butternut while you’re here this time.”

  He smiled. “Well, you know, Miss Mamie, I think maybe I already have.”

  Funny, she thought, but the way he looked at her just then—all soft and dreamy—it made her feel like he was telling her he was seeing the best of Butternut right here on the front porch of the Bide-a-Wee Bed and Breakfast, and—

  Wait a minute. Was that what he was saying? That he thought she was the best of Butternut? She swallowed hard and made herself keep swinging and told herself she was imagining things. But the easy back-and-forth motion and the reassuring creak-jangle of the swing suddenly seemed more frantic than it was before. As did the pounding of her heart and the rush of blood through her veins.

  With no small effort, Mamie focused on slowing both the swing and her pulse rate, succeeding fairly well in the first endeavor but failing miserably with the second. Goodness. What was it about the man that made her feel so odd? So tingly and uncertain and fuzzy-headed and dizzy and…and…and…

&nb
sp; Hot.

  Suddenly it wasn’t the heavy summer air that was making her own personal temperature rise. It was Preston, a man she’d just met and whose life ran counter to everything she held dear. A man who had no interest in anything other than running his business and keeping to his schedule and who would only be in Butternut for a few days.

  It was a familiar enough feeling, though, this tingly, dizzy stuff. Mamie might not have traveled far beyond the outskirts of Butternut, but she’d been around the block a time or two. She was a healthy, red-blooded twenty-seven-year-old woman, after all, and not some blushing virgin, and she—

  Oh, all right, so maybe she wasn’t all that well versed in what went on between a man and a woman. She wasn’t completely ignorant. This wasn’t the first time Butternut had been caught in the grips of a massive heat wave, after all. Mamie had had a boyfriend or two along the way who’d you know…helped her through those long, hot summers. So to speak. But one had left to find work in Birmingham a few years back, and she’d happily tossed rice over the other one last winter, when he married Daphne Sue Montrose.

  This particular hot summer, well…

  Men were in short supply. Local men, anyway. This out-of-towner, however…

  ‘Now you just stop right there, Mamie,’ she ordered herself. No way was she going to start something like that with a man who was only going to be in town until Jack Butternut finished fishing. Eventually the heat wave would pass. But anything she started with Preston could have effects that would linger far beyond summer. Mamie Calhoun didn’t give her heart—or any other body part, for that matter—lightly. Her heart didn’t travel well. If Preston took it back to New York City with him, she’d probably never see it again. And, focused as he was on business and all, he probably wouldn’t take very good care of it, either. As intriguing as she found the long, lusty look he was currently throwing her way, she forced herself to glance in another direction.

  “You want some iced tea?” she asked. “Or some lemonade?”