The Short, Hot Summer Read online

  Preston smiled when he heard Mamie’s offer. He really did like the way she talked. “Iced tea” became “ahsed tay” and “lemonade” sounded more like “limmin-aaayde.” Of course, her charming speech patterns weren’t the only thing he liked about her. Far from it. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything he didn’t like about Mamie Calhoun. Which was odd, seeing as she had nothing in common with anyone he considered a friend. Then again, he didn’t have that many friends—really close friends, at any rate. Or even one really close friend, he suddenly realized.

  Odd, that. He’d never given it much thought before, but now he recognized the truth in the revelation. Certainly he had scores of acquaintances, and he never lacked for invitations to parties and such. And he generally enjoyed himself at social gatherings and never felt excluded. Well, not really. No more than anyone else would. If he sometimes felt a little, oh…bored and disinterested, that was only because he went to so many of them, and after a while they all ran together. It wasn’t because he was dissatisfied with that way of life.

  Was it?

  No, of course not.

  Still, it was kind of odd, he thought again.

  Even odder was the fact that he hadn’t experienced any of those feelings of boredom or distraction since making Mamie’s acquaintance. On the contrary, he felt more comfortable with her—and more captivated by her—than he did many people in New York he had known all his adult life.

  How did she manage that? He wondered. What was it about her that just invited a familiar, enchanted response? Even having spent only an afternoon and evening with her, he felt as if he’d known her for years. And even though he knew little about her beyond her name and occupation, somehow those details didn’t seem very important.

  He liked her. It was that simple. He had liked her from the beginning. Even when she accused him of being irregular. Liking her, he supposed, was all that really mattered.

  He pushed himself away from the porch railing and took a few more steps toward the gently swaying, softly creaking, musically jangling swing. He wanted to sit down beside her, but hesitated without being issued an invitation. So he crossed to the other side of the porch and leaned his back against the side of the house. He hooked one ankle over the other, then folded his arms across his chest.

  And he wondered why he suddenly felt so awkward.

  “So,” he ventured, nudging the strange feeling aside. He smiled, hoping the gesture didn’t look as nervous as it felt. “What do you Butternutters do after the sun goes down?”

  For a moment she didn’t answer his question, only turned to squint at him curiously. “Do?” she echoed, clearly puzzled. “What do you mean what do we do?”

  He braved a smile. “You know. What do you do? Go dancing? To the movies? To the theater? Any of those things ring a bell?”

  She arched her eyebrows as she gave some thought to the question. “Yeah, we do all those things here, just…not during the week. Those are more for the weekend. Special occasions.”

  This time Preston was the one to arch his eyebrows. “Going to the movies is a special occasion?”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “All right,” he conceded. “Then what do you do in the evenings to pass the time during the week?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. We sit out on the porch and enjoy the quiet evening. Or we go out back and visit with the neighbors over the fence. Or we watch a little TV or read. Or we just…”

  She pushed the swing into motion again. Back and forth, Preston noted. Creak. Jangle.

  “We just swing,” she concluded. “I s’pose if someone’s feeling especially adventurous or restless, they take a walk, but me…” She shrugged philosophically. “I like swinging.”

  Funny, Preston thought. Suddenly the simple prospect of sitting on a porch swing with Mamie Calhoun sounded like a lot more fun than taking in a Broadway premiere and having drinks at Le Cirque afterward.

  Unable to help himself, he dipped his head toward the vehicle in question. “Mind if I join you then?” he asked.

  For a minute she seemed almost panicked by the question. Not that she moved a muscle, but her eyes did widen in something akin to alarm. As quickly as she reacted, though, she recovered her composure. She didn’t answer his question, however.

  “I promise I’ll let you keep driving,” he threw in for good measure. He lifted his chin toward the swing. “You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  Finally, she smiled. Despite the darkness surrounding him, somehow it seemed to Preston as if the sun just came out.

  “I’ve been doing it most of my life,” she told him. “Ever since my legs were long enough to reach the porch.” After only a brief hesitation, she moved over to one side of the swing and patted the flowered cushion beside her. “C’mon over,” she invited. “I’ll teach you a thing or two about driving swings.”

  He smiled again at the way she said the word “swings,” turning it into “swangs. He also liked how the final g on so many of her words seemed to disappear. She didn’t need to ask him twice. Hiding his enthusiasm as best he could—and telling himself not to think about why the act of sitting on a porch swing made him so enthusiastic in the first place—he took a seat beside her. He made himself scoot to the opposite end and leave a nonthreatening foot of space between them, but even at that, Mamie seemed closer than she had ever been to him before. At that realization, his enthusiasm ratcheted higher.

  Preston couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this enthusiastic about anything. Well, anything other than work, naturally, and that enthusiasm was nothing like this enthusiasm. He made a quick mental note to schedule some time for enthusiasm when he got back to New York. Because it felt good, this enthusiasm. And it had come about simply because Mamie Calhoun invited him to swing with her.

  Really, really odd.

  And really, really intriguing.

  He said nothing as she set the swing in motion again, only stared forward at the length of the porch that was bathed in the pale yellow glow of the porch light and the dark yard beyond. The night was scented with floral fragrances he scarcely recognized—except for the roses, of course. And the sounds…

  Preston was so used to living high above the city that he could barely describe any sound other than jets flying overhead, or the hum of the air conditioner, or the occasional siren howling from the street below. Here, however, was an orchestra unlike any he had ever heard—birds and bugs and wind and swing. Somehow they all combined into a symphony of surprising sophistication. Amazingly, he could enjoy a nightly performance for free.

  “Yes,” he said softly, “I can see where doing something at night here might be a little unnecessary.”

  He turned to look at Mamie, only to find that she, in turn, was inspecting him. Rather intently, at that. Her incredible green eyes were fixed on him in a way that made his heart trip in his chest before leaping to a quicker pace. His fingers convulsed on the cool metal chain that held the swing, but he could manage no other physical motion. Her gaze entranced him, enthralled him, made time stand still.

  Back…forth…back…forth…

  Creak. Jangle. Creak. Jangle.

  The slow, steady pace of the swing coupled with the easy, regular rhythm of sound was hypnotic. All Preston could do was sit there and gaze at her and feel himself slipping away to a place he’d never visited before. As pastimes went, gazing at Mamie Calhoun and visiting a new place with her wasn’t such a bad one.

  A single russet curl danced in the breeze at her temple, and without thinking about what he was doing, Preston lifted a hand to brush it back. Immediately, he realized he shouldn’t have done it. Not because of anything Mamie said or did, but because of what happened to him. The moment he brushed his finger over the silky curl, a thrill of something hot and urgent ran through him from fingertip to chest, as if he’d just touched a live wire. He tucked the errant tress behind her ear, but the small motion didn’t seem like enough, somehow. The next thing he knew, he was trailing
the pad of his thumb over her warm cheek as his fingers journeyed back.

  Mamie’s lips parted softly at his unexpected gesture, and she felt herself involuntarily lean into his touch, but she didn’t dare break the silence. For one bright flash of time, the two of them remained joined by fingertip and soft cheek, linked some weird, soul-deep wanting he couldn’t for the life of him understand. Then, as quickly as it had happened, the moment dissolved. Just like that, he was back sitting on a porch swing amid a chorus of crickets, beside a lovely young woman who seemed much too good to be true.

  “I…I’m sorry,” he stammered, dropping his hand back to his side. But that strange frisson of electricity still shuddered faintly around his heart. “I was afraid—” He halted himself, biting back a surge of panic that erupted inside him. To be honest, he was afraid of too many things to say them out loud. Too many things even to think about. “I was afraid…your hair would get in your eyes,” he said lamely. “I guess I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, it’s all right,” she interjected.

  As if she feared he might try to help her out again, she hastily brought her own hand up to shove her hair—all of it—back from her forehead and temples. Quickly, she freed the questionable ponytail caught at the crown of her head, stuffed the escaped tresses back into it, then replaced the rubber band that held the lot together. Immediately, a few dozen curls escaped again. But neither she nor Preston moved to contain them.

  “The, uh…the humidity,” she said again, as if that explained everything.

  Preston, however, was more inclined to think it was the heat. He could conceive of no other reason but heatstroke for why his sanity and good sense had abandoned him. Here he was, sitting on a porch swing in Butternut, Alabama, with a woman he’d just met, and he was feeling things he’d never felt before. Good things. Things that had been missing before. Things that made him want to stay right here, on this porch swing in Butternut, Alabama indefinitely, so he could explore each and every one of them.

  Mamie Calhoun, he thought, was going to take some investigating before he headed back to New York. He was suddenly grateful to Jackson Butternut for inconveniencing him this week. Funny how, only hours ago, the prospect of spending even one extra minute in Butternut had generated feelings of doom and gloom. Now he was strangely delighted by the prospect.

  Evidently that old adage was true. You really did learn something new every day. He just hadn’t realized it would be something about himself. He couldn’t wait to see what new discovery he would make about himself—and Mamie—tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that…

  Five

  Preston awoke to his first full day in Butternut and was immediately disoriented. Normally, he awakened in his Fifth Avenue penthouse at exactly 6:30 to the fragrant aroma of Blue Mountain coffee (whose brewing process had been programmed to begin at exactly 6:18 a.m.), to the soft strains of Mozart (whose overture had been programmed to begin at exactly 6:28 a.m.), to the feel of crisp cotton percale sheets (he preferred his nights cool, therefore programmed his climate control to a nighttime setting of seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit, which cut off at exactly 6:15 a.m.), and to the sight of a bedroom furnished in spare, geometric Bauhaus design. This morning, however…

  This morning, the aroma of coffee was mingling with the mixed and pleasant aromas of bacon and pancakes—he could feel his arteries hardening already. Instead of Mozart, the music that greeted him—at least, he was fairly certain it was music—was filled with twangs and trills and y’alls and what sounded suspiciously like hound dogs. There were no cool cotton sheets tangling with his limbs, because he had kicked them all to the foot of the bed during the night. This would be because the morning temperature of his room was—just a hasty estimate, to be sure—about four hundred degrees. And the decorative mood of the room was not so much Bauhaus as it was… Our House. Very homey. Very folksy. Very nice, actually.

  Preston closed his eyes and lay back on the mattress for a moment, letting the change of venue sink in gradually. In addition to the twangy music, he heard birds singing outside. How interesting. Although he knew birds existed in New York City, he lived much higher up than most of them did. With his bedroom windows pretty much fused shut, he wouldn’t have heard them singing anyway. Even if he had heard them, he wouldn’t have heard them, because he would have had his mind on something else—business. However, now that he did hear the birds singing, he realized it was a damned nice sound.

  Dallying with the aromas rising from the kitchen downstairs, Preston noted another wafting in through the open window, the scent of roses. Good God. He was actually stopping to smell the roses. Or, at least, lying in bed to smell the roses. Really, this was just a remarkable experience all around.

  With one hand he rubbed away the remnants of sleep from his eyes, and with the other he felt blindly about the nightstand until he located the Breitling wristwatch he had dropped there so carelessly the night before. It hadn’t even occurred to him to worry that someone might break in and steal the expensive timepiece. He’d left his window open as well, in deference to the heat, and he hadn’t once felt concern for the safety of his person or belongings.

  Call him unrealistic, but he just couldn’t imagine any self-respecting criminal would ply his trade in a place called Butternut.

  With a sigh of what felt like contentment, Preston dangled his watch in front of his face and tried to focus on where its hands lay. The time, he finally discerned, was— No way. That couldn’t possibly be right.

  Ten-thirty?

  He shot straight up in bed and inspected the watch again, to make sure it was running. True enough, the second hand spun languidly around the numbers at its usual rate. Still not believing the evidence, however, he darted his gaze to the antique clock on the dresser opposite his bed. Ten-seventeen, that one read. Well, of course, it wouldn’t be exact, would it? Not if it belonged to Mamie Calhoun. It would naturally be running slow. Still, it looked a lot like Preston had—he swallowed hard before admitting it—overslept

  Way overslept, he amended. It was unthinkable. He hadn’t slept this late since… Well, hell, he’d never slept this late. It wasn’t in his nature to sleep late. Preston never, ever, deviated from the schedule that was his life. Yet on his first full day in Butternut, before he even woke up, he did just that.

  It was the heat, he tried to tell himself. That was the only explanation that made sense. In this heat, the body just naturally shut down. It was a survival mechanism. Yeah, that was it. It could have happened to anybody. His subconscious, which never betrayed him, realized Jackson Butternut was out of town, so there was no reason to rise for an early meeting. His subconscious therefore allowed Preston to catch a few extra hours of sleep.

  Of course. That explained things perfectly. It was all his subconscious’s doing.

  Still, it wasn’t in his nature to miss so much of the day, and even though he didn’t have any scheduled appointments, there was no reason he couldn’t get a few things done. A mind without a specific agenda was, in Preston’s opinion, a lost mind. He didn’t want to lose his mind. Especially in Butternut. Who knew where it might turn up?

  Rising from bed, he hastened to complete his morning lineup—which now included peeking out the door like a self-conscious college coed to make sure no one was looking when he ran down the hall to the bathroom to shower and shave. Quickly, he did both, then—again with the self-conscious peeking out the door—he hurried back to his room. After dressing in lightweight gray trousers and a lightweight white cotton shirt, Preston looked…

  Well, he looked like a limp rag, he thought as he inspected himself in the mirror. The temperature must be hovering just below spontaneous combustion today.

  Although what he needed more than anything in the world at the moment was a cup of piping-hot coffee, the prospect of drinking anything that wasn’t frozen held little appeal. As delicious as the bacon and pancakes had smelled earlier, what Preston was really craving at the moment was a big bowl o
f sleet.

  He cleared the stairs and followed the lingering aromas to what became an expansive kitchen that, like the rest of the house, was furnished in Antebellum Quaint. Lacy curtains billowed in the hot breeze that skimmed through the open window, brushing against white cabinets with glass doors that offered a view of the crockery dishes stacked neatly inside. Rush-bottomed, ladder-back chairs stood sentry around a butcher-block table, the hardwood floor beneath covered by a massive braided rug. Although cluttered with pots and bowls and other kitchen essentials, the room was clean. Not to mention empty.

  Too empty. And too clean, really, Preston thought. Breakfast, clearly, was over for the day, and Mamie, clearly, was gone. A screen door opposite him rattled against the breeze, and Preston strode toward it, peering out into the backyard. The first thing he noted was the source of the roses that he had stopped—or, rather, lay down—to smell earlier. It was a little hard to miss them. They were everywhere.

  They sprouted from fat bushes along a tall, whitewashed fence at the back, spilled from beds along a cobbled walkway that bisected the yard, climbed trellises around the porch. They were pink, they were yellow, they were red. They were white. Some were splashed with orange and purple, others were a mix of tints to which he couldn’t quite do justice, should he try to identify them. And the smell…

  He inhaled deeply, filling his nose and lungs with the ripe, sweet scent of them. Never had he seen such a rich collection of warm color or smelled anything so narcotic. Something inside him that had been pulled taut for too long suddenly eased and broke free.

  A brief movement from the back of the yard caught his attention, and he turned toward it to see Mamie. Or, at least, part of Mamie. The back part, to be precise, sticking out from between two of the most extraordinarily colored of the rosebushes at the very edge of the yard. Her rounded rump was covered—barely—by lovingly faded cutoffs, and her feet—naturally—were bare.

  He watched as she pushed herself out from the roses, then marveled at how she somehow didn’t separate from them. With her wild russet curls and cheeks flushed from the heat, and the pale-yellow sleeveless blouse clinging to her torso, she seemed almost to be one of the blossoms blooming so flagrantly about her.