Page 30 of Mornings By the Linden Tree
“Do you need help?” I called after her. She was doing quite well with her earlier potty issues and had been wearing big girl panties for the past week with only two accidents so far.
“No, I can do it!” she yelled before the door to the powder room slammed shut. I glanced at Lennon yanking on his stuck zipper.
“She can do it,” I said as his sight lifted from his zipper to me. “Would you like some help?”
His hands fell from the pull as our eyes met and locked. “Me can’t do it.”
“Then come closer and let me see if I can get you free,” I beckoned, my voice dropping of its own accord. He moved nearer, his gaze holding mine as he closed the distance. When he was close enough to touch, I lifted a hand, found the pull, and there I sort of stalled out. “You have the loveliest eyes,” I whispered as he rose to his toes to tentatively press his mouth to mine.
Perhaps this was not a wise course of action. A man should not be kissing his nanny. I’d handled enough divorce cases where this very same thing had set off a chain reaction of consequencesthat had torn lives apart. Granted, neither of us were married. My cock seemed to think that slipping Lennon the tongue as I reached around to fondle his tail feathers was perfectly fine. The randy rooster pressed tight into my chest, with his hands roaming up my sides, also seemed quite okay with this heated clinch.
“God you taste divine. Like marzipan, only sweeter,” I whispered when we broke for air.
“I had a cup of amaretto almond coffee after we had lunch,” he replied on a soft breath that spurred me to give his rump a sound squeeze that made him sigh across my lips.
“I wasn’t aware we even had amaretto almond coffee,” I said, lost in the depths of those pale turquoise eyes.
“Mrs. P just bought it today. It’s delicious. Want another taste?”
“Yes. God yes.” I licked into his mouth wantonly, his tiny moan setting off sparks that rocketed to my balls. Such a meek sound. Perhaps he would make that same tender whine of need when I had him bent over the fence as I fed his tight—
“Uncle Wes, is you wrestling with Lennon?”
The question from right behind us sent me scrambling back from Lennon. My leg caught the edge of the firepit, and I tumbled ass over tea cups over the low fence into Miss Howarth’s skinny yard. The moment I landed in her patch of marigolds with a grunt, Pedro the Pomeranian exploded out of his doggy door as if he had been fired out of a bazooka. All I saw was a flash of red fur and little white pointed teeth as he rushed at me. I jumped up, crushing the rest of Miss Howarth’s posies, and leaped back to my side of the fence. Pedro, he of the snaggle teeth, barked furiously at me as I righted myself.
“Pedro! Oh, Pedro, whatever is wrong?!” Miss Howarth cried as she wrestled to get through the doorway with her walker. “Did that young man next door taunt you again?”
Lennon and Valeria were staring at me in stunned silence as I brushed marigold dust and bits of mulch from my slacks.
“I have never taunted your dog,” I replied as the elderly woman in the bright red tutu made her way to the fence. “I had a small tumble and fell into your lawn, crushing your flowers. I will, of course, make full restitution for the flowers. Please contact your gardener and have him send me an estimate.”
“I can plant more,” Lennon offered, snapping out of his stupor to lift a worried-looking Valeria from the brick patio floor. “No need to call in a gardener. I used to work for a college buddy’s dad during the summer when I was home from school. He runs a garden center out near Chinatown. I can have them all fixed in no time.”
Miss Howarth took a long, long moment to consider the offer.
“Well, okay then, but don’t fall over my fence again. And stop taunting my dog!” Miss Howarth adjusted her bifocals and stormed back into her home. Stormed as fast as a seventy-eight-year-old woman with a walker can storm. “Pedro. Come along. It’s time to get ready forFriday Night SmackDown.”
The door shut. Pedro glared at me and then humped up and pooped right where I’d landed. Then he trotted back inside with his curly tail up over his rump.
“I don’t like that dog,” Valeria whispered to Lennon.
“The feeling is mutual,” I mumbled and picked a fragment of bark from my goatee. “You don’t have to plant flowers for her. It was totally my gaffe. I’ll hire someone to—”
He nudged me with his hip. “No need to hire anyone. I like getting my hands dirty. Now, how about we go find that movie!”
I watched him jog back inside my home with a squealing little pink bunny on his hip. After giving the dog door a final glare, I too went back inside, the sweet almond taste of that hot kiss lingering on my lips.
Once the door was shut on the patio—and that darn dog—I went upstairs to shower and change. When I exited the bath with my robe securely tied around my waist, I heard Lennon and Valeria singing along to whatever movie they were watching. The sound of their joined voices seemed to be a balm to my jangled nerves. Falling over a fence was not at all the smooth, suave sort of move I had wanted to put on Lennon. I padded to the closet, lost in thought, and turned on the light. The walk-in glowed brightly, and the racks of suits, shirts, and slacks, all hung with meticulous care on soft gray padded hangers, greeted me. There was a soft, lingering scent of my cologne that rose from small sachets dangling off silk ribbons among my suits.
My sight moved over my work clothes to my casual clothing on the other side of the long closet. My shoes, and there were many, rested in cubby holes. Each shoe was shiny and polished as I tended to them weekly or after they were worn. My ties, resting on tie racks, were organized by color, much like my shirts and slacks. Hats sat on shelves above the rods holding my clothes. As I reached up to straighten a dark brown trilby, my sight landed on the urn holding my sister’s ashes. I lifted it gently from where I had placed it several weeks ago, ensuring Valeria would not get into it if it sat somewhere downstairs. It seemed so odd to me at this moment that all that was left of my sister was reduced to fine ashes. I dug my toes into the thick carpet as I stared at the urn in my hands. Perhaps it was time to get Aida out of the closet and place her somewhere more fitting. Not that resting beside a thousand-dollar trilby from the finest hatter in London was a bad place to sit, but along the seashore seemed more fitting.
We were looking at a long weekend coming up for the Fourth of July. I’d planned on staying in Boston, taking Valeria and Lennon, if he wished to go and was not working a party, to the harbor to watch the fireworks over the bay, and then come home to snack on some tidbits I whipped up. But maybe taking themto the seaside would be better. A step in healing, some closure perhaps, and maybe if Valeria were in a different place, she would be able to sleep in a bed. Weeks and weeks of therapy had not gotten us a solution to that perplexing issue. Surely, I could allow her to sleep on a chaise or on the floor, but the child would eventually have to find her rest in a bed. Dogs slept on the floor, not precious little girls.
“I think our minds are made,” I told the urn in my hand before placing her back beside the trilby. “Yes, the seaside sounds wonderful.”
I found my phone and called the agency that cleaned my summer home to inform them I would be arriving tomorrow morning with guests. Please open the windows, freshen the linens, and stock the kitchen with my usual groceries. Now I just had to ask Lennon if he would like to come along, even though, deep down, I had no good reason to bring along the nanny other than I liked him so much it made my knees rubbery and my heart race.
Right. I would ask, and to hell with the reasonings.
