Free Man From Tennessee by Jennifer Greene

anyone else she’d ever known in her life.
     
    On the way up the long drive to his place, Kern turned the car midway, taking a narrow gravel road she was unfamiliar with. “Where?” she asked.
    “To walk off a bit of dinner, if you don’t mind.”
    “I…no.” She stepped out of the car stiffly, aware of Kern and the fact that they were alone. Somehow in all the worry over Julia she had failed to remind herself that staying at his place meant staying alone with him for the two nights.
    “This way.”
    He helped her over a rocky patch, and then his hand fell away, leaving her to set her own pace ahead of him. Trees rustled on her left, but the path followed a stream on the right, a gurgling rush of silver in the moonlight, a sprinkling of stars overhead reflected in the water. Wildflowers crouched low all around the banks, a sweet, potent, night-rich scent after the rain.
    They walked without talking. The darkness made for a meandering pace, but it was not pitch black. The rain had cooled the sultry heat of the day, just a faint warm breeze rippling the stream. When she tired of walking, she wandered to a low flat rock that jutted over the water and perched on it with her legs crossed, bending to look in the stream.
    Kern stopped just behind her, leaning back against the rough-barked surface of a hickory tree in the shadow. She glanced back once, all too aware of him, but he seemed no more inclined to talk than she did. Every limb gradually relaxed as she simply stared out over the water, absorbing the scene. The restfulness was so different from the city life she’d adjusted to—the life she had convinced herself was all and exactly what she wanted. But the convincing had taken a long time.
    Finally she stood back up and dusted off her pants. She looked again to Kern. He hadn’t moved. His eyes had a gleam in the dusty shadows beneath the tree. She felt uneasy.
    “You accused me of playing with you before.”
    She nodded, pushing her hair back where the breeze was trying to curl it to her cheeks.
    “I knew we’d see each other again sometime, Tish. For the first year after you left, I probably would have slammed the door in your face if you had come back.” He stepped out from the shadows toward her, and she dug her hands in her pockets. “It took a long time to accept failure. I blamed you first and then me…and then no one. There was certainly no way to take back those six months, was there?”
    She shook her head, and he added quietly, “You were very young, Tish. I knew sooner or later I would want to know what you would be like when you grew up.”
    She took a breath, still staring at him. “I kept expecting you to ask for a divorce.”
    “I want children. If I’d found someone along the way I’d wanted to have children with, I would have gotten a divorce. Until then, it didn’t really matter.”
    He might as well have said that she didn’t matter, beyond sheer curiosity as to what had happened to her. She felt an unexpected curl of pain in her stomach.
    “And you have grown up, Tish.”
    His tone was soft, and she shook her head when he started toward her. She knew why he was coming, what he wanted, but the mesmerizing hold in his eyes was difficult to look away from. Her hands trembled just from the brush of those eyes on her soft skin.
    “I’m not asking or even suggesting fresh starts, Tish. I don’t even know who you are anymore, but I know damn well there’s something that you’re not leaving here again without… You can feel it…I can feel it every time I come near you.”
    “No. There’s nothing, Kern, there’s…” She put her hands in front of her as if that would be enough to push him away. A shudder whispered through her from fingers to toes as his lips molded hers, gently, insistently persuasive. His fingers caressed her face and throat, like they had done the first time when she had fallen in love with him. His tongue flicked across her teeth and her lips parted for him,