The Awakening Read online

  “Rather easily,” he said, grinning, “and with great pleasure. The same pleasure you felt, I might add.” “You attacked me!” she said, standing.

  He grinned at her in such a knowing way that she looked away, her face red. “You have to take me home,” she said stiffly.

  Hank stood. “Sure. We drive up with me shirtless, you in your underwear and my shirt and your hair wet.”

  Amanda couldn’t even imagine what would happen if Taylor saw her like that. He would leave her, leave the ranch. She’d ruin her own life and her father would hate her for making Taylor leave. Sometimes Amanda thought her father liked Taylor more than he did his own daughter.

  Heavily, Amanda sat down on the grass. “No,” she said softly, “I’ll have to wait until my dress and hair are dry.”

  Hank turned away rather than say another word to her about her fear of the man she said she loved. How could he make her see that fear and love didn’t go together?

  “You have a comb in that little purse of yours?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, and he walked toward the car. She was feeling very confused at the moment and again she wished Dr. Montgomery had never come into her life. She had to get away from him. This evening she would tell Taylor that the professor was an impossible man and she didn’t want to spend more time with him. Taylor would understand. He would understand and give permission—No! she told herself. They were in love, not student and teacher, so they’d discuss this situation and—

  “Hold still,” Hank said, and knelt behind her and began to gently comb the tangles from her hair.

  “Dr. Montgomery, you cannot continue touching me,” she said, moving away from him.

  “Because that’s your lover’s right? Look, I’m sorry about the cake, and this is my apology, all right? Now turn around and hold still. Besides, your fiancé doesn’t do this, does he?”

  Amanda turned around, and his combing felt wonderful, so relaxing, so gentle. No, she thought, Taylor had never touched her hair—or held her chin in his hands, or kissed her lips. Yet she knew that he did love her. Love wasn’t just touching. It was also respect and being able to look up to the one you love. And neither of those qualities were in Dr. Montgomery.

  “Are you married?” she asked abruptly, surprising herself.

  “No, nor engaged, nor in love.”

  “Ah, so you don’t know what it means to be in love.”

  “Neither do you, so I guess we’re equal on that score.”

  “Taylor and I are—” she began. “Oh, what’s the use? You have your mind made up, and nothing I say will be able to change it. Could we talk about something else?”

  “You mean one of your ‘conversations’? Something about some foreign policy or a list of the causes of the War Between the States?”

  “That’s a very good topic. You know, of course, that slavery was only one of several causes. As an economics professor—”

  “Quiet, or I’ll kiss you again.”

  Amanda almost smiled at that but she controlled herself. “Do you know anything about botany?”

  “Do you know anything about your mother?” he shot back.

  Amanda started to move away from him but he held her hair in his hands and she couldn’t move. “I believe that is personal, Dr. Montgomery.”

  “Could I bribe you with lemon meringue pie?” he asked, his big hands gently combing the tangles from her long, thick hair.

  In spite of herself, she did give a little smile. At the moment she couldn’t seem to remember Taylor. As she sat here in the grass wearing a man’s shirt, a man’s hands in her hair, Taylor and her father seemed far away. “My mother used to brush my hair and we used to eat lemon meringue pies together,” Amanda said softly. She hadn’t thought of her mother very often in the last two years.

  “And when did it stop?” Hank kept stroking her hair, running the comb through it, letting it wrap around his bare forearms. He just wanted to touch her. He wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her neck and slide the shirt from her shoulders and—

  “When I was told—” she said, “I mean, when I found out the truth about my mother. She was not a good influence on me.”

  Hank could hear the wistfulness in her voice. So Taylor had taken her away from a mother who brushed her hair and fed her food with taste. “I had a cousin like that, one who was a bad influence on me, I mean. He gave me whiskey and cigarettes, took me to a…well, a house of wayward ladies, taught me lots of curse words, taught me how to drive too fast. If it was bad for my health or could possibly kill me, ol’ Charlie had me do it. It’s a wonder I lived to be sixteen. I guess your mother was like that, huh? Drank, did she? She didn’t take drugs, did she? Opium dens? Or men? Did she take lovers in front of you? Or—”

  “Stop it!” Amanda said angrily. “My mother never did any such thing in her life. She was wonderful to me. She used to make all my clothes, pretty dresses with embroidered collars, and she bought me wonderful shiny shoes, and every Saturday she took me into Kingman and bought me ice cream and—” She stopped abruptly because she was aware of pain. More pain caused by Dr. Montgomery, she thought.

  “I see,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “She does sound like a terrible influence.”

  She turned away from him, then jerked her hair from his hands. “You know nothing about it. You are judging—and condemning—something you know absolutely nothing about.”

  “Then explain it to me, Amanda,” he said, using her first name for the first time.

  She put her hands to her temples. “You confuse me. Why should I explain anything to you? I don’t know you. You’re a stranger. You’ll be gone in a few days, so why should I tell you anything?”

  “Is that it or are you afraid to tell me? Tell me what hideous thing your mother has done, so I can hate her too. I hate oppression. I despise tyrants who hurt those weaker than themselves. Tell me what awful thing your mother has done to you so that you two live in the same house but never see each other.”

  “She never did anything to me,” Amanda half blurted. “She never hurt anyone in her life, but she used to…to dance!” She glared at Dr. Montgomery in defiance. Now he knew.

  “Oh,” he said after a long pause. “Professionally? With or without clothes?”

  Amanda could only gape at him. She had told him this deep, dark secret about herself, a secret that Taylor said tainted her blood and made Amanda not quite “good,” and yet Dr. Montgomery paid no attention to it. He was a dense man! “With her clothes, of course,” Amanda snapped. “Don’t you understand? She was on the stage.”

  “Was she any good?”

  Amanda made a sound that was half anger, half frustration and got up and started toward the car. The man had the sensibilities of a rock!

  He caught her arm and turned her toward him. “No, I don’t understand. Maybe you could explain it to me. All I hear is that your mother loved you and you loved her, then somebody told you she used to dance and suddenly you hate her.”

  “I don’t hate her, I—” She jerked her arms from his grasp. He confused her so much. He made her question things she knew to be true.

  Hank saw the pain and anguish on her face and he calmed. “You know, you never did eat. Why don’t you come over here and eat and explain to me about your mother? I can be a good listener and sometimes it helps to talk about things.”

  Obediently, Amanda followed him to where the cloth was spread on the ground and where the food was waiting. Suddenly, she did want to explain things to him. He kept condemning her, but if he heard the whole story maybe he’d understand—and if he understood, perhaps he’d stop making her angry with his sly innuendos.

  He poured her a glass of still-cool lemonade and heaped a plate full of food and handed it to her. “Eat and talk,” he commanded.

  “My mother was good to me as a child,” she began, her mouth half full, “but I didn’t know that the reason she spent so much time with me was because the other women of Kingman would have noth