The Summerhouse Read online

  Madison lifted herself on her toes and looked over Thomas’s head. “Isn’t someone going to save me from this satyr?”

  “We’re all much too fascinated to move a muscle,” Mrs. Barnett said with what Madison had come to see was her usual honesty. “Go on, Thomas, take her outside and ravish her in the moonlight.”

  “You’ve been reading romantic novels again, haven’t you, my love?” Mr. Barnett said with a smile at his plump, soft wife. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s only six o’clock and it’s summer, so there is a great deal of daylight outside.”

  “It’s always moonlight to lovers,” Mrs. Barnett said, her eyes on her husband.

  “Go!” Mr. Barnett said to Thomas, then walked toward his wife.

  Thomas grabbed Madison’s hand and pulled her from the kitchen onto the porch.

  “Aren’t you overplaying it a bit?” Madison said nervously once they were alone. Pulling her hand from his, she stepped to the porch rail, her back to him.

  “I’m not playing at all,” he said softly.

  Madison didn’t dare look at him. “I don’t think that we should—”

  She didn’t say any more because Thomas pulled her into his arms and kissed her. And it was a kiss such as Madison had never received before. It was deep and thorough and altogether wonderful.

  When he broke away, her first thought was, How very much I’ve missed in my life!

  Her inclination was to fling her arms around him and kiss him more, but she forced herself to move away. “What was that for?” she asked, trying to make her voice sound angry. But if there was anger, it was at herself, not at him.

  “Just to see,” Thomas said as he put his hands in his pockets.

  If he starts whistling, I’ll pick up a chair and hit him, she thought. “To see what?” she snapped, this time the anger genuine.

  “If you like me as much as I like you,” he said.

  There was such innocent sincerity in his voice that her anger dissipated. “And what did you find out?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  She couldn’t look in his eyes for fear that she’d give too much away. She wasn’t going to be the country girl who oohed and aahed and told him that no man had ever before been as nice to her as he was being. No, that would make her sound as though she were from a class where the men dragged women about by their hair.

  Instead, she turned back around, put her hands on the porch rail, and looked out at the forest. There was about fifty feet of mowed grass between them and the dense trees, then beyond that was pristine forest.

  “So what do we do about it?” Madison asked softly.

  “Anything we want,” he answered, and she could hear the intensity in his voice.

  She took a deep breath. “You don’t know me. For all you know, I—”

  He didn’t let her finish the sentence. “I know all about you that I’ll ever need to know. You have a great sense of humor. You’re smart and you care more about other people than you do about yourself. That’s rare in a person. Most people—”

  He didn’t finish that sentence, but took a breath and lowered his voice. “You like to fish and to walk over mountains. Although I do plan to buy you a some proper hiking boots and—”

  She turned to look at him, a frown on her face. “And when do you plan to do this? Before or after I go back to my husband?”

  “After,” Thomas said, not in the least perturbed by her outburst. “After you tell him that you want out.”

  “You presume a lot,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height and doing her best to look intimidating.

  “Yes, I do,” Thomas said softly, then he picked up her hand and kissed the palm.

  “Oh, damnation!” Madison said under her breath; then she gave a great sigh as she pulled her hand away and put it back on the porch rail. “We can’t do this. This isn’t right. You’re—”

  “If you start that speech about our being from two different worlds, I’ll walk away now,” Thomas said, and it was his turn to sound angry. He, too, put his hands on the porch rail, then looked out at the forest. “Look, I apologize if I’m going too fast, it’s just that I’ve always been a person who makes quick decisions. I decided in an instant that I wanted to be a doctor, and in the many years since then, I’ve never once wavered in my decision.”

  “Your first impression of me was that I was a criminal, a person from a very different world than the one you live in.”

  “Your beauty blinded me,” Thomas answered. “I couldn’t see you for the façade. And, for the record, criminality isn’t determined by the amount of money a person was born with or their education.”

  “Shall we check statistics on the number of poor people in prison versus the number of wealthy ones?”

  “How did we get onto this?” Thomas asked, turning to look at her. “Or are you just trying to get me off track?”

  Madison looked away from him, then glanced down the length of the porch. “Too much is happening too fast,” she said as she turned back, but she still didn’t look at him. “Give me some time. I go for years with no excitement, then in a few days, I . . .”

  “Meet the man of your dreams?” Thomas asked with hope in his voice.

  Madison laughed. “I just need time.”

  “Take all you need,” Thomas said, then glanced at his watch. “Is an hour enough? How about forty-five minutes?”

  Madison opened her mouth to speak, but Pauli pushed open the screen door and walked onto the porch, and when Madison turned to look at her, Pauli moved to stand between them; then she gave a dramatic sigh.

  “If you two also run off to bed together, I’ll jump into one of the canoes and run away and you’ll all have to spend all night trying to find me.”

  Madison was sure it was her middle-class mores showing, but she was shocked at the words of this child.

  Not so Thomas. “So who else is in bed together?” he asked casually.

  “Everyone. Mom and Dad. Carol and Alex. And you two look like you want to.”

  At that Thomas laughed, but Madison felt herself blush. “I really think that this is a subject that—”

  “Is too old for me?” Pauli said with a sigh. “I know. I’m cursed with being wise beyond my years.”

  “Cursed with an ego that’s too big for the world,” Thomas said easily, then looked over her head to Madison. “I used to change her diapers.”

  “That was when I was a boy,” Pauli said, making Madison blink at her.

  Thomas snorted. “Still are from what I can see,” he said, looking at the girl’s flat chest.

  Pauli looked down the front of her. “I know. It’s a tragedy, isn’t it? Do you think they’ll ever grow? You’re a doctor, what do you think?”

  “I’m not a doctor yet, and when I am, I’m not going into female medicine. Why don’t you ask Madison? She’s had some experience in this area.”

  Madison had to work to keep from clasping her arms across her breasts. “I think I should check on dinner.”

  “It won’t be for a while,” Pauli said. “When Mother and Dad go at it, it takes them a while.”

  Madison decided that she wasn’t going to continue to be a prude. “How lucky for your mother. She must tell me her secret.”

  Turning, Pauli looked at her. “So what’s Thomas like in bed?”

  But Pauli never got to hear Madison’s reply because he grabbed the girl by the ear and pulled while holding the screen door open. “Get inside and try to mind your manners.”

  “How am I going to learn if I don’t ask?” Pauli whined after Thomas had closed the screen door, with her inside the house.

  “There are some things that you have to learn from experience, not from what others tell you. Now go find your mother and tell her that we’re ready to eat.”

  “Some doctor you’ll make,” Pauli muttered as she disappeared into the house.

  “What an extraordinary child,” Madison said as she turned back to Thomas.