Seashells Ch. 02

"Certainly, I've got it under control. Take your time. We'll be OK."

Jack and Georgia walked along the beach. "This property is beautiful," he said, "almost as beautiful as you."

"Please don't say that. You know there can never be anything between us."

"Georgia..." He wanted to be someone special in her life and it made him angry and frustrated; he didn't know how to make that happen.

"Please, don't..." she pleaded.

He turned to her and took her into his arms. His hands held her close and he could feel her breath upon his face.

"Don't look like that," she said, quietly pulling from him.

"Look like what?"

"Like you're enjoying all this."

"I am enjoying all this," Jack whispered. Then he took a good look at her and decided to ease up. She had a look of panic to her that he had never seen before. "Georgia, you've got to believe me... you've got to trust me. I would never take advantage of you."

She shifted in his arms and looked up into his face, hoping to find something... honesty, perhaps.

"I would want to, of course. You're a beautiful girl... and... I like you... very much."

Georgia's mind was going in every direction at once. She wasn't woman enough to admit that she, too, had thought about what had transpired between them. He might take that as an invitation to continue and she might not be able to discourage him quite as much as she should.

She wasn't immune to him... to his charm.

"What if I were to kiss you, again?" He brought her close to him once more. "I'd never hurt you, never. What can I do to convince you of that?"

"You could be my friend," she whispered. "Just my friend, more than anything else that's what I need now. I'm not ready for anything else, not now. Part of me wishes I were but I'm not."

"If that's what you want from me, Georgia, that's what I'll give you. Friendship."

If she was honest with herself, she knew there was more she wanted from him but that was impossible, now or later. They were together because of accidental circumstances, that was all, she knew. It was just an accident.

He wanted desperately to go beyond that single kiss, so it wasn't easy. Having someone's trust put a different twist to things. It demanded something of him far beyond his simple desires.

It was a new feeling.

The touch of his lips on hers was as gentle as an afternoon breeze, lingering almost imperceptibly before he pulled away. It was a chaste kiss, a friend's kiss.

"It's getting chilly; we should go back." He put his arm around her shoulders and walked her back to the house.

"Thank you," she said, softly, leaning into him. He stirred feelings in her she never knew existed, feelings she seemed powerless to control and helpless to stop. He had kissed her and awakened in her a passion she had not known herself capable of.

Jack and Bill sat in the drawing room, listening to San Francisco's KQW on the radio. "I'm surprised it comes in clearly, let alone at all. This RCA radiola is pretty good."

The static in the background couldn't overwhelm the dance music that the station was playing. Jack wanted to dance with Georgia but she was in the kitchen pantry, taking stock of what had been delivered from the market. She could hear the music from the other room but stayed where she was knowing that if she joined them, he would want to dance with her and she couldn't do that, no matter how much she would have loved it.

She looked at the wall clock in the kitchen. It was after nine o'clock in the evening and she used that as an excuse to go to her room... to go to bed... to dream of his arms around her, his kiss on her lips.

Chapter 6

The next morning, the smell of bacon, eggs and biscuits filled the house as Jack woke, the morning sunshine already filling his room with light. He stretched out his arms, sat up in the bed and then swung himself off. He looked around for his underwear, wondering where he had dropped them.

He looked everywhere he could, including under the bed and finally, giving up, went into the bathroom.

"Good morning," he said, walking into the breakfast room. "Boy, that smells great! Where's Georgia?"

"Good morning to you," answered Bill. "Yes, it does and she's outside, somewhere."

Liza entered, carrying his breakfast, a smile on her face. Setting the plate down, she asked, "Would you like some orange juice, sir?"

"Yes, please. Thank you." Turning to Bill, he asked, "What do you mean, she's outside, somewhere?"

"She's outside, somewhere. She ate early and went outside. What's the problem?"

"Uh, nothing. Just asking, that's all. I, uh, wanted to ask her something... about the house."

"Well, you better eat; your food is getting cold. Want some jam for those biscuits?"

Georgia walked down to the beach and continued north along the gravel. The shore there was so rocky that she couldn't ever see trying to swim, no matter how inviting the water looked. The breeze coming in from the ocean blew her hair apart and she put a hand until she gave up, it was too cold. She pulled her heavy sweater around her, putting her hands up under her arms and bent her head against the wind.

It was soon too cold to continue and she headed back to the Windcliff.

He had gone outside four times, looking for her and then returned four times to the drawing room, pacing back and forth as he waited for her. He needed to talk to her.

Jack, however, did not see Georgia until it was late in the afternoon. She had come in while he was looking for her outside and went to her room, closed the door and lay on the bed. What was she going to do now? She had no clue. If he was a colored man, she would have accepted his attention and allowed him to court her, but he wasn't. That fact would never change no matter how much she wished it away.

She put her arm over her eyes and her sleeve soon became damp with her tears.

That evening, she joined the two men for dinner in the dining room. To her surprise, Jack rose from his chair as she entered and pulled out her chair. No one had ever done that for her and she didn't know what to say except 'thank you'.

"I was looking for you," Jack said, sheepishly, as if that explained everything.

"Oh," she replied, "I didn't know." That was a lie, she knew. The other girls had told her he was looking for her and she purposely went to her room.

"I understand you went for a walk."

"Yes, I, uh, needed the air. What did you want to talk about?"

He was at a loss and wasn't going to say anything in front of Bill. He glanced at his friend, nodding his head to the side.

"I'll be going, now," said Bill, getting up and heading toward the breakfast room.

She looked at him in amazement. He had eaten nothing of his dinner. In fact, dinner had not even been served.

"Georgia," Jack started to say, only to be interrupted by Liza bringing in two dinner plates with baked fish and potatoes.

"Would you like something else?" the girl asked.

"A little salt, maybe some lemon?"

"Yes, sir." She looked toward Georgia but Georgia just shook her head.

After the girl left for the second time, Jack looked at Georgia. "I wish things were different, for both you and me. I want to be your friend but I'm finding extremely hard to do so."

Georgia did not look up from her plate, slowly cutting her fish into bite-sized pieces and eating them, one at a time as she listened, unable to speak. Why, of all the men in the entire world, did she have to fall in love with this one? She saw no viable solution to her situation... their situation. She had no idea what to do.

She knew he was speaking but couldn't hear a word of what he was saying.

Suddenly the room was silent. He had stopped talking, both hands gripping the edge of the table. She glanced up from her plate, astonished at how quiet it was.

"Georgia..." he tried to say but couldn't, having said it all already.

She looked at her plate, once more. "Yes?"

"You know what..." he started but then stopped, knowing he could not just say it. They both knew any relationship other than friendship was doomed and yet...

Chapter 7

"Bill's doing a great job of teaching Liza how to cook something decent. I can't believe you were all eating..." Jack put down his fork. "This is much improved. Do you think we still need to find a cook or can she handle it?"

Georgia gazed at him, wondering what it would be like to actually be the woman of the house, knowing it could never happen. "We'd still need another girl to help around the house. That is, if you're planning on staying here very long and having guests. It IS a big house."

He took out a small notebook from his pocket, flipped through it until he found a blank page and wrote down 'maid'. He followed that with 'visit graves, arrange for monuments' and 'visit jail.' "You know, we went all the way to Carmel and forgot to see the sheriff. We'll have to go again. This time, I'll make sure I get two rooms ahead of time. Looks like we'll have a full day next time." He smiled. "In the meantime, let's have Liza take these away and bring on the dessert. Bill tells me that he taught her how to make apple pie. Maybe I should just hire him as cook! I could use a drink, too."

Georgia shook her head, a smile on her lips. "You will have to be content with water," she said. "You will find nothing like that here, not even beer."

"My uncle followed the Prohibition laws?"

"He was quite diligent when it concerned liquor. He broke with the local minister when the man allowed a drink to a dying servant."

"Good grief," he said and shook his head. "I just don't understand the man at all. Then, where did he go on Sunday?"

Georgia looked grim. "For the past few years, he was in the habit of conducting his own services, sir."

"I've told you, you don't have to call me 'sir,' especially after what transpired between us. Well, you needn't worry about that. I don't know where we're going to get any wine around here, though."

Liza came into the room with the pie.

"That looks quite good, Liza. I trust it will taste as good." After serving a generous piece to both Georgia and himself, he sampled a bit and smiled across the table at Georgia. "This is delicious. Thank you, Liza, it is very good."

"Thank you, sir. I will tell Mr. Doyle that you are pleased."

"Where is he, anyway?"

"He decided to eat in the kitchen. He said it was easier to keep an eye on the food."

"This is an excellent pie. I wish we had some ice cream to go with it." As the girl left the room, he returned his attention to Georgia. "I suppose you nursed my uncle and his family in their last illness."

She felt an inward flush of pleasure that he thought so highly of her. "I did a little but, please don't make too much of it. It was the least I could do for him, considering what he had done for me." She looked soberly across the table at Jack. "In his way, your uncle was very good to me. He paid me decently for being a nanny and when he needed something additional, he always paid me for my time. He had many business dealings that he occasionally needed me to write letters and other such things."

"I am sure my uncle found you quite valuable." He looked approvingly at her. She was an intelligent, level-headed attractive young woman, in spite of her efforts to disguise her looks. At least this evening, he noticed, she was wearing one of the new dresses bought in Carmel.

Georgia found his gaze uncomfortable. A few minutes earlier, when they had been laughing and talking in such a friendly manner, she had come close to forgetting that she was a colored girl and he was a white man and now, for some reason, she was reminded of the fact. Pushing her chair back, she rose to her feet.

"I hope you will excuse me, I must go and assist the other girls with their evening duties."

"But, you will come back when you are done, won't you?" he asked. "There are still a great number of things I would like to speak with you about."

"I am afraid I can't," she replied, "I'm sure I will be busy for the rest of the evening. I hope that you will excuse me." She hurried out of the room and retreated into the kitchen pantry.

Disappointed, Jack watched her move to the doorway. He hurriedly got to his feet, went into the drawing room and turned on the radio but could only find the hiss of static. Disappointed, he turned it off, looked for something to read and finally, giving up completely, went to his room and lay on the bed. Life had been so much simpler in Los Angeles... before he cared.

Georgia had been able to avoid him for the rest of the evening and finally, when she was sure that he had retired for the night, went to her own small room, still furnished with only a small bed, a light, chair, table and an old chest of drawers.

She had washed her face in the bathroom down the hall and then, returning to her room, changed into her nightgown and knelt to say her prayers for her father and fiancé.

The silence in the room led her to think about her personal loss and she wondered what she had done to deserve such a fate. Then she remembered how bravely the small boy had faced his own death. Although she remained with her head bowed for several more minutes, she realized that it all could be so much worse.

She turned off the small light and lay in the dark, waiting for sleep to come as she thought over the events of the day. Ever since she had met him, her life had turned upside down. How different he was from his uncle and how had she expected him to be. He was more personable, more intelligent and more handsome than she had believed. In her mind, she thought how he had looked at dinnertime, his hair swept back and his eyes, intensely colored, delving into her own until she had to leave the table to escape his gaze.

She knew she was falling for him and didn't know what to do to stop it. It could only lead to grief; it would be a disaster. "This won't do," she said, opening her eyes and sitting up in bed. "This won't do at all," she said, starting to sob in the lonely darkness of her room.

She stared once again at the unseen ceiling, finding herself doing that more often than not since the arrival of Jack and Bill. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked, trying to push them away. "He has no children," she said to herself, "so he doesn't need a nanny, no matter what he says, so my leaving should not come as a shock to him."

The idea of leaving Windcliff, her home for the last three years, made her sad. She had thought of leaving several times in the past but now that she faced the possibility, she was sadly reluctant to do so. This reluctance had nothing to do with the new owner, she tried to reassure herself. It was not possible to form an attachment to him in such a short period of time, to a man that she had only known for a few days. And even if she had, it was just one more reason to leave as soon as possible. She resolved to give him notice early in the morning; pulling her covers up to her chin, she finally slept.

His smile stretched across his face; so did hers. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Jack to pull her close again, his chest making a caressing weight on her breasts. His hips found hers, pushing with the faintest, unconscious yearning. Seeking against her mouth, his lips carefully urged hers into a heated openness, as if she were a rare delicacy he was tasting for the first time. His tongue touched inside her mouth, and he heard the sudden hiss of her indrawn breath. He thought nothing had ever felt so good in his entire life.

He couldn't bring himself to pull away completely. Instead, he rested his forehead on hers, his lips parted on uneven breaths. His hands stroked her hair, again and again.

Her throat was tight and burning. It was amazing, discovering how his touch was affecting her. And, it was frightening.

She awoke at the first call of the rooster outside. She had dreamt of him, a dream that made her blush to remember it and was astonished to find her nightdress bunched up above her waist, one hand still between her still damp thighs.

Splashing cold water on her face, she pulled her hair to the back, and held it in place with a dark blue scarf. It took her several minutes to decide which of the new dresses to wear, finding herself leaning toward the light yellow one that he had bought for her but then examining her motives for wearing such a fine dress, she put on one of her old dresses, instead.

Looking in the small hand mirror, she found herself as dowdy as she could ever be. Learning from Ellen that he was eating in the breakfast room, she took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the room.

He looked up in surprise as she practically burst into the room; the door swung open before her but then his look gave way to one of pleased recognition.

"Good morning," Georgia said, feeling suddenly shy. Since leaving him the night before, she tried to convince herself that she must have been mistaken in her attitude toward him. 'But', she asked herself, 'how was that possible, seeing how he had already kissed her and kindled a fire of passion that she was hard pressed to extinguish, that it was already crowding her dreams?'

She was determined to tell him, no matter how hard that would be.