He opened the doors and stood on the porch staring at her through the glass while she secured the lock. She glanced at the black pickup in her driveway before closing the inner door, shutting out the image of the man she looked forward to seeing again.
* * *
Reese hadn’t realized he’d been clenching his teeth until he opened his mouth and experienced tightness in his jaw. He’d gone to Cherie’s home to update her on the details surrounding the man who had assaulted her and wound up spending hours with her. It was as if he couldn’t force himself to leave. Why, he’d asked himself, had he allowed himself to be so caught up with a woman that he’d lost all semblance of self-control?
He’d learned to control his emotions as a boy whenever he joined his grandfather in the woodshed. He knew Papa wanted him to sit on a stool and watch him without saying a word while he tutored him in the art of woodworking. His first lesson began the year he’d celebrated his eighth birthday, and it took another two years before Reese was permitted to question his grandfather about why he’d chosen a particular type of wood to make a table or chair. Now that he looked back, he marveled that he’d been able to sit for hours without uttering a single word as he’d watched Raymond Matthews cut, carve, and sand a piece of wood into a piece of furniture for one of his clients.
It wasn’t until he was older that he saw Raymond caress a piece of wood, after sanding it, with a motion akin to a man caressing a woman’s body. Reese recalled his grandmother complaining that her husband loved wood more than he loved her. Reese had reassured Winifred Matthews that Raymond did love her, but that working with wood was in his DNA, and it was something that gave him pleasure and provided her with a comfortable lifestyle. She didn’t have to work outside the house to supplement her husband’s income, and she could devote all her free time to raising her orphaned grandson.
Reese never knew his mother or his father. His mother, a college dropout, had been driving from upstate New York to North Carolina to introduce her two-month-old son to his grandparents when a wrong-way driver hit her car head-on. The first responders on the scene found the seriously injured young woman and her infant baby boy crying in his car seat behind the passenger seat. Miraculously he hadn’t been injured. Sondra Matthews lingered in a coma for weeks before passing away, and as the next of kin, Raymond and Winifred became the legal guardians of their grandson, listed on his birth certificate as Reese Matthews. Sondra hadn’t listed her baby’s father’s on the document.
Growing up and not knowing his father didn’t bother Reese as much as it did not to know the woman who had given birth to him. Grams had told him she was proud of her daughter because she was the first one in her family to go to college. Sondra had earned a partial scholarship to attend Syracuse University in New York. However, her parents were unaware that she’d dropped out at the end of her freshman year to give birth to a baby. She’d finally worked up enough nerve to tell her mother she’d gotten pregnant after sleeping with a boy she’d met at an off-campus party and that she was coming home.
There were times when Reese wondered if the boy who had slept with his mother realized he’d fathered a child, and if he had, did he care, or had he dismissed it as something he’d done before? Then there was his mother, who’d decided to have her baby rather than abort it, and then found the courage to tell her parents that she was sorry she’d disappointed them when they had expected her to earn a college degree.
The only memories Reese would have of his mother were photographs chronicling her life from childhood to when she’d posed proudly in her cap and gown at her high school graduation. There were also photos of her after she’d moved into off-campus housing and her bed covered with some of her favorite childhood stuffed animals. Aside from that last photograph taken of her, it was as if her life had ended the first day she’d left Coates Island, North Carolina, to move to Syracuse, New York.
Reese had had a wonderful upbringing because he knew his grandparents loved him unconditionally. Although his grandfather wasn’t overly affectionate, an occasional pat on his head or back was enough for him. It was only in later years, whenever he returned from a military leave, that Raymond would reveal how proud he was of him. It was different with his grandmother, who would hug and kiss him in the presence of his friends, who would tease him, saying he was a mama’s boy. He’d accepted their taunting because he knew some of them were jealous because they didn’t have the same close relationship with their parents.
Raymond and Winifred Matthews had given him everything he needed to grow up loved and secure, and when he’d lost them, he felt a void that still lingered. He didn’t know why, but he always felt their presence when he was in the kitchen or the woodshed. It was as if they were with him in spirit.
Reese drove onto the mainland and turned off onto the road leading to his home. The sun had gone down, and lights were visible in many of the houses. It was the end of January, and the holiday season was over. This is when Coates Island appeared to go to sleep, like a hibernating bear. Except for locals, there was hardly anyone on the streets or browsing in the mom-and-pop shops. This was the time when Reese came to enjoy his hometown best. He was familiar with both old and new residents and had come to regard them as his extended family.
He’d just tapped the remote device attached to the visor of the pickup for his garage when his phone rang, and he saw the number on the dashboard screen. It was Cherie.
“Hey, you,” he said, smiling.
Her sultry laugh echoed throughout the truck’s interior. “Hey, yourself. I just came up with what I’d like for Sunday dinner.”
“I hope you’re not thinking about a standing rib roast?”
Cherie laughed again. “No. Nothing that elaborate. Do you know how to make chicken?”
“Does a cat know how to lick its paws?” he teased.
“I suppose I got my answer. I’d like chicken.”
“How do you like it? Fried, baked, roasted, poached, braised, fricasseed with dumplings, smothered, grilled—”
“Stop, Reese,” she said, cutting him off.
“Oh, I forgot broiled and stir-fried.”
“I don’t care, as long as it’s chicken.”
“Okay, sweetheart.” There was silence on the end of the connection, and Reese thought Cherie had hung up.
“Do you call all women sweetheart?” she asked.
Reese slumped in his seat. Once again, he felt himself moving much too quickly where it concerned Cherie Thompson; he knew he had to dial it back before whatever he hoped to share with her detonated beyond repair. Yet he wasn’t above being anything but truthful with her.
“Only the ones I like. Does that bother you, Cherie?”
“No, Reese, it doesn’t bother me. I just wanted to know where you’re coming from.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes, I do. And thank you for being honest with me.”
