One instant Bett was perched on his back and the next she was sprawled beneath him. Amazingly, Zach no longer had the lazily relaxed qualities of a man ready for sleep. Something very definitely alive and unyieldingly firm was pressing against her abdomen. Zach’s skin was warm and vibrant, and his mouth anchored on hers, interrupting her speculative monologue. Her arms slid lightly around his neck as she savored all the allure in that kiss, all the tender, sweet, intimate taste of her lover. Only after an age did his mouth lift from hers. “There are times you make me feel like a fool, Bett. So the old mountebank got to me,” he grumbled softly. “Haven’t you ever felt jealousy?”

Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Definitely. When I see a woman look at you in a certain way, I feel this ugly, smothering urge to lock you up out of harm’s way. And when I think of women you slept with before we met, I could paint my fingernails emerald. But, Zach, it’s not the same.”

He raised some of his weight from her by balancing on his elbows, his lips still dipping down to her nose, her cheek, into her hair. “How is it not the same when I feel jealous of you?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

His smile pressed on her smile in a lazy kiss. “Two bits, that isn’t rational.”

“So?”

Zach’s laughter rumbled from deep in his chest. He drew her closer to him, holding her tight, engulfing her with his warmth. His leg slid between hers as they rolled to their sides. The motion was intimate, their change of mood mutual. Bett’s breasts swelled against him, aching as his palm possessively captured one sensitive orb.

She nearly jumped to the ceiling when she heard the gentle tap on the door. The door opened just a crack, about the time the top sheet was hurriedly being rustled into place.

“Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered. “Don’t wake Zach, darling. I figured you wouldn’t be asleep just yet…”

She couldn’t find her crochet hook. Surely Bett had seen it? And in the meantime, Bett used to stock cinnamon tea; Elizabeth had looked all over the kitchen…

Bett rose, grabbed her robe and belted it around her on the way downstairs. A half hour later, she returned to bed. Zach was still awake, but the mood was clearly broken. Exhaustion claimed both of them as she curled at his side.

“Bett?” Zach murmured just before sleep overcame them.

“Hmm?”

“Your mother is a very nice lady.”

“Hmm,” Bett responded again.

“That’s the third time this week that she’s prevented her daughter from being ravished. Now, is it me, or does she have ESP?”

Bett smiled, her eyes closed. “Zach, when she gets…lonely, she just doesn’t think. That, and I wouldn’t be an acceptable member of the family if I didn’t have insomnia.”

“Try that again.”

“My mother has insomnia. So did her mother; so did her mother; so did her mother; ad infinitum. Obviously, I have it, too. So she doesn’t think she’s waking me-”

“You’ve mentioned that you sleep like a brick?”

“No more than sixty-two times.”

His arm draped lazily over her side, pulling her closer. “All right,” he said sleepily after a time. “We’ll live with it, regardless, Bett. Give or take her ridiculous psychic, she’s a ton better. So we knew that a little disruption in our lives was inevitable. It won’t kill us to live with it for a while.”

Bett didn’t answer, but simply curled closer to him. Zach, most of the time so very easygoing and patient, was unquestionably faring better through the “disruption” than she was. How could she feel disgruntled, when the problem was her own mother? She felt grateful that he wasn’t angry over the interruptions in their love life. She felt resentful, as well, for her own sake. How could he not mind? She did.


***

Bett slipped a Debussy tape into the tape deck, let out the clutch, glanced in the rearview mirror of the tractor cab and steered toward the orchard. A fine white cloud billowed from the spray rig behind her, covering tree after tree. The gentle strains of classical music didn’t blend too badly with the soft whine of the sprayer.

Bett relaxed. The Massey was the best tractor they owned, and a beauty to work with. In the glass-windowed cab high above the ground, she was in her own private tower, loftily surveying the world she loved so well. She hummed an accompaniment to the rhythms around her. Every time one of their baby trees was covered, she felt a ridiculous surge of maternal relief. Got you, bug 9110. Safe, my sweethearts.

In college, she’d been an ardent ecologist; so had Zach. When they’d started farming, they’d made a solemn pledge not to use chemicals. They’d soon been forced to absolve each other of the pledge. No one wanted to buy wormy peaches. And there was no fun in watching a tiny tree one had planted, fed, watered and nurtured with love wither because of a fungus.

She and Zach were careful with their chemicals, their idealism not so much lost as tempered with realism. Grady told them regularly they were fools to be so fussy. Grady, on the other hand, didn’t view those rows of shiny green leaves and spreading branches as babies.

In two hours, she was done with the young block. There was another block to do in the afternoon, but it was almost lunch time. Vaulting down the three steps of the tractor, Bett hopped to the ground, stuck her hands in her back pockets and headed for the pickup.

She had left the driver’s door of the vehicle open, on the off chance that Sniper wanted out. Sniper hadn’t. In fact, the cat had picked up a hitchhiker, a saggy, tawny mutt with four inches of hanging jowls and mournful eyes.

“Baby!” A wet tongue lapped her cheeks as Bett hugged the hound. “So you’re looking for a ride, are you?” Lap, lap, lap. Bett grimaced. “Would you mind washing the cat for a minute or two? You’ll get your bone-you know there’s no need to butter me up.”

With a mournful sigh, Baby settled his head on Bett’s lap, making it extra difficult to drive. She hadn’t gone a hundred yards before she heard an odd sound in the engine. She braked to a stop, petted Sniper, shifted Baby’s head and stepped out to open the truck’s hood. The fan belt had a habit of jumping off at will. Five years ago, Bett would have been collecting competitive bids from the local garages while waiting for a tow truck. But now, with a glove on one hand, she slipped the belt back in place and returned to the driver’s seat.

The animals tussled for dominance, Sniper ending up on Bett’s lap this time and Baby announcing his hurt feelings by moaning through the open passenger window. Both animals made Bett chuckle. She was exhausted but didn’t care. The whole morning had been a joy of work she loved to do. She switched on the radio to an oldie about a song that made the whole world sing, and belted out the harmony in a husky alto. Baby joined in.

It was a joy just to get out of the house. In the two weeks since her mother had been with them, Bett hadn’t often been able to escape. The ceilings were now all washed. Grout sparkled in the bathrooms. Cans of soup were lined up in the cupboard. Everything was put away. Bett couldn’t find a thing, but her mother couldn’t conceivably take on another project that involved scaling heights, acquiring blisters or expending great amounts of elbow grease. Luckily, Bett had intervened in most such instances. Since even the closet corners now reeked of disinfectant, Bett had felt reasonably safe in leaving the house that morning. Her mother couldn’t possibly find anything more strenuous to do than make a peach pie.

“Mom?” she called absently as she let herself in the front door. Still humming, she took off her boots and made her way to the downstairs bathroom to wash her hands, using the same hand cleaner Zach did, the only product that really worked on grease. Unlike Zach, though, she finished the job with apricot hand cream. Still rubbing it in, she wandered back to the kitchen.

“Mom?”

With a slight frown, Bett poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip as she wandered back out of the kitchen toward her desk. Setting the cup down, she curled up with one leg under her and reached for the week’s receipts for orders of peaches and plums. Three receipts into the pile, Bett reached for the coffee cup, then set it down again. “Mom?”

The prickling up her spine felt like a mother bird’s instinct of danger to its young. Bett stood up, knowing full well Elizabeth’s Lincoln was in the yard. Her mother generally considered fresh air a trial one had to endure in order to go to and from shopping. Hence, the lady was in the house.

And the lady was not answering.

Bett took the stairs two at a time. She peered first into her mother’s bedroom, then her own, then the bathroom. The door at the end of the hall was closed, that spare room that was eventually to be the nursery.

Bett opened the door, stopped short and swallowed a long, deep breath.

Her mother was wearing her pink tennis shoes, aqua pedal pushers and an orange bandanna. A ladder was perched in the middle of the floor, surrounded by tarps and old sheets. A jumble of rollers and paintbrushes dripped paint. Mint-green paint. Three gallons of it.

“Brittany! How could you come in here! I had planned this to be a total surprise!” Elizabeth glared at her daughter in comic dismay, though somewhere in those doe-soft eyes was a bouncing anticipation of Bett’s sure response.

Bett, for the moment, couldn’t give it. “Mom.” She rushed forward as Elizabeth came down the last two steps of the teetery ladder. “What are you doing?”

“You can see what I’m doing, silly one. Honestly, Brittany, I knew you had this room in mind for a baby sooner or later, and I thought this was one way I could pay you and Zach back. Zach just will not take any money from me, and here I am staying in your house, eating your food…” Elizabeth rubbed the knuckles of both hands into the small of her back, a gesture that indicated how physically difficult such a project was for her. “Aren’t you pleased?” she asked suddenly, the smile on her face fading as she noted Bett’s stillness.