Bett cupped her chin in her palm. She’d been through a lot of these lectures with her chin cupped in her palm. For some strange reason, though, she had an odd stricken feeling inside. Humdrum didn’t apply to her and Zach. Luck, undoubtedly? Actually, it was Zach. But for the past two weeks, Zach really hadn’t seemed to mind that their lovemaking had been interrupted every time, nor that their touch-and-tease contacts throughout the day had been curtailed. Bett swallowed suddenly. “What is it you’re suggesting?” she asked quietly.

Elizabeth smiled in triumph. “Several things, really. Darling, don’t you think Zach could be tired of seeing you in jeans and work clothes every day? And what exactly do you think he feels when he notices grease under your fingernails?”

Bett didn’t know. It had never occurred to her before. She’d thought more along the lines of the pleasure of doing work together than the appearance of her hands before they were washed. Dirty fingernails were…rather disgusting. Which was why she was always careful to clean her hands thoroughly and use the apricot hand cream liberally, but she’d never really thought of how often Zach had seen her fresh-or not so fresh-from the fields.

“And you doing rough-and-tumble work. Man’s work. Honey, do you think so much has changed over the generations? A man still likes to feel he’s bigger and stronger than his woman. All men like to protect, to believe they’re taking care of their wives. If you take that away from him, maybe he sees you less as a woman?”

“Mom.” Bett took a long, weary breath. The whole conversation was ridiculous, but a most undesirable flicker of doubt was suddenly preying on her already jangled nerves. When they were first married, she’d invariably come home from work in a dress or skirt. Zach had inevitably commented on her legs, the scent she wore. He was so damned impatient half the time that they’d skip dinner, or forget it. He’d always been…impatient. But the past couple of weeks, he hadn’t seemed to care at all that they’d been interrupted. Maybe…

Elizabeth pressed her advantage. “You used to wear padded bras to build up your figure. A little makeup, darling. And your hair, if we had it cut and permed-”

Bett’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “I had ten thousand permanents as a child. They never worked.”

“Maybe this time-”

“No, Mom.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Well, makeup, then. You’re going to be thirty in a few years, Brittany; you must take care of your skin. You’re in the sun all the time, and you don’t want to get wrinkles, for heaven’s sake…”


***

Zach, yawning, shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and wandered toward the bright light in the kitchen. The living-room clock said it was past midnight. He had evidently fallen asleep on the couch. Every one of his muscles was a mix of stiff and sleepy, but the murmurs from the kitchen announced that the two women were still up.

He paused in the doorway, blinking hard to adjust to the sudden dazzling illumination. Elizabeth was bending over her daughter, who sat in one of the kitchen chairs, and when she straightened up, he saw the array of tiny vials and bottles on the table, as well as his wife’s face. “Better,” Elizabeth announced critically.

He blinked again. Bett’s sun-golden complexion had turned ivory; the natural coral of her cheeks had turned pink. The shape of her mouth looked different, sort of a Cupid’s bow.

He glanced at the kitchen clock to verify that it was indeed after midnight. He stood there for a few seconds more, unnoticed by the two women, feeling a mixture of amusement and irritation. Not that this new look wasn’t very interesting, but where was Bett beneath all of it?

The thought echoed in his mind as he silently climbed the stairs. Where had his wife gone? Painting rooms in the middle of the harvest season, spending half her day inside, distracted all the time. He’d expected changes when Elizabeth came, but not that his wife would turn into a stranger.


***

Bett tossed her head, stuck her hands in her pockets and entered the cavernous darkness of the huge old barn. The beams stretched up for three stories, and from the top she could hear the low, melodious coos of the homing pigeons greeting her. Pulling open an old wooden door, she entered the shop.

The room was a stark change from the tall beams and mellow character of old barn siding. Zach had added modern lighting and a smooth cement floor to the shop three years before, and neat metal bins stored the spare parts and shop tools that had once been strewn every which way.

The John Deere was parked on the far side of the long room, and Zach was crouched over the engine, a wrench in his grease-stained hand. On a packing crate next to him was a sterling silver tea service. A thermos of coffee stood next to an alternate option of iced tea; next to that was an assortment of homemade cookies, still warm. Bett’s eyes traveled over her husband. His jeans were pressed with an impeccable crease these days. His work boots, underneath the day’s layer of dirt, had been freshly siliconed. His blue chambray shirt was starched. Well starched.

The incongruous touches of sterling and starch ordinarily would have made Bett chuckle. Zach was being spoiled, Elizabeth-style. But no smile crossed her features, because Zach, once upon a time, became extremely uptight if the least fuss were made over him. These days, he hadn’t said a word. Obviously, he didn’t much mind being spoiled; even enjoyed it, perhaps. Which was exactly what Elizabeth had been preaching to her.

Zach’s head swiveled around at the sound of her footsteps. He had the same oddly distant expression in his eyes that she’d seen all too often this past week.

“Caruso just called,” she told him. “The truck’ll be here any minute.”

Zach nodded. “Our last, you realize?”

“Our last,” she agreed, with a fleeting, sharing smile. The battle season was almost over. When the harvest was done, it didn’t mean an instant end to the work, but it did mean they could pay off their loan with a comfortable sum left over and begin to relax. Her fleeting smile widened irrepressibly, turning joyous. “Hey, Monroe? We’re actually making it. You realize that?”

Zach chuckled, tossed down his wrench and crooked a blackened finger in her direction.

“No, Zach. No. Behave-”

“I need a hug.” He caught up with her before she could reach the door, stretching both long arms around her shoulders to imprison her, his grease-darkened fingers splayed in midair behind her. Her eyes were very bright blue this morning, full of laughter. He hadn’t seen quite that look in her eyes in nearly a month, and he wasn’t about to let her go that quickly.

“Listen, Buster. If you get grease on this white sweatshirt, my mother-”

“Will have something to do besides starch my work shirts.” His lips closed on hers swiftly, and lingered until Bett’s hands slowly crept around his waist to hang on.

He liked the feel of her arms around him, and he liked the feel of her pelvis cradled directly between his thighs. He didn’t much like the feel of lip gloss over the smooth natural texture of Bett’s own lips. He drew back just a little to look at her. Bett’s skin was as soft as a baby’s, skin that begged to be touched. The eye makeup did sexy things for her eyes, but he just couldn’t understand why she wanted to hide her natural softness under a layer of…crud.

“You’re staring,” Bett murmured.

“Probably.”

“You don’t like what you see?” The question was teasing, but Bett suddenly looked as vulnerable as a kitten.

“I always like what I see.” To hell with it. He was hardly going to say the wrong thing and risk hurting her. It was her business, if she wanted to wear a little paint.

He was in the mood to wear Bett. To pull her on, tuck her in close and button her up inside of him. Quickies seemed to be all they had the time or energy for these past few weeks since Elizabeth had been there. And when they did catch a private moment in bed, his wife was always worrying that her mother would pop her insomniac head through the bedroom door. Bett’s willingness to make love was unchanged, but Zach could sense her distraction. He understood just fine…and for three minutes of real privacy with her, he would willingly have auctioned off portions of his soul. Cheap.

“Zach.” Bett tried to pull away. “There’s a truck due-”

“If you move even an inch, you’ll have greasy fingerprints all over your shirt,” he murmured.

True. Bett obediently stood still, offering up her most mischievous smile. She pressed closer to him, since that was obviously what he wanted, and then weaved her hips just a little, a motion she’d learned in the single belly-dancing class she’d conned the girls in the dorm into investing in, about a thousand years ago.

Zach sucked in his breath. His chin nudged aside her hair, exposing a spot on her neck for his lips to explore. Come to think of it, he’d always been partial to that vulnerable spot just below her ear. Probably because she inevitably shivered when he kissed her there.

Her arms tightened around him and she raised up on tiptoe, rubbing deliberately against him, teasing the tips of her breasts against his starched shirt. Inside the stiff collar of his work shirt-the so very stiff collar-she tested a puppy-soft tongue. Just a little lick. His skin was sun-warmed and faintly salty; she could smell the earth they both worked on and loved. The man-smell was underneath that. That certain musky scent and nakedness were inextricably linked in her mind. She lifted up on tiptoe again, arching against him, her hips suggesting a familiar rhythm.

She could sense more than see Zach’s hands lift to hold her, and hesitate. “Do that again,” he murmured next to her ear, “and watch how fast you get taken on the floor of the barn.”