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CHAPTER 38

Tuesday Morning

      LUCY WOKE around daybreak, expecting him to be gone. And when she saw he was still there, she thought it was the happiest moment of her life.

      He was still warm asleep, and she was glad, because that gave her the chance to take her time and enjoy looking at him without the shyness and distraction of having him look back at her.

      He looked so nice.

      He had such nice skin, white as a woman's on his body where the sun never got to it. On his arms the skin was tanned and coarser, and tan on his neck, right to where his collar stopped the sun. Farther down his neck, little soft curling hairs fanned out below the haircut line, and they were longer than on the back of his head. Skin on his jaw was prickly and darker with the little smudge of beard that had grown out during the night.

      He had hardly any body hair, and that surprised her. She'd seen men naked before, of course. And men walking around shirtless and in undershirts in the heat of summer. Bobby, without his shirt, had just a thicket on his chest. And Tagg, too. She remembered how Tagg had looked when he was clutching that blanket around him the day she'd been looking for Bobby: shaggy head, shaggy chest, shaggy shanks.

      But not Gallatin. His shinbones were bare and sharp as knives. She could count his ribs on his chest, he was so thin and bare. And long skinny hands and feet. Those good strong hands. There were calluses on his fingertips from long hours working the guitar strings. She'd felt those calluses on her body in the night.

      He sighed and turned over in his sleep, and now she could see the long line of his back, and the ridiculously vulnerable curve of his bottom. Cute from the back. Pretty soft cushions. Seemed like no matter how skinny a person was, there was that part of him that was soft. She grinned to herself. No, that parts.

      It pleased her to be looking at him. She was getting a chance to learn all about him, to learn him like a lesson. All the parts of him that she already knew with her skin — she was now getting acquainted with them with her eyes, too.

      And she had the right to do it. It was the same kind of right a mother had to look at every part of her baby. Because their bodies had been joined like one.

      Gallatin was hers now. He would always be hers. In the darkness of the nighttime, she had given herself to him, and she had been his possession. But now, looking at him like this in the softness of the early morning light — watching over his sleep — that made him entirely hers.

      Until, opening his eyes, he reclaimed himself, and he was his own again. ". . .'Lo," he said.

      "Morning."

      For a minute he closed his eyes again. Put his hand across her belly and snuggled closer, his face against her side. "Mmmm, you smell good. Like your smell," he mumbled, almost like someone talking in his sleep.

      Then he opened his eyes again and sighed and sat up in bed. "Well . . . guess we better get up."

      "You could sleep some more if you want to," Lucy told him. "It's early."

      "Guess not." But he didn't get up. Instead, stretched a little bit, pulled up Lucy's quilt to warm his bare shoulders, and just sat there. Found one of her hands and looked at it. Measured it against his own palm and skinny fingers. Lucy had big hands, but his were bigger.

      He said thoughtfully, "You're good, aren't you. A good woman."

      "I don't know."

      "Yes you are. And that's it, I guess. That's the difference." He was still looking at her hands.

      Then he looked right at her. "Don't think I ever knew a good woman before." He looked at her face, the look traveling over her lips, eyes, hair. Looking down at her body, almost curiously.

      Finally he put his other hand on her shin — which was nearest to where his hand already was and began to just rub it thoughtfully. He was not doing it to start up with her, just rubbing it the way you'd rub your own shin while you were thinking of something else.

      "Somebody said good women were different, but I never thought it was so," he said, sounding as if he were talking to himself. "Now I think it's true after all."

      Then he gave her a direct look. "You know I don't stay on, don't you? You better know that. I'll never stop — even for you — because I'm the sort that keeps goin' and doesn't look back."

      Lucy nodded. She hadn't expected him to say it right out, but on the other hand, she was not surprised to hear it.

      So she didn't answer any of what he'd said. Just asked him, "You be ready for breakfast pretty soon?"

      But he wanted an answer, evidently. "You understand what I said? I won't look back at you either, once I'm gone. Even though you're special. Even if you are a good woman."

      Lucy leaned over and kissed his cheek, put a hand on his shoulder while she kissed him. Her lips felt his scratchy new beard. She smelled the scent of his skin as she kissed him. "I'm going to make breakfast. You come on when you're ready."

      Naked, she got up went to the bureau and got out her underwear and a clean shirt. Put them on. Slid her jeans on.

      She didn't turn toward him, but she knew he was looking at her the whole time. She felt it. Or maybe what she felt was the chilly air on her bare skin, but even so, she didn't hurry. She didn't mind him watching. She'd looked at him, after all.

      When she was done, she went on in the kitchen barefoot.

      He sat on her bed, watching her.

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