Timeless

CHAPTER 9

1937

“W hen can you get away?” John David asked Jacob quietly as the two of them dropped their plates off at the sink while Deb washed what was already in there.

“I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow night,” Jacob replied in a whisper. “I was just here the other day, and now, we’re here for dinner. We’ve got to be careful, JD. She’s five months pregnant and expects her husband to be at home once in a while,” he added of his wife. “We’re lucky that she doesn’t want me near her until after the baby comes because she’s scared to hurt ‘em.”

Jacob’s wife looked like she was about to pop, even though she was only five months along. To Deb, that meant that there were possibly two babies in there, and she was, yet again, entirely way too grateful that they’d been able to put off the whole kids thing for the first two years of their marriage. She continued to wash the dishes and listened as the two men tried to figure out when they could see each other again while Jacob’s wife, Delilah, was using the bathroom for the third time since they’d arrived for dinner about an hour earlier.

“Oh,” Harriet let out when she burst through the side door and into the kitchen. “I thought dinner would be over by now.”

Deb wiped her hands on the rag and said, “She’s still here. In the bathroom. So, can you go up to my room and wait for me there?”

“All right. But you said you weren’t making a dessert, so I brought one. Mama and I made it.” Harriet held out a pie that Deb hadn’t noticed at first.

“What kind is it?” Jacob asked her.

“Blackberry. ”

“Oh, I love blackberry pie,” he said.

“Who loves blackberry pie?” Delilah asked when she walked back into the kitchen, holding on to her belly.

“Uh…” Harriet hesitated. “I brought this over for… Um…”

“Dessert,” Deb finished for her with the obvious answer. “Harriet’s mama makes the best blackberry pie in town, and I know how much John David and Jacob both love it, so I asked Harriet if she wouldn’t mind bringing it over.”

“Yes. And it’s fresh out of the oven,” Harriet added and moved to Deb to hand her the pie.

“I can’t wait,” Jacob said.

“You love blackberry pie?” Delilah asked her husband. “I didn’t know that. I always make you cherry or apple.”

“I love cherry and apple, too,” he said, trying to cover for them all.

This wasn’t the first close call. It wasn’t even the first close call with Delilah specifically. Their first close call, if Deb wasn’t counting the shed the day after her wedding over two years ago, was when Jacob had been seen slipping out of John David’s bedroom one morning shortly after her mother-in-law had stopped by unexpectedly. They’d explained that away fairly easily because Jacob had begun working on the farm. The next close call had been when Harriet’s father had found the two of them walking near the river. He’d been out hunting when he was supposed to be working. Luckily, Deb had seen him before he saw them, so she’d dropped Harriet’s hand just in time. They’d told him that they’d been looking to pick some wild berries, and he hadn’t cared enough to question where that berry patch might be.

Overall, over the past two years, there had been more close calls than she could count. That should’ve scared her, and in a way, it did, but every time they’d been almost caught, they’d just learned about how not to get caught that way again. John David had moved into a small bedroom off the kitchen. It was the smallest room in the house by far, but it meant that Jacob could come and go more easily. Harriet always checked on where her father might be before she left the house to find Deb, and they would walk a little farther into the woods before starting any kind of touching, always bringing baskets with them to pretend to pick berries.

Deb’s own room was on the second floor, which made it a little more complicated for Harriet to come and go than it was for Jacob, but they’d figured out a system. With the window in the bedroom facing the front of the house, they could look out before Harriet tried to leave to make sure no one was out there. There was also a ladder at the window in another bedroom. It was off to the side of that window, and Harriet could make it down the hall, into that room, move the ladder over, and take it down if they were in a pinch. They’d also discussed places where she could hide if it were a real emergency. Under the bed was an option, but there was also the small closet and one of the other bedrooms in the large farmhouse. Deb hated that they had to have these plans, and they spent far too much of their limited time together adding new plans to their existing ones, but it was all in service of them remaining together and undiscovered.

“Well, I should get going, then,” Harriet spoke.

“Thank you for bringing this by,” Delilah said dismissively.

That only made Deb want to tell her that she wasn’t the welcome one in this house; Harriet was. But she didn’t say anything.

“Of course,” Harriet replied as she looked at Deb, silently asking her what to do.

Deb gave her a small nod, hoping she understood, and Harriet nodded back.

“Be quiet,” Deb whispered to her as Harriet moved past her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Harriet,” she added loudly for Delilah to hear.

“Yes, tomorrow. For that… lunch.”

“What lunch?” Delilah asked.

Deb closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Just a lunch that Harriet and I are having,” she replied. “ So, I’ll see you later for that,” she added to Harriet.

“Well, I’d love to get out of the house tomorrow. If you can have a third at that lunch, I’d love to join. I can bring something.”

Harriet opened the door, and Deb wished she’d never brought up the idea of having lunch.

“We’re talking about something personal for Harriet tomorrow, but maybe another time,” Deb lied.

“Oh. All right,” Delilah said.

“Who wants blackberry pie?” Jacob asked loudly.

Harriet left without another word, and minutes later, Deb hoped that Delilah didn’t hear the sounds of someone climbing up a ladder and into the house. She still coughed a few times, though, for good measure, pretending that she’d choked a bit on the pie.

◆◆◆

“I thought she’d never leave,” Harriet said when Deb walked into the bedroom nearly an hour later.

“You’re the one who brought up some lunch we’re not having,” Deb replied and began to remove her dress. “She kept bringing that up, searching for an invitation, asking me if you were okay and if she could help.”

Harriet followed suit and unbuttoned her own dress right down the middle, which caught Deb’s attention. They didn’t always make love when Harriet stayed the night. Sometimes, they just held each other until she had to hurry off early the next morning. But just watching Harriet remove her dress now, revealing her undergarments beneath, had her wanting to tonight.

“Sorry. I froze,” Harriet admitted and let the dress fall to the floor. “I’ll pick that up and put it away just in case,” she said reflexively.

That was one of their plans: nothing of the other person could be discovered in Deb or John David’s room. It meant that they had to always remember to clean up or put things away in places where no one else was likely to look and that there should be no trace of Harriet in the house, which Deb hated, but it was necessary to keep them safe.

“Leave it,” she replied and let her own dress fall to the floor.

“Oh,” Harriet said with a smirk. “Yeah? I thought we were just sleeping tonight. You said you were too tired when I came by earlier and asked about our plans.”

“I was, but I’m not anymore,” she said.

“I love hearing that. I’ve missed you.” Harriet moved to her and pulled Deb against her body. “What’s JD doing down there?” she asked as she began pushing and pulling at Deb’s undergarments to get them off.

“He went outside. I think he knew what you and I would be getting up to, and he can’t exactly do that himself since Jacob went home with Delilah.”

Harriet pulled back a little to remove the remainder of her clothing and said, “Poor guy. I can’t believe how lucky we got.”

“Neither can I. But–” Deb stopped herself then.

She had no idea what had her about to say what she’d been about to say in this moment because they were about to make love. This was the worst possible moment for her to bring this up.

“What?” Harriet asked once all articles of her clothing were on the floor.

“Nothing,” she lied, moving back into Harriet’s body, feeling it press against her own and loving how safe it always made her feel.

“No, you were about to say something.” Harriet pulled back.

“Let’s make love, Harriet. I want to make love with my wife,” she replied, wishing Harriet couldn’t read her so well.

It had always been part of their relationship, their ability to read each other. Very rarely had they been wrong. And with that ability, it was too hard to lie to the other person, even if that lie was for the other person’s benefit, like it was right now .

“Oh,” Harriet let out before she moved back to the bed, sat down, and picked her dress up off the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Harriet asked, slipping the dress over her shoulders as if she didn’t want Deb to see her naked body, which she’d memorized long ago.

“What’s time?”

“Deb, just tell me.”

“His parents have been asking. They’re assuming something’s wrong with me.”

“Because it’s always the woman’s fault,” Harriet said sarcastically.

“Well, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, does it? We’ve already been able to postpone it for this long, with his father’s passing and saying he’s been so busy taking care of everything, including his mother. She has asked to move back in here, but we’ve put that off, too. He’s been working on the house there, making sure it’s just what she wants so that she won’t want to move in with us.”

“Deb, if she moves in here, that’s the end,” Harriet replied. “You’ve never told me that.”

“She only brought it up once a few months ago after he passed, but she’s mentioned it a few times this past month. John David is taking care of it.”

Harriet stood and buttoned her dress.

“You don’t know that. She’s his mother.”

“He doesn’t want her living here, either.”

Deb, realizing that their moment was over, picked her own dress off the floor along with her undergarments and tossed them into a basket in the corner of the room before she went to one of her drawers and pulled out her dressing gown.

“And you know he doesn’t want that ,” she added softly.

“Fine. Let’s say her moving back in doesn’t happen,” Harriet replied. “What is going to happen is that he’s going to be…” She faded out.

Deb closed her eyes at the sound of anger turning into sadness in Harriet’s voice. She moved to her then, kneeling in front of her, and slowly unbuttoned her dress. Harriet didn’t protest. Her hands rested at her sides as if she had no idea what to do with them.

“We’ve put it off for as long as possible, Harriet.”

“I know,” she replied.

“I love you. He loves Jacob. This won’t change anything about either of those two things. Look at Jacob and Delilah: they’re about to be parents, and he and John David are still fine. We are so lucky because JD knows about us and lets us be. I’ll be fat and pregnant for a while, and you won’t want to touch me at all, but–”

“I always want to touch you,” Harriet argued, interrupting her. “Every day of my life, since the moment I met you, I have always wanted to touch you.”

“Tell me, my love,” Deb requested and pushed the dress off Harriet’s shoulders.

“Not just like that. When we were little, I didn’t know anything about that. I only knew that I wanted to hold your hand and sit next to you whenever we were playing. I wanted to touch your hair, too. You always had that braid down your back, and I wanted to tug on it.”

Deb smiled up at her and spread Harriet’s legs.

“When we were about ten or eleven, I wanted to kiss you on the cheek all the time,” Harriet continued.

“I remember. You used to do that in the field.” Deb pulled off Harriet’s undergarments and stared down, licking her lips. “What else?” she asked and leaned in.

“Then, I kissed you, and I only ever wanted to kiss you from that moment on. I remember that the first time I tried to kiss you with my tongue, you asked me what I was doing.” Harriet chuckled. “Oh, yes,” she let out breathily when Deb licked her. “We figured out the whole tongue thing, though, didn’t we?”

Deb moaned at the taste of her and gave Harriet a light shove on the stomach to tell her silently to fall back onto the bed. Harriet did, and Deb spread her farther .

“I remember when I saw your breasts for the first time. We were fifteen and swimming in the river. We got in naked, but we didn’t look.” Harriet put her hand on the back of Deb’s head. “Yes, there.”

Deb moaned against her.

“I wanted to see you, to touch you. When the water rose and fell, I could see your breasts, along with your rosy, pink nipples, and I wanted to taste them.” Harriet’s hips lifted and dropped back down. “God, I loved you so much even then. You moved to me, too, and your legs wrapped around my body. I couldn’t see you, but I could feel you everywhere, and I knew I’d never want anyone else, Deb.”

“I never want anyone else, either,” Deb said, looking up and meeting Harriet’s eyes to make sure that she understood what she meant. “I never want anyone else.”

“And when you’re with him?”

“Only because neither of us has a choice,” Deb reminded, and she’d remind her over and over again for the rest of her life if she had to.

“When you’re pregnant,” Harriet began and gave Deb’s head a little push down, causing Deb to smirk and lick her over and over again. “I’ll still want this whenever you do. I’ll want this more than you probably will because I always want this with you. You could be bigger than this farmhouse, and I will still want you.”

Deb moved her lips into and O shape and began to suck.

“Please show me how much you want me ,” Harriet pled.

Deb nodded and slipped two fingers inside her.