grew impatient. The robe was easily opened and his body bared. She
touched him then, bringing low sounds from his throat, and the feeling
of power was heady. He began to shake under her stroking. His penis grew
thick and engorged.
Moments later, her gown fell to the ground with his robe. His mouth ate
at hers, as he lifted her and carried her to the bed. The weight of his
body pinned her to the sheets, but there was no pain in it for Chloe.
She welcomed his force, wanting even more.
"Yes!" she cried, clutching at his hips to pull him closer.
But Ross tensed at the sound of her voice. He was breathing hard,
pressing his forehead to the pillow by her ear. She felt him rock hard
and large against her, but he didn't enter.
"I swore I wouldn't do this," he whispered hoarsely, "swore I'd keep my
hands off you. I've tried. God knows, I've tried!"
When he raised himself to look at her, his expression shocked her into
awareness. "Don't go!" she cried.
"I have to. For this one release, I'd be buying a huge packet of pain."
"No!" Her fingers tightened on his shoulders until her knuckles turned
white. She was close to panic. "Please, Ross. I've never asked you for
anything else. But please ... now ... I can't bear it!"
The impetus was hers, lips and arms and hips all working against him
until he surrendered with a moan. Falling to the bed and rolling to his
back, he drew her over him, and she loved him that way. She couldn't say
the words he wanted to hear, but her body could show him what she felt.
It did that, and quite well. By the time the sun's golden rays breached
the windowsill and glistened on their sweat, they were totally spent.
Rasping breaths broke the air, but otherwise, all was quiet. Something
was wrong. Chloe felt it the instant her pulse began to slow. There was
no talk. No closeness. The satisfaction that usually kept them warm and
entwined faded fast.
Ross rose from the bed, retrieved his robe, and left the room. Alone
again, Chloe curled into a tight ball with the covers pulled to her
ears.
Apparently, it was time to put up or shut up. Ross couldn't live with
half-measures-but then, had she really thought he would? Her body might
love him to bits, but if she couldn't love the rest with her head and
her heart, there was no hope.
She heard the front door slam shortly after he left her room. She didn't
know where he went, and he was back in time to take her to the train
station, but even the short ride there was awkward. It wasn't until she
was about to board the train that he said more than a full sentence, and
then his voice was quiet.
"I'd like to follow through with the liaison between Hansen and ESE, but
I think Lee should handle the account. You're right. It'll be too
difficult any other way, at least for now."
Chloe wanted to argue, but no words came out.
His eyes held defeat when he looked at her a final time. "I'll be here,
Chloe. When you're free, let me know."
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Chloe boarded a plane. It taxied and
took off, then climbed into the sky and headed north. New Orleans fell
behind. New York was ahead. She was going back to Ross.
She tried to sleep, but was too excited. She ate dinner, she read a
magazine, she looked out the window and smiled. Where a haunted woman
had been just a few days before, was one with a newborn peace.
She had come a very long way in a very short time, but it hadn't been
easy. There were dozens of doubts and second thoughts dogging her
through Mobile, and added days spent wavering there, then fear and
unsureness when she arrived at her parents' home in New Orleans on
Thanksgiving morning.
Now, as the plane began its descent, she shook her head in amazement. So
many years lost over a misunderstanding. But it was cleared up now. It
was better. She would call Ross the minute she landed. He would be
totally surprised.
But she was the one in for the surprise. Ross was at the airport to meet
her, standing tall and dark and vibrant. In a moment of ddji vu, their
eyes met over the crowd. Chloe stopped in awe, knowing that her next
steps would be as momentous as the ones she had taken eleven years ago.
But she was a woman now and finally free to love. Breathing deeply, she
ran forward, Ross met her halfway and crushed her in his arms, holding
her tightly enough, long enough to say what he felt without words.
Chloe owed him the words, though. When she drew back to look up at him,
her throat was constricted by the same emotion that brought tears to her
eyes. A mouthed "I love you" was the best she could do. It was enough.
His face lightened. His eyes glowed. "Let's go home," he said, and, arm
in arm, they did just that.
A short time later, they were in Ross's living room, sitting on the
sofa, facing one another. He held her hand tightly, while she tried to
put into words everything she had learned in New Orleans.
"It was a tragic comedy of errors," she began. "I had blamed myself for
going with you and upsetting Crystal, even for tossing that coin, and I
felt so guilty when she died that I withdrew into myself. When my
parents couldn't get through to me, they sent me to stay with friends in
Newport in the hope that the change of scenery would do me good. I
thought that they just didn't want me around to remind them of what had
happened, so I stayed away. One misunderstanding after another."
"But it's over?" he asked, so obviously needing reassurance that she
lifted a hand to his cheek and kissed him.
"Yes," she breathed. "It's over. I was really worried about my mother
for a while there. When she learned what I'd thought all these years,
she was beside herself with grief. We spent that whole first night
talking, just the two of us." She grew pensive. "I'd never had her all
to myself before. There were always the three of us. But Mom was great,
even as upset as she was. She explained so many things to me. It
helped."
She looked again at Ross. His eyes were warm with understanding, urging
her on.
"She talked about having twins, about watching them grow, about knowing
their similarities and their differences. She pointed out that if the
tables had been turned, and Crystal had had the affair, I'd have reacted
differently. In other words," she sighed, sad but hopeful, "Crystal's
reaction was part of her personality, just as the guilt I've lived with
all these years is part of mine."
"Is?" Ross asked softly.
"Was," she corrected herself, looking directly at him. He couldn't miss
the pleading in her gaze. "I'd like to put it behind me now. Will you
help?"
Her pulse tripped for a minute until Ross's wide smile sent it racing
on. "That's why I'm here."
She frowned. "Why are you here? I mean, how did you know to be at the
airport?"
"Your parents."
"You talked with them?"
"Yesterday." He looked pleased with himself. "You were overdue in Little
Compton. Lee called me, we plotted your course, and put two and two
together. When I realized you'd gone home I knew why. It was all I could
do not to join you there. But it was something you had to do, wasn't
it?"
She nodded. "I told them about you."
"Lucky you did. It made the explanations simpler." He paused, vaguely
playful, vaguely curious. "What, uh, exactly, did you tell them?"
"That you loved me, that I loved you, that you'd asked me to marry you.
But I also told them that I had to work things out there with them, to
finally accept Crystal's death, if I ever hoped to be as much of a woman
as you deserve."
At the last, all playfulness drained from Ross's face, leaving a
vulnerability that was the flip side of his usual strength. His hand
trembled slightly when it cupped her face. "Have I told you how much I
love you?" he whispered, kissing her eyes, nose, and mouth in turn.
"You'll have forever to tell me," she whispered back.
"Then you'll marry me?"
"Uh-huh."
"Ahhhhh." With the long sigh, he hugged her again. His breath was warm
against her ear.
"Tired?"
His neck smelled of him. She shook her head against it. "Nope."
"You're sure?" He tightened an arm around her waist. "It was a long
flight."
"I'm not tired." She grinned. "I don't think I'll sleep for hours."
Ross rose from the sofa and held out a hand. Chloe put hers in it and
let him draw her up and into his arms.
"I love you, Ross. You know that, don't you?"
"I have for a long time. I'm only glad you can finally say it. You're
free, aren't you, princess?" She sighed, then smiled and said with a
touch, just a touch of New Orleans, "I do believe I am."
He laughed out loud and rolled his eyes. Keeping an arm around her to
hold her close, he walked her to the stairs and up.
Lilac Awakening
In memory of my father, who gave me an eye for detail.
Nightfall was nature's last resort in a bid to blot out her own
splendor. For much of the afternoon across the upper Vermont
countryside, ominous dark clouds had hung over the forested peaks,
swarming, breaking, and regrouping in a macabre arabesque. Rather than
stifling beauty, they enhanced it with a muted gray softness, sifted
over the deep greens of the hillside. The power of the land was an
awesome one, embodied in the proud posture of the pines on the hill, the
free flow of the river winding through the valley, the gaiety of the
orange Indian paintbrush swaying with meadow grass in the breeze.
Darkness was only a thin veil over this primal beauty. Seeing through
it, Anne Boulton felt blessed, and doubly grateful that she had left the
city.
The summer had been an oppressive one in New York. Heat and humidity had
rivaled each other, stubbornly clinging to highs that beaded foreheads
and furniture with sweat, and made everyone and everything sticky. As
the sky scrapered congestion closed in on her, so had wellintending
friends and family, coaxing her out to lunch, when she wanted a tall
cola and a salad at home, dragging her to the theater, when she craved a
quiet evening alone, spiriting her away for a weekend of busy
companionship, when she fancied a good book and healing solitude. In the
end she wanted Jeff, but Jeff was gone.
Now, cocooned by darkness, she curled in a large upholstered chair. The
wood fire in the hearth offered the only light, its orange and gold
flames flickering hypnotically before her dark eyes. This was her first
evening here. If the isolation, the peace were a harbinger, she had made
the right decision in renting the house for the week. Time was precious,
but it abounded here. She planned to read, to take walks, even to work.
Mostly, though, she planned to think.
Late September in Vermont was the perfect time for soul-searching. With
promises of misty mornings and golden afternoons, newly ripening apples
and sweet corn, deer and squirrels and crisp mountain air, it was a
perfect antidote for her malaise. The small house on its high perch was
everything the rental agent had promised. No matter that her small car
had nearly come apart jolting over bumps and ruts in the steadily
climbing dirt road, the house was charming. It sat peacefully in the
arms of giant maples and towering firs, its brown weathered shingles and
silver slate roof blending with the earthen road and the gray of the
sky. Low shrubbery, aged a fall green, bordered the house. Taller lilac
bushes, their fragrant blossoms long gone but imagined, straddled the
ebony front door.
Inside, the cottage was as compact as its surroundings were generous,
with an open-hearthed living room at the front, a kitchen, bedroom, and
bath at the rear. A narrow stairway on the far side led to a dormered
attic. Decorated functionally and comfortably, the whole was a far cry
from her elegant New York apartment, but the difference pleased her.
This was a neutral spot, a place of few luxuries and no memories, a
place where she could face life for the pleasure of the day.
And this had been a tiring one. Its morning had been filled with
last minute errands-to the bank for money, to the library and the
bookstore for the week's entertainment, to the university for a delivery
and a pickup, to the market for food. Its afternoon had been one of
steady driving, then storing groceries and unpacking bags.
The fireplace had beckoned. Anne was bone-weary, had been lacking in
stamina for weeks. As the wing-backed chair held her slim form, the
dancing flames lulled her into recollection of a dinner with her parents
the weekend before.
"I don't understand," her mother had tried to reason with her, "why you
have to take off all by yourself. We've tried so hard to do what's best.
Have we failed?"
Arodous to ease her mother's worry, Anne had forced a smile. "No, you
didn't fail. I just want to get out of the city for a while. You know,
get a little of that fresh-air-and-color-on-my-cheeks type of thing?"
"Well, you could certainly use that," came her father's deep voice. Tall
and distinguished-looking, Anthony Faulke's sturdy frame belied his
near sixty years. Anne took the darkness of her hair and eyes from him,
though her willowed shapeliness was her mother's. "But we'd have liked
to have you join us on the shore in several weeks. Won't you reconsider
and wait until then?"
Anne shook her head. Not a hair moved. It was in a somber knot at the
nape of her neck. "Now's the time. I've already made the arrangements
and paid for the place."
