by Peggy Webb
This is the miracle of Michael and me. Our love is as fresh and exciting as the day we met. Lord, I’ll never forget that day. It was in New Jersey at the bus station. Both of us headed to New York, I to my classes at Juilliard, Michael to a meeting with elite mountaineer and acclaimed filmmaker Lanford Hayes. I was sitting beside the only window in the bus station, reading a book, not engrossed but interested. Something made me look up, and there he was, the love of my life, a tall, dark-haired man with the most marvelous cheekbones I’d ever seen, a really good-looking stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger at all, but somebody I’d known for years. Known and loved.
I looked at him and smiled. That was what brought him to me, he later said. That smile. Brought him past all those empty seats straight to the corner where I sat in the sunshine reading a book.
We started a conversation and couldn’t quit. Didn’t want to quit. The beautiful thing is that our conversation is still going on after all these years. Michael is like a magnificent eagle. Everything about him soars—his mind, his spirit, his soul, his heart.
From the moment we saw each other, we knew. We knew we were meant to be together, that we’d been together through the millenniums, that we’d always be together. Though we were strangers, our hearts recognized each other.
A love like that is so rare, so perfect, so beautiful, that to deny it is sacrilege.
I saw that recognition again today. In Emily and Jake. Michael did, too. That’s why we went off like a couple of teenagers intent on necking. Which we did. And I have the beard burn to prove it.
“Nothing would make me happier,” Michael told me about Emily and Jake. “He’s as fine a young man as I’ve ever known.”
“I hope they’re like us, Michael.” That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant, but when he pulled me close and kissed my hair and whispered, “No one could ever be like us,” I felt as if I owned the world.
And I do. Oh, I do.
Chapter Three
Jake was sitting at the window reading a book and occasionally looking out at the moon and longing—for what, he didn’t know—when all of a sudden his door began to ease open. Riveted, his heart beating double time, he watched it open bit by bit.
Could it be…?
“Emily?”
The crack got wider and in walked Gwendolyn. She trotted straight to his chair, then curled up on top of his feet. And he’d swear she was smirking.
Now what? He didn’t dare pick her up for fear of making her mad. They’d never get the odor out of the house if she sprayed.
Then there was another consideration: he couldn’t take her back to her rightful owner for fear of what he would do. He couldn’t be alone with Emily in her bedroom. There was only so much temptation a man could bear.
What to do?
While he was pondering the question, he heard footsteps in the hall, followed by a soft voice.
“Gwendolyn? Gwendolyn? Where are you?”
“In here,” Jake said, then waited. It had been three hours since he’d seen her at dinner. Had time restored his sanity? When she walked through his door, would she be just another pretty woman?
The door swung wide, and there she was, framed in his doorway. Jake went into free fall.
“Jake? My goodness, how in the world did she get in here?”
“The door was cracked open.”
“I see.”
Emily hovered around the doorway as if it offered some kind of safety. And Jake guessed it did. If what he was feeling showed on his face, she must be mortified.
Or maybe not. What if she felt the same thing? What if she wanted to touch him as much as he wanted to touch her? That would rank right up there with one of the seven wonders of the world, but what if it was true? And what if Jake sat there in his chair like a dolt and let the best thing that had ever happened to him pass him by?
That was how he was thinking of her now. The best thing that had ever happened to him. A small miracle. A bit of magic.
“I would have brought her to you, but I thought she might spray if I tried to move her.”
A partial truth. From Jake who prided himself on honesty. It would have to do.
“No. She only sprays when she’s frightened, and obviously she’s not scared of you. In fact, it looks as if she’s fallen in love.”
Her choice of words delighted him, and so did the blush that crept into her face the minute they were out of her mouth.
“I’ve never had anybody in love with me. Skunk or otherwise.”
“Oh, my.”
Such a soft feminine sound, that sigh she made. It went straight to Jake’s heart. Straight to his bones, particularly his backbone, and so he did what any red-blooded male would do when faced with the female of his choice.
He eased the sleeping Gwendolyn aside, then strode across the room, drew Emily inside and shut the door.
She looked at him with shining eyes, and he kissed her. Such a kiss. One that stole his breath, heated his blood and turned all his carefully held convictions upside down.
She was soft and feminine, as he knew she would be. Sweet and hot at the same time. A heady combination of innocence and eroticism. A once-in-a-lifetime woman.
Jake read a lot, enjoyed movies and great blues, but he’d never been one for Broadway tunes. And yet, as he kissed her, one popped into his head. He couldn’t even remember where he’d heard it. Recently, it seemed. Probably on Michael’s radio. He was always working to the sound of music. Any kind. It didn’t matter to him.
“It Only Takes a Moment.” That was what hummed through Jake’s head. Through his blood.
He embraced this new feeling. Reveled in it.
He pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, and her response stole his breath. Coming up for air, she leaned back in his arms and whispered, “Wow!”
That’s exactly what he’d been thinking, and so he kissed her again. It was the headiest experience of his life, Mount Everest included.
But how could that be? How could a sane, sensible man who only a few hours earlier had declared to himself all the reasons he wouldn’t get involved with Emily Westmoreland all of a sudden find himself involved up to his eyebrows?
Her lips still on his, her delicious body curved intimately into him, she made soft murmuring sounds that drove reason from his mind. Magic, that was what it was. Pure, unadulterated magic. The kind he hadn’t felt since he was ten years old and imagined himself standing on top of the highest mountain in the world.
They were two comets colliding.
What had started as a touch of the lips had turned into an explosion of passion that threatened to set the curtains on fire. They weren’t kissing; they were making love with their clothes on.
The bed was so close all Jake had to do was back her up a few steps, then lower her to the covers. It was what both of them wanted. More than wanted. What both of them craved.
And yet, he was in her father’s house. Practically a stranger to Emily. And she to him. He didn’t know whether she was a night owl or a morning person. He didn’t know whether she liked to get up early and watch the sunrise or curl back under the covers and get an extra forty winks. He didn’t know if she took cream and sugar in her coffee or nothing at all. He didn’t even know if she liked coffee. Or movies. Or books. Or blues played by James Cotton and his soulful harmonica.
And he didn’t care. All he cared about was the incredible magic that had overtaken him.
“I guess we know where this is leading,” he said.
“Mmm. Yes, I know.”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest. Kittenlike. Adorable. Sexy. Jake had to rein in the wild beast inside of him.
“Not here, though,” he said.
“No, not here.”
“Atlanta, then. My place. I have some time before I go on another climb.”
“No. Mine. I can’t get somebody on this short notice to do my job. But be forewarned. My place is only a cabin in the woods.”
“I’ll foll
ow you home.” He kissed her again. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”
“Mmm. I like the sound of that.”
He wrapped her close and kissed her as if he’d been her lover for years, as familiar with her body as his own. And that was how it felt. As if they’d known each other always. Intimately.
“You make it very hard to resist that bed,” he said.
“So do you.”
“I suppose it would look funny if we left for the woods in the middle of the night.”
“Grandmother Beaufort would definitely not approve.”
“How about Michael and your mother?”
“They’d not only approve, they would give their blessing. In fact, they already have.”
Had he been so easy to read? He thought he’d been so clever at concealment. All through dinner he’d made conversation with the senior Westmorelands when the thing he’d wanted to do was disappear through the French doors with their youngest daughter.
“I was never any good at poker, either,” he said.
Emily laughed. “My parents have a special gift for spotting…things like this.”
What had she been about to say? In fact, what was there to say about the two of them? Were they merely two people who brought out the lust in each other?
He wasn’t about to analyze it. Analysis might be the stuff of reason, but it was the death of miracles. He’d learned that the hard way on the face of a mountain. In the midst of a snowstorm. Lost. With nothing but instinct to guide him home.
Where were his instincts leading him now?
Emily was lolling in Jake’s arms—in his bedroom, for goodness sake—as if she were some kind of siren who drew men by the score. And it felt so good!
How it had happened was a mystery to her, but she wasn’t about to question her good fortune.
That was the way she was thinking now. That Jake was her gift from the universe. Somebody designed especially for her, then set in her path so she couldn’t miss him. Not even if she’d tried.
Practical to the bone, she would never have considered such an idea, much less embraced it as her own if it weren’t for her parents. They were living proof that such things did happen: that romance could pop up in the most unexpected places, that it could grab you by the heart and not let go, and that it could be not only the most magical thing to ever happen to you but the most endurable.
Somewhere in the far reaches of the house the grandfather clock chimed twelve.
“The witching hour,” she said.
“You’ve bewitched me.”
Maybe Jake said that to all the women, but Lord! it felt as if he’d never said it to anyone except her.
“I suppose I should go back to my room.”
“Tell me what your bed is like so I can picture you sleeping there.”
“It’s an antique, a massive four-poster that sits so high off the floor I either have to use a footstool to climb in or take a flying leap and jump.”
“And you usually race across the floor and jump.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“An educated guess. You strike me as somebody who does everything with flair…including making love.”
He slid his fingers into her hair and tipped her face upward. She drowned in his eyes, a slow exquisite death. If a simple touch had that much power over her, what would it be like to make love with him?
She intended to find out. And soon.
“We’ll leave tomorrow,” she whispered. “Right after lunch.”
“I hope lunch is at 9:00 a.m.” He laughed.
She loved his laugh. It was rich and deep, extraordinarily masculine. She loved the way laugh lines fanned out from his eyes, the way his mouth curved upward and stayed there, as if he were the kind of man who laughed often.
“It’s at two. If we’re lucky we’ll be on the road by three.”
“I’ll eat fast.”
She memorized his face with her fingertips, then traced the beautiful curve of his lips.
“Till tomorrow, Jake.”
He kissed her again, just as she’d wanted him to. And oh, it was the kind of kiss that set her heart on fire.
“Till then, Emily.”
She was so excited she almost forgot Gwendolyn. And when they got back to her room, she leaned against the door, dreaming with her eyes wide open.
Chapter Four
Emily had always been gifted with the ability to fall asleep no matter where she was or what the circumstances. In spite of the fact that Jake raced through her blood like fire, she slept the sleep of the innocent. At the first crack of light through her window, she flung on her robe and raced outside to watch the sunrise.
Anne was already on the front porch. Smiling, she handed Emily a cup of coffee.
“I knew you’d come. It’s about the only trait I passed on to you.” Anne turned her face to the rising sun. “Isn’t it spectacular?”
“Yes. The sleepyheads don’t know what they’re missing.”
They watched the sun fling ribbons of ever-deepening color across the sky, vermilion and orange and gold. And when it was all over, when the brilliance of the sun had overtaken everything except blue, Emily turned to her mother with the question that had been burning in her mind ever since she’d left Jake’s bedroom.
“What would you say if I told you that I’ve invited Jake home with me?”
“I would say good.”
One of the wonderful things about her parents was that neither of them had ever made their children feel foolish by asking a lot of unnecessary questions. Anne didn’t ask when this happened or how or why. She simply trusted her daughter. That was one of the reasons Emily felt safe confiding in her.
“You don’t think it’s too soon? I mean, I hardly know him. He’s practically a stranger to me…”
“And yet you feel as if you’ve known him forever?”
“That’s exactly how I feel. But still…I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”
“What are your instincts saying?”
“They’re saying yes.”
“Trust them. It’s angels whispering in your ear.”
“What if it’s just my libido talking? What if I’m making a mess of things? Wouldn’t it be better to get to know him first, go to the movies and out to dinner, that sort of thing, before I haul off and invite him into my bed?”
Anne’s hearty laughter drew Michael to the porch. He kissed her softly on the lips, the cheeks and the eyes, then wrapped his arms around her and winked at his daughter over his wife’s shoulder.
“Good morning, Emily. It’s good to hear two of my favorite girls laughing. Is it a private joke or can I join in?”
“You’re a central part of this, my love. I was just getting ready to show Emily my diary.”
“The whole thing?”
“Only part of it. Don’t worry, darling. Your secrets are safe with me.”
She went into the house and came back with two pages from her diary, turning a bit yellow with age.
“Here. Read these. I think they’ll throw some light on all those questions you have.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Emily sat on the porch with her parents and finished her coffee, then went back into her bedroom and sat in the chair beside the window to read.
October 13, 1966
I can’t believe I’m here at the Algonquin Hotel with an intimate stranger, instead of sitting at a grand piano in Juilliard practicing Beethoven’s “Pathetique.” I say “intimate” because that’s exactly how I’ve been with Michael, the man I met only this afternoon, the man who is now sleeping on our tumbled bed.
I will sit in the sun, I told myself when I walked into the bus station today, and that’s the same thing he told himself.
And now, I think our words were prophetic, referring not merely to a resting place, but to a philosophy of life. For what can be a better description of the magic that happened here in this room than to say, “Yes, we embraced the warmth, the brilliance, the life-giving powe
r of the sun.”
I shudder to think of my loss, or our loss, if either of us had hesitated, if we had let reason rule rather than the heart. What we would have missed if we’d ducked behind convention, bowed to propriety, caved in to society’s censure!
I know his name, Michael Westmoreland, his home, Alabama, the state next door to my own Mississippi, and his profession, aspiring high-altitude filmmaker. Not much. And certainly not enough to satisfy Mother, who has made a practice of being courted exactly six months before she ever let any of her husbands-to-be kiss her. I think that’s rule number nine.
I will deal with her later. What I’m dealing with now—no, reveling in—is a miracle.
And knowing the details of his life is not important. What I know about Michael is this: he has a generous heart, a beautiful soul and a wonderful spirit. That is enough.
The moon has tracked westward, and a patch of moonlight is shining through the window onto his hair. It’s the blackest I’ve ever seen, blacker than a crow’s wing, thick and crisp. Right now it seems the whole universe is caught up in his hair, and what I want to do more than anything is run my fingers softly through it until he awakes and looks at me with those deep-green eyes.
Then I will drown once more. We will both drown. And be reborn.
Chapter Five
With all her feelings validated by her mother’s diary, Emily fed Gwendolyn, then went in search of Jake. She’d been away from him for nine hours, and that was too long. Besides, she wanted to spend some time alone with him before a hoard of relatives arrived.
She found him on the path in the deep woods behind Belle Rose, sighted him through the trees just around the curve. Jake Bean in jogging shorts was enough to make a woman drool, and that was exactly what Emily did. He hadn’t seen her yet, so she just stood on the path feasting her eyes on his body, every inch of it gorgeous.
