Gypsy donned the shirt which she wore for a nightgown and settled under the covers, hearing the muffled sounds as Lance fumbled around his bunk. There was a subdued curse, the slats of his bed creaked and then there was silence except for his harsh breathing and the rumble of the storm as it worked its way toward the mainland.
Gypsy had slipped into a slight doze when stealthy movements disturbed her. Her curtain was slid aside. It was pitch black in the cabin without even a lightning flash to momentarily relieve it the dark, so she felt, rather than saw, Lance’s long shape lean over the top of her as his hands swept across the narrow shelf above her bunk. What could be up there that he might need? His breath rasped in his throat as his hand made another sweep, then his bulk was removed, the curtain dropped back into place. Tough! Gypsy thought nastily. If he were even half human I might’ve asked him what he wanted, but under the circumstances, he can just suffer.
But for all her hard thoughts, as it became increasingly obvious that he was doing exactly that, Gypsy began to forget that he had insulted her, smacked the glass from her hand and rejected her offer of help. His bunk creaked as he twisted and turned. There were a series of dull thuds as he pounded at his pillow, trying to soften it, she imagined, but it was the long drawn out, yet muffled groan which was her undoing in the end. She pulled the flashlight from under her pillow and flicked it on before climbing from behind her curtain, her fingers covering the lens so that only a dull, pink glow escaped in a narrow slit.
Gypsy crept to his bunk and whispered, “It’s probably more than my neck’s worth to ask, but is there anything I can do?”
“Where did you find that flashlight?” he asked, turning his pain racked face toward her, squinting up at her with his mouth awry
“Under my pillow. Was that what you are after? Why?”
“My pills. Where did you hide them?”
She had to literally bite her tongue to stop reminding him that he had sent them flying. “I’ll get them,” she said. She took two more out of the bottle, making a mental note to warn Kevin not to touch the other two if he found them on the floor in the morning. She gave Lance a glass of water and slipped a hand beneath the back of his neck to help him lift his head.
He gulped the medication down and relaxed back against her hand before she could pull it away. When she tried, he said thickly, “No… Leave it there… Please, it’s cool. Feels… good.”
Gypsy withdrew it nevertheless and picked up the light which she had laid on the floor, its beam pointed into the corner. “Just a minute,” she murmured. “I’ll be right back.”
Quickly filling a basin at the pump she took up a cloth and carried both back to Lance. This time, she stood the flashlight on its butt end so its beam went to the ceiling, reflecting down to give her enough light to see what she was doing. She wrung out the cloth in the cool water and laid it across his brow. “I’m not playing nursie-nursie,” she informed him swiftly but quietly before he could voice an objection. “And this is simply care, not tender, and definitely not loving. Just one human being trying to help another.” If, that is, you are human. So busy was she with her ministrations, it took her a moment to notice she had lied. She was laying the cloth across his forehead with a great degree of tenderness.
Her throat ached with sorrow. What had happened to her? When had she begun to care for this man? When had it begun to matter to her that he hurt? That he was unhappy? Was it when he’d said, with such regret in his voice, “I won’t ask you to be my wife, but I can ask you to go through the ceremony which, in the eyes of the world, will make it right for you to be the mother Kevin needs. He can be the child you want, the one your fiancé doesn’t want you to have.”
He can be the child you want… Kevin was already the child she wanted, and she’d turned Lance down flat, saying she had a life, a career, a fiancé, and couldn’t give it all up to be a nursemaid. How cruel that must have sounded. She wished now, as the man she tended breathed more and more easily, she had found different words, had not let her shock betray her into speaking so quickly. His offer had been genuine, from the heart, made, not for himself, but for his son, to give Kevin what he needed. And for her, to give her what Tony denied her.
She lifted the cloth, rinsed it, cooled it, and applied it again to his head.
Over the next half hour Gypsy watched Lance’s face as she sat sideways on his bunk beside him, her knees just brushing his right arm, his hand lying loosely on her thigh. The taut grooves smoothed out as his mouth relaxed and his eyes no longer squinted with pain. He lifted what must have been heavy lids and stared up at her, directly into her eyes for a long moment before she turned away to busy herself with the cloth again.
“Gypsy…”
Keeping her face averted, her eyes downcast, fighting not to acknowledge the tremor which ran through her, she ignored him.
“Gypsy, look at me… Please.”
She turned to meet his gaze. He remained unmoving for a time and she draped the cloth against his skin once more, her eyes still held captive by the intense, demanding glow of his. One large brown hand came up and the fingertips just brushed her chin as a slow, sweet smile curved Lance’s suddenly sensuous-looking mouth.
“Why are you being so kind to me?”
Keeping her face averted, her eyes downcast, wondering at the tremor which ran through her at the strange note in his voice, she said, “What? You’d rather I be unkind?”
“I doubt you’d know how.”
Her heart hammered.
“Take the cloth away so I can sit up,” he said softly but insistently, and when she shook her head, eyes widening with growing emotion she tried not to admit, he repeated his request and she found herself obeying in what felt like slow motion.
He sat, folding his legs sideways, still holding her with his gaze, “I hit you, didn’t I?”
“You… pushed my hand,” she murmured, leaning back from him, from the expression in his eyes. How could they shine like that from only the dim illumination of a flashlight aimed away?
He now took the hand he had “pushed” and cradled it between his own two large ones for a long, heart aching moment before he carried it to his lips. He brushed the backs of her fingers, then turned it over and set his lips onto her palm. The kiss amazed her with its surprising gentleness. “And after all that, my love, you were still willing to help me?”
Ignoring the wild feeling flaring inside her, she said, “You were in pain, didn’t know, what you were doing…” Or what you are saying, now. The touch of his mouth brushing her palm mesmerized her. She wanted to pull away, yet wanted to let it stay there forever, wanted to hear him say “my love” again in that deep, husky tone, and knew it was wrong, couldn’t possibly be true, but his eyes, as he looked up at her from under his dark brows begged her not to move apart from him, made it impossible for her to deny whatever he wanted of her. She felt drained of strength, unable to move even when he swung his legs off the side of the bunk and pulled her into his arms to lie her across his chest. He tilted her face up to his.
“Look at me. Look and listen. I must say this.” He drew in a deep breath and let it rush out. “When I said I couldn’t ask you to be my wife, I was wrong. I want nothing more than I want that. I love you. Whatever went before isn’t important. I can see the love in your eyes when you look at me, feel it in your touch when your hands rest on my body.” His mouth moved closer.
“No! Lance, stop this. You don’t know what you’re doing! You’re in pain. You need to sleep.” She planted her hands on his chest.
“I’m not in pain now. I do know what I’m doing. Kiss me,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me show you how I feel. I love you with all my heart and soul.”
Instinctively she tried to turn her head, scrambled back until she was on her knees. With both hands on his shoulders, she shoved harder. He gave her a goofy, lop-sided smile and clasped her wrists. “Come here and kiss me,” he said.
“Not today,” she said, unable to hol
d back a laugh at his fumbling, loose-jointed attempts to recapture her when she broke loose. “Your pills have made you drunk, Lance. Let’s talk about this another time, okay?”
“Ah… come here,” he said. “I need you.”
This time, he got a hand around the back of her neck and tugged until she had to put her hands on his shoulders again to avoid falling face-first on his chest. His muscles quivered under her palms. She couldn’t help herself. His shoulders, broad, his skin, satin-smooth, his questing hands on her arms tempted her beyond measure. A kiss… What would one kiss hurt? She’d give him that—give herself that—and then she could quit wondering what it would be like. How long, she asked herself far back in her mind, had she been wondering about this? The answer came at once. Ever since the time he had lifted a knife from her hand, a badly over-baked loaf of bread, and said, “Let me…”
She tilted her head to one side and let him claim her lips. His were firm, warm, insistent. His tongue parted her mouth, slid inside with amazing ease because she made no effort to stop it. She welcomed it and when one of his hands found her breast through the thin fabric of her shirt, she gasped in wonder at its warmth, its size. Without thought, she arched into it, moaned and parted her lips under his. Then he kissed her the way, she suddenly realized, she had wanted him to almost from the first moment of meeting him. She clung to him, head spinning wildly as he rapidly undid buttons until there was nothing between them but the warmth of two bodies and she let her eager hands slide around his broad torso to caress his muscular back while her mouth met his demands and made demands of its own. She was aware only of the sensuous feel of him touching her, of his hands on her body, running through her hair, whispering across her face. “My love, my love… Tell me you won’t leave me again. I need you so much!”
“I won’t,” she said. “I won’t leave you, Lance,” and as she said it, she knew it was true. Am I that fickle? she wondered dimly, as the memory of Tony briefly crossed her mind. But never in all her twenty-three years, had she felt this way. She loved Lance Saunders. Loving him, needing him, knowing he felt that way about her made her more alive, more aware of herself than ever before. Her skin tingled wherever he touched her. Her body yearned toward his. Her arms clung to him.
“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth. “I don’t know why, or for how long I’ve felt this way, I only know I do. You’ve acted like the most unlovable man possible, but something in me saw through that in you and I fell in love you anyway, Lance Saunders. I know that now.”
His husky laughter thrilled her as it rumbled against her throat. “I am unlovable. I know it. But you… somehow, you’ve sneaked past that. For you, I will become lovable.”
“For me, you already have.”
“And you’ll love me forever?”
She had to dispel the doubt in his tone. “And ever… And ever,” she responded, laying her head against his warm chest until his hand forced her face up once more.
“I’m getting sleepy from the damn drug,” he said, “on the one night when I don’t want to sleep. I want to make love to you.”
She curved her hands around his face, giving them the full benefit of her smile. “Yes, Lance, I know. And I want that, too.”
“You wouldn’t care if it happened here and now?”
“No,” she said quietly sincerely. “I love you and I wouldn’t deny you anything.”
“I can’t believe my luck.” He held her tenderly, fiercely, rocking her. “Your sincerity shines through. Do you know what that means to me?”
“I know what we’re doing means to me. It means heaven, and joy, and peace.”
He slumped down on the bunk, carrying her with him, still wrapped in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder while he stroked her hair. “I adore you,” he whispered sleepily, thickly, almost as one drunk… With passion? Or from his medication? She felt his body relax heavily onto the arm he held pinned beneath him. “You are mine, and you won’t leave me ever? You promised. And you meant your promise this time didn’t you?”
This time? She wondered, but nodded against him, affirmatively, emphatically, knowing that the drug was making him confused. “I’ll always keep my promise to you.”
“And what’s his name… He’s nothing?”
With a tiny flash of guilt, she whispered, “Tony. No, what I feel—felt—for him is nothing compared to this.”
“Not… him.” Lance’s voice was fading, his head lolled loosely, heavy against her and she moved to make it more comfortable, managing to sneak her arm out from under him, all filled with pins and needles. His hold on her tightened convulsively, bringing her back to touch his long length. “Not him, he repeated. “The other one… Greg…”
“Greg?” Gypsy raised her head, startled.
He pulled her back down. “Stay still, my love, my dearest, my beauty. You said you wouldn’t leave again. Let me hold you, Catherine, my Catherine with a difference.”
Chapter Seven
Catherine? As the name penetrated her benumbed brain Gypsy felt herself stiffen into a tense bow, straining away from Lance’s warm body. Catherine? Catherine! she screamed mentally sliding off the bunk to stand looking down at his sleeping form with dawning horror. The flashlight, still standing on its tail on the floor, cast its beam against the ceiling, reflecting down onto the sweet, contented smile on his face, a face Gypsy now knew she loved more than she had ever loved before.
But he did not love her. The kisses, the intimate caresses she had accepted so gladly from him had not been meant for her, but for someone named Catherine. Who is Catherine? Why did he want to make love to me when it isn’t me he loves? Why did he say so solemnly, I love you with all my heart and soul? Was he talking to me… or to Catherine? Whose body did he think he held? Whose lips did he demand? Mine, or Catherine’s?
In the very beginning, when I gave him the tablets and began to bathe his head he surely knew it was me, so when did the transition take place? Before, or after, he said he loved me? How badly she wanted to believe it had been before. She backed away from Lance, turned off the light and huddled on her own bunk, pulling the covers around her icy limbs. Thinking back, she realized not once while he was speaking of love to her, had Lance used her name.
No, it had all been for Catherine, who had left him for someone named Greg.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes, sobs shook her for a brief moment before she gulped and forced herself to stop. It was the drug. It was the drug, she kept reminding herself. He didn’t know what he was doing, what he was saying. He was reliving some ancient memory. Of course he loves me. He must. He must. How could he have held me, kissed me the way he did, with such desperation if he didn’t know who I was, if he doesn’t feel the same way I do?
But what if he doesn’t? Oh, God, when he remembers what I said, the way I welcomed his touch? I couldn’t bear his scorn, his pity. He told me in the very beginning not to become attracted to him, and what did I do? I fell in love with him, several long, huge strides beyond mere attraction. He didn’t mean the things he said to me tonight, so please, don’t let him remember any of it. There are only nine days to go through before someone comes for him—for us. Nine days until I can escape.
Her chest burned and ached inside and she pressed her hands to her breastbone, wishing she could ease the terrible, physical pain. Is this what a broken heart feels like? Is this pain what all the songs and stories are about? I didn’t know it could be like this. I didn’t know it could hurt so much. The tears flowed again, hot and stinging, sliding down her face to drip onto the pillow she clutched to herself, seeking warmth, when the only warmth her body would have felt would have needed to come from Lance. Lance, to whom she had offered her total love, total commitment, total surrender, which he would’ve accepted had he not been drugged by his medication.
She fought to force herself to sit still when what she longed to do was get out of the confines of the cabin, walk and walk and walk in the night despite the dark, to run, to fl
ee, somewhere, anywhere to escape the pain, to escape the sound of his breathing. Knowing his warmth was there, waiting for her to creep next to it, to lie in peace beside him, to cling to him. Why couldn’t she just pretend, just for tonight, that he’d never said the name Catherine? Why couldn’t she just believe that his lovemaking had been meant for herself? She almost went back to him, her need was so great, almost convinced herself that it had been only at the last he’d grown incoherent, not knowing what he was saying or to whom.
Lance rolled over in his sleep, talking, and the words he spoke came clearly to Gypsy’s acutely attuned hearing. “Needs… mother…”
Lance, calling out for his mother? No. He’d have said “need” not “needs.” Who? Kevin, of course. Kevin needs his mother. And what triggered this entire sequence of events? Kevin’s calling Gypsy “Mother.” Lance, unable to bear hearing her called that, had become furiously angry and, as she had been told, when Lance becomes furious, he develops a migraine. And why had it made him so angry? Because Gypsy was not Kevin’s mother. But Catherine was.
Anguish washed over her, leaving her feeling sick and weak, as more and more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, as some of Lance’s is more cryptic comments began to make sense, as some of Kevin’s childish babblings began to take on a new, and disastrous meaning.
“How much are they paying you?” Lance had asked. “A lot, I’d imagine, considering your looks.” Her looks! And she had thought he was saying that, because she, like most professional models, was more than normally attractive, she might have been hired to lure him away from his vacation. Could that be the explanation for his seemingly inexplicable animosity toward her? Had she not known, without false modesty, that she was a beautiful woman, naturally attractive to men, she might’ve accepted his dislike of her as just one of those things. But this way, it made far more sense.
Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) Page 14
