“Don’t be scared. I only want to show you something.” He took a step toward the bed.
“I knew you were a pervert. Stay back.”
He smiled, and even in the dim light, she saw the twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
“Come with me.” He stepped closer to the bed. “I want to take you somewhere.”
She pulled the sheet up tighter against her throat. “Where? To the Waramung Creek where you’ll ravage my body, then drown me, leaving me to wash up on the bank with my eyes bulging and weeds tangled in my hair. No, thank you. I’m not leaving this world looking like one of those troll dolls they sell three for five dollars down at the Buck-a-rama.”
She didn’t really believe he’d harm her. Still, he was a tall, dark, too handsome man standing in the center of her hand-braided rag rug. Even if he meant no more than to show her how the moonlight crossed the kitchen, making the ordinary seem ethereal, he was in the end, bottom line, no doubts about it, dangerous.
His smile grew fuller, the light in his eyes brighter as if able to banish the darkness pervading the room.
“Take my hand.” He was at the footboard, his arm extended, his fingers reaching for her.
“Trust me,” he said.
She didn’t even know if she could trust herself. His fingers curled slightly, beckoning to her. A thick, blue vein beat alongside his wrist where the skin stretched sheer.
She stared at that hand waiting for her and heard the words uttered so gently she’d had to lean forward to meet them.
Trust me.
Her fear receded. And hope, long banished, long denied, budded in her before she could stop it.
“Go ahead. Take my hand.”
She’d stopped wanting so long ago, she’d thought she had no need left. She had agreed to marry Elliot, sacrificing her passion for the promise of life without pain. She didn’t need shivers down her spine every second she was with her husband. She needed only one thing: security. Elliot would never leave her as her father had left her mother, broken in heart and spirit. Elliot would never abandon his children, rendering them bastards.
This man would.
This man and his magic promising her things she didn’t dare to dream about.
She looked down at her own hands and saw they were smooth. Gone were the small cuts, the scars, the skin roughened by hard work. Slowly she unclenched one, holding it up to marvel. In the spaces between her fingers, she saw the face of the man at her footboard.
She smiled. He smiled back. Her healed hand went to his, feeling the warmth of his palm and the pulse of life in his veins.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
She did as she was told.
When she opened them, she sat on a plain of sand and pebbles. Gino was beside her, still holding her hand. He muttered words she could not understand. The stony carpet beneath her became clothed with emerald green grass. It drew the eye to it and would have held it had it not been for the flowers and fruit trees springing from its lush soil.
Lilacs—white, lavender, deep purple—hung fat and full as if lulled by their own scent. Roses climbed upward, their delicate petals curled, laughing at the suddenly drab-looking clouds above them. Trees stood tall, sprouting their fruit without shame while feeding on the veins of the clearest water coursing through the ground.
“Oh!” The exclamation left Megan’s mouth of its own accord as her gaze gathered in the colors and shapes surrounding her.
With her hand in his, Gino smiled as if happy she was pleased. His eyes closed for a second longer than the usual blink, and then before them, laid out by invisible hands on a square of fine linen, was a feast of fruits, meats, dates and breads. Cool wines in stoneware waited to be drunk.
“Try this.” He urged toward her a biscuit spread with a thick, creamy paste.
She took it from his hand, the morsel sweet in her mouth, the touch of his fingertips still soft on hers.
Her eyes half closed with delight. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. What is it?”
“The cakes are called kahks. They’re spread with ’ajameeyah, which is butter, honey, a little flour and some spices. They are given as presents during the Minor Festival.”
As he spoke, he poured a clear wine into a brass chalice “Drink,” he offered.
She shook her head. “I don’t drink.”
“As you wish.”
He raised the cup to his own lips. Megan felt lightheaded just watching him sip. He put the cup down, the pleasure of the wine evident on his lips. She was intoxicated, staring and smiling at him, how many seconds—five, ten, fifty—she didn’t know. All she knew was the flowers paled beside his beauty.
“Come.” He stood and offered his hand.
They walked hand in hand through a path just wide enough for two. The ground cover stayed a rich, surreal green, but the flowers became fewer until there were only trees larger and fuller than the ones they’d left behind.
The trees bore strange fruit. One bore berries as translucent as crystal, another entirely white. Circles of deep red clung to some boughs. Other limbs carried rounds of paler pink, yellow, blues of differing hues.
Megan dropped Gino’s hand and went closer to the strange trees. She saw that the fruit were jewels—diamonds, pearls, sapphires, rubies. She reached up as if to touch them but did not.
Gino came up beside her and plucked a diamond, allowing it to catch the sunlight as he rolled it in his palm. He looked up from the sparkling jewel into her face.
“One wish. All these will be yours.”
Comprehension came to Megan, closing something inside her that had just started to open like the flowers reaching toward the sun in the garden. The gems around her dulled and looked to her no more than colored rocks.
“So, money does grow on trees,” she said flatly.
“It’s all yours. Just say the word,” Gino said luringly.
“Where would I wear them? To my annual bowling banquet at Eddie’s Eats?”
“They’re not only to wear.” He held the diamond up. In his hand, its facets stayed full of heavenly light. “They can bring great pleasure. You only have to wish for it.”
“I see. You brought me out here to get me drunk and take advantage of me?” Her voice was joking, but she didn’t smile. Gino’s hand holding the diamond lowered.
“The last guy who tried this on me was the junior captain of the eighth-grade basketball team.” Megan barely kept the light note in her tone. “Only he used a package of beef jerky and a stolen six-pack of Budweiser.”
Gino’s hand closed in a fist around the jewel. “Do not joke. I can give you great pleasure. I can bring you happiness. I can give you the world.”
She looked into those eyes fiery with feeling and, at the moment, did not doubt him.
“Yet, you mock me.”
“You may’ve improved the means, but your end is the same as that jock’s hormone-inspired maneuvers.”
Gino drew himself up, a dark, still relief against the sun. “Do you think I want you physically?”
“No, but you do want something from me I’m not ready to give yet.”
“I offer you only a king’s ransom.” His hand opened, once more revealing the diamond. “Look. Have you ever seen such a jewel?”
Megan took the diamond from his palm. It lay cool and heavy in her own hand. “Yes.”
“Where did you see such a treasure?” Gino scoffed.
“I met my father’s mother once when I was very young. I remember she had the smoothest skin I’d even seen, and on her hand…” Megan raised the gem high, its perfect facets splintering her reflection. “She wore a ring with a jewel such as this.”
“Your father is very rich?” Skepticism narrowed Gino’s gaze.
“I imagine so.” Her hand closed around the gem. “I never met him.”
Megan saw, for the first time since he swirled out of her crock pot, that Gino did not know what to say.
“I only met his mother that one time.
She came to our house and gave my mother and I a lot of money in an envelope. My mother tore it all up right in front of her. I remember the woman watching, her hand covering her mouth, that diamond so bright in the sun.” Megan paused, her gaze no longer seeing her spectacular surroundings.
“My mother only spoke of that incident once before she died. What she said was that was the one and only time in her life money had brought her happiness.”
There was another pause before Gino asked, his voice gentle, “Your mother is dead?”
Megan felt the hard weight of the diamond in her hand. “She ran off the road and hit a tree head-on. I was stretched out in the back seat, supposed to be asleep. The front seat cushioned my body. Mom was dead before the ambulance arrived. She was twenty-nine. I was thirteen.”
Megan’s gaze refocused, staring down at her closed fist. She saw her hand smoothed by Gino’s skill. This wasn’t the hand that had touched her mother’s lifeless body. That hand had been browned, textured like well-worn suede. Barely full-size, it had already boasted calluses on the pillows of its palms.
This hand was not hers. The skin was soft, fine-grained. The fingernails were polished and tinted pink, rivaling the opals hanging in nearby bunches. It was a stranger’s hand.
Still she wanted it for her own. Perhaps, it was pure vanity; perhaps, it was the warm giddiness washing over her every time she looked at it, one simple glance transformed into a rare moment of feeling the starry-eyed schoolgirl. Perhaps, every time she used this hand to touch, hold, reach, release, she’d remember when it took another’s hand in complete and total trust. She’d remember a moment when it had been easy to believe in frolicking among fluffy white clouds and strolling through a garden orchard of gems.
She looked down at the hand hiding the diamond, and the moment dulled and was gone. She felt properly foolish.
She gave Gino the jewel, saying, “I don’t know what I want, but, as soon as I do, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, don’t waste your sweet cakes and sparkling gems on me.”
She suffered his study, keeping her face as expressionless as her voice. At first, so lightly she wondered if she imagined it, then gradually, with greater force, she felt the ground beneath them tremble. She looked down as the brilliant grass turned back to dusty dirt, then mere air.
“Give me your hand,” Gino commanded.
She did as he asked, giving him the hand he’d given to her.
“Close your eyes,” he ordered.
She did, the very boundaries of her body seeming to dissolve. She floated for a moment somewhere between heaven and earth, her hand in Gino’s her sole anchor. Then, once more, there was only darkness.
Careful not to wake her, Gino returned her to her bed. When he released her hand, she turned onto her side, curling into a ball. He looked down at her profile, her features now calm with the cloth of sleep.
All the females he’d taken to the garden had succumbed easily to the intoxicating perfume of the flowers, the seductive sweetness of the wine, the trees heavy with their temptations. The wishes had been made swiftly, one, two, three, and he’d gone on to another master before morning.
But, perhaps, those women had not suffered so much as this one. Perhaps, the others had found their happiness easily, effortlessly.
This woman wasn’t to be so easy. His hand brushed back a wisp of hair that had fallen across her cheek. The gloss of her skin surpassed the gem he still held wrapped tightly in his hand.
This Megan, she was different from the other creatures of clay. He should feel disappointment, frustration, impatience, but those weren’t the emotions that came.
No, this wasn’t going to be easy. Not for her…not for him.
MEGAN WOKE to the morning sun, but not even the strong light could banish what had happened during the night. She remembered every moment, each detail and knew it hadn’t been a dream. She relived the sight, taste, touch of the night before, seeing the garden to rival Eden, the gems arching the slender boughs that had held them. She remembered her awe…and her anger now soothed by slumber.
She saw Gino’s face, at first, so pleased by all he’d created. She saw his expression become startled, confused, and ultimately, insulted when she spurned his offerings. Yet, when she spoke of her mother’s death, if he’d pitied her, he’d been sensitive enough to conceal it.
She could allow his presumption she could be wooed by riches. She was sure material wealth had been at the top of many other masters’ lists. It might have made her top three, too, if she’d not seen at such a young age, how money can buy as much pain as pleasure.
No, she didn’t need millions, and she didn’t need Gino feeling sorry for her. She’d done just fine before he showed up; she’d do just as well after he was gone. She didn’t need his magic. She was going to marry Elliot, and together, they would work and save and spend their money practically and wisely. They would never be wealthy. Elliot liked to claim they would be, especially after two gin and tonics, but Megan didn’t want money. She only wanted to know when she woke up in the morning, there was a roof over her head, food in the refrigerator and a father for her children. It wasn’t such a greedy dream.
It certainly didn’t need the hocus-pocus of a smug, overbearing, irritating know-it-all puff of smoke who had done nothing but disrupt her life since he’d arrived.
All she had to do was make two wishes; and all her problems—and his—would be solved.
So, what did she want?
It wasn’t material wealth. He’d said jewels could bring her pleasure, but she knew it was a pale pleasure. She’d learned long ago such a richer joy could be had by simply looking out her bedroom window to the full bloom of flowers across her backyard. There, she’d planted a spring overture of daffodils and tulips, a summer symphony of roses and irises, an autumn sonata of mums sheltered by a six-foot golden glow.
Suddenly yearning to see the current kaleidoscope of her garden, Megan sat up and stretched away the last remnants of sleep. She walked barefoot to the window to see where the coneflowers boasted their violet blooms, and the hibiscus stood like soldiers, their scarlet red flowers envying the lilies of the valley dancing delicately below in the warm summer wind.
Megan opened the white muslin curtains, already smiling at the thought of her backyard border. She looked. Her eyes went wide.
She saw water—not the nearby Candlewood Lake or the larger Saugatuck Reservoir, but the sea, acres and acres of a watery plain, stretching out until it sliced the sun beginning its journey upward. There was sand, white and as fine as sugar and a smell of watery life and death so strong and crisp it stung the nostrils.
Not moving from the window, Megan yelled a single summons. A circle of seagulls stopped their picking in the sand and looked her way. She yelled again and the birds lifted, leaving the land for the safer ceiling of the sky.
One name sounded across the deserted beach and through the one-story house:
“Gino!”
There was no answer.
Megan strode out of the bedroom and down the hall, opening closed doors and looking in the rooms right and left. She got to the kitchen just as he came m. His arms were full of deep-colored fruit.
“I’ve got breakfast.” He offered the basket. “The mangoes are extraordinary here.”
She walked toward him until there was only the barrier of the basket between them. “Where is here?”
He set the basket down on the table. “Somewhere south of the equator.” He sat down and began to peel a thick-skinned guava, exposing its deep pink inners.
She braced her arms on the table. “Why?”
“Your own deserted private island. The man of your dreams.” His shoulders did a little shimmy. “Isn’t it every woman’s fantasy?”
“Another paradise, Gino?”
“Your paradise.” He looked up at her through a veil of black lashes. “If you wish.”
She sat down at the table as if she were a suddenly deflated balloon. “I asked you to take m
e home last night. Didn’t you listen?”
“I listened and understood completely.” He popped a chunk of fruit into his mouth. “There are no modern conveniences here. No sixty-inch screen TVs, no call-waiting, no megamalls, no microwave popcorn. The people are poor here, but they’re happy. They have the sea to bathe their bodies, the sun to dry their skin, the land to feed them fruits. They barter their talents for the services they need and when they work, they sing the most happy songs.”
“This is what you think I want?”
A slice of guava stopped midway to Gino’s mouth. “It’s not?”
Megan looked down at an oblong mango. She touched the orange color bursting across the perfect curve of its skin. “No.”
The salmon-colored fruit that was balanced on the blade of Gino’s knife began to tremble. “What do you want then?”
Megan picked up the orange fruit. “Right now…” She bit into the mango’s firm flesh. She chewed hard. “I want to go home.”
Gino set down his knife. “Why?”
She didn’t know how to explain. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew it wasn’t a primitive island miles away from the small community where she’d lived, worked and learned to thrive. Her ramshackle house, bought with the small life insurance policy her mother had left her, was the first real home Megan had ever had. Funny, her mother had always wanted to give her a home of her own. In the end, she had.
“It’s Sunday. I’ve laundry” was all Megan told Gino.
“I give you paradise, and you’re worried about the wash?”
Megan took another bite. “I can’t go to work tomorrow in my underwear.”
“You don’t have to go to work at all. You can lay on the beach and sun in the nude all day.”
Megan shook her head as she took another bite. “Skin cancer,” she said, her mouth full of yellow-red fruit.
“You can sit in the shade and drink papaya juice and dream.”
“I can do that in Connecticut.”
“When? During the spin cycle?” Gino set down his knife. “You know what your problem is? You’re no fun.”
Megan’s mouth opened. A trickle of juice rolled from the corner of her lips to her chin. “I’m fun.”
A Man for Megan Page 6
