She tried to make excuses. On their first encounter at the docks, she had been hot and frightened, and they’d hardly been saints themselves. So she’d vented her ill-humor; a few testy remarks were hardly a crime.
But it wasn’t so much a case of what she said, Michael had implied, but rather how she said it. “You make them feel they can never live up to your expectations.”
Has she been doing to them what her parents had always done to her? Too painfully, she remembered how it felt to listen to her mother’s constant yelling, how she’d squirmed under her father’s gazes, wondering if she’d ever please either parent. Thinking back, perhaps a good deal of her wild and willful thinking and behavior had been an attempt to convince herself that their praise did not matter.
What if Jude were the same? What if all this hostility and defiance masked a need to prove herself independent of outside approval? Poor girl–from experience, Gwen knew she’d find nothing but trouble. Just look where her own willfulness had taken her.
For the first time, she stopped to consider just where it had taken her. Pausing to glance about the cabin, she realized with surprise that he no longer seemed so dreadful to be here, how the room had softened, become less threatening, less shady. When had her perceptions begun to change?
As if a door opened in her mind, she could picture Michael sitting with the children, bowing to do all in his power to keep them together.
A tightness grew in her chest, and uncomfortable mixture of longing and envy. Despite all the hardships they must bear, their poverty and separations, Michael and the children were united by blood. They were a family.
I have my own family, she tried to tell herself. Stubbornly, she clung to the mental picture of her father, uncle, and cousin, all huddling close, keeping vigil, praying for her safe return.
“For once, be honest with yourself.” Michael’s words rang through her mind, causing the image of her family unity to dissolve. In truth, father was no doubt immerse any bottle, uncle any game of cards, while Edith celebrated her absence with a large smile. No one had gone charging out to find her and bring her safely home as Michael had done for Jude; Gwen’s family remained in their own private worlds. A salty tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed at it angrily. How absurd of her, to wallow in self-pity. Why, keep on this vein and she’d soon be convincing herself that not even Lance cared what happened to her. Which was ridiculous, for her brave and wonderful Lancelot’s must this very moment become searching the countryside for her.
The thought should have made her happy, and it might have, yet she been unable to bring his face to mind. But each time she tried to picture him, Michael’s dark features got in the way.
Damn that man. Bad enough he must invade her dreams, must he now take over her waking hours as well?
It was this room, she decided, so decidedly his room, and so big and empty now with nobody else in it. Alone, except for the dying candle, her mind felt compelled to replace each conversation she’d had with him, to analyze every expression that ever crossed his face.
It bothered her, how rarely she’s seen him smile. Gwen was used to men falling all over themselves to gush about her beauty; Michael’s indifference had her questioning the things she’d once found so important. He unsettled her, this man, left her wanting to prove she was far more than a pampered Princess, that she was certainly more attractive than some wretched rat.
Running a hand through her tangled curls, she grimaced. Clearly, she proved previously little this evening. With her hair lip and frizzled and so dirty and damp, she could hardly blame Michael for overlooking her more positive attributes. Why must she looks so awful, whenever he made an appearance?
Not that his opinion met a thing to her, she thought with a sniff; she could survive quite nicely without his regard. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be occasionally clean and tidy when she encountered him. It gave a girl confidence, knowing she looked her best. Perhaps she need not come off feeling worse and that exchange, if just once, her face new the benefit of soap and clean water. Sponging herself off each night and morning seem puny efforts in this stifling heat; what she truly needed was a bath, a good, long soak in a...
The tub!
With all the days’ excitement, she had forgotten the tank of water Christopher had shown her. Hell vividly she pictured it, filled up and waiting, and away where she could renew herself. She imagine the water, still warm from the day’s heat, silky and smooth against her tired limbs. How glorious it would be to submerge her body, how soothingly the water could caress her parched skin. And when she emerged, clean and glowing like a goddess from the sea, just see if the stubborn Michael could resist her then.
Seduced by the prospect, she quickly shed her dress and pay coats and stripped down to her underwear. The candle blinked when she reached for its, warning that she might have to do her bathing in the dark, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Enticed by the prospect of clean, reviving water, her feet were already taking her across the room.
Outside a soft gust blew out the candle. Sitting down the useless blob of wax, she stood on the porch, letting the salty breeze flow through her hair. Overhead, cypress branches intertwined, letting in patches of moonlights, leaving pockets of black through which she must pass. Lytle seem to distract her vision, except for the Erie food of an owl somewhere out in the bayou.
She shook herself, forcing herself down the steps. Unknown creatures might lurk in the night, but so did that tub of water. Pulling her like a sirens born, she could almost hear its whisper.
Rounding the corner of the cabin, she discovered a path of moonlights and follow it’s gratefully to the end of the cabin. It was a brief patch of light, for in the yard, branches once more joined overhead to cut off the moonlight. Dismayed, Gwen hesitated, her mind teamed with what might lurk in the darkness. Was it worth going forward?
In her mind, she saw Michael’s look of disgust, and was soon marching determinedly toward the tub. She wanted her hair clean, wanted all of her to look her best. Just once, let that man see her as a desirable woman.
She was almost at her destination when she heard a noise. Thinking instantly of what might be slithering at her feet, she raised for the relative sanctuary of the tub. With utter relief, she believed into it, failing to anticipate that she’d find another person already inside.
With a startled gasp, the occupant scrambled up to stand beside her. Suddenly far too aware of his tall wet form, Gwen recognize Michael’s identity and his state of undress all at once.
Her hands pushed at him as she edged backward. In her crazy state, she forgot their close quarters, and would have tumbled over the lip of the tub had he not reached out to catch her.
“Gwen?” He said, his hands closing hard and firm around her. “Gwen,” he repeated, his voice a husky whisper as he answered his own question.
He pulled her closer yet, insanely enough, she was happy to find him here, to know he had not yet gone away. She could see little in the dark, but she needed no light to know what he wanted. She could hear his desires in the quickness of his breath and could feel it pressed hard and urgent against her thigh.
She, too, was breathing rapidly, she realized in a daze. She also felt a throbbing she could not contain.
Time began to race, as a hat on the night of her capture, when she’d sped blindfolded along the river towards her fate. Equally sightless now, she raised her head to offer her lips, knowing she could no more stop this kiss then she could have slowed that the boat. She was tumbling forward some greater force took control of her body, brought her tight against Michael’s hard, eager frame.
Time stopped, his lips poised a mere heartbeat away, as if he meant her to choose. They had come to a bend in the river, she thought dizzily. Take the wrong fork and there would be no turning back.
She reached up for him, knowing there was no choice. Michael would take her and she would not stop him; they’re joining was inevitable.
As such, she found a special
sweetness in the lips that met hers, a certain rightness she could no longer deny. How it fired her, the touch of this man, how his mere presence brought her alive. Molding her body against his, she could feel the dampness of his flesh seep through the thin cotton of her underwear, as if there were nothing between them. Ignited by the thought, she reached up to cradle his head, keeping his lips firmly fixed to her own.
Moaning, he sent his hands roaming, and down her hips and up, up to frame the breasts aching for his touch. Using his thumbs, he traced large circles around her swollen nipples, the erect peaks stretching out to meet first his touch, then his mouth, as he dipped down to kiss them, that cotton of her underwear proving no defense against the hot, moist magic of his tongue.
Week with desire, it was all she could do not to stand upright. She knew this was madness. It was wild and crazy and so unlike her, yet she clung to Michael, coming alive beneath his clever touch, even while her mind waged a mental tug-a-war. He was her kidnapper, her brain protested, but her heart declared him a magician. This man’s a thief, stealing into your dreams each night, common sense went on. Can you trust him not to steal your heart?
He reached for her strap of her bra, sliding it down over her shoulder, and with a start, with a start, she came to her senses. “No,” she murmured. Appalled at herself, she pushed at his chest. “No, I can’t. I mustn’t.”
He would not let her go. Tightening his grasp, he held her silently, firmly, his heart thundering so near her own.
“I came for a bath, she protested. “Just a bath.” Feeling him stiffen, ease away, she blurted out, “It was all a mistake.”
But was it? She’d heard him say he meant to wash up; had coming here been some unconscious desire to be with him?
As he moved away, stepping out of the tub, Gwen began to shiver. It was not the water and the damp shifts that left her feeling chilled, she suspected. It was the fear that her only real mistake had been in pulling away.
With regret any sense of loss, she reach out for him, but in the dark, with his back turned to her, he didn’t see. She saw him in a spot of moonlight, bending down for his close, jamming his legs into his trousers.
She went instantly warm as she realize how intimately she’d been touching his naked body. It was wrong, against all she’d ever been taught, so why did she feel this over dipping sense of loss? Why was a so hard to remember she hated this man?
“Please, don’t be angry,” she found herself pleading.
“Angry? Forgive me, but I just made it mighty ass hole of myself. And, I might add, you did your best to help.”
“No, I didn’t… You didn’t…” Embarrassed and feeling guilty she stepped back from the tub. “Oh Michael, I’m sorry.”
He moved towards her, holding his shirt in his hands. She held her breath as he passed into the darkness comment letting it out as she felt his warmth close he sighed her.
“Why didn’t you stop me sooner?” He asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I feel so confused.”
“Well, I am not confused, my lady. I know exactly what I want.”
His words would ripped into her, made her burn. It was all she could do not to fall back in his arms. “I am a lady,” she protested, to herself as much as to Michael. “Can’t be behaving like this. It’s not proper.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not. But is proper the way you want to be feeling right now? Or you rather be tasting a little bit more of the magic?”
Felt a thrill of excitement, a hot, forbidden need. “You don’t understand,” she protested, alarmed by how she longed to touch him. “A lady must think of her reputation.”
“Really?” His voice cut into her. “Are you worrying about your reputation, or is it Lance you are thinking about?”
She have forgotten all about Lance, and her vow to be his forever. Biting her lip, she took another step backward. She must be every bit as shallow as Michael believed her to be, for she cannot bring lance’s handsome, golden features to mind, while even in the dark, she knew every last detail of Michael’s face.
“I see.” From his emotionless tone, she knew he taken her silent as assent.
“You don’t see.” The words burst out of her. “You can’t possibly, when I don’t see clearly myself. Ever since coming here, I feel like I’m in a flood of confusion, being swept up by some current and taken off from all I know and hold dear. Ever since I can remember, I’ve planned my future of around the Lance, and around the Willows. I made a vow to marry that man, a promise that leaves no room for you, or the children, or some cabin in the swamp.”
Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t quite true. Slowly, these people were inching into her heart, setting up camp there.
As if this wasn’t enough, Christopher suddenly called for her, out in front of the cabin.
Her first thought was to go to him, but when she realized she was in her underwear, a fairly damp underwear at that, she froze. “He mustn’t see me,” she whispered to Michael. “Not with you.
“I imagine your reputation is safe.” Michael didn’t bother to mask his irritation. “Christopher can’t say much, and I doubt he will be talking to Lance.”
The boys’ second screams seem nearly more urgent. “I’m going to him,” she announced, worried now. “You wait here.”
She heard his low, muttered voice behind her, but she was already hurrying to the front of the cabin. Christopher needed her, and besides, she was glad for the interruption. Five more minutes she have been back in the man’s arms.
She found the boy down by the bank, looking out over bayou, outlined by a patch of moonlight. When she called to him, he smiled with a large awe. “The muskrats have come,” he whispered. “Look, see them swimming over there?”
Following his pointing finger, she saw the slick, dark heads moving about, doing and great job of cleaning up the bayou surface. “That is why you have called me?” She asked, keeping her voice low. “I thought something had happened to you.”
“I got scared. I heard you outside, and I thought you were running away again. Don’t go, please? I don’t care what Jude said. We need you, I need you.”
His words had her square in the chest. Them babies, they need you, Jeffrey a told her, and looking at Christopher, so small and so young and so marble in his frumpy night skirt and trousers, Gwen knew Jeffrey was right. It was no fun facing life without a mother; she knew how felt to be alone. Her heart open up to the boy. “Oh Christopher-“
“Shh, you will scare off the muskrats.” All Boy, standing his his dirty bare feet, he turned back to view the activity on the bayou. “There is a little one,” he whispered, “a baby. I think he needs help getting up on that log.”
Looking at the distance, Gwen didn’t realize that the boy meant to go into the water to help animal. “Christopher, no,” she called out as she rushed down the bank. It was too late at the night to be getting wet. In law really knew what was in that water.
Even as she thought this, the log began to move.
Her flesh pricked, then danced with gooseflesh as she recognized the long, dark form. Slithering towards Christopher. An alligator.
Images race like phantoms through her brain. Michael yelling at her for leaving the dishes in the bayou, her mother’s frail and broken body, fathers accusing gaze. But most scary of all, she saw Christopher, so innocent and helpless, trap within of those teeth.
She did not stop to think of the consequences. She ran into the water, screaming Michael’s name.
***
Michael heard the scream as he rounded the cabin, his anger and resentment evaporating in an icy flood of dread. Gripping his rifle, he ran to the bank, reaching it as Gwen scooped Christopher up in her arms. As she turned quickly for the shore, he saw the dark form gliding in their direction. In her clinging shift, weighted down by the wiggling boy, she had no prayer of eluding her stalker. The alligator slid easily through the water; Gwen had dislodged through the mud.
He raised the rifle,
sick with fear. He had one shot, and it had to be a good one. As Gwen looked up to meet his gaze, her plea was unmistakable. Though his insides felt like jelly, he kept his hands steady as he aimed. Here’s protective anger filled him. “When I shoot,” he told her, “run for the porch.”
At the crack of the rifle, Gwen jumped and Christopher whimpered, but the beast barely paused. If not for the gaping hole where his left eye had been, Michael might have thought he missed, for he continued to move and Gwen was frozen in her spot.
Michael grasp the barrel of his rifle, pair to use it as a battering weapon, when he heard a second shot. The gator then sank beneath the surface, thumping its tail in the final burst of rage.
Michael dragged her and the boy out of the water. She continued to clutch Christopher in her chest, he noticed. She was still trembling from all the fear that happened.
He turned his attention to Jude, standing behind him, clenching her father’s old shotgun as she stared at the creature’s remains.
Michael gaze shifted back to Gwen, standing immobile, eyes firmly shut. Unnerved by his relief at finding her unharmed, he fought for emotional distance. “I told you to run to the porch,” he snapped at her, taking the boys from her grasp. “Can’t you do anything right?”
As she set Christopher on the ground, the child faced him with the ugly glare. “Don’t yell at her!”
“I am sorry.” Gwen spoke softly. Though her eyes had opened, her gaze remained unfocused. “I guess I am not very good in emergencies.”
“You are, too. Without you the alligator would have eat me, if you do not pick me up.” As if realizing narrow escape for the first time, Christopher, too, began to shiver. “It could have eaten you to.”
Michael surprised, Gwen threw her arms around the little boy. “I cannot let them hurt you,” she said on a half sob. “Thank God you are all right.”
The Willows Page 24
