by Webb, Peggy
"The thing you should know about me, Anthony, is that I'm not bound by convention. I don't care a fig what people say about me as long as I can look at myself in the mirror and be proud of who I am." With slow, languorous movements she lifted her hair off her neck, arched her back, then released the silken mass to let it cascade over her shoulders.
It was the sexiest gesture Anthony had ever witnessed, on-screen or off.
"Annie, if you don't put your clothes back on, I won't be responsible for what I might do."
"And what would that be?" She ran her tongue slowly around her lips.
"Minx. Keep that up and you'll find out."
"Promises, promises."
He anchored himself to the balcony by catching hold of the wrought-iron railing. She laughed, then blew him a pouty kiss. He sought to lighten the mood with humor.
"Do you have a secret life down on Bourbon Street?"
"No. I have a secret life as a woman in love who has to give herself relief in the darkness under the covers, clamping her teeth onto her bottom lip so her mother sleeping in the next room won't hear."
Her total honesty disarmed him. Her courage enchanted him. She wasn't merely defying society and disdaining their rules: She was giving herself completely to him in an act of love and trust that both stunned and humbled him.
He strode through the French doors, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair.
"Annie, my darling, my love."
"What took you so long?" she whispered.
"I was adjusting to the reality that I've fallen in love with a woman who is both braver and smarter than I am.
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
"I don't speak pretty lies, I speak the truth."
She stood on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his, and he was lost. She was silk and heat and sweet surrender, and he savored her the way he would a vintage wine that had been kept in storage until it reached the point of perfection.
Fully aroused, his body cried for release, but he had to be absolutely certain that Annie knew what she asked of him.
Lifting his head, he studied her face. "Unless you tell me no, I'm going to take you to my bed and claim every delicious inch of you, not merely your body, but your heart and soul."
"You've already claimed two out of three." Her laugh was a little shaky, but determination was written in every line of her body, from the upward-tilting chin to the pert thrust of her breasts. "The first moment I saw you, I knew you were my soul mate. The ceremony will come in time, but in the stacks at the library we were joined as surely as if a priest had said the vows."
She kissed the side of his jaw, then his mouth. "Love me, Anthony."
Anthony carried her across the threshold of his bedroom, an act fraught with symbolism, for today in his sunlit apartment she was leaving behind the innocence of her youth and entering a realm of joy given only to those who truly love.
Her eyes widened when he laid her on the bed and stripped off his clothes.
"Don't be afraid, Annie."
"I'm not afraid."
"You can still change your mind."
"I won't."
Smiling, she lifted her arms to him, and he fell into heaven.
o0o
Annie had dreamt of this moment ever since she'd met Anthony Chance, but her dreams paled beside the reality. He was smoke and fire, stroking her skin until she smoldered. He was music and poetry, singing through her veins with the melodies of an exultation of larks. He was thunder and wind, sweeping her into a storm of passion that took her breath away.
He trailed his fingers lightly across her throat, pausing where her pulse fluttered like the wings of a butterfly, then downward where he massaged her nipples until she was in a frenzy of wanting.
"Anthony, please," she cried out, wanting more and yet hardly knowing what it was she longed for.
"Patience, my sweet Annie. Love is best when savored."
With fingertips and tongue he sensitized the skin of her belly, her inner thighs, behind her knees, in the blue-veined arch of her foot. She felt as if the strings of a thousand violins were vibrating just under her skin.
He slid his fingers into her soft, wet folds, and she arched as waves of pleasure spiraled upward. Then he pressed his mouth over her, kissing her deeply, moving his tongue so that she grew wild with wanting.
Instinctively she began to move her hips in perfect rhythm with his tongue. Heat built to the point of explosion, and she clenched around him, trying to get control of the pleasure that threatened to rip her apart.
"Go with it, Annie," he whispered, his voice hoarse with desire. "Go with the flow."
"I think I'm going to die of this joy."
She gave in to the sensations, let them rocket her to the stars and back. Bent over her, Anthony smiled, and she reached for him, needing to anchor herself lest she fly off and never come back.
"I never dreamed it would be so wonderful," she whispered.
"The best is yet to come." He smoothed her damp hair back from her face. "I'll be as gentle with you as I can, but this may hurt a little."
"As long as I have you, nothing can hurt me, Anthony."
As he poised above her, need clawed at her, and she lunged upward, wanting to discover all the mysteries at once.
He pulled his hips back. "Patience, my love, patience."
Slowly he slid into her, and flowerlike, she received him, sweet, hot petals unfurling by degrees. She held her breath, suspended by the beauty and the awe of this sacred act. Sensations spiraled through her, and Annie felt as if she'd sprouted wings.
"Relax, darling . . . That's it."
She felt a quick stab of pain . . . then heaven.
"Are you all right?" he said.
She smiled at him, as satisfied as a cat who has been let loose in the creamery. "If I were any better, I'd fly," she said.
"I can't have you doing that. I have plans for you."
"What are they?"
"Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Why don't you show me?"
And he did. The sun made changing patterns on the sheets, and the birds serenaded from their perch on the balcony. But Anthony and Annie were oblivious to everything except each other. He took her to the edge and back while the sky changed from the blue of a robin's egg to the paint-box colors of a Mardi Gras parade.
She felt damp and lush and sated, and still Anthony loved. Just when she thought she had no more to give, a hurricane built inside her, and she was ripped out of her languorous state into a cataclysmic sensation that left her mindless.
Sweat rolled down Anthony's face, and his eyes darkened as if all light had been extinguished from within.
"Now," he cried out with release.
Rolling to his side so his weight wouldn't crush her, he held her close and stroked her hair. Annie lay in his arms, boneless and speechless while soft music from the radio on the bedside table wafted over her. She would never forget the song as long as she lived— "It Had to Be You."
"They're playing our song," Anthony whispered. "I love you, Annie. Forever and always."
She joined their palms and laced her fingers through his. "Till death do us part, Anthony Chance."
o0o
They had supper at a small cafe two blocks from his apartment, huge buns dripping with olive oil and stuffed with three kinds of meat and two kinds of cheese. They'd missed lunch, and they were ravenous.
Afterward they joined hands and strolled through the French Quarter, looking in shop windows.
Annie saw it first, the little black clock, cat-shaped, complete with rolling eyes and wagging tail.
"He's adorable." She tugged Anthony's hand. "Let's go inside and see."
The shop bell tinkled when they entered.
"May I help you?" The owner was a graying matron with a wide smile that showed two gold teeth. She introduced herself as Marvelene.
"We'd like to see the clock, please," Anthony said.
Marv
elene pulled the clock off the shelf and held it toward them. Annie touched the smooth black surface, and energy pulsed through her. Squeezing Anthony's hand, she traced the sassy smile on the cat's face.
The room whirled, and she closed her eyes against the dizziness. Too much excitement, she decided. After all, it wasn't every day a girl became a woman.
She turned to ask Anthony to take her back to the apartment, when the sky lit up. Thunder rumbled, and that was the only warning they had of the storm that lashed the city. A blanket of gray rain obscured the shop door, the sidewalks, the buildings beyond.
A brilliance flashed across the sky once more, and Annie gathered electrical force from the air that swirled around her like fog. She closed her eyes, floating.
"Anthony . . ." She knew she'd called out to him, but the sound of her own voice was but a distant echo. Tightly she clung to his hand. As long as he was by her side, everything would be all right.
"Take me back," she whispered, and then she felt herself falling, and strong arms reaching out to catch her.
CHAPTER NINE
"I've been waiting for you to come around," he said.
Her mind a jumble, Ann kept her eyes closed, her hand clutching the clock. There had been a wonderful afternoon in Anthony's apartment, and then the stroll along Royal Street, and the quaint little shop with the clock, then the terrible lightning storm.
"Annie." She felt his hand caress her cheek.
There was no mistaking his voice.
"Anthony?"
Slowly she opened her eyes. Images came to her in jagged flashes—Anthony smiling at her, brilliant light, a roaring sound, ticking of a clock, the portrait Anthony painted, an old trunk, yellowing letters, a tender touch, his lips on hers.
For a moment she let herself savor the kiss, then she pulled away.
"Colt?"
"It's me, Annie."
"What happened?"
"Don't you know?" he said.
"No." She brushed her hair back from her flushed cheeks. She remembered putting on the dress from the trunk, remembered Colt pointing out the clock, remembered the bright flashes of lightning that filled the room, shattered the attic window. And then . . .
"I'm so tired," she said. "Did I faint?"
"No, you didn't faint." Colt chuckled. "You're not the fainting kind."
"There's always a first time, you know."
Why was he so chipper? And why did her heart lurch and her skin flush every time she looked at him, as if they'd spent the night together in the throes of deep passion instead of stranded in the attic, sleeping sedately side by side, keeping each other company in the storm?
"What you are, Annie, is a woman of great courage, a woman who is not afraid to defy convention."
Colt made it sound like a compliment. She wished Rob felt that way.
"I am unconventional," she admitted. "Even for New York."
He threw back his head when he laughed, and there was something so familiar about the gesture and the full-bodied sound of mirth that Ann shivered.
"I'm not talking about New York." He began to hum, then sing, "It Had To Be You."
Ann felt elated and scared all at the same time, and though it was stuffy in the attic, she wrapped her arms around herself to stop shivering.
"Nice song," she said.
"Our song," he said.
Ann stood up so fast, she dropped the clock. Colt caught it in midair, then set it back on the dusty attic shelf. She walked to the window for a breath of fresh air, expecting to see broken glass scattered across the floor. Instead, the window was intact.
Before her strange blackout she'd distinctly heard the sound of shattering glass. She pushed open the window, then leaned out for deep gulps of fresh air.
The rain had stopped, and a watery-looking sun was trying to break through the gray clouds. Could it be her imagination, or had the water receded some?
"Annie." She jumped when Colt put his hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
His kindness was her undoing. She whirled on him, fury written in every line of her body.
"Am I all right! How can you ask such a thing? I'm stranded in the attic, half of Fairhope is floating past my window, I'm hungry and tired and scared, and I keep calling you the name of my grandmother's lover."
Tears streamed down her cheeks, though she was not the weeping kind. He reached to touch her cheek, and she swatted his hand away.
"Don't touch me. Don't you dare touch me."
"All right. I won't touch you." He went to their food supply and opened a box of toaster pastries. "Not yet, Annie."
"And stop calling me Annie." Her hands shook as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "My name is Ann Debeau and I live in New York and make my living as a potter and I'm going to marry a perfectly wonderful man."
He offered her a pastry. "Breakfast?"
"How can you say that?"
"Because I'm starving. Aren't you?"
"What do you think?" She jerked a pastry out of his hand and bit off a chunk that would choke a horse. That's how mad she was. Every ounce of good breeding she'd had vanished, and she was acting like the sort of selfish, testy woman she despised.
"How can you stand there grinning like a possum?" she said.
"New York hasn't taken all the South out of you yet."
"Give it time. Rob says it will."
"He wants you to change?"
"Only for the better."
"He must be a fool."
"He's a decent, hardworking man with a very successful law practice."
"Do you love him?"
She held up her ring finger. "I'm going to marry him."
"You didn't answer my question. Do you love him?"
Ann bought time by munching on her pastry. Did she love Rob? She'd thought so before she came to Fairhope. But lately, she'd wondered the same thing herself.
Face it. What kind of woman describes the man she loves as merely decent, hardworking, and successful? Where were all the adjectives her grandmother had used for Anthony Chance in her letters? Magnificent. Wonderful. Magical. Glorious.
The truth hit her with the force of a hammer blow to the midriff: She didn't really love Rob, not in the way of a woman who pledges "to love, honor, and cherish till death us do part."
And yet she'd been brought up to honor commitments. Torn by loyalty and the unmistakable desire that welled up inside her every time she looked at Colt, Ann walked to the window and stood looking out at the aftermath of the storm.
For now her survival depended not only on Colt Butler, but on her own inner strength and courage. She couldn't afford to get sidetracked by volatile emotional issues.
Turning back to him, she said quietly, "You have no right to ask that question."
"I have every right, Annie." He closed the space between them and captured both her hands. "I am Anthony Chance."
CHAPTER TEN
"Impossible," she said.
Colt's statement was almost as shocking to him as it was to Ann. He could no more explain what had happened to them than she could. But he had a bone-deep conviction that whatever they had experienced was life-changing, and more than a hunch that the dreamlike trance he'd found himself in when Annie had collapsed in his arms had something to do with time travel.
His memories were too vivid to be mere dreams— meeting Annie for the first time in the library, riding the streetcar, painting her as she sat on the banks of the river, making love to her on the sun-dappled bed.
But more than the memories was the strength of his feelings for her. Colt loved Ann Debeau, had loved her from the moment they met.
He had known her in another lifetime. It was that simple. And that scary.
He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.
"I'm sorry to upset you, Annie. I shouldn't have blurted it out like that."
"No, you shouldn't have. Your claim is outrageous."
"I thought all artists believed in magic, Annie."
; "The magic of the muse, yes. But you're not talking about inspiration that comes from a mystical source. You're talking about something far more complex."
"Is it?" Colt crossed to the window and studied the havoc nature had wrought. "Look at this, Annie."
She joined him at the window, careful to stand so that no part of her body was touching his. Water raged past just below the windowsill, gray and angry, full of the trash that civilized society generates.
"If you had stood at this window a few days ago, what would you have seen?" he said.
"You know as well as I do—trees, grass, flower beds, the street, streetlights, a sidewalk, a sloping hill down to the bay."
"Is what I propose any more mysterious than this?" Colt's sweeping gesture encompassed the flood-swollen bay that covered the city of Fairhope.
"A hurricane is part of nature's phenomena."
"How do you know time travel is not another of nature's phenomena?"
Impatiently she left the window and wandered back to the trunk.
"Because I'm an artist, you think I should embrace this theory without question?"
"No. Not without question. I question it myself. But everything that has happened to us supports my theory that somehow you and I traveled through time."
She held up her hand as if she could ward off the truth. If he persisted in this line of thought, he risked losing her. But if he didn't convince her that there was a compelling reason for her to reconsider her relationship with Rob, he would lose her anyway.
"Most of us are bound by a conception of time as linear," he said.
"I've done some reading in that field, Colt. It's not that I don't believe what you say is possible. It's simply that I can't accept it as a possibility for you and me."
He didn't ask why: He thought he knew the answer.
"Rome wasn't built in a day," he said.
That brought a smile from her. "Smart man."
He put the box of toaster pastries back on the shelf with their supplies.
"The sun's moving on, Annie, if we could see it. What do you want to do with this day?"
"How about a rousing game of chess? I think I saw a set up here somewhere."
"You've just named my game. Prepare to surrender, Miss Annie Debeau."
She found not only a chess set, but a checkerboard as well. Annie was grateful for the diversion. Anything to keep her mind off the things he had said.
