Strangers on a Train

by Ruth Wind

  Heather caught her breath. All of the alert awareness she'd noticed during the last few hours bloomed in her skin where his hand touched her. His gentle gaze washed over her face, as if memorizing every line. Heather couldn't breathe. Everything within her strained toward him, and she swayed into his waiting embrace.

  He dropped his other hand to her waist and pulled her against him. For the first time Heather felt his full, lean length pressed into her, felt the surprising hardness of his thighs and arms below cushioning layers of clothing. Her hands reached up in a half-remembered gesture of defense and landed upon his chest, where her fingers splayed of their own accord. His leathery, smoky aroma enveloped her and she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze.

  "You are so beautiful," he whispered, brushing his hand reverently over her face and hair.

  Strong hands, Heather thought, as his thumb brushed her earlobe.

  He brought his mouth to hers with infinite care. The gentleness was so unthreatening, so sweet, that Heather felt herself responding without fear, lulled by his easy embrace and tender caresses. She relaxed into him, gingerly kissing him back with an emotion of gratitude, an emotion that melted away to nothing as the playful sensuality she'd sensed in his kiss this morning rose to the forefront. He slid and teased his lips over hers—Heather could almost feel his smile.

  He tightened his arms about her and she arched to meet him with a surge of longing completely new to her. Sensing her shift in attitude, Ben parted her lips with his tongue as gently as the morning sun slips over the horizon, and Heather responded like a morning glory, opening the blossoms of her lips to his luxurious warmth. She tilted her head to reach him more fully and he brushed the tip of his cold nose against her cheek as she fit her mouth more securely into the frame of his. Unconsciously, she moved her fingers over his chest and into the deep silk of his cold, heavy hair. The flesh of his neck and scalp were warm and she combed through that weight of hair with languorous delight. She gave a small sigh.

  Ben lifted his head slightly to smile at her. No panic or shyness touched her. She smiled back and he tickled her cheek with his mustache. "It's been real nice, Heather." He swallowed and the corded muscle of his jaw flexed. "I hate to let you go."

  So he didn't. He wrapped her tightly in an engulfing, warming hug, pressing their bodies together with fierce care. Heather nestled her face perfectly into the hollow of his shoulder and his jacket scratched her cheek. He held her a long time, rocking slightly, and Heather closed her eyes. There was no eroticism in the hug—just tenderness; a heartbreaking reverence. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and neck, breathing in deeply the good, outdoorsy smell of his skin. She wanted to go on forever, holding him in the cloudy darkness; but when his arms loosened, she reluctantly relaxed her hold, as well.

  He kissed her again quickly. "Maybe I'll see you in Pueblo," he said, and released her. "You drive carefully."

  Heather nodded, her throat tight. A strange prickling of tears gathered behind her eyes and she blinked hard and swallowed to chase them away. "Take care, Ben," she managed, and drew her hand away from his. "It was very nice to meet you."

  He gave her a halfhearted grin and touched her cheek. "Bye."

  Just like that, he walked away—a tall, lean man in jeans and corduroy jacket, his thick dark hair catching bits of light as he passed under the streetlamps. Heather sighed and got into the car. "Journeys end in lovers parting," she quipped aloud to herself; it made her feel better to slaughter Shakespeare. And she started the car.

  All the way home, her heart ached.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  « ^ »

  When Heather awoke the next morning in the familiar surroundings of her bedroom, the whole trip home from St. Louis seemed like a dream—impossible to imagine.

  Last night, she'd barely dropped her bags by the door and made it to the shower before tumbling into bed. After the interrupted night of sleep on the train and the long journey, her body had needed the rest, however invigorated she'd felt. She'd slept a solid twelve hours, she noted as she washed her face in the big bathroom of her 1930s-era house. Sunlight streamed through the glass brick of the room, lighting the maroon tiles with their slender lines of pink and the cross-stitch of a castle on a hill Heather's mother had made for her a birthday or two before. She kept thinking the room could use a plant or two, but with typical forgetfulness, she'd never gotten around to buying one, or even moving one in from another room.

  She wandered into the kitchen in her bathrobe and put on a pot of water for tea. Coffee would do in a pinch, while traveling or on a break during a show, but Heather much preferred tea, and she boasted a large collection of various exotic blends from all over the world. No herbal teas, either. She preferred full-bodied teas with musky scents and hearty flavor, without sugar or milk to dilute it. This morning she chose a Formosan blend she'd found in a shop in nearby Colorado Springs, and while she waited for the water to boil, picked up a tray of various boxes of food from the counter to feed her pets.

  Her parakeets and fish had been cared for by a neighbor in her absence, but at the first sounds of the Handel suite Heather chose to play on her impressive stereo, the birds set up a racket and she laughed as she fed them. "Did you miss me, gentlemen?"

  Amadeus chirped and quirked his head appealingly. Heather opened the cage and let the blue-and-white bird perch on her finger while she stroked his feathered head. Peter, a cream-colored parakeet with the faintest tinge of yellow, skittered over to the farthest bar from the door of their enclosure. "Going to punish me, Peter?" He blinked and turned his head away. Heather lifted Amadeus to the roof of his cage and attended to her fish—a school of neon tetras and half a dozen angelfish housed in an octagonal sixty-gallon tank. The birds and fish had been the only expenditures she'd made with the rather large inheritance from James's grandfather that had passed to her upon James's death—money she hadn't wanted and still refused to use except for house payments. Only a modest sum was kept in her savings account. The rest—more money than her father had made in his lifetime—had been reinvested at the advice of her banker.

  It had only been upon the urging of James's brother Mike that Heather had bought the birds and fish as a tonic for her loneliness. She'd never been able to rationalize using money that should have been James's, except to pay for the house that he'd worked so hard to restore. Although it wasn't the kind of house she would have picked for herself, it did seem to embody everything about Pueblo that she loved. The preponderance of glass brick bespoke the fondness the Slays who had settled this part of town with their earnings from the steel mill had had for grace and neatness. The large, square rooms with their arches and plastered walls told of the craftsmanship those sturdy people had demanded. And in the backyard, the carefully manicured lawn with its tulips, irises, rosebushes and chrysanthemums assured color all summer long. Even the large, untrimmed catalpa trees that cast protective shadows through the heat of the summer days spoke to Heather of foresight and planning. This house, she knew, had been built to be lived in for a lifetime.

  The teakettle whistled sharply and she returned to the kitchen for her tea. Through the windows, on the eastern horizon, the black, now smokeless stacks of the steel mill stood against the sky—an endlessly fascinating view.

  As she waited for her tea to brew, the phone rang. Heather grabbed it up—irrationally, briefly hoping to hear Ben's voice. As soon as she heard her heart speaking, she rolled her eyes at herself and her gruff "Hello" reflected her irritation with herself.

  "Where the hell have you been, Heather? I've been worried sick." It was Mike, James's brother and director of the play.

  "Oh, Mike, I meant to call you last night when I got in, but it was late and I was so tired, I forgot."

  "What happened?"

  "The train was delayed in Kansas in the middle of the night and we were four hours behind, getting in. Even by the time I got to La Junta, I knew I wouldn't have been able to catch yo
u." She stirred her tea. "How did the rehearsal go?"

  "Good. You can make it tonight, can't you?"

  "Sure. I think I'm supposed to go in for a fitting this morning, too."

  "I'll probably see you there, then. I have a lot to do."

  "Do you want to have some lunch at Nick's or something?"

  "You buying?"

  Heather laughed. "Of course I am, if I'm eating with you."

  "Good girl. I'll see you at the theater in a couple of hours, then."

  Before her fitting, she had a class to teach—a class offered through the adult-education program the city organized. Like most of her jobs, it didn't pay much—all of them altogether barely paid her enough to keep the wolves from the door; thus her forced reliance on some portion of James's inheritance—but the internal rewards were high. Most of her students in this six-week term had been with her for the past three sessions, and two of them were beginning to show a great deal of progress. She knew that for those two students, this weekly class was one of their high points. She found it gratifying to contribute her skills as a teacher. As she'd pointed out to Ben, her talent wasn't large enough to permit her to make recordings of her compositions or to achieve the kind of success some other guitarists had, but the small jobs she did added up to a satisfying life, anyway. She taught and composed and provided music for the theater group—even occasionally was asked to do recitals.

  She dressed in a red challis skirt and a flowing blouse, pulled on her boots and wove her hair into one long braid. From the dozens of ribbons on a hanger in the bathroom, she chose a very long one of red velvet and wrapped it around the braid in medieval fashion.

  Although the sun was shining, the morning was a cold one and Heather's aging economy car was stubborn about starting. She pumped the gas pedal and shook the ignition key several times to coax the first cough from the engine, and it took several more tries before the motor caught—only to die once more. Heather sighed and let the battery rest a moment. She would have to buy a new car before much longer. It wasn't just the starting on cold mornings; the car needed an engine overhaul and it was only a matter of time before it had to be done. The work would cost more than buying a reasonably priced used car, and although she was sentimental about some things, her car wasn't one of them. Cars, she thought as she grimly turned the key once more, were nothing more than a necessary evil. How people ever had love affairs with such cantankerous, mean-spirited, baffling machines was beyond her.

  The morning went well. Her class was eager and cheerful, and one of her favorite students had been practicing a fairly difficult piece at home, which he played for Heather's approval. The other students, far from being envious, were enthusiastic and supportive. After class, Heather took him aside and urged him to seek more extensive training. "I think you have a lot of natural ability. There are some excellent instructors at the university. You should think about getting enrolled."

  Tom was close to Heather in age, and had unruly dark hair, a long, narrow face and full lips. He gave her a wry smile. "I didn't finish high school."

  "So get your general equivalency diploma, Tom. You're bright, you've had enough experience to be able to handle university now."

  He didn't look as if he believed her. "It's a nice idea," he said. "I'll give it some thought."

  Heather backed off with a smile. "Do that. You really are talented. It would be a shame to waste that."

  Another wistful smile touched his face and he wandered off. For a moment, Heather wondered why he was reluctant. Then she realized the time and hurried off to the fitting.

  Her class and the play were both housed in the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center. The sprawling complex in downtown Pueblo boasted a fine theater, an art gallery of some renown, and a series of smaller rooms designed for instruction in ballet and all manner of classes for adults and children in a wide array of subjects ranging from lessons in beadwork to painting to Southwestern history. Heather dashed to the fitting rooms in the bowels of the theater and found Mike in deep conversation with the seamstress. She slipped up behind him and hugged him. "Hey, ugly," she said, "quit bothering Rose, will you?"

  "Hey, uglier-than-me," he answered, returning her hug with a rib-crushing one of his own. Although he was James's older brother by five years, there was little physical similarity between them. Where James had been fair and aristocratic looking, Mike was burly and bearded. His forearms boasted tattoos of snakes and marijuana leaves, and his fingers, when laced together, spelled out a rather obscene curse. He had wild, dark blond springy hair and sharp blue eyes. Aside from his family, his passions in life were Shakespeare and his troupe of actors and actresses. On the side, he ran a motorcycle-equipment and repair shop. All in all, he was a character she found entertaining, amusing and absorbing—the older brother she'd never had. As he'd approached forty, he'd mellowed into a mainstay of the community, giving up drugs, participating in the annual Bikers' Toy Run and lending his experience to drunk-driving programs.

  He looked Heather over. "You look great this morning." He raised an eyebrow with a leer. "What'd you do over the weekend?"

  "None of your business, nosy. Are you ready for me, Rose?"

  The seamstress, a slender, dark young woman, grinned. "I sure am. You're my favorite. Look what I have for you this time. Is it great or what?" She held up a deep blue velvet dress, cut into an Empire style with a square neckline in both front and back. Edging the bodice were gold lace and tiny pearls. The sleeves were slit down the center to display more gold lace. The pearls cascaded over the bodice and down the velvet of the sleeves.

  "Oh, my!" Heather breathed, touching the dress reverently. "This is beautiful. I hope it fits." She clasped her hands. "Let me try."

  It fit as if it had been made for her. She rustled the heavy fabric deliciously and regally presented herself for inspection. "What do you think?" she asked Mike and Rose.

  "You look like Juliet," Mike said.

  "I knew it would be great." Rose stepped forward to adjust a fold or two. "I think we'll do the same thing you've done today with your hair. I can embroider some pearls on a ribbon. What do you think?"

  "I feel great in this dress," Heather enthused. "I'm going to love wearing it."

  Mike crossed his arms and considered her. "I hope your Romeo finds you in it," he stated, and there was a strangely sober note in his voice.

  "I'm not ready for a Romeo," she retorted, and rustled back into the dressing room.

  "Yes, you are, my friend," he called after her. "You just don't know it yet."

  Heather looked at him over her shoulder and stuck out her tongue before disappearing into the changing room. He'd been after her for almost two years to find a new man. He'd even gone so far as to introduce her to what he thought were suitable candidates—a single city councilman, a biker friend of his, and a teacher at the community college. None had struck even a spark in Heather's heart, but Mike kept trying. It had become a game between them.

  As she dressed in her street clothes, Heather shook her head. Ben Shaw, now. He was a different story. She'd been thinking of him all morning, with a mingled sense of sadness and delicious memory spilling through her at every thought.

  There was no doubt that she was at least a little infatuated. When she remembered his lips on hers yesterday, his mustache brushing her cheek, his warm, encompassing hug, a little ripple of something she couldn't quite identify coursed through her belly.

  She returned to the other room. "Are you ready for lunch?"

  "Yes. Starved," Mike said.

  "Would you like to join us, Rose?" Heather asked. "We're going to Nick's."

  "Sounds good, but I have too much to do. I brought a lunch with me."

  "See you tonight, then."

  Mike and Heather walked the several blocks to the restaurant. Mike looped his arm comfortably around her shoulder as they walked, and his down coat swished against hers. "I wish you would find somebody new," he urged seriously, as they sat down in the renovated warehouse
. A waitress brought them menus.

  "I will, when the time comes," Heather replied lightly.

  "Spend some of that money, too. That's too much cash to be left collecting dust."

  It was old ground. Heather smiled with exaggerated patience. "You could spend it, too, but you're as stubborn as your grandfather." The old man had left the money to James, the younger grandson, because Mike had been as wild as a summer storm. Heather had repeatedly tried to make Mike accept at least half the inheritance. "Your grandfather was afraid you'd spend it all on wild women and rye," she added. "You wouldn't do that now."

  As if he hadn't heard, Mike continued, "You could at least travel some, get some inspiration."

  "I could. But my major inspiration is that hulking monster of a forgotten mill on the horizon."

  "That's another thing. When are you going to finish it?"

  "I don't know," Heather replied evasively. The truth was, the piece wasn't far from completion. It lacked only a final polish—the same thing it had lacked upon James's death three years before.

  "I think you're afraid of testing your true potential," Mike said, unwrapping a packet of crackers from the basket on the table. "I think you could finish it any time you liked, but then you'd have to do something with it, and somebody might notice you've got a lot more talent than anyone ever guessed."

  Heather just smiled. In spite of his blustery, seemingly pushy manner, Mike had her best interests at heart. He, too, had grieved over his brother, but time had eased the pain and he wanted Heather to pick up her life—not forget James, exactly, but at least lead a normal life.

  However, the problems of a wife were far different from those of a brother. How could Heather tell Mike how difficult those last few months of her marriage had been? How badly she'd failed her husband? She couldn't face another relationship until she knew she was strong enough to handle everything it might involve.