by Webb, Peggy
He pushed aside her skirt and touched her where other men would not dare, touched her in ways that transported her beyond the silent darkness into a world of color and light and music. She danced to the music, faster and faster until all the colors blurred and the light exploded in one bright moment that burned itself forever on her memory.
He captured her lips once more in a kiss as gentle and as necessary as a spring rain falling upon a pregnant earth. And in one blinding epiphany, Kathleen realized that Hunter had given everything and taken nothing. His actions told her more clearly than words ever could that he loved her still, loved her enough to look beyond her infirmities to the passionate woman within.
Thirteen years of longing could be brought to an end. Months of living in isolation could vanish. All she had to do was open her arms and welcome him home.
“Please, Hunter.” She put her fingertips against his lips, then leaned her head against the tree trunk. “Oh, please...”
Raw energy pulsed through her fingers. A sense of adventure and daring clung to him, and when she breathed deeply, she smelled the rich jungles of the Congo and the heady excitement of the diamond mines, caught somehow in the pores of his skin.
How could she shackle all that energy? How could she tame all that wildness?
Chaining him to her side would be more than selfish; it would be criminal. Like all fine animals, Hunter La Farge belonged free.
“I don’t know what you want of me, Hunter, but whatever it is, it’s more than I’m willing to give.” She bent to pick up her hat, which had fallen to the ground in their mindless pursuit of each other. “Please leave.”
He knelt beside her and tapped her hand twice, vigorously. No. Then she felt the Braille letter being shoved into her hand once more.
Sighing, she took the letter and sat at the base of the tree. She owed him that much, at least.
o0o
My darling Kat, it said. I know what you’re going to tell me. Leave. I can no more leave you than I can stop the sun from rising. I love you, Kat. I’ve never stopped loving you... even the day I stood at the back of the cathedral and watched you marry another man. You were lost to me twice, my darling. I’m never going to lose you again. Whatever you say, whatever you do will not drive me away. I know you, Kat. You’re proud and independent and stubborn... all the things I love about you. You’ll try very hard to send me away, but I will not go. You are my soul. You always have been and always will be. I may never feel you beneath me again, lying under the oak tree with the sun making lacy patterns on your skin. I may never win you back... but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying.
She bought time by carefully folding the letter. Then she tucked it into her skirt pocket. Later she’d put it away in a special place, just as she once had put away the letters that had been blown away in the explosion.
“Then you will have wasted your life, Hunter, and you’ll have nothing to show for it except gray hair and wrinkles.”
Did he laugh? The change in his body language felt like laughter, and it would be typical of Hunter. Laughing at the gods, thumbing his nose at fate.
Suddenly she felt his lips on hers once more, insistent, persuasive. She fought to hold on to reason, but it went tumbling away in the winds of passion that swept through her. Her only defense was to swat his face away and hide under her hat. As she lowered the veil she felt like a coward.
Hunter grabbed her palm and wrote. Afraid?
“Never. Not of you. Not of anyone or anything. I just simply don’t have the time to waste with you. I have much more important things to do.”
Dance? he wrote.
“How did you know?”
I watched.
“If Martha catches you, she’ll call the police... and I’ll let her.” She knew, of course, that her threat wouldn’t scare Hunter off. She was merely buying time until she could leave the tree.
Coward, he wrote.
It was her turn to laugh. He was gambling that she’d let him stick around in order to prove him wrong.
“You always were clever, Hunter. It won’t work this time. The only person I have to prove anything to is myself.”
When she stood up, Hunter caught her hand. It was warm and steadfast, a hand she’d held on to since she was five years old. How could she bear to let go?
As they stood together under the tree the way they had so many years before, she felt the tremor that ran through him. Hunter was a man of intense feelings, and they’d always shown in his eyes. A great sadness descended on her.
She would never see Hunter’s eyes again. In the end, it was that thought that gave her courage. Quietly, she released his hand.
“Eventually you’d feel sorry for me, Hunter. I couldn’t bear your pity.”
She walked away, counting her steps, and the silent darkness closed around her. Somewhere under the tree, she imagined Hunter watching and waiting.
And that’s the way she would always remember him, waiting for her under the live-oak tree with the Spanish moss swaying in breezes from the river and gardenias filling the sultry air with their heady perfume.
CHAPTER FOUR
He knew she wouldn’t come to the tree again. As soon as she got back to her house, she’d probably instruct Martha not to let him in the door.
As if that would stop him.
When she was safely inside, Hunter climbed into his car and drove to Loyola. Dr. Brent Myers was still in his office, bent over his Braille writer.
“Hello,” he said, removing his thick glasses and rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Did she get the letter?”
“Yes. I delivered it in person.”
“May I be so bold as to ask what her response was?”
Hunter had no qualms about answering such a personal question. He had liked the man on sight. When he’d gone to the university earlier seeking help, Myers had been perfectly blunt.
“I will help you only if you’re sincere about this woman,” he’d said. “I have no intention of being a party to a cruel hoax.”
It hadn’t taken long for Hunter to convince Myers of his sincerity. Nor for Myers to win Hunter’s respect. Legally blind, Myers still taught nineteenth-century literature to the sighted as well as working in his spare time with the blind.
Now, straddling a chair, watching the professor polish his glasses before returning them to his nose, Hunter answered the question. “Her response was exactly what I expected; she told me to leave.”
“A proud woman.”
“Yes. And a fighter. One day Kathleen will again be the world’s greatest ballerina, and I will be at her side.” Intense, Hunter leaned toward the older man. “Can you teach me to read Braille?”
“Yes. When do you want to start?”
“Now.”
“You have the first criterion of a good student, an eagerness to learn.” He motioned for Hunter to move his chair close to the desk. “And so... let us begin.”
o0o
Martha had become a totally shameless woman. First, she was happy to be back in the Deep South, even if it meant leaving her brother behind on the dark continent, and now she was accepting bribes.
“I really shouldn’t take these,” she said, knowing perfectly well she would. How Hunter La Farge had found out she loved Godiva chocolates better than anything else in the world was beyond her. And roses! He’d brought enough roses to fill her bedroom and half the kitchen. “You’re the very devil himself.”
“At your service.”
With a wicked grin that confirmed her diagnosis, he bent over her hand and bestowed a kiss that warmed the cockles of her old heart. Lordy, she was bewitched, and her sixty-eight years old.
“She’ll kill me when she finds out,” Martha said, knowing Kathleen would do no such thing. Her temper would definitely get in a stir, but she was too much a lady to resort to violence.
Music poured from Kathleen’s studio. They could hear the slap of her ballet slippers against the wooden floor and an
occasional crash followed by an expletive.
“She needs me,” Hunter said, as if he’d read Martha’s mind. “When we were children, I’d sit for hours and watch her dance. She used to say I was her courage.”
Martha had always prided herself on being a good judge of character, and she’d be willing to stake her life on Hunter’s sincerity... and his determination.
“I figure you’re going to see her whether I give permission or not.” The look in his eyes told her she’d spoken the truth. “We could use some more milk, and the bathroom supplies are getting low.”
“Good. It’s settled. I’ll stay with Kathleen while you’re shopping. And Martha... take your time. She’ll be in good hands.”
Martha buried her face in her roses, then smiled at him. “I never doubted that for a minute.”
o0o
Sweat soaked the front and back of Kathleen’s leotard and inched from under her heavy hair. She reached for a towel on the barre to wipe her face. With her hand in midair, she froze.
The haunting sounds of the adagio from Sleeping Beauty filled the room. Or was it her imagination? The towel fell from her hand, and she pressed her hands over her ears, afraid to trust the miracle.
To hear music again... to move in time to the beautiful rhythms... to soar through the air on wings of melody... It was a dream beyond imagining.
“Please, God,” she whispered. Then slowly, ever so slowly, she took her hands away.
The sounds were there, just as she had imagined, not faint and faraway, but as clear as the chimes that echoed through Jackson Square.
“Martha,” she yelled. “Martha!”
She heard the sound of hurrying footsteps in the hallway. Oh, blessed sound.
“I can hear... I can hear!”
“Then I want these to be the first words you hear. I love you, Kathleen.”
All the months she’d waited in silence for the return of her hearing, she’d dreamed of what she wanted most to hear. And always, it had been the sound of Hunter’s voice. Even before the music.
Mesmerized, she stood absolutely still while sound washed over her—the majestic melodies of Tchaikovsky, the tick of the hall clock, the song of a mockingbird outside her window, the scratch of a tree branch along the side of the house, the distant barking of a dog. And Hunter’s voice.
“Did you hear me, Kat? I love you. I never stopped loving you and I never will.”
“I heard you, Hunter. And it doesn’t change a thing.”
She could imagine the way he walked by the sound of his boots on the wooden floor, emphatic, measured sounds of a man with a purpose. Suddenly he was beside her, his body heat mingling with hers, his hands upon her face.
“It changes everything,” he said, tracing the path of moisture from her cheekbones to the corner of her lips.
She hadn’t been aware of tears, only of being drunk with sound.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes.” He circled her lips with his index finger. “Now I can say all the things to you that I couldn’t put in a letter.”
“You’ve said everything you need to say.”
“Except I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ever left you in the first place, sorry the letters stopped, sorry I came home too late.” With one hand on her cheek and the other around her waist, he drew her close. “But most of all I’m sorry for letting the music stop for you, Kathleen. I made a sacred vow to you, and I broke it. Can you ever forgive me?”
His voice could persuade saints to turn in their crowns. She imagined how it would be to let herself be persuaded. No more bruising herself against the walls, no more dark lonely hours, no more being one against the world. Just the blessed peace of hiding in the shelter of his love and letting Hunter fight her battles.
“I forgave you a long time ago, Hunter.” She hoped he didn’t see how dangerously close she was to being persuaded. “For a while I hated you for coming back too late, but Earl was a wonderful man and a good husband. There was no room for hate in my life.”
“Did you love him, Kathleen?”
“I married him. That’s all that matters.”
“Did you love him?”
“What do you want me to say, Hunter? That I never loved another man but you? That I never made love to my husband without wishing he was you?” She drew apart from him. “Yes, I loved Earl Lennox.”
It was no lie. She had loved him as much as she could ever love another man.
“I’m sorry, Kat. I had no right to ask that question. Earl Lennox deserved your loyalty.”
“How do you know?”
“I kept up.”
“You had me watched?”
“Yes. For a while. Until I was certain he would be good to you. And I make no apologies.”
“I’d forgotten that about you, Hunter. That you like to be king of the world.”
“That’s one of the things you loved about me.”
She wiped her face with the towel, remembering. He’d been like the young lion they used to visit in Audubon, sleek, beautiful, powerful, sure of his superior position. How she had loved his boldness. And how she loved it still.
But Hunter must never know.
“Loved is the operative word.”
“Your eyes give you away when you lie.... So does your body.”
Silently she cursed her own folly. Her leotard would hide nothing, neither the taut ripening of her breasts nor the heavy flutter of her pulse. Casually she flung the towel over her shoulder, then threw back her head and laughed.
“Dancing always excites me, Hunter. I suppose that’s one of the many things you’ve forgotten.”
“I’ve forgotten nothing. Nor have you, Kathleen.”
“Dancing is better than sex, Hunter,” she’d once teased. She’d been onstage at the high school, rehearsing for the ballet sequence in Oklahoma! long after all the other cast members had gone home.
“Better than sex?” A fierce light gleamed in the center of his eyes as he stalked her.
“Yes.” Her laughter was breathless, and already her blood was humming with anticipation.
“Beautiful lying vixen.”
He was standing in front of her now, his feet widespread, his thighs touching hers. Her breath sawed through her lungs.
Kathleen caught his dark head as he bent over her. His kiss sent her spiraling upward.
Suddenly he was laughing down at her.
“Shall we dance, Kat?”
“Where is the music?”
He touched his heart, and then hers. “There,” he said.
She shoved her leotard aside and wrapped herself around him.
“Let’s dance, Hunter.”
Joined, they’d waltzed around the stage until the music became a frantic jazz rhythm that sent them to the floor. Afterward Hunter lifted himself on his elbows.
“Better than sex, Kat?”
She kissed his lips. “I lied.”
“Lie to me again. I want to prove you wrong.”
Remembering, Kathleen faced the man she could no longer see.
“No, Hunter, I haven’t forgotten. We were magnificent together. But all that’s in the past.”
“And in the future. We will be magnificent together again.”
“I’m no longer sixteen. I don’t believe in that particular fairy tale anymore.”
He didn’t answer, but stood for a while searing her with his overwhelming presence. Then she heard him prowling the room. Hunter could never be still when he was disturbed.
“Please leave,” she said, even while a part of her mind begged him to stay.
“Not yet, Kathleen.”
His measured steps reverberated through her. The path of warmth she’d been standing in vanished, and she knew he was at the window, blocking the sun. Backlit by the sun, he used to look like a god descended from Mount Olympus.
Suddenly darkness overwhelmed her, and she had to bite down on her lips to keep them from trembling. How easy it would be to let herself depend on Hunter
.
She felt the sun on her face once more, and the solid disturbing presence of Hunter.
“How long will it take you to make a comeback, Kat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Make a guess.”
“Now that I can hear, perhaps no longer than six months.”
“I’ll make a bargain with you.”
“I’ve already made my bargain—with myself.”
“You were never a coward, Kat.”
“No. And I don’t intend to be. Don’t you see, Hunter? You’re so easy to depend upon. If you stay, I’m in danger of becoming a sniveling coward.” She held out her hands, and he took them. “Please... if you have any regard for me at all, give me the dignity of doing this on my own.”
“Can there not be dignity if you have the help of a friend? We were best friends, Kat, long before we ever became lovers.”
“Yes, Hunter. We were best friends.” He squeezed her hands, nothing more, just the good solid comfort of a friend.
“Let me be your best friend again, Kat, for six months. If at the end of that time you want me to leave, I’ll go.”
She was tempted, so very tempted. Hunter had taught her to swim and to ride a bike. He’d taught her to swing like a boy with her fists and to bait a fishhook without being squeamish. They’d skipped rocks on the river and sneaked their first smoke together behind the school cafeteria. Once he’d smuggled her into the boys’ locker room at the gym because she’d told him she wanted to see if she was getting the best bargain of the bunch.
“I have Martha, who should never have let you in. How did you get past her?”
“I insisted.” He turned her hand over and traced a heart in her palm. “Will Martha take you skinny-dipping in the river and motorcycling around the lake? Will she take you flying after dark so you can touch the moon?”
“Don’t tempt me, Hunter.” She released his hands and stepped back, aware of the burning imprint of the heart.
