Love's Tender Warriors

by Radclyffe

Sean nodded, raising one trembling hand to wipe the moisture from her face. “And then she left.”

  “Oh, Sean. I’m sorry.”

  Sighing, Sean tried a tremulous smile. “I never would have believed this could happen to me. Love, I thought, would be a quiet friendship, a comforting companionship. I was so sure that this kind of passion just wasn’t for me. I never dreamed it would consume me the way this has—devouring me from the inside out.”

  Ellen barked out a laugh, running both hands briskly over her face. “Welcome to the club.” She eyed Sean speculatively, knowing that there must have been something extraordinary between the two women to have so unsettled her reserved friend. “And then she...backed out?”

  “More like ran.” Sean shook her head, still stunned. “I can’t believe she’s gone, and that she’s taken every shred of my composed, orderly life with her. Every cell in my body misses her.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “I wish I knew. God, how I wish I knew. One night we were making love—we were closer than I imagined possible. It was truly amazing. Well, for me at least.” The eyes she turned to Ellen were wounded, bereft. “And then the next day, within hours almost, she was gone.”

  “That’s got to be so hard.” Ellen wasn’t all that surprised, although she’d never say it out loud, not when Sean was so clearly devastated. The few times she’d seen Drew, she’d been struck by how the woman seemed always to hold herself apart. She was amazed that Drew had allowed Sean to penetrate those defenses even for one night. Definitely something extraordinary must have happened between them—especially if it shook Drew enough to send her running.

  “Yeah, well, comes with the territory, I guess. Love doesn’t carry any guarantees.” Sean straightened, determined to get a grip on herself. She didn’t notice Ellen flinch.

  “She might come back, you think?” Ellen asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. And even if she does, what then? She made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want me in her life.”

  Ellen chose her words carefully, not wishing to inflict further pain on her friend. “Do you want to be in her life?”

  Sean was surprised, remembering that she had asked her sister almost the same thing about the redhead presently sitting across from her. “Yes,” she said emphatically, feeling alive for the first time that evening. “Yes, I want us to be in each other’s lives. She made me feel things that no one, no one, has ever even come close to making me feel. She did it with her tenderness and caring, with the way she wanted me. I’m thirty-two years old, and I felt as if I took my first full breath the night she touched me.”

  Ellen believed her. She knew it would take a powerful combination of strength and vulnerability to reach into Sean’s heart, and Drew Clark seemed nothing if not those things.

  “I hope she comes back then. I really do.”

  “Yes,” Sean whispered, “so do I.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It took another two weeks before Sean felt ready to return to the dojang. What kept her away wasn’t just the knowledge that she would miss Drew so much more there, although that was part of her reluctance. She also doubted that the school would ever be the same for her again. When she’d found Drew, she’d found some essential part of herself, and for that she would always be grateful. But Drew’s abrupt departure had left her simply too drained to face any challenges beyond getting through the days for the people who counted on her—her clients and her sister.

  At length, after she had cried herself out, her fundamental strength of purpose reemerged. She began to reassemble the order of her days, and, although her soul ached, she knew it was time to move on. When she stood at the door of the Golden Tiger Kwan and bowed to Master Cho and Sabum Roma, some part of her came home.

  “Good evening, Master Cho, Sabum Roma,” she said softly.

  “Sean,” Janet Cho said warmly. “You are back now?”

  Sean smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I am.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes, it is,” Sean replied quietly, trying not to listen for the sound of Drew’s deep voice or to look for her among the women moving in the periphery of her vision. She’d always had a sense of where Drew was in the room, even when she wasn’t looking at her, and now that void echoed in her depths. Steadfastly, she ignored it.

  Janet watched Sean carefully as the evening progressed, looking for signs of the state of Sean’s heart. What she saw was a new depth of communion between body and spirit, and she thought that despite the pain, Sean had managed to look inside herself and discover greater self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

  She couldn’t help but think of another woman who also struggled fiercely. A skillful fighter—selfless and brave—Drew had a warrior’s soul, and Janet would trust her friend with her life. But she feared that Drew lacked the inner harmony to save her own life, if tested. It had been said that the greatest warriors did not fear death and thus never hesitated in battle. Drew Clark did not recognize that her greatest enemy lay within her own heart, and for her, death might be all too welcome.

  “Sean, you will spar with Gail.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sean replied without hesitation, glancing at the young woman across the room who had played such a large part in causing her sister so much anguish. She had known that eventually she would have to fight Gail again. As Sean pulled on her head gear, she tried to find acceptance of the fragile humans, herself included, who fell victim to the convoluted workings of the heart.

  She tapped her leather gloves gently to settle them and faced her opponent.

  “Black belt rules.”

  Sean met Gail’s eyes.

  “Bow.”

  She let the anger go.

  “Begin.”

  Using her long legs and quick hands to advantage, Sean fought with control and precision. Again and again, she slipped a fist past Gail’s guard to make firm but careful contact with Gail’s chest or ribs. Sean took care with her strikes, keeping the contact tolerable, but she also took each opportunity to score.

  Gail responded by raising her own level of fighting. She extended herself with double kicks powered by her strong thighs, blocked crisply when Sean hooked punches to her face, and followed with well-executed combinations of her own that scored on Sean’s torso and head.

  When Janet called time, both women were exhausted.

  “Now,” Janet stated triumphantly, “you both fight as you would need to fight on the streets—with your mind and your body as one. Remember this fight—the quiet of your thoughts, the calmness of your body. This is what you must have to win.”

  “Thank you, Sean,” Gail said softly, her eyes holding Sean’s.

  “Thank you, Gail.”

  When they bowed to one another, they had fought more than a physical battle, and each had emerged a victor. In this place, at least, they had made peace.

  *

  The lights in the office were burning when Sean pulled into the carport. Ellen was working late again. She had been there well into the evening every night for weeks. On impulse, Sean took the stone path down to the office.

  “Hey,” she said as she let herself in.

  Ellen looked up from her reading. “Hi, Sean. So you made it back to class.”

  “Yeah.” It was stuffy inside the small room despite the cool autumn night, and she sniffed the air suspiciously, raising an eyebrow as she did. “Did you start smoking again?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Mind if I open a window?”

  “No, go ahead. Sorry about the pollution.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “So,” Ellen asked tentatively, “how was your first time back?”

  “Good, real good. It was time. It helped a lot.”

  “Did it bring up feelings about Drew?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” Sean’s eyes grew dark, and her voice was tight. “Let’s just say it was hard. I...miss her.”

  “Sorry.” Ellen blew out a weary breath. “You’d
think I’d know better than to ask.”

  “It’s okay. Forget it.” Sean settled one hip on the corner of the crowded desk and took a good look at Ellen for the first time in weeks. The redhead had always been lean, but now she bordered on gaunt, and there were circles under her eyes that looked like excavations. Her hair needed cutting; it was straggling over her collar in the back. “You know, though, you look like shit.”

  “Thank you,” Ellen said dryly. “I really needed to hear that. Now we’re even.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem.” Ellen started to say more, then stopped herself. By unspoken agreement, there were certain topics that they had been avoiding for the sake of preserving their professional partnership.

  “What?” Sean probed.

  “I was wondering how Susan’s doing,” Ellen said softly.

  Sean blew out a long breath. “She’s sober. She’s in therapy—”

  “Susan’s in therapy?”

  “Twice a week for the last month.”

  “My God, I can’t believe it.”

  “Losing you really shook her, Ellen. This therapy may be the only good thing to come out of the whole mess.” Sean spoke more harshly than she had intended, but she felt every ounce of her sister’s pain.

  “Maybe,” Ellen said woodenly. “If anything about this turns out positive, I hope it’s for her.”

  “What’s going on?” Sean heard the despondency in Ellen’s voice.

  “Nothing all that unanticipated.” Ellen shrugged and looked away. “I’m not seeing Gail any longer.”

  Sean’s surprise was evident. “What happened?”

  “I discovered lust isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Ellen laughed without humor. “It’s hard to live on just sex for very long. I was lonely.”

  “Susan is lonely, too,” Sean said gently.

  “Well, it sounds like she’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, come off it, Ellen,” Sean exploded, her anger stunning Ellen with its intensity. “Susan is miserable. She loves you—she’s never stopped loving you. She’s in therapy, and I’m damn glad she is, because she’s trying to understand how she lost you. I know she screwed some things up, but you have some part in this, too. Susan is an open book, for God’s sake. You know how hard it was for her when our parents split up. You must have been able to see that she was terrified that would happen to the two of you, so she kept one foot in the only safe place she had.”

  “Right,” Ellen retorted heatedly. “Right here at home with you.”

  What the hell does that mean? Sean bit back a retort, trying to calm down, and forced herself to look at the life she and her twin had made for themselves. From their first breaths, they had been together. Even the distance in miles during Sean’s marriage had not severed their deep emotional connection. They could finish each other’s sentences from across the room or from another state. And for the last few years, they had built a safe haven for each other—more than a home, an emotional sanctuary as well. Ellen and Susan had only been together a year before Sean had moved back to Philadelphia to live with her sister. She wondered now if her return had made it too easy for Susan to keep Ellen at a distance. Just like I avoided any emotional attachments at all. Until Drew.

  That thought she put quickly from her mind.

  “I never realized—” Sean began.

  “I know,” Ellen interrupted, the heat gone from her voice now. Only sadness remained. “And I was too insecure to make an issue of it. I took the easy way out, too, Sean. I didn’t want to bring up the hard stuff, so I just kept hoping it would all work out. I settled for less and less and got angrier about that every day, until I turned to someone who obviously wanted me.” She snorted in self-deprecation. “At least, she wanted my body.”

  “Oh, Ellen—you’d think we would have done better, all of us.”

  “Why?” A touch of Ellen’s old humor returned. “Because we can help others step back from their lives and find new solutions? You think that makes us experts on our own lives? Ha—we all have blind spots when it comes to ourselves.”

  “You and Susan and I are a family, Ellen,” Sean said vehemently. “We need to work this out.” She stopped and studied Ellen. “That is, if you still love her.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ellen exclaimed, tears in her eyes. “I do, with every bit of me. I never stopped.”

  “Then you’ve got to make this right.”

  “How can I expect her to forgive me after what I’ve put her through?” she asked despairingly. “And what about trust? I’ve ruined it all, haven’t I?”

  “You can’t ruin love, Ellen. You can test it and try it, and you can hurt those who love you...” She saw Ellen wince, but she kept going. “Just as they can hurt you. But you can’t ruin it. Stop tormenting yourself.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “There’s this antiquated thing we therapists call talking.” Sean laughed. “Maybe you and Susan should try it.”

  “What a novel idea,” Ellen rejoined, looking hopeful for the first time in months.

  *

  Sean was later than usual getting to class the next night because she had spent an hour on the phone with a client in crisis. By the time she was satisfied that the woman could wait until the morning to see her, she had barely enough time to gather her gear and navigate the rush hour traffic into the city.

  As she tied her uniform and dug in her bag for her belt, Master Cho approached. “You will teach class tonight, Sean.”

  Sean’s stomach did a neat flip and her throat closed, effectively preventing speech. She’d known that she would be expected to teach as part of the requirement for her black belt, but she’d hoped to have some warning and a little more time to prepare. Swallowing, she managed to answer smartly, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good, good. Ah, I see we are all here. You can bow the class in whenever you are ready.”

  Sean followed her teacher’s gaze, and then her heart tripped and seemed to stutter to a stop. Drew stood at the door.

  “There is a black belt waiting, Sean,” Master Cho chided gently.

  Sean could only stare, unwilling to believe her eyes.

  “Sean.”

  Janet’s voice seemed far away. Despite the lump in her throat, Sean managed to call out in a tone stronger than she thought herself capable of, “Face the door.”

  Immediately, the entire class turned as one to face Drew.

  “Chariot.” The snap of hands to sides was like thunder in her ears.

  “Kung ye.”

  Sean bowed, as did everyone in the class, but her eyes never left Drew’s face. Drew returned the bow, her eyes riveted on Sean.

  On wooden legs, Sean moved to the front of the room. Janet Cho stood to her left, Drew stood to her right, with Chris Roma beyond her. All Sean was aware of was Drew only inches away, militarily erect and resplendent in her black gi, looking even more beautiful than she remembered. The air seemed charged, electrified, and Sean realized her skin was tingling.

  “Line up,” she called so they could recite the opening tenets, and the class fell into formation facing them. The black belts and Sean turned to face the golden tiger emblem on the front wall.

  The senior students began the litany Sean had repeated countless times.

  “Tenets of Tae Kwon Do…”

  “Integrity.”

  “Perseverance.”

  Sean knew she was repeating each word, but she couldn’t hear her own voice over the blood rushing in her head. When at last the bowing-in ceremony was over, Master Cho took her seat at the front corner of the room, her favorite spot to watch each student when she wasn’t actually leading the class. Chris Roma and Drew Clark joined the class at the head of the first row of students.

  Sean’s mind was completely blank. She put her hands behind her back to hide the trembling. She called the class to attention and twelve bodies moved, fists outstretched, legs spread, every eye on her. All she could see was Drew, just as she had envisi
oned her as she lay struggling for sleep for so many lonely nights. Precisely-cut blond hair, piercing blue eyes, the perfectly controlled body, waiting for the order to attack. Exquisite in her power.

  The passing seconds seemed like hours to Sean, and then Drew nodded almost imperceptibly, her face softening for a brief instant, and that look was in her eyes. That look Sean had come to count on and that she had missed so much—that warm, gentle welcome. Sean found her voice.

  “Left front stance,” she called.

  As the class stepped sharply, breath exploding from them, Sean caught the spirit of the women before her. Women willing to do more than they had ever dreamed physically possible, willing to return night after night, bruised, aching, tired, to begin again, pushing themselves a little further along their own paths, for their own private reasons. They were united in their willingness to pay with their sweat and their humility for the chance to do battle with life on their own terms. Sean asked them to display their skill and determination to their teacher, unconsciously guiding them from one technique to the next in a choreographed pattern of flashing hands and flying legs.

  Thirty minutes later when she called a halt, their bodies were soaked with sweat and their chests heaved from the exertion, but they looked at her with faces filled with pride. They knew they had done well. She bowed to them, a symbol of her deep respect for their effort. Then she turned to her teacher and bowed to her. Janet Cho stood and returned her bow.

  “Well done, Sean,” she said simply. “Line up for forms. Master Clark, you have Sean, please.”

  Drew bowed. “Yes, Master Cho.”

  Sean and Drew moved to the front corner of the room while the rest of the class moved away to work on drills.

  “Your highest form, please, Sean,” came the rich voice Sean remembered.

  “I don’t know...if I can,” Sean said softly, her entire body trembling. She’d made it through the beginning of class because she’d been on auto-pilot, but now, alone with Drew, she was overwhelmed by too many conflicting emotions. Joy, fear, hope, anger. “I—”

  “You can.”