by Linda Jones
In truth, the only good times she'd had with Calvin had been in the dark or from a distance. By letter or by whisper. She never would've been comfortable with the big, beautiful man resting beside her, a long and comfortable silence stretching between them.
If Cyrus did truly care for her, and she was beginning to suspect that he did, was she a fool for dismissing him so easily? For deciding, without even giving him a chance, that a lawman who was a part of her past was completely unacceptable? She had begun to believe that he needed her in his life as much, perhaps more, than she needed him. If only she hadn't made such a colossal mistake with Calvin, then maybe ... maybe....
"Are you cold?” Cyrus asked.
Roxanne shook her head. “No. Are you?"
He sat up quickly, moving his long limbs with a masculine grace that was quite pleasant to watch. Strange, how lately she saw so much magnificence in this man. It was rather like suddenly finding extraordinary beauty in a sunset you'd seen every day of your life, like one day finding perfection in a simple flower that grew right outside your window.
"No. It's just that you.... “he hesitated, crossed his long legs Indian style as he faced her. “You shivered, a little."
"Did I?"
He'd kissed her once before, and right now she wished he'd try again. He'd shocked her so much the first time she hadn't responded at all. His lips had touched hers and then quickly moved away, without giving her a chance to taste, to really feel. Next time, if there was a next time, she would. Not now, of course, with all these Paris eyes on them, but maybe one day, when they were all alone again....
Roxanne made herself look away, setting her eyes on a group of children that ran in absolute circles. Just watching made her a little dizzy, but that was all right. What on earth was wrong with her? First Calvin and now this! She hadn't even thought of love for years, and now within a month she'd fancied herself falling in love with two different men. Surely this wasn't natural.
But she'd learned her lesson with Calvin. From now on, she would take matters slowly. Very slowly. And if it turned out she was not carrying Calvin Newberry's child, and if she still felt this way about Cyrus in, oh, a year or two, and he still seemed interested in her, and if he didn't despise her when she told him what had happened with Calvin, then maybe ... maybe they could have something real and lasting and wonderful.
Much as she dreaded telling him what had happened with Calvin, she had no choice. If she knew nothing else, she knew that she couldn't build her life with any man on a lie.
But how on earth would she tell him?
She jerked slightly, surprised, when Cyrus laid his hand on her shoulder. Almost immediately he moved his hand away, and she turned her head away from the running children to look at him.
"Are you all right?” he asked.
"I'm fine. I guess I was just ... daydreaming."
Why did he look at her this way? So hard and deep she shivered again, from the inside out, as if he knew her daydreams and nightmares, her secrets and her regrets. Silly thought. No one knew her deepest, most terrible secret.
Cyrus Bergeron looked like a man who had a few secrets of his own, and a few regrets, as well. If she was right about him, about their future together, one day she'd tell him of her greatest mistake. What would happen then? Would he understand and share his own secrets, or would he despise her for her single night of indiscretion?
"Tell me more about the farm you grew up on,” she said, desperate to change the direction of her thoughts.
"There's not much more to tell,” he said softly.
She felt a need to know him better, to look into his heart and discover the real Cyrus. “Why did you run away when you were only thirteen?"
He shook his head slowly. “It's not a pretty story, Roxanne. You don't want to hear it."
"I do,” she insisted softly.
He turned his head slightly, so that he no longer looked directly at her. She waited, patiently, for him to either fulfill her request or deny it.
"Gil liked to take his frustration out on me,” Cyrus said, his voice low. “I was convenient, a responsibility he'd never wanted, and his wife didn't make such a fuss when it wasn't one of her own kids he was beating on."
"He hit you?” Roxanne hissed, horrified.
Cyrus turned his head slowly to look at her, to really, really look at her. “On occasion. He liked to take his belt and just lash out at whatever he could hit. Usually I'd just cover my face and head with my arms, and let him have at it until he got tired. If I didn't make a sound, he usually didn't last long."
"He hit you,” she said again, her lower lip trembling in anger and indignation.
"One day,” he continued, ignoring her soft outburst, “he found me reading one of Jean's books when I should've been shoveling out the horse stalls. He took the book away, dragged me into the house, and made me watch while he tossed it into the stove. Made me so mad,” he said, leaning back again and watching the sky above. “The only time I wasn't completely miserable was when I got a few minutes to read, and he just watched that book burn while he told me what a worthless kid I was. When he took off his belt to teach me my lesson, I snatched it away from him and beat the stew out of him."
"Good,” Roxanne said heartily. “That's no better than he deserved.” Her anger simmered. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered beneath her breath.
Cyrus rolled his head to look at her, eyebrows raised in feigned shock.
"Well,” she whispered, leaning just a little bit closer. “If ever a man deserved to be called such a name, it's your despicable cousin. He hit you.” Her eyes filled with a tear or two, tears of anger rather than of sadness.
Cyrus laid a hand on her knee. “Honey, it was a long time ago."
Honey. He seemed to realize what he'd said about the time he did. He removed his hand from her knee and sat up.
"Sheriff Cyrus!” Mary Alice threw herself at Cyrus's feet. “Edith Terry's brother Frank got his kite stuck in a tree!” Her voice was urgent, the words insistent and loud. This was a disaster of major proportions. “Can you get it down? Please?"
"Where is it?” Cyrus followed the line of sight Mary Alice provided with her excited, shaking finger. Sure enough, a cluster of kids gathered around a tall oak tree, and far above their heads a brightly colored kite and a long rag tail fluttered, the toy tangled in the limbs.
He glanced at Roxanne and smiled, perhaps as relieved as she was by the interruption. “If you'll excuse me, duty calls."
Roxanne watched him walk away, led by an excited Mary Alice who practically ran as she took him to her friends on the other side of the park. When they were almost there the little girl reached up and took Cyrus's hand.
Yes, Roxanne thought as she watched the endearing scene, Cyrus was a kind man at heart. Maybe he was occasionally gloomy, and maybe he was a sheriff who carried a gun, but that didn't change who he was or how she felt.
She could thank Calvin for one thing, no matter how much he'd hurt her. She was finally able to put the past in the past where it belonged, she was able to think of Louis without pain. It didn't really matter that Cyrus was a part of her past, not anymore. For that, maybe she could forgive Calvin for breaking her heart.
As she watched, Cyrus lifted his head to study the situation. Kids gathered at his feet, solemn and hopeful. If anyone could save that kite, it was Sheriff Cyrus.
He removed his hat and handed it to Mary Alice, who took the offering with awe and reverence and held it gingerly as Cyrus clapped his hands together once and lifted his head. Roxanne stared at his back, at the shape of his shoulders and the handsome taper to his waist, at the length of those strong legs.
From a standing position, he leapt into the air and grabbed the lowest limb, hauling himself gracefully from the ground and into the tree. Roxanne's heart skipped a beat. He threw one leg over the limb in a move that was sheer poetry in motion, and so very familiar.
She shook her head as he disappeared into the leaves. There weren
't that many different ways to climb a tree, certainly. Just because Cyrus and Calvin both climbed trees in the same way, that didn't mean anything. From the back the graceful movement had looked disturbingly familiar, but it was just coincidence. Just one of those things. Like yesterday, when she'd looked down on him standing in the Smith's entryway and been so sure she'd seen him from that angle before.
Calvin didn't move the way Cyrus did. He lumbered, he was clumsy, at times he was uncomfortable in his own body. At least, by the light of day.... By night he'd been downright graceful, agile and poised. He'd been sure of himself, compelling, elegant. He had, in fact, moved much more like Cyrus than like the awkward Calvin who was so shy he could barely speak a coherent sentence in her presence. And she wondered....
She shook her head and made herself look away. Wishful thinking was one thing. Fantasy was another.
It had been a nice day, a good start in Cyrus's opinion. Roxanne looked great in her brightly colored dress. The pink made her skin glow, made her look younger, happier. Maybe she wasn't really happy yet, but he had a feeling she was getting there.
She was wary but not sad. Pensive, but no longer angry. Every now and then when she looked at him she fastened her eyes on him so hard and intimately he shivered. He liked it, he liked it a lot.
What he didn't like was the growing certainty that no matter what happened he was going to have to tell her the truth about the night he'd made love to her. He couldn't allow her to go through life thinking Calvin had used and then abandoned her. Couldn't let her go through life punishing herself for his mistake, for his weakness.
But not now, not today. When the time came the truth might not exactly be welcome, and he didn't want to spoil this fine day.
They walked, side by side, toward home.
"Cyrus?” she said, and there was a lilt in her voice that warned him she'd been thinking and wondering about something. “Are you familiar with Elizabeth Barrett Browning?"
She might as well have hit him in the chest with a log. He took a moment to think, mumbling and humming under his breath. “Let me think.... “What had her asking such a question?
"It's just that I've been introducing the older girls to her poetry, and I wondered if you'd ever read her work. That's all."
He breathed a sigh of relief. His imagination was getting the best of him. “Oh, she's a poet."
"Yes,” she said, apparently lost in thought. “'The face of all the world is changed, I think,'” she said dreamily.
Cyrus bit his tongue.
Roxanne flashed him an unexpected smile. “Perhaps I can loan you one of her volumes of poetry some time. She's my favorite poet."
"Sure,” Cyrus said, suddenly glad to see his house and hers ahead.
They stopped outside the wrought iron gate. As far as he was concerned, the day had been spoiled, just a little. Bringing up Browning had been a coincidence, right? Still, the coincidence sat in his chest like a brick. He opened his mouth to tell Roxanne goodbye and cross the street, to escape before she brought up the subject of poetry again.
She laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. The touch was familiar and jolting and arousing, and it was nothing more than her gentle hand on his forearm. She looked past him, down the street, and saw what he did—Josiah and Ada still a good distance from home but heading this way.
Roxanne opened the gate and stepped beyond, pulling Cyrus after her. Moving quickly, she slipped behind a nearby flowering hedge and placed herself directly before him, her body so close to his that if she breathed deeply her chest would brush his. He looked down at her lifted face, at her wide eyes, her full lips, her stubborn chin.
"Kiss me,” she whispered.
"What?"
With a despairing sigh, Roxanne rocked forward and laid her lips on his. At first he didn't move, the action was so unexpected, so shocking. But a heartbeat later he responded, moving his mouth against hers, sucking and tasting, slipping the tip of his tongue over her lower lip.
Her arms slid around him, and without thinking he dropped the blanket he carried and took her in his arms. She molded against him, and the kiss went on and on.
When she touched him he lost control, and this unexpected embrace was no different. In an instant, there was nothing but sensation and need and hunger, there was no one in the world but the two of them. He held her tightly and, eyes closed, danced his lips over hers. Ah, she was familiar and responsive and right, she fit against him in a way no other woman ever had or ever would.
Her fingers stroked his back, her well-remembered caress threatening to send him over the edge here and now. He teased her tongue with his own, and felt her responsive shiver in his arms. He even felt the moment when her knees went weak.
She took her lips from his and fell slowly away, and Cyrus's eyes drifted open. He could see the confusion on her face, the slight tremble of her lips as she retreated from him. The kiss had been familiar to him, bringing back memories of the night they'd kissed, the night he'd touched her and made love to her, the night he'd told her he loved her and then walked away.
Was the kiss familiar to her, as well? Was that why she looked suddenly scared?
"Looks like rain,” she said without so much as glancing at the cloud-filled sky.
"Yes, it does,” he agreed, never taking his eyes from her as she continued to back toward the front porch.
"We may even get a storm,” Roxanne said as she almost stumbled over the bottom step.
"Maybe."
She laid her hand on the doorknob, and as she did Cyrus heard voices approaching. Josiah and Ada were talking, arguing, about the new minister. There wasn't much time.
"Roxanne...."
She threw open the door and stepped inside with a quick goodbye, leaving Cyrus to collect his blanket from the ground and make his escape before he found himself face to face with Roxanne's aunt and uncle.
She'd pled a headache and retired early, and since that time Roxanne had done nothing but pace in her room and try to convince herself that she was wrong.
Maybe she just wanted to believe that it had been Cyrus beneath her balcony, in her tree, kissing and touching her in the dark. Maybe she just wanted to believe that all this time she'd been falling in love with one man ... not two.
Watching Cyrus climb the tree in Mallory Park had triggered these thoughts, but once she got started they kept coming.
Without stepping onto the balcony, she looked across the way to Cyrus's little house, to the window that faced her balcony. If he'd been watching for her after school, it stood to reason that he had, at least on occasion, watched her from that window. He knew she liked to spend the evening on the balcony, he knew because he'd watched a thousand nights.
The voice beneath the balcony had always been different from Calvin's usual voice. More refined, more confident. She'd known that all along, but had dismissed any discrepancies to the night and the dark and the husky whisper. She'd accepted because she'd wanted so badly to believe that she could have everything she wanted so easily.
She'd never seen his face, not after a few awkward words that first night. A few awkward words before he'd stepped beneath the balcony to collect his thoughts, only to reappear self-assured, with sweet words from behind that wide-brimmed white hat.
He'd never spoken so sweetly to her by the light of day.
And when she'd asked him to love her, what had he said? You don't love me. You're not mine.
Who'd written the letters? If it had, indeed, been Cyrus courting her by the dark of night, then he had also been the man to write the letters. Of this she was certain. The man who wrote the letters and the man who'd sat in the tree outside her window to woo her were one and the same.
She thought, again and again, about his kiss. When she'd surprised him that night, sneaking up behind him to finally take him in her arms, he'd taken her into the darkest possible shadows to kiss her. The smells, the sensations, the way his mouth and his body had molded so ideally to hers, all were as clear to her a
s if he'd just kissed her.
And how could she forget the way he'd hesitated when she'd asked him to love her, the way he'd tried—more than once—to stop what was happening between them.
The way he'd whispered I'm sorry as he lay, still cradled between her legs.
Cyrus had come into her mind that night, she remembered, and she'd tried to dismiss him. No wonder he'd come to mind! Something inside her knew, perhaps remembering the soft kiss he'd given her when he'd said he was leaving, perhaps unconsciously remembering his scent, his taste.
When she'd kissed Calvin the day he left, if you could call the cold brush of their lips a kiss, she'd felt nothing.
But this afternoon, when Cyrus had kissed her, it had been exciting and stirring, bringing to the surface memories she'd tried to bury deeply. The taste, the smell, the feel, the rush of her blood ... they all were familiar.
Still dressed in her rose gown, she paced the bedroom nervously. One minute she was furious with Cyrus, so furious she cursed him silently and vowed never to forgive him. The next minute she felt more confusion than anger, wondering if she could possibly be right or if she had deceived herself once again. Finally, relief flooded through her. A moment later she'd be angry again.
She paced to the window to watch Cyrus's little house across the road. So close ... he was so close and yet for years she'd been blind to him. Had he been the one? Was he the one? She had to know. She had to be certain.
Josiah and Ada had retired long ago, as had most of the residents of Paris, but a light still shone in Cyrus's house. He was awake, and she wouldn't sleep again until she knew the truth. Had he lied to her? Had he and his dimwitted deputy hatched some elaborate scheme to seduce her into marrying Calvin?
She sneaked from her room and closed the door quietly behind her. In the dark, she slipped down the stairs, feeling and remembering her way. When she stepped outside the front door and past the overhang, a few cool drops of rain hit her face and her rose colored gown. She didn't care.
