by Carol Arens
“I can’t claim to be sorry.”
“You’ve just made it clear to me that in some ways I’m still a virgin.” She curled her fingers into his shirt. “Come with me into the bedroom, Clark.”
“The children?” He nodded toward the blanket wall.
“Sleep like rocks.” She smiled up at him. “Even when I try to wake them, I can’t.”
“You mean a great deal to me, Lilleth. I think you should know that.”
She let go of his shirt, took his hand and tugged on it. “Come along, Clark. I intend to mean a great deal more.”
Firmly, resolutely, he dumped the voices of his parents, his siblings and his own nagging conscience into a deep mental well in his brain. He covered it with a lid.
Whether Lils was put in his path by a remarkable twist of circumstance or something more marvelous, here she was. He could no more turn away from her than he could the obligation he had cast into the bottom of his moral well.
He picked Lils up in his arms and carried her into her solid-walled little bedroom.
Chapter Ten
Lilleth had never been one to believe that blood could hum. Or if it could, it was a dull and dirty tune.
And yet notes that she had never known existed trilled through her.
She tried to sing them, which made Clark nuzzle her neck and quicken his pace.
“You sound like an angel, Lilleth,” he whispered against her neck. He set her down, but slowly, so that her belly slid over his hips and his...my word, but a man’s anatomy could go through some remarkable changes.
“I don’t feel like an angel.” She leaned across the bed to light the lamp on the night table. She turned the wick low, then straightened and reached behind Clark to close the door. “I feel rather wicked.”
Amber light flickered over his face. It lapped his shoulders and caressed his thighs where he stood at the foot of her bed. The bedroom was a small space, which made him seem taller, broader in the chest and more virile than any male she had ever met.
Something curious had come over her. This fanciful yearning for a man was a thing she had never expected to experience. Flighty women felt fanciful, not her. But there was no denying the fact that she wanted to be the lamplight, kissing the line of Clark’s cheek and stroking the curve of his lips.
Now, being well past the age of blushing maidenhood, she did just that. She reached up and felt the masculine shape of his jaw and the scrape of beard stubble under her fingertips. She pressed her thumb to his lips and traced his smile.
“You’ve never had a wicked day in your life,” he murmured against her flesh.
“You only just found out who I really am.” She lifted the glasses from his nose and set them beside the lamp. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“I told you...I know who you are.” He touched her hair and cupped the back of her head in his hand.
The gold flecks in his eyes seemed to swim in the blue, which had to be a trick of the bedside lamp.
“We’ve known each other such a short time,” she said. An old shadow began to take shape in her mind, then drifted away like a ghost.
He shook his head. “We were in love, a very long time ago.”
He didn’t know her, not really, but for this one night she would allow fancy thinking because she felt fancy...and dreamy, with a connection to this man she could not explain.
“You read too many books, Clark, but it’s a sweet game...pretending once upon a time.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “What were we like way back when?”
“So young that falling in love was the most innocent thing in the world.” She felt him kiss her cheek, and smelled his warm breath close to her mouth.
Suddenly the fabric of her dress felt heavy, the air in her lungs too thick to breathe. Clark pressed her palm over his heart. Beneath the woven cotton, it thumped against her fingertips.
Clark took a step back. She opened her eyes.
He reached for his glasses, but she plucked them up from the nightstand and hid them behind her back.
“I have secrets, too, Lilleth. Secrets that I have to keep.”
“Everyone has secrets.” Whatever they were, they couldn’t be as awful as hers were. It was unlikely that he was a kidnapper.
“I’ll sleep in the other room.”
She shook her head and reached her free hand toward him. There was so much about life that she didn’t know. At her age, she ought to know.
“Clark, show me why grown men cry when I sing a love song.”
He gripped her fingers, then sat down beside her on the bed.
He turned her face toward him, grazing her cheeks with his thumbs. He stroked her hair from root to tip, pausing for a moment over her breast. Her heart danced like a whirligig under her ribs. She wondered if he felt it against his knuckles.
“They cry for things that used to be. For things they can never get back.”
He kissed her sweetly before he stood up and walked backward three steps, looking perfectly miserable.
“Good night, Lilleth,” he whispered, then went out.
“Stars shine bright,” she murmured to the closed door.
The ghost in her mind took the shape of a boy for the space of one heartbeat.
“Good night, Trace,” she whispered, then rolled onto to her side and turned off the lamp.
* * *
Trace opened the cabin door and stepped outside. Snow swirled in circles.
He took a lantern with him down the stairs, scanning the ground for footprints. He breathed the cold air deep into his lungs. It stung, but that was nothing compared to the pain in his soul.
Everything he’d ever wanted had just been handed to him, and he’d turned his back on it for the sake of duty.
He didn’t know if he’d be able to help Bethany. For one thing, she might be in that room with the mammoth lock. Truthfully, the way the weather had been lately, and denied the warmth of a fire, would she have survived? He’d never heard even a whimper coming out of the cell, even though he’d called through the door.
The frightening truth was that it might be too late for Bethany.
The one thing he could do was take care of the spy.
He lifted the lantern and looked again.
Nothing. Any footsteps that might have been left behind by a prowler had been filled in with snow.
Back on the porch, Trace swiped the snow from his face, brushed it from his shoulders. He went back inside and bolted the door.
He didn’t think it likely, but there might be a prowler with the stamina of a polar bear.
He dumped another log on the fire, then sat down on the hearth with his rump toward the flames.
He tapped his fingers on his knees and wondered what Lilleth was wearing on the other side of the bedroom door.
He stood up when his backside grew hot. He strode to the window and drew back the curtain to watch the snow fall. After a few moments, the cat hopped up on the ledge, pacing and turning, and drawing its tail across his shirt.
“I reckon you need to go out.” The cat nudged his palm with its head. “Not a chance of that, sport, for you or for me.”
The cat purred, so he carried it to the chair in front of the hearth.
Trace settled into it. He ought to be used to spending the night in chairs by now. One would think the wood wouldn’t feel so hard on the bum.
With a stretch and a flex of its claws, the cat snagged the weave of his pants. Then, with a flip, it offered up its furry belly for stroking.
“You’ve never been in love, have you? You don’t look miserable enough.”
* * *
“Clark, wake up,” Lilleth whispered. A feminine hand shook his shoulder.
Trace cracked his eyes open a slit.
>
His back ached. When he had decided to sleep on the children’s bedroom floor the wood hadn’t seemed as hard as it did now.
The cat, which had been sleeping blissfully on Trace’s belly, stood up, stretching and arching. He leaped off and strode out of the blanket room, tail swishing.
“I’m going out.” Lilleth leaned over Trace wearing a heavy coat and a furry hat. She clutched a canvas bag to her chest that was clearly stuffed with food.
He struggled to his elbows and groaned. “Snow’s too deep to go anywhere.”
“Snowshoes.” She lifted her foot and brought it down on the floor with a clunk. “They were with all that junk in the back room.”
“Snowshoes or not, it isn’t safe to go out, even if the snow did let up.”
“That may be, but I won’t allow those poor people in the hospital to miss their Thanksgiving meal.” She shook the bag at him.
It was difficult to argue with Lilleth while she was hovering over him. He stood up, stretching the stiffness from his muscles.
“I’m going with you.”
“There’s only the one pair of snowshoes. Besides, I was hoping you’d stay with the children. If there is someone lurking about...”
He had to admit, it wounded him that she could launch into a mercy mission so wholeheartedly only hours after the intimate moments they had shared last night. It was almost as though she had dismissed the kiss and the fact that they had come within a heartbeat of making love.
“I’ll take care of Mary, Ma,” Jess said, popping his head out from under his blanket. “I’ll lock up good and tight after you leave.”
“You can call me Auntie now, Jess. I told Clark all about us.”
The boy sat up and blinked. “Are you going to help us get Ma out of that place, Clark? We’ve been wondering if my pa put you in our path so you would.”
Lilleth tilted her head to the side, staring up at him. She arched her brows, echoing Jess’s question.
He sat down on the bed beside Jess.
“Son, there’s nothing I’d like better than to break into Hanispree and get your mother out. The fact is, I...well, there’s—”
“Jess, Clark is a librarian,” Lilleth said. “Breaking folks out of mental hospitals isn’t what he is used to doing.”
“But he knows lots of things.”
“Well yes, that’s true. Perhaps if he has read about a breakout, he can advise me on how to go about it.”
All right, he deserved that unmanly observation of his skills, but it rankled.
“Give me your foot,” he said to Lilleth.
She backed up a step, shaking her head, narrowing her gaze at him.
He grabbed her ankle, untied the rawhide lacings of one snowshoe and yanked it off. He did the same to the other.
“What do you think you are doing?” Lilleth bent to grab them back, but he strapped them to his own feet.
Since it would have been useless to tell the Lilleth of old to stay safely at home, he didn’t tell the grown-up Lilleth to stay home, either.
“Come with me,” he said, stuffing his arms into his coat, then buttoning it up.
He opened the front door and turned to see Lilleth staring doubtfully at the one and only pair of snowshoes. Turning around, he motioned for her to hop on his back, piggyback style.
“Last chance.” There was something about watching her perplexed frown flash into a grin that made him want to laugh. Little Lils had accepted the call to adventure with that very same smile.
Holding the canvas bag in one hand, she dashed across the room and leaped upon his back. He hooked his arms under her knees and stepped outside. He turned to look at Jess, who appeared perfectly, delightfully, scandalized.
“Lock that door up good and tight, pal,” Trace said, and then trotted down the steps.
He felt like a boy again, cavorting with his Lils. It was easier than he would have thought to let the years fall away and remember how it had been to be happy and innocently in love.
* * *
Lilleth pressed her nose into Clark’s upturned collar. Even though the storm had passed, the weather remained bitterly cold. She took a deep breath, savoring the warmth, inhaling the scent of his skin where it permeated the wool.
Something had become perfectly clear during the half hour trek through the snow. Clark had not always been a librarian. To the casual observer he might appear clumsy, but nothing, she had come to discover, could be further from the truth.
A bookish man would not be able to carry a full-bodied woman and her bag of food all this way without wheezing and groaning. And for a man who claimed to be nearly blind without his spectacles, he hadn’t tripped over a single fallen log.
She’d be a flat note in a perfect melody if he needed them at all. Just as soon as he pulled those glasses out of his breast pocket was when he would begin to stumble about.
It was as clear as the icicles hanging from the eaves of the mental hospital, just coming into view, that Clark Clarkly was not the man he portrayed himself to be.
He had claimed to have secrets, but she hadn’t paid his confession much attention.
She’d been so caught up in wanting him that she hadn’t noticed much else. Even now, when the heat had cooled and a new day begun, she still wanted him.
Clark was handsome and virile, everything a man ought to be...and she wanted him to be the one to teach her things she had always considered foolish. To show her why a woman would surrender good sense, lay it at a man’s feet and be glad for it.
“It’s such a beautiful building,” she murmured, while Clark carried her past the big iron gate, held ajar by two feet of fresh snow. “It must cost Alden a good sum to keep up the appearance.”
“Appearance is all this place is. At its core, it’s ugly.”
“I’m curious about something, Clark. How did you discover how awful this place is? I wouldn’t think Hanispree’s secrets are something that a librarian would just stumble upon.”
“I’m nosy.” He shrugged.
She adjusted her weight against him. While he might not be showing signs of stress, her legs were becoming tingly where they hooked through the crooks of his elbows. “Is it safe coming here in broad daylight?”
“It’s not safe. But this was your choice, if you will recall.” At the back door of the inmates’ quarters, he set her down. “You were right, though, Lilleth. There’s no telling how cold and hungry the people inside might be.”
“Who are you, Clark?” She stared at him while she stomped the tingling out of her legs. A flicker...a shadow crossed his eyes. “Who are you really?”
He didn’t answer. He turned the knob on the back door, but it was locked. Last time they had come it had not been. Walking inside had been as easy as entering her own front door.
“Follow me,” Clark said. The snow under the eaves of the buildings was not too deep. She was able to walk over it without needing his help.
He pointed to a window a few feet above his head. “We can get in this way if the sash isn’t frozen to the frame. Can you stand on my shoulders?”
“I grew up freer than most boys.” Clark looked away from her all of a sudden. Clearly, he didn’t believe her. “Stoop down.”
She stepped on his shoulders, crouched, then braced her gloves on the wall.
“Okay, stand up slowly.” She climbed the wall with her hands, stretching taller as he elevated her. She and Bethany had used this trick on a few occasions.
Level with the window, she tried to slide it open. “It won’t budge.”
“We’ll have to try and jar it loose.”
She hit it with her fist, but it held firm.
“How’s your balance?” he called up.
“Better than yours.”
She thought she h
eard a curse, but she must have misheard. This was Clark, after all.
His shoulders shifted. She held on to the window frame. A moment later he handed her a snowshoe.
It took a few whacks, but she freed the window and shoved it open. She scrambled inside, then looked back. Clark reached up to give her the bag and the other snowshoe and then jumped, gripped the sill with his fingers and pulled himself up and inside.
Very interesting, she noted. It took a good bit of strength to do that. Most men wouldn’t have managed it.
He went to the back door and leaned the snowshoes against it. If anyone came in that way they would clatter to the floor.
Very clever, Clark. You are more than you seem. Her thoughts came up short when she heard a voice.
“Everyone is cold, Mrs. Murphy.” The speaker sounded edgy...more than impatient.
“We wouldn’t be if you’d use the fireplace for its intended purpose, Nurse Fry.”
“Hush your mouth, you old hag. Be grateful that you aren’t out in the snow.”
“I’ll be grateful when I pass to my Maker and leave your nasty personage behind.”
“Those belligerent words will get you tied to your bed without your breakfast.”
“For all the good that will do you.” Mrs. Murphy’s aged voice crackled in laughter. “The ghost will set me free the moment you leave here.”
“You’ve done it now. It’s the ropes for you.”
Bedclothes rustled. The old woman tried to stifle a grunt.
“You are a bully, Miss Fry. The ghosts don’t take kindly to bullies.”
“Ghosts? So there’s more than one now?” Nurse Fry snorted in derision.
“Why yes, the specter has got himself a brand-new bride. A pretty thing, too, and so kind.”
“It’s no wonder you’re locked up in here, you crazy old loon.”
“In my time, I was as sane as you are, and prettier by far.”
“I’m going to have to slap you for that. Insulting the staff is against the rules. Let your ghost friends help you now.”
Clark lunged forward, but Lilleth touched his arm, stalling him and drawing him around the corner, where the stairwell led to what she feared to be Bethany’s frigid cell.
