He cut her off again. “I don’t take charity. And neither do my kids.”
Evie could feel the cold weight of his pride then; a wounded pride, the pride of a responsible man with money troubles. “No.” She spoke with some urgency, all at once really wishing that he might understand. “It wasn’t charity. Not at all. It was…” She ran out of words. How could she explain? How could she make him understand that it had been her own birthday present to herself? She had done it to see them smile. To see two little girls glowing with pride at the fabulous gift they’d give the most important man in their lives.
“I want the real price.” It was a command. “I’ll pay the difference. Here and now.”
Evie shook her head. “That isn’t necessary. I’ve already told you I—”
He cut the air with his cap. “The price. Now.”
Evie bit her lip and hesitated, wondering if she should just let it go. Let him pay her the money. But that seemed wrong. Beyond her instinctual certainty that she would be taking money he couldn’t afford to lose, she didn’t want the money. Because it really hadn’t been charity. However she’d lectured herself afterward for giving her merchandise away, she felt in her heart that she’d been paid in full.
She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it.
“The price was what they paid for it,” Evie said. “Six dollars and ninety-seven cents, including tax. That is all I have to say on the matter, so if you don’t care to purchase anything, I’d appreciate it if you’d please leave now.”
“I’m not leaving until I’ve paid what I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“The hell I don’t.”
This was going nowhere. Evie decided to end the exchange in the most expedient manner she could think of. She stuck her chin in the air and started walking. Her intention was to march straight to the back of the shop, through the hall and up the stairs to the safety of her rooms. Then, since he’d have no one to argue with, Mr. Riggins would be forced to go back to working like a dog to support his family and she could get on with her life.
But it didn’t quite turn out as she planned, because before she could get past him, Erik Riggins stuck out his hand and wrapped his big, paint-dusted fingers around her arm.
And that was when it happened. Something terrible and wonderful and totally impossible. In that split second, when his strong hand closed over her arm, the shop began to spin, as if the very walls had suddenly come alive around them. They stood still in the center of a shifting, whirling world.
And within the spinning, a bolt of physical desire rocked Evie, shook her right down to her toes. It was full-blown desire, a woman’s desire, dangerous and marvelous. Such desire as Evie had never known.
And in the charged air around them, colored lights seemed to swim and pop, bursting open to reveal centers of shimmering gold. Images flashed among the lights.
Evie saw herself and this man, naked, their bodies entwined on a couch in a light-filled room. He called her name. She clutched him close, her pale hands splayed across his bare, muscled back…
And then the room was gone, the lovers vanished. She saw a red bird in a cloudless sky. There was a woman, a woman with Becca’s eyes. Smiling in a dazed way, staring in wonder at the red bird overhead, the woman stepped off a curb and into the path of a large white delivery van. The driver slammed on his brakes, but it was too late…
Next she saw Nellie Anderson, a slightly younger Nellie Anderson. Nellie’s eyes were hard and bright, but her heart was full of pain. “If you marry him, I have no daughter,” Nellie said.
And after Nellie, she saw her own father, looking old and ill—even older than he’d looked a year ago in Santa Fe, when he’d found her there. His dark eyes were feverishly bright as he leered down at her in some dim, forbidding place.
“Everything’s gonna be just fine,” her father said. “Soon’s you see the light. Soon’s you and me go back into business together again. Everything’ll be like it used to be. You just wait and see…”
“Sweet heaven. What is this?” Erik Riggins whispered on a ragged breath. Through all the spinning and the lights, his voice came through to Evie as if it were inside her own head.
Something on the end of the counter near Evie’s elbow suddenly dropped hard to the floor, crashing to bits. In the same way, several books slid from their shelves. All over the shop, things rattled and shifted in place, as if shaken by a minor quake or a sudden fierce wind.
Evie heard all of this happening around her; she separately registered each individual sound. But she couldn’t move. She was frozen in place like someone slammed by a powerful, long-lasting electrical shock. And she could see Erik, see the stark bewilderment in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be able to move, either.
And then slowly, the colored lights and shifting images faded. The spinning world grew still.
Evie became aware of her own breathing, of the feel of her blood as it coursed through her veins. She knew then that she could move again, yet she remained perfectly still.
Erik moved instead. With great care, he released her, peeling his fingers away one at a time, as if he had to be careful, as if getting away too fast might land them right back in another incident like what had just transpired…
Finally, when he’d taken his hand away finger by finger, he dropped his arm and stepped back.
Evie’s mouth was dry. Her skin felt hot. She leaned against the counter a little, because her knees were shaking so badly.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice was raspy, more of a whispery croak than a true sound. All his anger and belligerence were gone. He looked baffled, totally stunned. “What was that?”
Evie didn’t reply. She couldn’t reply. Not right then.
“What happened?” he demanded, more strongly than before.
Still, she said nothing. She had nothing to say. No answers to his questions. In a life of out-of-the-ordinary experiences, nothing precisely like that had ever happened to her before. Always, once Evie put up the wall in her mind, nothing could get through.
And yet, with this man, the wall was as nothing. Twice now, he had overridden all her defenses.
“I asked you.” He spoke once more, pure bewilderment in his deep voice. “What was that? What happened?”
Evie stared at him, shaking her head. She felt weaker as each second passed. Her hands shook and her stomach felt queasy. “I told you. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
She looked down. She saw that he’d dropped his cap. It lay behind him. And her feet…her feet were damp. Littering the floor nearby were shards of glass. It took Evie a moment to piece these clues together.
Then she understood. The object that had dropped from the counter and broken had been the snow globe of the fairy princess that Jenny had admired the day before. The tiny, forlorn princess, flung from her miniature, snow-globe world, lay facedown, one of her wings bent, beside Evie’s right foot.
The sight of the princess was simply too depressing. Evie couldn’t just leave her there. She put a hand on the counter to steady herself and knelt to retrieve the tiny figure.
But, sinking to her knees was a foolish thing to do. She was far too weak by then. She got down there and wrapped her clutching fingers around the sodden princess—and then she had no idea how she was going to stand up again.
Her stomach churned, and the world went fuzzy around the edges. She felt drained, right down to her soul, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since those last years with her father, when she often expended immense amounts of energy in exercising the strange talents she possessed.
Evie closed her eyes and commanded her legs to straighten. “Oh!” She didn’t even know she’d uttered the word aloud as she opened her eyes and discovered she’d done it; she was on her feet once more. But the room still looked fuzzy.
Evie put her tongue between her teeth and bit down hard. The pain cleared her head a little. Using the counter for balance, she managed to remain upright—though how
long she was going to be able to stay that way she couldn’t have predicted.
“What is it?” Erik Riggins was saying. “What’s the matter?”
She lifted her head and made herself look at him. She saw honest concern in his eyes. “I…please. I’m very tired. If you would just—”
“You look awful. Your skin is gray.”
“Please. Just go.”
But he didn’t move. “You’re ill.”
“No.” She turned from him and groped along the glass counter, telling herself it wasn’t that far upstairs, she could make it if she went very, very slowly. “No, I’m not ill,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m only…tired. Very tired. If you would just go away now…”
“God help us,” she heard him murmur behind her.
“Exactly.” She sighed.
She felt cold. And the world had recommenced spinning again. But this time there was nothing supernatural about it. Evie was about to faint.
But then she didn’t faint; not exactly. It was more that her legs lost all their strength.
“Oh!” she said again as she started to sink to the floor.
She didn’t quite get there. Strong arms scooped her up. She landed against a broad chest. She felt warmth and strength—and the deep, steady beating of a powerful heart, his heart. She blinked and looked up at his face as it swam above hers.
“You caught me,” she whispered, amazed.
He looked down at her with soft eyes, eyes full of concern. Evie felt as if the sun was shining on her, warming her, filling her, so that the cold and the weakness were fading away. She smiled back at him.
“Where to?” he asked.
Evie didn’t care. She could have stayed there forever, held safe and warm in Erik Riggins’s arms. Still, somehow, she managed to instruct him, “My apartment. Upstairs, through the hall there.” She pointed to the back of the shop.
Without another word, he turned and carried her, as if she weighed nothing, through the shop to the hallway and up the stairs. At the small landing there, he hesitated. She reached out and pushed the door open onto her minuscule foyer. He spotted the big, soft couch in the living room. He strode to it, nudged the steamer trunk/coffee table back a little with his leg and laid her down with great care, as if she were delicate and breakable and infinitely precious. Evie reveled in such treatment—and she had to restrain herself from clutching for him when he gently moved away.
Then he was standing once more, looking down at her. “I’ll call and get you in to see Will Bacon right away.” Will Bacon was the practical nurse who ran the local medical clinic. “Where’s your phone?”
“No.” She struggled to sit up a little against the arm of the couch. “I’m all right. I really am. It’s only a…a momentary weakness. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
He studied her, his big head tipped a little to the side. “You do look better.”
“I am,” she said earnestly. “Much.”
He looked at her some more, then shrugged. “All right. But you should probably rest for a while.”
“I will.”
“And I’ll bet you’re thirsty. I sure am. I’ll get you some water.”
He was right, of course. Evie’s mouth felt papery, it was so dry. Still, she heard herself protesting, “No, really. I don’t need—”
But he was already turning, spotting the arch that led to her small kitchen and heading for it. She sat up a little more, as she heard cupboards opening and closing, then the water running.
He returned in less than a minute, the promised glass of water in his hand. He knelt at her side, the movement smooth and graceful for so large a man. “Here you go.”
Evie took the water and drank it down. It felt like heaven, so cool and fresh. When she was done, he held out his hand. She gave him the glass. He turned to set it on the trunk behind him.
She watched him, her eyes wide and wondering. He could be so harsh, yet there was great gentleness and simple human kindness within him, too. Most men, after what had happened down in the shop, would have gotten out of there as fast, as they could. Not many would have waited around to ask questions. And even fewer would have dared to touch her a second time—let alone have caught her up in capable arms, carried her right up the stairs and then run to fetch her a glass of water.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m feeling really good now. Just as good as new.”
He was studying her again. “Are you sure you won’t let me call the clinic?”
“No. It’s not necessary. As I said, I’m just fine.”
His gaze was on her lips; he was watching them move as she talked. She dipped her head a little and captured his glance. They looked at each other. She could see his concern for her in his expression. And yet his brow was not quite so furrowed as before. He seemed almost…relaxed now.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She frowned. “For what?”
“When I grabbed you like that, downstairs. I scared you to death, didn’t I?”
Evie started to tell him that he hadn’t scared her at all. But then she stopped herself as she realized what was going on inside him.
He was busy forgetting. He was making excuses for the incredible thing that had occurred between them. He was normalizing it. By tomorrow, he would only remember it as an uncomfortable moment when he had grabbed her arm.
Over the years, Evie had watched the process happen time after time. Under ordinary circumstances, people tended to do one of three things when confronted with the unexplainable: they sought to discredit, to destroy or to deny. And Evie was always grateful when they chose denial. Of the three, it was by far the least painful for her.
“Didn’t I scare you?” Erik asked again, seeking her complicity in his denial.
Evie made a small sound that he could take for agreement if he wished.
He took her hand. “Look.” His voice was kind and matter-of-fact—and every bit as warm as the fingers that were wrapped around her own. “About the pen set—”
She waved the hand he wasn’t holding, in which she still clutched the bedraggled fairy princess from the broken snow globe. “Please. I wanted Jenny and Becca to have the set, so I sold it to them cheaply. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Can’t you just let it go?”
Gently he released her hand and stood. “Sorry. I can’t do that. I’m just…not made that way. How much?”
She could see he wasn’t going to leave it alone. So she confessed in a whisper, “Two hundred dollars.” And then she spoke more strongly, “But your daughters already paid me—”
“I know, I know.” He chuckled, a wry sound. “Six dollars and ninety-seven cents.” He took some bills from his pocket and dropped them on the steamer trunk. “That should cover it.”
She looked at the money, and still didn’t want to take it. “Erik, I…” And then she was meeting his eyes again, blushing, realizing that she’d just addressed him by his given name for the very first time. It seemed a huge milestone.
And yet totally appropriate. Because everything was changed between them now.
It really didn’t matter how Erik chose to rationalize what had passed between them. The bare truth was that the two of them had touched on a deep and turbulent level; they were strangers no more. Now he spoke to her gently, he touched her with care and he looked at her as if she were someone who mattered to him.
“Erik.” She said his name once more, enjoying the sound of it. And then she remembered about the money again. “Listen, I really don’t want—”
“Shh.” He actually put a finger to his lips. “Rest now. And don’t worry. My girls have taste. That is a fine pen set. I know it and you know it. It’ll be worth a hell of a lot more than two hundred in a few years.” He started for the door to the little foyer and the stairs that would lead him down to the shop.
She couldn’t resist reminding him, “Don’t forget to take the pen set with you—now that you’ve paid for it.”
He paused to gl
ance back at her. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”
And then he was making for the door again. She couldn’t quite bear for him to go, so she said, unnecessarily, “It’s on the counter.”
This time he stopped and faced her fully. There was a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “I know.”
They stared at each other.
“And your cap…”
“My cap?”
“It’s on the floor, near the cash register.”
“Thanks.” They looked at each other some more. Then he remembered a question to ask her. “Do you want me to lock the door to the street?”
She considered, then decided, “No, no. I’ll go down in a few minutes. As I said, I really do feel fine.”
“Just take it easy, all right?”
“I will.”
“Take care of yourself…Evie.”
A warm flush of pleasure spread through her at the sound of her name on his lips. The very last traces of cold and weakness were washed away.
“I will, Erik,” she promised.
A long moment elapsed.
“Well,” he said. “I should go.”
“Yes. Of course. Goodbye, then.” Evie made herself stop looking at him. With a sigh, she stretched out on the couch once again and closed her eyes.
After another long moment, she heard him go out the door.
Chapter Four
At home that night after his children were in bed, Erik Riggins sat at his drafting table in the big upstairs room he’d claimed as a studio. He set the drafting table at a low slant and he did some experimenting with the fine fountain pen his daughters had given him for his birthday.
In free script, he began to write out the lyrics to the hymn, “Softly and Tenderly.” The words flowed, the nib scratching satisfyingly across the sheet of smooth bond paper.
When he’d completed the first verse, he sat back in his chair for a moment and stared at the words. The song had been one of Carolyn’s favorites. And in church Sunday, when everyone stood and started singing it, the melody had pierced him like a lance.
Just being in that particular place was hard for him. Carolyn had loved that old church so. But the song made it worse. A thousand times worse. The song had brought it all back, all the pain and the misery, the emptiness, the loss.
The Man, The Moon And The Marriage Vow Page 4
