“Oh, Erik…” She had no idea what she meant to say, so she let her voice fade off.
He didn’t seem to mind that she couldn’t complete her sentence. He sighed, then just stared at her. “I can’t believe it. That you’re here. That we’re alone. That I don’t have to leave—and neither do you.”
She nodded, feeling exactly as he did.
He pulled her toward the couch beneath the dark windows. “Come here. Sit down. I have so much to say.”
He pushed her down gently by the shoulders, then sat beside her and gathered both of her hands in his.
“Have you thought about this?” he asked. “About us?”
She swallowed and nodded. “It seems like I haven’t thought about anything else.”
“Me, too. It’s been on my mind all the time, since Monday night when I left you. I know it’s impossible, the two of us.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “No, I—”
“Wait. Let me get through this. Then it’ll be your turn, okay?”
She took in a breath. “Yes. Yes, all right. Go on.”
“All right. Listen.” He paused, looking toward the dark windows, collecting his thoughts. Then he met her eyes. “I’ve told myself all along that I’ve got to stay real with this. Besides having three kids to raise, I’m not out of the woods yet trying to pay off Carolyn’s hospital bills. A woman like you shouldn’t even be giving the time of day to a guy like me.”
Evie wasn’t going to sit there and let him run himself down. “That is not true.”
He held her hands tighter. “Evie, wait. Don’t get mad. I know you couldn’t care less that I’m in the red up to my eyeballs.”
“You’ll pay your debts. I know you, Erik. That’s the way you are.”
“Fine.” A rueful smile flitted across his features. “Go ahead. Believe in me.”
“I do.”
“I know. And I also know that I’ve been lying to you— and to myself—from the first.”
She gulped. “You have?”
“Yeah.”
“But what about?”
“About that stupid friendship thing.”
She understood. “Oh. That friendship thing…”
“It was always a lie.”
“Oh, Erik. It’s all right. It was my lie as well.”
“I’ve wanted more from the first.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“From that day at the end of August, when I first came to your store, everything’s changed for me. Can you understand that?”
“Yes. Yes, I—”
“It’s crazy. There’s no logic to it. Carolyn’s barely been gone a year and I’ve been…a mess, emotionally, after all that happened with her. She was mentally ill. I know that. In my mind, I do understand. But in my heart, I think I’ve always felt that she’d abandoned me. Left me alone with three kids to care for and a mountain of unpaid bills. I was sure it would take decades, till the kids were all grown, till I was an old man—hell, I guess, to be dead honest, I never thought I’d want to really be with a woman again.
“But then, there was you. And it was like some kind of miracle happened between us, that day in your shop. And nothing’s been the same since then. Now, anything—anything seems possible to me, do you know that? My girls are smiling and the days are brighter. And I can’t stop believing that together, we can make it all work out.” He lifted the two hands held in his and kissed her knuckles, one by one.
“I want more than friendship.” He looked right in her eyes again. “So much more. Even though I know damn well I shouldn’t even dare to hope that there could be more. So just tell me. Tell me straight. Could you ever love a man like me?”
His lips were so close to hers, saying all the things she’d prayed he might say. Evie thought, fleetingly, of the envelope down in the dining room, of the secrets it contained that he had every right to know before this went one step farther.
“Could you, Evie?”
She couldn’t stop herself; she nodded.
He exhaled then, as if he’d been holding his breath waiting for her answer. “Evie.” His voice was a caress in itself. “I want you so.” His eyes seemed to have the moon in them, as they had that night he walked her home after the first time she came here, when he told her how hard it was, to learn to dream again. “I want…to take you to my bedroom. To lay you down on the bed. Will you do that? Will you go with me?”
The envelope, a faraway voice in the back of her mind tried once more. She really should get the envelope…
“Evie. I’ll go crazy if you don’t answer. Tell me. Say you will.”
“Erik, I…”
“Just yes or no. That’s all you need to say.”
“I…”
“Yes or no?”
For a moment more, she hovered there, poised on an invisible line between the truth he deserved and the passion in his eyes.
“Evie?”
The passion in his eyes won out.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, Erik. I’ll go.”
Chapter Nine
Apprehension laid claim to Evie within seconds after she murmured, “Yes.” Yet she allowed herself to be pulled along when Erik took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom next door.
Once inside the room, he pulled her over to the bow window and left her there. The blinds were open. She tried to distract herself from the sudden hollow feeling in her stomach by staring out over the backyard and an open field. Off in the distance, silvered in moonglow, she could see the spihe of the Community Church.
Behind her, Evie heard a small dick, after which the room was just a little lighter. She turned and saw that Erik had flicked on a ginger jar lamp in a far corner, on one of the old maple bureaus.
She watched, her heart loud in her ears, as he came back to her. He cupped her face in his hands.
Their lips met.
The kiss was chaste. His tongue did not broach the soft barrier of her lips. Evie stood on tiptoe, pressing her mouth to his, wondering what in the world she was getting herself into, wondering if she could go through with this after all.
Oh, for a little of the self-possession that had been hers a few nights ago at her place. Then, she’d boldly strolled right up to him and begged for a kiss. She’d told him frankly that she knew nothing of men. And when he’d kissed her at last, she’d known real pleasure. Sensual pleasure. The kind they wrote about in books.
But the other night, they hadn’t been standing in Erik’s bedroom, not ten feet from his giant-size bed…
Erik lifted his head enough to look down at her. She saw the questions in his eyes. But instead of asking them, he gathered her close. Cupping her head with exquisite tenderness, he pressed her close to his heart.
After a moment, he whispered, “Is this too soon for you?”
She shook her head against his chest, not quite able to speak right then. She did want to do this. She truly did.
He stroked her hair. “You said you’ve never…”
She nodded tightly. “Yes. I don’t…I mean I haven’t…”
He pulled her closer. “Should I give you a few minutes? Would that help?”
Relief made her knees weak. Yes, that was just what she needed—escape, however fleeting. Time to regain a little composure. Her nerves felt like glass, so fragile, and on the brink of shattering into a thousand shards from outright panic. “Yes. A few minutes. That would be good.”
He guided her chin up. It wasn’t easy, but she made herself look right at him, she made herself smile.
“Have you changed your mind? You can tell me. It’s okay.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “No. I want to,” she managed to croak.
He put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back. “All right. A few minutes, then.”
“Yes. Good. Thanks.”
She shut her eyes, felt his hands fall away, heard the soft thud of his shoes retreating across the floor. The door to the bathroom closed with a snicking soun
d.
And Evie was alone.
She was also more frightened than before. In fact, she was absolutely terrified.
Maybe asking him to leave her alone hadn’t been the right thing to do, after all. Maybe she should have forged on with it, flung herself forward, not allowed herself a moment, like this, to start thinking…
With a low groan, Evie dropped her head back, not opening her eyes. She wanted to whirl on her heel and run out of the room—down the stairs and right out the front door.
She was thirty-three years old, for heaven’s sake. Much too old, as far as she was concerned, to be doing something like this for the very first time. Most women of thirty-three went into a bedroom with a man and knew what to expect. They didn’t worry about things like how much it was going to hurt. And when and how to undress. Usually a woman her age had at least an idea of what they were in for.
Evie hadn’t a clue.
And then there were the other things. The things even another thirty-three-year-old virgin wouldn’t be worrying about. Like whether that ginger jar lamp over there was going to lift itself into the air and throw itself to the floor out of nowhere.
Or if she would see things. Things that had happened in the past. Or things that hadn’t happened yet. Things no normal woman had any business seeing.
Because she wasn’t a normal woman. And it was very, very likely that, before this night was through, Erik was going to find out just how normal she wasn’t.
In the bathroom, Erik had turned on the water. She could hear it running.
He wasn’t going to stay in there forever. She had to get a grip on herself. She had to either turn and run, as she longed to do.
Or…
Evie looked at the bed. Erik’s bed.
And it was Erik in the bathroom. Erik. Not some stranger. Erik, who she trusted. Erik, who she…
The word came: loved.
Yes, she did. She loved him.
And that was the thing to remember. Her love. Whenever something—like what they were about to do together—seemed totally impossible, then’ she had to remember love. And that miracles were possible. Love was…more than a miracle, just in itself. And she loved Erik. And this thing they were about to do, this terrifying thing, well, it just had to be done, or she and Erik could go no farther.
In the bathroom, the water had stopped running.
Evie sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, as quickly as she could, she began taking off her clothes.
It was no easy task. Her fingers felt like ten thumbs. She tried to get them to unbutton her blouse, but they wouldn’t do it. So she yanked it from the waistband of her skirt and pulled it off over her head.
There was a padded seat in the bow window. She threw her blouse there. Then she shimmied out of her skirt and tossed it on top of the blouse. She got rid of her slip. When she couldn’t work the clasp on her bra, she pulled it over her head as she’d done the blouse. Then all that was left were her panty hose, her panties and her spectator pumps. She tore the panty hose getting out of them, but the panties and pumps got away unscathed.
At last, there she was, standing in Erik’s bedroom, as naked as a newborn. She ran for the bed, jerked back the covers and slid in. The sheets were cool. Shivering a little, she pulled the covers up beneath her chin and peered over the rim of the blankets.
For a moment, there was quiet—except for her own tornsounding breathing, of course. She could see the light beneath the door in the bathroom. But Erik wasn’t moving around in there. She wondered what he could be doing.
And then, with a sigh, she let her head drop back on the pillow and she looked at the high, molded ceiling overhead.
The door to the bathroom opened. Evie bit back an involuntary cry and lifted her head once more to peer, wideeyed, over the hem of the blankets.
Erik stood silhouetted in the doorway to the bathroom. He’d taken off his shirt, socks and shoes, though he still wore his slacks. She could clearly see the bunching of his muscles where his shoulders met his neck, the powerful shape of his arms and the way his broad chest tapered down to his waist.
He turned off the bathroom light. Evie, who’d been staring wide-eyed, was blinded by the afterimage of his body, there, in the doorway. She blinked and knew he was walking across the room—she could hear the whisper of his footfalls—but all she could see were shifting, popping flashes of him in the doorway. He went to the bureau in the corner and turned off the ginger jar lamp. The fading afterimage of him leapt into brighter relief for a moment, now the room itself was darker.
She heard him coming toward her as he approached the bed.
“Evie. Sweetheart.”
Sweetheart, she thought, bemused within her terror. He’d never called her sweetheart before.
He was standing by the bed now, on the other side.
She turned her head and blinked several times, trying to clear her sight.
“Evie, are you sure?”
She simply was not going to back out now. She reminded herself again that she loved this man. That love was a miracle and a miracle was going to happen here. Tonight.
She pressed her eyes closed and nodded.
Erik sighed. It was a resigned sort of sound.
Oh, this wasn’t going well at all. And it had all begun so beautifully, too, back there in his studio. But then they’d come in here. And she’d frozen up. And now it seemed as if Erik might be just as unsure of the wisdom of this undertaking as she was. Evie turned her head away and looked out the window at the almost-full moon.
On the other side of the bed, she heard the rustle of clothing. And then there was a slight draft, as Erik lifted his side of the blankets. The bed gave beneath his weight. He stretched out, settled the covers around him.
And then there was stillness. Evie rolled onto her back and lay looking up at the molded ceiling once more as the last of the afterimages finally faded away. She could feel Erik, a foot or two away, though not touching her. She just couldn’t make herself turn her head and look at him.
Gradually his body heat came creeping to her, banishing the coolness from when he’d pulled the covers back.
“Evie, do you know—” his voice, so calm and mild and out of nowhere, startled her a little “—that two people could sleep in this bed all night and never have to touch each other once?”
Was he being sarcastic? She shot him a quick glance. He wasn’t looking at her. He was lying on his back, as she was, and he had one big arm thrown across his eyes.
His tone, she decided, really had been offhand. If the comment had been intended to point out her distance from him, he didn’t seem to be all that bothered about it.
She said, “It’s a very big bed,” knowing how silly and self-evident the remark was, but not really caring. The important thing right now was to relax, to share a little conversation, no matter how utterly inane.
He seemed to think so, too. Or at least, he played along. “Yeah. When I was a kid, that was a major fantasy of mine.”
She knew what to say next. “What?”
“To have a bed like this.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.” He sighed and shifted his legs, settling in.
Evie realized it was her turn to talk again. She asked, “You mean because you were such a big kid?”
“Yep. From the time I was about twelve and I hit five-ten or so, my feet were always hanging off the end of the single bed that my parents had bought for me after I outgrew my crib. I felt like I was sleeping on a postage stamp. But my folks never had a lot of money. And there were three other kids besides me—four, including Tawny, who came along when I was fifteen. There was no way I was going to get a king-size bed while I was living at home. Even if they could have afforded it, there wasn’t room for one. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Evie replied. He certainly did sound relaxed as he chatted about his love of large beds. She darted another swift glance his way. He was still facing the ceiling and his l
eft arm still covered his eyes.
He continued, “I didn’t get a king-size bed until I was married. This is the second one I’ve bought. I gave up a lot of things, to try to pay all the bills. But not this bed.”
There was a silence. Evie realized it was once again her turn to contribute to the conversation. “Well. It’s a very nice bed.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The topic of large beds appeared to have exhausted itself. Evie cast about for something new to say.
But then she felt movement, between them, in the middle of the bed, down near her left hip. She realized his free hand was down there, under the covers. She stayed very still, longing for him to touch her at the same time as she feared that he would.
But he didn’t touch her.
The seconds ticked by.
And then carefully, she reached out. She found his hand.
Erik remained, as before, absolutely still. Evie inched her fingers over his palm and entwined them with his. He gave her a squeeze.
She realized she did feel better; she was more relaxed. She rolled her head to look at him and didn’t look away this time, “Erik?”
Slowly, he brought his arm down. He turned his head toward her and smiled. “Umm?”
The moonlight from the window behind her silvered his face. He looked so…very much a man. And good. A good man. His eyes were the gentlest eyes.
“Maybe,” she dared to whisper, “you’ve changed your mind. About this.”
Down under the covers, his hand squeezed hers once more. “Never in a thousand years.”
“Oh.” She looked away, then back. “I’m glad.”
He was quiet for a moment, looking at her, perhaps seeking something in her face, which he couldn’t possibly see too well with the window behind her as it was.
At last, he asked, “Which side do you sleep on?”
“Huh?”
“Do you sleep on your left side or your right? Or on your back? Your stomach?”
She pictured herself as she usually slept, turned on her side in her own bed. “Umm. My right side.”
He pulled his hand from her grasp. “Okay, then. Turn over. On your right side.”
The Man, The Moon And The Marriage Vow Page 11
