“Sex won’t prove anything.”
“Are you sure? It sounds like a good idea to me.”
It sounded like a good idea to her, too. Which couldn’t be right.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Russell.”
“Russ. Call me Russ. I like the way it sounds when you say it.”
“Tomorrow.” She fled into her apartment.
* * *
“Who is it?” Heather’s voice came over her intercom.
“It’s Cynthia. Can I come in? It’s cold out here.”
Heather’s electronic latch clicked and Cynthia pushed her way past it.
“In the living room,” Heather called. “I’m getting drunk.”
Cynthia navigated past discarded shoes, a coat, and a sweater-set to find Heather clutching a deep pink strawberry margarita and wearing a terrycloth bathrobe.
“Come to gloat?”
She sat down next to her friend. “You know that’s not what this is about.”
“I hope you two will be happy. If I can’t have him, I’m glad it’s you who gets him. Did you see the way Brandi Featherstone looks at him, always pushing her oversized tits over his arm like she needs to polish it?”
“I don’t know what to do, Heather.”
Heather hiccupped, then took another swig of her drink. “Get married, have babies, write articles for the Advertiser-Gazette. How hard is that to figure out?”
“I can’t be happy if you’re not happy.”
“Bullcrap. I’ve been happy when you were miserable. It didn't bother me at all 'cause I didn't even notice.”
“I’m serious, Heather. I’m not going to steal your man away from you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions.”
“As if. I heard you at the COC meeting. ‘Get your hands off of my fiancé,’ I think you said.”
“Since then, we broke up.” Heather took another swallow, then stood, stumbled over to the blender and poured herself another glass.
“How many of those have you had?”
“Not even close to enough. I still have feelings in my toes, and in my heart.”
“I can move away, Heather. Once I’m gone, you won’t have any problems getting Russell to come back. And don't worry about Brandi Featherstone.”
Heather tried to sit on the couch, missed, landed on the floor, then continued to roll until she’d turned a backward summersault, all without spilling a drop of her drink.
“Learned that in cheerleading,” she giggled.
“What do you want me to do?”
Heather slammed her drink onto a coffee table. “You want me to make your decisions for you? Grow up, Cynthia. You’ve got to do it for yourself. I know I’m going to start trying. I should have realized that Russell and I were only together out of habit. We were a teenaged crush that just sort of went on because it was easy and comfortable and made our parents happy. I should have guessed his heart wasn’t in it when I had to ask him to marry me rather than the other way around. That’s why I broke up with him.”
“You broke up with him?”
Heather squinted at her, her eyes coming into focus, then wandering out. “Didn’t he tell you that? I gave him back his ring.”
“But what about you?”
“I’m a freaking ex-Miss Missouri. I can do anything I want. Maybe I’ll go on a 'round-the-world cruise or take bridge lessons.”
“Andrew knows bridge.”
“Andrew is a beta-boy. He wouldn’t kiss me when he had the chance.”
“You’re going to be all right, though?”
“I’m a fighter, Cynthia. I’ll be fine. And no, I’m not going to fight you for Russell. For Russ. You know he’s not the same person, don’t you? You changed him. Ruined him for us other women.”
“But—“
“But if you want to help, I think I’m going to be sick now.”
* * *
She finally got Heather into bed at around two in the morning, took a quick shower and then headed out.
She sat in her car for a moment, trying to decide what to do next. A front had come in from the south while she’d been with Heather. For a couple of hours, thunder had boomed and hail had rattled the windows. But now, Spring seemed to have descended. She didn’t even need her car’s heater.
She should go home. She no longer needed to worry about Heather. Her friend was right: she was a fighter and a survivor. And there would be plenty of men who would line up to take Russell’s place.
That realization brought Cynthia face to face with the truth.
All of her rationalizations had been just that. She’d maintained a crush on Russell partly because he was unattainable. She’d fallen for Russ partly because she’d known he wouldn’t be around and his leaving wouldn’t be her fault.
If she accepted Russell now, and if he later left her, she would be destroyed.
It would have been safer and easier if he had never gone away to war, had never come back with his body damaged and his mind turned inside out, if he’d remained perpetually beyond her reach.
Without conscious thought, she turned right where she should have turned left and then continued on, driving down to the old section of town where Russ’s converted warehouse stood.
A light glistened in the second floor and, as she watched, a shadow moved across the window.
He was still awake.
She switched off her engine, let the headlights fade into darkness, the only illumination now coming from the glow in Russ’s room.
Her body cried out to be with him, to make up for lost time. But her fears could not be overcome so quickly. If she went up to him now, she would be risking everything.
His curtain shifted and he peered out as if he had sensed her beneath him, watching.
She knew he could never see her. The light from his room would blind him to the darkness outside. Still, she froze in place, as if she were a prey and he the hunter.
She’d always thought of Russell as strong, confident, certain of his future.
He still looked strong, of course.
Silhouetted against the window, his shirtless body rippled with muscles, the dark scars of his injuries cutting deep into him. His face looked decided, but concerned. As if he faced something beyond his control, could only wait to see what would happen.
She’d seen that look on his face only once before—when they’d been working on the levy during a river flood, after they’d placed all the sandbags they’d had and could only wait to learn if the river would crest safely or wash away all of their work—and the homes of hundreds.
It awed her to think that she was a river to Russ, that he looked forward to her decision with the same resolution and strength that he’d looked forward to learning if they’d stemmed the mighty Missouri’s force.
She opened her car door. She didn’t know what her decision would be, but she intended to make it now, not make Russ to continue to wait.
* * *
Russ reached behind him and flipped off his bedside lamp. There was something out there. Instincts, honed by months of battle, let him know when he was being watched.
A flash of movement below proved his instincts hadn’t failed him.
He slipped downstairs, out the back door, then floated around his building.
The intruder was almost to his door when he grasped him—her from behind.
Her scream let him know he’d made a mistake. “Cynthia?”
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“I thought you were going to give me your decision tomorrow.”
She looked at him, taking in his injured body, her gaze gliding off the deep scars that marred a body that had once been flawless.
Well, he couldn’t help that, and frankly it mattered less than nothing any more. It was merely another way that the war had changed him.
“I needed to see you.”
Hope soared through him. “You’ve decided.”
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “No.”
Part of him wanted to persuade her, but what could he say that he hadn’t already said? He’d told her he loved her. He’d begged her to spend eternity with him. He’d explained how the war, his injuries, and the body-memories from Russ had opened his eyes to the truth about how special she was.
There was nothing he could say that he hadn’t already said.
But there was something he could do.
He caught her in his arms and carried her across his threshold, into his home.
“Put me down.”
He did set her down, but he didn’t let her go. Instead, he drew her to him.
Her body molded itself to his own, a perfect fit.
He put a finger under her chin and turned her face up to his, lowered his lips to hers, and kissed her.
Maybe this was the worst thing he could do. Perhaps he would frighten her away by the strength of the desire he felt for her, persuade her that their attraction was merely physical. Still, he couldn’t help himself, didn’t even want to help himself. He was past speaking, arguing, persuading. He could only hope that Cynthia would see how critical she was to his life.
“This isn’t fair,” she murmured when he came up for air.
“I want you.” He didn’t bother answering her. Not a lot was fair but people coped. Or didn’t.
“I’m afraid, Russ. Afraid you’ll regret picking me, afraid our desire will flame-out like a jalopy running out of gas.”
He didn’t let her go, but inched back from her, letting him see more of her face, her beautiful body.
“No.”
“What?”
“No. None of those things will happen. This is real and this is forever.”
“How can you know that?”
He barked a laugh. “I’m home from the war, honey. That horror cleansed me, burnt away my blinders, let me see things clearly. I’m no hero, but I can’t afford to lie to myself any more. I’ve looked the dragon in the eye.”
* * *
Cynthia looked at him. Dawn was still hours away. A crescent moon, only a fraction of what it would become, provided the sky’s only light shining through a misty haze rising from the river and covering her town.
In the dark shadows of his office, Russell’s scars seemed almost works of art, a reinterpretation and completion of the idealized but still unshaped young man who had gone away to war.
She traced a finger down one of those scars, absorbing the heat he shed like a furnace glowing into the darkness.
Suddenly, without warning, she knew the truth. “I believe you.”
“You mean—“
She covered his mouth with her hand. “I let you talk. Let me work this through.”
He nodded. Even in the dark shadows of night, she couldn’t miss the sudden hope that shined in his eyes.
“I’ve lived too much of my life in fear, hoping that someone outside of me would give me the validation that was taken from me when my parents were killed and I had to live with my aunt. I even hoped I would get that from you, Russ. Or rather, from Russell, the person you used to be. But you couldn’t give that to me. No one could. I could only find it in myself."
She laughed, a bit self-consciously. “Of course it didn’t hurt that first Russ, and then you, found me so attractive.”
She took a deep breath. This was it. “I’ll answer the question you asked with one of my own. Yes, I’ll stay with you, but I want the whole deal. Will you marry me, Russ Lyons?”
An indefinable expression passed over his face so quickly she couldn’t recognize it. Was he going to reject her? Tell her he wanted her body but that was all?
“Isn’t that what I’ve been begging you all day, Cynthia? I love you. Of course I want to marry you, live with you, grow old with you.”
A sleepy-eyed puppy half-padded, half stumbled down the stairs from Russ’s bedroom and collapsed against Cynthia’s legs.
She was wearing sneakers, had perfect footing, but the moment was too tempting.
She leapt into his arms letting go of the floor, trusting Russ to catch her because he would, because she could, and because she’d waited too long to wait any longer.
“I love you too, Russ.”
He looked down at the puppy. “Good boy, Gomer. Now, it’s three in the morning and I think it’s time to get to bed.”
“Yeah. I’m going to need some sleep if I’m going to be human tomorrow.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Who said anything about sleep?”
THE END
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