Lazlo’s Last Stand

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Oh, my God,” said Lucia. Straight down was what it looked like to her. All the way to the first loop of the road. Then another straight drop to the lane that ran past Josef and Kati’s cottage. She turned a horrified look on Corbett. “You must be kidding.”

  “Not at all. It’s not as steep as it looks, you know. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

  “Insane, then,” she muttered. “Completely mad.”

  “Oh, come now. This from the woman who attacked an armed man with nothing but her bare hands and feet. Here-you don’t need to do a thing except hold on. Sit right here.” He guided her gently but firmly until she was perched on the sled, arms and legs pointing in all directions, like a newborn calf’s. “Okay, relax. Now, put your feet here, in the middle of the bar. I’ll do the steering.”

  She caught and held a breath as the sled began to move, then stopped, teetering now on the very edge of what seemed to her like a precipice. A cliff. She caught another breath when she felt him settle himself behind her and align his legs alongside hers, fold one arm around her and bring her close against his chest. With the other he took a firm hold on the tow rope. She felt his body rock back…then sharply forward.

  “O-o-oh…my…Go-o-d…”

  The earth dropped out from under her and all the breath in her body emerged in one long wail of sheer terror.

  Tears were snatched from her eyes by the wind. Her ears filled with the sounds of the wind rushing by at mach speed and the screech of sled runners slicing through snow and ice. In what seemed like no more than a few heartbeats she felt a bump and a slight slowing, and then another sharp drop as the sled swooped onto and then over the wide path and on down the hill.

  She was just starting to get over the terror and beginning to enjoy herself when she heard Corbett yell in her ear, “We’re coming to the road! Lean when I tell you!”

  She nodded. A moment later she felt the sled begin to tip to one side. “Lean!”

  This she was only too happy to do. Every instinct in her brain was telling her body to throw itself in the direction opposite the way the sled was tipping in order to keep it upright. So that’s what she did.

  The next thing she knew, the sled was slipping sideways down the hill, then skewing around and around, and she and the sled and Corbett were all cartwheeling, rolling, tumbling down the mountainside in a wild melee of flailing limbs and clouds of snow.

  And then…all was still.

  A few seconds passed before Lucia decided she was indeed alive. Shortly after that she decided she must be lying on her back, and since nothing seemed to hurt too terribly, all of her body parts must be intact and in working order. To test this theory, she spat out a mouthful of snow and attempted to sit up. And discovered she couldn’t move.

  Panic seized her-for the few seconds it took her to figure out that she was not paralyzed, but that something heavy was lying on top of her, and that the something, or someone, was Corbett.

  “Kindly…don’t do that…” His strangled whisper came from somewhere near her ear.

  “Do what?”

  “Move.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause, and then: “Oh! Oh, my God! Corbett-your ribs-are you all right?”

  “Not really, no. Though it wouldn’t be quite so bad if you’d only stop wiggling.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She let her head drop back into the snow. Then popped it up again. “It’s your own fault, you know. You told me to lean.”

  “Of course I did.” Corbett’s face loomed above hers, eyebrows and lashes woolly with snow, cheeks chafed and wet with it. He’d lost the fur hat, and his hair hung damply onto his forehead. “Dammit, I wanted to turn.”

  “Well, I leaned, and look what happened!”

  “You leaned the wrong way, you…you-You shot the bloody sled right out from under us.”

  “How was I supposed to know?” She propped herself on her elbows, bringing her face almost nose to nose with his. “It felt like the sled was going to tip over. Call me crazy, but that seemed like a bad thing to me. So I leaned the other way to keep it from doing that!”

  “What? Didn’t you take physics in high school? Don’t you ever watch the Olympics? There’s this thing called centrifugal force-”

  “It would have been nice if you’d explained that to me before you put me on that…that death sled! I told you I was no good at sports, but did you listen to me? Hell, n-mmf…”

  He’d stood it as long as he could, he really had. Lying there with her body pinned beneath him, even with his wretched ribs on fire, had been enough of a torment. Then, to have that mouth of hers, the mouth he’d tried hard not to watch or think about for so many years only to have it invade his dreams and slip into his waking mind when he least expected it…to have that mouth right there, so close to his, red and swollen, wet and cold…Well.

  And there was the added plus that it was a great way to get her to be still.

  He kissed her.

  Forcefully, at first, just to cut off the tirade. Forcefully enough so that he felt those lips stop moving and go still with shock, then quiver and begin to warm and soften against his. He drew back, then-not far, just to see her reaction. Her eyes gazed up at him, glistening like liquid silver.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she said huskily. “I was beginning to think-”

  Before she could finish, Corbett lowered his mouth to take hers again, this time with all the tenderness and care he had in him, and all the longing he’d kept hidden and the joy he’d denied himself for so long.

  He pulled his hand from where it had been entombed in the snow, leaving his glove behind, and laid his cold fingers against her cheek. He wiped the snow-melt moisture away and felt the velvety softness of her skin and put his mouth there, too. Then to the cold, pink tip of her nose, one quivering eyelid, and back to her mouth again. He both felt and heard her faint little sigh, and now when he drew back to look at her, he found her eyes closed, and teardrops shivering on the tips of her lashes.

  “You don’t know…” Her lips looked blurred and barely seemed to move.

  “Yes,” he said softly, “I do.”

  “No, you don’t. I tried to tell you-”

  So he kissed her again. And this time he felt her arms come around his neck and her body lift under him, and he heard a whimper of passion. He turned slightly to give her room, scarcely aware of discomforts in any part of his body, save one. And that was one discomfort he was willing to live with-for a while. He didn’t even mind making it worse, temporarily, as when he let his hand wander along the side of her body, then around to the small of her back and over the taut rounds of her bottom, then pressed her, with her full cooperation, against the part of himself that was suffering the most.

  Though he couldn’t help but groan.

  She heard him, of course, and, drawing the wrong conclusion, stiffened. But before she could pull away, he tightened his arm around her and pressed her even closer, and with her lips curving under his in a smile of understanding, felt her legs shift to make a nest for him.

  And as he was rocking against the cradle she’d made for him, his body tensing and tightening in familiar ways, seeking a union impossible under those circumstances, it struck him. First, as frustrating and infuriating, then as ridiculous, and finally, as hilariously funny. He withdrew gently from her mouth and rested his forehead against hers, his body shaking with laughter.

  “Ow,” he moaned, and went on laughing.

  “What?” she whispered, still holding him, but tensely now. “Did you hurt your ribs? What’s funny?”

  It was a moment before he could answer, in a voice choked with pain and a kind of mirth he hadn’t known in a very long time. “This is-We are. Us.”

  It was all he could manage. How could he tell her he felt ashamed he’d ever thought himself too old for her, when here he was behaving-and even more remarkable, feeling-like a randy adolescent? How could he explain that the joy he felt at this moment of discovering her was inextricably entwined wi
th sadness for having waited so long? And perhaps most complicated of all, how could any words capture the bitter irony in having such a thing happen to him now, when his life was in chaos and everything he’d worked to build about to topple around him.

  He raised his head and looked down at her, smiling and cupping her face in his hand. “We really can’t do this, you know. At least, not here.”

  She tilted her chin upward in a way he recognized and said fiercely, “Why not?”

  He kissed her forehead, laughing silently. “Now who’s crazy? For one thing, my dearest, we’re on the side of a mountain, in full view of a public road. Oh, and there’s the small fact that it’s quite likely we’d freeze to death. You do realize we’re lying in the snow?”

  “Hmm,” she said, “I hadn’t noticed. Though now that you mention it, I’m surprised we haven’t melted it for quite some distance around.” Then they were both laughing, holding each other and shaking helplessly with it.

  When the laughter had died away into fitful murmurs and sighs and an occasional plaintive, “Ow,” Corbett kissed her once more, then said gruffly, “We do have to get up. I’m sorry…”

  Her eyes were closed, the long, thick lashes stuck together in spiky clumps. There was a long pause, and then instead of answering she clamped a hand over her eyes. Her mouth had a crushed look that made him hurt inside.

  “What is it?” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head and he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then a single sob escaped her before she quickly gulped it back.

  He took her hand and pulled it away from her face. “Open your eyes…look at me. Now…tell me.”

  Those remarkable eyes gazed back at him…silver blue ringed with indigo. And he knew before she said the words.

  “Oh, Corbett, I don’t want to let you go. I’m afraid…”

  “Afraid?”

  Oh, she was, she was. She stared up into his face-now wearing a stern expression she’d come to know and dread-and trembling, began to speak rapidly, trying to say everything before he stopped her.

  “Of letting you go. Of letting this go-this moment. Afraid you’ll back away again. That you’ll step back behind your boss-teacher-mentor barrier the way you’ve always done when we’ve almost…when we’ve gotten…close. And then act as if nothing happened.”

  There. And he hadn’t stopped her.

  For a long suspenseful moment he went on looking at her, while even her heartbeat seemed to slow down. Then he rolled carefully away from her. Deep within her the pain began, and cold sickness flooded through her body. She’d known this would happen. Known he would do this.

  Holding one arm protectively across his ribs, he pushed himself to his feet, then reached down to give her his hand. Too weak-kneed and shaky to rise on her own, Lucia took it gratefully.

  Just let me survive this, she thought. If I do, I’m leaving, I swear. I’m leaving the Lazlo Group, and I’m never coming back.

  And then, somehow, miraculously, warm arms and a hard, strong body were enfolding her. Cold fingers tipped her chin upward and warm lips brushed hers.

  “I think we’ve pretty much gone beyond the point of no return, don’t you?” Corbett said softly.

  A tiny cry was all that escaped her before his mouth opened in perfect sync with hers, and her head fell back and her mind shut down.

  As he deepened the kiss, then deepened it some more, he felt Lucia-whose mind he’d held in awe, whose charm and beauty had enthralled him and whose strength and courage had saved his life-melt in his arms in complete and total surrender. Joy spread through him, and in his mind was one triumphant thought:

  So…even brilliant minds go silent in awe of miracles.

  Chapter 9

  T he point of no return…

  Ordinarily, those words had an ominous ring. Today, Lucia couldn’t think of any more beautiful. A lovely quietness settled over her, carrying with it the knowledge that there was no more urgency, that she had time to say to him all she wanted to say, ask all she wanted to ask. This was the man she would love for the rest of her life. Be with for the rest of her life. They would have all the time in the world.

  She was happy. So it didn’t occur to her, not then, that she might be wrong.

  She murmured a gentle protest, and when he withdrew enough, she let her lips curve against his. “Then let’s go in,” she whispered, loving the way their mouths touched. “I want to have a look at your ribs. I hope we didn’t-”

  “I want to have a look at your ribs, as well,” he said in a husky growl. “Among other things.”

  And she gave a gasp of sheer delight at the playfulness of it. She’d never experienced Corbett’s sense of humor personally. How many times had she listened from a distance while he exchanged droll banter with other people-Adam, for instance-wishing with all her heart he could relax and be himself with her? And now…Laughing, she rested her head for a moment against his shoulder, then slipped an arm around his waist.

  “You’ve lost your hat,” she said, gazing up at him. “And one of your gloves.”

  “And you have snow in your hair,” he countered, brushing at it tenderly. He paused, looking around. “I know where the glove is, I think. Ah, yes-here it is.” He bent down to retrieve the glove from the snow, brushed it off and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat. “I don’t feel much like climbing back up that mountain to look for a hat, though, do you?”

  Holding his eyes with hers, she shook her head. “I think there are more important things we should be doing.”

  “Such as?”

  She bit down on her lower lip to stop the shivers of anticipation already coursing through her body and said somberly, “We’re both chilled through to the bone. I think we should both take a bath so we don’t catch cold. A nice…hot…bath.”

  He gave her a startled look, then laughed out loud. “God,” he said, as he snaked an arm around her and pulled her close to his side, “how I do love a smart woman.”

  They separated at the cottage’s front gate, Corbett to return the sled to Josef’s woodshed, Lucia to brush as much snow and mud from her clothes as she could, then tiptoe alone through the empty house like a cat burglar. She was glad not to have to greet Josef and Kati, certain her newfound happiness must be written all over her in neon lights.

  In the passageway between the cottage and the cave house, she stopped to take off her boots and unzip her jacket, shook the last of the snow out of it and pulled the cap from her head. Then she opened the door and slipped into the kitchen.

  And found it warm and bright and dense with a multitude of cooking smells, and Kati bustling between the sink and the table, where Josef sat placidly smoking an old-fashioned curved and handpainted pipe. Both greeted Lucia with a cheerful Magyar duet in soprano and baritone, Kati waving a soup ladle, Josef his pipe, to which Lucia responded with a breathless smile, hoping her dismay didn’t show.

  Kati clucked and scolded over Lucia’s wet hair and clothes and refused to understand her clumsy efforts to explain how they’d gotten that way, while Josef watched with bright, shrewd eyes from behind a wreath of smoke. A moment later when Corbett came in, red-cheeked and grinning, with his clothes in much the same shape, both lobbed a barrage of questions at him, Kati’s staccato rising over Josef’s steady bass accompaniment.

  Corbett rattled off a reply, then looked over at Lucia…and winked. She didn’t have to know the exact translation; heat rose in her cheeks as two pairs of inquisitive eyes darted her way, and the duet rose once more in knowing “oohs” and “ahhs” and delighted laughter. She was about to flee to her room with as much dignity as she could manage, when Corbett took her gently by the arms.

  “You might as well get used to it, édesem,” he said softly as he guided her to a chair, pulled it out and sat her down. “The cat’s out of the bag, and no great surprise to them, either. Kati’s been after me to ‘find someone and settle down’ for years. Evidently, she decided the minute she laid eyes on you that yo
u were the one.”

  “Smart woman,” Lucia murmured shakily, smiling across the table at Kati, who beamed back at her.

  “I seem to be surrounded with them,” Corbett said cheerfully. “Quite outnumbered, in fact.”

  “Oh, please, what’s that song?” Lucia nodded toward Kati, who was now busily stirring something on the stove, both the stirring and the bobbing of her ample behind keeping time with the happy little tune she was singing. “She was singing the same song the first morning we were here. I heard it when I woke up. It stuck in my head, and I meant to ask you-”

  “Ah-just a minute. I’ll ask. Kérem szépen…”

  At Corbett’s query, Kati turned from the stove expectantly. There was a brief but spirited exchange between them, then she and Josef began to sing together with great enthusiasm:

  “Kis kút kerekes kút van az udvarunkba

  Egy szép barna kislány van a szomszédunkba

  Csalfa szemeimet rá sem merem vetni

  Fiatal az édesanyja azt is kell szeretni.”

  Lucia listened avidly and thought it interesting that, while neither of them could be said to have particularly good voices, together they sounded wonderful.

  “Okay,” Corbett said when they’d finished, while Lucia was still applauding, “I think I’ve got most of it. It’s quite an old song. Kati says her mother used to sing it to my father when she was his nanny. It goes, ‘There is a small well in our yard…There is a pretty brown girl in our neighborhood. I don’t dare to give her the eye…’ Dah dah dah dah-Fiatal az édesanyja-something about her having a young mother who needs love, too.”

  “That darn age thing-it’ll get you every time,” Lucia said solemnly.

  His eyes smiled deeply into hers. She’d never seen them so blue and bright. “Yes, well, I think where Kati’s concerned, the pertinent phrase is, ‘Pretty little brown girl.’ I must say, I find it appropriate, myself, if a bit inadequate.”

  And just that easily the room and everything in it disappeared-everything but him…his voice…his eyes. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. She didn’t care who knew, or what anyone might see in her eyes, her face. Just that quickly her world, her existence had come down to this: this man and the miracle that he loved her at last, the way she had always loved him.