She shivered as they reached her Cordoba moments later. She was sure she hadn’t locked the car, but the door handle didn’t want to give as she tried it. Stephen’s hand was there suddenly, covering hers, forestalling her.
“I wonder if you and I could do something that normal people do?” he said. “Do you think that’s possible?”
“Normal people?” She could see her own startled reflection in the car window. And he was there behind her, shadowed in some way that compelled her. His expression was expectant, as though he were as surprised as she was.
“Yes,” he said, “I mean things like ... eating, drinking, dancing? Would you like that? Would you like to have dinner tonight?”
Lise glanced down at his hand, amazed at how much power there was in an unexpected touch. He was asking her out? It made no sense to her given everything that had happened between them, but as she turned the idea over in her mind, it drew her like a magnet. “Yes, I would like that,” she said.
Their gaze connected briefly in the window’s reflection. Something in the shimmering blue depths of his eyes warned her that he was acting on impulse. And probably against his better judgment.
Aren’t we all? she thought.
He came calling for her at six sharp that evening.
Lise opened the door and was pleasantly surprised to see him in fashionably baggy slacks and a stone-washed silk shirt. As though conspiring to enhance the overall effect, the falling sunshine caught the fringes of his hair and turned it to firelight.
He cleans up well, Lise thought ironically. Julie’s “babe” reference had been a masterpiece of understatement. Stephen Gage was alarmingly masculine and sexy.
He took in her powder-blue halter-top dress with a slow, appreciative sweep of his eyes. “You look beautiful.” Handing her a boxed corsage of creamy white gardenias, he added, “I hope these are all right.”
“Oh, my gosh—” her voice softened to whispered laughter, “—are you taking me to the prom?”
“Prom?”
His puzzlement made her shake her head in disbelief. “You don’t know what a prom is?”
“Oh, I know what it is. I just don’t know why you’d want to go to one.”
“Every high-school girl wants to go to the prom.” Her throat tightened as she met his questioning gaze. Wistfully she admitted, “I was never asked.”
His eyes flared with tenderness as he took the corsage from her hand. “Come here, Miss Anderson,” he said, “and let me pin this on you.”
The rich scent of gardenias drenched Lise’s front porch as Stephen slipped his fingers under the strap of her sundress. Lise knew his intention was to use his own hand to protect her from the pin. But knowing did very little to soften the impact of his nearness, or the sudden warmth of his skin on hers.
He was affected by it too. She could hear his breathing deepen and feel the hesitation in his hands as he positioned the flower on the halter strap. It was inevitable that his hands would brush her breast as he began to work with the pin.
“Sorry,” he murmured, glancing up at her. The blue of his eyes nearly drowning her in expectation.
The pin resisted as he eased it into the corsage. And then his wrist nudged her cleavage, freckles and all! Lise’s stomach clutched. She could feel the jut of his wristbone, the feather tickle of golden hair.
“Don’t breathe,” he said, trying another angle. He probed gently here and there, applying more force as he found the right spot. There was a moment of pressure before the resistance gave way and the needle penetrated. Lise let go of the breath she was holding, and a liquid sensation rippled down her thighs. She was weak in the knees by the time he slipped his fingers out from under the strap.
He stepped back and looked her over. “It’s official,” he said, his voice husky with male appreciation. “You’re my date for the prom.”
Lise glanced from the delicate flowers to his burnished handsomeness. If she was slightly rattled by the incident, she was even more unprepared for the thoughts that were creeping into her consciousness. She didn’t want to go to a prom, not really. She didn’t want to go anywhere with this golden lion of a man except straight to the nearest bedroom, which in this case, was her own. He had once looked as though he wanted to eat her alive. If she’d seen even a hint of that same thrilling hunger now, she would have abandoned propriety altogether and offered herself up for his pleasure.
“Ready to go?” he said.
She nodded.
Moments later they were in his Land-Rover and driving off in search of a “prom.” Lise was acutely uncomfortable at the ogling they got from the local citizenry as they cruised through town. At one point Bernice Davenport ambled up to the Rover when they were stopped at a crosswalk, wanting to know what they were up to. “Just a quick bite to eat,” Lise assured her.
“What a good idea, dear,” Bernice said, smiling at Stephen. “Adios,” she called out as she hurried off.
No doubt to spread the news, Lise thought, sighing. “Let’s find a prom outside of town,” she suggested to Stephen.
They finally settled for a roadhouse on the county highway. It wasn’t quite what Lise had in mind, but the golden oldies on the jukebox and the stacked high, juicy hamburgers took her back to her adolescent years as effectively as if they’d gone to a dance in the high-school gym.
Watching Stephen tear into his double-decker hamburger and fries, Lise had to suppress a chuckle. He’d unbuttoned his shirt collar and rolled up his sleeves, and he looked about as down-home and middle-American as it was possible to be. She should snap a picture for Julie, she thought. This would make a believer out of her.
They were lingering over after-dinner coffee and casual conversation when Stephen brought up the incident that had been hovering in the background of Lise’s thoughts.
“That night on the mountain,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened, Lise. It wasn’t just the storm as you’ve probably already guessed.”
“I guessed.” She also sensed that whatever the problem was, he’d been living with it for a very long time. Distress lay deep in his eyes. From the rugged strength of his features, she might have estimated his age as somewhere in the midthirties, but tonight she wasn’t sure. He had the weary wisdom of someone who had lived through several lifetimes and seen more than his share of tragedy.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not.”
Stephen curled both hands around his empty coffee mug. If I’d rather not, he thought, staring at the rings and water marks that scarred the surface of their wooden table. He’d never revealed the truth of his past to anyone, and under any other circumstances, he wouldn’t have considered doing so then. But he knew she would never understand otherwise. She might be a wizard at life in general, but she was still virginal and uncertain when it came to men. If he didn’t make an attempt to explain—if he didn’t tell her the truth about what he’d done—she would always think it was her fault they hadn’t made love.
“If I don’t talk about it now,” he said, exhaling heavily, “I never will.” He looked up at last. “I’ll give it a shot if you’re game.”
“Of course—please.” She concentrated on her own half-full coffee cup as though she could sense his discomfort.
“I was married once, right out of college,” he began. “Actually, it was the year I was to graduate ... and she was pregnant.”
Lise recoiled at the last word. Her first reaction was simple disbelief. She couldn’t fathom the idea that he’d been married. It was too normal. It gave him a past. It made him a man. But what sank in as she glanced at him was a deeper realization, a deeper fear. He was a man. He was going to tell her about another woman in his life, perhaps his first love. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear that story—she was afraid to hear it—but there was so much anger and self-condemnation trapped in his voice, so much harsh regret, she had no choice.
“Stephen,” she said, “that happens.”
“No—this was different. I made it happen. She was the dean’s daughter. I didn’t just want her, I was obsessed. In my mind, making love to her was the way to lay claim, and I didn’t give up until she—” He broke off, exhaling. “I didn’t force her, unless you call mindless, relentless pursuit, force.”
Lise couldn’t summon a response. Her feelings were too divided. She felt compassion for his obvious suffering, and anguished surprise at her own.
He pushed the coffee cup away and went on. “She’d never been with another man either. I wanted to be the first—”
The self-disgust in his voice was explosive. But Lise wasn’t reacting to that. She’d barely heard it. A searing pain nearly closed off her throat. He’d wanted to be the first.
“You must have been in love with her,” she said, wishing to Heaven she didn’t need to know. “Deeply in love.”
It took him a long time to answer. “If I was in love,” he said, “it was for all the wrong reasons. No, I didn’t love her. Not the way I should have, and that makes it all the more tragic.”
“Tragic? Because the marriage failed?”
“It didn’t fail. She died in childbirth. They both died.”
“The baby ... ?”
He turned away, and Lise couldn’t say anything for a moment.
“Stephen ... I’m sorry.”
His voice was flattened and toneless, as permanently scarred as the wooden tabletop. “Don’t be sorry for me. I don’t deserve it. Be sorry for them.”
Several horror-filled seconds flashed by. Lise’s thoughts were reeling. She didn’t know what to think or how to feel. She didn’t know how to comfort him. His revelations were shocking, and yet so much of what had happened made sense now, the ravages of time, the shadowed pain, and especially the way he’d reacted on the mountain.
A popular song was playing in the background, a poignant echo of Lise’s jumbled feelings. Stephen’s shoulders were stiffened, his posture forbidding. She wanted to break through the barrier he’d raised, but she was genuinely afraid of his reaction. She reached to touch his arm and jerked back as he turned.
“Maybe we ought to go,” he said abruptly. “I think the prom’s over.” He dug in his pocket and threw some money down on the table.
Lise tried to think how to stop him as he pushed back the chair and stood. “How could the prom be over?” she said. “We didn’t even dance.”
“Dance?”
“The waltz, the fox-trot, Fred and Ginger used to do it.”
“You want to waltz?” He stared at her incredulously and his voice dropped to something low and cold. “Your timing stinks, you know that?”
“I don’t want this evening to be over yet, that’s all I know.” She fought back an upsurge of emotion. She was revealing more of herself than she wanted to, but she knew if things ended this way, she would never see him again. “I want the chance to get to know you better, Stephen.”
He regarded her with disbelief and a harsh sound of anger. “Why, Lise?” Flattening his palm on the table, he leaned toward her. “It’s hardly worth your time or trouble. I’ll only be here a few more days. There’s no future for us.”
“I don’t remember asking for a future.” She met his hard blue eyes, determined to deflect their cruelness. It was himself he wanted to hurt.
“Stephen, please.” She laid her hand on his sleeve and froze. The cold contempt in his eyes brought the warmth of his body into sharp contrast. He didn’t want her touching him. He didn’t want her anywhere near him.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, profoundly saddened. “The prom is over.”
What A Fool Believes was playing on the jukebox as Lise forced back her chair and rose, pushing past Stephen. She hesitated a moment as the seventies ballad brought back memories of an adolescence that was lonely and confused. It brought back a young girl’s longings, and a heart full of dreams that had gone begging. She glanced at the half-dozen couples on the dance floor and their swaying bliss made her even sadder.
“I’ll be outside,” she said, starting for the door. She hadn’t gone two steps before Stephen caught up with her.
“Lise ... don’t leave.”
His voice was a harsh, riveting whisper. Before Lise could react, he’d taken hold of her shoulders and brought her around to face him. His hands were taut. His darkened eyes held anger, sadness, an apology.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he took her by the hand.
“I don’t know, Lise. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. You wanted to dance, didn’t you?”
He led her onto the sawdust-strewn dance floor and into his arms. She could feel the tenseness in him as he fitted his hand to the small of her back. It was as though he’d raised an invisible barrier, and yet Lise knew he wanted to pull her close. She could feel it in the depth of his breathing, and in the muscular tension he gave off. He needed to be close to a woman. Badly. But he wouldn’t let himself.
“It’s been a long time,” she said, meaning the dancing.
“A very long time,” he said.
There were the inevitable moments of awkwardness as they began to move. It seemed to take forever until they found a compatible dance step, and then gradually the music began to work its sad, sweet magic. Almost imperceptibly the slow throb of the ballad insinuated itself into their stiff movements. They began to sway a little. They drew a fraction closer. An irresistible rhythm was taking hold.
A current of electricity sprinkled Lise’s palm as she ran her hand along the stonewashed silk of his shirt. She’d never been in his arms before, at least not like this, with such carefully calculated distance between them. The fact that their bodies weren’t touching as they moved only heightened her awareness of him. Her imagination was vividly supplying the missing details. It was telling her how it would feel to be pressed up against every solid inch of him.
Their thighs brushed, and he swore softly. “It’s been too long,” he said, pulling her closer.
She yielded instinctively, flowing into his heat. He gripped her hand tighter, and as his arm locked around her, she softened against his hard contours like seawater eddying against rocks. She heard an exhalation, and realized it was his—a mesmerizingly throaty sound that was lost in the swell of the music. It’s been forever, she thought. I’ve never danced like this before.
The musculature of his shoulder rippled under her hand, drawing her awareness to that part of his body. Gradually she realized that her fingertips were nestled in the glossy thickness of his hair. I don’t believe this, she thought. I’m at the prom ... with the boy of my dreams. As the scent of gardenias eddied around them, she swallowed a bittersweet sigh. She felt as though every sweet yearning she’d ever had was being realized in this gentle moment of reckoning.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” His lips were against her temple.
“For this.”
He pulled her closer, and she could feel the need shaking through him. She’d never, ever had a man respond to her as he did. He needed caring for, he needed holding so desperately it made her ache. She laid her head against his cheek and whispered five soft words. “I am sorry for you.”
Ten
“MISS ANDERSON, are you picking daisies?”
“Hmmm?” Lise glanced around the railroad pike where she and her class had spent the morning putting the finishing touches on their futuristic vision of Los Angeles. Em Baxter had asked the question, Lise realized. The five-year-old’s forehead was knitted into a thoughtful frown.
“Picking daisies, Em?”
The child hunched her small shoulders. “My mom always asks me that when I’m daydreaming. You keep staring out the window, is all.”
“I do?” Lise considered the front window, completely unaware that she’d been staring anywhere.
“And you just glued another dogwood tree to the freeway!” Danny Baxter yelped. “Look!”
Everyone did look, including Lise. Two trees appeared
to have taken root square in the middle of Interstate 5.
Lise flushed with soft laughter and rolled her eyes, which her students seemed to think was hilarious.
Julie flashed a wicked grin from the other side of the pike. “And just what did you do last night. Miss Anderson?” she said. “You were seen cruising around in Flash Gordon’s Land-Rover!”
A low gasp ricochetted through the room.
The warmth in Lise’s cheeks deepened. Normally she wouldn’t have dreamed of discussing the details of her personal life with her students, but she simply couldn’t hold it in. “I went to a prom,” she said.
“With the spaceman?” Em Baxter blinked in disbelief.
“Yes, Em—and his name is Mr. Gage.” Lise touched her shoulder lingeringly, remembering the corsage. “He even brought me gardenias.”
By that time the entire class was staring at Lise as though she’d gone crazy, but she hardly minded. She was remembering how she and Stephen had slow danced until midnight to steamy pop ballads of the past, songs full of sexual longing and unrequited love. She was remembering the wild thrill of his arms around her—and the sweetest moments of all—when the music stopped and they continued to sway on the dance floor, unwilling to let go of the moment, or the music, or each other.
She was remembering the ache in her throat when he told her what a miracle of life she was. And she was reliving a good-night kiss on her front porch. A kiss of such urgent tenderness and passion that it left her reeling. It had been the most wonderful night of her life ...
“Miss Anderson!”
The raspy male voice catapulted Lise back to the present. She glanced at her students’ startled faces as someone began pounding frantically on the classroom door.
“Miss Anderson!”
Lise jerked around as the school’s janitor, a thin, balding man in his fifties, burst into the room.
“What is it, Earl?” she asked.
“It’s them museum statues—” Earl yanked a blue handkerchief out of his hip pocket and wiped his forehead with it. “Buck Thompson claims he found one of ’em buried out on the Cooper property. He says it’s proof positive the spaceman took ’em.”
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