by Webb, Peggy
Their gazes locked for a moment, and she felt herself falling victim to her passion. As if he had read her thoughts, David reached out and cupped her cheeks.
"You have nothing to worry about, Rosalie. I promise that I won't let things get out of hand."
"Speak for yourself, David."
A light leaped in the center of his eyes and then was gone. Rosalie pulled out of his reach. The journey to her cabinets for a bud vase was endless, a scorching, exhausting journey across the Sahara. Her throat felt parched. She felt weak and lethargic.
Oh David, David. I want you.
As she filled the bud vase, she let the rush of cool water run over her hands. She borrowed time by dawdling over the arrangement of the pink rose. The silence in her kitchen crashed around her, and David's still presence screamed through her mind.
Finally, she turned back to him. "Thank you for the rose. I love pink."
"I know." He smiled. "Because of your pink gown and robe."
A flush of heat threatened to swamp her. She set the bud vase in the middle of her table, then sank into a chair.
"Won't you sit down?" she asked, belatedly remembering her manners.
"I won't take that much time." He left the doorway and moved to the other side of her table. "I wanted you to have this, Rosalie."
He spread out a flyer, announcing Tupelo Community Theater's production of Oliver! Leaning forward, she traced her hands over the letters.
"I thought of you when I saw this."
I needed nothing to make me think of you.
"I thought of you singing in your kitchen. You have a beautiful voice, Rosalie."
"Not good enough for the stage."
"How do you know?"
"It's rusty with disuse. It's untrained."
"This is not professional theater; it's community theater."
"Are you suggesting I try out for a role?"
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting."
"Why?"
Why indeed? David wondered. His reasons were so complex, even he couldn't comprehend them. He settled for telling her as much as he knew to be the truth.
"I want to do something to make up for the way I treated you."
"You didn't . . ."
He held up his hand, interrupting her. "Hear me out, please." He pulled out a chair and straddled it, then leaned across the table toward her. "I'm leaving, Rosalie."
"No . . ."
"As soon as I can find a home for my dog. But before I go, I want to give you a dream ... at least, a part of a dream. I told you once that dreams rarely come true. I've changed my mind about that, Rosalie. At least where you're concerned."
Her hand trembled on the poster, and his inched across the table. Their fingertips brushed together, lightly. Currents arced between them, hot, fiery currents that couldn't be denied. They laced fingers, then locked hands, palm to palm.
He searched her face, and she searched his. Both of them saw desire and need and hope, struggling to be reborn.
"Don't leave because of me," she whispered. "I couldn't bear it if you left because of me."
"It's because of me. It's time to move on." His hand tightened on hers, then let go.
"Where will you go?"
"Probably south, toward Florida."
"And then . . . ?"
"I don't know."
She caressed the poster as if it were a lover. David was giving her a dream.
"Stay," she said suddenly.
"I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
He was silent, watching her with a quiet regard that set her blood racing. Rosalie picked up the poster, folded it, and put it in her pocket.
"I'll try out for this musical on one condition."
"Name it."
"If I get the role, you'll stay long enough to see me perform."
"That's blackmail, Rosalie."
"Call it what you like. Those are my conditions."
"And if I say no?"
She stood up, planted her hands on the table, and leaned so close, she was nose-to-nose with him.
"Then you can take your dream and go straight to hell."
The shock of hearing her cuss made him speechless. Watching his face, Rosalie held her breath. Being a brave new person was harder than she had thought.
Suddenly, David laughed. It was a big, booming sound that filled her kitchen. Rosalie joined in.
After the laughter had died down, David stood up, facing her.
"You know, the thing that fascinates me most about you, Rosalie, is that you keep surprising me."
"Lately, I've been surprising myself."
"Good luck with the role."
"Does that mean you're staying?"
"Long enough to see you front and center on that stage."
Sweet relief flooded her. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hold on tight. Instead, she held out her hand.
"It's a deal."
o0o
When David got home, he unpacked his bags. He'd been living out of them since Sunday night.
His step was jaunty as he replaced his belongings on the shelves. When he unpacked his art supplies, he stood very still.
Across the way he heard music. "As Long As He Needs Me," from Oliver! Rosalie was practicing.
David set up his easel. He was whistling.
o0o
Mr. Mackey was the first to notice the change in Rosalie. He was the senior law pa partner at the firm where she worked, and the one she liked best.
"Are those roses I see in your cheeks, young lady?"
"Could be. I'm going to try out for a singing role in the community theater."
"I didn't know you sang."
"I haven't much, until lately."
"I approve. A person should always try new and different things. If you need time off from work for rehearsals, let me know."
"I haven't got the part yet."
"You will."
o0o
Friday night Betty told her the same thing. "Listen honey. It will be a pure privilege to have a celebrity working around here."
"But if I get the part . . ."
"You will."
"... I can't take time off with pay."
"I don't want to hear any argument about it. I'm running this place, and I do it like I damned well please . . . and don't you give me any sass about it."
"Yes, ma'am." Rosalie gave a smart salute, then hugged Betty's neck.
o0o
The pink rose David had brought her gradually drooped and withered, but Rosalie couldn't bring herself to throw it away. On Sunday afternoon before the tryouts, she gently took the rose from its vase, wiped the water from the stem with a paper towel, then laid it in the sunshine on her windowsill to dry. If it kept its color, she would use it as part of a dried arrangement.
"Wish me luck," she whispered.
She wandered to her window and looked across the way. She searched his kitchen and his bedroom before she found him, in his den, bent over his desk. She sighed. Seeing David through the curtains was better than not seeing him at all.
She took one last glimpse of him, then got her coat and headed for the theater. It was time to pursue a dream.
o0o
On Tuesday night she got a call from the director.
"Rosalie, we want you for Nancy." She couldn't speak, her heart was pounding so. "Rosalie . . . are you still there?"
"I'm here. I just can't believe what I'm hearing."
"Believe it. We haven't heard a voice like yours on this stage in years. Where have you been hiding?"
"In the Edge of Paradise," she answered, laughing.
"Rehearsals start Thursday night. Seven sharp."
"I'll be there."
She hung up, then walked to her windowsill and picked up her rose. Holding it to her nose, she inhaled. Some of its sweet fragrance was still captured in the dried petals.
Gently, she set it back on the sill. "It's just you and me, rose. Withering around the edges but still hanging on."
Dreams deserve more them a telephone call.
Rosalie went to her closet and found her pink sweater. David would be home. He was always at home, out of reach behind his glass windows.
The wind caught her skirt and whipped it around her legs. It mussed her hair and bit her cheeks. She was shivering by the time she rang his front doorbell. She should have taken the time to get her winter coat.
She pressed the bell once more.
o0o
Inside, David made one last sweeping stroke on his watercolor, then went to the door. Rosalie was on his front porch, roses painting her cheeks and dreams dancing in her eyes.
"You'll be here six more weeks," she said.
"You got the part?"
"Yes."
"That's great." He held the door wider and pulled her inside. He hoped his unreasonable joy didn't show. "Come in. You're freezing."
"I forgot how cold it had turned." She pulled her pink sweater closer.
"I've built a fire. Why don't you sit in that chair and toast your feet. I'll get the wine."
"Wine?"
"For the celebration. You don't mind celebrating with cheap wine, do you?"
"I didn't expect to be celebrating at all."
Smiling, she sat in the chair beside the fire. The flames tinted her skin. His first urge was harmless; his second more dangerous. He wanted to strip off her clothes, arrange her on a quilt in front of the fire, and paint her; then he wanted to ravish her, inch by delicious inch, starting with the rosy skin on her cheeks and working his way down.
"I'll be right back with the wine," he said, escaping to the kitchen.
o0o
Rosalie sat in the chair until she felt toasty, then she glanced around the room. It was different from the last time she had been there—cozier. David had added a rocking chair and a small table. A colorful throw rug covered a portion of the scarred old hardwood floor. An easel stood in the corner, and on it was one of the most beautiful paintings she had ever seen.
She left her chair to take a closer look. It was a watercolor, impressionistic flowers splashed against a luminous background. There was a brightness caught in the painting, as if the sun were woven into it.
Mesmerized, Rosalie stepped closer. It was the kind of painting that made you hold your breath.
"Do you like it?"
David was standing in the doorway, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and two empty glasses in the other. Rosalie let out her breath in a small whoosh.
"It's beautiful." She glanced back at the painting.
There was a signature in the corner. David's. "You did this?"
"It's a secret passion of mine."
"You shouldn't keep it a secret. It's magnificent."
"All my passions are secret."
For a sizzling moment his gaze held hers, and she longed to be one of his secret passions. At last he looked away from her and set the bottle on the fireside table.
"I'm not very good at this," she said.
"At what?" he said, handing her a glass of wine.
"Drinking. One glass makes me woozy, and two makes the room spin."
"Then we'll toast your success with hot chocolate."
"No." She sank into the fireside chair and tucked her feet under her, holding on to her wineglass. "I'm making a fresh start, trying things I've never tried, becoming a new woman."
"I liked the old one."
"You did?"
"I still do."
They sipped their wine, gazing at each other over the tops of their glasses.
"Tell me about your role," he said.
"I play Nancy. My role has some wonderful songs."
"Sing for me, Rosalie."
The wine had made her mellow. Softly, tenderly, she began to sing, "I'd Do Anything for You."
When the last note of the song faded away, she and David drank their wine, staring at each other with wonder and longing.
The level in the wine bottle steadily went down.
"You make me wish for things I can't have, Rosalie."
"So do you," she whispered.
o0o
The fire burned through a log, and it fell apart and sent a shower of sparks upward. David left his chair and got the poker. Leaning on the mantel, he stoked the fire. It gave him something to do with his hands.
The words of her song haunted him. She had not been singing merely for him, she had been singing to him. Rosalie. Rosalie. He couldn't let her fall in love with him. He couldn't fall in love with her. Love didn't survive around him.
Behind him, Rosalie's glass fell to the floor. David spun around. She was fast asleep, her head resting on the back of her chair and her feet tucked under her. The sound of her breathing was soft and even.
He squatted beside her. "Rosalie." She didn't stir. He put his hand on her arm. "Rosalie. Wake up." She didn't even flutter an eyelash.
She had told him she had no head for wine, and he had plied her with drink anyhow. She was a grown woman and knew what she was doing, but he should have insisted. He was, after all, a cop.
Her eyelashes were dark upon her cheeks, and the blue veins he loved so much pulsed softly in her throat. Tenderly, he traced them with his fingers.
"Why am I staying, Rosalie? Why am I playing with fire?"
His only answer was the even rise and fall of her breathing. He lifted her left hand and kissed each fingertip. She smiled in her sleep.
Would she be smiling if she knew where she was about to spend the night?
Gently, David lifted her into his arms and carried her to his bed.
Chapter Seven
She looked lush spread across his covers, lush and desirable. He sat on the side of the bed, staring at her. Her face was moist and flushed from wine and the warmth of the fire. A tiny bead of sweat dotted her upper lip. David bent over her and kissed it away.
Rosalie didn't stir.
With one finger he traced her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her mouth. She made soft, murmuring sounds, then fell back into a deep sleep with her lips parted. Tempted beyond reason, he placed his index finger against her lower lip, feeling the moist pink inner lining.
"You tempt me almost beyond enduring," he whispered as his finger moved inside her mouth with a steady, erotic rhythm.
He was so full with desire that he ached. The sound of his own blood was loud in his ears.
In her sleep she closed her mouth around his finger, sucking as if it were covered with pink sugar icing. He groaned and slowly withdrew his finger.
He should take her home. But that would mean rousing her out of her sleep and carrying her out into the cold, then fishing around in her pocket to find her house key and traipsing through her house to her bedroom.
What difference did it make whether it was his bed or hers? Temptation would still stalk him.
She would spend the night at his house, on his bed, and he would keep watch over her in the straight-backed chair beside her in case she awakened and became disoriented and frightened.
It was a sensible plan.
Rosalie sighed in her sleep, then rolled to her side and curled one leg upward. The curve of hip and leg was intoxicating.
It was a dangerous plan.
She was wearing her clothes. He could undress her. There were a couple of reasons to take her clothes off and five dozen to leave them on.
David clenched his teeth and ran his hands through his hair. He would at least take off her shoes.
Bending down, he slid them from her feet. Blue veins showed in the arch, through her stockings. David pressed his lips to each curving arch, wetting the blue veins with his tongue.
He should take off her panty hose. They might constrict her breathing. He slid his hands up her legs, intent on his mission. Sweat beaded his upper lip and popped out on his brow. When his hands reached that soft, warm space between her thig
hs, he stepped back, cursing.
"You've had too damned much wine," he said to himself between clenched teeth.
She could sleep with her hose on; she could sleep with all her clothes on without suffering any harm. He hadn't been undressing her for her comfort; he'd been unveiling her for his pleasure.
He stalked to the closet and got a blanket, then carried it back to the bed and draped it over her, tucking it around her feet and under her chin. His breathing was harsh as he stood looking down at her.
"Rosalie, tonight I expect to pay for every sin I've ever committed."
His back rigid and all his muscles bunched so tightly it almost hurt to move, David went to the hard, uncomfortable chair and took up his watch. The night would be a lifetime of agony.
o0o
The blinding headache was what awakened her. Groaning, Rosalie struggled to open her eyes.
"Rosalie."
She jerked fully awake at the sound of her name. David. What was he doing in her bedroom?
"Rosalie, are you all right?" A chair scraped against the floor, and David was bending over her, holding his hand against her forehead.
He was so close in the dark, so close and so big and so real. If she was dreaming, she didn't ever want to wake up.
"David?" she whispered.
"I'm here, Rosalie. Everything is all right."
She caught hold of his hand and pulled herself upright. It hurt her head to move.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?"
"You're in my bedroom."
She flushed hot all the way down to the tip of her toes. In spite of a head that was three times too big for her body, she felt dreamy, wonderful.
"Did I . . . ? Did we . . . ?"
"You fell asleep by the fire. I tried to wake you, but you were sleeping too soundly."
"The wine." She bent her head down to rub her aching temples. That's when she saw where his hand was. She was hanging on to it for dear life, pressing it against her breasts. Without warning, her nipples peaked and hardened. She sucked in a sharp breath. Would he notice?
"Yes, I think you had too much wine." He didn't move his hand, didn't try to enhance her already aroused state. Either he didn't notice or he was immune. "I take full responsibility for that, Rosalie. That's why I brought you here instead of taking you home ... so I could watch over you."
She twisted her head and saw the hard chair pulled close to the bed. It was the only one in the room.