by Joan Hohl
Before falling asleep Adam told himself he would give it one more day, and he had not yet seen the Governor’s Palace and Bruton Parish Church. He could give the remaining exhibits a pass. Come the day after, he would be checking out of the motel and flying home to Wyoming.
Twelve
“If you will step this way, please?” the reenactor invited. Swinging open two wide doors, the costumed young man preceded the group of tourists into the long room. “This, as you can see, is the ballroom.”
Shuffling along with the crowd, Adam entered the ballroom in the Governor’s Palace. It was impressive, and yet...a frown etched a line between his brows.
Good...but not quite right, he thought, giving the interior a closer inspection. As with the rest of the palace, the decorations appeared authentic... but not for the particular period mentioned by the reenactor and definitely not for that particular governor.
A spasm of unease clutched at Adam’s stomach muscles.
How did he know?
The certainty he felt was exactly the same as he’d experienced at the sight of the gunsmith’s shop.
Dammit! He had thought, believed he had overcome the imaginings instilled into his sensually clouded mind by Sunny and her New Age babble.
Feeling his breakfast chum, Adam was relieved to hear the guide invite them to explore the palace gardens.
The minute he was outside, he separated from the group, drawing deep breaths of the chill air. Distracted, he strolled the extensive gardens, the maze in the lower terrace. Blind to his surroundings, he didn’t notice if the landscaping held true to the stated historical period.
It was that dream, following so soon after the unnerving incident concerning the gunsmith’s shop, Adam assured himself, rationalizing the sensation of recognition of decor and furnishings of a period nearly one hundred years prior to the events leading up to the War of Independence.
The effects of that damn dream, the gunsmith’s shop, were playing hell with his imagination.
Dismissing the odd occurrences, Adam exited the palace grounds and ambled along the road parallel the Palace Green, noting the Wythe house as he made for Bruton Parish Church on the corner.
Entering through the side into the property, he gave the churchyard cemetery a pass and strode along the walkway to the front entrance of the church.
The hushed serenity inside the church soothed his rattled nervous system. An appreciative smile for the austerity of the old church curving his lips, Adam slowly traversed the center aisle. Seemingly of their own volition, his steps came to an abrupt halt midway along the aisle.
Almost afraid to move, yet aware that he had little choice, he sliced a narrowed look to his left.
That was the pew.
In that instant, with that thought, Adam could see himself sitting in that pew. But the self he saw was not the current self, but a younger self, a man in his early twenties, tall, lanky, his face somber, attired in garb of the same period as the decor and furnishings in the palace.
A stifled feeling, claustrophobic in nature, assailed him. Turning on his heel, Adam strode at a near run from the building, onto Duke of Gloucester Street and down the two blocks to Merchant’s Square.
His mind haunted by the shades of the nightmare and other strange yet familiar ghosts, Adam didn’t stop to investigate the shops in Merchant’s Square; he didn’t even notice the shop windows, festive and gleaming with holiday decorations. As if obeying a silent yet compelling command, he kept walking, crossing the road and onto the campus of the College of William and Mary.
He had been there before, studied there...taught there. Adam shook his head at the fanciful idea... but it wouldn’t be denied. The idea held firm, inexorably drawing him deeper into the campus environs.
The day was clear, the bright sunshine robbing the light breeze of the cold sting of winter.
Adam no longer noticed the weather. He was barely aware of the tourists and students laughing and conversing as they moved about on the paths.
With his inner eye, his sights caught glimpses of his younger self, aging as he strode back and forth between the college and the town of Williamsburg.
Bits and pieces of the young, then not so young man’s history sprang into Adam’s mind.
He had come to Williamsburg from Richmond to study at the college, already then nearly twenty years in existence. But he had not come only to further his education, but to search—he knew not for what or whom.
Upon completion of his studies, he had been offered a teaching post, an associate professorship. He had accepted the post and had lived the remainder of his life there, searching, yet never finding the object of his search. He had married, not for love but companionship. He had fathered three children, not in the throes of loving passion but in physical desire. He had died a widower at the advanced age of eighty-two.
Adam shivered as the last bit of history illuminated his consciousness.
He had gone to his grave still searching.
The emptiness was a yawning chasm inside Adam.
Damn that mind-messing dream.
Making an abrupt turn, Adam literally fled the campus, his long-legged stride eating up the short distance to the small apartment above the camera shop.
Sunny answered the door, to his eyes delectable dressed in old jeans, a faded sweatshirt with the logo Virginia Is for Lovers emblazoned across the front. Her lovely face was free of makeup, her glorious gold-streaked hair a mass of disarrayed curls tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. Her slender, elegant feet were bare.
Her expressive eyes stared at him, sadness clouding the pools of deep green.
“I had to see you,” he confessed, at that moment realizing her door had been his eventual destination all along.
“But...the other day...you said...” she began, a glimmer of hope crowding the sadness in her eyes.
“I know what I said,” he interrupted her, giving a light shrug of helplessness. “I’ve changed my mind.” He hesitated, unsure of her, her welcome, before admitting, “I want to be with you. Not to take you to bed,” he hastily clarified, “but to talk, just be together.”
Sunny smiled, chasing the clouds from her eyes and his nightmare-haunted mind.
“Will you come with me?” he asked in imploring tones. “Have dinner with me?”
“I must change,” she said, indicating her clothes with a sweep of her hand.
“You’re fine as you are,” he assured her, meaning it. “We can order room service sent up to the suite.” He lowered his gaze, then smiled. “You might want to put on shoes.”
“That was good.” Sunny grinned across the small table at him. “Now that one appetite’s appeased, are you sure you don’t want to take me to bed?”
“Temptress,” Adam scolded, grinning back at her.
“I do my best.”
Adam laughed. “And your best is very good,” he said, still chuckling. “Darn near perfect.”
“I don’t have to get up for work tomorrow,” she said as an inducement. “It’s my day off.”
On the spot, Adam decided to forget flying back to Wyoming in the morning.
“Then there’s no hurry, is there?” He could hear the winding thread of sensuality in his voice. “We have all night. Let’s savor every moment.” Rising from the small table, he lifted a dark bottle from a silver ice bucket set next to the table. “More wine?”
“Yes, thank you.” Sunny raised her nearly empty flute for him to refill. Her eyes gleamed with inner amusement. “Only you would order an expensive champagne with a dinner of California cheeseburgers and French fries.”
Adam shrugged. “I thought the wine was an excellent compliment to our meal.” Turning away, he strolled to the settee and sat down, not in the one corner this time, but in the center of the seat.
“Are you deserting me?” Sunny asked, her voice dejected, her expression woeful.
“Not likely,” he drawled, and patted the cushion next to him, lifting his hand to hold i
t out to her. “Come on over here, Scheherazade, and tell me a story.”
“Scheherazade?” Sunny murmured, arching her brows in feigned surprise. “How intriguing.”
Glass in hand, she rose and crossed to him, stepping out of her shoes before curling up beside him. Draping his arm around her shoulders, Adam drew her closer, thrilling to the feel of her warm body pressing against his.
Two days, only two days had passed since last he’d been with her, and yet it had seemed like weeks. Missing her, wanting to be with her, had eaten away at him like an acid.
Adam’s arm tightened convulsively in reaction to his thoughts. Unfortunately, Sunny was in the process of taking a sip of wine at the time. The pate gold liquid spilled over the edge, bathing her lips and chin.
“Adam!” she yelped on a choked burst of laughter. “Be careful. Are you trying to drown me in wine?”
“What a way to go,” he muttered, grinning as he plucked the glass from her hand, then lowered his head to lap up the spill with his tongue.
“You’re crazy,” she said, her breaths suddenly quick, uneven. “But I love it.”
“Hmm...” Adam murmured, gliding his tongue over her wine-drenched lips. “Sunny wine. Delicious, a fine vintage,” he decided, dipping his tongue into her mouth.
“A-A-Adam...” Her voice was jerky, breathy. “I...er, thought you...ah... wanted to hear... Oh!” She gasped at the nip of his teeth into her lower lip.
“Right now, all I want to hear is you asking me to take you to bed,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Oh, Adam...” She sighed. “Please, take me to bed.”
He reached for her, then paused, his hands grasping her upper arms.
“Adam, what is it?” She looked surprised. “Is something wrong?”
“No, everything’s right,” he said. “I just want you to know that this time I’ll protect you.”
“And if it’s already too late?” she asked, her voice soft, her gaze intent.
“I’ll assume full responsibility,” he promised. “And I’ll support you in whatever way you decide to handle it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t necessary for you to say it.”
Her answer stirred his curiosity. “Why wasn’t it? Are you saying you trust me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips over hers. “Your trust is safe with me.”
“I know.” Sunny’s smile illuminated the dark corners of his soul. “Now, will you please take me to bed?”
“With pleasure,” he said, springing up and scooping her into his arms. “Yours and mine.”
“Adam! My hair!” Sunny’s yelp woke him from the depths of satiated slumber. “You’re laying on my hair.”
“Oh...” he grumbled, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Sorry.” Heaving a sigh, he sat up, freeing her hair.
“That hurt.” Rubbing her scalp, Sunny sat up beside him. The covers folded to drape her hips.
Adam’s body stirred on sight of her exposed breasts. Tamping down an urge to shield those tiptilted globes of enticement with his hands, he sprang from the bed.
“I’m for a shower,” he said, sliding a slow, sidelong, smoldering look at her. “Want to join me?”
Sunny gave him a considering look. “Do you mean that literally or figuratively, sir?”
“Both,” he answered, and growled at her.
“You talked me into it.” Laughing, Sunny scrambled from the bed and into his arms.
“This brings back memories of a time we bathed together in a creek,” Sunny mused aloud, raising her face to the shower spray and groaning in pleasurable response to his hands lathering her breasts.
“It does, huh?” Adam said, absently, his attention centered on her puckering nipples.
“Yes,” she murmured, sighing in pleasure. “Only then, the water was cold.” She opened her eyes to gaze into his. “Did you know that cold water is very arousing?”
“You don’t say?” he said, his tone deceptively mild as he reached around her to turn off the hotwater tap. “I feel I must test your claim.”
“Yikes! Adam! That’s freezing!” Sunny screeched.
“Yeah, I feel it—and see it, too.” His fascinated gaze was riveted to her hard nipples. “It’s having a great effect on your body.”
“Hmm...” Her gaze skimmed down his torso to settle on the proof of his arousal. “Yours, too.” She shivered.
“Cold?” he asked in a purr, drawing her into his arms, flattening her breasts against his chest. “Let me warm you up a bit.” Cradling her bottom, he lifted her to him.
“Not cold,” Sunny muttered into the curve of his shoulder. “Hot, very hot,” she said, curling her legs around his hips and moaning as he slipped inside her.
“Then allow me to cool you down.”
The cold water beat a steady stream over them; caught up in their heated sensuality, they didn’t notice.
“Well, what do you think?”
Adam turned to look at Sunny, posed in the doorway to the bedroom, and burst out laughing. His cotton-knit sweater hung down her legs to just above the knees, and he knew that beneath the sweater all she had on was the clean pair of cotton briefs he’d tossed at her when she had voiced her distaste at putting her panties back on after their extended shower.
“You look like a little girl playing dress up with her father’s clothes,” he said, but then immediately shook his head to negate the statement. “No, you don’t. A little girl looks innocent. You look sexy as hell.”
“Oh, good. I’ve always wanted to look sexy as hell.” Sunny sashayed to him and dropped down onto the settee next to him. “Did you order coffee?”
“Yes.” Raising his hand, he caught a damp tendril of her hair and coiled it around a finger. “And a cheese-and-fruit tray to go with it.”
“Fine...as long as you don’t expect me to peel and feed grapes to you.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, running a speculative glance over her. “But the idea has merit.”
“Forget it.”
Adam heaved a dramatic sigh. “No ‘me master, you slave’ games, hmm?”
“No.” She laughed. “But I am willing to do the Scheherazade thing.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and lowered her voice to a seductive murmur. “Wanna hear a story?”
“Sure, why...” Adam broke off at a tap on the door. “That must be room service with our coffee.”
“And with me only half dressed,” Sunny cried, jumping up and dashing into the bedroom.
Shaking his head and laughing to himself, Adam walked to the door and admitted the waiter.
After the soft-voiced man deposited the tray on the table, pocketed Adam’s generous tip and departed, Adam called the all clear to Sunny. He was pouring out their coffees when she sauntered back into the room and flopped onto the settee.
“I heard the laughter in your voice,” she said, contriving to sound affronted. “I amuse you, do I?”
“You delight me,” he countered, somewhat surprised at the unvarnished truth of his statement. Carrying their cups to the settee, he handed one to her, then carefully seated himself beside her, thinking they certainly were getting his money’s worth out of that particular piece of furniture...not to mention the bed.
“You make me feel good, too,” he added.
Sunny inclined her head. “I live to serve and pleasure you, sir,” she said meekly.
“But no grapes,” he qualified.
“No grapes.” She laughed. “But I’ll tell you a story, if you like?”
“I like.” Dipping his head, he gave her a quick kiss. “Story on, Scheherazade.”
Sunny made a face at him. Then she grew serious, almost somber. “There have been lifetimes when we haven’t been together, you know.”
Adam felt an inner jolt, as if from an electric current. “There were?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “There is one, in particular. The images were vivid in their very
drabness.”
Adam frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I was alone, the only child of a Virginia gentleman farmer. I had been privileged, raised in what at that time was considered the lap of luxury.”
“That was drab?” he asked, making the connection between her claim to having been in Virginia and the strange visions he had experienced on the college campus earlier.
Could it be possible they had been there at the same time, and through some quirk had never met?
The thought had no sooner flickered to life inside his head, when he dismissed it.
Ridiculous.
“My life was drab, not my living conditions,” she explained. “I had numerous suitors, and yet none of them suited me. I had a longing inside, a sick yearning for someone...” Her smile was tinged with sadness. “I longed, yearned for you.”
“And you knew it was me you longed for?” Adam asked, a roughness edging his voice as he recalled the endless searching of the man, the self, in his visions.
“No, not then.” Sunny sighed. “It was only with the flash of memories that I understood what the woman who had been me had been longing for.”
Adam didn’t respond; he couldn’t. He was too caught up in reliving what had frighteningly appeared to be his own flashes of memory.
Then another consideration struck him. She had told him that first day that Mr. White had been here before; Adam had presumed she had meant during the present lifetime. Then Charles Lawrence had said he had been here before, with a definite indication of a previous lifetime.
Had they known one another then?
“I never married.” Sunny’s soft voice snagged his wandering attention. “I never knew the caress of a man, the possession of a lover. I lived out my life alone.”
“But...” Adam hesitated, uneasy in his mind, silenced by the memory flash of a man searching, longing, yet not living out his life alone.
Dammit! This was nuts. Why should he feel guilty?
Sunny was saying something, and Adam held up a hand. “Hold it,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I missed what you were saying. Will you begin again?”