Dragonslayer

by Emilie Richards

  “Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked.

  “Sleep? Now? I’m a night creature. I prowl until the wee hours. I’ll annoy the hell out of you before this is over—if I haven’t already.”

  “What do you do this late at night?”

  “Listen to music. Take long baths. Polish my nails. Dance.”

  “Dance?”

  She smiled. “By myself.”

  He had a vision of her swaying provocatively to music, stretching and swaying and pirouetting.

  “You weren’t sleeping, either,” she observed.

  “No.” He watched as she filled the two glasses nearly to the top.

  “It’s raspberry and lime. Is the bed uncomfortable?”

  “It’s fine. I was reading.” He reached for his glass. “I wasn’t succeeding.”

  “No? What were you trying to read?” She grimaced when he held up the journal. “Well, there’s nothing like taking your work to bed with you. No wonder you couldn’t concentrate.” She slid off the bed and disappeared into the bedroom. She returned with a paperback. “Here’s something you won’t have any trouble with.”

  He took the book. The company was already relaxing him. “A Morbid Taste for Bones?"

  “Think of it as a transition book. Something between Christian Century and Travis McGee. A mystery series about a Welsh Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael. Different century and religion, but you can relate. Then, when you’re done, we’ll move you to lighter stuff. Hard-boiled detectives, men’s adventures, lurid potboilers.” She winked. “I’m going to be good for you, Thomas.”

  He watched her as he sipped. She was lounging comfortably now. Despite the bruises and bandage, her face looked contented.

  “You don’t ask for much from life,” he said. “Your world has spun like a top in the last few days. You’ve got a gang of kids with guns after you, and you’re married to a stranger. But instead of banging your head against the wall, you’re lounging on my bed planning my midnight reading.”

  “What should I ask for?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Not the same issue at all.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Because people don’t get what they want, do they?” It wasn’t a real question. More of a challenge. She set her empty glass on the floor. “Tell me this is what you want, Thomas. Tell me that when you were a little kid you prayed or asked Santa Claus—or your wealthy parents or whoever—if, when you grew up, you could come and live in a ghetto and minister to a congregation that can’t pay you ten cents. Tell me you hoped and prayed that the wife you obviously loved would die young and you would get stuck with a melting-pot hellion who has bruises all over her body and more bruises in store.”

  “I never would have put it to God or Santa Claus quite that way.”

  She saw the quick flash of humor in his eyes. She couldn’t do anything but smile at him. “See? People rarely get what they want. So what good does it do to want anything?”

  “A bishop friend of mine always said that God knows best what we need.”

  “Your bishop hasn’t spend much time in the Corners.”

  He wasn’t going to admit how true that was. “You haven’t always been this jaded. What did you want when you weren’t afraid to ask for it?”

  “Does my memory go back that far?” She tapped her cheek with her index finger until she realized the cheek still hurt. “The things other people take for granted, I guess. A safe place to live, someone in my life to count on, children I could give everything to that I never had myself. Very basic, unadulterated dreams.”

  “Not impossible. Not if you get out of here.”

  Something, the late hour, the warmth in his voice, was having an unusual effect on her. Out of nowhere her throat seemed strangely thick. She couldn’t smile, and she couldn’t shrug. “I forgot to mention that part, didn’t I? See, all those dreams were supposed to happen here. This is where I live and who I am.”

  “So you’ve said.” Thomas set his glass down, too. She was only a foot away, but two very different lives separated them. He didn’t want to be separated. In that moment, he knew that he didn’t want to be apart from this woman.

  He leaned over and surprised them both. He touched her hair. His hand slid to her shoulder, then to her arm. He saw her pupils widen, startled, then mystified. He urged her forward. In a moment she was in his arms, sprawling against his chest. He tightened his hold when she squirmed in protest. “Garnet,” he said softly, “just stay here a moment.”

  “I don’t need this.”

  “You do. We both do.” He rubbed her back; his cheek rested on her hair. She fit in his arms and against his body as if she had been intended by some master planner for him. He was caught somewhere on the continuum between desire and compassion.

  “I wanted so little, didn’t I?” she asked. “There are so many people who want so little.”

  And so many who were afraid to reach for anything. His arms tightened around her. Her scent enveloped him; her warmth seeped into his soul—or what was left of it.

  She lifted her face, and blue eyes stared into translucent green. He read centuries of sadness, of repression, of yearning. He saw the Corners in her eyes, and he saw more, so much more. He saw a magnificent, proud and brazen woman who would not be defeated, who would not be transformed, who would not let anything more be taken from her without a fight to the death.

  He lowered his head to hers. He took, and she gave freely. His lips touched hers, searching for whatever she was willing to give. There was none of the minister, the shepherd, in his kiss. He forgot about leading, about gently bestowing gifts. He lost himself in her scent, her touch, the silken caress of her lips against his.

  She pulled away at last, until they were no longer touching. Her eyes were dry, but her poor bruised face looked sadly vulnerable. “We’d better not plan to do this very often,” she said. “You’re a man, and I’m a woman, and neither of us is a virgin. If you want a wife, Thomas, say so and I’ll give it some thought.”

  “Has comfort been such a rare experience in your life that you can’t recognize it?”

  “Was that just comfort? So be it, then. I recognize the intent. But I also recognize the potential outcome.” She slid off the bed and stood. “Enjoy the book.”

  He had enjoyed the woman. He no longer lied to himself; lying had once been his fatal flaw. No, he had enjoyed the woman. Enjoyed touching her, holding her, talking to her. Kissing her. And he had no right to any of those things.

  “Good night,” he said.

  She didn’t close the door between them. Even an hour later, immersed in the book she had given him, he was still aware that she hadn’t closed the door.

  6

  It’s the most conservative thing I own.” Garnet came into the living room and posed in the doorway. She was wearing a bright turquoise knit dress that nipped her waist and emphasized the swell of her breasts. It stopped only an inch above her knees. “Do I look like a minister’s wife?”

  Thomas had a vision of one of Pharaoh’s daughters posing just this way for a beleaguered Moses. He wondered if the prophet had been sorely tempted not to lead his people out of Egypt.

  “Doesn’t make it, does it?” she asked with a grimace. “I didn’t think so.”

  “You look lovely.”

  “Ah, but that’s not the point. Do I look properly docile? Chaste? Virtuous?”

  “We can’t ask the impossible.”

  Her teeth flashed in a blinding smile. “I’ll look more chaste if you zip it for me.”

  “You’ll look more chaste if we button a full-length coat over it and add knee boots.”

  “But I don’t have to go outside to go to church. I just walk downstairs, and presto!” She spun around, and the skirt of the dress flared around her legs. Her fingers gathered her mane of hair into one thick loop, and she lifted it off her neck.

  He saw that she had managed most of the zipper. But the section she hadn’t managed revealed a lo
ng swipe of skin. He crossed the room and grasped the tab. Her skin was a rose-tinted olive, smooth and glowing. There were no signs of bruises here. In the half-dozen days since she had come to live with him, most of the visible signs of her injuries had vanished.

  The zipper glided slowly to the top. He wanted to blaze the trail with his hand, test for himself the resilience of her flesh, the silk of her skin. But he knew better than to initiate such intimacy. Their arrangement would only be successful if intimacy was a dream and friendship the reality.

  “Really, Thomas. I don’t want to embarrass you.” She faced him. “I know you’re trying to make a go of the church. And people are going to wonder why on earth you married me.”

  “Can you really believe that?”

  She stared at him until a tiny smile tilted her lips. Her eyes steamed a tropical forest green. “Well, thank you very much.”

  “I’ll announce our marriage from the pulpit.”

  “They’ll wonder why it was so sudden...no matter what my charms.”

  “Everyone wants to believe in fairy tales and love at first sight.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I want to?” He shrugged.

  “Do you believe? I don’t. I don’t even know if I believe in love, period.” She thought for a moment. “Cancel that. I don’t believe in it. But you were married before. Maybe yours was one in a million marriages. A love for all time.”

  “I’ve got a few things to do downstairs before people start to arrive.” He started toward the door.

  She watched him go, only too aware that she had breached the unspoken agreement they had entered into along with their wedding vows. “You know, you did have another life once, and I had one, too. If we’re going to live together, our pasts are going to come up once in a while. Aren’t you even vaguely curious about who I am and where I’ve been?”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “In other words, don’t ask questions, because that could complicate this crazy arrangement of ours? Instead of marriage wouldn’t it have been easier just to hire a bodyguard or buy me a suit of armor? It might have been a lighter load to carry around.”

  He turned to her. “Did you think this was going to be easy?”

  “Obviously I didn’t think at all. I didn’t have time to, or even a brain that was working properly.”

  “I’m sorry you regret it. It seemed like the best answer at the time. It still does.”

  She sighed. “You might not answer questions, Rev, but I know a few answers already. You’re not the windup preacher doll you pretend so hard to be. Can’t you just show a little more of who you really are once in a while? I know this is hard on you, too. God knows, I’m not a piece of cake to live with. But wouldn’t it be more fun if we got to know each other a little? Wouldn’t this seem less like a waste of time?”

  To Thomas, the last thing their marriage seemed was a waste of time. In the days since Garnet had come to live with him, time had passed swiftly. Seconds became minutes before he was aware of their passing. There was color, texture and music in his life again, where before there had been a gray progression of days. He didn’t want to think about the changes the sham of a marriage had made, or his own surprising reaction to them. He was not a windup preacher doll, but what he was instead had to be worse. Much worse.

  “Who am I?” he said. “I don’t even know anymore. I wouldn’t even know what to tell you.”

  “You could start with easy things. Why did you come here? Who were you before you came?”

  “I came because there were people here who might need what I could give. And those people are going to be waiting downstairs for me to unlock the front door.”

  “Have it your way.” She shook her hair. She’d had every intention of tying it at her neck in a stab at appearing civilized. Now she decided to let it slither over her shoulders. There was only so far she would carry this charade of a marriage, and apparently Thomas felt the same way.

  He didn’t sigh or shrug, but she thought she saw an apology in his eyes. “Thank you for coming with me this morning,” he said.

  “I guess it’s the least I can do to thank you for trying to help me.”

  The preliminaries were finished. Greg had performed a rollicking prelude, the choir had sung, opening prayers and readings had been dispensed with, and Thomas had made his big announcement. There had been the requisite discreet turning of twenty-five or so heads to gaze at the new bride and the same number of welcoming smiles.

  When the fuss had died down, Garnet sat alone in the back of the church and stared at the man standing in front.

  She wondered if a woman could ever grow tired of staring at Thomas. He was an enigma, and that was part of his attraction. A woman could imagine him to be almost anything or anyone. Even his wife could indulge in fantasy about him—since she had no more idea than anyone who he really was.

  But behind the aura of mystery was simply an overwhelmingly attractive man. Garnet could say that dispassionately. Her husband, possibly the only one she would ever have, was easy to stare at and hard to take lightly. There was nothing about him that was simple or forthright. He was hard-edged and hard-hitting. He was a brilliant, un-flickering flame, and his congregants were moths drawn to his majesty and power. He spoke, and the church immediately grew silent. Every eye in the room was focused exclusively on him.

  His true appeal didn’t come from his good looks. Perhaps that was the first thing that attracted others, but the sheer masculine beauty of his face and the width of his shoulders were quickly passed by. There was something elemental about Thomas, something that cut through all pretension, all polite meanderings, right to the heart of life.

  She didn’t understand what that something was. Magnetism, charisma. These were words she had thought she understood. But now she knew they didn’t go far enough. They didn’t grasp the essential fact that somehow this man had been honed in a fire, perhaps one of his own making, and the man who had emerged was someone different, better, finer than the man who had entered.

  She might never understand exactly. What she knew about Thomas she knew only from clues. And the clues were rare but oh, so potent. The emotion-laden voice she had been forced to listen to so carefully on the rush to the hospital. The warm flash of Thomas’s eyes and the ice-blue caution that always followed. The offer of marriage to a woman he hardly knew, simply to protect her.

  He began to speak, and the words rolled off his tongue as if they had never been rehearsed, as if every one of them came directly, spontaneously from his heart. His voice was resonant, and he had a way of making love to a word until it became another, then another. She had never been a churchgoer, but she knew that she could listen to Thomas Sunday after Sunday. He loved language, its nuances, its cadences. He made his listeners love it, too. And somewhere in the loving, in the attraction to the minister, the congregation forgot him entirely and somehow focused on the higher meaning, the higher being toward whom Thomas was leading them.

  “There is very little I can tell most of you about courage. Many of you had to brave great odds to come here this morning. Many of you are facing difficulties in your personal lives, and I can only imagine the courage it takes for you to get up each day and face the world. But this morning I want to tell you about others who showed great courage, men who heard a voice and saw a vision. Men and women who, by their beliefs and their integrity, changed our world.”

  The front door opened. For a moment Garnet ignored the interruption. She didn’t want Thomas to stop speaking; she was sliding somewhere far away on the sound of his voice, somewhere where the brave stood up for their beliefs and risked their lives to make the world a better place.

  Thomas fell silent, and Garnet turned to see why. Andre was standing in the doorway with Ferdinand beside him. In front of him, sitting proudly in her wheelchair, was Beulah Rollins, Andre’s mother.

  Garnet glanced at Thomas. He hadn’t moved, but she knew he had tensed. His eyes searched for
her, as if measuring the distance and how long it would take to reach her if there was trouble. Then his gaze flicked to Andre. Finally he spoke.

  “Come in. You’re welcome here.”

  Garnet watched Andre’s face. Something passed over it. He was a match for Thomas; his feelings—or what was left of them after nineteen years on the Corners’ streets—were just as impossible to read. He grunted something to Ferdinand; then, flanking the wheelchair, they moved to the opposite side of the church, past the middle aisle and the section where Garnet was sitting. Ferdinand and Andre sat on the end of a row, and Beulah guided her wheelchair to the space beside them.

  “Once there was a gang of twelve,” Thomas began again. “More than two thousand years ago there was a gang. The twelve hadn’t always been members. Some had been fishermen, some common laborers. They didn’t even know they had the makings of a gang until one day a man came to them and said, ‘Follow me.’

  “ ‘Follow me.’ Two words. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Follow me. But what do you say when a stranger, a man with no degrees, no prestige, no skills except those of a simple carpenter, comes to you and asks you to give up everything? What do you say when He tells you to leave behind the boat that has brought you your livelihood, the quiet, blue lake that has fed your family, the family itself who depend on you for support and sustenance?

  “Follow me.” Thomas left the pulpit. He stood in front of the first row. “What do you say when someone, anyone, asks you to follow them? What do you say when a stranger asks you to become part of a gang? When a stranger tells you to give up everything that is dear to you and promises you no reward on this earth. What can you do?”

  His gaze traveled to settle on Andre. “Gangs have their pleasures, don’t they? You leave behind the things you love, the family, the old friends who are frightened by your new ones, but you gain something in exchange. Suddenly you’re part of a larger whole. The world expands. There are people who will stand up for you, who will avenge you if need be, who will protect your interests, so that life is no longer the lonely struggle it once was.