by Maddie James
The winds picked up outside as rain thrashed against his window. A late-night summer storm had turned a bit brutal. Carson looked out over the street from his living room window and watched the rain come down in slanted sheets, while debris was tossed about on the sidewalks. Suddenly, he realized that this might be a bit more than a typical summer thunderstorm. When the emergency warning siren on top of the courthouse down the street went off a few seconds later, his suspicions were confirmed.
About that time a solid upward draft of wind took the awning which hung over his and Gracie’s shop doors completely off and tossed it like a wadded-up tissue into the street.
He turned and ran toward his apartment door, shouting Gracie’s name.
She met him on the landing outside of their apartments, wide-eyed and a sleepy-but-frightened look across her face.
Thunder ripped through the night around them as a flash of lightning split the night. The building seemed to moan under the stress of the windstorm outside; the lights flickered.
“The cellar!” she shouted and grabbed his arm.
He pulled her close, his arms around her, and they both ran down the stairs towards the first floor landing. Behind the stairwell, Gracie fiddled with another lock, finally opened it, and they began their descent into the dark cellar.
“I can’t see,” Carson told her.
“Wait.” She tugged on his arm.
He heard her fumbling against the wall and finally a bulb overhead lit the stairway. “There’s a flashlight around here somewhere,” he heard her say. “There.”
Carson looked where she was pointing, fished the flashlight out between the handrail and the wall, flipped it on and saw that the batteries were still working, then grasped her hand to lead her further into the cellar.
“I haven’t been down here in ages,” she told him. “I have no clue what’s down here.”
They’d found the flashlight just in time, as with the next flash of lightning, the power went completely out.
Gracie grasped his arm tightly and he silently and quickly lead her away from the side of the cellar with the window wells and underneath the stairway, itself. The wind thrashed against the windows and thunder roared above their heads. He flashed the light in the dark corner and found several wooden boxes stacked against the wall, underneath the stair.
“Here. Let’s get back in here,” he told her.
“I don’t even want to know what’s back there,” Gracie told him. He thought she might be hesitant to crawl back under the stairway, until a boom and a crash up above sent her into his arms and both of them toppling back against the boxes.
She was shivering in his arms. Carson sat back against one of the wooden crates and pulled her closer into him. She was practically sitting in his lap, her head against his chest, her arms around him.
And she was wearing that damned sleep shirt he liked so much.
“Are you okay?” he whispered after a minute.
“No.”
He smiled to himself. “You’re shaking.”
“I know.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Gracie.”
She nodded against his chest. “I won’t let anything happen to you, either.”
He smiled again and planted a small kiss on the top of her forehead.
“God, I hate tornadoes,” she told him a little later.
“Have you been in many?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Never. But now I know I hate them.”
“Maybe it’s just a bad thunderstorm. It will be over soon,” he promised.
“I’m holding you do that, Mister.” Carson grinned and held her tighter. Even in the midst of a tornado, she felt so good in his arms and he was very conscious of the fact that that was exactly where he wanted her—in his arms.
Something crashed against the outside wall again, then a tinkling of glass and a whoosh of wind made them aware the storm was still not over. A window-well broken behind them, Carson suspected.
The rode out the storm for thirty minutes or longer and when it finally died down enough that Carson felt they were safe to move, he told Gracie so.
“Let’s wait a little longer,” she told him.
“The storm is over, Gracie. Let’s go see what kind of damage we have upstairs.”
She looked up at him then, her eyes wide. “Oh my, our shops!”
“Yeah,” he answered. “We might want to take a look.”
The aftermath of a devastating storm can bring an uncanny silence to its victims as they survey the damages of their surroundings. Carson and Gracie both felt the chilling calm as they moved through their businesses to assess the damages. The power was still out and it was hours until daylight, so they tried to check out what they could by flashlight.
The interior of Gracie’s shop fared a little better than the storefront. The awning was ripped entirely away, leaving crumbing brick behind. Her flower pots and window boxes were gone. Totally gone. A bench, which at one time sat to the right of her door, had been thrust into the building and was now reduced to nothing more than potential toothpick material. It narrowly missed her window, and Gracie was thankful for that. Inside, water had been forced under the front door and around the window--all that was ruined were some Oriental rugs on the floor.
Carson’s side, however, didn’t fare quite so well.
When the awning was ripped from the building, a metal support pole was somehow thrust through the window, shattering it. Glass was blown inward and scattered about the room, along with tons of water, it seemed. Everything in the room was water-soaked. Arcade games were blown over, everything behind the bar—liquor bottles and glasses—were scattered and broken, the wide-screened television was ruined. The force of the winds must have been pretty strong, Carson thought to himself, in order to do this much damage inside the building.
Each of them glanced about. Finally, Carson turned to Gracie, a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I’m going to see if I can find some plywood somewhere to board up that window. I think that’s about all we can do tonight without power. We’re going to have our work cut out for us tomorrow.”
Gracie nodded and slowly panned the room. “I’m just glad Izzie wasn’t here,” she said quietly.
Carson had thought of that earlier. “Yes. I know.”
Gracie looked at him then with a terrified expression on her face. “Carson,” she began hesitantly, “we’re often in the same storm path as Louisville, maybe you should call?”
At that instant the sinking feeling in his gut turned to dread. “You’re right.”
Within the next several minutes, Carson had called Kate on his cell phone and found out that the storm had skirted around Louisville. Izzie slept through the entire thing, Kate told him, but she was relieved to find out that everyone was okay in Franklinville after hearing the news reports. He made arrangements with Kate for Izzie to stay another couple of days while they cleaned up the shops, then set about to boarding up the front window, while Gracie headed back upstairs to check out the condition of both apartments.
It was in her bedroom that Carson found her several minutes later, lying curled on her side in her bed, softly crying into her pillow.
He didn’t know anything else to do but to go to her. Lying down beside her, he pulled Gracie into his arms and she turned into him, wrapping her arms about his waist and snuggling close. Her head was tucked beneath his chin and his fingers went to her cheek to gently stroke her hair away.
She sobbed softly for a few minutes and he just held her. He supposed all of this was just a lot to absorb.
“Shshsh...” he cooed. “Everything is all right now.”
She didn’t answer, but just clung closer to him and sniffled.
Carson didn’t know when a woman had ever felt so good in his arms. The past two nights he’d dreamed of holding her and tenderly making love to her. It was something he’d decided, if given the chance, he had to risk—not just making love with her, but lov
ing her. He’d decided that loving Gracie was worth the risk, even if it turned out to be painful for him in the end. Making love with her would simply be the icing on the cake.
Loving her mind and soul and heart were first and foremost in his mind. Loving her body was secondary. But oh, what pleasure he imagined that would bring.
And yes, it was worth risking the pain to know the pleasure of loving Gracie.
“Tell me why you’re so upset,” he whispered to her. The room was dark except for the dull glow of an emergency-powered street lamp outside her window. Carson wanted to see her face but just kept his eyes closed and gently caressed her cheek, thinking of her beautiful face with his mind’s eye.
“It’s just,” she whispered and then paused, “it just hit me, we could have lost everything.”
“But we didn’t.”
“I’m glad Izzie wasn’t here,” she said again.
“Me, too.”
She was silent for a moment, still sniffling once in a while. He just held her closer.
“I lost everything in my life once,” she said after another few minutes. “I don’t want that to ever happen to me again.”
Carson thought about that for a moment. “When Marci left, I thought my world was going to end,” he told her. “But at least I still had Izzie and my job. I survived though. I’m not sure what it would feel like to lose everything.”
Gracie took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “It’s hell,” she whispered.
Carson decided to take a risk. “Tell me about it, Gracie.”
For a while all he heard, all he felt, was her breathing. She took in long, even breaths and let them slowly out against his chest. After a few minutes, she pulled away and looked into his face. The both lay there, heads facing each other on the pillow.
“All I ever wanted to do with my life was to dance,” she began softly. “It was all I ever did as a child and my parents helped me reach that dream by sending me to the finest dance instructors. When I graduated from high school, I went to New York. In no time I was dancing with a very prestigious troupe and was making quite a name for myself. I was living my dream and every minute of my existence was focused on that dream. I was consumed for several years. And then I met Evan.”
She stopped and Carson said nothing. All he wanted to do was listen.
“Evan wasn’t a dancer and it was a fluke that we even met because all my time was spent on the road or practicing. We bumped into each other on the subway one afternoon and it was sort of a magical, love-at-first-sight kind of thing.”
Carson couldn’t tell, but he thought he saw a little glimmer in her eye as she talked about him. He wondered if that glimmer was a tear, or a twinkle from a fond memory.
“He was a stock broker, knew nothing about the dance world, but he loved me. And I loved him. We were planning to be married, the date was set. Then...”
She closed her eyes and Carson felt her tense a bit. Reaching over, he stroked her cheek again, and caught a tear that had escaped over an eyelid. Tears. What he’d seen were still tears. He was moved by her sadness and only wanted to protect her more, to ease her pain, for he could feel her pain as well.
“You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to,” he whispered. He didn’t want her to endure this for his sake, but he had a feeling she needed to go on.
She shook her head. “I want to,” she murmured back.
He let her gather herself again, waiting for her to continue. After a couple of minutes, she did.
“We both had a weekend off and had decided to take a drive out of the city, just to get away from the rat race for a while. We had no plans, were just out for a leisurely Saturday afternoon in the country. Our excursion didn’t last long. It started raining and Evan lost control of his car on a curve when a large truck met us nearly head on. We skidded into the guardrail and flipped over a hill.
“Evan died immediately. I was conscious and laid there until help arrived. It was horrible and seemed like hours. I knew he was dead. My right leg was badly broken and I had a few other cuts and bruises, but I was alive.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to dance again.”
“Why?”
“The leg took months to heal. It was a difficult break in two places. My life was in such a dark cloud, I didn’t care about doing physical therapy or even trying to dance again. I would have traded my dancing career for Evan’s life, but that was not going to happen. So, I decided that dancing would never be a part of my life again and I just didn’t do what I needed to do to get the leg back in shape. It just wasn’t in me. I couldn’t.
“After a while, I came back to Franklinville. My father had died a year before the accident. My mother had died a couple of years prior to that. This building was my father’s so it was now mine. It took me a while, but I eventually turned to something other than dancing. That’s when Romantically Yours was born. And ever since then, this is all I have. All I’ve wanted. Until...”
She didn’t finish her thought. Carson wanted badly to know where that thought was leading, but he was sure she wasn’t going to say any more. He wanted to draw her closer, to hold her next to his heart and keep her there but he was afraid she’d pull back, that this wasn’t the time. So, he simply watched her face.
“Has there been no one in your life since then?”
Gracie looked intently into his eyes. “No,” she whispered. “It’s just too damned scary.”
He searched her face. It was now or never and he didn’t know if there would ever be another opportunity like this one. He had to tell her, in some subtle way, how he felt about her. That he loved her. But he didn’t want to frighten her away.
That’s what scared the hell out of him.
“What if there was someone else who was scared, too,” he said softly, his fingertips stroking her chin and lips. “What if that someone was willing to risk falling in love again, even though he was scared to death, too? What if, for him, it was worth the risk? Would you still be scared?”
The tears that fell down Gracie’s cheeks were fat and big and the sob that choked from her throat tore at Carson’s heart. “I would still be scared,” she said, barely louder than a breath, her gaze clinging to his. “But not as much if I knew we could be scared together.”
It was as though his heart burst then, with all the love and tenderness he wanted to show to Gracie pouring forth. He kissed her, and her lips tasted like a fine wine. Within seconds, he was drunk with the thought of loving her for the rest of his life and he kissed her again.
* * * *
Gracie knew nothing else but to finally let go.
The touch of Carson’s lips to hers allowed her the surrender for which she’d ached for years. It was like a huge release, an enormous burden which had been lifted from her shoulders and out of her mind, melting away with a whoosh as his hands drew tenderly over her face and his lips softly caressed hers. He whispered her name, over and over, and Gracie never wanted him to stop.
She’d denied for so long that she possessed incredibly deep feelings for Carson. She’d denied that she could be in love with him. But this moment—this precise moment in time—was the one she’d remember for her lifetime as the one where she’d finally let it all go.
All of it. The past. Her ache for a future with a husband and a child. Her fear of falling in love again. Her fear of having that love snatched away.
She could finally let it go. She could finally risk loving again. And she wanted to love Carson.
There was nothing to do but experience the emotion that washed over the two of them. There was nothing to do but to feel. No thinking, the thinking had all been done. What remained for the two of them was to experience each other and to simply explore their passion and their love.
Carson’s hand slipped underneath Gracie’s nightshirt and she shivered as his fingers slid up her thigh and over her hip. Raw tingles of passion snaked through her as those same fingers gently teased their way up her waist to the tender area just b
eneath one breast. He gently cupped her and Gracie moaned and moved closer into his hand while he caressed and thumbed her nipple.
His mouth still consumed hers, their tongues slowly mingling and parrying with each other. Gracie simply let Carson take the lead, weary of being the strong independent woman she’d been for the past ten years, just wanting to absorb his attention and his ministrations, and revel in the passionate flames he was stoking inside of her.
For the first time in a long time, she just wanted to feel thoroughly loved.
Her nightshirt was gone within seconds; Carson slowly slipped it over her head and rolled her onto her back. He covered her body with his and gazed into her eyes while he made lazy circles with his fingertips at her temples. Gracie reached up and touched her tongue to his lips.
Once. Twice. Then again.
The fourth time she teased with him with her tongue, Carson grasped her face with his hands and held her to him as he devoured her lips with his mouth, then rained kisses all over her face.
“Gracie,” he breathed, “I want you to be sure. I don’t want to do anything that you’re not ready to—”
“Make love to me, Carson,” she breathed back between his kisses. “I want you to make love to me.”
He answered her desire with a groan and the quick removal of his clothing. Gracie knew that there was no turning back now, that once she’d succumbed to Carson’s passion, she would have difficulty separating herself emotionally from him should there ever come a time that she would be forced to do that.
But she was willing to take the risk.
His warm body felt so wonderful over hers as he covered her again, one of his legs nudging gently between her thighs. The next seconds, minutes, hours, it seemed, were simply filled with sensation and kisses and touches as Carson explored her body from the tip of her nose to the valley between her breasts and traveling further to rain kisses on her belly and lower.
He lingered between her thighs, bringing sweet ecstasy to her there as his lips nibbled and played and his tongue made love to her. And when Gracie could take no more of his pleasure, she reached for him, wanting him inside her, urging his body up and over hers.