One Summer’s Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Really?” She couldn’t have said why that surprised her, or why speaking of it should so obviously unnerve him. But her heart quickened as she asked, “Any brothers or sisters?”

  He lowered the mug and now examined it minutely. His lashes were dark curtains across his eyes. “I had a brother,” he said at last, again in that voice devoid of all expression. “Younger. He died when I was twelve. He was..about six.”

  “Oh, God-how awful.” And she thought: Just about Helen’s age. Shame and regret overwhelmed her, squeezed her chest and tightened her throat, so that she whispered through the pain, “I’m so sorry. I mean, I can’t even imagine what it would be like. My sisters and I-we were so close. Even to think of losing them…”

  From half a room away, Riley saw her eyes fill with tears, and saw in those tears his own escape. Maintaining control of his natural empathy-his gift, his curse-had been challenge enough to him lately, it was true; but it was a battle he waged on a daily basis and was therefore accustomed to. Watching her, he said quietly, “You miss them.”

  She gave a liquid-sounding laugh, like a hiccup. He watched her lips play through a whole symphony of emotions and was as fascinated as he’d been that first day in his office. She said huskily, “Yeah, I do. And the funny thing is, until last year I didn’t even see that much of them I guess-” she shrugged, drew an uneven breath “-I was too busy. There was my job, my clinic, and then I was married and they weren’t, I had kids and they didn’t. But then, after Hal left, and I knew I was going to have to start over, and I thought about where I would go… My parents live in Pensacola Beach, I could have gone there. But when I really thought about it, it was my sister-Mirabella-that I…” her voice broke, surprising her, he thought, and she drew another unsteady breath. “So, I came here. And now-” suddenly her hands were clenched fists and her voice trembled with anger “-I can’t even see her. I can’t even talk to her on the phone. Now, when I need her the most. It makes me so angry. I feel like-” She broke off with a laugh. “You know what it’s like? Remember that day, last winter, when you saw me in court? And the judge threatened to send me to jail? I thought, I can’t possibly go to jail-no way! And now, here I am-if I’m not in jail, I might as well be!”

  Unexpectedly stung, he forced a smile. “Oh, come on, is it really that bad?”

  “Oh,” she said quickly, empathetic enough herself to realize how her words might be taken and anxious not to give offense, “not that it isn’t a very nice jail. You’ve done everything you could possibly do to make us comfortable-too much.” She came toward him, arms folded tightly across her waist in what seemed to him an unconscious effort to contain treacherous emotions. Instead, because of the tension in her, the effect of that determinedly subdued tone and manner was to make her words all the more poignant. “But-my life has been taken from me. Don’t you understand? I have no freedom to come and go as I please. I can’t go to work, or shopping, or to visit my family or take the kids to McDonald’s. If that’s not prison, what is the definition?”

  Her face was stark, strained…the unhappiness in it so distressing to Riley, he finally had to look away. “It’s only temporary,” he muttered. “Until the bad guys are put away. And the FBI, with all its resources-”

  “Can’t find one man named Hal Robey!” she broke in, anger and derision thick and hot in her voice. “You know what makes me the maddest? It’s that I’m afraid. All the time. Do you know what it’s like to live every moment of your life in fear?”

  He was stunned to hear himself say, “Yes, I do.” And felt with the admission, a curious sense of lightening.

  Summer’s eyebrows rose with surprise. “You?” She came back to the table at once and sat, once again close enough to him to touch, as if, he thought, his confession of human frailty made him seem less dangerous to her.

  To him, though, the danger seemed incalculable. Shaken by his brush with it, he forced a smile and murmured, “I told you, you don’t know me.”

  But, to his relief, she wasn’t listening, focused once again on her own concerns and reassured enough for continued confidences. Gazing at the lightening windows, she said in a musing tone, “Sometimes, you know, I think I’d rather confront the fear. Go out there and face those…those bastards! Like-I don’t know, set myself up as bait for an FBI sting, or something. Anything to get those people caught.”

  “But,” Riley reminded her gently, “you have the children to think about.”

  “Yes…” He heard her breath escape in a long, slow sigh. “I have the children.” Then for a while she was silent, while her whole being seemed to wilt, and grow pensive and sad. When she spoke again it was in a halting half whisper, and he knew without any doubt that she had never spoken those thoughts aloud to a living soul before.

  “Sometimes…it seems like I’ve been in jail all my life-a kind of jail, anyway. Maybe not all my life, but at least since I realized that the man I’d married wasn’t ever going to be a partner, and that it was pretty much going to all be up to me-providing for us, you know, raising my children. I’ve felt…so damn lonely.” The last word came from her with rough edges, like torn burlap. “I’ve felt trapped, you know? I feel like I’ve had no choices. It’s like that story of the little boy with his finger in the hole in the dike. Like I’m all alone and trapped by the whole overwhelming responsibility for survival-everyone’s… my own, my children’s-and that everything I’ve done has been because I had to, for someone else’s sake, never because it was what I wanted to do.”

  She stopped abruptly, and Riley found himself with a heart full of words he could not-dared not-say. It was a vulnerable, exposed feeling, like a thief caught with his hands full of stolen booty, pinioned in the glare of police spotlights. Did you ever in your life, Summer Robey, do something just for yourself? Take a cruise? Shop for perfume? Kiss a lover in the rain? Go dancing after midnight? Have an affair with a dashing attorney…?

  The moments ticked away, counted in his heartbeats. He felt his body grow heavy and humid, with rumblings and growlings deep down inside of unacknowledged and unassuaged hungers. What would happen, he wondered, if he touched her now? If he were to reach out, reach across that small distance between them and take her hands…her strong, capable, no-nonsense hands…would he feel them tremble? Hands could tremble, he knew, for many reasons, and so could lips…and bodies. He suddenly knew that he wanted to feel hers tremble-her lips, her body-but for no other reason than desire. Not with cold, exhaustion, nerves or fear. Never with fear-never again with fear! Only desire. For him.

  He realized then that it was he who was trembling-deep down inside where only he could feel it. Where only he could know. He also knew that while it was desire that made him tremble, there was fear, too. And finally it was the fear that made him back away, tiptoe carefully away from the edge and, instead of touching her, lace his fingers together on the tabletop and lightly say, “Tell me, Mrs. Robey-if you could choose what you wanted to do, what would it be?”

  She stared at him, wordless with surprise.

  He gestured toward the windows, which, without either of them noticing, the dawn had painted a soft, seashell pink. “It’s Sunday. Say you could do anything you wanted to do today-say I’m a genie, and I’m granting you one wish, just for today-what would it be?”

  Summer caught a breath and held it. After the traumas of the day just past, the night’s demons and a conversation fraught with strange undercurrents and unknown tensions, his mood, the question, the sheer lightheartedness of it, were as enchanting and restorative as a rainbow. And in spite of herself, knowing what a fantasy it was, she allowed herself to be drawn into the game, if only for a moment. Closed her eyes and opened her mind and allowed the yearnings to take shape…and color…and then, choosing one, just one, she whispered, “The beach…I’d go to the beach.”

  “Done!” he said, slapping the table with his palm. “Today we’ll go to the beach.”

  And just like that, the sunlit vision evaporated in the col
d rain of reality. She shook her head, fiercely emphatic. “No. No-absolutely not. You’ve done enough-too much. Seriously.” A thought struck her. She sat up straight and fired it back at him. “What would you normally do on a Sunday? Whatever it is, I insist you do it-as if we weren’t here.”

  “Okay,” said Riley. But she didn’t like the gleam in his eyes.

  He got up from the table, gathered up his water glass and the two mugs and went into the kitchen. A moment later, Summer heard water running, cupboard doors opening and closing, the subdued rattle of pans. Intrigued, she went to investigate, and was confronted with the mind-boggling vision of Riley Grogan, street-fighting lawyer, tuxedoed man-about-town, dashing rescuer of tree-stranded children, Rhett Butler in a blue silk dressing gown, coolly dumping handfuls of flour into a mixing bowl.

  Chapter 11

  “What are you doing?” She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his chest, where a careless swipe of his hand had dragged a smudge of flour across one silk lapel and sifted it into the adjacent V of dusky brown skin and crisp black hair. Impossible, she thought, finding herself for the second time in as many days fighting an urge to laugh.

  “What am I doing?” He glanced at her, eyebrows aloft. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cooking breakfast. Obviously.”

  “But I can-you don’t have to-”

  “Ah, but you said I should do what I normally do on a Sunday, so…I normally make breakfast. Beginning with biscuits. Excuse me.”

  She dodged aside as he reached past her to turn on the oven. “Biscuits. My God,” she murmured, her mouth dropping open in awe, “where on earth did you learn to make biscuits?” Captivated, she leaned against the counter. “Your mom teach you?”

  His laugh was low and ironic. “No ma’am-just a friend. Hand me that fork, would you?”

  She did, and was barely even aware that in doing so her arm had brushed against his. “I have never been able to make biscuits. Mine make excellent hockey pucks.”

  She watched a smile etch itself into the side of his face beneath the furring of beard stubble. “Ah, but you see, the trick…is to be quick.” And he turned the bowl upside down, dumped its contents onto the counter and began to knead the floury mixture with light, deft strokes.

  And Summer, staring at his fingers, his long, elegant hands, remembering how they’d reminded her of fine, smooth leather, felt a prickling of the nerve endings in her skin, a tightening sensation in her nipples, a tingling heaviness between her thighs. As if it were a lover’s touch-as if.…he’d touched her!-she experienced a wave of purely physical desire such as she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  “Of course-” Riley’s voice seemed to purr in her ear “-these would be better with some redeye gravy, but I haven’t got any sausage, I don’t think…”

  She mumbled thickly, “It’s just as well we don’t. Isn’t that what they call heart attack on a plate?”

  He clicked his tongue sorrowfully as his hands wielded a biscuit cutter, making tidy circles in the lumpy mass of dough. “Ah, I see you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by the Health and Fitness Nazis out in California.”

  Who are you, Riley Grogan? Summer thought as she gripped the edge of the countertop, shaken by the force of her attraction to him, weak-kneed with reaction. Every time I think I have you figured out… She cleared her throat and gave a low, uneven laugh. “Will the real Riley Grogan please stand up?”

  He paused in the process of transferring the rounds of dough onto a cookie sheet to throw her a surprised and uncertain smile. “What?”

  “I’m having a little trouble with the redeye gravy, if you want to know-it doesn’t quite fit your image, does it?”

  He gave her a longer look across his shoulder. “The image you have of me, you mean.”

  She held his gaze. “The image you foster.”

  “True.” And his mouth quirked in a Rhett Butler smile.

  She couldn’t help it. Her breath caught. “So,” she said, all but whispering, “Which are you-filet mignon, or biscuits and redeye gravy?”

  It seemed an age before he answered, an age in which she searched for answers in his eyes and saw there only the tiny twin reflections of herself. “Both, of course.” His voice sounded raspy to her, as if it came from poor-quality speakers. “Most people are.”

  “Multifaceted, are you?” Had she forgotten to breathe? It seemed so, because without air to support it, her voice suddenly cracked and broke.

  A strange, dark chuckle seemed to vibrate through the space between them. “Mrs. Robey-” he touched her nose with a floury finger “-I have facets you haven’t begun to explore.”

  She found herself staring at him, her mouth dry as flour, heart thumping. My God, were they flirting? She wanted to reach for something, anything to hold on to, and discovered to her surprise that she was already gripping the granite countertop with both hands. Thank God, she thought, for that support. But…oh, she thought, how good it would feel-and her whole being ached with yearning-if it were his lean, warm body and not cold, hard stone beneath her hands.

  Sounds reached her, like the preliminary rumblings of an avalanche. Familiar sounds…and her mother’s instincts responded with the surge of adrenaline she needed to pull herself out of the quicksand. Yes, she thought-that’s what it had felt like, those terrible, treacherous woman’s desires that came over her lately when she least expected it, so suddenly, so powerfully… like stepping into quicksand, overwhelming, all consuming, impossible to defend against

  And yet, she must. She must. How could she even think such thoughts, when her children were in danger? How dared she feel desire? Now-of all times! And for a man whose life held no place for children…

  Preceded by muffled bumps and thumps, hers came into the kitchen, David first, rubbing his eyes and yawning, with Beatle scampering at his heels, then Helen, peeking flirtatiously at Riley around the edge of the door.

  “Mom?” David mumbled as he shuffled over to her for his good-morning hug. “How come you have white stuff on your nose?”

  Summer was scrubbing hastily at her face when Riley turned from the oven with a flourish and declared, “We made biscuits, that’s how come. Breakfast in ten minutes. In the meantime, better go get your suits on if you want to go to the beach.”

  Already jangled by her brush with disaster, she was caught totally off balance, blindsided. All she could do was gasp in delayed reaction, while Helen was hopping up and down and yelling, “Yay! The beach, the beach!” and David screeched, “The beach! Oh, man-really? Honest, Mom?”

  “No, Riley-”

  “Honest, swear to God.” His smile was smug-so very male. “And it’s a long drive, so you’d better get crackin’.” Ooh…and his calm, authoritative tone infuriated her.

  While the children thundered out of the kitchen shouting, “Oh boy, the beach!” at the tops of their lungs, Summer turned on Riley, quietly seething. “I told you-” she began.

  “Ah-ah-” he stopped her there with upraised finger and eyebrows “-a deal’s a deal.”

  “A deal?” She frowned. “But, I don’t-”

  “You told me, as I recall, to do exactly what I normally do on Sundays-which I am doing. And unless you’d prefer to stay home, Mrs. Robey, I suggest you go and get into your beach duds.” And he touched her with his finger, first between her brows, then her nose, thereby restoring the flour she’d just so energetically disposed of.

  “Oh, cool,” cried David. “A real drawbridge!”

  “That’s the Intracoastal Waterway,” Riley informed him, pointing while David leaned over his shoulder to watch the mast of a sailboat glide lazily past. “If you wanted to, you could sail all the way from the Florida Keys to New York Harbor.”

  “I’d like to do that sometime,” David said wistfully. “Do you think-” Summer’s heart skipped a beat, but he broke it off and scrambled over to the other side of the car in time to catch a glimpse of the boat as it emerged from beneath the bridge.

  “
Are we almost there?” Helen whined. She had little interest in bridges and boats. The numerous squashed turtles along the roadside had kept her entertained for most of the trip, but she was disappointed she hadn’t seen alligators.

  “Almost.” Summer glanced at Riley, who nodded his confirmation just as the drawbridge barrier rose and the cars in front of them began moving again. “Buckle up,” she reminded the children, and settled back to watch the blue ribbon of waterway and green tidal marshes slide past far below. On the other side of the canal, the highway dropped down to arrow across seemingly endless expanses of wetlands, wound through dunes and congested beach towns and over bridges that tied the coastal islands together like beads on a chain.

  “It’s so different,” she said at one point, unable quite to prevent a sigh, or deny her inner disappointment. “From California beaches, I mean.”

  “Really?” Riley glanced at her. “How so?”

  “You may not believe it, but in California, the whole West Coast, there are places-lots of places, even close to the cities-where there aren’t any houses, where you can stand on a cliff and look out across the ocean, it seems like, all the way to China. And where the mountains come down to meet the sea, the waves crash on the rocks, and there are tide pools, and pelicans and sea lions, and hardly any people…and you can drive right along the edge of the ocean and watch the sun sink into the water… Here, you’d hardly even know the ocean was there, because of all the houses.”

  He nodded, and after a moment said softly, “There are very few wild beaches left on the East Coast, but I do happen to know of one.” And he smiled a dark and secret smile.

  Intrigued and strangely comforted, Summer settled back to enjoy the rest of the drive. But she could sense in Riley a kind of edgy excitement, along with a certain melancholy that she didn’t understand. She kept stealing glances at him under the pretense of sightseeing, and was mystified by the little knot of tension she could see working beneath the edges of his smile.