by Peggy Webb
She whirled to leave the balcony.
"Rose Anne. Wait."
She halted, for the voice that had kept her awake in the dark wouldn't be denied.
"Let me come up and explain," he said.
Even now, even with her heart raw and hurting he had the power to make her want him. Clenching her fists, she stalked to the railing and leaned over.
"I wouldn't let you near me if you were the last man on earth."
The French doors rattled on their hinges as she stormed into her apartment.
Sid stood in the dark with nothing to comfort him except his guitar. He felt like breaking it into a million pieces.
Chapter Six
Panther, Hawk, Gunslinger, and Lightning were waiting for Sid when he got back to his apartment. He flung his guitar Into the closet and sank onto the sofa.
"One smart remark, and all of you will go home in body casts."
"Hey, don't look at me." Panther held up his hands. "It was going great until old Lightning started telling her how beautiful she was. I thought he was going to compare her to this bird dog next." He doubled over, laughing.
Hawk and Gunslinger joined in, and before long Luther was laughing with them. Only Sid didn't see the humor. He scowled at all of them, trying to cover his own heartbreak with anger.
He had lost all hope now. Not that he'd ever had a chance with her in the first place.
"Hey, Eagle," Luther said. "Don't be so glum. I'm kind of relieved everything worked out this way, if you want to know the truth."
"Relieved? Relieved!" Sid stalked around the room, stopping at the window every time he passed it to see if he could catch a glimpse of Rose Anne. "We went through this whole damned charade for nothing?"
"Well . . . not for nothing, exactly. At first I thought I loved her. I really did. But then, all she could talk about was your notes and your music, and when I brought her home from the air show and kissed her—"
"You kissed her?"
"Hell, Eagle. That's what people do when they think they're in love." Panther pulled a cold piece of pizza loose from the box and stuffed it in his mouth. "That's what people do even when they're not in love. Right, Gunslinger?" he said between bites.
"Yeah, Eagle," Gunslinger said. "You act like kissing the Face is a major crime."
"Her name is Rose Anne." Sid sprawled on the sofa and propped his long legs on the table. "And what we did to her was inexcusable. We hurt her."
"I don't think she's all that torn up over losing me," Luther said. "Like I said, kissing her was about the same as kissing one of my sisters. I thought the sparks might fly if I went through with the balcony routine, but I was wrong. I guess love just wasn't in the cards for us."
You made me fall in love, she had said. Sid sat on the sofa, remembering.
He turned to Luther. "You don't love her, then?"
"No. It was a nice dream, an infatuation . . . but not love."
Trying to hide his elation, Sid shook the empty pizza box. "Hey, I'm starving. Who ate all the pizza?"
o0o
Across the way, Bitsy was talking on the phone. "I don't care if her shoot tomorrow is with Gabriel and all his angels. Cancel it."
"At this time of night?" Charlie said on the other end of the line. "You know we can't do that."
"Well, then, first thing in the morning."
"What can I tell them?"
"Tell him anything you want." Bitsy paused long enough to glance at Rose Anne, who was sitting pale and dry-eyed in the chair, staring toward the dark balcony. "Just do it."
"In all her years she's missed a shoot only once, and that was when she had the flu."
"This will make twice."
"I'm coming over."
Bitsy started to protest, then changed her mind. "You do that, Charlie. We need to talk."
o0o
The next morning Sid's friends rented a Peugeot and set out sightseeing. He stayed behind. When they asked him why, he told them simply, "I have to see Rose Anne." No one dared question him.
In his apartment he wrote her a note in the same poetic language as all the others. Then he tore it to pieces and started over. The note he finally sent to her was a straightforward message asking to see her. It was returned unopened.
"She's no longer there, monsieur," the messenger boy told him.
"No longer there?"
"In that apartment. They checked out this morning."
Sid spent three days searching for her. She seemed to have vanished off the planet. While his friends were enjoying the grapes of Bordeaux, he was tracking down leads. While they were viewing the ancient Roman ruins of Provence, he was searching the sidewalk cafes and the ritzy boutiques, looking for the face that haunted his dreams.
He finally located her through sheer luck. In desperation he contacted the press. Jean Pierre Chevalier, who had covered the war in the Gulf, was at his desk. He remembered Eagle Granger, and was willing to help.
Using his clout and his powers of persuasion, Jean Pierre found an enterprising reporter who had sniffed out the whereabouts of the Face.
Sid packed the last of his belongings and zipped his bag. His friends sat in solemn silence on the sofa and two chairs.
"I'm headed to Africa," he said.
When Sid made his announcement, they looked at one another, dumbfounded. Panther was the one to recover.
"Why, Eagle? What in the hell is in Africa that you can't find in Paris?"
"Rose Anne," Sid told them simply.
His friends exchanged shocked glances, as if Sid had announced that he was giving up flying for snake charming.
"I have to find her and make her understand that I never meant to hurt her," Sid said.
"Well, knock me down with a feather. You're going all the way to Africa to apologize to a woman?" This from Gunslinger, who weighed at least two hundred pounds, all of it solid muscle.
"Actually, I just said that to throw you off the scent," Sid said. "My real mission in Africa is to sniff out pleasure and indulge myself up to the snout as long as I don't have to pay through the nose."
The laughter eased the tension. Sid's friends didn't ask for explanations, and wisely didn't tease. One by one they came to him and wished him luck.
o0o
Rose Anne was in South Africa, ahead of schedule. The line of exotic clothing would later be shot among the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe and the magnificent Victoria Falls. She and her entourage were camped along the Zambezi River.
The heat was oppressive during the day. Only at night when the sun went down was there some relief. Rose Anne chose the late evenings to walk. She never went far, only around the bend and out of sight of the camp. Alone in the solemn splendor of the sunset and the deep quiet of the vast primitive land, she sought heeding.
As she stood by the river, a slight and welcome breeze ruffled her hair and caught her skirts, swirling them around her ankles. She stood quietly, praying that the great distance she had put between herself and Sid would take the edge off her pain.
Out of the stillness came a droning noise, faint at first, like a giant mosquito, then louder and more Insistent. She lifted her head toward the sky and saw the plane, its wings glinting red gold in the sunset.
Rose Anne shaded her eyes as the plane came closer. It was descending like a graceful bird. Her pulse began to throb and her breath got short.
"Sid," she whispered.
But that was impossible. He was in Paris.
With her heart hammering, she watched the plane. It glided into the sunset, as if the pilot were making love to the skies. One wing dipped toward her, then the plane set down on grasslands beyond the river, its props stirring the air.
Anticipation beat through Rose Anne like native drums. She pressed her hand over her heart, waiting.
A tall man stepped from the plane and removed his helmet. Sid Granger.
They stared at each other, two people who had unexpectedly stumbled upon treasure and couldn't yet comprehend the enormity o
f their wealth.
Run, Rose Anne's mind said to her, while her heart said stay.
With his helmet dangling from one hand, Sid strode toward her. She wound her hands tightly together against the passion that coiled inside her . . . and the pain.
"Rose Anne," he said when he was so close that she could see the night darkness of his eyes.
Her name was like music on his lips. The wild wanting he always evoked in her started all over again.
"How did you find me?" she asked, fighting for control.
"Detective work and determination."
"Why did you come?"
He studied her without replying. Insects beat their wings upon the air and the sun spread its glory across the waters of the river. Rose Anne struggled for breath and composure. Say something, her mind screamed.
Sid's black eyes seemed to devour her. He towered over her, full of mysterious power and dark passion, tugging at her emotions until she wanted to drop to her knees, begging.
"Because I can't bear to lose you," he whispered.
She sucked in a sharp breath. She had expected him to say many things, but never that.
"What is this? Another of your games?" She took a step backward in order to open the distance between them. "How much money is riding on this bet?"
He didn't say anything, but kept looking at her with sad, dark eyes.
"What's the bet?" she asked. "That I'll be so lonesome in this godforsaken land, I'll take you into my tent? That I’ll take you into my bed?"
"Rose Anne . . . don't."
"Don't what? Be realistic?" She pushed at hair that curled damply around her face. "You and Luther taught me realism."
"I’ll never forgive myself for that."
"Come now, Sid. A cynic like you? Never forgiving oneself is a romantic notion. And you don't believe in romance."
A look of great pain came onto his face. Rose Anne wavered, almost relented.
But she had been hurt. She wanted to punish.
"Or was that another of your lies?"
"If I had revealed my romantic soul to you, you might have guessed that I was the one who wrote those notes and composed that music."
She could feel his body heat, and the remembered strains of music washed over her. She swayed, her legs suddenly weak.
Sid caught her shoulders.
"Rose Anne?" He leaned toward her, and his breath stirred the tendrils at her cheek. "Are you all right?"
She had never known a man's touch could be so powerful. She struggled against her feelings, but her body betrayed her. She was tight and hot and liquid for him, and her thin blouse left nothing to the Imagination.
His gaze seared her skin. She felt as if she were being absorbed by his eyes.
He knew.
Rose Anne groaned.
Suddenly his mouth was on hers. It wasn't a kiss so much as a joining of hearts, of souls. His arms circled her, and he held her with exquisite tenderness.
She tried to be stiff and unresponsive, but she might as well have been battling the wind. How could she not respond when his lips were the maestro and hers the instrument? How could she pull away when he was the sun and the rain and she was the earth, waiting for the infusion of life?
She stood shamelessly in the circle of his arms, craving everything his lips promised, wanting everything his body demanded. Her skirt was gauze, and she could feel the size of him, the hardness of him.
Sid brought out the primitive in her. Even while she told herself to back away, her fingers curled and dug into his skin through his shirt. She felt like a wild animal, a jungle she-cat clawing at her mate.
Never had she known such unbridled passion, not even with Riker Garvin, whom she had pledged to marry. The intensity of her feelings made her weak and mindless. She wanted to sink down into the grasses beside the river. She wanted to strip naked and plunge herself into the water and the mud and draw Sid into her. She wanted to love him in a hundred delicious ways and have him respond with a hundred and one.
Passion ruled her. She was reckless and wanton . . . and totally without memory. For her, nothing existed except the moment and the reality of Sid, pressed so close to her, their bodies felt like one.
She clung to him, praying desperately that she could recapture one tiny shred of control, just enough to push him away before it was too late.
Abruptly, he released her. She swayed like a willow in the wind. Sid steadied her.
She wouldn't be seduced by his hands again. She shrugged them off and stepped back.
"That's an Interesting technique, Sid, but it won't work." She hoped he didn't see the lie In her eyes.
"I'm sorry. Rose Anne. I didn't mean to do that."
"Everything you have done has been carefully calculated."
"I came here to apologize."
"For yourself or for Luther?" She scored with her attack. Sid's face tightened with something that looked like pain. He was not only a poet, a musician, and a superb lover, but he was also a good actor.
Sid's wonderful ability to hide his duplicity renewed her anger. "You can fly back to Paris and tell Luther that it's all over. That it never even started . . . And while you're at it, tell him he'd better send another emissary to do his kissing for him."
Sid's dark eyes pierced straight through that lie. But Rose Anne stood firm.
"This is not about Luther, it's about us."
"Us? There is no us. There never was."
"We were friends."
"Friends are people you can trust. I don't trust you anymore."
Sid died a little inside. Once he had been her knight in shining armor. He remembered the laughter in her eyes when he had called her Ruby. He remembered the tears on her cheeks when she had thanked him for showing her the beauty of flight.
"You have every right to be angry, Rose Anne."
"You bet I do."
"If you will let me explain my motives . . ."
"I'm an expert on motives, Sid. You see, men have played games with me before. And I've discovered that they're all after something. What are you after?"
Her question caught him off guard. What was he after? What had sent him chasing all the way to Africa? He had told himself he had to apologize, to make her understand, to make amends for hurting her.
She stood facing him with the last rays of sun turning her eyes to emerald, and he knew that he hadn't flown across the continent merely to rekindle a friendship. He stood before her, mute, guarding his hopeless love like a hungry lion guarding his kill.
Rose Anne whirled to leave. But not before Sid saw the way she shut down. The light left her eyes; the animation left her face. Even the life seemed to leave her body. Her movements were stiff and robotic as she walked away from him.
"Rose Anne! Wait."
She kept on walking.
"Please ..."
She never broke stride. Sid stood beside the river, listening to the mournful murmur of the water as he watched the woman he loved walk out of his life.
Anguish clawed at his heart and remorse filled his soul. As Rose Anne vanished around the bend, all the light suddenly left the world. A bleak darkness settled over the land. Sid welcomed it. He reveled in it. He could mourn in the dark and no one would see, no one would hear.
"Rose Anne," he whispered, and the river caught her name and carried it off into the night.
He wasn't aware of the passing of time. He knew only that finally he was still, as if he had been turned to stone and left by the river to remind other lovers of his great folly.
Lieutenant Commander Sid Granger, with his face like a hatchet and his nose like an eagle's beak, had dared to love the most beautiful woman in the world.
Sid shook his fist to the dark skies, then got his gear from the plane and prepared to set up camp.
o0o
Bitsy looked up when Rose Anne walked back into camp.
"What took you so long, honey? I was beginning to worry about you."
"You always do." Rose Anne forc
ed herself to smile. She didn't want to tell Bitsy about Sid. Not yet, anyhow. The memory of his kiss still burned through her, and it was far too private to share.
"Are you hungry?" Bitsy held out a platter of sandwiches.
"No . . . thank you." She studied her aunt in the dim glow of lanterns. Bitsy's eyes were unusually bright, her cheeks unusually pink. "Why don't you sit down and rest? You look flushed."
"Oh, it's not the heat." Bitsy fanned herself with her hand as her glance slid in the direction of Charlie's tent. He was sitting in a camp chair in the circle of lantern light, training a flashlight on the pages of a book. Charlie was always reading.
"What's he reading this time?" Rose Anne asked.
Bitsy's cheeks got even brighter. "Romance."
"Romance?"
"He says it's strictly literary curiosity, but I think he's just trying to find out how to court."
"How to court?"
"Are you feeling all right, honey? It's not like you to repeat everything I say."
Rose Anne glanced back over her shoulder as if she expected Sid to appear at any moment. She shivered at the thought—not with fear but with passion. Bitsy didn't miss a thing.
"I knew it would happen. You've gone and gotten yourself sick." She put her hand on Rose Anne's forehead. "Dragging around from pillar to post. Africa, my hind foot. Wait till I get hold of Charlie."
"I'm not sick. Auntie. It's just that—"
A sudden racket in the darkness interrupted her.
"My Lord in heaven," Bitsy said. "What's that?"
They held onto each other, listening. Even Charlie, who could sit in the eye of a hurricane and never lose his place in a book, roused himself out of his chair and came to see what the ruckus was.
He hovered behind Bitsy, clutching her arm, until he remembered that he was the man of the camp, if you didn't count the natives, and that Jim Buck Bushland, who had just finished off a gang of cutthroats singlehandedly and won the lady besides, would never do such a thing as hide behind a lady's skirts.
"Who goes there?" he bellowed, thinking he sounded pretty authoritative and even a little bit heroic.