In anger, he feared, that grew more force with every encounter.
She cannot stay here. They’re what had to be some changes. And that is why he came home today.
But when he opened the porch door, and found nothing inside but a big empty room, he needs to do battle slowly drained away. Setting his package-the cocoa for Gwen–on the table, he realize how lonely his place seam with nobody in it.
Into his mind came the image of Gwen, sitting with the children gathered around her, as they talked about helping him build a home. It had touched him more than he cared to admit, for in them magical, moment, he’d seen a family, his family, and for instant, the world had made a perfect scene.
But then he started talking about playing Camelot, and he snapped back to reality. He was playing his own little fantasy, if he could pretend these things would ever work out well. How could he? Without a loan extension, there never would be a home. And once she learn what a hopeless dreamer he was, Gwen would be gone in a single shot.
Looking about the quiet room, felt the loneliness sweep into him, infecting him. She wasn’t even gone yet, and already he found himself missing her.
Angry, he went outside. There was no sense in delaying the confrontation. Must find Gwen and explain the decision. If at the end of it, she still didn’t see reason, well, he’d took her once. He could just as easily take her back home.
Even as he thought this, he heard her behind the cabin. Instantly, he remembered the top, and the hot excitement of holding her in his arms, and it was with firm attention that he put such memories aside.
Rounding the cabin, he saw Gwen standing before a table, frowning at the knife in her hand and the fish lay before her. She was quite a sight, with her hair escaped from its not in dipping down to block her vision, her blue dress streaked with blood. Where was the high mighty Queen Gwen? Michael thought with a reluctant smile. This female looked more like a half mad murderess.
Grimacing, she grabbed for the fish, but her slimy victim slipped from her grasp, causing the knife to stab the table instead. As she yanked the blade free, and unladylike oath issued from her mouth.
He watched her try again and again, each attack more futile than the last, until he found it impossible to hide his amusement. “What the hell are you doing?” He said, moving closer to the table.
She looked up in surprise, using the back of her hand to push the hair from her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I am fighting this fish. And the fish is winning?”
“Hands down.” She perked her lips, she grinned. “I suppose I should say, fins down. I admit it, I know absolutely nothing about this dreadful creatures, other than they are wet and slimy and give off a terrible smell.”
“Mind if I ask why you are wrestling with this one?”
“Is my job, since I can’t fish.” She shrugged. “Jude got frustrated, trying to teach me how to get that wiggly worm on the hook, that she decided I might be better at cleaning. I agreed, how hard could it be to rinse off some dead fish in a bucket? I think you can imagine my dismay when she mentioned splitting them open, but by then, it was too late to back down. I’d already given my word.”
“She didn’t show you how to clean them?”
Gwen shook her head. “I think it’s a test. If I managed to clean these fish, I’ll move one step closer to being accepted.”
She looked so honest, so appealing real with her messed up hair and dirty face, he forgot that she’d soon be leaving. All he could think of was trying to help her. “Here,” he said, stepping up to take the knife from her hand. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
Nodding, she watched instantly as he explain how to grab the fish by the tail. She tried not to wince, as he gutted it to remove the blood and guts, but she went decidedly pale as he scaled and filleted it. Showing no mercy, he reached into the bucket for another. “Here, now your turn.”
She gulp and made a face, but she tackled the job with grim determination. Holding the tail, she began to slip up the back. Even as Michael reached at to stay her hand, he saw his mistake, for the mere touch of her flesh sent his senses reeling. Even dirty and smelling of fish, she tempted him more than any other female had ever done.
Her eyes searched his, questioning him, making them question himself. He had come here to send her away, he tried to remind himself, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why.
Yanking back his hand, explain roughly that it was the fish’s belly she must cut, before moving to the nearby basin to wash his hands. Standing near her clouded his judgment, he decided. He became all too aware a what women like Gwen could offer to the right man. Better he keep his distance, here on the far side of the table. Then he could say what he came here to say.
But watching her when her battle with the fish, he found it hard to find the right words. This wasn’t the spoiled, conceded female had brought here; somehow, over the past few weeks, Gwen had changed for the better. Maybe she had done so to earn the children’s respect, but however much he might try to deny it, it she was also impressing him as well.
“I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other night.” Frowned. That wasn’t what he wanted to say.
She looked up in surprise. “But there is no need–’’
“I am sorry for how I acted,” he went on, here it’s hated that he kept letting himself get sidetracked, “but not for what I said. I meant it, when I said I would be sending you home.”
He expected relief, or perhaps even a token of protest, but once more, she surprised him. Blowing a strand of hair from her eyes, she shook her head. “No,” he said matter-of-factly. “You need me here with the children.”
“Not if I take them to the mother’s family in New Orleans.”
Again she shook her head. “If that were a viable solution, you would have already done it. Kidnapping a vein and selfish woman seems a tad desperate, not to mention unnecessary, if you can rely on this absent family. The children claim their grandparents don’t want the many ways.”
“Oh, they want them all right.” Hard to keep the bitterness out of his tone. “They can’t resist the chance to prove yet again that they are right.”
“Right?”
“They maintain that my mother married beneath her, that my father was a hopeless dreamer, and everything he touched was doomed to fail. A trait they claimed I inherited from him. By the time they are done with those children, not one of them will want to know me at all.”
Gwen stared at him, into him. “Oh Michael,” she said quietly.
“How awful it must have been for you.”
He shrugged. “I managed.”
She nodded, excepting his boldfaced lie, and he liked her better for it. “Your mother and sister did not fare as well, did they?”
He flinched, remembering the pain as if it were yesterday. “Losing my father was hard enough, but listening them slowly pick away at his image destroyed my mother and sister. They had lost their anchor, and the new man of the house, I was too young and green and financially dependent to fight for them. My grandparents talked about love and loyalty, yet made us feel like peasants begging for each meal. We had one long year of such torment before my mother gave up and died, and Jeanette ran off with Morteau. I often think she chose that monster to punish our grandparents, for he personified every vile thing they’d ever said about my father.”
“Your poor sister. In the end, she managed to punish only herself.” Gwen side the sound heavy on the soft afternoon breeze.
Michael marveled rolled out her understanding. He wondered how she done it, gotten him to talk about things he had never even shared with Jeffrey. Strange thing was, he didn’t feel foolish for confining in her, just felt relief.
“They sound like horrible people.” She said slowly, as if thinking aloud. “Must you do this? Can you truly consider sending the children there?”
He looked away, unable to bear her stare. She saw too much. Any moment, she’d be telling him what a weak, useless dreamer he was, as well.
“Listen, my lady-“
The knife stabbed into the table with a Dull thud. “No, you listen to me, Michael. I might not seem like the ideal solution, but the children and I are getting along now. Why not leave them with me?”
“You wanted to be going home.”
“To what? My father doesn’t speak to me, and I get the distinction that my cousin wished I would us stayed in Boston. I am not missing much in the Willows.”
“It won’t work. You-“
“It can, too. I can pull my share. I’m learning to cook, and scrub, and I can clean fish, even if I can’t catch them. Well, sort of.” Glancing down at the table, she began to laugh. “If this isn’t the height of irony. When did we switch sides? I can’t believe I actually arguing to stay in that cabin.”
“You are now calling it a cabin.” He felt his own reluctant beginning of a smile.
“Sometimes.” She gave him a sheepish grin. “The point is why are we arguing? My staying with the children is a practical solution which can benefit us both. You will be free to do whatever you must to get them that home, and I will get to prove I am not nearly as useless as everyone thinks. Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I need to do this, Michael. I want to be needed by someone.”
That hit them, harder in deeper than he thought possible. And never occur to him that she might be as lonely as he.
“Please, can we call a truce? Just start all over and work together this time.”
Tell her no, logic demanded, but a tiny hope ignited inside him. “It would mean I’d have to be gone even more,” he said, thinking aloud.
He didn’t bat a flash. “You will do what you need to do, I imagine.”
He tilted his head, trying to figure her out. He wanted to think she could believe in him, but experience had taught him better. “And what if I’m no better than my father?” He challenged. “What if I’m just a hopeless dreamer?”
She leaned forward, her features intense. “There is nothing wrong with dreaming, your father died young, before he could make his dreams come true, which is a darn sight better than what happened with my father. He once had a dream, too, but he let it die prematurely, and everything he built went to ruins.”
“Gwen-“
“No, I’m not finished. Don’t let them take away your dream, Michael. Not your grandparents, not those bankers, not anyone.”
She turned back to her work. Looking at her, watching her fight as she hacked at the fish, he realize she’d come at him from yet another direction. “What game are you playing now? I feel as if I’m talking to an entirely different person.”
“Maybe I am different, but you know, I wonder if deep inside, this is who I have always been. Lately, I’ve been so busy being angry at my mother, first for demanding that I be a lady, then for dying and leaving me alone, maybe I have been working too hard not to be like her.”
Taking a deep breath, Gwen went on. “Being with the children helps me see how silly that was. Life is too precious to waste with tantrums and whining, and trying to fit into someone else’s mold. And it’s too darn short and lonely, if we don’t spend it with the ones we love.”
“We? Why do I get the feeling I am being lectured?”
“You have been working too hard, Michael. You should take time to enjoy your niece and nephews while you can. I happen to know that they will happily wait for a house. It is you they want, not four walls and a roof.”
He sighed. “Trouble is, right about now I haven’t a moment to spare.”
“A mere hour here and there would mean the world to them.”
She went back to butchering her fish, her sonnets giving him time to consider her suggestions. Suppose he could drop by now and then, especially this new Gwen would be there to greet him. Odd, how much it pleased him to think of her standing by the door, her face lighting up with a smile as he approached the cabin.
Lost in the pleasant image, it took some moments to realize that he heard voices, coming from the marshland behind him.
“Speak of the little devils.” Gwen looked up with a grin. “Of all the luck. Once they see you are here, they will never believe I clean these fish by myself.”
“I suppose I could sneak back to my boat and pretend that I just got here.
“Would you?”
It was amazing how lighthearted he suddenly felt. “Sitter me gone.” he dipped into a bow.
“You are not going to leave for the night?” She asked with a sudden catch in her voice. “Will you be staying for dinner?”
Looking from the marshland to the slaughter fish on the table, could it help a little laugh. “Oh, I will stay. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
***
Gwen cleared the table, listening to Michael and the children’s talk about the meal in silence. A short time ago she’d have bristled and snapback, but she now knew they meant it in fun. Teasing each other was what families did, she realize, and it pleased her to no end to be included.
He smiled, thinking how pleasant the meal had been, spite the jokes about her butchered fish. Talking with Michael this afternoon seemed to have cleared the air between them. Gone was that awful tension, and with it, the need for anger. Seems suddenly possible that they could begin to understand each other at last.
Are there, hearing him talk about his grandparents, she could see why her past be a very had triggered his resentment. She had to convince him she change that she was nothing like those snobbish, uncaring people.
And why would you want to do that? Caution asked, but one glance at Michael, deep in the conversation with children, and she had her answer. It was enough, for now, just to have the man smile at her.
And perhaps it would be a good part of the reason she dress with extra care tonight, pinning up her hair and donning her mother’s locket. She wanted Michael to see Gwen, the lady, a gracious female not covered with fish slime or mud from the swamp. Call it vanity, but she wanted him to see her as a woman well worth a smile.
“Can you read now?”
She came out of her thoughts to find little Christopher standing before her, tugging at her skirt. He held up the battered copy of Ivanhoe.
“Me? Read?” She asked, surprised. “Why, I suppose that would depend on how many more compliments about dinner I must suffer through.”
“Weren’t me” he bit his lip, looking so contrite, when found a hard to keep teasing him.
She turned to his brothers instead. “No more comments about fish chunks?”
They shook their heads.
“No more spitting out imaginary bones?” At another fierce shake of their heads, she gave a deep sigh. “Very well, but you will have to wait while I clean up the kitchen. Unless, of course, you can convince your uncle to read in my place.”
They stared at him as if this were a new concept.
“Don’t worry, I can read,” he said to them, nodding over at Gwen. “And to better than she can clean fish.”
“Go on, give him the book,” she told Christopher, showing off the others. “I think you all deserve each other.”
And there was, smile she been waiting for. He knew what she was up to, his expression told her, and he appreciated the chance to be with the children.
He stressed out on the floor, leaning on an elbow, his long, muscular frame sprawled on the rug. The children gathered around him, telling him what page to start on, chattering about what had happen in the story last time. Clearly, the tell was one of Michael’s favorites, too, for he read it with such passion, breathing life into every character, bringing magic and glory to every scene.
Gwen couldn’t drag her eyes away, fascinated by how he interacted with the children, they clung to each word he uttered, gazing up and it was such an adoring glare, he could well be the hero of the story come true.
Nor were they alone in thinking this, for as Michael read on about Ivanhoe’s adventures, he help but compare him to the romantic night in the story. His glistening black hair, his aristocrat teachers, well formed the lambs went
him the same physical beauty, but Michael’s patients with the children, his size of wariness at the end of each grueling day–these were the marks of his own particular valor. Mrs. Tibbs had accused her of never seeing underneath the other trappings, but tonight, Gwen’s eyes were wide open. Michael, she could see, was a beautiful person, inside and out.
It was never the silly posturing on a tournament field that stirred the court ladies to romance, she realize. It was the noble dream, and the man that drove to achieve it, that one her admiration. It was what he believed in, and what he accomplished, that made King Arthur the hero, and twice the man that Lancelot had ever been.
Hard not to make the comparison to Michael and Lance.
Even as she thought this, he looked up, caught her staring at him. As she turned away in confusion, Michael shut the book. “That is it for tonight,” he said to the children.” It is your bedtime and time for me to go.”
Caught off guard, Gwen looked back at him, silently echoing the children’s protests. He cannot leave yet. What if their newfound harmony proved too fragile to last the separation?
But determined to go, he shooed the children off in turn for the door. Gwen try to tell her self it was for the children’s sake that she followed him outside to the porch, but it did not explain her sudden need to reach out and beg him to stay.
She made herself stop on the top step, while he paused at the bottom. “Thanks for the evening, my lady,” he told her with a smile. “Dinner was delicious.”
“Should we set a place for you again tomorrow?” She asked, deliberately keeping her voice light. “I promise to have something other than fish chunks on the menu.”
He smiled, but the expression swiftly faded. “I might have to leave again for a couple of days.”
“Again?” She blurted out before she could stop herself, but at least she hadn’t stopped or what, as she might have once have. “It will be a lot quieter around here without you.”
The Willows Page 29