by Ruth Wind
Still, Heather hesitated. Then, all at once, she capitulated with a grin. "You have a deal." What did she have to lose, after all? No one had to know the piece was something she'd worked on for years, that it was a deeply personal observation of the cycle of the mill. Tom was talented enough that she owed him any chance she could give him to get involved with good teachers.
"Great." He stood and stuck out a hand.
Heather stood to accept it. "Keep at it and maybe we can play a duet in a week or two."
He nodded. "Terrific!" he responded, and left her to practice.
* * *
By the time she had to take her place on stage, Heather was considerably calmer. There had been no word from Ben and she had to believe that he'd given up. The knowledge brought disappointment, but it eased the burden of mingled fear and hunger she felt toward him.
Even her unresolved feelings for Ben took a back seat to her anticipation at debuting the steel-mill piece. In her dressing room, she'd run through the sonata, suspended in a sense of disbelief as the familiar notes emerged, with all their attendant memories. She couldn't quite believe she'd actually agreed to perform it.
The play itself passed in a whirl of anticipation. When the actors took their bows, a strange calm invaded Heather—a certainty that it was the right moment, the right circumstance, the right everything, to debut the piece. She didn't even feel any alarm when Mike ran out onstage as the actors exited.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as I promised before the play, we have a special treat for you tonight." He gestured toward Heather with an open palm. "I have the great pleasure of announcing that Heather Scarborough, our esteemed guitarist, will debut a composition this evening. It is untitled, but I like to think of it as a tribute to the steel mill and its cycles. I know you'll enjoy it."
Still moving in the narrowed world of fatalism, Heather bent her head over her guitar, paused, then began the sonata. As she played, her imagination furnished the images that the music had captured in her mind, the bits of legend and lore that had so fascinated her upon coming to Pueblo—the traffic along the side streets leading to the mill, the laundry black with smoke, the hearty men who braved the mill for the money and benefits that lifted an entire city of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy and Mexico to standards of living they'd never even dreamed of. The first movement depicted the rich satisfaction and good times of those days.
Then came the lay-offs and the false hopes of temporary unemployment fading into the grim reality of wives returning to work. The second movement captured the sorrowful days of a collapsing economy, of more houses up for sale than the market could handle, of the once-proud men, uneducated to any other form of work, struggling first with self-esteem, then despair, and finally, a humble acceptance of community programs designed to train them to do something new.
The third movement exuded the poignance of broken dreams forged with new ones—the children going away but eventually returning to a city changing, expanding, growing; a city maturing beyond the "adolescence" of industrialization.
As she played, Heather was swept into a realization that the piece worked. A kind of exhilaration flooded through her, and her throat tightened with triumph. Her ears, her heart, every fiber of her artistic being told her the notes conjured up the visions she had meant them to; that anyone who understood the cycle of the city would hear it in her work. As she repeated the theme of each movement at the end, her heart swelled unbearably.
The last notes were the ones inspired the night James died: the steel mill under cover of heavy clouds, the stacks black and strangely graceful against the pinkish sky, standing in mute reminder of all the city had been, and in a curious way, all it had the potential to become.
The music died away in a silent auditorium and Heather raised her head. The audience sat utterly still, and for a brief second, a fear that she'd been alone in her vision seized her. Then she saw tears in the eyes of a man—a man—in one of the front rows and she stood, guitar at her side, to the applause that began to rumble from the back and sides of the theater, a thunderous clapping that roiled around and embraced her. Cheers whooped down and the audience, as one person, leaped to its feet. It went on and on and on, and Heather stood in the center, suddenly sure that she was exactly where she was meant to be.
With every molecule of her body thrumming with wild energy, she curtsied deeply, raised her guitar in salute, and left the stage. Never in her entire life had she felt as good as she did in those moments, with the applause ringing in her ears and the tears of one man engraved in her memory. Even if it never came again, the time to play that piece had been right tonight.
The roaring of the audience still echoed in her ears as the cast and crew milled into the corridor below the seats and stage after the play. Heather managed to make her way through the throng, amid claps and congratulations, hearing none of it, aware of a desire to be alone for one moment to relish the wonderful thing that had happened.
She wasn't to get her wish. Tom waited at her door. He hugged her spontaneously, then set her down with a flourish. "I'll see a teacher every day for a month for you, lady. That was fantastic."
Heather laughed, a remarkably throaty sound, a richer laugh than she ever remembered emerging from her mouth before. "I owe it to you, because I never would have played it on my own."
He smiled and saluted her. "I just wanted to congratulate you."
"Come by Monday after you talk to the instructor and let me know how it went."
"Here?"
"No. Mondays I'm off. Ask Mike to bring you by the house, or tell you where it is."
"Okay."
She opened her door, about to move inside, when another voice stopped her. "Miss Scarborough?" The voice belonged to a middle-aged man in evening dress. "My name is George Wilkes," he announced, extending his hand. "I'm about to open a new evening club here. I wonder if I might talk to you for a moment?"
Heather shook her head. "Yes. Come in."
"How would you like a job, Miss Scarborough? Playing just the way you have all week in my new club."
"Me?"
The man grinned. "You," he said firmly. "You play quite beautifully, and that tribute tonight was really something."
"Thank you."
"I won't press you for an answer tonight. I'm opening on Union Avenue next week. It's a nice place, a little different than anything we've had here before. You'd make a nice addition." He withdrew a business card and pressed it into her hand. "Give me a call in a day or two."
"I don't have to think about it, Mr. Wilkes. I need the money."
He smiled. "Good. Call me the first part of next week and we'll set it up." He named a figure that would nearly triple her monthly income. "Does that sound fair?"
"Very."
"I'll talk to you next week, then."
Rose had barely helped her change into a pair of jeans and a warm sweater before a press of cast and crew crowded into her room. Heather met them happily, accepting kisses and hugs of congratulations. Mike's wife, Ellen, embraced her warmly. "Where's that good-lookin' man you had with you last week?"
"I don't know," Heather said, her voice remarkably even.
Ellen lifted an eyebrow archly. "If I weren't married—" she said, and laughed as Mike grabbed her from behind.
"If you weren't married, what, wench?" He dipped her backward into a kiss and Ellen laughed again, slapping at him playfully.
"I'd run away with that handsome cowboy."
"And leave me to my gorgeous sister-in-law? Ha! You'd die of jealousy first."
Heather watched their teasing with envy. After seventeen years of marriage and uncountable tests, they still loved one another; and whatever either of them said, they would remain married—Heather was sure of it. A spasm of loneliness touched her. No matter how well her work went, no matter what came of this triumph tonight, the fact was, she had no one to share it with.
A murmur rustled through the gathered well-wishers and Heather glanced toward the
door. Very slowly she turned, a powerful sense of destiny touching her again. For there, filling the doorway, was Ben. The room dropped away. There was no sound, no sensation—only her eyes, fixed on Ben, were capable of reaction.
This, too, was part of this night, she thought; his eyes molten with a hunger he didn't bother to mask. Heather felt her tension fade as she drank in his appearance, his relaxed stance, the ease of his coat thrown over one strong shoulder, his hair richly gleaming, falling over his forehead and curling around his neck. He didn't move for the longest time, and then, with deliberate, unhurried movements, he headed through the crowd toward her.
Heather was frozen in place, her gaze riveted upon him, the subject of all her dreams and long-hidden yearnings. Suddenly she didn't care about James, about the play, about the job she'd been offered. Nothing mattered except Ben's slow advance across the room. He paused inches away from her, and Heather's universe was filled with his lean face and beautiful eyes before he swept her into an engulfing embrace. Heather threw her arms around his neck and pressed into his long length, a sense of relief upper-most as his arms encircled her. "I missed you, Heather," he whispered. His mustache brushed her neck.
She said nothing at all, smelling his foresty aftershave and the whisper of leather. Against her breasts, his chest was solid and reassuring and male; under her fingers, his shoulder muscles stretched and his hair brushed her wrist. Her cheek rested on his shoulder. "I thought, last night, that you might have given up," she breathed.
"I did. But I couldn't sleep." He eased his hold to look at her. "I had to see you one more time, anyway."
"I'm glad."
"Can I kidnap you?"
Heather smiled. "As long as you do it right now."
"I've got a cab right outside." He tangled his fingers in hers. "Let's go."
Heather followed him through the crowd, unaware of the approving glances that rested upon them.
Outside, Ben stopped and pressed her into the wall. The cold night swirled around them and Heather shivered. Ben lowered his head to take her lips, his mouth a heated island in the frigid night. His tongue touched hers and Heather sighed. All of her dreams came back to her—dreams full of his lips and eyes and hands—and the simmering anticipation swelled into existence again.
Ben pulled away with reluctance. "I'll tell you right now, I'm obsessed with you," he said softly. "There's just no other word for it." He cupped her cheek in his palm. "I'm going to take you home with me, but I want you to know there's no pressure. We don't have to make love. I just want to be with you. I want to get to know you."
Heather nodded.
"Come on, let's get that cab."
The significance of his words sank in. "Ben, we can't take a cab all the way to Beulah. I have my car. Let's drive that."
He shook his head, and the old familiar mischief was back in his eyes. "Nope, I want your attention all to myself."
For a moment Heather wondered if it was wise to go off with him and have no escape route open to her. Right now, she felt fevered and unlike herself, high on the triumph of her success and on being with Ben again after so many long days. Would she feel the same way in a few hours?
He seemed to sense her hesitation and tugged her hand lightly. "I'm not Bluebeard," he assured her. "I promise."
A gust of wind blasted the small cement platform on which they stood. "Okay. I trust you."
They ran for the waiting cab. "Beulah," Ben told the driver.
"No problem, buddy." He glanced in the rearview mirror oddly. "Don't I know you, man?"
"Where'd you go to school?"
"Central. Would have been the class of '69, but I didn't make it that far."
"Joe Riley."
"Yeah. Who are you?"
"Ben Shaw."
"I remember. The rodeo rider. You're a veteran, too, eh?"
Ben looped his arm around Heather, pulling her close to him. "Yeah," he answered, his chin in her hair. Heather found her hand on his stomach, and almost unconsciously began to move her palm in a circle, gauging density of skin and muscles and bone below the striped maroon shirt, as wonderingly delighted by the sensation as a child exploring her mother's face. She relaxed into him, her ear on his chest. When he spoke to the driver, his voice rumbled, into her, vibratory and deep. At her crown, she could feel his jaw moving.
After a time, the mood of easy comfort between them richened into something deliciously unhurried and yet sensual. Heather found herself shifting to explore the line of his chest, felt the tiny nipple stiffen as she passed over it, felt the heat of his skin as she moved her fingers to his face, felt the soft bristles of his magnificent mustache as she slid her hand over his cheek. She continued the lazy exploration with her eyes closed, touching his ear, his temple, his scalp below the cool weight of his hair.
Ben's conversation trailed away and the driver turned up his music as they headed out of town on a straight highway surrounded by open prairie. Ben kissed her forehead and both of her eyes, her nose and each cheekbone, her jaw and chin and mouth—all lightly, in a whisper of heat and hair and full lips. He slipped his hands away from her neck and over her arms, her sides, her waist, easing up almost unbearably towards her breasts, always stopping just below or alongside. Heather felt an alarming surge of sexual awareness engulfing her, a tide that swept all reason away with it, a tide that had nothing to do with reality, only these stolen moments in a dark cab.
He kissed her neck teasingly, and Heather laughed, again with that throatily rich sound she'd never heard from herself before this night. Ben tightened his fingers on her sides almost painfully and he ceased his exploration. Heather's laughter died at the expression in his eyes, a startled and passionate penetration that surpassed any playfulness she'd been feeling and kindled an explosion of yearning within her. She thrilled to the sudden, fierce crush of his mouth upon hers, the hard thrust of his tongue, the nip of his teeth and his strangling grip. It was as if he wanted to inhale her, and Heather welcomed it with explorations of her own. She pressed into him and tilted her head to more readily accommodate his kiss, tangling her fingers in his hair in the process. Never had a man created this kind of emotion in her. Not even James had stirred anything remotely close to what she now felt in Ben's arms, under the power of his kiss. She felt both needed and hungry, soothed and stimulated, wildly infatuated and deeply cherished. She didn't analyze or worry, and that, too, was new. She abandoned herself to him and the ravenous nature of his embrace.
Where they would have ended up was beyond speculation. But suddenly the driver cleared his throat, a sound so shattering that Heather and Ben broke apart like fighting cats doused with water. "I need to know where to take you now. We're in Beulah."
Ben sighed and pulled Heather next to him. As he gave directions, he held her tightly. Heather was grateful for the cover of darkness. What had gotten into her? Running off into the night with a man she'd met less than two weeks before, tumbling into his arms—practically making love in the cab, for heaven's sake.
Yet, as she leaned into that very same man, her lips burning and tingling with the impression of his forceful mouth, she still wanted him. Wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life.
Passion had always been something she'd read about, not something that was made for real life. With James, she'd enjoyed making love, had enjoyed his touch and his kisses. But this was so different, she couldn't even think of an analogy for it—it was like wanting fresh collard greens in the dead of winter or wanting to devour an entire pound of caviar, no matter how sick she would be afterward. It was like the compulsion of people who eat clay to satisfy their craving for iron.
It was completely beyond her, out of her control. And she had no idea what to do about it.
* * *
Chapter Eight
« ^ »
Ben's house sat nestled in a cove of pine trees. As he paid the driver, Heather hid her discomfort by studying the broad front porch. How she would get through the next ten min
utes, she had no idea.
"Come on, darlin', it's cold out here," Ben said, taking her arm. She followed him up the steps of the veranda and waited while he fit the key into the lock. To her left, a huge tree shielded the porch from the hard, westerly sunlight that would otherwise bake the front of the house on summer evenings; and to the east stretched the low, rolling prairie lands they had traveled over from Pueblo. Behind the home rose the Rockies. The air smelled freshly washed, imbued with the lightness only mountain air carries, and by a note of wood smoke mingled with pine and earth.
Ben opened the door and moved aside to let Heather in. At that instant a huge creature romped through the opening onto the porch, nearly knocking Heather down. She gave a little cry and moved aside hastily. A sweeping tail slapped into her jeans-clad legs, and the click of nails against wood skittered at her feet. Heather giggled and reached out to touch the dog's back. "What a big animal! What is it?"
"A dog, sort of."
Heather laughed. "I know that, silly. What kind of dog?"
"Newfoundland and Saint Bernard. And I'd be careful about being friendly if I were you. He thinks he's a lapdog."
The dog licked Heather's hand and she bent to hug him. It was like embracing a bear. He made a loving sound in his throat and lay his chin on her shoulder. "He's sweet."
"You'll change your mind in an hour when he tries to set two hundred pounds on your lap." There was a hint of indulgence to his words. "Get up, Woody."
The dog complied and Heather rose, realizing that in some magical way, Ben's pet had broken the tension created by the interrupted passion in the cab. She smiled. "I'm starved. Do you have anything to eat?"
Ben relaxed visibly and touched the side of his nose in the gesture she'd come to think of when he was away from her. "Lots. Come on in."
At the door, Woody tried to squeeze between the couple and nearly overturned both humans. "Woody," Ben warned, "get the heck out the way, boy. I'll get you something to eat, too."