Steal Me, Sweet Thief

by Carole Howey

  Geneva's cool gaze in the mirror rebuked him. She wiped the last of the makeup from her lovely features and shook her chestnut curls about her shoulders. He ached to touch them.

  "I haven't seen you for nearly a year." Her voice was a soft, silken cord, choking him. "Do you really believe you deserve an answer? Why do you want to know?"

  He closed his eyes, feeling a familiar frustration settle on him like a cloud of black soot. Why couldn't he tell her? He had told her once, a very long time ago, in Memphis, when he was R. Hastings McAllister. He had told her again in Arkansas, when it could have been argued that he would have told her anything just to make her go along with him. But why couldn't he tell her, here, now, that he loved her? Why couldn't he just come out with it?

  He knew the answer to that, but knowledge was not, in this case, power: He had lied to her. It had been a long time ago, in another life. But he had lied. And she, as far as he could tell, had never forgiven him for it, even though his lie had been the catalyst for her success. No matter what he might tell her, no matter how earnestly he might frame his declaration, she would always nurse a doubt, would always believe he might lie again. He opened his eyes and discovered that he was staring at the floor of her dressing room. It was littered with clips and pins. The glint of them hurt his eyes.

  "I want you to be happy." He formed an answer for her, staring at the back of her chair. "Will you be, Gen?" Damn him! She was on her feet, sending her chair tumbling over. Facing him, she abandoned all attempts at restraint.

  "If you were so concerned for my happiness," she hissed, "why didn't you say so in New Orleans? Why did you let me go as if I were no more important to you than a—than a stick of wood? Why has it taken you a whole year to decide that you cared so very much for my happiness?"

  She could not keep the tremor from her voice, or the tears from her eyes. She had not cried in so long, and this was the hardest cry she could ever recall having. It hurt her, down in her chest. In moments she was crying into his lapel, and his strong arms were around her, warm and sure.

  "Damn you!" she sobbed, her fists striking his unyielding chest with little strength and even less resolve. "Damn you, Kieran! I hate you! I hate you! I—"

  Kieran did not heed her words. He had her in his arms again, where he'd wanted her for so long he could not remember. He held her close, feeling her heartbeat. Feeling her soft hair against his cheek. Feeling her sobs choke him, and his own face become wet. He somehow found her lips with his own, and they were salty and sweet.

  She did not fight him. Her fists were clutching his jacket, not hammering away at him, and her mouth surrendered to his. Her sobs became sighs, sweeter music to him than any she had sung onstage.

  "Gen," he murmured, his voice breaking even as his baritone sent a ripple along her spine. "Gen, Gen…"

  The year fell away as if it had never been. Geneva allowed her emotions to rush in, like a bursting dam, and she was shocked to discover just how much she had kept hidden away. She loved him. She wanted to feel his long, strong fingers comb through her hair, his powerful, lean body against hers. She wanted to hear his luscious, velvety voice murmur her name, again and again. But she wanted more than that: She wanted to hear him say he loved her. He had said it a long time ago, and she had dismissed it. Now she longed to hear it once more; thought she might die if she did not. She tore herself away from his splendid mouth.

  "Why did you come here, Kieran?" she demanded breathlessly as he kissed her throat, his lips burning her like sweet fire.

  His dark brown eyes were inches above her, and he probed her very soul. For once, those eyes were windows rather than mirrors, and the emotion she perceived in them was almost more than she could bear.

  "Because I couldn't keep away from you any longer," he whispered swiftly, as though he needed to speak before he lost his nerve. "I'm wrong for you, Geneva. I know that. But I also know that I love you, more than anything else in the world. I needed to tell you. I needed for you to know, before you ma—"

  She pulled on his lapels and drew his mouth to hers again, reveling in the knowledge: He loved her. Everything else was unimportant. He had followed her to Denver, just as he had followed her from Irving to Galveston and New Orleans. His love was a real and tangible thing, a thing that had a life of its own.

  "Say it again."

  "I love you, Gen," he repeated, gazing at her with a new wonder.

  The words, it seemed, had released him from his prison. He realized the moment he spoke them that it was not so important for her to believe them, just now, as it was for him to utter them. It never had been. His discovery was so simple, yet so overwhelming, that he felt like laughing. Why hadn't he seen it before?

  "I love you," he said again, his terrible burden lessening with each repetition. "I love your eyes and your mouth. I love your temper and your sweet, sweet voice. I love your brain and your wit. I love the way you cry. I love holding you like this, and I love being in the same room with you after all this time. What about you, Gen? Do you love me? Or am I in this alone?"

  He was holding her face in his hands, his thumbs making gentle circles on her cheeks. She took hold of his wrists, feeling her heart swell in her breast as she searched his tender, earnest dark eyes.

  "We're in it together," she breathed, trembling. "I love you, Kieran Macalester. God help me."

  He kissed her again, the sweetest, gentlest kiss of all. He enfolded her to his breast, and she knew, with a certainty that was bliss, that she belonged nowhere else. Her own arms encircled his neck, and her right hand played in his soft sable locks as his kiss deepened. She felt her legs weaken beneath her as his tongue probed her mouth, slowly. He was in no hurry.

  In the time it took to draw a breath, he had lifted her into his arms, still commanding her mouth. She had left the earth, and she never wanted to return to it. He carried her to the chaise and sat down, holding her upon his lap like a cherished treasure.

  "Let's lock the door," he murmured, teasing her earlobe with the tip of his tongue.

  "I—" She couldn't think clearly with him behaving that way.

  "What?" He took her lobe gently between his teeth.

  "Oh, Kier…"He found a spot, right behind her ear, that made her forget what she had been about to say.

  "Don't talk," he whispered, then nipped her ear yet again. "Don't—" Another nip. "Even—" A third, longer one. "Move…"

  She willingly obeyed. Presently, the bright noonday sun burst forth from a shroud of black clouds. Again. And again. An amazing phenomenon, made still more incredible by the fact that it was nearly midnight, and there were no windows in her dressing room.

  Kieran's lips moved along her neck to her collarbone, leaving a burning trail. She wondered, through her swelling desire, if they had left a glowing red mark as well as evidence of their passage.

  The pearl earrings Tabor had given her tickled her neck and reminded her, suddenly, of her fiancé.

  This had to stop. She could not think, and she had to. Reluctantly, she pushed herself away from Kieran, but could not summon the will to get up from his lap.

  "I have to tell Horace," she told him, focusing on his face. His ardor was evident in his rapt features.

  A notion crystalized in Kieran's mind.

  "Marry me," he urged her, surprised by his own impulsiveness.

  By the look on her exquisite features, he knew he had surprised her as well.

  "Marry… you?"

  He shrugged, and a grin coaxed the corners of his mouth. He could not take his eyes off her. "Why not?" he countered, sliding his arms down about her nicely rounded hips. "Billy got married, you know. I can't let him get too far ahead of me, can I? Besides, it's the only way I can be sure I'll know where you are all the time."

  "You—you won't try to stop me from singing?"

  He laughed softly. "Darlin',I wouldn't stop you from singing and dancing naked, as long as I knew you were coming home to me every night!" he declared, knowing he meant it. "Hel
l, I'll even be your agent, or your manager, or your bodyguard, or any other damned thing you like. The Union Pacific doesn't own me, and I have no deep-seated prejudice against having an extraordinarily talented wife. As long as she doesn't mind having a broken-down old ex-outlaw for a husband."

  Her slow smile warmed him like a fine old cognac.

  "I'll hold you to it," she warned, wagging a finger at him. "Not the naked part, of course. But the singing—"

  "Anywhere you like," he affirmed. "New York, San Francisco…"

  "London? Paris? Milan?" She sounded doubtful.

  "The moon, if it makes you happy," he finished, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, wanting to keep her there forever.

  Her green eyes became wet, and the wetness made him want to crush her in his arms.

  "I do love you, Kieran. I do!" She breathed the confession, placing her hand over his in a possessive gesture that made him realize, with only a tiny bolt of fear, that his hand really did belong to her, and it always had. It had merely taken him until now to realize it.

  He was an idiot.

  But maybe he was not as much of an idiot as he'd been a year before.

  Epilogue

  A cool, steady breeze blew off the ocean. The sun was setting over New York Harbor, its rosy orange glow sending a small pang of regret through Geneva Lionwood Macalester: They would not see the azaleas this May. Above her, the steam whistle of the S.S. Columbia signaled its departure from harbor waters into the open ocean. Several far-off horns responded as though bidding them farewell. They were lonely sounds, and they reminded Geneva that she was leaving behind the security of an established career for the great unknown: The conquest of Europe. She wondered, in an abstract way, if the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal had felt as she did, before attempting to cross the Alps with his elephants. It was a terrifying prospect, but an exciting one, also. Nor was it the only such contradiction in her life at the moment.

  "I couldn't find yours, sol brought you mine." She felt the heavy, comforting warmth of Kieran's opera cape envelope her as surely as his strong, gentle arms encircling her waist as he stood behind her on the deck. Satisfied, she leaned against him and felt his lips graze her temple.

  "How do you feel?" she asked him, watching the wake spread behind them. "Have you been sick yet?"

  "Shh," he warned her. "So far, so good. How about you? Happy?" His hands softly traced the gentle swelling of her abdomen.

  "Mmhmm," she murmured, feeling a familiar thrill at the warmth of his voice.

  He chuckled "Scared?"

  "Mmhmm."

  "They'll love you, Gen," he told her, his arms tightening around her. "I hear Paris is crazy about pregnant sopranos. Milan can't get enough of them. And London—"

  She laughed in spite of herself.

  "I won't be pregnant anymore by October," she reminded him, holding onto his arms with her hands. "Besides, I'm not worried about my singing. Not much, anyway. I'm thinking about the baby. He'll be born in Europe, Kieran. It may be a year or longer until he even sees his own country."

  "Or she," Kieran amended. "I almost hate to say it, but I keep hoping it's a girl. Girls are so much easier to raise."

  "Am I proof of that?" Geneva was doubtful.

  "Your point is well taken, my love," Kieran agreed, turning her toward him. "However, I can hardly consider myself a standard of excellence for a boy to emulate. I'm sure you agree."

  "I consider you," she said, settling her arms about his neck like a wreath, adoring his sensuous smile, "to be the most wonderful man I have ever met."

  "Considering some of the men you've met, that's hardly an endorsement."

  "You know what I mean!" she chided him.

  He laughed again, and she could not testify to it, but she thought she detected a rare trace of a blush in his otherwise swarthy cheeks. "I know. Do you really think so?"

  She nodded. "I also think I'm making another in my long string of mistakes in telling you so."

  He bit his lip in a self-shaming expression. "I can always count on my wife to keep things in perspective, can't I?" Kieran punctuated his rueful declaration with a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  Geneva felt the warmth of his cloak and his love around her. It was very nearly enough to drive away her troubling thoughts, or at least make them seem foolish. Very nearly, but not quite.

  "What is it, Gen?" her husband asked her while she was still debating the necessity of even bringing it up. She found him a smile.

  "Nothing," she said dismissively, not quite convincing herself "It's just—oh, nothing."

  " 'Nothing' looks like it's making you unhappy." Kieran probed her face with a faintly worried look. "Are you all right? Maybe you should sit down."

  Against her will, she laughed. "Are you speaking as my husband or my manager?"

  "Whichever one you'll listen to," he retorted, only sounding a little agitated.

  Having just completed a matinee performance of The Marriage of Figaro at the Academy's season finale hours before their departure, Geneva was amused by the notion that fifteen minutes of standing on the deck of the Columbia could cause her distress. She patted Kieran's cheek and shook her head.

  "I'm fine, Kieran. I just—" She couldn't hold it in any longer. She sighed. "I'm frightened. I can't help it."

  He took hold of her hands, holding them tightly before him.

  "Of what, honey?" His voice was quiet and urgent, and his eyes worried. She found herself, curiously, wanting to comfort him.

  "Every other time in my life when I've been happy, and hopeful, I've been disappointed," she whispered, afraid to speak too loudly, lest she awaken perverse spirits. "And I've been so happy with you since October, and now with the baby coming… I'm just afraid something's going to happen to spoil it. It sounds silly, I know. But I can't help it, Kieran. I—I keep thinking I just wasn't meant to be this happy."

  "Gen." He took her in his arms and held her close. "Why didn't you ever tell me before?"

  "I thought you'd laugh," she murmured into his breast, aware of a sense of relief that she had finally confided in him.

  She felt him push her back, gently.

  "Look at me, Gen."

  She obeyed, and found him regarding her with the tender gaze in which she had taken refuge almost since their first meeting. Her fear waned at the very sight of it.

  "Are you happy right now? Right this minute?" He held her face in his two hands. She nodded.

  "Then why let the threat of something that may never happen take that away from you? Honey, we had all of our bad times at once, and they're way behind us now. I found out that everything in this life that I thought was important all came down to you, and as long as I had you, there wasn't anything else I couldn't handle."

  He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, and she trembled at the strength of his quiet conviction.

  "I love you so much, Gen," he whispered, although she did not need to hear his words to know it was so. "I want you to believe we deserve this. I don't care how many times you've been disappointed, or hurt, in the past. The point is that it is past, and we have so much more to look forward to in our future. Because no matter what happens, we have each other."

  She was happy. Happier, even, than she had realized. Kieran's handsome, rugged features broke unexpectedly into a slow smile, as if he could read her very thoughts.

  "Will you believe me if I tell you every day?" He was teasing again.

  "And every night, too?" she prompted coquettishly, stroking the lapel of his shirt with her finger.

  He nodded, arresting the finger and placing a soft kiss on the tip of it. "If you must have a sad ending," he told her, suppressing a chuckle, "write an opera. You can do it during the summer, while I'm out walking the baby along the Seine."

  Geneva almost laughed at the idea, then thought the better of it. "Why not?" She warmed to the suggestion. "Imagine! I can write it about us. The handsome, charming outlaw and the brilliant, naive young singer�
�"

  "You can't write it about us," he interrupted, shaking his head.

  "Why not?"

  "Because our story will have a happy ending."

  She kissed him soundly, with the glorious certainty that their happy ending had only just begun.

  Carole Howey

  With two degrees in music, Carole Howey naturally became a writer. She lives in Philadelphia with her hero (husband) and two dei-ex-machinae (children), and is the primary codependent of an emotionally needy mutt named Ace. Occasionally she babysits for newborn gerbils, too, but they don't have names, or if they do, she does not trouble herself to learn them.