A Moment Forever

by Cat Gardiner

  Will turned his chair to face her. “I’m not jealous. I’m proud, Lizzy. You don’t realize what your presence does for the men when they’re stuck here in no man’s land, what a boost to their morale it is to dance with a pretty girl with a personality such as yours. We don’t know when we’ll be shipped out, so any opportunity for a bit of harmless carousing is welcome.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “So you’re not jealous?”

  “Of these fellas? Nah. In truth, there’s only one man I’m jealous of and that’s only because he gets to see you every day, hear your laughter, and gaze upon your smile. I suppose that’s to be expected since he’s your neighbor.”

  Gone was her playful smile. “You’re still jealous of Johnny? Oh, Will, don’t be. Truly, it’s not like that between us, and he knows my heart is yours. Besides, he’s been in love with Ingrid forever. Not that that makes a difference because Johnny isn’t and could never be you. You’re my soul mate.” She placed her hand upon his, resting on the table. “I’m so sorry if I led you to feel otherwise. That was never my intention.”

  Soul mate. At that word, he felt so much better about the petty envy he continued to have for the man she often referred to in her letters. He smiled thoughtfully, rotating his hand to hold hers within his grasp, his thumb caressing her soft inner palm.

  Nearly upon them, Captain Carter cleared his throat when a hellzapoppin’ song sent the dancers into a tailspin on the dance floor. “Miss Renner, may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  Will wasn’t about to deny the privilege to his C.O. and off Lizzy went with a sheepish grin.

  Damn, can we never finish a conversation? He downed his drink at her parting and watched her dance up a storm, Lindying and laughing. Apart from her impromptu dancing in the Chris Craft, he’d never seen her move like this, and he admired each spin, kick, and syncopated swivel of her hips. My G-d, she’s a fantastic dancer! Her ardent spectator thoroughly enjoyed the teasing looks she sent him while dancing with another, and he laughed from the sidelines whenever she winked at him. Tempted as he was to break in, he’d wait for the slow dance, the next one where he could hold her in his arms and whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

  Another flier jumped into her dance, pulling her from Carter, but Lizzy didn’t miss a beat. She kept on dancing like a feminine whirlwind, her smile never ceasing, her feet never stopping. At that moment, she was more than a zephyr, she was a full-blown gale! Miss Chapin would be proud—or not, because Lizzy’s dancing was doing indecorous things to him as he watched.

  The song finally ended and Miss Langford once again approached the microphone to sing one of her signature songs, “I’m in the Mood for Love.” Will rose quickly and gently pushed through the crowded dance floor before another made any stake to dance with his girl. He tapped his C.O. on the shoulder

  “May I cut in?”

  “If you insist, although I must ask—what took you so long?”

  Will smiled and took Lizzy in his arms. He could feel the heat radiate from her body and each warm breath from her exertion felt like a tickling kiss upon his chin. She clung to him in the tight space of their dance frame, and he bent down to her ear as they moved together.

  “Do you remember our first dance?” He asked.

  “How can I forget? You bowled me over with your form.”

  “That was the plan. Although at the time, I was pretty hard pressed to admit it.” He swallowed hard. “This is the best birthday gift you could have sent me, baby. You and I, here, dancing like this.”

  “Oh, Will, I’m not your birthday gift. That’s not expected for another two weeks and believe me, it’ll be a swell surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Yes you do. You just haven’t had many worth getting, and I assure you that it’s a surprise you’ll go wacky over.”

  He turned her under his arm away from him. “Is it something better than this? Because I don’t think that’s quite possible. Your arrival was the best surprise a weary pilot could get.”

  She came back into his comforting embrace. “Significantly better, but I’ll never tell. As for surprises … if I got on a train and almost liked it, well then you, too, can enjoy a surprise or two now and again and maybe, just maybe, cast aside those fuddy duddy barricades of yours.”

  “I’m learning.”

  “And I see my patient tutelage is paying off.”

  He swayed with her to the romantic words, imprinting the feel of her body against his. With lips against the soft wave of her hair, Will sang quietly. As if together they alone occupied the crowded hall, he whispered the lyrics, “Our hearts together … we are one.”

  Lizzy tightened her grip on him, resting her head on his strong shoulder.

  ~~*~~

  Downtown Lakeland was deserted, and all but the lights surrounding Lake Mirror at the end of Lemon Street were extinguished at this late hour. Though the city was asleep, two visitors were wide awake.

  It was after midnight when Will pulled the sedan staff car beside the Hotel Lakeland Terrace. Although appreciative for the loaner conveyance, he hated that his high-society girl was transported in such purely serviceable, drab metal. Lizzy didn’t seem to care even if it was a far cry from her luxury German sports car with its mahogany dashboard and leather upholstery. Nevertheless, he cared, further hating that it was a Ford. Nothing like a little war profiteering from that anti-Semitic, Nazi-loving Henry Ford. The mere thought of it rankled his nerves, which of course, always seemed to bring his thoughts back to Herr Renner. He quickly replaced the disturbing intrusion with the vision of Lizzy’s innocent coyness conveyed from the other side of the front seat.

  She sat observing him through long eyelashes as she removed her gloves.

  He put the sedan in park, engaging the brake then cut the engine. “Shall we go in?”

  Reaching out, her fingers wrapped around his, still grasping the ignition key. Her voice was laced with romantic optimism. “Not just yet.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. The evening flew by, and it seems we hardly had any time together. You were very popular.”

  Lizzy giggled. “I had such a swell time tonight. Thank you for making me feel so special.”

  He turned to face her, removed his cap, then placed it upon the dashboard. “You are special, Lizzy.”

  Her captivating siren call caused him to move toward her, closing the small gap between them in spite of the large steering wheel and the belt of his officer’s coat. A malleable caressed down her cheek as their eyes locked. “May I kiss you?”

  Even in the darkness of the car, he could see how she bit her lower lip when she nodded. He leaned down to her, recognizing anticipation emanating from within her heated flesh. “Why are you biting your lip? Are you nervous or afraid of me?”

  “No, I could never be afraid of you. I’m afraid of me and how I feel—how you make me feel. When I’m near you, I feel things I’ve never felt before. Kiss me, Will.”

  The softness of her plump lips tasted like cherries jubilee, and he couldn’t help devouring them almost immediately. What he thought would be a chaste goodnight kiss instantly turned delicious and heated, and her slight whimper only served to enflame him all the more.

  His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to him as their tongues explored with a new intensity, passionately breaching propriety without concern. The thundering in his chest matched the uncontrolled throbbing in his loins and the need to do things neither had done before.

  He knew this was ungentlemanly, yet he couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold back. All he wanted to do was taste and caress, explore and claim.

  Slowly, his hand slid up from her narrow waist, and his girl arched her back, as though encouraging his bold touch. At least, that was how he interpreted her movement. The curve of her bosom in his hand felt sublime, as his fingers gently caressed and fondled her with gentle cupping squeezes.

  Sweet blissful moans left her lips when his mouth descended the deli
cate bend of her chin in tandem with the brushing of his thumb against her aroused nipple.

  “Stop me, Lizzy, because I’m spellbound ... enthralled ... bewitched.” He panted between kisses to her neck.

  “No, don’t stop.”

  Her breast filled his eager hand, as he leaned her back against the seat. His body responded to her palm sliding up his shoulder, fingers threading through his hair, making love to each lock with her touch.

  He was near lying upon her as they had in the boat and he reveled in the erotic feel of his arousal pressed hard against her thigh. Hot, heavy pants filled the car, defining their exploration and the release of their pent up, taboo desires. He couldn’t stop the intensity of their petting or of his frenzied kisses ravishing those succulent lips of hers.

  Lord knows how he wanted to tell her he loved her, but he knew that would seem a fabricated ruse at this moment. Getting into her unmentionables wasn’t the goal, and he’d hate for Lizzy to interpret his words as such. Instead, with labored breath, he gazed into her dilated emerald eyes, his heart full of the unspoken declarations. “I … I … we have to stop, baby.”

  Strong yet gentle fingers fanned through her chestnut waves, his expression as tender as he felt. “If we don’t stop now, we’ll go too far.”

  Lizzy kissed his lips with barely a whisper, swollen skin against skin, her words equally as earnest and soft. “I want to go too far. Does that make me as audacious as you’ve always thought?”

  “No, because I know what’s in your heart. It’s in my heart, too.” He swallowed hard, as though there was a thick knot of “I love you” stuck within, struggling to be unleashed. “But, it shouldn’t be like this in the front seat of an Army vehicle. It should be special, as beautiful as you are, as romantic as you deserve, not rushed and certainly not on a street corner.”

  Lizzy nodded. “You’re right. We’ll wait.”

  Will fixed the strap to her dress then rose from her supine body, helping her to sit up with him. “Let’s go for a walk and cool down, before I change my mind.”

  “Or before I change my mind.” She leaned against him, resting her head upon his shoulder. “You do that to me. It was love at first sight for me, Will.”

  The only reply his lips would allow to escape was a kiss to her forehead, and he surreptitiously watched as a knowing smile graced her lips. He wanted at that moment to throw caution to the wind with an “It was for me, too,” but his reticence held him captive.

  She smoothed her hand down the buttons of his coat. “Let’s walk down to the lake. It’s such a lovely night, and I’m not quite ready to part from my flyboy.”

  Will exited the vehicle and walked around to the passenger side, guiding her out onto the sidewalk.

  She tucked her arm into the crook of his, and together they strolled in shy silence, passing the entrance of her hotel at the end of the street. Ahead, Lake Mirror glimmered as though a million sparks of electric light danced upon its surface from the moonlight and the dimly lit globed lampposts that surrounded the seawall’s promenade walk. The ornate banisters, pillars, and the seawall itself looked just like National Geographic magazine had reported—replicating the entrance to a Venetian Palace, only here two American flags waved.

  Lizzy felt overcome. It was all so romantic, and she couldn’t help squeezing Will’s arm, bringing her body closer to his as they walked through the small park to the overlook banister. “I imagine Italy looks similar. Romantic Venice and my dream of floating in a gondola.”

  “Under the Bridge of Sighs?”

  “Yes, for a kiss of eternal love.”

  Will clasped her hand, resting them together as one, upon the stone wall. The tips of her fingers felt the coolness of his gold pilot insignia ring. He looked down at her with an auspicious smile.

  “I’ll take you there when the war is over, baby. I promise.”

  She couldn’t help raising a teasing eyebrow. “Truly? You know what that vow means, Will?”

  “I do.”

  “You also know I’ll hold you to it.”

  “I do.”

  Her breath hitched.

  “And you’re willing to commit to that even though I’m impetuous, incorrigible, and utterly irresponsible?”

  “I am.” He took a deep breath. Say it, fool! Tell her what’s in your heart! Say it! “Those are all the reasons I’m in love with you.”

  Her eyes welled with unexpected tears. Searching his eyes she grinned overjoyed that his tongue had finally became unhinged. “You love …”

  Will raised their entwined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. All his reservations for telling her had faded away in that simple avowal. “Yes. I love you, Lizzy.”

  She teasingly smiled through her tears. “I knew that.”

  His low laugh was filled with mirth. “Of course you did.”

  She couldn’t resist rising to her tiptoes to kiss him under the stars. Not another person was in sight but to their left a group of the local Mute swans laid nestled in sleep at the grassy shoreline. Two others swam together in unison, in the moonlight.

  Lizzy breathed in, holding Will’s gaze, resting a hand upon his cheek. “I love you so much.”

  He draped his arm over her shoulders, and she turned, nuzzling into him. Gazing out onto the lake and its mirrored reflection of the sky above he observed quietly, “Swans mate for life.”

  “They do and so will I … ‘Unwearied still, lover by lover, they paddle in the cold, companionable streams or climb the air. Their hearts have not grown old. Passion or conquest wander where they will, attend upon them still’,” she recited.

  “You know Yeats?”

  “Of course. Not every book for the victory drive is a novel, you know.”

  She delighted when he finished the poem she had become enamored with from a donated book by the Fricks.

  “‘But now they drift on the still water, mysterious, beautiful. Among what rushes will they build, by what lake’s edge or pool’.”

  He kissed her sweetly before declaring. “I’ll mate for life, too, because I know I’ll never love another like I love you.”

  The smile that graced her visage was, without a doubt, the happiest expression to ever grow from her heart to her eyes as it blossomed upward. Elated by his confession, she was bowled over by his overwhelming romantic nature, and it filled her heart with something she had never felt before—absolute trust and contentment, as though her twenty years had brought her to this moment. She was sure he would propose now that he declared his heart and intentions for their future.

  “Let’s walk around the lake, shall we?” he suggested.

  They strolled along the promenade, holding hands, swinging their arms between them from time to time with the shy smiles of innocent, young love. They passed the swans on one side and lily pads floating on the other. The dimly lit lamps cast a romantic hue to the midnight stroll while the lake beside them rippled beneath the lunar light, offering up an unforgettable moonglade to admire.

  “So now that you are here, what are your plans? When do you return to New York?”

  “Well, Father is expecting me home on November 2nd and since my Aunt Helga will be flying to Rio, Kitty will be returning in three weeks’ time, too. So, I must be at Meercrest for her. Besides, I have responsibilities to the book collection and the book mobile.”

  “Will you stay in Lakeland longer than tonight?”

  She chortled thinking naughty thoughts of her luxurious hotel room and her flyboy. “I’ll be returning to Rosebriar Manor day after tomorrow. I have to prepare the guesthouse for visitors at the end of the month and see to Rosebriar’s final closure for the season. Hardly anyone from the Social Register is coming south as long as we are at war. As it is many of the servants at the house have left for the shipyards in Tampa and Jacksonville.”

  “I’ll try to see if I can get a weekend pass to visit with you in Sarasota, and maybe you can meet me in that hot rod of yours up at MacDill next time I fly over. I’d
like to take you out to St. Pete Beach.”

  “Oh, that sounds creamy. Can we visit the Don CeSar—the Pink Palace? Captain Carter tells me that it’s a convalescent hospital for the Air Corps, and I’d like to stop by, spread some cheer, and bring the boys some cigarettes, maybe even a few girlie magazines if you can spare a few.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. They are someone’s sons and sweethearts, and I would hope that wherever you go, someone would be there to bring some cheer to you, not girlie magazines, of course. I see that’s why Lillian is going to England in December.”

  He grinned, obviously delighted in her war effort, and she felt proud having come so far from the girl he met only five months ago. Finally, she didn’t feel like a useless bauble of American aristocratic life.

  “For your information, Pistol, I don’t look at girlie magazines. Why would I? I have my own pin up tacked upon the PPL’s instrument dash—and in my arms tonight. But you’re right, like tonight’s dance, these things are important for morale. I commend Lillian and you for seeing that.”

  “Thank you for saying so. It feels wonderful to be so involved, and feels even more so now that I have your seal of approval.”

  They stopped on the opposite side of the lake from where they began. Being of the same, remarkably, similar train of thought, they sheepishly looked at one another and headed directly toward the gazebo. Concealed from moonlight, it sat shrouded by the trees overhead. Lizzy giggled when he tugged her hand, pulling her into the shadow.

  “You want to neck, chicken?” She laughingly teased.

  “You bet I do. You’re making me positively wacky.” With her back pressed against the stone pillar, he kissed her, sucking her lips in playful nibbles. “I can’t … stop … kissing you.”

  Each time his mouth touched her flesh, she tingled and fluttered, feeling and fighting the need to touch him, to explore as he had done in the car. The moment his thumb had brushed against her straining bosom, currents of indescribable desire shot straight to her womanhood, and now, with his lips attacking hers, she felt it again.