by Cara Malone
She found Cyn standing at the edge of the garden, her back to Marigold. The sound of the string quartet floated out through the open windows and Marigold had to try not to admire the view of Cyn’s backside for too long.
“Hi,” she said.
Cyn turned around and smiled. “You found me.”
“I was hoping you hadn’t left,” Marigold said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just looking at the scene of the crime,” Cyn said. She flicked the yellow caution tape that was hanging at about hip height across the entrance to the garden. “Detective Holt said there haven’t been any leads just yet, but I’m sure they’re going to figure out who did this. I won’t let them stop looking until they do.”
“Thanks,” Mari said as she joined Cyn in front of the tape. “I was hoping to get that dance now. The dance floor is filling up in there.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to compete with a crowd,” Cyn said, surprising her as she took Marigold’s gloved hand and put her other hand on her waist, right where the tulle began to plume out.
“Here?” Mari asked, her breath catching in her throat. The garden was cast in shadows, just a few lamp posts lighting the features and a row of string lights illuminating the paths. Her heels were sinking into the gravel and it was painful to look at the charred remains of her garden, and yet when Cyn pulled her a little closer, she didn’t object.
“Why not?” Cyn asked. “We can hear the music just as well here.”
“Okay,” Marigold said as Cyn began to turn her around in slow circles. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t tear her eyes off Cyn’s steely gaze. Cyn was a few inches taller than Marigold and she wondered if she was the only one feeling the tension in that moment. It would be so easy to tilt her head up, rise ever so slightly onto her toes, and kiss her again.
“I talked to my stepbrother earlier,” Cyn said. “He’s working security here tonight, and he claims to have no memory of telling me that you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”
“Do you believe him?” Marigold asked.
“No,” Cyn said. “I think he had a crush on you.”
“You’ll have to point him out to me,” Mari said.
“Why, so you can have your pick of us?” Cyn asked, a teasing smirk coming to her lips.
“No!” Marigold objected. “Believe me, I’m not interested. I just want to know if I remember him from school.”
“Okay,” Cyn said.
When the quartet paused between numbers, Cyn let go of Marigold and she found herself craving more. Everything was running smoothly inside the ballroom for the moment, so to linger in this moment a little longer, she asked, “Do you want to see my second favorite part of the estate?”
“Yes,” Cyn said, her lip turning up to a charming half-smile as those steel-colored eyes studied Mari’s face. She was lucky it was dark out here or Cyn would have seen the desire in her expression. One thing she couldn’t disguise was the way her eyes lingered over Cyn’s lips.
“Come on,” Mari said, feeling brave and taking Cyn’s hand.
They went back into the house and Mari guided her quickly up the grand staircase before anyone could grab her and pull her back into the fray. They went to the second floor, where her great-grandfather’s library waited. She let go of Cyn’s hand to push the large doors open, then stepped aside.
Cyn’s eyes lit up.
“Wow,” she said, going into the room.
It was grand just like everything else in Grimm House, with mahogany bookshelves that went all the way up to the ceiling on three walls. Ladders were mounted to a rail system that circled the room, and small overhead lights illuminated each shelf.
Mari was pleased at the look of awe that had overcome Cyn’s expression. She loved showing this room to people – it was a great judge of character, and she asked, “Do you like to read?”
Cyn turned around from the bookshelf where she was examining a row of leather-bound classics. "I love to read. Romances, mostly - I'm a bit of a sap."
Marigold grinned and said, "I never would have guessed."
"What about you? What do you read?" Cyn asked.
"Oh, these are just for show," Marigold said with a flick of her wrist. Cyn clutched her chest, her fingers tangling in the chain of her necklace, and Mari laughed, then relented. "I'm joking. I’m a classics girl – Hesse, Goethe, Remarque. A lot of the books in this library came over from Germany with my great-grandfather, and I’ve read all the ones that aren’t too delicate to open.”
"Oh, thank god," Cyn said, putting her hand back down and walking a little closer to Marigold. Sauntering? "If you had all these books and told me you weren't a reader, I was going to have to go home and forget all about that kiss."
Mari laughed and pointed out, “It wasn’t a kiss. It was an accident.”
“Do you regret it?”
Cyn’s eyes were smoldering into her and no, she absolutely did not regret their kiss. Marigold shook her head, nearly imperceptibly because she was afraid to break their gaze. That was all Cyn needed, though.
She smiled. “Then it was a kiss.”
Our first, Marigold thought. What a crazy idea.
She went over to a comfortable, well-worn leather armchair that she’d spent many an hour in when she was growing up. When she sat down, Cyn grinned and pointed at the pink tulle that was ballooning all around her.
“I don’t think you fit in that chair, honey,” she said, and Marigold gave her a sharp look.
“Watch it,” she said, but a smile played on her lips.
“I meant to say your dress doesn’t,” Cyn added, looking sufficiently chastised. “Which you look incredible in, by the way. True Grimm Falls royalty.” Mari rolled her eyes and Cyn caught it. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Marigold said. “I just hear that a lot, and it’s usually not a positive. It can be pretty isolating, actually.”
“I know what that’s like,” Cyn said. She was closing the distance between them, pausing now and then to inspect something on the bookshelves – or pretend to – and all the while approaching the second leather chair right next to Mari’s.
Finally, Marigold laughed and patted the arm of the chair. “Sit down. You’re making me anxious.”
“You don’t have to get back to the party?”
“I will eventually,” she said, then let out a groan and slipped her feet out of her heels. “But my feet are killing me, and I’m curious about why your stepbrother would tell you I didn’t like you when we were kids. Is that what sibling rivalry is like?”
“I guess,” Cyn said, obeying her order to sit. “We never got along – still don’t, most of the time. Our parents got married pretty quickly and I think he blames me for stealing his mother’s attention away from him.”
“How did they meet?” Mari asked.
“An online grief support group,” Cyn said.
“Your mother passed right before you came to Grimm Falls, right?”
“Yes, she had cancer and died when I was eleven,” Cyn said. Then she reached down and lifted Marigold’s foot onto her lap. She looked at her, waiting for an objection, but Mari said nothing, barely able to breathe. Cyn put her hands on her, rolling the balls of her thumbs into Marigold’s arch and then massaging her heel.
Mari let out another moan as the pain that had been building in her feet for the last several days was released, and a new kind of wanting emerged. She settled deeper into the leather chair and lifted her other foot into Cyn’s lap, their eyes never leaving each other as Cyn massaged her.
After a minute, she continued her story. “My mother didn’t want my dad to pine over her for the rest of his life, so she made him promise to remarry when she was gone. Sometimes I think he chose Samantha just because she could understand what it was like to lose a spouse, but for better or worse, we’ve been in Grimm Falls ever since.”
“I’m sorry. My mother died in childbirth,” Marigold said. Then she gave a small, sad laugh and
said, “Wow, that’s a hell of a thing to have in common. So where did you live before?”
“A little town called Lisbon,” she said. “It’s about three hours from here – nothing but soybeans and Amish country surrounding it, and not a whole lot going on inside the town, either. It’s the kind of place you see in Hallmark movies, where everyone knows each other and you can walk pretty much anywhere you want to go.”
“That sounds idyllic,” Marigold said. “Why didn’t you and your father stay there?”
“Samantha’s boutique was here,” Cyn said with a shrug. “We couldn’t really ask her to uproot her business to settle in a town where people were excited to finally have a Wal-Mart to call their own.”
Marigold laughed. Then, watching the expert way Cyn worked her hands over her feet and up her calves a little way, she asked, “But you’re happy here?”
“Yes,” Cyn said, catching her gaze. “I love Grimm Falls. That’s why this rash of arson attacks is bothering me so much – I can’t believe anyone would want to do something like that to our city.”
“I read about the other cases in the paper,” Mari said. “Do you think my garden is related to them?”
“I don’t understand the connection any more than you do,” Cyn said, “But I would sleep better at night knowing we had one criminal on our hands instead of three.”
“I’d sleep better at night if my mother’s garden was still in one piece,” Marigold said. “Thank you for the bluebells, though. It really meant a lot to me that you understood when I said I wanted my mother here tonight.”
“I would never laugh at you,” Cyn said, keeping her gaze steady on Marigold.
Then she released her feet, gently sliding them back into her heels and setting them on the floor. She stood and held out her hand and Mari took it, confused and excited all at the same time.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Cyn pulled her out of the chair.
She didn’t make it any farther than Cyn’s arms. She pulled her close and gave her a deep, intentional kiss. It felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out and replaced by something denser, more electrically charged.
When they parted a moment later, Mari asked, “What was that for?”
“I told you, I’m a romantic,” Cyn said. “Wasn’t it the right moment?”
“Yes,” Mari breathed. “It was.”
Thirteen
Cyn
Cyn was making out with the woman of her dreams.
How the hell had that happened?!
She had Marigold Grimm pressed up against a bookshelf. Her lips still tasted like honey, but now it was mixed with the sweet flavor of white wine and Cyn was going crazy with desire. She had her hands around Marigold’s hips, trying not to mess up the tulle on her dress while she worked up the courage to slide her palms down to Mari’s perfect ass.
It had taken all of her courage to go for that first kiss – or was it their second, considering what had happened in the garden? But after that, the gloves had come off, quite literally. Cyn had pulled those long, silky white gloves from Marigold’s delicate fingers, and now her hands were cupped around Cyn’s neck. Cyn had the recurring desire to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, and she stole looks into Marigold’s diamond blue eyes every chance she got.
This is happening. It’s real. Marigold Grimm just wrapped her leg around my hip.
“I don’t normally do this kind of thing,” Mari said in between frantic, passionate kisses. One of her hands traveled over Cyn’s collarbone and tripped over the gold chain on its way to the top button of her shirt.
“Me neither,” Cyn said. She wanted to tell her she’d never consider doing this with anyone but her, but that seemed like too much, like she would scare Mari off. She would never forgive herself if she ruined this moment.
“I don’t want you to think I go around kissing girls on a first date, or a… whatever this is,” Mari kept objecting while she worked the buttons on Cyn’s shirt. It emboldened Cyn to slide her own hands down, squeezing the surprising suppleness of Mari’s ass through far too many layers of fabric.
“This isn’t a date,” she said. “You’ll know when I take you on a date. We can stop if you want.”
“No.”
Thank god.
Mari wrapped her leg tighter around Cyn’s body and she let herself lean into the feeling. Their hips connected just as Mari finished undoing the buttons of Cyn’s shirt and spread it open. She was wearing an undershirt, and a bra beneath that, but it felt good to have one less layer between them as she pressed her body into Marigold’s and kissed her again.
Mari was just sliding her hands into the narrow space between them, looking for the button of Cyn’s pants, when something vibrated violently against her leg and they both jumped. Mari let out a startled yelp and Cyn stepped back, scrambling for her phone.
It was blaring now in addition to the vibration, an alert that was intentionally similar to a fire engine’s siren.
“Sorry,” Cyn said as she fumbled it out of her pocket. “That’s the ringer I use for the firehouse.”
“No kidding,” Mari said, giving Cyn a smirk as she stepped back and answered the call.
“Robinson,” she said, and it was a strange feeling switching back over to work mode in that circumstance. Ordinarily, the siren was what got her adrenaline flowing. But considering what she’d been doing just before, it was a let-down this time.
“We’ve got a three-alarm in progress,” came James’s voice. “I’m sorry, I know you’re at that Grimm House thing, but we need you at the scene.”
“Is it arson again?” she asked, catching the concerned look in Marigold’s eyes as she listened to one half of Cyn’s conversation.
“I don’t know,” James said. “Get here as quick as you can, okay? The first two trucks are leaving now and we need all hands on deck.”
“Okay,” Cyn said, ending the call and stuffing the phone back into her pocket. Then she looked regretfully at Marigold. Nothing short of a three-alarm fire could have pulled her away in that moment. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“I heard,” Mari said.
Cyn didn’t want the moment to end – she was desperate to make it go on as long as she could, because she was still half-convinced she’d wake up in the morning to find that it was all a dream. All she could come up with was, “Do you want to walk me to my truck?”
“Sure,” Marigold said. Cyn reached for her hand and they left the library.
“Thanks for showing me the library,” Cyn said as they hurried toward the stairs. In the distance, she could hear the string quartet playing – something a little livelier now that everyone had finished their meals. “I have to confess, I was sort of hoping to dance with you properly in the ballroom. I could hold you in my arms all night.”
Marigold blushed at the idea, then picked up the hem of her skirt as they headed down the stairs. “I’d like that, although honestly, it’s probably better this way. It wouldn’t make for a very good tribute to my father’s work here if tomorrow morning the newspapers were splashed with pictures of the two of us. I’m not exactly out.”
“Would your father disapprove?” Cyn asked with a frown.
“It’s not that,” Mari said. “He knows. But I’ve never made dating much of a priority, so I don’t know how many other people know.”
“I didn’t,” Cyn admitted. “Although I spent a lot of years hoping I wasn’t imagining the sparks when we were kids.”
“You weren’t,” Mari said as they got to the bottom of the stairs.
The foyer was empty for the moment, so Cyn decided to be bold. She cupped Marigold’s face in her hands and pressed her up against the ornate bannister for another quick kiss. “Good.”
They went outside, their hands still linked, and when Cyn noticed Mari wobbling as her heels sank into the gravel, she tucked her hand under her arm for support. They went over to her truck, conspicuous as one of the few non-luxury vehicles in the lo
t, and Cyn grabbed her backup boots out of the foot well. At least she’d come prepared.
While she slipped off her nice loafers and hurried into the old, grungy boots, Mari asked, “What made you want to be a firefighter?”
“I wanted to do something where I could help people,” Cyn said. That was the typical answer she heard the guys at the firehouse giving whenever it came up, but as she said it, the words sounded cliché. They weren’t false, but they weren’t the whole story, either. As she bent to lace up her boots, she said, “Actually, it had a lot to do with my stepmother’s boutique. She wanted me to work there after high school, and be this completely different person – feminine, demure, stylish. When my best friend, Gus, went to career day to sign up for the police academy, I went with him and the fire department’s booth caught my eye.”
She laughed as she stood up, keeping her attention on Marigold’s entrancing face as she set her loafers in the truck.
Then she added, “It was the only rebellious teenage moment I ever had, and Samantha never forgave me for it. I’m not sure Drew did, either. He thought I was showing him up.”
“Well, they’re fools because I don’t know what I would have done without your help this morning,” Marigold said.
“I never imagined the day would end like this,” Cyn answered. She really should have left by now, but what would one more kiss hurt? She wrapped her arms around Mari and just as their lips met, the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed softly in the distance. Cyn tore herself away and said, “I’m sorry, I have to go. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
Marigold stepped back and Cyn jogged around to the driver’s side door, then drove off without a backwards look – she didn’t think she’d have the courage to leave, fire or no fire, if she saw Marigold in her rearview mirror.
Fourteen
Marigold