I swallow. The truth is that talking to him on the way in distracted me a little. I'm surprised by how okay this is, but my heart is still thudding in my chest.
"I'm…alright."
He begins to back away and my pulse quickens. "Can you stay?" I ask, the question whistling out on a single breath. "Right where you are?"
Instead, he moves closer and reaches out his hand. I grab it. "Do you want to go under?" he asks.
"God, no."
He smiles. "Just checking."
The two of us stay like that, standing feet apart, our hands clasped. The world is dreamy and quiet, as the sun begins to lower. A breeze, balmy and apple-scented, rustles the reeds that line the far shore.
I’m happy, I realize. I never thought I'd set foot in a lake again, but I'm actually happy right now. I’ve been happier over the past month than I’ve ever been in my life. And all the best moments happened with him.
Happened because of him.
When the breeze picks up and the sun begins to set, I climb from the lake, struggling to pull clothes on over my damp skin. Once I’m done, I turn around and he climbs out to do the same. The breeze now whips through the meadow so hard that the trees shake.
He lifts me onto Fleur, though I no longer need the help, his hands large and warm and gentle—and then he urges me along while he climbs on Napoleon.
“It’s going to storm,” he says. As soon as he speaks, I hear the low growl of distant thunder. “Head straight for the house. I’ll get the horses put away on my own.”
“What am I supposed to do while you’re risking your life out in the storm?” I ask.
He grins. “Get dry and open a bottle of wine? That’s what I’d do anyway.”
I’ve changed clothes and am sitting on the stone porch with a lamp and an open bottle of wine when he gets to the house. He takes the chair across from mine, accepting the glass I’ve poured for him and breathing in deeply.
I’ve come to love the smell of wine as well. It’s no longer merely a drink—it’s an experience. The scent. That first burst of it against my tongue. I sigh happily.
“It’s perfect.”
He bites his lip. “You’ve come around then to wine, at last.”
“It’s one of those things you learn to love,” I explain. “I’m not even sure if it’s the taste I love or just the things it brings to mind.”
Lightning splashes across the sky, causing the lamplight to flicker over his face as he watches me. “So what does it bring to mind?”
I close my eyes and take another sip, letting the answer come to me as I relish it on my tongue. “Being here, with you. Reading. Playing chess. The smell of the rain.”
“You’ll replace all those memories when you go home,” he says quietly.
I shake my head, trying to picture the experiences that could attempt to replace these. My best memories, aside from my time here, are from the one full summer Mark and I spent together. It seemed like a miracle at the time, but now I wonder if it was just different, and anything different seemed good. I picture it all now: drinking with Mark’s family at the country club, receptions at art galleries, late nights out with his college buddies. That future I chose for myself—the one that seemed so ideal, so glamorous—suddenly seems loud, and empty, and sad. It could never replace these memories.
“I don’t think I will,” I reply. “Will you?”
“There will never be a time that I don’t step on this porch and think of you,” he says quietly.
My heart squeezes. It’s easy enough to say, but eventually there will be some other female here in my place, warmed by his presence—taking in his beautiful mouth and his bright eyes and the way he rests back in his chair—and she will be thinking of nothing more than when he will kiss her. I’m so jealous of her I feel dizzy.
He glances at me and bites his lip, leaning back in his seat, the glass floating lazily against his palm. He looks sad, though he says nothing.
I picture myself leaning over, brushing my mouth over those full lips of his. Would he be shocked? Would he respond? I think he might. I think he might lean into the kiss, pull the hint of wine from my lower lip. And my hand would go to his cheek, rasping against the beard that’s grown in over the course of the day. I’d breathe him in then, trying to capture him inside me somehow. His smell, his taste, his warmth.
"We should eat," I say quickly. "The wine is going to my head."
He leans back in his chair, watching me in that way of his, like he understands what's going on inside me better than I do. "And what do you suggest we eat?" he asks.
We could do bread and cheese and ham, as always. But for some reason I’m thinking of the night I ran away, when we came back here and divided Marie’s latest creation between us with two forks.
“I think we should make a pie."
"We?" he asks.
Pie is not something I'd suggest under normal circumstances, particularly as I've only been a part of the pie-making process once in my life. If I’m going to attempt it, I’m not doing it alone.
"You don't expect me to make it all by myself?"
He grins. "Yes, obviously it would be unthinkable, making something all by yourself." He's teasing but he rises, pushing his sleeves above the elbow. "Put me to work, ma reine." My queen.
"Is that another word for thief?" I ask.
"Yes," he replies. "But worse."
He follows me to the kitchen and I wrap my braid on top of my head while he pours us both more wine. "That isn't going to improve my baking skills," I warn as I take the glass.
"No," he says, "but it will help dull our senses before we are forced to taste the fruit of your labors."
“Our labors.”
I push the apples and cutting board toward him, while I take the seat on the other side and try to remember what Marie did that morning. I watch her measure the flour—exactly two and a half cups, watch as she mixes it with baking powder and then takes the butter and chops it into the flour, with small knives and rapid hands.
"You're doing it again," he says softly. "The shimmering."
My eyes open and I settle into my body, with a need to argue that is almost instinctive. Henri’s now claimed to have seen it twice and what does it mean if he’s correct? It means this is something I might do in front of Mark. Will do, if we live together eventually. And how the hell will I explain that?
“I wasn’t time traveling,” I insist, grabbing the flour and the butter. “Maybe I just lose my place a little when I’m focusing on something.”
"There wouldn't be anything wrong with it if you were time traveling, you know," he suggests casually, winding the knife with clever hands around the apple's surface.
I measure the flour just as Marie did, and begin to cut the butter into it. “Did I actually shimmer? Tell me the truth."
"You did,” he says. “You looked like a candle in a storm.”
"God," I say, cutting the butter into the flour with hands moving even faster than Marie's did, but mostly out of distress. "I sometimes do it during tests. Do you think anyone's seen me?"
He raises a brow. “I don’t know, but if you want to convince people you don’t time travel, you might want to cut that out first.”
I sigh as I grab the rolling pin. “Hard to accomplish when I don’t even know I’m doing it.”
“Then may I suggest that you don’t wind up with someone who has no idea who you are?” he asks.
I flip him off. He doesn’t seem to mind. “I think we may need cinnamon,” he says.
I can’t explain why I’m so intent on succeeding with this pie. It just feels important.
"Yes, we do," I reply, and before I can change my mind, I close my eyes and fade, clicking back one day, and then the next. I shouldn't be wasting my energy on this, yet I don't care right now about returning home. I just want to make a pie with Henri.
I land in the barn, as always, and grab the blanket. The sun is out, and when I peer through the open barn doors, I catch a
glimpse of blonde hair and a white dress in the garden: me, watering the pumpkins. I race across the yard and into the house where Marie is scrubbing the floor. Her jaw drops when she sees me walk in the door.
"We need cinnamon," I tell her.
A delighted smile replaces her astonishment. "Bien, Amelie. I will buy some today. It's useful, our gift, isn’t it?" she asks, a hint of laughter at the base of her voice.
"I suppose," I mutter.
When I appear back in the house a few minutes later, soaked from head to foot and wrapped in the blanket once more, Henri laughs. "Marie told me you'd be time traveling today," he says. "I didn't believe her."
"We needed cinnamon," I reply a trifle defensively, gathering my clothes from the pile on the floor.
"An emergency," he concurs, with a serious nod of his head. I hand him the cinnamon and go get dressed.
When I return to the kitchen, he’s mixing it in with the apples and sugar, but he’s watching me more than he is his bowl. He runs a thumb over his lip, a gesture that makes me feel slightly weak-kneed. I’ve definitely had too much wine. Too much of something, anyway. I carry my bowl to the counter, needing some distance from him.
“Are you really going to sleep with him when you get home?” he asks abruptly.
I glance up. His eyes are on fire now, angry and…something else…as he waits for my response.
The idea of sleeping with Mark merely made me nervous last spring, but now it twists my stomach in knots—and not the good kind. I shouldn’t have spent the entire summer away from him. We haven’t even seen each other since March, and five months apart would have anyone nervous. If I feel like this when I get home, I won’t be able to go through with it, but maybe I’ll feel different by then. Maybe things will go back to normal.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
My body feels overheated and liquid. He holds my eyes, and I picture sliding over the table to kiss him. I picture him lifting me on the counter, pressed between my legs the way he was the day we fought over the chocolate.
My chest rises and falls too quickly and his eyes flicker there, and back to my mouth. He is looking at me like something he intends to devour, and I can’t catch my breath.
I grab the rolling pin and begin to roll out the dough, trying to get my thoughts in order. I don’t know who I am right now—it must be the wine creating these pictures in my head, making me sweat though the room isn’t warm.
"You're doing it wrong," he says.
I wipe flour off my forehead with my shoulder. "How typical of you to sit there from your relaxed perch and criticize."
He rises, slowly, and moves around to my side of the counter. I'm about to slide out of his way when suddenly he is behind me, his hands covering mine on the handles of the rolling pin, his mouth near my ear.
"You need to put your body into it," he says, pushing me forward, coming with me. Our weight presses into the dough and it smooths out neatly across the butcher block. "Then back," he says. His voice is low and rough against my ear. I move backward with him, with our hands, and need sharpens in my stomach.
"And again," he says softly. He exhales and every tiny hair along the shell of my ear rises in response. I look at our hands. His are large, tan, dwarfing my small, paler ones beneath. Our forearms are pressed together, the same contrast: large and hard next to small and soft. His chest leans against my back, pressing firm and hot to the thin fabric of my dress, which sticks to me now. My breathing is shallow, small gasps and quick exhales, my heart beating hard with the desire to just close my eyes and follow him wherever he takes this.
I don't know why I want to arch against him when he presses into my back, why I want to move my head toward the pulse of his breath against my ear. Why, when his hands grip mine hard enough to hurt, I only want him to hold them tighter.
Lightning cracks outside and the room is plunged into darkness.
I can feel his heart hammering against my back, the rasp of his unshaved jaw so close that it catches on my skin. His hands tighten around mine and for a single moment I'm not sure what either of us will do next.
I want him. I want to give him everything I’ve refused to give Mark, haven’t wanted to give Mark. Except a week from now, Henri will be an old man. And I might be getting engaged.
"I don't think we can make the pie now," I whisper. I’m breathless and sound terrified, though I’m not sure that’s what I am. Even as I say the words, I’m relishing the feel of his skin on mine, and wanting more of it.
"It might keep for morning," he says, his voice gravelly, warm against my ear for only a moment before he backs away. "Let me get a candle."
I hear the sound of a match striking, and then there is a hint of light in the room. Our eyes meet in the semi-darkness, his burning in a way that’s quickly becoming familiar to me. I gather up the dough, avoiding his face, and he covers the apples.
What would have happened if the lights hadn’t gone out? My heart thuds with the desire to find out.
"I think I’ve had too much to drink,” I stammer, though I know that’s not the issue. My eyes fall to his full mouth, to the broad shoulders that enveloped mine just a minute earlier. I want to feel all of it, to feel his weight over me, consuming me. I am weak-kneed, swollen with desire for it. But giving in right now could ruin everything I’ve planned for myself. “I should go to bed.”
He nods, his jaw locked tight with restraint. When I get to the door of my room I turn. If he were to come over here now and kiss me, I would let him. And then I’d pull him into the room with me and strip him free of those clothes.
He’s leaning over the counter, gripping it. Almost as if he’s fighting himself not to follow me.
I go through the door before he changes his mind, before he gives into what exists between us.
Because I know in my heart I gave into it a while ago.
Marie returns at the crack of dawn the next day. I know this because I hear her gasp when she walks in. I throw my dress on and rush out of the room.
I understand why she's gasping. Henri and I managed to destroy the kitchen...there is flour on every surface. "Sorry," I say, rushing in to clean. "Henri and I tried to make a pie and the lights went out."
A slow smile dawns on her face. "You and Henri tried to make a pie? Together?"
"Well, we had to eat."
"Interesting."
I want to roll my eyes at her but already I'm remembering the feel of him behind me, so much larger than I am. His hands enclosing mine. His breath against my ear.
It must have been the wine. It must have been temporary insanity.
Henri walks into the room then, looking more tired than usual. "Why are you home so early?" he asks Marie. "It's barely even light out."
She colors. "Jeanette's mother arrived from Tours, so I got a ride home."
"A ride?" he asks "Who was available to give you a ride at five in the morning?"
"Father Edouard," she says, blushing fiercely. "Madame LeGrand was worried about the baby and had him come to baptize her just in case, but all was well. And how was it here? If the two of you were making pie together, I assume that means you managed not to be at each other's throats, briefly?"
He was at my throat, I think. Or very near it. I could feel his breath on my skin there. Mark and I have not had sex, but we've done a great many other things. I've been beneath him, practically naked, and not felt a hint of anything. Henri stands behind me and the mere feel of his hands and his breath on me, both of us fully dressed, had me arching like a cat in heat. I just don't understand. I don't want to understand.
"It was fine," I tell her faintly.
Except it wasn’t fine. It was dangerous. Every minute I’m around him seems slightly less controlled than the last. I’m not sure what will happen if I stay another week or two as planned. A smarter girl would probably leave before she found out.
23
Two days later I decide to test my ankle. There’s always the possibility th
at I will break it, which could very well keep me here so long that I can’t jump home anymore, that 1938 becomes my new present. A part of me isn’t as horrified by that idea as I once was.
I wait until Henri leaves to drive Marie-Therese to a farm on the other side of town, since it means I won’t inadvertently flash anyone when I return.
I decide I’ll only go forward a month or two, and though I have a good reason for using my ability, I’m eager to see what the farm will look like. By early fall the apples will be in and the grapes will be nearly ready for harvest. I want to see it all, and why shouldn’t I? I usually feel some guilt about using my gift, but I don’t right now. I guess watching Marie jump so shamelessly has had an effect.
I cross the yard and go out to the barn, where I close my eyes, memorizing the feel of this exact moment, preserving it like a page turned down in a book so I can find my place easily when I return. And then I picture a time not too far from now, imagining a crispness to the air, the way the summer colors will be on the cusp of shifting from green to gold. I feel the first hints of it beginning—the breeze, the darkness—but am suddenly yanked forward, as if my own time is demanding my return.
I panic and drop out of it, hitting the ground and sliding in the hay before I rise, relieved that my ankle seems to have held up just fine. I glance around me with a happy sigh. I meant to go farther, but it’s far enough: there’s a soft breeze—not cold, but far more pleasant than the air was a few seconds earlier. Early fall, I assume.
I grab the blanket still hanging in the barn and wrap it around myself before I peek outside. From here I can see the vegetable patch, where my tiny little shoots have blossomed into long, thick vines, with more pumpkins than the two of them could possibly need. Do I dare walk down to the orchard? It’s ill advised, yes, but the odds of running into anyone are slim. I begin walking down the lane, surrounded on both sides by grape vines rustling in the same fall breeze that blows my hair around my face and whips the blanket around my legs.
And suddenly Henri is there, twenty feet away, eyes wide at the sight of me. The tool falls from his hand. I suppose I need to explain, and a part of me wonders what kind of reception I’m in for. He’s never once indicated he would like me to stay beyond the summer, but if I were to return one day would he be pleased? I guess I’m about to find out.
Across Time: Across Time Book 1 Page 19