The cottage was rustic, haphazardly built of logs and stone throughout a generation. Rooms had been added without thought of easy access or privacy. The living room, with a wall of windows looking over the lake, stretched the length of the house. The kitchen had to be entered through a bedroom. The second bedroom was perched on top of the first and reached by a steep stairway in a corner of the kitchen. A third bedroom was set away from the main part of the house with only a covered walkway to link it.
Garnet completed her tour while Thomas carried groceries and suitcases from the car.
“This is a great house,” she said, when he brought in the last load.
“I always liked it. It has character. It’s been painted recently, and the furniture’s been changed around. It hardly looks the same.”
“Does Patricia’s... the bishop know we’re here?”
“I called him.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t using it.”
Thomas thought about that brief phone call. Patricia’s father had sounded surprised that Thomas had asked permission. The cottage still belonged to Thomas, he'd said, and the bishop had just seen to its maintenance.
“Do you talk to him often?” Garnet asked.
“I didn’t talk to anyone for almost two years. When I decided to rejoin the living, I got back in touch. That’s how I got my denomination to finance starting the Church of the Samaritan. They agreed to fund a small salary for me and expenses for the building for three years. By then the church should be able to survive on its own. And after that the bishop expects me to take another big church and go back to the life I led before Patricia died.”
“And will you?”
He turned. Garnet’s question had been asked in a deceptively casual voice, but he sensed emotion behind her words, “What do you think?”
She shrugged.
“You still don’t think I have a commitment to the Corners, do you?”
“This could just be a very colorful chapter in your life, Thomas. Minister loses wife, loses faith, and wrestles with demons on the hellish streets of the inner city. Then, when his faith in himself and his God returns, he goes back to preaching to the multitudes. With lots of new and dramatic anecdotes to spice up his sermons.”
“I could do that.” He dumped fruit into a wooden bowl on the kitchen table.
She reached for an apple. “Who could blame you? You could reach a hundred people in the suburbs for every one you reach in the Corners. Of course, they would be a hundred people with only a problem or two between them.”
“Money solves a lot of problems, but it doesn’t make life run smoothly. People get sick, have breakdowns, lose jobs or loved ones. Even in the suburbs.” He took the apple from her hand. “You haven’t washed this yet.”
She forced a jaunty smile. “I like to live dangerously.”
“So I’ve noticed.” He strode to the sink and let the water run for a few moments before he plunged the apple under it.
“You never really answered my question.”
“It was couched in preconceived notions and conceit.”
“Conceit?”
He tossed her the apple. She caught it without flinching and dried it on the tail of her shirt.
“Conceit,” he repeated. “You think you’re the only person in the world who cares what happens in the Corners and places just like it? Guess again. You’re just one.”
“And you’re one of the other half dozen or so?” She held up her hand. “Okay, okay. An exaggeration. I’ll admit it.”
“I care,” he said. “And I’ll be staying. If I ever have a large church again, it’ll be the one I build on Wilford and Twelfth, one pebble at a time.”
“On this pebble I build my church.” She considered, then took a large bite of her apple. “That lacks something.”
He leaned against the sink and dried his hands. “You’re enough to drive a saint to sin.”
“Exactly what I had in mind.” She met his eyes. “There’s a long line of women just like me in the Bible, Thomas. Eve, Delilah, Mary Magdalene...”
“Mary Magdalene didn’t succeed.”
“So men have proclaimed for centuries because it suited their purposes. But if she didn't, I’ll just bet she livened up a saintly life or two along the way.”
“You’ve certainly enlivened mine.”
She took another bite of apple, but her heart nudged her rib cage. His expression was tender, as if the words that accompanied it had been a tribute. Her response lost most of its impact because she couldn’t look at him anymore. “Well, our life together has been anything but boring.”
“I could use a little boredom. No more phone calls telling me you’ve been shot at, for a start.”
“Shot, not shot at.” She struggled to be offhand. “Want to see my bandage?”
“Why didn’t you wake me up this morning and tell me Finn couldn’t go with you to work? Didn’t you think I’d care?”
She turned to him. “Has that been bothering you? Of course that wasn’t the reason. You just looked so peaceful, and I guess I was fooled by yesterday.”
Suddenly all the shattered hopes of the past twenty-four hours were real again. She didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore. “I believed... something good had come from that funeral. I felt safe.”
“I was sleeping peacefully.” He didn’t add that his sleep had been undisturbed for the first time in a long time. He had confessed all his faults, all his sins, to Garnet, and she had taken them in stride. She didn’t expect perfection from, him. She seemed to prefer honesty.
“And what good could you or Finn have done, anyway?” she asked. “I was paying attention to everything. The first time he passed me I even suspected the driver of that car might be up to no good. And I picked out a safe place on every block, so by the time that car turned the corner—” She swallowed. Her throat felt as if it had swollen shut. “By the time...”
“Garnet.” He went over and knelt beside her, taking the forgotten apple from her hand.
“I’m sorry.” Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Don’t you?” He pulled her against him. “You could have died this morning.”
“I would have.” She had no desire to resist. She put her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his shirt. “Except that I saw the car coming out of the corner of my eye, so by the time he got a second round of shots off, I was lying at the bottom of some convenient cellar steps.”
“Then he wasn’t just a lousy shot?”
“He was trying hard, but the car was moving fast, and I was moving faster.”
He stroked her hair. “You’re so brave.”
“No, just scared to death. I kept thinking I’d never told you that I care about you. I expect to die young. I’ve never believed in leaving any loose ends in my life. But there they were, the loosest ends of all.”
“I know you care.” He searched for more reassuring words. “You’ve been a good friend.”
“I’m not a friend, Thomas.” She pulled away a little so she could see his face. “I have friends. I play pinochle with them or go to the movies on Friday nights.”
“And I don’t play pinochle.”
“You know what I’m saying.”
He felt trapped, but hadn’t he known that bringing her here would bolt the door behind him? And still he had brought her anyway. Not because she was a friend. Because he cared about her as he hadn’t cared about anyone since Patricia.
Because he loved her.
He shut his eyes so she wouldn’t see the truth. He felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He loved her. He, who was so unworthy.
“Thomas.” She cradled his face in her hands. “Is it so bad that I care about you? I know we didn’t plan it that way. You married me out of some misguided notion of keeping me safe, because you hadn’t saved Patricia. Don’t you think I see that? And I married you because I’ve always been alone, and just that once, it was too tempting not to let someone else shoulder some of the burdens of my life. But we’ve grown beyond that.”
He opened his eyes. “Garnet—”
She couldn’t let him speak. She had to push on, because she might never have the courage for this conversation again. “We’ve grown beyond those reasons. You matter to me now. I think about you when I’m not with you. I try to imagine what it would be like to be really married to you, heart and soul. And when I’m with you, I find excuses for being near you, for touching you or talking to you.”
“Even if we wanted to try a real marriage...”
He let his words trail away. He couldn’t choke out the words that should follow.
“You don’t try a real marriage,” she said softly. “You commit yourself for better or worse.”
“I’m sure that’s not what you told Ema.”
“You’re wrong. It is. And she did. Ema committed herself, but Ron didn’t. She has nothing to be ashamed of. You and I do. We’ve been playing at something sacred. You’ve said as much yourself. But I don’t want to play anymore, and I don’t want to try a real marriage. I want to have one.”
“And I can’t give you that.”
“Are you attracted to me? This isn’t because you don’t find me... appealing?”
He stood. “I find you appealing, damn it. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“You had a terrible thing happen to you, Thomas. It was bound to affect you. But you’re on a different road now. Your life is different. That could be different, too.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Let’s not talk around it anymore. I’m impotent. We’re talking about a man who can’t make love to his wife, Garnet. Whether he’s playing at marriage or wallowing in it. I can’t make love to you, no matter how appealing you are. Something happens inside me. Some switch gets turned off, some defense goes up. I went for a thorough physical, and every cell of my body was poked and prodded. I’m in perfect health. I’ll live to be a hundred, but I’ll live those years celibate. It’s just too bad I’m not a priest or a monk, isn’t it?”
“You’re afraid to try,” she said. “You’re afraid you’ll prove your theory. Well, listen, you’re talking to a nurse. I know a little about this. If you tell yourself enough times that you’re impotent, you will be. You—”
“I don’t need any two-bit psychology. I know it’s in my head! It’s just too bad it’s not manifested there, isn’t it? Because then I could claim you as my wife. And I’d like nothing better. If we’re going to be honest, let’s really be honest. I want you. I go to bed at night hard from wanting you. And I know as well as I know anything else in the world that if I try to make love to you, I won’t be hard anymore!”
He wanted her. She was filled with triumph. “So what if that happens nine times out of ten? And what if the tenth time you succeed? What then?”
“What if it’s ninety-nine times out of one hundred? What then? Could you stand the frustration? Would you feel anything for me by then except pity?”
“I don’t feel anything like pity for you! And I never would. You’re not a man to feel sorry for. You lost your wife in a terrible way, and you lost your faith. But you’ve climbed out of the hole you dug, and you’re fighting back. Now it’s time to fight back on this, too.”
He shook his head as if one or both of them was crazy. “Can't you see? It shouldn’t be a fight.”
“But we can’t have everything just the way we want it, can we? So we take what we’ve got, and we make it suit us.” She stood and walked slowly toward him. “I suit you. I won’t ever let you be pompous or self-important. I’ll keep the gloom away when you come home feeling tired and defeated. I’ll shake hands with your congregation on Sundays, but even better, I’ll fight for them if they need me. I won’t be Patricia. I can’t be. But I’ll be Garnet, and that’ll be good enough.”
“This has nothing to do with you suiting me!”
“But do I?” She put her hands on his shoulders. “You suit me. I love it when you touch me. And I love it when you bare your heart. I love watching you preach, because I know that under the sincerity, the passion and compassion, is the man who smiles at me over the dinner table, who sneaks my mystery novels and hums my favorite songs under his breath when he thinks I’m not listening.”
She leaned against him. “You suit me, Thomas.”
He covered her hands, as if to tear them from around his neck. But he loved the feel of her body against his. Her breasts pressed softly against his chest; her hips melted into his. The fragrance of her hair wrapped around him.
“And I suit you,” she said. She pushed her hips more firmly against his. “You can’t tell me I don’t.”
He wanted to tell her, but once again, he couldn’t lie. She suited him too well. He hadn’t married her just because he had failed to keep Patricia safe. He had married her because she was all the things he was not, and he had feared those things might die. He hadn’t given his name to protect a woman. He had done it for this woman, a woman who had stirred him from the first moment he’d seen her.
“I don’t care if we fail at making love,” she said. “I don’t care if we have to try a hundred times, or even a thousand. Will you give us a chance? Will you give this marriage a try?”
He could feel himself teetering on a threshold. And the voices in his head that screamed for him to run away were not loud enough. She pressed against him and rose on tiptoe. He shut his eyes as she kissed him; then, powerless to do otherwise, he groaned—in defeat, in victory—and kissed her back.
She was jubilant as his arms came around her. She had been so afraid he would reject her. She had never risked herself this way, because the stakes had never been this high. Now she let herself bask in the heat of his body, the strength of his arms. She had won this much.
“Garnet.” There was nothing else for Thomas to say. His hands moved down her back. Even through a cotton T-shirt, her skin was warm and smooth. As he kissed her he traced the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the rounded perfection of her bottom. Her breasts tantalized his chest; her arms, velvet soft and utterly beguiling, brushed his cheeks as they tightened around his neck.
“I’ve never seen you without a shirt.” She murmured the words against his lips. “And I want to now.” She slid a hand between them and fingered his top button. “Will you look as sexy out of one as you do in it?”
He felt her fingers stroke the pulse point at the base of his neck, then feather over his throat to rest lightly at his collarbone before they played with the button again. “Your heart is racing,” she whispered.
He couldn’t answer. Conscious thought dissolved. He felt the first button give way. She trailed a finger along the skin she had exposed. The second button followed the first’s example. So did the third and fourth. She kissed the base of his throat and murmured against it.
He felt her hands brush his chest, parting his shirt. He could feel each separate finger splayed across his rib cage. Her lips were warm and soft against his skin. His eyes closed, and without thinking he arched to give her better access.
She unfastened the remainder of the buttons with impatient swipes of her hand. Then she eased the shirt off his shoulders until it fell to the floor. “Thomas,” she said, moving back to see him better, “you’re beautiful.”
“Aren’t I supposed to tell you that?” His voice sounded strange. Hoarse and muffled.
“Not in the twenty-first century. Not unless the spirit moves you.”
The spirit moved him. He lifted the hem of her shirt, a bright fuchsia, and slipped it over her breasts, over her upraised arms, over her head. Her skin was a warm rose, and her breasts, after he removed the bra, were the same provocative hue.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
“Touch me.” She moved closer, and her eyelids fluttered shut. “Tell me I’m beautiful with your hands.”
He told himself he knew how she would feel against his palm, but reality was so much sweeter. He hadn’t remembered that a woman could feel this way, that the differences he took for granted were so enticing, so overwhelmingly seductive.
She threw her head back and moaned as his thumb traced slow circles around one nipple. “Sweet and slow and perfect,” she said. “This is perfect, Thomas.”
The part of his mind that could still form words wondered how perfect their lovemaking would remain. He was aching for her already, a man who’d been celibate too long, face-to-face with the most enchanting temptress he had ever known. But what would happen when she was in his arms, pleading for release?
As if she knew his thoughts, she opened her eyes. “I want you, too,” she whispered. “But maybe I’ll be the one who doesn’t please. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it? This takes so much trust.”
He pulled her to him and felt her naked torso melt against his. Her hair danced over the backs of his hands; her lips caressed each place they touched. He slipped his hands inside the waistband of her panties, and the elastic stretched to accommodate him. His hands were filled with her flesh; his senses reeled at the onslaught. He was aware of fear, but more aware of desire. He wondered if he had ever wanted anything else as he wanted this.
“There’s a bed in the next room,” she said. “Our room.”
He had never slept there with Patricia. She had always chosen the room upstairs, so he could prowl the downstairs at night without waking her. The bed downstairs was narrower and old-fashioned, made for lovers who wanted to spend the night entwined in each other’s arms.
She led him by the hand. At the bedside she slipped off the rest of her clothes as naturally as if he had always intimately known her body. When she was naked except for a white patch of gauze and adhesive on her shoulder, she straightened and faced him.
He could have told her she was beautiful again, but the words seemed trite. She was all women, and still, somehow, only herself. She was everything female and enduring, a symphony of fluid, changing lines and curves. He understood why ancient man had revered and honored woman’s fertility. He understood how men had been brought to their knees throughout history by the feminine form.
She held out her arms, but he didn’t want to go to her clothed. He undressed as quickly, as easily as she had. Her smile was all-knowing. “I won’t repeat myself,” she said.
She sat on the edge of the bed; then, as sinuously as a cat, she rolled to her side, leaving room for him to join her. He stretched out beside her, riveted by her expression. She believed the battle was won. She knew her powers, and she could see his response.
She stroked his shoulder, but her eyes never left his. Her hand glided down his arm, then rested at his waist. She leaned forward, their gazes were still locked until the last moment before she kissed him.
Her hand trailed fire, moving slowly over the part of him whose ultimate destiny was to give her pleasure. His response was immediate. He moved against her hand as she wrapped her fingers around him. He felt one long leg drape over his hip as she inched closer. And all the while her hand worked potent magic.
He couldn’t touch her enough. His palms, his fingers were limited receptors. He wanted to know her with all his senses, to immerse himself in her purest essence. He touched her breast with his lips, savoring the salt-tinged warmth of her skin. He filled his lungs with the erotic fragrance of her flesh. His eyes feasted on the hills and valleys of her body.
She was everywoman, that marvelous, enduring creature who from the beginning of time had peopled the earth with her hard-won bounty. But she was more; she was Garnet, the woman who could be his for all time—if he allowed her to be. The woman who wanted to make him whole again.
He moved away from her touch and leaned over her to better explore this prize. Her smile was as old as woman’s first triumph. Her eyelids fluttered shut as he touched her again with his lips. Then, as he moved over her with the slow stealth of shadows at nightfall, she gasped and murmured endearments.
She was so alive in his arms. He wondered how any man could resist her. Every cell of his body seemed to swell with longing, but especially that intimate part that had betrayed him since Patricia’s death. But never in the years since had he tried to make love to a woman he loved. Sex had been intended as a momentary release. Now it was more. So much more. Garnet was not just a woman; he was not using her in a way that was against all his principles. She was his woman. He loved her, despite not wanting to. He loved her, and she was his wife.
“Thomas, come to me,” she said.
He had almost convinced himself that this time would be different, but as she pulled him over her, the fears returned, faint, nagging voices inside his head that fought to be amplified. He could feel her lips drinking the passion of his, feel the lush curves of her body press against him. For a moment, for one brief, victorious moment, he knew that she would win against the voices—that he would win—and they would become one.
And then he knew there would be no victory.
The longing didn’t disappear. He had never wanted anything so much. His body screamed for release at the same time that it denied him the possibility. In seconds he went from man to eunuch. Half a man.
He sank against her, unable to complete what she had begun. Her fingers dug into his back, then soothed him with gentle caresses. She kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. “Rest a moment, and we’ll try again,” she whispered.
He would have, if there had been any point to it, but there wasn’t. That much he knew. “No.”
She was silent for a moment. “I told you it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t,” she said at last. “What matters is that you want me, and that you trusted me.”
He wanted to believe her; he also wanted to scream that she was lying, that this mattered more than anything. He moved away from her and lay beside her, his hand over his eyes.
She lifted his hand. Her hair snaked provocatively along his chest. Her eyes gazed into his. “You’re a wonderful lover, Thomas Stonehill,” she said huskily. “We’ve just got to work on the ending a little.”
He pulled her closer so that her head lay against his chest and held her so that he didn’t have to see her expression. He heard her small, surprised gasp as his hand moved over her. He parted her legs and sought the most intimate part of her. She gasped again, explosively this time, but she didn’t move away. She twisted, then moved against him, giving him freer access.
He was quickly caught up in giving her satisfaction. Even as desperation filled him, some remnant of pride asserted itself, too. He could give her release and bring her pleasure, even if it was denied to him. He could fight back in this way. He was not quite worthless.
She moved with him, and when he bent to kiss her breasts, she gasped again. He could experience her pleasure building by the mounting tension in her body. She was more beautiful in this last moment of passion then she had ever been before. Restless and completely sensual, and somehow pure. There could be no artifice, no pretense. She was a woman, his woman, letting desire claim her.
And when it had, she lay in his arms, boneless with exhaustion. He cradled her head against his shoulder. He wanted to weep, although everything that made him a man told him he couldn’t.
“I don’t know if I could have been that generous,” she said.
“Generous?” He stroked her hair. “I wanted to give you pleasure. As much for myself as for you.”
“You did.”
He knew he should move away. He had only proved how impossible their marriage was. But he was as powerless to leave her now as he was to make love to her.
The day to leave her would come soon enough.
“I’ve imagined sleeping with you,” she said. “You wouldn’t sprawl. You probably don’t sleep that deeply. And even though some people might think you’re aloof, I know better. You wouldn’t move away to find your own space. You would sleep with your arms around me. Not too tightly, because you’d still want me to feel free. The perfect man to sleep with.”
Perfect except in the most important way. But he didn’t remind her of that; he was sure she needed no reminder.
“I think I’m falling asleep now,” she said, laying her hand on his cheek.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“I’ll stay.”
But he didn’t say how long he would stay. There would be time for that discussion later. For now he held her and felt her body relax into sleep. And as she slept, he lay awake and contemplated his own failures.