As I labored up the hill in Martha's car, missing turns, losing my way, searching for the right street, the emptiness within me grew. "How could he do it?" I asked. I could understand, almost accept, that Stanley McCollum was capable of this kind treachery. But John? How could he have betrayed me? Remember who he is, I warned myself. Owen could do it. Owen would do it. But at some point, I had stopped seeing Owen in John.
I found John's driveway and turned in. Martha's car protested at the sharp grade and died. Somewhere, in one of the widely spaced houses, someone was practicing the piano. I heard the sounds of heavy chords being tried time after time, matching the blackness in my heart, muting for me the sounds of birds in the nearby trees.
I patted the dashboard and spoke to the car as I tried the key. "Just a little bit farther." Thankfully, I heard the engine catch. I eased the car into gear and coaxed it up the drive.
Could I really wait for him half the night? It appeared that I wouldn't have to. I saw both his car and his truck parked near the garage.
Even the birds were quiet as I stood at his door. I heard the pounding of my heart in the silence. What would I say to him? I squared my shoulders and jammed my finger against the doorbell. I held it there, listening to the persistent buzz, raucous and irritating though muffled by the heavy door.
The door was jerked open, and John stood there, scowling. My glance swept over him, taking in every detail: the rolled-up shirtsleeves, the tie twisted loose, the hair which looked as though he had been running his hands through it, and the drink he held in one hand.
His scowl changed to a look of confusion. "Elizabeth? What—"
"It's a little early for celebration, Cousin," I snapped. "They haven't managed to lock me away yet."
I could no longer bear to look at him. The pain was too great. The words broke from me as I twisted away and stumbled toward the car. "I trusted you."
John grabbed my arm, and it was as though the deputy once again clutched me. It was too soon. My nerves were too raw.
"Let go of me!" I screamed at him. "I've had all of that I can stand today."
I heard the sound of breaking glass and then felt both his hands on my arms. "What happened?" he demanded.
"What happened? What happened?" I began laughing insanely. No. Not that word. I mustn't use that word. I forced myself to stop laughing, but I couldn't keep my voice from rising. "What happened was that your conspiracy didn't work. I'm still free. Tainted, but free. Take care, you said . . ." Oh, God, he had warned me, months before when I first met him. "Take care, you said," I continued in little more than a whisper, "that they don't say there goes that crazy Elizabeth Richards."
I tried to twist away, but he tightened his hands on my arms. "Elizabeth, you aren't making any sense."
I felt something in my hand and realized I still clutched the order. I raised my hand between us. "Have you ever seen one of these?" I asked. "Do you have any idea what this can do to a person?"
He released his grip with one hand and took the paper from me. I still couldn't look at him; I stared at the ground.
"Damn him!" John said under his breath. He grabbed me to him, pressing my face against his chest. "I won't let him do this to you."
"Won't let him? It's done, John." My voice broke. "And you're the only one who could have done it." I forced my hands between us and pushed at him.
"Come inside," he said, "We have to talk. We can't stand out here like this."
"No." I struggled vainly to break his hold on me. "I've talked to you too much already. I'm going home, while I still can, and I'm staying there until someone else comes and drags me away."
I broke loose from him then and ran toward the car, but I wasn't fast enough. He caught me and picked me up. "Put me down!" I cried, kicking and hitting him. "I'm leaving."
"Not like this, you aren't," he said as he struggled to get me into the house. He slammed the door shut and carried me down a short flight of steps to the living room. He dumped me unceremoniously onto the couch, in the middle of a pile of plans and blueprints that he shoved to one side and onto the floor.
He held me against the back of the sofa and stood over me. "Look at me," he said, shaking me. "Look at me!"
I looked at him. His eyes held mine. "I am not your enemy."
I wanted to believe him. Oh, how I wanted to believe him. But how could I?
"Aren't you? Who else could have told them about David and Eliza?" He didn't answer me. "Do you know your name?"
"What?"
"Do you know your name? That's one of the questions they asked. Another was, do you think you are the woman David Richards loved? How did they know to ask that John?"
"I don't know," he said. "Your burglar, maybe. Could he still have been in the house that night? Or Louise. How much did you and Marie say that she could have overheard? But the hearing is over? They did let you go?"
"For now. I won a small victory. I'm going to have a trial. I'm going to have to convince a jury that I'm not crazy, which is something I'm not too sure of myself, right now. Oh, why am I telling you this?" I cried.
"Because you have to trust me."
"No. I trusted you once before, and if it hadn't been for Tom Carouthers, I'd be on my way to a state hospital right now because I did."
John released my shoulders, but he took my hand. He sat on the arm of the sofa, holding my hand in both of his. "Not a state hospital," he said softly. "Stan couldn't take a chance on the state releasing you. It would have been a private hospital. An expensive one. One that believes in a lot of medication." My hand was numb in his. "I wonder how long he thought it would take me to get you out?"
"Why would he think you'd want to?" I asked woodenly. "With me out of the way, you could go ahead with your plans to break the trust."
"Elizabeth, I—" He bit back his words, drew a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "Not now." He straightened my fingers along his, massaging the back of my hand. "Let me tell you what has happened, and what I think has happened. You have a right to know what you're facing.
"Stan McCollum has been in charge of your trust for almost twenty years. It had been sitting there, growing, since 1925. After the first few attempts, no one expected it ever to be distributed; the requirements were too . . . bizarre. At some point, Stan began using your money."
"You knew?"
"I suspected." John shook his head. "I should have done something, but I didn't care about the money. I filed that suspicion away as something to check on later, to use if I had to, when the time came that I could break the trust.
"Seven years ago, the unexpected happened. A woman came to claim the inheritance. Stan didn't say anything to me, but he was shaken. I suspect that he in some way used the legend of the haunted house to frighten her away, but I can't be sure, because she wouldn't talk about it. The caretakers left at the same time. The house was abandoned.
"Stan had taken so much money from the trust that he couldn't have returned it if he'd had to make an accounting, not without using the bank's funds, and that would have meant almost certain discovery. There was only one way he could get his hands on that kind of money, and I suppose I was the one who gave him the idea.
"Several years ago, I had one of the Wards copied, from a photograph. The artist in Texas who did the work is extremely talented. If he'd had the original painting, his copy would have been good enough to deceive most people. I didn't want that kind of copy, I just wanted the picture, and I was pleased with his work. I told several people about him.
"When we inventoried the house before closing it, Stan was insistent that we photograph, authenticate, and appraise the Wards. The insurance company was reluctant to cover them for full value if they were going to be left in a vacant house, but under the terms of the will they couldn't be removed. Stan was still fighting with the agent about coverage when I got a telephone call from Texas. Someone, the caller told me, was making inquiries about a collection of Stephen Ward paintings.
"I love those paintings. One of the few good things David Richards ever did was sponsor that young man until he could establish himself. I went to the house, helped with the packing, hid the paintings, and when Stan showed up asking where they were, I pointed to the stacks of boxes that filled the upper floors and told him I had packed them as they were brought to me, in whatever space was available at the time.
"He searched for weeks, until Martha needed a place to live and someone was in the house again. By then the pressure was off. He'd forgotten his panic.
"He still controlled the trust. He convinced himself, again, that it would never be distributed. He helped himself to more of the funds."
John closed his hand over mine. "Then you showed up, and one of the first things you did was threaten an audit."
I leaned my head back against the couch and closed my eyes. "Oh, John." It made sense. It made sense! "The burglary?"
"I don't know. I saw his inventory afterwards. Nothing new was missing from it, but what is more important is that nothing new had been added to it."
I remembered my confusion when John left the painting outside the vault—now it made sense. "You tempted him with a Ward? You left one where he could get his hands on it? How could you do that?"
"Let me show you something," John said, standing, pulling me to my feet.
For the first time I became aware of the room and its contrasts. There was little furniture, only the large curved sofa and tables for it and an ornately carved, antique grand piano. One wall was of glass, overlooking the valley; another was dominated by a stone fireplace and filled bookshelves; a third was covered in paintings.
John led me to the wall of paintings behind the piano and stopped in front of a small landscape. Although this was the first time I had clearly seen the picture, I recognized the shades of pink.
"It's your orchard," John told me. "As it was. Or perhaps as Ward wanted it to be. Here is the boundary wall, and here"—he pointed to the edge of the canvas—"is just a glimpse of the mountains."
I touched the canvas. It was like no work of Ward's I had seen before. There was a misty quality to it, and otherworldliness that he had not allowed in his other paintings.
"We have to put it in the vault," I said. "I can't leave it where it is, waiting for him. I don't want him to be able to touch it."
John dropped his arm over my shoulder. "I couldn't risk that, either. I changed the frames on the paintings. This is the original. My copy is what is waiting for him."
He hugged my shoulders. "I'm sorry. Because I'm not a beneficiary, I don't have the right to demand an audit. I have no proof of most of what I've told you, yet. I know Stan is desperate. I thought the temptation of the paintings would be enough. If I could catch him substituting just one of them, I'd have enough evidence to force an investigation. I didn't dream that he'd think of another way out, or that he had the influence, almost, to make it work."
John pulled me to him, holding me close, one hand in my hair, the other moving across my back. "I'm sorry."
For a moment, everything was all right. For a moment I felt safe and comforted, and I gave in to the luxury of not having to think about what had happened or worrying about what was to come.
"You shouldn't have been used that way," he whispered into my hair.
Used. That was the word for how I felt. I wasn't a person to Stanley McCollum, I was an annoyance, a disturbance, a thing to be disposed of. No one at the hearing, except Tom Carouthers, had even pretended to care about me. I was a case, a patient, or an interruption that had to be dealt with so they could go on with their plans. I hadn't been real to anyone, just a pawn to be moved about as Stan McCollum wanted.
I pushed away from John's embrace. "But I was used," I said. "You should have told me."
"So you could do what?" he asked. "Confront him? Defend your precious property the way you defended you pine trees? You couldn't speak civilly to Stan as it was. No. I thought it was better that you not know, that I take care of the situation. That I take care of you."
I was so tired, so confused and defenseless. "Well, Cousin," I said, "you've done an admirable job."
I might as well have struck him. He dropped his hands from me. His eyes shadowed. I saw a muscle tense in his throat. I wanted to call back the words the moment I said them.
"I didn't mean that," I cried. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not even sure what I'm thinking. I just don't know how to act around you." I stopped myself. I'd said far too much. "I'm going home."
"Not like this," John said. "You're too upset to drive, and I don't want you leaving feeling the way you do about me right now."
"I don't know how I feel about you right now."
"I know," he said, smiling that strange half smile of his. "Believe me, I know."
I felt there was more he wanted to say, but he laughed. "Tell you what," he said, draping his arm over my shoulder and leading me to the couch. "If you'll give me a few minutes to shower and change clothes, I'll drive you home and take you up on your offer of one of Martha's home-cooked meals."
I forced a tentative smile. "And all will be right with the world?"
"At least better."
I let him settle me on the end of the sofa. He gathered up the rolls of plans and stacked them on the far side of the oversized coffee table, snapped his briefcase shut, and placed it on the floor near them.
"A little music while you wait," he said as he switched on a stereo unit in the bookshelf. The soft, calming sound of a piano refrain pervaded the room.
John left the room, and I thought he had gone to change, but he returned in just a moment with a long-stemmed glass. "And a little refreshment." He held the glass out to me until I took it. "I won't be long," he said.
I sipped the wine while I waited, feeling the tension leaving me as the music eased through me, looking through the glass wall, over the clutter of the town, to the valley beyond. The same valley. The same river . . .
The melody was so familiar, the same few notes repeated tentatively, gently, that I wasn't shocked into awareness so much as eased into it. Enjoying the feel of the blanket over me, the pillow beneath my head, I opened my eyes reluctantly, puzzled but not alarmed by my strange surroundings. The room was dim, the only light coming from one corner. I turned my head toward the light.
John sat on the piano bench, his elbow propped on the music stand. Massaging his forehead with his left hand, he picked out the familiar melody with his right. I was content to lie there, half awake, watching him. But something about his actions tugged at my memory, and I must have made some sound, for he looked toward me.
"I didn't mean to awaken you."
"It was the music," I said dreamily. "Have I been asleep for long?"
"Not long enough."
I sighed and stretched. "Where did you learn her song?"
"Whose song?"
Still caught in the web of sleep, I answered, forgetting Beethoven, forgetting that anyone ever exposed to classical music had at least heard the melody. "Eliza's. Her mother taught it to her. She told her that the man who wrote it had misspelled her name, but it would always be her song. How do you know it?"
John looked at me for a long time without speaking. Then he smiled. "The man who wrote it was Beethoven," he said, reminding me, but not unkindly, and bringing me fully awake. "He spelled Eliza, Elise."
"I knew that," I muttered.
"I know," he said, still smiling. "I played it in one of my earliest recitals. I believe it must have sounded something like this."
He began playing, stiff measured notes, and I could almost see him counting as he played. The notes were the same, but there was no emotion in them, only mechanics, and I felt a twinge of sadness for John.
"I believe I was ten," he said. "I knew the music in my heart, but I had to work a while before I could play it as I felt it."
He began playing then, in earnest, and he played the song as Eliza never had. The music wept, it laughed, it danced, and then it started over, weeping and laughing, repeating, ending with a promise of more to come.
It shouldn't have ended. I was filled with sadness I couldn't describe when John lifted his hands from the keys, yet the melody played on in my head, in my heart.
He covered the keyboard, crossed the room, and sat beside me.
"You're very good," I said when I could speak.
"No." There was a note of finality in his voice. "I'm competent. Adequate. I could have been very good."
"Why did you give it up?"
"I didn't give it up," he told me. "I had it taken away from me."
I remembered the times I had teased him about abandoning his lessons, and regretted them. How many other things had I listened to and not heard? Martha had told me. "When the horse threw you?"
He held his left hand with fingers extended in front of him and studied it as he talked. "I was told I was lucky. The damage was slight. After all, it was my left hand. I shouldn't be bothered too much by a reduction in dexterity, in strength, in reach. It shouldn't affect me at all in daily life. I'd still be able to work cattle. I'd still be able to ride."
I reached for his hand, running my fingers along his, clasping it in mine, seeing the ten-year-old who had learned to make the music he felt, the sixteen-year-old who had had his dream stolen away. "I'm so sorry."
I don't know what I had meant to say after that, or what I had meant to do. I only know that I had to raise his hand to my lips.
With a groan, John took me in his arms and buried his face against my throat. I felt him tremble as I slid my arms around him. I twined the fingers of one hand through his hair and held him close. It was right, so right, for me to be there, holding him. I kept that thought as I felt his lips trailing across my neck, teasing at my cheek, finding my lips, until I lost all conscious thought. My hands moved on their own, needing to touch him, to bring him closer to me. My mouth answered his exploring mouth with a searching need of its own. My heart hammered within me, love this man, love him, love him, while my body moved against his, each point of pressure a brand and a bond between us. John loosened the tie at my throat, and each place he kissed became a wellspring for a molten river running through me. His mouth found the hollow of my throat, and now it was I who trembled.
His words were a husky whisper, muffled by my flesh. "Oh, God, how I want you."
It was as though Owen stood beside me, I heard his voice so clearly: "And by God, I will have you."
For an instant all feeling, my breathing, even my heartbeat stopped, and I could see myself as a person standing above us might have seen me, locked in an embrace, letting my body betray me, ready to give myself to this man who had given me nothing but pain, a lifetime of pain.
"No," I murmured, trying to push away from him, and my own voice stopped my clamoring thoughts. He wasn't Owen. But neither was he David.
"Don't fight me now," he whispered against me. "I've waited so long."
I had waited, too. But for what? Or for whom? Maybe I was crazy after all, because I wanted John. But this wasn't right—not the time, not the place—and it might never be right.
My blouse had worked loose from my belt. John's hands roamed over my skin. His mouth explored more deeply the flesh exposed by the open collar.
"No," I said again, louder this time, the protest as much for me as for him. Freeing my hand, I pushed against him.
John raised his head and looked down at me, his eyes shadowed in the dim light.
"Let me go," I begged, but he made no move to release me. My right arm was still trapped between us, but my left was free. I pushed at his shoulder. "Let me go."
He caught my wrist in his hand. He looked at me as though memorizing each feature before a shudder ran through him. "Why does it have to be you?" he murmured. "You aren't," he said, and I heard anger in his voice and saw it in his eyes as he repeated, "You are not."
He glanced toward my hand, still pressed against his shoulder, and his eyes widened. "No," he moaned as he stared at my arm.
The tie at my wrist had come undone, the sleeve had fallen, and my arm was exposed to the elbow.
John's grip tightened. "Where did you get that scar?"
I saw him. I felt him holding me. I heard his voice. But at the same time I was no longer in John's arms. I saw Owen. I felt Owen twisting my arm as he raised the whip. I heard Owen's voice demanding. "His name, Eliza. Tell me his name."
I couldn't cry out, not then, not now. All of the pain of that other time was there, all the fear, all the anguish, mingled with the longing and confusion of the present.
John's voice was insistent. His grip tightened still more. "Where did you get that scar?"
My words were choked from me. "Which time?"
John dropped my arm and pulled away from me. I freed myself from the blanket, which had wrapped itself around my ankles, and struggled to my feet. I stood looking down at him, telling myself I was safe, I was with John, that John wouldn't hurt me, until I could force my legs to move. Then I turned towards the door, knowing only that I had to leave.
"Elizabeth?" John's voice, hoarse and broken, stopped me at the top of the stairs. "Wait?"
I turned to look back at him. He slumped on the edge of the sofa, elbows on his knees, staring toward the wall of paintings.
His words came out one at a time, as though he were trying to hold them back but couldn't. "I have something that belongs to you."
He rose slowly from the sofa and started toward me. I took a step backward.
"I won't touch you," he said. "I won't—" He made a sound that should have been a laugh. "For God's sake, you have to know I won't hurt you." He stopped on the edge of the landing and made no move to reach out to me.
"Will you come upstairs with me?" he asked in a ragged voice I barely recognized. "I have something to show you."
I wanted to tell him I knew he couldn't hurt me, but I could do no more than look helplessly into his eyes. Taking a deep breath, I nodded, and John stepped aside to let me go up the stairs before him.
He indicated an open doorway and I entered the darkened room. I heard him behind me, but he stopped at the door. I heard the click of a switch as the light came on at the side of the oversized bed across the room from me.
I turned questioningly toward him.
"Elizabeth," he said, sounding drained as he spoke. "Look over the mantel."
There was a corner fireplace facing a drapery-lined wall, but it was shrouded in shadow. I walked to the chair in front of the fireplace, a deep, welcoming leather chair, which I leaned against as I looked through the dark to see why John had brought me upstairs. There was a painting over the mantel, but its details blended with the night.
Once again I turned toward John, and I saw his hand move over the light switch. "I couldn't leave her in the dark."
Light flooded the room and I looked back at the painting to see my face staring back at me with haunted eyes, my arm resting on a carved white mantel, my scar barely visible but showing past the edge of a rose-colored shawl.
I couldn't breathe. I clutched the back of the chair for support as I stared back at my image. It had happened. It really had happened. And now that I knew, I almost wished it had not.
I don't know how I got there, I don't remember moving, but I was at the fireplace, touching the canvas. It was real. I wasn't imagining it.
"It's me," I whispered.
"That's what I thought the first time I saw you," John said as he walked toward me. He stopped beside me and reached out, but he dropped his hands without touching me. "But it isn't." His voice was low, vibrating with emotion. "I won't let it be."
"I don't think there is anything you can do about it, John," I said, still looking at the portrait. "Look at us. We are identical."
"No. You resemble her. My God, the resemblance is uncanny. Even the scar. Why didn't you tell me about the scar?"
He clenched his hands into fists, but held them stiffly at his sides. "We know nothing about the woman in this painting."
"I've told you about her."
"You've told me what you remember of a girl named Eliza. Can you prove that this is Eliza? Can you prove that Eliza ever existed outside of your imagination?"
Could he really be asking? Could he look at this painting and not know?
"I can't," John said. "I've tried. I've had experts looking for any shred of proof since the day after you told me the story. There is no divorce in Fort Smith, no marriage in Richmond, no record of her father or a plantation, no reference to her in the Washington papers. There was a time when I thought she must have—must have been David's woman, but the obvious answer is that this is the portrait of one of our unknown ancestors, someone whose appearance you inherited, the way I inherited David's."
Again John moved as though to touch me. Instead he turned to the chair and gripped its back. "I did find Owen Markham," he said. "He was a captain in the Union Army. He was with the Department of the Interior after the war. He assisted with the negotiations for the terms of surrender for the rebel Indian nations after the war. He did his best to destroy the nations at that time, an attempt which he pursued actively throughout his career."
"What happened to him?" I asked, not really sure I wanted to hear the answer.
John's mouth twisted. "No one seems to know. He disappeared into glorious anonymity. The last reference to him anyone can find concerns a Senate vote in which he campaigned against the return of the Choctaw Nation's funds."
"When?" I asked, knowing what the answer must be.
"July of 1870."
"Doesn't that prove anything to you?"
He spoke evenly, carefully. "I have a list of books in which he is mentioned, never prominently but he is mentioned. My investigators found no reference to a wife, and no record of his ever having owned a home in Washington."
"What kind of proof do you need, John?" I cried. "Look at this picture and then tell me how I imagined this. Why are you fighting it so hard?"
He reached for me again, and this time he did touch me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and swung me around to face the painting. "Because I can't have you bound by what I once thought of her. Look at her. Look at her, remember what you think you know about her, and then tell me that you honestly believe you are the same."
I tried to see what he meant. She was softer than I, more gentle, and, while there were times when I felt vulnerable, she looked as though she were totally defenseless.
"What would have happened to her if she'd had to go through what you survived today? Would she be here confronting me, or would they have done what Stan wanted and locked her away?"
I didn't know. I looked to her for an answer. Could she have sustained herself through anger? Could she have lied?
"And you?" John turned me toward him. "Could I force you to marry me? If I told you that was the only way you could save yourself from being committed, if I told you that was the only way you could save David's house, would you do it?"
Was he threatening me? I tried to read the answer in his eyes, but all I saw was a question, a question I didn't understand. I backed away from him, shaking my head, but he still gripped my shoulders, his fingers biting into me.
"Of course not," he said. "The only reason you would marry me would be that you loved me." He slid his hands down my arms as he released me. "And we both know that can never happen, don't we?"
Then I understood his unspoken question, and my heart twisted painfully against the flare of joy I knew I shouldn't feel. With trembling fingers I touched his cheek. "How long?" I asked.
"I don't know." He looked toward the painting and then back at me. "Forever, I think."
Once again I was in his arms, but this was different from the other times. He held me as though he had to hold me but was afraid to.
"My first thought when I saw you was that crazy old man had brought you here just for me. . . ." I felt his heart pounding beneath my cheek as he continued talking, softly, reluctantly. "You're not the only one having trouble with this. I don't know how many nights I've sat in this room, talking to myself, talking to that portrait, talking to you, coming to grips with the fact that you are not the same. I fought so hard for my own identity, separate from that of my name, separate from that which people insisted on imposing upon me because of my face, that I had to acknowledge your right to an identity of your own, and I can't let anyone, not even you, take that right from you."
"I'm sorry, John. I'm so very sorry."
"Why?" he asked. "You aren't responsible for a boy falling in love with a picture any more that I'm responsible for your falling in love with David Richards. It's strange," he said. "For the first time in my life I almost wish I were more like him."
He squeezed me in a hug, then let me go. "Come on," he said. "It's time for me to take you home."
Only then did I think of the questions waiting for me at home. "Martha will be wondering what's happened to me."
"No. I knew she'd worry. I called her when you fell asleep. I caught her at Mack's. She said something about having dinner with them if you weren't going to need her. She may not even be home yet."
A sob caught in my throat. This man was in turmoil, yet he had worried about Martha, was comforting me. I took the one step necessary to lean against him and slid my arms around his waist. This much he needed. This much I could give him—had to give him. And this much I needed for myself.
I felt his start of surprise before he tried to push me away. He wanted me; his body couldn't lie. But he wasn't going to do anything about it after what had happened downstairs. And did I want him to do anything about it?
Yes! That was exactly what I wanted. What I had wanted far longer than I had been willing to admit. Since when? The day on the river? The day he brought me the hairbrush? Our first kiss the day he showed me the vault? I didn't know; I didn't care.
Now I fought his resistance. I looked up at him and lifted my fingers to his face. "You weren't Owen; never in a million lifetimes could you have been Owen."
"What is this, Elizabeth? A consolation prize?"
I moved my fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You just read me my character. Would I do that?"
He closed his eyes, throwing his head back, and I saw him swallow convulsively, "I—No."
"Then would you—would you quit fighting what is happening between us and kiss me?"
He lifted his hands to my face and searched my eyes. "A kiss won't be enough for me, Elizabeth. Not now."
"I know."
And still he resisted me.
I felt the tension in his body, the need that so clearly gripped him, and I felt an answering need in me. We were so close and yet separated by so much. And for now, for me, that separation was intolerable.
I traced the planes of his face, a face that had grown dear to me in spite of all that had happened, then slid my hands behind his head, drawing him closer to me as I leaned more closely to him. "Make love with me," I whispered.
John's resistance evaporated. Groaning, he pulled me still closer as he rained kisses across my face before capturing my mouth with his.
I wanted him. John. And for the moment I forced away any thought that I shouldn't want him. He wasn't Owen; he wasn't David. He was John, and he was bringing my body to life with each touch of his hands.
I felt the brush of air as my blouse parted, followed immediately by a caress that was gentle yet possessive. "Yes. Oh, yes," I said as I began an exploration of my own, an exploration that led to an ecstasy I had only dreamed of, a togetherness that I feared would never be possible with anyone but John Richards, and a knowledge that most of my former assumptions were wrong. . . . For now, at least, with John's arms around me, my questions seemed unimportant. All that mattered was this love.