Blue Willow (24 page)

He heard Lily moving around in the downstairs bedroom. She’d disappeared in there to ready the place for him. The idea of sleeping in her bed made him restless, gnawing at the fragile barricade between what he wanted to feel for her and the intimacy he could never indulge. He went into the main room, leaned on the fireplace mantel, and stared at the empty, cold grate.

A door opened from the room off the back hall. He listened to her footsteps on the bare wooden floor, his senses strained with awareness of every movement. “I put an extra pillow on the bed,” she said, coming to the hearth and sitting on its edge, her elbows propped on her bare knees. Her throaty, drawling voice curled through his blood.
“You’ll probably have to lay it across the foot rail, because your feet’ll stick over. Mine hit the rail when I stretch out, and you’re taller. You could have Mama and Daddy’s queen-sized bed upstairs, but I’ve got boxes stacked all over it.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“In the barn loft.” When he shot her a surprised look, she shrugged. “I slept out there on hot summer nights when I was growing up. I like it.” Her eyes held a stark, wounded aura he’d noticed before. Beneath all the bluster and determination was a shattered, lonely soul. “I can’t sleep in this house now. I go out to the barn every night. I tried not to, at first. But I’d hear little sounds when I was half-awake and think everything was the same as before, that my folks were still here.”

Artemas watched with wordless sympathy as her shoulders hunched. She dropped her forehead to her hands and massaged the pale, tightly drawn skin. Her misery was like his own—a self-contained burden, not easily displayed to anyone else. When others might give up, pity themselves, or become bitter, she trudged on. He shivered because he understood that brand of pride so well. It was, in many ways, a prison as well as a savior, a merciless drive.

And he was dangerously drawn to her because of it. He sat down beside her and took her hands in his. The contact was stunning, a swift merging of touch and emotion. Fighting the urge to pull her to him, he turned her hands over and pretended to study the callused palms. Her hands were blunt and strong, with graceful fingers. He rubbed his thumbs over the marks of hard work. “I’ve always thought I could have whatever I wanted,” he told her. “That it’s only a matter of
knowing
what I want and learning how to get it. But that’s not true. Because I can’t bring your parents back for you.”

Her fingers curled over his and held tightly. “Don’t want what’s impossible,” she whispered. “You’ll always be disappointed.”

The wistful despair in her voice sent shivers through
him. He met her somber, troubled eyes. “It isn’t always easy to know the difference. Or to accept it.”

They were talking about something else now—the future and the magnetic current between them that touch only intensified. She searched his face for a moment, and he struggled to keep his expression unpromising. The glimmer of hope that had come into her eyes faded just as quickly. She dropped her gaze to his hands. Slowly she drew hers away. It was as if life were being drained from his skin.

Artemas forced himself to move away from her before regret overcame reason. Going to the old chintz couch across from the fireplace, he sank back in one corner and stretched his legs in front of him, a show of nonchalance that took all his willpower. “In the morning we’ll see Mr. Estes. We have to try.”

Lily studied him in silent sorrow. The past had charged into her life and taken over, but not the way she’d dreamed of when she was little. It was full of contradictions—a war between pride and need, a threat that filled her with confusion. The Old Brook Prince was no boyish romantic, eager to carry her to his gilded castle; there was no castle, only a dilapidated old mansion sinking into ruins, and she was no demure, patiently waiting princess.

She got up and went to a box on a pine sideboard along one wall. Searching through the contents, she found the bundle of photos in a cigar box and sat back down. She felt his gaze on her as she sorted through them. When she found the one she wanted, she set the box aside and came to him, holding it out.

Artemas straightened and took the wrinkled black-and-white picture, and his heart sank. “I couldn’t have been more than six,” he said, studying the boy standing beside a spindly calf, barefoot and wearing only baggy cutoff jeans, with one arm draped around the calf’s neck. He turned the picture over and looked at the inscription on the back. “Artemas and Fred,” he read, and realized he was smiling sadly. “I named him Fred. Yes. That was one
of the happiest summers of my life. I asked your father if I could take Fred home with me when I left. But Fred had to stay here. I envied him.”

Lily stood over him, watching. “I’m glad you didn’t name me Fred.”

He laughed. The awkward tension between them, and the sorrow, broke into shreds. She began to laugh with him, then sank down on the couch and put her face in her hands. The laughter died. Her shoulders shook.

“
Lily
,” he said with gruff anguish. He pulled her to him. She tucked her feet under her and hunched into a tight ball of misery next to his side. “I miss them so much,” she whispered.

Trembling, Artemas kissed her hair. It was a harmless gesture of sympathy; self-restraint was his proudest asset, and he trusted it, even when the contact quickly fogged his mind with tenderness and greed. “I know you do. You don’t have to hide that from me.”

She knuckled her hands to her mouth and bent her head to his shoulder. Deep, agonized sobs tore from her throat; her whole body convulsed with them. Artemas stroked her hair and the side of her face, murmuring low, anxious sounds meant to soothe but sounding tragic even to himself. He lifted her face into the crook of his neck, then rocked her. Tears burned his eyes and finally slid free. He hurt for her, for the people and dreams they had both lost at such young ages, for what they would probably never have together.

When she felt the moisture against her temple, she raised her head quickly. Her face was wet with grief; sympathy broke from her in a low moan. “Oh, no,
no
,” she said desperately. He shut his eyes and shook his head slightly. She put her arms around him and rested her cheek against his. He gave in, holding her tighter, trying to melt into her and diffuse the pain. His stiff and soundless anguish made her stroke the back of his head gently.

“You don’t know how to cry very well,” she said, her voice barely audible, breaking on each word. “But you don’t have to hide it from
me
.”

Despite her urging, he suppressed the hollow grief pounding behind his eyelids and said through clenched teeth, “You’re the only person in my life who knows I’m even capable of it.”

“I can’t believe that. They can’t
do
that to you. It’s too much to expect.”

“It’s what I’ve taught them to expect. To rely on.”

“Even her?” Lily asked without condemnation. It was clear who she meant.

His loyalty to Glenda would only let him answer, “It’s not her fault.”

The note of careful allegiance in his tone was enough to distance Lily from him. She exhaled wearily. She continued to hold him, but her hand stilled on his hair, and she angled her face away, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “You must love her very much.”

“She deserves to be loved.”

The vagueness of his answer was no escape route to Lily. “Then you love her,” she prompted.

Artemas knew the truth wouldn’t help either of them. A lie would be appropriate, even wise, because it would help keep Lily away from him. The dilemma raged in his chest.
I don’t want to hurt her. Whatever I say, it will hurt her
.

He took her by the shoulders, held her back from him a little, and looked at her without saying anything. She studied him, her blue eyes piercing, provoking, but failing to find what they wanted. Her ravaged face settled into a mask of resignation. “She’s
important
to you,” she said carefully.

“Yes. Very.”

Artemas felt the deadened acceptance. She had handed him a way out. God, she was able to sacrifice that, because she knew she’d lost. Her courage was everything he’d ever dreamed about, and something he would never stop wanting to celebrate and protect.

Lifting a hand to his face, she smoothed a trembling finger over the fading dampness on one of his cheeks. His breath caught. One more second and he’d be catching her hand to his mouth and kissing the palm. She saved him
from that disaster by suddenly dropping her hand to his chest and pushing lightly. He let go of her, and she moved to the middle of the couch.

Artemas faced forward and brusquely rubbed a hand across his face. She did the same. Their charade of dignity was as pathetic as tornado survivors picking through the ruins of a house. As if there were any way to make the effort look noble.

“You never wrote much about your parents,” she said. “You mentioned they died, but you never said what happened to them.”

“I don’t miss them.”

“Not ever?”

He glanced at her. “No.”

Her face paled at his brutal tone. “Why?”

Telling her would tear away more of her idealistic expectations about him and keep her at a distance. He started with Susan de Gude, softening the details but leaving nothing out. As he talked, horror crept into Lily’s expression. The questions she interjected held a note of sick regret, as if she were compelled against her will. And by the time he finished with a few terse words about his mother’s drunken death, she was hugging herself.

Artemas sat back, exhausted and defenseless. He felt dirty, as if the words had stained his mouth and skin. “That’s what I come from,” he said. He jerked a pack of cigarettes from his trouser’s front pocket and fumbled with the cheap lighter he’d tucked into the cellophane sheath. Lily lurched forward and grasped his wrists. His startled scowl only made her look at him sadly. “You think you can go back and change what they were. Isn’t that what pushes you? Believin’ that everything they did wrong will disappear if you make enough money and impress enough people?”

“Yes.”

“You could lose the whole point of your life that way. Lose yourself.”

His skin felt feverish where her fingers clamped it.
“Just the opposite,” he told her with growing dismay. “I know who I am and what I have to do.”

“For
them.
” Her voice rose, became a plea. “But what do you want for yourself?”

She was tearing him apart, making it impossible to think clearly. “This. I’m saving this.” He felt reckless, bursting with the half-realized desires that suddenly crowded his mind with vivid recognition. He jerked his head toward their surroundings, then looked at her. “And you. And the estate at Blue Willow. All of it’s mine.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth before he realized how possessive and intimate they sounded. In one thoughtless, vulnerable moment, he’d revealed too much, not only to her but to himself.

“Sentimental memories,” he explained quickly. “Friendship. A sanctuary.”

She whispered his name in awe, leaned over, and kissed him on the mouth. The sweet, hot pressure made a clean thrust into an unguarded part of his shield, a wound that felt mortal. She could take his life, if he let her. It would be so easy to let her.

Artemas pulled his hands away from her powerful grip and grasped her chin. He was kissing her back blindly, his only thought to make her lips damp and luscious and open to him, and she was urging him on. Nothing had ever felt so right, so complete. If they continued, he would forget every duty but the one to her. He could not.

Artemas broke the contact and held her apart from him. She lunged forward, trying to kiss him again. Her eyes were shut. She seemed dazed, wild. He groaned bitterly and grabbed her arms. When she finally realized his harsh resistance, her eyes flew open. Shame and regret seeped into them.

She stared at him from the dangerous space of a harsh breath, then slid away. Her hands quivered as she covered her flushed face. “I better go.” She strode to a pile of blankets and pillows on a chair near the front door. Artemas followed, cursing silently. Gathering her bedding, she turned and flashed a shattering, anguished look at him.
“Relax. I’m not goin’ to do that again. Don’t lecture me about your live-in ladyfriend. If you cheated on her, I wouldn’t have much respect for you. And I’m not some fool who thinks going to bed with you would change anything.”

His hands were clenched by his sides. He was dying. “Good,” he forced himself to say. “You summed the situation up nicely.”

She blanched at his uncompromising answer. He trailed her to the porch and watched her hurry out into the pasture. A full moon made a silver mist on the knoll where the barn sat, a low, dark form with a peaked roof against the night sky. She tied the winch rope around her things and climbed the ladder to the open loft door, disappearing into its blackness. The bedding rose slowly, pulled upward by her expert hands, with the eerie effect of floating, until it was absorbed in the dark loft with her.

Artemas turned and went into her bedroom, pulled the neat patchwork quilt from her bed, then strode through the house turning off lights. When the darkness matched the barn’s, he went to the front porch and sat on the edge, the blanket thrown loosely around his shoulders, his eyes on the barn’s loft entrance.

A boy’s childish vow had become a grown man’s passion. Unfettered desire and possessiveness overwhelmed him. He had never wanted anything or anyone with such vivid, painful certainty.

Insects sang in the small grove of peach and apple trees beyond the yard, as if the morning were peaceful. Artemas stood in the open door of the screened back porch, brooding over a charmed world washed in the last pink shadows of dawn. The budding vines of old-fashioned roses draped a remnant of wooden fence that had been left as a border for an herb bed. Huge ferns were beginning to unfurl along the creek banks, shaded by the willows. Crepe myrtles and hydrangeas dotted the yard’s edge, and trellises held muscadine vines. He remembered popping their fat, sweet grapes into his mouth when he was a child, and the
smell they made simmering in huge pots on Mrs. MacKenzie’s big gas stove.