Forever and a Day (17 page)

Her beautiful, flushed face and bright green eyes watched him in between every whirl and twirl, the radiating happiness that bubbled out of her, infecting him with a sense of freedom and happiness he wanted to seize and hold for the rest of his life.

Whatever history haunted this place, it appeared to be of no consequence, for he saw nothing but genuine happiness bursting through that smile and dance. Pride overwhelmed him knowing that
he
was here to share in that joy.

When the music eventually stopped and he with it, a loud cheer boomed around them, momentarily deafening him.

Georgia cupped the side of her mouth with a hand and jumped over and up, yelling past the bobbing heads, “Play us a lover’s melody of old! I’ve brought myself a lover tonight, don’t you know, and I want this to be a night to remember!” She veered back toward him and grabbed his arm, squeezing it tight. “I just announced to the world you’re mine. Are you happy now?”

“You honor me.” He grinned and glanced down at Georgia as men and women hooted and clapped.

The lanky Negro who’d been playing the violin jumped up onto his chair, adjusting his knit cap on his brow, and pointed the tip of his bow at Georgia with a saucy grin and a flirtatious wink. Quickly tucking the end of the instrument beneath his chin, he held up his bow, announcing he was about to begin and, with a graceful guiding hand that slid the bow across and back against the strings, commenced a beautifully sweet slow melody full of so much longing that it sought to melt the heart of every soul in the room.

Georgia turned toward him with a shy smile, reached up and primly set one hand on his shoulder. With the other, she carefully took his bandaged hand into hers, ensuring she wasn’t touching the rawness beneath, and announced, “This is how a lady in your realm would dance to music. Am I right?”

He paused. “I honestly wouldn’t know. But I like it.”

He curved his other hand around her corseted waist and instinctively set it against the middle of her back. Drawing in a breath, he wordlessly whisked her away from the men and women crowding to their right and guided them to the left with a smooth, circling boxed step. He adjusted their step and held her rigidly against himself, pushing and guiding her body and feet with his arms. He instinctively took a forward balanced step, then a back balanced step, then a side balanced step, moving them left and right, before starting the steps all over again, across the planked floor.

It was the…
waltz
.

Yes. He knew it. Oddly, he knew it very well, and though the dance itself didn’t match the music being played, it felt like the only step worthy of it. With each smooth step and elegant turn, he realized that he not only knew how to dance this waltz but that he could do it fluidly and exceptionally well.

Georgia’s lips parted as she attempted to follow his sweeping movements. She glanced down at their feet and then up again, meeting his gaze. “What is this?”

“The waltz,” he provided, whisking her past the other couples who had paused from their dancing to watch them. “Or at least I think that is what it’s called.”

“I like it.”

“Do you?”

“Very much. It makes me feel all…
civilized
. Don’t you feel civilized?”

He lowered his head toward her and drawled, “Yes. Because we certainly weren’t earlier, up against that wall.”

Finding they had more room on the floor, for others were moving back and away to watch, Robinson smiled and moved her forward with a step, then back, then side to side from left to right. Images of well-dressed crowds and dancing couples whisking forward and back on a gleaming wood floor lighted by crystal chandeliers and rows of mirrors flashed within his thoughts. He was there with them.

He kept dancing with Georgia, trying to hold that image, not clear on where it came from. Her uncertain steps slowly matched his own until she completely submitted to the repeated movements of their bodies swaying together. She quietly watched him the whole while, her flushed features searching his face.

When the violin ceased, he brought them to a sweeping halt and blew out a slow breath as a wave of applause filled the air. Georgia lingered in his arms and tightened her hold on his shoulder, still holding his gaze, even as the violin and the bugle commenced a new, rowdier tune bringing everyone stomping back onto the dance floor around them.

She mouthed something up at him, her brows and face softening, and though he couldn’t hear it against the crowd and the music, he didn’t need to hear her words. He could see the enchantment in those eyes. It was a heartrending form of enchantment that promised him love.

Only…something was unraveling. Something made him feel as if that forever and a day he sought within Georgia’s arms was about to be snatched away. Though he tried to push all thoughts of it away, he was beginning to wonder how it was possible to dance with a woman without remembering
how
. It whispered of dark possibilities he had refused to consider out of his desperate need to be near Georgia.

What if he had danced like this, so intimately, so lovingly, with the faceless woman who lingered in the back of his mind? What if he had lied to Georgia when he had first met her on the street just so he could crawl into her bed and then toss her? Perhaps the man who had emerged and had claimed her so savagely against that wall was, in fact,
him
. A man who sought to only…fuck women.

He swallowed and released her, stepping outside of her arms. He turned and quickly veered off the planked floor, a headache pinching his skull. His chest tightened as he frantically pushed his way past people, unable to breathe.

He hurried toward the entrance that led up and out to the street, the light and the darkness blurring into each other. Jumping out onto the landing of the pavement, he threw back his head and stood there, dragging in rancid breaths of air that only seemed to make everything blur all the more.

“Robinson?” Georgia hurried up the stairs and out toward him. She grabbed his arm. “What is it?”

He winced against the headache that continued to penetrate his skull, wishing desperately he could figure out who he was and what he should do. “I’m overwhelmed, that is all. I need to rest.”

She hesitated and whispered, “This is my fault.”

“Don’t apologize.” He glanced away. “I didn’t want it to end. I’m just—”

“Hey, Brit,” John hollered out. “Hey.” John staggered past Georgia with an almost empty whiskey bottle. He gestured with the bottle. “You, uh, dropped something.”

Robinson paused and patted his trousers, wondering if the dollar he’d placed in his pocket was still there. It was. “What did I drop?”

Robinson swiveled toward him just as John belted out,
“This!”
and sent his other full fist swinging, pummeling it straight into Robinson’s stomach.

Pain exploded up into his clenching chest, momentarily arresting his ability to breathe against the burning ripple that froze his stomach muscles. He stumbled, his boots skidding against the pavement in an effort to regain his stance and his breath.

“John!”
Georgia shoved John hard and off to the side, making the bottle slip out of his other hand. Glass shattered as whiskey sprayed everywhere, resounding like the crack of a pistol shot in the night.

Yanking out the flower from behind her ear, Georgia whipped it at John and jumped forward, smacking his face hard. “How could you? How could you ruin this night for me knowin’ I haven’t been here in four goddamn years? Whiskey-slathered or not, what are you tryin’ to prove?”

John leaned toward Georgia and grabbed her by the face. “I’m ready to…head west,” John choked out, momentarily swaying. “I wasn’t earlier, but I am now.”

Gritting his teeth, Robinson jumped toward John and knocked that hand away from her and shoved him with a full violent thrust. “
Don’t
touch her. Georgia, we should go before I lower myself to his level.”

“Right you are in that.” She grabbed Robinson’s arm and stalked them past John. “We ought to get you into bed, anyway. Come.”

“Yes, get him into your bed!” John called out mockingly after them, waving about a swiveling hand. “And while you’re at it, Georgia…let the Brit feck you up the arse in the name of Ireland like the goddamn traitorous slut that you are.”

Robinson twisted away from Georgia’s grasp and stalked back toward John, his pulse roaring in his ears. “You and that piss-drunk mouth are dead.”

Digging into his coat pocket, John unfolded a razor with a flick of two fingers. “
Bleed,
you son of a
—
” Angling forward, John stumbled and lunged toward Robinson with the outstretched blade.

Shit!
Robinson skid aside just as the blade cut straight through the air of where he’d been. Knowing he had to stop that razor from lunging again, Robinson jumped back toward John and instinctively snatched hold of his outstretched wrist with both hands, rigidly freezing the blade and his arm so it wouldn’t move. Gnashing his teeth, he used his weight and every ounce of his strength to twist John’s wrist hard and off to the side until the tendons and the bone kept it from going any farther.

Despite John’s grunting resistance, he eventually stumbled forward and against him, the razor slipping from his fingers. It clattered to the pavement at their booted feet.

Robinson shoved him back hard and scrambled toward the pavement, snatching up the razor before John could get to it. Refolding it with a flick into its handle, he turned and whipped the blade far out into the street, where it echoed into the shadows far beyond and disappeared from sight. He pushed out breath after breath, his pulse still roaring in disbelief that the bastard had almost sliced him.

John stumbled back, catching himself against the gas lamppost beside them.

Robinson swung toward him and narrowed his gaze. “If you go near Georgia ever again, I’ll do more than fist you up. I’ll
break
your arm and detach it from your shoulder and toss it down the street so that your little razor has itself a friend. Are we plain in this?”

John pushed himself away from the lamppost, jerking toward him. “You deserve to be sliced.
Sliced!
” he roared through his slurring. “Do you think I didn’t see you…pounding and grunting into her? Do you think that I didn’t place myself against a wall and restrain myself from…killing you
and
her with the cleaver I grabbed from the kitchen?”

Robinson pointed at John, his chest heaving in disbelief. “How we choose to love each other is none of your goddamn business. You are pathetic and vile!”

With gnashed teeth, John lunged at him again, flopping a fist toward his head.

Robinson darted aside, his heart pounding. Jumping back and forward, he threw out a raging fist, his bandaged knuckles connecting up and into that nose with full force. A sharp pop sounded in the night air as his arm jumped back. His hand writhed at the contact, causing him to push out a seething breath and stagger back. Wincing, he shook his bandaged hand out. Gash aside, had he never hit a man before?

John covered his nose with a quick hand, stumbling and wheeling forward. He gasped as blood slowly seeped through his clamped fingers, glistening in the low glow of light from the lamppost.

Georgia grabbed his arm. “Robinson, you’ve made your point. Now let’s go.”