Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (20 page)

The drive was beautiful. Evenings were long in the summer, but when night finally fell it was breathtaking. Without city lights or smog to restrict the view, the sky became a carpet of stars, more stars than she ever would have believed existed when she’d lived in Seattle and Portland.

Craig found a turn out along a dirt lane and they sat for a long time just watching the stars wheel overhead. They even saw a shooting star.

The breeze blew through the windows gently, relaxing Esther. She tipped her head back and looked out the side window at the stars, thinking that the sky looked so deep out here. Back home it had looked almost flat, with stars pinned to it like sequins on a dark velvet background. Out here it was so dark and there were so many stars that she could get dizzy looking up into them. Here she could feel the infinite vastness of the universe.

Relaxing though it was, there was one tension that wouldn’t go away…her awareness of the man seated beside her. She could feel his warmth across the space between them. Her skin seemed to have become hypersensitive, acutely aware of each whisper of the breeze against her skin. And deep inside her she felt the throb of anticipation growing until she had to draw each breath lightly.

Finally even the stars vanished in her growing need to be kissed and held. In her need to be touched the way he had touched her before. Had she just imagined that entire episode in her kitchen? Had it really happened at all? And if it had happened once, couldn’t it happen again?

Slowly, as if she were being controlled by a power outside her, she turned her head and looked at Craig. And suddenly she couldn’t breathe, for he was staring straight at her, his eyes as dark and mysterious as the night sky above.

His dark gaze exerted a magnetic pull on her, drawing her toward him the way the moon drew the tide. She could feel herself leaning, though she was never sure if she really
did
lean toward him, or if she just felt as if she did.

But then he leaned toward her, closing the distance between them and answering the yearning in her soul with a kiss.

A hungry kiss. A devouring kiss, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. A kiss that made her feel like a cool oasis in the middle of a desert. A kiss that made her feel desirable.

The force of his kiss and the tightness of his grip on her shoulders should have frightened her, but somehow they exhilarated her. She felt herself responding from an unsuspected well of fire deep within her, coming to full life as a woman beneath the questing pressure of his mouth.

Craig broke the kiss abruptly, pulling his head back, sucking air deep into his lungs. “Damn, I want you,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes…yes…” Was that really her, gasping an affirmative with her head thrown back in utter submission? Was that really her…?

“Not like this,” he said raggedly. “Not here.”

His words reminded her that they weren’t alone in the universe on some wildly careening planet. When he gently urged her back into her seat and buckled her seat belt for her, she struggled to hang on to the mood of moments before.

It evaporated anyway. The anticipation remained, but the passion cooled, leaving in its wake uncertainty and fear. What was she doing? And why?

Time sped by in a headlong rush as they drove toward her house. Almost too quickly to be believed, they were pulling up in front of her porch. Craig braked and switched off the headlights and ignition. The night was quiet. Too quiet. There was no one else around for miles.

Filled with unease, Esther stayed where she was as Craig climbed out and came around the car to help her down. She offered no protest when he unbuckled her seat belt and lifted her down. He made it seem as if she weighed nothing at all, reminding her afresh of his much greater strength. What was she doing?

He bent suddenly and gave her a quick kiss. “I can’t do this,” he said.

Disappointment was sharper than the uneasiness of moments before. Her stomach plunged until she felt as if she were falling from a tall building. “You can’t?” Her voice was a mere whisper of sound.

He shook his head, his face nearly invisible in the night’s darkness. “No, I can’t. It’s not…it’s not that I don’t want you, Esther. As God is my witness, I’m aching so hard for you I can hardly stand it. But I can’t do this to you.”

“Why?” And why couldn’t she just let this go? she asked herself. Why did she keep asking questions to which she most likely didn’t want to hear the answers?

“Why?” She thought she heard him make a soft, mirthless laugh. “How about this? I can’t offer you a future. I can’t even offer you tomorrow. I’m a wanderer and you sure as hell aren’t meant to be a one-night stand. Now get inside before I do something I’ll regret.”

She did as he said simply because she couldn’t see the alternative. He was upset, he was angry, and he was right—she didn’t want to be a one-night stand. She wanted more, so much more.

Guin was moping. Apparently she didn’t like Craig staying outside. She sniffed at the door and gave Esther long, reproachful looks. Finally, unable to stand it anymore, Esther threw open the door and let the dog dash outside. By the joyous barks she heard a half minute later, she knew Guin had found Craig.

“Traitor,” she muttered in the Saint Bernard’s general direction. Giving up hope that Craig would come inside so they could set all this to rights somehow, she finally limped her way upstairs.

It was a relief to take the brace off at the end of the day. Even after all these years she hadn’t gotten used to it, even now when, instead of having to take whatever brace charity could provide, she was able to have one specially made. The straps still chafed a little, especially when the weather was hot, and the skin beneath was always happy to be set free.

She rubbed cream into the sore spots, soothing them. There was one place on the back of her thigh where the strap actually bit into her sometimes, and tonight it was almost too sore to touch. Of course, that was her fault. It had needed adjustment but she had ignored it, not wanting anything as unattractive as a brace to interrupt her Cinderella evening.

Cinderella? Had she sunk so low that being asked to go out for dinner at a diner could seem like being asked to the ball by the prince? God, was she never going to grow up?

Irritated and impatient with herself, she rose from her bed and dug a clean nightgown out of the closet. With no one to ever see her nightgowns, they were chosen to suit her: long, sleeveless, white cotton gowns with no more than a satin ribbon at the neck for decoration.

Slipping into one now was like settling into an old familiar chair. It reminded her that she was home and she was safe in her own bedroom. Everything else was locked outside.

It was a game she had taught herself as a child, to imagine her bedroom a sanctuary where no one could intrude. It wasn’t a perfect sanctuary, of course, but once she had been asleep her father had been very unlikely to focus his wrath on her. That old feeling of security came to her now as she crawled beneath the sheets and lay in the darkness with the summer breeze blowing gently over her.

She was dozing lightly when she heard Craig come in. Instantly she became alert, straining her ears to hear. After a few minutes all her fears that he might go home and leave her alone evaporated. She could hear him talking to Guinevere, heard him turn on the water in the bathroom downstairs, listened to the sounds as he showered.

His nearness was driving her nuts. The sleepiness that had been on the verge of overwhelming her vanished completely. The sheets were suddenly uncomfortably warm and she kicked them aside.

He was downstairs. In the shower. Naked. Oh, why couldn’t she just
once
know what it was like to be loved by a man? Why had he gone all noble on her at exactly the wrong time?

Sleep had become an impossibility. Her body was aching and tingling with feelings she couldn’t name, and restlessness kept her tossing on her bed. All she could think of was how much she wanted Craig to kiss her, hold her, touch her….

Her cheeks burned as she remembered him touching her breasts, and, as she wondered what it would be like to be kissed there, her entire body began to burn. She drew a shuddering breath and began to breathe rapidly as her mind unfolded a sorcerer’s brew of enchanting fantasies.

What if he came up those stairs and walked in on her? What if he crossed the room and lay beside her without a word? Would the darkness conceal enough to make it seem like a dream as his hands lifted her gown and wandered over her flesh?

If she had a nightmare, and he lay beside her to kiss her awake and was wearing nothing at all…

A shudder passed through her that had nothing to do with the temperature. She couldn’t go on like this. Understanding why Pandora had opened the forbidden box, she rose from her bed and walked carefully to the head of the stairs.

He was still in the bathroom. When he finished he would have to walk past the foot of the stairs to reach the living room. A band of yellow illumination fell across the hallway below where lamplight spilled from the living room. She would see him. Maybe call out to him. Maybe she would do nothing at all. She didn’t know.

She just knew that she waited with bated breath and hammering heart, riveted to the spot as if held there by a wizard’s spell, so full of yearning that she was helpless.

Suddenly Craig appeared, naked except for one of her ruby red towels around his waist. He was moving along the hall with his back to her. Guin was nowhere in sight.

Just as he turned the corner to pass the foot of the stairs, something alerted him to her presence. He looked up sharply, and froze when he saw her.

Except for the dim lamplight spilling from the living room, they stood in darkness, she at the head of the stairs in her long white nightgown, he at the foot wrapped in a towel. She looked like a pagan goddess emerging from the mists of night; he looked like a pagan warrior. Between them yawned a gaping darkness as treacherous as any chasm.

“Please,” she whispered.

“No.”

“Craig…”

“Damn it.” He swore quietly, as if he were afraid to disturb the dark between them. “I told you…I have nothing to give you.”

“You. All I want is you…”

His head jerked a little, as if the words struck him with the force of a blow. “No, you don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t offer you any kind of future, Esther. I’m dirt poor, I’m a wanderer…hell, I’m an Indian. Do you know how some folks are going to treat you if you mix up with me? If you think you’re a pariah now…”

“I don’t care what people like that think. I never have.” She wanted to approach him, but her legs were so shaky, and without her brace she would probably just tumble down the stairs and break something. “Craig…Craig, I’m not asking for the rest of your life.”
Liar,
whispered a voice at the back of her mind. “I’m asking for one night. Please.” Oh, God, had she really said that?

He turned so that he faced her fully. “Why, Esther?”

She stared at him mutely, unable to make herself explain. It was so humiliating.

“I’m not asking you to beg,” he said quietly. “I’d never ask that of you. But I deserve to know why you’re willing to settle for one night when you deserve a hell of a lot more.”

She closed her eyes as she felt her hopes slipping out of her grasp like so much water. In a moment she would turn and go back to her bed…alone. No!

Forcing herself to look at him, she humbled herself as she never had before. “I… No one has ever wanted me. No one.”

“I can’t believe that, Esther. No way.”

“It’s true.” She drew a deep breath, steadying herself and reaching for every bit of courage she had. “I’m crippled. Just like that man said tonight.”

“Esther—”

“No, don’t argue with me. It’s true. I wear a brace, I limp, my bad leg is smaller than my good leg…anybody can see it. It scares men off. They want perfect women.”

“Only
boys
want perfect women.”

She shook her head and laughed, a sad little sound. “Trust me. I’ve been on the receiving end. Once…” Her voice trembled. “Once there was a man who… Well, he told me I ought to be desperate enough to settle for anything.”

Craig swore. “I hope you gave him a good piece of your mind! I’ve never heard such hogwash.”

She gave another sad laugh. “He was right. I know that. Except that…I’ve never been desperate enough to just settle, you know?”

“Thank God!”

“And I…well, you…you don’t make me feel as if that’s what you think of me. You make me feel…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Desirable,” he said for her, stepping up onto the first step. “Damn it, woman, you
are
desirable. You’ve been driving me nuts.”

Her heart began to lift a little, and her hopes to soar.

“But this isn’t a good reason,” he told her. “There’ll be another man who finds you every bit as desirable as I do, someone who can offer you a future. A real future.”

“I have a future,” she cried out, holding her hands out almost desperately. “I have a real future, with a career and enough money and all the rest of it. What I don’t have, what I need…is to be loved. Just once.”

“Esther—”

She cut him off. “Craig, don’t you see? Just once before I die I want a man’s arms around me in love. And you’re the only person I’ve ever trusted enough. The only one I want.”

He hesitated visibly, looking like a man who could find no alternative that was acceptable. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’ll hurt me only if you turn away now. I know what I’m asking for, Craig.”

“Do you? Do you really?” He took another step up. “I don’t think you have any way of knowing just what kind of effect this can have on you emotionally. I don’t want you to feel used later.”

“I’m willing to take that risk, because you’re never going to happen to me again. I’ll never have this chance again with
you.
”

She meant that heart and soul. And it seemed as if he realized that, because he climbed another couple of steps. As he climbed he left the lamplight behind and became a figure of darkness. For some reason the way the shadows etched him gave her an atavistic thrill.