The Enchantment (36 page)

When Emma finally summoned the energy to open her eyes, she found Larence staring down at her. He was looking at her with love, and caring, and a hint of laughter. The way a man should look at his wife and so rarely did. God help her, it made her want him all over again.

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She smiled, realizing she'd been wrong all these years. Sex wasn't work. It wasn't an asset, or a way to get to the top. It was fun. And somehow Larence—the virgin—had known it all along.

Laughter sparkled in his eyes. "So, Em," he drawled. "It last long enough for you this time?"

Grinning, she pushed a lock of wet hair out of his face. Her hand was still trembling from the aftermath of their passion. "Not quite, Doc. But perhaps with a bit more practice ..."

Larence carried Emma toward the shore. Her body felt warm and solid and right curled against his chest.

The whisper-soft caress of her breath fluttered in the crook of his neck; it sent a shiver scurrying across his flesh.

At the pool's edge he lay her down. Like a cat she stretched out, burrowed a warm place for herself in the gilded sand.

He stared down at her, mesmerized. Her bare skin looked like pale peach silk against the dun-colored sand. A waterfall of drying blond hair cascaded around her shoulders and formed a pool of perfect silver-gold behind her elbows. A riot of uncontrollable wisps curled across her brow, and longer strands, gilded by sunlight, crisscrossed her bare breasts and clung to the damp flesh of her stomach. Sand peppered her skin like flecks of gold dust.

Something in his chest tightened. He dropped to his knees beside her, and plucked a lock of hair from her breast. It coiled around his forefinger, strong and yet easily broken. Like the new, tenuous connection they'd made.

If only she would love me.

It wasn't a new wish, this wanting of love; it was one 331

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he'd had all his life. Even now he could remember the agony of wanting his granny's love so fervently, so desperately, he would have done anything for a morsel of her grim approval. For years he'd tried and failed and tried again. Until finally he'd given up. And he'd never tried again; not with Granny or with anyone. Friends and acquaintances he had by the double dozens, but a real lover—emotional, spiritual, or physical—he'd never known.

Until Emmaline. Something in her—he thought perhaps it was the pain he'd seen in her eyes from the very beginning—had drawn him like a moth to a flame. And like a moth, he'd beaten his wings, closer and closer to the heat, battering himself on the golden walls of it, wanting to be warmed for even a moment.

He'd tried to tell himself it didn't matter that she didn't love him, that she'd never love him. But he wasn't a man given to lying—to himself or to others. It mattered. More than anything had ever mattered in his long, lonely life.

He didn't know what to do, how to make her fall in love with him. He'd given her everything he had to give. Everything. If it wasn't enough . . .

"Larence?" she said his name softly. "What is it?"

"Nothing." The word came out cracked and dry. Aching.

She reached out, touched him. Her finger glided lovingly down his cheek. "Lie down with me."

He forced a smile. "Greedy wench."

She laughed. The bright, clear sound of it filled him anew with longing. God help him, he wanted to hear that laughter every day of his life for as long as he lived.

He stretched out beside her, curling an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. She snuggled THE ENCHANTMENT

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against his side, casually easing her bent leg across his thighs. Holding her close, he stared up at the patch of cerulean blue sky. Sunlight streamed like Heaven's Gates through the opening and cast them in a halo of golden warmth.

It took Larence a full minute to realize he hadn't limped when he carried Emma from the pool.

At the realization, he sat bolt-upright. Emma rolled off of him and plopped on her back in the sand.

She tented a hand against the sunlight and blinked up at him. "What are you doing?"

The magnitude of it stunned him. He studied the golden city with new respect. Magic curled around him, became a breathing, tangible force.

He saw the concern in Emma's eyes and lay back down, drawing her close once more. Warmed by the feel of her body against his, he stared up at the bright blue sky, feeling as if he'd been given a fragile gift.

He held it in trembling, uncertain hands, afraid that a single breath would blow it all away and he'd be left again with empty hands.

Hands. An image shot through his brain, brought a shudder of remembered pain. Hands, small and pink and perfectly still, pressed against cold glass. Hands that ached to reach for the doorknob, to wave to the boys playing ball in the park outside.

But the hands had remained pressed to the window. Separated from the other children not only by glass, but by a firm belief that he was unwanted.

Larence squeezed his eyes shut, and found that for once, it was easy to forget. All he had to do was think about walking from the pool, pain-free, and the terrible memories of his boyhood vanished like smoke.

His breath escaped in a disbelieving sigh. He'd waited

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forever for this moment, prayed for it, believed in it. Somehow he'd known that Cibola was his compensation for being crippled, but never, not in his wildest boyhood fantasies, had he dreamed that the city would cure him.

"Larence, you're trembling."

"My limp is gone."

Emma sat upright. Twisting around, she rested her hands on his chest and studied him. Her blue eyes were huge and earnest as she said quietly, "Gone?"

"I can't believe it, either."

She didn't blink, didn't move or smile or frown. She simply sat there, staring at him through eyes that were clouded with uncertainty. For once, he couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he had the distinct impression that she was on the verge of saying something she thought perhaps she shouldn't say.

He knew precisely the moment she made her decision. The uncertainty in her eyes evaporated.

"How did it happen?"

Larence's breath caught. She was asking about his life, about his past. It wasn't much perhaps; in another woman it might be nothing more than idle chitchat. But not from Emma. Emma didn't engage in polite conversation. She was reaching out, admittedly with frightened, tentative fingers, but she was reaching out.

He could see her nervousness; it showed in the way her teeth nipped at her lower lip. Instinctively he knew that if he denied her now, she'd never ask again. Never reach out again.

Don't be afraid, he told himself. Talk about it. Give her everything you've got, and pray it'll be enough. . .

. Let her know what it means to share. He took a deep breath. "Carriage accident. My ankle was crushed."

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She sat perfectly still, staring at him. Waiting.

"I see you've learned patience," he said dryly.

"It was one of my favorite lessons." She gave him a soft, beguiling smile that warmed the cold spots in his soul. "Now, how did it happen?"

Don't be afraid. Give her everything, and make it be enough. . . . For Emma, he opened the door that had been closed for thirty years. Memories hurtled through his mind, one after another. He grimaced, squeezed his eyes shut.

Suddenly it was 1863 again, and he was a four-year-old boy on his way home from the theater.

The carriage tilted. A woman screamed. Larence flew out of his mother's arms and slammed into the wooden door. Pain exploded in his foot, he screamed in agony. A barrage of sounds battered his ears: the terrified shriek of a falling horse, metal-shod hooves sliding on slick cobblestone, the crack-thud of the carriage door hitting the hard road.

And then it was over. Silent.

Crying, he crawled through the darkness of the overturned carriage, his tiny, trembling hands feeling their way. ' 'Mama ? Mama ?"

"Larence?"

Emma's voice yanked him out of the past. Startled, he glanced up at her and saw something in her eyes he'd never seen before. Compassion. Understanding. As if she knew what it felt like to be lost and alone and utterly, utterly afraid.

Her silent understanding wrapped around him like a warm blanket, soothing and comforting him, giving him the strength to explain. "We were coming home from the theater, and my dad lost control of the horses. The

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carriage overturned, and my folks were killed. I ... I waited a long time to be rescued."

A long time? he thought dully. A lifetime.

' 'Mama ? Where are you ?"

Dark, black nothingness closed in on him, made it difficult to breathe. He fought girlish tears, tried desperately to be strong and make his daddy proud of him.

' 'Lare ?" came his mother's weak, tired voice.

He crawled toward her, dragging his useless, aching foot behind him. Crossing his legs, he pulled her head into his tiny lap. Something warm and sticky seeped through his pant legs and chilled his flesh. '

'Mama ?"

"I love you, baby," she whispered brokenly. "Be strong. "

"But, Mama . . . Mama ..."

Larence couldn't believe that even now, thirty years later, the memories still hurt so much. God knew a man should grow up sooner or later.

But he'd never been able to forget. Every time he came close, something would remind him of the hours he spent locked in that overturned carriage, his dead mother's head in his small lap, her blood seeping through his clothing. Waiting in the terrifying darkness for a father who was already dead.

He'd tried so hard to be strong. To be grown-up. But he'd been so scared. . . .

Emma felt as if she were being strangled. Hot, sharp tears stung her eyes, slipped unchecked down her face. Her heart ached for the little boy sitting alone in the dark, waiting, praying to a God who didn't listen. No wonder he still had nightmares about the dark. "It must have been awful. ..." He squeezed her tightly and stroked her naked back.

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It was a second before she realized that he was comforting her.

"I was lucky, I guess, to have a grandmother alive to raise me."

Emma heard the lie in his voice, saw it in the almost undetectable flinching of flesh at the corners of his eyes. A few weeks ago she wouldn't have heard it, wouldn't have cared enough to hear it. But now things were different, she was different. "Yes, lucky," she said evenly.

"She tried so hard to take care of me, to keep me safe."

Emma took a chance. "Too hard, maybe?"

Pain twisted his face. "Maybe." The word slipped out as a quiet groan.

Emma's heart twisted again. Instinctively she knew she'd never get him to say more, never get him to admit the hurts of his childhood, the loneliness. For Larence there was no going back. He'd refashioned his pain into something he could live with: a dream. From the darkness of despair, he'd found hope.

No, not found it, she corrected, he'd created it. Within himself.

She stared down at him with a respect that was almost awe. How had he done it? If she had lived his life, she'd be bitter and angry and isolated.

Exactly as she was.

The realization stunned, then shamed Emma. She had allowed herself to become angry and mean-spirited. She not only remembered her past, she wallowed in the pain of it until the memories had twisted and crippled her soul.

Where Larence had found strength and optimism and hope, she had found only darkness and despair and anger.

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He'd been orphaned, crippled, and raised by a woman who obviously didn't want him. Didn't love him.

And yet still he'd had the strength of character to rise above it all. To believe that the world was a wonderful place. To make it a wonderful place.

She drew a deep, shaky breath. For years she'd railed about the injustice of her own childhood, worn her injury like a chain-mail mantle around her shoulders. Used the horrible darkness of her past to keep the sunlight at bay.

But now she wanted that light, wanted to wrap that warmth around her soul and let it heat the cold, dark edges. She wanted to find optimism and joy in her life, the reality that Larence had so carefully constructed.

Remember the good times; forget the bad. His words came back to her, and this time they held new meaning. New promise.

Consciously she tried to remember the good times of her childhood. They floated to the surface of her mind with surprising ease. Hugs. Kisses. Laughter.

She thought about their last Christmas together. For years she'd remembered it only as a morning when they'd huddled, cold and hungry, around a bare tree. But now she saw a glimmer of something else, a remembrance of lightness and love. Instead of remembering the chill of the darkened tenement, she remembered the warmth of her father's touch. The love in her mother's gaze.

She had suppressed so much, forgotten so much. Suddenly she felt young and free and happy. Ready to begin anew. Joy and hope filled her. Smiling, she threw her arms around Larence and hugged him with all her might.

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"Hey," he said, stroking her naked back, "what's that for?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled back enough to look at him. Their gazes locked, and in the green depths of his eyes she saw a love so pure, so honest, it made her want to cry again. "I love you, Larence."

He paled. "Don't say that unless you mean it, Em." His voice cracked. "Anything but that ..."

She caressed his cheek. "I mean it. All my life I've thought about money. Only money. You've changed that, changed me." She laughed quietly at herself and added, "Now I think about money and you."

"Marry me."

Her smile froze in place. Fear collided with happiness.

"Emma? Don't tell me you're speechless?"

She stared at him, feeling dazed. His words were like a bright, hot light, offering her the warmth she'd sought all her life and never expected to find.