Envy(55)

“Good discourse, but it didn’t answer any question.”

Her irritation returned. “Don’t be ridiculous. I fell in love with my husband. His talent first and then the man himself. I’m still in love with him.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “What was he thinking?”

“Who, Noah?”

He shook his head. “The hero of the book. Sawyer. You said when they hanged him he was thinking…”

“Oh. He was thinking about the first time he saw Charlotte.”

She hesitated, but Parker motioned for her to continue.

“Noah wrote that passage so vividly, with such detail, that I could see the orchard, smell the ripening fruit, feel the heat. Sawyer had been traveling for days, remember? He comes upon Charlotte’s family’s farm, where he hopes to get water for himself and his horse.

“No one is around, the place seems deserted. But as he makes his way toward the water trough, he spots Charlotte sleeping on a pallet of quilts in the shade of a peach tree. A baby is sleeping beside her. Sawyer assumes the child is hers.” Maris smiled and added softly, “He’s glad to learn later that the child is her baby brother.”

Parker was entranced by the cadence of her voice. He felt himself being pulled into the scene.

“Charlotte is the most beautiful woman Sawyer has ever seen. Her long hair was unbound. Descriptions of it, her complexion, her lips, go on for paragraphs. Because of the heat, she had raised her dress as high as her knees, and she’s barefoot. Sawyer is a lusty young man. Seeing her bare calf and foot inflames him. She might just as well have been naked. He’s fascinated by the breathing motion of her bosom. And yet, there’s a reverent aspect to his admiration of her, as though she were as untouchable as the Madonna.

“He should have been a gentleman and politely withdrawn the moment he saw her. Instead, he stays and gazes at her until he hears a wagon approaching, announcing the return of her family, who had gone into town for supplies.

“Charlotte never knew that Sawyer had watched her sleeping that day. He never told her, which I think was particularly dear of him. It was too special a memory to share even with her. It was so special that he called it forward on the day of his execution. He was reliving it when the trapdoor of the gallows dropped open beneath him. Because it was the most pivotal day of his life, he died reliving his first sight of Charlotte.”

Parker had listened. Motionless. Intent on every word. For several moments after she stopped speaking, they just looked at one another. Neither was capable of dispelling the mood, or willing to.

When he finally spoke, his voice was abnormally husky. “You should have been the writer, Maris.”

“Me? No,” she said, shaking her head and laughing softly. “I envy the gift. I can recognize it in those who’ve been blessed with it, but I’m a facilitator, not a creator.”

He pondered that for a time, then said, “Do you know what made that scene so erotic?”

She tilted her head inquisitively.

“It was his having that much access to a woman, his having cerebral intimacy with her, without her knowledge.”

“Yes.”

“His eyes and mind had touched what his hands and lips wanted to. He hadn’t seen much, but he felt guilty for looking at all.”

“The forbidden.”

He nodded and said in an even lower voice, “The strongest sexual stimulant of all. What isn’t good for us. What we can’t have. What we want so badly we can taste but can’t touch.”

Maris drew in a shaky little breath and exhaled it slowly. For the first time becoming aware of the loose strands of hair on her neck, she raised her hand to them, but repair seemed beyond her. She lowered her hand back to her lap, but not before it made a brief stop at that button she had fiddled with before. This time, she merely brushed it with her fingertips as though to reassure herself that it was still there. But Parker’s gaze fastened on it and remained.

Suddenly she stood up in the narrow space separating them. “I’m going back now. The rain has stopped.”

That wasn’t altogether true. It had stopped coming down so hard, but it was still raining lightly. Parker didn’t argue, however. He let her pass.

Almost.

Before she could take a full step, he reached out and stopped her with his hands. They clasped her just below her waist, the heels of them pressing her hipbones, his fingers curved back toward her hips. He was eye level with that alluring strip of bare skin between blouse and skirt. Slowly, his eyes moved up.

She was looking down at him, startled and apprehensive. Her arms were raised, her hands in front of her shoulders as though she were unsure where to place them, what to do with them.

“We know why I kissed you last night, Maris.”

“To frighten me off.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t even merit an argument. I kissed you because you braved Terry’s and showed up everybody in the place, including me. I kissed you because just looking at you made me ache. I kissed you because I’m a rotten son of a bitch and your mouth looked so goddamn kissable. Simply put, I kissed you because I wanted to. It’s something I admit and you damn well know. But there is one question that’s driving me f*cking crazy.”

His eyes focused harder on hers and, by doing so, penetrated. “Why did you kiss me back?”