In Harmony(79)

And Willow?

“Nope, not doing this shit today,” I muttered, getting into the truck. My Hamlet script lay on the passenger seat. My plan was to run lines at the hedge maze. Alone. Learn all my lines cold and keep to the words. Be professional.

But when I got to the windmill shack in the center of the maze, Willow was there. Wearing jeans and a loose peasant blouse with flowers. Eyes lighting up in surprise as she called, “Hi.”

Oh, Christ.

Her smile was full of expectation and possibility. Every nuance of her thoughts playing over her beautiful face.

Knock it off.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“I came to run lines.”

“So did I.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, well…” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger, shrugged. “I was here first.”

“You were here first? I’ve lived here my entire life.”

She held up her hands as if to say, “what are you going to do about it?”

She was so goddamn cute. She was stunningly beautiful, but sometimes she was just damn cute.

I tapped my script against my leg. “We might as well help each other out. Since we’re both here.”

“Might as well,” she said. “We’re professionals, right? You first. Where are you struggling?”

That’s a loaded question.

“I have a giant monologue at the end of Act Four.”

Willow flipped open her script, her blue eyes scanning the page. Her neck curved elegantly down into her collarbone, and the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt…

Professional. We’re being professional.

She looked up. “How all occasions do inform against me…?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

I got up and started the monologue, pacing the area in front of the windmill. When I finished one shaky run-through, Willow cocked her head. “What’s it about?”

“Hamlet’s ruminating on war and what drives men to risk their lives for it. What’s worth dying for. Honor. He’s saying that Claudius is still the King, his mother is still married to a murderer and he’s done nothing.”

Willow read from my script. “From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.”

I nodded. “The time for talk is over. Now he must act and do what’s right for the honor of his family and his name.”

“He should.”

I looked over her and found her watching me softly. “Now my turn.”

I sat down on the bench and she plopped her script in my lap, pointing.

“All these little songs at the end of my mad scene,” she said. “They’re so hard to keep track of. I know I know them, but then I start to second-guess myself.”

“Try this,” I said. “Go to the beginning of the hedge maze and do your stuff as you walk it.”

She scrunched up her face. “How will that help? I’ll be lost and screw up my lines.”

“You just told me you know your lines. Your brain needs something else to worry about. Let the words just come to you while you concentrate on getting through the maze.”

“But how will you cue me?” she asked. “Gertrude and Claudius have a lot to say.”

I shrugged. “You’re going to have to shout and I’ll shout back. That’ll be good practice projecting to the back row.”

She went back into the maze, her long hair swaying behind her. “Are you sure no one is going to hear us?” she called.

“Shakespeare-in-the-park.”

“Very funny.”

The afternoon was still and quiet, the air warm but not yet thick with summer humidity.

“Can you hear me?” she called, her voice came like a bell.

“Yep,” I called back, projecting my voice toward her. “Go.”

Willow began her lines. I smiled to hear them punctuated with cursing as she ran into a dead end of the maze.

“How should I, your true love, know from another one? By his—shit!”

I laughed silently. “That wasn’t it.”

“Goddammit,” she muttered.

“Wrong again,” I called, and laughed harder.

“You’re not helping,” she yelled.

Shakespeare echoed back and forth over the hedges until finally Willow arrived back at the windmill. The sun behind her lit up her hair like gold as she planted her hands on her hips. Her eyes were impossibly blue as she gave me a look.

“Well, I hope that was fun for you because…”

Her words died away and the fun-and-games mood between us downshifted into something deeper. The moment held, naked and obvious and lying between us, waiting.

The time for talk was over.

I closed the distance between us in three long strides, took her face in both my hands and kissed her. She gasped in surprise but didn’t flinch or stiffen. It took all I had to keep my mouth soft on hers. Make it easy for her to get away. But she moaned softly, a sound full of ecstatic relief to my ears. Her lips parted, she pressed into me closer and her tongue ventured a tiny bit into my mouth.

Christ, it’s too good.

She tasted so sweet, her tongue soft as it slid against mine. A growl in my chest as I sank deeper into the kiss, my tongue sweeping her mouth. Her body melted against me, and I held her tighter, kissed her harder. Every turn of my head, every move of my mouth in hers, she responded. Willing. Eager.