Hearts Unfold (47 page)

“Ah, my hair.
 
The curse of my boyhood, the perpetual bane
of my young existence.
 
And now the thing
you love most about me?
 
How totally ironic.”

“Not the thing I love most,
but certainly one of my favorite things about you.”
 
She snuggled against him, sighing
contently.
 
One hand wandered inside his
shirtfront, as if of its own volition, her fingers gently exploring the crisp
curls on his chest.

“Emily, I warn you, all my
honorable intentions could be abandoned if you keep that up,” he said
sternly.
 
Grasping her hand, he raised it
to his lips.
 
“You can be maddeningly
single-minded, you know?”

“So Jack says.
 
I think it's one of my strong points.
 
I might say the same of you.
 
I mean you were the one who insisted we might
have a future together when I was single-mindedly refusing to see it.
 
If we are both single-minded and both
mercurial, things should never be dull, should they?”
 
She settled more comfortably across his lap,
nestling her head in the bend of his shoulder.
 
“Stani, you asked me if I was happy.
 
Are you happy, with me I mean?”

“Have you heard anything I've
said to you?
 
Can you not feel how happy
I am, just holding you in my arms and knowing I'll be able to hold you again in
the future?
 
What will it take for you to
see that you have made me the happiest man ever to draw breath?”
 
He kissed her, hard and long, wondering where
he would find the strength to leave her when the time came.

When he finally lifted his
head and looked down at her, she smiled, a smug little half-smile, and said
sweetly, “Just checking.”
 
Again, her
fingers slid between the buttons.

Eventually, she rose to stir the
fire and add more logs.
 
She turned back
in time to catch him idly rubbing his left shoulder, a little twist of pain
crossing his face.

“Does it bother you
much?”
 
She brushed his hand aside,
kneeling on the cushion, and began to gently probe his shoulder.
 
“Take off your shirt.”

“What?”
 
He drew back in alarm.

“Relax.
 
I'm a nurse, remember.
 
I might be able to help.
 
I know it's cool in here, but I can't feel
anything through this shirt.
 
You’re not
wearing an undershirt?”

He shook his head, eying her
skeptically.
 
She should know that.
 
Hadn’t she just been driving him mad with her
deliciously wandering hand?

“Then just slip this
off.”
 
She waited and when he made no
move to obey, swiftly unbuttoned his shirt, her fingers moving efficiently down
the front and sweeping it off his shoulders.
 
Ignoring his doubtful glare, she said crisply, “There, now let's have a
look.”
 
He had the peculiar sensation of
having been transported to a sterile medical office and looked to be sure she
hadn't exchanged that lovely sweater for a starched white uniform.

Studying the crescent shaped
scar, gently tracing it with a fingertip, she sighed softly.
 
“It was very bad, wasn't it?”

He tried to adjust his response
to this clinical conversation.
 
“Apparently.
 
The doctor told Milo
it was as if something tried to rip my arm off.
 
For the longest time, I had almost no sensation in my hand.”
 
Beneath the steady, soothing pressure of her
hands, he began to relax.

“And now?”
 
She had located a knotted muscle and begun
smoothing out the tension, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she
frowned slightly in concentration.

“My shoulder hurts at
times.
 
By the end of a performance it's
stiff and sore.
 
There's still a tingling
in my fingers now and then.
 
At first I
wondered if I'd ever be able to keep up this kind of schedule, playing every
day or two.
 
I even started drinking
again, thinking the pain was a good excuse.
 
But thank God I realized I didn't want to go back there.”

Without taking her eyes from
his shoulder, she asked, “Again?”

He took a deep breath.
 
“I may as well confess everything, while I'm
at it.
 
I did have one very serious love
affair.
 
With good Scotch whisky.
 
During those months in New York, after the
tour, I was blissfully drunk much of the time.
 
It seemed to help me fit in, put me at ease with people I had little or
nothing in common with.
 
It also got me
in a lot of trouble with Milo.
 
Things
had gotten pretty ugly between us before the accident.
 
I recognized just in time that I could go
right back to that and think myself justified.
 
I
need
to perform, and if I drank it would ease the pain so I
could
perform, and so on and on.”
 
He dropped
his head.
 
Emily's hands grew still and
she waited.
 
Slowly he looked up to meet
her eyes.
 
“I'm sorry.
 
I wish I had been a saint, right up until the
moment you dragged me into this room.
 
The truth is, I wasn't and I'm not now.
 
I'm just a man trying to be better than he was, trying to learn things I
seem to have missed along the way.
 
But
I'm determined to learn, now that I've been given this second chance.”

“You're doing just fine.
 
I wouldn't love you if you were a saint.
 
And I do love you, Stani Moss.
 
This is my second chance, too.”

“You're determined to see past
these things, aren't you?”
 
Now her hands
began to move over his shoulders with a very different touch, soothing,
caressing, as if to ease a different kind of pain.

“You said yourself you're a
better man already.
 
I just see the man I
love, have loved without even knowing it.”
 
As his arms went around her waist, drawing her closer, her eyes swept over
his shoulders and chest.
 
Warm color
flooded her cheeks and she reached for his shirt.
 
“Here, you'd better put this back on.
 
I may not be as professionally detached as I
thought.”

Carefully closing each button,
she asked, “What do you do for your shoulder, after a concert, when it hurts?”

Again, he tried to follow her
train of thought, forcing himself to think past her inviting proximity.
 
“Take a couple of aspirin and go to bed.
 
Why?”

“You're no different from any
other athlete, a tennis player or baseball pitcher.
 
There are things you should be doing.
 
Who helps you get ready for bed, helps you
undress?”

He grinned, in spite of
himself.
 
“Excuse me?”

“If I'm right, you can't get
out of your tailcoat by yourself, because of your arm?”
 
She met his bemused gaze.
 
“Does John help you?”

“Okay, sometimes I need help,
but he doesn't exactly tuck me into bed every night.
 
I'm not an invalid.”

“Of course not.
 
Still, I'm going to write down some
instructions for him, things he should do for you.
 
Promise me you'll give them to him.”
 
She reached up and brushed back the hair that
had fallen over his forehead.

“Ah, so you're going to take
care of me, are you?
 
How will I explain
that to John?
 
He's been taking care of
me since I was a little boy.”

“Just remind him there are
things you need now that you didn't need when you were a little boy.
 
He should understand that.”
 
She drew his face close, kissing him gently,
but all too briefly.
 
“I'm starving.
 
Wait here, I'm going to fix us something to
eat.”

She was up and headed for the
kitchen before he could stop her.
 
“But
we already ate!”

“That was hours ago.
 
You'll find out soon enough, I have a very
healthy appetite.
 
All this unaccustomed
activity had made me ravenous!”

He got to his feet, as she
disappeared toward the kitchen.
 
“Point
the way to the loo, please.”

“Through that door, on through
the bedroom.
 
I won't be long.
 
Just make yourself at home.”

As she began banging around in
the kitchen, humming to herself, he tried to gather his thoughts.
 
It had been a day full of marvels.
 
He would have so much to think about, later,
alone; but for the little time they had left, he intended to savor every moment
with her.
 
How could he have ever
anticipated her?
 
Even in her letters,
she had not revealed the quicksilver of her mind, and certainly not the passion
so easily stirred.
 
More than ever, he was
certain he wanted this amazing girl, wanted her by his side, in his arms.
 
There would have to be changes in both their
lives, decisions to be made.
 
He was so
accustomed to having everything arranged for him, simply going wherever he was
directed.
 
He’d rarely considered the
planning that went into getting him there.
 
Now it would be up to him to arrange things for the two of them, make
plans for a future together.
 
He felt
completely inadequate, unprepared for such an undertaking.
 
The prospect overwhelmed him.

In the old-fashioned bathroom,
as he considered his reflection in the mirror, he noticed words painstakingly
lettered on the wall.
 
Studying them, he
thought he recognized a phrase or two, but the rest was foreign to him.
 
He would ask her about it.
 
It might be just one more revelation in this
day of unforeseen wonders.

When he returned to the
fireside, Emily was just coming from the kitchen.
 
“Here we are, just the thing to keep up our
strength!”
 
Bearing a tray loaded with a teapot
and platters of food, she placed it on the table by the window and pulled out a
chair for him.
 
“Come on, while it's
hot.”
 
She was beaming, a look of supreme
satisfaction on her face.

He sat, looking over the
tray.
 
“Emily, what is all this?”
 
Here was a platter of steaming scrambled eggs
and crisp strips of bacon, stacks of buttered toast and a pot of strawberry
jam, glasses of orange juice and mugs waiting for tea.

Leaning over him, she took his
mouth in a kiss of unexpected depth.
 
“It's breakfast, silly.”

Stani tossed back his head and
laughed, pulling her into his arms.
 
No
matter the daunting task ahead, or his fear of failure, she was sure to be the
encouragement, the light and the comfort he would need along the way.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Emily sat watching the fire
die, reliving each in the series of life-changing moments.
 
It had certainly come true, his promise to
make those hours count.
 
Perhaps their
letters had opened the way, allowed them to move ahead since that first visit
so that they were ready to come together so quickly.
 
No matter the time, they had crossed all the
barriers and fallen headlong into the first soul-shattering phase of becoming
lovers.

But there had been so much
more than the kisses, the embraces and the lovers' words.
 
He now knew more about that night, about what
had saved him and what he was meant to do next.
 
He had turned an unexpected corner and come face to face with the
truth.
 
Those moments of watching him
search had been a revelation for her as well, opening the way for honesty and
finally for admitting to the feelings she had fought for so long.
 
They would share their faith, as his grew,
and it would sustain them as they struggled to find the time and space to be
together.
 
Nothing would be easy, with
the distance between their worlds, but faith would make it more bearable when
they were apart and uncertain.

He had seen the words on the
bathroom wall.
 
She'd been surprised at
first when he asked her so directly about them.
 
They had been there for so long she hardly took note of them anymore.