Kathleen Creighton - One Summer’s Knight

Do you trust me?

Where had they come from, those words? Were they a reminder or a plea?

Trust me. A great shudder passed through her body. With emotion swelling inside her like a tsunami, she lifted her arms high above her head, thus opening herself to him even more, making of herself an offering, totally without restriction or restraint. She reached blindly for him, found his shoulders and then his neck, clung to him and whimpered as his fingers stroked her, soothed her, parted her, pushed into her yielding softness…and then withdrew… slid inside her again, gently at first, then deeper, deeper…until she felt as if he touched the very center of her being. It was then that she felt herself coming apart, as though her physical self was separating into its individual atoms and then merging with all the bright electrical impulses that made up her emotional self…her soul, her being… so that it was no longer possible to distinguish one from the other. Her physical self and her emotional self were one, and somehow she knew that neither would ever be the same again. She held on to him, to Riley, the man who had brought her to this, dazed and sobbing partly with rage, partly with rapture, and with hopelessness, too. And fear. And she thought, What have you done to me? I trusted you. And you’ve shown me heaven, knowing I can never have it Knowing this is just a fantasy that must end at the stroke of midnight…

It was later, much later, when Riley carried her to the nearest chaise and laid her gently, tenderly down. He ached so exquisitely, the pressure inside him was so intense he feared he would explode before he’d even had a chance to savor the feel of her feminine softness around him. He was surprised then, and humbled, too, when he felt her body enfold him, almost immediately swell and heat and quicken to his urgent rhythms, and finally, one last time and even as his own body tightened and trembled, then seemed to break apart in total devastation, he heard her small, wild cry and felt her body pulsing with his, drawing him out, nurturing his release… healing, even then.

They lay together in the aftermath, bathed in the warm, soft night, lulled by the soothing music of the water, stroking each other with lazy, sated fingers. Riley couldn’t remember ever having felt so relaxed in his life before. Or so…he realized with a shock that the word he was looking for was happy . He felt dazed with happiness, dizzy with it…awed by it, as if he’d spent his entire life up to this point under clouds and was seeing the sun for the first time. When Summer sighed and sat up, stretching and combing her hair back with her fingers, he felt bereft, even though he knew and understood that they couldn’t have stayed where they were.

“Come upstairs with me,” he whispered, drawing his fingers lightly down her spine. But when she looked at him with longing and shook her head, he understood that, too.

So he sighed and drew her down for one more lingering kiss. And when she’d pulled away from him and turned to pick up her dress from where she’d left it in a puddle like melted butter on the deck, and her fingers were deft and hurried on the buttons, he gently and wryly teased her, saying, “What’s your hurry? Do we turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight?”

He didn’t understand what made her burst into ironic and pain-filled laughter.

The next three days were a time of waiting. Hurricane Angela, now a category-three storm, wobbled her way through the Atlantic, gathering strength. She would only grow more powerful the longer she vacillated, drawing energy from the warm ocean waters. Storm flags were up all along the coast from Savannah to the Outer Banks, with the National Guard positioned to help with the evacuations, if necessary. The weather stayed overcast, hot and oppressive.

While the Southeast waited to see what Hurricane Angela would do, Riley and Summer waited for a phone call. The trap had been set; now all they could do was wait and see if the quarry they sought would take the bait.

To Riley, the atmosphere in his house seemed to have turned as gray and heavy as the weather, sultry with unvoiced passion and weighed down by the awareness that regardless of the outcome of the FBI’s “sting,” there could be no happy ever-after outcome for what had begun between himself and Summer. Once the threat to her and her children had been eliminated, by whatever means, she would leave his life forever; she was adamant about that. And he was left on the horns of a terrible dilemma, knowing that the circumstances that would give her back her life would, in effect, take away his.

Because he was in love with her. Of that he was no longer in any doubt. The thought of his life beyond her leaving loomed like the vast emptiness he’d known all his life, and felt sometimes now even as he held her in his arms.

Sometimes when he looked at her, when he looked at the children…when Helen squinched up her face in that imp-look she got just before she bopped him on the nose with one of her pile-driver kisses, or when David looked up from the computer at him with that sudden brightening of joy that erased the pleat of worry between his eyes…then he’d teeter on the brink, thinking, Maybe… maybe I could. But each time, the fear drove him back from the edge.

Meanwhile, the schedule of their days had reverted to that awkward time right after she and the children had first come to stay with him, when she’d been avoiding him and doing her best to keep the kids and animals out of his way as well. But at night, after the children were asleep and the house was quiet, she would come to him as he swam, dropping her clothing on the flagstones and slipping silently into the pool and into his arms. She would not sleep with him, nor share his bed, nor any other bed in his house, no matter how briefly; but in the warm, dark, womblike water, it seemed she could allow herself to shed the constraints of motherhood and revel in the primitive joy of simply being a woman.

They made love in and out of the water and in every imaginable way, with the fervent abandon of wartime lovers, knowing it could all end tomorrow with the ringing of a telephone.

Midway through Friday morning Danell beeped Riley out of a conference with a client. Because he knew she wouldn’t do such a thing unless it was urgent, his heart gave a lurch and accelerated as he went to meet her in the hallway.

“Who is it?” His voice sounded like a truckload of gravel.

Danell shrugged and said with a frown, “Sounds like one of those guys on the commercials, you know-‘Don’ worry, be happy’. Hey-he swore you’d want to talk to him. Man, he better be right Said it was personal-”

“It’s okay,” Riley passed her with a reassuring touch on her arm and headed for his office. He picked up the phone, gripped it hard. “Hey, Brasher, what’s up?”

“They say we got to go now,” the deep musical voice answered without preamble. “Say the hurricane be here by tonight.” There was a pause and an apologetic sigh. “Well…she’s pretty upset, you know…doesn’t want to go.”

“Oh, Lord.” Riley closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead hard with his fingertips.

“Well… she’s scared, you know.” Brasher’s chuckle sounded almost tender. “She’s lackin’ up a fuss pretty good, too.” There was a pause, and then in a voice as gentle and inexorable as the tide, he said, “Boy, you know you’re the only one can quiet her down… make her go. You bettah come now. She’ll listen to you.”

Riley nodded, though there was no one there to see. He felt as though a lead weight had settled on his heart. “I’ll be there,” he said finally. “As soon as I can.”