Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

“What?”

“Apologize.”

“No!” She threw him a furious look, then put her head back against the headrest and finished it on a soft exhalation. “Of course not. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t yours, either.”

“Okay,” she snarled, “so it wasn’t anybody’s fault It just happened.”

“Yeah, it did. And you want to tell me why we’re sitting here tryin’ to attach fault to something that felt so damn good?”

They were just coming into the town square, on a Saturday morning as bright and blue and sunshiny as an Alabama June day knows how to be. Out there in the park, people were going about their business, kids playing ball, old folks sitting in the sun. And inside the Cherokee where they were sitting the atmosphere was as charged and sultry as it had been in the night with the lightning flickering and the thunder growling and one hell of a storm coming on.

Some of the growling was coming from Troy’s stomach, and it wasn’t all from hunger-at least, not the bacon-an’-eggs kind. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charly shake her head, then look down at her hands, which were all knotted up in her lap. But she couldn’t find anything more to say, and neither could he.

Troy found a shady parking place on the square across from Kelly’s and pulled into it. While he was rolling down windows and explaining the program to Bubba, and trying to get him to understand that all that howling and carrying on wasn’t going to change things one bit, Charly sat and stared through the windshield at the sign that said Kelly’s Kitchen.

She told herself she was behaving like a child. More accurately like the emotionally racked teenager she’d once been. It was time she remembered that that girl, Charlene Elizabeth, didn’t exist anymore. It was time she remembered who she was now-C. E. Phelps, Attorney-At-Law, according to the brass letters on the door of her plush-carpeted offices on the twentieth floor of a downtown L.A. high-rise. And time she started demonstrating some of the character that had gotten her to that place.

She knew that the first thing she was going to have to do was come to some kind of understanding with Troy. And that in order to do that, she was going to have to level with him-at least up to a point. She owed him that much. Okay. She knew it was the right thing to do, and she’d made up her mind to do it. She just hadn’t realized how hard it would be to work up the courage and self-control to make it possible.

By the time Troy had finished sweet-talking his dog and was giving her an “Are we getting out or what?” look, she was ready. Or thought she was.

“I…” It was a false start, but enough to stop him in the act of reaching for the door handle. She cleared her throat and tried again, in a voice still too raspy for the calm, in-control image she was trying for. “I’m the one who should apologize.”

He gave a faint “Here we go again” sigh. “What for?”

She could feel his eyes on her, but couldn’t bring herself to meet them. Instead she went on looking at the Kelly’s Kitchen sign. “Please understand-I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain.”

“No need-”

“Yeah, there is. I shouldn’t…” She tried to take a deep breath and was surprised by the pain-physical pain, this time. She’d forgotten the seat-belt bruise. Because of it, her voice was an air-starved whisper. “I had some things…happen yesterday.”

“I kinda got that idea,” Troy said dryly.

She held up a hand. “But that’s no excuse. It’s my problem. I shouldn’t…have dragged you into it.”

He gave a soft huff of laughter. “I don’t recall doin’ any kickin’ and screamin’.” He paused, then added, “Well, maybe a little screamin’.”

Ah, damn. She didn’t want to smile. She bowed her head and looked at her hands and tried her best to hide it, but his chuckle was like a sensual massage along her auditory nerves. And then she felt his hand on her shoulder, pushing upward to nudge under her hair and his fingers gently probing the tense places in her neck. Heat crept up into her throat and cheeks, and oozed down into her stomach and pooled in the sensitized places that still remembered that touch…

“Feel like talking about it?”

She wanted to. She really did. She’d intended to. She’d thought she was ready to tell him, that she’d talked herself into it. But now… Maybe it was his hand, the way he touched her, the incredible gentleness of it, but suddenly there was a dangerous ache all through her, and a useless lump where her voice should be. She knew if she talked about the past in this fragile, vulnerable state, she would almost certainly cry. And that was something she had promised herself she would never do again. Ever.

There was only the softest whisper of an exhalation to betray Troy’s frustration when she firmly shook her head. And she was sorry, truly sorry.

“Let’s get some breakfast,” was all he said, and gave her neck a gentle squeeze before he took his hand away.

Charly had been half hoping Kelly Grace wouldn’t be there for the breakfast shift. There was a lot she didn’t feel like explaining this morning, not the least of which was her companion. But no such luck. They’d just gotten themselves seated in a booth and were looking over menus when Kelly came out of the kitchen and spotted them.

She yelled out, “Charlene! I was hopin’ t’ see you this mornin’!” and intercepted the teenage waitress who was headed their way, coffeepot in hand. “Here, April honey, I’ll take that-this here’s an old friend a’ mine. Hey, how’re y‘all doin’ this mornin’? How’d it go yesterday? I sure have been thinkin’ about you…”

And of course, all the time she was talking away a blue streak to Charly, her eyes were about to eat Troy alive.

Resigned to the inevitable, Charly muttered introductions.

“Hey, Troy.” Kelly Grace offered him her Miss America smile along with the hand that wasn’t full of the coffeepot, oozing Southern femininity from every pore. One thing Charly had forgotten about was how that girl could flirt.

And like any true son of the South, Troy was naturally eating it up, taking her hand like it was the Lady Guinevere’s and he was Sir Lancelot.

Then all of a sudden he got very still. He stayed that way for a second or two, then looked over at Charly and muttered, “Kelly…Grace. You’re kiddin’, right?”

Charly picked up her coffee cup and dipped her head to hide her smile, but Kelly Grace squealed with delight and slapped Troy playfully on the arm.

“No, sir, she is not! Isn’t it just awful? You have to understand, my mama is a strange person. She claims she didn’t plan it that way at all, says she never even made the connection until she saw it written down on my birth certificate, and by then it was too late.”

She plunked the coffeepot down and shifted gears. “Where you from, Troy? I know I haven’t seen you around here before.”

Troy told her he was from Georgia, and she echoed it in a tone of pure amazement, as if she thought he must be talking about the one in Russia.

“He’s helping me out,” Charly reluctantly explained. “I had a little accident last night-”

“An accident!” Kelly Grace’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my Lord , was that you? A couple of the troopers were in here this mornin’, talkin’ about some woman goin’ off the highway last night, up by the spring, but I never dreamed-My Lord, Charlene, are you all right? You’re not hurt, or anything…”

“I’m fine.” Charly gave her chest a reflexive rub. “Just a seat-belt bruise.”

At that, there was a faint, strangled sound from Troy. She threw him an inquiring glance, and found that his eyes were riveted on her chest, his face pale and a muscle working in his jaw, looking as horrified as if she’d just sprouted a third breast. And it dawned on her that what he must be feeling was guilt-for not having thought to ask, in all the time they’d been together, if she might be injured. For all the things they’d done and all the ways he’d touched her. For forgetting to be gentle.