Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

Which obviously didn’t include Troy. Charly, watching him from a shady spot on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of Courthouse Square Park, was ready to conclude that the man had not a lick of sense. There he was, gamboling in the heat with that incredible dog of his, playing tag and chase and fetch and wrestling around like a kid, showing off like some kind of grown-up Tom Sawyer. Just because he was-what?-in his mid-thirties, at least, and had a body like…

Oh, God, he did have a beautiful body, even fully clothed in basic polo shirt and blue jeans. Charly had just come from the land of beautiful bodies, and she’d never seen one that made her heart pound and her throat close up the way his did. And what a picture they made-beautiful man, beautiful dog, performing their own special ballet just for her, on a soft summer morning in the dappled shade of big old oak trees.

Watching them, she felt a strange sort of yearning welling up inside, one that succeeded in smothering temporarily the sharper pain that had already taken up residence there. This was a gentler ache, rather like homesickness. A misty prickling that almost- almost -made her want to smile. And deep within, the slightest warming, the beginnings of softening in the icy knot of rage she carried, now, in her heart.

Oh, no, you don’t! Charly, get a hold of yourself. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest on her knees. It’s this place, she thought, laughing silently, feeling not the least bit amused. It’s the South. I really think it must be a sickness, like malaria.

“Somethin’ funny?”

She lifted her head and watched them come toward her, both dog and master panting and grinning and looking vastly pleased with themselves. Bubba was once more attached to his leash, and Troy was carefully tying a knot in the top of a plastic bag, which he dropped into a trash can as he approached.

“What?” He hooked an arm over the bandstand’s wooden handrail beside her and leaned against it, just slightly out of breath, his face flushed and spangled with sweat, his grin tentative. Like a little boy, Charly thought, who knows he has mud on his shoes.

She looked away, keeping her ironies private for a moment longer, then shook her head and gave up a small huff of laughter. “You.”

“Me?” He looked around in exaggerated puzzlement. “What’d I do?”

What did you do? It was a question that was beginning to occur to her, and one she was afraid she wasn’t going to want to hear the answers to.

She tilted her head toward the trash can. “That something they teach you in the navy?”

His eyebrows rose. “What? You mean, pickin’ up after myself? Ah, hell no. I learned that a long time before I joined the navy.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair, his smile becoming wry. “My mama made the U.S. Navy look like summer camp.”

“That right?”

“Oh, yeah.” He glanced at Bubba, who was pulling against his leash, responding to some invisible siren scent, then straightened and held out a hand to Charly. She found herself taking it without a thought. She let him pull her to her feet, and they began to walk together slowly, aimlessly, not talking, letting Bubba sniff and ramble to his doggy heart’s content.

After a bit Troy went on in a voice rusty with reminiscence. “Yeah, my mama ran a tight ship. Had to, I guess. There were seven of us, and my dad was a trucker, so he was gone most a’ the time.”

“Seven,” Charly murmured, breathing a silent whistle. She’d heard most of this already, from Mirabella.

He laughed. “It didn’t seem like so many, growin’ up. Just every few years or so there’d be a new baby in the house, is all.”

“Are you the oldest?”

“Second. I’m the oldest boy-got one older sister. The rest are younger.”

“Well,” Charly said dryly, “then I guess you’ve done your share of baby-sitting.” Don’t think about it. Don’t think at all.

“I have that.” His laughter came so naturally. She was surprised at how much she was beginning to like hearing it, and how much she envied him the easiness of it. “Diapered, bathed, read to and done homework with more kids than most fathers ever do, I guess.”

Diapered, bathed read to … His voice seemed to retreat into distance, to be overtaken by a child’s laughter, and the image of a boy…a bright, beautiful little boy with golden curls…

She stumbled, and Troy’s hand was instantly there, a band of support around her arm.

“ Anyway ,” he said, going on as if there’d been no interruption, “Mama was a schoolteacher, so she was pretty much used to handling a bunch of rowdy kids. Lord, though, I can tell you it was tough growin’ up a teacher’s kid in a small town. Only thing worse I can imagine is maybe bein’ a preacher’s kid.”

“Or a judge’s…” She muttered it under her breath, and instantly wished she hadn’t. She could feel his head turn toward her like a sonar beam, and imagine the curiosity and speculation in his eyes.

God, there was so much he didn’t know about her. So much she hadn’t told him. And after the night they’d just spent together… God only knew what he must be thinking. It surprised her to realize she actually cared about that, cared what this man thought of her. She wasn’t in the habit of explaining herself, not to anyone, and she’d never told anyone the whole story about her past, not even Mirabella. But she found herself thinking about telling Troy. And wondering what she would say if he were to ask.

But he didn’t ask. All he said was, “Yeah, I guess you probably know what it’s like…” And he paused to let Bubba give a nearby tree his undivided attention, watching the dog now, his eyes in a thoughtful squint that fanned the creases at their corners. “Growin’ up in a small town like this, where everybody knows you, and your folks and everybody else’s business besides.”

“Somehow I don’t think my growing up was very much like yours,” Charly drawled, kicking at a gnarled tree root while she waited for him. Her chest felt tight, stifled.

“No? Why’s that?”

She found his voice soft but compelling, like gentle fingers tugging the strings of a guitar. Primed as she was, she could no more not respond than a plucked guitar string can refuse to vibrate. “For one thing I was an only child.”

“That right?”

His eyes were on her again, bright as searchlights. Meeting them was suddenly too intense, the light in their depths calling up memories even his touch had not. She caught a quick gulp of air, and with a toss of her head, broke the contact.

“And I never knew my mother. She died a few days after I was born.”

“Aw, hell. That’s tough.”

She shrugged away his sympathy, finding it an irritant, like a reminder of an itch she couldn’t scratch. “Not really. I never knew my mother. How can you miss someone you’ve never had?”

Oh, Lord, she hadn’t meant to say that, at least not that way. But somehow her voice had gotten away from her, had risen too fast and too sharply, so that when she broke it off it was with a ragged sound, like something tearing.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think you can.” It was an easy drawl, his manner gentle but with a core of firmness that, like the hand that had held her when she stumbled, would neither let her fall nor escape.

And oh, Lord, the temptation was strong to give in to that firmness, yield to the strength she could sense in him, lean against him and share her burden. He was giving her the openings she needed; the hand was there, and all she had to do was take it.

But she had never yielded to, leaned on or shared her burdens with anyone in her life. Not since Colin. It was too late to change now.