Jennifer Greene: Sunburst

Dear Reader,

Sometimes, after a gloomy day of relentless rain, suddenly the clouds scuttle away and the sun just bursts through.

It’s that “experience,” that feeling, I was reaching for in this story. My heroine, Erica, deeply loves her husband…yet she sees and feels him pulling away from her, day after day, week after week. She’s losing him. She doesn’t know why, and he either won’t or can’t tell her.

It’s up to her to fight for her man…for that sunburst of love again.

Hope you enjoy the story!

Jennifer Greene

Dressed in a threadbare T-shirt and paint-spattered cutoffs, Erica McCrery blew a strand of strawberry-blond hair from her eyes and rocked back on her heels to survey her project. The oak roll-top desk was an absolutely delicious prize, intricately scrolled and radiating four generations of character…but restoring it was giving her fits. A previous owner had covered the fine oak with a dark mahogany stain, which the customer wanted removed-a job that was not easy.

Finally, she had discovered the right stripping agent, and now she took up the cloth again, her concentration total. The day was still hot; the late afternoon May sun dappling a diamond pattern on the back of her kerchiefed head. Her long legs, coiled under her, were gradually beginning to ache from their cramped position. There was a splotch of stain on her turned-up nose and another on her chin, and her slim hands were covered with it.

“Erica? What’s for dinner?”

“Ice water,” she said absently. “Fresh-baked air and an extremely nutritious casserole of nothing…” She turned to the doorway with an impish grin for her husband.

Kyle chuckled. “You know I hate leftovers.” Leaning against the doorway with one arm, he used the other to wipe a thin film of perspiration from his forehead. Then, hands on hips, he surveyed first Erica and then her project, with suddenly narrowed eyes. His smile abruptly faded. “What have you taken on now, lady?”

“Just a little desk. It won’t take me long.”

As he stalked forward, his eyebrows rose expressively at the discrepancy between her definition of little and the massive desk that had taken four men to bring in.

“It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” Erica insisted.

He nodded, but there was no answering smile, and while he studied her project, she studied him. After six months, Erica was still trying to get used to Kyle in a different working uniform. She used to think that nothing could accent his black-Irish good looks more than a suit and starched shirt. With thick black curly hair and a pair of flashing turquoise eyes, Kyle had projected drive and assurance in business attire, an aura of strength and controlled power tempered with a sense of humor. He had a more casual look now, in his dark, loose sweatshirt, jeans so worn and soft that they molded themselves to his muscular thighs and hips. But the soft texture of his clothes was denied by the new hardness she saw beneath the surface, from the lean, whipcord muscles that had developed with six months of physical work to the grimly determined expression that had replaced the old gleam of laughter in his eyes.

“Honey…” He rocked down on his heels next to her. “Oak’s a bitch to restore, isn’t it?”

She smiled again, radiantly, relieved there would be no argument. “Incredible. But the desk is so gorgeous! There are two secret drawers and a little hidden cubbyhole-”

“Erica.”

She glanced back at him, only to find a white rag blocking her vision as he gently rubbed at the stain on her nose. His tender touch was a total denial of the harsh quality of his voice.

“You’ve taken on too much.”

“I haven’t,” she denied.

“You have. We haven’t had a decent dinner in three days; you’re running exhausted every evening; and it would be different if I couldn’t handle the business, Erica-but I know why you’re doing it and it’s completely unnecessary. If you want to do something, do what you did in Florida. You liked that historical society-”

“Kyle-”

“No more of it,” he said flatly. He stood back up, hands on hips again.

She drew in her breath, frightened of that new glacier-blue in his eyes. “You’ve only got so many hours in a day, Kyle. You can’t possibly do it all…” Instinctively, she stood up, too, but he stepped back before she could touch him, and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers again. He was exhausted and fighting it. “Kyle, I like the work,” she said softly. “Can’t you understand-”

“I understand exactly,” he said wearily. “Hell, Erica, I…” He shook his head as if he could shake off the bleakness that had come with too many overburdened days, and then gave up. “I’ve got to go out.”

And then he was gone, with the chilling abruptness that was so typical of him these days. Erica automatically picked up the cloth again and dipped it in the solution, trying to convince herself that her whole body didn’t suddenly feel tense and off-balance. She studied the wood she was working on, but the project had lost some of its fascination. A few minutes ago, the work had given something back…a beauty, a texture, a feeling of creativity and personal satisfaction, feelings she was only beginning to realize were intensely important to her.

Now she felt appallingly unsure, all too aware what an amateur she was. Half a year ago she would not have known the difference between oak and any other light wood. In itself, that was no crime. Nor was the liberal arts degree that had never been intended as anything but window dressing, nor were the social graces she’d learned rather than practical skills, or the fancy hors d’oeuvres she could still whip up faster than hamburgers. There wasn’t anything wrong with the way she had been raised; it was all just so… useless. She felt an impatient, idiotic blur of moisture fill her eyes.

The mahogany coat on one drawer was very thick. Erica rubbed at it determinedly, but her own anxiety wasn’t so easy to wipe away. It wasn’t the bit of an argument, but that single instant when Kyle had pulled back from the touch of her. She was afraid…

Was she losing him?

Even the fleeting thought struck such an anguished chord inside her that she promptly blocked it, remembering instead how it had been when she’d first met Kyle. She’d thought herself so very confident around men, such an expert at saying a tactful no, that she was still a virgin; she was even rather amused at the chaotic, passionate involvements her friends took on. Then she’d met Kyle and was in bed with him almost before she’d memorized his last name; his pursuit had been so immediate and so potent and so total… There had been no cooling of his ardor in the past nine years, no time when he had ever been less than a virile and demandingly passionate lover. Only lately, since his father died…

He was tired, she reminded herself. Exhausted.

She stood up. The desk was done, a rich pale gold in the fading sunlight. It was getting too late to see by natural light anyway, and Erica was physically drained. Cramped muscles, tired eyes…and the scent of the stain, usually pleasant, was now strangely foreign, arguing with her empty stomach.

She stretched with a weary sigh, and half listened for Kyle’s return as she moved through the shop to the little washroom beyond. She was cleaning her fingers in a small bowl of paint thinner when she heard the shop’s back door open. “Kyle! I’m here!” she called out, hearing the slight lilt in her voice in spite of herself.