Darlene Scalera - The Cowboy And The Countess

“Is he?”

“Yes.” She reached for the doorknob, but didn’t turn it.

“It’s okay to be afraid, darling.” Anna heard the gentle smile in her mother’s voice.

She sighed. “I’m not afraid. I’m trying to determine the best way to handle this situation. How’s he look?”

“Like a man besotted.”

“You’re not making this any easier.”

“Nothing worthwhile ever is, child—especially love.”

Anna leveled a stern look at her mother. “How’s he look?”

Her mother chuckled. “A whole heck of a lot better than you, Countess.”

Anna looked down at her clothes still covered with spots of something dark that smelled like anchovies. She picked at a suspicious yellowish-brown dried smear.

She looked back over her shoulder at her mother. “Some countess, huh?”

Her mother was still smiling that infuriating smile. “Wait until you see the cowboy.”

Anna reclaimed her hold on the door handle. “For the final time, Ma. There’s no countess. There’s no cowboy.”

She said it so convincingly, she almost believed it herself. She twisted the doorknob and opened the door as if ready for what lay on the other side.

She saw him. At the same time he saw her. He stood, but didn’t step farther. She, too, stopped. She’d seen the pictures throughout the years—the publicity that came with being the son of a wealthy, well-connected family, then an entity in his own right. The photos showcased a serious child, a serious youth, and finally, a serious man. He kept his curly blond hair cropped short, his clothes conservative and tailored. She hadn’t seen one picture of him smiling.

He came toward her now, his smile so broad and full of life, she had to smile back.

He took her hands in both of his. Not until his fingers found hers did she realize she was trembling.

“Anna” was all he said. Then again, “Anna.” Impossible as it seemed, his smile widened even farther. Suddenly her whole world was in that smile…and went no further.

She looked up into his eyes. Those she remembered most of all. She saw again the ever-present intelligence, the piercing blue, the sky, the sea and all dreams in between.

For a moment, one mad moment, she believed he could be K.C.

She disentangled their hands, stepped back. She saw the dark green hospital scrubs he wore.

“Kent,” she said.

He raised a finger to her lips. “No. K.C. Surely you remember?”

Yes, she remembered. She’d never forgotten. His finger touched her cheek now. She raised her hand and captured his touch in her own. He held to her fast.

“K.C.,” she allowed. “What are you doing here?”

His gaze remained on her. “I’ve come for you, Anna. Marry me. Be my bride.”

She heard the words as she’d heard them so many times in her imaginings. She looked into his eyes, crescent shaped, cobalt ringed. She’d say yes. She’d promise him anything. Just let him look at her like that for the rest of her life.

“Marry me, Anna.”

How, with one look, one touch and a few words, had he wrapped her within his illusion? How could she see K.C. before her when he’d barely existed before, had never been more than the play of childhood, the brief, bold vision of youth?

She was shocked back to simple reality. Kent Landover was before her now. K.C. was gone, might never have been. And she was left as crazy as her mother, as crazy as this man.

She stepped back once more, putting distance between them. His hand tightened on her fingers. She saw his oversize scrubs. What she’d thought were beige loafers she now saw were foam rubber slip-ons. The uniform of the institutionalized. How had this happened? Why? When?

She looked back up into his eyes. He’d come to her. She’d help him. That she could do.

She took a step toward him. Again she wondered what had happened to him to cause such a complete break with reality.

“Kent?”

“K.C.,” he softly insisted.

“K.C.” She obliged. “Those are rather unusual clothes for a cowboy.”

He looked down at his outfit. “Please pardon my attire, Anna,” he said with such sincere formality, a bit of her heart chipped away. “I was in the hospital…”

Her heart broke.

“They wanted to keep me there. They didn’t believe me when I said I felt fine, actually never better. They said my head was hurt. I’ve a bump, a few bruises from the blackout, but nothing to keep a man locked up.”

Now there was no doubt. He had been institutionalized. The reality of it was worse than she’d imagined.

“Then I saw you on the TV…” he was saying.

Those commercials she’d done for the cleaning business.

“I couldn’t find my clothes anywhere, so I borrowed these from the hospital. I’m going to return them as soon as I find mine.”

“Of course.” She nodded.

“I couldn’t wait another minute. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Anna. Ever since you left.”

She tried to smile. “Now you’ve found me.”

“We’ll never be apart again, Anna. Never.”

She felt the constriction building through her body. Soon it would require release in tears or screams or a blank, unseeing stare out a window for a long, still moment.

HE LOOKED INTO HER FACE, wishing her thoughts were his. He’d been too abrupt, he thought. He’d been clumsy, raw, spitting proposals at her like a sailor newly dry-docked. She was scared. He could see it in the white circles of her eyes.

He looked away from the crown the color of pale amber and the eyes he’d made large by his rush of words. He looked down, seeing his ill-fitting pajamas worn from too many washings, and felt the fool. He’d seen her, and from that moment on, there’d been nothing else. He’d come like a man possessed, single-minded in pursuit. She, so nobly bred, had been too gracious to show her real response. God, he was as simple as the land and the life he loved. She must think him crazy.

He looked back up into those white-ringed eyes that reflected his own fearful heart. “I’m not crazy.”

There was no more than a blink, delicate as a fairy wing. Her mouth opened. He waited for her words bringing either condemnation or resurrection, but she said nothing. He watched the lips curve like a new bud unfurling. He didn’t have to touch his own lips to know a smile had found its way there, too.

He wasn’t quite sure if he’d been accepted or absolved. He wasn’t certain about a lot of things. He didn’t know why others kept confusing him with another man, a strange man who shared his name but nothing else. He didn’t know why he thought he, no more than a cowboy, could win the affections of a countess. There were a lot of things he was uncertain about. Some moments were even downright shaky. Things he had an idea he’d once believed and understood now made no sense. He didn’t understand his ease traveling through the streets of this strange city. Nor did he understand the sudden flash of images in his mind, so different from the life that he knew was his. Then, at times, there was nothing—a complete blank…save for Anna. Anna was the one constant.

“K.C.” The sweet voice of his salvation pulled him from his whirl of thoughts. He looked and found the cool, green rest of her eyes. Everything that had seemed senseless made sense once more.

She gave his hand a squeeze. “Let’s go have tea and Mama’s scones.”

She led him, and he had a sense of being very young and very happy for no reason other than being near her. A sense that those same words, these same steps in perfect rhythm, her hand held tight in his, had all happened before. Once upon a time.

“Anna?”

She stopped and turned toward him, smiling that smile he’d also seen before, would remember forever.