her tears. He deepened the kiss a degree, changing the angle slightly, pulling her a little closer. She slid her arms up around his neck and her breasts flat tened against the solid wall of his chest, sending desire shooting through his veins like adrenaline. Heat seared him just beneath the surface of his skin and he deepened the kiss a litde more.
Sarah gasped at the first intrusion of his tongue, unconsciously taking him deeper into her mouth, then moaned softly in her throat at the thrill of the intimacy. Her fingers clutched his shoulders, slipping against the smooth black leather of his jacket. She wriggled closer to him, loving the feel of his body against hers, loving the scent of him and the taste of him. She let him explore her mouth, hesitantly meeting his tongue with her own.
Everything else receded but this. Her inner turmoil, her family, the temporary aspect of Matt's presence. The world itself spun away, leaving just the two of them and this moment and this kiss.
And then it was over.
Matt drew back slowly, staring at her with a slightly puzzled expression, as if he'd gotten something he hadn't expected and wasn't sure why. His hands sifted through her long hair, drawing it over her shoulders. The ends fell in thick curls to brush at her thighs.
“Sweet heaven, you're pretty,” he murmured.
Sweet heaven. That was where he had taken her—to the edge of heaven on earth. And as Sarah took up the reins and guided the horse back onto the road, she wondered if she would ever know what it was to go beyond that edge.
Sarah found a million things to do the instant they reached Thome-wood. She had to see to the unhitching and care of her horse, unloading and putting away the groceries, double-checking the guest rooms and reservations, preparing the snack of cheeses and grapes and French bread that would be offered to the guests upon their arrival.
Matt suspected she was avoiding him again, having been shaken a little by the kiss they had shared, but he didn't press the issue. Hell, he had been shaken by it as well. Shaken right down to his lifelong bachelor toes. He hadn't come here looking to get knocked for a romantic loop by an innocent young maid like Sarah. He wouldn't have even believed it was possible. He was a mature, experienced man, a man who knew the score, a man who had his life neatly categorized. Now he felt as if the stuffing had been pulled out of all his spiffy little pigeonholes. The sturdy ladder of his priorities had collapsed, and the only sure thing rising out of the dust was his desire for Sarah Troyer.
Pleading a genuine case of fatigue, he left Sarah to her fussing and went upstairs to crash. He was asleep the instant he hit the bed, not even noticing when Blossom nosed her way into the room and made off with one of his shoes.
He dreamed about the ER at County General, seeing again the face of the young man whose knife wound he had patched up not two months before. A Vice Lord. Matt knew by the black-and-gold colors and the tattoo of a five-pointed star on the young man's left bicep. He had learned to read gang signs and fashions like a cavalryman must have learned the traits of the various warring tribes of Plains Indians in the last century. The young Vice Lord had been brought in holding his ribs and spitting up blood. Two gurneys down, a junkie was rambling incoherently, her mind invaded by demons conjured by crack. Across the room a member of a rival gang pulled a gun and started shouting obscenities. A Disciple by his blue-and-black uniform and the fact that everything about his attire emphasized the right—-his beret was tilted to the right, his belt buckle hung loose to the right, his right side pants pocket was turned inside out. There was an eruption of violence, an explosion; images tumbled and swirled, all colored in blood and accompanied by shouts and screams.
And then he was sitting in a buggy, holding Sarah and listening to the wind, the silence so abrupt, so absolute it hurt his ears.
Matt blinked himself awake and lay staring up at the ceiling. It didn't take Sigmund Freud to figure that one out, he thought. Sarah was a metaphor representing innocence and purity, a tangible symbol he could hold and protect and control in a way he couldn't begin to do with the raw ideals. They were like smoke, slipping through his frantic grasp, swept away by the fetid winds of urban decay. But Sarah was real, living, shining, sweet.
Well, that was all a nice, neat analytical explanation, wasn't it? Why then did clinical understanding do nothing to dilute his deep need to see her and touch her and hold her? Wanting a woman was nothing new to him, but this was something different, something that went beyond symbolism. He wanted Sarah Troyer with something inside him he had never before encountered. Trying to figure it all out left him dizzier than his concussion had.
From somewhere below came the muffled sound of voices. The guests had arrived, en masse by the sound of it. Matt eased himself out of bed and padded barefoot in his underwear to the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face and ran a comb through his hair. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a soft loose sweater in shades of black and sapphire, wondering wryly if anyone would mistake him for a member of the Disciples. After giving up the search for his errant Loafer, he settled for beat-up sneakers and headed for the foyer and the source of the cacophony.
The group looked like the assembled cast of a farce, Matt thought as he descended the stairs slowly, having left his cane behind. There was Sarah in her plain uniform and bright wide eyes, eager to serve and to please; a chubby couple in their fifties, outfitted in color-coordinated tourist garb, complete with cameras hanging from their necks like giant pendants; and a woman who looked to be some kind of aging beauty queen with unnatural-looking russet hair piled on her head like cotton candy, enormous sunglasses perched on her nose, enormous breasts, and a pile of dead foxes draped around the shoulders of her trim ivory wool suit.
Blossom sat on Sarahs feet with her ears perked and her head tilted, staring with quizzical amazement at the limp hides hanging over the woman's mountainous chest. The basset hound's rubbery lips quivered and she issued a whispered woof, as if she were trying to unobtrusively gain the attention of the pelts.
“Oh, isn't this just the cutest little ol& place!” the beauty queen drawled, beaming a smile all around the front hall, though how she could see anything through her dark glasses was beyond Matt. She twirled around and gave Sarah a pat on the cheek. “And aren't you just the cutest thing! A real Amish person. Isn't that clever! Wait'll Tim sees you! He's out in the car right now, tryin' to get the price on pork bellies, but he'll be in directly. Just wait'll he sees how cute you are!”
Sarah gave the woman her Mona Lisa look and said nothing.
Matt felt a fist of tension tighten in his chest.
“Marvin, get a picture,” the plump wife ordered, elbowing her husband's belly.
Marvin chewed on the stub of an unlit cigar, grumbling as he lifted his camera and fiddled with the knobs. “Cripes, Peg, all I've been doing all day is taking pictures of Amish.” He pronounced Amish with a long
Peg squeezed her bulldog face into a horrific pinched look, glaring into the end of her husband's zoom lens. “Just do it, Marvin. Just humor me. We're on vacation. We're having fun.”
Whether you like it or not, Matt added mentally. He watched in amazement as Marvin backed down the hall so he could focus his oversize lens. Mrs. Marvin sidled up next to Sarah as she might have to a cigar store wooden Indian and creased a smile into her pudgy face. The beauty queen moved into the picture as well, sweeping her fur from her shoulders with the drama of a runway model.
Blossom snarled, grabbed a mouthful of fluffy fox tails, and bolted for the kitchen. The beauty queen squealed and ran after her. Marvin, looking at the whole thing through the distorted view of a two-hundred-twenty-millimeter telephoto lens, didn't have a chance. The dog hit him in the ankles, knocking him off balance, and the beauty queen gave him a shoulder in the midsection as she ran bent over trying to grab the flying ends of her fur. Marvin flew backward into the kitchen door, which obligingly swung back on its hinges.
They ended up in a heap on the polished linoleum, Marvin with the fox stole draped across his face and Miss Alabama 1967 sprawled unceremoniously over his belly. Blossom took one look at the scene and made a hasty escape through the doggy hatch in the back door.
“Oh, Mrs. Parker, Mr. Morton, I'm so sorry!” Sarah held out a hand to help Mrs. Parker up. The woman teetered upright on her spike heels, her tight ivory wool skirt hiked up above her knees, her nest of russet hair
