It was all he could manage. How could he tell her he felt ashamed he’d ever thought himself too old for her, when here he was behaving-and even more remarkable, feeling-like a randy adolescent? How could he explain that the joy he felt at this moment of discovering her was inextricably entwined with sadness for having waited so long? And perhaps most complicated of all, how could any words capture the bitter irony in having such a thing happen to him now, when his life was in chaos and everything he’d worked to build about to topple around him.
He raised his head and looked down at her, smiling and cupping her face in his hand. “We really can’t do this, you know. At least, not here.”
She tilted her chin upward in a way he recognized and said fiercely, “Why not?”
He kissed her forehead, laughing silently. “Now who’s crazy? For one thing, my dearest, we’re on the side of a mountain, in full view of a public road. Oh, and there’s the small fact that it’s quite likely we’d freeze to death. You do realize we’re lying in the snow?”
“Hmm,” she said, “I hadn’t noticed. Though now that you mention it, I’m surprised we haven’t melted it for quite some distance around.” Then they were both laughing, holding each other and shaking helplessly with it.
When the laughter had died away into fitful murmurs and sighs and an occasional plaintive, “Ow,” Corbett kissed her once more, then said gruffly, “We do have to get up. I’m sorry…”
Her eyes were closed, the long, thick lashes stuck together in spiky clumps. There was a long pause, and then instead of answering she clamped a hand over her eyes. Her mouth had a crushed look that made him hurt inside.
“What is it?” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then a single sob escaped her before she quickly gulped it back.
He took her hand and pulled it away from her face. “Open your eyes…look at me. Now…tell me.”
Those remarkable eyes gazed back at him…silver blue ringed with indigo. And he knew before she said the words.
“Oh, Corbett, I don’t want to let you go. I’m afraid…”
“Afraid?”
Oh, she was, she was. She stared up into his face-now wearing a stern expression she’d come to know and dread-and trembling, began to speak rapidly, trying to say everything before he stopped her.
“Of letting you go. Of letting this go-this moment. Afraid you’ll back away again. That you’ll step back behind your boss-teacher-mentor barrier the way you’ve always done when we’ve almost…when we’ve gotten…close. And then act as if nothing happened.”
There. And he hadn’t stopped her.
For a long suspenseful moment he went on looking at her, while even her heartbeat seemed to slow down. Then he rolled carefully away from her. Deep within her the pain began, and cold sickness flooded through her body. She’d known this would happen. Known he would do this.
Holding one arm protectively across his ribs, he pushed himself to his feet, then reached down to give her his hand. Too weak-kneed and shaky to rise on her own, Lucia took it gratefully.
And then, somehow, miraculously, warm arms and a hard, strong body were enfolding her. Cold fingers tipped her chin upward and warm lips brushed hers.
“I think we’ve pretty much gone beyond the point of no return, don’t you?” Corbett said softly.
A tiny cry was all that escaped her before his mouth opened in perfect sync with hers, and her head fell back and her mind shut down.
As he deepened the kiss, then deepened it some more, he felt Lucia-whose mind he’d held in awe, whose charm and beauty had enthralled him and whose strength and courage had saved his life-melt in his arms in complete and total surrender. Joy spread through him, and in his mind was one triumphant thought:
Chapter 9
Ordinarily, those words had an ominous ring. Today, Lucia couldn’t think of any more beautiful. A lovely quietness settled over her, carrying with it the knowledge that there was no more urgency, that she had time to say to him all she wanted to say, ask all she wanted to ask. This was the man she would love for the rest of her life.
She was happy. So it didn’t occur to her, not then, that she might be wrong.
She murmured a gentle protest, and when he withdrew enough, she let her lips curve against his. “Then let’s go in,” she whispered, loving the way their mouths touched. “I want to have a look at your ribs. I hope we didn’t-”
“I want to have a look at your ribs, as well,” he said in a husky growl. “Among other things.”
And she gave a gasp of sheer delight at the playfulness of it. She’d never experienced Corbett’s sense of humor personally. How many times had she listened from a distance while he exchanged droll banter with other people- Adam, for instance-wishing with all her heart he could relax and be himself with her? And now…Laughing, she rested her head for a moment against his shoulder, then slipped an arm around his waist.
“You’ve lost your hat,” she said, gazing up at him. “And one of your gloves.”
“And you have snow in your hair,” he countered, brushing at it tenderly. He paused, looking around. “I know where the glove is, I think. Ah, yes-here it is.” He bent down to retrieve the glove from the snow, brushed it off and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat. “I don’t feel much like climbing back up that mountain to look for a hat, though, do you?”
Holding his eyes with hers, she shook her head. “I think there are more important things we should be doing.”
“Such as?”
She bit down on her lower lip to stop the shivers of anticipation already coursing through her body and said somberly, “We’re both chilled through to the bone. I think we should both take a bath so we don’t catch cold. A nice…hot…bath.”
He gave her a startled look, then laughed out loud. “God,” he said, as he snaked an arm around her and pulled her close to his side, “how I do love a smart woman.”
They separated at the cottage’s front gate, Corbett to return the sled to Josef’s woodshed, Lucia to brush as much snow and mud from her clothes as she could, then tiptoe alone through the empty house like a cat burglar. She was glad not to have to greet Josef and Kati, certain her newfound happiness must be written all over her in neon lights.
In the passageway between the cottage and the cave house, she stopped to take off her boots and unzip her jacket, shook the last of the snow out of it and pulled the cap from her head. Then she opened the door and slipped into the kitchen.
And found it warm and bright and dense with a multitude of cooking smells, and Kati bustling between the sink and the table, where Josef sat placidly smoking an old-fashioned curved and handpainted pipe. Both greeted Lucia with a cheerful Magyar duet in soprano and baritone, Kati waving a soup ladle, Josef his pipe, to which Lucia responded with a breathless smile, hoping her dismay didn’t show.
Kati clucked and scolded over Lucia’s wet hair and clothes and refused to understand her clumsy efforts to explain how they’d gotten that way, while Josef watched with bright, shrewd eyes from behind a wreath of smoke. A moment later when Corbett came in, red-cheeked and grinning, with his clothes in much the same shape, both lobbed a barrage of questions at him, Kati’s staccato rising over Josef’s steady bass accompaniment.
Corbett rattled off a reply, then looked over at Lucia…and winked. She didn’t have to know the exact translation; heat rose in her cheeks as two pairs of inquisitive eyes darted her way, and the duet rose once more in knowing “oohs” and “ahhs” and delighted laughter. She was about to flee to her room with as much dignity as she
