Crossed Hearts (Matchmaker Trilogy) (22 page)

She threw her arms around his neck and held him for a minute, then, unable to believe he was really squatting by her bedside, pushed back and peered at him. She needed neither her glasses nor a light to distinguish each of the features she’d missed so in the past weeks.

“Frightened? You
terrified
me,” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “What are … why are you … at this hour?”

He shrugged and gave a sheepish smile. “It took me longer than I thought to get everything packed.”

“Packed?” Her fingers clenched the muscles at the back of his neck. “Are you—”

“Moving in with you? Yes. I figured you owed me.”

Softly crying his name, she launched herself at him again. This time she hung on so relentlessly that he had to climb into bed with her to keep from being choked to death.

He didn’t mind. Any of it. “I’ve been in agony, Leah,” he confessed in a ragged whisper. “You’ve ruined the cabin for me. I’m miserable there without you. And those phone calls suck.”

She couldn’t restrain an emotional laugh. “Ditto for me. To all of it.”

“You weren’t at the cabin. You don’t know how empty it was.”

“I know how empty
I’ve
been.” Her mouth was against his throat. “But what about … you were so adamant about not coming …”

“You said the word in the note you left. Cowardice. It nagged at me and nagged at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me here, but I have to take the chance. I don’t have any other choice. Being with you means too much.”

With a soft moan of heavenly thanks, she began to kiss him—his neck, his beard, his cheekbones, eyes and nose. By the time she’d reached his mouth, she was bunching up his jersey, dragging it from the waistband of his jeans. Her progress was impeded briefly by his hands, which were all over her body, then homing in on those places that had altered most during their separation.

“I want you badly,” he groaned. “Can we?”

“Yes, but—”

“Let me make love to you.”

“You already have by coming here,” she whispered, her breath hot against his skin. She was kissing his chest, moving from one muscled swell to the next, one tight nipple to the other. “Now it’s my turn.”

Garrick couldn’t stop touching her, but he closed his eyes and lay back. He raised his hips when she unzipped his jeans and kicked his legs free after she’d peeled them down.

Leah loved him as she’d never done before. Her appetite was voracious, and the small sounds of pleasure that came from his throat made her all the more bold. His hands were restless in her hair, on her shoulders and back, and while she touched him everywhere, kissed him everywhere, he squeezed his eyes shut against the agony of ecstasy. When she took him into her mouth, he bucked, but her hands were firm on his hips, holding him steady for the milking of lips and tongue. The release he found that way was so intense, so shattering for them both, that the first rays of the sun were poking through the drapes before either of them could speak.

“You make me feel so loved,” he whispered against her forehead.

“You are,” she returned as softly. “I hadn’t realized how much of my time at the cabin was spent showing you that—until I got here and didn’t know what to do with myself.”

He moved over her then, fingers splayed on either side of her head, eyes wide and brilliant. “You … have … no idea how much I love you.”

“I think I do,” she said with a soft smile. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Yes. And I intend to make it. For you.”

“No, for
you
.”

“And for you.”

“Okay, for me.”

“And for baby,” he said, lowering a hand to properly greet his child.

L
EAH LET
G
ARRICK FIND
his own pace in Concord. She would have been happy if he just sat with her in the yard or the apartment and accompanied her to the hospital for her appointments. But he did more than that. Within days of his arrival, he signed up to take several courses at the local university. She knew that the first few trips he made there were taxing for him, because he returned to her pale and tired. But he stuck with it, and in time he felt less threatened.

Likewise, he insisted on taking her for walks each day. Gregory had recommended the exercise, and though they began with simple neighborhood trips, Leah’s eagerness and Garrick’s growing confidence soon had them covering greater distances. Often Garrick wheeled Susan in her chair while Leah held lightly to his elbow; other times Leah and Garrick went alone.

“How do you feel?” Leah asked on one of those private outings.

“Not bad.”

“Nervous?”

“Not really. No one seems to recognize me. No one’s looking twice.” He snorted. “If I had any brains, I suppose I’d be offended.”

“It’s because you do have brains that you’re not. How about at school? Have there been any double takes there?”

“No.” He didn’t tell her about the anxiety he’d felt when, during one of those very tense first days of classes, he’d stood for five minutes outside a local tavern, aching for a drink, just one to calm him down. Nor did he tell her of the flyers he’d seen posted around the university, advertising dramatic productions in the works; he’d stared at those, too, for a very long time.

But he was with her, and he was doing all right, and
she
was doing all right, which was what really mattered.

M
ID
-O
CTOBER BROUGHT
the turning of the leaves. Garrick would have liked to show Leah the brilliance of the autumnal spectacle from the cabin, but he didn’t dare make even a day trip back to the mountain. The baby was growing bigger and Leah’s body more unwieldy; in terms of both comfort and safety, he knew that she was better off staying in Concord.

November brought a marked downshift in the temperature, as well as Garrick’s insistence that he and Leah file for a marriage license. It also brought orders from Gregory, soon after, that Leah was to stay in bed. She wasn’t thrilled with the prospect, for it meant an end to her outings with Garrick. And that she’d have more time on her hands to worry about the baby.

She’d had every test imaginable. Gregory had made detailed comparisons between the results of those tests and the information gleaned from less frequent and less detailed tests done during her last pregnancy in New York. All signs were good, he declared. The baby appeared to be larger, the heartbeat stronger than ever.

“I think you’ve planted a monster in me,” she complained to Garrick one afternoon when she felt particularly uncomfortable.

“Like father, like son,” he teased.

“Ah, but we don’t know that. What if we get an amazon of a daughter?”

“She can be a Cyclops, for all I care, as long as she’s healthy.”

Which was the password. Healthy. Boy or girl, they didn’t care, as long as the child was born alive.

Increasingly, though she warned herself not to, Leah did think about the child—what sex it was, what they would name it, whether it would have Garrick’s eyes or her hair, whether it would like to read. And the more she day-dreamed, the more nervous she became, for the critical time was fast approaching.

Garrick, too, was growing nervous, and only part of it had to do with the coming delivery. When he was on campus, he found himself drawn more and more often to the building that housed the small theater. Any number of times he simply stood outside and stared at it. Then one day, with his hands balled into fists in the pocket of his high-collared jacket, he ventured inside.

The theater was dim, with rows and rows of vacant seats, one of which he slipped into while he trained his eyes on the lit stage. Though he’d never acted in a classic himself, he knew Chekov when he saw it. The set was distinct, as were the lines. Slouching lower, he propped his chin on a fist and watched the fledgling actors and actresses do their thing.

They were impressive, he decided after a time. Not quite there yet, but on their way. They were interrupted from time to time by the director, a woman whose voice he could hear, though he couldn’t see her. The students were attentive, listening quietly to her criticism, then attempting to follow her suggestions. Sometimes they succeeded; sometimes they didn’t. But they tried.

Garrick wondered what would have happened if
he’d
tried the way they did. He wondered whether, if he’d listened to directors, perhaps taken formal acting instruction, he would have been able to evolve into a truly good actor. He’d never really given it a shot.
Pagen
had come along and made him a star, so he hadn’t had to.

Watching the young performers, he wondered if any of them dreamed of being stars. More aptly, he wondered if any of them
didn’t
. He focused on one young man whose voice wasn’t quite forceful enough but whose interpretation was a bit more compelling than that of the others. What would he do after college? Go to New York? Work off-Broadway for a while? Make it to Broadway itself? Or think beyond all that and hightail it to the coast, as he’d done?

His eyes skimmed the stage again, this time alighting on a girl, blond haired and petite of build. As she moved the faint bobbing of her breasts was visible beneath an oversize sweatshirt that tucked snugly under her bottom. He wondered whether she was having an affair with one of the boys—perhaps the good-looking one standing off by the wings? If so, it probably wouldn’t last. If her career surpassed his, she’d leave him behind and move on. To what? Male leads? Directors? Producers?

He wondered what she’d think if she knew that Greg Reynolds was sitting at the back of the theater, watching her. Then he snorted softly. She was too young. She probably didn’t know who in the hell Greg Reynolds was! And besides, he reminded himself, it wasn’t Greg Reynolds who sat unnoticed. It was Garrick Rodenhiser, and unnoticed was precisely what he wanted to be.

Shoving himself up from his chair, he strode quickly out of the theater.

But he was back several days later, sitting in the same seat, watching a rehearsal that had benefited from those several days’ practice and become more refined. The best of the performers were clearly emerging—the strong ones distinguishing themselves from the weak as the director focused her coaching more and more on the latter. He watched for a while longer, not quite sure why he stayed, knowing that he didn’t need the knot in his belly, that there were other things he’d rather be doing, but unable to move. At last he did move, and when he reached the fresh air, he felt a distinct sense of relief. Theaters were confining things, he decided.

Yet he went back again. A week later this time, and still not quite knowing why. But he was there. And this time he stayed in his seat until the rehearsal had ended and the performers, one by one, filed past him. The director was the last to leave, but while the others hadn’t given him a glance as they’d passed, she stopped.

She was a pretty woman, Garrick noticed, viewing her up close for the first time. Tall and willowy, she had long brown hair that was pulled into a high clasp at her crown, only to tumble smoothly down from there. She wore jeans and a heavy jacket and was clutching an armload of papers to her chest. She was younger than he’d expected, perhaps in her mid-twenties; he guessed her to be either a teaching assistant or a graduate student.

“I’ve seen you here before,” she said, cocking her head.

Garrick remained sprawled in his seat. “I’ve stopped by a few times.”

“We’ll be doing the show next weekend. I’d think you’d rather see it then.”

“Rehearsals are more interesting. They allow you to see what really goes into the production.”

“Are you a student of the theater?”

He took in a breath and pushed himself straighter. “Not exactly.”

“A connoisseur?”

He shrugged, then hoisted himself to his feet. He didn’t miss the slight widening of the woman’s eyes at his height. “Not exactly. What about you?”

“A grad student. We often direct undergraduate productions.” When she turned and started walking toward the door, he followed. His heart was pounding in protest, but his legs seemed not to hear.

“Doing Chekov is an ambitious endeavor,” he remarked.

“Isn’t that what learning is about—challenge?”

He didn’t answer that. He’d never associated the acting he’d done with learning, and his major challenge had been in topping the Nielsens for the week. “Do you get much of a crowd at your shows?” he asked.

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. This one probably won’t be as well attended, since it’s more serious and heavy. We’ll get some of the university types, but the local crowd is drawn to lighter things.” They’d passed through the lobby and reached the door, which Garrick held open with a rigid hand. As she stepped into the daylight, she looked up at him. “Do you live locally?”

“For now.”

“Are you affiliated with the university?”

“I’m taking a few courses.”

They’d stopped at the top of the stone steps. She was staring at him. “Studying anything special?”

“Latin.”

She laughed. “That’s an odd one.” But her laughter died quickly. Her eyes were fixed on his. She frowned for an instant.

“Is something wrong?”

“Uh, no. You look vaguely familiar. I, uh, I don’t think I know any Latin students.”

He didn’t know if it was a come-on. Yes, he thought her attractive, but it was an objective judgment. She didn’t turn him on in any way, shape or fashion. Still, he didn’t leave.

“Is this your first year here?” she asked as she continued to study him closely.

“Yes.” Feeling inexplicably bold despite the damp palms he pressed to the insides of his pockets, he returned her gaze unwaveringly.

“Are you a professional student?”

“Nope.”

“What did you do before you came here?”

“Work.”

“Doing … ?”

“I work up north.”

Again she frowned. Her gaze fell to his beard, then returned to his eyes. “I’m really sorry, but you do look familiar.”

“Maybe I just look like someone else,” he suggested with an outer calm that was far from matched inside.