Endless Chain (28 page)

“Yes, I’ve noticed. You would be a fan. Your lunches are
fiambre
on Wonder Bread.”

He lifted his wine. “Let me make a toast.”

She picked up her glass.

“To my hostess, accomplished cook and kite flyer, fixer of scrapes, wise mentor of young men, tender of churches, companion and aide to the old and sick, quilter, and friend.”

Her heart lifted at his words. She was pleased he saw so much that was good in her life. Most of the time she felt she was just marking time, that she had stopped living once she began to run.

“And to my guest,” she said. “Healer of hearts and souls, nudger and catalyst, guide and patient
amigo.
”

They smiled at each other, then lifted their glasses and sipped.

“It’s an excellent wine,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I was lucky to find it.”

“May I serve you?”

Sam passed his plate, and she dished up the chicken and rice, plantain and beans. Then she passed a dish of tortillas she had warmed and covered with a damp cloth.

“I don’t think I’ve had a meal this good in years.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. “The chicken smells wonderful.”

“It’s my brother’s favorite.”

“I can understand why.”

They ate with only a minimum of conversation, listening as Ricardo Arjona serenaded them. Near the end of the meal, when the talk had strayed to church activities, she set down her fork, filled and happy. “You’ve been at the church for more than two years now?”

His expression said they were sharing a joke. “It seems longer sometimes. Particularly when George Jenkins is lecturing me at board meetings.”

“How long will you stay? Do they move you automatically after a certain length of time?”

“No, I can stay as long as it’s right for everybody.” He took one final tortilla to scoop up the rest of the chicken, with its sauce of finely chopped vegetables, olives and capers. “But I’ve been contacted by a church in D.C. that’s interested in having me in their pulpit. They’ve been to Community twice to hear me. We’ve had several long conversations.”

She felt a sharp stab of disappointment, although she knew that was foolish. She would surely be gone before he moved on. This was obviously best.

“That’s not for public consumption,” he added. “Nobody else knows.”

She felt her way. “You’ll have to give them notice, won’t you? So they can find another minister?”

“The decision isn’t nearly that far along.” He wiped the last bit of tortilla around his plate, but she thought it was more a delaying tactic. “Truth is,” he said at last, “it’s a very big promotion. It means I’m out of the ecclesiastical doghouse, that I’ve been forgiven for my wild-eyed radical past and accepted back into the moderate fold.”

“But you don’t sound pleased.”

“Don’t I?”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Maybe I’m still a wild-eyed radical at heart.” He popped the tortilla in his mouth and shrugged.

She pondered that. “I think you’re a man who wants to define his ministry, not have it defined for him.”

He tilted his head, as if to regard her from a different perspective. “How do you know me so well?”

Because she paid attention to everything about him, but she could hardly tell him so. She listened when he spoke, asked the right questions, thought about him far too much. None of those things could be said.

“You struggle with who you are, with what you believe. I think you always will. I just don’t think you want somebody else making those decisions for you.”

“Apparently not. They want me to go to D.C. in March and conduct a service. They’ll introduce me to the congregation, and when I leave, they’ll decide whether to invite me to become their minister. I’ve put off my answer every time they ask, citing this problem or that, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the alignment of the planets, a parishioner’s hangnail.” He smiled a little.

“Why don’t you say no?”

His eyes held hers. “Because first I have to end things with Christine.”

“Sam…” She wanted to turn back the clock to earlier in the conversation, but she wasn’t sure when it had gone wrong.

He went on, ignoring her attempt to stop him. “Then I’ll know if what I’m feeling about creating a ministry in D.C. is a reaction or the real thing.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“Our relationship is over,” he said, when she remained silent. “I’ve known it for a long time, and I’m almost sure she has, too. People think she’s flighty, that Chrissy’s attention span is about as lengthy as a manicure, but it’s not true. She stood by me when no one thought she would or should. She never gave up on us. But the us we’ve both been holding on to hasn’t existed in a very long time and won’t exist again.”

“You don’t have to tell me this. I don’t know why you think you do.”

“I’m sorry.”

She reached across the table and rested her hand on his. “No. I’m not asking you to be sorry. I just didn’t want you to think that because I asked you here tonight, you owed me anything. Certainly not an explanation.”

He covered her hand before she could withdraw it. “For two people who can’t talk about this yet, we’ve already said plenty, Elisa. You know I’m leaving my fiancée and that you have some part in that, even though you’ve never done a thing to lead me on. I know that you’re running from something or someone and you don’t want any complications, much less a man who’s falling in love with you.”

She pulled her hand away. “Maybe tonight was a bad idea.”

“I don’t think so. Do you? Really?”

“You don’t want me in your life, Sam. You don’t know how badly you don’t need me.”

His tone hardened. “When will you trust me enough to tell me?”

She stood and began to clear the table. “It’s not trust.”

He joined her, piling his silverware on his plate, although she shook her head. “Then what?”

“I have dessert. Mango sorbet. It’s very good.”

Frustration showed in his eyes, in the tightening corners of his lips, but he didn’t push her. “I’ll help with the dishes.”

“You don’t have to. It won’t take me long to—”

“I’ll dry.”

In the kitchen they stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, but there was a space between them now, a carefully controlled space that neither breached.

Until the dishes were nearly done, the counters cleared and the music changed.

“That’s not Ricardo Arjona anymore,” Sam said.

She kept her voice light, as if nothing had happened. “It hasn’t been for a while. We listened to ‘Music From the Coffee Lands.’”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Now this is salsa, guaranteed to make you pay attention.”

He swung her around the moment she lifted her hands out of the dishwater. “Dance with me.”

Her breath caught; then she laughed. “Did we drink too much wine?”

“No. Dance with me.”

“Here? In the kitchen?”

“No. Come on.” He took her hand, still dripping and soapy, and pulled her through the kitchen into the living room.

“I bet you don’t have the least idea how to dance to this music,” she chided. She dried her hands on a napkin left on the table. “Have you ever danced it?”

“Can you polka?”

“You’re serious?”

“I was hopping and half-stepping around the room at Union Hall to Grand Stan Muziack and the Polkateers by the time I was eight. Rachel and I won a prize the year I was ten, which was the last year I would have been caught dead dancing with my little sister. She claims it never happened.”

“This is very different from a polka.”

“Show me.”

After the silent tension in the kitchen, this was an about-face she wasn’t quite ready for. But his enthusiasm was infectious, and she felt herself relaxing again. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He held out his arms.

“Are you sure? I could step all over you. Or worse.”

“I’m strong and brave.”

“Then first you have to get the rhythm. Come stand beside me. I’ll pretend I’m leading.”

“I’m liberated. I can follow.”

“I probably can’t. First, pay attention to the beat. Think fast-fast-slow. Move your hips a little, but only a little. Think mambo, if they mambo at your Union Hall. Fast-fast slow. Right foot back, left foot forward, knees slightly bent all the time. It’s the same for both of us, only not at the same time.” She demonstrated.

He moved to the beat with her, catching on quickly. He didn’t lumber or spring. He had a quiet natural rhythm and command of his body that was both restrained and sensual.

She reminded herself that she was a dance instructor. She took his hand and they danced together, still side by side. The song ended, and the next was a little faster and more raucous. They paused, but as the tempo picked up, they fell back into step. Then, as he continued the basics, she moved in front of him, switching the direction of her feet to coordinate with his.

“Very good.” She was surprised he wasn’t tripping all over himself.

“I’m still counting,” he said.

“You don’t look like it.” She dropped his hand, then held up her arms. “Now try it holding me. Probably just like your polka. My hand on your shoulder, your hand at my waist.”

He didn’t pull her close, but they slipped into position as if they had always danced together. The intimacy of facing each other as they moved to the sensual rhythm wasn’t lost on her. She couldn’t ignore it. She could only pretend.

“Move your arm down as you rock forward, up as you step back,” she told him. In a few beats he had the hang of that, as well.

The song was half over before she spoke again. “This would get boring, and we can’t have that. Salsa is never boring. We’ll try a turn.”

“Just watch your feet.”

“When you go back, you’ll raise your left arm, like this. I’ll do the rest of it.”

“The fun part will be watching you.”

She nearly missed a beat. “Ready?”

He lifted his arm as he stepped back, and she took the turn in three steps, ending back where she’d begun exactly when she was supposed to. “See, our repertoire has doubled.”

“Let’s try it again.”

They did, without incident. He was holding her closer now. Not close enough for her to protest, but enough that she could feel the heat of his body. She couldn’t remember dancing with a man as tall as Sam, or a man in whose arms she felt this secure. But secure was not the same as comfortable.

“There are many things we can do,” she said as another cut began and they picked up the rhythm again. “If we want to move around the floor a little, you do a half turn like this.” She demonstrated. “You turn away from me. I follow one beat later, dancing in front of you.”

He tried, and she followed. “See?”

He tried again, and again she danced in front of him.

“You can do a lot of different things,” she said. “You can—”

The music had stopped. He was holding her tighter now. He gazed down at her. She couldn’t make herself move away, and when he kissed her, she was ready.

She slipped her arms around his neck. As he pulled her closer, her body sank into his, no distance, no barriers, no restraint. The feel of his lips and touch of his tongue weren’t a surprise. She had known how they would taste, known how he would kiss her and how her body would respond. She was flooded with sensation, as if she had been paralyzed and now each limb throbbed painfully with life. The sensation was excruciating. The sensation was glorious.

He wound her hair in his hand. She thought his fingers were trembling against her back and waist. She could feel herself shaking deep inside, as if this kiss, a mere kiss, was a prelude to something darker and uncontrolled, a blatant sexual response that had lain dormant inside her so long she had almost forgotten its existence.

“Sam…”

She wasn’t sure which of them pulled away first. He took her hands, as if to keep her from running away. There were no words to express what she was feeling.

“Christine is coming the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend.” His voice was low, deep with feeling. “I’ll talk to her then. This isn’t something I want to do on the telephone.”

“Don’t talk to her because of this, not because of tonight.”

“Don’t even try to tell me you don’t feel something.”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. You’re not listening. I can’t have a relationship with you. I may never be able to.”

“Tell me what’s going on!”

She tugged her hands from his. “I can’t do that, either. And if you keep asking, I’ll have to leave, Sam. Please don’t ask again.”

It took him a moment, but as she watched, he understood the scope of her resistance. “You would leave Toms Brook? Because I want to know who you are?”

“I should have left already,” she said softly. “I may have to leave anyway. But don’t
make
me leave because you think you’re falling in love with me.”