Her Galahad (20 page)

Tess blinked. Her golden gaze moved from the cold purity of the late afternoon sky and shadowed buildings to gaze at him, in puzzled wonder. Still a million miles away, watching him as if from another galaxy—but she was listening.

He couldn't stop now. He'd break down those damn barriers of hers if it killed him. "You've got the whole Ice Princess routine down pat—the cool, don't-touch-me style's so perfectly majestic. Pity it don't impress me." He pulled her down toward him; with a high-pitched gasp she fell beside him onto the mess of grass and dirt. "This is you," he said fiercely. "You're nobody's princess, and you sure ain't Theresa Earldon-Beller. You're Tess McLaren, wife of a carpenter and carver, woman of fire and earth and sky."

The cold shell encasing her heart cracked; the woman he'd longed to see finally emerged from the remote chrysalis. Soft wild-rose color touched her cheek; rushes of warm air panted through her parted lips. Her glorious eyes, warm like melted honey, fixed on him as if he preached words of salvation to her condemned soul, offering her damaged spirit a vision of Paradise.

He leaned forward, kissing those parted lips with hard male need. "If you want to fly, mulgu, then go—do what you were born for, my lovely black-haired wild swan. I won't hold you back. But I
won't
let you freeze yourself out of the life you were meant to live. You
will
be a woman. You'll live and love and find joy. You'll find your belonging place, flying to the sky when you will it, coming home to those who love you. But you won't die cheated of everything life has to give if I can do anything to stop you!"

The shards of self-blame distancing them fell at his feet. Her arms flew around him; her trembling body pushed against his. She buried her face in his neck, gulping air in, sending it out in gentle quivering rhythm over his skin. "Don't make me your Guinevere, my Galahad, my shining knight in dark armor." Her words shivered into his soul. "I'm not worthy of the honor."

It's seven years too late to tell me that.
He smiled wryly, caressing her back and shoulders, less to soothe her than because he had to touch her. "You were never a Guinevere to me, Tess."
My goddess, my dreaming, my reality—my wild swan—my heart and soul. Never the queenly Earldon heiress, never just a maiden in distress to save.
"And I'm no one's shining knight. I didn't rescue you. I couldn't even save myself from them."

"You could have," she murmured. "We both know that. Why didn't you give them the marriage papers and cash the cheques, take the money and rim? Why suffer needlessly all those years?"

She needed the truth; but the man he'd been then, his actions, motivations and desires weren't of the heroic mould she expected of him. He shrugged. "They'd have put me inside no matter what I did. I never even considered giving them the stuff. I don't know why. Defiance maybe, or potential for revenge. Most probably it was one of my symbolic gestures. I was always big on symbolism," he admitted with a wry twist to his lips. "A kid's challenge to the Titan. A pitiful David with his little rocks fighting the mighty Goliath, hoping to bring down the giant against all odds."

"David killed Goliath with his little rocks," she said quietly.

And those words, the faith they implied, did something to him. As a tiny candle held to an ice sculpture, the slow melt of the walls around his heart began. She still held the faith. Somehow, even through all she'd lost, she believed in him. Lost in the shadows of yesterday, living only for today, seeing no tomorrow, she was healing him from within, giving him a belief in himself he hadn't known since they locked him away.

And within the depth of suffering she tried so hard to overcome, she was so indescribably lovely he ached just looking at her, holding her against his heart—

The heart he'd denied having anymore, until this moment.

Oh, God, the ice was melting, and there was no way to build up the barricades again, not with Tess near him. He knew he was falling for her again, and falling hard—but she didn't want to know. He had to stop this, for the sake of his own sanity. Yet he rasped into her hair, "I couldn't let go of us, Tess. If I gave them what they wanted, it would have felt like we never existed. I couldn't leave our love behind. I couldn't betray us, and the love we had, like that."

She pulled back, gazing at him with an emotion too painful to define, too intensely beautiful to ignore. "Oh, Jirrah," she breathed. A single tear slipped down her cheek. "It's too late for us." She buried her face in his shoulder, pressing her lips there in a timeless gesture of tenderness, of regret, of what might have been. "Nothing can change what's happened. Our lives can't be different. If only the past could be rewritten. If only the choices weren't so hard. If—"

"Yeah," he growled, lowering his mouth to hers. "If only there weren't so damn many of them. Let's forget the 'if onlys' for now. Kiss me, mulgu."

Her lips met his halfway, a kiss of earth and fire and sky as the world around them grew dark and cold. And while a city of four million people in rush hour whirled around them, making their way to buses, trains, taxis and cars, finding a way to get home, in a quiet place the souls of the dolphin and the wild black swan, two totems that could never belong to each other, connected spirits through touch with a sweet poignancy words could never give. And while they yearned for what was irretrievably gone, and dreaded what must come, they were more than content with the present moment.

Chapter 11

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R
eality intruded before long, in the form of damp ground and cool evening air swirling through the park. Tessa shivered and pulled back a little. "It's cold."

He nuzzled her neck. "I'm feeling pretty hot, actually."

She laughed, a breathless little sound. "I'm hungry."

"So am I." His heated gaze devoured her. "Somehow I don't think we're talking about the same sort of hunger," she whispered, trying to smile.

"Darn," he sighed. "Hope lives on."

She giggled, and he smiled at her. "Pathetic, isn't it? I'm reduced to such a pitiful state over you, I'm even making stupid jokes to see that beautiful smile of yours."

She dropped her gaze. "Dinner," she reminded him huskily.

"Yeah, yeah." He got to his feet, and reached down to help her up. "The woman has no soul. She talks of food when I get all deep and meaningful."

Intensely grateful for the little joke, she held on to his hand as they walked back to the car.

Driving through the side streets and back alleys of Sydney toward the Harbour Bridge, Tessa gazed out the window, filled with memories. Snaking through the ancient alleys used to be an adventure, a competition to see who'd discover the most strange or out-of-the-way store, or the most cosmopolitan place to eat— "Jirrah!" Her trembling hand pointed to the left. "Look!"

"What? Is it Beller?" he asked, his voice tense.

"No. Look!"

His gaze found the bright row of rainbow lights covering the plain white building. He smiled. "The Malaysian Wonderland. So the old place is still there. Wonder if they still serve laksa."

"Burning-hot meat soup for you, medium-hot seafood for me."

He pulled into a parking space, which, since it was a Monday night, was easily available. "Want to see if it's still good?"

"Should we?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand. She wasn't talking about Cameron finding them at this place. "It's there, Tess. We can't make it go away. We can either keep hurting at what happened to us, or we can go past it, and move forward."

"By moving backward, into the past?"

He took her hand, caressing the palm, filling her with hot, needing shivers. "By talking about something besides them, or even about finding Emily. By creating a new beginning for us, in a place that means something to both of us."

Her eyes searched his. "I don't know."

"It's scary for me, too. But like it or not, Tess, we
are
connected. We're Emily's parents. We'll always have the bond, no matter what happens with us. Can't we try to be friends?"

"Instead of lovers, you mean?"

"As well as lovers, if we can." He placed a delicate kiss on her wrist and palm, and quivering heat streaked through her like wildfire. "But I learned years ago not to cry for the moon. I'll take what I can get. For Emily's sake, we need to move forward. Kids aren't stupid. If we meet Emily and pretend to be friend she'll know we're pulling on an act." He lifted his face from her palm to look deeply into her eyes. "Let's face our past, mulgu, then we can walk into the future."

Slowly she nodded. She unbuckled her belt and left the safety of the van to where he waited for her, his hand held out. She took it, and walked with him into their time of innocence.

* * *

Like many backstreet Asian restaurants in Sydney, The Malaysian Wonderland was simple and bright, with fifties-style tables and chairs, plain white walls, linoleum floors and tacky cardboard Specials signs. The workers, university students working their way through, beamed at them, not even noticing the dirt stains on their jeans or flecks of grass on their jumpers. They sat at the gray-white flecked Formica table with red padded steel-backed chairs, ordering the same meals they'd always had.

They didn't speak until the hot, steaming soup, thick with meat and noodles, anise leaves and bean curds, was before them.

The silence was awkward. Both of them knew it was time to speak. She felt like a virgin on her wedding night, except she'd be baring her soul instead of her body.

"It's still the same," she offered, after a few mouthfuls. "It's tasty, the seafood fresh—it's delicious."

He grinned. "My eyes are watering."

"That was always your criteria for a good meal," she laughed, relieved he followed her lead. "Your esophagus must have permanent damage by now."

He laughed with her. "'Take what you want, said God, and pay for it.' I love chili."

He began the real conversation when they'd almost finished their meals. "I think the best part of being in lockup was there were plenty of my people inside to look out for me. Especially the lifers, who knew the dangers. One was a sort of cousin of mine. Alfie and his mates kept the worst nightmare of a man inside the prison system from getting to me."

Tessa spluttered on the last of her laksa. She wiped her face with a napkin, her eyes locked on her enormous patterned ceramic bowl, unable to look up.

She felt her face being lifted. "Empathy, Tess," he said softly. "Look at me."

Trembling with horror she obeyed—but she saw only warmth and compassion in his eyes. "You didn't think I understood, did you? I was the new boy inside, young and pretty—but Alfie and his mates stopped the dogs getting to me. I got in a cell with Boon, one of the good guys, devoted to his wife and kids. I was lucky."

"Yeah," she muttered, her jaw working with emotion, long repressed, bubbling its way to the surface. "You were lucky."

"But you weren't." He laced his finger with hers. "You had no one to turn to. Locked in a cage, hounded, forced to give your private self to someone you hated on a daily basis. It must have made you so angry, helpless to escape from him."

She exhaled short bursts of air through her mouth for a few moments, not trusting words. She withdrew her hand in a cold, calculated move. "You were doing well until the last sentence. I almost believed you understood how I felt. But you don't and you never will." She pushed her bowl away, her hands trembling, eyes stinging. "Don't patronize me with your deep and meaningful psychoanalysis on anger and helplessness. You were locked inside the prison physically, outnumbered by them. You couldn't stop them from hurting you without help. I could have walked out anytime, but I didn't. I wasn't helpless. I was just a weak fool."