Larger than Life (13 page)

For a long time there was only the sound of harsh breathing and pounding hearts, only a trembling aftermath too precious to disturb. They clung to each other, silent and awed.

Finally, Travis turned her chin up with a gentle
hand and gazed into smoky gray eyes now oddly shy. “Dear God, I love you,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“I love you, too,” she replied.

He caught his breath, released it in a ragged sigh. “You’re … sure? I don’t think I could stand it if you weren’t sure.”

Saber traced the line of his jaw with a single unsteady finger. “I’m very sure.” She smiled slowly. “I was sure even before your patience ran out.”

“I won’t apologize for that,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her. “For the first time, you didn’t hide anything from me. Lord, Saber, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. And when I realized … you never had, either … I couldn’t believe it.”

Her mouth twisted in a wry little smile, but the silvery eyes were alight with laughter. “Thanks a lot.”

“You’re so beautiful. Have all the men you’ve known been blind and stupid?” He thought fleetingly of Preston but dismissed the thought; the very fact that no other man had known her explosive
passion told him that Preston was not a rival in that way.

“All the men I’ve known …” Saber gave an odd laugh. “It never mattered before, Travis. This time it mattered.”

“Because you love me?”

“Because I love you.”

“I
T TOOK YOU
long enough,” he murmured.

Her eyes gleamed. “I could say the same for you.”

Travis chuckled. “We’ll both have to thank Cory.”

“She told you to—?”

“More or less. Actually, she just made a suggestion I was longing for anyway.” His hand slid down over her curved hip to the jagged scar on her thigh. “I didn’t need much prompting.”

She didn’t stiffen, but he could feel her awareness of where his hand was, and he went on calmly. “Maybe Cory realized that you could never really be sure about me until you … let yourself go.”

“Is that what I did?” she asked uncertainly.

Travis gazed at her, his face tender. “Darling, you were wonderful. I thought I’d die with needing you, and you were so passionate, so strong. It was as if I held lightning in my arms.”

“I … I lost control,” she admitted, her eyes still searching his.

“I hope you’ll always lose control with me,” he said steadily. “It tore me to pieces inside to hear what you’d gone through after the crash, but I love the part of you that came alive in that hell. The courage. The incredible force you release onstage … and while loving me.”

Her gaze fell before his, and there were misgivings in the vulnerable curve of her lips. “After the crash, I needed that—that wildness to survive. And it seemed right then. But when I came home, those strong feelings frightened me and sometimes unnerved other
people. Onstage, I was reaching out to thousands, and that wildness just came out.”

“But you hid it offstage,” he finished quietly. “That’s why you didn’t try to have the scar removed, isn’t it? It was a reminder to you not to let that amazing strength escape, because you were afraid it would overpower others.”

“It didn’t overpower you,” she ventured.

Quietly, he admitted, “I wasn’t sure I could hold that vital part of you. I only knew that I wanted it, needed it. And it was like …” His voice trailed off for a moment, his eyes darkening. “Like skydiving … or walking a highwire … or daring the eye of a hurricane. I’ve never felt so completely exhilarated in my life.”

Saber released a sigh. “I felt that way,” she said unevenly. “And I thought you did, too. But I wasn’t sure.”

“You can be very sure, darling.” His arms shifted their hold, pulling her on top of him. “In fact”—green eyes shimmering with a growing intensity—“I think I’d like to dare the eye of a hurricane … again.”

“You’ll need something to hold on to,” she reminded him, breathless.

“I’ll hold the lightning,” he whispered. And he did.

“You know, you’re larger than life yourself,” Saber said thoughtfully sometime later. They had shared a shower before dressing, she in a caftan and he in a robe. They had called to the main house for dinner to be sent and were now halfway through the meal.

Travis was surprised. “Who—me? I’m just an observer, sweetheart.”

“You didn’t seem to be doing much observing a little while ago,” she murmured.

“Somebody to hold the lightning,” he said, pretending to be wounded.

Saber smiled but refused to be distracted. “Think about it, Travis. I remember you told me that heroic people fascinated you, and that it was
people
you wanted to write about. How they got where they are, and what it took to become powerful in some
way. I’ve read your books, and your insight into that struggle for success is amazing.”

“Thank you, ma’am. And so?”

“And so … how could you have the insight to understand that struggle? It’s easy to understand surface motivations, but you go so much deeper than that. And another thing.” She gazed at him reflectively. “In case you hadn’t realized it, you’re just a little too good to be true.”

Travis had to laugh at her tone. “Music to my ears,” he said cheerfully. “Play more, darling.”

“Well, dammit—you’re too good-looking, for one thing.”

He was aware that women found him attractive, but Saber’s plaintive accusation tickled his sense of humor. “Now
that’s
the pot calling the kettle black with a vengeance. According to all the studies, men tend to find very beautiful women threatening—and you are certainly very beautiful.”

Saber accepted the compliment matter-of-factly, even though hers was not the style of beauty she personally admired. “Yes, but that’s not what I meant exactly.”

“What did you mean?”

She thought for a moment, frowning, somehow convinced that the point was important. “Well, whenever someone describes me in glowing terms, they’re always talking about the stage presence. But when they meet me
offstage
, the description is totally different; they say I’m small, I’m slight, I’m fragile. They describe me as
less
offstage, and
more
onstage.”

“Because that’s when you’re most powerful,” he agreed, adding. “They see the lightning—but they can’t touch it.”

Saber nodded. “But with
you …
they touch the lightning without knowing what it is.”

He blinked. “They do?”

“I did.” She gestured slightly. “From the first moment we met, I felt the force of your personality. It wasn’t a physical or mental attraction: that came a little later. I thought, Now,
there’s
a handsome man. But something about you made me wary. It was like … like looking at a quiet volcano and
knowing
somehow that it was about to erupt.”

Travis blinked again. “Good Lord.”

She grinned at him. “Well, it was. I mean, you were very calm and patient, but I kept thinking things like ‘still waters run deep’ and ‘ ninety-something percent of an iceberg is below the surface.’ I had the peculiar feeling that my nice gentle tiger went out and ate people at night.”

He burst out laughing again. “Oh, no! My poor darling, no wonder you were wary.”

Saber was still smiling. “And the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. There you were, soft-spoken and gentle and patient. A paragon of all the virtues, in fact. You slid effortlessly into my life and I could never quite figure out how you managed to get in under my guard. I … I have a pretty strong guard. But you got in somehow. You didn’t demand—you asked. Politely. But it was unnerving to keep getting images of an iron hand in a velvet glove. A couple of times I was almost tempted to do something rash—order you to get the hell out of my life or something. Just to see what’d happen.”

“But?” He was grinning.

Sheepishly, she admitted, “But it’s not safe to
watch a volcano erupt while standing on the slopes of the thing.” When he chuckled, Saber went on, “D’you see what I meant by saying you’re larger than life? You say you saw something elusive in me, something I released onstage; I
felt
something in you, and I was afraid it was something I couldn’t control.”

“You should have turned your lightning loose on my tiger in the beginning; think of the time we’d have saved! Like I said—I was a little worried that the vital part of
you
was something I couldn’t hold.”

Saber frowned a little. “Yes, but I never equated the two. What I felt in you was … strength and power. What I was afraid of in myself was wildness. I kept having the uncomfortable feeling that I’d reverted or something after the crash. And I guess I did; God knows I survived more by instinct than knowledge.”

“Yet you thought of me as a people-eating tiger,” he reminded her, amused. “If that isn’t wild, I don’t know what is!”

“True.” Saber laughed. “I suppose I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I’ll go along with that,” Travis said cheerfully, tossing his napkin aside. “Because if you’d been thinking clearly, darling, you would have fallen instantly in love with my too handsome face and manly form, instead of waiting ‘a little later’ for that.”

“Travis?” She was trying not to laugh. “What’re you doing?”

What he was doing was picking up her bodily from her chair and striding toward the bedroom. “It’s going to storm,” he told her amiably. “You should always get under cover before a storm.”

Saber felt the strength and grace of a tiger’s vital muscles holding her effortlessly and looked into green eyes bright with a kindling fire. She linked her fingers together within the thick black hair. “I guess … tigers like storms,” she murmured breathlessly.

“This one loves the lightning.”

He kicked the bedroom door shut behind them.

Sleepily, Saber murmured. “His tiger’s heart wrapped in a beautiful soft skin …”

Travis yawned and pulled her even closer to his side. “Quoting somebody?” he inquired.

“Paraphrasing.” She paused, trying to remember the source. “Greene. Robert Greene. But
his
tiger’s heart was wrapped in a player’s hide. I think. Anyway, you’re no shabby tiger. That’s from somebody else.”

He chuckled. “You’re not making much sense, darling. Still, you do pretty well for bottled lightning.”

“Is that what I am?”

“Certainly. Although the quote I had in mind is in a totally wrong context. ‘Bring in the bottled lightning, a tumbler, and a corkscrew.’ Dickens.”

She giggled. “That kind of bottled lightning, huh? I thought you never got drunk.”

Mildly surprised, Travis said, “I guess it does fit, after all. You’re the only kind of bottled lightning I get drunk on, sweetheart.”

“I think I like that.”

“I know I do.”

More than half-asleep, she added, “Good thing I don’t get drunk on tigers. I do crazy things when I drink too much.”

“Such as?”

But she was asleep, and Travis laughed softly to himself.

The following day was something of a fascinating revelation for Travis. He had called Saber a touch-me-not flower, wary, protective; he had known and embraced the elemental lightning that had saved her life and rocketed her to stardom as a performer; he had seen fleeting moments of the fragility captured in a studio photo two years before.

What he saw now was a gradual blending of the three. She was still somewhat wary, reluctant to discuss her past—waiting, he knew, to be freed of her promise to Matt Preston. But the energy of her lightning onstage presence slowly took hold, reflected in her silvery eyes and in the emotions she seemed more willing to let herself feel. And there
was vulnerability in the tentative touch of a woman newly in love yet still tied to her past.

But he was too fascinated by the emerging portrait of his love to worry about pasts.

They spent the day together, tacitly avoiding the other guests. They saddled up a couple of horses and rode into the mountains, taking a picnic lunch with them. Saber led him to her favorite spot overlooking the valley, a perfect place for lunch and privacy—and they took advantage of both.

Happier than she could ever remember being in her life, Saber was nonetheless a bit hesitant. She was finding the present a joy and a wonder, but the past disturbed her, and the future … the future was something she didn’t dare dream of.

Travis seemed content and she had no doubt of his love, but would that love survive life in a goldfish bowl? In spite of his journalistic instincts, his interest in other lives, he himself was a very private man. And he had made no promises as to their future. She knew he was waiting for her to confide her past to him—but then what? Even if he could
accept that past, understand it, would it color their future?

Would it always color their future?

She gazed down at Travis’s sleeping face, her hands stroking the dark head that lay heavily in her lap. The horses, unsaddled, stood tethered nearby, drowsy in the cool shade; food had been consumed, remains packed away. The forest was quiet; Saber could hear only the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze.

She looked at his unaware face, relaxed in sleep. Could he ever realize, she wondered, just how much larger than life he really was? His sensitivity and understanding still astonished her. Would any other man have waited so patiently for answers she knew he longed for? And taught her so much about love while he waited?