Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

“Getting warmer,” Troy murmured, intimately cradling her. Helplessly she began to rock against his hand. “What I want,” he whispered as his fingers stroked her, and her breathing became whimpers, “I want you to look at me.” His fingers slipped into her body…slowly, gently…a lightning bolt, tearing her apart.

“Open your eyes…look at me.”

Somehow she did, and found his eyes like beacons in the darkness. Beautiful eyes… She clung to them desperately, while his fingers pushed deeper, probed for her body’s center, searched, it seemed to her, for her very soul. Clung to them while her world, her reality, her heart was shattering into a million pieces, and her body dissolving into shuddering, throbbing chaos in his hands.

“Now…say my name. Say my name.”

“Troy! Troy…”

February 4, 1978

Dear Diary,

Well, it’s out now. Colin confessed. He says he didn’t mean to, but I guess yesterday he got in a big fight with his parents-about me, of course-and he didn’t like what they were saying about me, and the baby, and all, and anyway, he just blurted it out that it’s his baby, too.

I’m not as sorry as I thought I would be. It was getting pretty lonely there for a while. It’s pretty neat, actually, having somebody to share things with. Like, today Colin came over and I let him put his hand on my stomach so he could feel the baby move. I told him I think it’s a boy. He says he thinks so, too.

I’ve been thinking that maybe it won’t be so bad after all, marrying Colin. He is my best friend. At least he understands me, and I know him better than anybody else. And we can still go to college, at least Colin can. The judge says he will help us until he finishes school-I don’t know if that includes medical school or not, though. It seems like that takes an awfully long time. Our baby will be ten years old by then. And I will be twenty-seven-almost thirty.

Thought for the Day: I guess I am probably not going to make it to California after all.

On Monday morning Troy left Charly making local calls on the phone in the motel office while he and Bubba went across the highway to use the pay phone at B.B.’s Barn. Half an hour or so later they met back in number 10 to compare notes.

“My father is better,” Charly said, getting the most important question out of the way first. “I talked to him for a few minutes. He sounded pretty groggy, but he says they might start running tests tomorrow, and that they should know about the surgery by the end of the week. Then I called Aunt-oh, boy, it seems funny calling her that now, you know it? Aunt Dobie? I mean, she’s my stepmother! Wow.” She gave a low, bemused laugh and shook her head. “That’s gonna take some getting used to. Anyway, I talked to her-she’s at the house. First thing she asked me was if I’d showed the diary to Cutter. You know how she is-tact isn’t her strong suit.”

She took a breath and turned away from him, pushing her hair back with both hands, leaving her face unguarded for a moment, and vulnerable as a child’s.

“You going to?” Troy asked softly. All morning he’d been watching, wary and uncertain, for some sign, some indication of where she meant to go with this thing, whether she meant to fight for her son or give up the battle. Knowing it wasn’t just her life, her future on the line now, but his, too.

Charly let the breath out in an audible hiss and, instead of answering him, said, “She wants us to stay at the house.” She made a small sound that might have been a laugh. “I asked her how Cutter felt about that.”

“What did she say?”

One corner of her mouth lifted in a sardonic little half smile. “You know Dobrina. She just went, ‘Humph! It’s not up to Cutter, it’s up to me.’ Anyway, I told her there wasn’t much point, since we were probably going to be leaving town soon.”

Troy raised his eyebrows. “That so? Thought you had a court date.”

Her gaze shifted past him to a far upper corner of the room, and she let out another of those testy-sounding breaths. “Yeah, well…that’s another thing Dobrina had to tell me. Apparently the charges have been dropped-surprise, surprise. Oh, except for the reckless driving.” She shrugged, her lips tilted wryly again. “They’re issuing me a traffic citation. There go my insurance rates.”

“You get a hold of the car-rental outfit?”

“I did-called their 800 number. The good news is, they’re going to bring me another car. The bad news is, the soonest they can get one here is late this evening or first thing tomorrow morning.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Troy. “You in so much of a hurry to leave? Thought you had some unfinished business to take care of.”

He said it in that overly careful and even tone people use when they know they’re walking a fine line with somebody and don’t want to push too hard. Because Troy thought he knew where Charly was right now-on the edge, and scared to death she was gonna slip and fall.

Last night she’d come close to taking that flying leap she’d been avoiding all her life, the one into the black abyss-the terrifying uncertainty of “I love you.” He’d thought he had her, brought her right to the edge, held out his hand and asked her to trust him enough to take the leap with him, but at the last second she’d stepped back onto firmer ground, the safer and more familiar ground of “I want…I need.”

Troy knew what it was like to jump into blackness without any idea what might be waiting for him below. He knew what it was like to freeze up in the doorway, too. He knew that pushing somebody under those circumstances was the worst thing you could do, and that for most people the paralysis was temporary, and sooner or later they’d work their courage up in their own way.

The thing that scared him was, he’d also known some people who never did get up the nerve to make that first jump.

“What about you?” she asked him, once again avoiding the question. “Did you talk to your brother? Are he and Bella-?”

Troy was nodding. “I guess there’s good news and bad news there, too. The good news is, they’re home safe and sound from Atlanta, which is by no means a given, in case you’ve never driven in Atlanta traffic. The bad news is, Mirabella’s all in a tizzy.”

“Which is not an unusual state for Bella to be in,” said Charly, dryly. “What is it this time? Aside from prewedding nerves.”

“Well…seems her sister Summer pulled in late last night.”

“Summer…yeah, I know her. She’s the younger one-the one with the kids. But she was expected, wasn’t she? I mean, she was coming for the wedding-”

“That was the good news,” said Troy, kind of scratching his head. “Bad news is, she came in drivin’ a U-Haul truck.”

“A U-Haul-”

“Seems she’s up and divorced her husband.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Yep. Packed up everything and moved here, lock, stock and barrel.”

“Bella didn’t need this.” Charly bit out the words, beginning to pace angrily. “What rotten timing. What a lousy thing to do to your sister!”

“Well,” Troy said in a placating tone, “from what Jimmy Joe tells me, she didn’t have a lotta choice. I guess her husband has a problem with gambling, or something? Anyway, he took everything-even mortgaged the house without telling his wife. Forged her signature, cleaned everything out, then split. The bank foreclosed on her, so she packed up everything she had left, including the kids, in the old U-Haul, and here she is.”

Charly clapped a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “Oh, my Lord,” she breathed. “Poor Bella.”

“Bottom line,” said Troy quietly, “she’s really needin’ me to finish that nursery for her, so her sister and the kids can have the spare room.”

“Well, of course-you should go back.” Charly was pacing again, frowning and fidgety, avoiding his eyes. “Listen, I keep telling you, you don’t need to stay here for me. You go on home. I’ll just stay here and wait for the-”

He snaked out a hand and caught her by the arm. She sucked in air as her head snapped around and her eyes burned at him like a tiger’s in the night.

“Hey,” he said softly, “come ’ere.”

“What?” she demanded in a hushed voice as he drew her slowly toward him. Her eyes were wary…still those of a tiger, but a frightened one now, ears flattened and fangs showing, ready to flee.

What do you want from me?

With pounding heart, deceptively relaxed, he guided her between his outstretched legs as he leaned, half-sitting, against the dresser. “Just come ’ere for a minute, and look at me.”

Look at me. Last night’s fear burned like old embers in her eyes, whispered like ashes in her voice. “What do you want?”

“What do I want…” Troy looked away for a moment, then heaved a sigh and brought his gaze back to her pale, tense face. “Look, you s‘pose we could manage to spend a night makin’ love and still look one another in the eye in the mornin’? Think we could do that? Jeez Louise, woman, what are you, some kind of shrinking maiden or somethin’?”

“That’s me,” said Charly with a dry laugh. “Definitely.”

He brushed her chin with his thumb, then leaned his body forward and gently, gently kissed her.

“Look,” he murmured, pulling back just enough so he could see her eyes-eyes that now held the warm, unfocused glow of confusion. Whiskey eyes. “I don’t know about you, but my feelings don’t crawl into a coffin come daylight. Nothin’ here’s changed. Yesterday I was your friend, last night I was your lover, this morning I’m still the same guy-friend and lover. Ease up, okay?” He brought his mouth to hers again, brushing his lips across the abashed beginnings of her smile. “And let’s get somethin’ straight. I’m not goin’ anywhere until you’ve got those issues of yours resolved.”