85. Sarah
Sarah
Greta relieved me for the evening after I’d sat for hours reading to Viola, who only stared blankly at the ceiling.
But what was she supposed to do? She’d only learned of Jacob’s death yesterday.
I stretched my aching back and went downstairs.
The door to the library stood cracked open, light spilling into the hallway along with men’s voices.
George and his father were discussing the holiday banquet. It was tomorrow night and couldn’t be canceled. They needed to decide who would go. I’d offered to stay with Viola, but George insisted he wouldn’t go without me. He would let me know their decision, and then I would choose my place.
Would I be able to bear putting on the dress Viola and I had chosen together?
Even without the mountain of grief hanging over us, I would’ve faced the banquet with trepidation.
I was comfortable only at the fringes, never at the center of things, except at the costume ball.
But that had been different. I’d been in disguise.
There was no disguising the weight of my grief now, not even at the fringes.
Yet, I would do what I could for George, wade into the center of things and stand by him if he needed me. No matter the cost.
I pushed out the door and paused on the front step, startled by the beauty of the night.
Stars pressed low, almost close enough to touch.
The full moon cast a broad, sparkling pathway across the lake and glimmered on the snow.
Perfect. Silent. As if the world itself were holding its breath.
Maybe it was a trick of the light or my blurred vision, but a streak crossed the sky. A shooting star?
“Please.” I sent my wish out into the dark.
I crunched across the snow to my door and slipped inside.
Mother sat with me while I ate a late dinner, and then I retreated upstairs.
My throat burned, raw from reading aloud, but it was a small pain compared to the ache in my chest. I craved nothing so much as a cup of tea and the escape of sleep.
I slouched, fully dressed, in the chair by my fire, wrapped in my favorite wool blanket with a warm cup of tea in my hands. But still, I shivered. Nothing eased the cold inside me. I watched the flames until the tea grew chill and I found myself imagining meaning in the dancing fire.
Plink. Plink. Plunk. Plink, plunk.
Thud.
My heart jumped in my chest. I shuffled to the window and rubbed a circle on the fogged glass to peer out. George stood below, waving his arms like a madman. He wasn’t even wearing a coat. What?
He spotted me and bolted toward my back door.
I flew down the back steps, heart pounding. Please, no more bad news. Please. As soon as I cleared the back door, George was there, his warm hands at my waist.
“He’s alive! We were wrong—alive.” He lifted and spun me through the glittering snow, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. His mouth opened wide, and his laughter poured out, warming me more than any fire.
I choked out a single word. “Alive?”
George crushed me to him, wrapped his arms around me, and lowered my feet slowly to the ground. “Alive. Alive. Alive!”
“Are you sure?”
George cupped my face with his hands and leaned close, filling my vision. “He’s here. Right now. I saw him. Touched him. He’s real. Alive.”
My laughter joined his. “How? How is it possible?”
George paused, twisting his lips to the side. “I’m not sure, actually. I ran upstairs, brought Viola down to see him, and then bolted over to tell you.”
“I made so many wishes for his return.”
“Me, too, Goldie.” He shivered. “Didn’t even bring my coat. Had to dig under the snow for rocks to throw at your window. But he’s here.”
I slid my hands down his chest until I found the corners of my blanket pinned between us. Somehow it was still wrapped behind my neck and shoulders. I drew it around his chest until my hands met at his back. The motion pressed us close, letting me include him in the blanket’s warmth.
George didn’t release my face. His sandalwood scent surrounded me. His face hovered inches from mine. One side of his mouth curved up. “Shines like a beacon. I’m pretty sure that’s how it went…”
Our breath mingled—a warm refuge in the frosty air. The whole world sparkled around us—the stars, the snow, George’s eyes, my heart. I couldn’t find words for the joy swelling inside me. But I didn’t need words. The same joy shone from George’s face. He felt it too.
His expression shifted. The joy remained, but his green eyes softened and grew impossibly deep. They smoldered behind half-closed lids, weakening my knees. His mouth grew serious, his lips slightly parted.
Warm hands framed my face and cupped my jaw. My breath hitched. Slow as sunrise, he ran his thumbs once, twice, across my cheekbones. It sent an impossibly deep rumble thrumming through me until my chest heaved with a need for air.
His palms slid along my jaw until his fingertips grazed the back of my neck. I shivered as his breath skimmed across my lips. So close. I couldn’t even blink. He bent his neck, lower and lower, until his lips caressed mine.
Tender and lingering.
He pulled back to gaze down at me, and I drew a shaky breath. It was too much. Too much and not enough.
His hands firmed on my jaw, tilting my head as his lips met mine again. Gentleness grew to insistence, then urgency. One hand tangled in my hair while the other held me flat against him, crushed together inside the blanket. I squeezed my arms around him, and it was not enough.
His mouth moved over mine—tantalizing, tempting, teaching. I sighed, and my mouth moved, too. Heat rushed through me. The blanket fell to the ground. My fingers found the softness of the hair at the nape of his neck and twisted into his thick waves.
And his hands moved over me, holding me closer than I had ever been to another person. And it was not enough. My heart pounded wildly in my chest.
George was kissing me.
I was kissing George.
His mouth moved to my neck, burning over the place where my pulse pounded.
I gasped, and it sounded like his name.
In a low whisper, he said, “Sarah.”
His hot breath on my ear swirled the heat around inside me. I tipped my head back, and the stars twinkled down at me, so close. I arched my neck bare before him.
His fingertips grazed soft as a lullaby across my collarbone, and his warm breath announced the arrival of his burning lips. A trail of slow kisses up my neck melted me along with the snow. And it was not enough.
I tilted my face toward him, and he captured my mouth with his.
Closer. His fingers traced feather-light along my jaw until I parted my lips.
He made a low sound in his throat, and it vibrated past my throat and down to my toes, harmonizing with every unsung note inside me in an impossibly intimate duet.
“Sarah.” His voice was softness and heat.
But something dark spun behind those pools of green.
Tightness flickered. He pulled back into himself.
Away.
Pulled free from me. Out of my arms. Took my heat with him. Cold slammed into me, sharp as a blade, slicing through my joy. He buried his fingers in his hair, hands clenching and yanking as his cheeks puffed out. “Aghh…” He stomped in the snow. “Damnation.” His voice broke with the word.
I stood frozen—silent, unmoving, cold all the way through.
An ice queen. George wouldn’t look at me.
He trampled the snow and muttered under his breath.
He noticed my blanket on the ground, shook off the snow, and wrapped it around my shoulders.
But his gaze stayed down, and he didn’t include himself in the blanket’s warmth.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have. Oh, so stupid.” He looked as miserable as I felt. “Forgive me, I…” Silence except for the snow, which sparkled so loudly, like millions of tiny bells just beyond hearing. Alarm bells.
He stood an arm’s length away. Not touching. But he had kissed me… I could take one step. Wrap my arms around him. It would only take one lurching step to reach him. But I was hollow. Numb. I couldn’t move.
He leaned toward me, hand reaching but not connecting. “Please…” Then he stepped back.
I couldn’t swallow, but somehow I croaked out the only word that could end this agonizing moment. “Friends.” It landed with a thud, the first brick in another, stronger wall.
“Friends. Yes. We’re friends.” He grasped firmly to the idea, gratefully accepting my offered escape. His lips curved into the saddest smile I’d ever seen, and he dashed away, back between our houses, disappearing into the night.
Leaving me alone but for the distant stars.
Frozen in the suffocating, silent snow.