Firefly (37 page)

"Don't cry, Julie, please, don't cry," he crooned, his words as much for himself as her, and just as wasted on both of them.  "There was nothing we could do, nothing at all.  God, Julie, please." He kissed the top of her head and held her tightly.  "Don't cry.  I can't stand it when you cry."

She tried, as hard as she could, but the tears refused to come under her control.  And the sobs shaking her whole body resisted all her attempts to still them, as though they had been too long imprisoned and now surged free.  Clinging to him, she wept for Alice and the tiny life that had so briefly breathed, but also for other tragedies, both old and new.

For Ted Sheen and Amy Morgan.  For Del Morgan, who had lost so much of himself when he lost his wife and son.  And for herself.  Never before had she cried out her own pain, her own sorrow.  Always she had wept for someone else.  But holding him, knowing that at least at this particular moment he needed her as much as she needed him, she suffered the sharpest pain she had ever felt.  The tears of self-pity obeyed no commands.

Somewhat awkwardly, Morgan stood again, without losing his hold on Julie.  The floor was too uncomfortable a place to kneel for long, and their position not far from the open back door left them visible to any of the neighbors who might heed a call of nature, including the Hollstroms.  The infirmary, away from the sights and smells and images of the surgery, offered some comfort.

He stumbled in the darkness, then found the sofa and sank onto it with a sigh.  With one hand he reached behind him to open the window and let in the cooler evening air, and Julie, still crying softly on his chest, nestled close to him.  He stroked her temple, the gesture familiar now.  But as her hands moved on his body, the unfamiliar pain blossomed.

His skin was warm and slick with sweat under her trembling fingers.  Trapped behind him, her hands became too aware of the texture of the man, but the act of freeing them only increased the awareness.  From the almost satiny smooth skin of his back, under which she could feel the firm muscles glide easily, to the tight flesh over his ribs, she drew her hands slowly, exploringly, reluctantly.  She tucked one arm between her body and his, feeling the sudden lurch of her own heart against the back of her wrist while the tips of her fingers encountered the coarse silky hairs on his chest.

He could hardly breathe.  He must not let her continue this, but he could not find the words to make her stop.  When they came, he wondered who spoke, and could not believe it was he.

He captured her hand in his and squeezed it as he said, "No, Julie.  Don't touch me like that.  Just hold me, and let me hold you, and then we'll both feel better."

If he had thought to halt the rising of his desire by stilling her hand, he found only defeat.  The fingers he clasped so tightly curled possessively around his and held his hand against the warmth of her body.  Now he, too, felt the rapid pulse thudding against her ribs.  When she turned her tear-wet face toward him and her lips moved in a tentative kiss just above his own heart, his sigh became a moan of agony.

"No, Julie, please, no," he gasped, though his body betrayed him and he could not stop her kisses or deny the effect they had on him.  "This isn't right, Julie, not now, not here."

Though he continued to murmur against their actions, he could not ignore the delightful rightness of his feelings.  She felt good in his arms, as though she belonged there, belonged to him, but he knew she didn't.  She belonged, of her own volition, to another man, and Del Morgan had no right to step between like this.  He shivered against the cold of losing her embrace, but he found the strength to grasp her arms and set her away from him.

"No, Julie," he insisted firmly when she struggled briefly to free herself.  It wasn't easy denying himself either, but he dared not take advantage of her the way others had.

She lifted a hand to touch his shadowed cheek.

"But I--"

"No arguments," he interrupted.  "It's something that happens, Julie, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, but we have to forget it, all right?"

He tried, by keeping his voice level and telling her that such moments were perfectly natural, to spare her embarrassment.  Though in the dark room he could not see the flush of humiliation that stained her cheeks, he knew it was there by the way she turned away.  Still holding her arms, he felt the tensing of muscles that signaled preparation for flight.

"Julie, we have to talk," he said earnestly.  "For God's sake, will you look at me?"

"I can't.  I just tried to tell you--"

"Listen to me first, all right?"  He halted her confession before it started.  "I know what you're thinking.  If you hadn't told me about Ted--that was his name, wasn't it?--I might have misunderstood what happened here tonight."

He talked, but she couldn't listen.  His words could not penetrate the screaming echoes that rang between her ears. 
He hates me; I'm wicked and he hates me.  I love him, but he hates me.

The breeze that had been barely strong enough to stir the curtains gusted through the room, blowing upon the unlatched door to the surgery.  Pale but blinding light poured into the dark.  Julie turned her eyes away from the open door and the scene it revealed, but neither could she bear to look at Morgan's face with disgust written so clearly in his scowl.  She lowered her gaze slowly, lingering against her will on the sharply shadowed planes of his chest where she had kissed him so wantonly.  Even now her lips hungered for the taste of him.

He stood and pulled her to her feet, too, and she forced herself to hear what he was saying.  The echoes, though fainter now, remained, like a mournful chorus.

"Go home, Julie.  Get some sleep.  And don't show up here tomorrow, do you understand?"

Horrified, she lifted wide eyes to him.  He was sending her away, not just for tonight but forever.  Her heart stopped beating and her breath strangled in her throat.

"You've been working much too hard, and an extra day's rest is the least I can give you," he went on.  "I'll stop by around noon, to see you and to take a look at your mother's arm, all right?"

With a gasp of relief, her lungs filled again, and the frantic pulse resumed its rhythm.

"I'm all right, really I am," she insisted.  "I can stay and finish here.  I don't want--"

"I said, no arguments."  God, would she never leave?  He was approaching the limits of whatever control he had, and he doubted he had much.

But I don't want to leave you,
her throbbing heart ached to tell him
, and I can't bear the thought of your being alone with what's in that other room.  Let me stay.  Please, God, let me stay.

The contents of that empty packing crate was something she could not bring herself to speak of, and the determination she saw in his eyes made her wonder if anything at all would have changed his mind.

She let him guide her to the door, first with his hand gently cupping her elbow, then without even that slight contact.  Nervously she touched the coil of her hair and found only a few strands worked loose.

"Good night, Dr, Morgan," she said quietly, not able to leave without some farewell.  "And I'm sorry."

"I thought I told you no apologies."

"I meant about Alice and...and the baby."

Guilt knifed through him.  He had been so thoroughly preoccupied by the living woman that he had forgotten the other.  And the infant.  Remembering them, he regretted the need to send Julie away.  Now he wanted her with him, needed her desperately to share the burden of pain with him as he knew she would.  At the same time, he knew even more certainly that he dared not.

"We did everything I knew how, and it just wasn't enough.  Like I said, no apologies.  We did our best."

He opened the door and she walked out onto the porch, then stopped to turn halfway to him again.

"Shall I walk you home?" he offered.

"No, it's all right.  I just...."

After a few seconds' silence, he asked, "Just what?"

Should she tell him?  So many times in the past few minutes the words had risen to the very tip of her tongue and he had either interrupted her before they quite reached the surface or she herself had bitten them back, as now.

"Nothing, I guess.  I'm so tired I forgot what I was going to say."  She looked up at him one more time and gave him a weary smile.  "Good night."

"Good night, Julie."

He held the door open, though moths flitted in, drawn by the lamps still burning in the parlor.  As much as he hated to see her go, he breathed a long sigh of relief when she walked down those two steps.  That last smile of hers almost made him take her in his arms again, and if he had, he would never have let her go.  The surge of engorging blood to his loins was unmistakable and unignorable.

At the bottom of the stairs, Julie turned, seeking one last glimpse.

She saw, clearly delineated by the lamplight, a man.

Chapter Twenty-two

He had lied to her.  No, she quickly corrected that accusation.  He had lied to Hans.  The Del Morgan standing in the front door of Horace Opper's house was no impotent drunk.  The well-worn denims clung softly to his trim body.  If the darkness and distance and tears had fogged her image of him, she might have ignored what she saw, but from no more than six or eight feet away, and with the lamplight full on him, the evidence even to her innocent eyes was plain.

He waved a last farewell, and she returned it before finally heading home.  Her thoughts were in such a turmoil that she very nearly strode past her own gate.

Katharine was waiting for her, an indication that the hour could not possibly be as late as it felt, but Julie mumbled to her mother that she was too tired to do anything but fall into bed, whatever the time.  She did not care where Wilhelm was, so long as he did not keep her from sleep.

She undressed in the dark, dropping her clothes to the floor and leaving them there.  The dress was probably ruined anyway.  Her mind, however, refused to deal with such matters as bloodstains on calico or even wrinkles that would take slaving over a hot iron to smooth away.  She could think only of Del Morgan.

Despite what she had seen with her own eyes--and she did not doubt the veracity of what she had seen--she could not think him a liar.  Not now and not on that searing Sunday afternoon when he had talked with Hans.  The only explanation, therefore, was that he had regained his manhood since then.

She collapsed, almost literally, onto the bed.  Clad in a thin cotton shift, she pulled the sheet up to her chin, for comfort rather than warmth.

He had been aroused, fully aroused, and yet he had sent her away.  As sleep stole up, weighting her eyelids and dulling her consciousness, Julie found too many justifications for his action, which had to have been the correct one.  But they all meant just one thing: he had sent her away because he didn't want her.

*   *   *

Del nailed the lid back on the box with a heart as heavy as the hammer in his hand.  He had not been able to look at the tiny form inside.  He forced himself to reach under the single thin blanket and touch the baby to verify what Julie had told him, but once certain that the boy was dead, he could not look.  He would take the makeshift cradle turned coffin down to Ard before he went home.

The worst of the mess had been cleaned, and he probably could have left the rest of it until morning, but working served another need.  When, some two hours after Julie's departure, he blew out the lamps and closed the door behind him, he felt in control again.  He lifted the crate and began the short walk to the stage depot where Ard had his other business in the back room.