He ran a hand over her hair and murmured words of comfort, letting his lips brush the top of her head. Pins fell loose and her hair tumbled freely down her back in glorious waves. Matt tangled his hands in it, lifting it, smoothing it, all the while whispering to her as her sobs faded to soft weeping, then sniffles and ragged breathing. Without letting go of her, he reached in his hip pocket for a handkerchief, he tipped her head back and dabbed at her tears and red nose.
“Better?” he asked.
Sarah nodded, feeling embarrassed and foolish and so very grateful to him. She dodged his steady gaze, staring instead at the big damp patches where her tears had stained his shirt. “Thank you,' she murmured, her voice sounding rusty and low. Tm very sorry—”
“No.” Matt pressed an index finger to her lips to silence her apology and tilted her head back again so she had no choice but to look at him. Her long lashes were damp and spiky. Her eyes seemed magnified by the sheen of moisture in them, and so blue they made the autumn sky pale in comparison. “Don't be sorry. You needed to cry. I'm a big advocate of people crying when they need to. I'm thinking about writing a paper on it for the New England Journal of Medicine.”
“Really?” she said, trying to give him a dry smile that trembled a little too much to work.
“Really. You know what else?”
She shook her head.
“I&m going to kiss you.”
Having made the announcement, he went ahead and fulfilled the promise, pressing his palms to her cheeks and bending his head down to hers. Their lips met slowly, softly, with the gentlest pressure. Matt sipped at her as if she were a rare fine wine, tasting and savoring. Her mouth was pliant beneath his, warm and salty with the taste of her tears. He deepened the kiss a degree, changing the angle slightly, pulling her a little closer. She slid her arms up around his neck and her breasts flat tened against the solid wall of his chest, sending desire shooting through his veins like adrenaline. Heat seared him just beneath the surface of his skin and he deepened the kiss a litde more.
Sarah gasped at the first intrusion of his tongue, unconsciously taking him deeper into her mouth, then moaned softly in her throat at the thrill of the intimacy. Her fingers clutched his shoulders, slipping against the smooth black leather of his jacket. She wriggled closer to him, loving the feel of his body against hers, loving the scent of him and the taste of him. She let him explore her mouth, hesitantly meeting his tongue with her own.
Everything else receded but this. Her inner turmoil, her family, the temporary aspect of Matt's presence. The world itself spun away, leaving just the two of them and this moment and this kiss.
And then it was over.
Matt drew back slowly, staring at her with a slightly puzzled expression, as if he'd gotten something he hadn't expected and wasn't sure why. His hands sifted through her long hair, drawing it over her shoulders. The ends fell in thick curls to brush at her thighs.
“Sweet heaven, you're pretty,” he murmured.
Sweet heaven. That was where he had taken her—to the edge of heaven on earth. And as Sarah took up the reins and guided the horse back onto the road, she wondered if she would ever know what it was to go beyond that edge.
Sarah found a million things to do the instant they reached Thome-wood. She had to see to the unhitching and care of her horse, unloading and putting away the groceries, double-checking the guest rooms and reservations, preparing the snack of cheeses and grapes and French bread that would be offered to the guests upon their arrival.
Matt suspected she was avoiding him again, having been shaken a little by the kiss they had shared, but he didn't press the issue. Hell, he had been shaken by it as well. Shaken right down to his lifelong bachelor toes. He hadn't come here looking to get knocked for a romantic loop by an innocent young maid like Sarah. He wouldn't have even believed it was possible. He was a mature, experienced man, a man who knew the score, a man who had his life neatly categorized. Now he felt as if the stuffing had been pulled out of all his spiffy little pigeonholes. The sturdy ladder of his priorities had collapsed, and the only sure thing rising out of the dust was his desire for Sarah Troyer.
Pleading a genuine case of fatigue, he left Sarah to her fussing and went upstairs to crash. He was asleep the instant he hit the bed, not even noticing when Blossom nosed her way into the room and made off with one of his shoes.
He dreamed about the ER at County General, seeing again the face of the young man whose knife wound he had patched up not two months before. A Vice Lord. Matt knew by the black-and-gold colors and the tattoo of a five-pointed star on the young man's left bicep. He had learned to read gang signs and fashions like a cavalryman must have learned the traits of the various warring tribes of Plains Indians in the last century. The young Vice Lord had been brought in holding his ribs and spitting up blood. Two gurneys down, a junkie was rambling incoherently, her mind invaded by demons conjured by crack. Across the room a member of a rival gang pulled a gun and started shouting obscenities. A Disciple by his blue-and-black uniform and the fact that everything about his attire emphasized the right—-his beret was tilted to the right, his belt buckle hung loose to the right, his right side pants pocket was turned inside out. There was an eruption of violence, an explosion; images tumbled and swirled, all colored in blood and accompanied by shouts and screams.
And then he was sitting in a buggy, holding Sarah and listening to the wind, the silence so abrupt, so absolute it hurt his ears.
Matt blinked himself awake and lay staring up at the ceiling. It didn't take Sigmund Freud to figure that one out, he thought. Sarah was a metaphor representing innocence and purity, a tangible symbol he could hold and protect and control in a way he couldn't begin to do with the raw ideals. They were like smoke, slipping through his frantic grasp, swept away by the fetid winds of urban decay. But Sarah was real, living, shining, sweet.
Well, that was all a nice, neat analytical explanation, wasn't it? Why then did clinical understanding do nothing to dilute his deep need to see her and touch her and hold her? Wanting a woman was nothing new to him, but this was something different, something that went beyond symbolism. He wanted Sarah Troyer with something inside him he had never before encountered. Trying to figure it all out left him dizzier than his concussion had.
From somewhere below came the muffled sound of voices. The guests had arrived, en masse by the sound of it. Matt eased himself out of bed and padded barefoot in his underwear to the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face and ran a comb through his hair. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a soft loose sweater in shades of black and sapphire, wondering wryly if anyone would mistake him for a member of the Disciples. After giving up the search for his errant Loafer, he settled for beat-up sneakers and headed for the foyer and the source of the cacophony.
The group looked like the assembled cast of a farce, Matt thought as he descended the stairs slowly, having left his cane behind. There was Sarah in her plain uniform and bright wide eyes, eager to serve and to please; a chubby couple in their fifties, outfitted in color-coordinated tourist garb, complete with cameras hanging from their necks like giant pendants; and a woman who looked to be some kind of aging beauty queen with unnatural-looking russet hair piled on her head like cotton candy, enormous sunglasses perched on her nose, enormous breasts, and a pile of dead foxes draped around the shoulders of her trim ivory wool suit.