Promise Me A Rainbow
Read Promise Me A Rainbow Online
Authors: Cheryl Reavi
“Catherine
. . .”
She looked up at him, her dark eyes huge and filled with pain.
He didn’t know he was going to do it, so he gave her no chance to object. He suddenly put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. He could feel her resistance, but he didn’t let go.
“Joe—”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, his voice soft against her ear. “You’re a tough guy, right? You don’t need anything from anybody. Well, maybe
I
need this, Catherine. I was worried, okay? Maybe it makes
me
feel better.”
“Catherine.”
He didn’t mean that she should stop crying; he didn’t mean anything. He only meant to say her name because he thought it might help. He only meant to nuzzle the softness of her neck because she was warm and clinging and because she felt and smelled so good to him.
So good
.
“Catherine . . .” he said again, his arms tightening around her in a way that left no doubt in either of their minds as to what he was feeling.
She tilted her head back, her eyes closed, to experience whatever he wanted to do. Her fingers dug into his shoulders because her knees had gone weak. She didn’t want to think. She wanted only to feel. His fingers hooked into the front of her blouse, trembled as they strained to touch her skin. Several of the buttons came undone. She felt the warm moistness of his mouth, the delicate tasting of his tongue, and, deep inside her, where she had thought of herself as irrevocably and perhaps conveniently dead, a welcome pinpoint of desire began to grow. And burn hot.
by
Cheryl Reavis
Bell Bridge Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-145-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-129-6
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 1990 by Cheryl Reavis
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
A mass market edition of this book was published by Berkley in 1990
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Cover design: Don T.
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo credits:
Cover Art: chair and sand (manipulated) © Nikolay Dimitrov | Dreamstime.com
Skyline(manipulated) © Paul Lemke | Dreamstime.com
People (manipulated) © Macsim | Dreamstime.com
Ocean and sky(manipulated) © Bosenok | Dreamstime.com
:
Mmpr
:01:
To Richard, for making me believe.
Dr. Thomas F. Clark of Davidson, North Carolina, creator of the real “Daisy and Eric.”
Near Riverfront Park, Catherine Holben stopped to buy a gnome, telling herself that she merely wanted to get in out of the rain but knowing that it was the sculpture in the window that drew her inside. She passed the shop every weekday afternoon on her way to the bus stop and while she had often looked into the artfully cluttered window, until now she’d had no real inclination to buy.
According to the small hand-lettered sign that rested at its feet, the gnome was called Daisy, and it cradled a gnome-child named Eric against its breast. Gently smiling Daisy and almost sleeping Eric, amid the jumble of collectible Hummel figures and David Winter cottages and Emmett Kelly clowns. DAISY AND ERIC in carefully executed calligraphy on the sign. And below that, the word RETIRED.
She stepped up to the door, reading the embellished gold-leaf lettering on the glass: THE PURPLE BOX. And below that, CURIOS. The shop seemed to be empty, and she expected a bell over the door to jangle when she entered. Indeed there was a curling bracket for just such a bell above her head, but the bell itself was gone.
She took a moment to allow her eyes to grow accustomed to the dim light. She was wet with rain, and she was immediately enveloped by a wonderful texture of smells: bayberry candles and rose-petal potpourri; chocolate; and ancient, oiled wood flooring that squeaked when she walked on it. The place reminded her of something, and she frowned with the effort to remember. Something in her childhood perhaps, because the display cases appeared to be the original ones, made of heavy wood-framed glass. It was difficult to tell precisely what line of merchandise the owner sold here; there was such a conglomeration of things. She could see crocheted lace collars and rows of silver spoons and brightly colored silk scarves in the display case nearest to her. And purses. Black and gold and silver-sequined evening bags. And for the most part the entire store was subtly lit by what looked like Tiffany-style lamps, each with a small white price tag dangling from the shade. She looked upward. Two overhead lights hung from the high ceiling, but they were too far away to be of much use to a browsing customer.
But she wasn’t browsing; she knew exactly what she wanted and why she wanted it, for all her rationalization about inclement weather. She looked around her for a clerk, hesitant to call out for someone who might be standing nearby in this shadowed Victorian attic of a place.
“Hello?” she said after a moment.
An elderly woman promptly came in from the back of the shop. “There you are,” she said, as if she’d been expecting her. The woman wore rimless spectacles and a large amber brooch on her formidable but tailored bosom. She was neat and stout, exuding a confidence reminiscent of matronly first-grade schoolteachers who always have everything well in hand. “I’ve wondered if you’d come inside. I’ve seen you looking in the window. Is there something I can show you?”
“The sculpture. I think they’re gnomes—Daisy and Eric.” Catherine felt herself prattling. There was only the one gnome sculpture, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t look at it if she wanted. She waited while the woman went to the window to get it, feeling guilty and sly. If she were still married to Jonathan, he would see it as a morbid self-indulgence, as some kind of primitive throwback to fertility icons, a preoccupation with her inability to conceive. Jonathan was not given to preoccupations. He cut his losses and moved on.
She took a deep breath as the woman set the gnomes gently on the display case.
“Do you collect these?” the woman asked.
“No. This is the first one I’ve seen.” She reached out to touch the gnomes, noting again the pleasant feeling that looking at them gave her. There was a small foreign coin embedded among the daisies and leaves in the base.
“You’ll find it a bit expensive, then. This mold has been retired. I should warn you, there’s no such thing as owning one of these works. Once you’ve bought one, you’re hooked.”
She gave the woman a token smile and inspected the gnomes more closely, turning the sculpture around to see the back. She read the price tag, feeling the woman’s eyes on her. It was more than “a bit” expensive.
“The coin there is a British three-pence—so it’s one of the early castings,” the woman went on. “The ones cast later have a coin from Holland.”
“The coin . . . is it for good luck?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps. As I understand it, one never knows with these creations. I seem to recall one of the gentlemen gnomes having a coin early on, and then he didn’t in later castings—because the rascal spent it!”
Catherine let herself smile genuinely this time, pleased that she hadn’t grown too bitter to appreciate a bit of whimsy. In the past three years she had seen herself as being nearly consumed by the obsession to have a child, an obsession that fed on each cyclic failure, month after month. Now she would have believed herself resigned to her childless state—if she weren’t standing here trying not to buy this particular sculpture.
“They’re modeled after real people, you know,” the woman said. “Most of the collection is. I think that’s why buyers are so drawn to them. Of course, you’d have to go to an authorized dealer to see the current pieces. I’m selling this one for a friend.”
“The price is firm?”
“Oh, yes, I’m afraid so. As I said, the mold has been retired. The value of the piece will appreciate. In the long run, it’ll be worth more than you pay now.”
Catherine looked at the sculpture again. The woman was right. One did feel drawn to it, or at least she felt drawn to this one. It had been a long time since she’d simply wanted something, something that was within her grasp, something with but one redeeming quality—that it gave her pleasure.
“Do you need to think about it for a while? I could hold it for . . .” The woman shrugged. “Twenty-four hours?”
“No,” Catherine said. She had never been someone not able to make up her mind, and she wasn’t married to Jonathan anymore. Self-indulgent or not, she wanted the piece. “That is, if you’ll take a charge card.”
The woman beamed. “My dear, we aren’t as old-fashioned as we look. We’ll take anything you’ve got, as long as it isn’t revoked or expired. But there’s one thing I’d like to do. I’d like to keep your name and address on file here if that’s all right—in case the owner should want to buy it back from you. I believe he’s only parting with it because he needs the money. Would that be all right?”
Catherine didn’t answer. She followed the woman along to the cash register, her mind filled with the sudden image of some sad, elderly man mourning the loss of his gnomes.
“He hasn’t asked me to,” the woman added quickly. “It’s just something I thought I’d do for him—just in case. One has to be so careful with men. I could have bought it myself, but it would have made things awkward for him. He’s very proud. Would it be all right to keep your name and address here? I wouldn’t give it out to anyone else.”