The Other Side of Silence (4 page)

“I know.”

“You’re not cold.”

“No.”

“Your hands are warm.  You’re not afraid?”

She drew in a short breath.  “No,”
she said.

“I didn’t think so.”

He kissed her not on the mouth but on
the curve of her cheek near her ear, softly, tenderly, his fingers in her
hair.  She closed her eyes as the rest of her body blossomed to the caress in a
rush of blood and heat.  She knew she was wet upon the instant and was almost
ashamed, but he pressed his mouth to her temple and whispered to her.

“It’s alright, Sunny.”

So gently.  She turned her face
against his jaw and felt the tears run warm between them, not certain whose
they were.  She kissed his throat, felt the telltale ridges of his scar as yet
unexplained to her and so often invisible.  The noise that escaped him made her
knees give out.  She pushed her hands into his hair, cool and wet but warm near
his scalp, and fit her mouth to his own.  Ever so slowly he parted her lips,
the glide of his tongue like silk across hers.  Just there, now, but soon to be
elsewhere, everywhere, moving in that same fashion as she gave herself to him. 
Her breath rushed out.  This then, was the seduction, and it was easy and
wonderful.

Oh, God.

His arms tightened around her,
pulling her hard against his labor-hardened body.  She wrapped her arms across
the back of his neck, locking her hands around her elbows, and lifted her legs
to encircle his waist.  She felt him through his jeans, erect and heated
against the seam of her pants.

Damn clothes.

Turning with her, he sat down on the
top step of the porch.  With both hands he pulled her blouse over her head,
loosening it from the tangle of her hair.  The night air, though temperate, felt
chill on her near-naked skin.  Fitting his fingers around her upper arms he
held her a little away from him, his eyes moving in languid consideration. 
Beneath the fabric of her bra her nipples stood taut, her own eyes fixed upon
the generous proportions of his mouth.

“Look at you,” he breathed.  “You’re
stunning.”

“No, I’m not.”

He laughed, a crooked turn to his
smile.  “Yes you are,” he said and stood up, taking her with him, standing her
upright on the step below.  Reaching behind, he unfastened her bra and slid it
from her arms.  He had opened his mouth to speak again, but the words died
unspoken.  His gaze lifted from the fullness of her breasts to her eyes and
stayed there as he stepped down beside her.  Bending, he kissed her, once,
twice, a third time deeply, his hand smoothing the hair down her naked back,
never touching her breasts but leaving them exposed to the air, to the brushing
of his t-shirt across their peaks, to the passing of his warm breath as he
turned his forehead against her lips as though he would seek her nipples with
his mouth, and then declining.

“Sunny…”

“Roger?”  She felt so heated, so
volatile, so alive and giddy and about to lose her mind from lust that she
actually giggled when she spoke his name.  It was absurd, really, standing in
the dark with this man, half-naked and willing to give him whatever he might
ask for.  Absurd and delicious.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

Sunny grabbed her shirt from him and
her bra, then tucked her fingers into his waistband near his zipper, the tips
grazing his blood-engorged penis through his underwear.  Backing up the steps,
she led him across the porch.

“I’ve been alone a long time, Roger,”
she whispered.  “You need to know that.”

He took her hand from his pants,
holding her fingers against the soft fabric of his tee shirt. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She felt a flicker of uncertainty. 
“You won’t.”

“I don’t ever want to hurt you,” he
said.

She stopped against the door, the
handle cold in the small of her back.  “Why do you think you might?” she asked.

His deep breath stretched the fabric
across his chest and escaped in a long release.  “I don’t know,” he said.  The
expression in his eyes when he raised them to hers was unreadable, and all the
more disconcerting because of that.  Sunny caught her breath.  She touched his
mouth, opened her fingers along his jaw.

“Should we wait?” she asked him. 
“Will you wait?”

He was ready, hard as heated stone
inside his jeans and she knew she would melt and explode the moment he touched
her naked body, but his words had unnerved her. 

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he said. 
“I didn’t mean physical harm.”

“I know that,” she said.

“I just…”  Gently, he removed her
shirt from her hands and tugged it down over her head.  She pushed her arms
into the sleeves and pulled the garment to cover her torso, her bra still in
her fist.  “Despite what I said, you are right,” he whispered. “You don’t know
me.”

“And you were right as well.  I know all
I need to know of you, for now.  We’ll learn each other’s secrets over time.”

His lips twitched up into a half
smile.  He pressed his palm to her face.  “I think we should wait.  It’s not
rejection, Sunny.  It’s what’s best.”

She slipped into his embrace, breathing
in the scent of him, the heat of his body appreciable, his breadth and height
and lean, hard mass familiar, as if he had always been there, just like that, a
comfort, a kindred spirit, an excitement in the dark hours of the night.  She
turned, pressing her brow against the firm contours of his chest.  She could
feel the beating of his heart, almost hear it, or was that her own?  She didn’t
know where the sound of the one left off and the other began.

A ringing phone forestalled the
necessity of any further discussion.  He stepped away. “You should probably
answer that,” he said, turning with a lift of his chin at her cell phone
balanced on the rocker’s arm, the light of an incoming call creating an aura in
the air above the wood. Releasing him, Sunny strode over to the chair and
tipped her head to view the screen.

“It’s my sister,” she said.  “I’ll
just be a moment.”

Snatching up the phone, she said,
“Hi, Jess.”

“I can’t believe—I can’t believe—”
her sister repeated, seeming unable to get any further in the conversation.

“If you’re talking about Kathy, I
can’t believe it either, but that’s what happens when, well, you know.”

“Who told you?”

“Scott,” said Sunny quietly.

For a moment Jess said nothing, and
then she squealed, “That moron!  I just can’t believe it.”

“Jess,” said Sunny, glancing aside at
Roger, who had strolled to the far end of the porch to avoid any inadvertent
eavesdropping, “can we talk about this later?”

“In five minutes, sure.  I’m about a
mile away.”

With that, Jess hung up.  “Dammit,”
Sunny muttered under her breath, turning her back to Roger as she yanked up her
tee shirt to hook her bra at her waist before spinning it around to slip her
arms into the straps. 

“Something wrong?” Roger asked.

“My sister’s about five minutes from
here.  I wasn’t expecting her.  You’ll get to meet her though,” she added,
afraid he might think she was sending him on his way.  He came closer, smoothing
her shirt over her shoulders and down her spine.

“I should probably go,” he said.

“Roger,” said Sunny, “you don’t have
to.  I don’t think she’ll be here long.  She just wants to talk to me
about…about something I found out today.”

“I know,” said Roger.  “I know what
you found out.  That’s why I’m here.  That’s why I came.”

Sunny stared at him.  “How?”

“I ran into Scott at the hardware
store.  He told me.  And you…you’re a kind and generous woman, Sunny O’Connell,
to help him out like that.”

“Is that what Scott said?” Sunny
asked dubiously.

“No,” said Roger, “it’s what I’m
saying.  With Scott you have to listen between the lines.  It didn’t occur to
him you’d be upset.  But it occurred to me.”

She wondered if Scott had told him
about the way he’d pushed himself on her before his confession.  She doubted
it.  She had a feeling Roger wouldn’t be feeling quite so understanding of
Scott’s position if that were the case.  And it didn’t matter.  What mattered
was the fact Roger already held enough concern for her that he’d driven over. 
She hadn’t even asked him when he showed up why he’d come.  She had just
accepted his appearance without question.

Roger took her hand, turning it palm
up, pressing his thumb into the center and leading her down the porch steps and
out into the driveway where he paused, settling his other hand on the swell of
her hip.

“Roger,” she said.

“I’m going to head home,” he said in
the deep, uneven growl of his voice.  “I’ll come by again soon, maybe even fix
that window.”

“What window?” she asked, lifting her
head to follow the direction of his gaze.  “Oh, that one.” 

Revealed in the light of the new
moon, she could see the crack in the lower pane of one of the windows of the
second storey.  He brushed her hair back from her face, kissing her gently on
the lips. 

“I’ll give you a couple of days to
get used to the idea of what might be us, how’s that?  And then I’m coming
back.  You can tell me to go away at that time, if you want, or not.”

“Oh, I think the answer will likely
be not,” she said and he laughed, a low chuckle of humor.  Releasing her, he
strode toward his truck.  Her blood warmed as she observed his long, easy
stride.  She watched him climb behind the wheel, listened to the sound of the
engine starting, and then he drove slowly out of the driveway to turn left,
flashing his lights once, forgoing the obtrusive sound of the horn.  As his
taillights disappeared, Sunny walked back toward the house with her arms
wrapped around her body, fighting the chill his absence left behind.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” Sunny swore
in an undertone, rummaging through her purse.  How could she not have a phone
number for Roger?  He had said a while ago that the line had come down from the
pole at his place, so perhaps she hadn’t thought to ask and he hadn’t seen the
point in offering.  She hadn’t located a listing for him through information,
either. And did he not have a cell?  Some people didn’t.  Until a few years
ago, she hadn’t.  She hadn’t wanted to be quite that accessible, but her new
job had required her to have one. 

Swearing a bit more vocally and with
a more offensive set of words, Sunny flipped through the recent calls on her
cell again, even though she knew she wouldn’t see one from Roger there.  They
had never spoken to each other on the phone, as odd as that seemed.  Not once. 

Scott would have his number, but
she’d sooner swallow rat poison than ask him for it.  Standing in the middle of
the kitchen with her fists clenched, she decided she’d have to handle this the old-fashioned
way, with a note.  Tearing a sheet of paper along the perforated lines in a
spiral notebook, Sunny grabbed a pen and contemplated the blank sheet.  Roger? 
Dear Roger?  Hmm.  Roger would do.

Sunny scrawled a hasty explanation of
Gracie’s outrageous allergic reaction to something she’d eaten requiring Sunny
to take sole control of the buying trip to New York for the first time—the
first time!  Except for the frustration over not being able to let Roger know
she’d be gone for a few days, she was thrilled at the opportunity.   Rereading
the note, Sunny crumpled it up and threw it in the trash, penning another.  She
told him not to worry about the window, because she hadn’t had time to get a
copy of the key for him.  She told him she hadn’t run away.  She told him she
looked forward to seeing him again soon.  And then she threw that note into the
pail as well. 

The third time appeared to be the
charm.  Pleased with the wording, the information imparted, and remembering
this time to include both her home and cell phone numbers, Sunny ripped off two
strips of masking tape from a roll in the drawer and taped the note to the
glass of the front door.  “There,” she said, folding her arms to study the
missive once more.  She would have liked to add something more personal, but
was it too soon?  With the pen still in hand, she made a hasty heart in the
corner beside her name, thought better of it and tore off the edge of paper,
which she crumbled into a tiny little ball before lobbing it into the container.

Grabbing her suitcase and her purse, Sunny
locked the kitchen door, pulled it closed, and headed for her car.

*        *        *

Roger sat with his feet up on the
hewn railing of his porch, the light behind him glowing on the pages of the
book open across his legs.  He wore a sweatshirt over the tee beneath against
the chill of the night air, and hunkered down into it a bit, his head leaning
against the curved back of the chair as he read, finding himself in need of
concentration as his thoughts strayed again to Sunny.  He had told her he’d
give her a couple of days to contemplate the two of them, and was determined to
do that, but his mind couldn’t seem to stay away.  Forcing down a smile, he
returned his attention to the words he’d been trying to read for the past half
hour. 

A sudden breeze fluttered the page
and he opened his palm across it, holding the paper down until the wind had
passed.   Out in the woods he heard a tentative step through last year’s leaves
and listened for the next.  Less than two minutes later a small herd of deer
moved into the farthest reaches of the porch light, their hides pale and uneven-looking
from the winter.  He watched them cross into the shadows, feeling somewhere
deep within a certain hunter’s instinct, even though he had never hunted a day
in his life. 

Well, perhaps that wasn’t quite
true.  Disturbed as always when those types of thoughts crept in, he focused
instead on the beauty of the animals, observing the way they turned their heads
to look at him from the corner of the eye, ready to explode into leaping flight
if he moved.  Even when a cramp in his leg threatened, he remained perfectly
still until the deer disappeared from sight.

Drawing his eyes from the shifting
black shadows of the trees and fields beyond, Roger returned his attention to the
book beneath his hands.  He picked the volume up, bringing it close to his
nose, and breathed in.  Age.  He smelled age in its pages, and even after all
the years since its printing a residue of the printer’s ink.  He hadn’t found
this book at the library, in a bookstore or on-line, but had located it instead
in an upper room full of decrepit boxes in a barn that housed on its lower
floors a reputable, thriving, though somewhat disorganized, antique business.   No
doubt a great deal of the detail contained within had since been updated
through recent research and historical findings, but the accounting he located
for periods and events he’d already researched elsewhere was from a perspective
he had not previously encountered.  He’d read about the Doan brothers, a gang
of outlaws who had practiced their particular brand of highway robbery in Bucks
and Chester counties, but this book included what were purported to be
eyewitness accounts of residents in the area at the time of the gang’s activity
during the Revolutionary War.   He wondered if Sunny might be familiar with any
of this.  She’d said she enjoyed reading about history.  He would have to ask
her when he saw her again.

It was going to be a long two days.

*        *        *

At the end of the week, Sunny dropped
her bag in the front hall and stood a moment in the dark with her head tipped
back on her shoulders, exhaustion and exhilaration battling to either force her
to bed without unpacking or cause her to dance across the hardwood floors.  Instead,
she strode over to the telephone table, where she spotted the digital indicator
on the answering machine blinking.  There were only two messages, which didn’t
surprise her, as most people knew enough to call her on her cell.  She pressed
retrieve.

“Hey, Sunny-girl.”

Sunny’s eyebrows arched.  Scott
definitely should have known to call her cell phone if he needed her.

“I was calling to tell you to expect
an invitation in the mail.  You know, addressed to Sunny O’Connell f/k/a Sunny
Black
and
guest,
figuring you might come up with someone to bring along, and
what do you think happened before I called you?  I bumped into ol’ Roger and he
wanted to know if I knew how long you were going to be gone, that he’d been by
your house to see you and you’d left a note but didn’t say when you were coming
back. 
I
had no idea you’d gone anywhere.  And that friggin’ arrogant
back-stabbing prick…what does he think he’s doing?  And you?  Christ, Sunny, I
would’ve thought you’d know better.  I could tell you things about that guy—”

Sunny jabbed the delete button before
subjecting herself to anything further, instantly fuming.  Scott sounded drunk,
or close to it.  And what did it matter to him anyway if she was involved with
Roger, or anyone else?  It was, frankly, none of his business anymore.  Hadn’t
been his business since they separated and divorced, and not even before that,
if he wanted to make an issue of it.  His behavior during their marriage should
have precluded any possessive assumptions on his part.  Even so, she had kept
right on trying to make it work, until that last time.

And what invitation?  What could he
possibly be inviting her to?

Oh.

She let a long breath out through her
nose.  He was marrying her.  He was marrying Kathy.  Well, it was the right
thing to do.  Good.

Sunny drummed her fingers on the
telephone table, staring at the blinking light, wondering if it would just be
more of the same.  She hit the play button with force.

“Sunny, hi, it’s Roger.  My phone’s
fixed.  I ran into Scott and asked him if he knew when you were going to be
home.  He didn’t seem pleased.  I apologize if there’s a problem there.  Here’s
my number if you want to give me a call when you return.”

Scrambling for a pencil, Sunny wrote
the ten digits down on the corner of the phone book.  She didn’t delete Roger’s
message.  Standing in the dim illumination of the nightlight in her kitchen,
she liked hearing the sound of his voice, so she played it again, letting the
deep honey-gravel tones wash over her.  Her reaction to his voice was nearly
chemical, a catalyst for slow ignition. 

Shaking her head, Sunny played the
message one more time for good measure, and then went upstairs to get out of
her travel-rumpled clothes and take a shower.  When she came out, she picked up
the phone next to her bed, dialing Roger’s number. 

“Hi.  It’s not too late to call, is
it?” she asked, glancing at the clock when she heard his voice. 

“Sunny, hi.  What time is it?”

“You sound half-asleep.  I’m sorry. 
It’s not quite ten o’clock.  I just got in from the business trip to New York. 
I got to buy some fabulous furniture, which is always fun.  It was my first
time doing it alone, and I must say I don’t think I did too shabby a job of
it,” she grinned into the phone, then sobered a bit.
“I
would have let you know, but I wasn’t certain how to get hold of you.”

“I got your note when I stopped by to
fix the window,” he mumbled sleepily, then cleared his throat. 

“You didn’t have to do that.  How’d
you get in?”

“I climbed up onto the porch roof and
tapped out the glass, then climbed inside to replace it.  I hope you don’t
mind.”

“Mind?  You fixed my window.”  She
laughed.

“How was your trip?”

“It was exciting,” she said.  “And
lonely.”

“Welcome back,” he said.  “I missed
you.”

“I missed you, too,” she said.  And
she did, more than she had wanted to admit until that moment, hearing the same
sentiment from his mouth.  Sounds of movement on the other end of the line were
followed by the noise of the stubble of his jaw across the mouthpiece.

“What are you wearing?” he asked, his
tone more awake.

“Hey, this isn’t an attempt at phone
sex, is it?” she countered.  “Because I haven’t had the real thing yet, you
know.”

She heard his laughter against her
ear, low and rumbling and sexy as hell.  Closing her eyes, she pressed her face
closer in yearning to the cold plastic of the telephone in her hand. 

“No, it’s not.  I guess what I wanted
to know was whether you were still dressed or ready for bed.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, gaze
lifting to her own reflection in the window glass.  She looked eldritch and
pale, the twin spots of color in her cheeks evident even so.  Her combed hair
hung about her shoulders, dampening her robe.  In all honesty, her answer would
be neither.  Sitting on the edge of the bed fresh from the shower, she could go
either way, depending on what came out of his mouth next.

“Why are you asking?”

“There’s a lovely sliver of a moon I
can see through my window and the night’s crystal clear.  I was thinking you
might want to go for a walk through the fields, if you’re not too tired.”

She smiled against the receiver. 
“Give me directions,” she said.

*        *        *

The directions had seemed simple
enough, but she passed the driveway several times before narrowing down which of
the lanes leading into the woods was the entrance.  Unpaved, the narrow, rutted
lane wound between fields readied for planting.  With her window open she could
smell the turned earth, hear the crunch of her tires on stone and dirt, the
sound of a wind moving through the uppermost leaves of the trees in the
hedgerow.  Her headlights picked out eyes in the field.  Deer. 

She slowed, making sure none of them
were about to dart in front of her car, and then drove on in the direction of pale
light glimmering through the trees.  The cabin stood well back from the point
where the lane ended.  He had warned about that, said the house was an actual
log cabin some two hundred years old, small with a steeply pitched roof and a
rambling stone chimney.  The porch out front was dark, but she could see lights
through one of the windows.  Climbing out of the car she quietly shut the door,
walking slowly across
a lawn of grass and
shrubbery to the place where she thought the steps ought to be.  Her thick hair
was still damp underneath, making her shiver slightly.  As she mounted the
stairs, a shadow rose up from an Adirondack chair in the blackness beside the
lighted window.

“Hi,” said Roger.  “Any trouble
finding the place?”

“Took me a couple of tries to locate
the driveway, but I’m here.”

“I can see that,” he said and stepped
forward to put his arms around her.

She had never kissed a man before who
was so completely at ease with and cognizant of the contours of her mouth. 
With his hands on her waist, he lifted her as if she weighed nothing and set
her down on the wide porch railing, moving to stand between her parted knees,
where he went right on kissing her as if there was nothing else in the world he
wanted to be doing.  Her body temperature rose and her respiration quickened
and she pressed herself against him as his hand came down around the curve of
her buttocks, sliding her closer still to the obvious evidence of a solid
erection.