Corinne

 

His words fell like hot lead into my ears. How dare he! How dare this man who had met me only a few nights ago presume to know anything about me?!

 

I mastered my feeling and spoke calmly. "Well, thank you for that opinion, and may I say how completely full of horseshit you are."

 

Asa shrugged carelessly. "You asked."

 

"Two nights ago you made me a woman," I said hotly. "Now you want to turn me back into a little girl?"

 

Asa shook his head. "There's more to being a woman than what we did. Sad to say, there are little girls all over the world who've been subjected to that. And there are women having it daily who'll never grow up. People put too much stress on sex. It's a pretty meaningless thing."

 

"Not to me, it wasn't." Against my will, hot tears were rising in my eyes. It had to have meant something to him!

 

"Well, you started with the wrong person," admitted Asa. "There are plenty of nice, decent men out there who read all the meaning and emotion into sex that you do. Marrying types. I've been with too many women for it to mean something. If it meant something, then that would make me a horrible person."

 

"With the right person, it means something!" I insisted.

 

"And I hope you find him."

 

"You're telling me you felt nothing when we made love?"

 

Asa pulled a face. "We didn't make love. In all of history, those words have never been applied to sex in a storage closet."

 

He hadn't answered the question. Right or wrong, I grasped hold of that and believed in it—he hadn't answered because he wouldn't lie. It had meant something to him.

 

"Why did you ask me here?"

 

"To say thank you."

 

"You brought me to a waterfall and made me a picnic," I pointed out. "Joseph Hartman helped you more than me; does he get a picnic?"

 

The flicker of indecision that crossed Asa's face gave me more hope.

 

"Look," I continued, "I don't know why you insist on denying what happened between us, but if you must, then go ahead. We both know that you'll keep finding stupid excuses to meet me, and sooner or later that's going to lead somewhere."

 

Asa tried to scoff but I could tell I'd touched a nerve.

 

"How about we put the question of who I really am to one side?" I went on. "And turn it back on you."

 

"What?"

 

"You think that, deep down, I'm a little goody two-shoes daddy's girl? Well, wouldn't that type of girl's dream date be a picnic by a waterfall?"

 

Asa looked trapped and I decided to let him off the hook.

 

"Stop trying to analyze me. You don't know what it was like growing up as the disappointment."

 

Asa shrugged. "Maybe I don't know you that well, but I doubt your dad thinks that."

 

"He wanted me to be a lawyer. Can you picture that?"

 

"What did you want to do?"

 

"Be an artist."

 

Asa nodded. "I bet Brian didn't like that. I bet he laid down the law and forbade you from taking classes, or studying art. I bet he wouldn't even let you have paints in the house."

 

If this conversation was becoming a little battle, scoring points off each other, then that was a point to Asa. Of course my dad hadn't done any of those things. He had paid for art supplies and classes, and he had dutifully 'appreciated' every painting I brought home as I strove to get better. He'd done everything a good parent was supposed to do, except wanting me to pursue it. I guess he worried.

 

"I know he loves me," I said, awkwardly. "But he loves me so much that he wants what's best for me all the time. And to him, 'best' means what he wants, what he thinks will make me safe and give me a good solid career. It's love that feels like a constant pressure pushing down on me. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

 

Asa shook his head. "No. I really don't. Sounds awful."

 

Something about the tone of his voice told me that in a 'who had the worst childhood competition,' I would lose.

 

"I love art." It was strange how easy it was talking to him. "But it was also my little act of rebellion. My chance to be something other than what Dad wanted. To be imperfect. So I ran off to the city to find my path. That's where it all went to hell. Repeatedly."

 

Asa absorbed this. "Let me take a guess: you met a lot of artistic rebels there, and you wanted to fit in with them. But you didn't. Because they really wanted to rebel (because that's something those pretentious assholes think matters), while you just wanted to be accepted as less than perfect."

 

That was irritatingly near to the truth. If I'd thrown myself into the scene—the wild parties, the all night drinking, the mind-expanding drugs and uninhibited sex— then I would have had people around me to help when things went wrong. But I didn't want that stuff, and so when I had nowhere to live, I had no friends to turn to.

 

"I'm very bad at being a rebel," I admitted.

 

"Then be yourself," Asa reiterated.

 

"I told you ..."

 

"You don't know who you are," nodded Asa. "Okay, try this: Think of one thing that has made you feel like yourself. One thing you've done that is totally Corinne. Build from that. One thing. Name it."

 

"Loving you." I said it without thinking but it was absolutely true. Loving Asa was the only thing that felt real and right. Being with him was the only time I had felt like myself, even when I had been pretending to be someone else.

 

Asa accepted this with an unreadable expression. "Well," he said finally. "I guess it's a starting point."

 

"Sorry." I didn't know why I said it, but it seemed the thing to say.

 

Asa shook his head. "Don't be. I mean ..." He shook his head in frustration. "Dammit, if things were different—if your father wasn't trying to arrest me, if I wasn't ten different kinds of bad for you— maybe ..." He trailed off as he looked into my openly hopeful face. "You're like nothing I ever look for in a woman, and everything I wanted and never knew."

 

Like a lot of girls who struggle with men and relationships and sex, I read a lot of romance novels, but I had never heard or read or imagined anything more romantic than that.

 

"We could still make it work," I breathed, desperate to believe it. "I wanted to go back to the city anyway. If we went together, we could ..."

 

"You don't just walk away from War Cry," said Asa grimly, cutting me off. "And if they didn't follow me, then there are others who would. I've made enemies, and some of them wouldn't hesitate to target my loved ones. Which is one reason I don't have loved ones."

 

"But ..."

 

"No buts."

 

"We could start fresh."

 

This time he seemed to consider it, and I thoughtI could see in his eyes a dream of what might have been, if only his life had gone differently. But in the end he shook his head.

 

"It's not just what I've done, Corinne. It's who I am. And you can't do the things I've done without becoming something very dark indeed. You're a good girl, try as you might to otherwise be. Pretending to be something you're not changes nothing. I'm a bad man. I could trade my leathers for a suit and tie, but sooner or later that stuff is going to come out, and I don't want you around when it does."

 

"I don't care!" I implored him.

 

"And that's what makes it worse. You'd let me drag you down to my level. And I won't let that happen. If I can do one good thing in my life then it'll be to keep you out of it." He stood. "This whole thing was a bad idea. I should have known better."

 

"Well, I'm still glad we did it," I said, still the quiet little rebel.

 

He gave me a half-smile. "I am too. But tonight is it."

 

I stood up to face him. "Then we'd better make it count."

 

I kissed him.