Chapter Fifteen
Darcy had been mid-gush about the adorable spotted fawn when she realized Micah had gone to his knees at the edge of the pond, his sight turned inward. His palms were pressed into the grass as if he was trying to feel the earth’s heartbeat.
She reached for him, pulling back before making contact. Something about this place had taken him away, and she didn’t want to bring him back yet.
“My mother was kneeling with me here once when I was about ten,” he said. “I can still smell her perfume. I can still hear her scream when the frog I was showing her leaped into her hair.” Micah laughed, but it held the raw edge of grief. “I always thought I came here to forget them, but I was wrong. I came here to remember. It was the only place nobody would see.”
Keeping silent, Darcy knelt by him, brushing loose strands of his hair over his ear so he’d know she was there with him.
He picked up a fist-sized stone, rolling it over in his hands before positioning it in his palm with two fingers wrapping around it. “Fernando liked baseball. I’d forgotten that until now. He used to sneak into our tent after his father had… He’d bring food hidden in a small satchel under his shirt. He fed me with his own two hands. He was skin and bones, and still he fed us. Probably from his own supper plate, or food he’d stolen, knowing his father would beat him if caught.”
Micah’s lips curved into a whimsical smile. “When he told me he liked baseball, I asked him to bring me something round, and I’d show him how to throw a ball. He cried the first time, the very next night. The look on his face…you’d think I’d offered him a ticket to heaven.”
He was talking about Fernando on his own, with the depth of emotion a father would show a son. He loved him, utterly and completely. Darcy’s mind wandered down a dark road to the only tragedy that would have caused Micah so much heartache. Fernando hadn’t made it out of that camp, and Micah thought it was his fault. It couldn’t have been, though. She wouldn’t believe it.
She swallowed the tightness from her throat, stunned at the private agony he was laying bare for her to see. That was it. The man behind the walls had come out at last, and the man he showed the world probably wasn’t even consciously aware of it. She wouldn’t look away, not now, not ever.
“You offered him a taste of happiness, Micah,” she whispered, “even if it was only for a little while. You offered him the chance to be a kid, and for him, that would have been a rare and wonderful gift.”
He rose to his feet with grace, straight up. His gaze scanned the trees before it landed on her. His pupils dilated as he reached out and brushed her hair back with his fingertips, as if surprised to find her there.
She folded her fingers over his, drawing his hand to her mouth and kissing his palm. “I’m here.”
“Will you dance with me?” Taking her hand in his, he looped his free arm around her back and pulled her close.
“What, here? There’s no music.” Although she didn’t understand what was going on in his mind, she let him move her body to a soft melody flowing from his lips. It was a haunting tune, full of emotion. She tucked her head under his ear, her lips pressed into his throat, letting herself get swept away in his arms.
The forest disappeared. It wasn’t grass beneath her feet, but a ballroom floor, and she was a princess in the arms of her prince. “That was beautiful,” she said when he finished. “What song were you singing?”
“It’s an old Venezuelan folk song, a favorite of my mother’s. Dad would come home sometimes without saying a word to anyone. He’d put one of her albums on his old record player, twirl my mother into the middle of our living room, and by the end of a song, I could see the stress vanish from him.” He gave her a gentle push outward and twirled her. Darcy laughed as he brought her back to him hard, grazing her temple with his lips.
“For years, I wondered what magic their dancing held, so one day I asked him. He said, ‘Son, there are times when life feels a little like war, and all you want to do is hold your love for a few minutes. But you don’t want her to think you’re needy, because you’re her protector. So, when I need an excuse to have your mother in my arms, I ask her to dance. It won’t matter if she’s angry or sad or fed up with me; when I offer her my hand, she takes it, and the ground I walk becomes solid again. You’ll understand one day.’
“The next day, I asked my mother to teach me how to dance. We danced at the bus stop before school the day that truck lost its brakes and took them from me.” Micah’s arm tightened around her back. “I always wondered why they disappeared for an hour or two afterward. It wasn’t until I was older that I knew.”
“They were finishing their lovers’ dance.” Darcy leaned back far enough to see his expression, her hand coming to his nape. It wasn’t only sorrow she found in the lines of his handsome face, but a fierce joy, too. She kissed him softly, desperate to ask a thousand questions about his parents, but it wasn’t the time. She felt deeply privileged to be with him here in his sacred place.
Micah brushed kisses along her jaw, nuzzling her ear, before giving her a tight squeeze. “We should probably get back. Navigating this lake after dark is a pain in the ass.”
They walked hand in hand back to the kayaks. He talked about the foundation and its upcoming fundraiser. The farther they got from the beaver pond, the more impersonal it became, like silence filler instead of the heartfelt conversation they’d been enjoying. Regret taking hold. She wasn’t sure how to assuage his fears of her writing a damning article without sounding defensive and making it worse.
After they tied up the kayaks at the dock at the cottage and got out, she noticed Micah rubbing his arm again as he had in his office.
“Come with me,” she said, taking his good hand. “I’ll see if I can sort that out for you.”
He frowned. “Sort what out?”
“You know what. One of my roommates at the university was in the massage therapy program. I learned a thing or two.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you are. That’s why you’re holding your arm against your stomach, because it’s feeling awesome. Come on, stop dragging your feet. I’d make you race me, but I don’t want either one of us cracking our knees open on your stupid stairs again.”
Finally, he broke down and smiled, motioning up the path with his hand. “I’d be insane to turn down a massage from a beautiful woman. Will there be a happy ending, too?”
She punched him playfully in the shoulder. “Keep talking nasty like that, and instead of a massage, I’ll make your other arm hurt so badly you’ll forget about that one.”
Once at the house, Darcy led his chuckling ass around the cabin to the back and pointed at one of the more upright chairs at the table. “Sit.”
“Shall I bark, too?” He sat and hunched forward, as if readying to bolt, while she came around behind him.
“By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky if you’re not yelping. But I promise you’ll feel better afterward, especially after I get your butt into the hot tub.” She swept his bound mass of hair over his opposite shoulder and urged him to lean back into her.
“Trying to get me naked, are you—ouch.” His voice descended into a moan when she pressed her thumb into the muscle of his shoulder and rubbed up toward his neck.
“My back and leg hurt sometimes, too,” she said, ignoring Micah’s retreat behind the mask of a sex god again. It didn’t bother her as much, now that she’d seen the heart of him back at the pond. Knowing he was in there, wonderful and real and beautiful, was enough. “It’s like our bodies needs to remind us what it’s like to feel the pain so we won’t put it through that agony again.”
“How can this hurt so much and feel so good at the same time?” Curses and groans spilled out of him as she worked her way down his flexed arm to his fingertips and back up again, encouraged when some of the tightness had eased. She went to work on his neck and upper back, holding her free hand on the front side of him to stop his escape attempts.
When he finally gave in and relaxed beneath her palms, she worked him harder, steeped in a heady sense of joy that she could do this for him. As Gran had so often done for Gramps. She shook that odd turn of thought out of her head and slipped her hand under his chin, tipping it up to line up his upside-down face with hers. “Better?” she asked.
He stared up at her with the same wonder and dread she’d seen after his anxiety attack yesterday and again at the pond. “Your touch is magic,” he whispered. “What did I ever do without you?”
Her stomach dropped into her toes, and she withdrew her hands from his warmth. “It was nothing. Now, off you go, into the tub with you. Heat will relax those knots even more. And I think we need to lay off the kayaking tomorrow. Tension and paddling aren’t good for that arm.”
He jumped up, grabbed her by the face, and kissed her until her legs threatened to give out. “Join me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she didn’t answer, because the sudden removal of his shirt sucked the air out of the atmosphere and left her jaw dangling. Only when he unzipped his shorts and dropped them to his feet, all while staring mischief and sex at her, did she snap out of it.
“Oh, good lord.” She spun around. “I’ll just um…I’m going to get my bathing suit on and go for a swim. A nice cold one,” she muttered, rushing up the steps to the cottage.