Catch a Falling Star (14 page)

“I did not lose
them,” came his voice, uncharacteristically subdued from the
doorway, which was why she didn't hear him, on top of being
caught up in memories and the frozen grief that she'd never
allowed an outlet for.

The summer air was
hot but, clad in only her panties, Lyrianne hugged the shirt to
her as she shivered. She buried her face in the soft material
and inhaled the scent, letting memories of her brothers warm her
from the inside. The happy memories didn't last that long,
however, before grief intruded again.

There had been no
tears when her brothers had disappeared. There had been none
when her mother had taken her last tortured breath though her
father had begged her to release her grief. And she could not
shed them now while her father lay in repose in the room down
the hall. Instead, she stood with her back to the door, unaware
that she had an audience in the only form of mourning she would
permit herself. She sang to herself and her lost family. It was
her parents' favorite song, taught to her on Papa's knee. It was
the best she could do.

Sometime while she
sang, he retreated, not wishing to intrude on her sorrow though
he sorely wanted to intrude on her state of undress.

Hanging his head,
brutally chastising himself for his selfish admiration of the
sleek line of her body, the pilot headed back to the bathroom he
had used earlier and unbuttoned the trous. Letting them gather
around his ankles, he set to applying the salve, sighing audibly
with relief now that there was no one to witness it.

The sting of the
burns had been distracting, near maddening every time the cloth
brushed over them, but there had been far too much to deal with
and little time to suffer. Even his backside had not been spared
but it was a small price to pay for leaving his more tender bits
unscathed.

While he worked, he
considered what he would do next, not realizing the singing had
stopped. He hadn’t bothered to close the door either and when
she came up behind him and took the ointment jar from his hand,
he nearly crushed the pottery in his fist. He gave her an
apologetic smile, somehow the information that he was naked
stalled from reaching his brain. The haunted look in her eyes
had been put to rest for the time being, replaced by a need; a
need for his company and comfort. They were not hers to ask for
and she would not dream of letting him know. Would she?

Clad in one of her
brother's shirts and a pair of shorts, temporarily covering her
until she could get to her own clothes, she placed her hands on
his hips to guide him as she sat down on the toilet seat to
finish applying the burn treatment, trying very hard not to
admire what she was looking at.

“I didn't expect you
to come up here, but since you have, I could use a little help.
Before you go, that is. There's no point in trying to hide
Farley's truck now but I have something else I can't do alone.
It won't take much time, I promise.” Her voice was light, giving
no indication of where her mind had been only minutes before as
she sang or where it was now that he was so close again.

Considering that he
was more undressed than she, he wouldn't have expected her
hands-on approach. Maybe some screaming, eye covering, door
slamming... That she did none of these things only inflamed his
want of her. She was unlike any woman he had ever met and he
wasn't sure if he should be thrilled or self-conscious by her
apparent lack of distress.

Did she not find him
attractive? Had her touches meant something else? If his naked
body did not move her, what else did he have to offer?

Staring straight
ahead at the wall across from him, Miguel discreetly moved his
hands down to cup himself, feeling rather silly. “Yeah, of
course I will help.” What else could he say? What else could he
do? If she was determined to get rid of him, there was little he
could do about it in the end. He flinched as her fingers brushed
across his backside, his well-muscled cheeks embarrassing him as
they tightened under her touch.

She didn't notice his
discomfort. Her heart was beating so loud in her ears she was
afraid he'd hear it. It took all her willpower not to pull the
shirt over her head and press herself against him. She wanted to
hold onto him and not let him go. She longed for him to give her
what she had never desired so fiercely as she did now. Those
times in the barn had been fun, exciting, wickedly naughty, but
they'd never inflamed her as just the sight and touch of this
man did.

With a sigh, she
patted an uninjured part of his deliciously firm and sculpted
behind, her touch lingering despite herself. Her fingers even
started to slide forward, getting halfway around his hip before
she stopped them. Reluctantly and only slightly ashamed of
herself for her behavior, she handed him a towel to wrap around
himself.

“I'll have to see if
I can find you another pair of pants that don't rub so tightly
against the burns. Maybe a pair of my father's; he's about your
height.” Her father. He needed to be taken care of. “What I'd
like to ask...”

She stopped
mid-sentence, reluctant to have to ask the favor of him as she'd
planned but knowing she had little choice. “Wait here.” She
returned quickly, handing him some items from her parent's
closet. The pants and shirt were closer to his size than her
brothers' had been. Her father had been of a similar height to
Miguel, though he had had more girth to him when he'd been
healthy – not fat, but heavily muscled from a lifetime of
physical labor. She knew the clothes would sit comfortably over
Miguel's burns.

She sat down again
when she returned to the bathroom, too distracted to realize
that he might prefer privacy to get dressed. She wasn't watching
him, however. Her eyes were turned down, studying her hands
which she held tightly clasped together on her lap.

“I need your help
with my father. While you were gone I programmed the combine to
dig his grave and Papa...“ she twisted her fingers around, palms
up, “... Papa built his coffin at the same time he made
Mother's.” She did look up briefly, as if to see his reaction to
what she said, but looked down again too quickly to have time to
check. Could she explain how her father had made one for himself
at that terrible time? Or why? Would this man who had never
known the wonderful man her father was understand that it had
not been some strange grief-inspired peculiarity? He had not had
a wish to join his wife prematurely.

“He wanted their
coffins to be made from the same tree – a symbol of their love.
He laughed when he assured me it would be many years before he
planned to have need of his.” It hadn't been years, though. Not
even one year. She breathed in several deep breaths before
continuing. “I cannot get him down the stairs by myself. Will
you help me?” Her voice was tensed yet almost toneless as she
strove to keep her emotions hidden.

Fidgeting with the
buttons on the front of the new pants had supplied Miguel with
something to do. Besides listen, which he did with both ears and
heart. Did she know that she poured all of her love for her
parents into the way she spoke? The words, the tone, both were a
bittersweet song evoking sympathy, but it was so much more than
that. It made him want to take her in his arms and hold her
tight and never let her go. He wanted to make outrageous
promises that he'd spend the rest of his life trying to keep.

Thus the importance
of having something to do with his hands.

“Of course I will
help you,
querida
,” he smiled gently and left off toying
with the clothes, their fit much better than the previously
borrowed garments. “Do you wish to bury him with any
possessions?”

He studied her a
moment, then brushed a knuckle over her chin and smiled again.
“Just tell me what to do and I will do it.”

She let her smile and
her eyes express her thanks as she led the way to her parents'
room, not trusting her voice. When she finally did speak it was
only to direct and explain as they got her father's body to the
barn. The coffin had been under a tarp at the back of the barn
and she'd pulled it out to position it on the skid that would be
hooked to the back of the mule. She then helped Miguel make the
transfer of her father, once again shocked at how the once
robust man she'd known her whole life was now a mere shell,
weighing less than his much smaller daughter.

There was nothing she
had planned to put in the coffin with him. Her father had been
very explicit about that. What he would need on the other side
was who would be waiting for him; other than his children who
would someday, god willing in the far future, join them. He had
firmly declared that he had no need of anything else, but she
did place one thing in the coffin, taken from the display case
in the living room on impulse. She offered a silent apology to
her father for her disobedience as she slipped the small disc
under his crossed hands.

Once she'd said her
final good-bye, she closed the lid and stood back while the
vacuum sealer quietly hissed its way around the lid's edge. She
then brushed a hand over the silky smooth finish of the wood,
beautiful in its simplicity, before turning to Miguel with a
smile.

“I put a holovid of
my brothers in his hands.” She shrugged, feeling as if she'd had
to explain though she had no idea why. “They have no resting
place of their own.”

Her demeanor changed
abruptly and she straightened her shoulders to look past Miguel
to the hoverbike. “If you'd like to accompany me, the family
plot is at the top of the hill beyond the house.” She moved
around him and began to connect the skid to the mule's cables.
“Or you can wait here. I won't mind.”

He seriously
considered staying behind, feeling like he would only be
intruding on her private moment, but in the end he thought of
the lonely grave atop a hill with but one witness presiding. It
was too much. No one should be buried with only a single person
to see it done.

“I will come,” he
told her, and moved to help her secure the cables.

The trip was taken in
silence, as was the interment. The combine was brought back
online by Lyrianne to get it moving from its sentinel position
beyond the graveyard. Once it began to refill the grave, she
quietly sang the same song Miguel had overheard earlier. Her
voice carried over the collection of gravestones and markers
that summed up her family and her history. She sang to her
parents first, then to her brothers, then to all of them. She
was the last of their number as far as she knew and it would end
with her.

Once the sounds of
the final verse ended on a sustained note, her naturally sweet
if untrained voice carrying it through to its end, she turned to
Miguel. “Thank you.” She took his hand and squeezed it gently,
holding on to it. Her eyes were dry but there was grief and a
deep sorrow evident within their blue depths. “I'm glad you were
here.”

The combine would
finish its task then return to the barn on its own so she turned
her back on it, letting Miguel take the controls for the bike's
return. Once they'd dismounted in the barn, she took his hand
firmly back in hers. She gave him a quick smile but remained
silent as they returned to the farmhouse. Not even her limp,
which was more pronounced than it had been, made her break the
silence.

She couldn't explain
why she didn't let go of his hand. She didn't really think about
why she held on to him as she returned upstairs to the bathroom
but it was only then that she stopped and released him. Walking
around him, she turned the taps on in the bathtub, testing the
temperature mix before looking at him again. Now it became more
clear to her. She needed to be with him.

Her gaze slid up his
body with a brazen courage she would never have imagined herself
capable of carrying out. She wanted to memorize him, every inch
of him, to remember when she sat in a cell somewhere or was put
to work on some penal colony light years away. She wished it
could be more. She wanted to carry with her a memory that was
much more complete than just his appearance... But that was her
fantasy and not something she should even think of burdening him
with. Or so she told herself then promptly ignored.

“Would you help me to
step into the tub? Its sides are too high for me to do it with
my bad ankle.” She looked down at her foot. A dark purple stain
colored most of the circumference of the swollen ankle which had
gone down some, thanks to the Freeze-It. She stood, lifted the
shirt over her head and then untied the rope belt. The shorts
fell around her ankles and she stepped out of them, leaving her
completely naked. She held out her hand to him, feeling as
brazen as one of the floozies from that place in town. She knew
she should feel shame at showing herself to him, searching for
it but failing utterly. Her boldness was growing and she had no
wish to stop it.

She could have
managed the momentary pain of putting her full weight on the
ankle to get into the tub. She could have waited, as she'd
planned, to hold off on her bath until he was gone. She would
have, but she wanted him to see her, hoping as naughty as it
was, that he might find her desirable enough to want her as much
as she realized she wanted him.

Chapter 10

Miguel turned to face
her, his eyes drawn by the movement of her hand towards him. He
paused, all of his good intentions dead on arrival. Her body was
far more generous than the shapeless coveralls had advertised.
Not even the hint he'd had when her top was torn, nor the
shadow-heavy look he'd glimpsed when her back was to him from
across a room, prepared him for the milk and honey perfection
that was Lyrianne.

He opened his mouth
to speak and his breath came out but his words were lost
somewhere in the translation. His eyes stroked an indulgent
caress over her natural-born treasures, lingering here and there
until he was trembling. Was it possible that she was more
innocent than he'd realized a woman could be? Or was she just
waiting for him to show her the way...?