The Judge and the Gypsy (12 page)

“Neither do I, Gypsy.”

The sound of his voice hit her like a whirlwind, beginning between her legs in a small vortex of heat that spiraled upward, compressing her chest and squeezing the breath from her lungs.

“Crusader?” The endearment escaped her before she could call it back. “Is that really you?”

“It’s me.” He could see her in the shadows as clearly as if the moon were shining on her. He’d watched her for hours, checking the camp, making her rounds, pacing back and forth inside her trailer, and finally seeking the freedom of the night.

“How did you find me?”

Rasch’s emotions were whipping wildly back and forth. From the moment he’d caught sight of her examining the paw of one of the big cats, he’d wanted to lift her in his arms and carry her away from this place. But he hadn’t been certain how she would react, so he’d waited until she’d left the confines of the camp and sought the privacy of the woods.

“Through Tifton.”

She gasped. “Through Tifton? Are you trying to punish me, Crusader? How can you do this?”

He took a step closer. “I don’t understand, Gypsy. I’m not trying to punish you. Punishment was
your
plan, I think. Why did you run away?”

“You think I could stay with you after what you did?”

“I don’t know. At least we could have talked it out. After what we shared, you owed me that much.”

Moonlight danced on Rasch’s face and shoulders, turning his light hair into silver and his grave expression into sadness. He was a Michelangelo painting on a night sky, death and life, joy and sorrow.

Already the connection between them had begun, their auras touching in silent pleasure. The crisp air turned warm as the night came to life again. When Rasch reached out to take her hand, Savannah gave it. She could no more have stopped than she could have refused to breathe.

“You’re right,” she whispered tightly, “I should have told you the truth. I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Gypsy. Sorry that I never contacted you or your father, sorry that an action taken in good faith had such hurtful consequences for you. What we had together was good, I won’t accept any suggestion that it wasn’t.”

He couldn’t take his eyes from her. She’d taken a step forward, out of the deepest shadows, and he could see the expression in her eyes. Anguish, disappointment, and yes, tears, were revealed in the velvet darkness beneath her lashes, the tears spilling over and making diamond chains across her face.

He thought back to the first times he’d seen her, on his balcony and in the street. She’d been sad then too. And that sadness had remained even after she disappeared. Every night when he closed his eyes, she’d be there staring at him censoriously. What did she think he’d done?

“You and I? That can’t be, Crusader, not after what you did.”

“I was never dishonest with you. I didn’t disappear,
leaving you to wonder what you’d done wrong, leaving you to burn with wanting me, leaving you to die a little each day. Don’t pretend that there is no connection between us.”

Unable to hold back any longer, Rasch reached out and drew her into his arms, claiming her lips with a rough urgency that surprised even him. He could feel her whimper of panic turn into an acknowledgment of mutual need.

The kiss deepened. Crushing her lips, he felt her arch against him, taking his tongue inside her mouth as she pressed herself into his hardness. There was an oath, a moan, and their hands parted as his fingers slid shamelessly beneath her shirt, plying the soft flesh of her breasts, making the nipples grow taut and turgid with desire.

Tearing each other’s clothes from their bodies, they fell to the pine straw, seeking fulfillment, solace for their pain. Rasch’s deft hands sought the threshold of her desire, stimulating, teasing, beguiling her until she was mewing with desire.

“Say it, Gypsy, say you want me, that you want this as much as I do!”

“No, no, we mustn’t.”

Her words refused, but her body burned beneath his touch, and her lips tasted and bit at his mouth and chin as though she were lost and Rasch were her salvation.

“Listen, Gypsy, as I say the words. I want you. I want this tonight, tomorrow, and forever. Now you say it, Gypsy. Say it.”

“All right! All right. I want you, and this. But I won’t love you—I won’t. I can’t!”

Savannah groaned. She was sick with the realization
of the truth of her words. She did want him. She wanted the feel of him inside her and enveloping her. A sweet, terrible pain swept through her as she parted her legs and felt him move to claim her body, touching, teasing, building the frenzy of heat that churned the very ground beneath them.

“Oh yes you will, my Gypsy, my wild and free Gypsy. I’ll make you burn with loving me.” He leaned back, then thrust into her with all the desperate longing he’d held back since she’d disappeared.

He didn’t have to. She’d carried that same fire around inside ever since she’d left him. Now the fever inside them blazed into life, carrying them beyond reason, beyond caring, beyond restraint. And almost as quickly as they joined, they were caught up by such a vortex of rapture that Rasch thought he’d joined the realm of the superheroes of old. Stars burst, suns whirled through the heavens, and the tide of desire reversed, growing greater with each thrust instead of lessening with release.

When the final spasm of ecstasy sent vibrating fingers of fire through every cell, Rasch collapsed against Savannah, stunned and spent. For a long time he just lay across her, unsure whether this was real, or a dream. Then, drawing back, he looked into her eyes.

She lay there, equally stunned and confused. The fire was gone, the aftermath of their fever leaving them weak and shaking, waiting for him to speak.

“Are you satisfied, Crusader?”

“No,” he answered, sliding from her body and rolling on his back. “I don’t know what I am. I never intended anything like that to happen, Savannah. Believe me.”

Savannah began to laugh, a low, whimpering sound that grew into a wild cry of disbelief. She came to her feet and began to run.

“What are you doing, Gypsy? Stop. What will your father say if you go back to the camp naked?”

Savannah came to a stop. “Oh, God, you’ve made me crazy. You expect me to forget that you’re responsible for Tifton’s death. Then you overpower me and make love to me.”

“Wait a minute. I don’t expect you to forget anything. I only want you to be fair.”

Savannah turned and walked back to where Rasch was standing. She drew back her hand and would have slapped him with all the force she could manage if he hadn’t seen the blow coming and grasped her wrist in midair. “I can’t be—no matter what I want—I can’t be.”

As he continued to imprison her wrist, the color drained from Rasch’s face, leaving him deadly white in the moonlight. His breathing stopped, and disbelief compressed his stomach muscles into a tight knot of pain.

“You don’t know, do you, about your brother’s trail of arrests across the entire Southeast? Nothing serious, not yet, but he was on the way. Only his charm had kept him out of jail before.”

“You’re lying, Crusader. My laughing, beautiful brother never hurt anybody in his life. He’s dead, and you’re responsible. Now my father is dying too.”

Disbelief fell over Rasch like a blanket of ice. She didn’t know about the petty theft, the speeding, the fights. All she knew was that he’d killed her brother. And he had. By sentencing him to jail, he’d made Tifton an example to the world that every man must
accept responsibility for his actions. He could have let the young man off with a warning, but he hadn’t, banking on a jail sentence showing him that drunk driving could kill.

It could.

It had.

Savannah’s brother was dead, in a cell where he’d been sent by a judge full of his own importance and determination to do right.

Rasch turned loose Savannah’s wrist and let her arm fall down beside her. He stared for a long time, absorbing the pain she felt, watching her sobs come to a stop and her tears dry up.

“So what were you going to do, Gypsy, kill me?”

“No, I wanted to hurt you like you hurt my father and me. I set out to make you fall in love with me. I wanted you to love something and lose it.”

A wrenching pain began somewhere deep inside him and rose. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t control it. It overwhelmed him with the truth.

“You have, Gypsy. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do.”

He turned and walked away, stopping to pick up his clothes, and disappearing into the darkness beneath the trees. She waited, trembling, so weak that a strong wind could have knocked her over.

Beyond the camp she heard an engine start and a vehicle drive away. She watched as long as the lights were visible, watched and felt her heart tear completely apart.

She’d made the judge fall in love with the Gypsy, and now she’d killed that love. Like the North Star, she’d be forever caught in the pain of her loss. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: the Gypsy way.
She’d settled her father’s score, and she was the one who was dying.

The judge had fallen in love with the Gypsy, all right.

But the Gypsy hadn’t meant to love him back.

Rasch drove slowly back to Atlanta, Savannah’s accusation burning in his mind. Her brother was dead, tragically killed by a fellow inmate, and all he could do was tell her he was sorry.

Not only had he made Tifton an example, but he’d been proud of his righteousness. Sentencing prisoners, righting wrongs, being one of the upright, that was the goal he’d set for his life and he’d become an expert, swimming in the satisfaction of his success. He was Super Judge. Now he was ready to move on to the highest office in the state.

But he’d become a stiff-necked ass. He’d caused a young man’s death with his self-righteousness. And it had cost him the only woman he’d ever cared about.

That night Rasch paced his apartment, onto the patio and back again, longing for the burning sensation that signaled Savannah’s presence. But it didn’t come.

He thought about the sad little circus with its patched tent, worn equipment, and peeling paint. He thought about Savannah and her father, and inside he cried.

“So she really is a Gypsy.” Jake poured coffee into two cups and sat down at the kitchen table across
from Rasch. Rasch had just stepped out of the shower when he’d arrived. He’d showered, pulled on a robe, and was drying his hair, an activity the old Rasch would never have done anywhere except the bathroom.

“Yes, a real Gypsy. Her grandfather brought his family to this country in the thirties. Circus life was all he knew, so he joined a small American troupe. Eventually he bought it, passing it along to Savannah’s father. A few animals, a few kiddie rides and games of chance.

“For a man who didn’t even know who his mystery woman was two weeks ago, you’ve learned a lot.”

“Yes,” Rasch said bitterly, “I’ve learned that I killed her brother.”

“Damn! You killed somebody?”

“No, not directly, but I’m responsible.”

“Tifton Ramey,” Jake groaned. “The boy who died in jail. He was her brother?”

“Yes. Her name is Savannah Ramey, and now her circus is dying because of me.”

“And you think that’s your fault too?”

“No, it would have happened anyway. People don’t need the circus anymore. With amusement parks and television, kids take a look at the Ramey show and want their money back.”

“Then why are you beating yourself up? From what I can find out, this Tifton was no prize. If he hadn’t been killed by another prisoner, it would have been something else.”

“I went to see her, Jake. She holds me responsible. I have to do something. It doesn’t matter how I feel about her.”

“I get the idea that she wasn’t too happy to see you. What happened?”

“Jake, I lost my head. Instead of telling her that I understood, I—we—well, I lost control.”

“Did you hit her?” Jake couldn’t keep the dismay from his voice.

“Hell no. We made love.”

“Oh.” Jake tapped his fingers on the table for a long minute. “You made love to her. But ‘we’ implies that the act was a mutual endeavor. So what’s the problem?”

“I’m afraid that this incredible sexual desire between us is all there is, at least on Savannah’s part. She hates me.”

“And how do you feel? I mean other than the obvious.”

“I like her. Can you believe that she was trying to set me up? She wanted me to fall for her, then she was going to hurt me like I hurt her father and her.”

“And did you fall for her?”

“I think I did. She’s beautiful, loyal, smart, and she talks to animals.”

“Great! A governor’s wife who communicates with animals. That could come in very handy.”

“She’d never marry me, Jake. She’s the kind of woman who has to be free and wild. I’d never try to change her.”

“And you told her how you feel?”

“No, I never said the words. I might have, but she keeps running away.”

“Interesting,” Jake said, nodding his head. “I think I’ll just check out this Gypsy, see for myself the woman who’s turned Super Judge into a wimp.”

“No, don’t, Jake. I’ll have to work this out for myself. I think I’ve been putting too many hours in on the job. I might just run away and join the circus.”

“No, Rasch, what if the newspapers get wind of this? It could ruin your appeal as a candidate.”

“You mean the voters wouldn’t like a man who takes a menial job with a carnival?”

“I mean just that.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong. I think the people, the common man, would prefer someone who comes down from his ivory tower to learn the taxpayers’ problems firsthand.”

“Don’t do this, Rasch. We need you on the bench.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to shirk my responsibilities. Judge Horatio Webber is going to moonlight, that’s all.” Rasch stood up, a broad smile curling his lips. “Thanks, Jake. I knew you’d have the answer.”

“Look, Rasch,” Jake began to argue. But Rasch wasn’t listening. He had run away to join the circus. And to woo his Gypsy.

“So he’s the one.”

Savannah jumped. “Why do you keep sneaking up on me, Zeena?”

“I’m not sneaking up. I’m simply coming into the cook tent to have breakfast, as I do every morning.”