Touch the Stars (11 page)

Julie nodded. "Seeing the rest of you go off to practice day after day has brought out emotions I've buried for a long time. Not just the fear, but the anger. I'm angry, Stephen! I'm furious that I had no choice in the matter!"

Stephen could not speak. Julie's emotion was genuine, and her outburst saddened him.

He chose his words carefully. "Now I know why you hated me so when I tried to convince you to rejoin the act. Maybe you can get over these feelings, now that you've identified them. Do you think it is possible?" A frown line creased Stephen's forehead. He was worried about her.

"I never hated you, Stephen. Never!"

"At first you only put up with me because of Nonna."

"No, no." She shook her head vigorously. She couldn't bear it if he really thought that.

"Juliana, I have always been sorry to cause you pain. But now—now you
do
have a choice. And you chose not to join us on the wire. So you see, everything is all right now."

Sudden tears blurred her eyes. All she could see was a sheaf of dark tousled hair across the table and a pair of brilliant blue eyes that reflected sympathy and understanding.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I suppose it is." After speaking of things she had never been free to discuss before, she felt as though a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. Still, she carried another load—one of guilt. And that, she knew, could never be lightened.

"I think," Stephen said, "that we have had enough to eat."

Julie blinked to clear the tears from her eyes and glanced down at her plate. "That's one thing in which I disagree with you. I hardly ate a thing."

Surprised at the wryness of her tone, Stephen smiled indulgently. He sensed that a barrier had been crossed. "Finish your dinner, Juliana. I am in no hurry."

Julie ate, relaxing, enjoying his company. Several women passing their table let their eyes linger on Stephen longer than necessary, and Julie realized suddenly that she enjoyed being in the company of such a handsome man. She didn't date often. She didn't consider this time with Stephen an actual date. But she enjoyed being envied by other women who were impressed by Stephen's wholesome good looks.

After dinner they drove home slowly, feeling their closeness build. The space between them was alive with unuttered feelings, unvoiced thoughts. They could have talked, could have filled the silence with words and phrases. But it didn't seem necessary.

Julie did not speak as Stephen turned the car into the driveway next to the mailbox that said "Andrassy." But her nerves felt strung tight, and she felt anxious about what was going to happen next.

Stephen slowed the car at a curve, and before she knew it, he had turned out the lights and let the car glide to a stop beneath a tall oak tree. It was quiet except for the shrill song of insects in the shrubbery.

"Juliana, I—" Stephen removed his hands from the wheel and let them lie passively on his thighs while he collected his thoughts. What to say to her? What could he say that could express his feelings for her? She was, quite simply, the woman he loved. The woman he loved. The words throbbed in his eardrums, sounding strange but right. There had never been a woman whom he loved before.

He reached toward her slowly, watching her expression. His finger touched her cheek. Her skin was as soft as silk.

She bent toward him as though unable to stop herself, her hands finding their way up his arms and past his collar until they enclosed his face and she said, "Oh, Stephen." His lips found hers, covered them; she was moist and warm, her lips opening to his, and he kissed her as though he were a man deprived—which of course he was, a man deprived all his life of this Julie, this Juliana.

His muscles strained in the uncomfortable position until finally Julie pulled away and reached down to pull a lever that made the seat go back.

"That is better," he said, reaching for her again. Her arms went around him. "That's better, too," he told her approvingly before lowering his lips to hers.

Julie's dress rustled against the upholstery of the seat as she tried to find a more comfortable position.

"This is not good," Stephen said, releasing her lips. "My foot is going to sleep."

"My arm, too." Julie moved to tug her arm away, the one that was pinned between Stephen's side and the seat.

"But I do like kissing you," Stephen said, preparing to do it again.

Julie succumbed, helpless and weak with desire. His lips cooled the heat within her—no, made it worse—and she clung to him, swept with yearning. He was an expert at kissing, and his kisses were laced with a tantalizing tenderness. Then his lips pursued a breathy path to her throat, and she heard herself moan, sounding so far away. His light beard abraded her skin; he whispered her name as only he could say it, and she closed her eyes and focused on his lips while her hands swept upward and tangled in his hair.

"Juliana," he said. "This is not the way I want this to happen. Cramped in your car, parked on the driveway to your cousin's house."

Julie fought for control. Stephen sat up straight and pulled her along with him, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close. It felt so good to be held like that.

"I can think of several more reasons that this isn't a good idea," she agreed.

"Name a few. Perhaps you will convince me."

"One, anyone could come along now. Sam arriving home from a date, Michael and his family on their way back from the lake."

"That's only two reasons."

"Three, I don't want you to have any power over me."

"That's not why I want to kiss you. Power had not entered my mind."

"It could. Four, you're some kind of relation."

"Not a blood relative at all." He nuzzled her cheek. "I would like to have relations with you, that is certain." His voice held a hint of teasing.

She dodged his lips. "The point is that we can't stay here," she said primly, her voice trembling.

He sighed. "So. We must go. I understand." He traced her eyebrow with his little finger and smiled at her in the darkness.

She leaned her forehead against his. "Maybe it's just as well. I need to think about this, Stephen. You've been my friend, but it would be different between us if you were my lover."

"I know." His eyes were serious. "It would change everything. Do you not want things to change for us, Juliana?"

"I like us the way we are," she answered truthfully, trying to ignore the passion that had been so easily ignited. "I like having someone I can talk to about the things I've never spoken about before. You do understand what I mean, don't you?" She searched his face anxiously.

"Yes, my Juliana." He intuitively sensed that Julie wasn't rejecting him as much as she was clinging to the hope that someday she might be able to speak the words that would unlock the pain she hid in her heart. When that day came, Stephen wanted to be the one in whom she confided.

"We will go home now. And I think that we don't need to rush this thing between us. Perhaps we need to back off a bit, no?"

"That would be a yes."

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I think I have found my best friend, Juliana. It is you."

Julie was unbelievably touched. Whatever was between them, it was undeniably good. She hoped that when he knew more about her, he would still want her for his best friend.

"Thank you, Stephen," she said softly. "For being such a nice person." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

He smiled fondly. "It is easy to be a nice person around you," he told her. She slid her hand into his and squeezed it companionably. He squeezed back. Her hand nestled inside his as though it belonged to him, and there it stayed as Stephen drove slowly to the house.

Chapter 6

His concentration on his task was absolute; when Stephen Andrassy walked on a high wire, nothing intruded on his mind. This ability to concentrate was acquired, not a gift. And because he had worked so hard to learn to focus his very being on the cable, nothing but the cable, he treasured this skill above all others.

Below, the rest of the performing troupe watched, their faces upturned. They held their breath. Stephen walked with pride and confidence. So, too, did they.

On the edge of his consciousness Stephen was aware of them, but only just aware. He became part of the wire. It swayed; he swayed. It lived for him, an entity unto itself. His mystical union with it, a model of classical perfection, was something few other human beings understood.

He leaped onto the platform with characteristic grace and ease as the group beneath him burst into applause.

"That," he said, calling down to them, "is the way it is to be done. With lightness. With concentration. Any time you do not concentrate, you put the lives of your family at risk. If you cannot concentrate, you must not walk the wire. It is as simple—and as difficult—as that." He set his balancing pole carefully on the platform and nimbly descended the ladder.

"Now," he said, after a quick assessment of ominously dark clouds churning toward them, "we will take a break. It looks as though it is going to rain, and the rigging in the barn is not ready. We meet again in the morning as usual."

The others, laughing and talking, hurried away as swiftly as children unexpectedly let out of school. Stephen lingered, adjusting a stake here, tugging at a guy line there. He licked a finger and held it up to test the wind. He didn't like the way it was gusting. He made a few minor adjustments to the rigging, taking his time. He'd rather that the others went ahead to the house. For once he didn't feel like being with them. He wanted to think.

Distant thunder rumbled, shaking the ground. It was time to leave the meadow, before the rain came. He walked, head down, lost in thought.

Julie would leave over the weekend. She had to go back to Venice and her job at the gym. And she was just beginning to trust him, too. That was the saddest part. She'd finally talked freely to him and taken him into her confidence, but she was going away.

Now he knew that she liked him, and he was sure that he loved her. He wanted Julie to understand that "love" was not a word he tossed around at random. With him, it was serious.

It could be many long months before he would have an opportunity to spend an extended time with her again. Would everything he had gained be lost during that time? In his experience, absence didn't make the heart grow fonder. The opposite was true. All absence did was create fond memories, and he couldn't be satisfied to be nothing more than that to Julie. He wanted, certainly, to be much more.

Little raindrops began to spatter his face, and he saw a heavy curtain of rain bearing down from the other side of the meadow. It was too late to reach the house before the storm, so he set off at a jog for the nearest shelter, the barn.

The barn door was open, and he ran inside. He was surprised to find someone else there.

"Stephen," Julie called from where she was sitting in a corner on the hay-covered floor. "It looks as though you're through practicing for the afternoon." Beside her, nestled in the hay, were Michael's two children—Mickey, who was six, and Tonia, who was four.

"Yes, the rain has cut our session short," Stephen said with a worried backward look at the roiling clouds. He'd never seen clouds so black.

"We were picking flowers along the fence for the dinner table," Tonia said importantly. "We had to run in here when the storm came."

"I ran fastest," Mickey claimed. "I beat everyone."

Julie smiled up at Stephen. "Sit down and join us," she said. "It looks as though we're captives here until the storm passes."

Drops of rain bounced off the red dirt, making little explosions outside the barn door. Raindrops drummed on the metal roof. The barn smelled of fresh hay, which Stephen had ordered spread there so that the floor would be well-cushioned in case anyone fell from the cable he was rigging high up under the roof.

He sat down with the little group and leaned back against the rough gray boards of the barn wall. From where they sat they could see outside, and the wind seemed to be growing in fury. Great sweeps of rain lunged at them through the open barn doors.

"I wanna go back to the house," Mickey said after a particularly loud crack of thunder. "I don't like it here."