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The song ended, and the patter of the rain returned. He eased her down and in a finish turn that left some unwanted space between them, but he kept hold of her hand, caressing her fingers and gazing into her confused face. As if on cue, John Cougar eased into the poignant Ain't Even Done With The Night .
Josh drew her closer, and she took the step, staring up into his face, aware of only him.
"Joshua?"
Marcus's voice wafted up from somewhere beneath them, calling from within the house.
Josh cleared his throat. "Yeah?"
"Come here a minute. There's a vibration that feels a bit off. "
Nothing off about what was vibrating between the two of them, but it was certainly unsettling. Josh gave her a crooked smile as if he heard her thought. He squeezed her hand and left her, his steps light and lithe, slapping across the hall and toward the basement area.
Lauren wrapped her arms around herself, feeling a bit lost, left with the company of Mellencamp's wistful voice and without Josh's heartbeat against hers.
Lord, what was she doing, getting all gooey over this guy she barely knew? It wasn't rebound; she was way too far past Jonathan for that. The terror she had felt on the beach returned, thinking about how instantaneous her feelings were for Josh, just as they had been with Jonathan. But maybe that was the way she fell in love. It was her, not the man. This was a different guy, totally different. She wasn't going to wallow into some psychoanalytical bullshit that suggested she kept choosing the same guy. Josh had shown more emotional reaction to her in thirty-six hours than Jonathan had in nine months.
Mellencamp was crooning that she'd met the boy who would be the answer to all of her dreams. Jeez, Louise, it was just sex games, just fun stuff. She was exploring, dipping her toe back in, just as Maria had told her she needed to do. The island was a safe place to play, because it wasn't reality, it wasn't home.
But it was home for Josh.
What was it Marcus had said? Remember how children played, for fun and for the fate of the Universe at the same time. Maybe this was a game that was always played best or worst when the heart was involved. Everything in between was just candy, where you had to be careful how much you indulged, or it became the desolate vapidity of a one night stand with a faceless stranger picked up out of a smoky bar.
She opened her eyes and found Marcus standing in the doorway. Apparently, they were tag teaming her.
"So have you played much since Jonathan, or is this your first time since then?" he asked, without preamble.
Lauren lifted a shoulder, turned away to cut off the music before Mellencamp drove her to tears. Marcus didn't fill in the gap of silence, except with the pressure of waiting for an answer. She didn't have to give him anything, anything at all. It was her choice. Her choice. She took a deep breath, turned back to face him.
"No. It's been difficult, since Jonathan, even without the guilt. I've been struggling with it. Maria says I've been going through the skydiver process. "
"The skydiver process? That's a new term on me. "
"No term," she managed a chuckle. "Just a reference point. There was this documentary about a woman sky diver. One day she jumped out, and something went wrong
with her chute. It didn't open. "
Marcus winced. "Ouch. "
"In spades. " Lauren came to stand before him. "She didn't die. She was paralyzed, though, and they didn't think she'd walk again. She did, with several years of torture in rehab. For seven years after that she didn't sky dive. You'd think she'd have nightmares about that jump, and she did, sometimes. But most of the times, she said she dreamed about what it was to jump out of a plane and fly, float on the air, and it just be you and whatever amazing Power it is that creates everything. She realized she missed it, too much to stay away from it anymore. So she went up, and started jumping again. "
"Incredibly brave or incredibly stupid, depending on your perspective," Marcus observed.
Lauren nodded. "The reporter asked her what she said to her friends and family, anyone who told her she was crazy for going back to something that had almost destroyed her. "
Lauren recalled the firm, gentle touch Maria had placed on her face, that confident caress of a Dom as she spoke the woman's words. "'Fate caused the accident, not skydiving itself. I'm not going to shut out the joy because of fear. If I do that, sky diving won't be the end of it. Next thing I know, I'll be afraid of planes, or going out in crowds, or dogs. The fear will take over and I won't be living. '"
"Extraordinary," Marcus murmured. "And this applies to you. . . how?"
Lauren's lips curved at the glint in his beautiful eyes. "A smart man like yourself could put it together. I've been at the dreaming point. I want to be back in it again, but I haven't been ready. I've been able to watch, but not to play. Now I'm here, and all of a sudden," she thought about Josh, his eyes, his body, the soul that inhabited them, "taking him over seems the most natural thing in the world. God," she laughed, "Maybe we all need to be in therapy. Maybe we're all sick. "
"Hardly. " Marcus straightened from the doorframe and took her hand. "Since you've got your parachute on, I want to show you something. "
"What? Where - "
He raised her brow by putting a quiet finger to his lips, the glint in his eyes turning devilish. She followed him back through the foyer, and he took her out the front door and down a set of winding stone steps from the front gallery. At the bottom, she was enchanted to find herself in a knot garden of dwarf shrubs, complete with a comfortable bench by a gazing pool for contemplation.
A quick glance at his face showed her that this was not what he intended to show her. He pulled her onward, behind the sculpted topiaries flanking the steps, and stopped before a carved wooden door with a weight and style suggesting that it must have graced a medieval fortress in truth. On the protruding claw of a sly looking stone gargoyle mounted next to the door was a ring of iron skeleton keys, as ancient looking as the door.
