Pieces of Hope (24 page)

Ethan
said nothing, still wearing that self-contented grin.

“Say it!
I’m talking too much, aren’t I? Could you say something, please?”

“That’s
quite a lot to deal with, isn’t it?”
 

“Tell me
about it!” I reached up and pretended to strangle myself.
 

What
sounded like a low chuckle escaped him. Ignoring my evil glare, he scooped me
up in his arms, slid into the seat I had just vacated, and sat me sideways
across his lap. My legs dangled over the arm of the chair, facing the
fireplace. I refused to look at him.

“I’m not
laughing at you, Hope.”

Glaring
at the fireplace, I grumbled, “Let me guess. You’re laughing
with
me.”

“I’m
laughing because you make me feel the same way.” His fingers brushed my chin,
gently turning my face in his direction.

“Now
you’re being condescending,” I said, more hurt than angry. “There’s no need to
lie to me.”

“I’m
not,” he politely insisted. “I’m a lousy liar. My left eye twitches whenever I
try. It’s a dead giveaway.” He waited a moment. My expression didn’t alter.
“I’ll prove it to you. Ask me something. Ask me anything.”

I
decided to indulge his request merely to appease him. The tricky part was
asking him a question that I already knew the answer to. Otherwise, there would
be no way to tell the difference. The one catch, of course, would be if he
could make his eye twitch at will, but that had to be almost impossible. The
eyes were very telling, windows to your soul and all. They often gave people
away when they weren’t even aware of it.
 

I
thought back on the stories he’d told me. Rearranging myself so that I could
face him better, I narrowed my eyes and looked squarely into his. A wide ray of
sunlight from one of two large windows shone directly on his face. No way would
I miss the slightest jiggle.
 

In my
best interrogative tone, I said, “Did your grandfather really get you a yacht
for your tenth birthday?”

“No,
that was a lie.” As he spoke, I watched his left eye twitch ever so slightly.

Ethan
must have guessed I wasn’t entirely convinced. Possibly a fluke.

“Ask me
something harder,” he pressed. “Ask me how I feel about you.”

Pretending
that this was an insignificant question, I said offhandedly, “All right, I see
where we’re going . . . yes, not a bad one.” Then my breath caught. “How do you
feel—?”
 

He
leaned into me, his face softening. I pressed my hand against his chest to keep
him in viewing distance and felt his heart hammering beneath it, causing mine
to respond in the same way. He gazed into my eyes with uncompromising
directness.

In a
voice that was the softest of whispers, he uttered, “I’m. Wild. About. You.”

Tingles
of what felt like electricity pulsed up my arm. But I forced myself to focus.
Seconds passed, then several more. His left eye didn’t budge a centimeter.

“Believe
me now?” he whispered, placing his hand over mine.

All I
could do was nod.

“My
mother always said I was difficult to read. Of course, the first time she said
that I was only five-years-old, and I had no idea what she was talking about.”
He lifted a lock of my hair and inhaled. “It smells like your skin. Vanilla,
and maybe a hint of
 
. . .” He inhaled again.
“. . . . blueberries? You realize I won’t be able to associate that scent with
anything or anyone but you?” My stomach fluttered when he dipped his head and
sniffed my neck, then moaned like it made him hungry.

“But you
shouldn’t have to guess how I feel about you,” he went on, his eyes locked on
mine. “You should always know how very wanted you are.” Something in my stomach
responded, a hollow aching. He wanted
me
?
Ethan leaned back, resting his dark head on the white slipcover. “I’m going to
make a concerted effort to let you in to my thoughts. Would you like that?”

I nodded
vacantly, shocked at this sudden baring of his soul.

He
sprang from the chair with me in his arms, resting me lightly on the slate
floor. “I didn’t bring you here just to see Poppy’s place, but I knew you’d
love it. Madeline wanted to tear it down after he died and start over from
scratch, but for once, Dad and I outvoted her. It almost feels like the old
guy’s still here.”

 
Ethan picked up a picture from the mantle and
handed it to me. In a plain wooden frame I smiled at the sight of a
brown-haired boy with an intense gaze, standing beside a red-haired man who was
slightly shorter than he was. The older man had one arm looped around the
little boy’s shoulders.

“That
was his favorite picture of us,” Ethan said, though I couldn’t see why. The
picture was slightly blurry, the scenery wasn’t anything special, and neither
of them was smiling. “I was only eight, and already I was two inches taller
than Poppy. For some reason, he found that funny. The old guy was always
laughing about something.”

I set
the picture back on the mantle and scanned the other photos. There were a few
of Ethan’s parents, several of a pretty girl with black hair. And in the last
frame, what looked to be the same woman (only much older) with Poppy beside
her.

Without
any explanation, Ethan took my hand and pulled me outside. Rounding the back of
the house, we connected with another cobblestone path that tumbled between two
meadows. Several hundred feet ahead, I could see flowers. Planted around an
oversized pond, they grew in every size, shape, and color imaginable. There
were bushes, trees, and freestanding flowers everywhere. We ran to the pond,
then onto a small rickety dock with an old, wide rowboat beside it. Ethan
yanked a weathered tarp from the boat and tossed it in a heap on the other side
of the dock.

As we
stood there catching our breath, the breeze picked up. Whispery-soft petals
began to litter the air like pale pink snow, carpeting the ground, the path, my
hair. Several were also in Ethan’s hair. I made an effort to brush them away,
but Ethan had other ideas. Locking his fingers in mine, he bent one arm gently
behind my back, and pressing our bodies together in a long, smooth line, he
kissed me.

I was
still perched blissfully on the tips of my toes, my back arched slightly when
Ethan said softly, his lips lingering near mine, “Impressed?”

“Who
wouldn’t be?” I murmured, still reeling. “That was some kiss.”

He
laughed near my ear. “Hope, I was talking about the apple blossoms.”

Now
resting flat on my feet, I followed his gaze to a long row of pink-blossomed,
scraggly-looking trees. There were easily a couple dozen of them.

“Oh.”
Though I knew I’d turned twelve shades of red, I was growing accustomed to it.
Being bodiless and overwrought seemed to go hand in hand. Besides, I could tell
it amused my violet-glowing boyfriend.

“They
aren’t supposed to grow here,” Ethan announced, “but Gram had cousins in
Armagh
who grew them and I
think that it was love at first sight for her. It amazed all of us that they
took off the way they did, even with Gram’s green thumb. My theory is they grew
because they sensed how much she loved them, and in spite of the rough
conditions, they flourished for that reason alone.”

There
seemed to be something unspoken in the way he’d expressed it—as if every living
thing should experience a love like that. In that instant, I realized how big
his heart was, and wondered how it was that I’d missed it. It was the
equivalent of overlooking the Grand Canyon.
    

“This
was Poppy and Gram’s special place,” he said, his voice drifting easily into
those softer tones that made my insides turn to jelly. “On July 18th, 1937,
just after Gram turned seventeen,
Padraic
Reid asked
Nessa
Riley to marry him on this very spot.”

“You . .
.” The significance of this visit, and Ethan’s reasons for bringing me here
were just beginning to sink in. “I—I’m honored that you brought me here.”

“This is
just a warm-up,” he said, pausing a little too long. And it was slight, but I
thought I detected anxiety in his tone. “After you wake up, I plan to kidnap
you and take you here for real.”

A spasm
of what felt like guilt jabbed me in the stomach, but when Ethan smiled back at
me, it faded.
   

The
breeze picked up again, and the old boat rocked against the rickety dock. I’d
only glanced at it earlier, but after a more deliberate look, I could see that
the bottom of it
 
was also scattered with
petals—in every color imaginable, and far too many to have been an accident of
the wind.
   

“Ethan,
this is too much. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I can’t—” As I
looked into his eyes, I began to feel that familiar, terrible loss of air. “I—can’t—
breeeeathe
!” I doubled-over and Ethan rubbed my back, but
that only made it worse. I could tell he was sticking to his “concerted effort”
promise, granting me free access to his emotions. It was like I’d dipped my
little toe inside of him. The force of it was startling.

“If you
could . . . feel what I . . . feel,” I panted, hands on my knees. “If you could
see . . . what I see, I’d be giving you CPR right about now!” Now breathing
more evenly, I stood up. Ethan arched his eyebrows, as if this sounded
intriguing—me giving him CPR—then dismissed it.
 

“Hope, I
see myself every day,” he said casually. “Just another face as far as I’m
concerned.” He was completely serious.

I shook
my head in disbelief. “But here, in this realm, Ethan—you—you glow!”

“In your
eyes, maybe,” he agreed with a half-hearted shrug.

“No, you
literally glow!” I argued, trying to wipe that smirk off his face. “It’s like
someone took a purple crayon and drew a line around you.”

“Purple?”
He didn’t pause. “Never in a million years.”

“Well,
pale purple . . .” I muttered. “Almost violet, really.” He wasn’t going for it;
that much was obvious. And that’s when it came to me. I pulled him off the
dock. “Come to the water’s edge! I’ll show you!”

We knelt
down side by side, and as I brushed away the floating petals, I noticed that
that stern look of skepticism never left his flawless face.

“There!”
I pointed at the cleared surface. “Get ready to eat your words!”

His
expression was easy to read. It was the same patronizing look I sent Brody’s
way whenever he tried my patience. He was holding back a smile, definitely a
smug one, but I didn’t care. The seconds ticked by in my head. At last, he
looked down.

“See!” I
announced in a know-it-all tone as he studied his reflection. “You see it,
don’t you?” I anxiously awaited my vindication.

As if
I’d truly lost my mind, he sighed in response. “Like I said . . . just another
face to me. But I am curious—when is the last time you took a good look at
yourself?
”

“Don’t
change the subject,” I snapped.

“Indulge
me,” he whispered politely.

I rolled
my eyes.

Positioning
myself beside him, I roughed up the surface to clear away the drifting petals,
and as it settled down again, I gasped. Side by side, in the water’s flat
reflection, I saw two faces. One was Ethan’s. How could anyone ever forget that
face? A tempting blend of melancholy and mystery, my dark-haired fairy tale
come to life.
   

But the
other face staring back at me was almost unrecognizable.

It was
mine—that much I knew. And then again, it wasn’t. This new face was the perfect
counterpart to the one beside it. The one with the tousled hair, and bearing
that overly confident grin. This new face was definitely prettier, with
chestnut hair that fell in loose, soft waves around it, and staring back at me
with clear, and oddly inquisitive eyes.

“I look
so different,” I muttered in disbelief. “How can that be?”

“You’ve
always looked like that to me,” he said, suddenly making everything clear. That
had to be it. This was the way that Ethan saw me.

I bit my
lip. “I hope you’re not disappointed when you see the real me.”

Still
kneeling, Ethan twisted to face me. He looked into my eyes, imploring me to
understand. “I already see the real you, and that won’t ever change. You have
no idea how long I’ve looked for you.”

Before I
could speak, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him. With
his free hand, he caressed my face. Patiently, he explored the bow of my lips,
the curve of my chin, eventually allowing his fingers to drift down my neck and
linger on those little bones around my throat.

I did my
best to stay still as he touched me, to force my mind to stay clear. Every
sleeping emotion inside him seemed to pour from his fingertips. The effect was
numbing. Though I had been touched before, in a first love sort of way, my
experience with Daniel wasn’t anything like this.

I was
still willing air into my lungs when he kissed me. For once, probably for the
first time in my life, I didn’t try to think. I wanted only to feel the
sensation of Ethan. My hands flew to his hair, pulling him closer. Urgently,
insistently, we kissed—as though we both feared the world might end in the next
sixty seconds. And, on the off chance that it did, I wanted to go out just like
this.
    

Still
entwined, we tumbled sideways onto the damp ground. For the next several
minutes, my mind was deliciously empty. It was amazing what you could feel when
your mind was void of everything. If I’d ever questioned whether Ethan cared
for me, I no longer did. When he touched me, I knew. When he kissed me, I knew.

Later,
in one of those moments of
nonthinkingness
, Ethan
lifted me off the grass and carried me to the boat. “Your clothes are all wet,”
he said hoarsely. “I don’t want you to catch a cold.”