Gates of Paradise (Casteel 4)

"Oh, Luke . . ." The walls between us crumbled in dust. My heart rose and fell. I couldn't help it. In my mind when Luke said the words aloud, he challenged the spell. He had done the forbidden and unleashed all the passion that had been waiting hopefully for just this moment, waiting for either of us to give in to what we truly felt.

He took on that familiar decisive look, his eyes fixed on me, his jaw tight. "I decided in the cabin that I would come here and say it all. Drake was right. I did look at you with longing, with passion all these years. No other girl made me happy. It's why I never really had any girlfriends. I dream about you all the time. It's wrong, I know, but I can't help it. That's why I ran away. It's painful, Annie. It's really very painful."

"Luke, I understand." I pulled myself up so that our faces were inches apart.

"Do you?" he asked, with the look of someone who had always known.

"I've had the same feelings, always had them, and they seem to have grown stronger since you came for me at Farthy," I confessed. For a long moment the air between us seemed more like a window through which we gazed into each other's eyes and against which we pressed our lips.

"I thought so," Luke whispered, his hands moving up my arms to my shoulders. "I came so close to saying these things during the last day or so. I almost did it on the

gazebo."

"So did I."

My nightgown slipped over my shoulders and hung precariously against my upper arms. Half my bosom was already exposed, but I didn't feel embarrassed. Luke's fingers, as if they had minds of their own, traced along my collarbone. He sighed.

"Oh, Annie, Nature has played such a dirty trick on us. I hate myself for loving you this way; but I don't know how to stop it, I don't even want to stop it!"

"Luke, don't hate yourself. I can't help it, either, but I don't hate myself."

"Annie . ."

We could no longer keep our lips from touching. We both slipped through the imaginary window, and when his lips touched mine, my nightgown fell below my elbows and bared my breasts. His fingers traveled down to touch me. I moaned and searched for his lips again, but Luke pulled himself abruptly back.

"No, Annie . . . no, no. We can't do this. Drake was right about me. I don't belong here; I can't stay here. Whatever undercurrent of evil that has run through the Casteels is running through me now, too. If I stay here with you, I won't be able to stop myself and we'll become like some of my hillbilly ancestors . . . incestuous, like animals, ugly."

"Luke, we can't be ugly. This can't be wrong. I don't know why, but I feel it can't be."

"You're too good for someone like me, Annie. You don't deserve to have any evil curses dropped over your head just because I can't control the foul passion that runs freely through my Casteel veins. I'm probably no better than my mother used to be. Drake was right about that.

"I must stay away from you for a while, Annie, and let you get better and stronger emotionally as well as physically." He backed away from my bed.

"No, Luke, I need you. Please, don't go." I reached out toward him, but he continued to back away.

"I must. God bless you, Annie. Get well."

He pivoted quickly and rushed out.

"Luke!" I struggled to get out of the bed. My legs trembled. Even so, I forced them to hold me enough so I could work my way around my bed and grab my walker. Using it, I made my way to the bedroom doorway. I got there just in time to hear the front door open and close.

"Luke!"

"Annie! What's wrong?"

Aunt Fanny rushed across the hallway.

"Oh, Aunt Fanny, hurry. Luke's run out. Stop him. He blames himself for everything, for what happened between me and Drake. . . for . . . for everything."

She nodded, but I saw she knew more than I thought.

"It was bound ta happen, child. Like Heaven, I could see it comin', but I didn't know how ta stop it." She guided me back to my bed.

"See it coming?" Did everyone know what we thought was kept so deeply secret in our own hearts?

"Saw the way he always looked at ya, saw the way ya were togetha. I saw the light in ya eyes and the light in his'n and I knew what was growin' between ya."

"Oh, Aunt Fanny, I didn't do it deliberately. I. . ." I sat on my bed, my hands in my lap, and shook my head.