That hadn’t rattled him.
It infuriated him.
And it did then.
Spurring him to move, stalking out of the dressing room, through his room, into the hall and down the stairs.
He found her in the parlor.
She, too, was at a window, staring at the park.
“Sa…Maxine,” he gritted.
She turned to him.
And Loren knew when she did, he’d already lost her.
He felt the bleakness that seemed always looming begin to overtake him.
The words had not been said, but he knew he loved her, and she loved him. So, before she left him and returned to her home, she was owed the understanding of why he was aloof and removed on a day of spectacle and fear. A day he forced her to face at his side, but without his love and care.
“I talked Father into getting her that puppy, she wanted one so badly.”
Her lovely faced blanked.
Yes, he had lost her.
He persevered, nevertheless.
“It took years for him to convince me it wasn’t my doing that pup went into the creek and Columbia went after him. I still don’t quite believe it. As Father does not quite believe that it wasn’t his fault Mother was lost. He’d made her pregnant, of course, and her recovery from having Columbia was slow. She did not regain her strength as quickly as she had after me. Though, as Father tells it, there was no convincing her. She carried on with all the things she’d done before as if she was just as robust, which only served to further weaken her. Another mark on Father’s soul, according to him, for he allowed her to do it.”
“Women aren’t fond of being ‘allowed’ or ‘disallowed’ to do things,” she said quietly.
“Indeed,” he returned brusquely. “As, from Father’s stories of her, I deduce Mother would have also contended. It was her choice. But I bid you convince Father of that.”
“An effort doomed to fail, I’m sure,” she muttered.
“Yes,” he agreed. He then shared, “Last night, I went to your world.”
Her eye grew enormous.
The bleakness encroached further.
By the gods, he would miss her.
“I did not like it. It was grimy and loud. Everyone seems to be in a hurry, like the place they’re going will vanish in but seconds, or what they’re doing is more important than the deeds of those around them. That last reminds me of your father of this world, except it was most everyone who behaved in this manner. People don’t meet each other’s eyes. They don’t nod hello. They are too busy rushing. They are too consumed with thinking of themselves.”
“That about describes it,” she said.
“And it looked like Korwahk, but there was all this false green that seemed out of place. Unnatural. When what was supposed to be there would have been so much better.”
“I live in Phoenix, it’s a desert.”
“It doesn’t look like a desert.”
“Man on my world fiddles. They want things as they want them and find ways, or invent them, to make that so.”
“I sense this is foolhardy.”
“It is,” she murmured.
“I saw the other me,” he announced.
Again with the big eyes, but accompanying them this time, her body started.
“And Marlow, Middy, Holt and Croft. When you return, I would ask you not to seek him out. This other me. It would destroy me, knowing you are with him. But then, it would that if you were with anyone. And you will find someone. And it is no longer my place to make demands.”
“Was it ever?”
“You’re right,” he conceded. “It was not.”
“I didn’t like lying to you,” she said.
“That was abundantly clear, though I didn’t understand until recently the true reasons behind your emotion.”
“I wouldn’t have…I mean, it was going to be a last resort, you know, playing you. Making you have feelings for me. Marrying you and having your child. I needed to get Mom safe, but I hoped to do that and not involve you at all.”
“You are safe now and set finally to go home.”
“We’re not going home.”
Loren stilled in all manners that word could describe. His body. His heart in his chest. His blood in his veins. His ability to think.
Except one thought.
They weren’t going home?
“It’s too different there. Maxine couldn’t hack it. She’s happy now. We don’t want to rock that boat,” she explained.
Loren had also lost the ability to speak, thus he remained silent.
“Mom likes being Lady Corliss too. We’re hoping the woman in green might take us back for a quick trip, so people we love don’t think anything bad happened to us. But then we want to come right back. Maxine was okay with us being gone today, but I don’t think us being gone more than a day or two would be good for her. Maybe a little later, when we’ve been around for a while. But not now.”
“You wish to remain?” he pushed out.
She shrugged. “However it came about, no matter how wild and terrifying, Mom and I talked about it a while ago. It might sound crazy, but we figure we’re meant to be here. We’d decided to stay then. And obviously, there was no way I was leaving you.”