The Silken Web

He grimaced. “What do you do when you need a good swift kick in the butt?”

“I take a vitamin pill.”

He laughed and saluted her with his highball glass, which had just arrived. After they had sipped their drinks, he said, “I’ve got to taste a spritzer. No one should go through life without having done that.”

He took the frosted wineglass out of her hand and deliberately turned it around to place his lips on the lipstick-smudged place hers had been. He watched her over the glass as he took a small drink. When he handed it back to her, he said softly, “Delicious.”

Kathleen’s stomach did a somersault, but she was unable to tear her eyes away from the power of his. He hadn’t been referring to the drink when he had made that one succinct description. He was reminding her that he had tasted her mouth thoroughly, knew it, recognized it and liked it.

She could have hugged the waiter when he returned to the table with the menus. “What will I have tonight?” She feigned interest in the bill of fare. Actually, she didn’t think she’d be able to eat a thing. Her heart seemed to have swollen in her chest and compressed her lungs until her breathing was little more than light panting.

“I already know,” Erik said, closing the menu decisively.

“What?” She laughed.

“Fried chicken. Only in the South can you get real fried chicken.”

“You should come to Atlanta sometime. I think it must be the fried chicken capital of the world.”

He watched her mouth as she spoke, and then raised his eyes to meet hers. “I will.” It was a promise, and again her heart did that erratic dance that she now knew from memory.

“What are you having?” he asked when the waiter came back with a pen poised over his tablet.

“The trout. Broiled, please. And I’d like some extra lemon wedges,” she said to the waiter.

After he left, Erik leaned across the table toward her once again. “Would you like another spritzer?”

“No, thank you. But order yourself another drink if you like.”

“No. I’m drunk enough as it is.” He reached for her hand, encircled her wrist with his strong fingers and brought it to his lips to press a fervent kiss against her pulse. “Mitsouko. Do you always smell so good?” His mouth mumbled the words against the back of her hand as his thumb stroked the sensitive palm in heart-melting rhythm. The question was rhetorical and needed no answer, so none was offered. “Tell me about you, Kathleen.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked breathlessly.

“Everything. Was it tough on you when you lost your parents?”

She hadn’t intended to, hadn’t even thought of it, but she reached out with her other hand and covered the masculine one that was holding hers. She stared at the clasped hands for a long while before she spoke.

“I wanted to die, too. I was angry. How could God do this to me? I had always been obedient, a good student, eaten all my vegetables, you know, the kind of things a kid thinks are exemplary.” She sighed. “I was spending the night with a friend because I had had a cold and Mother didn’t want me out in the boat. I didn’t even find out about the accident until the next morning, when my friend’s mother heard about it on the radio.”

Closing her eyes, she relived all the pain she had felt on that day. “I am almost twenty-six years old. I only lived with Mamma and Daddy half of my life, yet they are still so much a part of me,” she said softly. “Memories of them are more vivid than things that happened subsequent to their deaths.”

“You were put in an orphanage.”

“Yes.” She smiled gently. “I remember being angry at my parents’ friends, who said they were worried about me but wouldn’t ask me to live with them. They were all very kind. I realize that now. But then, I was bitter about the rotten deal I was g

etting out of life. I wasn’t too charitable toward anyone.”

“You were entitled to a little bitterness, I think.” He raised her hand and kissed it quickly, then asked, “Where did you go to school?”

“At the orphanage. It was a church-supported institution—how I hate that word! They had classes through the ninth grade. Then I went to public high school. That helped prepare me for living ‘on the outside.’ ”

“And college?”

“I had good enough grades to be offered a scholarship by benefactors of the orphanage, but I also worked in a dress shop near the campus to subsidize the scholarship.”

He smiled knowingly. “You don’t fool me, Ms. Haley. You worked so it wouldn’t look like you were taking charity.”

“Perhaps that was part of it,” she conceded shyly.