From the Heart

held the stereo. Chopin, she decided, shifting through the albums. It was a night for romance.
    The house was quiet. The servants were settled in their wing. Beatrice was at a party. It might have been only the three of them in the house. Kasey sighed as she slipped the record onto the turntable. For tonight she could pretend it was true. Wandering to the window, she parted the curtains and looked out. The moon was high and full, the night clear. She found Pegasus again and mused over it. When she heard the doors shut quietly, she turned. Kasey watched Jordan lock them.
    “Did you settle her in all right?” Her heart began to skip rapidly. Silly, she thought. I act as though it’s the first time I’ve been with him.
    “She’s fine. She never even woke up. You sleep like that.” He crossed the room and set the bottle of wine he carried on the bar. “Deep, like a child.” He opened the wine, then moved to the fireplace. Kneeling, he set gas flames burning over the logs. “Now you can pretend it’s snowing.” He smiled up at her.
    “You do see through me, don’t you?”
    “At times.” When he had poured two glasses, he moved back in front of the fire and sat. He held up a hand for her. Kasey took it and settled next to him. “How do you feel?” he asked when she was leaning against him.
    “Like I’m snowed in,” she murmured, accepting the wine he offered. “Snuggled in a log cabin in the Adirondacks, away from the world and its problems.”
    “Is there room in the log cabin for me?”
    She tilted her head to smile at him. “Anytime.”
    “We’d have wood,” he said quietly and he took the glass from her hand. “And wine.” He bent to kiss the corner of her mouth. “And each other.” Gently he lowered her to the floor. “We wouldn’t need anything else.”
    “No.” Kasey’s lids lowered as she drew him closer. “Nothing else.”
    She lost herself in the feel of him, in the taste of him. Her mind and body were in complete harmony, and both belonged to him. From somewhere deep in the center of the house, the clock struck midnight, and it was Christmas.
    How long they loved each other that night Kasey would never know. Neither of them had wanted to unlock the door and open themselves to the rest of the world. Once, when they dozed together, Jordan woke to hear the front door open and close behind his mother. Then the house was silent again. Theirs. He turned to Kasey and roused her slowly until she was quivering for him again and he for her. There was firelight and the colors from the tree and the scent of pine. The wine grew warm.
    Kasey slept again and woke groggily when Jordan lifted her.
    “I’ll take you up,” he murmured.
    “I don’t want to leave you.” She buried her face in his neck. “The nights are too short. Hours and hours too short.”
    Then she was asleep again, as deeply as Alison had been when he had carried her up the stairs.
     
    Morning came all too soon. Only her own determination and Alison’s excitement kept Kasey from crawling back under the covers. The neat, formal drawing room was soon strewn with torn paper, boxes and discarded ribbons. A cocker spaniel puppy, Kasey’s gift to Alison, raced around the tree while Alison sat, awestruck, with a new guitar, a gift from her uncle, on her lap.
    “Shouldn’t you wake your mother, Jordan?” Kasey murmured, pushing some crumpled paper aside.
    “At six o’clock in the morning?” He laughed and shook his head. “Mother doesn’t rise before ten, Christmas or no Christmas. We’ll have a very civilized brunch later.”
    Kasey wrinkled her nose and grabbed for a box. “It’s about time I had one,” she announced, knowing the gift was from Alison. “I’ve heard a lot of whispering about this one,” she said, unwinding the ribbon slowly. “Seen a lot of telling looks.” Alison caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked at Jordan. “Like that one,” Kasey stated and ripped the paper with a flourish. Opening the box, she found a long, pale green neck scarf in soft wool.
    “It’s the first present I ever made,” Alison said anxiously. “Rose the kitchen maid taught me. I made some mistakes.”
    Kasey tried to raise her eyes, tried to speak, but could do neither. She stroked the awkwardly crocheted scarf with her fingers.
    “Do you like it?”
    Kasey looked up and nodded helplessly. Her eyes were already brimming over.
    “Women,” Jordan said, tucking Alison’s hair behind her ear.