She didn’t answer. After a while the light went out, and the door closed softly. Niall’s footsteps retreated down the hall to his own room. Another door closed. All was silent save for the tapping of cottonwood branches on her window.
Athena lay cold and stiff under the blankets, fighting to control her unreasonable passions. Her stomach clenched and roiled as if she had digested every last shred of the contentment she had cultivated since the accident.
You lied to me, Niall. You treat me like a child, and I ceased being a child when you carried me out of that snowdrift.
A child. To Niall, she would always be that, dependent and unable to guide her own destiny.
Morgan Holt did not see her that way. She shivered, remembering the kiss, and the icy kernel in her heart was all but consumed in a blaze of sheer physical yearning.
Morgan Holt believed she was brave and capable. He saw her as a woman grown. He didn’t give her pretty words. He was barely courteous. Yet his actions spoke more eloquently than the most cultured speech.
And he had kissed her.
She touched her lips. It was just as well that she must stay away until the performance. If she met him again in private, she didn’t know what she would say or do. What he would say or do, when there was no future to be shared between them.
In dreams, she could walk, and run, and even Change again. In dreams, all the barriers between her and Morgan Holt dissolved like snow in a teakettle, and she forgot that her life was laid out now as it would always be.
She closed her eyes and willed the dreams to come.
Niall ushered Athena, Miss Hockensmith, and the few friends who had chosen to attend the performance to the special seats set aside for them at the very edge of the ring. Workers were busy making final adjustments to the props to be used by the performers—the high wire, the trampoline, the various balls and banners and hoops. Scaffolding for the aerialists hung overhead. An off-key trumpet sounded outside the trouper’s entrance at the opposite side of the ring, and teachers from the orphanage herded the last of their charges in the common seating area, which the circus people called the “blues.”
Children’s voices rang and echoed under the artificial cave of the tent. Sounds of innocent, uncomplicated joy. Niall glanced at the happy, upturned faces, and was glad he had not begrudged the orphans this small pleasure. Athena had invited the residents of Denver’s other orphanages in addition to her own; nearly a hundred youngsters filled the blues.
Athena had been true to her word. She’d kept quietly at home until this afternoon. If there had been a slight strain between him and his sister, Niall had dismissed it as minor pique on his sister’s part. She would get over it—she always did. No one in the world was less apt to hold a grudge than Athena.
Niall knew that better than anyone.
As confirmation of his judgment, Athena beamed impartially at him and at anyone else who came in sight, including Harry French. The old man had personally attended them and arranged for refreshments to be provided, bobbing up and down the while with ingratiating humility. Fortunately, he had not found the temerity to ask Niall why he had changed his mind about allowing the performance, though Niall had made certain that the “Wolf-Man” stayed away. There was little risk that Athena would be reminded of things best left buried.
Cecily Hockensmith touched his arm. “Oh, Mr. Munroe, I am so glad that you found a way to permit the show in spite of our concerns,” she said. “Athena looks so happy. You were very clever to find a solution that pleases everyone.”
“I do not like making my sister unhappy,” he said, sparing her a glance. “There is no reason why such matters cannot be settled in an equitable manner.”
“Indeed. My father has often said how much he admires your skills of negotiation.”
He murmured some rote courtesy and gazed about the ring. If not for Athena and her friends, he would have preferred to remain in the office at work, Sunday or not. But this was a moment of triumph for Athena, and he would not ruin her pleasure in it.