THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART FOURTEEN:

He left her speechless. Literally. She simply could not force a sound up her throat. Her vocal chords seemed to have ceased functioning.  She could blink, though, so she did that over and over. She had been in one place and now she was in another. How long ago had it been that she sat on the footstool watching him sleep? Now his lips were hovering just above her hand and

the sound of his deep voice, the words he'd spoken sparked up and down her nervous system sending signals in a language she'd forgotten she could speak, if she had even ever known.

She looked at his tipped-down face and he was infinitely dear. How? When? She knew, though, that it had all started when the raindrops had begun spattering the dried mud on his face. She just hadn't known she knew.  His face. She reached out now, touching the soft beard at the

side of his cheek. His breath caught, stopped for a moment, then he let it out, long and sighingly

slow, turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm.

She was almost dizzy. Her soul had plunged into some unthinkable depth and was swimming forward through waters thick with things she had no names for, only that her arms were out before her and he was there, had grasped her hands and when he did, the waters became something she could breathe. And so she did, drawing in great breaths of it while his fingers laced with hers. None of this came as words, or image, or even thought but only as awareness,

as knowing.

"How?" she finally managed.

"Shhhh!"  He touched her mouth with a single fingertip then moved it back to rest on his own

as though he were lost in some wildwood of thought.  Then he smiled that slight, little smile

again and leaned forward,  softly surrounding her upper lip with his mouth, sliding down to

her lower, then taking them both at once.  He did not go further than that. It was enough. For now it was enough, and when he pulled his head back, his hand lingered on her cheek.

"Marshall."

"Hmmm?"

"I just wanted to say your name, to hear the sound of it...now."

"Eden." He cocked his head slightly to one side. "God planted a garden eastward in Eden."

"How?" she asked again.

"I don't know. Some things just are."

"I think I'm lost."

"Or found."

"Can someone be both lost and found at the same moment?" she asked.

"Perhaps. Are you?"  His hand was still on her cheek.

"I think so. Except I can't really think."

"That's all right."

"It is?"

"Yes."  And he kissed her again.  Just soft...and light...and warm, and his tongue traced across her lower lip.

"Marshall?"

"Hmmm?"

"Will you not ever stop doing that?"

His lips curved back into a smile and he leaned toward her again, kissing each of her eyes then down her cheek to her lips. This time he kissed her more thoroughly and she parted her lips, welcoming him.  The kiss was long and much more intimate.

He kept his face near hers and she leaned her forehead against his. "I didn't expect you," she breathed.

"I was waiting," he said simply.

"In a gully."

"That, too."

"Were you...waiting?"

"I'm not sure I knew I was, but I was."

She leaned back a bit. "But I, I wasn't looking. I think I'd stopped."

"Finding has its own timing."

"You...you were just...there," she said, still amazed by the fact.

"Barely."

"Do you know, do you really know, how close you came to not...not...."

"Some," he said, "but I'm not sure it matters, not now."

"I didn't know it was you. I didn't know you...were you."  My God! She hadn't. She really hadn't known the stranger so covered in mud was...him. The thought of it now, of him...this him...like that was appalling. She cupped his face with both her hands. "How could I not know?"

"Lots of mud?" he offered.

"That's not what I mean."

"I know," he smiled.

"Kiss me."

He did.

ON TO PART 15

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