Harlequin Romance: A Parody of Styles (pt 2)

Over Coffee and Cream
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“Care for a coffee?” he called across the yard. Startled, she froze in place – a plump flower bulb in one hand, an ornate silver spoonful of dirt in the other. He had caught her in one of her silly, impetuous moments. This morning, as the pre-dawn light glowed with promise, she, in just another of her typically overly romantic ideas, ran to repay the day with the planting of a tulip bulb. Somehow, she had come to believe she could capture the color of the morning sky if the bottom of the bulb touched the earth as the top of the sun kissed the horizon. It was a wives’ tale of her own creation which required perfect timing, for the bulb must be covered over at the precise second the sun was fully revealed. Timing such as this could not afford a distraction. 2

Yet there he was in all his charming radiance. He held a steaming mug in each hand and offered her a comforting smile. “Coffee?” She shook herself free of her stupor long enough to return a small nod and drop the bulb in place. “Finish …” he said, “I’ll bring it round”. As he turned and the sun finished its 128-second rise, she tamped the soil into place. 3

As he strolled down and around the fence that divided their properties, she stood and tried to regain her composure, only then embarrassed to realize she was still in her bathrobe, a wide-winged kimono covered with colorful cranes. Quickly she tucked the spoon in her sleeve and dusted the dirt from her hands, her subsiding blush matching the color-tinged clouds. 4

His eyes took her in as he offered her a mug and nodded toward the round wire table and two chairs that sat on her small brick patio at the end of the yard. With him in the lead, her bare feet retraced the line her earlier footprints had made in the dew. This time though she took great pains to step inside his larger footprints as she caught the spiraling scent of coffee and her first glimpse of his well formed behind. She took them both in with pleasure. 5

He pulled out her chair without a word, inviting her to sit. He sat, sipped, swallowed and sighed with satisfaction. Between her tiny tastes, she tried to catch nonchalant glimpses of him – hoping at least to appear to match his level of comfort. As he looked across her yard, his eyes traveled leisurely over the neatly trimmed borders, the warming beds with their lemon-lime shoots tempted above the soil by time and sun and rested finally on the pond beyond. 6

She calmed herself by allowing her eyes to follow his to the pond and settle there as well, hoping to see it through his eyes rather than her own. Did he notice the subtle rings widening around the first pair of nesting wood ducks, the line of the sun as it rode down the tree line gradually turning the reeds to gold, or the red-winged blackbird perching sideways on last year's cattail stalk, betraying in his vigilance his nest’s location? Did this stranger notice the subtle changes in the rhythms of the water as it moved by in lazy channels? For the first time she turned fully towards him, knowing by his gentle look of open concentration he saw all this and more. 7

Inside her, the bubble of desire began to rise, expand and spread through her much as it had last night – threatening now to erupt in a stifled whimper. She moved nervously in her chair hoping to break the spell of his subtle and delicious seduction. 8

As he lazed back in his chair, his knowing grin politely acknowledged her interest and in return he focused his careful attention on her. His eyes traced along her lines as he had the garden, resting on each detail with a sense of memorization before moving on and in. He reached across the table and took the hem of her sleeve in his fingers. Smoothly he moved his fingers beneath the cloth, his forearm brushing her skin. With the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, he pulled the spoon from her sleeve, and brought it to his lips. He sighed a cloud warmed with coffee across the bowl and wiped the fog away with the burgundy tail of his chamois shirt and an ease that came from deep within him. 9

He held the spoon’s mirrored surface in front of her eyes until her gaze moved from him to her own reflection. “Beautiful!” he said. Her heart raced until she realized he must have been talking about the scenery. She sat again frozen in the moment as he placed the spoon on the table, gathered the now empty mugs and turned for home. In the wake of his departing, she allowed the bubble to rise to its full strength and burst from her warm lips in an inevitable whimper of surrender. 10

As she struggled to regain her composure and push the chairs back into place, she noticed a single small button on the brick. It didn't appear to match those of the shirt he wore. She continued to wonder where it came from as she tucked it safely in her pocket, stroking it with her thumb as if it were a lucky rabbit's foot. 11

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