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.There was a vividness about the woman, about the vibrant love spilling out from her that stirred Alexander deeply.As the small boy giggled helplessly against his mother, Alexander felt a wistfulness move through him, a pinch of hunger he’d not felt in a long time.He watched the woman kiss her child almost reverently, then hold out an arm to the other boy, who sank next to her, his face flushed.All three of them simply sat there for a moment, spent with the festival, dappled by the speckled shade that fell through the branches of an oak tree.Alexander felt the restless stirring within him grow and ache for an instant before he could push it away.He threw down his glasses and turned away from the window, shedding the mantle he’d worn for the festival in favor of his street clothes.There was no restlessness, no pain that a good round of combat in the dojo couldn’t cure.OneEsther Lucas was running late.As usual.This afternoon, it was for a typical reason.She’d been unable to find the boys’ gis, which turned out to be exactly where she’d put them—folded in a neat stack on the dryer.It was the towels folded on top of them that had thrown her off.Now she checked her watch and hurried the boys along.“Come on, guys.This isn’t a city hike.We have to get to the dojo.”“Sensei said it’s important to be on time,” Jeremy, her youngest reminded her.“I know.” Sensei said had preceded a solid third of his sentences in the past few weeks.Most of them were the kinds of things a mother loved to hear her children mouth, but they all mainly revolved around a sense of orderliness and balance that Esther had never mastered.“We’re almost there,” she said.“See?” She pointed to a small, unassuming building sandwiched between a photographer’s studio and a quilting shop.A sign in the window announced the form taught, Shotokan Karate, and the instructor’s name, Ryohe Kobayashi, in Roman letters.The lovely calligraphy of Japan followed, presumably announcing the same information.The boys slowed as they reached the door and entered the dojo with a dignity and hush that always surprised her.Esther tagged behind, scowling at the bank of heavy clouds that hung over the mountains.Ordinarily the precious hour the children spent at their lessons was the only time she had to herself in a day.She used it to stroll along the streets nearby, sometimes stopping for a cup of tea or a sweet while she waited.Today, the impending rain made that impossible.Just inside the doors of the studio was a bank of chairs and Esther settled in one, desultorily taking out a book to read while she waited, thinking with longing of the piece of pie she’d intended to treat herself to before the clouds had ruined her plan.A pretty Asian girl sat behind a low counter to Esther’s right, tallying numbers on an adding machine.She smiled at Esther’s sigh.Off to the left through an archway, was the main room.Long and wide, it consumed the rest of the space in the dojo except for a few smaller rooms toward the back.Her wandering gaze caught on the figure of a man at her end of the dojo going through elaborate, stylized exercises.It was tai chi, Esther realized after a moment; the same form her friend Abe practiced.But Abe had never looked like this.The man wore only a loose pair of trousers, leaving his chest and feet bare.Tall and lean, with thick, unruly dark hair and a beard, his movements sent the long muscles in his arms and back rippling with the sleek grace of a jungle cat.His skin was tawny, his nose blunt and broad, and his hair curled over his well-shaped head like a mane.A mane, Esther thought.Yes.He was no ordinary jungle cat.A quickening shivered through her middle.He looked like a lion—king of all the lesser beasts, master of jaguars and tigers and foolish monkeys.It was in the arrogant tilt of his proud head, in the intelligence of his wide brow.The quickening rippled outward from her belly, into her limbs.Who was he? She knew she had never seen him here before.As he shifted once more, the light from a window high on the wall spilled over him, showing tiny strands of silver in the glossy mahogany hair.He wore a neatly trimmed beard, and it had been heavily painted with the same silver.Esther inclined her head with a small frown, sure he’d not yet seen forty.She wondered if genetics or tragedy had given him that early frost.Absently she thought she should quit staring.But somehow it seemed as silly to turn her eyes away from the natural splendor of his male form as it would be to turn away from the brawny shoulders of the mountains.She let herself admire him until his set was complete.He paused, shaking his hands loosely.The heavy canvas trousers rode his hipbones, showing a lean, tanned stomach with a line of dark hair running over the muscles as if for emphasis.Another quiver ran over her nerves.Then he met her gaze and for an instant, she was riveted.It was an unflinchingly masculine face, rendered in clean, bold strokes.But she was snared less by the face itself than by something strangely compelling in his unsmiling expression.There was incandescence in his eyes, and a definite sense of recognition.As she watched, a strange flash of bleakness bled everything else from his eyes, giving Esther a fleeting glimpse of a hopelessness so vast she could barely fathom it.Abruptly he bent down to pick up a short canvas robe.As he walked toward the back of the room, carefully skirting the mat where the children were practicing, he shrugged into the robe.He didn’t look back.Esther touched her breastbone, feeling her heart threading below
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