Sam bowed his head. "Well, I guess it wouldn't be too good to be licked to death, then." He scrambled to his feet and pulled her up.
She searched his face, stunned. Then, as if drawn by a spell, she stepped close, threw her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. Was this still her Sam? Her Sam so full of strange news and stranger proposals? He felt like the same Sam. The fabric of his coat was rough against her cheek. His arms came up and crushed her against him.
"I do love you, Rose," he said into her hair. "Forever. And you and Frodo; he loves you, too. I'm certain of it. Please. Think about it."
She shivered. "I can't think about anything right now. But it's good to hold you." She stood there a minute, just feeling his warmth, his solid presence. He was like a rock, like a tree, her Sam. No one stronger, she knew for a fact. Not in heart, not in body. Frodo knows it, too, and better than you, came the whisper in her mind, and she choked back a wail.
She broke away. "Let's go back, Sam. I have a lot of work to do today."
He held her hand on the silent walk back, and she let him. She was painfully aware of how his hand felt cupped around hers, how warm it was, where his fingers touched hers, his calluses.
Frodo. Her friend was dying? She saw Frodo's face, his enchanting eyes so dull now. He was weary and sad. Almost desperate. What was to become of him?
Her mind strayed back to the winter hours in his study at Bag End bending over the letters and the quills. And that kiss, that intoxicating Yule party. Three kisses, in fact, that she herself had had from Frodo Baggins. Then, abrupt and vivid before her eyes: Sam and Frodo, kissing, their eyes closed, their mouths locked together. It was true; they were lovers.
She felt overwhelmed. Tears formed again in her eyes as she walked.
At the gate, Sam turned to her, tears in his own eyes. She didn't stiffen or turn away when he folded her in his arms again.
"I love you, Rose. Never doubt that. I want to see you soon. May I?"
She put her arms around him, again laid her head on his shoulder. Then she looked into his brown eyes, nodded, turned and went through the gate, as he watched her out of sight.
Rose went straight across the farmyard to the heavy door of the weaving barn. It was standing open, but the barn was empty and chill. The light from the big north windows was filling the bare room, its tables piled with the spools of homespun thread of both the local wool and the Southfarthing's cotton. The loom frames cast geometric shadows on the smooth-worn planks of the floor.
She left the door open, to take advantage of the light and the swiftly warming day, and went to the big loom she had left the day before. She wiped her eyes, stretched, and then sat down on the bench, putting her hands to the task.
It was plain muslin this time, destined to become shirts or sheets sometime next winter. They were a bit behind this spring, because of all the uproar last year. She and her mother and Marigold Gamgee were putting in extra hours, hoping to have a good lot to sell at the big midsummer fairs. There were few in the Four Farthings who had Lily Cotton's touch when it came to making cloth, for all she came by the name by marriage and not by blood. And she had taught her apprentices well.
Rose's head was spinning, and she was glad that the fabric was not some complicated pattern or delicate thread such as her mother usually took responsibility for. She could slam down the shuttle, her hands and feet knowing their jobs, and try to absorb what Sam had told her.
Like pictures from a dream, the faces of Sam and Frodo still hung in her mind, as they had on the walk home. How could it have happened between them? How could her Sam have changed so much, from serving Mr. Frodo to loving him like that?
She found she wasn't so surprised to learn it of Frodo; there had been furtive rumors about him for years, and about Mr. Bilbo before him. She herself remembered the gossip that cropped up at the time of the grand Hornblower-Whitfoot wedding, for all she was only sixteen. People were amazed that Frodo had been invited and that he had actually showed up, as she recalled. But he had, and seemed serenely happy for the groom and had even kissed the bride.
She shook her head. She had counted herself as someone who knew Frodo better than most. At first, as a child, she had tagged after Sam to play at learning from Mr. Frodo, but found she had enjoyed the lessons and the tales just for themselves. She had been in and out of Bag End for years. Frodo was part of the landscape, Himself, the Mr. Baggins of Bag End. There had always been an eccentric Baggins under the Hill in Rosie's Shire. She was too young to remember the days when Baggins had been another way to say "predictability." For all that Mr. Bilbo had had no family, and no heir but Frodo, he had left his stamp on the name forever. So she grew up expecting moonshine, tales and romance from Frodo, and she had had them. And loved it!
As she grew up and began noticing boys, especially Sam, she had noticed Frodo, too. How could she not? He was handsome, tall, rich, mysterious and so much older. Irresistible, but never a realistic possibility for any sort of union. And her mother would have been quick to point that out, if she had ever admitted how taken she was with his looks and his quirky ways. But a girl could dream, couldn't she?
Still, in the light of the waking world it was a given, in her own mind, at least, that it would be Sam she would settle down with. Slow as he had been to speak, she knew very well how much he loved her, how he sought her company. And him kissing her this winter, and she letting him! Never knowing, never dreaming who else he was kissing.
She put her head down for a minute. She felt faint. This was a fine problem he had given her to worry over, now, wasn't it?
Rage and embarrassment flared. Why had she waited for him? What foolish, idiotic thing had she done, turning away Basil Brown and Hal Tighfield and at least two others she could name, waiting for Sam. Why did he have to make it so hard for her? He had complicated what should have been so simple, so easy. And his news about Frodo...Frodo withdrawing, trying to manipulate the two of them, giving them what he felt he could not have. Such a terrible problem.
And what a solution! Sam's plan for the three of them? She shook her head. The tears wanted to come; she tried to swallow them.
Marigold's loom was in front of her, strung with a heavier warp, for work pants and coats, and as Rosie idly noted the progress of her friend's cloth, she saw the reason for the open barn door. Someone, her brother, most likely, had left Marigold a huge bouquet of her namesake flowers, tied to a covered basket perched on the loom's bench. Rose smiled, as she pushed the heavy shuttle, reminded of the romance she had been watching all winter. She was glad of a distraction, however momentary, from the crush of her own thoughts. At that moment Marigold Gamgee came bustling through the door. "Good morning, Mari." Rose called, quickly wiping her face. "You have a surprise."
Her friend turned from hanging up her cloak, eagerly buried her face in the peppery scent of the orange, gold and bronze blossoms, then looked under the handkerchief covering the basket. "Oh, Rose, it's rolls and cake and cheese. And where in the Shire did he get the flowers? It's much too early for them. Sam hasn't been back long enough to grow these for him." Marigold suddenly studied Rose for a long moment but her voice remained deceptively light. "Who has a greenhouse, and would want to go to the trouble?"
Rose chose not to notice her interest and began to prattle. "Maybe someone from Overhill. Mistress Boffin dotes on flowers, and doesn't your cousin Halfast have her greenhouse?" she offered.
"You're right. Oh, that Tom. He went to a lot of trouble, didn't he? I hear they have basil and parsley all year round at Overhill. No dried stuff in the winter for them."
"It is a lot of trouble."
Marigold pursed her lips and brought Rose a big roll with a shiny egg glaze, and a wedge of the mild white cheese. "There. That should hold you until second breakfast." Rose accepted the gift with her head down.
"Thank you, Mari." Was Mari ever going to say Yes to Tom Cotton? "You have quite a decision on your hands, don't you, sister?" Rosie gently teased, then fell silent at the implication of her own words.
Marigold laughed. "Yes, I suppose I do. But there's no rush!" She flourished another sweet roll and Rose just smiled, not wanting to encourage any more talk. She bent towards her work as her expression turned serious and Sam's incredible proposal returned to her mind.
She closed her eyes, felt Sam's warm hands, his sweet kisses under the cool spring sun, just this morning. Then her treacherous memory reached back, bringing before her, just for comparison's sake, it seemed, a big room, bigger than the weaving barn, dense and heavy with pipe smoke and the breath and sweat of dancers, and most of all, the blindfolded Master of Bag End, her own hands buried in that shining mahogany hair, her curves melting into his lap. His mouth, red as a girl's, on hers, and standing behind him, watching the whole thing unfold, had been Sam, with his eyes wide and shocked. A game. It meant nothing. Only a game that had given her a thrilling sort of insomnia for weeks. Did she want more of that? Was he truly determined to die? What about Sam?
How to choose? And what if we didn't have to?
Her eyes flew open.
"Rose, I said, did your mother want another whole length of this heavy muslin, or should I switch to the shirt weight?"
Rose murmured, breathless, "The heavy weight, Marigold, please."
She stared at her loom, but she didn't see it.
True to his word, Sam had let her think. Several days went by with no word from him, and Rose found no excuse to go up to Hobbiton. Not even to see the beautiful repairs to the Bag End garden. Then, nearly a week after Sam had come to breakfast, Rose walked into the great room of the Cotton farmhouse.
She saw her mother, and at the same time, the flowers.
Her mother heard her gasp, and turned, smiling, into a shaft of sunlight. "I imagine you can guess who these are from, Rosie? There was no note."
"Oh, mother. Who brought them?"
"The youngest Twofoot. Aldo, I think his name is. He said naught, just gave them to me in two bundles and was on his way. Just now."
Rose stood still.
Her mother had arranged the fat, half-opened roses in two big bowls on the table, just as they had been sent: twelve white, and right beside, twelve of deepest red. Their fragrance was filling the room already.
"Funny of Sam, to send two bunches like that. And roses in March! Where did he get them? I wonder when the lad will make up his mind to speak." she shot a sharp glance towards her daughter.
Rose just shook her head, her eyes pinned to the flowers.
Two days after Sam had sent the roses, Rose was out before the sun, searching. It was too early for roses and marigolds in all but the hothouses of the gentry, but the wildflowers she needed would be just blooming in the sunny lanes, near the fencerows, she was sure. And she wouldn't need many.
She was quick and silent, as only a secretive hobbit lass can be. She climbed The Hill and headed for the cow shed, knowing that Sam always came to the lane near Bagshot Row, New Row, she corrected herself, every morning to milk the Hill's cows. She was out of sight of the neighbors. Perfect. She didn't have much time; her family would wonder soon enough where she had gotten to. Rose slipped inside the shed and sat on a milk stool. She scratched a cow's chin. It kept nudging her, asking to be milked, and she apologized while she waited. She didn't wait long. She stood when she heard a step outside.
Sam came in, and his eyes widened. He set down his empty buckets.
"Sam," she said, holding out the bunch of tender, wild daisies, some not even open yet. His hands folded around them, barely brushing hers.
"Daisies. That means you're 'Thinking About It.'" he said.
"Thinking," she agreed. Her cheeks were flushed. She could feel the heat from them.
He smiled slowly. "And what are you thinking, me dear?"
She blushed even pinker, dropped her eyes, and then met his again. "About you and Frodo. About us." His eyebrows went up. She stretched out a hand and gently touched the daisies as he held them. "You've given me a lot to think about, with your talk of having ... everything."
One of the cows gave a honking, impatient moo, and Sam and Rosie jumped. Some of the daisies escaped their ribbon, falling to the straw-strewn floor.
With a distracted expression, Sam handed the bouquet back to Rose, found his buckets and moved the stool, tending to his work. Rosie found her heart was beating quite fast. She could smell the dew on him, the Shire grass. He smelled like spring and sunlight. And cows. Well, no one was perfect. Rosie moved so she could see his face. She felt a tingle, a suspense and a warmth in her soul not unlike waiting for a kiss. She was surprised at herself.
"Rose, you don't know how relieved I am to see you this morning. I've been thinkin' of naught else. It has to seem very strange and selfish of me, what I'm askin'. Greedy." He closed his eyes, seemed to keep his hands moving only with difficulty. "I just want to love you and him. I want to save him. I can't put it any plainer than that."
"I love you, too, Sam," she admitted quietly. She let her hand trail over his shoulder, then drop. There. She had said it again. And it was still true!
Sam quickly turned his head, smiled at her, and, blushing, turned back to the cow. He sighed in a self-calming sort of way. He said, tentatively, "And it's something to think about, him and you. I do think you were sweet on him before. Maybe more than I realized?" She was smiling. She couldn't help it. His hands stopped their work again. "If Frodo and I hadn't left, maybe this talk would be going quite different. Maybe I would be congratulating the two of you, hmm?"
She found another stool, dragged it over quite close to him. His eyes were on her face. "I don't know, Sam." she said. "Even then, it seems to me, he was thinking of you, of what would be best for you. He thought the world of you all along, you know. And he certainly has it all set out in his mind now, worse than the Bywater biddies!" She looked down, slowly, hesitantly, touched his knee. "You understand now, don't you, much better than I could explain it, why I was so taken with him?" All she could see was his lips, the curve of his cheek. He had stripped all the milk from the first cow. She raised her eyes to his. His great, warm eyes. The shed seemed to disappear.
"I understood then. I understand even better now," he said slowly. "And I know he's taken with you, too, and has been for a long time. It's not just any lass he's thinking I should bring home to Bag End, Rosie. It's you."
They were very close, their knees touching.
Rosie put her hand on his thigh, warm through the rough cloth.
She suddenly laughed and felt a great weight slip off her soul, "You know, I'm very jealous of you two. I don't have to try to tell you what a catch Frodo Baggins would be." She stood, pulled him up and laid her hands on his chest. "I can't stop thinking about your 'proposal,' Sam. It's like nothing I've ever heard tell of, not even in Mr. Bilbo's tales of Elves and stars and moonlight."
"Yes." Sam whispered.
"Oh, Sam, you understand how I feel, I know you do. Because," her voice dropped to a whisper as she finally admitted, "we both want him."
His scent so warm, his eyes so close, the ideas painted bright in both their minds, she couldn't stop herself. She leaned forward and Sam pulled her against him and kissed her, hard, more passionately than he ever had, and she was kissing him back, falling against him. Warm lips, bodies pressed close, memories of Frodo, sweet sensations of now, it was all an urgent jumble in her mind. Their mouths devoured each other for several reckless moments.
She pulled away first, both of them breathless.
She put a hand to her breast, inhaled.
Sam's eyes were soft, his lips bruised. He touched her cheek, took a long ragged breath himself. "Well, we're in agreement about us, at least. Aren't we?"
She tilted her face into his touch, both of them hanging back, standing still. They could resist, for now, because something was missing. Rather, someone.
She found her eyes were closed. She opened them, raised a hand to his.
"Sam. I think I know what to do now." The other cow mooed impatiently, but the two hobbits didn't move from the fascination of each other's eyes. Finally Rose turned, picked up the scattered daisies, gave them all to Sam. Their eyes met again. "I'll do it. I'll help you, Sam. I'll help you take care of him."
"We'll make him see. He belongs with us." Sam was overjoyed.
She nodded and gave him a teasing grin and slowly drew a finger from the left side of his chest to his right. He closed his eyes and moaned. She felt as if the power in her body could ignite the shed if she let it. "Leave it to me now, Sam." She touched her lips, her eyes half closed, almost a caress, missing the feel of what she had just had to stop lest the slide of breathless desire become an avalanche.
"You'll be paying attention, eh, lad?" She laughed outright at the heat in his eyes. She slowly turned, opened the door of the shed, and started back home. Poor Frodo didn't stand a chance.
Part Three: Sam
The knock at the front door of Bag End was insistent. Sam heard it from the kitchen and silently cursed. A pause, and it was repeated, even harder.
"Frodo?" Sam reluctantly called. "Frodo? Can you get that? I'm up to me elbows in meat stuffing for these pies."
The knock again.
Frodo had been in the study, but when Sam had last checked on him he was dozing in the big armchair, the Elvish text he had opened wavering in his lap. He had not been sleeping well, at all, at night.
Sam, from the kitchen, heard shuffling footsteps, the groan of the door. He heard murmured voices, but caught no words.
He waited, his hands in the mounded, ground meat and spices, half of it already in the piecrusts. He was suddenly tense. Who was at the door, so early? No one was expected. He heard the door close and latch.
"Sam." He turned, and there was Frodo in the kitchen doorway, holding a large bouquet carefully tied with a white ribbon. "It was Ivy, the goose girl from the Cottons'. This must be from Rose. I know these are snapdragons but what are these? Do they mean anything?"
Sam realized Rose's plan in a flash and turned away quickly to hide the unholy glee in his eyes.
Frodo voice was suddenly worried. "Sam? What do they mean?"
Sam took a deep breath and allowed a sad little quaver to enter his voice. "I spoke to Rosie. I asked her to marry me." Sam sniffed. "But them's pinks, sir. And with them and snapdragons both together, well, it's 'No.' A pretty firm no. More like, not ever. Forget it." Sam was stunned and impressed. If there was one thing that could lure Frodo, it was this. Rose had grabbed the bait of Sam's proposal and headed for the horizon, like he had heard tell of in stories of great fish dragging fishermen into strange seas. Like a dice player, she had doubled the stakes in the blink of an eye.
Frodo stood still, all the color draining from his face. He carefully placed the bouquet on the kitchen table as if it were a snake that would bite him. "No? What does she mean, no?"
"I told her about you. That must be why." Sam hoped Frodo couldn't see his face in the reflection of the kitchen window.
"She can't say No! Not on account of me; I don't matter! She has to...she's...Rosie's supposed to marry you!"
"I reckon she can make up her own mind who she wants." Sam allowed himself a deep sigh and hoped he wasn't overdoing it.
Without another word, Frodo left the room.
Sam waited until he heard the front door slam before he lost himself to laughter. All right, lass, we'll play this through to the end, Sam thought. He hummed a little martial tune that he had learned in Gondor, and leaned on the counter. Get him! He turned back to his piled meat and his waiting crusts.
Part Four: Frodo
Frodo stood in the lee of a huge and ancient elm, biting his lips, looking at the back fence of Tom Cotton's farmyard. As still as he was standing, swathed in his Elven cloak, no one, not even another hobbit, could have marked him. The weathered wooden fence was quite tall, blotched with the tree shadows, and seemed to be smooth and without flaw.
His eyes scanned further along the fence. A cool breeze stirred the branches of the elm, and its neighbor elms down the fence, stirring the shade. Suddenly he saw a single break in the smooth wood. The big roots of the tree, thrusting under the fence, had slightly dislodged one of the fence panels. The breeze now revealed, now concealed, a narrow, slanting gap, the exposed fence rails behind it. Footholds.
Frodo looked behind him, all about, making sure there was no one to see. Then he was up and over the fence, quick as the rascal of Buckland he had been thirty years before. The weaving barn was just beyond the byre. He crept close enough to see through a window that Marigold and Rose were alone at their work. There was no sign of Lily Cotton. He heard them laugh. The bottoms of the tall north windows were propped open, letting in the cool breeze.
Frodo moved around to the open door, no longer concerned with concealment, as he was out of sight of the main house. The hobbits looked up and saw him. Marigold was clearly surprised; Rose's reaction was unreadable.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Frodo. How nice to see you," Sam's sister said.
"Hello, Mr. Frodo," Rose murmured at the same time, as they both stood.
"Good afternoon." Frodo was searching for the right words for his next polite sentence, but there was no need. Rose had touched Marigold's arm, was whispering to her, her eyes never leaving Frodo's.
Marigold whispered her reply and, her expression becoming guarded, headed for the door. As Frodo moved to let her by she looked sidelong at him with suspicion. Rose watched her go, watched the heavy door swing to as Marigold closed it behind her. "She agreed to make sure we're not interrupted. And Mother is already starting supper."
"You know why I've come, then," Frodo said, taking a few steps toward her.
She also came a bit closer. Her hand rested on the frame of the big loom. "Why have you come, Mr. Frodo?" Rose echoed lightly, her chin coming up. Frodo was suddenly reminded of Sam in one of his rare moods of defiance.
"Because of the flowers you sent. I'm sure it's all over the village already that you have refused Sam."
"And what if I have?" Her voice was neutral, calm.
His fingers restlessly sought the wool spools on a table next to him. He looked down, looked up at her. "Rose, it's my fault. I know I'm to blame. You can't, you mustn't hold what I've done against Sam. Please."
"Just what have you done, then, sir?"
She certainly isn't going to make this easy. But what did I expect? he thought. He clenched his jaw for a moment. "I know that Sam told you about...about him and me. But I am here to tell you that nothing should stand in the way of this wedding. I am begging you, Rose, don't hold my weakness, my taking advantage, against him. Please. Surely the two of you can start fresh."
"The way you talk, whatever was between you two is over."
Frodo paused. "It is over. It has been for some time." He closed his eyes. The loss moved inside him, as he imagined a cold sea wave would feel. His fingers left the spool he was worrying, opened to lie flat on the table, take the weight of his arm. He felt chilled. He opened his eyes. She was standing just as still as he, but she turned her head and he saw the glisten of unshed tears. She leaned down, was fumbling with something near the loom, bending to remove something wrapped in a handkerchief from underneath a jumble of square fabric patterns.
She held up, twined together, two carefully dried roses. One white, one red.
"What did you mean by these, Mr. Frodo?"
"Sam did that," he stuttered. "He meant, he meant that he loved you. That's always what roses mean, you know that."
"Well, then, I did the right thing with my snapdragons, if that's what the roses meant."
She lowered her hand to her side, the roses drooping.
Frodo frowned. He clenched his jaw again. "He loves you. Don't do this."
She glanced down at the roses again for a moment. "Mr. Frodo, you've got it all wrong. I love Sam. Desperately."
"You do?"
"Of course I love him. That's not the point."
He felt dizzy. "Rose, what are you saying? If you love Sam, and if I have promised you that I am not...will not...interfere...then what? Why can't you get married? Why did you say no?"
"I told you, Mr. Frodo."
He was lost. She was making no sense at all. He was the problem, he was. He always had been. If he could just make them see, make them stop worrying over him long enough to see what they could have together, should have together. What else could he do? "I don't understand." He stood there, helpless. He felt trapped. It wasn't working. He could do nothing.
She looked up, tilted her head to one side. The ghost of a smile stole across her face. "Maybe I can help you understand. Maybe you just need a little help ... remembering."
She walked toward him, picked up his unresisting hand, and laid the roses in it. His fingers closed automatically around the stems, flinching a bit as a thorn found his fingertip.
She was standing well within arm's reach now. He felt her warm breath. He froze.
She was reaching past his head on either side, picking up the generous, sagging hood of the grey cloak of Lothlorien, gently, slowly pulling it up over his head and down, until it covered his eyes, drifted to the tip of his nose.
"Remember the rule...no touching," she breathed. In the dark, he felt her lips brush his, the barest brush, the slightest taste.
..."It was a game! Just a Yule game! A game to be laughed over later. A game to be dreamed about during the nights he was so tortured with longing he was sure he'd go mad before morning. Weak. He was weak."
Lips brushed his and withdrew. He heard nothing, not a creak of the floor, not a breeze at the window. Blackness surrounded him. He dropped the roses and they landed with the faintest rustle on the floor.
"Well, Frodo? Can you guess who it is?" Rose whispered. He felt her breath on his lips, her face was so close.
And then her lips were on his again, staying put, not a brush, but a real kiss now, a sweet one. It was a dream, or a memory as small and vivid as a dream, a dream wakened by her lips. He heard faint music and the distant stomp of dancers, and soft echoing threads of laughter, like the shreds of Elvish singing in an autumn forest. No. He never had dreams like this, or memories. He had blackness, if he was lucky, or dreams of a Ring of flame filling his vision. Sometimes he stood on a rocky cliff in a hot, low-ceilinged cave and knew with the last shreds of his own will that the best and kindest thing he could do was to jump. These were his dreams, his only dreams. But here were Rose's lips, Rose's breath, sweet invasion, and the music was a band of his own beloved Tooks and the floor under the dancers, struck by their mad feet, was the plank floor of Great Smials and it was real, the laughter was real and once it had been his laughter.
He pressed his lips to hers, answered her kiss, bent one elbow to close his hand around her bare forearm and he felt her smile. She said against his mouth, "No touching," and he immediately, obediently, dropped his hand as if her arm had burned him. And Frodo, who once, somewhere, had been a Ringbearer, smiled faintly, too.
Rose, however, was still cheating, holding his arm with one hand, the other keeping his hood pressed against his head. She went on kissing him, and he found he had time to breathe, to take long, sweet inhalations of the smell of her hair and her skin, breathing between the slow, short kisses. Still blind under his hood, he kissed her. So strange, so different from Sam. It had been an age, an Age of the Sun and more than an age.
He found himself breathing harder, more of his mouth wanting to become involved in these kisses, and his tongue touched her lip, his mouth opened a bit more, matched by hers, by her tongue, and now he was very dizzy indeed and he couldn't help breaking the rules, he reached up with both his hands and held her shoulders tight.
Her lips pulled away; she was still in his grip.
"You're cheating, Mr. Frodo," she whispered. "Now, it's time to guess. Who am I?"
He stood, breathing hard, the hood over his face, feeling the planks under his feet, feeling like a swimmer come up for air, feeling her strong, warm flesh under his wet palms.
"I remember you," he said. "It's Rose."
Her arms were moving, her feet coming up on tiptoe, her breasts bumping his chest as she pushed the hood back and folded it carefully down behind him as before. She rested a finger for a moment on the priceless brooch that pinned his cloak. Then her hands smoothed across his shoulders and up around his neck. She looked up at him. His arms had somehow found their way around her middle.
In the time he had been under the hood, the room had grown dimmer as the sun fell below the huge elms that shaded the farmyard. He could still see her eyes, though, blue, round, sparkling like stars.
She was saying, "We were interrupted, you know. I never learned what the prize was for winning the game."
He shook his head. "There's no prize. The fun is in the playing." He was awake and asleep, lost and found. He looked into her eyes and without a decision found himself bending his head and kissing her again, drinking her mouth like it was tea with warm honey on a cold winter morning. Traveling now, tracing the corner of her mouth, her jaw, her neck. So smooth, so sweet, so different. So used to Sam he was, familiar Sam, like home, like the garden. What had Sam said? Rose was the Sun, yes, and, oh, she was warm. Her skin was warm. Like summer. Like the smell of mown grass, like gentle rain on steaming, sun-warmed stone, like every hot, dripping peach he had ever stolen from a Buckland orchard.
He bent and bent and kissed down her neck, halted, his lips pressed against the circle where her pulse beat, steady and warm. Her hands were on his shoulders. She was leaning into him. She moaned.
"Frodo, Frodo," she was saying, her voice low and clogged with passion, "Don't you see? I don't want this to stop. I won't marry Sam unless I can have this, too. Why give him up? Why give me up, now that you've..."
"Remembered," he finished for her, his lips against her neck.
He raised his head and looked at her face. She captured his face between her palms, pulled it down and kissed his mouth again, claiming him.
When the breathless, deep kiss finally ended, she held him close, laid her head on his shoulder. When she could speak again, she tilted back her head and said to him, quite clearly:
"I said no to Sam, to Sam without you. Oh, Frodo, you're worth it. You deserve this. Don't you know that?"
"Rose, this is madness."
"Is it?" The challenge was there again, the echo of Sam in the determination in her eyes. Their faces were just far enough apart that they could look at each other. He stared at her a long moment. And made his own choice.
"Oh, Rose. I guessed you, but you win. You win this game." He leaned his forehead against hers, tears in his eyes.
She stepped back half a pace, took his hands. She was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes, too.
"Let's go tell Sam. Let's tell him right now. I think we are all going to have a lovely time making up."
Frodo looked at her, mingled fear, wonder, relief and anticipation dancing across his face. He could only shake his head. What had he just agreed to? What next?
***
"Then be not coy, but use your time
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime
You may forever tarry."
--Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, to make much of Time."
End.
~
Pretty Good Year