“When I get my hands on you, murder is the last thing I’m thinking of,” he said harshly and crushed her to him.
She pushed at his chest as he drew her closer. “Let me go! I said I don’t want you to touch me. I hate it!”
“Then you’ll learn to love it again, because I’ll touch you when and where I want to!”
Instinctively, she felt he was about to lose control, but desperately and recklessly she goaded him. Words fell out of her in a torrent, blatant lies, out of place, wrong, jarring.
“Mike is my lover! I want him, not you. I’m divorcing you and going to him. I’m crazy about him and I sleep with him every night and I’ll sleep with him . . . tonight and tomorrow night. Find yourself another woman, Jonathan. I don’t want you!”
“Damn you!” he muttered. His hands encircled her upper arms and her eyes darkened as they hardened into bands. His face was like carved granite, hard and bitter. Kelly closed her eyes, sure he was going to hit her. Instead his hands slipped up around her neck and closed about her throat. She gasped, trying to pull away, but his mouth came down on hers, savagely, relentlessly, prying her lips apart, grinding his teeth against her mouth. The thumbs beneath her chin and the fingers behind her head kept her immobile beneath his consuming mouth. She moaned at the pain he was inflicting on her and struggled so violently that their bodies swayed and crashed against the wall.
He moved too fast for her. He dragged her to the bed, pushed her down, and fell on her. Winded, they lay there, breathing hard. His dark head shut out the overhead light and his mouth burned, delved, bruised her own, forcing her to surrender her lips. His hands moved possessively over her. During the struggle, her shirt had become unbuttoned and his fingers slid inside to find the high, warm swell of her breast.
He raised his head and stared at the white skin laid bare by the open shirt. His fingers loosened and moved slowly, gently, in a caressing motion. The smooth, warm fingers softly caressed her trembling body. Her heart beat so hard she was deaf. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t speak.
Jonathan’s eyes flickered to her face and she shook her head in silent protest. She couldn’t bear the thought of submitting to him with this terrible chasm between them.
“Let me have you, darling,” he whispered, and she heard the words through the singing of her blood and couldn’t answer. Desperately she fought down the desire that spiralled crazily inside her.
“To hold you, touch you like this drives me crazy,” he said in a strange, thickened voice, his mouth at her throat, then sliding up to close over her mouth, gently now. Her mouth quivered weakly under the persuasion of his kiss. The searching movement parted her lips and he began sensuously exploring the inside of her mouth with his tongue.
A strange, melting heat began inside her. The hungry, coaxing movements of his mouth were awakening the first, tentative response in her. One of his hands slid back and forth across her breast in a soft, possessive caress and her nipple, loving the feel of his palm, reacted automatically. Oh, the weight of him felt so good! She had missed the way he made her feel, the way he could force her to relinquish control, and fly away with him into the sensuous world where there were only his lips, his hands, the hard strength of his male body. Her lips began moving under his, clinging, returning the pressure of his mouth. She wanted him. She ached with the slow burning fire he was awakening in her body.
“I mean to have you,” he groaned into her mouth and his body moved on hers urgently.
Abruptly, as though he had lifted her out of the well of sexual chaos, she went cold and stiff. “No,” she said tightly. “No!”
“Oh, Kelly!” His voice was like a sound from the past, but she refused to be softened by the memory of the husky cry wrung from him at the peak of overwhelming pleasure.
She twisted out from under him and he let her go. He lay where she left him, breathing hard. At the door she turned back. He was sitting on the edge of the bed watching her.
“We were never suited. This was all we ever shared. It isn’t enough. We must face it. Our marriage was a mistake.” She saw him flinch as though she had struck him. “I didn’t fit into your life and you won’t fit into mine. It’s best you forget I ever existed.”
As she turned away, he said quickly, “I haven’t totally disrupted my life to be put off so easily, Kelly. I’m staying. Forever, if necessary.”
“I can’t believe you want me when I despise everything you are, everything you stand for!” she cried.
His dark eyes mocked her. “What a liar you’ve turned out to be, Kelly,” he drawled. “That isn’t true and you know it. You can say all the words you want about hating me, but we both know differently, don’t we?”
She wanted to slap him so badly her palm burnt. Self-respect made her resist with all her willpower and she clamped her lips down on the denial that bubbled up within her. She walked in silence through the bathroom, into her own darkened bedroom, and to the front door, where she began to jerk on her boots.
“You’re not leaving here, Kelly.” Jonathan stood in the doorway of her father’s room.
“I’m going to the lodge and you can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can stop you,” he said calmly, “but don’t force me. Get on that radio and ask Clyde to bring us something to eat. I haven’t had a thing all day.”
“I won’t treat Clyde like a busboy! He isn’t paid to bring me my meals,” she replied coolly.
“He won’t mind doing it this once. After this we’ll either go to the lodge for our meals or you can fix them here. Tonight we’re going to be here, alone. You can get on that radio or I will, and you know how snobbish a Bostonian can be when demanding service.” He waited for her to speak. “Clyde will understand. I told him I was your husband and we’d been apart for a while, but that we’re back together again.”
Kelly felt suddenly sick, filled with humiliation and self-contempt for what happened in the bedroom. “Stay away from me,” she snapped as he moved toward her. The burning temptation to give in to him was too new. The inevitability of her own submission was not the worst thing preying on her mind. It was the shameful truth that Jack wouldn’t need to force her. He could take her whenever he chose. Already she was thinking of him as Jack again. There was nowhere to run. She was imprisoned, with snow and ice all around her and no choice but to submit to whatever he demanded. Of course she could defy him, but could she do that to Marty and Mike? There wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind that he would carry out his threat to put them out of their home. Maybe if she played along until she could see a lawyer in Anchorage . . .
Jonathan watched her closely, his own face expressionless. Kelly felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Don’t . . . do this to me, Jonathan.” The soft plea was out before she could bite it back.
“Poor Kelly. What a predicament!”
His mockery stiffened her spine. “I’m glad you think it’s so funny!” She glared at him, her eyes alive with angry tears. “It’s a game with you. You don’t care who you hurt.”
“I care, Kelly,” he insisted flatly. “I’m fighting for what I want the only way I know how.”
Kelly took off her boots. Her head ached and her dry throat hurt when she swallowed. She sat down beside the Citizen’s Band radio and pressed the key on the desk microphone.
“Break . . . Mountain View base station. Are you on the channel, Bonnie?” Jonathan stood watching her and she gave him a withering look.
“Yes-sir-ee, I’m here. Ain’t ya comin’ up to eat, Kelly?”
Kelly closed her eyes and gritted her teeth before pressing the key to answer. “Not tonight, Bonnie. I was wondering if Clyde would mind bringing something down for us.”
“Course he will, honey. Land sakes, I don’t blame you none for wanting to be alone with that husband of yours. Why, you just stay right there and I’ll send Clyde down with a dish of that chicken casserole you like and a fresh-baked blueberry pie. You got coffee, ain’t ya?”
“Yes, I have coffee.”
“Ten-four, Kelly. Say, honey, ya got the cookstove going, don’t ya?”
“Ten-four.”
“You might have to heat the casserole up a bit. Mike ain’t been up for supper. Is he down there?”
“Negative. Mike, if you’re on the channel, let Bonnie know if you’re going up for supper.”
There was a pause, then Mike’s voice came in. “I’ll be coming up in a few minutes, Bonnie. You okay, Kelly?”
“Sure. See you tomorrow. Thanks, Bonnie. Tell Clyde this won’t be a regular thing.”
“You get the coffee goin’ and I’ll send down everything but the candles and champagne. I’ll be clear with ya, honey. You all enjoy yourself, now.”
When Kelly looked at the doorway where Jonathan had stood, it was empty. She sat for a moment and tried to calm down. If he had been standing there with a mocking, “I told you so” look on his face, she might have hit him. She ran her tongue around the velvety innerside of her lips, which were still sore from his brutal kisses. Defiance and consternation swept through her, and she thought again what a naive idiot she had been to actually believe a man like Jonathan Winslow Templeton could love a girl like her. He was just frustrated now because she had left him. A man like Jonathan couldn’t accept rejection.
The dryness in her throat reminded her of the bottle of Scotch in the cupboard. On her way to get it, she looked at herself in the mirror over the kitchen sink. You’re a romantic, Kelly, she thought. She stared into serious eyes, dark circled and bright from tears she was too stubborn to shed. She’d read too many novels where the poor girl married her prince and they lived happily ever after. It was not a romantic world anymore and marriage was not a singular state. It was more of a stage in people’s lives, different partners for different periods. Few stayed married forever and no one lived happily ever after.
She took the bottle from the cupboard, poured herself a stiff drink, and drank it in one gulp. She gasped. The fiery liquid burned all the way to her stomach. She leaned against the cabinet and coughed, tears blurring her eyes. Through her misery she felt a hand on her back and jerked away.
“Take your hands off me!” She struggled, flailing her arms.
“How much of that did you drink?”
“None of your business,” she snapped, and pushed away from him. She opened the front of the firebox on the cookrange, uncaring that ashes drifted to the floor, and poked several small pieces of firewood into the opening before kicking it shut. Holding the coffee pot in front of her like a shield, she went to the sink. Jonathan stepped out of her way and she dumped the used grounds and refilled the pot with water. She heard the motor of the pickup as it approached the cabin, then the sound of the car door banging shut.
Jonathan held the door open for Clyde, who had a large covered tray in his hands. He stood just inside the doorway.
“I ain’t supposed to track snow all over your clean floor,” he said and grinned. “Bonnie done gave me strict orders.”
“I’ll take it then, Clyde. Don’t want you to get into trouble with the wife.” Jonathan took the tray. “Don’t run off, though. Kelly and I were just having a drink and would like you to join us. Wouldn’t we, darling?”
Kelly turned her back to him and forced a civil reply. “Of course.”
“No, don’t bother, Mr. Templeton. Bonnie told me to shake a leg on back.”
“Jack. My name’s Jack,” Jonathan said easily. “I’m afraid all we’ve got is water to go in the Scotch unless you’d rather have a straight shot.”
“Straight will be fine.”
Jonathan searched the cupboard and brought out a small wine glass. He poured from the bottle and carried the drink to Clyde still standing on the mat beside the door.
“I hear you’re from Oklahoma, my favorite state. I spent a year at Tinker Airforce Base in Oklahoma City and got addicted to the place. How do the Cowboys look this year? Think they’ve got a chance to stomp O.U. again?”
“They got a damn good chance. They got a running fullback from a little town called Bowlegs, Oklahoma. That kid stands six foot four, if he’s an inch. He weighs two hundred and forty pounds and can run and root like a razorback hog. He’s the prettiest sight you ever did see, Jack. I’d love to see him against those pretty boys down at Norman.”
“I went to Stillwater for a game while I was in Oklahoma. That little town comes alive when the college plays the university.”
“It shore does,” Clyde agreed. “Not even a good rodeo can stir the people up like that game.”
“Do you think we could pull in an Oklahoma station if we put up a pretty good sized antenna? I doubt any of the games will be broadcast over the Anchorage station.”
“I don’t know, Jack. They’ve a powerful station in Tulsa. It’d be worth a try.”
“We’ll have to see what we can do about it, Clyde. And thanks for bringing down our dinner. Tell Bonnie thanks, too.”
“Hey, now. That’s okay, Jack. Glad to do it. It’ll be great having another man around. Mike gets calls and is away a lot. I know ya’all ain’t wantin’ this old cowboy a hanging around so I’ll just vamoose. Night, Jack. Thanks for the drink. Night, Kelly.”
Kelly, who had kept herself busy at the stove so she wouldn’t have to look at him, called out, “Night, Clyde.” She didn’t speak again until she heard the car door slam and the motor start. Finally, she turned to see Jonathan looking at her.
“I suppose you’re pretty pleased with yourself,” she sneered. “Clyde wasn’t any challenge, at all. You charm men like him every day back in Boston!”
“Don’t be nasty, Kelly.”
“Poor Clyde was just an obstacle to overcome in your own cold-blooded, calculated way.” She laughed sardonically.
A faint red stain ran along his hard cheekbones. “Think what you like,” he said, and poured himself a drink from the bottle of Scotch.
T
HE MEAL TASTED
like ashes in Kelly’s mouth. She sat across the table from Jonathan and never once let her gaze rest on his face. Her depression deepened.
“You look worn out. You’ve been working too hard.”
Kelly flushed and ignored him.
“You’ve lost weight.”
“Well, what did you expect? I’m hardly the Boston debutante,” she snapped.