Hatfield and McCoy (12 page)

Falling in love with him. A little bit more every day. Needing him as badly as she wanted him.

“Destiny is not preset!” she announced aloud. He wasn't the man she wanted or needed in her life. Once before, she had fallen in love with a doubting Thomas.

With tragic consequences. From every single direction, it was better to stop this now.

Three days later, when Julie had convinced herself that he wasn't going to return to her life, McCoy appeared on her front doorstep.

It was early, barely eight in the morning. No dream or inner sense had warned her that he might appear.

She had finally begun to work last night on a story for a mystery magazine and she had stayed up very late.

When the doorbell rang she barely managed to find an old terry robe and wrap it around her long johns and stumble down the stairs.

And stupidly, she threw the door open without glancing through the peephole, without even pausing to wonder who it might be.

“What in God's name do you think you're doing?”

That was McCoy's greeting.

He was freshly showered and shaved, and she could smell the faint and pleasant aroma of his after-shave. His hair was slicked back, still damp from the shower. But he wasn't wearing his three-piece suit today. He was very casual, wearing cutoff denims and an old football jersey and sneakers that had a few holes in the toes.

Julie stepped back, rubbing her forehead. “Answering my door.”

“What did I tell you the last time I saw you?”

“McCoy—”

“Julie, damn it—”

“I saw you through the peephole—”

“You're lying!”

“How the hell would you know?” she demanded. But he did know. Was it because of the expression on her face, or was it maybe true that McCoy did have a hint of second sight of his own?

“Okay, I forgot. I was working last night—”

“No good, Julie.”

“Okay! I'll be more careful in the future, I promise. What do you want, McCoy, or did you come over just to torture me?”

“No.” He hesitated a minute, then sighed. “I was at a standstill. Getting nowhere. I thought some time off might help. I came to take you out.”

She arched her brows, a smile curving her lip as she stared at him from head to toe, indicating his outfit. “Out? Where?”

“Tubing.”

“Tubing?” Then she looked past him to his car. Three heavy black tire tubes were strapped on top of the elegant Lincoln.

“Are you game?” he asked her.

“Well, you know, McCoy, I might be working. Or I might have had other plans for the day—”

“Oh, you did not. You told Patty you might go to a movie with her tomorrow night, and if you worked till the wee hours last night, I don't think that you're going to slam right back into it this morning.”

“As a matter of fact—”

“Yes?”

She had been going to work. She had proofed her story last night—all she needed was a clean copy. “Can you give me thirty minutes?”

“I can give you a couple of hours. The sun will be stronger by then.”

“All right. Can we run by the post office?”

“Anywhere you want.”

“All right. You're on then. Make yourself at home. I'll hurry.”

Julie suspected that he might follow her up the stairs and into the shower, but he didn't.

She was alarmingly disappointed. She dressed quickly in a bathing suit, T-shirt and shorts and managed to find a pair of sneakers just as full of holes as the pair he was wearing.

When she hurried downstairs, the coffee was ready, and he had toasted several English muffins.

“Thanks,” Julie told him, biting into one and pouring herself a cup of coffee. He was on the back porch, at the round wooden table, sipping coffee, reading the paper and looking over the hills and valleys. He looked up, nodded and smiled, and looked back to his paper. “Go ahead. Go to work. You don't need to worry about entertaining me.”

She didn't worry about him. She took her coffee and muffin into the office behind the parlor on the left side of the house and sat down. She concentrated on making her changes, then sighed with satisfaction as she sat back, delighted with the way that things had fallen into completion. After she turned on her printer, she wandered into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.

McCoy was still on the porch, still looking over the mountains. Julie felt a soft warmth steal over her.

There were so many things against them. One of them being the way he felt about her second sight—or whatever he wanted to call it.

But there was something nice between them that she hadn't realized until then. They were both mountain lovers. They loved this region. They loved the foliage and the greenery, and the hills and the curves. They loved the way the sun rose here, and the way it set. They loved the quiet, and the serenity.

She hadn't made a sound. He turned suddenly, and Julie knew he had been aware she was there.

“How's it going?” he asked her.

“Fine. I'm just about done.”

“Whenever. Let me know.”

Julie went into her house and sipped the rest of her coffee while the printer finished throwing out her pages.

He did know how to make himself at home here. He'd been into the various bags of coffee beans she kept in the freezer, studying and selecting his choices.

She had a tendency to add heavily on the various flavors, like cinnamon or nut, while McCoy, she was learning, liked a stronger basic blend of coffee with just a hint of flavor.

Opposite ends of a pole, she reminded herself.

But then, opposites did attract.

Julie let out a sigh of exasperation with herself, collected her long line of paper from the printer and began to tear at the perforations, creating a neat little stack of manuscript. She dug out an envelope, quickly addressed it and hurried from her office.

She certainly hadn't had any bad dreams about tubing down the river. And the weather was beautiful; the day ahead looked bright.

“All set?” he asked her when she appeared in the kitchen.

“All set. Where are we starting from?” she asked him, as they left the house together.

“Maryland side,” he said, frowning at her as he slipped on his sunglasses.

“What now?” Julie asked.

“The door. You didn't lock the door.”

Julie exhaled slowly and hurried back to lock her front door. “Well, it's your fault, you know. You're so willing to jump down my throat all the time, I must be thinking inwardly that I need to give you a good reason to do so.”

“Right.”

Julie walked by him to the car. She smiled when she saw the ice chest wedged into the one tube. “What are we bringing with us?”

“A fine, vintage Bordeaux, how's that sound?”

“Elegant.”

“Well, I'm afraid that it goes with unelegant cold fried chicken, potato salad, slaw and chips.”

Julie grinned. “It will do.”

The conversation was easy and light enough while he drove to their point of debarkation. It was public ground, not a spot owned by any of the rafting companies. While McCoy brought the tubes down, Julie watched him. She grabbed the first one as he tossed it her way.

“Hey, McCoy!”

“What?”

“Tubing down with the current is going to be great. How are we getting back to the car?”

He walked up to her and tweaked her cheek. Since she was balancing two tubes, she had no power to stop him. “Oh, ye of little faith!” he said. “I have a friend who has a little coffee spot almost right on the water some miles down from here. By then we'll have something warm like chocolate or coffee and tea, and then he or one of his kids will drive us to the car. How does that sound?”

“Great. Let's get started,” Julie said. She stripped off her T-shirt and shorts then flushed as she realized McCoy was staring at her. She had worn what she thought was a fairly demure bathing suit. It was one piece and black, but the French cut rode high on her thighs, and the back was very low, falling an inch beyond her waist.

He wolf whistled. She wasn't sure whether to thank him or slap him.

She threw her shirt at him. “You've seen me in less.”

“Yes, but I'm afraid to bring you in front of others in that getup. They might want to see you in less, too.”

“McCoy—”

“Don't worry, Miss Hatfield. We McCoys are the proprietarial type. No one would dare come near, I promise. Want to throw the shorts over?”

She did so, then she decided that she had to hand it to McCoy—he really was prepared. He had a waterproof sack for them to stuff their shirts and her shorts into, and then a place to set the sack on a wire shelf in the cooler. He had a thin rope to connect the cooler tube with his own tube, and while Julie touched the water—letting out a yelp as its spring freshness touched her skin—McCoy was managing as only a man who had grown up playing with tubes on rivers could do. He was all set and ready while she was still wincing.

“I thought you grew up here!” he called to her. “Come on, get a move on!”

“Well, the water just wasn't quite this cold when I was younger,” Julie assured him. She settled into her tube despite the cold washing over her. “And I did grow up here. And I've tubed this very water eighteen trillion times.”

“Eighteen trillion?” McCoy said, grinning broadly.

She smiled, glad that she had come with him, wondering how she had managed to get through the days when he hadn't appeared.

Don't, don't, don't fall in love, she warned herself. But she was too late. It was already happening.

She was comfortable in her tube at last, accustomed to the water. A surge came rushing by her, lifting her along. Her feet trailed over the muddy and rocky bottom, but her hole-filled sneakers protected her feet. White caps lifted her over a smooth rapid in the way, bringing her tube crashing against McCoy's.

“Hey!”

“Oh, buck up!” Julie retorted. “There's calmer water ahead.”

His arm snaked out, and his hand caught her wrist. For a moment their tubes twirled in a wide circle through the water, then they reached a patch of calm past the rocks, in the high water. He smiled and leaned back but didn't release her. Julie closed her eyes and felt the sun on her face.

She was quiet for a moment, then she asked him, “Why did you come back today?”

He didn't move. He was stretched comfortably, basking in the sun. “I wanted to see you.”

“But nothing has changed about me,” she reminded him quietly. “I'm still a charlatan.”

She saw his jaw harden. “If only we didn't have to talk about it all the time—”

“But trying to pretend—”

“Julie, it's a beautiful day. Do we have to go through this?”

She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. A sudden flash of sight came to her, and she smiled. “All right, McCoy. In a matter of minutes, we're going to pass by a large rock in the middle of the river. And there's going to be a big black snake sitting on it, sunning itself.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

Julie was right. They came upon the snake just a few minutes later.

“Don't you see?” she pleaded. “I do know things sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.”

McCoy was silent.

“Well? What do you think now?” Julie persisted.

“I think you bribed the snake,” he said very seriously.

“Oh, come on!”

“All right, Julie. Maybe you were out here a few weeks ago. Maybe you knew the rock was there. Maybe you didn't know that you knew the rock was there, the memory was just sitting there, somewhere in the back of your mind. And if there had been a snake on it before, why couldn't there be a snake there again?”

Julie groaned and leaned back again. The swirling waters brought them crashing together. Her leg brushed his.

“McCoy?” she asked softly.

“What?”

“If I asked you not to do something—if I were really passionate about it—would you listen to me?”

“Julie—”

“McCoy, please, this is important to me. If I sensed that you could be hurt … really hurt … would you listen?”

“Julie, you know how I—”

“Even if it was just to humor me?”

“Let's stop over there, on the rocks, and pull up the cooler.”

“McCoy!” Julie snapped. But it didn't matter. He wasn't listening. The water was hip deep, and he'd slipped from his tube. He dragged the tube with the cooler along with him to where some high, flat rocks were rising out of the water.

Julie slipped from her tube, too, and followed him. By the time she dragged her tube beside his, he had opened the cooler and pulled out the bags of food.

“Have a seat, Miss Hatfield. Lunch is served.”

Julie sighed and sat in the sun. It was high in the sky now, bright and warming. There was a soft breeze moving through the trees that lined the river bank. The water was so many colors, blue and green and aqua and white where it dashed over the rocks. The scenery was incredibly beautiful.

McCoy passed her a plastic picnic plate with chicken and little containers of potato salad and cole slaw. He sat beside her, munching a drumstick.

Julie glanced at him and felt a fierce pang in her heart as she studied him. She cared about him so much. From the hot steel in his gray and silver eyes to the tight cords and muscles of every inch of his body. Someone like this came by only once in a lifetime.

And still …

“Is lunch all right?”

“It's amazing. Especially for a single man.”

“Single men are extremely inventive and imaginative,” he informed her. He suddenly passed her the wine bottle. “My sister made the lunch,” he admitted.

Julie laughed softly. “We're supposed to drink this great wine out of the bottle?”

“I packed the wine. Can't you tell? I forgot the glasses.”

She smiled again, laughed and swallowed a sip of wine before turning to her chicken. She was amazed at the appetites they had built up, and they ate in a companionable silence, waving at times as other tubers and rafters passed by their spot on the rocks.