Kisses From Heaven (17 page)

She got up and turned on the television, and a few minutes later just as restlessly turned it off again. For an hour, she soaked in the tub, then got out and put on her wrinkled suit again. She sat back on the bed, determined to think it out. She tried not to think of Buck but just herself. About how important it had always been for her to succeed, to do well, to cope no matter what life threw at her. To be independent, to be self-sufficient. To not need anyone. She’d always envisioned any man in her life, any love, as added to the periphery of her life but not really denting the core. She never wanted anyone in that deep, not into her real needs as a woman. Not where she was vulnerable… Women these days were incredibly strong and proud of it, and she had led the pack.

She got up again and tried the television a second time. It was already past the news hour. Sitcoms were thriving. She turned it off again, opened and closed drawers, found the Gideon Bible chained to a desk, wondered why anyone would ever steal a Bible, wondered how many years it had been since she had been in a motel room. Thousands. With Hal, on one of their thousands of pleasure trips. Meaningless pleasure trips. She tried to summon up a picture of Hal in her mind, but all she could see was Buck.

They were not the same. She’d tried very hard to convince herself that Buck was like Hal, like her father, like Gramps, even like Frank. Buck just refused to fit the mold. He kept his promises. He
had
maneuvered her, but never for his own gain. To use her, to take advantage—she knew it wasn’t so. And he spent his money on comforts, but those comforts didn’t rule him.

She had loved those different men in very different ways; they had all hurt her. So she had built up mountains of protective defenses…she understood it all suddenly, very clearly. When it was too late, she thought fleetingly. She needed Buck like she needed breath, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

She stood up again, put on her shoes, ran a brush through her hair and walked outside. It was dark out, a warm, tangy spring night, the stars like a web of metallic fabric in the sky. There was no one in the deserted motel parking lot; the only car was her own. She got in, locked the car doors and turned on the inside lights. For the first time all day, she stared at all the little circular dials, smelled the new leather smell, felt the comfort of the driver’s seat.

Putting the car in Reverse, she drove out of the parking lot, leaving the windows down. The brisk breeze cooled her cheeks as she drove aimlessly for hours. Midnight passed. One o’clock, then two. It was close to three when she found herself on a rutted road that was spring-muddy, surrounded by trees and silence. At the end of it was a diamond-shaped lake, and just in front of that was a little cottage where every window reflected a lonely yellow light. The Town Car was there. She couldn’t have said in a thousand years why she hadn’t gone to the condominium first. That was where he should have been; it was the middle of a work week.

She parked the mauve car behind Buck’s and stepped out, trembling almost violently, her face pale. Her hands were shaking so much it seemed better just to leave her purse in the car; then for long ridiculous moments, she tried to decide exactly why it mattered, where on earth she left her purse at all. Obviously, it made no difference.

Before she had taken the first step toward the door, it opened. With the light behind him, Buck’s face was in shadow, but she had heard the way the door wrenched open, and she could see steely tension in the way he stood there, a cold statue, his eyes like dark lights boring in her direction.

Her heart sank that inch below rock-bottom.

Loren stood staring at his still form in the distance. She read no welcome in his silence, but then she hadn’t really expected one. She didn’t really know what she
had
expected. It didn’t matter; she’d had to come, and for the first time in two days her head seemed clear, no longer churning with anxiety.

Unconsciously, she took a single step forward and then stopped, her palms just slightly extended and her gray eyes huge with pleading. “Don’t turn me away, Buck. Please. I don’t expect you to forgive what I said yesterday, but you have to listen.” He didn’t move, and tears suddenly welled in her eyes. She tried to smile. “I was jealous of you, Buck. Can you believe it? You could cope so easily where I couldn’t, and I’ve been living on pride for so long that it felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under me. I was frightened, and I felt vulnerable, and just being with you brought out needs in me…needs I didn’t want to believe I had. Needs I suddenly couldn’t ignore. You touched every nerve…”

Still he didn’t move, and her legs suddenly seemed shaky.

His eyes were on hers, she could see that in the darkness. His breadth of shoulder was like a memory of comfort no longer offered. “I think I might have worked through that,” she continued. “But what I couldn’t seem to work through was feeling that I had nothing to give you, Buck, not in return for what you’d given me. I don’t mean money. I mean the real gifts you kept heaping on me, a listening ear and support and sharing and humor, the way you make love…”

The giant statue moved, a swift stalk in the darkness that closed in on her, snatching her out of that lonely silence and crushing her in strong arms. “How could you be so stupid, Loren?” he growled passionately: “
Nothing
to give me? How could you be so blind that you couldn’t see how much I needed you? I’ve had every policeman in this state out looking for you; I’ve got a man at the condominium; I’ve got Rayburn up all night by the phone. You ever disappear in my life again and I swear I’ll—”

His hand clutched in her hair, and his mouth crushed down on hers like a searing brand. She felt the most delicious, hurtful pressure… He broke away, staring down at her. In the moonlight, she could suddenly see his face, his eyes fired with love, his brows creased in anger, his jaw furiously set. Her heart surged with joy, with laughter and lightness and relief.

“I was wrong, Loren. To interfere. Especially in your job. You were so damned strong and so damned set in your ways and so damned sure of yourself that I didn’t know how else to infiltrate the fortress. I never meant to take anything away from you. I never meant for you to feel that you hadn’t done well managing your life. That’s exactly what I love about you. The way you do cope, that cool head of yours, that sensitivity to other people, and those smiles no matter what life’s handed you. Your laughter even on the darkest days…I need that, Loren. I need you.

“There is no other woman I ever felt would stand up to me, stand next to me, no one else I ever felt such an intense feeling of sharing with. You offered love, Loren, before you knew about the titles and trappings; do you have any idea how precious a gift that was? And we argued, Loren. That was part of it—finding a woman I could live with through good moods and bad. You fit like my other half. And you say
you
felt vulnerable? I felt torn in two when you said I made you feel like
less.
All I ever wanted was to make you feel like the beautiful, loving lady you are. The idea that I in any way made you feel cut down, diminished…I went home and cried…why the hell are
you
crying?”

“You are,” she whispered. There
was
a certain crystal in his eyes. His arms wrapped around her like a haven, and his lips found hers again in that spring night. She answered kiss with kiss, touch with touch, promise with promise. She felt cloaked in love, surrounded by the whole velvet fabric of emotions finally set free. She understood his needs as she hadn’t before; it mattered. She understood, too, that she had freely offered love but not trust, that trust was a very expensive commodity in her life, and that he had just bought it, lock, stock and barrel. She had so much to tell him, and she wanted to tell it all to him with touch. Each caress seemed to invite another until suddenly Buck reluctantly pulled back with a husky breath.

“Loren,” he growled. “I still have to call the police.”

Her fingers still lingered on his sleeve, the slightest of frowns creasing her brow. “Why on earth did you ever call them, Buck? I phoned work; I told the family I was going out. There was no need for anyone to worry—”

“I was
worried
at ten this morning. It is now three-ten a.m.” He pushed her ahead of him toward the cottage, patting an affectionate, half-scolding commentary on her bottom. “The police may not honor a missing-persons call in that short a time. They honored a search for the car—come back here!”

She’d darted ahead of him but now half turned. His hand latched on to hers. “Stay in touch,” she was ordered gruffly.

She stayed in touch while he phoned the police and then his condominium; she called the family herself. Her eyebrows lifted wryly when that was done. “Why don’t we just put it in the
New York Times
that I’m staying the night here?”

“Do you really want to waste time making
another
phone call?”

She shook her head, laughing, and then sobered. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t want to waste any more time, Buck.” Her eyes met his, and she thought…riches. The richness of need and the richness of wanting and the richness of love.

Loren climbed the stairs to the loft ahead of him. There was no light upstairs, but a bright silver moon shone through the open loft windows. From there, Loren could see the still, silent lake, could smell all the spring freshness that suddenly had meaning again. She looked for a minute and then turned back to Buck. He was standing at the loft opening, still, watching her, and her eyes suddenly turned soft, her smile grave. “Buck. It really won’t be easy.”

“No.” He moved forward until his fingers could reach the blue linen buttons of her suit coat. Slowly, he undid them, one by one, and just as slowly slipped her jacket off. “I want to protect you, Loren. To spoil you. And I’m going to. And you’re going to fight that.”

Her fingers were busy with his tie; it was half off anyway. When that was on the floor, she worked the smaller buttons of his shirt. Her fingers splayed on the warm, smooth golden muscles of his chest. “You’re used to being boss, Buck, but so am I. We’re going to argue.” She smiled fleetingly up at him. “You never did understand about the car. I can’t just take it like that…”

He turned her around. The silky pink blouse beneath the suit coat had tiny buttons in back, at least a dozen of them. She watched the lake and felt his hands trembling, and she loved him so much that moment she felt like crying. Like laughing.

“We can be married in three days.
Then
we’ll argue about the car.” The blouse was pulled from her skirt and slipped forward to the floor. He pulled her back against his bare chest, and his lips brushed her hair as his arms went around her. “You have to stop, a little bit, being quite so bull-headed.”

“You have to stop, a little bit, being quite so bull-headed,” she echoed back and turned in his arms, smiling up at him. “It’s that red hair of yours,” she said ruefully.

“Our children are doomed to it.” His fingers groped for the opening to her skirt, finally finding the button in back as his lips nuzzled the soft hollow of her neck. “The boys will end up five-one and the girls six-three. You know that, don’t you?” The short zipper came down; the skirt slid easily over her hips. “Do you want children, Loren?”

She found his belt and weaved it slowly through its loops, looking up at him. “No more than five-hundred.”

“See? We agree on everything that matters.” He stopped undressing her for a kiss, his palms gliding sensually, evocatively, over the mauve lace teddy that clung to her figure. She kissed his shoulders, then his chest, and her arms wound around his neck. Buck teased her ear as if it were the most beautiful part of her body; Loren made a graph of kisses on his chest. They could only tease so long…

When their lips found each other again, they stayed molded together, an urgent hunger in both of them that increased the more they touched. Buck’s hands grew more fervent, sweeping up and down the thin silky barrier that separated them, and then again. More slowly, his palms cupped her breasts, lingered at the valley between, then traced down her sides where his palms lingered again. Seductively, his fingers traced a sensual path to her throat, up to her chin, which was suddenly chucked up firmly. Grave dark eyes met hers, and his voice was low. “Loren. How the hell do I get this thing off you?”

She started chuckling. “It’s a very common undergarment…” Like a feather, she was tossed on the soft quilted comforter and watched while he took off the rest of his clothes. The moonlight caressed his shoulders and hips, the strange patterns of hair on his chest. He was aroused. The man was built like iron, with a sculpted beauty he would have denied—but then he never saw his body as she did. His steel yielded to her softness; she had forgotten that in the trauma of the day before. Finally, she believed he needed her as much as she needed him. Just as she believed that in time the last of her ghosts would vanish, that she could yield to his strength and be enriched, not diminished, by it. It was a strange feeling, to give up her old images, to understand that she could be stronger than she was before in trusting Buck, in trusting his love, in opening up emotions that were locked in fear before. Her eyes blurred with sudden, sweet tears.

The next moment he was beside her, his lips against hers, their bodies straining together. The wisp of lace between them created an erotic tension, fanning flames that needed no fanning. Loren cleaved closer to him, needing him just as desperately as he needed her. This night was a marriage, a sealing of commitments and of a bond forged to bridge whatever problems they would have. They would fight through those, live through those, love through those.

He had no difficulty finding the intimate opening to the teddy when it counted. Flesh to flesh felt like a release, like a sudden freedom, like a celebration. He took her then. Temperatures soared; skin took on a fevered flush; the spring night air rushed over silk-dampened bodies. “Buck,” Loren cried, and held him deep inside of her. Ecstasy came in a rush with freedom.

So long afterward, the dawn came. They were both exhausted, lying on their sides staring at each other across the same pillow. Buck was still stroking her; she would
not
sleep, did not want to give in to rest. The joy was too great, the future too full to waste even a second of it. Irrationally, she decided she would never again sleep at all.

“Don’t ever,” he murmured teasingly, “wear that complicated thing again.”

“The teddy?”

He nodded. “Whatever you call it.”

“I won’t, Buck.” Tomorrow she was going to buy an even dozen.