He put his half-eaten apple down on his plate and laid down next to her, following her finger that was directing his gaze to the left.
"Alligator?" He frowned. "No, no. That's a snake.
Definitely
a snake."
"A snake? Snakes don't have legs!"
"Where do you see legs?"
"Right there, see…
?"
"Nah, those aren't legs. Those are the weeds the snake is crawling through."
He caught her hand as it stretched upward, encircled it with his own, and let them both rest on the quilt in the space between their bodies. Georgia tucked her other hand behind her head and turned sideways to look at him.
Her eyes are almost as green as the new grass,
he was thinking, right before he raised himself up slightly and, drawn to her mouth like a bee to a flower, kissed her. Her lips were pliant and soft and welcoming, just
as they had been earlier that day. His free hand caressed the soft cheek and traced a line from her temple to her chin before sliding through the silken stream of hair that had eased onto her face. His fingers slid through the warm shimmer of it, and bunched it gently into a fist. From the first moment he'd seen her, he'd wanted to do this, to send his fingers through the golden wave and feel its silk, tangle in its thickness and measure its weight. His teeth scraped across her bottom lip and he felt her tongue meet his own to take those first tentative steps in a slow dance of seduction. He traced the inside of her mouth before plunging into it, and he knew that for the first time in his life, fantasy had met its match in reality. The hand that he had held found its way free and was making its way around his waist, and her other hand sought the back of his neck to draw him closer still. She arched her back and strained against him, and he covered her body with his own, thinking that she was every bit as sweet and soft and yielding as he had dreamed she would be. Her fingers twisted in the back of his shirt and he raised himself onto his elbows and slid his mouth down the side of her jaw, teasing her skin with his tongue and his teeth until he reached her neck. Drawing the soft skin between his lips, he inched his way to her throat, his breathing matching hers in short quiet gasps.
"Matt," she whispered, "kiss me again
…
"
His mouth found its way back to hers, and was just about to do her bidding when he heard it.
Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep.
The sound didn't immediately register, but then she asked, "Matt, are you wearing a beeper?"
He groaned and rolled over and, pulling the small electronic device off his belt, held it up to read the message.
He rested his elbow on the ground and his chin in his hand. "The Gilberts' sheep dog is in labor."
"And this means…
"
"She had a tough time with the last litter and almost didn't make it. I promised I'd be there this time."
"Then you have to go," she told him without hesitation.
"You don't mind?"
"Oh, yes," she grinned, "I mind. But I'l
l be here when you get back…
"
"It might be late."
"I'll be here," she said softly.
"Then I'll be back." He pulled himself up before offering her a hand and helping her to her feet. "I'll call you when I'm on my way back."
"You don't have to," she stood on her toes to kiss his neck and repeated, "I'll be here waiting
…
if it takes all night."
eighteen
I
t was ten-fifteen when Georgia heard the truck tires creep softly up the drive and stop behind her Jeep. It had been some hours since Matt had left, but she would have waited for days if she had to. He had been in her head since the first time she'd met him in the parking lot at the inn and had charmed her, before he had known who she was. She had felt a pull toward him that day, had always known instinctively that someday there would be more between them than animosity or casual conversation. It had only been a matter of time before he recognized it, too.
Must have been the dandelion wishes,
she mused as she heard the slam of the pickup's door.
Smiling to herself, she got out of the old arm chair and called to Artie, who had gone on full alert at the sound.
"
It's Matt," she said to the dog. "Shall we go meet him?"
Artie got up and sped to the back door, where he
stood wagging his entire hindquarters in anticipation of his owner's return. Georgia opened the back door and the dog pushed past her to the porch door. The intrusion roused Spam, but only briefly. The pig flopped her head back onto her bed and went back to sleep even as Artie bounded down the steps to meet Matt as he rounded the side of the house.
"Did you take care of Georgia while I was gone? Good boy, Artie."
"How's the sheep dog?" Georgia asked from the doorway.
"Nine healthy pups," he told her. "Mother and babies doing well."
"Then I'm glad you went." She stepped back into the dim light from the kitchen and he followed her. "Gladde
r still that you came back…
"
"Me, too." He folded her into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth. "We have some unfinished business to tend to."
"I was hoping you'd say that," she sighed between kisses.
She pushed over the door to close it with one foot, and reached behind her to close over the latch. That was as much locking up as the house would get that night. Everything else—the downstairs lights and the open kitchen window—would have to wait.
Wordlessly, Matt followed her up the steps.
"Which way?" he paused to ask.
"The front bedroom."
He'd known that, of course, but didn't figure this was the time to discu
ss the fact that he had investi
gated on his own when she had first moved there. Back in the days when he'd resented the fact that
there was a stranger living in his house. When she had been a stranger, and an unwelcome one at that. It hadn't taken her long to win him over. There was something in her that had drawn him to her in a way that no woman ever had. Georgia was beauty and sweetness, strength and passion, joy and music, goodness and laughter, and if he was smart enough,
wise
enough, lucky enough, she would be his, tonight and always.
How had he been blind to the fact that just looking at her caused the blood to pound in his veins and his breath to quicken? Had there ever been a time when he had not wanted to bury himself inside her and never seek the light of day again?
Moving onto the old double bed, Georgia pulled him down to her, pre
ssing herself against him, know
ing she'd never wanted a man more than she wanted Matt Bishop at that moment, had wanted him in ways that had made her blush just to think about it. Easing herself back onto the pillow, she took him with her, touching him with loving restless hands, her body urging him to touch her in return, and he did, with hands that plied and teased and stoked the heat within her until it threatened to erupt. His mouth took forever, it seemed, to make its way from her lips to her throat, from her throat to her breasts, building the fire and coaxing it on. He heard—felt—her soft moans as she opened to him and helped him inside, felt himself slip into the slick heat of her smoothness, into a deep sweet place that was warm and wet and waiting for him, only for him. He met her cries and matched them, and urged their bodies onward, tumbling them both into a bottomless well of pleasure so deep and so unexpected that it rocked him to his very core and knocked the breath from his lungs as he shattered inside her.
And that,
he thought as he lay in the dark and stroked her back with gentle hands, unable to trust himself to attempt to put feelings into spoken words,
was as close to heaven as I will ever get.
T
he clock on the bedside table ticked softly, and in the dark, Matt could see the hands were just past the twelve and on the two. Remembering where he was and the joy that had filled his heart that night, he reached for Georgia, just to touch her skin. Just to prove to himself that she was real, that it had not been a dream.
There was nothing there.
Matt's arm stretched to the opposite side of the bed.
Nothing.
He sat up, tilting his head slightly, listening. Perhaps she was down
the hall, in the bathroom…
But there was no sound.
Without turning on the light, he crept down the hall, whispering her name.
"Georgia…
"
Nothing.
Panicking, he returned to the front room, and pulled on the shorts he had worn earlier. As he leaned forward to grab his sneakers, he glanced out the window.
Rising slowly from the bed, his shoes now forgotten, he went to the window and looked out at the moonlit meadow just beyond the old farmhouse, and fell on one knee, in awe at the sight.
She danced in bare feet to music only she could hear, her golden hair aglow, her thin pale pink nightgown flowing around her body like the very moonlight. The perfect tilt of the head, the graceful arms raised over her head, the palms opened as if holding the moon in her hands, the lifting of her body as she rose onto her toes and turned, spun gently and leaped effortlessly to the sky—every movement took his breath away and left him numb and weakened and humbled. It was as if the night itself had come to life and celebrated itself, gliding across the meadow in joyful leaps in the form of a goddess and casting a spell upon any mortal who dared to watch.
As if he could have looked away.
On and on she danced, as if aware of nothing but the music within her and the need to set it free. Elegant, supple, grace and energy defined, the dance was a proclamation of joy, of wonder. It was as if something had been released in her that night that had lurked within her for a lifetime, and was now expressed in the only way she truly understood.
One last series of spins, of turns that molded the thin fabric to her body, and caused her hair to ripple like a golden river around her slight form, and she crumpled to the ground, a pale moonlit heap that had fallen with the crescendo of whatever music had played in her head. The spell almost broken—almost, but not quite—Matt rose and went down the steps. A
stream of sweet-scented air drifted in through the open front door. He picked his way carefully across the grass in bare feet to the place where she rested on the ground.
Without a word, he lifted her, and cradling her against his body, carried her back to bed.
I
n the morning, the goddess was, once again, a woman, one whose natural modesty was somehow incongruous with the passion of the preceding hours, and who hesitantly offered to make breakfast for the man whose heart she had captured the night before.
"My turn." Matt told her. "You always cook for me. Let me make you my world famous breakfast of French toast and bacon."
A look of horror crossed her face.
"No!" He tried to cover up. "Not bacon. Did I say bacon? I meant that soy stuff that only looks like bacon."
She laughed in spite of herself, gesturing her head toward the porch door. Spam peered through the screen, watching from the other side. "In this house,
b-a-c-o-n
is a four letter word."
"What an insensitive clod!" He smacked his forehead with an open palm. "Not only are you a vegetarian, but of all things, it had to be
bacon.
Sorry, Spammy." He called toward the screen door.
"I'l
l think of some way to let you make it up to me later. Right now, however, French toast sounds wonderful. Oh, and we can have blueberry syrup with it. I bought some at Tanner's the other day. Someone made it local
ly and they had a display of…"
A sound from the drive drew her attention to the window, and she looked out as a dark green Jaguar rolled slowly to a stop in front of her Jeep.
"Were you expecting someone?" Matt asked.
"No." Georgia peered through the curtain on the back door, and watched the couple emerge from the s
l
eek automobile. "I can't believe it! It's my mother and Gordon Chandler!"
She began to giggle. "Matt, my mother is wearing jeans!"
"What's so funny about that?"
"My mother
never
wears any kind of pants that aren't perfectly tailored trousers. She just
doesn't.
She's never even owned a pair of jeans before." Georgia watched curiously as Delia and Gordon strolled leisurely in the direction of the house. "I wonder what they're doing at this hour of the day."
"That's probably going to be the exact question your mother will be wondering when she sees me," Matt grimaced.
"Well, it's certainly too late to hide you," Georgia grinned, "so damage control would appear to be in order."
"So what do you propose we do?"
"Act like it's the most natural thing in the world for you to be in my kitchen at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning making French toast." She winked and opened the back door. "Mom," she called as she ran out in bare feet, "I'm so glad to see you! And Gordon! What a surprise! You're just in time for breakfast. Matt's making French toas
t…
"
"Matt
…
?" Delia's eyebrows raised only slightly higher than her daughter's had when Georgia realized who her mother's early morning companion was. It would appear that Matt may have taken her request to get to know her family more seriously than she had intended.
"
Yes, He drove down for the weekend. He's found a source of water for my vegetable garden. Wait till I show you. Oh, Spam, I forgot to let you out."
The pig stood impatiently at the top step until Georgia lifted her and carried her down to the ground.
"Her legs are too close t
o the ground—as is her stomach—
so she can't negotiate the steps."
"Hi, Delia," Matt said casually from the back door.
"Matthew," Delia's eyes narrowed as she tried to search for a logical explanation for his presence there without jumping to a possibly erroneous conclusion. "Have you met Gordon Chandler?"
"Of course." Matt came down the steps and offered his hand. "Good to see you."
"Thank you, Matt. Beautiful place," Gordon gestured with an outstretched arm as if to take in Pumpkin Hill in its entirety.
"Thank you." Matt folded his arms over his chest, well aware that all was under careful scrutiny at that moment. Of all mornings for her mother to drop by. "So. Would you folks like to join us for breakfast?"
"Thank you, Matt, but we already had breakfast on o
ur way down from Westville…
" Delia began. Flushing slightly when she realized just how much she'd given away, s
he offered a hasty excuse. "Gor
don wanted to go to the Devon Horse Show, and it got somewhat late, and of course, Devon being so close to my home
…
"
"And I thought today would be a perfect day to take your mother to watch the bird migrations on the Delaware Bay," Gordon said smoothly, "so of course we would have to get an early start
…"
"The Delaware Bay is an hour and a half northeast of here. If you're going from Westville to Delaware, you've taken one hell of a wrong turn," Georgia pointed out with
some amusement. She was unaccus
tomed to seeing her mother flustered.
"Yes, well, we took a little detour to have breakfast in St. Michael's at a dockside place Gordon is fond of." Delia shoved her hands into the pockets of her lightweight jacket.
"Well, then," Matt cleared his throat, grateful that he was not the only one who felt as if he was dangling from the end of a hook
, "maybe just coffee, or tea…"
"Actually, a cup of tea might be nice," Delia nodded, and taking Georgia's arm said, "Now, Laura's been telling me that you're swamped with calls from prospective dance students. That's wonderful, darling. I'm so happy for you."
"I'm not sure that
swamped
is the word I'd use, but yes, I've been getting lots of calls."
Matt and Gordon followed mother and daughter into the kitchen.
"You look wonderful, Georgia," Delia was saying, "you actually look as if you've put on a few pounds."
"Seven," Georgia's face turned white at the admission.
"Sweetie, it's okay." Delia took her daughter's hands in her own and squeezed them gently. She was well aware of the tirades Georgia had endured over
the years where her weight was concerned. "You look better—healthier, stronger, happier—than I've seen you look since you were twelve years old," she said with conviction. "You needed those few extra pounds, Georgia. Why, you've lost that gaunt look. Sweetie, you've never looked more beautiful."