Authors: Jennifer Greene
So slowly his lips lifted from hers, his eyes never leaving her face. His profile would have looked jagged and harsh if those eyes hadn’t been filled with the same warm wanting as her own. “No more waiting, Anne,” he said quietly.
It was very definitely a statement, not a question. She couldn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. He smoothed back her hair, his expression grave.
The touch of his palm was suddenly possessive and disturbing. She reached for his wrist and dragged his hand down to his side. “You know more about futures and margins than I do, don’t you, Jake? Yet you let me talk on and on.”
A spark of humor glinted in his eyes. They both relaxed. “Now, Anne. I never—”
“Don’t you
now, Anne
me. You’ve done an outstanding job over the years of presenting yourself as devil-may-care, move-on-a-whim Jake, never staying anywhere long enough to get deeply involved in anything.”
“I did that?” He made the effort to look surprised. “Maybe the lady was always a little too serious. Maybe it was fun to incite her to laughter, to shock her just a little.” He reached up for the lantern. “And keeping in character, honey, I think it’s time we hit my ghost town.”
***
His ghost town was perfectly awful.
Anne stood with hands on slim hips, staring in all directions around her. The drive from the mine to here hadn’t taken long, just twenty minutes of suicidal hairpin turns—she was getting used to those—and then a cow path behind another fence. A steel fence this time, marked well and locked. Anne pivoted to face him. “You actually live here for weeks at a time?” she questioned casually.
Jake, his hands lazily jammed into his jeans pockets, had found a shady chestnut to lean against, out of the hot sun. His face was in shadow, though she knew he was watching her. “This is where I generally set up the motor home, yes. Weekends I drive the Jeep back and forth to Coeur d’Alene, and during the week when I can, but it’s not always possible.” He paused. “Rugby was the name of this town. It lived and died all within the decade of the 1890s. About the 1920s there was a short revival. Didn’t last long.” Jake gestured. “I own the whole town, from that crag—” he gestured again “—to that peak.”
Her heart sank. Perhaps unconsciously Anne had been praying for a miracle, a place she could live in, particularly after realizing that Jake was seriously committed to his silver.
The meadow was lovely. Lush, low grasses whispered in the sun. The town was high…so high that the pure air almost hurt her lungs, so high that the tree-softened peaks on all sides of their private little valley seemed part of the sky. Clouds were touchably close. A gurgling stream rushed near her feet, the sun glinting clearly on its stone bed, and aspens clustered near Jake’s chestnut tree. Their leaves were tinged with gold and fluttered even without a breeze, showing off their gilded decorations.
It was almost a magical place, and the three structures standing in the distance only added to that mystical quality. As ghost towns went, this was no metropolis. One of the frame structures housed Jake’s Jeep. The other two were as old and as ghostly and deserted as the rest of the town. Both were two-story frame buildings, with wildflowers clustered near their doors, creeping over the windows as if they had slowly but surely decided to hide the buildings completely, along with their owners’ secrets. Anne itched to explore, to get inside the buildings and imagine what it must have felt like to be the wife of a miner, to know that her dreams depended on the secrets of those mountains…
Reality was knowing it was forty miles down to the corner grocery store—forty miles down that killer road. Neighbors, schools, culture—even a drive-in movie—simply weren’t. The water from the stream was undoubtedly pure and delicious, if one wanted to lug buckets of it from the stream to the house. Electricity might reach the area in the next century. The landscape was lovely, yes, and ideal for a nature girl who delighted in stepping outside in the morning to say hello to her friendly local bear. Or cougar. Or wolf. Very nice.
Anne knew she couldn’t live here in a thousand years.
Jake draped an arm over her shoulder, brushing a kiss on the crown of her head. “You like my ghost town?”
“It’s beautiful. Like a corner of the world no one has ever seen. I can see why you love it, Jake. The peace and privacy…”
His chin nuzzled the top of her head. “Now let’s
not
panic until we see Coeur d’Alene, shall we?”
Anne stiffened. “I wasn’t
panicking,
”
she protested. “If you want to spend the rest of our two weeks here, it’s fine with me.
Really
it is, Jake…”
“You’re fibbing.” He turned her slowly to face him, and locked her in a loose embrace with his arms on her shoulders. “Know how I can tell? Even when you tell a little white lie, that pulse in your throat works like a jackhammer.”
Perhaps. Anne flashed him a rueful smile that gradually died. She could feel a different mood sweep over both of them, like the tick of a clock in the night. Jake was close, more than close. The sun was bearing down on both of them, and she could smell the sweet grasses and tangy pines, and Jake, the warmth of him. His eyes held wanting, and his finger slowly touched the errant pulse in her throat. “A few days here and there…you’d like Idaho on that basis, Anne. Not to romp and stomp like a weekend backpacker, but because you—like me—need a haven from time to time. I didn’t buy this particular piece of land for its silver, or its real-estate value. I bought it for its silence. But as for living here permanently—you don’t need to lie. You’ve never needed to lie—not to me.”
“I thought…it mattered to you,” she said gently.
He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you for a very long time that there’s only one thing that matters to me.” His look said,
You, Anne.
She closed her eyes, feeling his fingers ever so gently thread through the loose coil at the nape of her neck as his mouth came down on hers. His lips tasted so sweet, so warm and smooth. She heard his indrawn breath against her mouth as her long silken tresses cascaded into his hands. The light-headed feeling that surged through her was partly real and partly a lush feminine fantasy taking on life. Jake seemed to catch fire when her hair was unbound.
The caution of years slipped from her. Her hands swept over his hard forearms and shoulders, memorizing them. Bittersweet emotions reverberated in her soul. She’d come with him…to find answers she already knew. A place she couldn’t live in, a lifestyle she just couldn’t accept…and feelings that just wouldn’t die. Her fingers shifted to the front of his shirt. One by one, the buttons loosened. Her lips touched down, each time; first on his throat, then in the curling mat of hair on his chest, then over his heartbeat…
“Anne,” Jake murmured.
She paid no attention. Jake was new each time; that was part of it. Never mind that they’d known each other ultimately before; he was still new to her, all over again. Every single time, she was surprised at the breadth of shoulder, at the haphazard spray of hair on his chest, at muscles that never showed beneath his clothes, at ribs that led down to a ridiculously lean waist; she had wider hips than he did, though she was slim. His flesh turned warm under her fingertips; that always surprised her.
He captured her wandering hands, forced them around his neck, and his lips sealed hers with fierce, delicious pressure. She nearly drowned before he let her up for air. “You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble, Anne,” he informed her huskily.
Now
that
she’d known from the day they’d met. A faint smile touched her lips as she lifted her face. How could it possibly be so hot on an autumn day? Sunlight washed over Jake’s jagged, familiar features, for a moment mesmerizing her. He was working the buttons at the back of her blouse, one by one. Silently, she reached up to unfasten the tiny clasp of the silver necklace, and folded the precious gift carefully into the pocket of his chamois shirt. She took extra care as she pushed the shirt from his shoulders. In a moment, her blouse joined his shirt on the grass, and the sun-stroked warmth on her bare shoulders.
She was vaguely aware that they were standing in an open meadow. She even tried to mention the fact, but Jake’s lips sealed hers to silence. His sweet, silken tongue claimed the intimacy of her mouth, all the sensitive dark corners. The taste—Jake’s taste—was a drug, different from any other drug. She rose up on tiptoe, as his fingers unclasped her bra, roughly removed it, and so very gently, so very possessively, claimed one swelling orb in his hand. Her sanity slipped another notch. Her breathing changed; one heartbeat became two, then three. Oddly confused, she buried her lips in his shoulder, and felt a slow, hot shudder possess his body.
“Anne,” he warned hoarsely.
So, Jake, too, was suddenly aware they were outside—not a convenient place at all, not at all what either of them had intended. Yet a sudden thread of desperation laced through her bloodstream. Never to touch him again? Never to
know
him again? Anne, being Anne, knew this was the precise time to buy a plane ticket for home. So obviously it must be someone else unbuckling Jake’s well-worn belt, pulling it through the loops on his jeans…
His hands made a game of slowly chasing her skirt down over her silk-clad hips, then slowly pushing the half-slip down, then her stockings and panties, and then there was nothing to chase but flesh, and he played that game, too. By the time they were both naked, years seemed to have passed, years of playing those languid, lazy games. Anne’s knees felt weak; it was so much easier to sink down.
The long, tall grass yielded beneath her weight, making a strange bed; a silky blouse for a pillow, crinkling jeans under her back, sun-warmed earth and grass beneath her calves. Sunlight flashed in front of her eyes, and the flickering gold leaves of the trees. Jake’s face, grainy and tan, was just above her, his eyes savoring the fevered brilliance in hers, the slight trembling of her mouth, the glow of sun and desire that seemed to heat her skin. “I could look at you forever,” he murmured.
But he seemed to have sweeter tortures in mind. Slowly, he rained light kisses along her ribs and navel and the inside of her arm, the underside of her chin, settling finally on the hollow between her breasts. The creamy globes were swollen, aching, waiting, and her whole body trembled when his tongue lapped first at one nipple, then the other.
She stroked his length in turn. Slowly. Her fingernails lightly scored his skin; then her gentle hands kneaded the flesh of his shoulders, his back, lower. Her fingertips could reach the backs of his thighs if she arched her whole body just so, if she moved her lips just so, if she flattened her breasts against his chest, nipple to nipple…
Jake sucked in breath he never seemed to let out again, his mouth hovering over hers. “Anne.” His kiss was hard and almost rough, and then there was another, and another. “If by some remote chance you’re harboring a hope that we’re going to make it to the motor home…”
A terrible idea. She eased one leg between his in answer, sealing him closer. The sun made her eyes ache, and she closed them. Urgency seemed suddenly to claim them both. Their mattress of jeans and silk was gone; they were rolling over and over in the grass, grass that smelled so sweet, that tickled them as it crackled and yielded under their weight. She seemed to
be a part of the earth, giving and warm, rich and fertile. Somewhere nearby was the gurgling stream, and the sun kept beating down…
He took her, a sharp, welcome intrusion into the most private part of Anne. She wrapped her legs around him, her fevered green eyes intense on his. The power of her own feelings frightened her; her need and love for this man were open, and she was suddenly aware of the impermanence of their love, the illusiveness of their future. Then his lips captured hers, locking out the bitter and leaving only the sweet.
She’d made love with him before; it had been glorious, yet never like this, like a strong wind that would have its way, all the wild, fierce rush of a storm, all the gentleness of a breeze. Jake was so tender, teasing her higher, and all around her were the crushed grasses and the smells of autumn and sun and earth. The sensations seemed magnified, sweet and primitive, special. Then they were gone, and there was only Jake. The world could have been spinning in circles, but she knew only Jake. Desire ripped through her like a sharp, desperate pain, a rhythm gone too far to stop, a ruby-red promise of something she so frantically needed and could never have named or asked for…
The sun exploded in front of her eyes.
***
She held on to Jake, shuddering, gradually aware that he was kissing her forehead and her cheek and her throat, tender, soothing kisses. His palm stroked her hair over and over. “Shift just a little, honey,” he murmured.
She couldn’t seem to obey; she was far too content as she lay with her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. With a smile, he reached over her and dragged his chamois shirt closer, tugging it under her to make a soft nest for her on the crushed grass. “Better?” he murmured.
“I have no idea,” she murmured back.
He smiled again. So very busy he was, stretched out next to her, taking one strand of her hair at a time and lifting it to his shoulders. It took a very long time, yet eventually the entire rest of the world was sealed out by a silvery blond curtain. “I would have waited, Anne,” he said quietly. “I would have waited as long as you wanted me to.”
Her lashes whispered down on her cheeks. He’d wanted to wait, to show her they had more than sex. She’d hurt him, she knew, when she’d said that. She’d never meant to hurt him. She opened her eyes, needing to tell him exactly what her dark prince had meant to her over the years…but not quite able to. They’d filled such a unique, such an oh-so-special niche for each other for so very long that even the word
love
seemed inadequate. What they had was infinitely precious to Anne, as fragile as it was real…but that was not all he was looking for. And she couldn’t hurt him again, not now. Her hand stroked his cheek, her palm soft against the afternoon beard that was already starting to roughen his skin. Her limbs felt like butter, yet her heart had already picked up an uneven beat. Despair…out of nowhere.
“You’ve certainly changed over the years,” he said casually. “At eighteen you all but asked me to make love to you, wiggling your hips around in a miniskirt…”
“I beg your pardon.” Her eyes flickered wide.
He nodded sadly. “But you’ve become inhibited, Anne. Particularly since you passed thirty. I mean, look at this…” He plucked a blade of grass from her hair, waving it in front of her nose.
She snatched the offending wisp of grass, her lips fighting the tug of a smile.
“I’m really not sure there’s any hope for you,” he said thoughtfully. He found another piece of grass and decorated the crevice between her breasts with it. Then another. “You’re a sad
case. You have no interest in sex, no desire. Honey, it’s going to take a lot of work to get you back in shape…”
Her fingers curled in the hair on his chest and pulled. “So you weren’t satisfied, Mr. Rivard? You dragged me out here in the middle of nowhere to get grass stains on my bare back—”
“I was perfectly satisfied,” he assured her readily. His eyes seared hers and held them a moment. Long enough. “It’s you I was worried about,” he said quietly.
“You have no need to be worried,” she whispered.
“But I am. I am
very
worried.” Gently, he pushed her cheek to his chest so he could lean over her, and then he brushed off the bits of ticklish grass and earth that seemed to have molded themselves to her slender back. Three more blades of grass he found in her hair; he showed her all three of them as if he were showing off trophies. “We’re going to have to undertake a long reeducation where you’re concerned. With constant work and effort, I’m almost certain we’ll be able to rekindle
some
kind of sexual feelings in time…”
Anne snatched his hands before he had the chance to find any more trophies, locked them firmly around her waist and raised her parted lips to his. “Jake,” she said gravely, “maybe you could stop talking for a minute and a half and get on with the lesson.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
He shook his head, his eyes full of laughter. “I have a headache. And besides, I really don’t think you fully realize where you are. What kind of behavior is this, lying naked beneath the sun, not a mattress in sight? It’s not even night—”
A small pinch on his backside shut him up. A rain of grass on his face, and suddenly they were on their feet, and he was chasing her, a race full of laughter through the meadow with her arms flung wide, embracing the day and the sun and, shortly, the man.
***
It was midafternoon, another somnolent, Indian summer day, with a warm breeze just barely lifting the leaves in the distance. Anne stepped out of the motor home with a shallow black pan in her hands, headed toward the stream. In the last three days since she and Jake had made love in the meadow, her appearance had gone through some drastic changes, none more apparent than at the moment.
She was wearing a skirt, a typical Anne tweed, and a delicate blouse with a lace-banded collar. Which was fine, except that the blouse was hanging outside the waistband of her skirt, its sleeves carelessly rolled up to her elbows. Her legs were bare, and on her feet she wore Jake’s black boots. Her hair was coiled, but only because long, loose hair would have been constantly in her way. She had tacked the coil in place loosely with tortoiseshell combs and a few pins, but long, free strands fluttered around her face and curled under her chin in the breeze.
Jake, behind her, was laughing.
“We’ve been here three whole days, and you never once mentioned that your creek runs gold,” she scolded over her shoulder.
“I must have told you ninety-nine times. You don’t suppose you were preoccupied with other things?”
She would have told him which one of them was preoccupied, except that she nearly slipped as she neared the jumble of wet rocks near the bank of the creek. “Let’s get businesslike here,” she said absently.