The wilderness was their playground. They were free to go wherever their hearts led
.
When the path joined up with the one she took to the cemetery, Laurel almost turned back. Her heart rolled in terror behind her breast. Would he question her again about the graves? Cole pushed himself faster, though limping. The pain must be excruciating. Had he read the gravestone's inscription?
It was clear he wanted to make love. The light in his eyes would dance, and he would turn his face up to the sky like a wolf, calling her name until it filled the woodland. Laur-el Lee. Come to me
.
Before reaching the fork in the path that led to the gravestones and little church, Cole veered off, descending the hill. Air entered her lungs again, and her heart fluttered with less trepidation.
Laurel hiked after him. Branches whipped at her face.
“Cole? Cole, slow down."
Cole, please hurry, or someone will see us. Innocence, transparent and flimsy as lace, was enough then. It tasted sweet
.
Twigs snapped, brush rustled. A hawk cried overhead. Laurel followed, fear driving her. She never wanted to lose Cole. To her, he was the only worthy opponent for the healthy barbs of the arguments her stubbornness brought. She wanted to draw him close.
But he kept hurrying now, breaking from the brush and into the open. She panicked, her heartbeat swelling torturous thoughts in her head. His boss—that damn Rojas—could pluck Cole from her anytime, the madman's talons drawing blood, purging Cole's last breath, feeding on the flesh that she knew as strong, enticing, protective.
“Cole!” She wanted to protect him!
The hill fanned into a gentle slope. Cole broke into a run, swooping down the incline, ignoring her. Or was he leading her?
Laurel ran. Blood throbbed at her temples.
He stopped abruptly. She almost tumbled into him. Capturing her hand, he tugged her along beside him until they reached the break in the trees and brush.
“Our meadow. Our meadow could be the place for everything to change,” he said, his voice so guttural it painted pictures in her mind of wild things, wanton acts.
She lay trapped in the tall grass, and yet welcomed its shelter as he hovered over her. It was the first time for her. It was a matter of the hunted depending on the hunter to take his time
.
* * * *
THE HAZE OF the summer's evening softened the sunlight to a golden glow across the waving grasses and wildflowers. Brown-eyed susans, pink clover and queen anne's lace bowed in the breeze. Laurel stood motionless, knowing she'd been wrong to allow Cole to bring her here.
This was where she'd fallen in love with him.
A girl born free taking up with a boy gone wild
.
His fingers squeezed hers, sending heat shimmering up her arm and into her heart. Staring out across the landscape, his dark eyes flickered with a primitive energy, slices of yellow light tinting them.
Then a muscle twitched in his jaw. Furrowing his brow, his gaze scoped out the faraway treeline. He was hurting her hand.
“What's wrong?” she whispered, her body tensing in unison with his.
“I thought I saw someone."
A tremble chilled her. “Who?"
Rojas? The man in her shed? The man watching her in town, then running? Her mother's spy—the tourist in the restaurant?
Clutching at his arm, she meant to reassure herself as much as him. “He wouldn't come here. He doesn't know about this. We're only guessing it's what Mike wanted us to do."
“He followed us tonight."
“Nobody followed us.”
Don't do this to me, Cole!
But her nerves empathized.
The muscles steeled in his forearms, his hands bending into tight fists. The hawkish gaze, the yellow-tipped eyes, frightened her.
He was gentle, devoted to her. The grass cushioned her back, cradled her wrists when he splayed her arms out in the sunshine to take her. His shadow rode over her. A whisper of muscle entered her, and she cried out
.
Across the meadow, against the opening in the trees that led to the pond and stream feeding Spirit Lake, a doe and her fawn emerged, twitching an ear at them. Laurel sensed Cole's sigh of relief with her own. Then, the doe and fawn flipped up their white flags for tails, on alert, and bounded into the thick cover of protective forest.
Even before she could seek his protectiveness, Cole had grabbed her closest hand and rubbed it. “You're shaking."
“Can't help it. This place ... hasn't changed at all since then."
“You never come here on your walks?"
The question pricked her heart. “I give it a glance on the way to the graveyard."
A breeze parted the waist-high grass, and he stepped into it, as if eager to leave her, then stopped. His shoulders heaved up and down slowly under the blue shirt, changing the air in the meadow. “It's wrong the way I want you."
There was no mistaking the yellow glint in his eyes, the narrowed gaze, the uneven heaving of his chest in its ragged attempt at control.
The birds went silent, as if waiting for a decision that would change their world forever.
Chaotic emotions darted around her heart, a fiery yearning swirling inside her, but a warning creeping in. Was she being foolish?
“What are you trying to tell me?” she ventured, mouth dry, all senses on hold.
“That there's something about this place,” he muttered, “no, about you in this place, that makes me want you so badly it hurts."
Her breathing stopped again. “Are you ever afraid of an emotion that asks everything of a person?"
“I'm only afraid for you.” He backed off from her. “But emotions? You're strong. Whatever life asks of you, I believe you're strong enough to find an answer for it."
Her heart fluttered. “I might not be as strong as you think."
“You're very strong these days. And you never used to question me. Now, you question me."
The same breeze that fluttered his long hair cooled the perspiration on her forehead. She leaned on the breeze, flowing toward him. “That bothers you?"
“No. Our differences can be very becoming on you.” After a flinch hit his jawline, he turned away, sucking in the fragrant evening air. “The quiet serenity, for example, becomes you. I don't belong here."
“But I do? You make it sound like I'm in a rocking chair watching life go by."
Coming back to her, he reached out and grazed her cheekbone with his knuckles, sending rivers of velvet heat pouring from his touch. “Oh, Laurel Lee. You used to look this flushed with life every day, falling for my stupid challenges and adventures. Don't you see, you're doing it again."
“I came to the same conclusion recently.” The window in her heart had opened so wide that she was having trouble closing it. His spirit kept rushing in to join hers, refreshing her like spring air ushered into a musty winter house. “But what choice do I have, to borrow your phrase? Rock in my rocker instead? Alone?"
He turned his face up to the golden sun, and its light spun sienna threads through his deep chestnut hair, but his hands were balled into fists.
“The difference is, we're smarter now,” she offered. “I can't lay aside your latest adventure as if it were a book I can close and come back to again. And I can't see you suffer, just as you say you don't want me hurt. Caring about you is ... what defines me. Mother calls it ‘worry and tend.’ I could bottle it and sell it."
His eyes flickered like burning coals. “Yes, you are smarter, more caring, more everything that's beautiful."
Oh she was lost. The window inside was stuck open and he poured in, filling each floor with the sound of his voice, the laughter, the good times and his strength.
Cole strode on into the meadow, then began to jog with a hitch in his stride, dragging the bad leg. The weeds and wildflowers whipped in his wake. Then to her horror he slumped into the grass.
Panic halted her. Fear curdled her stomach. Had she missed the sound of a bullet?
“Cole?” She tore through the tall grass, fighting when she got tangled in stalks of queen anne's lace. “Answer me! Cole?"
“It's the stupid leg."
When she caught up, he appeared grumbly as a black bear with a thorn in its paw.
Shoving up his pant's leg, she unwound the pressure bandage. “Your leg's awfully swollen."
“Saw it off, doc."
Shaking her head at him, she chided, “The way you're going with this, your boss only has to wait until you die of fever. Where were you running to anyway?"
“The pond. It can't be far and that cool water will feel damn good on this leg. Remember swimming in the pond?"
Her gaze met his, remembering all too well.
The icy water made the dry, flat rock in the middle of the pond feel all the warmer. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her neck. He wanted to strike again. She could see it in his eyes
.
Heat splashed her face, trickling down her neck and the rest of her body. “I remember,” she said, secretly pleased he had too.
“It puckered you in a couple of places."
Sucking in her breath, she punched his shoulder. “If I remember right, something of yours shriveled."
His laughter echoed across the meadow. “We're goin’ in, even if it's to prove to you that your memory's lousy."
Excitement escaped her heart before she had a chance to close the window. Reality reeled in the emotion. “You're not too steady on that leg and those rocks are slippery."
“You'll steady me, won't you?"
Her hands grew clammy. “We'll get wet."
“We'll take our clothes off."
“Cole!"
A grin spread across his face. “So we won't take our clothes off. We'll get wet and you can go home and change later, and I'll drip dry all night in my tent. They'll find my body with moss and mildew eating away at its—"
“We're not going in.” But she was smiling again, darn him.
“My leg's throbbing. So is something else."
A tingle spread between her legs. Another memory. “That's it. Ice water here we come. I'm taking you in, with your clothes on, but no funny stuff. The rocks are too slippery."
He minded her at first, hobbling next to her through the meadow, letting her take his shoes off, then leaning on her to edge into the icy pool of clear water. Laurel's feet ached at the cold. “It couldn't have been this cold back then."
“Wimp."
But Cole let go a primal scream on entering the water.
He waded in further, up to his knees. “Come on,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her. “Laurel Lee, the sissy."
He knew she hated being called that, and she knew he was baiting her. When he splashed toward her, his eyes twinkling, she panicked, but a thrill also coiled inside her. “No, Cole. No way."
With his arms held high, he roared, “It's the pond monster, coming for you. Grrrrr."
Swallowing back giggles, she pushed through the water for the shoreline. Her feet slipped on the rocks though.
“Gotcha!” he declared, grabbing her from behind with strong arms encircling her rib cage.
In short order, he picked her up in his arms, swung around and lumbered out into deeper water. She clung to his neck in desperation, her hands entwined in his thick hair heated by the sun.
“It's too cold,” she shrieked.
“Grrrrr! My leg feels great, doc!"
She laughed, despite her nervousness. They'd played this a thousand times that summer so long ago.
“Grrrr.” A raw hunger swirled in his gaze.
Electricity bolted through her.
Their clothing abandoned, he chased her through the meadow again, until they both tired, and he lay poised in the weeds, waiting for her to want him enough to come find him
.
She peered down at the water. “Take me to shore. Now,” she insisted.
Splashing to shore, the clumsy, limping monster carried her up the grassy slope, then lowered her to a warm patch of dry grass near their shoes. Cole sat down next to her, panting from the exertion.
Laurel's breathing was ragged as well, but for another reason. Every fiber of her suddenly recalled how it felt to be wanted by the devil-may-care Cole Wescott, how it felt to be made love to by him when he was focused on only that one thing. In the attic, he'd been focused on using their lovemaking to help relieve his grief. She'd shared that emotion, and let it carry them into old ways, let it be the excuse. But what if his focus now were only on her, on them? Could she stand that kind of passion, and then let it go?
She reached for her shoes, but his arm snaked out to stop her. “Don't be in a hurry."
A shadow swooped across his gaze, and his lips parted. He hesitated, caught mid-thought. He needed to tell her something. What? He'd been that way all evening, and she knew he'd blurt it out in his own time. Could she be patient? She had to be. She wanted him. Very much.
“I've got to get back for chores,” she muttered.
“We had good times here.” His eyes reflected days gone by.
“We dreamed, Cole. It wasn't reality, remember?"
Picking up a fistful of her loose hair that met the grass, he played it between his thumb and forefinger. She didn't expect the way his simple action pressed a glow into her breasts and deeper into her soul.
“We shouldn't have come here,” he whispered, torment flitting across his eyes, “because it's too hard to leave."
Collecting her quaking hands in his big ones, he brought them up to his face, pressing her palms against his stubbly cheeks. His cool skin startled her. Confusion lurked in his brown eyes. A hurt flickered, died, then flared again. What did he want to talk to her about? Laurel's curiosity took over. To stoke the fire, she drew him to herself, into a kiss.
Their pains—her memory of her losses and all their regrets and fears—blended, but they were not fierce enough to win over this exhilarating moment. Flesh against flesh, firm promises that could never be kept, but oh, the bliss of allowing the instinctual fire to roar. Laurel understood this time together would have to last them forever.
Laurel gloried in the way he touched her, soft as a bird's wing, demanding as a hawk sitting on its prey. He needed her for survival, and she was sure it was love. With his fingers, he encouraged her to open for him, and she blossomed with the flowers, trusting, feeding his insatiable desires
.