There, in the crook of his arm, Laurel slept, just as she had that first night. Only this time, the flutterings of breath caressing his chest drew from deep within her body. He guessed she hadn't slept well in a long time, not since he'd arrived to interrupt her summer.
Guilt washed across his skin, only to be challenged again by her mere presence. It felt good lying in the soft bed with her, with the woman who meant the world to him and always would. Truth roiled deep inside him. He had measured all other women against her and every last one of them had lost. How could he manage without her? He must.
The specter of loneliness gripped him, peppering him with heat. This lady was in his blood, a part of him. He'd changed because of her.
Because of Laurel Hastings, he'd slowed down, allowed himself to explore emotions with her. Laurel demanded his experiencing highs and lows, joy and sorrow. With her, he was allowed to yell and whisper, get angry, then eager as a pup to please. Her radiant smile never let him forget flowers in the meadow. She'd made him cuddle baby rabbits, and rage over a lost son. She had mustered him to attention like no other woman ever had.
Yesterday, they had visited the gravesite together, smelled the breeze, sweet as any child. They had walked the meadow hand in hand, no words spoken. No words necessary. The sparrows sang for them, and they listened to its innocence.
Being together had felt so right to him. But was it merely the closure they needed finally stealing in? Had they met at his proverbial fence, looked over into each other's secrets, and seeing that crossing over wasn't possible, made the decision to part peacefully once and for all?
Cole closed his eyelids against the darkness. He smelled the hint of sweet pine in her hair that spilled in haphazard, ticklish waves across his bare chest. She felt as soft as one of her rabbits, and was every bit as innocent and needy. She had loved Jonathon with all her heart, enough for the both of them and Cole's soul would always be thankful to her for carrying on, for bringing their son here, for visiting his grave and tending the good memories. Shadow gardens had their place, he decided.
Good memories abounded between them, even with their short time spent together.
The rhythm of her breathing served as a lullaby. As sleep stole over him again, Cole vowed to do everything he could to make her happy in whatever time they had left together. It was the least he could do for the mother of his son.
Chapter 15
COLE'S VOICE USHERED forth with the lilt of the soft sunrise sending scarlet streamers through the window and onto the bedroom wall. “Is it time to get up and feed those animals already?"
Peering at her through sleepy eyes, he displayed a quirky smile on his whiskery morning face. Laurel basked in it, but searched too for any signs of regret.
Lying in the crook of his arm and chest, she had been watching him sleep for several minutes, wondering how they could be this natural together, after all the years. Wondering why it felt this good to wake up. Was it a trick? A dream?
Her heart saved a corner for wariness. Yesterday remained a surreal challenge. They'd confessed to a lot. That accommodation for each other had been designed to bring them peace. But she'd lived with peace for years. It wasn't the same as love.
Under the mesmerizing glow of his sleepy gaze, she reached up and outlined his firm lips with the pad of her index finger. Electricity rushed from the contact, blanketing her body. Touching him in this intimate way set up an ache she hadn't felt since ... since that summer in the meadow. Since last night.
“I'm glad you stayed.” She surprised herself with the sultriness in her own voice.
Cole gave her a lopsided grin, lighting up the room—and her heart—even more. “You purr in the morning. I never knew that."
Heat suffused her body more, taking hold on her cheeks. “You ... never stayed the night before. It's my grown-up voice. You like it?"
“Mmm.” He pulled her to him for a kiss that drove her temperature into the ozone. “You shouldn't tease like that."
She knew caution was sensible. Sometime in early morning, after the quiet acceptance of their pasts seeped through their dreams and shadows grew softer, they had awakened in each others’ arms, their bodies needy, wondering. They had answered the wondering, searching for the feel of togetherness as ordinary grownups in the very ordinariness of a double bed. Something they'd never experienced before.
To avoid his penetrating gaze now, she burrowed deeper into the nest made by his muscular arm and chest.
The soft joy of lovemaking—the kind that's filled with the quick sounds of dove's wings taking flight—signaled a respect between them. She hoped. Both of them had done their best with the past, and they were ready to move on. Joy tendered to the shoreline around her heart, inviting her to leave forever the vacant house inside herself. A strong beacon was calling her, and she wondered if it were Cole's love for her. Did she dare to trust her instincts?
If she was scared these days, the root of it was not Marco Rojas. No, fear trampled into her heart because there was no ordinary love growing inside her for this man. She'd handled “ordinary” for fifteen years and learned to tend it quite well. This new feeling for Cole demanded a higher level of commitment. The commitment would require surviving a new kind of danger. It didn't threaten to take her to a precipice. It threatened to fling her off! To set her aflight, like the dove to ride the breezes and float on updrafts toward the sun. This love focused on pure joy, on freedom to fly.
Cole muttered, “What's in that pretty head this morning?"
If he only knew, she thought. “Thinking about everything we need to do."
“Like kiss you again?” He planted a peck on a flushed cheek.
“Like solving the puzzles."
“You've always been a puzzle. May I try to connect the dots?"
Sighing, she realized they could not avoid what was at hand. “There's so much to do. Figure out the meaning of the sextant, talk to the sheriff, and I should visit my mother. She'll be worried if she hears of any of this."
“Particularly if she finds out who I really am. And that I'm here to protect her daughter."
Suddenly, she knew why this love for him was different. Ever since coming back days ago, he thrived on listening to her innermost secrets, her fears and desires. He had focused just on her, like a hawk soaring near its mate, always protective.
She and Cole were wild things, kindred spirits. Always were.
They were imperfect puzzle pieces, not fitting with other partners, and yet, in search of a fit of their own.
Still, she needed to be cautious. Theirs was a tenuous relationship shaped by external events that could keep them apart.
“What would you say,” she ventured, popping up to look at his wonderful morning face again, “if I made you breakfast?"
“Fried eggs?"
“Over easy, with my own homemade tomato marmalade on toast."
One heavy eyebrow tented, warming her. “How can someone as beautiful and talented as you not have a line of lumberjacks waiting at your door here in the northwoods?"
She teased, “They don't like tea."
“Ah, come on. I apologized for that."
“Maybe I've decided to change. No more earth mother. Give me a rich man to sweep me off my feet and take me to parties in the Twin Cities and buy me frilly designer dresses."
His chuckle tickled her nerve endings. “My Great-aunt Flora and you have a lot in common."
“Two saucy, liberated women? With things to do. People to see. Mysteries to solve."
But he didn't share her levity. When his brows knitted over cloudy eyes, she asked, “What's wrong?"
“People to see. It reminded me that Tyler needs to know. With your permission."
Looking up, she saw the worried set of his jaw. But her own heart pounded. “Of course. They were brothers."
Brothers
. The room tilted. Why hadn't she thought about that before? Or had she buried the idea because it sounded like a “family” she had no right to claim? Cole and her, Tyler and Jonathon.
In her heart, they were together, like one of those church photographs in everybody's house. A softness threaded through her. If the image alone could give this pleasure, what would having an actual family with Cole bring? Her breathing stepped up a pace.
Cole's gaze on her didn't help. His eyes were dark pools, rimmed with moisture threatening to spill forth. “I love my son. I plan to say it a thousand times a day."
A mist overwhelmed her vision, her insides yielding, gathering strength for him. “I know you want to be a good father. I trust that about you. Completely."
Laurel escaped the intense moment by slipping from the bed and into her robe. The heated impression of his body next to her lingered on her skin. With palms clammy and fingers shaking, she knotted the belt at her waist and managed to find slippers.
Turning to him, she said, “I want you and Tyler to come back and visit me someday."
Flinching, the light normally in his eyes dimmed. “I suppose I can't hope for something more."
Staring at him lying in her bed, a lump lingered in her throat. “It's not really safe for our hearts, is it, to think in those terms of something more? I mean, there's too much ahead yet..."
He drew in a breath big enough to empty the room of air. “I'd be honored to be invited back for a visit."
Her heart sank. A visit.
Then he plastered on the best fake smile. At least she wanted it to be fake. She wanted him to think about missing her.
“What should I tell Tyler to expect?” he asked.
Relying on that courage they'd talked about earlier, she too put on her best face. “I'll take him on a tour of the new clinic I'm going to build, the educational center, and the outdoor self-guided trails."
“Is that all?” He pimped her again with a broad grin.
Pleasure ebbed through her veins. “Nope. I'm going to write a book, a whole series of children's books based on my experiences with animals. I have to do something with all those reports on hawks and owls I fill out for the State and the feds."
“Whew! Guess I better get crackin’ and get on outta here so you can level that old mansion and get on with things."
A shadow flickered across his eyes just as a cloud trundled into her heart. Reality had struck.
She offered, “I won't ask that the place be razed until we find out why Mike hid the sextant there."
“You'll risk your government grant."
“I'll find money somehow."
“Sounds like my tomboy.” Sliding from the bed, Cole didn't seem to care that he was naked as a jaybird except for the ragged bandage on his leg. Cradling her chin in both hands, he said, “Did I ever mention I'm proud to know you? How much I admire you?"
Fire erupted where he touched her, spreading in columns of heat down to her stomach and to every nerve ending. “No, I don't think you ever did."
“You've made one hell of a good life for yourself."
Sucking in, she had no reply. She saw a man racing toward a dangerous precipice of his own. His hair tousled on a weathered, tired forehead. A scar branded one pectoral muscle where a bullet had grazed him. His body battered, his mind fighting to stay focused, Cole refused to be afraid. How could she be?
She hurried into the shower, turning on the hot jets full blast.
To know Cole was to know how it felt to have a warm rain awaken a tree's roots from winter.
That's what she would remember Cole for, and it would bring her joy, no matter what became of him. Cole had awakened her to life again.
If she repeated that often enough in her mind, maybe her heart could be happy when he left.
* * * *
THEY COULD have been husband and wife, Laurel decided soon afterward, with Cole sitting on the table in Dr. Donna Corcoran's examining room and Laurel standing at his shoulder. She liked the feeling. She didn't like that he'd kept another secret from her.
“You could have told me you'd visited Donna before this, instead of letting me badger you about doing it."
He scowled, watching Donna snip a bandage down to size. “And have you worrying even more?"
“I wouldn't have worried. I'd have lorded it over you that you'd followed my advice for once."
The doctor laughed. “You two. Now I need you to hold still."
Wrapping new, snowy gauze up and down his calf, the doctor lectured him to soak the leg in a tub every night, re-wrap it in new gauze, take his antibiotic pills regularly and keep the leg elevated. All things Laurel knew he never intended to do, unless she made him. A bittersweet, urgent tugging nipped at her heart. She could make him well. If he stayed and let her.
Donna tossed suckers at him, then Laurel clamped her best protective hold on his arm and whisked them out a side door.
The peace lasted only until a breathless Una caught up with them at the minivan in the clinic parking lot.
“Buzz is buzzin’ about some dead woman found in Spirit Lake."
Laurel was glad for Cole's tightening grip.
Gulping for breath, Una puffed, “The woman's body was inside one of those big muskie minnow cages your mother sells at the bait shop. Buzz even quoted her in his article about your boss Rojas. Said there might be a connection between this woman and Mike."
Cold stones seemed to settle into Laurel's stomach. “My mother's all right?"
Una nodded. “The sheriff came and took her for coffee."
When Laurel swung around to question Cole, he gripped her arm and headed for the minivan, mumbling, “Where's a private place we can talk and sort this out?"
* * * *
LAUREL NEEDED to steer the aluminum boat just to keep her hands from shaking off her limbs. Spirit Lake was private, but it didn't lull her the way it usually did. The news had tousled her stomach the same way the breeze was tossing Cole's dark hair. She sat back by the motor in the stern, and he sat opposite her in the bow, his coppery skin shining under the full sun.
His gaze scanned the lake, trouble marked in them under the shade provided by his hand.
She shivered. “So he's here. Isn't he?"
“Or a hired gun. Rojas wouldn't be so careless as to murder his girlfriend then dump her under my nose."