Conquer the Memories

Chapter 4

Sonia set down the watering can and wiped her damp, grimy hands on the seat of her cutoffs. Tight velvet buds were just starting to form on the rose stems. Her favorite was the rich apricot-colored one, the one she had grafted herself and the one she had never really believed would work.

Absently, she brushed the trail of moisture from her forehead with her sleeve. Her shoulder just slightly protested the movement with a twinge of stiffness, but not much. Two weeks had made a difference.

Just being home had made the real difference.

Even with the slanted windows open, it was unbelievably hot in the narrow greenhouse. As much as she loved her roses, they refused to thrive under Wyoming’s baking sun and endless, driving winds. Charlie and Craig had put the building up two years before, over her repeated protests that she and Craig were away too much for her to spend the time with her favorite hobby. The two men had ignored her-their favorite pastime-and now they were both clearly to blame for the dirt under her fingernails, the hair curling wildly around her cheeks and the luxurious relaxation she felt after digging in the rich black dirt for the past two hours. Bending down, she scooped up the puppy that had cheerfully untied her shoestrings twice.

The tawny golden retriever pup stared at her with limpid eyes. “You’re a disgrace,” Sonia informed him affectionately. “All wrinkles. Clumsy. Your paws are just about bigger than your whole body. And I’m supposed to sell you as the pick of the litter?”

The pup’s soft pink tongue lapped lovingly at her neck. “And I’m never going to be able to give you up. Craig did remark that I was the last person alive who should try to raise dogs.” She set the pup down, tying her canvas shoes for the third time. With help.

From the open windows, Sonia could just barely hear the sound of voices from the yard. Smiling, she put away the trowel and small spade, then rinsed her hands. A burst of feminine laughter outside made her chuckle.

Some husbands disliked their mothers-in-law. Perhaps because Craig had lost his mother so young, he had taken on Sonia’s mother like a second chance. The Rawlingses had lived in Cold Creek for generations, and though Sonia and Craig had spent the past few years more or less hopping around with his work, Cold Creek was where they’d built their home. Both valued those roots, and her parents had become his adopted ones.

With the pup in her arms, Sonia checked the temperature in the greenhouse and pushed open the door. Forest smells assaulted her nostrils. Craig’s land was nestled at the fingertips of the massive Tetons. The really high peaks were miles away, but most of Craig’s ranch sprawled out in a valley nestled among the foothills, verdant and green and rolling. “Their” river was also a gift from the mountains, clear and always cold, winding lazily in and around the property like a silver ribbon.

South of them was a much more arid rolling prairie, where most of the ranchers around Cold Creek made their living. And many miles farther southeast was the Green River Basin, where some fifteen years ago the government had gotten all excited about shale oil. Craig’s ranch worked horses, not oil, but the south end held some of that shale. Enough for one brash young man with a faint mustache to experiment with, as pretty much everyone else in the area had rushed to experiment. The kid in oversized cowboy boots had had the sense to patent his oil extraction process, and the rest of his story was the history of one bankrupt ranch’s evolution into a successful enterprise dominated by a man who expected to work hard for everything he had. Those boots more than fit him these days.

The ranch was still home to both of them, no matter how far they traveled. Sonia knew exactly what the land meant to Craig. Roots, privacy, quiet, the memory of just how hard he’d fought to save it…She drew strength from their home as he did, was renewed by it as he was.

Except-not this time. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing since they’d arrived. The rest Craig needed so badly hadn’t been given to him. After the weeks of trying to browbeat him into taking it easy and still feeling foolishly jumpy herself whenever she heard a strange sound, Sonia had capitulated that afternoon and called in the troops.

June Rawlings was a very capable one-woman army, a trim, attractive woman in white slacks and top, with her daughter’s dark hair and long legs. She grinned as Sonia approached. “Good Lord. Look what the pup dragged home this time,” she drawled to Craig.

“Thanks,” Sonia told her mother wryly, and made her way to Craig’s side. She was delighted to see her overworked husband stretched out on a chaise longue. Just an hour and a half of sitting still had put the mischief back in his dark eyes. Not that she particularly appreciated their focus at the moment. His eyes skimmed deliberately over the smudged dirt on her knees, noted the way her halter top stuck provocatively to her slim curves, and sparkled at the errant curls full of their own ideas about hairstyle. “And you can just stop looking at me that way. I’ll take a shower just as soon as I’ve had a drink,” she scolded him.

Settling the puppy on his lap, she leaned over for a kiss. Under her mother’s watchful eye, a mere peck was protocol, but there was enough time for a solicitous inventory. The bruises and swelling were gone from his face; the bump on his nose wasn’t, but she was growing very fond of that odd bump. Bumps didn’t matter; it was that tense broodiness she caught too often on his face that worried her. She relaxed. Even her most critical eye could see he was for once relaxed. In fact, Craig was looking a ton healthier each day. He also tasted delicious.

Sonia was suddenly hungry.

“I hope you didn’t take that outfit with you when you went to Chicago,” her mother said wryly.

Between the two chaise longues was a small metal table with a pitcher of iced tea. Sonia poured herself a glass. “You could ask me how the roses are going,” she suggested to her mother. In several long gulps, she finished half the tea, and lazily collapsed in the grass between the two lawn chairs. Immediately, the pup bounded down from Craig’s lap to pounce on her, causing the glass to tilt and iced tea to dribble on Sonia’s knee, in no way contributing to her dignity.

“That’s her father’s daughter, you know,” June told Craig. “I can’t tell you how often we thank God you took her off our hands. I never could figure out what you saw in her.”

“The legs, Mom.”

June shook her head at him. “Those knees are her father’s, too. Not mine.” She catalogued the parts of Sonia’s body, dividing them up genetically and blaming all physical and character deficiencies on her father’s genes. What her mother failed to point out, Craig inevitably discovered. Used to such teasing, Sonia ignored both of them. And weary of retying her tennis shoes, she simply pulled them off and arched her hot feet in the soft, cool mat of grass. The puppy promptly lost interest in shoestrings and decided to teethe on her toes.

Before long, a half dozen more wrinkled, scampering puppies attacked her. Their dam, Tawny Lady, having led out her brood, trotted briskly to Craig’s side. His arm went around her, stroking her fur, while Sonia was assaulted unmercifully by their champion retriever’s offspring.

“Come over here and do your own babysitting,” she ordered Tawny Lady, laughing.

The dog turned her head and closed her eyes, clearly uninterested in leaving Craig’s side. Though she was basically obedient and gentle, there was still no question she was Craig’s dog.

“You could always keep them penned,” her mother suggested dryly. “Particularly since they’re going to be sold eventually-they’re not just pets.”

“They like to be free,” Sonia protested.

June exchanged a look with Craig. “You’re to blame for this, you know. You encouraged her to breed this litter. I couldn’t believe it at the time.”

The pup did a somersault trying to get into Sonia’s lap, upsetting the last of the iced tea over her. Shaking her head in despair, she stood up and set the empty glass on the table. “I’m being driven to take a shower,” she complained.

Her mother chuckled, standing up as well. “I’ll go with you as far as the greenhouse to see how your roses are coming, but then I have to go home. Your father will be wondering where I am. No-” she motioned Craig back down “-don’t get up. We’ve worked too hard being lazy this afternoon to spoil it now.”

Craig half closed his eyes. “Tell your daughter to put on something sexy after her shower.”

“I’ll do that,” June agreed.

Mother and daughter exchanged glances on the sloped walk back to the greenhouse. Sonia opened the door, and the two of them disappeared inside. “So that’s how you do it, is it?” she asked her mother wryly. “By accusing him of being lazy? If I’d suggested he sit still for a minute, he would have tried to jog forty miles.”

“Men.” Her mother grinned. The two of them shared a chuckle of mutual understanding. Though they’d seemed at loggerheads when Sonia was growing up, a special closeness had developed as she matured and learned to relate to her mother woman-to-woman.

“The farm going okay?” she asked.

“Mmm. Fine. Need a rain, but then we always need a rain in June.” Sonia had inherited her love of roses from her mother, who now studied her daughter’s plants with a critical eye, poking a hand into the soil to rub the texture between two fingers. Both knew, though, that the visit to the greenhouse was only an excuse to steal a few minutes together. “He’s fine, Sonia,” June said absently. “Or he will be. I can see his ribs still hurt him when he moves, but that’s to be expected.”

“He still gets these terrible headaches,” Sonia worried.

“But that was no small concussion. Two weeks isn’t so very long.”

“If I could get him to stay off his feet more…”

They closed the door on the greenhouse, and Sonia walked her mother to the car. “He’s just like your father,” June commiserated. “Men are sheer nuisances when they’re ill.” She paused. “Every blasted last one of them, I believe.” She gave her daughter an affectionate, if gingerly, peck on her smudged cheek. “Your roses are doing beautifully. Coffee grounds, Sonia, just a few grains sprinkled around them a few times a week. The plants like that acid. And stop worrying. You two are such a pair! He’s worse than you are, grilling me four times over the minute you’re out of sight about whether you’re really feeling all right. Now it’s time both of you put the incident behind you.”

“Hmm.”

“Smile,” her mother ordered.

Sonia smiled. “Go away. I hate good advice.” Laughing, June got into the car. Sonia leaned through the window to hug her mother. “Give Dad a kiss for me, would you?”

Charlie, with a fork poised over a sizzling frying pan, shot Sonia a sardonic look. “It’s going to rain, you know.”

“It is not.” The tray was already on the kitchen counter.

She drew out two Cornish hens from the refrigerator and put them on the tray, then added silverware, salt and pepper, a chilled bottle of wine, and two glasses. “Now what else do we need?” she asked absently.

“A night with no wind. That is, if you plan to cook those outdoors over a fire. If you plan to eat them raw, won’t make no difference.”

“The wind is going to die down, the minute we go outside,” Sonia informed him.

“Oh. That’s different, then.” Charlie nodded sagely.

“You’re just angling for an invitation.”

“Are you joking? I got a pan-fried steak and CSI, coming on. Besides, the minute I saw the wine on the tray I had you figured for being ‘in the mood.’ Sure do hope Craig had a nap this afternoon.”

Sonia picked up the tray. In spite of herself, she felt color rising in her cheeks. She opened her mouth to make a fitting retort, then closed it. Charlie burst out laughing.

She went outside and closed the sliding glass doors on him, balancing the tray precariously on one arm. Charlie was…irrepressible. If she didn’t love him so much, she’d be inclined to muzzle him.

He didn’t, at least, live in the house; he just cooked there. Not that Charlie’s bunkhouse didn’t have a fully equipped kitchen, but he and Craig had been talking “ranch” over meals for so long that Charlie was more than half family, and besides, she had learned a great many secrets about her husband while chopping onions with Charlie.

Occasionally, he had the misguided notion that he could outthink her, which was totally untrue. Sonia set the tray on the patio table and anchored the napkins with the silverware against the puffing breeze.

Warm fingers of air ruffled her dark curls and teased at the open throat of her white satin blouse. The full sleeves billowed above the tight cuffs, and she could feel that most impertinent wind sneaking beneath the smooth material to her bare skin.

Craig loved her “pirate blouse.” When they were alone.

It was one of several garments in her closet that he preferred she not wear in public. At the moment, it was cinched at her waist with a scarlet scarf, above her favorite jeans and her bare feet. The wind was whipping away her perfume, she thought irritably, as she picked up the tray again.

Charlie could think what he liked. She’d only worn the blouse because it was a favorite. Lots of times she felt like dressing as if she were a wanton Gypsy.

Craig could see his wanton Gypsy approaching as he spread the blanket out on the riverbank. The sunset was behind her. The mountains were behind her. Their house, a wandering design of glass and stone, was behind her. Sonia was part of all of it. The soft flame and fire in the sunset was very like her: she had that fresh, untamed core, that soaring ever upward quality that was intrinsically part of the mountains; and she’d fussed over every stone in the house, just as he had, when they’d built it together.

She could have looked more beautiful; he just didn’t see how. Curls were bouncing wildly around her cheeks; she was flushed and smiling, and there was a devil-spark of laughter in her eyes as she set the tray down on the ground near him. “I suppose you don’t believe we’re going to be able to cook anything in this wind.”

“Did I say that?” He’d managed to start the fire through sheer willpower. By some miracle, it was holding on to life, its flames licking high in the air, sparks flying toward the river.

“You’re a doubting Thomas. Just like Charlie. I’ll collect more kindling, and by the time I get back, the wind will have completely died, you’ll see. You just stay right there-no,” she corrected herself. “You open the wine. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

She raced off before he could say anything, and a slash of a smile touched his lips. Naturally, she’d darted away; she was afraid he was going to call off their cookout simply because a dozen dark, clotted clouds were rolling in low and the wind was bringing in a storm with dizzying speed. She’d misjudged him. He wasn’t about to rain on her parade; the skies were going to do that all on their own.

He had his eyes full, in the meantime. With hands loosely on his hips, he just watched her. Her breasts were clearly outlined as she walked into the wind; her steps were lithe and free. She had a way of tossing back her head as if she were vibrating with the sheer joy of being alive.

Woods bordered on the riverbank, a tall, heavy stand of pine and hardwoods. The wind tossed up the branches and crooned a whispering song through the leaves. He saw Sonia look up suddenly, and his smile died.

She loved the woods; she always had, and they were safer here than anywhere on earth. A fleeting, haunted fear still touched her features, and then the ghost of a shiver ran through her before she squared her shoulders and entered the shadowy stand of trees. That slight terror wouldn’t have passed over her before the incident in Chicago. She’d never associated isolation with vulnerability.

She hadn’t known fear before. Rarely did it show on her face, but he’d caught passing glimpses of it in the past two weeks. She’d wake up trembling in the middle of the night, or she’d be reading and all of a sudden touch her throat…They were only isolated incidents, moments. Rationally, he knew they were to be expected. She never mentioned them. But every time he saw that shadow of terror on her face he felt guilt tear at his stomach and rip straight through him.

Sonia emerged from the darkening forest, her arms loaded with twigs. She dropped them all in a haphazard pile next to him, adding a sigh and a chuckle for her efforts. “You only have to do one thing. Pick out two of those that we can use as spits. The last time I chose our makeshift spit, if you’ll recall-”

“The chickens ended up in the fire.”

A quick crackle of lightning slashed overhead. “Stop that,” Sonia ordered the sky mildly. She added several sticks to Craig’s fire, then turned to pick up the wine bottle, flicking back her hair. “What on earth have you been doing? You didn’t even open this, lazy one.” She glanced up with a teasing smile, to find Craig’s eyes, piercing dark, on hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. You cold?”

“Nope. You?” She searched his face one more time, but the dark look was gone. His half smile was easy, very much Craig, and his eyes had possessively fixed on the second button of her blouse. The one she hadn’t fastened. No man with eyes that busy could conceivably be brooding. You will instantly stop worrying, she scolded herself. As her mother had said that afternoon, they both needed just to forget those hours in Chicago.

Twisting the corkscrew, she opened the wine with a pop. A moment later, she handed Craig his glass, licking her fingers as she grinned at him. “I love Chablis.”

“You love cherry soda pop, too,” he teased.

“I crave cherry pop,” Sonia said feelingly. “Probably because Mom refused to buy it when I was a kid. It’s so nice to be married. One can indulge in all the forbidden vices…”

“Like cherry pop.”

“That heads the list, but there are a few others. You probably think I married you for all the mature reasons, like being in love with you, wanting to have your kids, knowing I had to spend the rest of my life with you.” Sonia flopped down next to him, her hand expressively dismissing those issues as trivial. “Marrying you was strictly an indulgence, an excuse to give in to all my vices.”

“Are you calling me a vice?” Craig demanded.

“Definitely.” She regarded her vice with a critical eye. He was wearing old jeans and a shirt she’d twice tried to sneak from his closet to throw in the rag bag. He probably loved the old frayed thing because he knew it made him look like a sex object. The worn blue cotton was soft, stretching across his chest, showing off solid sinew and all that lean toughness that was part of Craig.

“I see when it really counts, talk’s cheap. I’ll cook dinner, you said, and instead you’re just standing there looking sexy and I’m bending my poor cracked ribs.”

She flushed and hurried forward, delighted he was joking about the injury. “Would you like another one or two?”

“Cracked ribs? If you’re in a wrestling mood, woman, I’m certainly not going to disappoint you.” He gave her a threatening look, all dark, thunderous brows. “I’ll go in for finger wrestling right after dinner. If I get a handicap.”

Chuckling, Sonia ordered him down to the blanket and started cooking dinner. It was pitch-dark before the fire was really crackling, shooting up tiny orange sparks to the sky as the Cornish hens crackled and browned on the makeshift spit. The wind, as Sonia had promised, died completely by the time they were both pulling off bits of succulent meat with their fingers, devouring their dinner with relish. The knives and forks she’d brought were forgotten; it was too much fun playing Tom Jones.

They rinsed their hands in the river afterward, and both sank back on the blanket, too replete to move. Total silence surrounded their mountain valley. The river picked up the reflection from the dying fire-picked it up and magnified it in a series of repeated images on its black surface.

“Why did we buy that gas grill?” Craig wondered aloud.

“I haven’t any idea. We never use it.” Sonia curled on her side with her head resting in the palm of her hand. Craig was stretched out, a second blanket bunched up beneath his head. “Everything tastes better by a fire down here,” she said contentedly.

He stretched out an arm and motioned. With a chuckle, she edged closer, careful of his battered ribs, finding a home for her cheek in the crook of his shoulder. “Are you hurting?” she whispered.

“No.”

She gave him a wry look, tilting her face up at him, her features golden by firelight. “Now, don’t get touchy. I haven’t asked you once all day.”

“You’ve tried forty-nine times. Sonia…” His thumb gently traced the line of her cheekbone, his eyes suddenly grave. “You’ve lost a pound or two, haven’t you? You’re still thinking about what happened.”

Her answer came swift and light, determined that he would stop obsessing on the subject of muggers and nightmarish encounters! And if she’d lost a pound or two worrying over him, he’d be the last person alive to know it. “I have been trying to lose a pound or two, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She shook her head, her fingers sliding loosely around his waist. “Obviously, because I was getting a little…chunky.”

“Chunky?” A rumble of laughter erupted from his chest, echoing in her ear. “You haven’t got a chunky bone in your entire body.”

“I have, too.”

“Where?” He rose up just a little, to investigate her claim. Her thighs certainly didn’t have an ounce of fat on them. Her upper arms and shoulders were slim, small-boned. Her tummy was certainly softer than butter beneath the white satin blouse, but there wasn’t an extra roll to be pinched. “I can’t find any chunks,” he murmured, “but I did find something else.” He nuzzled the top of her curly head with his chin. “You’re not wearing a bra, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“I must be.”

“I’m quite sure.”

“I’m just as sure I put one on.”

“I’m quite positive you didn’t.”

“Must have completely slipped my mind,” she said lazily, and closed her eyes. He undid a button, then another, his knuckles softly grazing her smooth flesh. Cymbal crashes and drumrolls promptly vibrated through her bloodstream.

Two weeks without that ultimate physical intimacy, she thought wistfully. Craig had been so badly hurt. She would have slept in the spare room if he’d let her, wanting him to get his rest, lovemaking the last thing on her mind.

Now, just his teasing touch was enough to make her blood pressure zoom. The problem was that she’d been spoiled. It was so nice being spoiled. Craig was still friend, husband, mate…but she missed her lover.

And that thumb of his, flicking slowly back and forth over her nipple, delighting in its responsive tightening, told her that Craig missed her as well. His palms cradled the undersides of her breasts. Cradled, then molded, then kneaded, and a whispered sigh escaped her lips as she arched beneath him.

Craig suddenly tensed, aching in need for her. His lips pressed hard in her hair, then shifted to her temples, exerting enough pressure so that she lifted her face to his, all innocence in loving, her features vulnerable and softly flushed.

An image flashed in his head, an image of her face, contorted with horror and fear, sick with terror. Terror because he’d put her in a position where she could be hurt…where she could have been more than hurt. Why hadn’t he been alert to the dangers lurking about? The only thing in his head had been the selfish desire to make love with her. Like now. Guilt clawed inside him, so deep and painful that he wrenched his arm free.

“What’s wrong?” Sonia took one look at his face and jerked up. “Your ribs, Craig? Oh, darling…” Selfish, selfish, selfish, she chided herself. He’s hurting like hell and you’re going around braless like some hormone-happy harpy.

“The ribs are fine. Sonia…”

The fire snapped. They both glanced up. The sky had dropped; swirling masses of charcoal clouds hung just above them. A drop of water splashed down, then another. Both Sonia and Craig bolted up, snatching the tray and blanket and glasses. By the time they started to run for the house, the sky had parted and was dousing them with buckets of water.