Man From Tennessee

Chapter Seven

“Lord, no! I just got my feet up after traipsing around all day. If you two would just leave, I could kindly treat myself to a forbidden glass of Cognac, close out all the disgusting fresh air in this house, and write some letters.” Julia repeated it just in case either Kern or Trisha had missed the point. “I do not want to go on some little mystery excursion anywhere at eight o’clock at night.”

Trisha sighed, staring glumly at a fixed point between Julia and the waiting Kern. The impulse, really, was to curl up in a chair and simply fall asleep. After a long day of shopping to decorate Julia’s room, she had been too tired to more than peck at dinner, and she hadn’t taken off the outfit she’d worn all day: a slim olive skirt slit attractively to show off her legs, an ivory silk blouse with a crisp V-neck and long sleeves. It was attractive on her but swelteringly hot. Hot, tired and vaguely restless, she was in one of those moods where she really didn’t know what she wanted.

A few minutes later she was out in the darkness with Kern, not at all certain why she had agreed to come. He’d simply spoken of an hour’s outing and something he thought she’d be interested in, not worth worrying about if she wasn’t. His indifference had doubled her sense of restlessness inside. For two days now the black-shirted, charcoal-jeaned man at her side had radiated such quiet that Trisha was beginning to feel like the stranger she was supposed to be in his house.

Lord, you’re mixed up, she told herself with silent disgust as they drove through the night. Tree shadows were impossibly still on the road, not a stirring of life. Mountain nights promised to be cool, but this one was tepid, clinging, the breezes too tired and hot to try. The full moon was gone and the next seemed too lazy to come out.

He stopped the car in less than twenty minutes. Instinct told Trisha that as the crow flew, they couldn’t be more than a hop and a skip from his own home. The log cabin in front of them radiated warmth from within, an old rambling structure with the scent of horses wafting from a nearby building. A yard light beaconed on the gravel drive of the rustic mountain home.

Trisha stepped from the car, knowing instinctively she should have changed into jeans. Rarely accustomed to being moody for long, she could not seem to shake the feeling that tonight she just wasn’t going to do anything right.

Kern threw an arm on her shoulder as they approached the three-stepped porch. She debated shrugging off the arm or cuddling closer. By the time the door opened, she was still mulling over decisions she just wasn’t in the mood to make that day.

Rhea stood in the doorway with the lamplight behind her. “Well! Why didn’t you say you were coming?” she scolded Kern. “Hello, Trisha.” A free and easy welcome to Kern, a guarded one to Trisha; any sensitive ear would have heard it. The lady wore skin-tight white jeans and a loose black T-shirt that scooped seductively over voluptuous breasts. “Come in!”

“I want you to show Tish what’s in your back room, Rhea. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not, just glad for the visit. Make yourselves comfortable while I get us something to drink.”

The main room of the cabin was outfitted with overstuffed chairs, all designed to curl up in. A piece of needlework had been set aside in one of them, a pattern Trisha frankly coveted. Warm lights brightened the fur rug on the floor and the handmade crewelwork on the wall. Rhea brought tall drinks of gin and tonic, and Trisha gratefully accepted one. Make herself comfortable in Rhea’s home? She’d never credited Kern with sadism before.

For a half hour the devil leaned back in one of those comfortable chairs, an ankle resting on his other leg’s knee, swirling the drink in his hand, looking both lazy and completely comfortable. Perched a distance from both of them on the edge of an old-fashioned love seat, Trisha finished two glasses of the liquid rapidly. She was feeling distinctly unnerved and smiling like mad as the other two had an easy conversation. Rhea stood with her back to the rough-hewn walls and her long braided hair swayed as she moved. The black lustrous eyes rarely left Kern’s although there was no question that she was polite, even overtly friendly to Trisha.

When the first pitcher of drinks was done, Rhea strode back into the kitchen to make another.

“Come closer,” Kern suggested when Rhea was out of sight. “You’re hiding over there in that corner like a kitten just brought home.” He patted the arm of his chair, but there was a wealth of awareness in his eyes for the awkwardness she knew she was showing. “You’ll like her if you give her half a chance, Tish.”

“I like her now,” Trisha responded politely. “Are we going home soon?”

Kern burst into laughter as Rhea came back in. Trisha stood up to accept her third drink, already regretting that she hadn’t had dinner but not willing to stop. But it was hot. There was a thirst inside her that simply wouldn’t be sated.

“Come with me,” Rhea invited. “I’ll show you my special back room.”

It was certainly a better choice than behaving like an idiot in front of Kern. The first two gin and tonics were working and the third she clung to like a security blanket, following the tall woman down a long, narrow hall.

“When my husband died, I got into this,” Rhea said quietly. “For six months I barely left this room. Kern mentioned yesterday that you used to be interested in this sort of thing…”

The “little something he thought she’d be interested in” was a quilting frame, and momentarily Trisha rallied. The frame took up most of the room, and she had an immediate picture of history, of mountain women seated around the diamond-star pattern, buzzing of their lives and loves a hundred years before. A long low trunk stood in one corner, and Rhea opened it, taking out a dozen finished quilts. Some had well-known designs and others were obviously Rhea’s own.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Trisha offered quietly. She heard what wasn’t said, that six months of shutting herself away with painstaking work must have been the only way Rhea knew to deal with her grief.

Compassion touched Trisha for the other woman. It had nothing to do with Kern. “I’ve never seen some of these patterns except in books. I’ve got one I made at home, Rhea, but I could never match your skill with a needle.”

“I thought at first about selling them, but somehow at the time I just put them away and sort of forgot about them.”

Trisha fingered the lovely work. “I don’t know how you could sell them. They’re more like heirlooms.”

Rhea half smiled. “Not these. These I’d like to get off my hands, to tell you the truth. They remind me of a very bad time. Kern told me yesterday that you had something to do with marketing clothes. If you have any ideas…”

The confession she’d made to Kern flashed back to Trisha, of the shop of mountain crafts she’d once wanted to have. It was a passing comment at that moment, but he had heard. As a buyer she had a flair for marketing, far more than direct skill with a needle herself. And the old dream? In her mind she could already see a shop and feel the joy of being her own boss. Rhea would know others who wanted their crafts sold… Trisha looked up, about to say something to Rhea, and then stopped herself, finishing her drink instead. How many times did she have to remind herself that her time in the mountains was short-lived? It must be the alcohol that made her want to suggest something to Rhea as if they could be friends.

They lingered for a time in the room, talking the neutral subject of crafts. Words flowed with surprising easiness, though surely they were both equally aware of a second layer of tension in the room. Finally Rhea stood up to leave.

“Kern was good to me when my husband died,” she mentioned a little awkwardly. “I was holed up here for one whole winter and might have been here still if he hadn’t pushed me back into the outside world. People think a lot of him in this area.”

“I know,” Trisha said quietly.

Still Rhea hesitated in the doorway. “I didn’t know he was married before. And I don’t know why the two of you were separated. Nor do I want to; it’s none of my business. But I would like to ask you…” Rhea hesitated. “I would like to ask you if you’re staying here or going north.” Those liquid dark eyes bored into hers, clear and still. “I’ve always spoken plain English,” she said quietly. “I won’t lie to you. Kern’s never offered me anything but friendship, and I would never come between husband and wife. But if you are returning…”

That the woman was being fair nagged at Trisha like a headache. Her earlier impressions of Rhea were already dropping like hot cakes. It was a great deal easier to rack up dislike for a sultry femme fatale. Instead Rhea was simply a very quiet woman, radiating integrity, requesting an honest answer to an honest question that Trisha didn’t know how to give her. Yes, she was going north again. No, she didn’t want Rhea anywhere near her husband. “Perhaps we could talk another time,” Trisha said awkwardly, miserably remembering the morning she’d all but thrown Rhea out of Kern’s kitchen.

For a few more minutes they congregated in Rhea’s kitchen, a cozy little room made more so by the three bodies trying to move in it. Rhea fixed some sort of snack that she and Kern devoured and Trisha pretended to. Food just wasn’t going to get past the lump in her throat, but the alcohol kept trying to, and one of them seemed to have stuck yet another drink in her hand.

“I almost forgot, Kern,” Rhea said. “You mentioned you’d look at Satin for me the next time you were over. The vet was just here, but the closer she comes to foaling…”

“Of course.”

“I know it’s late,” Rhea said apologetically to Trisha.

“I don’t mind,” Trisha assured her. “I’ll just stay and wait on the back porch.” She followed them out, smoothing her skirt behind her as she perched on the top step, leaning wearily against the porch railing. The porch was weaving beneath her after the last drink she’d had, but the sky above was salted with clear-cut stars. The other two walked off into the yard, two distinct black heads, silhouetted as a pair by the yard light.

It struck her later that she only saw one. The one she loved. The shape of his head and the way he walked, the way his jeans fit, his hands. She watched until he disappeared into the building. Then something akin to fear braced through her system when she could no longer see him. The idea of no longer being able to see him when she left and how she had wasted the time five years ago, too blind to see who he was and what he was offering her so freely then, swept into her mind. She closed her eyes, troubled, weary, unforgivably dizzy.

The two of them strode back from the horse barn just a short time later. Kern had his hand on Rhea’s shoulder, offering her a goodbye as they neared the porch. Trisha stood up so quickly her head reeled. It seemed there were two Rheas she politely thanked before gratefully heading for the car. Something caught on her sandaled toe and she tripped, righting herself promptly, a stain of embarrassed color shadowing her cheeks. “Clumsy,” she murmured to Kern.

“Is that the problem,” he responded dryly. A not ungentle hand folded around her slim shoulders, curling her easily in the hollow of his body. Her hand slipped around his waist, the clean male scent of him suddenly far more intoxicating to her senses than anything she had had to drink. He opened the car door, encouraging her inside.

“Wait a minute, I…” She touched her head dizzily. “I think I forgot my purse.”

“It’s next to you.” He was chuckling at her as he closed the door. He opened his own and slid in, surveying her from head to toe with another chuckle. “Lord, are you tipsy, Tish!”

“I’ve never in my life had too much drink,” she informed him with dignity, and promptly leaned her head back against the seat so the car would stop spinning. Gold strands of hair fanned the seat back. Her skirt seemed to have slipped up to her thigh. Her shoes had slipped to the car floor. Humiliation was intense for being such a total fool as to over drink-no less for everything she seemed to have done or said the entire evening-but glancing down at herself there just seemed so very many little things to try to correct…

He leaned over before starting the engine, brushing her soft lips with his own, so gently, so sweetly that she melted against him, eyes closed, her fingertips just barely caressing his neck. “And aren’t you human,” he murmured against her. “The civilized veneer keeps disappearing, Tish…” He pulled back, starting the engine, and then as if on second thought pulled her deliberately closer to him, her head encouraged to lean against his shoulder and her feet tucked under her on the seat.

There were no lights and no sign of other cars on the black road home. Just the two of them on a quiet night, a warm sensuous mist drawing down into the valleys, drifting in the rich perfume of wildflowers and forest freshness. The shelter of darkness soothed the grating unhappiness inside her; she was where she wanted to be, next to him, touching, alone. She was too weary and too light-headed to raise any defenses.

The car stopped in front of his house. The lights were off from within; Julia had gone to bed hours before. Kern opened the car door and held out his hands. She took them, uncurling from the car seat to reach immediately for him, her cheek to his chest and her arms folded around his waist before the dizziness could upset all of her equilibrium again. “Kern…I want you to make love with me.”

He drew in his breath, his hands tenderly smoothing back the hair from her face, smoke-colored eyes searching her features. “You were jealous, Tish,” he murmured. “Do you think I don’t know that? Come on now, it’s late…”

“I am jealous,” she agreed just as softly. “That isn’t why, Kern. And it isn’t the alcohol, although maybe that makes it easier to say it. What you do with Rhea in the future, or what we did in the past…I’m only talking now, Kern. I’m not asking for more and it’s not easy to say…”

He kissed her, softly and lingeringly, the beard brushing against her cheek in sensual roughness. She curled her arms around his neck, wanting him closer, craving him closer. His lips were still molded to hers when she felt the sweep of his arms beneath her thighs, the solid ground lifted from beneath her.

He kissed her again, striding into the house. The side of her head was cradled to Kern’s shoulder. She could hear and feel his thumping heartbeat as if it were part of her. He was part of her.

Rhea was perhaps the better mate for Kern. Trisha was not fighting that, or the past. The only thing that seemed to matter was that she take the only chance she might have, that the moment not be allowed to slip through her fingers like shifting sand. She had love to give him at this moment, a love that ached for the scar on his forehead and his laughter, for the land he cherished and even the problems it brought him. And for the feel of his body covering hers. It was a moment she had to take and she knew that it was right; inside was such a vibrant surge of need that she could not deny it…

He laid her gently on the bed, sitting next to her, not turning on the light. The room was warm and dark. The covers that he’d dragged down first left silk-cool sheets, her hair tousled against them. Shadows in the room showed a face grave above her, strangely silent, watching.

His hands moved. With frustrating slowness he unbuttoned her blouse, resisting her hands when she tried to help him. So she lay still, her eyes never leaving his. The blouse was slipped from her shoulders and dropped. The skirt had a side button and zipper; he found them, shivering the skirt down over her hips and releasing it to the floor as well.

Coolness feathered over her skin, a coolness she had not felt through the long sultry day and evening of too many clothes. His eyes warmed that odd little chill, shining black in the night-darkened room. Her body was silvery light by contrast, slim supple limbs, the sensual hill and valley of woman, her eyes open to his. She was vulnerable-more emotionally vulnerable than she’d ever been with him before.

He raised her up to undo the bra. Her body was faintly trembling, a dew of moisture like satin coating her flesh. Her blood was on fire, waiting. The briefs covered so little, yet they were the most difficult to take off. His palms chased them slowly down her thighs and calves, intimate, erotic. She was burning. The aching inside seared; the effort to lay still was monumental.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Tish,” he murmured huskily. “I want you like something-clawing inside of me. I always have. Your skin is so soft…”

He was silent, but when she reached up with trembling hands he simply clasped them, held them in an iron-fast hold, and then let her go. The sheet was smoothed to her breasts; he leaned over to press a tantalizingly sweet kiss on her forehead. A brother’s kiss. Shocked sapphire eyes watched him stand erect. “No, Tish, not tonight,” he murmured. “I don’t want Dutch courage between us. It matters too much-not for me, but for you.”

He was gone, and the war began inside her. She had the urge to slip into his room, insisting as if she had no pride…the urge to sleep off the wretched dizziness…the urge to weep with frustration and confusion. And last, just as the dawn glowed a rainbow haze in the mountain valley, came the urge to laugh. They had changed roles and she saw the irony. How well he had paid her back for the night by the stream and the night they had been dancing. The tease he had invoked when undressing her she knew had been deliberate torture…

The thought ached inside that somehow it was going to be nearly impossible to leave him if they made love, but a second thought overshadowed the first as sleep finally overcame her. She could not leave him again with that old impression of five years ago, of a woman cold, too inhibited and too frightened to take what there was in life.

Trisha backed up to the doorway, brushing a sheen of moisture from her forehead before resting her hands on her hips. No one would have recognized Julia’s room from the way it looked two weeks ago. The heavy oak furniture had been replaced by wild cherry of a more feminine mode, and the soft blue of the carpet and spread and draperies richened the effect of the wood. Julia’s love of flowers had spilled over onto the vases on each side of the bed, and the bedside tables had been a find: old, intricately carved tobacco stands from another century, the copper inside glowing like new pennies. An old mirror had been another find: resilvered it reflected all the clutter on the dresser that made it a woman’s room-perfumes and the cloisonné brush and comb Julia always carried with her.

“A perfect little hideaway,” Julia said from behind her. With a radiant smile she surveyed the room with both approval and pleasure. “But there was no need for you to work yourself to the bone, Patricia, particularly today! The curtains would have waited. It must have been a hundred and ten on that ladder! Now stop altogether. I’ve got lunch all set up outside today.”

“Done! Just give me two minutes to freshen up,” Trisha told her. Walking to the bathroom, she could hardly wait to splash cool water on her hands and face. She was more than pleased with the work she’d done, and her easy smile showed in the reflection in the mirror, as did a little rueful arch of her eyebrows as she glanced at herself. There was a bit of a stranger in the mirror. The emerald-and-navy halter top and matching shorts were an outfit she’d insisted to Julia she’d never wear, but the heat had convinced her that morning to change her mind. Still, she was not accustomed to dressing with so much skin showing, and her hair was beginning to look as if she’d professionally streaked it, a natural silver added to the gold just from being in the sun. Her skin had a light honey cast.

“Patricia, are you still working?” Julia called out.

With one last flick of the brush, Trisha set it down and hurried out to the patio. “You really do have it all set up out here,” she commented, sinking promptly into a lounge chair with feet up in the heat. The picnic looked delectable, or would have if she’d been less broiling, simply less overweary from a night of too little sleep.

“I’m going fishing this afternoon.”

Trisha blinked. “I beg your pardon. I could have sworn you just said…”

“I expect I shall hate it.” Julia poured three glasses of iced tea, molding a napkin around Trisha’s to absorb the moisture before handing it to her. “Don’t ask me why I’m going, the very idea of fishing…well, Mr. Michaels has a degree in agricultural economics, and he was so very nice about it, and I might as well do something one does in this sort of country…” Julia sat ramrod-straight in a lounge chair, weaving her hand like a fan in front of her face.

“I don’t think you should be going out for an entire afternoon in this heat without a rest,” Trisha commented.

“Oh, don’t you?” Julia said dryly. She leaned forward, adjusting a wrought-iron footstool with a bright yellow cushion for her feet. “You persist in trying to manage me! Speaking of which, how long are we staying here, darling?”

The casual question was enough to make Trisha lean her head back and regard her mother-in-law with narrowed eyes. “Well, that depends on how happy you are here, of course,” she said lightly.

“I’m all very nicely settled in here, as you very well know. In fact, I decided the second day we were here that I’m going to spend some of the time with Kern and some of the time up north. We’ll split up the year or something. When he’s had enough of me, I’ll just go back to Grosse Pointe-hopefully in time for the start of the symphony season. I haven’t mentioned it, because I’ve been waiting for Kern to have the nerve to tell me that I need a medical watchdog full-time.”

Trisha couldn’t control an impish smile, seeing the wheels turn in Julia’s mind at the anticipated argument. It was settled, but Julia would bring some drama into it.

“However, I wasn’t referring to myself, Patricia, but to you. Surely the two of you have talked by now. Anyone with eyes in her head can see that the only time Kern has his eyes off of you is when he’s sleeping. But you, darling, are not such an easy read. Now have you or haven’t you two decided to try and make a go of it?”

When Julia’s tone was the most innocent, her eyes were the most steel-like. Trisha turned away, sipping at her iced tea and then setting it down. It suddenly occurred to her that Julia was dotting all the I’s in rather earthquake fashion: her future was settled; her room was done; her health and humor were back on an even keel. All the reasons Trisha had stayed for. To stay beyond that required an invitation that had not been forthcoming.

“I see,” Julia murmured into the little silence. “You’re expecting him to say it all, when you happened to be the one who walked out on him five years ago.”

“Nothing is simple,” Trisha said quietly, stung by the accusation delivered so mildly. “Leave it, please.”

“Either you love him or you don’t.”

Trisha vaulted up from the lounge chair, flicking back her hair with a brisk toss, and leaned over to kiss her mother-in-law’s forehead. “Darling, you’re so damned healthy again that I’m inclined to tell you to mind your own business. But I won’t, of course, I love you too much, no matter how meddling you are. And you’re getting freckles on your nose, Julia. Most unacceptable in a lady of sixty-seven.”

Julia’s hand promptly darted to her nose as if one could wipe away the offending subject. In those few seconds Trisha was already putting distance between them. “Wait a minute, Patricia! Where are you going? There’s lunch-”

“I’m not hungry,” Trisha responded over her shoulder. “And once you have lunch, you take a half-hour rest before going out, Julia. Do you hear me?”

It had been a long time since she’d tried to find the place. There was a woody ferned area that was almost impenetrable, but only for a short distance. And then it was a craggy climb where the trees grew at crazy angles to reach the sun on the sharp slope. She could hear the sound of water falling halfway up the climb, and already the rest of the world had disappeared-no houses, no roads, no human sounds intruded. It was so high up that there were faint wisps of misty clouds on a level with her, guarding the secret of a place, a secret she’d kept within herself for more than five years.

And then there it was. Tired, hot prickly… Trisha stood still and surveyed her haven. The water fell from the cleavage of two smooth-breasted rocks fifteen feet above, splashed down to an almost perfect circular pool and escaped in a little trickling stream down the mountain, beyond her sight. Surrounding the pool was a mix of huge, sun-warmed boulders and stretches of velvet moss, where a profusion of flowering bushes nurtured patches of shade. The pool itself was bedded with rocks so white they resembled snow flecked with gold in the sunlight. The taste of the water was almost sweet, bracingly cold, and it had the look of jewels of a treasure: the sunlight put diamonds in the waterfall, opals in the clear reflecting pool, and purest gold in the pool bed, emeralds in the brush nearby.

As far as she knew, no one knew of the place, not even Kern. Long ago she had had no excuse for going so far off the trail, no possible reason to make a path when it was clear no one had traveled there before. The peace had been there like a promise five years ago, and she craved it now. She perched on a flat oblong rock with her knees tucked up and her eyes closed, willing the sun to melt away the chill of heartache Julia had invoked.

An invitation from Kern for a renewal of commitment-no, there hadn’t been one. Julia’s busy eyes had interpreted physical desire as something else in Kern, but Trisha had never expected more. She was the one who had failed him in the past and she could not blame him for not offering second chances. And for just this moment she was not even going to let herself believe how painfully she wanted that second chance. There would be time for that when she was home again, time for despair and a twisting, sharp sort of anguish that even now was trying to shred and tear inside. She opened her eyes.

Not now. Not this moment. This moment is just…free, she told herself. She stayed absolutely still until the peace of the haven penetrated past mind and heart and skin, as if the sun could heal soul-and like a gift, the peace was there.

The rock was hot, and restlessly she uncurled to stand, her canvas-shoed foot slipping into the chilling stream as she did so. It was delightfully cold. In a moment she had both shoes off and then with increasing speed all the rest of her clothes. The pool was only three feet at its deepest, ideal for cooling off if not swimming. She stepped precariously from rock to rock with her arms raised for balance, the sun hot and vibrant on her flesh, the icy water lapping at her knees. The waterfall drew her irresistibly.

There was no one around to hear her startled laughter as the weight of icy water streamed through her hair and over her slim body in torrents. She stood as long as she could stand it, until finally, with her skin tingling fresh and pink, she breathlessly struggled back again over the slippery round rocks of the pool to the flat rock at the edge. The heat of the smooth stone felt good and she perched with her toes stretched to the water, raising her face to the sun.

The sun dried and pearled a luster to her skin in minutes. The lush primitive landscape seemed to reflect inside her; she felt herself a creature of the senses, uninhibited and free, the sun’s touch an erotic warmth on her bare breasts, the whisper of a strand of hair on her cheek a tickle of the sensual. She closed her eyes again to the glare of sun on water, not asleep and not quite awake, feeling the delicious warmth flood over every inch of her.

She stirred at the sudden cry of a startled bird.

Kern was standing across the pool from her, staring over the rippling silver of the water. His hands were on his hips, his shirt clinging damply to him in the heat.

Dirt was caked on his boots, patched on his jeans; a sheen of sweat glistened in the sun on his forehead. Disheveled, hot, dusty, the bronze of his skin glowed around the physical power of the man, the sheer sexual magnetism only intensified by the moisture on his skin and his disheveled appearance.

She didn’t move. Caught and naked beneath his gaze, she felt a vibrant rush of response in her body, a response that only intensified inside as she watched him as he must have watched her.

The shirt was stripped, a broad expanse of golden chest uncaged to the sun. Belt and boots, jeans and briefs…she drew in her breath. He waded in the water, and she saw that all of his body had a golden tan. His stomach was flat and his thighs pure sinew and the man moved like liquid. He submerged for a moment under the waterfall. His nakedness was so natural in the country he fit so well, a country of predators and prey. Yet it was also a country where the most vulnerable of wildflowers flourished in such gentle profusion…images flooded her mind in a wild warm rush. He was wading toward her, his eyes burning.

He reached out a hand while his legs still shimmered in water. “You want to talk, Tish?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. It was all said the moment she took his hand, a sweet whisper of laughter escaping from her at the renewed shock of icy water against her sun-warmed skin. He drew her close, damp hands gliding over her heated body, his mouth blocking out a too-bright sun.

He was wet and shivering cold all over to her baked skin, but the blend was shockingly erotic. His cool lips suddenly heated, claiming hers with a pressure that stole her laughter. The shape of her mouth molded to his, open to the slow curl of his tongue inside, the taste of him filling her until the blend of tastes was the same, no longer hers or his. His palms stroked a silken touch from the nape of her neck down the taper of her spine, down the gentle round of her hips until his fingertips touched thigh. The second time his hands were less teasingly soft, more deliberately arousing in texture and sensation, and the third time he was kneading her skin to his, forcing her swelling breasts to mold to his chest, forcing her hips to the cradle of his.

The kiss ended when he lifted his head to look at her. Her face was still raised to his. Like smooth warm silk his palms cupped her breasts, his thumbs gently rubbing their tips until she closed her eyes in restless need. Gently the palms smoothed their way up, fingering the delicate arch of collarbone, the hollow of her throat. His kiss followed the same trail as he picked her up.

The pool, the rocks, were brilliant with sun, blinding. The stretch of moss held sun-dappled shade, cool on her back, a grazing sensation that fired new primitive sensations within. The smells were invasive-the sweet white flower she’d never named, the rich pungent moss, Kern’s smell of earth and man…and her own.

There was fear-of the power of the man which she saw in his smoke-colored eyes. He would possess her. It was the choice she had made, but there was a different flavor knowing she could not take it back. His touch aroused her like the heat and excitement of danger, but the very old fear came with it. What she craved was in his keeping, and her hands suddenly clenched his shoulders, desperate to feel held, protected. And his hands were gentle, soothing, loving, promising. It seemed so easy suddenly.

His flesh was luscious in her hands, filled with vibrant warmth, blood, life. The beard tickled at her breasts when his mouth loved the hollow of her throat. She writhed, small sounds escaping from her throat. She knew where he wanted touching; she had always known. There had always been a fear of not doing it well, but that fear had no place when everywhere she touched invoked an answering trembling in Kern, an odd pitch in his breathing, his need so sweet, so potent. The song was racing through her veins, out of control. God, Kern, now… “Please…”

“Tell me, Tish,” he ordered roughly. “I need to hear you say it’s different. I want you to say you couldn’t pretend if you tried, couldn’t walk away…”

“Please…”

But he was insistently slow, the brush of his beard sweeping her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. He kissed her from her toes to her lips. And it seemed to take a lifetime. The fire kept building inside, lapping at every sense, and there was now a new fear, an almost frantic fear that it would not subside. When his body shifted over hers she clutched at his shoulders, to force him closer.

“Easy, Tish…”

“Love me, Kern.”

“Come with me,” he murmured. “Come with me, come with me…”

Perhaps the pain was imagined when he pierced through her private core, a sweet pain of promise. Like a virgin’s, this one moment was irretrievable. This erased the past. His body controlled hers, taking her higher, closer to flame. Tears burst from her eyes at the same time her body seemed to explode in pleasure…

For an hour they lay together, hands quietly soothing each other after the avalanche of lovemaking. A red squirrel popped from a corner of the thicket to scold, making them laugh. They shifted then-Kern with his back to a tree and Trisha half reclining, her head against his chest and her eyes half closed. A sleepy lethargy seemed to have overtaken her body, yet she was soaring still in the most gentle way from the explosive emotions she’d found for the first time in loving.

“We’re going to have to get up, you know.” Kern was threading his fingers through her hair in hypnotic fashion.

“Hmm.”

“Although if you continue to lie like that without a stitch on…”

A shy smile touched her lips, but she neither moved nor opened her eyes.

“You know…the Tish I married would never have sun-bathed nude, never have explored such off-the-beaten paths to find a place like this. Five years…” he murmured. “You were loving then and I thought in time the passion would grow. You were so inexperienced, so young…but I never guessed at this kind of hidden fire, at this kind of sexual abandonment.”

The words were sweet but Trisha’s eyes flickered open, uncertain suddenly at his tone.

“How many have there been, Tish?”

Her head lifted from his lap. “Pardon?”

“Men.”

She felt an odd shiver of chill inside, and her throat was suddenly dry-as if she were about to take off on a roller-coaster ride headed downhill. “Do there have to be other men?”

His smoke eyes rested on hers. “From a woman who shied from lights-on at night to wanton in broad daylight? I think it more than likely that men were part of the transition. If you think I’m judging, Tish, I’m not. I find you beautiful, more compelling in passion than any woman I’ve ever known. And tonight we’ll have a bed, not just a stolen moment…”

She drew back almost unconsciously. The urge to cover herself had not been there before, but suddenly it was. She was suddenly aware of bits and pieces of moss clinging to her skin, of a small red graze on her thigh where a stone had scraped, of a heat on her breasts that felt like sunburn.

“You sound to me like you are judging,” she said sharply. And the invitation to tonight’s bed sounded like an invitation extended to a mistress, not a wife. She stood up and took the few steps to her shorts and halter top still in a heap on the flat white rock. “I never asked if you were celibate for five years, Kern. Though the answer would obviously be no. It wouldn’t even have been…healthy if you had. Five years is a long time.”

“I only asked you a question. You don’t have to answer it. But don’t tell me I don’t have the right to ask, Tish.”

She drew up the shorts, buttoned them. But when she tried to slip on the emerald-and-navy top, she winced in discomfort.

“You can wear my shirt.” He lurched up stiffly to a standing position, preparing to get his own clothes.

“No, thank you.” Her head was bent, trying to do the halter straps in a tangle of hair at her neck. Her hands were firmly and suddenly pushed away. He did the straps, smoothed the hair free and then pulled her back against his bare chest. His arms enfolded her in a sensual cage, his lips pressing into her hair.

“Jealousy feels like hell, Tish, and I spoke before thinking. Nothing matters right now; it wasn’t the time to say anything. Smile again for me, bright eyes.”

She smiled, and kissed him. But she heard the “right now.” The trip down the steep slope was quick. The sun was setting in the west, reminding Trisha of how many hours they had stolen. And of how much had suddenly changed-and how much had not. Everything was right when he was holding her close, but Trisha was all too aware that they walked the last steps separately. Without his arms around her she felt oddly cold, unsure, and in some incomprehensible way, despairing.