Silver and Spice

Chapter 8

“Delicious, Jake. I mean it.”

Anne had tried the bannock first. The bread was a little tough, oddly sweet, and delectable with melted butter. That had given her the courage to move on to Jake’s Apache-fried chicken, and two pieces later she was licking her fingers. The strange batter was fire-sealed and crisp, the meat unbelievably succulent.

“Have another piece.” Jake dropped down beside her with a second platter of chicken. The wind was whistling through the cliffs, but at least in their sheltered valley the snow had stopped. Their fire lapped up the darkness, warming their faces and toes…but not their backs. Anne knew her spine was never going to thaw, but at the moment she was hungry for another piece of chicken…

A sterling silver fork, utterly incongruous in this wilderness, suddenly made its way in front of her nose. As Jake dangled a forkful of cactus salad before her, Anne swallowed. “Listen, Jake, it’s not that I don’t want to try your salad. I’ve grown cactus in my kitchen, you know. I like cactus. Which is why it occurred to me that maybe the Indians might have found an edible variety. Particularly if they were suffering from absolute starvation-”

Since her mouth was unfortunately open, Jake took advantage and inserted a sliver of the pale green cactus between her lips. It tasted like a smooth, mild avocado-not at all what she was expecting. “Good?” he asked.

She took the plate from his hands. “If I answer that, I’ll never hear the end of the I-told-you-so’s. You think I was born yesterday?”

“I told you-” With exacting precision, she aimed a forkful of chicken at his wagging tongue, and chuckled at his response.

“You’re looking for trouble,” he suggested.

Actually, she wasn’t, not just then. As rapidly as she was devouring the salad on her plate, Jake was forking cactus bits to her from his own, knowing her fondness for anything that even vaguely resembled an avocado.

“Are you cold?” he asked suddenly.

“Freezing. Don’t take that away,” she protested when he started to rise with the chicken platter.

He set it back down. “I’m beginning to think you’ve never been on a cookout before,” he said, amused.

“You know darn well I haven’t. It’s a mystery to me how people could do this for recreation. The fire, for instance. Your toes burn while your back freezes. Your fingers get sticky, which means sooner or later everything else gets sticky. At least it’s too cold for bugs, but I’m afraid to take my eyes off the woods for fear a bear or cougar will come lumbering down for its dinner. This is supposed to be competition for a restaurant with soft lighting and Irish linen and inside plumbing?”

“Anne?”

Her eyelashes flashed up, shadowing spikes on her cheeks in the firelight. How had his face loomed close so suddenly? She could smell him, all pine and cold freshness. “I hate to have to tell you this, honey, but you’re having a wonderful time.” Jake dropped a kiss on her forehead that reeked of satisfaction, readjusted his scruffy wool scarf rather possessively around her ears, and started cleaning away their debris.

A wistful expression touched her features with softness. Yes, darn him, she was having a perfectly wonderful time. This rough-and-tumble life was her idea of torture, but for a few special hours… The word lonely surged into her mind from nowhere; loneliness was an emotion they always banished when they were together.

Rising to help, she found herself watching Jake. While she brought their few plates and silverware into the motor home, he put out the fire. He was a very fussy man. By the time he was done, there wasn’t a sign that anyone had been near their cooking site.

The wind seemed to have pushed every last cloud out of the sky, and now a silver moon cast its pale glow on the tall pines. Anne draped the blanket closer around her, waiting for Jake. He’d made fun of himself for buying the chicken from the grocery store, but every movement he made said that he was a survivor, well used to the wilderness. His rugged features caught shadow, then light; his spine was always straight, his step silent. Was he lonely, too? she wondered fleetingly. She didn’t at all like the thought of Jake being lonely. His eyes suddenly captured hers.

“Would you kindly get your cold toes inside the motor home?” he scolded her.

“Yours have to be just as cold.” But he hurried her inside ahead of him, and slammed the door, leaving all the cold outside. They kept getting in each other’s way, taking off their coats and gloves and putting everything away. Anne started running water in the sink to wash their dishes, but Jake nudged her aside, which was just as well. He’d bunched the blankets up and dropped them in a heap, and she would have to refold them all. Once a picture-straightener, always a picture-straightener, she thought idly, but that wasn’t at all what was really on her mind.

“Isn’t it funny, Jake,” she said casually, “how you turned out to be wind and I turned out to be stone? We both started out so very much the same. Your parents were together when you were small, but you were jostled about just as much as I was. Different schools, different houses, all that.” She hesitated, then brushed past him to put away the neatly folded blankets. For a moment, she hid her face from him, her fingers-for no reason at all-clutching at the soft wool. “It just seems strange how very different we turned out. You’ve never even had the first urge to stay in one place, have you?”

Her tone was light. Don’t worry, Jake, I don’t care. I would never try to change you. I just thought I would ask, one time, if you could conceivably ever ever ever ever settle down…

His fingers suddenly curled around her shoulders, turning her to face him. To Anne, his eyes had never seemed as silver, as liquid, as they did at that moment. “I never could seem to care where I hung my hat,” he said quietly, “and I doubt that I ever will, Anne. Do you want me to lie to you?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“I’ve been on the move a long while.” His thumb gently traced the line of her cheekbone. “And lonely, many times. But there’s excitement and challenge and a freshness about new ideas and new people, new worlds. So much to know and share and see. A place to you means safety, honey, but I’ve never been able to really believe that. That you can feel safe simply because you stay in just one place. And I won’t make you a promise I can’t keep.”

His lips touched down, cool and firm on hers. Her hands fingered the soft flannel of his sleeve, then moved up to his neck, drawing him closer, drawing in his kiss. She had her answer. Jake knew he wouldn’t change. And Anne knew she wouldn’t. So Jake was a rolling stone who couldn’t change his ways, but she’d always known that, deep down. Yet her kiss was one of hunger, of loneliness, of wanting to blot out the answer he’d given her.

His lips brushed hers once more, then lifted. A fingertip gently traced the line of her lower lip, slow and sensual. Brooding eyes searched hers. “You’re so damned sure that matters.”

She groped for an answer as honest as his own words, but a sudden playful tap on her backside startled her. “To bed with you. And to make absolutely sure you go alone, I’m going to hit the road again.”

She blinked, then frowned. “Jake, you’ve already pushed yourself too hard. You started driving this morning at two o’clock.”

“Stopping on the road wastes too much time,” he said. “I couldn’t be less tired.” There was no talking to him. Minutes later, she heard him start the engine. Anne took down her coil of hair and started brushing it. With the lights off in back, she curled up in the chair, welcoming the darkness as her brush worked vigorously until her scalp tingled and her hair was silken-smooth. She couldn’t seem to get rid of the feeling that she’d disappointed him. How very easy it would have been to tell him that she didn’t care where they went or how often they moved as long as they were together. She might have said that to him when she was eighteen. At thirty-one, that kind of lie really wasn’t possible. She knew all too well what was really important to her.

An hour later, she crawled into the upper berth and fell asleep.

“Wake up, up there, sleepyhead. I have a present for you.

“Go away,” Anne mumbled. It was a night and a morning later, and between the two of them they’d driven almost the entire time. For more than half of the ride, they’d been on Highway 90, a road that apparently never ended, although Jake kept claiming it would eventually lead them to Idaho. The Silver Valley was obviously one of his pipe dreams. All she’d seen so far was Montana’s endless buttes and pale yellow grasses and infinite barren sky…and Jake’s quiet, very determined profile. She’d had enough of all of them.

The motor home slowed and then came to a stop. Anne paid no attention, snuggling the comforter over her head. A tiny swirl of cool air gusted under the covers at her feet. She’d never minded cold toes…but the soft lap of a smooth tongue on her instep was another matter.

She murmured a lecture on repression into the pillow. Strong teeth nibbled at her toes; she shifted her foot, appalled. Then two rough, distinctly male fingertips started walking up her heel, over her slim ankle and curved calf, to the back of her ticklish knee, chasing her nightgown up her thigh… Anne sleepily opened her eyes and peeked out from under the covers.

“One more inch and it’s Death Valley days for you,” she threatened groggily.

“The lady even wakes up sassy,” Jake marveled. “Which is the question. Is the lady awake?”

“No.” She pulled the comforter over her head again. “Where are we?”

“In Idaho. That means no more sleeping for you, honey.” Jake sounded sympathetic; his actions certainly weren’t. He tugged mercilessly at her comforter until it tumbled down to the carpet behind the driver’s seat. Anne tried to curl into a tight ball, but his fingers closed over one ankle, then the other. “Now, Anne. I didn’t want to do this the hard way-”

“Would you kindly have the courtesy to take a long, fast hike, like out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!”

“Now, Anne,” he repeated, tugging at both ankles while she frantically pushed her nightgown back down, starting to laugh helplessly as she batted at his hands. It was like wrestling with a soft-pawed bear who just kept coming at her. He won, naturally, solely because of his brawn. In a confusion of nightgown and tousled hair swirling around her face and tickling fingers and Jake’s laughing eyes, she finally felt her toes touch the carpet, forsaking the wonderfully warm berth. “Boiling in oil would be too good-” she started to say.

But she didn’t finish. Something had happened to the laughter in his eyes, in the pressing of her body to his, in the kiss that came out of nowhere.

“You smell like sleep. All warm and snuggled up and cuddly,” he murmured. His palms were splayed on her bottom, drawing her deliberately against his thighs, raising her blood pressure unexpectedly. He’d made it more than clear he had no intention of making love to her on the road, and Anne was increasingly bewildered by his continued restraint. They had only two weeks…

She reached up to touch his rough-bearded cheek. “You look terrible,” she informed him sleepily. “Darn it, Jake, why are you driving yourself so hard?” Her lips followed in the wake of her hand, until she snuggled closer for a simple, unavoidable, unexplainable, delicious hug. His chamois shirt was soft and his body warm, and when his arms wrapped around her she felt sleepy all over again, defenseless, not caring… It was far too early in the morning to think about principles and problems.

Jake’s thighs tightened responsively against her softer ones. His fingers threaded back her hair as he dipped down to kiss her just behind her ear. “Don’t you want to see Idaho?” he questioned.

“No.”

“Don’t you want to see your present? Actually, there are two.”

“No.”

In slow motion, his hands weaved down under her hair. His fingers, cloaked by the heavy tresses, moved over her shoulders, then down her spine, then lower to cup her bottom again, molding the shape of him to her own shape. Her pulse was beating erratically. She wanted to sing. She was weary of traveling and weary of worrying, and undoubtedly when she really woke up, her head would overrule all the base impulses that were racing through her bloodstream. She could deal with that later. Right now, the silver eyes that captured hers promised that Jake was very much of like mind, full of base, unprincipled, degenerate thoughts.

“Although,” he said gently, “we are parked on the edge of a cliff.”

“That’s nice.” But unwillingly she shifted her eyes away from him to the window. The nose of the motor home really did seem to be hanging in midair. At least all she could see was a terrifying drop below to a tree-studded valley where pines of gold and green reached valiantly for the sky. Gold pines? Her heart flipped over, in an entirely different realm. “What happened to the grassy plains?”

“They turned into Idaho.”

“Pines are supposed to stay green all year, not turn gold like that.”

“Idaho pines don’t follow the rules,” he agreed. “It’s also already warm outside. Not quite as warm as inside, I’ll grant you…” He drew away from her with a distinctly crooked smile. “But I’m beginning to have the feeling this day could turn out very warm indeed.”

He didn’t seem to be talking about the weather. As Jake went back to the driver’s seat, Anne groped for clothes and padded back to the bathroom, feeling curiously light-headed. She felt less so when he’d backed away from the cliff and was safely on the highway again. She washed and drew on underthings, occasionally peeking out the curtained window in back.

In the Bighorns, there had been snow. How strange to look out and see mountains here that looked even taller, yet totally different. These spiky peaks were tall and skinny and steep, too steep for a house to be set anywhere, too steep for any other road to have been built, and there were no other roads that she could see. Just the one highway. And the crazy gold pines…there had to be millions of them, all catching the warm sunlight’s glint and shimmer. Clouds lay right on the road, like wisps of cotton candy. They were driving so high up she could feel her ears pop…

She slipped on stockings, a skirt and blouse, then started working impatiently with her hair. Her mirror image annoyed her. The coral Victorian blouse was a favorite, with its splash of lace at her throat and wrists, and the camel-colored skirt fit well, gathered just a little around her slim hips. The outfit was tailored and trim and feminine…and totally wrong. It had once seemed terribly important to show Jake she wasn’t the jeans and sweatshirt type and never would be, but she could at least have had the sense to be a bit less stubborn and more practical. One pair of pants wouldn’t have killed her.

Her fingers hesitated, forming the tight coil at the back of her neck. Impulsively, she loosened the confining knot, allowing a few strands to curl around her ears. The effect was not particularly practical. Or sensible. She turned away from the mirror.

A few minutes later, she carried two mugs of coffee up to the front of the motor home, setting both down as she noticed two packages on the rug between the seats. Her eyebrows flickered up in question.

“I told you I had presents for you this morning.”

“I thought you were joking. Jake, I don’t want you to buy-”

“These are arriving-in-Idaho presents. They’re necessities,” he assured her.

“Necessities?” she echoed faintly as she sank down into the passenger seat. The first package was tiny, wrapped in silver paper with a huge satin pink bow. “Jake,” she started to scold, but stopped when she saw the exquisite filigree of silver inside, a necklace so delicate and light she was afraid to touch it.

“Do you like it?”

“I…it’s beautiful. More than beautiful.” She looked at him helplessly.

He nodded. “It suits a woman who wears lace at her throat and soft colors next to her skin.” He took a quick inventory, and she could have sworn at that moment he was pleased at her choice of dress. “Now open the other package, Anne-but be careful. It’s heavy.”

She took another moment to finger the necklace, and then on impulse put it on and fastened its tiny catch behind her neck. “Jake, it’s so…” She hesitated, an odd tremor in her voice, and then leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The other package was the shape of a brick, and when Anne bent to lift it she couldn’t. She arched both eyebrows in Jake’s direction, but he didn’t turn away from the road. Cautiously, she undid the wrappings-and then froze.

“It weighs about seventy pounds, honey. A really effective paperweight.” He hesitated, adding sadly, “You can be hard to buy for, sometimes. But I figured this was something you could really use when you get busy pushing papers around.”

The silver ingot was the size of a brick, a solid block of gleaming metal so bright, so mirror-bright, that the sun reflecting off it hurt Anne’s eyes.

“First,” Jake said lazily, “we’re going to mine a little silver. Then we’ll head up to my ghost town, Anne, where I usually set up camp when I’m here. Not where I have in mind your living with me, but we’ll get to Coeur d’Alene in a day or two.” He paused. “Actually, we might stop off and put that little ingot in a bank vault while we travel around. I have to admit it’s made even me a little nervous to have it just lying around…”

If Anne had known it had been “just lying around,” she would have developed an ulcer. As it was, she stared down at the ingot with a disbelieving expression.

“Jake, you’re out of your mind. Stark raving out of your mind.”