Sunburst

Chapter 12

Erica sat at the small dressing table in the loft where she usually put on her makeup. For an hour, she had been waiting to hear Kyle enter the house. She’d all but thrown off the clothes she’d been wearing, listening. She’d showered, listening. She put on a simple white shift and sat down, still listening.

It seemed unbearably warm and she threw her head forward, lacing her fingers behind her neck to lift off the heavy weight of hair. She ought to get it cut. When she’d first met Kyle it had been cap-curl short; he had coaxed her into letting it grow until haircuts had become trims, and finally only Kyle took the scissors to even it. Her mane, he called it on occasion. Hair! she shrieked silently. The last thing on her mind was hair…

She kept waiting, ready to spring up the moment she heard his footsteps downstairs. She had a dozen speeches prepared…

Kyle, I don’t care what it looked like. Please listen…

Kyle, your best friend attacked me…

Kyle, I wrecked that yellow blouse on a nail; the thing just ripped. Wasn’t that stupid?

Kyle, I love you.

Where was he? What was he thinking? Another half hour passed, and still he didn’t come. Restlessly, Erica got up and walked to the window. Dusk had already fallen. She couldn’t see Morgan’s trailer, but the truck was no longer parked in its customary spot, nor was Morgan’s car. She stood and stared until it was too dark to see, and then moved aimlessly to the bed. She didn’t often have headaches, but at the moment her temples were pounding so badly it hurt to move. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. Her whole body felt like a massive electrical system on overload. Anxiety overload. Only gradually did that emotion shift to anger.

She’d be damned if she was going to lose Kyle because of Morgan. Problems between herself and Kyle…perhaps. But not Morgan. That man… She’d scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower, trying to get rid of the sensation of being forced, the humiliating horror of being helpless. Over and over, she’d relived her own guilt in the ugly morass. Could her own actions have led him to believe she was interested? The hugs she’d thought meant to be only affectionate… She played all of it over and over in her brain. Perhaps he had misinterpreted her actions, but she had intended only friendship. It mattered.

But nothing mattered now except her own relationship with Kyle. She closed her eyes. Anger was soothing the terrible anxiety. Anger had always been missing before; she hated the emotion and gave it a wide berth. She shook at the first shouted word, would a thousand times prefer to turn the other cheek. Assertiveness was a nice buzzword, easier said than done.

For more than six months, she’d tiptoed around Kyle, believing he needed her understanding, forcing no issues because she was afraid of the answers. Those tactics hadn’t worked, and she wanted her mate back. She’d remained passive, being gentle and careful and tentative. Softness was just a little too much of a luxury now. She was no child. She knew what she wanted.

She remembered the look on Kyle’s face in the truck as he caught sight of her standing in the yard, her blouse ripped… Were they together at the moment? Was Morgan telling him…?

She and Kyle had gained ground in a thousand ways, she thought fleetingly. When they’d made love; the dozen little incidents when they’d found themselves happy together; she’d learned of his background from Martha, and several times she’d thought he was trying to open up, tell her his feelings… She wasn’t going to lose him because of Morgan, and she didn’t care what Morgan told him.

Of course she did. Because if Kyle thought she had been unfaithful…

Heartsick, she thought about fighting and felt like crying. Her eyes stayed closed.

Bright sunlight streamed in onto the bed. Erica’s eyes fluttered open, and she came to immediate wakefulness when she found herself staring at Kyle’s sleeping face, as she felt the weight of his arm around her. She didn’t breathe for a moment. Deep shadows were etched beneath his eyes; his clothes were strewn all over the floor. The sheet barely covered his hips as if he’d hardly cared the night before if he was covered or not. So he had come to bed in exhaustion. But he had come…

Silently, she edged out from under his arm and got out of bed. Padding to the bathroom, she ran a comb through her hair and brushed her teeth, then drew on panties and a pair of crisp white jeans. Her heart was doing triple time as she walked back to the bed and sat down gingerly next to Kyle’s hip. She took a breath before running her fingertips up his chest. He didn’t stir. But his blue eyes opened promptly enough when her bare breasts brushed his chest and her lips found the hollow between his bristly chin and his neck.

“Good morning,” she murmured. “It’s seven o’clock, Kyle. Thursday. We have a date with a Cessna at ten, and neither of us has packed item one.”

He said nothing, just stared at her with sleep-laden eyes. There was no smile to match her own, just an effort to waken, to reach out from the disorientation of sleep. She pressed a kiss in the hollow of his throat again and then stood up, stretching with all the lazy sensuality of an accomplished stripper. Well…amateur stripper.

The instant flare of turquoise in his eyes said she wasn’t doing too badly. Before he really woke, before he remembered…anything, she went on talking as she opened and closed drawers. “I thought I’d just pack a few clothes in duffel bags. We won’t need much. I have to take the cat to Martha’s. Don’t say anything; I’m not leaving Nuisance out if it rains. I know you’ve got a tent somewhere; I aired out the sleeping bags yesterday morning. I never thought to go to the bank. Did you get money?”

She turned, still smiling. He was no longer impressed with her bare breasts gleaming in golden sunlight, with her hair like fire brushing against her shoulders, with the snug jeans she had chosen for exactly what they did for her thighs and bottom. Betrayal was in his eyes, a chill so cold, an accusation, a silence… She turned back to the drawers, neatly folding the few things she needed on top of the dresser. Her heart had plummeted to the lower depths…

“Are we going to be able to get fishing equipment into the plane? I thought I’d put together a box of staples. Drinks and peanut butter…the kind of stuff we’d need to eat outside. Paper plates. Where we’re going doesn’t exactly sound like restaurant country. Did you hear the weather report yesterday? It’s supposed to be hot-”

“Erica…”

She lifted her chin stubbornly, as she turned one more time from putting the last of her clothes in the small bag. She lifted it. “Would you believe this is all I need? I figured a change of jeans and a couple of tops.” Her voice was faltering in spite of herself. “I’ll wear tennis shoes and take along a pair of sandals. I’ll put your stuff together as soon as I’ve made us both some breakfast…”

“What the hell are you playing at?” He had lurched up to a sitting position in bed, his bare chest soaking in the morning sun, his black hair tousled and boyish. But there was nothing boyish about his face, his eyes. His look was grim, and his shoulders were tense, and his blue eyes pierced hers, trying to make sense of her magpie chatter. “You seem to be under the impression we’re going somewhere together this morning,” he interrupted harshly.

Her stomach promptly made three somersaults. She turned away quickly, absently running a hand through her hair. “I think that’s really all I have to remember, Kyle. There shouldn’t be any trouble getting it all together in a couple of hours. I’ll make bacon and eggs-”

“Erica-”

She beamed a radiant smile at him from the doorway. “Obviously, though, I’ll have to get on the stick if we’re going to be ready on time-”

“You are not going anywhere.”

“We are, dammit!”

Her furious tone seemed to come out of nowhere, startling Kyle. That cold-blooded stare of his seemed to die as he became aware of exactly what her cheerfulness cost her. No matter what he believed she had done, she knew he was reacting to her, to Erica, to years of shielding his lady from trouble she couldn’t handle. Mixed emotions seemed to run through his head, and then he sighed, running a hand through his hair as he looked at her. “All right, we are,” he agreed grimly. “God knows we’re not going to solve anything at this particular moment. Here. Now.” Almost reluctantly, a faint hint of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “But, no, Erica, you’re not going anywhere.”

“I-”

“Like that.”

It took a moment for her to understand. She glanced down to see the white jeans that were perfectly appropriate. Somehow that was all there was. Her bare breasts were as tense as the rest of her body, her small, dark nipples pointing right at him. But then, her breasts and Kyle’s hands had always had this magnetic relationship all their own… You’re thinking as clearly as a mentally deranged person, she informed herself crisply. But she had won; she understood that. They were going. Somehow she had gained ground, even if it was only an inch of the mile she needed to go.

More than once during those hectic two hours of packing and organizing Kyle started to say something. She didn’t give him a chance. She played roadrunner in tennis shoes, chattering as if nothing could possibly be wrong, worrying aloud about every detail. She didn’t want him to bring up Morgan, not until she had him alone, in a place where he would have to listen. In the meantime, all she wanted was to keep Kyle off-balance. How could he possibly imagine an unfaithful wife, when a chattering magpie was carting a cat around and handing him tennis shoes?

He gave up trying to talk, and finished the packing and other details with a silent, cold efficiency that would have won praise from a computer. She thought unhappily that she could read his mind. All along they had regarded their mini-vacation as a chance to go to a private place to have time to talk seriously about where they stood with each other. What he believed had happened with Morgan didn’t change that. They needed to talk-badly. He no longer cared where.

Neither of them mentioned that Morgan’s car and trailer were gone. Erica barely took time to breathe; they had to be packed and on their way by nine-thirty. When Kyle’s foot pressed on the accelerator to get them to the airport on time, she felt a strange rush of exhilaration, of relief. She knew he’d wanted to walk away, but he hadn’t; it made her believe all over again there was something to fight for. Her heart snatched at that mood and held it until they reached the airport.

A very few minutes later, they were standing in front of the plane. It resembled a shiny white toy in the morning sun, with a dozen shiny dials that would have caught a child’s eye.

“You’ve forgotten?” Kyle questioned. “Just step on the mark on the wing.”

The wing dipped as Erica put her weight on it. “I’ll bet this thing runs by remote control at a baby airport,” she marveled aloud.

For the first time all morning, she saw him give a hint of a smile. “Now don’t tell me you’re nervous. You’ve flown in dozens of these.”

“A while back. I loved carnival rides as a kid, too.” She felt a gentle swat on her bottom that pleased her enormously. He was trying, and no matter what his feelings, she knew he wouldn’t allow them to affect his concentration while he was at the controls. Kyle had earned his license a long time ago through Morgan’s father. Flying freight runs paid good money when he was in school. Afterward, Mr. Shane had been both disappointed and a little angry when Kyle refused to join him, preferring to go into business for himself. Morgan’s father had wanted Kyle more than he’d wanted his own son in the business…but at the moment all Erica could think of was how long it had been since she’d actually flown in one of these little puddle jumpers. Kyle was stowing sleeping bags, totes, a food box, tent, first-aid kit… When he was done, he just looked at her, and there was a second smile. “I think we should have hired a seven-forty-seven.”

“Listen here. I expected a lot of praise for packing so light-”

“You did, Erica. You packed lightly for snow, rain, tropical conditions, illness, health, starvation, plague, snakebite…” He vaulted lightly into the seat beside her. “You even remembered to put on a blouse.”

She thought he was giving the little white camisole a lot of status. Nevertheless, she smiled. His door was closing; they were going. Kyle started the plane’s engine and she could feel a thrill of anticipation in her stomach. He held up the mike to announce his departure to the terminal, and let the engine rev for a moment as he handed her a stick of gum.

“Thank you. By the way, you do remember how to fly one of these?” she asked blandly. “It’s been a few years…”

“You are nervous.”

“I’m not. Really. You know what you’re doing,” she said easily.

“Fine. Do you want to tell me what the hell you’re doing, Erica?”

Somehow they were no longer talking about planes. “Do you really want to know?” she asked absently.

“Yes.” The word was short, succinct and chill.

She took a breath, looking at him painfully. “Shaking inside, Kyle.” So much for prepared speeches.

“Erica…” He ran a rough hand through the hair at his neck, all anger and impatience. In that quick silence, she sat frozen, but when he finally turned to her there was a half-smile on his lips. “You can stop shaking.”

“All right.”

“We’re going to have a nice easy flight. Lots to see. Neither of us will worry about anything while we’re in the air.”

“All right.”

He sighed, leaning back. “So buckle up.”

She buckled up.

“Put the smile back on. A real one.”

The smile hovered, became real when he reached over to kiss her mouth. A minute later, the plane trembled as Kyle forced power to the engine, anticipating takeoff. Very few minutes after that it was gliding down the runway, then up. She could feel everything, every vibration, every hum, in the little Cessna. It was a sensual feeling, almost as if she had a bird’s freedom to fly.

They were both quiet for a time, simply taking in the landscape as Kyle piloted the Cessna toward Wisconsin’s generously harbored shore on Lake Michigan. Along the way, the rich-colored earth and forests intrigued Erica. From the air, the small country towns seemed to pop out of nowhere, as if pioneers had just cleared the forests yesterday to make room for them and their fields and buildings. But when Lake Michigan suddenly spread across the whole eastern horizon, she could not hold back an audible gasp of pleasure.

Kyle’s hand suddenly covered hers. She just looked at him.

“You like that little pond down there?”

She chuckled. “I’ve seen smaller.” He didn’t let her hand go until her fingers relaxed in his. The contact seemed to soothe some of his own taut feelings, because he talked more easily then.

As they flew, hugging the coast, Kyle identified for her the wealth of cargoes in the freighters below-iron and iron ore, copper and steel, cars and automotive products, wheat. Erica found herself leaning forward, trying to hear above the hum of the plane’s engine. She had never associated the world of business with the water, yet the congestion below was not unlike a city’s hustle and bustle. Fortunes were being carted in every direction, the very basics of modern life: fuel, food and transportation.

“I read somewhere that the Great Lakes contain sixty-seven trillion gallons of water,” Kyle said idly. “Would you like to tell me why that crazy figure stuck in my head all these years?”

“You had a mean fifth-grade geography teacher?”

He grinned. “I did at that. But her scare tactics must have been worth something; I’ve still got the statistics. The lakes take up some ninety-five-thousand square miles-God almighty, there’s the Wilfred Sykes.”

“Pardon?”

Kyle motioned below to a huge ship. “It’s the biggest ship ever to travel on fresh water, capacity of more than twenty tons-”

“Come on, Kyle. I don’t even see how you can identify what ship it is. I mean, I can see it’s huge, but…”

Kyle grinned, and the next thing Erica knew she was thrown forward in her seat as Kyle nose-dived to zoom in closer. Wilfred Sykes was printed on the side of the huge ship, and Erica’s stomach did a somersault.

“See?” he questioned.

“Yes. Thank you, Kyle. Remind me never to doubt you again,” she said dryly.

In another twenty minutes, they were soaring toward Green Bay. “Its original name was Bay of the Stinkers.” Kyle tossed the comment to her.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Stinkers was the French name for the Winnebago Indians,” he explained.

She lifted her eyebrows. It was difficult if not impossible to view the scene below as ever having been unsettled. Fisheries, limestone quarries, shipyards, paper mills…and right next to the massive paper factory was a harbor in which floated piles of wooden planks that looked like toothpicks.

The landscape changed rapidly as they headed farther north. First there was Marinette and Menominee, small shipping harbors northwest of Green Bay, and then Escanaba, Michigan, on the northern shore of the lake. Then…

Wilderness. It was as if they were going back in time. Forests stretched as far as her eye could see, dense spruce and balsam. There was an atmosphere of sudden quiet, as if their small aircraft were the only intruding sound.

Kyle had teased her about the black bears around Newberry, but now she could picture them. Bear and moose, beaver and mink, living just as they must have for centuries, totally unaware that civilization threatened the rest of their species. Endless streams and lakes curled into the wild country, sparkling in the sunlight beneath them. For short periods, they couldn’t see a stretch of road, not a sign of human life.

It was wild, raw country. The look of it unconsciously evoked a shiver in Erica, half an uncomplicated anticipation at seeing and experiencing something completely new, and half an unconscious awareness of the beauty around her. She was not a pioneer woman and had hardly been raised as one. It was not a place she would want to visit alone, even if the adventuresome spirit struck her.

She raised her eyes to Kyle and studied him. The thought was immediate; there was no place she would hesitate to go with him. Morgan’s face flashed in her mind, and when she put aside the memory of his assault, when she tried to remember the best qualities in Morgan and the best qualities she’d thought existed in their friendship, she wondered swiftly why she never had been tempted. He had everything she had grown up to value: money, charm, personality, an extravagant lifestyle and all-American good looks. Other women strayed. Other women with apparently very good marriages seemed to stray…

It all seemed so simple, looking at Kyle. She liked his eyebrows; she liked his stride; she liked his knees. During that one hurricane they’d weathered in Florida a long time ago, he’d become exasperated with her when he couldn’t get her to move quickly. She’d found it extremely difficult to get alarmed. She’d known he would always put her first; it was difficult to feel fear, knowing that. He was protective and strong and-a little-bull-headed. She loved all of that. Integrity, honesty…all those little things that made up such enormous love, right down to what a bear he was when he had a cold. A total bastard when he was ill, really. She loved that, too…

Kyle, as if suddenly aware she was staring at him, turned to her and raised one eyebrow. “What on earth are you thinking about?”

“That I don’t give a simple damn what you saw. It wasn’t like that.”

“Pardon?” He couldn’t hear her over the engine’s hum.

She raised her voice obediently. “I asked you how long before we touch down?”

“Oh…another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

Erica pushed down the armrest, cupped her elbow on it and cradled her chin in her palm, waiting. Not long after that, Kyle radioed the tower at Newberry. A flutter of anticipation, and a little fear, settled in her stomach. He was going to have to listen to her. Isolated and totally alone with each other, they were going to have to find a way to talk again-about the things that counted-not Morgan, not their business, not money, not the move to Wisconsin. It seemed to Erica that the wilderness was a perfect place for both of them. Back to nature, back to basics. Back to the thing that mattered at core: the elusive nature of the love they both brought to their relationship…or didn’t bring.

Ground loomed up to meet the small plane; Erica had the peculiar sensation of falling. Five minutes later, Kyle cut the plane’s engine, though for seconds after that she could still hear its incessant hum vibrating in her ears.

“We’re here,” Kyle said shortly.