Sunburst

Chapter 14

Erica took a slow walk into the woods and stood in the pitch-black shadows of the trees. He couldn’t see her; she knew that, and she took a long time, pulling off her shirt and jeans, then slowly removing her panties and bra. A thousand things were in her mind, a restless kaleidoscope of uncertainties.

She’d taken too long to tell him about Morgan; now she didn’t know how.

No, that wasn’t true. The problem was that she’d never known how. To tell him the truth was one thing. For him to believe her was another. For months now, he’d seemed to lack trust, faith in her. At home…

But they weren’t at home now. There, all she could think of was convincing Kyle of the truth about Morgan; here on this wild, deserted beach, she knew Morgan wasn’t the point. What she had to tell Kyle, what she wanted to tell him, what she needed him to believe…was that she loved him.

And she desperately wanted to hear that back from him.

“Erica? You’re all right?”

Her head jerked up at the sound of Kyle’s voice. He had lurched to a sitting position and was staring in her direction. Even by moonlight, she could see the frown etched on his forehead. She was taking a very long time preparing for sleep.

“Fine,” she called back.

She lifted her head, closing her eyes. The virgin woods, the total darkness, the primitive rustlings of animals in the brush-all echoed her own restlessness, her own impatience. Thinking accomplished nothing. Not here. Survival was a matter of the senses here, of feel and hearing and scent. Of instincts.

She stepped out of the cover of darkness. Moon rays shimmered over her skin as her toes dug into the soft, cool sand. A whispering breeze from the lake lifted her hair, teased her breasts. It was a warm breeze. Ahead of her the lake seemed untouched by that wind, smooth and black and fathomless. Cool. She’d never in her life walked naked outdoors at night. The warm wind on her bare flesh touched another primitive instinct, as though there were a soft voice deep inside of her, promoting woman and night, urging her to follow her natural, sensual instincts. She could have sworn the lake was calling her…

Her toes touched the first of the smooth, slippery stones at the edge of the lake, and she winced at the icy chill of the water.

“Erica?”

“Not to worry. I just want to cool off before sleeping,” she called back.

He said something else; she didn’t hear it. In four steps, she was up to her knees; at the sixth step, she dived cleanly into that shocking ice bath and surged up again. Every nerve ending burst into life. She whipped back her rope of wet hair and dived again.

The water was both torture and pleasure, a curious combination. The lake was so totally black and endless that she felt a shiver of fear, yet that icy silk embraced her body, seeming to flow in, around and all through her, intimate and possessive.

She couldn’t have explained in a thousand years why she’d gone into the water; it was instinct more than logic. Her arms sliced through the black water in soundless strokes. Then her slow crawl gradually picked up pace. More instinct. She felt wild, frightened, free. Her heart kept drumming out those rhythms of feeling. Her stroke drove her farther, as if she could swim forever, as if she would never tire, as if she could span oceans.

She couldn’t. It hit her all at once that the chill water had finally seeped into her bloodstream. Her limbs were tiring, and her lungs were desperately hauling in air. Suddenly, she could see nothing but black sky and water. The shore could not really be so far, yet she couldn’t see it in the darkness. Panic hovered over her. She rolled onto her back and simply tried to breathe, to tell herself that her arms weren’t too tired to tread water. All she had to do was relax…

A sure, firm hand curled at the nape of her neck, and she opened frightened eyes.

“Easy, honey.” Kyle’s face was white by moonlight; his hair a sleek, shiny black helmet. Water was streaming down his neck, glistening on the deeply etched lines of his forehead. His grim, taut expression was a total denial of the voice dipped in velvet, gentle and soothing. “You’re all right?”

Undoubtedly, she would have found her second wind; she had no cramp; she would probably have made it back to shore with flying colors. Those were thoughts, not instincts. She was terrified. “No,” she whispered.

She didn’t have to say anything else, and Kyle didn’t waste words. He turned on his back, drawing her on top of him. His legs and arms treaded water, but his chest was ballast, safe haven. She lay back, just breathing in and out until the long, gulping breaths calmed.

After a time, he shifted upright, bracing her arms on his shoulders. “You’re cold as hell, love. We’re almost in. Can you sidestroke next to me?”

She nodded weakly. “It was just suddenly so…dark. I got so frightened. Stupid of me, Kyle…”

“Everything’s fine.” His voice was so sure, so calm, so soothing. “Just go easy, Erica. I’ll be right next to you. So close you can touch me; you can reach out and hold on any time you want to. Come on, love.”

He let her go, hovering as she forced her arms to scissor through the water. He sidestroked next to her. Every time she opened her eyes she could see his, watching her, dark and soft, within touching range. All those primitive instincts surfaced again, a wealth of feeling that washed through her physical exhaustion. He had come. Safe haven was within touching range; the love was there, the strength and power of feeling were there. He’d had to know before she had that she’d overestimated her physical strength. He’d had to plunge into the water before the thought had even crossed her mind that she was in trouble.

And now she heard his murmured encouragements next to her, coaxing her to make those last few strokes until her feet could touch bottom. Her hands pushed through the water those last few times, finding a strength she could have sworn she didn’t have.

At last her toes touched the lake bottom, and she surged up to a standing position, breathing in heavy, gasping pants. Kyle’s arms went around her, and her fingers dug into his back, desperate for him to stay close, not leave her. In, out; in, out. Air. Her arms and legs ached; her stomach ached; her shoulders ached; everything ached.

Kyle’s hand brushed back her damp hair, whispering something she didn’t hear. It didn’t matter. He cradled her close, and where her skin touched his she was no longer cold. Her bare breasts were crushed hard against his chest, so hard that they hurt, but it was her own hold forcing that locked-in position. The chill water kept lapping at her hips. Warmer night air brushed the tears from her tired eyes.

Finally, he whispered, “All right now?”

“All right,” she agreed, meaning it.

That soothing, sure voice disappeared. He held her away from him, his wet hands on her bare shoulders, and she stared up in shock at eyes suddenly turned absolutely furious. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“What?”

“Dammit, you could have gotten a cramp! Since when are you an Olympic swimmer, Erica? Going out that far-I could shake you!”

He was rigid with anger, a rage she’d never guessed at. His touch and tone had been gentle, so sure, so soothing in the water, without even a hint of any other emotion. She’d never been physically afraid of Kyle in their nine years of marriage, couldn’t even conceive of it, but she knew at that moment he was very close to doing just what he’d said-shaking her. Because he was terrified of what might have happened to her. Instincts, she thought happily. She’d never trust another rational thought as long as she lived.

“Answer me! And if you ever do a damn fool thing like that again-”

She raised herself up on tiptoe, fitting her lips to his. His mouth clamped down on hers so hard she would have fallen, except that her body was drawn up, tugged into intimate contact with his. On a dry, hot day, tinder ignited just that easily. Lake Superior…that single largest body of fresh water in the world… His hands rushed over her as if he could warm her shivering body in spite of all those gallons of ice water. He could. Without much effort.

She was shuddering with chill…yet she wasn’t, suddenly. Fire warmed her veins, a fierce, wild, primitive fire… She wrenched her mouth from his only for a moment. “You love me, Kyle. Don’t try to tell me you don’t,” she whispered.

“Dammit. You know I love you. And I swear if you ever do anything like that again-”

He would murder her. Fine. She savored the thought. For someone who’d been afraid of anger all her life, she suddenly relished his, understanding it was a measure of how much he loved her. More instincts, she thought fleetingly. She didn’t need words; she’d been listening to words for months, had torn herself apart with words. From now on, she would listen only to her different heart.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the shore, stopping only when they’d reached the pebble-strewn sand. “Wait here,” he barked. She couldn’t imagine where he thought she would go.

He stalked back from the campsite seconds later with a cotton blanket that he draped over her, rubbing her thoroughly until her flesh came alive again and took on heat. She couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. His hands, so fiercely rubbing her skin, were trembling. Chill water was still streaming down his body; he didn’t seem to notice.

His bold features were forbiddingly carved, but that wasn’t the message his eyes were sending her. His eyes were dark blue and full of torment, registering that she was safe, measuring the loss he had nearly suffered.

It was no small effort for her to extricate herself from the blanket he had so possessively swathed her in. She managed, taking him off-guard as he was about to begin scolding her again. All she had to do was brush her hands over the taut muscles of his shoulders, and the next thing she knew he had snatched her up tight against his chest, his head buried in her hair and the blanket lying forgotten in the sand.

“God, Erica, if anything had happened to you…”

“Hold me,” she whispered. “Keep on holding me…”

Kyle’s body was cool and damp; it was her turn to do the warming. She didn’t bother with a blanket. Although she had been freezing just short minutes before, she had never felt warmer than now, had never felt more capable of wrapping him up in the warmth that emanated from her soul. Her hands swept over his shoulder and his long, lean back. Her breasts, warm and full, absorbed his chill; her bare thighs pressed his. The friction of her lips rubbing against his was so frenzied that it could have started a fire.

Kyle slowed his pace. His whole body shuddered, but no longer from chill. Gently, his palms cradled her head, framing her face, his thumbs tracing the satiny texture of her cheeks as if he would memorize the shape and feel of her features. When he let his hands fall, it was only to wrap his arms around her again, this time with tenderness, and his lips pressed kiss after kiss in her hair.

She inhaled, feeling a love so strong it hurt, a love so strong she felt a crazy blur of tears in her eyes that blurred the landscape around her, doubled the stars, added silver to the sand, enriched the dark shadows with an ebony sheen.

“How I love you,” she whispered. “How I love you, Kyle. Only you. There was never anyone else.” The words spilled out in a desperate rush. “There was never Morgan. No matter what you think happened, no matter what he told you-”

“Erica. Don’t lie.” He wrenched her hands from him and stepped back, his face suddenly a dark, expressionless mask. “I never needed Morgan to tell me what happened. I knew. And the hell of it was that I understood.” Without another word, he turned his back on her and stalked up the sandy shore toward their camp.

Erica stared at Kyle’s retreating figure for all of a minute before chasing after him. Furiously, her hand closed on his upper arm, catching him off-balance and forcing him to face her. “What exactly is it that you think you know?” she demanded.

“Stop it.”

She shook her head wildly. “No way, Kyle. You’ve got to listen to me.”

He sighed, throwing back his head, resting his hands on his hips. “I understand,” he said bitterly. “I’ve understood from the first. I’m not judging you. Erica. I’ve been in your shoes.”

“You stop it. Stop talking in riddles, for God’s sake, Kyle. You’ve been trying to tell me something for months. Just tell me!”

“Look,” he said harshly. “There’s nothing to tell. I could see. History repeating itself.” He took a breath. “When I was a kid, we had only a cookstove for heat in the winter, Erica. People looked down on the McCrerys; walking to school in tennis shoes through the snow. My father just didn’t give a damn about anything from the time my mother died. No one could have accused me of lack of loyalty toward him; I loved the man. Really loved him, as a child. But as I grew older, the anger and resentment kept building, at things we could have had that we never did, at security that was never there… I declared my love and loyalty so loud and strong that I didn’t know what they’d really turned into, until it was too late.

“You think I was going to stand around and watch your love turn into resentment, Erica? You declared your loyalty with never a single resentful word, as if you had a little halo around your head. You’re never going to tell me that you didn’t have second thoughts about our moving to Wisconsin, that you didn’t resent the changes in our lifestyle. How I could see myself in you! I never showed an ounce of resentment toward my father, either-and maybe that’s why I never saw what was happening between us until it was too late. And no, it wasn’t a damned cookstove, Erica, but I brought you down-”

If she were a man, she would have shaken him. As it was, her eyes blazed up at his, filled with hurt and pain. “You didn’t bring me down, you stubborn bastard! When are you going to get that through your head? The only time you hurt me was when you failed to share your feelings with me. I had a right to know what you were feeling. I had a right to know you were mucking up everything in your head-”

In spite of the pinched look in his eyes, he allowed himself a twist of a smile at her choice of words. “Erica. You had a right to your choices. You had a right to say what you needed and wanted. The ring on your finger-I couldn’t turn it into a prison chain. That wouldn’t have been love-and I’d been chained by ties that destroyed love. I was locked in by the debts I owed to my father-financial, moral… Hell, you know I love the wood. I’ve been trying to tell you that you’re no prisoner, Erica. I’ve been trying to tell myself that loving you meant ensuring that you had choices.”

Her whole body suddenly went still in shock, even before the import of what he’d said registered in her head. “Are you trying to tell me that you knew Morgan was coming on to me? You knew?”

His body had turned to stone at the tone of her voice; his eyes were searching hers, but he was silent. “You knew?” She kicked a footful of sand at him. Then leaned down and picked up a fistful of it, hurling at him. The sand connected with his chest, and she reached down to pick up another handful. He dodged the spewing sand that would have connected with his face; his eyes were suddenly blazing like her own. She couldn’t have cared less.

“Was that the idea? Letting me experience someone else’s love so that I could make a choice?”

“No!”

The word came from his gut, but she was no longer listening. She whirled around in a tempest of red-gold hair and started running. Her toes dug into the sand so hard they hurt; air clogged so tight in her lungs that it choked her. When he’d said he understood about Morgan, she thought he meant that Morgan had talked to him first, told him lies. She never dreamed that Kyle had known that Morgan was coming on to her like a heavy-handed octopus and never lifted a finger to help her… Love? A few minutes ago, every instinct had told her she had his love. Now the pain kept coming, like needle-sharp waves. He let that happen? She barely heard his husky voice, rasping with emotion.

“Erica…”

“You just leave me completely alone!”