by Diana Palmer
“It’s time, you know,” Cane said from beside her. He was wearing a dark suit with the prosthesis he’d sworn he’d never put on again. With his black hair and snapping black eyes in that smooth olive complexion, he was the handsomest man Bodie had ever known. He could have made a fortune in modeling, but she’d never have told him that. He liked his rugged image.
“Time for what?” she faltered, having been distracted by his amazing good looks.
“Time,” he repeated. “I didn’t do theoretical physics in college, like our brainy friend over there—” he indicated the ranch foreman, Darby Hanes “—but I do know a little about the concepts involved. All the people we’ve loved and lost are still alive, you know—they’re just separated from us by time.”
She stared at him, trying to understand what he was saying.
“Listen,” he said, “when you plot a position, you need latitude and longitude. That gives you a fix on the target. But in the broader sense of things, you also need a time. For example, if you went to Laredo, Texas, today, and looked for a particular address, you’d find it. But if you went to the same location, if you could go back in time two hundred years, chances are good that you wouldn’t find it back then. You see what I mean?”
She was grasping it. “If I could go back in time a month, my grandfather is still alive, there, in the past.”
He smiled tenderly. “Yes. Time separates us from them. Just time.”
Incredibly it made her feel better. The comfort was visible in her relaxed posture, the light in her soft brown eyes.
Cane touched her cheek with just his fingertips, standing close enough that she could feel the heat and strength of his body. “You’ll get through this,” he said, his voice deep with feeling. “We all have to go through it, losing the older ones in our family. It’s never easy. But it’s part of the process of life.”
She swallowed. “Thanks,” she said softly. But she drew back a little, remembering without wanting to, the things he’d said to her when she’d hesitantly asked him for a loan.
He knew that and didn’t take offense. He drew in a long breath. “This isn’t the time,” he said tenderly. “But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I seem to have spent the last couple of months making your life a misery.” He frowned. “I don’t even know why. You’ve always been kind to me. I’m not the sort of man who likes hurting women. I never was, even before this happened.” He indicated the prosthesis.
She swallowed. “I had to do things…” She stopped and bit her lip.
Cane looked hunted. “Tank’s got the sheriff after your sleazy stepfather,” he said bluntly. “I hope he finds enough to put him away for life.”
“Will’s very careful,” she said coldly. “There’s a girl in town who knows him. She works at the grocery store and she talked to me about him once. She says he checks identification before he films anybody, just to make sure he isn’t crossing the line in any way. It would be a crime if he didn’t get locked up,” she added with more ice in her tones.
“It would be a shame if he didn’t,” Cane replied. “There are all sorts of ways to trip up people who think they can bend the law.”
She gave him a long look. “I’ll bet you know most of them,” she said with the first hint of humor he’d seen in her in a long time.
He smiled. It made his eyes glow softly with feeling, and he looked at her in a way that he hadn’t, before. She couldn’t quite decide what it meant, but she was trying to when another friend came up to her to express his condolences. Cane melted back into the crowd.
* * *
THAT NIGHT, BODIE SAT ON the edge of her bed, in her pajamas that looked more like a sweat set, and stared into space. She didn’t really believe in ghosts, but she was afraid to turn out the light. Her grandfather had loved her; she knew that, as much as she loved him. But there were all these stories people told of things in the dark after a loved one died. She was nervous, and grieving, and upset.
There was a light tap on the door. Cane came in, carrying a cup of hot chocolate. He hadn’t been to bed, either. He was still wearing jeans and a soft blue shirt, but in his sock feet instead of boots. His black hair was a little ruffled, as if he’d worried it with his hand.
“I figured you wouldn’t be asleep,” he said. “Here. It’s got marshmallows, too.”
She caught her breath. She loved hot chocolate, but especially with the tiny marshmallows in it. “How did you…?”
“Mavie made it.” He chuckled. “I just offered transport service.”
She managed a smile as she took it from him and sipped it, closing her eyes with delight. “It’s wonderful. Thanks. To you both.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t sleep for two nights after our mother died,” he said. “It was a long time ago. We were in our teens. She had cancer.”
“So did my mother. It was terrible when I lost her.”
He nodded. “Nobody understands, unless they’ve been through it. It’s a long process. Sometimes the treatments work. Sometimes they don’t. We always thought our mother just gave up. She was a sad sort of person. She lived for her sons, but she had no real life outside the home. I’ve often wondered if she had dreams of being something else, maybe an artist, because she loved to draw. She gave up her dreams to raise us.”
“She did a wonderful job on the three of you,” Bodie said quietly. “Doesn’t that have value in our society anymore? Does every woman have to go out and become CEO of some major corporation, or a high military officer, or a politician at the national level? Isn’t it acceptable for a woman to just have a family and teach them values and keep them safe and happy through their childhood?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had children.”
She averted her eyes. “I would like to one day,” she said softly. “I want to dig up dinosaurs and make my mark in the world, in a small way,” she added with a laugh. “But I want a family, too. No reason I can’t do both. Children are portable. One of my friends has parents who are anthropologists. They go all over the world, and the kids go with them. They’re mostly home-schooled, but they’re way ahead of kids their own level in the educational system.” Her eyes were dreamy. “I wouldn’t mind that. Carrying my kids to dig sites, I mean, even though I’d be digging up dinosaurs instead of cultural artifacts.”
The thought of Bodie with kids, some other man’s kids, made him bristle. He glowered at her.
Her eyes widened. “Listen, just because you don’t want to get married is no reason to look at me like I’m nuts,” she pointed out.
He averted his eyes. “I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were.”
“Stop that. I’m not arguing with you. Not tonight.”
“Ah. You’re in truce mode.”
He laughed shortly. “Something like that.” He studied her pale, drawn face. “I’m sorry it went down like this, that you didn’t have time to say a proper goodbye to your grandfather. But remember what Tank told you. Rafe said to tell you he loved you very much. I think he knew what was coming. He wanted to be sure that you knew.”
Tears stung her eyes. She bit them back and sipped her hot chocolate. She couldn’t taste it very well with the tears clogging her throat. She didn’t look up again until she’d finished it, and the tears were only threatening to overflow. She didn’t want to show weakness in the face of the enemy. She couldn’t forget what Cane had said to her before she went home. Her pride was still lacerated.
He drew a spotless white handkerchief from his pocket and placed it against her eyes, shocking her into looking up. His expression was grim.
“I’m trying to think up ways to make up for what I said…what I did,” he faltered. “I’m going to stop drinking, Bodie. I’m going to get back into therapy. Will that help?”
She handed him the cup. “It would be the best thing, for you. Your family loves you. It’s not fair to put them through hell because of what happened to you overseas.” She searched his black eyes quietly. “I know it’
s been rough. But you have to try to move on. There’s a whole world out there that you’re not even seeing. You’re hiding, inside yourself.”
“Stop that.” He averted his face. His eyes were stormy.
“See?” she said.
He turned and glared at her. “Stop reading my mind.”
“Sorry. Not intentional.” She smoothed back her hair. “I’m afraid to go to sleep, isn’t that stupid?”
“Not really. I didn’t want to turn out the lights for two days after my mother died. I wasn’t really afraid of the dark. I was just…uneasy.”
“That’s how I feel. My grandfather would never hurt me. I know that.” She laughed. “Ancient memories of taboos and spiritualism, perhaps.”
He nodded. “Perhaps.”
She sighed. “Well, thanks for the hot chocolate. Thank Mavie, too.”
He turned down the covers, tugged her arm so that she got under them. “Move over.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Move over.”
Surprised, she complied. He slid into bed beside her, laid back on a pillow and moved what was left of his other arm so that it was around her head.
“Now go to sleep,” he said, and reached to turn out the bedside lamp with his good hand.
She was stiff as a board, and shocked.
“The door’s wide-open,” he reminded her, nodding toward it. “Even if I had the impulse, I wouldn’t act on it when you’re grieving and frightened. I may be a rogue, but I hope you think better of me than that.”
She relaxed, just a little. “What will your family think, though?” she worried.
“That I’m doing something Quixotic,” he murmured, alluding to Don Quixote and his habit of misplaced nobility. “Protecting the vulnerable.”
“Am I vulnerable?”
He turned his head on the pillow. His black eyes pierced hers. “You were the night I got drunk, weren’t you, Bodie?” he asked in a deep, husky whisper.
She turned red. “You said you didn’t remember,” she accused.
“I didn’t. Not until the other day.” His head rolled back on the pillow so that he could stare up at the ceiling. “Not until it was too late, and I’d said things I can’t take back, prompted you into a decision that will scar you for life.”
She swallowed. “Oh.” She was remembering that night with brutal clarity. He’d been a little rough with her, but so tender and sweet that her mind reeled with pleasure.
“Was it the first time?” he asked tautly.
She hesitated. It wasn’t something she wanted to admit, least of all to him.
His head turned on the pillow. In the light from the hall, he could see her face. “Was it, Bodie?”
She bit her lower lip. “Yes. I never… I mean…” she said hesitantly.
Something flashed in his eyes. He turned her face up to his with a tender hand, caressing her cheek as he bent to kiss her eyes shut. “At least,” he whispered, “you had something untainted before Will’s friend put his filthy hands on you, even if I was drunk at the time.”
She started to speak, but his mouth moved softly onto hers, tasting it with reverence, with aching, breathless tenderness.
“Soft little rosebud,” he whispered against her tight lips, “so afraid to open its petals…”
“I am…!”
He chuckled as her indignant reply gave him just the opening he wanted. He pressed her lips back under his, opening them to a kiss that was as reverent as it was masterful. He nibbled at her upper lip, teased the moist underside with his tongue, in a way that made her body go tight in the oddest places.
She gasped.
He drew back, his breath a little unsteady on her mouth. “If you were a few years older, and I was a bigger rake than I already am, I’d get up and lock the door.”
She was all at sea. She had no real experience of men, except with him, and she wasn’t sure what he was insinuating. “You mean you’d lock me in…?”
His mouth ground down into hers hungrily. “I mean I’d lock myself in here with you and start taking off your clothes!” he bit off.
She gasped under his demanding mouth as he rolled toward her.
His hand was under her shirt, moving up, when footsteps sounded on the staircase. Luckily he wasn’t too far gone to hear them.
He moved onto his back, grimacing, and forced himself to breathe normally. “Please try to look like you’re asleep so that my brother doesn’t throw me out the closest window,” he said with a rough attempt at humor.
“I should help him,” she managed to reply. But she did close her eyes and try to look innocent.
The footsteps stopped at the open door abruptly. There was a soft explosion of breath, and then a softer chuckle. The footsteps started up again.
Cane let out the breath he’d been holding. He turned his head so that he could see Bodie’s shocked eyes, very close to his.
“You wouldn’t throw me out a window,” he mused, his eyes twinkling. “You’d have nobody to teach you how to kiss.”
“Cane!” she muttered angrily.
His thumb moved over her soft mouth. “God, I love kissing you,” he whispered. “You’re too damned young and I’m out of my mind to even be looking at you. I’ve hurt you, sent you running, gotten you into one hell of a mess with my temper…”
“You forgot the part where you called me a budding prostitute,” she said angrily.
He sighed. “Yeah. I forgot that part.”
He looked so guilty that he made her feel guilty for bringing it up. She grimaced. “Sorry. It stings.”
“I wanted you.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
He rolled over, facing her. “I wanted you,” he said quietly. “We were alone, I was aching for relief after I kissed you, and frankly, you’d have let me do anything I liked. I would have liked to do a lot.” His jaw tautened. “I said things I didn’t mean, to make you run. I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you about it. But I can usually only be that honest when I’m drunk.” He looked at her chin instead of meeting her eyes. “You’re too young, Bodie,” he said flatly. “You haven’t even lived yet.”
“You want me,” she repeated it, faintly shocked.
“Yeah.”
“You never…said.”
He gave her a speaking look. “You couldn’t tell by how hard I got when I was kissing you, then?”
She gasped. “Cane Kirk!” she muttered, and hit him.
He grinned. “Want me to demonstrate it again?”
She started to speak when the footsteps sounded in the hall again.
“We’re asleep,” he reminded her, and turned onto his back, closing his eyes.
The footsteps sounded odd. That was when he realized that there was more than one set of them. He didn’t dare look.
There were soft exclamations from at least two people. More subdued chuckling. After a minute, during which Cane hoped they wouldn’t look too closely at the people in the big bed, the footsteps moved away again.
When he glanced at Bodie, her eyes were open and she was trying not to laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“Your brothers, Morie and Mavie,” she said breathlessly. “You should have seen their faces.”
“How…?”
“I was looking past your chest,” she said. “They couldn’t see me.”
He shook his head. “I suppose we do look odd.”
She laid her head on his shoulder, against what was left of his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For kissing you?” he teased lightly.
“For being noble,” she replied quietly. “For caring that I was in here alone and scared of the dark…and not making fun of me.”
He hadn’t had a woman in his arms since the accident. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to make love again or that he’d fumble and make a fool of himself with some worldly-wise female who’d laugh at him. But Bodie didn’t make him uncomfortable. So he curled his elbow around her, th
e stump against her waist. She didn’t even flinch.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked tautly.
“Don’t be silly.” She sighed. “Why should it?”
“There’s no hand,” he said through his teeth.
“Lots of men have lost arms and legs in the war and during the occupation,” she said, her voice sounding a little drowsy now. “Many of them were married. I don’t think it would matter to the women they came home to.”
He blinked.
She nuzzled closer. “Would it matter to you if I was missing an arm?”
“No.” He said it instantly, without thinking.
She smiled.
His chest rose and fell heavily. He was conflicted. Part of him was delighted that Bodie could accept him as a man, as a whole man, and not be disparaging. But another part was uneasy and apprehensive about getting serious with her. She’d just suffered a major loss, compounded by her very unpleasant experience with her stepfather and his friend. She wasn’t thinking about it right now, safe in Cane’s arms. But it would be in her mind, and when the numbness wore off, that blessed numbness that eased bereaved people through the worst part of the pain and anguish, she would have to deal with it. She might hate Cane for his part in her disgrace. She might blame him for losing her grandfather and forcing her to lower her pride in an attempt to save the roof over their heads.
She might. But right now, she was curled trustingly in his arms, drifting off to sleep. And he was holding her, like precious treasure, drinking in the faint scent of roses that clung to her soft skin.
Tomorrow might bring more heartache, more problems. Tonight he was safe, she was safe, they were together and experiencing a new tenderness in their relationship that felt like a bright new-minted penny on a spring day. He felt reborn, full of hope and subdued passion.
He wasn’t going to think about any of it tonight. He was going to savor Bodie in his arms, close against his heart and let tomorrow wait. This might be the only time he’d have Bodie to himself, ever again. He wasn’t going to waste a second of the night in worried possibilities. He closed his eyes. He even smiled.