Dreamkeepers

by Dorothy Garlock

  “Say you love me.” The husky whisper in her ear was insistent. “Say it, darling.”

  “I love you, Jack. Jack, love me. Love me.”

  The laugh was low and tender as he covered her face with feverish kisses. “Oh, Kelly,” he said thickly. “You’ve been under my skin for so long, tormenting me, driving me crazy. I’ve missed you so and I’ve wanted to make love to you for so long . . .” He pulled her head back and their mouths clung. He held her body between his roving hands and she made no effort to stop him. The pleasure rose to intolerable heights and she lost consciousness of everything but the powerful body that was driving her toward weightlessness. Now she was floating down from a great height and her stomach clenched in fierce panic. She dropped sharply, and cried out wildly, her hands clinging frantically to the only solid thing in her tilting world.

  Soothing words calmed and reassured her. Hands gently stroked her taut body. Her heart settled in to a quieter pace as the tension and panic left her. Did he know he had taken her heart? She began to cry. Jack had taken her heart, but Jonathan had taken and crushed her bubbly spirit, her romantic illusions. She had fought to hold Jack, but in the end he had flown from her grasp. Now, like the princess in the fairy tale, she was under the spell of the wicked prince, Jonathan, who would destroy her. Finally her sleep deepened and the nightmare left her.

  The sensation of something against her mouth woke her abruptly. Her eyes flew open and stared into amused brown eyes. She was lying naked in Jonathan’s arms, her legs imprisoned between his. He had been kissing her. He laughed at the expression on her face. There was a relaxed charm about him that maddened her. His hand was on her breast, fingering her nipple!

  Her face burned scarlet. She hadn’t been dreaming! She had made love with him. “Oh! You’re even lower than I thought!” She tried to push him away, but her strength was as nothing against his. “You . . . you took my clothes off!”

  “You didn’t object at the time,” he pointed out with a grin that further infuriated her.

  “I didn’t know . . . You took advantage . . .”

  “You were plastered,” he interrupted, grinning.

  “You had no right. You knew I didn’t want you,” she snapped.

  “I had every right . . . and you did want me.”

  She shook her head like an enraged child, her face livid. “I did not want you, Jonathan!” She began to struggle.

  He clamped his arms and legs around her and lowered his lips to her cheek. “You wanted Jack. It was just like those two days we spent in bed after we got married . . . only better.”

  Her eyes burned up at him resentfully. “Enjoy your little triumph. It won’t happen again.”

  “Be honest. Your appetite for me is as great as mine is for you.” His hands moved possessively over her, his fingers trembling. “You can feel how I want you. Admit you want me, too.”

  “I admit I enjoy being with a man. Any man,” she taunted.

  His hand moved to her hair and jerked her head around to face him. “That’s a lie!” he said harshly. He looked at her mouth, that trembling mouth that had always fascinated him. “Your mouth is too beautiful to spit such lies.” He kissed it gently before his lips hovered over hers so that his tongue could trace its way into the corners. “You’re a lovely liar,” he said, his eyes soft, his hands gentle in her hair. “Don’t be embarrassed for wanting me, darling.”

  She felt as though he had penetrated her subconscious and raped her mind as well as her body. She must have been conscious at some level to remember what he had done to her and how his stroking hands had fired her desire for him. But she feared her blind, desperate need for love. It was too dangerous to care for anyone.

  “Sex!” The word exploded from her and her eyes filled with tears. “That’s all it is, Jonathan. Let me go, please. I want to get up,” she said tiredly.

  “Maybe it is just sex, but it’s a start,” he said patiently and moved away from her.

  Kelly threw back the covers and walked naked into the bathroom. She could feel his eyes on her, but didn’t care. She remembered the long nights during the first weeks of their marriage when Jack’s passion, the force of which carried her over the first few times when she bared her body to him, made her feel as if it was natural and beautiful for him to view her from every angle.

  She took her robe from the hook behind the door, slipped her feet into warm scuffs, and passed through her father’s room to come out into the living area. It was warm. A big log blazed in the fireplace and the cookstove was roaring pleasantly. She glanced toward the door. The floor and doormat were dry. Since no one had come in from outside, Jonathan must have built up the fire. She was surprised he knew how. She filled the coffee pot and set it on the stove. During the few short weeks she had been home, she had fallen into a routine: get up, stoke up the fires, put on the coffee pot, wind the clock, turn on the electric hot water tank. She did these things, now, automatically, and went to stand beside the window.

  It was going to be a clear day with a blue sky. Soon the sun would be up, its low rays bathing the landscape in a warm, winter-rose color.

  She loved this land of the very old and the very new. Ancient Eskimo and Indian cultures lived side by side with modern pulp mills, fisheries, and giant oil companies. Where else in the world were there glaciers and strawberries, dog teams and airplanes, skin boats (the design of which had not changed for a thousand years) and late model outboard motors? It seemed ironic that she and Jonathan should come together in this land of extremes.

  The day promised to be clear enough to allow the first guests to view Mount McKinley from the lodge windows. Kelly thought of the poster she had painstakingly printed and framed to hang beside the window. “Mount McKinley, called Denali, meaning ‘home of the sun,’ by the Indians, is one of the most dramatic sights in Alaska. The light tan granite mass, crown of the Alaska Range, climbs upward to a height of almost four miles. No other mountain rises so far above its own base. The upper two-thirds of the peak is permanently snow-covered, and often takes on a pinkish glow at sunrise and sunset.”

  Thinking about the mighty mountain, this place her father had built, this home she loved, stiffened her resolve to stay here. She would not let Jonathan evict her and Mike and Marty from their home! They belonged here, he didn’t.

  Kelly turned from the window to see him taking coffee cups from the drain-basket beside the sink. She looked at him with new eyes. He wore a flannel shirt, obviously new, jeans, and wool socks on his feet. Dressed like this, he seemed more Jack than Jonathan, but he was Jonathan, and he could take all this away from her. She picked up her purse from the couch and took out her cigarettes and lighter.

  “When did you start smoking?” He had poured two cups of coffee and set them on the table.

  “I don’t smoke much. Only when I’m nervous,” she retorted.

  “You’re nervous now?”

  “Wouldn’t you be if everything you loved could be taken from you on a whim?”

  He stood looking at her. He seemed taller in the jeans, tall and tough, a bargaining Bostonian with an eye to the main chance, even willing to dress the part in order to fit into the scheme of things.

  His darkened eyes flickered with annoyance, but he spoke calmly. “I haven’t threatened to take your home away from you.”

  She shrugged. “Same thing. I either suffer your presence or Marty and Mike and I get out.”

  “I doubt if you suffer, Kelly,” he said drily. “Come drink your coffee.”

  “Thank you, no. I’ll take my bath now. I only run the electric heater long enough to get water for a bath. Electricity is expensive here. Of course, you’d know nothing about that.” She flicked the end of her cigarette into the fireplace and glanced at him. He sat at the table, stirring his coffee.

  The C.B. radio came on with an emergency call for Mike. Kelly waited until she heard Mike answer, then went into the bathroom and filled the small tub with warm water.

  When she ca
me out of the warm, steamy bathroom, her bedroom seemed cold, but she shut the door connecting it to the kitchen and took out flannel-lined jeans and a shirt. Then she noticed her bed had been neatly made and the clothes she had worn the day before folded and laid out on the end. She dressed, ran a comb through her hair, and went in her stocking feet to the kitchen. She was pouring coffee when Jonathan came to the door of her father’s room.

  “Are you feeling better . . . besides being nervous?” he asked drily.

  “Much better.” There was almost a pleasant tone to her voice. “You’ll find sheets and blankets in the chest at the end of the bed.”

  “I saw them there,” he said, and turned back into the room.

  Kelly carried her coffee to the kitchen window and looked out at the large temperature gauge attached to a post just outside the window. It was eighteen degrees, about average for this time of year. There was no wind and the snow was fresh and beautiful. It was a perfect day for their guests to arrive. She hurriedly finished her coffee and put on her boots, coat, and yellow cap.

  Charlie greeted her the moment she stepped outside. He had made crazy patterns in the snow and now leaped joyously. Kelly took the frisbee from him and sailed it into the air. The soft snow floated around him like a cloud as he dashed and leaped to catch it. She couldn’t hold back her laughter.

  “Charlie, you crazy dog! Come on, bring it here.”

  Shaking his head, as if the frisbee in his mouth was a live thing, he trotted back to Kelly. She knelt in the snow and put her arms about his neck, then took the frisbee from him and ran. Charlie was surprised at first then leaped after her, jumping high in the air when she held his toy over her head.

  “No, you don’t!” Kelly laughed, and tried to hit him on the nose. Charlie snapped at the battered plastic, braced his legs and pulled. Kelly went tumbling down into the snow, where she lay laughing, holding onto the frisbee with both hands. Charlie pulled and shook his head, deep growls coming from his powerful throat.

  “Looks like a standoff to me.”

  Kelly looked up to see Jonathan standing over her, his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. His gaze was so quiet and so penetrating that it seemed to reach down inside her. She felt something twist in her body and bit down on her lower lip. She let go of the frisbee and a surprised Charlie sat down in the snow.

  Kelly got to her feet and brushed the snow from her jacket and jeans.

  “I didn’t mean to spoil your fun,” Jonathan said from behind her.

  “You didn’t.” The lie came easily to her lips. She headed toward the lodge. The light snow made walking easy, now; later it would be hard and crusty, then solid enough to walk on.

  Jonathan followed beside her. As they neared the lodge, he took hold of her arm and held tightly when she tried to shrug it off.

  “Let go of my arm,” she said tensely, glancing up at him.

  “No.” He held her gaze as firmly as her arm. “Behave yourself, Kelly. I won’t be snubbed by my wife in front of anyone. Do you understand?” He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “What we say and do is one thing in private and another in public.”

  Tormented, she tried without success to break free of his hold. “I have my pride, too,” she retorted. “I won’t play the loving wife!”

  “If you don’t, you’ll only make matters worse for yourself.”

  “Worse! How can matters be worse than they are?” she hissed.

  “Believe me, they could be much worse.”

  They had reached the door and Jonathan held it open for her. Needing a chance to pull herself back together after their verbal combat, she took an unusually long time pulling off her boots and leaving them on the mat. She allowed him to help her with her jacket, then went toward the swinging doors leading to the kitchen. Half of her wanted to watch his reaction to the lodge; the other half wanted him to think she didn’t care a fig.

  “There you are! I swear to goodness, I told Clyde we just might not see you all day. I know how it was when me and Clyde got together after we was apart.” Bonnie wiped her hands on her apron and held one of them out to Jonathan. “Now ain’t you a handsome feller? You rascal,” she said to Kelly. “You never told me nothin’ about a husband. If mine was as handsome as yours, I’d a been braggin’ all over the place.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Kelly didn’t think I’d be able to get away so soon, Bonnie. That’s why she didn’t tell you about me.”

  “I know she’s tickled you’re here now. Married folks was meant to be together. I ain’t for this woman libbers stuff. I want my man to lean on. Ain’t that right, Kelly?”

  Kelly found her voice. “Oh, yes. Jonathan’s a pillar of strength.”

  “Jonathan? Clyde said your name was Jack.” Bonnie looked up from her scant five feet to the man towering over her.

  “That’s right. My name’s Jack. Only Kelly calls me Jonathan and that’s only part of the time.” His brown eyes glinted into her stormy blue ones. The look passed over Bonnie, who was waddling back to the stove in her fur-lined moccasins.

  “I just fed Mike and sent him on his way.” Bonnie moved the big iron skillet onto the hot part of the range. “I swear if that kid’s legs ain’t holler. Ain’t one blessed thing wrong with his appetite. He ate three eggs, sausage, and hash browns, then topped it off with the last of the pie. What you gonna have, Jack?”

  “I’ll take the same, Bonnie, but make it two eggs.”

  “Over easy or wide awake?”

  “If wide awake means sunny side up, that’s how I’ll take them.”

  “Well, get on over here and get you some coffee. Get some for Kelly, too. She looks all tuckered out. Skinny as a rail, that girl. Now that you’re here, Jack, maybe we can fatten her up a little.” Bonnie dropped big pats of sausage into the hot skillet. “She’s worn herself out working around here. My land, you should’ve seen the mess this place was in. There wasn’t anything too heavy for her to lift, and nothing too hard for her to do. She just flew right in there and did it and wouldn’t wait one minute for the men. Mike takes things slow an’ easy. That boy don’t get in no hurry. He . . . Put the bread in the toaster, Jack.”

  Kelly closed her eyes in frustration. “Mike works hard,” she said.

  “I didn’t say he didn’t work, Kelly. I just said he was slow. Swear, if you ain’t somethin’ when it comes to stickin’ up for that boy!”

  “I’d hardly call him a boy, Bonnie,” Kelly said drily and raised her eyes to see Jonathan watching her, the smile he had worn for Bonnie’s benefit gone. “Mike has done a lot of work around here,” she said, holding Jonathan’s eyes. “He’s never had anything given to him. He earned his share of this place.”

  “I’m sure he did. Now that I’m here, I can take some of the workload off his shoulders.” Jonathan’s voice was kind, but his face was not. Kelly knew he was furious and was glad.

  The plate of food Bonnie set in front of her caused Kelly’s stomach to lurch with hunger. She glanced up to see Jonathan’s brows rise questioningly. She could tell he was enjoying her discomfort.

  “Not hungry this morning, darling?” he asked silkily.

  Her eyes, filled with rage, flashed to his face. He returned the look with taunting amusement. The battle lines were drawn, she thought bitterly. She was bound to lose some of the encounters, but she was determined to win the war.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I am the captain of my fate. The thought pounded in Kelly’s head while she went through the motions of checking the guest rooms to make sure everything was ready. In the middle of counting the number of extra blankets neatly stacked on a closet shelf, she stopped, put her clenched fists to her temples, and closed her eyes.

  It was ridiculous to think she was captain of anything, least of all her own fate! She was being swept along on the tide of Jonathan’s overpowering personality. Already Bonnie and Clyde thought he was the greatest thing since fire. He was out there now, on one end of the big, two-man crosscut saw, helping Clyde
cut the big logs into lengths to be further chopped into firewood. Kelly hoped Clyde worked him to death. She knew Jonathan would be too proud to stop even if he was about to drop in his tracks.

  Kelly stayed at the lodge until the guests arrived, leaving only long enough to go to her own house and change into azure blue cord slacks and a matching turtleneck sweater that hid some of the gauntness of her slim hips. Clyde left in plenty of time to meet the train and Jonathan, taking his cue from Kelly, came up to the lodge after changing out of the sawdust-covered jeans and sweaty flannel shirt. He had bathed, and Kelly wondered if he had used cold water, or if he had carried it from the reservoir beside the cookstove. He had put on tan trousers and a brown loose-knit shirt with cream ribbing at the neck and cuffs.

  He came to where Kelly was standing beside the window looking out toward the faint peak of Mount McKinley. She could smell the familiar aroma of his aftershave lotion. He didn’t speak and she moved away to turn on the lamps. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and already beginning to get dark. Soon they would be using electricity all day and the bills would pile up.

  The guests were young, rowdy, and there were five of them instead of four. The girls had frizzed hair, thinly plucked eyebrows, and willowy figures once they removed their bulky snowmobile wear. The men had fashionably styled haircuts and expensive Nordic ski sweaters. Clyde set their suitcases inside the door, but when he started to remove his boots to carry the luggage to the rooms, Jonathan stopped him.

  “I’ll take care of that, Clyde, if you want to put the car away.”

  It was easy to tell what girl went with what man. One of the couples was rather short, the other of medium height. The odd man was taller and older than the others. He leaned on the small bar that served as a counter and eyed Kelly.

  “Hello, snow-nymph. I don’t have a reservation. Are you going to throw me out?” His eyes ran over her like summer rain.

  “That depends.” Kelly saw Jonathan edge closer to the desk.