by Vella Munn
The thought was insane, but the very insanity of her selfishness allowed Calley to retain some measure of control.
She didn’t have to surrender to her most primitive thoughts. She could simply think them.
Dean surfaced first. Denying his hand the exquisite softness of her breast was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but if one of them didn’t put on the brakes, the night would end with their doing something they weren’t ready for. If this thing that was starting to exist between them was to last, it shouldn’t be pushed. He thought he was going to be able to lean away from her without revealing too much of himself, but when he tried to breathe, it came out a groan.
“I don’t think we should be doing this.”
That was the sort of thing Calley hadn’t heard since she was a teenager and she was the one putting an end to roving hands, but she was light years away from laughing. He was right. They weren’t ready.
It was maybe the hardest thing she’d done in her entire life, but as soon as Dean had stood up, Calley found her own feet, mumbled something about needing to clean up and stumbled through the growing dark down to the river. She ignored Dean’s offer to go with her. Let him worry. She needed to be alone. She knelt at its edge and splashed water on her face and arms. She winced as the cold hit her scratched arm, but pain was a powerful enough sensation to accomplish what needed to be accomplished. It brought her back to where she should have been.
Dean had been thinking about Waina today; Calley had made that happen. Waina was someone he had once loved and made love to.
Calley didn’t know if Waina was beautiful by the standards her culture was accustomed to using, but Dean had said enough for her to understand where Waina’s true beauty lay. A woman who lived in tune with Alaska’s timelessness, who knew what it meant to be patient, to have reverence and respect for her people’s way of life, had a great deal to offer a man sensitive enough to unveil those special qualities.
Waina must have been special. Otherwise a man such as Dean wouldn’t have spent six months alone with her.
“Calley.” She could hear Dean’s voice through the night. “Calley, I don’t feel safe about you being down there alone. Don’t shut me out.” He stepped onto the riverbank, his frame silhouetted against the sky and rising moon. Wordlessly, he stripped off his shirt and then his jeans and stepped into the river, wearing only his briefs. Calley shivered for him as he sucked in his breath, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say. He was so magnificent, a superb physical specimen no woman alive would be able to ignore. He was leaving the water, coming toward her, arms wrapped around his ribs, head thrown back as if trying to avoid as much as possible of the icy water.
“I’m not shutting you out,” she said when there was no ignoring his relentless presence. “I just had to think.”
“About what happened up there?” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Their twin warmth flowed together and took away the icy river’s chill.
“Yes,” Calley admitted. “I was thinking about us. But you’re right. We aren’t ready for—for what almost happened. We don’t know each other well enough.”
“Not yet we don’t.” Effortlessly, Dean turned her around until she was facing him. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him in an effort to keep him warm. Calley wasn’t thinking about their unsure footing. His eyes were relentless daggers heading straight for her heart. “But I think it’s going to happen.”
“You think we’re going to become lovers?” Calley couldn’t remember ever being this honest with Mike, or anyone else.
“More than lovers, I hope,” Dean went on. “I don’t believe in casual relationships, Calley. Yes, I had my share of one-night stands when I was younger, but I wasn’t very proud of those. I wasn’t mature, and it showed. When I make love to a woman, it’s because she’s become special to me as a human being.”
Just as Waina was. “Not many men feel like that” was all Calley could say.
“I’m not sure that’s true.” Dean pulled her closer, nestling her against his bare chest. “Men are conditioned to believe they have to brag about conquests, but I believe that the need for love, the need to belong, is universal.”
Calley blinked back tears. Dean was saying something so profound that the depth of his sensitivity shocked her. For the first time since she and Mike broke up, she wanted to tell someone what she’d gone through. She wanted to tell this someone. But he was wrapped in his own thoughts.
“I wish you could have met her,” he said almost conversationally. “Calley, I didn’t know anyone like her still existed. She was someone with the capacity to see beyond what’s artificial about our society, to accept a way of life that has meant survival for her people for centuries. Waina had a master’s degree in wildlife management, but she had no desire to capitalize on that. She could have gotten a government job and made a great deal of money, but all she really wanted to do was go back to her people and use her education to help them.”
“It was hard on you, wasn’t it? Her leaving, I mean?”
“I miss certain things about her. But she’s where she belongs. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Dean shivered. “Look, why don’t we get cleaned up and go back to camp. I have some tomato soup warming to go with cheese and sausage.”
Calley did what Dean suggested not because she was hungry but because his explanation moved her. She needed a moment alone to think about what he’d said. She finished first and hurried back to camp. Dean had started a small campfire. She added more dried limbs to it and slipped into her tent to change into a fresh sweatshirt. After applying face cream and fluffing her hair, Calley emerged to find Dean drying himself in front of the fire.
As it had before, the sight of him took her breath away. In the red light afforded by the firelight, she could make out the long scar under his arm, but that didn’t detract from his effect on her. On the contrary, knowing that he’d done battle in the wilderness increased her acceptance of what he was. A man like this would be the kind an Alaskan woman would fall in love with. Or any kind of woman.
“I should have thought of dinner,” she said lamely. “I didn’t mean to leave all the work for you.” She took her place beside the campfire, careful to keep distance between them.
“Forget dinner.” Dean shook his head wearily. He reached down for a shirt he’d had warming beside the fire and slipped it over his shoulders. Calley didn’t try to break the silence while he was stepping into his jeans. Only when he sat on one of the logs they’d placed around the fire did he speak. “I told you that leaving Waina was hard. I want to be honest with you. But, Calley, both Waina and I knew it wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t work.” He was staring into the fire, red lights seeping into his eyes. “Her commitment is in Alaska. Mine is here. I’d like to think that we both learned something from each other before we went our separate ways.”
“I know that’s what happened. Dean, you have a lot to share with others. Waina sounds like the kind of person who would appreciate that.” She shouldn’t care so much. It wasn’t safe. But she did. She’d only spent a few days with Dean, but in those days he’d become part of her. “Where is she now?”
“On the Yukon Delta. She’s finishing up a study of the emperor geese there. But in a couple of months she’ll be going to McKinley Park. As soon as the caribou migration is over, she’s been contracted to do some consultation for the park personnel on ways to protect the caribou from mosquitoes and warble flies. She says that’s impossible, but I guess they want her to go there and tell them that.”
“You—you know a lot about what she’s doing.” The words sounded as if they’d been spoken by someone else.
“We correspond,” Dean said simply. “I’ll always care about her.”
“I don’t understand why you weren’t able to work things out.”
“Waina and I come from different cultures. Her home is a small village. Mine is a major university.”
But you share a love of w
ildlife. You’re both dedicated to preserving the balance of nature, Calley thought. She could have pointed this out to Dean, but she didn’t. Obviously this was something he and Waina had discussed before coming to the decision to lead separate lives. Calley might not cringe from facing the impact Waina had had on Dean, but she wasn’t going to spend her time with him digging for intimate details. “I’m glad you’re still in touch with her. I don’t know many people who can do that after the romance breaks up.”
“You can’t?”
Calley had been staring into the fire, but now she jerked her head up. She knew where Dean wanted the conversation to head. “No, I can’t,” she said to ward off any further questions. “It’s a dead issue in my case. You don’t suppose dinner is ready, do you?”
Dean’s eyes stayed on her much longer than they needed to before turning to their meal. In his look Calley read questions and resentment. He was right. He’d been honest about his past relationship. She should be able to do the same. But Mike was a painful subject, and her emotions had been subjected to enough for one night.
Calley filled the air with idle chatter while they ate, and she made a great production out of cleaning up afterward. She hoped Dean would busy himself with record keeping, but he seemed content to sit before the fire, sipping hot chocolate. Finally, there was nothing more for her to do.
Calley yawned elaborately. What she wanted to do was join Dean, feel his hands on hers, taste his lips. But she’d done nothing to deserve that. Too much separated them. “I had no idea sitting in a tree was that exhausting,” she explained, stretching to emphasize her point. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to call it a day.”
Dean continued to stare into the coals; Calley had no choice but to make good on her statement. Her tent was too big for one person; at least it was now after having Dean share it that first night. She quickly changed into her practical pajamas and crawled into the warmth of her sleeping bag, but sleep was an elusive thing. After tossing and turning for a half hour, she gave up and reached for her book and a flashlight.
For the next hour she pretended to read while listening for sounds that would tell her what Dean was doing. Even when she heard him extinguish the fire and enter his tent, she was unable to relax. His hand had been on her breast earlier. They shouldn’t be going to bed as strangers.
At length, Calley set aside her book and pulled the sleeping bag over her shoulders. The sound of an owl’s voice echoing off the mountains was the last sound she heard.
Dean lay on his back, staring up at the low ceiling of his tent. If anyone had asked him what he’d been thinking while he sat around the fire, he wouldn’t have been able to come up with an answer that made sense. Certainly he couldn’t tell Calley that he was angry at her.
But he was. He’d told her everything except the intimate details about his romance with Waina. Didn’t he deserve a little something in return? True, he’d let his emotions run away with him by caressing her earlier, but their unthinking fumbling had resulted in an openness that hadn’t been there before. Or so he’d thought.
He could tell her that he knew about her and Mike and force her hand, but that would be a hollow victory. What Dean wanted from Calley was freely given honesty. So she’d been in love with his predecessor on the project. There was no crime in that, nothing to be ashamed of.
But she must be ashamed, or else she would have told him.
Dean sighed and tried to find a comfortable position. For the first time since Melinda and Steve left, he wanted them back. He didn’t want to spend any more time alone with Calley. Not only didn’t he trust himself around her, but he now believed that their relationship was destined to dead-end. Honesty and openness were more than words in Dean’s vocabulary. They were the code by which he wanted to live his life.
It was dark. A deep black greater than any other Dean had ever experienced. He pressed his hands against the ebony sheet but was unable to tear his way through it. The night had wrapped itself around him, shutting him off from every other living thing.
And yet he could hear breathing. Calley’s breathing. She was drawing in her breath through tortured lungs, a scream caught in her throat. Sweat broke out on Dean’s flesh; a wave of heat raced through him. Calley wasn’t alone. Something, the only thing in the world he feared, was with her. Stalking her.
This time Calley’s scream found life. Its high, helpless sound stabbed at Dean’s heart, slicing through his own fear.
She was being attacked. Ripped apart. She was experiencing the agony he knew all too well. In a few minutes it would be over. She would be dead.
Dean was sitting bolt upright before the nightmare lost its hold on him. He sucked in deep lungfuls of night air, waiting for the storm within to subside. When he no longer was being assaulted, he dropped his head and covered his face with his hands. Would it ever go away? Would he ever control his demons?
They were getting worse. Now Calley was part of his nightmare, and that was worse than the act that led to the relentless dream. He knew that trying to go back to sleep was futile. Dean tried to lie back down, but even with his eyes open he could see the monster shape towering over the woman in the other tent.
He had to see her, touch her so he would know she was all right.
Dean slipped out of his tent and tiptoed through the alien night until his outstretched hand found the front flap of Calley’s tent. He could hear her sleep-filled breathing, but until he’d felt her solid against him, he couldn’t be sure. He ducked his head and entered the tent.
Calley stirred when he knelt beside her but didn’t awake until he placed the back of his hand gently against her chest. She didn’t jump at his touch; that warmed him. She sighed deep in her throat and turned her body toward him, drawing her knees up under her. Slowly her eyes opened.
In the morning Dean would never have done what he was doing now, but his nightmare had followed him here, and he had to know, to be sure. He bent his head and brushed his lips across her cheek. Wordlessly, Calley reached for him and drew him down beside her.
Chapter Six
She awoke to the warmth of Dean’s beard on the side of her neck. Calley had no idea when Dean had joined her or why, only that what had begun as a dream had turned into reality. She remembered his hand on her cheek, his whisper that was more sound than words. Through the fog of sleep tangling around her, she’d reached for him and pulled him close.
He was still here hours later. Somehow he must have found enough warmth to allow him to sleep next to her in his underwear, but now his legs were drawn up, with his arms tucked tightly against his body. Calley rolled over and inched her way out of the sleeping bag. Then she grabbed the loose side and wrapped it around Dean.
What was it he had said before they both fell asleep? Something about a dream.
But Calley didn’t think it was a dream at all. She’d heard Dean in the night and knew that whatever gripped him then wasn’t something he would welcome. He’d had another nightmare. Last night it had awakened him and sent him into the dark, seeking her. She wondered if she’d become part of the nightmare and if at last he’d feel like talking about it.
After building another fire, Calley took time to cover her arms and legs with lotion. She brushed her long hair until her scalp tingled, promising herself that tonight she’d heat enough water for a shampoo. Water was ready for coffee by the time Dean came out of her tent.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said as he joined her. “When I was waking up, I thought maybe it was a dream, but I did come into your tent, didn’t I?”
Calley nodded. A crease mark remained along the side of his temple. His tousled hair and still-drooping eyes reminded her of a waking child. “I thought it was a dream, too, when I first woke up. What was it, Dean? Another nightmare?”
“Yeah.” Dean busied himself with pouring coffee for both of them. “You’d think they’d go away after all this time.”
“Do you want to tell me about them?”
“No.
” Dean was staring into the fire, flashes of red and orange dancing in his eyes. “I tried that a couple of times, but it only made them worse.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Do you understand?”
“I hope so.” She wanted to touch him, hold him, to take away some of what he had to live with. At least she should be able to do that for him. “Did you get cold?” she asked. She sounded too much like a mother. “I’m afraid I hogged most of the sleeping bag.”
“It was your bag.” A grin settled around Dean’s mouth. “What’s for breakfast, woman? Since you couldn’t come up with pizza last night, what about crepes this morning?”
Calley affected an elaborate bow. “By all means, sir. Fresh strawberry crepes with cream topping. I’ll be right back. Have to run to the store for the ingredients.”
Dean shrugged. “In that case, I’ll have pancakes. A little water and mix and we’re set.”
Calley went about stirring up the pancake batter while Dean returned to his tent. When he emerged, he was holding his boots with one hand and rubbing his jaw with the other. “What would you think if I shaved?” he asked.
“It depends,” Calley answered slowly. “You don’t happen to have a receding chin, do you?”
Dean felt along his jawline. “I don’t think so. I’ve had this bush for so long I’ve forgotten.”
“Then why would you want to shave it off?”
“I have no idea,” Dean said with a laugh. “I guess I just wanted to see what your reaction would be.”
“Then don’t. I like you with a beard.”
“Why?”
Calley didn’t have an answer for that. At least not one that could easily be translated into words. It had to do with the beard making him even more at one with the elements. “Because we aren’t going to have time today. Didn’t you want to cover the mountain to the east?”