Wild and Free
Page 16
The afternoon was warm. Hawk warned her that the glacier took on a totally different character when touched by the sun. Twice she heard distant sounds, as if a rifle were being shot, as the ice cracked. Under her feet the ice creaked and groaned. The wind murmured a giant shiver through the ice beneath her feet.
“It’s awesome,” Calley breathed once they were back in the car. “It makes me appreciate modern transportation. It’s hard to believe we could practically drive up to a glacier.”
“Remember the time the three of us flew into McCarthy?” Hawk asked Dean. “You couldn’t get over the fact that there were children living clear out there being taught by their parents. That the place was too small to support a single schoolteacher. That was before you’d seen some of the really remote Indian villages.” Hawk glanced at Calley. “Dean wants everyone to think he’s an expert. You should have seen him rubbernecking the first time he was here.”
Four hours after leaving Anchorage, Hawk reluctantly admitted they should return to the hotel if they were going to be prepared for the meeting tomorrow. The two men disappeared into a bar in the hotel while Calley went upstairs to change into slacks. She felt a little self-conscious about entering the bar alone, but when she spotted Dean in the dim light, she was no longer aware that anyone else was there. She was hundreds of miles from home, in a city where she knew no one. It didn’t matter. The man smiling at her was the only one in the world who existed for her.
Calley controlled her smile and took a deep breath. For once in her life she was going to make an entrance. She held her head high, walking with slow steps around the small tables, vaguely aware that several men were watching her. No wonder, she decided without conceit. Dean’s eyes were telling her that she was desirable; that was how she felt.
“I’m still trying to talk Dean into taking the time to join me in McKinley after this nonsense is over,” Hawk said after Dean ordered white wine for her. “You want to see my turf, don’t you? Take the Cook’s tour? I can get you closer to the Dall sheep than you’d ever get on your own.” Hawk turned toward Dean. “You haven’t been up there since…” His voice trailed off.
“No, I haven’t.” There was a quiet warning in Dean’s words. “I don’t think we’re going to have time, after all, Hawk.”
“Yeah?” Hawk was looking at Dean with an intensity Calley couldn’t ignore. “Then when are you going to have time, Dean?”
Dean’s hand tightened around the beer mug he was holding. His voice came from somewhere deep in his chest. “Why don’t you let me worry about that. Who is going to be at this meeting, anyway? It seems like that’s what we should be talking about.”
Calley didn’t try to enter the conversation as Hawk gave Dean a thumbnail sketch of the people they would be meeting. Something had happened a moment ago that had been like a knife slicing through a deep friendship. Obviously Hawk thought he could bring something up. Just as clearly, Dean was shutting himself off from whatever that was. As far as Calley could tell, Dean had been in favor of going into the national park when they were in Montana. Now, it seemed, he was doing everything possible to avoid the place. Calley remembered Dean’s sudden silence when the pilot pointed out Mount McKinley rising stark and silent out of the clouds. There had been something out there that was now eating away at him.
Even when they left the bar for a simple dinner Calley was unable to ignore the tension that had become part of Dean. It was almost as if he’d forgotten that she was there. He was so intent on making sure that Hawk said only the right things that he couldn’t concentrate on her. She wondered if she could get up from the dinner table without Dean noticing. That hurt not because Calley felt she should be the center of attention but because she didn’t want the barrier Dean had placed between himself and his old friend to extend to her, as well.
As soon as they were finished eating, Hawk excused himself by saying he wanted to go over his notes before morning. Calley lingered over coffee, watching Dean’s stony profile in the dim light. “Why don’t you want to go to McKinley?” she finally asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Dean wasn’t looking at her.
“Yes, you did,” Calley pressed. “Not in so many words, maybe, but you’re tight as a spring; I’m feeling it now, and I felt it when we saw the mountain from the plane window. I thought you wanted to come to Alaska.”
“I thought I did, too. I did,” Dean amended. He ran his hand over his forehead, pressing it tightly against his eyes. “It took a long time for you to tell me about your parents.”
“And that has something to do with what you’re going through?” Calley prompted. She touched his hand, but he still didn’t look at her.
“Don’t push it, Calley.” Dean moved back his chair and rose quickly to his feet. “We have to go.”
Damn him. Calley leaned back in her chair, eyes blazing with an anger she had no words for. “You go,” she said tightly. “I haven’t finished my coffee.”
Dean left her. Calley didn’t think he was going to, but in less time than it took her to blink, she was staring at his retreating back.
It was wrong for us to come here, Calley thought as she wrapped her hands around the cup of coffee she no longer wanted. Something was here, something Dean wanted out of his life. She could, she knew, run after Dean and insist that he let her be part of his thoughts, but she didn’t. She understood that there were times when a man needed to be alone.
But that didn’t mean that being alone and left ignorant was good for her. Calley had come here because she wanted to be with Dean. Somehow she would have to find the key that would release what was bottled up inside him. Five minutes after Dean left, she, too, headed toward the elevator that would take her to their floor. But it wasn’t Dean’s room she headed toward.
She stood outside Hawk’s room, hesitating a moment, and then knocked. “I was expecting Dean,” Hawk said when he opened it.
“I won’t stay long,” Calley promised. She stepped into the room and slowly turned back toward the tall man. “How long have you known Dean?”
Hawk frowned. “Years.” He sat on the edge of his bed and waited for Calley to settle herself in one of the chairs in the room. “How long have you known him?”
“A few weeks.” Was that all it was? It seemed to Calley that Dean had been part of her emotions forever. “What was he like? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Don’t you know?” Hawk leaned forward. His dark eyes never left Calley.
“I’m not sure. I thought I did.” She ran her hand over her forehead with the same weary gesture Dean had used. “A few minutes ago I tried to ask him what was bothering him, but he walked out on me.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No. I was hoping you would.”
Hawk pushed himself to his feet. His long legs took him to a window overlooking the city and the distant mountains. “Don’t ask this of me, Calley. I’m not going to rat on Dean.”
She should have expected this from Dean’s friend. “I’m not asking you to rat on him,” she pressed. “I just want to know if—if I’m going to regret asking him to open up to me.”
Hawk turned back around. “I can’t answer that for you, Calley. I don’t know what’s going on inside Dean’s head. I think I do, but I can’t be sure.”
“What do you think it is?”
Hawk shook his head. “I’m not the one you should be asking.”
“I know.” Calley sighed. She’d been wrong to put Hawk on the spot. Only Dean could answer her questions, and only when he was ready. “There’s one thing you can tell me,” she said as she got to her feet. “You said there were three of you when you flew into McCarthy. Who was the other one?”
“My sister. Waina.”
Chapter Ten
Calley felt nothing; either that or she was feeling too much to be able to assimilate it all. The clues had been there from the moment she knew Hawk existed, but somehow she’d made herself ignore them.
“Your s
ister was the woman Dean was going to marry.” The words were spoken without emotion.
“Dean didn’t tell you?” Hawk shook his head angrily. “Who knows what’s going on in that man’s head. Sit down, Calley. I’m going to tell you some things about Dean and my sister. If he doesn’t want you to know these things, he can take that up with me later.”
Calley sat. Dean had made love to her. His actions, words and emotions told her that she was important to him in ways that went far beyond the physical. She could learn about his past without pain. “I think I know most of it,” she said softly. “He has talked about her. There was a cultural difference between them.”
Hawk was studying her closely. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the windowsill. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m Haida, too, but that hasn’t prevented Dean and me from being close. In fact, despite the fact that we don’t see each other often, I consider Dean one of my closest friends. But there are some things about our upbringing that you have to understand.” Hawk paused a moment and then told her about two children born to an Indian couple in a remote village. The older child, the son, was sent to boarding school in Anchorage during his early years, but by the time Waina was ready for school, the parents had seen the error of their ways.
“I was turning into a white man,” Hawk explained. “When I came home for vacation, I’d changed in ways my parents didn’t approve of. I’d become worldly. There were things I wanted to experience that I couldn’t in a remote village without electricity. I knew I’d never be able to come back to the village and raise a family the way my parents had planned. I didn’t think I was turning my back on my heritage, but they did. It wasn’t enough that I was determined to dedicate my life to preserving Alaska. They wanted me to live in a cabin, raise lots of babies and spend my days hunting, fishing and gathering firewood. I knew I’d go crazy if I tried to fit that mold.”
“Waina wasn’t sent away to school?” Calley asked. Hawk was a handsome man by any standards. His dark features and coal-black hair, coupled with his powerful build, would have drawn attention anywhere. It wasn’t hard to imagine Waina with the same kind of handsome good looks. “She’s a trained wildlife researcher. How did that happen?”
Hawk pushed himself away from the window and sat back down on the bed. He looked penned in by his surroundings. “Waina was taught through correspondence courses until she was ready for high school. Many of Waina’s playmates never really learned how to read, but she’s an educated woman. At least my parents didn’t try to deny her brains. She was sent to live with relatives so she could go to school in Haines. It wasn’t the small village she was used to, but it was far different from Anchorage, and she lived with people who were carrying on a lot of the old traditions.”
Calley nodded. “In other words, Waina didn’t get out into the world until she had a strong concept of what it meant to be Haida.”
“Exactly,” Hawk said, and Calley thought she detected a sadness in his eyes at his words. “Sometimes I feel like shaking my sister because she’s so stubborn, but she has a strong sense of what she is. I don’t. I’m the superintendent of a national park, but I’m not sure I know what I am inside.” Hawk tapped himself on the chest. “Trying to bridge two cultures has affected my sister and me in different ways.”
Calley took a deep breath. She had only one question left for Hawk. “And that’s the only reason Waina and Dean broke up? Because there’s that much difference between what they are?”
Hawk neither shook nor nodded his head. “There’s more to it than that, Calley. But that has to come from Dean, not me.”
Calley rose to her feet. She hadn’t really expected a pat explanation for a complex human relationship. As she started for the door, she realized what made Dean and Hawk close friends. Hawk might look as if he should be on a whaling boat, but there was much more to the man than a native trying to survive a hostile land. Hawk, like Dean, cared about what took place in the hearts and minds of those they knew. They’d sensed that about each other; that formed the frame for their friendship.
“Thank you,” she said. “I just hope Dean will be as honest with me as you were.”
“I hope so, too, Calley. I believe the man loves you, but there’s a lot tied up inside him.”
Hawk believed Dean loved her. It was those simple and yet complex words that gave Calley the courage to enter the room she was sharing with Dean. She wasn’t fully inside before she sensed, rather than knew, that he wasn’t there. Calley turned on the light and kicked off her shoes. A glance at the desk told her that Dean hadn’t touched the material he intended to present in the morning. There was no note for her.
Calley took a long shower before dressing in the silky floor-length garment she’d received as a birthday present three years ago and had never worn. The soft, pastel yellow fabric did almost nothing to hide her curves; that was precisely why Calley had brought it. Dean would eventually return to their room. She wanted to be ready for him.
She tried to pass the time by sorting through the volumes on endangered species, but because her ears were tuned to the sound of a door being unlocked, she was unable to concentrate. Neither Dean nor Hawk had said anything about whether she would be allowed to be present at the meetings, but unless someone barred her, she planned to attend. She’d never seen Dean defending his position where grizzlies were concerned. She wanted to hear the passion she knew he’d bring to the topic.
An hour after her shower, Calley heard the sound she was waiting for. She tensed, both ready and nervous about seeing him again. Dean stepped through the door; the look he gave her told her nothing. “I didn’t know if you’d be here,” he said.
“Where else would I go?”
“I don’t know.” Silently Dean ate up the distance separating them. He stood over her, his hands inclined toward her. “I’m sorry.”
That was all she had to hear. His words made the waiting worth it. “You don’t ever have to be sorry for what you are,” she whispered as she rose to meet him. He smelled of smoke, and there was liquor on his breath, but nothing in his manner indicated that he’d had too much to drink. She pictured him alone in the dark bar, alone with his thoughts.
She didn’t want Dean to be alone ever again. He’d done so much for her. It was time to give as much as she had taken. “I’ve been talking to Hawk.”
A deep shudder disturbed the pattern of Dean’s breathing. “I thought you might have. What did he tell you?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t have been able to piece together on my own. He said that if I wanted to know more about you, not Waina, that I should come to you.” Calley tried to focus on what she was saying and not on the fact that Dean wasn’t touching her, hadn’t kissed her, but that was impossible. Wanting Dean in her arms and in her bed had become almost a physical pain. “He’s a remarkable man, Dean. There aren’t many like him.”
“I know.” Dean looked down at her. His lips were so close that she felt as if she might fall apart with wanting him. “Do you want me here? I acted like a fool earlier.”
Calley fingered the folds of her nightgown. “Do I look as if I want you here?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Dean’s arms went around her. Calley leaned into him, burying her freshly shampooed hair against his chest. “I think you do.”
“Then—” Calley didn’t try to say the rest. She tilted her head upward, wanting only one thing. Dean’s kiss was sweeter than any she’d experienced in her lifetime.
Calley was helping Dean out of his shirt before she spoke again. “I wish I understood you better,” she said softly. “There’s this wall I keep banging into. I’m not even sure you know it’s there.”
Dean knew, all right. In the past hour he’d gone over a thousand times what he eventually had to tell her. The words were simple enough, and the telling wouldn’t take long, but tonight Dean wanted to make love to the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, not tell her that he wasn’t as much of a man as he wanted to be for her.
Calley laughed. “Why do you think I brought it?” she whispered.
When Dean was wearing nothing from the waist up, he wrapped Calley against him. He’d done such a damn stupid number on himself while sipping on the beer he couldn’t taste. He’d tried to face having to come back to the hotel room to find her gone. He’d told himself he deserved that. But she’d been waiting for him; she had readied herself for him. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t—Was it possible that Calley Stewart loved him?
“I don’t deserve you,” Dean admitted. His lips found her offered throat and tasted a sweetness that registered throughout him.
“I don’t deserve you, Dean.” She was looking up at him with the same naked desire he felt.
How wrong she was. Calley was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. She was as strong and independent and proud of herself as Waina had been. But Waina hadn’t been able to give him all of her heart. He didn’t think it was that way for Calley.
“Don’t say that, Calley,” Dean whispered as he started inching the silk gown upward. “Don’t ever think that of yourself. You have so much to give.”
Slowly Dean stripped Calley of the tantalizing garment. When she stood naked and trembling slightly before him, he showed her with actions and not words that she was totally desirable. He ran his hands down the soft flesh of her arms, placed her hands around his waist and, still standing, bent over and took her left breast between his lips. He ran his tongue around the nipple until it jutted out in arousal. He would have liked to test the limits of his ability to excite her, but his need for her was too great to allow a lengthy foreplay. As he lowered her onto the bed and joined her, he wondered if the time would ever come when he didn’t feel a sense of urgency about their lovemaking.
Calley was stretched out on the bed, turned slightly toward him, giving him access to her entire body. Breathing deeply but too rapidly, Dean accepted her gift. Her breasts were made for being covered by his hands and mouth. She gasped in delight when he ran his tongue from her breasts down to her belly. Calley was no placid lover. She found his chest and ribs and hipbones, at last shyly running her fingers over his arousal. With that gesture, Dean lost whatever rational thought remained. He wanted to explore much much more of her, but the heat pounding through his veins couldn’t be denied. Gently, Dean lifted himself over her. He found her mouth and fastened on it, surrendered his separate self to her. His climax came quickly; it was joined by hers.