Ariel blinked, wondering what had just happened and why any red-blooded male would reject what she’d offered.
She tried to turn back to him, but only got far enough to press her ear against his chest. His ragged breathing hinted that he hadn’t felt as totally indifferent to her as he had acted. She stretched upward and kissed his throat. His heartbeat escalated. Feelings she’d imprisoned years before somersaulted through her, leaving her as breathless as he sounded.
Touch by touch, taste by taste, the icy core within her thawed against Stone’s warmth, while she consciously seduced him. All too soon, he pulled away, again. This time, he tucked her head under his chin, wrapped his arms around her and sat stiff as his name. Was he afraid of a woman being the aggressor or did this rejection mean he was more afraid of Peter? Or maybe he was just being true to his ladylove. She took a deep breath, wondering if she was more disappointed or relieved. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d ignored logic and been driven by emotions, as she’d been when he’d initially responded to her clumsy attempt at seduction. Mentally, she chalked round one up to him, then sighed and faced forward. He hugged her close. She molded her spine against his chest.
After several minutes of silence, Stone softly asked, “What made you so afraid of guns and airplanes?” Though his words were soft, the question pinpointed the roots of much of the terror, which had permeated her youth.
Ariel tried to move away, but he held her against his heart. If he worked for Peter, he deserved to know the kind of demon her stepfather really was. “When I was small, my stepfather decided to take me hunting.” Why had she started with that incident? Especially when she was trying to win over someone who was obviously a hunter. Ariel took a raged breath, then continued on the path her subconscious had chosen. “I had such high expectations. I mean, he’d asked me and not my stepbrother, his own son …” Tears misted her eyes at the naïve kid she’d been. But she hadn’t stayed immature. “It was the first time he’d actually noticed me and I was so proud.” Somehow, telling Stone about the incident removed the sting from the memory and for the first time, she the full extent of what a trusting child she had been. Her stepfather had known exactly what he was doing and how she would react, yet it had taken her years to realize that he’d manipulated her, then, just as he had so many other times in her life.
When she remained silent, trapped in her thoughts, Stone’s arms tightened around her. “But?” he asked, voice soft as the cool breeze.
“He told me we were going to see wild animals.” She tried to laugh at her childish gullibility, but tears filled her eyes. She swallowed. “Silly me figured we were going to a zoo.” Ariel leaned against Stone’s arm. “Now that I’m an adult, I realize how stupid I was. My stepfather’s den was filled with mounted heads and taxidermied animals he’d slaughtered. But it never occurred to me that those snarling, glassy-eyed creatures had once been alive and that he, personally, had killed them.”
“What’d you think they were?” His voice sounded like a combination of amused interest. “Stuffed toys?”
“Hardly. I thought they were scary… They weren’t anything like my teddy bears, even though some of those were pretty realistic.” She frowned as she thought through childhood impressions. “Actually, in a lot of ways, I thought my toys were more real than those nasty things. Shortly after my mother and I moved into his place, I felt sorry for him for having such horrid toys, so I offered to share mine.”
Stone laughed.
She sighed. “In my defense, I’ll note that I was very young at the time.”
“Too young to know.”
She nodded. “I should have known there was a difference. My toy animals were cute and cuddly. The ones in the den seemed vicious, angry, and some even looked demonic.” As memories threatened to overwhelm her, gooseflesh rippled over her. Stone’s big warm hands rubbed her, as if he knew. Ariel swallowed the lump in her throat.
“How old were you?”
“When he asked me to go on the hunting trip?” He made a sound indicating agreement. “Seven.”
“You were only a kid, operating on the values and facts that you had. Don’t judge your beliefs or actions, now after you’ve had years to gain so much more information.” Stone kissed her forehead. “I’ve seen museum exhibits like the one you described. I wouldn’t I’d like one in my home.”
She could hear the honesty in his voice. “I never went into his den unless I absolutely had to,” she admitted. A compulsion to rid herself of this unpleasant childhood memory seized her. Ariel cleared her throat. “We rode in a jeep to a nearby forest, then sat in a hunting blind. He told me that it was a special place, better than any zoo I’d ever imagined - a place where we would see animals in the wild.” She blinked as tears blurred her vision. “I could barely sit still for my excitement.”
“I can imagine.” His chin settled comfortably on top of her head. “I love coming out here to watch wildlife, too.” She tensed. “But that wasn’t what you stepfather had in mind, was it?”
She made a sound of agreement. He sighed, as if he shared her disappointment, understood that as she’d sat in the hunting blind, she’d let herself believe she’d become someone her stepfather valued and that Peter had come to care about her, as her father had. Oh, how she’d missed her daddy. Ariel blinked back tears. She and her father had always enjoyed spending time together, no matter if they were simply putting together a jigsaw puzzle or taking a grand trip somewhere exotic like a museum. The most fun had been their daddy-daughter days at an amusement park, but the best times had always been that half hour before bedtime, when she’d snuggled into her father’s lap, they’d opened a bedtime story, and he’d rocked her while reading about magic carpets, frontier adventures, missions to mars or her very favorite character, Minnie Mouse.
After the drunk driver had run over him, her mother had been too upset to read to her and she’d been forced to put herself to bed; try to learn to read to herself. Then she’d lie awake in her dark room listening to her mother quietly crying, while hot tears ran down her own cheeks and fear that life would never be more than just an existence, ever again nearly choked her.
Peter had started coming around more and more often, but he’d virtually ignored her, while playing the knight in shining armor for her mother. Gradually, her mother had stopped crying in the dark, but Ariel’s eyes continued to shed tears long after her mother and Peter married.
Then, miraculously, Peter had wanted to spend time with her - her alone. The night after he’d issued the invitation, she’d understood he considered her a person of worth. That night, her pillow had stayed dry.
Sitting there, in the cold with Stone’s warm arms wrapped around her, Ariel looked over the herd of caribou, recalling that ‘special outing’, which turned out to be the first time she glimpsed the sort of ‘knight’ her new stepfather truly was. “After what seemed like years, I noticed the most beautiful spotted cat. It’s coat looked softer than velvet. I don’t know if it sensed me or not, but it stopped and seemed to look right at me. Its eyes were beautiful and trusting, just like my toys.” Her voice cracked. “I can remember thinking we were sitting in that awful blind so we could see animals that were so much nicer that any my stepfather had at home.” She fought back tears.
“He shot it?”
Unable to speak, Ariel nodded. Stone’s arms tightened protectively around her and he growled something under his breath that sounded like ‘scoundrel’. Perhaps Stone knew Peter really well.
Ariel remembered the incident so clearly, that she smelled the pungent scent of death and felt nausea over the realization that her stepfather had wantonly killed something so beautiful. She cleared her throat. “The explosions were so loud that I thought the world had ended.” Her voice still conveyed too much, so she cleared her throat, again. “Blood gushed out of the big beautiful cat’s forehead like a fountain. I couldn’t look at the shock and hurt in its eyes, so I watched the blood splatter on leaves and soak into the
dirt… When it fell down, I started screaming and crying.” Tears trickled down her cheeks, just as they had the first time. But this time, instead of being ridiculed for being too soft, warm hands stroked her back.
“Sounds like a horrible memory.” Stone’s tone conveyed his disgust. “What a rotten thing to do to a kid.”
She nodded. “At that moment, I knew that no matter how much he meant to my mother, I would never like my stepfather.”
Stone kissed her temple. This time she didn’t mind the way he treated her like a child. “The way I shoot animals is with my camera. I only use a weapon when I or someone else is being attacked.”
She pulled away from him, turned, then looked at his big, horrible gun and narrowed her eyes. “What camera?”
His smile seemed boyishly embarrassed, but not guilty, as he dropped his gaze. “I don’t have it this trip. If I did, I’d photograph her.” He slowly raised his arm and pointed to a distant doe, which meticulously munched lichen, while twin fawns cavorted around her slender legs.
His sincerity assured her and prompted her to do something to atone for her suspicions. “Would you like me to draw her for you?”
“Sure.”
She scrambled off his lap and headed toward the family. He lunged after her. The animals froze, muscles tense to flee. Stone’s hand clamped onto her shoulder. “This way.” He grasped her hand, and slowly led her back over the shallow summit. When she glanced back, a herd of suspicious eyes still watched her.
Chapter 7
Stone looked at Ariel’s straight lips and the way her shoulders slumped. Angry or afraid? A blush edged up her neck, then she dropped her gaze to the ground. His arms felt empty without her and his chest felt cold. He took a step to close the distance between them. She stiffened. The caribous’ muscles tightened in preparation to flee. He resisted the desire to touch her – to kiss her. His body protested, but one thing he’d learned from the two times he’d given into temptation, and touched Ariel Danner, she had reacted unlike any of the other sexy divorcee he knew and erected some sort of frosty barrier between them, which was the wrong direction on the thermal scale. Yet, just when he’d decided there was something about him she didn’t want close, she had clung to him for comfort. Women. He let go of her thin shoulder.
She kicked at a rock.
“We need to be quiet,” he murmured. Moving slowly, she looked over her shoulder at the herd, which continued to watch them with quivering attention. Ever so slightly, she inclined her head in agreement. He surveyed the barren landscape, and then added, “We’ll come in down-wind, so we should be able to get close enough to see some details.” Her eyes widened with excitement as her fingers cautiously gestured for him to proceed.
Holding her hand had been better than having her walk behind him, but pushing any physical stuff could lose the points he’d just won. Lord but she felt good in his arms. Too good. Stone’s jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle jumped. He didn’t understand this attraction any better than he’d understood what he’d felt for Marishka. Worse, kissing Ariel Danner had been just as good the second time as the first. Just as exciting. Just as dangerous. Just as confusing.
Why had he let male pride convince him that another kiss would help him forget first one? If anything, the second kiss rekindled feelings that had already monopolized too many unguarded moments.
He didn’t want to become a stepfather, particularly after the one she’d experienced. Didn’t want to give his heart to another person, only to have it ripped out.
It was dishonest of him to let himself or Ariel believe that they could ever share anything deeper. Not that he was certain Ariel wanted him any more permanently than he wanted her. Behind him, the air stirred with a sound that reminded him of Marishka, who had faked sighs of rapture over everything. Stone’s jaw clenched at the memory of the way those sighs had sent him running in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. He should have seen through his ex’s motives sooner. His stomach felt queasy. He consciously forced his muscles to relax so that the poisonous scars his wife had inflicted could continue healing. Immediately, the queasiness vanished.
Rounding a small rise, the grazing herd became visible below the hillock they were now on. The sight of their vast numbers were reminiscent of a dark brooding inlet. Ariel sank to the ground, and then slowly wrapped her legs into a classic yoga pose. Every unhurried motion, filled with grace and sensuality. Oblivious to the affect of her movements on him, she positioned her sketchbook on her lap, took a thick charcoal pencil in hand and soon, her deft, bold strokes began capturing the scene. Stone hunkered down, alternately watching the herd and Ariel as she drew the doe and two fawns, which had captured his attention. He looked from the caribou to the page and back again, amazed at how quickly she’d portrayed the animals’ idiosyncrasies. She turned to a fresh page. Again, with minimal lines, she revealed the powerful strength of a superb buck, which Stone identified as the one staring at them, ready to sound the alarm.
Slow as a receding glacier, Stone settled into a lounging position beside Ariel. Casually, he shifted his gaze to her notebook. Sketch by sketch, she filled two pages with antlers, profiles, eyes that seemed to watch him, muscles seemingly ready to leap off the page and familiar expressions. A tiny illustration of moss appeared in a corner. Along one side, the horizon materialized. Bits and pieces of the life before him sprang into stark relief. Stone narrowed his eyes, trying to see what Ariel saw. Gradually, the buck accepted them and lowered its head to graze.
Ariel turned to a new page, her hand slowed as if she realized the threat of a stampede had passed. She turned her attention back to the doe and twin fawns, which has initially captured their interest.
Why did she teach science if she could draw like this? Shouldn’t she teach art?
Suddenly, the herd raised their heads. Eyes centered on a spot to their right. Muscles quivering, nostrils flaring, they watched the unseen danger. Stone grasped his rifle and clicked off the safety. Abruptly, the herd wheeled and broke into a clumsy gallop, which swiftly changed into a steady ground-eating trot that quickly carried them over the tundra.
Ariel’s pencil moved furiously across the paper, depicting the energy and motion with vigorous strokes.
Abruptly, a bear appeared, running with a gamboling gait. For several moments, it appeared to gain on the herd, but as Stone held his breath; the caribou began to put more distance between themselves and their cinnamon-colored predator.
Rippling fur, clouds of dust and flashing hooves were caught by Ariel’s pencil.
The bear slowed, then stopped. After glaring at the dust cloud, it sat down, an expression of sheer disgust on its face.
Ariel chuckled.
He put his hand over her mouth, leaned close as whispered, “Shhhh. We don’t want it to come after us.” She stiffened, her pencil poised over a beady eye. He let go of her. Inch by inch, Stone brought the muzzle of his Winchester forward. Ariel’s whiskey-colored eyes widened, the hand holding her pencil remained immobile and her breath caught in her throat. For what seemed like an eternity, they watched the bear sniff the air.
Stone prayed the beast would move away and he wouldn’t have to harm it to save himself and Ariel. Icy tentacles reached up from the ground. Frozen glares came from Ariel. Mid-winter on a seventy below day would feel warmer.
~0~
Ariel tried not to shiver. Tired not to think about how secure she’d felt touching Stone O’Banyon. Yet, moment-by-moment, her body felt more paralyzed, but she wasn’t sure if it was due to the frozen tundra beneath her bottom, his preoccupation with the bear or the sight of deadly steel in his hands.
Nose high, the bear searched for new prey. “Thank God we’re downwind.” Stone’s soft words seemed more a thought than a statement. Ariel wrinkled her nose against the bruin’s unwashed odor and marveled that the beast could smell anything other than it’s own stench.
Which would come first, frostbite or freedom?
Stone’s aim never wavered.
Frostbite, freedom or bloodshed?
Other than an occasional blink and the soft sound of breathing, Stone seemed petrified. Her muscles would be shrieking in agony if she had to hold a gun up that long.
Yet, as the chill wrapped her in its coils, she became aware of Stone’s calm protectiveness and a strange peace permeated her.
After what seemed like an eternity, the bear rose and ambled away in the direction the caribou had taken. Freedom! With a soft groan of relief, Stone laid the rifle across his lap. He stretched the kinks out of his arms, back and neck, and then traced her jaw with the pad of his callused thumb. “Don’t worry, I would only have shot him if it was absolutely necessary for our survival.”
How endearing his dimples looked, how warm his gentle touch felt. Ariel shook her head to clear her traitorous thoughts. Tall, dark, handsome men were worse than Ebola. As if reading her thoughts, he gave her a sad smile. “You really think I’m that much like your stepfather, just because I own a gun?”
Ariel shook her head in denial then scrambled to her feet. Had she unfairly categorized Stone O’Banyon based on his looks? Or on his choice of weapon? Perhaps. Ariel’s right leg protested. She bent over began messaging the knotted muscles. “It’s not every day someone is willing to save my life.” She straightened in time to see him working his own kinks out. Without thinking, she moved behind him, reached up, grasped his solid, broad shoulders and began kneading the knotted muscles. Stone made a sound of protest. “This is the least I can do to say thank you.” And it kept him quiet, so she could massage his muscles while she analyzed the past few moments. She’d always loved the beautiful harmony of nature and when she had the luxury of drawing, she tried to capture it on paper, but in one fleeting moment of pursuit, the bear had taught her that there was a harmony to all phases of life – even the dark side.
Fatal Attractions Page 10