Lover's Leap

by Pamela Browning

  “I didn’t think you’d mind company,” he said.

  “You could’ve asked.”

  “Sometimes…” he said, but he didn’t finish.

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Sometimes it isn’t necessary to ask certain people.”

  She lay back, wishing that she hadn’t worn her oldest bikini, the one with the mustard stain. She also wished that her breasts, already showing signs of her impending motherhood, didn’t push the limits of decency by swelling out of the top of her bra.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, although she knew perfectly well what Tate meant. It was clear that he occasionally perceived what she was thinking even before she did.

  “I think you know,” he said. Sunlight warmed his eyes into a quizzical smile, which she did not return.

  She flipped over on her stomach. “I know that we’re talking in circles,” she said. The memory of his lips on her skin yesterday at the pond made her turn her head away and pillow it on her arms. In that position, she couldn’t see him, but she was fully aware of him only a foot or so away from her. For a moment, she wanted to tug her swimsuit bottom down to cover more of her derrière but decided against it.

  “Right now you’re wishing that you had more clothes on,” he said only inches from her ear, his voice light and teasing.

  She felt herself start to blush and kept her face turned away.

  “Don’t you have something to do? When are you going to buy me that new canoe?” she said crossly.

  “Soon,” he said.

  “Fine. Now will you please leave me in peace?”

  “No. I want to ask you about something.”

  “Who says I want to answer?”

  “Don’t get your back up until you know what it’s about. Maggie, about the dream that you had last night, the one about Lover’s Leap.”

  Maggie’s mouth fell open. She lifted herself on her elbows, the insufficient bikini top forgotten. “How—how did you know?”

  He looked steadily into her eyes. “I had the same dream.”

  “You?” she said, unbelieving.

  He nodded. “Me,” he said.

  “How did you know that I—”

  “Call it whatever you like, but I sensed that you were anxious about the dream, and so am I.”

  “Tell me what you dreamed,” she said in a small voice.

  He told her, his voice dispassionate and his eyes anything but, and his dream was the same as hers in every detail except that he didn’t mention how she had called out that she loved him before she lost sight of him as he was swept over the falls.

  “That’s the same dream,” she said in astonishment. “Exactly the same, Tate. What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know. It certainly seemed very real.”

  Maggie agreed. “Did you feel a kind of déjà vu? As if you’d been there, done that?”

  “Yes, and it was similar to the way I felt the day I jumped into your canoe. As if it were meant to happen, as if I’d known all my life that I would meet you in that way, as if I were driven to do it.” His brow was furrowed in thought.

  She ignored what he said about being driven to meet her, which was, in her opinion, only nonsense. Anyway, she was in the process of making certain connections. “It’s the legend,” she said softly. “The legend of Peg Macintyre.”

  “That old Lover’s Leap story? I’ve heard about it, but I thought it was some chamber of commerce publicity hype for the tourists,” Tate said. He sounded cynical.

  Maggie sat up, eager to enlighten him. “No, Tate, the legend is based in truth. It really happened. Peg Macintyre was my great-grandmother several times over, and the story has been passed down in my family for ages. I’ve heard it since I was a little girl, how Peg lost her Indian brave lover in an accident at Lover’s Leap. I bought a pamphlet that tells the story. Would you like to read it?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. I just don’t know how much stock I’d put in it, that’s all,” he said, clearly skeptical.

  “Wait,” Maggie said. She got up and fairly flew inside the house, returning with the booklet that she’d bought from Jacob Pinter. In her haste she forgot about the skimpiness of her bikini, and as she walked back across the clearing from the cabin, she was aware of the appreciation in Tate’s eyes, an appreciation of her form and figure which only minutes ago would have made her unbearably self-conscious. At the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Her body would soon change, and men probably wouldn’t look at her with interest again until after the baby was born. She might as well, she thought recklessly, enjoy the attention.

  “Look, the story of Peg and her Cherokee lover is in chapter three,” she said, sitting down on the lounge and leafing through the pages to the right place. “Read this.”

  Tate bent his head close to hers, his hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing. It fell loosely across his shoulders, and Maggie fought the childish urge to touch it to find out if it felt as sleek as it looked. She had never seen hair so black; it was as black as ebony, as black as a starless night, as black as—

  “Tsani,” Tate said suddenly, and she yanked herself back from her dangerous thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Peg’s lover’s name was Tsani. I thought you were saying ‘Sunny,’ but the words sound alike.”

  “I? I wasn’t there. It was Peg Macintyre,” Maggie said.

  “Yes, of course. In my dream she looked like you.”

  Gathering her thoughts, she stared off into the distance at Breadloaf Mountain. “I still can’t believe that we had the same dream at the same time,” she said to Tate. He was paging through the booklet.

  He looked up, marking his place with a forefinger. “Neither can I.” He was thoughtful and contemplative. After a moment, he continued to read, and she waited for him to finish.

  “Peg was going to have a baby,” Maggie said when Tate looked up from the printed pages.

  “I know. Tsani’s baby. The book says that she married someone else shortly after Tsani was swept over the falls to his death.”

  “According to family legend, she married an older man who had asked for her hand in marriage before she became pregnant with Tsani’s child. Peg had refused him and planned to run away with Tsani, whom her parents had forbidden her to marry. She hated the older man, so it must have been awful for her to have to marry him just to have a father for her child.” Her eyes welled with tears on behalf of the hapless Peg.

  As they threatened to spill down her cheeks, she hated herself for being so emotional. She wasn’t normally that way. Usually she could make jokes or toss off quips that got her off any emotional hooks, but since she’d become pregnant, she’d turned into a one-woman waterworks.

  Tate saw the tears and reached toward her. “Maggie,” he said, but before he could finish, she was up and away, rushing toward the cabin and the blessed privacy it provided.

  He caught her just inside the door. “You don’t need to hide your emotions from me,” he said roughly, reaching for her and pulling her toward him.

  “I’m acting ridiculous,” she said through a blur of tears. “I don’t know why I should care about a woman who lived so long ago.”

  Tate held her by her upper arms. “You care because you have a kind heart,” he said.

  Maggie blinked away her tears as she felt him ease his hold on her arms. She didn’t want him to release her. She hungered for the touch of another human, and even though she knew that she was inviting a continuation of the scene that had begun yesterday at the pond, she couldn’t make herself pull away. She needed his strength and solidity. She took a deep breath; the scent of him was wonderfully redolent of pine and cedar with a slight undertone of wood smoke.

  “I thought—I thought for a moment that I felt Peg’s anguish as she must have felt it,” Maggie whispered. She had also heard the faint strain of dulcimer music that had become so familiar, a sad, poignant tune.

  “Oh, Maggie,” Tate said, wrapping his arms around her
.

  She stood motionless. Somewhere a faucet dripped, but it seemed far away. Outside, she heard the trill of a mockingbird. She felt insulated from the world in Tate’s embrace, separated from reality by a lovely warm luminescence that enveloped both of them. At the moment, the urge to cry was gone. Taking its place was the urge to do something entirely different.

  Tate’s hands inscribed slow circles on her bare back. It felt so good to be held and touched and pressed against the long length of him. The hard metal of his belt buckle cut into her stomach, and the firm muscles of his chest flattened her sensitive breasts.

  His hands moved upward, still circling, until his fingers threaded through the hair on the nape of her neck. They massaged gently, and she let her eyes drift shut as she gave in to his ministrations. His fingers were cool against her sunwarmed scalp and she leaned toward him, thinking that Kip had never been so thoughtful or so nurturing.

  Tate moved one hand slowly to her waist, skimming his hand over the fastening of her bra, but she didn’t react. Instead she thought about how easy it would be to guide his cool hands to the scraps of fabric that clothed her; the fabric could be easily pushed aside. His hands, those hands that understood how to soothe her so well, would know exactly how to hold her breasts, the thumbs brushing her aching nipples until she arched backward and invited more intimate caresses. Thinking of it, her skin tingled in anticipation and desire. She drew a long shuddering breath, desperately wanting to let instinct take over, to stop thinking about what she should or shouldn’t do and let it happen.

  Let it happen, urged her inner voice. Just let it. Or was it her inner voice? She angled her head to look up at Tate, wondering if it was he who had said those words. But no, he was only looking at her with compassion, a look that melted her resistance. She felt drenched in a sudden, inexplicable eroticism; it made her tremble within his embrace.

  She lifted her head only a fraction more, and the light of understanding leaped in his eyes.

  For a moment his pupils darkened, and he slid both of his hands through her hair until it spilled from his fingers. “Yes,” he whispered, and he dipped his head and kissed her.

  The kiss was very tender and very brief, and it engendered a dizzying wave of emotion. It also brought her immediately to her senses.

  “Tate, no,” she said. With those words, whatever spell had held her in its grip was broken. The magic was gone.

  He immediately dropped his arms, those strong arms that could enfold her completely if he chose to do so and if she chose to let them. But their eyes held fast until Maggie made herself look away.

  Her swimsuit had never seemed so brief; she felt as if she were all bare skin and raw emotions. She made tracks across the room, putting distance between them as quickly as possible, and tried to make light of what had just happened.

  “I mean, I know you must think I’m teasing you, acting the way I do, but the truth is I’m confused and upset, and now this dream, and—oh, I don’t know what I think,” she said. She knew that she was babbling as was her habit when nervous, and she hated herself for it.

  “That’s obvious, since you keep sending mixed signals,” Tate agreed equably. When she risked a look at him, she saw that he had folded his arms across his chest and stood regarding her with an upraised eyebrow.

  “I hate sending conflicting messages. I never say one thing and mean another, and now I do it all the time. I wish I could stop.”

  “I don’t. I like you exactly the way you are.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know how I am or about my life or—listen, Tate, what you like isn’t reliable or real, it isn’t even me.” She covered her face with her hands, then realized that there were other places that she should be covering first. She went into the bedroom and slipped on a robe.

  When she returned, Tate was standing in front of the living room window and looking out. He turned when he heard her approach. His gaze traveled beyond her to the bedroom, and for a split second she knew that he was looking at the picture of Kip on the dresser. His eyes quickly focused on her face, his expression unreadable.

  “Look, Tate,” she began.

  “I’ve looked at you. That was part of the problem.”

  She ran trembling fingers through her hair, then realized from the way he was studying her that it had been an unconsciously provocative gesture.

  “This is getting out of hand,” she muttered, turning away.

  “I’m not going to take advantage of you. That’s a promise,” he said, and there was something so fierce in his voice that she whirled to look at him.

  “What I mean is that someone has already hurt you. I’m not going to pursue you if that’s not what you want. I don’t want to add to your pain in any way.” His nostrils flared, and she sensed a passion that, once unleashed, would be impossible to restrain. She knew that she had caught a glimpse of Tate’s nature that was usually well hidden. It piqued her curiosity, but only for a moment.

  “And if I were to encourage you?” She was immediately sorry after these words escaped her lips. She had never been coy.

  He looked down at her from his considerable height. “Believe me, Maggie Macintyre, if that was the case, I’d take you up on it. So don’t start any fires that you intend to put out. There will be no quenching mine once it is lit.”

  If this was a comic strip, Maggie thought, this is the time when my character would say Gulp. But there was nothing remotely funny about this. Tate was dead serious.

  Walk over to him and put your arms around him, urged the voice.

  “No,” said Maggie, clearly and distinctly.

  Tate stared at her for one long moment, his eyes burning into her like black coals. It struck her that he thought she had spoken to him; how could she explain otherwise? How could she tell him she’d lately heard a female voice that instructed her about how to act, what to do? If she so much as mentioned it, Tate Jennings would be sure that her head wasn’t screwed on right.

  Tate shook his head as if to clear it. “I don’t know how you do it, but whenever I’m around you I want to touch you and kiss you and—my God, woman, I think you bewitch me!” With a muttered oath he wheeled and stalked out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

  Me and the Tsagoomahs, she almost said, but he was gone too fast. In the echoing aftermath of his dramatic exit, while she stood both shocked and titillated by his display of temper, Maggie thought she heard the echo of distant laughter. Voices, laughter, music—what did they mean? Did Tate hear them, too?

  She turned to the window to watch him go. He was striding toward the forest as if—well, as if some of his annoying Little People were chasing him. This brought a smile to her lips, but it faded when she saw that the bird’s nest with the robin’s egg, which she had left on the sill since the day she’d found it, was gone.

  Tate must have taken it. Did that also mean that he had left it in the first place?

  And exactly what kind of kicks did Tate Jennings get out of depositing a bird’s nest on her windowsill and then taking it away again?

  THE NEXT DAY Tate felt a need for a break from Maggie. He wasn’t comfortable with what had happened yesterday at the cabin; they’d both acted strangely. He’d heard dulcimer music, and he was willing to bet that Maggie had heard it, too. He hadn’t mentioned it because they’d had other things to say to each other that were more important. Still, he kept playing the plaintive tune over and over in his mind, and he kept thinking about the dream that he and Maggie had shared.

  Tate decided that it was high time to buy the canoe and that he would go into Scot’s Cove to do it. At the last minute, he decided to stop by his apartment and put on a suit, a rare occurrence these days, and on the way into town, he dropped in to see his boss at Conso. He’d been back only a few times since beginning his leave of absence, and a visit was way overdue.

  The development company had built a large ultramodern office building on the highway, and Tate parked his motorcycle in the reserved par
king space that bore his name. When he went inside and asked to see his boss, he was amused at first that he was announced like a visitor rather than an employee and less amused when he was made to cool his heels for an aggravating period of time in the anteroom to the corporate executives’ offices.

  As he was becoming even more impatient, his colleague, Don Chalmers, who was manager of the marketing department, saw him waiting and strolled out of his office to chat. Tate had the feeling that Don was using this opportunity to size him up, although they were equals in the corporate structure and had always been friendly. Now he thought he sensed a cautious reserve in Don’s manner. It puzzled him.

  When at last Tate was ushered into the inner sanctum, Karl Shaeffer, who was not only his boss and Don’s but also vice president of Marketing and Public Relations, walked around his big carved desk and clapped Tate on the back. “Good to see you!” he said heartily, pumping Tate’s hand.

  Karl invited Tate to sit down and returned to the big leather chair behind his desk. “So,” he said. “I suppose you’re ready to get back to work soon.” He thumbed through a stack of file folders, trying to find something. “I’m glad you showed up, since there are some points that we should discuss. Lots of things will be going on when you return,” he said.

  “You’d better clue me in,” Tate said.

  Karl ran a stubby forefinger down a list. “As soon as you come back, you’ll be making the rounds of all the local civic clubs for lunch. We’ve booked you with Kiwanis, Civitan, Rotary and so on. We want you to make similar speeches to all of them to quiet their fears about the Balsam Heights mobile home park on Breadloaf Mountain, which, as you know, is slated to begin construction this summer. You’ll say something positive about how construction will bring jobs and dollars into town, keep the young people at home doing healthful outdoors work instead of wandering off to the cities to get jobs flipping burgers, that kind of thing. You know the drill.”

  Tate did. He had helped carve out the original strategy to create a positive corporate image in Scot’s Cove. He felt a sick lump growing in the pit of his stomach now when he thought about how easy it had been to insinuate himself into the locals’ good graces. In their innocence, they had wanted to believe that Conso would end economic deprivation here; they’d been delighted with the sprucing up of their deteriorating downtown area, and they hadn’t thought about the larger consequences of development.