Judgement by Fire

by Lydia Grace

  Then a gentle hand came down on her shoulder, and without turning around, she knew Jon stood behind her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she couldn’t bear to look at his beloved face or let him see the depths of unhappiness written on hers.

  “I don’t know where my purse is—my keys are in it,” she muttered, keeping her face averted.

  “You’re in no condition to drive. Come on, I’ll take you home, and then you can sort something out about the purse and your keys tomorrow.”

  How could she explain to him that being with him was the one thing she dreaded the most in the world—and wanted the most? She couldn’t bear to see the hurt she knew must mark his face—hurt she had put there with her lack of trust and love. No, no, not lack of love. If anything, she overflowed with love for the man who stood beside her, his hand still resting on her shoulder, its warmth burning through her jacket into her very bones. At this moment, however she had no words to tell him so.

  Mutely, she nodded and began to walk alongside him towards the police station where the big black company Jeep stood sentinel. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks on the silent drive back to Haverford Castle, and she tried to avert her face as she jumped out of the Jeep the moment it stopped in front of her studio. She wasn’t fast enough though. Jon caught up with her on her doorstep, his eyes looking haunted in a pale face washed with weak moonlight. When he saw the tears on her cheeks his look softened, and he rummaged in a jacket pocket to pull out a large snowy white handkerchief.

  As he mopped the silver droplets from her cheeks and eyes, Lauren looked up into his face and saw the love, the hurt, and the terrible need that shone there, and knew she was lost. She didn’t need words to mend this breach between them. Her arms went up of their own accord, weaving around his neck as she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheeks, his eyes, and his forehead. He stood stock still before her, his arms down at his sides, as her hands moved downwards, inside his jacket, and smoothed the hard muscles that rippled at the touch of her fingers through the lightweight fabric of the dress shirt he wore.

  When her lips wove a moonlit path from the base of his throat, over his jaw, and captured his lips with their sweetness, Jon groaned in surrender, his arms wrapping tightly around her as he lowered his head, the better to devour her mouth. His lips joined with hers, a dance of love, and then his mouth claimed the kiss, possessing hers in a capture that demanded she give him everything.

  Now it was Lauren’s turn to surrender and she did so with joy. It seemed a long time later when the headlights of an oncoming car captured them still locked together in each other’s arms, and they parted reluctantly. Lauren’s cheeks burned with sudden embarrassment as she realized they were framed in the harsh glow of the headlights from the police car Mike Ohmer had promised to send to watch over the studio and Lauren.

  “The least he could do is dim his damned headlights,” Jon muttered, and Lauren laughed aloud.

  “It’s awful cold out here, and the front door’s locked. Should we go inside where it’s at least a little warmer?” Lauren invited the message in her eyes clear enough for Jon to read even in the dim moonlight. At his nod, Lauren led him around the back of the cottage and bent to retrieve the spare key that lay beneath a clay pot of newly sprouting nasturtiums on the doorstep. Handing it to him, she smiled to hear him murmur a less than admiring comment about her security system, but as the door swung open Lauren drew in a sharp breath.

  Swallowing hard against the memory of the last time she’d walked into her home, Lauren swung her gaze to Jon.

  “Would you mind—would you go in first? I know it’s bound to be all right, and I know everyone chipped in to clean the place up, but…”

  She was grateful to see his understanding nod and braced herself as she followed him through the doorway and into a room she didn’t recognize. Jon flipped on the lights, and Lauren choked in a breath.

  Nothing was the same. Her bright Afghans and the heavy, old-fashioned armchair and sofa they’d blanketed were gone. The heavy old farm weigh scale she’d used as a coffee table was still there, but a discreet lace cover managed to camouflage the worst of the terrible scratches that tapered off on the visible edges of the wood. Gone were her small ornaments and knickknacks; gone was most of a lifetime’s accumulation of bits and pieces. An unknown television set stood in one corner, and an unfamiliar bentwood rocker with a soft pillow on the seat guarded the space near the big black woodstove. Her easel stood empty near the north-facing window, and the forlorn sight made Lauren sigh deeply in her breast.

  Walking tentatively across the room over a rag rug that had never lain there before, Lauren peeked into the kitchen. A variety of appliances of various ages, none of them her own, stood at attention on the scrubbed kitchen counters. Someone had covered the gaping holes in her cupboard doors—holes once filled with glass—with a pretty cotton fabric. Standing in pride of place was a large, handsome new coffee maker, a small hand-painted card attached to its gleaming stainless steel top.

  “To Lauren, from your friends. Remember—home is where the heart is.” Lauren read the words aloud and tears started up afresh. “You know, none of this stuff is mine, but I recognize most of it—seems like everyone in Haverford Castle—and a lot of people in West River, too, have contributed to rebuilding my home.”

  “You have a lot of friends here, Lauren. People who love you,” Jon said softly from where he still leaned against the doorpost. “A few guys from a Rush Co. cleaning crew came out to help clear everything up and they told me that people were in and out all morning with odds and ends of stuff, sending you their best wishes, too. The fridge, I believe, is fully stocked with about a year’s supply of coffee beans and homemade macaroni and tuna cheese casserole.”

  “Seems my tastes are well known,” Lauren laughed. Then her gaze turned serious as she met Jon’s look and realized that he still stood at the doorway. “Come in Jon, please. Stay with me?”

  The quiet question lit dark fires of desire in his eyes and, shutting the door behind him, he crossed the room in moments to take her in his arms and cover her face with gentle kisses. Then he drew back then, fixing her eyes with a gaze that poured out his feelings more surely than a thousand words and which drank in the love displayed on her face.

  “I think,” he said quietly, “that you should heat up some of that macaroni and make us some coffee. I’ll light a fire in that stove to warm the house, and I think I’ll go out and let that poor kid in the police car know I’m staying and he can maybe go home and get some sleep himself.”

  “Good Lord, for a moment I thought you were going to suggest he join us for supper,” Lauren muttered, but Jon heard and grinned at her.

  “Oh, no, my love—this is strictly an evening for two.” Leaving that promise sizzling on the air between them, he went out into the night.

  The meal finished and the coffee jug drained, they were curled up together in the warmth of a blazing fire in the stove when the phone rang. Lauren jumped, her startled gaze fastening on the unfamiliar instrument and terror plain on her face.

  “Lauren, what is it?” Jon demanded, but the insistent ringing interrupted and, seeing Lauren’s frozen pose, he cursed and strode across the room the grab up the receiver and snap a terse, “Yes!”

  Moments later, he had returned and pulled Lauren around to face him, his arms holding hers firmly.

  “That was Paul, just checking that you were home safe. Lauren, what the hell was that reaction all that about? I know you’ve had a rough time, but why would the telephone terrify you?”

  Yet he already knew. Hadn’t Warren Dillon asked him to find out who’d been calling Lauren, and hanging up repeatedly without leaving a message on her machine?

  “I…God, Jon, I don’t know—around about the time your company’s plans were announced and I got involved in the ABC committee, I started getting these phone calls. The phone would ring, and if I let the answering machine pick up because I was busy, there’d be a hang up.
No message. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then I noticed I’d come home and there’d be maybe four or five of these hang-ups on the machine. Then the calls started coming at night—you know, I’d leave the machine on when I went to bed, and wake up in the night to hear the phone ring, the machine pick up—and silence. It got pretty scary, actually, and I meant to get Bell Canada to try to trace the calls. They always came up as an unlisted number on my identi-call screen, but someone told me that some mobile phone numbers show like that, too.”

  Seeing the alarm still in her eyes, and feeling her trembling still, Jon cursed and pulled her to him.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone about this?” he demanded, his lips against her hair.

  “At first I thought it was just a fault in the line. You’d be amazed at the problems which still come up on a rural line. And it was also a while before I even thought the calls might all be being made by the same person. You know, I thought maybe they were from different people. I often get calls regarding paintings, especially after exhibitions or about commissions, and sometimes people don’t want to leave a message. It was only when the calls started coming at night that I began to worry. Before that, it was just annoying.”

  “Lauren, who is Stephen Wallace?” Jon asked, suddenly remembering the name Warren Dillon had brought up.

  “Who?” Lauren asked, startled.

  “Stephen Wallace. Warren told me the name was written on your telephone pad.”

  Lauren covered her face with her hands, looking at Jon over the tips of her fingers with wide eyes. “That’s what I wanted to do—I wanted to look his number up on the call list on my telephone. I…you see, I wondered if maybe it was him making those calls. He told me he hates answering machines and he had gotten pretty stroppy over mine being on so much.”

  “Where’s his number? I’ll call and we’ll get this dealt with, right now,” Jon said, standing up and stretching his long frame.

  “That’s the problem, you see. I never did transfer it to my telephone book, so I was hoping it was still on the telephone’s call list…”

  “The telephone was smashed beyond repair, Lauren. It went in the trash,” Jon told her quietly, hating the way her face paled with shock. “But don’t worry, with luck the telephone company will have some sort of records, and we’ll get a number for this guy from them tomorrow.”

  He sat back down again, gathering Lauren close with his arm possessively around her shoulder. “So, who was this guy, anyway?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

  “Oh, I met him in Toronto at an Ontario Wildlife Exhibition. I was showing several paintings. He came over on the opening night, expressed interest in my work, and we got talking. One thing led to another. I think he bought one of the paintings, and we saw each other quite a few times over the space of the exhibition,” Lauren replied.

  One thing led to another. That could have so many meanings! Jon was taken aback by the lightening slash of angry jealousy that whipped through him. “And?” he asked, hoping his feelings didn’t show in his voice.

  But he was wrong. Lauren caught the jealous shadow that flickered through his tone and smiled to herself in the firelight. “We-ell,” she teased, stretching luxuriously.

  Watching the curves of her body as she stretched, straining against the soft sweater and close-fitting jeans, Jon swallowed. “I already know the guy had good taste,” he said tightly.

  Lauren laughed, a low, purring sound in the quiet room. “Ah, been talking to Paul, have you? That guy just never could keep his mouth shut! Actually, I saw Stephen several times, you know, lunch, dinner, walks in the park.”

  Breakfast? He wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  “Then I came back to West River after I no longer needed to be at the exhibition, and I’d a lot of work to do for my upcoming exhibition at the Harrison. He started calling here. I told him I was busy and he got peeved that I couldn’t just drop everything because he felt like having company at dinner. End of story.” Lauren said, smiling as she saw the tightness around Jon’s mouth. “Actually,” she couldn’t resist teasing him, “he did look a bit like you—though not as handsome, of course!”

  “That does it!” Jon growled, reaching for her.

  Lauren’s last thought on the subject was that she’d glimpsed again that little wayward idea that had glimmered in her mind when Chief Ohmer was questioning her. However, the idea again disappeared beneath the pleasure that shot through her, banishing conscious thought as Jon’s lips claimed hers and his hands sought her bare flesh beneath the soft sweater and shirt she wore.

  *

  He’d been surprised that they’d gone into her cottage together; he’d been sure the events of the past few hours would have driven some sort of wedge between them. With a shudder, he remembered the momentary shock he’d experienced when she’d called to him outside the mobile information office. He’d thought of stopping, of greeting her and seeing if she’d changed her mind. But what could he have said to her?

  “Can’t stop now, darling, I’ve just delivered a bomb?” He laughed aloud at his own joke.

  There was just one more little job to take care of. It was such a stupid slip-up, there at the gallery, and it had been her fault. She’d made him feel so different, so free, and so powerful, that he’d temporarily shucked off the shell of his old self and been completely the new persona. So now, he had to go back and put that right. With that done, he’d be able to concentrate fully on his final task.

  However, when he’d seen Jon come out and speak to the police officer in the car, and seen the police car drive away as Jon returned inside, he couldn’t resist leaving the safety of the dark woods to creep up towards the cottage. Not voyeurism, not at all. He just wanted to confirm his belief that she wasn’t worth it, and that Jon Rush deserved the fate that chosen for him.

  He didn’t have to get very close. As he skirted around the girth of a big cedar that stood alongside the dirt laneway, he’d seen Jon, his shirt open to reveal the hard planes of his chest, stand in front of the lighted window, briefly looking out into the night before reaching over and pulling the curtains shut. Seen him so clearly he’d been able to make out the soft spill of pale hair that covered the tanned chest.

  Struggling not to sob aloud, the man had turned and ran, unheeding of the tear of bushes against his clothes, in a headlong flight back into the darkness of the night and the trees.

  Chapter 13

  The mid-morning sun was casting only a dim glow into the studio through the heavy drapes that sheltered the windows, and the logs in the woodstove had burned too low when Lauren opened her eyes to greet the new day. They’d slept downstairs, wrapped in each other’s arms beneath a pile of blankets and quilts Jon had retrieved from the bedroom. Lauren hadn’t felt ready to sleep in the bedroom that was hers and yet was still strange, furnished with other people’s cast-off treasures.

  So they’d made love in the sensuous light cast through the glass doors of the stove where flames had greedily flickered around the logs Jon had brought in while Lauren fixed their supper. Later, when the room was still lit by the glow of scarlet flames from the logs, they’d awakened in each other’s arms and Jon had pushed back the blankets and pulled her body over his, kissing aside her protests and telling her he wanted to watch her as they made love again. So she straddled him, his hands cupping and molding her breasts, his darkening eyes fanning the flames of her own desire as they drank in her form, her naked skin glowing satin-like in the firelight. When he’d slipped one hand down to caress her moistness where they were joined, Lauren’s world had shattered into a million crystal pieces as she convulsed around him. He’d groaned his delight at watching her pleasure, then, as she clung helplessly to him, he’d gently rolled her onto her back, still hard and joined to her, and begun to move again. Unbelieving, Lauren felt the passion rising again inside her, felt the throb of love growing and swelling as she grasped his back, pulling him down as she arched towards him, wanting to be completel
y one with him. She got her wish as they scaled heights neither had ever known before, then hung for a quivering moment at the very pinnacle of pleasure before, clinging together, they’d lost themselves in the spiral of passion that seemed to last forever.

  Now Lauren stretched slowly and languorously, and yawning as she acknowledged that she should climb out of the love-tangled mass of blankets and put more wood into the stove. Yet she was reluctant to leave the warm nest and Jon’s arms. As she wriggled slightly, he opened one blue eye and muttered that she’d be sorry if she didn’t stop fidgeting. Unable to stop herself, refusing to believe his threat, she slowly, teasingly, began to draw little spirals in the pale hair of his chest while her other hand slid lower under the blankets and across the flat muscles of his stomach to tease him further.

  “Don’t you know I’m a dangerous grump in the mornings, especially when I’ve not had a lot of sleep?” he growled at her, both eyes open now, but Lauren only smiled, for her wandering fingers had clasped around him and she shuddered with delight as she recognized the delicious danger he threatened.

  With a low groan, he squeezed both eyes shut, then opened them again, pinning her with his blue gaze.

  “Woman, you’ll be the death of me. I’m not sure I can keep up with you,” he groaned, and then proved himself a liar by showing himself more than capable of fulfilling both their expectations.

  They slept again then, exhausted and lovesated. Lauren awoke to find herself alone, cocooned in the warmth of blankets and quilts but somehow instinctively missing the heat of the man who’d spent the night beside her. Her loss was quickly soothed as she smelled the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and heard the sharp click of the toaster as it released hot bread. Then her heart swelled with love at the sight of him, naked except for black briefs and his now somewhat crumpled white dress shirt, which was open at the front.

  “I thought you might have worked up an appetite,” he said wryly as he handed her a mug and plate.