by Vella Munn
All afternoon he’d waited for a rifle shot, and when it hadn’t come, he’d asked himself if he maybe shouldn’t have taken a chance on trying to call out to the hunters, if that’s what they were, and let them know that a little boy was out there. But they were too far away and if they were poaching, they might hide from him. Besides, Shannon would hear—would realize that he’d already heard sounds that might have spelled their son’s death.
“We’re close,” he told her. The words were more for himself than her. “Much closer to him than we were last night.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” He finished pulling off her boots and began massaging her right instep. She continued to watch him through half-closed eyes, her body rocking slightly as if she could barely keep it erect. After the way she’d snapped at him earlier today, he hadn’t known what to expect from her tonight, but she seemed to have put her outburst behind her.
Maybe. And maybe he’d been given a sample of her true feelings toward him. It didn’t matter, not with why they were here and how it might play out. He didn’t dare forget that—as if he could.
Five minutes later he was still kneading, only now he’d pushed her pant leg as high as it would go and had pressed fingers and thumb against her calf. She’d braced herself with her hands behind her. Her eyes were closed and she breathed lightly through slightly parted lips and he managed to quiet the hammering questions about Matt’s safety, the boy’s life even.
He’d surrendered to those lips twice already. He knew how hard resisting now, and later tonight, would be. Earlier, he’d been distracted from making love to the mother of his son first by a flash of light and then by her anger, but it was dark now and they were locked within nature’s dark world.
Only, first he had to make contact with another world.
Without trying to explain why he was leaving her when that was the last thing he wanted to do, he removed the walkie-talkie from his pack. She didn’t open her eyes when he told her he needed to climb to a higher elevation where natural obstructions would be less likely to interfere with transmission. She told him to tell her parents she was going to take a quick nap, and then stretched out on the ground.
Still he didn’t attempt to make contact with her family until he was sure he was out of Shannon’s earshot in case the sheriff was with them. Her father answered. The first words out of his mouth were to ask if they’d found Matt. No, he had to tell his former father-in-law, but tomorrow—
“I hope to God you’re right. If that boy has any idea how hard this is on all of us... What does that matter? It’s got to be much harder on him.”
His throat tight, Cord agreed and then explained what they’d accomplished today. He could only pray they were still talking about a living child. Halfway through the conversation, Shannon’s father told him the sheriff wanted to talk to him.
“It’s not good,” Dale Vollrath said when Cord reached him at his house. “I figured I’d better wait until you contacted me. I take it Shannon still isn’t part of this?”
“No.”
“You ready? Hell, what choice do you have? I’ve finally learned the identity of who owns a plane that’s been at the airport for about a week.”
“Tell me.”
“The guy’s name is Chuck Markham. It probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this joker. He gets around all right, anywhere there’s game.”
“Game?”
“Sorry, Cord. Markham has a record—the proverbial mile-long rap sheet, starting with hunting out of season, as a teenager. Since then he’s pretty much made a career of flaunting the law. He’s been stopped a number of times, even served time twice. Mostly be gets a slap on the wrist and, I’m assuming, goes right back to work the next day.”
“Work?” Cord asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“He’s graduated to the big time, at least that’s what he’s done in the past and I have no reason to believe he’s turned over a new leaf and is here simply to commune with nature. Hell, why should he take up a different line of work when this one has been so profitable?”
“He’s poaching, right?”
“Yeah, not that that’s what he tells the IRS. And he has three other men with him, which means—”
“Which means be’s probably acting as their guide.”
“Bingo. Damn. If I had more time, I might be able to learn who’s with him, but at this point it doesn’t particu larly matter.”
No, it didn’t. This wasn’t the first time he’d been involved with hunters who believed that money gave them the right to bring down whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Men like that didn’t have a conscience, at least not the kind that made any kind of sense to him. This morning they’d shot at something—maybe a child, his child.
“I’ve alerted all the rangers in the area,” Dale was saying. “Not that there are that many of them on Copper right now. One thing I can promise you, Markham and his employers won’t get back to their plane without our knowing it.”
That was some consolation, although by the time those men tried to leave the mountains, they might have already accomplished what they’d set out to, namely illegally killed one or more wild animals. And, if they shot without first getting a good look at their so-called prey, they might put a bullet into an innocent boy.
Holding that thought at bay with all the willpower in him, he told Dale about the early morning shot and the glint of sunlight he’d seen this afternoon. His throat still tight, he asked Dale to keep him informed.
“You better believe it. The thing is, these jokers are going to do everything they can to stay out of sight of any rangers or deputies. They might be carrying radios. If they are, they could be listening to us right now and getting the message, but I wouldn’t count on that.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m sorry as hell about this, Cord. Damn it, you’ve already got enough to worry about.”
“It’s all right.”
“Hmm. You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
“No.”
“Look, man, she’s—”
“I can’t!” he blurted. “She’s already going through hell.”
“No more than you are. What happens if—when—she hears a rifle shot or comes face-to-face with those jokers—or with what they’ve already done? She’s going to take one look at you and know you were anticipating this. What’s she going to do then?”
He didn’t know.
Chapter 12
Cord had been sitting on that rocky outcropping for a long time, hadn’t he? Although the need to rest continued to pull at her, Shannon stood and slowly made her way up the hill to him. He acknowledged her with a look that didn’t quite connect. The sense that he was part and parcel of his surroundings hit her with the same force it had earlier. He would always belong to the mountains. No matter what life brought, he could renew himself here.
“What happened?” she asked. “My folks? Are they all right?”
“They’re holding up.”
The top button on his cotton shirt had come off. He sat with one shoulder resting against a rock. His position pulled the fabric away from his chest. She felt her hand begin to tingle and knew why. If she touched him, she would be filled with warmth and strength—his warmth, his strength.
Why now when she felt so tired that all she wanted to do was fall into bed? She should have been attracted to him earlier today, when for hours there’d been precious little to look at except him and nothing else safe to think about.
Safe? No, not at all.
“What did you tell them?” she made herself ask, and then listened as he relayed the essence of the conversation he’d had with her father. “I should have talked to him. Maybe I’ll call him back and—”
“Don’t. Please.”
She thought she caught a warning note in his voice, but before she could question it, he explained that her father had sounded deeply
tired himself, and when he suggested he get some rest, her father had agreed. “If your folks and you start talking about Matt, they might not be able to sleep.”
That made sense, enough that she dismissed her nagging sense that Cord had left certain words and emotions untouched. He was trying to shelter her from the world; she’d be a fool not to, at least briefly, accept the gift.
“I must have fallen asleep down there.” Her legs began to tremble and she lowered herself, less than gracefully, near him. She’d been right; his warmth was enough to reach her. Ah, Cord, you are beautiful, beautiful and competent and primitively sexy. “Then—I don’t know what was going through me, something unsettling. It woke me.”
“You were thinking about Matt.”
Of course she was, but enough pieces of her dream remained that she had to admit it was more than that—something to do with Cord, his body, whispered words, coming together. Unsettling didn’t say the half of it.
“I hope he’s asleep.”
“I’m sure he is.”
He was saying that for her sake; she was unbelievably grateful to him for that. “He always sleeps curled up on his right side,” she began. “Do you remember when he couldn’t go to bed without that teddy bear my mother bought him cuddled in his arms?”
“He still has it, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. In a dresser drawer. He doesn’t want his friends to see it, and I don’t think he looks at it very much, but...he’s growing up so fast.”
“Too fast. I miss—How many times did you sit with him in that rocker your folks gave you, trying to get him to fall back asleep? I’d get up in the middle of the night and find you and Matt rocking in the dark. You humming. Him playing with your chin.”
“You remember that?”
“You looked so content, tired but content. And beautiful. The chair always groaned a little. I asked if you wanted me to fix it, but you said the sound lulled Matt.”
Momentarily stripped of words, she rested her head on his shoulder. When he wrapped his arm around her, she struggled to keep the sound inside her confined to a sigh. He called her beautiful? What he’d just told her was exquisite. “It was good then, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I want . . . I want—I have this unbearable need to send him some kind of message,” she tried around what boiled inside her. “Tell him we’re getting closer, and if he’d stop moving, it won’t take nearly as long for us to find him.”
“He wants to do this on his own.”
“I know he does. He’s made that clear, hasn’t he?” She shouldn’t run her hand inside his shirt and spread her palm over his chest, but the gesture seemed so natural. So right and necessary. Yes. It had been good between them, once. “He—am I a terrible person for saying this? All I’ve thought about for days now is Matt. I’m tired of it. Tired of being scared and upset, my stomach in a knot. I just want to go back to what it was before.”
“No. You aren’t crazy.”
Before she could think what, if anything, she needed to say in response to his incredible wisdom, he cupped his hand over hers and pulled it off his chest. With her fingers still cradled inside his, he held her palm close to his face and covered it with light kisses.
“Every emotion you have, no matter what it is, is all right.”
What about what I’m feeling now, Cord? How are you going to deal with it? How am I?
“I don’t know what my emotions are, not really.” She tried the words, but they didn’t feel right. Maybe nothing she said would. After a minute, during which he touched his lips to the back of her hand, she forced herself to straighten.
Never in her life had she felt more isolated. It wasn’t just the surroundings and the reason they were here. But over the past seven years, there’d always been something to keep her from concentrating totally on Cord and that hollow place deep inside her that refused to heal. She wanted it that way, fought to keep him locked away where he couldn’t reach her. When they talked about such things as shared custody and the particular stage Matt was going through and where Cord had just been, she hadn’t let herself think about him and her. About what remained of her love for him.
Tonight she couldn’t tap into the world beyond Copper Mountain, and she didn’t dare let her thoughts go to Matt. That left only Cord and stars and the moon, trees that had been growing for hundreds of years, memories of ancient Indian tribes, Mother earth, Father sun; breathing with everything that made up the incredible wilderness.
Cord.
She’d never told him this, but she followed his career with the devotion of a loyal fan. She didn’t cut out newspaper clippings or keep the article in People magazine because...
Maybe because that would mean acknowledging something she didn’t want to. But she’d committed those accounts to memory. Because, if he possibly could, he always called Matt before leaving on a rescue, and she’d know when to start listening to the news for word of him, when to worry about his safety.
This time she didn’t have to listen and read and wait for a phone call. She had Cord next to her.
“I love the night sky.” She’d said that last night; she was sure of it. But she needed to hear the sound of her voice and learn how Cord might respond to it. Forget danger. Forget everything except need and hunger and the two of us alone, together. “Those city lights we used to look out at when we were in that stupid, cramped little apartment? How could I think they were exciting?”
“They are to some people.”
“But not to us.” Us. “Cord?” She heard her voice speaking his name but couldn’t think what she’d been about to say, if anything. “Cord?” she tried again. “I am so glad you’re here.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
She expected him to assume that she needed his expertise to locate Matt and that’s why she wanted him on the mountain with her. If he’d said that, would she have let it go at that?
But he didn’t speak. Instead, he freed her hand and with weathered fingers and palm began an exploration of her throat. She sat as motionless as his caress would allow. Her mind drifted, briefly, flitting into the past, touching on a thousand restless nights when she slept alone. There’d been two men she’d thought she’d begun to care for, but they hadn’t touched her soul in that way only Cord had.
She should have put him behind her. They were divorced, finished.
But they weren’t.
There was no need to ask permission. His touch had already told her everything she needed to know about his reaction to tonight and them. When she bracketed his face with her hands and pulled herself close to kiss him, she felt a deep shudder that might have come from either or both of them.
He met her open-mouthed; his breath rushed against her.
Her body came alive.
Bold, so bold that there was no questioning the move, she slid her hands down him, unbuttoning and pulling at the same time until she’d laid his chest bare. Although he tried to continue their kiss, she pulled free so she could run her mouth over his chin, down his throat, to the soft mat of hair that covered his chest. With her tongue she worked her way through the slight barrier until she could take his taste, his essence even, deep into her.
She felt his body tense.
She still needed words and emotions from him. She would always need those things. But tonight she could forget what had torn them apart and lose herself in what was both achingly familiar and so new that her heart sang with discovery.
He’d caught a few strands of hair that dropped along the side of her neck and was letting them slide lazily through his fingers. She concentrated on the slight tugging followed by a sensation of release. He held her hair in the shelter of his hand. Played with her. Promised.
Feeling hot and wild, free beyond belief, she ran her fingers around his waist until she touched the hard ridge of his backbone. It was both sheltered and surrounded by muscle and flesh and hers to explore. Simply searching that part of him dug a molten path
through her.
Words flitted through her, questions, a promise freely given that tonight meant as much to him as it did to her. She opened her mouth to ask him to gift her with that, spotted the moon cradled between great tree shadows, lost the ability to speak.
When he ran his thumb along her collarbone, she again leaned forward, twisting her head at the same time. She took his right nipple between her teeth.
She felt his shudder, heard the rumble of his groan. Accepted when he freed himself.
Quickly, gently, almost tentatively, he concentrated on her blouse buttons. She worked with him as he slid the garment off her shoulders. She felt a cool rush of air at the base of her throat and across her back, but he must have known that was going to happen because before the cold could distract her, he pulled her against him. She thought he might want to stop with yet another embrace and wondered how long she could keep her body still, but he soon let her know that his needs went beyond that—matched hers.
He unfastened her bra with an ease that made a lie of the last seven years. With the heels of his hands brushing, always brushing against her, he pulled the garment off and dropped it on top of her blouse. Through eyes that wouldn’t focus, she stared at the moon and stars. The points of light blurred, came together.
Together. Like her and Cord.
Alive. The word, the emotion, melted through her. She lapped at his breast and then quivered when he held her in his strong hands so he could do the same to her. She felt her breasts swell and the tips harden, felt him draw her breast into his mouth as she would soon...soon take him into her.
I need this, Cord. Need you loving me. Giving yourself to me.
Without you I might die.
When he pulled back, leaving her dampened flesh vulnerable to the air, she moaned. Then, with indistinct vision, she watched as he spread their shirts out on the ground. She trembled, feeling like a sixteen-year-old virgin. He touched the base of her throat; it was the touch of a sixteen-year-old boy bombarded by emotions beyond his comprehension.