by T. F. Walsh
Rey brought her gently back, at the same time rising behind her. There was a handle on the Jeep’s ceiling, just above the door, for extra stability during rough off-road travel. Rey took hold of it as he lifted himself from the back seat, using it as leverage as he pushed deep into Joely from behind.
Joely braced herself against the front seat. She was cold but she didn’t care; Rey was inside her and she could feel his hot belly against her back.
“You good?” he asked.
“Good,” she managed. Good didn’t cover it. Fantastic, wonderful, transcendent . . . There were no words. He was just—inside. Part of her. Irrevocably.
“Good,” he repeated, and braced himself, and began to thrust.
It was awkward, but the awkwardness enhanced it. She looked out the open window at the snow, the trees, and the thought that someone could wander in and walk right up to the car and watch them made her hot and buttery. God, he felt good inside her, stabbing deep, taking her. He could possess her so completely, so easily. No wonder she’d never wanted another man the way she’d always wanted Rey. The way she wanted him now.
Deeper, harder, the tempo increasing. Joely reached up to close her hand over his, on the handle above the door, her fingers digging tight into his hand. He was pounding into her, hard, and finally she reached down and touched herself.
“I want to feel you come,” Rey said, his voice low and insistent, and she nodded. She was almost there, it wouldn’t take much—and sure enough, she suddenly felt herself open up, as if something were rising and bursting under her finger, filling her whole body with slow, easy waves of molten heat.
“God,” she whispered. Rey made a small, breathy sound, and shoved into her hard, and held still, except for the sharp, small movements of his pelvis, and the pulsation Joely could feel inside her as he emptied.
Finally, finished, his breath still fast and ragged, he gathered her against him. “Joely, that was—”
But he stopped then, abruptly.
“What?” she said.
“Shh.” He reached around her, touching her lips with his fingertips. “I saw something.”
She peered out the side window. “A person?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” He pulled her jeans into place as he drew back from her, covering her. He didn’t seem as concerned about his own state of dishabille. The gesture touched her.
They held still for what seemed a very long time before Rey suddenly let out a long breath. “Look.” He pointed.
She looked. Emerging from among the trees was a herd of elk. She saw five now, but there were more, and they moved slowly out of the trees, down the mountain toward the open area next to the road where they could graze. One after another they came, most of them cows, but one or two bearing short, spiky antlers.
“Wow,” Rey breathed. “They’re gorgeous. I had no idea they were so big.”
She laid her hands over his and leaned back into him, savoring the moment.
They fell silent again as the rest of the herd passed. Three of them stopped, peering at the car with wide, calm eyes. Finally, they went on with the others, apparently deciding the unmoving Jeep wasn’t a threat.
“That’s it,” said Joely. “That’s why I stayed here.”
He nodded slowly. “I think I would have, too.”
• • •
They spent the evening in the hot tub again, but this time they didn’t make love. He sat next to her, watching her feet float, his fingers tangled with hers. Above them the night sky was black and clear, scattered with stars that looked close enough to touch.
“There are so many,” he said, his voice barely more than a breath.
“It’s the altitude. The air’s thinner. Plus, there aren’t any streetlights.”
Rey had never seen the Milky Way look so milky. For a moment, the vast star field overwhelmed him. Then Joely’s fingers moved in his and he was grounded again.
Later, lying in bed next to her, he felt much the same way. Overwhelmed, just for a moment, by the depth of emotion that overtook him at the sight of her sleeping face. Then, as she moved closer to him, one arm falling across his waist, a sudden sense that everything was as it should be.
He folded her in his arms, cradling her warmth against him. This was all he really needed. The rest—where to live, where to work—was nothing compared to this.
He couldn’t ask for anything more.
Except maybe—just maybe—a little more heat in the house.
• • •
The next morning after breakfast, they went to the shop and spent several hours looking over Joely’s computer records. Rey focused on the financial spreadsheets, printing out everything from Joely’s opening day to the present. He became so wrapped up in what he was doing that finally she gave up any attempt at recapturing his attention. Instead she went out front to help Perry with the customers.
“What’s he doing back there?” Perry asked. The shop was quiet at the moment, and she was replenishing the cash register’s supply of pennies.
“Looking over my spreadsheets.” She unlocked the back of the jewelry case and straightened some turquoise necklaces that weren’t quite the way she wanted them. “He wants to see how he can help with the business if he stays here.”
Perry’s eyebrows rose. “Really? He’s thinking about staying?”
“It sounds like it’s a possibility.”
“So, you guys are really getting back together?” She shook the last few stubborn pennies out of the paper roll and closed the cash drawer. “I’m happy for you, Joely.”
Joely shrugged. “I’m not completely sure it’s going to happen yet, but it looks promising.” She looked wistfully toward the office door. “Especially if he’s willing to stay here. He’d be giving up a lot.”
“Well, you’d be giving up a lot if you went with him to New York, too.”
“I know. And I’m not sure I could do that for him. But he says he can do this for me. That’s big.”
“Yes, it is. But that’s good, right?”
But Joely frowned, a sudden, unpleasant thought intruding.
“What?” asked Perry.
“It’s too big, maybe. Too much, too fast.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, trying to squeeze the optimism back into herself. Too late—it had drained away as if someone had pulled the cork out of the bottom of her psyche.
Perry shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just be happy, without worrying about everything so much?”
Joely gave her friend a tired smile. “It’s just me. Once bitten, twice shy. It’s hard for me to trust him again.”
“Well, just do it. I think he’s ready to take the plunge.”
But something still nagged at Joely, some question she couldn’t quite put words to, but which she was certain hadn’t been sufficiently answered. She sighed, trying to let all her doubts and uncertainties dissipate with the long breath.
“Maybe you’re right. He seems genuine.”
“He loves you, Joely.”
“That was never the question. Unfortunately, that’s not quite enough.”
Perry looked deflated. “It should be.”
• • •
Rey surfaced again at lunchtime, offering to fetch takeout for all three of them. When he got back, Joely and Perry joined him in the office, leaving the door propped open so they could hear any customers who might drop in. He’d brought back Chinese food complete with chopsticks, so the women sat maneuvering the sticks around slippery lo mein noodles while Rey used his utensils mostly for punctuation while he talked.
“You’ve done almost no advertising, did you know that?” he said to Joely.
“Of course I know that.”
“And in spite of that, your business has increased by almost three hundred percent since you opened last September.”
Joely shrugged. “It’s mostly word-of-mouth. That’s what works best up here.”
“Do you realiz
e what you could do if you pumped a little money into your advertising budget? With that kind of growth from word-of-mouth, you could skyrocket if you took out a few ads.”
“I don’t know that it would make that much difference. I talked to several of the local merchants up here, and they said advertising revenue wasn’t always the best way to spend your money.”
He started to speak, then stopped. She could tell he was regrouping his thoughts. He took the few moments to snag some lo mein. Perry, Joely noticed, was watching with interest and amusement.
“Then we should look into that,” Rey finally went on. “Ask around, look at some numbers. There’s got to be some way to make an advertising budget work for you.”
“Maybe some promotional events, rather than traditional advertising,” Perry put in.
Rey pointed his chopsticks at her. “Good idea. We’ll keep you.”
“I should hope so!” Perry exclaimed, indignant. Rey winked at her.
“Don’t tease Perry,” said Joely. “Besides, you’d have to walk over my dead body to fire her.”
“Which would be quite unpleasant.” He attended to his food again, brow creased in a thoughtful frown. “What about this commission thing? Maybe you could pay some of your artisans a flat fee to produce a certain amount of merchandise rather than paying them a percentage per sale.”
“Might work, might not. It would take some time to figure out what numbers would work. And I might lose some artisans over it.”
“Not if we made it optional.” He shook his head. “Just throwing out ideas. I think you’ve got a great thing going here, Joely.”
She smiled. His enthusiasm was not only infectious, but encouraging. If he was this excited about her business, then maybe he really could commit to staying in Colorado. She’d been afraid leaving New York might mean also leaving a job he felt passionately about, but there was passion here now, as well.
“Here’s another idea,” he went on. “We could set up a website and you could sell your pieces online. With a couple of people to handle orders—more later, of course—we could get national distribution. International, even.”
“You’re thinking awfully big there, Rey.” She pictured herself making pots twenty-four seven. She liked her work, but too much of anything could get old.
“We have to think big,” he countered. “It wouldn’t all fall on you, of course. We could sell other people’s work, as well, just like you’re doing now, and everybody’s stuff would be in limited runs to drive up the value. You know, limited edition numbered pieces, that kind of thing. That way we keep the quality up.”
Perry nodded. “Great ideas, Rey. When do we talk about Christmas bonuses and stock options, that kind of thing?”
“We have to have stock before we can have stock options,” said Rey, then saw Perry’s grin. “You’re mocking me.” His offense was mostly feigned.
“Never,” Perry answered. “I just enjoy watching you come up with all these ideas that could eventually make me a lot of money.” In the showroom, the bell on the door tinkled. “I’ll get that.”
Rey watched her go. “I like her. We can definitely keep her.”
“Like I said, Perry’s not going anywhere.”
Rey looked at her, the expression, his eyes changing from mirth to affection. “With any kind of luck, neither am I.”
Joely smiled, a soft thrill of arousal moving through her body, combined with affection that made the emotion just short of lethal. But something still nagged. What was the question? The question she hadn’t asked, but should have? It was there, lurking around the edges of everything they did and said, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
She would though, eventually. When she did, she hoped it didn’t ruin everything.
• • •
Rey had made a stack of notes during the afternoon, to remind himself of ideas he’d had while going over Joely’s files. He could set up some spreadsheets on his own computer, to make projections and see what kinds of things he might recommend. He’d minored in accounting in college, and his work as a corporate lawyer had exposed him to a good number of business types. He thought his ideas would be as valuable as anyone else’s.
Not that Joely wouldn’t have come up with many of them on her own, given time. But it couldn’t hurt to have another brain on the job, and another body to carry out the work.
He had just gotten seriously underway when Joely poked her head into the office. “Could you keep an eye on things for a bit?”
“What’s up?”
Joely looked a little sheepish. “I mean, if you don’t mind. Tara just got a new shipment of these gorgeous crystal jewelry pieces and she asked if Perry and I would like to bip next door to look at them.”
He smiled. “Sure. Go ahead. I’ll hold down the fort.”
Things were quiet, but he did sell a few items over the next quarter of an hour. One was a large sale—one of Joely’s wolf-themed vases. He almost hated to let it go, it was so representative of her work. He’d always liked her work.
Straightening the cash in the drawer, he gave the store a quick scan. A man stood across the room, perusing Joely’s other wolf pieces. Rey hadn’t seen him come in—he must have been busy ringing up another customer. He closed the cash drawer and settled onto the stool behind the counter.
Five minutes later, the man was still there. Which wasn’t a big deal if he was just browsing, but why would a serious browser stand staring at the same two pots for five solid minutes? Warning bells went off in Rey’s head. Probably just paranoia inspired by the case Bill had sent him out here to settle, but, in Rey’s opinion, you couldn’t be too careful. He slid off the stool and came out from behind the counter.
“May I help you?” he asked the man.
The customer jumped, then grinned sheepishly. He looked at Rey over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. You startled me.”
Rey took a step closer. The customer had something in his hands, Rey was certain. Otherwise, he would have turned around all the way, instead of holding this awkward pose with his head turned toward Rey and his hands both kept stiffly between his body and the merchandise shelves.
“What are you doing?” Rey asked, though he was fairly sure he knew.
“Just admiring this beautiful work.” The man shifted, sliding a hand into his coat pocket.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“What did you just put in your pocket?”
The man had the nerve to look affronted. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“And I think it is.” He stepped a little closer, looming over the smaller man. “You want to show me?”
“I most certainly do not.”
The man’s indignation only made Rey angry. “Then how about let’s play a little game. I think you just dropped a camera in your pocket. I think you were taking pictures of the merchandise.”
“Why in the world would I do that?”
“You work for Cherokee Ceramics?”
Bingo. The man flushed. Obviously, his boss had picked entirely the wrong person to go on this particular mission. “I am deeply offended by your behavior, sir. Would you like to speak to my lawyer?”
“Yes, actually, I would. Why don’t you give me his number?”
With a huff, the man stormed out of the store. As luck would have it, he stormed right past Joely and Perry, coming back in.
“What was that all about?” Joely asked. She tilted an eyebrow at Rey, as if she thought he might have deliberately lost her a customer.
“Little creep tried to steal something,” he muttered.
Which was precisely the truth. He only regretted he hadn’t been able to get hold of the camera, and dispose of the pictures he was certain the “customer” had taken.
• • •
It surprised him, as they drove home, how he’d started to think of this place as home. He hadn’t even been here a week, and it felt as natural as breathing to watch the mo
untains roll by, feel his ears pop a little as they spiraled up the road to Joely’s house. To walk into Joely’s house and think of it as his own.
He laid his computer down on the coffee table while Joely headed for the bedroom to change her clothes. Looking around, he calculated the size of the house. It was cozy, but they might want something larger in a year or two. And it would be nice to have a yard for the kids—
He cut that thought off. He was getting too far ahead of himself. First, he had to be sure Joely was ready to take the plunge back into marriage.
He had some thoughts about that, too. They’d never officially been divorced, but he thought it would be nice to have a little ceremony of some kind when they got back together. Nothing formal, just something to celebrate the fact that he’d finally come to his senses.
He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. Yes, this was good. Very good. He could get used to this in a big hurry.
Joely came back into the living room, wearing cotton lounge pants and a T-shirt with no bra. He smiled at this sign she was getting comfortable with him again. “C’mere,” he said, waving to her.
“Don’t you want dinner?”
“Eventually. I’m not really that hungry, to tell the truth.” She came to him and he rolled onto his side to make room for her on the couch. He could have sat up, he supposed, but it was cozier this way, with him lying down and Joely sitting with her round bottom tucked against his stomach. “You’re an amazing woman, did you know that?”
“Yes, I did. But what makes you say that?”
“I don’t think I could have done such a thorough or successful job of remaking myself as you have. You’ve really accomplished something here. I’m very impressed.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, brushing hair back out of his eyes, then abruptly sobered. “Tell me, Rey. Honestly, now. If you left New York and came to live here, what would you lose?”
He shrugged. “Besides my job? Nothing.”
“But your job’s always been important to you.”
“Too important. I need to change that.” But his answer had come too quickly and too firmly, and he knew it.