Loving Wild

by Lisa Ann Verge

She heard Jillian rustling. Then she heard the sound of a lighter scraping up a flame, the suck of smoke into her therapist’s lungs.

  Casey murmured, “You really should give up that dirty habit.”

  “I am. I’m down to two packs a day.”

  “Great. Now you’ll be fifty when you die instead of forty-five.”

  “Hey, I’ll leave a prettier corpse.”

  Casey managed a smile. It was a familiar back-and-forth between them. A little comfortable repartee, Jillian would call it, to ease the social awkwardness.

  Then, on an exhale, Jillian said, “Okay, Casey. It seems to me that your ‘problem’ boils down to one simple question.”

  Casey sank back down on the bed. “Well, what is it?”

  “Do you love him?”

  The question caught her unprepared. She sat there as the words rippled through her consciousness. Truth be told, she’d asked herself that question a hundred times and she already knew the answer, but she was having a hard time saying it aloud. She was having a hard time thinking it.

  Jillian’s voice came through loud and clear. “Hmm. That’s just what I thought.”

  “But I didn’t say anything yet.”

  “I know. If you’d answered right away, one way or another, then I’d know you had problems.”

  “Well,” Casey remarked, “that makes no sense.”

  “It makes all the sense in the world. You’re not jumping into a relationship. You’re thinking about it—and thinking about it hard. That means I’m archiving your file.”

  “What?”

  “Casey, there comes a time a therapist dreams of: sending a patient out on her own. I’m pushing you out of the nest.”

  “Julian!”

  “Honey, you don’t need me anymore. Not as a counselor, anyway. There’s not a person in the whole wide world who can help you when it comes to love. This woodsman is either ‘the one’ or he isn’t, and the only one who knows the answer to that question is you.”

  Casey closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, letting her head sink into the pillows. Jillian. She loved Jillian. For all her wisecracking and irreverence, the lady always knew how to cut through the smoke right to the fire.

  “Heck, Jillian,” Casey murmured. “You’re good.”

  “I know.” Casey heard the scrape of an ashtray as Jillian stubbed out another cigarette. “I expect to be invited to the wedding, by the way. And if you decide you don’t want him, give him my number. Tell him I’ll play Pocahontas to his Capt. John Smith anytime.”

  CASEY HAD JUST HUNG UP the phone after talking with her sister when Dylan knocked on the door.

  She knew it was Dylan, though she couldn’t see through the closed drapes. She’d been expecting him all night. She’d been bracing herself for this all night.

  She opened the door and peered around the edge. Dylan stood with his hands deep in his pockets. He’d changed into crisp, clean khakis and a polo shirt. He looked freshly showered. Clean-shaven. Distinctly uncertain.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” She backed up and inched the door open, then spread her arm out in invitation. “Come on in.”

  He walked in and spent a little time looking around the room, though she knew her room must be just like his—she knew from long experience that all hotel rooms looked alike—and there wasn’t anything particularly fascinating about the spread of her things on the chairs and bureau. She felt like asking him if he wanted anything to drink, until she realized all she had to offer was a diet soda she’d opened hours ago, which had undoubtedly gone flat.

  He paused and glanced at her over his shoulder as the door clicked shut.

  “Nice party,” she murmured, leaning back against the door, intensely self-conscious about the ratty white bathrobe she wore. “You’ve got…quite a family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It sounds like it’s still going strong.”

  “Uh-huh. They’ll probably have to call in the Mounties to break it up.” His gaze drifted over her, then settled on her bandaged knees. “How are the stitches?”

  “Itchy,” she said. “Tight. How are the ribs?”

  “Dull. The painkillers are doing their job.”

  “Good. Glad you didn’t break anything.”

  “Me, too.”

  She looked away from him, and found the pattern of worn spots on the old carpet of intense interest. Strange, how they could be so awkward with each other. Only this afternoon, they’d made love on a riverbank with nothing beneath them but the soft grass and nothing above but sunshine. Now they stood together, alone in a hotel bedroom, and it was as if the St. Lawrence River stretched between them.

  “So,” he said, thrusting his hands more deeply into his pockets and rocking back on his heels, “I think this is when you tell me that it’s been a nice couple of weeks, thank you very much, but you’re heading out tomorrow for another assignment”

  Casey stilled. She met his gaze. She’d spent a lot of time wondering what was going to happen here tonight. She’d spent a lot of time worrying that he would fall to his knees and confess undying love, beg her to be wife number three. She’d spent most of her time composing what she would say if he did.

  Now, she felt vaguely disappointed that he hadn’t.

  “C’mon, Casey,” he said, irritation clear in his voice. “Stop giving me that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. It’s been nearly twelve hours since the canoe capsized. And you didn’t have any of Pappy’s punch at the party. You’ve had long enough to clear your head.”

  “My head’s clear enough.”

  First lie of the night. Her mind wasn’t clear. She’d spent most of the evening trying to blow out the smoke. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do—but she was sure of one thing: She wanted no bitterness between them. She cared for Dylan far too much for that.

  “I almost didn’t come here tonight. I don’t need to hear this, you know.” He walked toward the bureau and leaned back against it. “I’ve been around long enough to see the signs. You’ve been dodging me all night, hell, all day. So let’s get this over with, swift and dean, so we both can get on with our lives.”

  Her voice came out as a whisper. “Is that what you want, Dylan?”

  “Hell, no.” He looked away from her and pushed off from the bureau. He paced a tight little circle in the space between the bed and the chest of drawers. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand here and rip out my heart just so you can stuff it back in me again.”

  A quiver ran through her. It softened her knees. She sank against the door at her back and felt the ribs of the molding press into her shoulder blades.

  “There’s nothing I can say, Casey, that’s going to change this.” He balled his hands into fists in his pockets. “Either you feel it, or you don’t. Either you want it, or you’re going to run away from it. At this stage of the game, there’s not a damn thing I can say to convince you, one way or the other.”

  He was hurting, too, Casey realized. He couldn’t even meet her eyes. She remembered, suddenly, when she’d first found out he’d had two other wives. How she’d thought ill of him—a man who fell breezily in and out of love, a man who made light of commitments. Looking at this angry man pacing in her room she began to understand the full extent of the pain he’d suffered.

  She also realized that he would want all or nothing from her, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for either.

  “Damn it, Casey, say something.” He took two paces toward her, angry fierce steps. “Tell me you want me to stay. Or tell me you want me to go. Just tell me something.”

  “Stay.”

  The word lurched out of her, a dangerous whisper, but loud enough for him to hear. His eyes brightened, his body stiffened, and in a moment he was in front of her, framing her face with his hands.

  “Stay, Dylan,” she repeated, as her body grew soft and languid. “Stay…for tonight.”

  His fingers froze in her hair. The light in his eyes grew cold. He lean
ed back from her and it was as if he’d retreated a hundred thousand miles.

  She seized his wrists to keep him still, to keep him close. His arms felt as hard as iron beneath her grip. “Listen to me, Dylan. Please. This isn’t easy for me, either.” He stayed near her, but his look grew wary, guarded. She flexed her fingers over his wrists. “I’ve known you for three weeks, Dylan. Three weeks. And it’s been wild and fierce and intense—it’s been a whirlwind. I hardly know where my head is right now, I hardly know what to think.”

  “Stop thinking and feel.”

  “I know what I feel.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, though there was no one else in the room. “I know that I want you. I want you now, and I want you here, in this bed.”

  He made a strange sound in the back of his throat. He framed her face with his hands again. She felt the press of his hips, so close to her own loins.

  “I’m not looking for lust, lady. That’s too easy.”

  “I know.” She loosened her grip on his wrists. She let her hands fall to the tie of her bathrobe, and loosened it until the terry cloth fell open and the air brushed her skin. “All I’m asking is that it be enough…for now.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers, and looked down past her face, toward her breasts. She felt his hot gaze upon her skin. He made a strange, tortured sound, braced his forearms on either side of her head and grazed his lips against her temple. “Damn, Casey, why are you doing this to me?”

  “I want you, Dylan.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and spoke into his hair. “I need you.”

  “You’re leaving in the morning.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, in a small, breathy voice. “Yes…”

  He pulled away from her and stared at her with angry eyes. “So you are leaving.”

  “I promised my sister I’d visit,” she said softly. “And I need some time alone. To think.”

  “So what’s this?” he demanded angrily. “The goodbye f—”

  “Don’t” She silenced the ugly word with her fingers. “Don’t say that, Dylan. Don’t you know me better than that? I’m leaving tomorrow morning, but it doesn’t have to be forever.”

  He stared at her for a long time, and Casey looked steadily into those angry blue eyes, feeling her will crumble as each moment passed, wondering if she shouldn’t just collapse into a quivering heap at his feet and beg him to let her stay…. But no, no, she couldn’t She’d known Charlie five years before they’d married. She’d known this man three weeks. She needed to make sure that this was the real thing, and not just a hot infatuation born of isolation and danger. She needed time and space and a lot of deep, cleansing breath—away from Dylan’s magnetic presence, away from his hot bed.

  Then he pressed his face against hers again and slipped his hands beneath the terry cloth to curl in the hollow of her back. “This isn’t going to be easy, you know.”

  “I know,” she whispered, as he pulled her into his embrace.

  “The sex, I mean,” he said. “The doctor warned me against all strenuous activity.”

  She pulled away long enough to smile gently into his eyes. She saw a lot in those eyes. A lot of pain. A lot of words left unsaid. And a lot of yearning that matched her own.

  “Well,” she replied, “I’ll just have to get on top of the situation.”

  “On top, eh?” He glanced down the length of her body. “What about those knees?”

  “Oh…yeah.” She pouted as she visualized the problems. “I forgot about the knees.”

  “It looks like we’re going to have to be very, very careful.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured as he brushed his lips against the sensitive spot just below her ear. “And very, very inventive.”

  Then, just before he touched his lips to hers, he held her head still. He waited for her to blink her eyes back open.

  “Take some time, Casey,” he said. “But just remember: I won’t wait forever.”

  “IT’S ALL RIGHT, BESSIE.” Casey smoothed her hand over the dashboard of her minivan as the vehicle hiccuped its way through Bridgewater. “That looks like the center of town ahead—it won’t be long now.”

  Casey pressed the brake as she approached a traffic light. A cluster of amber leaves danced across the windshield, buoyed by a cool September breeze. She glanced at the crinkled map tossed haphazardly on the passenger seat, then quickly glanced away, to the bundle of official-looking brick buildings just ahead. The map had led her to the town of Bridgewater, but for what she was looking for, she was on her own now. She was working on pure instinct.

  She flexed her fingers over the steering wheel, waiting for the light to turn green. She glanced at the dashboard clock. She’d been driving for seven hours. She’d developed a cramp in her calf from pressing the gas pedal, and a crick in her neck from keeping her eyes on the road. But she wasn’t about to stop now. She was too close. It had taken her three years to run away, and now, it had taken her exactly three weeks to find her way home. She didn’t want to wait another moment.

  A few blocks ahead, she spied the library. In these old towns, the library was never far from the school, so she drove the roads around it in a two-block radius. Sure enough, she soon came upon a large red-brick building with the name Bridgewater High School carved above the granite-columned entrance.

  She pulled the van into a space in front and stretched out of the vehicle. Rolling her shoulders, she walked toward the imposing building, quelling an unexpected tickle of uncertainty. He’d said he wouldn’t wait forever…but three weeks was hardly forever.

  To Casey, they’d been the longest three weeks of her life. Not for lack of something to do, though. She’d thought she would never finish her article for American Backroads. She’d thought the days she’d spent with her sister and her kids would never end, and the few days she’d spent with her parents in her own hometown had stretched even longer. Added to that another assignment in Virginia…. She’d been busy, but it didn’t matter. Every night she’d thought of Dylan. Every night she’d considered picking up the phone, then thought of an excuse not to. Every night she’d considered coming back here to do exactly what she was doing now.

  She announced herself at the office and got a visitor’s badge, then followed the secretary’s directions through the stark, echoing halls to “Mr. MacCabe’s” classroom. Then, looking through the wired glass toward the man lecturing by the blackboard in front of a classroom full of rapt students, she stilled. The tickle of uncertainty strengthened.

  He’d cut his hair. Gone were the wild, unruly locks of the summertime. He’d trimmed it short and neat, a style that brought out the angle of his cheekbones and the squareness of his dean-shaven jaw. He’d wrapped his broad shoulders in a crisp oxford-cloth shirt. A muted tie was knotted neatly at his throat. The cotton of his shirt billowed above the leather belt looped through his crisp khaki pants. She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected that tassels swung on his leather loafers.

  She sucked a slow and uncertain breath into her lungs, for this was the man she knew and loved—transformed into someone she didn’t quite recognize.

  But of course, that was an illusion. Did she expect him to be teaching in tank tops and biker’s shorts? Dylan was Dylan, no matter how he dressed. He was still the man who had made wild love to her on river banks under the summer sun all over northern New York State. He was still the man who had taught her not to be afraid of loving. He was still the man who had led her, gently, step-by-step, through her fears.

  She waited until the bell rang, then she slipped through the door. She sensed the curious gazes of more than a few students as they rushed past her, but she ignored them and wound her way through the desks toward where Dylan stood, erasing the blackboard.

  “Dylan?”

  His shoulders tensed. The eraser paused in midair. He swiveled on one foot, and then all she could see were Dylan’s Viking eyes and the river of emotions that ran through them.

  Her throat closed up; she couldn’t speak. She could ha
rdly breathe. In a flash of a moment it was as if she were transported from this stuffy classroom to some wooded hillside, with the gurgle of a river nearby. In the space of a breath, she was alive again.

  She didn’t know how long they stood like that, staring at each other, speaking in silent tongues. Eventually, she became aware of the noise coming from the hall; the sound of students laughing and slamming lockers and calling out after-school plans to one another. Dylan walked to the door and closed it, shutting it all out.

  When he turned around to face her, the spell was broken. His eyes went blank. As if a shade had been pulled down across them.

  “Where’s your hallway pass, young lady?” Dylan stood, one hand braced against the door, the other on his hip. “You’re late for class.”

  “Not too late, I hope.”

  “Late enough to earn a detention.”

  “Well…” She sauntered through the row of desks toward him. “I want to be detained, anyway. At least for a little while.”

  He crossed his arms and stood there, his legs spread, his eyes hooded and wary. “I just saw the October edition of American Backroads,” he said. “Our story isn’t in it. Are you coming to tell me they’ve changed their minds and decided not to run it?”

  “No.” Casey shrugged. “I didn’t make the October deadline, with our delay and all. It’ll be in the November issue.”

  “I see.”

  He wove his fingers through his hair and Casey’s heart stopped. She remembered that reflexive, nervous gesture. She’d seen him do that before—a hundred times before—and for a moment she imagined she smelled the scent of pine and heard leaves rustling around them.

  Then he glanced up at her with a look in his eyes that she remembered.

  “I’d just about given up on you, Casey Michaels,” he said.

  “Oh, Dylan,” she said softly, pausing at the last row of desks. “You didn’t think I was going to leave everything… just like that.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “No, I couldn’t I…couldn’t.” She trailed a finger along the battered wood of a desk. “I needed time. I told you I’d stay away. I’d told myself I’d stay away for at least as long as I’d been with you, to see if the fires cooled.”