“Darling?” Hunter called softly. “The night is slipping away.”
“Don’t be impatient. I’ll be only a minute longer.”
He laughed. “Those are the very same words you used on our wedding night. Remember?”
No! She didn’t remember. That’s exactly what made her so nervous at the moment. He knew what they had been to each other and how they had been when they were together, while Cluney remembered nothing of that time. She felt certain things for him that made her realize she must be his wife. But a wife with no memory is not a wife at all. She is little more than a virgin bride about to face the unknown.
She was tempted to call out to him and ask him if he was sure he wanted this. He called to her instead.
“Larissa darling, do you know how long I’ve dreamed of this night? Do you know how I’ve ached to hold you again? We never really had a chance to come to know each other as husband and wife. I want that chance! I’ve lived for it.”
Cluney realized in that moment that there was no backing out. Hunter Breckinridge had, indeed, lived for tonight—for the night when he could be a husband to his long-lost wife once again.
Steeling herself, Cluney stepped from behind the curtain. The gown was thin—just how thin she realized the moment she saw Hunter’s gaze travel over her. Blushing, casting her eyes down to avoid his, she glimpsed the dark rosettes of her nipples through the sheer white batiste.
“Come here!” he ordered in a husky voice, throwing the covers back for her as he spoke.
Cluney hesitated only a moment. Then she sped across the room and climbed into the bed. Hunter flipped the covers over her.
“Come closer, darling,” he commanded.
The bed felt warm—a good, human kind of warmth, all cozy and private and rilled with secret promise.
“That’s better,” he whispered when they were touching, thigh to thigh. “Now, I want you to close your eyes, Larissa. I’m going to tell you a story.”
“But—”
“Sh-h-h!” He silenced her with a light kiss. “Just listen and remember, my love.”
In his deep voice, with its husky Southern drawl, Hunter lulled her with his tale of times gone by.
“Remember, darling, that afternoon shortly after your fifteenth birthday when we went out riding, I on Black Jack and you sitting sidesaddle on your pretty white mare, Dancer? As I recall, you were dressed in a fetching new outfit—a riding costume of sky-blue. I didn’t dare tell you at the time, but I could hardly keep my eyes from that finely cut coat with the shiny brass buttons. The way it cupped your proud breasts—well, it gave me ideas I shouldn’t have had toward one of your tender years.
The tone of his voice and his quaint confession gave Cluney a certain tingle. She smiled, but kept silent, waiting for him to continue.
“I remember how your skirt blew up slightly when we were at full gallop, even though it was weighted with shot to protect your modesty. What a surge I felt when I got an unexpected glimpse of your snowy, lace-edged petticoats. At that moment, I had the greatest urge to call a halt in order to tumble you right there in the woods.”
Cluney almost gasped aloud. Not at Hunter’s admission of guilt, but at something his words recalled to her mind. He was telling her his feelings on that sunny afternoon. But suddenly she knew Larissa’s feelings as well.
Hunter should have tumbled her in the woods, then and there. It would have served the little witch right! Besides, that was exactly what Larissa had wanted, what she had planned, in fact.
The too-tight cut of her jacket was no mere slip of the seamstress’s hand. Larissa herself had moved the brass buttons to make the jacket tight in order to accentuate her breasts. As for her shot-weighted riding skirt blowing up, Larissa had removed the bits of lead from the hem only an hour before she set out with Hunter, hoping that a glimpse of lace might give him certain ideas.
And what would she have done had Hunter fallen for the bait? Cluney wondered. With only a moment’s thought, she knew. Larissa Courtney, the belle of Fayette County, would have allowed Hunter to have his way with her. Then promptly afterward she would have branded him a cad, only to go running to his brother Jordan for comfort and hopes of a proposal. Damned if the fine Miss Courtney wasn’t a nineteenth-century prick-teaser!
Cluney opened her eyes and stared up into the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. Hunter must never know! she told herself.
With that thought still in Cluney’s mind, his next words came as a total shock. “I knew what you were up to that afternoon, my darling little flirt. You gave me every invitation, every opportunity to have at you. And, oh, I was sorely tempted! You put me through hell and then some that afternoon. But I guessed what you were up to. You were trying to get to Jordan through me. You’d wanted him all those years because he always said he’d never marry. He was a challenge. Well, you see, Larissa, there was one thing you never bargained for. I truly loved you! I still do, in spite of everything. I refused that afternoon to be led astray, no matter how hard you tried, no matter how many tricks you had up your pretty sleeve.”
“The grove!” Cluney whispered suddenly, not even sure why she had said it.
Hunter chuckled. “Ah, yes, the grove! What a lovely oak glen that was! So private. ‘Our own piece of paradise,’ you called it. My own piece of hell, it turned out to be. You claimed the horses needed a drink at the spring. True enough. It was a hot day. Just how hot I didn’t realize until you let me kiss you. Ah, that swift little tongue of yours flicking into my mouth. Do you know what that does to a man?”
He paused and laughed softly, waiting for his wife to answer. But Cluney lay, silent and blushing, beside him, so he continued.
“Yes, I’m sure you knew what you were doing to me. Then you removed your tight jacket, pleading the heat. And what harm between friends, your unfastening a few buttons? Before I knew it, my hands were on your cool breasts. A moment more and my mouth would have followed the lead of my fingers. Had that happened, all would have been lost, including your precious virginity, my darling. That was a real struggle for me—mind over manhood. But had I let you win that humid afternoon, you would not be here now. And I would have no right to do this.”
Cluney gasped softly as Hunter’s hand stroked her breast. She lay rigid as he fondled her almost roughly. Then his touch gentled and she sighed with pleasure, feeling a liquid warmth flow through her.
“Do you remember that afternoon, Larissa?”
“I do,” she answered honestly. “I remember everything about it. And you’re right,” she admitted. “I planned the seduction. But you were too smart for me. You knew all along?”
“I did.”
“Then why did you let me…?”
“Because I loved you. And I wanted you—not just for that one moment, but forever. And because I believed that, in time, I could make you love me, too.”
“But that’s crazy, Hunter!” Cluney said. “You should have turned Laris … me over your knee and given me a good spanking.”
He laughed. “Don’t think I didn’t consider that—more than once.”
“And now?”
“You’ve changed. You’ve grown up, darling. Either that, or you’ve refined your ability as an actress. I’m not sure I care which as long as you’re with me again and seem happy that we’re together.”
“Oh, I am!” Cluney assured him.
“What happened when you went away that changed you? You never seemed sure of your affections before. Can’t you tell me what’s made the difference, Larissa?”
All the while they talked, Hunter continued his fondling caresses. Now one finger was circling her nipple. He would squeeze it gently from time to time, mounding pleasure upon pleasure for the object of his tender torment.
Cluney caught her breath between words as she spoke. “I can’t tell you yet, because I really don’t know. I went away. Far away. For a long time. I didn’t know who I was … where I’d come from. I did
n’t remember you, Hunter, or anything from my other life. I still don’t remember much.”
“You remember this, don’t you, darling?”
Hunter’s hand slipped down over Cluney’s belly. Easing her gown up, he slid his fingers between her thighs. The moment he touched her, Cluney began to tremble. His stroke was light, but sure. Obviously, he knew Larissa’s body better than Cluney herself knew it. In moments, he brought her to the very brink of orgasm.
“Oh, please, Hunter!” she begged. “Stop! Wait!”
He drew away in the nick of time. Cluney lay beside him, breathing deeply, trying to gain control once more.
“Why did you stop me?” he asked.
Oh, this was so difficult, so scary, so embarrassing! How could Cluney ever put her feelings into words?
Finally, she made an attempt. “Becuase it isn’t fair,” she said. “Sharing is what love is about. The pleasure should be divided equally between the two of us, just like the love we share.”
“Are you saying you truly want me?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes! We’re husband and wife, aren’t we? Of course, I want you. If you … I mean, if we can.”
He laughed—a joyous sound. “The Rebs missed their aim, my darling. Of course, I can!”
He pulled her closer then and kissed her deeply, teasing her tongue with his. Cluney’s head was reeling. Suddenly, sights and sounds from Larissa’s life were flashing through her mind like pictures from a VCR set on fast forward. She watched Larissa as a little girl, pitting one brother against the other. She heard Larissa as a young teenager, making promises to Hunter, then to another young man who was equally handsome, but who had a strange, cold gleam in his eyes. She cringed when another vision flashed, the two boys bloodying each other’s noses over the pretty girl as Larissa stood by smiling and cheering them on.
As Hunter held his wife and kissed her and touched her, something happened—something extraordinary. It seemed that Cluney Summerland ceased to exist. She became his Larissa—his bride, his lover, his woman. For the first time in so long, she felt whole again, as if a part of her heart that had been torn away was now back in place. As he held her in his arms, Cluney began to remember more of the past—not her own past, but Larissa’s. Not things from Hunter’s journal, but things Cluney Summerland had never before known.
Between kisses, she whispered to him, “Darling, remember that spring afternoon we took a picnic to the meadow and it was all golden with forsythia and you cut a whole armful for me?”
“I do,” he murmured. “That was the first time I ever kissed you.”
She felt a blush. “Why do you think I remember that day? Not for the forsythia.”
“That was such an innocent kiss,” he said, half laughing. “I’m surprised you remember it at all. I barely touched your lips with mine and it lasted the merest instant.”
She snuggled close. “You touched my soul with that kiss.”
“You hid your feelings well.”
“I did love you,” Cluney insisted. “I still do.”
“More than you love anyone else?”
“More than I love life itself,” Cluney heard herself say.
“Do you remember your first ball at Bluefield, sweetheart?”
She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. “I wore the petal-pink gown of lace that Mother ordered all the way from Paris. The bodice was stitched with tiny pearls. And you, my darling, looked so handsome, so dashing in your evening clothes. Why, you simply took my breath away!”
Hunter uttered a low, evil chuckle. “When I held you on the dance floor, I sorely longed to take far more than your breath away. Lord, how I ached for you that night!” He touched her breast with his open palm. “I still do, Larissa, more than ever. It’s a pain only you can soothe.”
His mention of pain snapped Cluney out of her haze. She was lying against him, certainly hurting him. Quickly, she moved away.
“Don’t!” he urged. “I want you close beside me.”
She leaned against him again.
“This is no good,” he fumed. “Too much gown. I can’t get to you with only one good hand to maneuver. Take it off!”
When Cluney rose from the bed, she realized her knees were weak. She turned toward the curtain, but Hunter stopped her.
“No! Take it off over here in the light. I want to see you, darling. All of you.”
Cluney stood staring at Hunter for a moment, her gaze locked to his. There was no hiding from him any longer. He was her husband, demanding his rights.
Slowly, she drew the gown up over her legs, her hips, her breasts. She slipped it over her head, then tossed it aside. Hunter’s eyes gleamed in the candlelight as he stared at her.
“Magnificent!” he breathed. “Wonderfully, perfectly fantastic! Come closer.”
Cluney did as he ordered. He reached out and passed his open palm over her flat belly and down to her thighs. She bit her lip to keep from moaning out loud. Her eyes closed and her head lolled to one side. Hunter slipped his arm around her waist and drew her closer. Then she felt his lips press against the soft flesh of her hip. He stroked her gently with his tongue.
What was he doing to her? Did he mean to make her stand all night while he tormented her with pleasure?
“Come back to bed,” he ordered, a new urgency in his tone.
The moment they were side by side once more, Hunter sought her breasts—suckling her gently, making her sigh and moan.
And then she felt him, hot and throbbing, against her thigh. An instant later, he entered her. This was not the deep, swift thrust she expected. But his slow, gradual entry was far better, making her grope and beg for every inch of him until she was filled. With easy rhythm, they rocked together, locked in a total embrace from mouths to toes.
Cluney experienced a sensation like flying without wings, like gliding through space on a cloud. She knew this man; she loved him. And no matter what she had put him through in the past, she vowed from this moment on never to give him anything but pleasure, the same kind of pleasure he was showering on her this instant.
When their beautiful moment came, Cluney shuddered against Hunter. His groan of release at the same moment was so deep that it frightened her. But her fear passed into a perfect instant of bliss.
She never realized she was crying until he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“It’s over now, darling,” Hunter whispered. “Whatever our problems before, they’ve been solved miraculously. Now we are truly one.”
Cluney felt her heart take wing when she heard his words. They were, indeed, like one person—one happy, delirious, miraculous being. Life was beautiful—as beautiful as the moonbow!
But Hunter’s next words chilled her soul.
“I know I don’t have many days left, my darling, but they will be the happiest days of my life because you are with me and I know you love me.”
Long after he fell asleep, Cluney lay wide awake, listening to an owl sound his lonesome call through the night and trying to think what she would do if Hunter didn’t survive.
“I don’t know where I belong anymore,” she whispered. “I’m like a drifter in time. I felt lost before, and without Hunter I’d be lost again.”
She forced herself to stop trying to figure things out. Instead, she thought of B.J., and wondered what her closest friend was doing at this very moment on the other side of the moonbow.
Chapter Thirteen
B.J. Jackson was hospitalized for two nights after her tumble down the stairs at Cumberland Falls. She was there long enough for the doctors to x-ray every bone in her body and scan her brain from all angles. Of course, she joked afterward that they found “nothing.” Other than cuts, bumps, and bruises, she was okay, and having a fit to get out. Not only did she hate hospitals, she couldn’t do a thing about finding Cluney as long as she was being held against her will.
Sonny Taylor sent her a big bouquet of blue-tinted carnations and
came by to visit her twice. On his second call, he found B.J. out of bed and dressed, waiting for the office downstairs to get her paperwork so she could pay her bill and check out.
“Hey, B.J.! You look real fine,” Sonny said, fidgeting with his hat in his hands. “I heard they were letting you go today and I thought you might need a ride home.”
“How ’bout a ride up to the falls instead?”
“Aw, B.J.,” he groaned. “There’s not a blame thing you can do out there. The sheriffs got men searching around the clock.”
“All the same, I want to have a look for myself. I might pot something that they’d miss. Has anyone seen Wooter Crenshaw since the other night?”
Reluctantly, Sonny shook his head. He didn’t want B.J. getting mixed up in diis again, but there seemed no way to stop her. She was one bullheaded lady!
“Wooter’s sign’s not on the road. Nobody’s seen nor heard from him since the night of your accident.”
B.J. was busily stuffing odds and ends into her purse. That chore finished, she picked up the vase of carnations, then surveyed the room for anything she might have missed.
“Thanks again for the flowers, Sonny. I don’t think I ever saw this exact color before.”
He grinned and blushed. “I’m real glad you like them. I had them done up special for you. I noticed you wear blue a lot and figured that must be your favorite color. I would have sent red roses, but I reckon that wouldn’t have been fitting. I mean, we just met and all. I didn’t want you to think I was being forward.”
“The blue carnations are beautiful and perfectly appropriate for a woman who’s bruised from head to toe.”
Sonny looked stricken. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Just joshing, Sonny. What do you say we get the hell out of this place?”
He offered B.J. his arm, then they headed for the elevator. After a brief wait in the office, she was at last a free woman again.
The sunshine felt wonderful. The morning was almost balmy. She climbed into Sonny’s pickup truck with hardly a twinge. Moments later, they were headed up the mountain toward Cumberland Falls.
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