Cadie thought carefully about her answer for a few seconds. "Because I don't think that's who you are anymore," she answered. "Because I'm not sure it's who you really were then either. Because something... God, I'm not even sure what...tells me that you're a good person, no matter what you've done in the past." She paused again as a small piece of truth floated up through her consciousness. "And because I just feel safe with you." She shrugged her shoulders and grinned down at her companion. "Don't ask me to explain it all beyond that, darling, because I don't think I can."
Jo suddenly found herself fighting tears. "You're an amazing woman, Arcadia Jones," she whispered.
"I'm in love with an amazing woman, Jo-Jo," came the soft reply. Cadie leaned down and claimed the taller woman's lips for a deep kiss.
Jo melted at the touch, retaining just enough sense to wrap her arms around the blonde and pull her down on top of her. She felt Cadie relax against her and together they deepened the contact into something that lasted minutes rather than seconds. She groaned softly, reveling in the feeling of giving herself over to another person. Cadie's hands roamed her body, sliding slowly up under her t-shirt and Jo arched against her as sensuality radiated out from the blonde's teasing touch.
Cadie could hardly believe the silky softness of Jo's skin, hard muscles rippling just under the surface, speaking of power and control that she found intriguingly sexy. She felt Jo press her thigh between her own and they both moaned as bare skin came up against warm wetness.
The blonde teetered on the brink of just throwing away all rational thought, every care she had for the sake of the passion that threatened to overtake them both. For a moment she hesitated, and then she went limp, whimpering in the dark, warm nest formed by Jo's neck and her hair.
Cadie felt the vibration of a deep, rumbling chuckle from the woman beneath her and she smiled at the skipper's good-natured response. Long arms wrapped her up in a tight hug and Jo kissed her temple softly.
"I'm driving you nuts, aren't I?" the blonde asked wistfully, willing her body's reactions to settle.
"Yes." Jo laughed. "But I understand." She squeezed the smaller woman gently. "God help us the day we get to take this through to its natural conclusion." She grinned.
Cadie looked up at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"
Jo laughed again. "I may just spontaneously combust," she joked.
That brought a belly laugh from the woman in her arms and soon they were giggling hysterically again.
"Oh dear," Cadie gulped, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, that felt good. That's one of the things I love about being with you, Jo." She smiled fondly at the dark-haired woman. "You have this knack for making me laugh."
Jo said nothing but took the opportunity to roll them both over, till she was sprawled half on the bed and half over the blonde. She rested her cheek on Cadie's breast, her arm wrapped firmly around the smaller woman. She felt Cadie enfold her in a hug, one hand stroking slowly through her hair. Jo felt a surge of well being that connected her to the American in a way she hadn't experienced with anyone else before.
"I've never felt this good," she half-whispered, making Cadie wonder if she'd heard correctly. "Whatever happens, I'll be forever grateful for the time we've had."
Cadie bit her lip, trying not to succumb to the tears she could hear just under the surface of Jo's words. "I will be back," she whispered back. "I don't know when, but I will be back. I promise."
"Shhh," Jo said, turning and placing a gentle finger on Cadie's lips. "Don't, darling. Don't make promises. Too much has to happen. Let's just take each day as it comes."
"Scary thought," Cadie muttered. "I don't do real well without a plan." She caught Jo's eye as the tall woman raised an amused eyebrow. "I know, I know, loosen up Arcadia."
Jo shook her head. "No, that wasn't what I was going to say. I was thinking just how well you are doing given the complete chaos of the last 24 hours," she said.
"Well," Cadie said changing the subject, "you must have a bazillion questions for me. Though I have to warn you, my life is nowhere near as eventful as yours has been."
Jo rolled off the smaller woman and propped herself up on an elbow. "From what I've seen, I like your life just fine," she said, gazing down at the American.
"Ask away." Cadie smiled back up at her.
"I guess the immediate question that springs to mind is how did you and Naomi manage to get together in the first place?" Jo asked. "You're so different from each other, it's hard for me to picture what drew you together."
Cadie sighed and let her eyes drift to the ceiling, even as she felt Jo's soothing hand drawing gentle circles on her stomach.
"We've both changed," she said simply. "Naomi probably more than me, but I've grown up a lot as well." She settled into the story and regained Jo's eyes, finding them interested and sympathetic. "Have I told you lately that you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, Ms Madison?" She was charmed by the fetching blush that colored Jo's face highlighting her high-planed cheekbones and angular jaw.
"Back at you, Miss Jones," Jo replied huskily. "Now get on with the story." She grinned.
"I can't help it if I'm distracted by your gorgeousness, can I?" Cadie giggled at the renewed color in Jo's cheeks, but soon squealed as the Australian's gentle touch turned into tickling. She wondered at the barely-suppressed strength in the way Jo contained her squirming body, inflicting delicious torture. "Okay, okay, uncle!" Cadie yelped.
Jo relented, a wickedly cheeky grin splitting her face from ear to ear. Cadie caught her breath and relaxed back against the pillows.
"Okay," she said, regaining her composure. "Absolutely nothing interesting happened to me at high school. Jimmy Hofsteder didn't last long."She grinned at Jo who chuckled in reply. "But I didn't do anything about my feelings about girls until I was at college." She paused, wondering just how much Jo knew about the college system in the US. "I moved out of Madison for that," she explained. "I got into Northwestern University in Chicago."
"What were you studying?"
"English literature and art history," Cadie replied. "Which guaranteed I graduated with the world's most useless degree."
"What were you- planning to do with it?"
"All I really knew was that I didn't want to teach. Through high school my English teachers kept telling me that I should write, but I could never come up with anything original to write about."
She was distracted by Jo's finger lazily tracing her lips, triggering a delicious wave of sensation. Cadie took the opportunity to softly suck the fingertip into her mouth, watching as Jo's eyes widened, riveted on the blonde's mouth.
"You are so wicked," Jo rumbled. "Maybe you should write lesbian erotica. You certainly seem to have a knack for it." Gently she withdrew her finger, with a sigh. "God...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to interrupt you."
Cadie cleared her throat. "I don't mind, trust me," she replied huskily. "Anyway, I met Naomi in my freshman year at NWU. That's the first year," she explained at Jo's quizzical look. "She was a senior."
"That's the fourth year, yeah?"
"Mhmm. She was doing a government and economics degree."
"Makes sense," Jo said.
"She was a lot different from the person you see now," Cadie said wistfully. "Any cause that was going, Naomi was up for it. Student politics, homeless kids, gay rights, national and foreign policy...you name it, Naomi was campaigning for it. It was kind of mesmerizing to watch her in action. Inspiring, in many ways."
Jo nodded.
"She's the one who got me interested in politics. There used to be weekly debates and forums around the campus and Naomi was always one of the best speakers. I got involved as a volunteer and one Friday afternoon she noticed me." Cadie shrugged her shoulders. "That's more or less where it started."
"When did you decide to become a literary agent?" Jo asked.
"Oh, not for quite a while. We both come from pretty privileged backgrounds, so money wasn't really an issue for us, even early on. By t
he time I graduated, Naomi was done with law school and was practicing with one of the big firms in Chicago. It wasn't too long after that when she decided to make a career out of politics."
Jo noted the look of quiet sadness on the blonde's face. "Is that something you regret?" she wondered.
Cadie thought for a while before answering. "She was a good politician in those days," she said. "She went into it for the right reasons—I mean she really wanted to change things for people, you know?" Jo nodded her understanding. "And I was very happy to do my bit."
"So you worked for her?"
"Mhmm. For the first few years I worked full-time for whatever campaign she was running. I was the secretary, publicist, speech writer, and gopher all wrapped into one. It was fun." She smiled at the memories of rallies and victory speeches.
"So, when did it stop being fun?"
"Good question," Cadie replied. She rolled onto her stomach and flung an arm over Jo's chest, snuggling into the crook of the taller woman's arm. Mephisto appeared out of nowhere and curled up in a ball on Jo's belly. Both women reached out to stroke him, their fingers tangling together as they met.
"I guess I started to grow up," Cadie reflected. "I started wanting something for myself. By then Naomi was running for Governor." She sighed deeply. "She always blamed me for losing that one, even though she was by far the youngest candidate to try."
Jo looked down at the blonde sharply. "Why on earth would she blame you?" she asked.
"Because that was the first campaign I didn't work on full-time. I'd set up the agency by then and was working pretty hard to establish myself. Naomi felt like I wasn't doing what I promised to do back when we first got together."
Jo snorted. "Shit happens," she muttered. "Life happens. People change and grow."
"I know," Cadie said. "But losing that campaign was the start of the big changes I started to see in Naomi. It suddenly became much more serious. Early on, when she was winning— and winning easily—politics was about helping people. She could afford to have fun with it. But later it became about making Naomi feel good. Her self-esteem became invested in winning, I suppose. I guess I kind of still feel guilty about that."
Jo squeezed the blonde gently. "Don't do that, Cadie," she urged. "You're not responsible for her happiness, I don't care how married you are." She felt the smaller woman go very still in her arms.
"My head know that," Cadie whispered. "But part of me feels like if I'd just stayed involved full-time then maybe the whole drugs thing wouldn't have happened."
Jo couldn't bear hearing the self-blame in the American's voice any longer and she pulled her up so they could look in each other's eyes. "Cadie, answer me a question?" She waited for the blonde's tentative nod. "Why did you feel the need to start your own business?"
Cadie blinked a few times as she searched for an answer, her eyes glassy as she cast her mind back, trying to recapture her feelings at the time. "It was like I was disappearing," she said softly. "I was the quiet, behind-the-scenes half of this thing called Naomi-and-Cadie. Everyone saw the politician, but nobody ever saw me. I can remember waking up one morning and knowing that if I didn't find something I wanted to do, I would just fade away to nothing."
Jo smiled at her. "So don't beat yourself up for doing something that was essential to your survival as a happy individual," she said, leaning forward to emphasize her point with a soft kiss on Cadie's willing lips. "And one thing's for certain, Naomi sure as hell thinks of your happiness a lot less than you worry about hers."
Cadie nodded silently.
"Tell me about the drugs?" Jo asked.
"I don't really know if it's been going on for a long time and I just haven't noticed, or if it's a relatively new thing in her life," Cadie said sadly. "About halfway through her first term in the Senate—about two and a half years ago, I guess—she started coming home much later, taking more trips, having meetings at weird times of night... that kind of thing." She caught Jo's eye. "Don't get me wrong, US senators lead busy lives, at least while the Senate is in session, so I never really expected to see much of her. But this was a bit different. When she was home she was foul-tempered and on a hair trigger most of the time."
"Does she use at home?"
Cadie shook her head. "Not that I've ever been able to find," she replied. "To be honest, for a long time I thought she was having an affair. And then New Year's Eve happened and I realized that if she wasn't using drugs, she was at least condoning her friends' use of them, if not supplying them."
Jo's eyes widened. "What happened on New Year's Eve?"
"We were hosting a cocktail party. Kelli was as high as a kite and told me that Naomi had made a never-ending supply of cocaine available to anyone who wanted it."
"Holy shit," Jo muttered.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what I said," Cadie answered. "She denied it, of course, and somehow managed to make it my bad for even suspecting it. And things have been pretty awful between us ever since."
"I'm surprised she didn't offer to cut you in," Jo muttered, increasingly irritated with the senator.
"I'm not," Cadie said. "She may have long since stopped knowing me, Jo, but on this subject she knew damn well I would be immovable. Ever since—"
She stopped, silenced by the familiar lump in her throat whenever she thought of that time.
"Ever since what, sweetheart?" Jo asked softly, seeing that Cadie was lost in some distant and none too happy memory.
The blonde swallowed and lifted her eyes to the gentle blue ones of her companion.
"I had a brother," she almost whispered. The skipper caught the break in her voice and gathered the smaller woman up into the softest, safest hug she could muster. "His name was Sebastian and he was 10 years older than me," Cadie continued. "He was my best buddy." She smiled into Jo's neck and the dark-haired woman felt it and smiled with her.
"When I was eight and he was 18 he went away to college, but that last summer we spent almost every day together." Cadie sat up and faced Jo, beaming with the happy memories. "He was the sweetest guy, Jo. He would take me camping, and sailing on the lake. And he bought me an ice-cream every single afternoon on his way home from his summer job."
Jo grinned, captivated by the blonde's descriptions and the childlike glow as she recalled her sibling. "He sounds like a sweetheart."
Cadie nodded. "The last day before he went away to college, he gave me his high school letterman jacket, and told me that I would always be his best girl, no matter what. He wrote me a letter every week." She fell silent, drifting away again on the memories.
"What happened?"
Cadie sighed. "We don't really know for sure. He was at a fraternity party. One minute he was playing pool with some friends and the next...well, they said he sat down for a minute, and when they turned around to tell him it was his turn to play, he was dead where he sat."
Jo reached for Cadie again, pulling her close and wrapping her up tightly. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Cadie nodded.
"The coroner said there were high levels of LSD and other drugs in his bloodstream, though his friends always denied there were any drugs at the party. But apparently, that combined with the alcohol...he choked to death on his own vomit." Her voice caught again and she buried her face in Jo's t-shirt. "And... and... nobody knew what was happening to him. He never made a sound."
The tears came freely now, and Jo stayed quiet, rocking the smaller woman until the sobs subsided.
"Oh boy," Cadie sighed. "I haven't done that in a long time. I'm sorry."
"Shhh, don't be," Jo replied. "Thank you for telling me about him."
"He's a big part of me. And I want you to know everything there is to know," Cadie said, sniffling and dabbing at the damp patch she left on Jo's t-shirt.
Jo reached up and cupped Cadie's cheek with a gentle palm, picking up a tear on the tip of her thumb. "And I want to know everything," she murmured.
Cadie smiled wanly and leaned forward into Jo's touc
h until their lips were almost in contact. "I love you, Jo," she breathed.
To the Australian it felt like she was inhaling pure love, an intoxicating sensation. The kiss laid them both bare like never before. Jo felt herself opening emotionally as the contact between them deepened and intensified in a way that left her breathless and teary. When they broke off she hugged the blonde fiercely.
"Ohhh, Cadie, I love you, too," she said. "Ten days ago..." They pulled apart and looked at each other, both sporting disbelieving grins. "I didn't even know you. Now I'm struggling to know how it's going to be once you've gone again."
"Let's not go there," Cadie said quickly, silencing Jo with a finger across her lips. "We've got another week and a half. I don't want to think beyond that. At least not yet. Please?"
Jo nodded and Cadie moved to straddle the tall woman's hips, easing forward to be cradled in Jo's arms against her chest.
"I don't even want to get out of this bed," the blonde mumbled. "It's like our own little bubble of safety." Jo smiled at the analogy, and squeezed Cadie closer. "It's chaos out there and I don't want to move."
"Mmm, neither do I," Jo replied, scratching under Mephisto's chin with her big toe.
For a few more minutes the couple just lay in each other's arms, watching the sun climb higher in the sky over the islands. This is bliss, thought Jo, closing her eyes against the hent, I want time to slow down so each second lasts a minute. I don't ever want to forget any of this. She lightly scratched Cadie's back in slow circles, feeling the blonde almost purring under her touch.
"That feels so good it ought to be illegal," Cadie murmured, kissing the hollow at the base of Jo's neck softly. Please God, don't let this be the last time I feel her arms around me. She felt Jo sigh deeply. "We have to get moving, don't we?"
"'Fraid so," Jo replied. "My bet is that Bill will show up any minute, and then there's Josh and Harding to visit before we head back to the Seawolf."
"Damn..."
A few hours later they were skidding across the waters of the Whitsunday Passage in a water taxi, part of a fleet which ran people and cargo to and from the islands several times a day. Jo had chartered one especially to get her and Cadie back to the Seawolf, which was still anchored off the southern tip of Whitsunday Island. The couple sat in the spartan cabin, looking out salt-smeared windows at the pristine day.
Heart's Passage Page 24