by Jacobs, Ann
Jared sighed. He should be inside, checking out a new game one of his programmers was certain would become the newest rage. He needed to evaluate it and two other pieces of developmental software his executive assistant had e-mailed for his comments.
Unfortunately, all he seemed able to concentrate on was Althea. Her sweet face. Her soft drawl. Her full breasts where he’d like to lay his head. Her talented hands that he imagined caressing his body instead of the fabrics they’d selected to make his quilt.
He got up, moved to the edge of the porch and stared into the pervasive darkness. Rushing water in the stream, punctuated by night creatures’ calls, broke the silence but didn’t ease the need he felt for human company. For a woman he’d just met, a woman who on the surface seemed totally wrong for him. Althea.
Marcie had been right for him. She’d been beautiful, bright and as ambitious for Cain Software as he’d been. So why hadn’t they married? Why weren’t they still together, running his company and raising a family? Jared turned away from the night and went inside.
He sat at the computer and loaded the new game his assistant was so hot about. As he played it, he tried to sort out his feelings.
He couldn’t blame Marcie for dumping him. Five years was a long time for her to have spent engaged to a man who couldn’t say “I love you.” Toward the end they’d even lost the mutual sexual attraction and, worse, the friendship on which they’d based their long relationship. When that was gone, there was nothing left.
Not even the working relationship that had started it all. Though Jared had begged her not to, Marcie had resigned as marketing director of his company. It didn’t say much for their personal relationship that his biggest regret was that he was having the devil’s own time replacing her at the office. He was fairly sure that didn’t speak well for him as a human being, either.
What would Marcie have thought of this new game?
Jared played it again. He could practically hear her waxing poetic about the prospects of launching an ad campaign featuring the game’s swashbuckling superhero, Captain Morgan.
Scratch that name. He made a mental note to have his assistant tell the programmer to rename the cartoon pirate. No need to risk a lawsuit from the manufacturer of the rum of the same name. Marcie would have caught that issue, first time through.
He shut off the computer and stretched out across his bed. When he imagined a woman lying there with him, it was Althea who came to mind.
▪ ▪ ▪
On the morning of the Fourth of July, Althea put on red shorts over her bathing suit. She slipped on a white sleeveless shirt and tied its tails at her waist. It had been so long since she’d had occasion to dress for a day outdoors, she’d had to dig deep in her closet to find the right clothes.
Since last year’s festival had been held a few days after Bill’s funeral, she hadn’t gone. Now she picked up a photo from her dresser and stared at it. It hurt, but she needed to remember his smile. She’d loved him so much. He’d been alive and vital one minute, and then dead the next.
She set the photo down. Regret wouldn’t go away, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. The last thing Bill would have wanted was for her to wither up and die while her heart still beat. He’d have wanted her to find someone new and be happy.
No! She couldn’t let herself fall in love. She couldn’t risk hurting again, the way she’d hurt since she’d lost Bill.
She’d have fun today, though. She’d enjoy the festival with Jared, ride in his fancy car and let the wind blow her hair. If he asked, she’d kiss him, see if his lips felt as good as they looked. Maybe they’d do much more than kiss. After all, she didn’t want to fall in love. Who could be a safer lover than a stranger, too rich and citified to want more than a summer fling with a country girl like her?
Althea heard the low purr of an engine and glanced out her bedroom window. Her pulse raced at the sight of Jared. When she opened the front door and met his gaze, she couldn’t help noticing the difference in his expression, as though he’d shrugged off whatever cares had been weighing him down when he came into her store last week.
“Are you ready?” he asked when she answered the door.
She picked up her canvas tote bag. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.” She followed him outside, locking the door behind her.
▪ ▪ ▪
She was no Cinderella, and Jared’s sleek convertible was no pumpkin turned golden coach. With the wind whipping her hair and the Mercedes’ powerful engine roaring in her ears, Althea fantasized that she just might pass for the fairy-tale princess. Jared drove fast but skillfully around hairpin curves on the narrow state highway that led to Helen and the festival.
They parked in one of the lots near the river then strolled aimlessly among the throng of tourists. Jared acted like a kid, sampling goodies from every vendor they passed.
His good humor rubbed off on Althea. She was happy today—happy to be with him and happier to feel alive. Part of the good-natured crowd, they wandered along Union Street, sipping peach cider and munching boiled peanuts.
“Look over there.” Jared gestured toward the middle of the river, toward tourists in fat tire tubes laughing as they bounced over the rapids. She followed his gaze across the river, where more people were flocking to rent rafts and inner tubes.
Althea stretched her legs to match Jared’s longer stride and breathed in the cool, fresh mountain air. “It looks as though they’re having fun.” She knew she was enjoying herself.
Following the bend in the river, they peered in windows of shops that offered crafts, antiques and collectibles. “Want to go take a closer look?” Jared asked when she paused to look at an antique quilt in the window of one of the stores.
“That’s all right. The pattern’s one I know.” She smiled when she looked up to meet his gaze.
“Okay.” He looked across the winding road toward the fast-moving Chattahoochee River. “Want to go tubing?”
“I wondered if you’d ever ask.” What she really wanted was to be alone with him, away from the crowd. What better way than for them to float down the river. The chilly water might cool the heat in his glittering green-gold gaze. With luck, it would put out the fire that was threatening to erupt inside her.
She pictured them caught up in a strong current, careening down the river toward a distant pickup point. Caught up in waves bounding over boulders in the river bed, out of control. As free and uncontrolled as she felt with Jared here on dry land.
“Then let’s go get wet.” He took her hand, and they headed toward a tube vendor who seemed a little less harried than the rest. After Jared picked tubes for them, and an extra one to hold the six-pack of beer he’d bought, he lashed all three tubes together and used a towel to rig a sling for the beer.
Althea was glad. She hadn’t relished taking a solitary trip where she might have ended up a long way from Jared, caught up in rapids that often got to be intimidating.
He stripped off his shoes, shirt and jeans, revealing a muscular chest dappled with soft, dark hair that arrowed past his navel to disappear into plain navy boxer-type swim trunks. She tried not to stare, but God he was gorgeous all over.
He grinned at her. “Want to take off some clothes?”
Automatically her hands went to her midriff, but she kept her gaze on his broad, lightly tanned shoulders as she untied her shirt. When she got it off and stepped out of her shorts, she took off her sneakers before stuffing everything into her tote bag. When she stood and finally met his gaze, she realized he knew she’d been staring—and that he was staring at her, too.
He took her bag, then stuffed it and his own duffel into one of the tube vendor’s rusty lockers. “Ready?
“I’m ready.” Althea plunged into the shallow river, not waiting for Jared to launch the tubes. “Ouch,” she cried at the first contact of the icy water with her shivering legs.
“Ouch, yourself. It’ll warm up once you get wet all over.” Laughing, Jared pushed the tu
bes into the water and settled her into her tube before taking his place inside the biggest, middle tube. Once he made sure the beer was secured in the last tube, he pushed them off the bank into deeper water. They kicked until they reached midstream, where a gentle current took over. It drew them along the river at an easy pace.
He reached over and took her hand. Despite the icy water, his palm and fingers felt warm and much harder than she’d expected. To have gotten his calluses, she figured he must have personally split that huge stack of logs she’d noticed on the woodpile near his house.
It felt good having her hand wrapped up in his, and since she wanted to prolong the contact she made no move to withdraw it. “What do you remember about living on the mountain when you were a boy?” she asked, curious about what had drawn him back after so many years in Atlanta.
“Not a whole lot. But I remember my mom’s smile.” He paused, then painted a picture she’d seen too often, of a family barely scraping by, poor in everything but love. A family decimated when fate took its breadwinner out of the picture. A mother not able to cope on her own, forced to seek out her kin in Atlanta to care for her and Jared after his father had died.
“Why did you come back?”
He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them and met her gaze. He smiled then shrugged. “Damned if I know. We were dirt poor. Wouldn’t have been a whole lot better off if Dad had lived, I don’t guess. He spent his life chasing rainbows, always looking for a big gold strike on that pathetic little piece of Big Bear Mountain that he called his own. The stubborn cuss wouldn’t listen when Mom reminded him no one had found more than a gram or so of gold dust around there in more than fifty years.”
“You were happy on that mountain, weren’t you?” Althea could tell by the way he spoke, the wistful sound of his voice.
“Yeah. I guess I was. I had an old tire swing and plenty of room to explore. Mom was content, keeping up that ramshackle cabin and catering to Dad. I guess I came back here looking for…” His voice trailed off, as if he were caught up in memories. “Hey, you’ve heard enough about me. Tell me how you happened to open a quilt shop right down the road from Big Bear Mountain.”
Should she tell him about Bill, about the plans they’d made? She hesitated. It still hurt to think about him, but she’d promised herself she’d enjoy living the way she knew Bill would have wanted. She smiled over at Jared.
“I was born and raised in the cabin behind the shop. My father preached at the little church up the road. I guess I never thought much about leaving.” She paused, pulled back her hand and stared for a moment at the water ahead, watching the froth that formed as water tumbled over big boulders in the riverbed. “Everything I wanted was here. My family and friends. The boy I’d loved since seventh grade. We’d been engaged since my junior year at college.”
“Past tense?”
“He got killed last year.” The boulders lurked in front of them. She had to paddle hard or she’d have scraped her legs on their jagged edges.
Jared grabbed a floating limb and used it to push them farther away from the boulders. “I’m sorry,” he said, his tone conveying deeper emotion than his words.
Althea found herself wanting to tell Jared about the dreams she’d shared with Bill, dreams she’d vowed to keep alive. She looked at Jared then let him take her hand again. The water was calm now, deep and crystal clear. Here, with no one except the two of them and whatever wildlife might be hiding in the water and along the riverbank, she felt at peace.
She talked about Bill, telling Jared about how all he’d wanted to do was help the people he loved. Tears spilled down her cheeks, putting a salty taste in her mouth as she talked about the plans they’d made for a good life together and the dream they’d shared, to help mountain women achieve financial independence with the crafts they’d been doing all their lives, by building a co-op where they could make and market their wares.
Jared reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek. With that small gesture he made her believe he didn’t mind sharing her pain. “What happened to Bill?”
“He was a deputy sheriff. He and two other deputies went with some treasury agents to break up a moonshine operation on Dillard Creek. That’s northwest of Dahlonega. Anyhow, a moonshiner named Buck Dillard shot Bill dead. He also wounded one of the other deputies and a treasury agent before he got shot to death, himself.”
Jared’s compelling eyes registered shock. He started to speak but apparently changed his mind.
“You’ve obviously been away from here a long time,” she told him. “Like poverty and gold fever, moonshine has always been around in these mountains. Probably always will be.”
“My dad used to bring a jug home every now and then. My God, it seems violence is everywhere.” He sounded disillusioned, as if he’d expected to come here and find safe haven where none existed.
“’Fraid so. Anyhow, now Bill is dead and I’m still here, trying to carry on the way he’d have wanted me to.”
“How old are you, Althea?”
“Twenty-seven. Why?”
Jared shook his head. “I’ve got nine years on you, honey. You’re way too young to have experienced so much pain. Come on, smile for me. I promise not to make you cry again today.” Shaking his head, he reached into the sling inside the tube on the other side of his and grabbed two beers. “Here, have one.”
Deep in thought, she sipped her beer. Jared was the only constant in a scene that changed slowly as they floated through the still patch of river, then faster when they came to spots where the currents ran strong. Bright green leaves on overhanging branches, blankets of wildflowers in shades of lavender and gold along the banks and sun-bleached boulders tossed along the shores by storm-fed waters sometime in the distant past meshed together, an ever-changing scene as they floated along. A panorama of nature, and a man.
Althea wanted Jared to teach her all the mysteries she and Bill had saved for the wedding night fate had denied them. The thought shamed her, but it wouldn’t go away no matter how hard she tried to squelch it.
The wind blew through the trees, making her shiver while Jared helped her onto the bank at the pickup point. His smile was contagious, his presence warming. By the time they finished a ride on a rickety truck back to the tube vendor where they’d begun their trip, she felt good again.
They stopped on Main Street at the WurstHaus for a spicy bratwurst sandwich. Lively accordion music and strong imported beer combined to raise her spirits. When they walked hand in hand back to Jared’s car, she laughed with him at the antics of a little boy chasing a colorful butterfly along the riverbank.
On the way home, Althea explained how she and Bill had hoped the craft co-op they wanted to build would give mountain homemakers the chance to earn a living from skills they’d had since childhood. Not wanting to spoil the carefree mood, she didn’t mention how community support for the project seemed to have died with Bill. Jared’s enthusiastic response to the co-op idea encouraged her, and his suggestions about financing and management made her feel she might find an ally in him.
The co-op had been Bill’s dream as well as her own. As she felt the wind in her hair, Jared’s big body radiating warmth within the confines of his sports car, Althea couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt. But she also couldn’t help feeling more alive than she had since Bill’s death.
▪ ▪ ▪
Twilight had fallen by the time Jared stopped in front of Althea’s cabin. The setting sun cast an eerie glow across his handsome face and lent an air of mystery. A sense of danger.
She looked into eyes that had seemed green in daylight but now appeared brown glittered with shards of gold. The chemistry she’d felt the first time she saw him was stronger now. A sense of arousal began in her belly, coursed through her veins and nerves. Although his lips curved in a smile, she saw an intensity in his gaze that fascinated her. Sent a momentary chill of uncertainty down her spine.
With one hand he cupped her chin while he drew h
er so close, she felt his heart beating through the layers of their clothes. She even smelled the coffee he’d drunk after the dinner they’d shared at a country restaurant near Raven Creek Falls.
How would the sandpapery shadow of dark beard on his cheeks feel against her face? Her throat? Would that rough stubble feel arousing or just scratchy and rough? She didn’t have long to wonder, because he dipped his head and claimed her mouth. His kiss was so soft and so gentle, it might have been a prayer—or a promise.
Chapter Four
Promise. He’d never felt this way before, as if his very existence depended on getting as close to a woman as a man could get, drinking of the passion and innocence he tasted on her lips.
With Althea he could fly. On a visceral level, he knew this woman, wanted her, sought her special elixir to make himself whole. Jared deepened the kiss, drew her tighter into his embrace, tangled his fingers in the soft silk of her hair.
With his tongue, he coaxed her to let him in. Her lips yielded, softened beneath his. With her small hands she caressed his chest, made him want more. Then she trembled.
He must be moving too fast, scaring her. With regret, he broke the kiss and held her at arm’s length.
When she looked up at him, he noticed the deep flush in her cheeks. Her breathing was ragged when she tried to speak. “I…” The words apparently wouldn’t come.
“Tell me you were enjoying that as much as I did.” Jared reined in his body’s unruly reaction.
“Yes. Why’d you stop?”
He laid a hand on her cheek, met her gaze. “Because you trembled.”
She stepped back then ran her fingers through her hair. “I should be embarrassed. I hardly know you.”