by Fran Baker
His blood came to a full boil when she raised the lid on the chest-style freezer that stood against the west wall and leaned down to get something out of it. “How long does that stuff in the refrigerator have to chill?”
She came up with a bulging cloth bag and an impish grin. “About as long as it’ll take you to chip fifteen pounds of ice.”
He pulled a grudge of a face. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
She wrinkled her nose in mock disapproval. “If you want to eat ice cream, you have to help make it. House rules.”
“I’ve worked up an appetite,” he grumbled good-naturedly, reaching for the heavy bag she held, “but not for ice cream.”
Joni laughed and measured out three cups of rock salt to mix with the ice he was crushing. This last week had been the happiest of her life—packed with more laughter and more loving than she’d ever dreamed possible. Just as sure as the world’s turning, though, their time together was drawing to an end.
“Speaking of which … Tex called while you were outside working on the tin lizzie.”
“What’d he want?” He halted in mid-action, his expressive green eyes locking with her anxious blue ones. They both knew that the old car was just an excuse—and a flimsy one at that—for him to hang around the house a little while longer.
Keeping her voice casual, she carried the rock salt into the kitchen. “He said the core samples at the new site look great, and that he’s ready to raise the rig whenever you are.”
“I’ll call him when I’m finished with this.” Chance gave the ice a vicious whack with the hammer, crushing a good five pounds with one blow. He’d never been torn between a woman and his work before. But then, he’d never been in love before either.
She set the full cup on the counter and, alone, pressed her fingers to her lips as if that might help her control the urge to beg him not to leave her. When she felt properly composed, she drifted back to the doorway and began stockpiling another memory to sustain her in his absence.
Naked to the waist, he wielded the hammer with strength and surety. Afternoon sunshine poured through the jalousied windows and sweat sheened his copper skin, running down the muscles that rippled with each lithe movement of his chest and arms.
She never tired of looking at him—at the angle of his jaw, the line of his eyebrow, the crisp black thickness of his hair. More than anything, she wanted to be with him on a full-time basis—to sleep with him every night and to wake up with him every morning. For now, though, that was an impossible dream.
“All done,” he announced, setting the hammer aside and smiling at her from across the porch.
“I’ll make the ice cream while you make your phone call.” She turned away before she burst into tears.
Forty-five minutes later the ice cream had been packed for hardening and Joni sat on Chance’s lap, facing him and helping him lick the dasher clean. Her thighs were draped over his and she held a dinner plate between them to catch the melting drops they missed.
When the dasher was all licked up, they set it and the plate on the table. Then she looped her arms around his neck and he linked his hands at the small of her back.
“You’re smeared from ear to ear,” he murmured, touching his tongue to the corner of her sticky mouth.
“So’re you.” Laughing now, she returned the favor, the taste of him making her feel as woozy as those sips of wildcat whiskey she used to sneak as a teenager.
“Uh-oh.” His lips were cold, his breath warm, as he bathed her face like a mother cat washes her kitten. “I missed a couple of spots.”
“Those are freckles,” she protested softly, her body pulsing in places she wished he’d cool when he turned his attention to the sensitive, speckled column of her throat.
Neither one of them had mentioned his impending departure yet, partly because their tongues were already occupied and partly because talking about it would have spoiled the playful mood.
Eventually, though, she had to ask and he had to answer.
Joni ensnared his hair in her fingers and lifted his head. “When are you leaving?”
Chance slid his strong hands up her slender thighs and under the legs of her shorts. “Sunday morning.”
So little time …
“Will you miss me?” She gave a start, then grew lax and soft when his adroit thumbs slipped inside her bikini panties.
He discovered to his great delight that she was already wet for him. “Would the heavens miss the stars?”
They kissed, sharing their vanilla essence with unselfish ardor. His mouth captured her moans while his tongue and thumbs circled gently. She dropped her hands to his broad shoulders, clung crazily as he took her through peaks and valleys and left her panting for more.
“How long will it take the ice cream to get hard?” he asked when they broke apart.
“A couple of hours,” she whispered breathlessly. “Why?”
He stood with her a-straddle his waist, her legs locked behind him, and carried her out of the kitchen. “ ’Cause it’s going to take me at least that long to get soft.”
“Tired?” he asked at the bottom of the stairs.
“Kind of,” she admitted at the top.
It had been a busy day, what with Chance helping Joni pick tomatoes and Joni helping Chance pack for tomorrow’s trip. After supper they’d cleaned up and gone out to the crossroads so he could make his good-byes. They’d danced once, a slow dance, and then come straight home to spend the rest of the night alone.
“Too tired?” Considerately, he put his heart’s desire on hold as he paused to open the door to the bedroom they now claimed as their own.
“Never.” Casting a look of invitation over her shoulder, she preceded him into the relatively austere room that was in such stark contrast to her old lace-and-wicker retreat.
Moonlight filtered in through simply curtained windows and reflected off polished wood and white plaster, magnifying the feeling of space and suspending all sense of the world beyond.
Furnishings, while minimal, were made of bird’s-eye maple and had a history all their own. The mirrored dresser had come from Scotland with Joni’s great-grandparents, the chest of drawers had been her grandfather’s wedding present to her grandmother, and the nightstands her father’s gift to her mother.
A delicately colored checkerboard quilt covered the antique brass bed that four generations of her family had been conceived in. Joni hoped to continue the tradition with Chance.
“Whew!” His smile now would have charmed the stripe off a skunk. Not to mention the clothes off a redhead. “You had me scared for a minute.”
“What’s the matter, tough guy?” After folding back the quilt, she left her blue jersey dress and half-slip, her bra and bikini panties in a heap on the floor. Then, wearing nothing but her freckles and a puckish grin, she spread her arms out to her sides and fell backward onto the bed. “Afraid you’ll have to go without a proper good-bye?”
By way of answer, he dropped his shirt and jeans and shorts in a haphazard trail from the door to the bed and laid down on top of her. Wedging her knees apart with his, he settled his body between her receptive legs and kissed her long and hard.
“If that’s good-bye,” she said throatily when he raised his lips from hers, “I can hardly wait for hello.”
His hand stroked up the inside of her thigh and his dexterous fingers found her dewy with anticipation. “You know what they say about all good things coming to those who wait.”
They kissed again, taking time to savor every bit of each other before impatience claimed them for the first of many farewells that night.
“I love you, Joni,” he whispered as he sheathed himself in her satiny warmth, making her body a part of his and his a part of hers.
“I love you too, Chance,” she murmured as she palmed his firm buttocks and drew him in so deep, he could feel her heart beating.
The wind swished the curtain on the sill.
He sank his fingers in
to her red, red hair and spread it across his pillow. “I still get the shakes when I remember you running onto the drilling site the day of the blowout.”
She gently bit the meaty muscle of his bicep, thrilling to the taste and the texture of his living flesh. “I thought you were going to die and I wanted to die with you.”
“If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll …” He lowered his head and nipped her neck in loving punishment.
“You’ll what?” she challenged him softly.
Now he let his tongue make reparation.
She threaded her fingers through his thick hair and pulled on it until he raised his head. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll …” He made a grinding motion with his hips that robbed her of breath. “That’s what.”
She smiled and answered with a movement of her own. “Remind me to have my running shoes resoled.”
They kissed then, handing themselves heart and soul into the other’s keeping.
“I want to see us …” Chance levered up and hung his head to watch their bodies mingling.
Joni’s eager eyes followed.
Moonlight cast a mellow glow on the place where dark met fair, where male met female, illuminating the physical evidence of a spiritual bond that neither time nor distance could ever dissolve.
He reared his head back then, his eyes and his body boring into hers with all the passion and power a woman could want.
Joni had lived in Redemption her whole life, while Chance had been a roamer for as long as he could remember. Together now, they came home.
“Joni?”
“In here.”
Chance paused in the kitchen doorway, his mind entertaining several provocative ways to say good-bye, when she turned away from the counter and he saw that she was wearing one of his old white dress shirts. The sleeves had been rolled back to her elbows, and the hem struck her mid-thigh, accenting those freckled legs that went on forever.
Joni curled her bare toes on the morning-cool linoleum but stood perfectly still otherwise as his electric-green eyes traveled from the shadowy triangle at the top of her thighs to the magnificent halo of hair that framed her pensive face.
“You’re not making this any easier,” he chided her quietly.
“Good,” she said fiercely.
He studied her, standing there in his shirt and her own stubbornness, and decided this was going to be his last trip for a while. A long while.
She looked at him, dressed to leave her in clean jeans and bleached white T-shirt, and wished he’d give her something tangible to hold on to until he came back.
“I’m finished packing the car,” he said, his eyes never wavering from her sweet-sad face.
“Did you find that people bag I made?” she asked, her mouth trembling mutinously.
He nodded. “I put it in the cooler.”
She glanced at the clock over the stove, trying not to dote on the hard-muscled sight of him filling her doorway. “I guess this is good-bye then, huh?”
“No.”
“No?” Her startled gaze returned to his face, and what she saw there made her runaway pulse throb at her throat.
He crossed the kitchen in two purposeful strides and pulled her to him, nearly lifting her off the floor. She wore nothing beneath the shirt, having shed her inhibitions about her body in his arms, and the rough denim of his jeans rubbed enticingly against her legs. Then his mouth came down on hers, hot and hungry, and she melted into his kiss.
“That’s good-bye,” he whispered gruffly when he raised his head.
Her fingers wanted to linger in his dark hair, but she forced them down. “Good-bye, Chance.”
Taking her hands in his, he turned them over and pressed his lips to the center of one and then the other of her now healed palms. “Promise you’ll wear your work gloves while I’m gone.”
Nodding, she raised her eyes to his and extracted a promise of her own. “Swear you’ll wear your safety line when you go up on the platform.”
It seemed to take as much effort on his part to release her as it did on hers to let him go.
Morning sunshine streamed in through the multipaned windows, and the kitchen seemed laden with the sounds and the smells of home. The cuckoo clock ticked the minutes off. Fresh coffee perked on the range. Sooner whimpered where he lay curled in the corner, probably chasing rabbits in his sleep.
Chance took a couple of steps backward, realized he was dragging his feet, and spun on his heel.
Joni followed him to the screen door, her greedy eyes drinking in black hair and bronzed skin, her sealed lips damming a flood of frantic entreaties.
The clock in the entryway chimed eight times.
She trailed him out onto the porch. The old oak swing creaked in the wind and her aching heart cried, Please don’t go!
At the top of the steps he turned to her and said, “Wait there. I’ll be right back.” Chance bounded down the steps and across the driveway, where the Fiesta Red Thunderbird convertible waited to whisk him away.
Her spirits dipped to a new low when he cut around to the driver’s side. But instead of opening the door and getting in, as she’d feared, he reached over it and grabbed something off the seat.
The tears she’d promised herself she wouldn’t shed trickled heedlessly down her cheeks when he came to the bottom of the porch steps and tossed his grandfather’s hat up to her.
She caught that ribbonless old relic and hugged it to her heart.
“I’ll be back in a month,” he said. “Six weeks at the most.”
Her forget-me-not eyes shone expectantly. “I’ll be waiting.”
Epilogue
She heard it before she saw it barreling round the bend, the roar of its engine riding the country air like an eagle aboard a thermal. It was rare that any vehicle appeared on this remote stretch of highway. Rarer still that that vehicle would be a restored ’56 Thunderbird.
Top down and chrome flashing almost painfully in the hot August sun, the classic Fiesta Red convertible rocketed by pastures and cows and trees as though the devil were tailgating it.
“You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” blasted at full volume from the radio, adding to the already fervent pitch of wind and speed.
The driver had his right hand on the steering wheel, his left arm crooked on the convertible’s door, and his mind on a woman with million-dollar legs.
Joni stripped off her work gloves when she realized who it was and went tearing down the driveway to meet him. Gravel flew from beneath her feet and her red hair streamed behind her like a banner in the wind. She had so much to tell him, was so eager to get her hands on him, she couldn’t wait for him to come to her.
She’d made good use of her six weeks alone.
The food broker in Oklahoma City has been so impressed by the quantity and the quality of her tomato crop that he’d signed her up on the spot to plant some broccoli for a fall harvest. She was growing it organically, of course—no insecticides unless absolutely necessary. Better yet, the extra cash meant she could afford to have the house painted before her wedding day.
She’d decided she wanted to get married at home. Dr. Rayburn had agreed to give her away, and while rearranging things in the attic, she’d run across her grandmother’s wedding dress. A romantic delicacy of silk embroidered chiffon, it hadn’t needed a single alteration. Now she was thinking in terms of turning her old room into a nursery.
Chance had some news himself.
He’d promoted Tex to supervisor and hired another geologist to take the core samples and analyze them. He’d still be putting the deals together and making the final decision on whether or not to drill. But he could do more of his work from home now and less from the site.
Not only that, but he’d bought Joni’s wedding gift while he was gone. It was a rocking chair made of bird’s-eye maple, the perfect finishing touch for the bedroom he planned to share with her for the rest of his life. The antiques dealer had sworn on a stack of Bibles that he’
d ship it to Redemption in time for their wedding day.
Chance slowed the Thunderbird and turned into the entrance to the farm. Then he stopped and reached across the seat to open the door. “Going my way, pretty lady?”
“Always and forever.” Joni didn’t have to be asked twice. She jumped into the car and slid over to sit hip to hip beside him, then gave him a kiss that put his pulse in fast forward.
With the wind at their backs then, the widow and the wildcatter went home.
THE EDITOR’S CORNER
Welcome to Loveswept!
The holidays are approaching and I’ve so many things to do, don’t you? So why is it all I want to do is cuddle up on the couch with a good book? I’ll tell you why, there are so many amazing Loveswept stories on sale this month that all you’ll want to do is read too!! For starters, LOVING THE EARL (11/11) by Sharon Cullen features our hero’s sister from THE NOTORIOUS LADY ANNE (2/11), and OMG ladies, this book is for you! Sharon writes with wit and steam a combination that keeps me reading all night long. Double your historical delight with Samantha Kane’s finale in The Saint’s Devils, DEVIL IN MY ARMS (11/26) – its Hil’s story and what a match he’s made. Then, Loveswept debut, Serena Bell releases, YOURS TO KEEP (11/11), a captivating story of a woman living on the edge—and the man who’s destined to love her (sigh).
And there’s more!
Ruthie Knox releases a series of short stories, Roman Holiday. Over the next weeks look for each installment: CHAINED (11/12) - book one launches the series; followed by, HITCHED (11/19); then, BLINDSIDED (11/26), plus books four and five are right around the corner, ten books in all!!
And, you can’t miss these classics:
Fran Baker’s, THE WIDOW AND THE WILDCATTER, the captivating story of a woman haunted by the ghosts of the past, and a daredevil who promises a future filled with love; Sandra Chastain’s, REBEL IN SILK, about an unconventional beauty who refuses to back down from a challenge—or a handsome loner with a taste for trouble; and Sandra’s classics continue with, TOO HOT TO HANDLE, and, THE SILVER BULLET AFFAIR. Look for favorite Loveswept author Iris Johansen and her re-release of, STAR-SPANGLED BRIDE. Readers have continued to adore Ruth Owen’s Loveswepts including, SORCERER, a sexy tale of an emotionally guarded computer whiz and the princess who makes virtual reality come to vivid life. And, to wrap up the month Jean Stone’s, BIRTHDAY GIRL, and Connie Brockway’s, AS YOU DESIRE, will keep you toasty on those cold winter nights.