“Dr. Savitch has warned me, my dear, that we might not find ourselves welcome by everyone in Merrymeeting,” Caleb said to his wife after they had been eating for a while in silence.
Delia watched in agony as Ty turned to Elizabeth and gave her a ravishing smile. “Oh, you’ll be welcome, Mrs. Hooker, never fear. I only meant the reverend shouldn’t expect to pack them in the meetinghouse right off. He’s going to have his work cut out with some. We’ve got our share of lusty trappers in The Maine.”
To Delia’s disgust, Elizabeth actually blushed at the word “lusty.”
“Timber beasts we call them,” Ty said, his lips twitching in that adorable, teasing way that twisted Delia’s heart. “Most of them are crazy as loons.”
Elizabeth gave Ty a simpering, little-girl look, and Delia wanted to gag. “But what of you, Dr. Savitch?” Elizabeth said. “Will you be attending the Meeting?”
Delia wondered how Ty was going to talk himself out of that one, for he didn’t strike her as the churchgoing kind. He was saved by the innkeeper, who spoke out from where he stood behind the taproom’s sagging plank bar. “Aye, ye’ll find yersel’ lots of varmints up there in The Maine.”
“What sort of varmints?” Delia craned her head around to ask the shaggy-haired, weathered old man.
“Oh, wolves an’ panthers, of course. An’ bears. Big as a mountain are some of them bears what roam the Maine woods. An’ then there are the two-legged varmints, like pirates—”
“Pirates!” Delia turned to Ty, excitement lighting her face. “Do ye truly have honest-to-God pirates? Oh, maybe we’ll run across some buried treasure!”
Ty laughed. “They prefer to call themselves privateers. And they spend their profits, they don’t bury them.”
“But the worst varmints are the Injuns,” the innkeeper went on, a look of satisfied grimness on his beard-stubbled face.
Elizabeth Hooker sat up straight, alarm draining her already pale face. “Indians? But I thought the Indians were peaceful now. That a treaty had been signed. Caleb, you said—”
“Never been an Injun borned that cared squat for treaties,” the innkeeper said.
“I heard tell that if ye’re unfortunate enough t’ be captured by the savages, why then they spit ye on a sharpened pole and roast ye over a slow fire. Just like a Christmas goose,” Delia said, and saw Elizabeth Hooker go even whiter. She hid a smile.
“Yep, you heard that a-right,” the innkeeper agreed happily, enjoying the turn the conversation had taken. “But the roastin’ part—that only comes after they do other dastardly things, like tearin’ at your flesh with hot irons an’ slicin’ off pieces of you—”
“An’ then eating them afore yer very eyes!” Delia finished with relish.
Elizabeth Hooker jumped up so abruptly that the bench skidded across the floor. She pressed her hand to her mouth and fled the room, tearing up the wobbly stairs to the sleeping loft above. A door banged above their heads.
Ty stood up and Delia thought he was going to run after the reverend’s wife, but instead he grabbed Delia by the arm and hauled her to her feet and out the taproom door into the front yard before she could even open her mouth to protest.
Once outside, he whipped her around to face him and Delia cringed at the fury in his eyes.
He gave her arm a rough shake. “I ought to take you out to the woodshed and shingle you proper.”
“I was only carryin’ on a friendly conversation with the innkeeper. ’Tisn’t my fault that every little thing winds up scarin’ yer precious Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth Hooker is a frightened young woman and you aren’t stupid, Delia. You sensed her fears and preyed on them out of pure spite or meanness or whatever the hell it is that’s motivating you to behave like a spoiled brat!”
What did he have, the insides of a clock? Delia wondered. Couldn’t he see what was the matter with her? Couldn’t he see she was dying with love for him, when to him she was but a nuisance? And a brat.
Her chin went down and she stared at the ground. “I’m sorry, Ty,” she said softly.
He let go of her. “It’s not me you should be apologizing to.”
“I’ll tell her I’m sorry. Later. But maybe ye should be doin’ some apologizin’ yersel’. T’ the reverend, after the way ye been sniffin’ around his wife like a breed bull.”
“What!” Ty’s head snapped up and his nostrils actually flared, just like a bull’s, Delia thought. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so close to crying.
“Ye think it’s not noticeable, the way ye were a-stickin’ t’ her all day like a snail t’ its shell, lookin’ at her all moony-eyed. It was disgustin’—”
Ty clamped her arms with a pair of strong hands, lifting her off her feet. He shoved his face into hers. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Delia. A man can be polite and friendly, even admire the looks of a woman, without wanting to bed her.”
“Ye can’t deny ye’re lustin’ after the reverend’s wife.”
“I do deny it—”
But Delia tore away from his grasp, whirling and running down the road that led out of town. She heard him call after her, but she didn’t look back. Tears bathed her face. Sobs choked her throat.
She veered off the road and ran into a hillside forest of red and white pines and dark green spruce. The trees shaded the late afternoon sunlight, and it was cool beneath the ceiling of intermeshed branches. Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet of brown needles. Before long she stopped running, but she kept walking, following a deer trail.
It was beautiful in the forest. The tears dried on Delia’s cheeks, and the heavy, hollow feeling left her chest. She looked in wonder around her. At a flicker drumming on a dead trunk, searching for beetles and grubs. At a soft brown butterfly with yellow circles on its wings that flitted along beside her, as if looking for company. At a bed of toadstools lined up in neat rows around a cinnamon fern, resembling a company of militiamen on parade.
She continued down the path until she found the way blocked by a blowdown caused by a past storm. She hesitated a moment. Perhaps she ought to go back; she didn’t want to get lost and give Ty something else to shout at her for. Besides, as beautiful as it was, there were probably varmints in these woods, too. Panthers and bears. Wolves…
At that very moment, something rustled the brush behind her and she whirled, her heart jumping into her throat.
She peered through the heavy thicket of trees but saw nothing. It seemed in the last few minutes to have grown suddenly darker, as if something had swallowed up the sun. She decided she would definitely go back now; she didn’t want to be out in these woods after nightfall.
She did an about-face and followed the deer trail back in the direction she had come … until it forked into two paths, one going left and one right.
She took the path on her right, but after a moment her steps faltered. Nothing looked familiar. No, that wasn’t true. Everything looked the same; all the trees and ferns looked alike. Then a scattering of yellow flowers caught her eye. It was a bed of goldenrod. She was sure she would have remembered seeing that splash of bright gold.
She decided she must have taken the wrong trail.
She turned back, but now instead of coming to a fork with two choices, she had three paths to pick from. Suddenly, the forest seemed honeycombed with paths, all running in circles and crisscrossing one another—
The brush rustled behind her. A twig snapped in two.
Delia took off running. She leaped over a bracken fern, brushed a bough of green spruce out of her way … and stepped into space.
She saw the ground rushing up to meet her and instinctively tucked in her head so that when she landed she turned a somersault. That was what saved her life. For a huge log fell in after her and would have crushed her skull if she hadn’t rolled out of its way at the last second.
As it was, the log fell across her leg and she cried out in pain. Dirt and needles and leaves rained down on her. Then all was
silent.
She looked up. She could see bits of blue sky and green branches overhead. Way overhead. The hole she had fallen into had to be at least eight feet deep and still she might have been able to claw her way out if the heavy log hadn’t been lying across her leg, pinning her to the ground. “Help!”
She didn’t like the way her voice echoed back at her, as if she were the only thing left in the world. The only human…
Delia strained her ears, sure she had heard that rustling sound again. Yes, there it was. She clenched her jaw shut to keep from screaming and pushed at the log. It didn’t budge. The bushes rustled again, closer this time.
Then she heard breathing, heavy breathing. And a low growl.
“Oh, Lord above us …” It was a wolf. She was sure of it. Did wolves eat people? If they were hungry enough, she reasoned. She hoped this one wasn’t hungry, merely curious. It would be getting dark soon. The bits of blue were fading to gray. The tree branches looked like black fingers stretching across the shadowy sky.
Dirt and leaves slithered down the side of the hole at her back. Slowly, Delia craned her neck around and looked up … into a pair of yellow, glowing eyes and a snoutful of snarling teeth.
She screamed, and the eyes and teeth disappeared. She heaved at the log, straining her arms, the cords standing out on her neck with the effort, but to no avail.
Falling back with exhaustion, she looked up again…
“Well, well,” came a familiar drawl. “Seems we’ve caught ourselves a varmint here.”
He stood looking down at her, leaning on his rifle, his chin resting on his wrist.
“Get me out of here,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because … Oooh! Ye can be so damn infuriatin’. D’ ye expect me t’ spend the night in this pit? Get me out.”
“So that you can frighten poor Mrs. Hooker with more fanciful tales of murderous Indians?”
“I told ye I was sorry—”
“So that you can bedevil me by spurning all my efforts to be nice to you?”
“Nice t’ me. Hunh. Ye call this bein’ nice t’ me?”
He heaved a deep, sad sigh, but Delia wasn’t fooled. She could tell by the ragged catch in his voice that he was enjoying a good laugh at her expense.
Rays from the dying sun penetrated the canopy of trees, shining directly on him, bathing his face with a golden glow and bringing out the bronze lights in his rich dark hair. As always she was struck by the sight of him—he was such a marvelous figure of a man. She doubted he could really see much of her, thank goodness, the way she lay sprawled in the bottom of the black pit, her petticoat pulled halfway up around her waist, and covered as she was with dirt and pine needles.
“I’ll help you out, but there’s a condition attached,” he said.
“I’m not ridin’ that bloody horse with ye!” Delia cried, anticipating his condition.
“Fine then.” He disappeared from sight.
“Goddamn ye, Ty!” When he didn’t come back right away, she screamed louder. “Ty, come back! Please! I’ll do what ye say, everythin’ ye say, only please come back. Ty!”
He came back. He squatted down to sit at the edge of the pit, his legs dangling over the side, the rifle resting across his lap, as if, Delia thought, grinding her teeth with frustration, he had all bloody day.
“Be dark soon,” he said cheerfully, squinting up at the needly bower overhead.
Delia ground her teeth some more.
“Aye …” He blew his breath out in a soft whistle. “I reckon we’ll be getting some rain ’round about midnight.”
“Ty, there’s a wolf a-roamin’ around loose up there.” Her voice began husky-sweet but took on an edge as it grew in volume. “I hope it eats ye. It would serve ye bloody right.”
Ty laughed. “I doubt it was a wolf you saw. Not this close to the village. Must have been the innkeeper’s old hound dog.”
Delia began to have a horrible premonition. “How … how far away do ye figure we are from the village?”
“Oh, about fifty rods.”
Delia’s cheeks felt warm. She was glad of the darkness within the pit so that Ty couldn’t see her embarrassment. She had thought herself hopelessly lost, deep in a wilderness forest, and here she was only fifty rods from the village.
Ty startled her by leaping gracefully down into the pit with her. He groped his way to her side and then she heard him swear as he felt the log lying across her leg. “Christ, why didn’t you say something?”
“I thought ye knew.”
“How could I possibly—” he began, then cut himself off. He wrapped his arms around the thick log, grunted, heaved, and suddenly she was free. “Don’t move,” he ordered as she started to sit up.
He felt all along her leg, even up under her skirt. The leg had been throbbing with pain, but at the first touch of his fingers, the pain faded. Delia’s eyes fluttered closed and her flesh seemed to melt beneath his soothing hands … gentle, gentle, so very, very gentle. A warm heat began glowing in the pit of her stomach, spreading outward, making her skin feel on fire. Her throat grew tight and dry.
His voice came at her from far away. “It’s not broken, but you’ll be sporting another fine-looking bruise. You were lucky you weren’t killed. This is someone’s old deadfall trap and that log was meant to come crashing down on whatever prey stumbled into it. It could have split your head like a squash.”
Delia shivered. Then she shivered again as his strong hands went around her waist and he helped her to her feet. “Can you put your weight on it?”
She tested the leg. “I think so. Aye, I can,” she said, or tried to say. Her voice wasn’t working properly any longer.
His hands lingered at her waist; his chest pressed up against her back. She was more than ever aware of the nearness of him. It was as if he generated a melting heat, like a blacksmith’s forge. Suddenly, it seemed so quiet she could hear his breathing. And feel it as well, rising and falling within his chest, rising, falling, rising—
His breath caught. He took a step back and his hands fell away.
“I’ll kneel down and you get on my shoulders. Then I’ll boost you up,” he said. There was a rough edge to his voice. Delia thought he was probably angry with her again. What a wooden-headed fool she was for getting herself into this predicament. Real ladies, she was sure, didn’t get into a snit and go running off into the woods to get lost and then fall into a pit so that they had to be rescued.
Ty knelt in front of her. She hesitated a moment, for she really didn’t want to touch him. There were things she wanted to do to Tyler Savitch, although she was only vaguely aware of the nature of those things. She just knew that once she started touching him she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.
He gave an impatient grunt. “Let’s go, Delia …”
Drawing in a deep breath, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He reached behind him and grasped her legs, pulling them around his waist and standing up in one fluid motion. The top of the pit was now only a couple of feet above Ty’s head and it would be a simple matter for her to let go of his neck and pull herself out.
But she didn’t move. She was aware of the pulse in his neck beating against the flesh of her arms; of his lungs expanding and contracting beneath her thighs; of her womanly mound pressing against the hard, warm muscle of his back. And the smell of him—leather and tobacco and pure man.
Unconsciously, she put her cheek to the back of his head, rubbing it against his hair.
“Are we going to stand like this all night?”
Delia came to with a start. She must be heavy, clinging to him like this. Perhaps that was why his voice sounded so strained. With shaking hands, she let go of Ty’s neck and reached up. Digging her fingers onto the flat earth above, she pulled herself up and over Ty’s head and out of the pit. At the last moment he put his palms on her bottom to give her a boost, and the shock of his hands touching her so intimately caused Delia to groan aloud.
“
Are you all right?” she heard him say.
She scrambled up on her hands and knees and looked down into Ty’s upturned face. There was a light film of sweat on his forehead, although the evening air seemed suddenly to have grown cool. His lips were pressed together into a tight, hard line. She saw the movement of his throat as he swallowed.
“Give me a hand up,” he said.
She stretched her hand down to him, and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Bracing against her weight, he crab-walked up the slightly sloping side of the pit. He came up over the lip of it faster than she expected, and the sudden release of the pull of his weight caused her body to react like a spring, recoiling backward. She landed on her back and he fell on top of her, his elbows braced on each side of her shoulders.
Their faces were inches apart, so close she could feel the warm moistness of his breath and notice herself reflected in the dark, dusky blue of his eyes. The sun had set by now, but there was still enough light to see the sweep of his lashes as his lids drifted closed and the gleam of his teeth as his lips parted open.
Those lips touched hers, lightly at first, brushing back and forth across the soft, swelling fullness of her mouth. Then his mouth pressed down harder and her lips moved, opened beneath his. Her arms went around him, pulling him down onto her. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and felt him shudder. He ran the edge of his tongue along her teeth, slid it deep into her mouth. It was hard and slick and strangely, mysteriously evocative of something, something that made the hollow, burning place low in her belly ache to be filled.
She arched, rubbing that aching, empty place against the hard bone of his hip, rubbing until he tore his mouth from hers and exhaled sharply, “Christ, Delia.”
He kissed her again, soft feathery kisses, flicking his tongue back and forth over the swell of her lips, delving in and out between them quickly, teasingly. Moaning, she put her palm against the back of his head and boldly pressed his open mouth down over hers.
She explored his tongue with her own and then put her tongue full into his mouth. It was hot and sweet and tasted of rum, and nothing, nothing in her entire life had tasted or felt so fine. She knew this kiss was only the beginning. There was more, oh so much more, and she wanted it, all of it. She wanted him.
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