Moonlight and Shadows

by Janzen, Tara

  Another sigh escaped her. She shifted again in her seat and kept watching the darkness roll by until she saw the silhouette of her house against the sky.

  The night stretched over the prairie in all its icy clarity, leaving the barest path open for a silvery stream of moonlight to filter down through the cottonwoods bordering her driveway. The hinges on the truck doors creaked in frozen protest as they opened them. Lila didn’t wait for him to come around to help her, a subtle way of letting him know she didn’t consider their night out a date. She couldn’t afford to, no matter how expensive and wonderful dinner had been.

  Once inside, he offered to build a fire in her living room fireplace, and she asked him if he’d like cream and sugar with his coffee.

  “No,” he said. “Black is fine.”

  One mistake after another, she thought, walking into the kitchen. One lousy mistake after another. She had a furnace, and it worked fine. They didn’t need a cozy, romantic fire to study.

  They didn’t need Irish cream in their coffee either, but she poured a good dollop into each steaming mug, then arranged a variety of fancy cookies on a silver tray. Her lipstick was probably fine, too, but she checked it in her compact mirror just in case. Just in case of what, she wasn’t sure. It was a purely precautionary measure.

  He had a perfect fire going when she returned to the living room, perfect like the breadth of his shoulders in relation to the length of his torso, perfect like the stretch of fabric outlining his thigh as he knelt on the hearth, adding the last log. He wasn’t overly muscular, he was just right. Perfect, from the tracing of veins up the inside curve of his arm to the hard swell of bicep showing below the short sleeve of his shirt.

  Short sleeves in winter, she thought with a forced huff, trying to construe his choice as a fashion blunder. But nothing that looked as good as that shirt did on him could ever be a fashion blunder, and he gave no signs of being chilled. Quite the contrary. When he looked over his shoulder and smiled at her, she felt the temperature in the room rise a good ten degrees, enough to make undoing the first two buttons on her sweater seem like a wise decision—until she did it. The responsive widening of his eyes made her face flame with the realization of what she’d done.

  “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think?” She stumbled through her excuse, hardly buying it herself.

  “Pretty warm,” he agreed with a grin. “And getting warmer.”

  She smiled wanly and settled herself on the couch, directing her attention to the books he’d brought in from the truck. She assumed Welding from A to Z and Beyond would be her last choice, and she set it aside. Sixty excruciatingly silent seconds later she picked it up and looked at it with renewed interest.

  He’d brought another book, one more, a work of fiction the likes of which she’d seen but never read. She’d noticed her students reading books similar to the one he’d brought, her female students. Her mother read them too. A year ago, even Didi had pressed one into her hands and said, “You’ve got to read this!” but Lila had never felt an equal sense of urgency. The book had disappeared in her library somewhere, and she didn’t think this was the time to initiate herself into the world of historical romantic fiction. Not with Jack looking over her shoulder, and not if the cover was any indication of what they’d find inside Night of the Hawk.

  She had a few jocks in her literature classes from time to time, young men who gloried in their own physiques. She’d seen enough torn T-shirts revealing rock-hard abdomens, and bulging biceps showing below frayed sleeves to last her a lifetime, or at least until next semester. She wasn’t a prude, but she’d never been able to appreciate a good, solid muscle without a brain behind it.

  The Hawk looked plenty smart, and the rough clothing covering him allowed enticing glimpses of a man’s, not a boy’s, muscled body. His long seal-brown hair was tied at his nape, a few strands left free to frame a chiseled face that spoke of the power and dignity of a warrior-king. Moonlight streamed over his tall frame, shadowing the tough leanness of his body. His clothes were colored like the horizon behind him, in shades of ice gray to match his eyes.

  That was what had taken her sixty seconds, that and the way he was looking at the woman in his arms. The artist had captured a special tenderness in his gaze, a fierce tenderness. One look convinced Lila he’d lay down his life for his woman, and that’s what the cover said. In every ancient, primitive way imaginable, she was the Hawk’s woman. The cascade of tawny blond hair flowing across her bare shoulders was gathered in his fist. His other arm held her around the waist in a protective, possessive gesture. She was looking off into the distance, but he was looking at her, unfailing.

  Welding from A to Z and Beyond had an arc welder on the cover with an interesting spray of sparks zipping off into the corners of the book. But that wasn’t the only interesting thing about it.

  She opened the book and read a much more interesting item on the flyleaf: To Jack with love. Happy Birthday, Karen.

  She stared at the handwriting—printing, actually—for a moment, then asked very nonchalantly, “When was your birthday?”

  “Last week,” he said, coming over and sitting down beside her.

  “Oh.”

  “The book was a present from my sister.”

  “Oh,” she said again, relieved, but thinking a book was a particularly poor gift for someone who couldn’t read. What had his sister been thinking? Especially a “with love” sister.

  “She’s the one who sent along the other book too,” Jack said. “She was afraid you might find welding a little dry.” Karen had also thought it was about time her brother showed more than a passing interest in a woman. Rather than being displeased with his inability to read ploy, she’d told him he could always use the practice, since he did tend to avoid the written word, and she’d rummaged under her bed until she’d found the perfect primer. “No woman can resist this man,” she’d told him with an uncomfortably dreamy sigh. Uncomfortable, that is, for Jack. He’d told his sister he had plenty of competition, thank you, and did she have another book. She’d only said, “Trust me.”

  “Actually,” Lila said. “I think Welding from A to Z and Beyond is going to better suit our purposes.” She opened the handbook to the first chapter and tried to keep her gaze off the cover of the romance novel. The Hawk looked like Jack with a wild streak, and she didn’t need the added stimulation to her imagination. “Do you know the alphabet?”

  “Inside out and backward,” he said, grinning.

  She slanted him a wry glance. “Dyslexic joke?”

  He laughed and helped himself to a handful of cookies.

  Five minutes later Lila realized there was more to welding than she’d thought, and most of it was couched in technical jargon. Boring, indecipherable technical jargon. She was halfway through the book and she still hadn’t found a good starting page. She never should have agreed to let him bring his own material, she thought, or allowed him to sit quite so close to her on the couch. He disrupted her concentration.

  “Stop,” he suddenly said, scooting even closer and making it difficult for her even to breathe. “Back up a couple of pages. Yep. That’s it. That’s the page we want.”

  “Arc, TIG, MIG?”

  “Just the arc part. I don’t need TIG capabilities or MIG speed.”

  “How lovely,” she mumbled, searching the page for something simple, something she understood and he could read.

  “I’m not even sure I need arc,” he added.

  Then why, she asked silently, was she reading stuff like, “The duty cycle at nonrated amperage is inversely proportional to the square of the new amperage?” She’d always struggled with anything remotely related to mathematics, but she kept her thoughts to herself and scanned farther down the page.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “Here’s a good sentence to start with.” She set her finger on the page below a line of type. He leaned over her, and she swore she could feel his body heat warming her right side.

 
“AC or DC?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. Can you read it?”

  He dutifully repeated the line. “AC or DC, but that’s no sentence, teach.”

  “Hmm?” She jerked her head up and her gaze collided with his sexy grin.

  “No verb.”

  “Oh. Of course.” He had the most interesting mouth, she mused, and she liked the way it curved higher on one side when he smiled. She liked remembering how it had felt to have his mouth on hers. She’d liked everything about his kiss . . . the heat, the taste, the sensation he’d aroused deep in her breast. She slowly lifted her gaze to meet his and swallowed.

  Jack knew an invitation when he saw one, and invitation was melting in her brown eyes. Color raced across her cheeks, flushing her skin rose-petal pink. If he had thought before he acted, he might have decided not to kiss her, because kissing her wasn’t likely to lead where he’d want to go. But he was only a man—and damn glad of it.

  He raised his hand to her face and brushed his thumb across her skin from the corner of her mouth to below her cheekbone. As her eyes drifted closed, he kept his hand moving, until his fingers tunneled through the heavy richness of her ebony curls and his palm cupped the nape of her neck. Then, before he lowered his mouth to hers, he let his gaze roam down her silky throat to where she’d unbuttoned the two buttons, and he wished she’d freed two more.

  He made no preliminary passes when he kissed her. He covered her mouth with his, and the slow stroke of his tongue across her lips granted him immediate access to her honeyed sweetness. Her response was instantaneous, and arousal raced between them like a flash fire.

  Welding from A to Z and Beyond fell to the floor with an unheeded clunk. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to lower her to the couch and press into her. He thought they’d gotten kissing down to a fever pitch and it was time to move on. She was doing things with her mouth he never wanted to stop, not when they seemed to pull on his loins. She was sweet, so sweet, and he wanted all of her. He slid his other hand up to her breast and groaned deep in his throat.

  Shimmering waves of excitement flooded through Lila at that sound and his caress. Oh, yes, Jack definitely had a way about him, a way of making her feel her power as a woman, and it turned her senses to putty. The gentle, insistent strength of him, his easy, seductive aggression, became more and more irresistible with each track of his mouth over hers, with each—

  “Lila? Lila, honey? Are you home?”

  Her mother? In the kitchen? At eight-thirty on a Saturday night?

  “I knocked, honey, but you didn’t answer, so I let myself in. I brought food.” Cupboard doors opened and closed.

  “My . . . my mother,” she gasped, but he captured her mouth again, and she sank under the spell of yet one more kiss.

  “I’m putting soup in the freezer and spaghetti sauce in the refrigerator to thaw. Don’t worry. I brought some pasta too.”

  Her mother was in the kitchen, and she was in the living room kissing the living daylights out of Jack Hudson and enjoying every forbidden second, every single sensation.

  “Whose truck is that in the driveway, Lila?” a masculine voice asked, and Lila froze.

  Her father? In the kitchen? With her mother? “My . . . my father,” she muttered against Jack’s mouth.

  Now, deep in the heart of every male member of the species is a special spot saved for the fear and respect of fathers of daughters, especially fear and respect of fathers of daughters they’re kissing, especially if in their hearts and minds they’re fast moving far beyond the kissing stage.

  “Your father?” he whispered, stealing more kisses from the corner of her mouth, the curve of her cheek, and the wonderful spot he’d found on the side of her neck, just below her left ear, which seemed to drive her a little bit crazy.

  “My sweater!” she exclaimed softly, wondering how in the world he’d gotten her unbuttoned to the point of revealing her bra. He nipped at her neck, and she moaned, her fingers fumbling with the shiny black circles of plastic.

  “Say hello to your dad,” he instructed her, kissing her again and taking over the buttoning job.

  “Hi, Dad!” she hollered breathlessly, and thought if that didn’t bring him running, nothing would.

  “Tell him we’re in the living room.”

  “I—I can’t tell him that.”

  “Tell him.” He pressed a kiss beneath her collarbone and silently cursed parental timing.

  Jack was undermining her breathing faculties, Lila thought, let alone her speaking faculties, but she managed to get the words out. “We’re in the living room!”

  “We picked you up a trunk at an auction today,” her father called back, still in the kitchen and mercifully not charging into the living room. “Should I put it in the office? Hey, this place is looking great. Didn’t I tell you Hudson would make good on the job?”

  Make good? Lila repeated silently. Her father didn’t know the half of what Jack Hudson could make good.

  “Honey,” her mother added, “I’m putting the canned jams in the cupboard and the refrigerator jams in the refrigerator.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered. She was buttoned. Her hair was smoothed back into place. He’d stopped kissing her. She felt absolutely bereft and she wondered why.

  “You’re welcome.” Jack stood up and ran a quick hand through his own hair before moving over to sit on the hearth. She was going to be the death of him.

  Approaching footsteps sent them both into action, Lila picking up a book, and Jack putting another log on the fire.

  “Well, hey, Janie, look who’s here!” Lila’s father spoke first. “I thought I recognized your truck, Jack. The deck still looks great.”

  “Glad to hear it, sir.” Jack extended his hand for a hearty shake. He remembered the couple well, Kurt and Janie Davis. Lila got her coloring from her father, a big, dark-haired man in his late fifties with a perpetual smile and a helluva handshake.

  “We’re thinking about adding a gazebo in the spring,” her mother said, and Jack knew exactly where Lila had gotten her delicate bone structure and the sweet, breathless quality in her voice. “Do you do gazebos?”

  “Sure do. I even have a few designs of my own. If you like, I can send you some pictures.”

  “That would be lovely.” Janie turned to her daughter. “What are you reading, dear?”

  Lila glanced down at the book in her hands, and for a fleeting second wondered if dyslexia was catching. She didn’t recognize a single word. Her mother quickly cured her momentary confusion.

  “Maybe if you turned it around. I think I recognize the cover.”

  Lila blushed. She didn’t need to turn it around. There were only two books in the living room, and Welding from A to Z and Beyond was still on the floor.

  “Night of the Hawk,” her mother read, tilting her honey-blond head far to one side. “I loved that book. I’m so glad to see you’re doing a little recreational reading, something relaxing. Although, if I recall correctly, this one is more—exciting than relaxing.” She lifted the book out of her daughter’s hand and turned it right side up. “Oh, my, yes,” she murmured. “I remember this man.”

  Lila’s blush deepened, but fortunately her father and Jack were well into a conversation about redwood and gazebos—a conversation Jack was destined to end the evening with. After half an hour of two-by-fours and lattices, he conceded a silent victory to Lila’s father. There was no getting rid of the man, and he knew why. His daughter looked kissed.

  Jack had done his best, both in kissing her and in trying to disguise the fact, but even thirty minutes later she still looked kissed and softly mussed. Her skin was flushed, her mouth swollen, and most damning of all, he’d missed a button. Her father wasn’t leaving, no way.

  Jack kept up his end of the chitchat for another fifteen minutes, holding out for a miracle before he finally gave up. He extricated himself from the gazebo dream and shook hands all around, holding on to Lila’s hand as he finished his good-byes.


  “Nice seeing you both again,” he said to her parents. “Be sure to get in touch when you’re ready to start building.” He took a step backward, pulling Lila with him toward the kitchen and giving her father a look that said, Okay, you win, but I’m taking five minutes. Relax. Nothing can happen in five minutes. All the while he was wondering what he could fit into five minutes of semi-privacy at her back door.

  “I’m sorry about the lesson,” she said when they were out of earshot and eyesight.

  “We’ll do better next time,” he said with a grin, slipping into his jacket, then grasping her hands in his.

  She didn’t resist when he placed her palms on either side of his waist, or when he draped his arms over her shoulders and drew her against his chest. She felt so right, so good. He kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms around her. He wished he were taking her home with him, home to where there weren’t any mothers and fathers.

  The way she held him made him think she wished the same. Her cheek rested against his chest. Her arms had slid around his waist.

  “I’m falling in love with you,’ he murmured against her hair, and even as he registered surprise at the words coming out of his mouth, he rejoiced in the slight tightening of her arms. He placed a kiss on her temple and felt her sigh. “I want you, Lila.” His voice grew huskier. “Anytime, anyplace, anyway I can get you. Call me.”

  Seven

  Anytime? Anyplace?

  Lila thumped her pillow and threw herself down on the bed. What kind of thing was that to say? And the bit about falling in love. What did he mean by that?

  She hit the pillow again. She was supposed to be teaching him to read. He was supposed to be building her an office. They were not supposed to end up in a breathtaking clinch every time they were alone for more than three minutes.