by Cindy Gerard
“So you see,” she continued, ignoring his surprised expression, “you aren’t alone in your weakness. And you are not responsible for me. I will not live and die by your good graces. I know my own mind. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I took you to my bed. And you’d do well to remember that. I took you to my bed. You didn’t take me to yours. It was my decision. My choice. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let you shoulder the responsibility for what happened between us. If I hadn’t wanted it to happen, it wouldn’t have. And if I wanted you to stay, I’d ask you to.”
Her eyes flared with fiery pride as she leveled her parting shot. “So you can leave here with a clear conscience, Dursky. You’ll have to look a little harder for an excuse to pummel yourself with another fistful of blame for all your fabricated sins. I refuse to give you even a thimbleful of guilt to add to your overflowing cup. The only thing you’ve done to hurt me is to demean what we’ve shared by infusing it with that guilt.” Tears burned her eyes. She fought them and met his hard stare with her head held high. “But I’m a big girl and I can handle it. And as I believe I’ve already mentioned, I can take care of myself.” She whirled away, leaving him staring after her.
Adam didn’t follow her into the cabin. He grabbed the ax and headed for the woodpile.
An hour later, the pain in his back almost overshadowed the ache in his gut. He tossed the last split log on the pile, then mopped the sweat from his face and neck with the shirt he’d discarded.
He loved her, dammit. Her spirit, her anger, her trust.
But so what. She needed a young man who could share her vision and her burdens, not an old one whose confidence was shattered and who would be a burden himself. She needed a man to give her babies and enhance her life, not a sterile cynic who would wallow in the injustices life had dealt him and drag her down because of them.
Swearing, he sank the double-edged blade into the chopping block with a resounding thwack. Her fiery speech hadn’t fooled him. She accepted the fact that he had to go and was trying to make it easy for him by driving a distance between them as sharply as he drove the steel into the dry cedar. The very least he could do was help her make the break by staying the hell away from her. Where in the hell was a rescue team anyway?
The shadows had lengthened and melded into darkness by the time he turned to the cabin. A dim light flickered in the window. He watched it for an eternity, longing for something that could not be, before he shrugged into his shirt. Not bothering with the buttons, he gathered an armful of wood against his chest, ignoring the bite of the cleanly cut edges that creased his bare skin.
He climbed the stairs slowly. With each step he resolved to hold at bay the need to take her into his arms and love her until right and wrong ceased to matter. But when he opened the door he was enfolded in the warm fire she’d kindled, and by the invitation in her eyes. All was forgiven.
“Come over by the fire where it’s warm,” she said.
He stood very still, his arms full of wood, his chest full of want, amazed by her capacity for giving.
She was standing by the hearth, bewitching and beautiful, dressed in nothing but her old flannel shirt and the fragrance of her just-washed skin.
Dragging his gaze away from her, he crossed the room to drop the wood in the woodbox. He brushed his palms on his thighs, lost the battle, and turned to her. She raised her unbandaged hand to push the hair back from her eyes. The unbuttoned placket of the shirt fell open. He clenched his jaw and feasted his eyes on the pale, supple flesh exposed beneath it.
She made no pretense as to how she wanted the remaining time between them to be shared. “Not everyone is granted this gift we’ve been given,” she said. “We’ve known from the onset this time was special, and temporary. I accept it. Let’s not waste another minute on regrets and recriminations.” She took a step toward him and held out her arms. “Come make love to me, Adam.”
How two people, in such a short span of time, could reach so many impasses was a mystery to him. With her blistering assessment of his self-image, she’d denied him his guilt and shunned his regret. And now, she offered him her love. The tight fist of tension that had gripped his chest relaxed its hold as the fight left and his love for her entered.
“Just once,” he whispered raggedly as he closed the distance between them, “I wish I could resist you.”
She moved easily into his arms. “And just once,” she said on a wistful sigh, “I wish I could have come to you in satin or silk instead of this worn flannel.” Her fingers skimmed the marks the wood had left across the warm skin of his chest.
He held her against him like a dying man embracing his last sunset. Threading his fingers through her hair, he cupped her head in his hands and tipped her face to his.
“You are satin. . . .” he murmured against the hair at her temple. With trembling hands he brushed the flannel from her shoulders.
She stood naked before him. He went down on one knee and pressed his open mouth to her belly, moistening the velvety skin with his tongue. With a slow, hungry caress, he committed to memory the slight curve of her hip, the gentle thrust of her upturned breasts, the tautness of her distended nipples. “You are silk. . . .”
His accolade was a whisper against her tingling flesh as he gathered her in his arms and laid her down before the fire. “And you could come to me in sackcloth,” he added as he lowered his mouth to the soft, warm part of her that pulsed with wanting and that he ached to fill, “as long as you come to me.”
Always before this night, their lovemaking had been overshadowed for him by guilt, by regret, by the desperate knowledge that the same twist of fate that had brought them together would also break them apart. Because he now knew he loved her, because he knew that by leaving her he was giving her the chance to make a better life without him, the inevitable parting became less painful to contemplate.
He couldn’t promise her forever, but he could give her the night. What he couldn’t say with words, he said with touch. What he couldn’t heal with apologies, he soothed with the reverent caress of his mouth. His lovemaking was at once gentle and intense. The fencing that had been a standard part of their love games was over. He took her to the limit and back again.
Her face was flushed from the stunning depths of his passion, her eyes still misted with ecstasy’s tears as she bent over him. Her hair sheathed his thighs and chest, and he groaned as her untutored mouth and small, thrilling hands made the sweetest love he’d ever known.
The next morning, his scent was on her skin, mingling with her own delicious fragrance as she leaned over him to pour another cup of coffee. Her hair was wild, tangled. The beautiful damage had been done by his hands the night before and added to that morning. He thought he’d never get his fill of seeing her this way.
Their eyes met and held. “Come here, Joanna.”
He held out his hand and led her to the rocker before the fire, where she curled up on his lap and let him hold her.
The rocker creaked like the ticking of a clock as they watched the fire and let their thoughts drift.
“You asked me the other night how I got used to the solitude.” Her voice was soft against his chest. “I’ve been thinking about what it must have been like for you, coming from the city. It must have been difficult. I’m used to long winters when the snow is so deep and it’s so cold out that weeks go by and you never see another human soul.”
“Where I came from when I arrived here,” he said, “had less to do with geography than it did with state of mind. I’d already isolated myself from everything that had been important to me. I’d spent a month in the hospital healing from the gunshot, another month in my apartment licking my wounds and flirting with Jim Beam and making life a living hell for everyone in the precinct. They’d put me and my attitude behind a desk until I was ‘fully recovered.’ In my sergeant’s words, when I wasn’t chewing ass like a bear with a th
orn in its paw, I was staring into space in a catatonic stupor.” His chest expanded with his deep sigh. “In short, I was as useless to the department as I was to myself.”
She ran her hand across his shoulder in a soothing caress. “He was a wise man to give you time to heal.”
He laughed abruptly and hugged her tight. “When he cut me loose and I turned in my badge and gun, I’d never been so scared in my life. He was forcing me to face my demons alone. No work, no buffer of any kind between me and myself and my attraction to the bottle.”
“Yet you let it alone.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “I did.” He tucked her head under his chin and idly stroked her hair. Their unspoken thoughts ran parallel. They were thinking of John.
“He needs you, Jo. And if you’ll stop and think about it, you need him too.”
“He knows where to find me.”
He sighed and rested his chin on the top of her head. “He could help take care of you if you’d let him.”
“No one takes care of me, Dursky. You ought to know that by now.”
“Remind me of that next time I tie your shoes.” He felt her smile against his skin. “What will you do if you lose the lodge?”
She was quiet for a long moment, then she shrugged. “I had a good position in a relatively prestigious advertising agency in St. Paul. They told me when I left that they’d always have a spot for me. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back there. And maybe I’ll take my shotgun to the auction and threaten anyone with a mind to bid against me.”
She snuggled closer, savoring what she suspected would be some of her final moments with Adam. The lake had calmed dramatically during the past day. It wouldn’t be long before someone, Steve probably, came looking for them.
She wouldn’t cling, she promised herself. When the time came, she’d let him go. She’d let him leave with a clear conscience. She’d let him leave without telling him she loved him.
And she knew without question that he loved her too. In his absence, that knowledge would take the edge off the pain of living the rest of her life without him.
Quickly wiping a damning tear from her eye, she manufactured some innocuous question and was about to ask it when she heard the roar of an approaching motorboat.
Their gazes collided. The closed look in his eyes said it all. She felt a sense of loss that was paralyzing. It was over. Reality had arrived.
Ten
Looking back, she felt like she’d lived an entire life span during those few days with Adam on Jug Island. Now, three months later, it all seemed a lifetime away. All but her memories. She held each one close, her heart twisting painfully as she recalled with crystal clarity the many times he’d made love to her.
He was gone. It was a fact she wrestled with daily.
She had more important things to worry about than missing him, though. She had bills to pay, the rest of the winter to get through. She wasn’t complaining. That she was still at Shady Point, and that the threat of losing the lodge to the Dreamscape Corporation had never materialized, remained a miracle to her. When the day of the auction had arrived, she’d gone prepared to watch her hopes slip away. But the threatened bid never came. She’d left the auction stunned, elated, and wishing Adam were there to share her joy.
But he wasn’t there. He never would be.
The day Steve had arrived at Jug, with a very lonesome Cooper practically mauling both her and Adam in greeting, Adam had packed his duffel and returned to Detroit.
Forcing herself to concentrate on her work, Jo picked up her pen and finished the edits on the new brochure she’d designed to advertise the lodge. She’d been working on the layout since one o’clock that afternoon. It was due at the printer’s after Christmas.
Christmas. She looked longingly across the room to the little tree she’d set up in the corner. Christmas was only a week away. Shoving aside the empty feeling that accompanied the thought of spending another holiday alone, she reviewed her edits.
Satisfied the brochure was to her liking, she rubbed at the stiffness in her neck and flicked on the lamp. It would be dark soon.
Rising slowly from the desk, she plugged in the tree lights, then walked to the frost-laced window that overlooked the lake. Mother Nature had perfected winter in northern Minnesota. Two feet of ice covered Kabetogama. Another twelve inches of pristine white snow topped the frozen lake like a thick layer of stiff frosting. Only the snowmobile tracks tracing across the shoreline marred the wind-sculpted skiffs. The beauty was both breathtaking and isolating.
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cold glass and thought of spring. When the thaw began in early May, the lake would moan and cry as the cracking ice broke up and departed. The mournful sounds would echo hauntingly through the Northland, crying for winter’s return much as she had cried alone at night for the return of her lover.
He wouldn’t come back, but oh, how she missed him. As never before, she understood her father’s pain.
She understood, too, Adam’s need for a quick departure. The break had been clean and final. The pain cut decisively deep.
A thunderous pounding on her door and Cooper bolting up from his rug in front of the fire with a startled “Woof!” jolted her out of her reflections. Swiping a telling tear from her eye, she quieted the dog and hurried across the room to the door, wondering who would be out and about near dusk in this cold.
“Steve!”
“Criminently it’s cold out there,” he announced unnecessarily as a zephyr of arctic wind zipped inside before he could slam the door shut behind him. Stomping the snow from his boots, he tugged off his gloves, then flipped back his fur-lined hood and unzipped his parka. His cheeks were mottled with red, his black hair matted and mussed as he shrugged out of his winter gear.
“Got a hot cup of coffee for a cold, thirsty man?” he asked with a shiver. He combed his hair with stiff fingers and walked over to the fireplace.
“What are you doing out on a day like this?” she asked. “They just announced on the radio that the windchill factor is sixty below and dropping.”
He blew on his fingers to warm them, then scratched Cooper behind the ears. “It’s good to see you too.” His smile was saccharine sweet.
She brought him his coffee and a weak apology. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I worry about you out in the cold.”
“Maybe I worry about you too,” he countered gently. “You shouldn’t be alone here. Especially now.”
She turned her back on him and walked over to the window again. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are . . . and I’m the abominable snowman. Talk to me. Convince me I shouldn’t worry.”
“What could possibly be wrong?” She whirled on him, suddenly angry at him for knowing her too well, angrier at herself for confiding in him one long, lonely night a month ago.
Uncharacteristic tears crowded against her lashes. Steve looked away, uncomfortable with her pain, and settled himself on her overstuffed sofa. He stared at the coffee cup dangling between his widespread knees and sighed deeply. “The offer still stands, Jo.”
She responded only with silence.
“I know you still love him,” he added. “But I know you care about me too. There’s enough, Jo. We’ve got more going for us than a lot of people begin or end a marriage with. We’re friends. We could pull it off.”
“Is that what you want for yourself? A buddy?” She shook her head and smiled sadly. They’d been through so much together. The summer Steve was twelve and he’d broken his leg, Jo had been driving the boat when he’d tried a dry landing on water skis, miscalculated, and hit the dock. She’d been the first to sign his cast. And when she’d lost her mother, Steve had been the one to brave her grief. The special bond that often breaks during the passage from the simplicities of childhood to the complexities of adulthood had remained intact b
etween them.
And right now, as he sat there and offered to take care of her, she’d never loved him more. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re right. You are a good friend. And you deserve much more than what I’ve got to offer.” When he searched her face too intensely, she squared her shoulders and smiled. “I’ll be all right.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“I can handle it.”
“You’ll at least let me help?”
She walked over to the sofa, sat down beside him, and let him pull her into his arms. “I’ll hold you to it.”
He squeezed her hard. “Well.” His voice sounded suspiciously gravelly as he let her go. “I’d best be on my way before it gets any darker. Have you got enough wood?”
She nodded.
“Phone working?”
“Yes, Mother. And I’ve got the Sat phone if the lines go down. Don’t worry. If I need you, I’ll call.”
He bundled up in silence, watching her all the while. “Jo . . . are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Hey.” She rallied for his benefit. “It’s me, Ms. Independence, remember?”
He tugged her into his arms for a farewell hug. “Yeah, I remember. Take care, brat.”
She grinned. “I love you too.” Closing the door behind him, she listened until she could no longer hear the roar of his snowmobile.
The long shadows of dusk had darkened the house by the time she walked to the kitchen. She stared out the window and watched the sunset paint the snowy white lake a soft muted blue while she waited for her soup to heat. She wasn’t hungry, but she ate anyway. She no longer had just herself to think about. She had the baby to consider.