At that moment, fortunately, Nell hooked a silvery, toothsome mackerel. Mark leapt up to help her land the large fish, and the awkwardness evaporated as Jessie hurried to join in the fun.
The twins kept busy, too, although they were generally off on their own pursuits. They kept the camp policed: they gathered soft new balsam boughs to pile on sapling frames Mark cut according to the directions in Nell’s beloved wilderness primer. The gesture pleased Nell no end. And the result was remarkably comfortable as well as the most delicious-smelling bed Jessie had ever slept on.
Mackerel steaks, beach-pea-and-bay-leaf stew, boiled cattail hearts and rose-hip tea left them all replete the third evening of their wilderness sojourn. Mark promised clam fritters and cranberry muffins for breakfast. Ann, Lyn and Nell each gave him a brilliant variation of Jessie’s smile before retiring politely and in the best of spirits to their tent to play a game of Trivial Pursuit.
“Sleep tight, girls,” Jessie called after them, leaning back against the sun-warmed rock she’d designated as her own. The granite was only beginning to lose its heat although the stars had come to life in the high, black arch of the sky.
“’Night, Mom. ‘Night, Mark,” Nell called over her shoulder. The twins waved.
“Good night.” Mark returned the gesture amicably.
“How do you do it?” Jessie quizzed, genuinely impressed with the way he handled her girls.
“Nothing to it. I’m a natural,” Mark said, shrugging off the implied praise. “You just have to put yourself in their shoes. You told me what’s most important to them. I try to supply it. Easy.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t.” A painful dart of maternal jealousy skidded across Jessie’s heart. He made it sound easy, but it wasn’t. Not for her, not easy at all. “I think I’ll make use of the girls’ shower,” she said as much to change the subject as anything else. “There’s plenty of hot water left.” The sun and salt spray had left her skin feeling sticky and dry. “I should have asked them to pour my water before they started the game.”
“At your service, madam,” Mark’s voice came out of the darkness at her side.
“Oh, no. I mean it’s not necessary….” Jessie stumbled over her words as she watched him secure the trash bag for the night. His suggestion sent little sparks of warning dancing over her skin.
“Come on, Jess, you’re a big girl now. I’ll keep my eyes closed. I promise.”
“I know I’m a big girl now,” Jessie retorted, finding her equilibrium once again. “That’s precisely why I don’t want you acting like a Roman slave,” she quipped with a laugh she hoped was worldly but suspected merely sounded nervous.
“Whoa! Wait a minute. Back up! Weren’t those poor devils usually eunuchs?” Mark yelped. For a moment there he’d been afraid she’d revert to her usual overserious mood, but she’d risen to his challenge. “No way. I was only volunteering in the name of cooperation and friendship.” He laughed, watching her tense silhouette relax as she curled her hands around her knees and stared into the dying fire. “Come on, Jess. There’s plenty of warm water, as you said. Don’t forgo the pleasure because you’re a prude.”
“I’m not a prude,” Jessie shot back, sitting up straight to fix him with an admonitory glare. “I’m very open-minded.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Grab a towel and your soap. I’ll meet you in the clearing.”
“What if the girls need me? How will I explain showering with a man?” Jessie could feel her face burn. She was glad for the shadows of twilight. “I mean, having you there while I shower…oh, dear.”
“Jessie, lighten up. Your worry lines are showing again. Give those three credit,” Mark urged. “Give yourself credit for raising intelligent, caring children. They’d think you were taking a shower. Nothing more. Besides, this way you’ll owe me.”
“Owe you?” Jessie retracted the hand she’d extended to him. Mark reached down, pulling her to her feet despite her protests. “Owe you what?”
“Owe me a favor in return. I certainly don’t want your daughters improving on their biology lectures by pouring water over my back. I intend to make use of the contraption tonight, too. Later, of course.” His laugh was full and rich.
“Sounds like you’re the prude, Colonel Elliot.” Jessie echoed his mirth. It’s what he wanted to hear. It felt so good to make her laugh. How empty his life had been, and he hadn’t even known it until Jessie and her effervescent brood had invaded his staid and quiet existence. Is this how full and satisfying Ellen’s and Keith’s lives were? He’d never considered how lacking his own was until these past few days.
“On the contrary. I’m very open-minded.”
Now Jessie wished there was more light when moments ago she’d blessed the darkness. Was that a dark stain of color creeping up his high cheekbones? Mark Elliot blushing? Impossible. She laughed again, but her merriment carried a new current of excitement that coursed between them. “If you bring the water I can fill the reservoir myself,” Jessie said, moving back a prudent few steps.
“I’ll meet you in five minutes.” Mark turned away to kick at the burning embers of the fire with his shoe. A vast shower of glittery sparks danced and leaped skyward. His expression carried little of the amusement that had edged it moments earlier. Had Jessie felt that shimmer of excitement, too, he wondered.
Jessie arrived in the clearing ten minutes later. The only illumination came from the waxing moon. Two buckets of steaming water stood beside the low-hanging branches of the old pine. Mark was nowhere in sight, yet stepping naked into the mossy circle under the tree was one of the hardest things Jessie had ever done.
She lifted the bucket high, filling the salvaged reservoir, wondering how what was so obviously a milk bucket had found its way to the island’s shore. Warm, sweet water flowed over her in a comforting rush. It felt marvelous. She soaped and lathered, intent on the silky glide of flesh on flesh. She could have stayed there for hours.
The water stopped. Before Jessie could react she heard a rustle of movement and smelled the distinctive spicy odor of his skin. The bucket was refilled. “Mark?” Her voice was thready with nerves and something else, brighter, hotter, that she preferred not to name. “Go away. What are you doing out here?”
The moon shone, benignly lessening the deep shadows around the pine but little more. “Don’t worry, Jess. I can’t see a thing. I brought more water. Do you want to wash your hair tonight?” His words were soft, almost lost in the night. Slowly, slowly, don’t frighten her off.
“No…” She stumbled over the lone syllable, swallowed, tried again. She wanted to attribute the hesitation to pique but it was closer to panic. “No, thank you, not tonight. I…” How could she tell him she lacked the poise to carry on a conversation in this vulnerable state? “It takes so long to dry….”
“Yes, I imagine hair as thick as yours does take a long time to dry.” He should have thought of that before he returned to the clearing. Still, the offer was only an excuse to be with her. He cleared his throat to erase the husky note of strain he’d detected lurking there. “I should have thought of that. Perhaps in the morning.”
“Yes, in the morning. I’ll have the girls help me,” Jessie said, pleased she’d reasserted some control over her wayward senses. “If you leave I’ll be getting dried off now.”
“No more water?”
“No,” she retorted. “No, thank you,” she continued more softly now, muffled as she toweled her face and neck. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I was hoping to be able to say good-night with a kiss.” He moved to intercept her as she stepped from the screening boughs clad only in a towel that was damp and clinging. Mark wished all at once that she was wearing the ratty old bathrobe with its wide, full sleeves and concealing folds he’d seen her in yesterday morning.
“I thought you’d gone.” Her tone implied criticism at his ungentlemanly behavior. Mark ignored the stricture.
“Shh.” His hand reached out to circle the bac
k of her head. He wanted so badly to touch her. “You’ve got more material in that towel than in most bathing suits you see these days.” He wished he could convince his clamoring senses of that fact. “I admit I’m not shining to my best advantage at the moment, but I didn’t mean to embarrass or frighten you in any way, Jess.”
There was genuine regret in his voice but something deeper and darker, too, that called to Jessie’s femininity, keeping her from answering as pertly as she wished.
“I’m not frightened, just uncomfortable. I don’t usually carry on conversations with male friends in the nude…or as close to nude as I am.” Jessie wished she could have found something more sophisticated to say than that. She wished it wasn’t Jessie Meyer, CPA, mother, practical businesswoman standing there half-naked under the trees.
It should be Jessie, worldly, provocative, self-assured as she’d like to be for just fifteen minutes or so. “But I would like a kiss,” she heard herself say, amazed at her temerity. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me for quite some time, actually. I mean, if you want to, of course.” So much for women’s lib, Jessie thought disgustedly; she’d certainly muffed this chance to be assertive.
“I don’t want to rush you, Jess. I’m not about to take advantage of the fact that you’re more or less at my mercy on this blasted island.”
“Is that what’s bothering you, Colonel Elliot?” Jessie gurgled, relieved she hadn’t scared him off with her unaccustomed boldness. She was deeply touched by the evidence of his thoughtfulness. “I suggest if you do want to kiss me we’d better get at it or my built-in trio of chaperones will pop up on their way to the latrine or something and show you just how little at your mercy I really am.” Jessie surprised herself again with the directness of her suggestion.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mimicked her occasional teasing use of his military title. “Is that an order?”
“Merely a request, Colonel. Despite your background, you don’t seem the type to be good at taking orders.”
“You’re sure right, there.” He pulled her closer, all the time his fingers working tactile magic on the back of her neck, soothing the tightness, melting her inhibitions.
Mark began to wish Jessie hadn’t knotted the towel so tightly that there was no danger of it slipping an inch. He had no intention of pushing this fragile new intimacy further than she wished it to go, but he would have liked to learn the feel of his mouth against her breasts as well as her lips. Jessie’s eyes were closed; there was a faint frown outlined between her brows. She looked as if she were bracing herself to be inundated by his kiss.
Mark’s kiss, when it came, wasn’t at all what she expected, but it was what she wanted. It was light, tentative, restrained, making no demand for something she wasn’t ready to give. He pulled her deeper into the shadows of a twisted pine, cradling her soft, damp shoulders in his hands. The sensation of being held in a man’s arms was wondrously familiar, yet somehow new. She leaned closer, trying to bring their bodies into more intimate contact while Mark tried to maintain a small distance between them.
Jessie lifted her face, letting the tip of her tongue explore the full curve of his lower lip. “Kiss me, Mark. I’m a woman. You don’t have to treat me as if I’m made of spun glass. I won’t break. I’m a big girl now, remember.”
Mark groaned, taking her face between his rough, strong palms. “I think I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first night we got here.” He nibbled lightly at the soft parted moistness offered to him.
“Why didn’t you?” Jessie whispered without a hint of provocativeness. He moved his feather-light caress to her hairline just above her ear.
“Because in my day a guy didn’t kiss a girl he was trying to impress on the first date,” Mark replied, but his voice was husky and his lips lowered to tantalize the curve of Jessie’s ear, nipping at the earring nestled there.
“An officer and a gentleman.” Jessie sighed in defeat. “You’re not going to step one inch out of line, are you?” She was dizzy with wanting, her voice a mere whisper in the louder whispers of pine boughs and night breeze. She’d never felt quite like this before, not even with Carl, not even in the white-hot blaze of first love all those years ago. “Something’s happening to us. But I’m not sure what it is. It’s just that I’ve never considered you…I mean, I didn’t intend anything like this…Oh, dear.” Jessie faltered. “Perhaps you should go now. I’ll stay here and dress.”
“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll stay here and try out the shower. All by myself,” he added meaningfully. “It is too soon for us, Jess. There’s something beginning; you feel it, too.” Jessie nodded, dazed. “I’m not used to this kind of thing hitting me like a bolt out of the blue. I don’t think you are, either?” He made it a question.
“I’m not used to this kind of thing at all,” Jessie confessed with a last quick, light joining of lips. Her hands had lifted to circle his neck of their own will. Now she let them slide down the column of his throat, trace the hard firm planes of his collarbone to rest lightly on his shoulders, then the smooth muscles of his chest beneath the soft flannel shirt. “You’re right. It is too soon.” Jessie couldn’t stop the sigh that followed her words as Mark lifted his head slowly and reluctantly. “We both need time to sort it all out.”
“Time together.” Mark liked the sound of the words. “I’d like to take you foraging tomorrow—without the girls.”
“We’ll see,” Jessie hedged. She hadn’t meant to become attracted to this man. Perhaps it was just the moonlight, the starlight dancing on the ocean and its constant throaty murmur in the background that made her feel so unlike herself. She needed time alone to consider, yet she wanted very much to be with Mark, learn all about him, try to judge the strength of her growing pleasure in his company.
“The girls will be fine without you for a few hours. Trust me.” Mark’s finger touched her slightly parted lips, then dipped to follow the line of terry cloth across the rise of her breasts. “We deserve some time alone together, time to get to know each other, to comprehend what’s happening between us. Say you’ll come with me.” He could feel her start to relax as she reacted subconsciously to the uncoiling tautness in his own body. Would she agree to come with him? Or would she retreat yet again behind the shield of responsibility to her children?
“I’d like that very much. I’ll be ready whenever you are.”
“NO!” THE NEGATIVE WAS EMPHATIC. “I do not believe you got a Purple Heart by being thrown through a bar window in Da Nang because you’d taken on one marine more than you could handle.” Jessie laughed delightedly, screening her eyes from the bright sun with the brim of her disreputable old straw hat. “And I do not want to see your scars!” She held up a purple-stained restraining hand as Mark’s fingers went to the zipper of his faded brown cords. “I take it all back. If you say so, it must be true. I believe you, every word.” Jessie fell silent a moment, sorting out leaves and stems from the small wild blueberries in her hand. “Do you want to tell me what did happen?” Her eyes cloaked him in warmth and concern.
“No.” Mark shook his head to soften the harsh syllable. How had they even gotten on the subject? He couldn’t recall. It was extraordinary how easy it was to talk to this woman. He didn’t have to tell her the shrapnel scars on his left hip came from what was left of his sergeant’s helmet, the helmet his friend had been wearing moments before he stepped on the booby-trapped mine. She understood so quickly and didn’t press when he wanted to gloss over the details of those three long, dangerous tours of duty—six years of his life, a quarter of his military career.
“Vietnam left most of our generation with scars of one kind or another.” Jessie didn’t elaborate on the observation.
Mark added another handful of berries to Jessie’s bucket. He picked berries as he did most things: with purpose, efficiency and great economy of movement. The sun was high, but clouds loomed not far away, fat and gray. They were in for rain. “Was your husband in Nam?”
“No. Carl was an only
child. His parents were adamantly opposed to the war. But I don’t think he ever gave it that much thought. He would have gone if he’d been drafted, but he wasn’t.”
She flashed a private little smile that twisted something deep in Mark’s gut. He didn’t like to admit he could be jealous of a dead man, so he ignored the ache.
“They sent him to college to keep him out of the service. I met him there at the University of Pennsylvania. We fell in love and got married. Carl dropped out after his sophomore year. By then we had the twins.” A dull red stain colored her cheekbones. Had Jessie been a proverbial pregnant bride, Mark wondered absently. He’d have liked to see Jessie round and smug with child. “All Carl really wanted to do was work in the woods, among the big trees. He died there in a logging accident seven years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded inadequate, as they always did when one sincerely meant them.
“So am I. He was a good husband and a good father.”
And lover? That was another tangent he didn’t intend to follow.
“Enough of the past.” Mark wasn’t aware his words were a growl as he dragged Jessie up from her knees, out of the prickly, low-growing blueberry bushes. He wasn’t jealous because Carl had known Jessie first, he assured himself, or loved Jessie first. “No more talk of the past. Look at that view, those clouds, that ocean. Where’s your camera?”
“In the boat. I’m out of film at the moment. I’m going to have a lot of trouble picking proofs for this one.” Mark had included an inflatable, two-man rubber raft complete with small outboard motor among their equipment. They’d used it to putter across a choppy mile or so of open water to this larger sister island. It was just the two of them, alone together. “I think it’s going to rain.”
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