Natural Attraction

by Marisa Carroll

  “Me? Goldbrick?” Mark looked offended. “Never, ma’am. Are you certifying me fit to return to active duty?” He favored his wrenched shoulder exaggeratedly as he propped himself on his right elbow. Jessie traced an inquisitive finger lightly, daringly, over the half-healed scars on his chest. She took his palm in her hand, turning it upward to inspect those wounds also.

  “Your hands do look much better,” she confirmed in a serious mood. Mark hadn’t been completely successful in hiding the discomfort of still-protesting muscles under his teasing facade. She’d given up trying to thank him formally for saving Nell’s life at the risk of his own. He wouldn’t allow it, turning aside each attempt with facetious lightness. Jessie wasn’t fooled by the glib act. The harrowing experience at the quarry had affected him too deeply for easy words. She respected his reticence.

  “Good as new, despite your unorthodox remedies.” He made a fist to prove his point.

  “No untoward side effects?” Jessie inquired, ignoring the slur on her ministrations. “As I recall, you were afraid there might be some from the pain medication if not the cow medicine.” She couldn’t resist the retort as she gave him an appraising once-over.

  “La…la…la-la-la.” Mark ran down a scale. “Nope. Still a baritone, thank heaven. Come here. Let me prove it.”

  Jessie rested her weight provocatively on outstretched hands, leaning over him, keeping a tantalizing space between their bodies. “I do believe you’ve gotten lazy, Colonel.” She maintained the discreet distance, but the air was electric with a sensual current that underscored the bantering.

  “I could get used to being waited on hand and foot without much effort whatsoever,” Mark conceded unabashedly. “Especially by four such lovely handmaidens.”

  “Three handmaidens, one handmatron,” Jessie corrected with a comical grimace. “I haven’t been a maiden for more years than I care to remember.” Or a totally fulfilled woman, she added to herself with a tiny secret pang of regret.

  “Thank God for that!” Mark’s eyes were no longer teasing. He reached out, circling one slender wrist, tugging Jessie closer. “I’m too old for maidens.”

  She tugged back, breaking the gentle bondage. She curled her arms around her legs, resting her chin on bent knees. “Your chauvinistic tendences are showing again,” she cautioned.

  “Sorry.” His tone was deliberately docile as he continued. “Lord knows I’m trying, Jess. I’ve been the perfect patient these past few days. I’ve let you and the girls take over the running of this camp without a whimper. I’ve eaten when you told me, no matter what it looked or tasted like. I’ve slept on your command. I think I’m getting the idea of this partnership business down pretty well.” The last words were gruffly spoken. Mark pitched the stone he’d been rolling between his fingers off into the bracken. He flopped over onto his back, resuming his contemplation of cloud patterns in the blue sky.

  “You’ve been the model patient, Colonel Elliot.” Jessie paused, cleared her throat and took a deep, fortifying breath. “I think you deserve a reward.”

  “Such as?”

  “A kiss.”

  “Really?” He looked inordinately pleased.

  “Really.” Jessie didn’t blush but lowered her chin to her knees just the same.

  “In that case to hell with this partnership business. Come here, woman, that’s an order.”

  Jessie uncurled herself from the cramped position to lean over him, waiting for his touch, waiting for him to sweep her into his embrace.

  “Mom! Come look, quick!”

  This time it was one of the twins. Mark still couldn’t tell their voices apart. He tried to hide his irritation and his arousal. He checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes exactly.”

  Jessie shrugged, grinned sheepishly and crawled over to the ledge, waving in reply to the imperious summons. Mark felt his view of her backside almost compensated for the aborted kiss. He went back to studying the sky.

  They’d been thrown together almost constantly the past two days as a result of his accident. The strain was beginning to tell. He’d had too much time to think, to begin to plan for a life that included Jessie and her girls. She meant so much to him already. It was hard to assimilate the depths of emotion she’d called forth in so short a space of time. He was falling in love with her. He wanted to tell her so—now, this minute. Mark managed a smile when she returned. “What is it this time?”

  “A difference of opinion over the proper classification of a very ugly type of snail. Five days ago they wouldn’t have come within five feet of the creature.” Jessie shook her head in disbelief. “They thought you might be resting and didn’t want to disturb you. I told them you’d be down to arbitrate. I don’t intend to get near the thing.”

  “Thanks.” He laughed and closed his eyes. He was used to accepting responsibility for eager young charges, but this business of teenage hero worship was something else entirely. It was most flattering.

  Jessie breathed a small sigh of relief. Mark wasn’t annoyed. She tried to relax. Still, she couldn’t entirely forget the way the few other men she’d come in contact with had reacted to her children, looking on them as liabilities, not assets. For a time she’d been guilty of the same offense, but no longer. Mark had helped her relearn to enjoy her daughters for the unique emerging young adults they were.

  He encouraged her girls at every opportunity, encouraged them to stretch out in new ways, both physical and mental, no matter how much inconvenience it caused him. They’d taken over most of the chores since his accident and did them well: chopping wood, carrying water, duties they would have balked at in everyday life but tackled enthusiastically because of Mark’s interest in them and their accomplishments. The girls were learning independence. Jessie was learning tolerance and how to let go. She was glad they’d come in spite of everything that had happened.

  Everything that had happened—the thought tugged at her, arousing varied and differing sensations. Not the least of which was her own ambivalent feelings about Mark. She had yearned for time to get to know him better. Now it was granted. They talked for hours as the girls took over the foraging and fishing. In the evenings she’d been content to stay quietly in the background, exchanging amused glances with Mark as her daughters practiced their feminine wiles around the campfire.

  They told and retold, in differing versions, the story of Nell’s rescue and Mark’s fall. That exercise proved so stimulating they tried their hands at wheedling anecdotes from his life in the military. Next, they demanded tales from his days as a consulting engineer in Brazil. When he tired of that they begged for events and experiences from the year he’d spent backpacking along the Appalachian Trail until he met up with old Mr. Peavy, gave up any thought at all of returning to engineering and decided to buy Meanderings.

  Jessie suspected with good cause that he liked those tales best himself. At least they didn’t have to be heavily censured, as she assumed the others had been in deference to the age and innocence of the majority of the audience or glossed over as he did when asked to speak of his boyhood. She listened as avidly as the girls, caught up in the spell of the whispering surf, dancing firelight and Mark’s mesmerizing voice.

  She was giddy, nervous, strangely silly and sad by turns—all unmistakable symptoms of falling in love. The speed with which the potentially dangerous incident at the quarry had occurred served as a catalyst of sorts as far as Jessie’s emotions were concerned. She was close to falling in love with Mark Elliot. There was absolutely no doubt about it. The fact had burst into her mind with laser swiftness that afternoon at the quarry edge. But did Mark feel the same?

  “JESSIE. WE’RE LEAVING IN ANOTHER couple of hours. I want you to know how grateful I am to you for sticking it out this week, you and the girls.” Mark could have kicked himself for the pious sound of his words. Jessie was silent, her eyes unfocused. She’d been lost in her thoughts for several seconds. Mark wasn’t sure what had prompted him to call her back from her reverie.

>   “Grateful?” She returned, quick hot tears pricking the back of her eyelids. Of course that’s what he was, grateful. And she’d been ready to throw herself at him.

  “Yes. Jess, you’re not making this easy for me. I’d like to go on seeing you when we get back to Manchester.”

  “But you will see me. The pictures, the spring issue.”

  Lord, but she could be dense! Mark didn’t know whether to laugh or shake her. “I didn’t mean professionally, Jess. I’m asking you—”

  “For a relationship?” Jessie said in a squeaky little whisper.

  “For your friendship. I want to get to know you. I’ve come to care so much for you this past week. It’s overwhelming for both of us, I think.” He reached out, imprisoning both her small hands between his large, strong ones. “I want to know you much better still, Jessie. That takes time. And privacy. I want to know your girls better, too, and your mother. Your heart and soul and body. But not all at once. Not today.” Mark watched her. Jessie’s heart pounded against her ribs.

  “I want that, too,” she breathed, smiling beguilingly. “I’d like that very much. But, Mark, do you know what this might lead to? What it entails?” She had to make sure he was aware of the pitfalls. She’d come a long way this week, but establishing a relationship with a man opened up an entirely new area of doubts and insecurities. Not only about her children. But about herself.

  “It means you’re worrying too much as usual, Jess. I know what I’m doing. Aren’t you even going to give me a chance to prove I can fit into your world?” Mark lifted her stubborn chin, forcing her sparkling brown eyes to meet his. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, keeping this casual, keeping Jessie from feeling threatened by the intensity of emotion beating away inside him. What if she refused? Did he have the patience to lay siege to her all over again back in Manchester where the busy demands of their lives would make being with her harder still to accomplish?

  “You’re just such a…a greenhorn. The girls have been on their best behavior out here….” Jessie choked off the words as Mark raised a long warm finger to her lips, resting it gently against her mouth, shutting off her protests.

  “I’m a greenhorn, I admit. So were you when you stepped on that lobster boat, but you came anyway. Give me credit for the same amount of daring. I want to be with you, Jess.”

  “I’m glad,” she whispered. “I hope it happens just that way.”

  “It already has. At the plant you’re always so damned efficient I couldn’t get near you. Out here we’ve made a beginning. A good one, just as I hoped we would when I asked you to come along with me. The girls like me, I think,” he added a bit wistfully, surprising himself by how much he really did care for Jessie’s daughters.

  “You know they think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

  “Precisely.” He preened officiously, making her break into a gurgle of golden laughter. “That’s half the battle, I think.”

  Jessie nodded shyly and stared down at her clasped hands. “Come on, let’s go check on Ann’s snail.” He understood her hesitancy. Hell, he had reservations of his own. Would she even believe how uncertain he was himself of falling in love at his age, of considering giving up control of his life and placing it in her keeping?

  “Do you know how hard it will be finding time for ourselves?” She forced herself to continue meeting his probing gaze. “The girls, my mother…”

  “Lighten up, Jess. I think I know what’s coming. I’ll think of some way to get to you to myself. I’m nothing if not resourceful. I’ve been working on ways and means already.”

  “I should have known.” He curled long fingers around the back of her neck, pulling Jessie close. This time she didn’t resist the drag on her senses. “Do you ever give up?” she couldn’t help asking.

  “Never, and I have the patience of Job.” Mark was so strong, so sure of himself that he could allow her to set the pace. He wouldn’t rush her into anything. This would be best for both of them, for all of them. She lifted her mouth to his.

  The kiss was incendiary. Jessie felt herself drawn closer to the hard strength of his chest. Her hands reached out to pull him closer still. With a fraction of her senses that was not involved with Mark, she heard the girls scrambling toward them, voices raised in altercation. Nervously Jessie pulled back. Mark snorted in irritation but jumped to his feet, helping Jessie to rise. He moved a few inches away but kept her folded in the crook of his arm.

  “We’re only being friendly.” He laughed down at her but his breath was quick and uneven. “We’re celebrating our successful venture with a kiss, that’s all.”

  The girls topped the rise, staring openmouthed at their mother in Mark’s arms.

  “Mom, the boat’s here,” Nell informed her parent, not seeming to notice the compromising position Jessie felt she’d been placed in by the open embrace. “Everything’s packed. I have a bucket of clams for Grandma.” She indicated her sisters with a jerk of her thumb. “They said I can’t take them back. May I please?” She looked directly at the two adults for the first time, just as Mark bent to place a quick proprietary kiss on Jessie’s warm, pink lips. “Mom!” Jessie’s youngest bellowed, shocked.

  “Mother, really!” Ann and Lyn chorused severely, nowhere near as embarrassed as their mother. “You don’t let us kiss boys like that,” Lyn added, sensing a potential crack in Jessie’s maternal armor.

  “I’m not a boy,” Mark growled amiably, never taking his eyes from Jessie’s stunned face. “I’m your mother’s friend. And yours. I intend to see a great deal of her in the future. Do you ladies have any objections?”

  “No, sir.” They giggled obediently and on cue, catching the drift of the situation with surprising ease.

  Ann tugged on Nell’s jacket sleeve. “We’ll go start loading the boat. Come on, Nell.”

  “But my clams! They said I can’t take them, that the clams will spoil and poison us all.” Nell didn’t take her eyes off Jessie, but her silver-plated grin was puzzled and inquisitive.

  “Bring them along, Nell.” Mark’s tone was authoritative, cool and decisive. “We’ll get ice for them at the ferry dock.”

  “Thanks, Mark.” She spun on her heel to confront the twins. “Hear that.” Satisfied her sisters had been put in their place, Nell regarded Mark once again. “Are you going to be Mom’s boyfriend?”

  “Yes, I think I might qualify.”

  “Good.”

  “Boyfriend. Oh, dear. I didn’t mean for this to happen yet.”

  “Jess…”

  “I know. ‘Lighten up.”’ Jessie managed a lopsided smile.

  “You’ve finally got the hang of it. Now tell me.” He spun her around into the welcoming circle of his arms. “Didn’t I handle that well?” he prodded, fishing for compliments unashamedly as he kissed the sunburned tip of her nose.

  “Yes, you did,” Jessie answered most sincerely, settling back into the curve of his clasped hands. “You’re a natural.”

  “JESSIE, IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN we’re supposed to be establishing a relationship, remember? When can we start?” Mark leaned his chin on his crossed hands. His arms rested on the roof of his car. The car was parked in Jessie’s driveway just behind the VW that they’d picked up on their way into town.

  “I’m sorry, Mark, I can’t hear you,” Jessie answered mendaciously, her voice muffled as she poked around under the front seat of his car. Cicadas shrilled loudly in the huge maples that lined the quiet residential street adding counterfeit veracity to her statement. “I found it.” She waved Nell’s misplaced survival book victoriously overhead as she silthered out of the passenger door fanny first.

  “I said when will you have the time to spend time with me?” Mark repeated the query. He was wearing a khaki-colored regulation shirt and fatigues. He looked tall and fit and impressive. Just like an army poster of the perfect GI. “Why can’t we have dinner tonight?”

  “I have to wash my hair?” Jessie said mischievously. She
hoped her humor didn’t sound forced. She was as nervous as a cat on hot bricks. She couldn’t even remember how it felt to have a date.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Uh-uh. It’s the twins’ birthday this weekend. Two parties, sleep-overs. They’ve always been in separate classes,” she explained in great detail to cover the quaver in her voice. “Ann will have the volleyball team, I imagine, and Lyn most of the girls in the drama club. And I’ll probably end up feeding the entire football team both nights.” Jessie looked mournful and shook her head.

  “Sunday, then.” Mark glowered at her over the car roof. Jessie slammed the passenger door to avoid meeting his gaze.

  “After two nights of chaperoning sleep-overs? You’ve got to be kidding.” Her palms were sweating. She resisted the impulse to wipe them on the seat of her jeans. Her face was probably the same shade of coral as her long-sleeved, button-down shirt. Thank goodness her mother hadn’t seemed to notice she still wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Mark took a deep breath. “All right, Sunday’s out. How about Monday? Any objections there?”

  “First day back at work?” Jessie tried, without much hope of success. “And how much longer than that can you expect me to start developing my film?” She made no attempt to hide her excitement. “I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done.”

  “All right, Monday’s out. But is this a test of some sort?”

  “No. It’s just a fairly ordinary five-day schedule around here. With the exception of the twins’ birthday of course.”