by Peggy Webb
“Both of us are caught up right now in the heat of passion, Sarah. I’m not going to do something you will regret tomorrow.”
“I won’t regret it.”
“I would. Not that I made love to you, but that I stole something precious, something that can never be replaced.”
“I feel so…so incomplete. You’ve awakened feelings in me I’ve never known. I want…I need.” Her lips trembled and her eyes grew moist. “Oh, Jim…please.”
She was impossible to resist. And so Jim struck a compromise between his honor and her need.
He kissed her tenderly then gathered her close and whispered against her fragrant hair, “I can give you some release.”
“Yes…please.”
“And still leave you…”
“Shh. Don’t say it, Jim.” She wove her fingers through his hair and pulled him down to her breasts. “Show me.”
His mouth closed over her breast, and she became sensitized and electric, trembling with his touch. Pulling her nipple deep into his mouth, Jim began to suckle. Sarah writhed, calling out his name in whispered sighs and soft moanings.
“Jim…I want…I need… Please.”
Never leaving her breast, Jim ran his hand down the smooth planes of her belly. And when his fingers slid inside, Sarah arched upward, keening with pleasure.
Jim had done this before, many times. He knew the secret places, understood how to make the magic happen. What he hadn’t known was that this time the magic would happen to him.
Plying her sweet depths with tenderness and passion and wonder, he lifted his head to look at Sarah.
Discovery transformed her.
Her breathing quickened, her eyes widened, her body loosened. She flowed under him like silk. She burned through him like flame. She invaded him like a Sioux war party.
He became her captive. Her master. Her teacher. Her pupil.
“Oh,” she cried. “I never knew. I never knew.”
She was shining, joyful, and Jim wished he could give her the moon.
All he could give her was a sweet, tender release.
“This is only the beginning, Sarah.”
He caught her hands and wove her fingers tightly through his. Her palms were damp and a fine sheen of perspiration lay upon her skin.
Bending down he licked her dew-kissed lips, then claimed her mouth as surely as his fingers had claimed her body.
Deep inside him was a triumph he couldn’t deny. Something truthful in Jim exulted.
I’m the first. I’m the only one.
Passion stormed him anew, and he trembled with the effort of restraint.
“What, Jim?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Sarah. Nothing at all.”
When Jim thought there were no more surprises left, Sarah proved him wrong. The sweet tender woman he’d seen dancing in her garden became a fierce, fiery hoyden.
“I want everything, Jim. I want it all.”
To prove her point, she moved strongly against him, and Jim had to clench his jaw to keep from opening the floodgates and pouring out his passion.
Instead he bent down and closed his mouth over her.
Paradise came so quickly.
Sarah had never dreamed she would find it, never imagined that it would appear in the close confines of a small bed in the hold of a cabin cruiser.
She felt newborn. She was flying without wings, sailing without sails, dreaming without sleep.
Sensations bombarded her in such swift succession she could barely keep up with them. The sweet tender pleasure she’d known earlier became a wild erotic journey into unknown territory that blasted every logical thought from her mind.
She held nothing back. He carried her on a journey that spiraled toward the stars and left her shimmering there, whispering his name, begging for something she couldn’t describe.
“Jim?” Her body trembled from stem to stern. She had melted all the way down; she was going to explode.
“Now, Sarah, now.”
Her body needed no urging. He shot her toward the stars, and when she crash-landed, he was there to catch her. She fell straight into his arms, newborn body, enlarged heart and all.
He brushed her damp hair back from her forehead, and when he looked into her eyes, he gave her a star. That’s how bright he was, how fierce, how wonderful.
“Oh, Jim…” She let her smile say what words could not.
“The rest of it is even better.”
“What could be better than paradise?”
Chapter Ten
Jim taught her to fish.
With the anchor down and the boat rocking gently on the water, he stood behind Sarah and showed her how to cast, how to play out the line, how to land the lure in exactly the right spot. She laughed and listened and learned.
“You’re a natural, Sarah. Are you sure you’ve never done this?”
Her skin was still flushed from her intimate discoveries, her eyes still bright, her color still high.
“Never. This is my first time.”
“I’m glad I’m the one to teach you,” he said, and both of them knew he wasn’t talking about fishing.
Jim bent down and kissed the side of her throat, and it was as thrilling as the first time he’d ever touched her. With Sarah, everything felt like the first time. He’d never fished until today. He’d never touched a woman intimately until today. Never kissed until there was Sarah.
Never walked. Until there was Sarah.
The memory of that day on the campus of Southside jolted Jim. He hadn’t thought about it until today. He’d been too busy walking, too caught up in the sheer joy of being on his own two feet again.
But there it was. The bald truth. If it hadn’t been for the threat to Sarah Sloan, Jim might never have walked.
Chills ran down his spine. Somebody walking on your grave, Delta always said.
Somebody or something. And the thing was Jim’s conscience. Here he was—an out-of-work aviator sitting in an old boat with a fishing pole in one hand and an almost deflowered virgin in the other. The heroic image he’d held of himself while he was in her arms died a slow and painful death.
He had absolutely nothing to give her. Nothing to offer her. He was a man without a future. He didn’t even have a plan.
I’m sorry, he’d said, and he would say it again.
She was looking at him with such shining expectation that Jim wanted to weep. More than that, he wanted her. Scoundrel that he was. He wanted to throw Sarah over his shoulder like some damned caveman and take her back into his cabin and spend the rest of the evening and the better part of the night making love to her.
It would be so easy. She wouldn’t say no. Especially not after what had already happened. If looks were any indication, she would welcome him eagerly.
Desire struggled with conscience. It was a long and bitter battle, but conscience finally won.
He couldn’t, and he wouldn’t carry her back to his bed. Chivalry had taken hold of him. A little too late, regretfully, but nonetheless Jim Standing Bear wasn’t about to engage this sweet trusting woman in a frivolous affair. Or any affair at all, for that matter.
Standing on tiptoe she kissed him softly on the lips.
“Thank you for being my teacher, Jim.”
God, how he wanted this woman! He balled his hands into fists to keep from touching her.
“You’re welcome.”
Sarah gave him a strange look. He’d sounded like an uptight, self-righteous martyr. She deserved better than that.
She deserved better than him.
Cupping her face, he kissed her sun-warmed cheek.
“It was my pleasure, Sarah.” He caught up their poles and handed one to her. “Now, let’s fish. Otherwise we won’t have any dinner.”
Sarah was a good sport. She fell cheerfully into the task of pulling dinner from the sea. Later, when they cooked their catch over a fire Jim built on the beach, she maintained her good humor. She even told him stories
that made him laugh.
One concerned a friend of hers from college who had gone down to La Joya to work at Sarah’s school as a volunteer for the summer.
“She came without knowing a speck of the language,” Sarah said. “But what she didn’t know of Spanish, she made up for with her enthusiasm. One evening as we sat around a campfire roasting marshmallows, Carlos brought out his guitar and began to play.”
Jim watched her face while she talked. It was expressive and lovely, a moveable feast. He wanted to kiss her moonlit cheeks and her sparkling eyes. He wanted to devour her lush lips.
Instead he took a firm grip on the spit that held their fish and an even firmer one on his emotions.
“That sounds like a great evening,” he said.
“It was. And it got even better.”
Sarah tilted her head slightly back when she laughed, exposing her slender throat, the throat that tasted of sunshine and roses. Jim pretended an interest in a falling star.
The whole damned sky could have fallen and he would never have noticed. That’s how Sarah filled his vision. That’s how she crowded out everything else in his landscape.
Sarah sucked in her breath at the sight of the blazing star, then when Jim didn’t comment, she continued her story.
“As Carlos played, his audience began to clap and sing, in Spanish, of course, and I could see Janice building up to one of her wild enthusiasms. Suddenly she was up, dancing an improvised flamenco, clapping like mad and shouting, ‘Grande! Grande!’”
Jim burst out laughing, and Sarah joined him.
“You speak Spanish, I see.”
“Some. Enough to get by.”
“Then you know the rest of the story.”
“I’d rather hear you tell it.”
“Well, the entire crowd came to a standstill. ‘What?’ Janice asked. ‘What did I say?’ ‘Janice,’ I told her, ‘you said big.’ ‘That’s exactly what I meant,’ she said. Janice was always one to have the last word.”
“That’s a great story. Tell me how you ended up in Mexico, Sarah?”
“Initially I went because of Dad. After he retired he went to La Joya to help establish a free medical clinic. There is a crying need in that little mountain town for doctors. Teachers, too. I joined Dad one summer, fell in love with the children, and stayed.”
“You loved it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I would still be there if Dad hadn’t gotten sick.”
She helped him serve the fish on picnic plates, and when their hands touched she smiled at him.
“I’m glad I didn’t stay.”
“The fish is ready,” he said.
Sarah didn’t need a guidebook to tell her something was wrong. Every time she made reference to what had happened on the boat, even in the most discreet way, Jim became as inaccessible as a bank vault.
“Would you like to eat here, Sarah, or on the boat?”
“Here. Definitely.” She bit her lower lip. “Unless you would prefer dining onboard.”
“No, this is great.”
Jim spread the beautiful native American blanket that she loved, and then sat down as far away from her as he could get. It didn’t matter that he was smiling. It didn’t matter that he was pleasant. The emotional distance between them was so great he might as well have been on Mars.
The moon was putting on a spectacular display. Wouldn’t it be romantic to lie on the blanket and hold each other close? Maybe she should tell Jim. Or was that too bold?
Sarah had no skills in courtship, so she did what felt natural; she reached out to take Jim’s hand. He gave her hand a brief squeeze, then got up to stir the fire.
Sarah sighed. There would be no returning to paradise on the beach in the moonlight.
Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
“It’s getting late,” Jim said, although Sarah could tell by the position of the moon that it wasn’t even close to being late.
“We should be heading back.”
“Yes,” she said.
What else was there to say? They loaded their picnic supplies onto the boat then rode a path of silver all the way across the bay.
Moonlight carved Jim as he stood at the wheel, and Sarah studied him until every detail was imprinted in her mind. Here was the man who had opened an entirely new world of pleasure to her. Here was the man who had chained his own desire in order to save her virtue. Here was her hero.
Sarah was falling deeply, irrevocably in love with him. And already it had the earmarks of disaster. A man like Jim Standing Bear deserved better than plain, inexperienced Sarah.
A man like Jim Standing Bear…
Sarah sighed.
“What’s wrong, Sarah?”
“Nothing.”
Everything. For surely Jim Standing Bear was going to break her heart.
At her doorway, Jim gave Sarah a chaste peck on the cheek. She was achingly beautiful with her lips softly parted and the moonlight in her hair.
So much temptation.
If he didn’t get away from her quickly, he wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen. He was fresh out of nobility. A quart low on restraint. Completely incapable of control.
Softly, she touched his face. “Good night, Jim.”
The sweet smell of roses was on her skin, the warm blush of passion on her face. Jim needed a reprieve. He needed a cold shower. And he desperately needed a plan.
He’d promised never to hurt her. Always to be her friend.
How was he going to do that when the very sight of her made him weak with longing? How was he going to keep promises and his sanity, both?
She was smiling wistfully up at him, and he couldn’t bear to leave her. Not yet.
One more taste, he told himself. A kiss to remember her by.
He cupped her face, then gently ran his fingers across her cheekbones, along the determined line of her jaw, over her lush lips. Her tongue flicked out and wet the tips of his fingers. And Jim died inside.
What would have happened if he’d made love to her, totally and completely? Would she still be looking at him with such shining expectation? Would he still be able to walk away from her with his heart intact?
His heart was intact. He had to keep telling himself that.
“Thank you for a beautiful day, Sarah.”
“I loved every minute of it.” Her blush deepened.
Leave now. While you still can.
Jim parted her lips with his finger, then lowered his mouth over hers. She kissed him sweetly, tenderly, deeply, but he wasn’t kissing her back. He was memorizing her. Branding her.
And letting her go.
Whatever happened, he would at least have this—a goodbye he would remember the rest of his life.
Chapter Eleven
Unable to sleep, Jim prowled his rooftop, thinking. By morning he still had no answers, only more questions. More uncertainty about his future.
The only thing he was certain about was Sarah: he had to find his way back to the beginning, back to the time when he was nothing more to Sarah Sloan than neighbor and friend.
And for that he needed the wisdom of Solomon.
In the wee hours of the morning, he sat down at his desk and wrote her a letter.
Sarah thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to teach today. Instead she had the whole day to herself, an entire twenty-four hours to savor every last detail of her time on the boat with Jim.
In spite of the way he’d acted afterward, she still had hope. She took the cordless phone into the bathroom, in case he called while she was in the tub. She took it out to the garden in case he called while she was having breakfast. She graded her papers in the den right next to the phone.
In case he called.
Nothing was more exhausting than false hope. That’s what she decided at the end of the day. She kissed her father good-night, then fell into bed like somebody dead.
When the sitter shook her awake at midnight, it took Sarah a while to become oriented.
&n
bsp; “Your father’s missing.”
“What happened?”
Sarah flung back her covers and fumbled on the floor for her shoes.
“I had to go to the bathroom, and when I came back he was not in his bed. I’ve looked all over the house, and I can’t find him.”
“I think I know where he might be. Mrs. Grimes, you check the house again, just to make sure.”
Sarah found him wandering around in the garden.
“Dad?”
“I can’t find Ginger. She’s been gone a long time. Do you know where she is?”
Guilt slashed Sarah. She’d been in her own world for two days, and to her father that was an eternity.
“It’s all right. Ginger’s here now.”
“Listen. The orchestra’s playing the rhumba.” He grinned like a little kid, then swept her into the Latin rhythm.
“I’ve missed you, Ginger.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Fred,” she said, and she meant it.
Sometimes there was great comfort in pretending to be somebody else.
When Sarah got home on Tuesday afternoon, Savannah was in the library dancing with her father, and Delta was waiting for her with a letter from Jim and a cup of hot tea.
“I thought you might need this.” She handed the tea to Sarah.
“That sounds foreboding, Delta.”
“I don’t know nothing about no foreboding. All I know is that man who wrote it is over yonder behind that hedge acting like a sore-tail cat.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing a good dose of common sense wouldn’t cure.”
“Thanks for the tea, Delta. It’s the perfect thing after a long day at school.”
Sarah went upstairs to the privacy of her bedroom, set her tea on the bedside table, then ripped open her letter.
“Dear Sarah,” she read. “As you know, Archie will be in my custody during the school hours until the end of the semester. Under the circumstances I think it best if I don’t come to Southside anymore.”
“No,” Sarah whispered. “Please, no.”
She closed her eyes, willing the last line to go away, but when she opened them it was still there. She took a bracing sip of tea that turned out not to be bracing at all.