by Cindy Myers
“Almost. The hermit’s cabin is over this rise and to the left.”
Sure enough, two minutes later, they topped the rise and Maggie saw a flash of red, which turned out to be a pair of bloomers flapping on a clothesline strung between two trees. She laughed. “I don’t think I realized before that red was a pair of bloomers.”
“Lucille’s idea. She contributes the hermit and his wife’s wardrobe every year.”
The cabin itself was little more than a façade tucked up against the cliff, an old washtub anchored by a large rock beside the door. “Where does the flag go?” Maggie asked.
“Over here.” Jameso led the way to a flagpole anchored in cement just beyond the clothesline.
“Who hauled a bag of cement up here?” Maggie asked.
“Who do you think?”
“Jake?” She glanced back at the path they’d just climbed. “But how?”
“When he put his mind to do something, he did it.” Jameso took out the flag and let it unfurl in the breeze. “Come here and hold this while I fix it to the rope.”
He fit carabineers into grommets along the edge of the flag, then fastened these to a rope on the flag pole. As the breeze caught the Stars and Stripes, snapping the banner in the wind, Maggie fought the urge to put her hand over her heart in salute.
“It looks nice up there, doesn’t it?” Jameso came to stand beside her.
“How long do you leave it up?” Maggie asked.
“For a week after the Fourth; then I’ll come up and get it. Jake originally thought he’d leave it up here year-round, but the sun and wind tears it up pretty quick, and it bothered him to see it falling apart like that. So he decided to just put it out for the holiday.”
“Sounds like the hermit wasn’t the only one who was patriotic.”
“The two of them had a lot in common. Come on, we need to do the rest of it.”
“The rest of it?”
He slipped the pack from his back. “Time to put fresh laundry on the line. Can’t have the hermit and his wife going another year in those rags.”
On close inspection, the garments on the line were in sad shape. The overalls were bleached almost white, and the bloomers had a long tear in the backside.
Maggie helped Jameso take the old clothing from the line. Instead of clothespins, the garments were held in place with spring-loaded clips that Maggie had to use both hands to open. Regular clothespins probably wouldn’t have stood up to the gales that must assault this lonely spot, she thought.
They hung up a new pair of overalls, a white man’s shirt, and a green gingham dress. Lastly, Jameso extracted a pair of bloomers from his pack—white with large pink polka dots.
“Polka dots?” Maggie laughed.
Jameso grinned. “Lucille made them up special. I thought you’d get a kick out of them.”
“Mrs. Hermit is certainly a colorful dresser.”
When they were done, they stood back once more to admire their handiwork. If Maggie hadn’t known better, she might have thought she had stumbled upon a remote homestead. All the scene needed was smoke curling from the stovepipe to be complete.
Why had her father gone to all the trouble to establish this elaborate tableau, with the cabin and the clothesline and the flag? He’d said he did it to fool tourists, but maybe he was really entertaining himself with this picture of a happy little life on the mountaintop, where a man had everything he needed to be content—the things that had eluded Jake himself.
“I’m glad you asked me to come with you,” she said. “I never would have had a chance to see this otherwise.”
“I’m glad you came, too. I was really dreading coming up here by myself this year. I thought it would be too hard, thinking of Jake.”
“You really did love him.”
“I did. The bad in him made the good that much easier to embrace. He was struggling with something, some secret, right up to the end. I always thought I’d get the chance to find out what that was. It doesn’t seem fair that he didn’t have more time.”
“A secret? Do you mean me?”
“That was one secret, but I don’t think it was the thing that troubled him so much—something in his past.”
“Something that happened in the war?”
“That seems most likely, doesn’t it? But I guess now we’ll never know.”
“I’m sorry I said what I did earlier, about it not mattering if the hermit flew the flag or not. It does matter.”
“I was wrong, too,” he said. “The past matters, but not as much as the present. Not as much as the future.” His eyes met hers, intense and searching, as if looking for answers to a question she couldn’t discern.
He took a step closer. “What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Too much, probably.”
The admission startled her, and she might have stepped back, but he put his hand on her arm, steadying her. “I always want too much,” he said. “But I’m learning to accept whatever you can give.”
He leaned in and kissed her before she had time to think or move. When his lips met hers, she reacted instinctively, sliding one hand up to caress the nape of his neck, the other pressed against his chest, curled into the soft fabric of his shirt. His lips were firm, yet soft, teasing awake every nerve of her mouth, surprising a soft moan from her. In that moment, she was sixteen again—and twenty-six and almost forty, innocent and knowing, thrilled at the possibilities and terrified at what this might mean.
Jameso broke the kiss, resting his cheek against hers. She could feel the pounding of his heart beneath her fingers and was grateful for the strength of his arms around her, afraid she was too weak to stand on her own. After a long moment, he spoke. “I’ve been wanting to do that since the first night I saw you, standing on Jake’s porch, defending yourself with a stick of stove wood.”
“Was it the stove wood that did it for you?” Her voice didn’t sound nearly as shaky as she felt.
“No, it was you. So beautiful and brave and . . . unexpected.” He slid both hands around to the back of her neck and lifted her hair off her shoulders. Then he bent and kissed the soft skin at the side of her throat, and she felt her knees begin to buckle.
But he held her upright, and traced kisses down her throat and along her collarbone, pulling the flannel shirt and the T-shirt out of the way to bare her skin. She arched her neck and moaned softly with pleasure. “What are you doing to me?” she managed to gasp.
He stilled. “You don’t like it?” The words vibrated against her skin.
“I like it.” Her hands slid up to clutch at his head, keeping him against her. “Very much.”
He pulled his head up, grinning at her. Then he kissed her again. She melted against him, letting her regrets about the past and worries about the future recede. She wanted to act not because it was what someone else expected of her or what someone else said was right, but because it made her feel good right now, in this moment. Just being able to admit that felt like a powerful victory.
Jameso’s hand slid beneath her shirt to rest on her stomach, the skin heated. Rough. “I’m wishing like hell there really was a bed inside that cabin,” he growled. “Or that there was even a cabin.”
“There’s a bed at my place,” she said.
His eyes met hers, but she held his gaze, a calm she hadn’t imagined she could feel washing over her. All her anxiety and dithering was over. She wanted Jameso. And she wanted him as soon as possible. “Is that an invitation?” he asked.
“It is.”
“Then I accept.” He smiled, a look as sweet as any he’d ever given her, and she felt her heart pound, her emotions soar dangerously. She struggled to rein in her feelings. This wasn’t about fantasy or commitment or any of those feelings. It was about lust and need and pleasure.
He took her hand and pulled her toward the trail back down the mountain, but she hung back, needing to know he understood. “I want to be with you,” she said. “But don’t expect too much. I still have a lo
t of baggage I need to deal with.”
“Four boxes of Steuben glass.”
“That, and other stuff.” Internal stuff she wasn’t ready to look at any more than she wanted to unpack that glass.
He turned to her again and traced one finger along her jaw, down the soft curve of her throat, where the edge of the chain stopped him. “What’s this?” he asked, fishing the rest of the necklace from her shirt.
“Rings.” She fought the urge to snatch them from him and tuck them away again, out of sight.
“Wedding rings.” He rubbed his thumb along the curve of the thicker gold band and squinted at the engraving inside it. “Carter and Margaret, December 12, 1992,” he read. Then he carefully tucked the necklace back into her collar. “More baggage?” he asked.
“Maybe.” It wasn’t as if she needed to wear the rings anymore; she just felt naked without them after so long. “Does it make a difference?”
His eyebrows drew closer together, a small V forming above the bridge of his nose. “It probably ought to, but where you’re concerned, none of the rules seem to apply.” Then he pulled her to him and kissed her again, more roughly this time, a kiss full of need and longing and all the emotions that she knew too well.
When he broke the kiss, they were both out of breath. Maggie looked away. She had to, or she might have pulled him down onto the rough ground to make love with him there on the cold mountainside. That wasn’t what she wanted their first time to be. “We’d better go,” she said.
“Right.” He shouldered his pack and led the way down the trail. Maggie stopped at the edge of the trees and looked back at the little tableau of cabin, laundry, and flag. The pink polka-dot bloomers flapped smartly in the breeze, a comic salute to her father, who maybe enjoyed a last laugh from the grave.
They didn’t speak on the way down the mountain, as if trying to give words to their feelings would break this spell. He raced the truck at dangerous speeds over the rough roads, but she didn’t protest. Already she felt cold away from his heat; she didn’t want to delay being back in his arms.
When at last he pulled in front of the cabin and shut off the engine, she let out a sign of relief. Keys still in hand, he turned to her, his expression grave. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
“No, have you?”
“No, I just thought I ought to pretend to be a gentleman and give you a chance to back out of this—even though I’m not. A gentleman, that is.”
“I probably wouldn’t like you half as much if you were.” She’d spent twenty years with a gentleman. Carter wouldn’t have dreamed of making a crude statement or openly stepping across society’s lines. His affair had been conducted with the utmost discretion, after all. But good manners hadn’t made his betrayal any less painful, and there was something to be said for a man who’d go after what he wanted, damn the consequences.
“Good.” They climbed out of the truck and she led the way up the steps to the porch, but before she opened the door, she turned to him, a question entering her mind that had to be asked. “This . . . this attraction between us—it doesn’t have anything to do with my father, does it? Because you thought so much of him and I know you miss him and—”
His expression twisted somewhere between laughter and disgust. “My feelings for Jake didn’t run in that direction—at all. Besides, I was drawn to you the first time I saw you, and I didn’t even know Jake had a daughter.”
“Good. I mean, I just wanted to be sure.”
“Don’t overanalyze this,” he said. “Sometimes the feelings between a man and a woman—they’re below the level of thought. More primal.”
The words sent a shiver of arousal through her as powerful as his kiss.
And then they were inside, in each other’s arms again, the door still standing open behind them. She was dimly aware of him kicking it shut, even as he pushed the flannel shirt off her shoulders and tugged at the hem of the T-shirt.
Laughing, giddy with the joy of his exuberance, she tore herself away from him and grabbed his hand, then tugged him toward the stairs. She stumbled on the narrow risers and he caught her, his hands firm at her waist. She flashed him a look of thanks and felt her heart climb into her throat at the heat and anticipation in his eyes.
They undressed quickly and fell onto the bed, scrambling beneath the covers, the sheets cool against fevered flesh. She molded her body to his, reveling in the feel of the hard muscles of his arms and chest and thighs. “God, you feel good,” she said.
“We’re just getting started,” he said, sounding amused.
“I was merely making an obser—” The word was strangled in her throat by a gasp as he fastened his mouth around one of her nipples and she thought she might very well shatter then and there.
The man knew what he was doing, that was clear. She didn’t want to think too much about where he’d garnered such experience, except to be grateful that she was the lucky beneficiary of his talents now. Not that she didn’t have a few talents of her own—enough to make him gasp and his eyes glaze over with a pleased, distracted look.
By the time he knelt over her and slid inside her, they were both half-crazed with wanting, the kind of wanting that left no room for embarrassment or self-consciousness—only room for pleasure, laced with a touch of tenderness that took her over the edge as much as the physical sensations he gave her. As she drifted down from that incredible high, the words of old wedding vows drifted to her—not the vows said at her own wedding, but ones she’d read in a book somewhere, or heard recited in a movie: “With my body, I thee worship.” That’s what she felt at this moment—worshipped. Like a goddess.
Even goddesses have to come down from the throne and deal with the mundane world. In this case, a bladder that was screaming for relief when Maggie awoke two hours later. Jameso snored softly beside her, stretched out on his stomach. She took a moment to admire his naked body before reluctantly pulling on a robe and heading downstairs to the bathroom.
As she washed her hands, she studied herself in the mirror. Hair mussed. Beard rash on one cheek. Lips slightly swollen. She grinned dopily at her reflection. One look and anyone would know what she’d been up to. And would be up to again, as soon as she woke up the sleeping stud in her bed.
But when she reached the bedroom again, Jameso was already awake and getting dressed. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked, wincing at the accusing note in her voice.
“Sorry.” His look was full of apology, but his gaze shifted away before meeting hers. “I have to get to work.”
When will I see you again? She thought the words, but she didn’t dare say them. Hadn’t she been the one to emphasize that she wasn’t ready for any kind of serious relationship? Of course, that was before he’d rocked her world two hours ago. She hugged her arms across her chest, suddenly cold. “I had a great time,” she said. “Not just the sex, but the hike, too.”
“I had a great time, too.” He stood, buttoning his shirt, then came forward and kissed her. Not the passionate kiss of a lover, but the tender kiss on the cheek of a friend. The way he might have kissed her if they’d never slept together at all.
She studied his face, trying to read the emotion there. The lines around his eyes seemed more deeply etched, but that might have been a trick of the fading light. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Everything’s great.” He patted her arm. “I’ll call you later,” he said. Then he shrugged into his jacket and headed past her, down the stairs and out the door.
She listened to his truck start up and drive away, and tried to figure out why she suddenly felt so rotten. Of course he couldn’t stay here twenty-four hours a day. He had a job. He had a house. She’d told him not to expect too much from her, so she shouldn’t expect too much from him. But this afternoon had been so . . . so incredible. Didn’t that count for something? Didn’t that change things—the way they had changed her?
She’d expected more than him just . . . walking away. Was it just that
men always ended up walking away? Or that she was a woman who was easy to leave?
Chapter 19
Olivia liked her job at the Dirty Sally, especially on nights like this, when the customers didn’t keep her too busy. The crowd was light, a mix of locals and tourists. A friendly bunch, nobody too drunk or too loud. She was making good tips. It wasn’t what you’d call a career. She knew her mother didn’t approve, but Lucille looked down her nose at pretty much everything Olivia did.
Her mother didn’t understand that Olivia needed time to get her head together. She had a lot to deal with, with a kid like Lucas who, let’s face it, wasn’t a typical little boy. For one thing, he was scary smart, brilliant in a way Olivia knew she’d never been. But all those brains were too much for his own good sometimes. You couldn’t fool a kid like that, couldn’t convince him you always knew best just because you were the parent. Lucas saw through that bullshit like it was nothing more than tissue paper, which left Olivia scrambling sometimes to make the right decisions.
It wasn’t as if anybody gave you a handbook on how to be a parent. God knows Lucille hadn’t been much of an example. In those first days after she split with Mitch, she was either off working or locking herself in the bathroom to cry, leaving Olivia to pretty much fend for herself. The lesson Olivia got from that little episode was that she couldn’t count on anyone else to pick her up when she fell down, which was fine until you fell so far down you really needed a hand, and then what?
She’d give Lucille credit for one thing anyway. She hadn’t blinked about letting Olivia and Lucas move in with her now, and she looked after the boy. Lucas had really taken to his grandmother. He was one of those kids who got along better with adults than he did with other kids.
There was one adult she’d just as soon he not be so friendly with. D. J., damn him. Where did the man come off writing to her kid? Short of cutting off Lucas’s Internet connection, there wasn’t anything she could do about it, though. And if she tried that, Lucas would make her life holy hell, she knew. Better to just forget about it. Pretend it didn’t matter. Because hell, why should it? All men were bastards. D. J. was just the latest in a long line, starting with her father.