Rainsinger

by Barbara Samuel

  “I thought I was the only one,” he said with a chuckle, pointing out the marks on her knees.

  “Nope.” She lifted her elbow to show him the scrape there. “I’m going to go to town for roller skating pads before I play you again. You’re crazy.”

  The brilliant gleam in her eye told him she meant it as a compliment.

  “Thanks.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “So are you. Where’s Joleen?”

  “Watching movies downstairs.” Winona drank deeply and sighed. “Great game, Daniel, really. I don’t meet many people who can play me that hard.”

  He laughed, and was surprised at the sound of it rolling out of his chest, so free and natural. “I can imagine.” He settled in a chair gently and grunted. “Who taught you?”

  “My uncle. Right out there.” She gestured with her glass of tea in the general direction of the court. “Jericho was crazy about basketball, and when I started getting so tall, he had that slab poured so he could teach me.” She brushed at dirt on her tank top. “Did you play in college?”

  “No. Didn’t go until a lot later.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I just didn’t really understand that it was possible, not then. So I joined the army.”

  “And discovered computers.”

  He chuckled. “Yes.”

  “I’ve been out of the country so long it’s a little bewildering to see all this computer stuff that’s taken off in the past few years. I don’t understand any of it.”

  He’d never given it much thought, but now that he considered it, he realized that for all its complexity, the revolution in PCs was a relatively recent movement. “It’s a lot of fun. There’s so much to do you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “So I’ve heard. But I think I’m going to have to bypass the computer revolution. It happened when my back was turned, and now they’re just too complicated for me to understand.”

  “No, you’ve got it wrong. What happened while your back was turned is they got easier.” In a sudden decision, he stood up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  “That’s okay.” She waved a hand. “I’m really too—.”

  “No, you aren’t.” Playfully he grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on.”

  She capitulated, allowing herself to be led into the living room and to his elaborate computer setup. Daniel nudged her into his chair, grabbed a second one from beside the desk and sat down next to her. “You turn it on by pushing that red button,” he said.

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I’m sick of working today.” Their bare arms brushed as he leaned close to turn on the screen. “This is a lot more fun.”

  “You know, I’m like Pigpen. Everywhere I go, messes follow. I’m bound to screw something up here.”

  “No, you won’t. It’s pretty hard to do any damage at your level of expertise.” He smiled at her, aware in some dim part of his mind that he was enjoying her closeness very much. She smelled faintly of dust and sweat, and deeper of the talcum she used. From this position, he enjoyed a nice view of an ever-so-slightly freckled breast. A little dizzy, he gave her instructions to get to the main directory.

  To start with, he showed her a game and the word processing program, but she seemed a little awed by it all. With a flash of insight, he remembered something that caught a lot of computer-phobics: bulletin boards. He clicked the icon for one of the easiest national boards, complete with fancy graphics and all kinds of directions and help screens.

  “What’s this?” she asked, cocking her head as the sounds of a number being dialed came from the machine, followed by the strange, high-pitched sound of the modems connecting.

  He grinned. “My computer just talked to another one a long way away.”

  “Wow.”

  “This,” he said as the brightly colored screens for the service came up, flashing a welcome message, “is the world of communications. E-mail. Bulletin board. Go ahead and push a button. Anything you want.”

  Her hands stayed frozen in her lap. “What do all those little symbols mean?”

  He’d made a mistake, he realized, in putting her in the driver’s seat the first time out. It scared her to touch the keys. She really was afraid of messing things up. “Let’s trade places.”

  “I’d like that better.”

  She pushed her chair back, and her hair brushed his chin. The whisper-light sensation electrified his nerves. He tried to move out of her way, but they both put their feet down at the same time and bumped knees. A chair fell backward and they both reached for it. Her arm and his met, wrist to wrist, and Daniel froze, willing himself to stop acting like a hormonal adolescent.

  Even if that was how Winona made him feel.

  Her cheeks were flushed as she bent to pick up the chair, and she murmured, “Sorry. Told you I’m clumsy.” She didn’t look at him.

  Daniel didn’t move. He wanted to capture that chin and kiss away the telltale flush under her skin. What an unusual woman she was. He’d noticed she was always confident when in the midst of something, like cooking or playing basketball. Her body was graceful and well trained, and there was confidence and power in the way she moved.

  But whenever the man-woman hunger rose between them, she grew shy. It was plain she had not had much experience with men, and he had to wonder why. What had kept her so naive?

  As if she sensed his thoughts, she looked up. “I’m not usually as awkward as this anymore,” she said in a breathy voice. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”

  And then he knew the answer to his question. Her size was the problem. Not only her height, but the combination of the siren body and her strong, athletic movements probably scared a lot of men away. Something inside him pinched. For her, and for him.

  He knew he shouldn’t do it. He knew he needed to keep up his guard, that he was already too intrigued by this woman to allow anything physical to grow between them, but he couldn’t help it. He reached out and put his hand on her upper arm, skimming his palm over her firm flesh.

  Glibness was not his style, not in these circumstances, and he didn’t try it now. “It’s okay,” he said.

  He knew something of not belonging. His family’s bad reputation on the reservation had kept most of the girls from wanting to date him. Out in the other world, women fell into two camps: girls who wanted to date him because they thought Indians were romantic and girls who didn’t see in him the kind of life they wanted.

  As a result, he’d never learned to put women at ease, to be quick with compliments and pretty words. His talent with people lay in spurring them onward and upward, in organizing groups to do their best. By dealing with groups instead of individuals, he could remain the observer, never the observed or the involved, and he liked it that way. The one time he’d let his heart lead him, he’d been deeply wounded. He’d sworn never to make the same mistake again.

  And yet, under his hand, Winona’s arm was smooth and strong, and he let his thumb explore the new territory with ginger sweeps. Winona stood as still as a tree, her wide, pale eyes focused utterly on his face. Her gaze flickered, touched on his mouth, then flew back to his eyes.

  To his astonishment, he found he didn’t want to clamp down on his attraction to her at the moment. What had happened in the past or might happen in the future mattered far less than the promise of pleasure he sensed in her lush, sinfully rich mouth.

  He took one step closer to her, and felt the brush of her legs against his. She didn’t bolt. Didn’t look away. Only stared up at him, as if waiting.

  So Daniel bent slowly, to give her plenty of time to move away if she wanted, and put his mouth against hers. Lightly. He didn’t close his eyes, but she did, and he felt her body soften even as her hand landed on his chest as if to push him away. He broke the kiss after an instant, suddenly breathless with fear and a fierce rush of unaccustomed desire.

  A long moment stretched between them, her hand on his chest, his on her arm, their eyes tangled in w
ary surprise. His lips tingled with the slight taste of hers, and without thought, he bent again, tugging her arm to bring her a little closer.

  It was not a rough kiss, but rather the hesitant exploration of two people unused to such things. He moved his mouth over hers, gauging the fit of her plump lips to the harder contours of his own, tasting lightly. In an instant, he felt her giving in return, tasting him in cautious sips. He inclined his head and sighed when her lips parted ever so slightly and her tongue hesitantly reached out to meet his, the new, wet heat a dizzying sensation that sent spirals of heightened desire through his thighs.

  It was not a deep kiss, but it was long. So long. They moved and moved again, tongues lightly fencing, teasing, tasting. Daniel had forgotten kissing like this, forgotten how narcotically delicious it was. He felt adrift on the simple pleasure, for once not thinking or planning or worrying, only kissing. He liked the soft, surprised sounds that came from her throat, the way her hand fluttered over his chest, then lit and stayed, open palm over his heart.

  It was Winona who ended it, suddenly pulling away without finesse or grace, leaving Daniel a little dazed as she slipped from his grasp.

  “I—um—” She frowned, lifted a hand toward the other room. “I have to take a shower.”

  She bolted. Daniel didn’t move until he heard the shower come on.

  Bemused, he sat down in the chair she had vacated, his body still tingling from the long, sensual kiss. He lifted a hand to the place on his chest where her hand had rested and absently rubbed it, tasting his mouth for the lingering flavor of her. As he listened to the shower he thought of her in there, bare and—

  The drugging cloud of arousal suddenly shattered. Daniel swore as the implications of his actions flooded the brain that had gone conveniently dead.

  He was the ultimate fool. How could he have let that happen? How could he have instigated it? He cursed and flipped off the buttons on the computer, stomped into the kitchen and turned off the light. For a moment, he stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the place where they’d stood, kissing for such a long time. He looked at the picture of Luke and Jessie, deliberately making himself remember.

  He cursed again. Would he never learn? All these months at the ranch, he’d worked on acceptance of the fact that he’d likely spend his life as a bachelor.

  Now he felt that acceptance crumbling. And not only crumbling under his attraction to Winona, but to her fatherless little sister, who plucked the cursed father string in his heart all too strongly. The situation so echoed the one he’d unwittingly put himself in with Jessie that he ought to have his head examined.

  He couldn’t bear that kind of loss again. Henceforth, he had to erect his walls and keep them firmly in place, no matter how much he wanted to kiss Winona Snow again. Kiss her and touch her and...

  Ah, hell. And damn. And hell and damn. With a growl, Daniel went to his room and closed the door decisively. This was one night he would not work late. He would stay in his room until he could pull himself together. Firmly and completely.

  He was happy with the life he’d built here, among the peach trees that were his legacy, and in the house he’d worked so hard to restore. And if he needed companionship, there were always bulletin boards for chat, and Luke and Jessie a short drive away.

  It was more than enough. A lot more than many people had. He’d make it work.

  Chapter Six

  Winona sat on a sturdy upper branch of the mother tree at the center of the orchard, studying the horizon. Not a wisp of cloud, only the vast, unbroken blue sky. It had not rained at all since their arrival almost three weeks earlier.

  Below the tree, Joleen collected tiny wildflowers from the hardy desert plants and sang a sad folk song about a woman who’d chosen to leave her husband and child for a new love, and was drowned with him at sea. Cotton from the cottonwood trees surrounding the house floated on unseen eddies of wind and collected in a snow like drift on her hat, but Joleen showed no signs of her mother’s allergy.

  It was oddly peaceful to sit in the old tree, surveying the landscape the way she had as a child, Winona thought lazily. Of course, the retreat to the orchard was also an avoidance technique. Since their kiss four days before, Winona had kept out of Daniel’s way as much as possible.

  By the ease with which she managed it, she assumed he was avoiding her, as well. They didn’t play basketball the night following their first match, and Winona suspected he was pretty sore from the way he limped around the house. She considered ribbing him about it, but humor seemed an intimate thing.

  She didn’t want to be intimate with him.

  Comfortably ensconced in the cradling arms of the tree, Winona finally admitted to herself that her defensive attitude was a smoke screen of pure lies. She would not have minded a good number of intimacies with Daniel Lynch. In fact, she’d thought of little else for days.

  And nights. The nights were worse than the days. Her dreaming mind insisted upon regaling her with wondrous examples of what those delicious intimacies might be. Almost all of them involved him letting down that mane of shiny, long hair.

  She made a face. Pleasurable as those imaginings might be, there were a good many reasons to avoid any further involvement with Daniel Lynch. They both wanted the ranch—fiercely. Winona didn’t want to think he might use sex appeal to get what he wanted, but he wouldn’t be the first man to seduce a woman to attain his ends.

  She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t think he was the kind of person who’d resort to such methods, but what did she really know of him? It was always best to proceed with caution.

  On the branch near her cheek, there were tiny, hard balls at the base of the flowers. Embryonic peaches. Fingering one, she sighed.

  It surprised her that Daniel seemed attracted to her at all. A man like that must have his choice of women. Why would he want Winona? It might just be proximity—she was, after all, the only woman around.

  But he also might be so desperate to keep his hold on the land that he would do whatever was necessary to get it.

  Winona wished she had more experience with men. Then she might be able to sort genuine attraction from a ploy. Unfortunately, Winona was practically a virgin.

  Daniel seemed attracted to her. There had been a look in his eye the other night that she didn’t know how to fake—but millions of women before her had been taken in by clever actors.

  No.

  The voice of protest came from her gut. There was one thing going against her seduction scenario—his loneliness. He had such wild, lost loneliness in him that it made her ache. It showed in little ways—the sudden distance that crept into his eyes sometimes, the longing way he looked after the pair of them when they left the house, the restless way he joined them in the kitchen in the evenings, as if he could not help it.

  Hearing her thoughts, she frowned again. She didn’t like feeling insecure, and it wasn’t really part of her nature. Early in life, she’d discovered a talent within herself to be comfortable anywhere, in any culture or situation. It was a matter of letting the situation, rather than any preconceived notions, guide her actions, and it had served her well in a wide array of places she’d traveled.

  The only time the ability broke down was in the company of men. No, that wasn’t exactly true. In the company of men who showed no interest in her sexually, she could be friendly and cheerful and work right next to them. It was only when a man showed signs of attraction that Winona became tongue-tied and gawky.

  She’d been very protected as a young girl. Her minister father was strict, and she had grown up expecting she would not have sex until she was married. And except for one time, with a Peace Corps doctor she had imagined she was going to marry, she had not. The experience had been more than a little disappointing. Winona had chosen not to repeat it.

  The trouble was, she was edging toward thirty, with no husband in sight, and sometimes there were certain signals from her body that she found more and more difficult to ignore. Like
any healthy woman, she wanted to have sex. It was as bald and simple as that.

  She was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place, she thought with a wicked grin. Men were not terribly attracted to her as a rule. She was too tall, too big, too strong. Men wanted dainty, slim, fragile women. Winona somehow threatened their maleness.

  Coupled with that sad fact was another. Her mother used to say Winona’s standards were too high.

  Winona shifted on the branch, lazily swinging a foot in the open air, and knew her mother had been right. She didn’t like a whole lot of men enough to let them that close. She wouldn’t tolerate bullies, or men who had to run with the boys every night. She liked intelligence. Humor.

  And, she had to admit it—sex appeal. No mild-mannered man need apply.

  In her whole life, no man had ever come as close to meeting her standards as Daniel Lynch. He was intelligent—maybe even a genius. He wasn’t arrogant or bullying. There was room in his heart for young girls with big problems.

  And he had sex appeal. Good grief. If he was any sexier, women would faint in the streets.

  He was a man who ought to be in the movies. Winona could just see it—a bare-chested Daniel on the big screen, allowing hints of that poignant loneliness to show in his liquid eyes, letting that devastating grin break the fierceness of his face.

  He’d be a box-office smash.

  Below, in the orchard, Joleen started to sing a church song that had been their father’s favorite—“Rock of Ages.” Winona smiled softly, wondering if Joleen realized what tune she sang. Here in the safety of the isolated grove, the girl had taken off the eternally present baseball cap. Her badly chopped hair sprang in unfortunate spikes all over her head.

  That was another problem. How could Winona even begin to entertain notions of intimacies with Daniel with Joleen right here, observing everything and obviously smitten? It would be a rather uncomfortable situation, to say the least.

  “When are you going to let me take you to town to get that mop properly cut?” Winona called, leaning against the trunk of the tree.