“Zach-”
“I want you like hell,” he whispered. “Open, Bett. All of you.”
His lips trailed down her body until his teeth could gently pull at the taut pink centers of her breasts. Her hands were fluttering aimlessly at her sides, but already her body was flushing with warmth, exactly what he wanted. Part of her so obviously wanted to talk, to understand where he was coming from; and yet her pulse was already racing. Zach, too, was communicating on the two levels, but he had no problem defining his priorities. He carried her hand to the growing hardness in his jeans and held it there.
Her breath locked in her lungs for a moment, and then her palm rubbed, over and over, that warm hardness encased in denim. His desire was clear. His need for her was just as clear. If she wanted to talk, that wasn’t solely for the purpose of hearing words said out loud. One could start communication in other ways; Zach had taught her that a long time ago. And her response was from the heart, as primal as his, her instincts just as strong.
Her lips were suddenly hot and wild, molding themselves against his. Her fingers fumbled for the zipper of his jeans. Why on earth did he have so many clothes on? Her heart kept beating harder, terribly uneven. Was he actually doubting how much she loved him; was that what his enigmatic anger was about? How could he be such a fool?
Zach pushed her hand away. Once his jeans were gone, he knew he wouldn’t last long. His patience was forced, but he was determined to try. His palm took a long, lazy path, between and around Bett’s breasts, over the satin flesh of her abdomen, finally slipping between her thighs. Her whole body arched against the shelf of his palms, and a silver mist of wanting filled his head, his blood, his body. Bett’s lips were suddenly moist and sweet and warm, seeking his, demanding his. His tongue invaded the hollow of her mouth.
She was on fire. It wasn’t enough. “Let me,” she whispered furiously.
Her fingers pushed up his sweatshirt. He let her strip the soft fabric over his head; he let her fingertips slide over his smoothly muscled chest; she loved to do that. Her hands trailed up, curled around his neck, got lost in his hair. He turned and shifted both of them. With her weight on top of him, he spread his legs, pinning her, loving the imprint of her tiny, taut nipples on his bare chest, loving the ache in his loins as he pressed against her abdomen. Her hair swept down, all in a tangle, strands of sun-touched silk that tickled his cheek as her lips sought his again. Dawn had turned into day. Sunlight filtered down, catching in her hair. Her eyes were never more blue than when she was blind with loving, caught up in the sweetest of senses. She thought herself such a seductress.
She so very much was. He slowed the pace she didn’t want slowed, but with a terrible effort. He had to bat her fingers away from his zipper again. He turned so that he was next to her and half on top, and then shifted his body downward. His tongue teased her breasts-one, then the other. His palm was work-roughened; he knew that. He kneaded the small ivory orbs, then apologized with the velvet wet of his tongue. He counted her ribs, one by one.
They were all there. He shifted up again, his knee bent, riding the space between her warm thighs. Way back, before they were married, before Bett had slept with him, he could remember well how he had desperately tried to coax her into bed. Rubbing, just so. A jeaned thigh, like now, until her body moved against his, desperately trying to sate itself.
“What are you trying to do to me?” Bett whispered huskily.
The answer was so very easy. To remind her of exactly how it had been with them at the beginning. Remind her…but not with words. He could still remember her murmuring unhappily that she couldn’t just…sleep with him. They barely knew each other. She’d made love before; heart wounds hurt. So they did, but Bett had some terrible misconceptions about herself and loving. That she was safe as long as he kept his jeans on. That it was important to be polite in bed. That it was not quite right that she had this wild, sweet, wanton side; that one kept one’s private fears and feelings to oneself. Out of fear of losing her, he’d kept his clothes on for a time. Not hers. Rapidly he’d turned around what she thought she could keep secret from him. They would keep no secrets from each other, not of the kind that counted. Sex was the medium; loving was the message.
Loving was still the message. His lips seared a very gentle, tender path down her throat, her breasts, her navel. Soon, the crinkle of soft hair tickled his lips; her hips tensed violently. He held them still with his hands. Very still. Like a sweet little whip, his tongue lashed out, a very gentle intruder.
Silver rain flooded through Bett. Her whole body convulsed, and her fingers clenched in his hair. “Come up here,” she said furiously.
Her husband was obviously trying to drive her mad. The morning sunlight was all around her, bathing her flesh, a warm weight on her eyes. She closed her eyes, aching inside. Her body felt like the hot, steady pulse of a summer rain. She was naked, and so close to the earth that her flesh felt part of it. Her heart was beating with a terrible thunder, but around her there was only sunshine. Sun and the peace of morning and shade and silence. Her breath, coming in harsh gasps, appalled her.
“Zach!”
Far too slowly, his lips trailed upward again. Her hands fumbled for his jeans, racing down the zipper. Her palms slid around and inside his jeans, curling over his flat male buttocks, pushing down the denim fabric that had separated them for far too long.
He had to stand to get his jeans off. Abandoned for those few seconds, she found herself staring at him, at his maleness, then at the look in his eyes as he came back down to her. His eyes were blue-silver with the first velvet thrust, blue-soft with the tenderness of loving, silver-sharp with a man’s drive to possess. So full he filled her, so unbelievably full.
“Burn for me, Bett,” he whispered. “Hurt with it. All of you.”
She tossed her head, wild with fever. All around her was the smell of dew, the smell of Zach, the smell of morning. She surged beneath him, exploding with need. The fierce rhythm of love rushed through her like a wanton silver river.
A stream of sunlight stole through the treetops in celebration of day, at the same time a different sunlight burst inside of her.
***
“We have,” Zach murmured, “a problem.”
Bett shook her head drowsily. “You may have a problem. I have no problems of any kind.” She curled her arms around his waist, snuggling closer to his bare, warm flesh. It seemed like a wonderful idea to stay just as they were. At least for the next hundred hours.
“You can be a disgracefully wanton woman, two bits.” He nuzzled at the delectable hollow in her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“Insatiable.”
“Yes.”
“Uninhibited.”
She opened one sleepy eye. “Where are all these compliments leading?”
“You look like such an angel. Blond hair, blue eyes.” Zach shook his head in teasing puzzlement. “I’ll tell you, though, you’d never cut the chaste life playing a harp.”
She chuckled, lazily sitting up. At a motion from him, she raised her hands in the air. He slipped her nightgown on her, then her robe. Finally, Zach stood up to tug on his jeans.
“So. What are we going to do about your mother?”
The question seemed to come out of the blue. Bett, leaning over to fold up the blanket, shot her husband a startled glance.
“Kick her out when she’s doing so well? Obviously not. Have her continually lay stress on you? That’s not going to keep happening, either. So let’s talk choices, Bett.”
He swung an arm around her shoulders as they strolled back down the path toward the pond. Bett wanted to answer him, but she couldn’t get any words out. So Zach was aware of how unhappy she’d been-she’d done her best to hide it from him. She’d done her best to pretend even to herself that it didn’t matter. Regardless, she saw no choices. Her mother had been lonely and unhappy and grieving alone; Elizabeth was happy with them. If Bett found the continual pressure wearing,
the old game of trying to please both her mother and herself impossible, she didn’t see that she had any choice.
Zach pushed aside a low-hanging branch so they could pass. “Well, talkative one?”
“Zach, I didn’t think you were…bothered,” Bett said quietly.
“How on earth could I be bothered? A cold drink’s waiting for me even before I want it, slippers laid out, a woman to ask my opinion on everything as if I were an oracle. You think I don’t like being spoiled?”
A small smile played on her lips. “You like the starched work shirts, do you?”
“About as much as I like having to abduct my wife and run off to the woods to make love to her in peace and privacy.”
Bett sighed. “It’s not as though she knocks on the door every night.”
“No. Just often enough that you’ve got half your attention on worrying every time we make love.”
They reached the truck, and both climbed in. The key had been left in the lock, but for the moment Zach didn’t turn on the engine. He leaned against the door, bemused for a moment by the sight of his wife in pale yellow, her hair whispering in soft dishevelment around her cheeks. The whole subject caused her distress; he could see it in her eyes, and he had the sudden urge to haul her right back into the woods and make it all go away.
“Zach,” Bett said unhappily, “all she wants is to care for and take care of. And there’s no one but us to make her feel needed.”
“Exactly,” he said softly. He straightened in the seat, turned the key, and started the engine. “Number one, two bits, we’re about to share the stress. You keep something like that bottled up inside again and I’ll have to beat you.”
“Like you do so often?”
He cast her a severe look. “Just once, you could show a little fear.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Number two. If you don’t mind starting with the total inconsequentials. This isn’t a criticism, honey, it’s just a question. Is there some reason why, after all this time, you’re suddenly wearing makeup?”
Bett sighed. “Mother’s afraid I’ve been ‘letting myself go.’”
“You certainly have,” Zach agreed fervently. “A very few minutes ago, you were one hot little-”
“Zach!”
“What else?” His tone had turned serious, almost angry.
She took a breath. She could have drowned in all the little doubts that had been raised in the past month. Did a clean house actually matter to him? It wasn’t that she wanted to turn into a hausfrau; she doubted she was capable of it, but his values were involved, too. She’d never questioned him. Maybe he found it more restful to sit at the kitchen table and use silverware and china than their old habit of paper plates on the floor in the living room. Stupid, yes?
“But it’s details that make up every day, Zach. I push the toothpaste tube from the middle, leave my shoes where you stumble over them at the door. Maybe-privately-you were annoyed. The thing is, I never thought to ask you.” Maybe working together so closely wore on him from time to time; maybe when he continually saw her ramming around on a tractor in jeans and sweatshirt he saw her as less feminine than he once had-
Between the peach orchard and the plum trees, Zach jammed on the brakes and turned off the engine again. The groove between his brows boded ill. “How the hell could you have let her do this to you?”
Bett gnawed on her lip. “Mother? She isn’t doing anything to me.”
“Four weeks in the house and she’s turned my confident, sassy wife into a worrywart. What is this? If I’d wanted a wife obsessed with ring around the collar, I would have married one. I happen to be a big boy with strong vocal cords, two bits, and I’m more than capable of telling you if I’m unhappy with how we’ve set up our life. I’m not. Now, if you are, we’ll work on it. If you’ve really suddenly decided you need the floor under the refrigerator waxed, we’ll hire someone to do it. You sure as hell aren’t going to devote a second to it. You happen to bloom best in fresh air, and I happen to get a kick out of watching you, tiny as a minute, ramming around inside the cab of a tractor ten times bigger than you are. It makes me feel protective, and proud of you, and good inside to know we’re sharing the same goals. Generally, it also makes me want to go up and whip you out of there and take you in the middle of a field, but that’s neither here nor there.” His frown leveled out, a wicked smile taking its place. “I’m used to that reaction, whenever you’re within a two-mile radius.”
Bett, for some strange reason, had tears in her eyes. Was he shouting? He reached out and tugged her close, drawing her onto his lap, irritated at the limitations imposed by the steering wheel.
“Have we got that stuff clear now?” he grumbled.
“Yes.” Very clear, Bett thought. Zach should shout at her more often. All the mindless anxieties that had been haunting her had abruptly fled.
“And in the meantime, there’s an answer for your mother.” Zach shifted her next to him, very close, as he started the truck again. “She likes to take care of people. She is never going to survive well alone. She needs to feel needed. Heaven knows, she’s into waiting on a man-”
Bett slapped his thigh. “Don’t get too used to it.”
“She’s still relatively young,” Zach continued absently. “Not unattractive. She’s got this rather crazy side and she talks continually and there’s that insomnia of hers, but maybe we could keep that kind of thing secret for a while.”
“Pardon?” Her husband was talking Greek.
He shot her a mischievous smile. “Are you ready for the campaign?”
“What campaign?” Bett asked bewilderedly.
“We’re about to get your mother married off, two bits. It’s the only answer.”
Chapter 9
Bett set down The Beekeeper’s Annual and glanced outside. The library at Silver Oaks was relatively new, with huge windows looking out on the main street of the town. Their small burg had one of everything-one grocer, one bookstore, one druggist, one department store; the single exception being, naturally, seven agricultural implements dealers. Kalamazoo and even Chicago weren’t that far to go for real shopping; but as it was, the community was small and exactly to Bett’s liking, a friendly, intimate, know-everyone type of place where it was perfectly safe to walk the streets at night.
Staring absently at the tree-lined street, she thought idly that the silver in the town’s name was a misnomer. The oaks were turning that smooth, buttery gold they always did in early October. A distracted thought; she seemed to have been distracted for the better part of a week. The thing was, whom did she know in the town who might be a good companion for her mother? Smoothing her navy skirt, she stood up and wandered toward the front of the long, book-lined room. Her skirt-donned especially for the trip to town-was paired with a red nubby sweater with a scooped neck and short sleeves. Her hair was tied back with a patterned scarf in the same colors.
She felt unusually pretty, and just a little more so when Mr. Hines looked up appreciatively as she paused in front of his desk. “I miss you in the summer,” he said warmly. “You and your husband are my best winter customers, you know.”
Bett chuckled, leaning on the counter. “I’m playing hooky this afternoon, I’m afraid. Though I did come here with a purpose. Word has it there’s a new virus attacking bees in the area, but I’ll be darned if I can find anything about it in any of the usual trade journals.”
Mr. Hines pushed back his glasses. “Do you have the name of it?”
Bett gave it. “But I don’t know anything about it except the rumor. Some disease brought up by a hive from Texas, settled in Ohio, moved into Michigan last spring?”
Mr. Hines’s forehead puckered, then smoothed out as he motioned to her to follow him. Bett stuck her hands in the pockets of her skirt, an amused and affectionate smile on her face as she trailed behind. Mr. Hines was a librarian to the core, but she had the feeling that he had secret fantasies of being a private eye. Mysteries were his
obsession. Books were his turf, and somewhere in the billions of pages on the shelves there had to be answers for everyone.
“We’ll try here, first.” He motioned.
She had five magazines in front of her before she could have said boo, and rather than leaving her, Mr. Hines licked his thumb and started flicking through pages with her, pushing his glasses low on the bridge of his nose so he could see better.
Halfway through the second periodical, she found herself staring at him. Theodore Hines was rather short; in the five years she’d known him, he’d never worn anything but a gray suit. The kids loved him, in spite of his dignity. He’d probably help a convicted thief if the thief liked good literature-and didn’t use slang.
He had to be nearing sixty; Betty knew he was a bachelor. What would her dad have thought of him? she considered idly. Very thoughtful, very shy, occasionally just a little pompous, but no question; true-blue nice.
Mr. Hines turned absently and caught a sudden, radiant smile on Bett’s face. “You found what you needed?” he asked, as if thoroughly disappointed that the search had taken so little time.
“I think so-if I could take this out?”
“It’s supposed to be a reference for the library.” He frowned, and then offered her one of his tiny, very special smiles. “I can’t say we usually have a run on beekeeping material. If you could have it back to me in a day or two?”
“No problem.” Bett glanced at her watch. It was nearing five o’clock. “Are you working late tonight, Mr. Hines?”
“Not tonight.” He moved behind the librarian’s desk, searching distractedly for his date stamper. He had never once found it on the first attempt in the whole time Bett had known him. “Tuesdays and Thursdays I stay until nine, but Myra takes Mondays and Wednesdays. Then on Fridays-”
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