“Damn.” Carefully she picked it up. “What?”
“Is there a contest?”
She looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
He lifted his chin, indicating her knitting needles. “I thought there might be a contest for speed.”
For another second she stared at him blankly. Then his meaning penetrated, and she laughed. “I’m just not quite sure how to behave. No one has ever been here with me before.” She gave him a rueful shrug. “I’m … I’m flustered.”
“And you should be.” In a dry voice he added, “Women have fainted in my arms when I kissed them.”
“Why, Samuel,” she drawled, “I believe you actually made a joke.”
“Oh, no.” His eyes glittered. “A Frenchman’s curse, you know—fainting women.” He blotted his lips neatly. “Now, didn’t I see a bottle or two of wine here?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid you’ll have to drink it out of a tumbler.”
He sighed dramatically. “How far we’ve fallen.” He put his bowl on the small counter with Lila’s. “Here?” He pointed again to the curtained cupboard.
“No,” she said wryly, “you’ll have to run down to the wine cellar.”
He spared a glance over his shoulder before bending down to examine the lower shelf. “Ah.” He pulled out the wine and glasses, found a corkscrew in a bin of utensils and settled back at the table. “I trust you’ll join me?” he said, placing the glass before her.
“Sure.” She found herself knitting more easily now, falling into a soothing rhythm.
Samuel examined the label on the bottle and frowned. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“Local vintage. That’s all they carry. I think Mr. Johnson’s brother-in-law runs the winery.”
“Really.” He poured them each a measure and held his glass up to the light. “Good color,” he commented, and sipped. “Hmm. It isn’t bad, really.”
“I’ve always enjoyed it.”
“I didn’t know they made wine in Oregon.”
Lila lifted her glass. The wine tasted the way it always did, a flavor that made her think of the pleasant summer days she spent here in the cabin. Resuming her knitting, she said, “I read a book once about dandelion wine, about a boy and summer and the dandelions they collected each day for the wine. And when they tasted it later, it was always like they had trapped the day in the wine.” She smiled. “That’s how this wine always tastes to me, like a particular summer day was bottled.”
“Yes.” His face reflected deep pleasure. “Every day my grandfather bought a bottle of local wine for the same reason.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You see how you would have liked one another?”
“He had a sense of wonder, your grandfather.”
“He did. So must the writer of your book.”
“Ray Bradbury—he’s written a lot of books. Some of them are really wonderful.”
“I’ll have to remember.”
The mood in the room seemed to mellow. Samuel shifted to lean his back against the wall, his legs out in front of him, facing the cheerful fire in the stove. “Did you make these quilts here?” he asked.
“No, Granny made them. I don’t have much luck with finishing a quilt.” She laughed to herself. “Neither does my mother. She always has a dozen stitchery projects going, all in various stages of completion. And since I’ve been working on this afghan for almost four years, I’d say it was hereditary.” She paused to sip again at her wine. “Does your mother make quilts and pillows and things?”
“Oh, no. My mother talks.”
“Talks?”
“Talks.” He smiled fondly. “And talks and talks.”
“What does she talk about?”
“The weather, the food, the town, my father, my brother.” He lifted a shoulder. “She talks.”
“But you don’t mind.”
“No. I like her. She’s very kind and warm, my mother. She’s the one who remembers every little thing for the neighbors—everyone’s birthdays, and the grandchildren’s names.”
“That’s how my mother is, too. She always cooks like the dickens when somebody dies.” Lila put aside her knitting and leaned forward, holding her wine between her hands. “But, you know, when my brother died, every woman in town had something for my mother. She didn’t have to cook for a month. And even afterward, when I was in my cast, they would come over to help her with her chores or sit with me.”
“Don’t you miss your big family?”
“Nope.” She sighed. “They drive me crazy—everybody has to mind everybody else’s business. You can’t clip your toenails without somebody giving you advice on which brand of clippers is better.”
Samuel laughed. Not a chuckle, a full, open-mouthed laugh. It showed his strong white teeth and the fine arrangement of lines on his face. “Try it with a whole village of people.”
“I can imagine. No, thanks.” The laugh had sent a ripple down her spine, and now she found herself admiring the fall of his ebony hair and his severe but handsome face. Her eyes lit on the long, slim fingers resting lazily on the table, and she wanted to touch them, feel them again in her hair. Straightening, she asked, “Is that why you’ve chosen to live here instead of there?”
A Gallic shrug. “Not really. I don’t really like to live in Israel.”
“Why?”
He gathered a breath, pursed his lips. “It’s hot. I left when I was nine and spent most of the rest of my childhood in a very green, lush place, with seasons. Since then, I find I don’t like the sun always shining and I don’t like the desert.” He glanced at her. “I think it’s like your Oklahoma. There is nothing subtle about Israel.”
He refilled his glass, then lifted the bottle in Lila’s direction, questioning. Looking down, she was surprised to find she’d polished off the first glass rather quickly, and nodded. Why not?
Except that there was already a dangerous languor settling in her shoulders. As Samuel flipped open his lighter and bent his head toward the flame, she found herself admiring the harsh cut of his chin and the shelf of his tawny collarbone, visible at the opening of his shirt. She found her fingers closing over her palm, which she wanted to open flat along that jaw and that chest.
He glanced at her, the lid of his lighter making an audible click. For a moment he met her gaze solemnly, then blew the pale smoke of his cigarette out hard. “Do you have a chess set or something here?”
“No, I’ve never had any need of a game. But—” she jumped up “—I did promise you a treat.”
“Ah, I’d forgotten. Pie.”
“Not like any you’ve ever had before, I bet.” She gathered her ingredients. “Are you a fan of chess?” she asked, opening a can of cherries.
“Actually it annoys me.”
Lila grinned.
“It’s mathematical, chess,” he said. “That part absorbs me. But I often forget how much intuition is required—and I lose.”
“I never thought of it like that. That must be why I’m able to play so well.”
“Do you?” Faint surprise echoed in his tone.
“My father is a chess champion. He taught me when I was five years old.”
“And he’s a rancher?”
Lila raised her eyebrows. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a snob?” She spread butter on slices of white bread. “Yes, he was a rancher, and he was a champ. He used to go into town for chess club every Tuesday night. And you know those round-robin things they do, where one guy plays everybody else? He always won.”
“Now I am very disappointed that you have no set here.”
“I could probably make one.” She put two slices of bread each into two heavy iron circles attached to a long handle, then filled one side with cherries and hooked the two pieces together.
“What a contraption,” Samuel commented.
“Wait’ll you see how they turn out.” She squatted in front of the stove and held the pie maker into the heart of the flames, turning it slowly. “When I was little, we use
d to get raspberries from alongside the creek and make these.” After a minute she stood up and popped open the iron circles. A golden brown, perfectly round pie lay steaming in its cradle. “There’s a napkin right there beside you. Watch out. It’s really hot.”
She repeated the process for herself and settled on the floor to eat it in front of the stove. “What do you think?”
He had already devoured the first one and gestured toward the pie maker. “May I try it?”
“Sure. No one can eat just one.” Comfortably she lifted her knees. “What we need now is a guitar. You have to sing when you do things like this.”
“Really?” He brushed a lock of black hair from his forehead and fitted the pie maker together. “Clever,” he murmured to himself.
“Problem is, I learned all my songs in church camp, and you probably don’t know any of them.”
He grinned as he squatted next to her. “I might.”
“No, you won’t, and then I’ll look silly singing out loud.” The wine had definitely gone to her head, she thought. Telltale warmth spread along her neck and into her shoulders. “Better turn that now.”
“What? Oh.”
Lila smiled to herself, a glow of confidence growing in her chest. He’d been looking at her, those darkly elegant eyes alight with something fine and warm. Shaking her hair away from her face, she sipped her wine. “You can take it out now.”
He did so, popping it open the way she had. “Where in the world did you find this little gadget?”
“A garage sale, years ago.”
Instead of returning to the table, Samuel joined her on the floor. He gingerly bit into the steaming pie, and as he relished the plump, sweet taste, realized he felt revived and energetic, as relaxed as he’d been in years. “Perhaps these ought to be included in your repertoire of desserts,” he said. “We could put them together in the kitchen and let the waiters carry the gadget into the dining room and fry them over a tableside flame. A scoop of some vanilla ice cream and voilà! Instant sensation.”
He’d been half teasing, but Lila cocked her head. “Hmm.” She smacked his arm, standing up with her wine in her hand. “Not bad, Samuel. I bet it would go over like gangbusters.” She licked the corner of her lip. “I could whip up something exotic for the filling, and even—” She broke off, picking up the pie maker with a meditative frown.
Samuel happily consumed his pie, admiring her lush body from yet another angle, also happily.
She narrowed her eyes. “I imagine I could find someone to make these for me. Maybe I could even have some kind of design engraved, a diamond or a flower or something, so that would come out on top.” Flashing him her broad, impish grin, she added, “You’re a genius.”
He spread his hands mockingly. “So I’ve been told.”
“Look at you, Samuel, sprawled out there in front of that fire. How long has it been since you felt as good as you do right now?”
Even this perception didn’t disturb him. “I don’t know.” He lazily lifted his glass to her. “You meant to chase the gloom from my face, you said. It seems you have done so.”
“So I have,” she said, a tender note in her voice. “And now I’m going to clear out and let you have your bath. There are towels with the blankets, over there. If you need anything else, just holler. I’ll be upstairs.”
And she had almost made it to the foot of the steps when he said, “Thank you, Lila.”
She paused. “My pleasure.”
As sorry as he was to part company with her, she’d barely cleared the top of the stairs before he stripped and lowered himself in the warm bath, plunging even his head below the water. Instantly he felt lighter as the grime of several days soaked away. Although he enjoyed a great many aspects of the rustic cabin, the lack of a shower was a hardship. It was a deep pleasure to wash his hair with the small bottle of shampoo Lila had placed thoughtfully alongside the galvanized tub, to scrub his body with the rough sponge. As he briskly toweled himself dry in front of the fire, he thought that all he lacked to feel fully human was a shave. Perhaps tomorrow he might manage even that.
It was only then that he realized he’d brought no clean clothes down with him. He wrapped the towel around his waist and stood at the foot of the stairs. “Lila,” he called.
She appeared at the top, a questioning look on her face.
“Will you look in my suitcase and toss me down a pair of trousers?”
“Uh, yes. Sure.” She disappeared abruptly.
A moment later she called, “Here they come,” and a pair of pants sailed down the stairs. He caught them.
“Thank you.” He smiled to himself, for she’d thrown them without looking. When he had exchanged the towel for trousers, he called up, “You may return if you like, Lila.”
Upstairs Lila heard the gentle note of humor in his tone and blushed. Steeling herself against whatever teasing he had in mind over her maidenly behavior, she went down.
Samuel was folding his discarded clothing, his back to her. His shoulders and chest were bare and rosy and damp. His hair was slicked back, longish in the back, and a single drop of water trailed down the strong column of his neck. As he bent to retrieve a fallen sock, she looked over his magnificent body, the curve of muscle in his shoulders, the hard lines of his arms, the firm round of his rear.
He turned, his off-center grin exactly what she had expected. All at once, the poise of years spent with unpredictable brothers reasserted itself. She lifted one eyebrow in wry approval. “Maybe I should have run down here a little sooner,” she said lightly.
“I’d hoped…” he said, letting the words trail into a shrug of missed chances.
“Well,” she said briskly, “while you have your shirt off, sit down and let me check that wound. Did it hurt when you bathed?”
“No.”
Lila bit the inside of her cheek as she approached him, vainly trying to keep her mind on the examination. The warm scent of soap emanated from his bare skin, and the faintest residue of moisture clung to his shoulders. The single line of water that ran over his neck had made a tiny pool against his collarbone. Taking a long breath, she reached out one finger to palpate the edges of the wound. “How does it feel?”
He winced and frowned at her. “It was fine until you poked it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. More gently she opened her palm and pressed it against the heat of his shoulder, feeling the tawny rise of supple flesh. Without looking at his face she moved her hand higher, exploring a fraction of an inch at a time. “Is that better?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, his voice a soft growl.
Drawn by his motionless waiting, she bent to press her lips against his shoulder, just above the wound. He tasted clean. As she lingered, a lock of wet hair touched her forehead. She moved her lips a little higher, toward the joining of neck and shoulder, and when he didn’t protest, lapped a rivulet of water from his neck. “And that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said softly, his eyes lifting to meet hers. In the fathomless black she saw a stirring of dangerous fire and warning. “Try it again.”
Without the courage of wine warm in her belly, Lila would have heeded the warning, the danger in his face. But now she bent to press her mouth again to his shoulder, tasting the silken skin with the very tip of her tongue, leaving a spiral trail along the rise. When her seeking lips closed around his earlobe, she heard his breath leave him on a sigh.
Encouraged, she pressed her hand against his chest, spreading her fingers wide in the dark hair that grew in whorls over the hard curves of his ribs. One finger bumped over a tiny rigid nipple, a rise she explored while she suckled gently the new taste of his ear and neck. His beard rasped against her cheek.
He groaned harshly as her breast pressed into his arm, and he reached up to capture her wrist in a fierce hold. “I think,” he said in a grumbling tone, “that will be enough.”
Lila straightened, sliding her wrist through his fingers until she could pres
s her palm into his. With her other hand she touched his face. His eyes were downcast, his expression an inflexible mask. “Why do you keep resisting this, Samuel?” she whispered.
He didn’t speak for a long moment, and Lila watched him turn again into the man she had seen at the traffic light that very first day. When he lifted his eyes, they were bleak beyond measure.
Standing up, he took her face in his hands. “Because this is all an accident. We are not meant to be together.” He kissed her hard, then tore his mouth away, his fingers almost painful in their hold. “God knows I want you, Lila.” His breath feathered over her face, and as if against his will, he dipped to sup of her lips once more. His voice, when he spoke, was oddly ragged. “But it is not possible.” His mouth tightened. “I wish it were.”
Abruptly he released her and moved away, bending to retrieve his clothes as he headed for the stairs. “Goodnight,” he said.
As he disappeared, Lila felt a cold doubt settle around the desire in her chest. Perhaps it was an accident they were together here, that they had met at all. If she was wise, she would heed the warning in his words and allow their relationship to remain on the plane it now occupied.
Even if that was a lie.
Chapter 8
The rain had stopped by morning, leaving behind a crisp blue sky and nippy air. A pale mist wavered around the bases of the trees, and a thin glaze of ice covered the pump and paths. As Lila hurried through her morning routine, drawing water and bringing in wood, her breath hung in clouds around her face. The night was going to be a very cold one if no more clouds moved in, she thought absently, eyeing the dwindling pile of wood. Neither she nor Samuel would be able to chop more. She needed to collect some later.
She left a pot of coffee on the stove, then bundled up more warmly, adding extra socks and a scarf, and headed for the beach. She paused at her circle and gave thanks, then practically skipped the rest of the way down the hill to the muddy beach.
Last night, moving alone in the unforgotten steps of a ballet, she’d felt a euphoria absent in her life since she had broken her back. Something had moved within her, something without a name or a voice, something huge and bright and alive.
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