by Amii Lorin
As it was fairly late the dining room was almost deserted. Sitting across the table from him, Jen ate everything that was placed in front of her and tasted nothing, for Adam's eyes devoured her more thoroughly than his mouth devoured his food.
When they finished dinner they went into the bar to find Ted and Liz waiting for them at a table for four. On the table were four glasses, a full carafe of wine, and an almost empty one. Ted filled their glasses as they sat down.
"As you can see"—he indicated the empty carafe— "we've got a head start." Cocking one eyebrow he asked, "Where the hell did you two disappear to all day?" Adam's muttered "Mind your own business," combined' with the bright flare of color that tinged Jen's cheeks, was all the answer he needed. With a murmured "Welcome to the club," to Jen, Ted lifted his glass in salute.
Their conversation was varied and far-ranging and flowed easily back and forth. In a surprisingly short amount of time she learned a lot about the others.
She learned that Ted was forty-three, a widower (which she already knew), had one child (a daughter), and was considering changing jobs as he was tired of being on the road all the time. He did woodworking as a hobby and admitted he was very good at it. He liked good food, quiet at-home nights, and Waylon Jennings's music.
Jen discovered that Liz, much to her surprise, was thirty-four, divorced, with no children. She worked in the reprographics department at Barton's and attended yoga exercise classes two nights a week. Liz admitted to being an opera buff who was happy as a clam to spend most of her evenings at home (a small apartment) listening to her large collection of opera recordings.
Although Jen already knew quite a bit about Adam, she found he liked cars (he owned two), skiing, all oceans, hiking, professional football—namely the Philadelphia Eagles—and history, from ancient to recent:
And the other three absorbed some things about Jen. Bits and pieces of information such as she was twenty-three, single, and lived at home with her parents. Also that she worked as a legal secretary, enjoyed most sports, loved live theater and old movies on TV, spent far too much money on clothes, and sang in the church choir.;
A lull in the conversation came at the same time Ted poured the last of the wine. On his query of whether he should fight his way to the bar for a refill, Adam shook his head.
"Not for Jen and me, thanks." Standing up, he held his hand out to Jen. "We're going to fight our way onto the dance floor."
This time, when they reached the area set aside for dancing, Jen slid her arms around Adam's neck without hesitation.
"Good girl," he murmured against her hair as his arms circled her waist and drew her close to his body.
Enclosed in his embrace Jen lost all sense of time and surroundings. The music throbbing from the jukebox swirled through her mind and carried her to a distant, flat plateau which she and Adam were the sole occupants. Her face pressed to the side of his neck, eyes closed, she followed his lead around the minuscule floor, unaware of the couples around them.
"You look beautiful in that dress." Adam's warm, wine-scented breath ruffled the hair at her temple. His caressing tone ruffled every nerve in her body. "But I know you look even more beautiful out of it."
The ruffle swelled to a quivering wave that seemed to drain all the strength from her legs. Murmuring softly, Jen parted her lips and kissed his smooth, taut skin. His sharply indrawn breath was followed by the feel of his lips at the edge of her ear.
"Have you ever been in love, Jennifer?"
Adam's whispered question inserted a touch of reality into her dreamlike trance. Stirring restlessly, she sighed, "No." Then, with a deeper sigh, she lifted her head to look at him.
"I've had my share of crushes and infatuations," she confessed wryly. "But no, I've never been in love." Jen hesitated a moment, but she had to ask. "Have you?"
"I thought I was once," Adam replied, not hesitating at all. "It was a long time ago. While I was still in college. It was over before it ever really got started. That too turned out to be infatuation."
"I—" Suddenly nervous, Jen paused to swallow quickly. Was he trying to tell her that infatuation was all they had going between them now? Speaking carefully, she continued, "I suppose it is easy to confuse the two."
"I suppose so," Adam agreed quietly. "At least I've heard enough people say they weren't sure if they were in love."
Suddenly scared, Jen felt she couldn't breathe for a tightness compressing her chest. They had stopped even a pretense of dancing and were simply swaying to the music. Unable to take her eyes from his, Jen stared at Adam fearfully. When he finally spoke, it took several seconds for the meaning of his words to register in her mind.
"I'm sure." The hard finality in his tone caused Jen to go limp with relief. Her gaze steady on his, she said clearly. "So am I."
A bright flame flared in Adam's eyes, and his entire body went still for a moment before he released her with a whispered, "Come."
With meek acquiescence Jen preceded Adam off the dance floor, out of the bar, and across the lobby not knowing or caring how many pairs of eyes followed them knowingly.
With an outward composure that belied her mounting desire, she stood beside him calmly as he unlocked the door to his room. Adam himself appeared coolly unaffected as he pushed the door open and stood aside for her to enter.
The click of the lock automatically setting with the closing of the door was like an explosion that ripped away their facade of unconcern. Moving simultaneously, they reached for each other—tugging, yanking, pulling at each other's clothes.
Circling each other like hungry beasts, their movements jerky, their breathing ragged, they left a trail of crumpled, torn garments from the door to the bed where, divested of their cloaks of civilization, they grasped at each other savagely.
This time, their coming together held an element of violence. Imbued with a touch of madness in her need for him, Jen arched against his hard body wildly, teeth nipping, nails raking. As her body grew from warm to moist then slippery-wet from her frantic exertion, the soft moaning sounds in her throat grew into an outcry of sheer ecstasy that was echoed by Adam in the form of a harsh groan.
In sweet exhaustion, they lay side by side crosswise on the bed as their labored breathing slowly returned to normal.
"Good God," Adam whispered shakily. "That was absolutely the wildest experience I've ever had."
Rising slightly, he leaned over her, his body supported by his forearm. Bending his head, he kissed her with a gentleness that bordered on reverence.
"You're perfect," he whispered as he leaned back to look at her. "An angel." A tender smile curved his lips. "My very own snow angel."
"Adam, I—" Jen could barely speak around the emotion clogging her throat. "I love you so much."
"You'd better," Adam growled, burying his face in her neck.
Jen felt his tongue glide over the fine gold chain that encircled her throat night and day. Lifting his head, Adam brought his hand up to finger the tiny loops.
"A gift from an admirer?" he asked tightly.
"No." Jen shook her head. "I bought it for myself over a year ago."
His fingers fumbled against her skin for several moments, and then he held the chain aloft.
"Loop it around my wrist," he ordered softly.
Without hesitation Jen took the chain from his fingers and did as he'd asked.
"Now you've chained me to you." Adam said with a smile when she'd fastened the clasp. "I'm yours to command. What's your pleasure, snow angel?"
The early-morning chill creeping over her naked flesh wakened Jen. The luminous hands on Adam's small travel alarm told her it was four thirty, and the air in the room was very cool.
A soft smile touched her lips at the half grunt, half snore that came from beside and slightly above her head. Turning her head, Jen studied the sleeping form that rested a few inches away from her. Adam lay sprawled on his back in an attitude of utter relaxation, one arm curved above his head, the other flung ou
t to his side. His lips were slightly parted, and the taut skin that covered his face showed no sign of care or strain. On first sight, Jen had thought him handsome. Now, in his abandonment to oblivion, she thought him beautiful. Like countless number of lovers before her, Jen could find no fault in the object of her affection, for that beloved form had revealed to her a corner of heaven.
CHAPTER 8
"Somehow I've always known it would happen like this." Lisa's soft but liltingly happy voice dispelled Jen's bittersweet reverie. "Everyone has always laughed at my belief in love at first sight, but I knew that when I fell, it would be at once—and hard."
Shifting uncomfortably in the narrow seat, Jen tucked in her chin and hunched her shoulders in an unconsciously self-protective position. Biting on her lower lip, she squeezed her lids together in a vain attempt to contain the hot tears that slipped beneath her guard to roll down her cheeks.
The action of her searching fingers added force to the stinging flood. In times of tension or stress she had played with her chain not unlike people do with a rosary or worry beads. And now that source of comfort was denied her, for the chain was still around Adam's wrist. At least it had been when she'd slipped out of his bed, and his room, before daybreak, unable to face the thought of boldly walking through the lobby and encountering early-risers later in the morning.
Had Adam been aware of her going? Had he been feigning that posture of deep slumber? Although it hurt like hell, Jen now conceded the possibility that he had been. It had been around four forty-five when she'd returned to her own room. The desk clerk had said Adam had checked out just after six. One hour and twenty or twenty-five minutes at the outside, Jen sighed.
His phrasing in the note he'd left for her seemed to bear out her conjecturing. He'd written, Why did you go? Not, When did you go? Jen shivered. If he had been awake he had let her go believing he loved her. Love! Jen compressed her lips to keep from moaning aloud. She wanted —no, longed—to believe he had been asleep, had received an emergency call from home, really had no choice. She longed to believe that he would call her, would come to her as soon as he could, would prove to her that the blind trust she'd placed in him had not been betrayed.
She wanted to believe all these things, but the sense of betrayal, the feeling that she'd been used that had gripped her on first hearing he'd checked out of the motel, still nagged sickly at the back of her mind.
It was all too pat, had all came together too neatly, to be coincidence. Adam had to have realized, logically, that they would move on today, in one direction or another. God, she had made such a ridiculous ass of herself. Jen actually winced. After all her fast judgment making and moralizing, she had capitulated with an eagerness that was shaming, telling him, repeatedly, that she loved him.
Jen squirmed in her seat as the echo of her own strained voice, crying out the love words at a moment of sweetest agony, taunted her weary mind.
Was it possible Adam had chosen the path of least resistance? He was a man of the world. A man, Jen felt sure, who had known, and made love to, a number of women, all more beautiful and much more sophisticated than she could ever hope to be. And he had grown up with the belief that several lovers were acceptable—as long as one was selective. And—most searing thought of all—he had not actually said he was in love with her. With all the usual clarity of hindsight, Jen realized she had read what she'd wanted to believe into his avowed "I'm sure." Lord, for all she knew, he may have been thinking he was sure it was Friday.
Moving restlessly, Jen slid her hand into the slash pock-et on the front of her jacket, her fingers curling around and crumpling the note Adam had left for her. At no time had he made any promises to her. I will see you, I will call you, hardly constituted a vow.
Wallowing in a quagmire of bitterness and despair, Jen stared sightlessly through the tinted glass window, totally oblivious to the murmur of conversation around her. Fingers mangling the envelope in her pocket, she thought distractedly, Why didn't he, at least, toss my chain into the envelope? She had had to save for months to buy it. She had seldom taken it off and felt naked without it. The absence of the gold circlet somehow intensified her feeling of rejection.
A tingling in the toes of a rapidly numbing foot alerted Jen to the necessity of shifting position once again. Drawn by discomfort out of her self-absorption, the rising note of excited chatter slowly registered in her mind.
Blinking away the remaining blur of moisture, Jen gazed out the window in surprise. The familiar environs of Norristown flashed by as the bus drew closer to Barton's—and home.
Cramped and both mentally and physically exhausted, Jen sighed with relief when Ted brought the large vehicle to a stop in almost the exact spot in the lot as he had early Thursday morning.
Had it only been two and a half days ago? Was it really possible that so much had happened in so short an amount of time? Jen heard her own silent questions voiced aloud from several sources.
"God, I can't believe I got on this bus, right here, just two days ago." This from a man near the front of the bus who was standing in the aisle and unconcernedly massaging his rump.
"I feel like I've been away for weeks." This was from the whining woman across from Jen. "And confined to this damned seat for most of that time."
"If I don't get something to eat soon, I'm going to expire right here in this bus." This from the ever hungry Terry.
"May I have your attention, please?" Liz's voice, magnified by the PA system, silenced the chatter. "I am sorry to have to inform you that there is every possibility you will all be receiving a bill for your lodging at the motel."
This statement was met by a barrage of angry exclamations.
"What?"
"Why?"
"The trip was paid for, dammit!"
"What the hell are you trying to pull?"
The last remark was followed immediately by Liz's exasperatedly snapped "If you will be quiet, I'll explain."
The melee subsided to a few disgruntled grumbles.
"Believe me, I understand how you feel," Liz assured them. "And as the gentleman pointed out, the trip was paid for." Liz paused to add emphasis to her next words. "It was paid in full to the ski lodge. During a three-way phone conversation this morning between our travel agency, Bill Wakefield, and me, arrangements were made to pay the motel bill." Liz paused to draw a quick breath before continuing. "We will, of course, be contacting the management at the ski lodge. If they will agree to a partial refund, it may be enough to cover the motel bill. But please understand that they are not required by law to make any refund."
"But it wasn't our fault we couldn't make it to the lodge!" Not surprisingly, the shrill protest came from the woman across the aisle from Jen.
"Nor was it theirs," Liz shot back angrily. Then more calmly, she added, "I'm sorry. I understand how you all must feel, but there is nothing I can do about it. Now, Ted has asked me to tell you that driving is still very hazardous, so please be careful on your way home."
Jen sat with outward patience while the muttering group filed out of the bus. At that moment the thought of possibly receiving a bill—or the death sentence—left her emotionally untouched. All she wanted was to get off the bus, get into her car, and get home as quickly as she safely could.
Saying good-bye to Liz and Ted turned out to be less difficult than Jen had feared it would be. As she stepped out of the bus she was caught and pulled against Ted in a bear hug.
"Take care of yourself, honey," Ted growled into her ear softly. "Keep the faith, Jen. I believe Adam will get in touch with you. You must try and believe it too."
Jen blinked against the renewed sting in her eyes. "I want to believe it, Ted," she choked as she disentangled herself from his arms. "I really do, but—"
"Don't even think but," Liz urged. "Think positive." She gave Jen a quick hug, then said briskly, "Now, go home and get some rest—you look beat. And call me soon—okay?"
"Yes, I will. I promise." Jen somehow managed a natura
l smile. "Drive carefully, both of you."
With a last wave of her hand, Jen picked up her suitcase and walked to her still snow-laden car. Thankfully Barton's maintenance crew had cleared the lot around the car, so all Jen had to do was clean the windows, back and front. Thirty nerve-racking minutes after she drove off the Barton's lot; Jen pulled onto the narrow driveway to the one-car garage attached to her parents' rambling ranch home. It was at that moment she remembered she'd promised her mother she'd call the day before.
Her mother, obviously, had not forgotten. She met Jen at the front door, a frown of disapproval marring her usually serene face.
"Jennifer Louise Lengle." Ella's use of Jen's full name was a clear indication of how upset she was. "Do you have any idea how worried your father and I have been? Why didn't you call?"
Even as she scolded, Ella's eyes grew sharp with concern as they noted Jen's pale cheeks and the dark shadows under her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mom." Standing just inside the door on the mat her ever tidy mother had placed there for the purpose of removing sloppy wet clothes and boots, Jen bent listlessly to tug at the zipper of her boot. "I have no excuse. I simply forgot."
Although Jen didn't notice, the look of concern spread from her mother's eyes to her entire face. "Jennifer"— Ella's tone of annoyance was gone, replaced by anxiety— "are you feeling all right?"
Her boots dealt with, Jen straightened. "I'm just tired." She smiled reassuringly as she shrugged out of her jacket. "And I think I may be coming down with a cold." This last remark she tacked on in an effort to stave off questions about her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. "Where's Daddy?"
A soft smile curved her mother's lips as she plucked the jacket out of Jen's hands and turned to hang it in the closet. "In his 'den,' asleep in front of the TV." Turning back to Jen, she ordered gently, "Leave your suitcase where it is for now and come have a cup of tea. You look like you need it."
As she followed her mother to the kitchen, Jen glanced down the long hall that lead to the home's four bedrooms, a reflection of her mother's soft smile on her own lips. Her father's "den," as her mother had laughingly dubbed it, was located in the smallest of the bedrooms. Before her sister Vicki's marriage, the room had been used as a guest room. But two weeks after the wedding Ella began rearranging the rooms. Declaring, teasingly, that she was tired of listening to her husband snore as he ostensibly watched television, she turned Vicki's room into a guest room and installed a desk, portable television, and a lounge chair into the small room and christened it "Dad's den."