The Haunting of Autumn Lake

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  He’d said she was pretty, and it scrambled her thoughts. Autumn found it difficult to think straight for a moment.

  Yet she did recover eventually to counter, “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “How do you know?” Gentry asked. “You admit to never havin’ seen the Specter…and I doubt anybody has ever talked to him. So what makes you so sure he didn’t slip into my skin while I was dead that minute or two in Doc Sullivan’s office?”

  “Well, for one thing, the Specter would be cold as ice…dead cold…corpse in the grave cold,” she said. “And as far as I can see, you’re as warm as any man livin’.”

  “I didn’t say I was dead, punkin,” he chuckled. “I said I died for a minute or two. I ain’t dead now. And anyway, how do you know I’m as warm as a livin’ man?”

  “Because I can see that you’re warm.”

  “You can see it? How?” he asked.

  Autumn was rattled. He was so close to her—so flirtatious—so provocatively attractive in every definition of the word! She wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation—and Autumn Lake was rarely uncertain as to how to handle anything.

  Furthermore, there were all sorts of ideas bouncing around in her brain. Thoughts of reaching out and throwing her arms around his neck and pulling herself against him were there. Thoughts of holding his hand as they walked home—of dancing in the moonlight with him. Ridiculous, childish thoughts were the ones haunting her wits, and they rattled her common sense.

  However had it come to this so quickly? Only moments before she’d been so scared she’d feared she would swoon. And now—now she was so bewitched by Gentry’s nearness that she could hardly think at all.

  He had her now. He could see by the bright, delighted uncertainty in her beautiful eyes that he had her. Gentry James had Autumn Lake right where he wanted her.

  They were isolated in the old covered bridge. No one would be coming up on them in the downpour—no one could interfere. He knew that he was making her wildly uncomfortable. And though he didn’t know whether it was their isolation, the fact he wasn’t entirely dressed at the moment, or for the sake they were discussing ghosts, he really didn’t care. Nope. Gentry had Autumn right where he’d always wanted her—to himself.

  He was considering something too—something he’d been considering for quite some time—and he wondered if this might be the one chance ever given him to do exactly what he’d been considering doing. He thought that it might be, and therefore, he acted.

  “Answer me, punkin,” he mumbled, stepping closer to her. “How can you see that I’m warm, Autumn Lake?” He saw her gulp—grinned when a warm blush rose to her cheeks. Yep, he thought. Right where I want her.

  “Well…for one thing…for one thing you don’t have any goose bumps on your arms or…or your…arms,” she stammered. “If you were cold, you’d have goose bumps on your arms and your…”

  “On my arms,” he finished for her.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. She stepped back, but the inside wall of the bridge prevented any further escape.

  “Ghosts wouldn’t have goose bumps, now would they?” he offered. “Maybe I’m not warm at all. Maybe I just can’t have goose bumps because I am the Specter.”

  “You are warm, Gentry,” she said rather breathlessly. “I can feel the warmth comin’ off you.”

  His smile broadened. He liked her response, and not just the words she’d spoken. She was trembling a little, blushing more deeply, and her attention kept settling on his mouth.

  “Can you, now?” he mumbled, leaning toward her. “So then, you’re sure I ain’t the Specter come to take you away with me?”

  “You’re teasin’ me is all,” she whispered.

  “What about you, Autumn?” he asked. Oh, he was roping good now! “Are you warm?”

  As Gentry James reached out and slowly ran one warm, callused palm from Autumn’s wrist to her elbow, her body betrayed her—breaking out into goose bumps of pleasure from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

  Gentry smiled, gazed into her eyes, and said, “I guess you’re chilled then…judgin’ from the goose bumps on your arms…and…your arms.”

  She was trembling, and she couldn’t seem to stop. Oh, Autumn wasn’t cold at all—not at all. In fact, she was warmer than she ever remembered being before—warm from the inside out instead of the outside in.

  Still, she couldn’t admit that she was burning up with a feverish fascination with the man standing in front of her. She couldn’t admit that he’d sent her senses into a frenzy of unfamiliar desire.

  Therefore, she simply lied, answering, “Well…well, rain does cool things down a bit. And…and you’re all wet, and…I guess I am a little cold.”

  His reaction was not what she had expected it to be, however. Autumn had expected Gentry to be his ever protective self—to say, We best get you on home then, and start for the exit of the bridge whether or not it was still raining.

  Instead, her breath caught in her throat, and she thought she might faint dead away when he smiled at her and in a low, beguiling voice said, “Well, I better see what I can do to get you warmed up then. Ain’t that right?”

  Autumn couldn’t speak. She could only shrug her shoulders—helpless there before him.

  “And do you know what?” Gentry asked. Again Autumn found her voice would not obey her commands, and she shook her head. “I think I know just the way to do that…to warm you up, I mean,” he explained. “My body is warm right now…warmer than you know, whether or not you can feel the heat comin’ off me. And yours…well, all these goose bumps I feel here on your arms…” He paused, running his hands up over her forearms again—to her elbows—and then beyond. He pushed at the sleeves of her dress, moving them up until his hands lightly gripped her just below her shoulders. “All these goose bumps on your arms tell me you are a little cold, punkin. And we can’t have that. So, I figure, if my body’s warm and yours isn’t…well, then, if we put the two of us together somehow, it oughta even right up. Don’t you think, honey?”

  “Y-you’re still teasin’ me, aren’t you?” she managed to ask him. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, but she’d managed to speak at least.

  “You know,” he began as if he hadn’t heard her question, “there’s something strangely invitin’ about you, Autumn Lake.” Autumn tried to draw a calm breath, but she couldn’t. She could only stand there with her back against the wall of the bridge and Gentry James’s handsome face closer to hers than she’d ever dared to dream it would be—his strong, capable hands sliding from her arms to rest at her waist.

  “Everything about you is sweet and temptin’,” he mumbled. “You’re like comin’ home after a cold, miserable day herdin’ cattle in the snow to find a warm apple pie all rich with cinnamon and sugars waitin’ on the supper table.”

  Autumn’s breathing all but stopped as he placed one hand to her face. The heat of his palm was nearly scalding—titillatingly so. She wanted him to kiss her! Oh, how madly she wanted him to kiss her!

  “It’s almost sinful the way you lure me,” he mumbled. His mouth was just a breath from hers—so close she could feel the heat inside it when he spoke.

  “S-sinful?” Autumn managed to breathe.

  “Like right now. We’re here weatherin’ out the rain under the roof of this bridge.” Gentry slowly glanced to one end of the bridge and then to the other. “Most likely no one else is comin’ along…and I find myself thinkin’ on…on what the consequences might be if I was to have me a little encounter with you…just to find out for myself how cold or warm you really are.”

  “I-I’m not at all sure what you mean,” Autumn fibbed. The fact was she thought she knew exactly what he meant—or at least she hoped she knew what he meant! How many were the times she’d seen her father encounter her mother? How many times had Ransom Lake quietly mumbled something to his wife and then proceeded to kiss her so thoroughly as to coax a sigh from Vaden that breathed through the room, as if pa
ssion itself were standing there watching? Too many to count, that was how many! But surely Gentry didn’t mean to kiss her—at least not the way Autumn had witnessed her parents kissing. Surely not. Yet every inside part of her was silently begging him to.

  Gentry grinned, and Autumn was again breathless—for his dimples were her entire undoing.

  “Oh, you do too. You know exactly what I mean,” he said with such an alluring, provocative tone that Autumn’s goose bumps increased tenfold. “I can see it in your eyes…and in the way you’re blushing all crimson like the leaves of that big maple over yonder.”

  She was blushing—and not just on her face! Autumn felt as if every inch of her flesh were blushing with wild delight and anticipation. She did know what he meant, but she didn’t dare hope it was true—did she? And she couldn’t dare admit to Gentry James that she’d wanted him to kiss her from the moment she first set eyes on him!

  “Y-you’re implyin’ that you might kiss me a little, aren’t you?” she sputtered.

  Gentry grinned again, and as always, the sight of his dimples nearly melted Autumn’s knees. Sakes alive, he was handsome! Too handsome for words! Too handsome to resist—in any regard!

  “I’m sure thinkin’ about it,” he mumbled, “if I can find the guts, that is.”

  “The guts?” Autumn asked. “I’m sure you’ve kissed plenty of girls in your time, Gentry James,” she said. She was upset for a moment, though she didn’t quite know why.

  “Maybe I have…and maybe I haven’t,” he said, admitting nothing for certain. “But not every girl I’ve met has a daddy like yours. Ransom Lake would probably beat the bones outta me if he knew I had his daughter backed up against the inside of this old bridge, thinkin’ on stealin’ a kiss. Now wouldn’t he?”

  One of his hands left its place at her waist, and he raked it back through his wet hair. It did little good, however, as his hair instantly tumbled forward again, framing his face the way Autumn preferred.

  “I-I don’t know,” Autumn breathed.

  “Well,” Gentry whispered, taking her face between his strong, callused hands. His touch was warm, comforting, exhilarating to every sense Autumn owned. “I think you’re worth the risk. I think stealin’ a kiss from you would be worth havin’ the bones beat out of me by Ransom Lake.”

  Autumn involuntarily gasped as his head descended toward hers—for she was scared that her pathetic inexperience would disappoint him. She had only ever been kissed by one other man her entire life, and that was only Jasper Wyatt at the county fair spook hollow the year before.

  But Gentry misunderstood her tentativeness and chuckled, “It’s just a taste, punkin. I ain’t gonna drink ya down all at once, all right?”

  “I-I don’t know if I should let you…” Autumn stammered, pressing her hands against his muscular chest in a pitiful attempt to discourage him. His skin was warm and soft as silk, and the feel of it against her palms did nothing but thrill her all the more.

  “Of course you shouldn’t let me, sweet thing,” he said, smiling at her. “But you’re gonna let me all the same. Ain’t that right?”

  “Uh huh,” she breathed.

  “Good,” he whispered.

  Autumn flinched a little at the first touch of Gentry’s lips to hers—and immediately felt foolish. He’d think she was a child and push her away for certain. But he didn’t. Instead, he kissed her again—and then again. The fourth time he kissed her, his lips lingered against hers, and she sighed and felt her body relax a little.

  He kissed her again—but this time, however, the kiss Gentry applied to her lips was not so innocent as his previous kisses. Though the next kiss he applied was slow and measured, his lips were parted and somehow coaxed hers to do the same. It was a wildly exhilarating sensation and kindled an understanding Autumn didn’t know she had. His lips were parted—as were hers—but slowly their mouths simultaneously closed, blending together in a warm, moist exchange before he repeated the gesture of coaxing her mouth to open and join his in another moist, even flavorful, exchange. She suddenly knew exactly how Gentry James tasted—like warm summer rain laced with apple and cinnamon.

  “Is it all right if I do that again?” he whispered against her mouth.

  “Yes,” she managed to breathe.

  “Then how ’bout you draw me in, punkin…instead of pushin’ me away?”

  Taking her hands, he directed her arms to slip around his waist—her hands to rest at his back. “See how much better that feels, pretty Autumn Lake?”

  Autumn could only nod, rendered speechless by the powerful emotions and physical sensations drowning her. Again Gentry’s parted lips coaxed hers to join him in a rhythmic exchange of affection—a surging, a wave of bridled passion, followed by a careful stay of the swell. She could feel his hair on her face; it tickled her forehead and cheeks. His whiskers brushed the flesh around her mouth and caused her to quiver with delight.

  Gentry’s response to the quiver he’d caused in her (and she knew he felt it) was to pull her body flush with his—to coax her to a deepening kiss—a kiss that caused such a trembling inside her and such a flood of goose bumps to erupt over her arms and legs that her legs nearly gave way beneath her. It frightened her—all of it. The manner in which Gentry James had caused every emotion and physical sense in her body to quiver and quake frightened her! The manner in which her mouth watered for want of knowing his frightened her. The manner in which she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms, his mouth blending with hers, frightened her. And he must have sensed her fear, for he broke the seal of their mouths and stepped back out of her trembling embrace.

  As Autumn struggled to recover a hint of regulation in her breathing, Gentry raked a strong hand through his somehow alluringly rebellious hair.

  Gentry inwardly scolded himself. He’d been so overcome with the bliss of Autumn’s kiss, so spirited away with desire and longing, that he’d entirely forgotten to make sure he did a good job of kissing her—to make sure what his mouth did to hers would make certain that she’d want it to do the same again—wanted him to do the same again.

  But the breathless words that escaped her mouth caused his eyebrows to arch in astonishment.

  “I-I’m not very experienced, you know,” she whispered. “I-I’ve never really wanted anyone to kiss me before the way I’ve wanted you to…”

  She gasped and blushed, and Gentry was flattered with her accidental confession.

  “I mean…I mean…I was just always raised to believe that…I mean…it’s not every man that I would…that I would allow to…” she stammered. Her cheeks were as red as summer tomatoes, and Gentry grinned as she reached up, pulling the pins from her hair and tugging at her raven tresses until they hung forward over her left shoulder. In his time while convalescing at Doc Sullivan’s, as well as at the Lake farm, he’d begun to notice that Autumn began to fiddle with her hair on only two occasions. The first was when she was truly delighted about something, such as caught up in telling one of her tales. The second was when she was nervous. Gentry knew this was the second occasion. He knew she was nervous.

  “How about you let me kiss you once more, punkin…just once?” Gentry said. “Then I’ll leave you be if you want me to…for as long as we need to wait out this storm.”

  He smiled when he saw the spark of sheer delight twinkle in her stormy-sky-colored eyes.

  “You still want to kiss me again?” she asked. “Even after—”

  Gentry gave her no time to finish what she’d meant to say—and Autumn gasped as he gathered her into his arms, his mouth capturing hers in a slow, moist, and very heated kiss. She knew just how to kiss him in return now, and letting her arms slide caressively around his waist once more, she melted against him as his mouth compelled hers to match its soft, alluring persuasion.

  He was careful—though he wanted to be otherwise. Gentry was careful with Autumn, for he knew she was as tender and innocent as the season of harvest itself. Like a fragile crimson leaf in the wind,
Autumn could not be aggressed upon all at once. No doubt the memory of what the weasel in town had done to her was still too fresh in her mind—though she pretended otherwise. He wouldn’t have her thinking he was a wolf as well.

  Oh, certainly he wanted to kiss her more aggressively—wanted to ravish her mouth and hold her so tightly in his arms that she’d hardly be able to draw breath. But although he could sense there was an untapped depth of passion simmering in her, he would not force himself on her any more than he already had. She was enjoying kissing him—savoring the slow, moist kisses his mouth was working over hers. To press her with passion might drive her away—and Gentry James did not want to drive Autumn away.

  The rain had already slowed. Autumn could hear that the downpour had passed. And as Gentry pressed one last heated kiss to her mouth, she sighed. Their moment together was gone. Just as the clouds and rain had moved on, so had their juncture.

  “There now,” he said as he smiled at her and stepped away. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He winked at her and added, “I told you I could warm you up a bit.”

  Autumn blushed—couldn’t help but smile and roll her eyes at his teasing. Quickly she braided her hair as she watched Gentry take his wet shirt down from the nail he’d hung it from before and begin to put it on again.

  “You’re puttin’ that back on?” she asked. “And what would the point of that be, might I ask?”

  “It wouldn’t do to have me come trompin’ back home with you in tow and me half neked, now would it? What would your daddy think?”