She grinned to herself. Washington city dweller. Wait until they hit the rapids! The water was a little bit low, and maneuvering over the rocks might turn out to be tricky. She couldn’t wait to see how he did.
She opened her eyes and asked him sweetly, “Just what do you do for a living, Mr. Marquette?”
He shrugged. “I write: historical pieces, non-fiction.”
Kelly lifted an eyebrow. “You seem to do rather well at it. I wouldn’t have imagined…”
He laughed. “No, I’ve never had anything on the New York Times’ bestseller list. No million sellers. But what I write doesn’t change. Universities order so many a year. Most of my stuff is available in the national parks.”
Kelly digested that information for a moment. “So what are you doing here?” she asked him. “For some reason, I got the impression you had been working for the Smithsonian.”
He sipped his beer, and went on to tell her that he had been doing a book on early American life in Washington. He liked this area because it offered easy access to so many of the places where he had to go for his research. “I’m working on arms right now.”
“Arms?”
“Weapons. There was a factory right outside of town, you know. And I’m researching the arsenal that brought on the whole John Brown thing. There’s a gold mine of history here, you know.”
Kelly didn’t answer him. She had never thought of it that way. The Harpers Ferry/Bolivar area was just home, and home had always come with fun and fascinating legends.
She suddenly found herself warming to the subject, telling him how things had changed since she’d been little, how the National Park Service had really saved the area after the numerous floods that had almost destroyed it. She told him that he would have to go on the “ghost tour,” that it was wonderful, and she started to list some of the books the local small press had issued that he could buy.
“You know quite a bit about the region, don’t you?” he asked her.
“West Virginia, born and bred.” She laughed.
“Want to help me?”
“Help you what?”
“Do research. While I’m studying weapons, I might as well get into history and folklore, too.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kelly murmured, shying back. He reached over suddenly, and she almost gasped; he was only grabbing her empty beer can so he could toss it back into the cooler.
“Want another?”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Well, it’s really not fair if you don’t pretend to get a bit drunk. I mean, where is the challenge if you’re stone-cold sober?”
“Whatever are you talking about?”
He grinned. His devil’s grin. A perfect grin for Daryl. “Nothing, really.”
She didn’t say anything else, but she suddenly had another beer in her hand.
Laughter from behind roused her, and she turned to see a group of people on a raft passing by them. They were all throwing water at each other. Someone missed and hit Sandy, who shrieked with laughter; Jarod responded by dousing the group on the raft.
Watching it all, Kelly smiled, then rested her head against the tube again. It really was fun. The beer had made her feel light—not drunk, certainly, not even tipsy, just light and able to smile easily.
Had it really been almost eighteen years since she had felt like laughing this way? With everything so easy, no pressure…
Eighteen years…
Since she and David had been like Jarod and Sandy—so young, and so in love with being in love! But they hadn’t gotten much help. Her mother had been dead, and David’s parents had been furious. She and David had started out with nothing, and she’d spent almost five years rushing from work to pick up Jarod and back to work. No eating out—they couldn’t afford it.
Not too much time for love, either. They had both been too tired. David from his schoolwork and his part-time job; she from her nine-to-five job during the day and trying to be a loving parent in the hours that she had left. And then David had gotten out of school, and it had been her turn to start studying art.
Hard… That was all she could remember. Everything had been so hard. And then, ironically, as soon as she had finished school—another five-year span, because she hadn’t been able to take as many courses each year as she should have—David had gotten into that stupid hang-gliding club and…died.
Years ago now. Almost seven years. Seven years in which everything had gone on being hard. Raising Jarod alone, worrying about the bills, wishing she had majored in something more practical than art. She’d had the talent to survive and keep them comfortable, just not quite enough to make them rich…
“A penny for them. A dime. A quarter. Hell, I’d even give you a dollar.”
Kelly’s eyes few open, and she found Dan Marquette staring at her intently. A flood of heat washed over her body at his look. She knew that he could see her mind, her thoughts. Could see the way her wet T-shirt clung to her body…
“They wouldn’t be worth it,” she told him. And then she grinned suddenly, looking past him. The current was picking up, and they were approaching a category four rapid—one that was nice and tricky—and very likely to spill him head over heels.
“Rapid coming up,” she said lightly.
He turned, saw it and nodded.
“Yes, it is.”
“Hey!” Jarod called out from behind. “We’re coming up on a rough one.”
Kelly smiled serenely as her tube began to pick up speed. The people on the raft, she noticed, had stopped for lunch on the rocks. They had a little audience up there, an audience who had just gone over the rapids and knew how rough they were. An audience just waiting to see who would flip over!
Kelly maneuvered her tube skillfully past the rocks, loving the cool spray against her face, inhaling the fresh air. She was rocked and jolted, then rocked and jolted all over again, but she went with the flow, and eased back into the rushing current as she left the rocks behind. She heard a shriek behind her and, turning, saw that Jarod had just saved Sandy from capsizing. They were both laughing and waving to the audience up on the rocks.
Kelly looked back to Dan Marquette. He was still there, serenely sipping his beer, apparently undaunted by the rapids.
He laughed. “What’s the matter, Mrs. McGraw?” he called to her. “Was I supposed to have been dashed to bits?”
“Of course not!” she retorted. “I’d hate to see you really hurt!”
“Just flogged and humiliated, huh?”
She didn’t respond. She laid her head back again and let the water carry her along. It felt good. It felt so, so good! The fresh, cool, clean water, the sun against her face. The gurgle of the river and the laughter in the distance…
Suddenly her tube got snagged on a submerged branch, and she was plunged face downward into the river, with her tube flying off into the distance.
Coughing and sputtering, she came to the surface. The water wasn’t deep, no more than four feet, and she ended up sprawling across a rock.
And she wasn’t alone.
He was leaning over her. Tall, dark—and diabolical. His hands were resting on either side of her face, and she could feel the heat of his body.
He leaned closer, laughing. “West Virginian, born and bred, huh? You missed that branch, Mrs. McGraw.”
There was really no other choice. She made a frenzied swish with her hand and sent a wall of water flying up into his handsome face.
He coughed; he sputtered. And then she was lifted off the rock and dragged beneath the water. In defense she grabbed at his legs. Legs like tree trunks, muscled, wonderfully masculine, with a bevy of short, coarse dark hairs that pricked her flesh…
“Oh!”
She came up for air, only to find herself dragged below again, then back up, gasping. Finally she was dragged to shore and laid out flat, with the trees overhead and the sun shining through the branches and Dan Marquette stretched above her.
She was smiling, she realiz
ed. Smiling and laughing and staring into his dark eyes.
She was dying to touch him. Dying to run her fingers through his drenched dark hair, trace his bronzed features with the pads of her fingers, run her thumb over the full sensuality of his lower lip.
She inhaled sharply, and held her breath, then realized that he was staring down at her, his breath held, too. The dark flame in his eyes was the flame of desire, and the heat that emanated from his boy was something like…wanting… Something like need.
“Kelly…”
He reached out and touched her, running his thumb over her lower lip, brushing his knuckles over her throat. And, God help her, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t protest. Didn’t want to.
Not at all. Something was growing in her. A sweet throbbing, an excitement. His breath caressed her cheek like the touch of his hand. Like his flesh against hers.
Oh, no! she thought. It was like…magic. She wanted it to go on forever, like her fantasies in Dark of the Moon. She wasn’t of the earth, not anymore. She was on a cloud, and all she could see or feel was Dan Marquette, calling to her on levels that she had forgotten existed.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him. She wanted to press her body against him. She wanted…
“Mom! Dan! You two okay? Where are you?”
Jarod’s voice broke the spell. Deftly, with an athlete’s superb agility, Dan Marquette sprang to his feet and reached a hand down to Kelly. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. Kelly felt herself flush in embarrassment. “We’re fine,” Dan called out, exhaling raggedly.
“We’re fine. We’re right here.”
He looked at Kelly, who tried to look away. He caught her chin and spoke quickly, huskily. “Don’t! Don’t you dare try to deny it!”
“Deny what?”
His features hardened, and her heart skipped a beat. But then he smiled slowly, very slowly. “I simply won’t let you,” he said.
Again she couldn’t reply, because Sandy and Jarod were hurrying over, and they were both laughing and acting as if nothing, absolutely nothing, was wrong.
As if the world would remain—normal.
Which it couldn’t, of course. Kelly knew that her world would never, ever be the same again.
CHAPTER 5
They came to Dan’s little “shack” at about three in the afternoon. It was really cute, a nice little frame structure right on the water, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living/dining area, and a river-facing patio with a barbecue. The coals were hot when they got there—Reeves, the gentleman’s gentleman, had been and gone—and they were all set to go. Corn and potatoes had been left to cook; the meat, marinated, was waiting for them on a covered plate in the refrigerator.
Kelly didn’t have to do anything but lie in the sun and wait. Dan stood over the barbecue, and Sandy and Jarod set the table. They talked about Harpers Ferry while they ate, Jarod telling Sandy about George Washington’s interest in the place—and his investments in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that had made Harpers Ferry an ideal place for an armaments factory.
“Most people thought of it as a pit, nothing more,” Jarod said. “But when you stand up on the cliffs and watch the Shenandoah meet the Potomac, and see Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia come together, there isn’t any place more beautiful in the world!”
“Aren’t you enthusiastic!” Dan teased him.
“You wait,” Jarod retorted lightly. “You just haven’t been here long enough.”
“Hmm. Well, I will be. I’m counting on your mother to naturalize me.”
Jarod gazed at Kelly curiously. Kelly gazed down at her barbecued ribs.
“That’s a great idea,” Jarod said.
“Really, I don’t know that much,” Kelly protested. “Not the exact facts and figures—”
“Facts and figures are easy to come by. Lore and legend aren’t,” Dan said. “Sandy, there’s some fruit in the refrigerator if you want to get it, honey. Grapes, peaches, apples. I’m going to make sure the coals are all out.”
Jarod went to help Sandy—as if she couldn’t carry out a bowl of fruit by herself. Kelly stretched and walked back down to the river, where they’d piled the tubes up on a little dock. She stretched out on the wood, feeling the late afternoon sun wash over her warmly.
She hesitated, thinking that she’d love to rip off her T-shirt and go for a spring tan. The sun felt so good.
She grasped the hem of the shirt and paused, thinking that she should have chosen a different bathing suit. But then, she’d wanted to look sexy when she’d put the damn thing on, hadn’t she?
And now she didn’t know if she had the nerve or not.
What nerve? she asked herself hotly. First he thought of her as a kid—then he tried to torment her to death! She was simply going to ignore the man.
Having made up her mind, Kelly ripped off the T-shirt and settled back comfortably. She felt the sun against her bare flesh, and it was delicious.
A second later, she started. She was no longer alone. Dan Marquette was sitting beside her, a cluster of purple grapes in his hand, a watchful grin on his features.
“Want some grapes?”
“No.”
“Want to feed me some grapes?”
“No!”
He laughed and stretched out beside her. Kelly rolled over, staring out at the water, resting her chin against her knuckles.
“Just how long have you been in town?” she asked him. The area was so small that she was amazed people hadn’t been talking about him. But maybe they had been; maybe she just hadn’t been listening.
“Since January.”
“From D.C.?”
“As of late.” He popped a grape into his mouth. “We were in Colorado before. Lots and lots of white water there, Mrs. McGraw, which is why I didn’t flip over when you were hoping I would.”
“I wasn’t hoping—”
“You were.”
“Are you always this negative?”
“Only with hostile people.”
“Hmph!” Kelly rolled around and sat, hugging her knees. She grinned, proud of herself because she had overpowered the temptation to smash the grapes into his handsome face. “I didn’t start out hostile. You came into my house and attacked me, and then attacked my son—”
“I was upset. Understandably so. What if Sandra had been madly in love and pregnant to boot, and Jarod had considered her nothing more than a one-night stand?”
“You should have asked first,” Kelly said primly.
“Maybe I should have.”
“You asked to speak with my father,” Kelly reminded him.
“I can’t help it if you’re—”
“Short?” Kelly supplied, and he burst out laughing, rolling up to sit cross-legged style before her.
“Young,” he said softly. She opened her mouth to protest, but he filled it with a grape. Her teeth grazed his fingers, and a fire seemed to burn in some secret center of her.
She lowered her eyes, fighting it. It was absurd, the way she felt everything so strongly when she was around him.
“Why does that make you so defensive?” he demanded softly. “The rest of the world is trying mud packs and spas and healing waters and hair dyes to get where you are naturally!”
To avoid having to answer, Kelly snatched the grapes from him, took two and chewed them slowly, staring out over the water again.
He cleared his throat. “Mrs. McGraw?”
Kelly stared back at him, ready to retort sharply, but something about his appearance made her change her mind. He heart started an erratic thumping, and she felt uncomfortably warm. She looked down at the wood of the dock.
He cared. He cared about what she had to say. He could tease mercilessly and be blunt to the point of rudeness, but in the end, she knew, from something akin to tenderness in his eyes, he really cared.
I don’t want you caring about me! she thought. But then…he was sexy. He was single. They already shared a certain relationship…
She i
nhaled sharply. Yes, they shared a relationship. Her son had gotten Dan’s daughter pregnant.
She shouldn’t get any closer to Dan Marquette. This whole thing was so delicate and tenuous. For Sandra’s sake, for Jarod’s sake, she needed to be mature and objective.
And Dan Marquette…
Dan Marquette knew how to date. He knew how to laugh, and how to play, how to say the right things. Kelly knew—she just knew!—that he’d enjoyed umpteen affairs since his marriage had ended, and that he had walked away from every one of them unscathed. She didn’t mean to judge him; he had spoken casually of his wife’s desertion, but it must have been the biggest hurt of his life. She hadn’t just deserted him—she had deserted Sandy. But that had been years ago. He was a big boy, playing the major league.
And Kelly didn’t know how to play at all. She’d always been too busy. Too occupied with just getting by to learn how to date, how to meet a man, how to flirt—how to do anything! And this didn’t seem like a very good time to learn.
She stood up quickly, uncomfortably. “We really have to be getting home,” she murmured.
He remained on the dock for several moments. Several long moments, during which he watched her. Kelly felt his eyes. Felt them rake over her. Felt them fill her with warmth until she flushed.
But then he, too, rose smoothly, without a word. “Whatever you say, Mrs. McGraw.”
Kelly cast the grape stem into the river and watched it float away. Dan turned and called to Sandra and Jarod, and then he strode back to the barbecue to make sure that the coals were out.
They didn’t go back in the tubes. Kelly was finally able to meet Reeves when that very proper and very polite gray-haired old gentleman came to pick them up in Dan’s car.
She didn’t even have to talk to Dan again. He had Reeves drop him off at the truck, then drive the others home.
* * *
Don’t do it! Don’t do it!
Dan kept repeating the words to himself, but they didn’t change anything. He looped his tie and secured it, moving mechanically, not really seeing himself.
Well, he was dressed. And more fashionably than he usually was, too. More formally. Jacket, tie, vest. Hell, there was nowhere in Bolivar or Harpers Ferry where you needed to be that dressed up. Maybe in Charleston…
All in the Family Page 7