Spirit Lake

by Christine DeSmet

  “I came to the same conclusion recently.” The window in her heart had opened so wide that she was having trouble closing it. His spirit kept rushing in to join hers, refreshing her like spring air ushered into a musty winter house. “But what choice do I have, to borrow your phrase? Rock in my rocker instead? Alone?"

  He turned his face up to the golden sun, and its light spun sienna threads through his deep chestnut hair, but his hands were balled into fists.

  “The difference is, we're smarter now,” she offered. “I can't lay aside your latest adventure as if it were a book I can close and come back to again. And I can't see you suffer, just as you say you don't want me hurt. Caring about you is ... what defines me. Mother calls it ‘worry and tend.’ I could bottle it and sell it."

  His eyes flickered like burning coals. “Yes, you are smarter, more caring, more everything that's beautiful."

  Oh she was lost. The window inside was stuck open and he poured in, filling each floor with the sound of his voice, the laughter, the good times and his strength.

  Cole strode on into the meadow, then began to jog with a hitch in his stride, dragging the bad leg. The weeds and wildflowers whipped in his wake. Then to her horror he slumped into the grass.

  Panic halted her. Fear curdled her stomach. Had she missed the sound of a bullet?

  “Cole?” She tore through the tall grass, fighting when she got tangled in stalks of queen anne's lace. “Answer me! Cole?"

  “It's the stupid leg."

  When she caught up, he appeared grumbly as a black bear with a thorn in its paw.

  Shoving up his pant's leg, she unwound the pressure bandage. “Your leg's awfully swollen."

  “Saw it off, doc."

  Shaking her head at him, she chided, “The way you're going with this, your boss only has to wait until you die of fever. Where were you running to anyway?"

  “The pond. It can't be far and that cool water will feel damn good on this leg. Remember swimming in the pond?"

  Her gaze met his, remembering all too well.

  The icy water made the dry, flat rock in the middle of the pond feel all the warmer. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her neck. He wanted to strike again. She could see it in his eyes.

  Heat splashed her face, trickling down her neck and the rest of her body. “I remember,” she said, secretly pleased he had too.

  “It puckered you in a couple of places."

  Sucking in her breath, she punched his shoulder. “If I remember right, something of yours shriveled."

  His laughter echoed across the meadow. “We're goin’ in, even if it's to prove to you that your memory's lousy."

  Excitement escaped her heart before she had a chance to close the window. Reality reeled in the emotion. “You're not too steady on that leg and those rocks are slippery."

  “You'll steady me, won't you?"

  Her hands grew clammy. “We'll get wet."

  “We'll take our clothes off."

  “Cole!"

  A grin spread across his face. “So we won't take our clothes off. We'll get wet and you can go home and change later, and I'll drip dry all night in my tent. They'll find my body with moss and mildew eating away at its—"

  “We're not going in.” But she was smiling again, darn him.

  “My leg's throbbing. So is something else."

  A tingle spread between her legs. Another memory. “That's it. Ice water here we come. I'm taking you in, with your clothes on, but no funny stuff. The rocks are too slippery."

  He minded her at first, hobbling next to her through the meadow, letting her take his shoes off, then leaning on her to edge into the icy pool of clear water. Laurel's feet ached at the cold. “It couldn't have been this cold back then."

  “Wimp."

  But Cole let go a primal scream on entering the water.

  He waded in further, up to his knees. “Come on,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her. “Laurel Lee, the sissy."

  He knew she hated being called that, and she knew he was baiting her. When he splashed toward her, his eyes twinkling, she panicked, but a thrill also coiled inside her. “No, Cole. No way."

  With his arms held high, he roared, “It's the pond monster, coming for you. Grrrrr."

  Swallowing back giggles, she pushed through the water for the shoreline. Her feet slipped on the rocks though.

  “Gotcha!” he declared, grabbing her from behind with strong arms encircling her rib cage.

  In short order, he picked her up in his arms, swung around and lumbered out into deeper water. She clung to his neck in desperation, her hands entwined in his thick hair heated by the sun.

  “It's too cold,” she shrieked.

  “Grrrrr! My leg feels great, doc!"

  She laughed, despite her nervousness. They'd played this a thousand times that summer so long ago.

  “Grrrr.” A raw hunger swirled in his gaze.

  Electricity bolted through her.

  Their clothing abandoned, he chased her through the meadow again, until they both tired, and he lay poised in the weeds, waiting for her to want him enough to come find him.

  She peered down at the water. “Take me to shore. Now,” she insisted.

  Splashing to shore, the clumsy, limping monster carried her up the grassy slope, then lowered her to a warm patch of dry grass near their shoes. Cole sat down next to her, panting from the exertion.

  Laurel's breathing was ragged as well, but for another reason. Every fiber of her suddenly recalled how it felt to be wanted by the devil-may-care Cole Wescott, how it felt to be made love to by him when he was focused on only that one thing. In the attic, he'd been focused on using their lovemaking to help relieve his grief. She'd shared that emotion, and let it carry them into old ways, let it be the excuse. But what if his focus now were only on her, on them? Could she stand that kind of passion, and then let it go?

  She reached for her shoes, but his arm snaked out to stop her. “Don't be in a hurry."

  A shadow swooped across his gaze, and his lips parted. He hesitated, caught mid-thought. He needed to tell her something. What? He'd been that way all evening, and she knew he'd blurt it out in his own time. Could she be patient? She had to be. She wanted him. Very much.

  “I've got to get back for chores,” she muttered.

  “We had good times here.” His eyes reflected days gone by.

  “We dreamed, Cole. It wasn't reality, remember?"

  Picking up a fistful of her loose hair that met the grass, he played it between his thumb and forefinger. She didn't expect the way his simple action pressed a glow into her breasts and deeper into her soul.

  “We shouldn't have come here,” he whispered, torment flitting across his eyes, “because it's too hard to leave."

  Collecting her quaking hands in his big ones, he brought them up to his face, pressing her palms against his stubbly cheeks. His cool skin startled her. Confusion lurked in his brown eyes. A hurt flickered, died, then flared again. What did he want to talk to her about? Laurel's curiosity took over. To stoke the fire, she drew him to herself, into a kiss.

  Their pains—her memory of her losses and all their regrets and fears—blended, but they were not fierce enough to win over this exhilarating moment. Flesh against flesh, firm promises that could never be kept, but oh, the bliss of allowing the instinctual fire to roar. Laurel understood this time together would have to last them forever.

  Laurel gloried in the way he touched her, soft as a bird's wing, demanding as a hawk sitting on its prey. He needed her for survival, and she was sure it was love. With his fingers, he encouraged her to open for him, and she blossomed with the flowers, trusting, feeding his insatiable desires.

  Laurel leaned into him, hungry. Parting her lips for him, he entered her with a gentle thrust, his tongue exploring, dipping deep, reminding her she was wholly a woman. Not a girl. Not a tomboy. Not lonely.

  Shimmering temperatures rose inside her. She grew impatient with his hands merely clinging to he
r arms. She lay a hand across one of his, moving him to the memories.

  Obliging, he cupped her breast, kneading her through the fabric of her blouse and the thin cloth restraining her underneath. The nipple pebbled to a hardness she'd never experienced, its tingling pressing to be set free. Let go. Be together. Don't be lonely. Reaching up, she unbuttoned a couple of buttons on her blouse.

  “I want you,” she whispered, eager for his breath to fill her lungs, to sustain her. She had to have him, to know that he was more than a dream all these years.

  Theirs was a special journey. Lovers at first sight. He was strong, limber, worldly. And he knew everything. How to do it. How to make it feel good, how to be romantic. Nobody else had thought of “doing it” in a meadow, she was sure then. They stayed there all day. They had plenty of time.

  There would never be another time for them.

  But was it a mistake?

  Couldn't he hurry!

  Unbuttoning everything to the fading dusky sunlight of his gaze, his fingers dragged lightly across the swell of a breast, sketching lines of sparks in their wake.

  “You're like a flower,” he said, lowering his head to the fire erupting in her breast, spreading in a storm through her body, unsettling her in the way it begged for the hawk's mercy.

  She ground her hands into his thick mane, holding on. Flinging her head back and closing her eyes, she drifted into weightlessness. He eased her back onto the grass. It smelled of clover and more promise, and of his mounting heat torching her skin.

  She wanted to imprint this sensation on her mind for lonely nights to come. She heard a dove coo, a robin chirp, Cole's sharp breaths. The sky faded to pink overhead, nothing but soft color mingling with rainbows in her heart and the sheen of his skin. In the future, all she'd have to do is close her eyes, and they would be here, together. Reality imprinted on dreams. Dreams to last forever if reality could not.

  At first, the hawk showed a mellower side. He came to her like the male dove, settling softly down upon his mate in the grass, their bodies quaking in blissful come-hithers. Their limbs fluttered, hers weakened by the force of his need. Her eyelids closed against the swirling colors and the spark of subdued sunlight collected in his eyes.

  A rush of doubt unsettled her, of not knowing how long he would keep her. How long could he keep rising with her into the perfume of the clover? How long would she hear the music of his moans and low whispers escaping the lips tugging at her earlobes, nipping at her breasts, tasting the sensitive places between her legs?

  She was about to protest, to regain reality, but the male dove—no, the hawk now—pounced, cleaving her to him.

  He took off in winged splendor, flying higher, so high she would fall unless she held onto him.

  His strong rhythm of flight, coursing higher, thrusting from air current to current, spun them through dizzying clouds.

  Away with her he soared, faraway, until she was lost to everything and everyone but him.

  All his. Captured and branded with his seed. She did not worry. For this was how it was meant to be in a wild meadow. Their meadow. No harm could come of anything so natural as the interplay between the hunter and the hunted, could it?

  * * * *

  THE DRIFT OF HER clothes back over her skin startled her. Evidently they had dozed. Shaking off a sweet muzziness, Laurel looked up with a smile at the source of the clothing toss.

  In the dim light of dusk, Cole was already dressed and striding off, but toward the pond. He halted at the shoreline, his back to her.

  “What's wrong?” She sat up, pulling on her clothes. “Cole?"

  He swept her up against him, his heat abating the iciness clawing at her. She bathed in his body's hum, one heart throbbing against the other, matching the rhythm, quelling their ragged breathing to whispers.

  Pressing his lips on the top of her head, he whispered, “No matter what happens, know that I care."

  “I'll be...” Not all right. Alone again. Betrayed again. She had to stop loving him. “I'll be careful."

  He grunted, crushing her even closer to him. “Remember? I'm the one who had to buy you window and door locks so not every Tom, Dick and Harry wanders into your cabin."

  “Or Cole?"

  “You're an innocent."

  She couldn't deny the secure comfort his steely arms provided, or the flush of fever still coursing through her body from their lovemaking. “Maybe I haven't been innocent since that first time we came to this meadow."

  “And neither have I,” he said, sighing.

  They stood entwined in the gentle breeze for several moments, serendaded by the coos of whippoorwills and loons on the far side of the pond.

  Rubbing her back with the flat of his palm, he whispered, “It's too perfect here. My brother couldn't have dared hide anything here. It's sacrilegous."

  The whippoorwill cooed again, and she wished she had answers for Cole.

  She drew him to the grass, where she could snuggle under the crook of his arm and they could watch the pond.

  “See that movement?"

  “What movement?"

  “On the pond. The circles."

  “Maybe a fish jumped. What's your point?"

  “That you skip over details. That you don't notice tiny ripples, or you dismiss those little ripples in life. Things happen right under your nose and you don't notice."

  “Like what?"

  Like the love growing again between us, our need for each other, our avoidance of talking about the mistakes of our past and what really happened!

  Leaning against him, reassured by his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, she went on. “Mike saw details. He would have noticed that the pond wasn't interrupted by a fish, but it was a muskrat working the shoreline, playing."

  “A muskrat?” He nuzzled her ear from behind.

  Her temperature rose. Where was the breeze when she needed it? “You've probably let a hundred clues go by because you're so focused on finding something big, like a treasure chest or a big X mowed in the meadow."

  “I was too busy making love to you, Laurel Lee.” His tongue laved the outer shell of her ear, causing a stormy disturbance to descend through her body. “For me, nothing else matters when I'm making love to you."

  Licking her lips, she gathered her strength. She reminded herself that he could make love, but so far she saw no evidence that he would ever be able to see beyond to the details of a commitment. They had to ease away from this growing attraction and need for each other. She, too, had to remember his purpose for being here.

  “Maybe all you need to do, Cole, is look below the surface. Mike trusted you to find something. It has to be here."

  Clutching her shoulders, he kneaded them in a luscious way that made her melt. “You're not suggesting I start digging up your meadow?"

  “Maybe.” She drew in her courage. “But what I'm suggesting you do is dig deeper into your relationship with Mike to find clues. You say you hurt for him, but it seems to challenge you to nothing deeper in your actions."

  He scoffed.

  She turned to him, a breathtaking move to be so close to powerful eyes like his. They compelled her toward deep currents. She wanted to know, “You love...?” Me? She swallowed it back. “Do you feel love for your brother?"

  “Love?"

  Exasperated, she pressed, “What's your definition of love?"

  A frown creased his coppery skin. Pink sky reflected in his dark eyes. “It starts with honesty and trust."

  Which they were forever seeking. She swallowed for courage again. “For me, love is also responsibility."

  “You already know I feel responsible for this mess."

  “But love is also the taking of responsibility, and that requires a steady commitment, like the way nature paints the colors of flowers a person sees year after year, guaranteed, without fail. That color gets into your every fiber and attaches itself. And stays."

  “I cared then. I care about you now."

  Her he
art began shutting the windows in her heart. “You care because you have to. Anything less would bring guilt."

  “Is that bad?” He caught her chin in a tender grip. “I like taking care of you. You mean a lot to me."

  “But that's so easy to say, and you say it all the time. Mike meant a lot to you, too. How well did you know him? Really? How much can you slow down to appreciate the detail of a person? I'm a friend, too, but what do you really know about me? To love someone, you have to commit the time to truly understand them."

  He dropped his lips onto hers, and her heart fluttered, winging away with the hawk again, but warning her to stay strong.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  HIS KISS DIDN'T tease or taunt. It affirmed how well they meshed on several plains. Deep down, they understood how much they needed each other to soothe the loneliness. Friends, yes. A balm for the ache, oh yes. Laurel allowed the warmth of their lovemaking to move back in. She had him close for the moment and she'd make the most of however long he'd be in Dresden.

  Drawing her up from the ground, he brought her close and she felt as if she were going to the well. Being one with him refreshed her spirit.

  With one hand splayed hot on her back and the other toying with the nape of her neck, Cole said, “Save our meadow as part of your wildlife refuge."

  She smiled into his shirt. “If you hand over the deed."

  He eyed her curiously. “I'm not pursuing the title search."

  The flat statement caught her off-guard. “You and David Huber aren't researching your great-aunt's past?"

  “No. Right now I don't have time to stop my life for genealogical curiosity. Why do you look so surprised?"

  She stepped back, rammed her hand in a pocket, then handed him the paper from the file. “Here. It's what I hoped we'd get to over dinner at the restaurant."

  A puzzled look crossed his face, but she thought she detected a flare of recognition. He shook his head. “Somebody else is interested in the property. It's not me, Laurel."

  “You're not the ‘W’ in this note?"

  “Where did you get this? Huber's in Madison."