She shared a bottle of wine with Emery and ordered broiled salmon and pale asparagus spears in a setting with mirrored walls and sparkling chandeliers that set the stage for a magical retreat from reality for several hours.
She’d found herself scowling at other women whose gazes lingered too long on her date whenever they passed their table. It wasn’t her dress that had attracted attention, but her lover’s body and face.
“How many times have you seen Phantom of the Opera? she asked as the elevator opened at the top floor.
Emery reached into the pocket of his topcoat and removed the magnetic key. “I saw it for the first time in London in 1986. Then a couple of times after it came to Broadway.”
Rhianna recalled Errol’s outrage when Emery spent a month in Europe while he remained in the States to work on several construction projects with his father, who reminded him that he was a full-time employee. Errol sulked and grumbled until Emery returned.
Emery slipped the key into the slot, waited for the green light, and pushed open the door. A wall of glass provided an unobstructed view of the Hudson River and New Jersey. The limousine driver had delivered their luggage to the hotel while they were at the theater.
“Come in, darling.”
Rhianna moved into the entryway like a zombie. Vases of fresh flowers and dozens of tea lights crowded every flat surface. Emery closed the door and led her across the living room, beyond a utility kitchen, and into a bedroom with a large four-poster bed draped in yards and yards of white organza. The flickering candles in wrought-iron candelabras threw long and short shadows on the walls of the sitting room. A smile trembled over her lips.
“It’s perfect, Emery.”
He closed the distance between them and pulled her close to his chest. “That’s because you’re perfect.”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she buried her face against his warm throat. “Thank you, my love.”
Emery reached up and cradled her face. “Am I, Rhia?”
“What, Emery?”
“Your love?”
Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his, caressing his mouth more than kissing it. “Yes,” she sighed, parting her lips to his probing tongue. Her tongue mated with his as she gave herself up to his marauding mouth.
He was her love, her beginning, end, and everything in between. She loved his gentleness, generosity, thoughtfulness, and sexual magnetism that made her want to lie with him for an eternity.
The telephone rang and Emery went to answer it as she slipped out of her coat and shoes. Sitting on an armchair, she unhooked her nylons and rolled them down her legs unaware that Emery watched her every move. She stood up and walked into a bathroom spa. A sunken tub, twin showers, a steam room and stalks of bamboo, and candles lining a dressing table beckoned one to come and stay awhile.
Rhianna returned to the bedroom to retrieve her toiletries, smiling at Emery as he unbuttoned his shirt. “I’m going to relax in the tub for a while.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Would you like company?”
Her face grew warm. She’d never shared a bath or a shower with a man. “I’d love company.”
* * *
Rhianna shifted on her side and pressed her face against Emery’s smooth chest. “You smell like me,” she whispered in the stillness of the room.
He dropped a kiss on her damp hair. “You smell good, feel good, and taste even better.”
She giggled like a little girl. “You’re so good for a woman’s ego.”
“Not any woman, baby. Just you.”
A comfortable silence followed as Rhianna listened to the beating of her own heart. “I love you, Emery.” His muscles tensed, then relaxed. “I left Shepherd because I was too much of a coward to face the truth.”
“Which was?”
“I was secretly in love with you.”
Emery gritted his teeth in frustration. Her declaration of love should’ve had him jumping for joy, but he instead felt disappointment. “I love you and you love me, and meanwhile we’ve lost ten years.” Ten years in which she could’ve become his wife and the mother of his children.
Tears filled her eyes and streaked her cheeks. She’d gone into voluntary exile for nothing. Relocating to Los Angeles had grieved her parents and Debbie Sutherland because of her fear and cowardice.
“I’m so sorry.” The apology was ripped from the depths of her soul.
Emery felt the moisture on his shoulder and his heart turned over. “No, baby. Please, don’t cry.” The floodgates opened as he attempted to comfort Rhianna. She sobbed silently. Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he pulled her over his lap, rocking her gently as if she were a child.
He opened his mouth to ask her marry him, and closed it when he recalled her pronouncement of “no strings,” which reminded him that although they slept together she hadn’t indicated she wanted to take their relationship to another level.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. Her husky voice seemed to echo in the expansive space.
Emery combed his fingers through her short hair. “There’s no need to apologize, sweetheart. It’s just that I’m not good with a woman’s tears.”
She laughed softly. “So, Mr. Badass is not so bad after all.”
He flipped her on her back; she let out an audible gasp of surprise. She barely had time to catch her breath when his mouth covered hers before charting and mapping every inch of her body. He kissed her throat, ears, and the column of her neck, her armpits, ribs, and belly. Then he drank deeply—between her thighs—as she writhed, moaned, and pleaded for him to stop. He did, pausing only to protect her from an unplanned pregnancy.
Her pleas became moans of satisfaction when he entered her wet, hot flesh and began a dance of desire that made them forget there was a world outside the penthouse suite.
Rhianna sobbed again, not in sorrow, but in pleasure. Her breasts swelled, legs trembled, and blood scalded her flesh as she gave herself up to the ecstasy wrought from her. She’d confessed to loving him and now her body communicated in its own way.
Wrapping her legs around Emery’s waist, she arched her hips, welcoming his powerful thrusts. Together they found the tempo that bound their bodies and hearts together—for an eternity.
CHAPTER 10
Emery sat on a wooden bench trying and failing to concentrate on the daily observations he always entered into the laptop balanced on his knees. The cold wind coming through cracks in the unheated barn chilled his fingers, while the sensual memories of the weekend in New York City heated his blood. He adjusted the screen to counter the glare from an overhead lighting fixture. Staring at the blinking cursor, he began typing:
Saturday, December 24:
Time: 0400.
Weather conditions: Clear 0–9C.
All trimmed, tagged, and mated ewes appear to be in good health.
#12 and #17 have come into estrus. Will delay return and isolate for breeding.
Plan to clip wool on Bully Boy from neck to belly in the region of penis, and mark with paste on breast and forelegs for mating with #12 and#17. If mating fails, researcher/breeder requests delivery of vigorous, well-grown, early-maturing ram lamb A.S.A.P.
All will be turned out to pasture for exercise. Winter pasture is good.
He saved what he’d typed into the computer. Problems with the flock, if there were to be any, would manifest before and after lambing, whereas Emery’s quandary with regard to a slip of a woman who’d become entwined in his life was the cause of his many sleepless nights. The only time he was able to sleep undisturbed was when they shared a bed.
How had he become so used to having Rhianna in his life in a manner of weeks when it had taken months and on a rare occasion a year before he’d opened himself up to other women?
Rhianna was able to complete his sentences and laughed hysterically at his corny jokes. They respected each other’s space—he by not pressuring her to see him when she had to help out at Campy’s, and she when he had to spend hou
rs examining and observing the sheep.
He’d done and said everything he could to let her know how much he loved her, but “will you marry me?” He’d lost Rhianna once because he hadn’t made his feelings known, and he didn’t want to lose her again if he proposed marriage and she rejected him. His loss then would be more profound; it would be a final pronouncement that they would not share a love and future that promised forever.
He stared at the date: December 24, Christmas Eve and the tenth anniversary of his brother and parents’ death. The telephone call and the events that followed the fatal accident were as vivid today as they had been a decade before. Even though his grief had eased, Emery didn’t believe he would ever accept the loss.
He and Errol were inseparable as children, but once they entered adolescence their relationship changed when they became competitors. Whether it was for their parents’ attention, other girls, or grades, the gauntlet had been thrown down and a cold war had begun.
Emery had graduated at the top of his class, whereas Errol came in at twenty-three in a class of eighty-six. Errol set a school passing record as a football quarterback for Shepherd High, and he had broken a sixteen-year record as a point guard for the basketball team. The only arena where there was no competition was with the opposite sex.
Errol hadn’t given Rhianna Campbell a passing thought or glance until Emery mentioned that he liked her. Within days the rumors were circulating at the high school that Errol Sutherland and Rhianna Campbell were a couple. Emery watched his brother romance the woman who unknowingly had captured his heart with her beauty, brains, and outgoing personality. Once Reid and Anna Campbell officially announced their daughter’s engagement to Errol Peter Sutherland, Emery knew it was time to move on and stop pining for what would never be. But now Errol was gone and Rhianna had come back to Shepherd, and in a season of miracles he’d been given a second chance at love.
For the first time in a long time Emery looked forward to Christmas. His plans included driving to Scranton and reuniting with his family for the holiday. A slow smile crinkled his eyes. He spoke to Debbie at least twice a month since she enrolled in Penn State, and he looked forward to seeing if she was as mature as she sounded on the phone.
* * *
Rhianna wiped the back of her hand over her forehead, leaving streaks of flour in her eyebrows. She’d spent the last two days baking pies, and making cutout cookies and decorating them in festive holiday colors. Her parents had decided to host a Christmas Eve open house to kick off a yearlong celebration, which would culminate with Campy’s thirtieth anniversary.
Reid’s decision to close on Mondays had gotten a thumb’s up from Anna, who’d complained that operating seven days a week had become too stressful. She longed to indulge in a full day of beauty at her favorite spa, or take a train ride into Manhattan to visit a museum or to take in the sights.
The subject of her musings walked into the kitchen. “These are ready, Mom.”
Anna clasped her hands, smiled and nodded her approval. “They look too pretty to eat.” The sugar, chocolate, and gingerbread cookies were a big hit with the young children who’d come into the restaurant with their parents and older siblings.
Rhianna washed her hands in one of the three stainless steel sinks. “Please tell Joey to load the SUV with the trays for the hospital and nursing home.”
Nearly two-dozen trays of cookies and petit fours were covered in colorful plastic wrap and tied with either red or green ribbon. A card reading, compliments of campy’s, was stapled to each one. There was a tray for the members of the local sheriff’s office, bank employees, and volunteer fire department.
Anna glanced at the wall clock. It was only ten o’clock. “You’re leaving now?”
Rhianna smiled at her mother over her shoulder. “Yes. I want to get back here before the big crush.”
Campy’s Christmas Eve Open House had begun at six that morning and would end twelve hours later. Long-time customers and those who came in once in a while would be offered an all-you-can eat buffet breakfast, lunch, and dinner—gratis. It was Reid and Anna Campbell’s way of saying thank you to those who made Campy’s a landmark eating establishment in the historic Hudson River Valley.
“I think you’d better go upstairs and wash your face, Miss Betty Crocker,” Anna teased. “You’ve got flour all over your face.”
Rhianna dried her hands, then took off the net covering her hair. “I plan to shower and change anyway. I must smell like confectionary sugar and ginger.”
Anna kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“For what?”
The older woman’s expression changed, becoming wistful. “For being here. For helping out, and for being the best daughter a mother could ever ask for.”
Tears welled in Rhianna’s eyes, shimmering like precious jewels, but did not fall. “Stop it, Momma.” Emotion had lowered her voice an octave.
Blinking back her own tears, Anna sniffled. “Let me go and get Joey so he can bring everything out to the truck.”
Rhianna took off her apron, and left the kitchen through a back door. She’d deliberately pushed herself to exhaustion so that she would not be reminded that she was spending Christmas Eve in Shepherd, New York.
She’d come home to help her family and had fallen in love with a man whom she’d always loved, a man who looked like one to whom she’d given her innocence. She would always love Errol because what she’d had with him was merely a dress rehearsal for what she hoped to share with Emery.
* * *
Emery entered Campy’s and encountered a cacophony of sounds and mouthwatering smells. The jukebox blared an upbeat contemporary holiday song. The counter and booths were crowded with people ranging from fretful infants to octogenarians, who laughed loudly as they called out to one another.
Linda, the waitress who usually worked the late shift, winked at him. “All of the food is in the back, handsome.”
Emery hadn’t come to eat, but to see Rhianna before he left for Pennsylvania. His gaze searched the crowd. She wasn’t there. He walked to the rear of the expanded restaurant. Gary and Nicole stood behind a long table filled with chafing dishes serving those waiting on line.
He’d finished renovating the back porch two days before. He’d laid a black and white vinyl floor, painted the walls a soft antique white, and installed recess lights along with several rows of track lights and heating and cooling vents. The French doors running the length of the porch made it appear larger than it actually was and provided breathtaking views of the Hudson River.
He waved to Gary and walked back into the restaurant’s main dining room. He met Linda again. “Have you seen Rhianna?”
The waitress shook her head. “Not this morning. I do know she was up late last night working in the kitchen. Do you want me to find out where she is?”
“No,” Emery said quickly. “I’ll see her later. Thanks, Linda.”
“No problem, Emery. Merry Christmas.”
He smiled at her. “Merry Christmas to you and your family.”
She returned his smile with a bright one of her own. “Thank you. The same to yours.”
As Emery turned to retrace his steps, the cell phone on his waist rang. He glanced at the display, a slight frown creasing his smooth brow as he plucked the tiny phone off his belt. Quickening his pace, he pushed open the door and stepped onto the front porch. The noise inside Campy’s had escalated.
“Hello, Dr. Maddox.”
“Hello back to you and merry Christmas, son.” The elderly veterinarian had a strong, deep, rumbling voice that belied his age.
Emery smiled as he walked to the parking lot where he’d left his sports car. “Same to you.”
“I spent all morning debating whether to call you, but in the end I decided to give you your Christmas present a little early.”
Emery stopped. “What are you talking about?” His voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Now, you know I still have
what the young folks call juice over at the college, and I was able to convince several of my ex-colleagues to waive your residency requirement because you were the only one who agreed to participate in the breeding study. And I don’t have to tell you that the trustees didn’t want to turn down that much grant money put up by the sheep breeders association. You’ll get an official notification after the new semester begins, but I want to be the first to call you Doctor Sutherland. Congratulations.”
Emery, momentarily speechless in his surprise, closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer of gratitude. He’d left veterinary school with only six months left to complete his residency. It had taken ten years, but come the new year he would become Emery Patrick Sutherland, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. He’d done it! He’d fulfilled his life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian thanks to his former professor and mentor, Dr. Alan Maddox.
“Thank you, Doctor Maddox,” he said reverently.
“There’s no need to thank me, Doctor Sutherland. You’ve more than earned your degree. Remember I told you after your first week in my class that you were one of the brightest students I’d encountered in all of my years of teaching. Now, you have a merry Christmas and a new year filled with all good things.”
Emery’s smile was dazzling. “Thank you. I wish the same for you and your family. I was going to wait until after the holidays to call and let you know that there’s no need to pick up twelve and seventeen. Both have come into heat.”
“Maybe the girls are late bloomers.”
“No doubt they are. Look for me to come up around the middle of next month.”
“You don’t have to fly up anymore.”
“Why?”
“My grandson has moved off campus and is now living with me and his grandmother. The boy is a whiz with computers. You can send me your findings and statistics electronically and he’ll retrieve it for me. We can get together after the spring lambing to toss back a few.”
Emery grimaced, shaking his head even though the brilliant geneticist couldn’t see him. The last time he’d gone out with Alan Maddox to toss back a few he woke up the next day with the hangover from hell.
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