by Nancy Radke
She looked about her, entranced, as Adam walked outside and began to lower the shutters. Comfortable, beautiful and exciting. And the view was more spectacular than the rocky point she rode to, on his land.
“I’ll bet the sunrises and sunsets are marvelous,” she called out, envious.
“Can’t beat ‘em. You’ll like it here.”
She would. But only if Adam shared it with her.
A braided rug lay in front of a small freestanding iron stove which would heat this unit easily in winter. She strolled past it, examining one wall half-covered with books, ranging from Louis L’Amour westerns to veterinary and economics texts. There was a desk with a phone, computer and notebooks on it, a file cabinet, chairs and stereo system — and a huge bed. A door stood ajar, revealing a small bath.
Stepping out onto the balcony, Jo saw Adam’s telescope mounted on the railing. It was focused on the road and she swung it towards her house. There was Gramps, outside in his rocker, field glasses to his eyes, looking back. Had he seen her? She’d better get off the balcony.
As she started to step back, the end of the telescope rose a hair and Jo saw the mirror in her bedroom as well as if she stood inside. And if Adam could see her mirror, then he could see everything when her drapes were open.
Gramps was right. Adam had been spying on them. “Adam!” she yelled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Adam shot around the corner, stopping abruptly when he saw where she stood. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. You can see right into my room,” she accused him.
“Only when the curtains are open,” he agreed slowly, coming up to stroke the barrel of the scope.
So he had looked in. “And how long has this been going on?” she fumed, angry enough to spit nails.
He froze, staring at her, mouth grim. “Just once.” He sounded reluctant, like he was forcing the admission.
“Once?” She didn’t believe him and her tone showed it.
“Once. You haven’t been home since I built my house here on the ridge. And the last few days, I was carefully avoiding looking your way.”
“Then why the once? And when?”
“The other night. I can explain.” His voice was quiet, troubled.
“You’d better.”
“The folks who live in the old Renshaw place called and asked me to check their back acreage. A truck had gone by earlier and they hadn’t seen it return. I did, then swung the scope in a swift check ending with Gramps. I’d got into the habit of doing that before you came home....” He paused, troubled eyes focused on the cold, dark instrument.
Jo blinked, but remained silent, letting him explain.
“Your room was dark, but you were sitting on your window sill—”
“Like I usually do,” she added, remembering how long she had sat there. She also remembered how skimpy her nightgown was and felt her face redden.
He was watching her now, intently. “You looked straight into my eyes.”
Thinking of you, Jo added to herself. “Go on,” she prompted him.
“I don’t want to lose your trust, Joanna. Out in the truck, just now...” he touched her cheek with his free hand, then continued as she pulled away, “So precious. I don’t know how to say this. I’m not like Peter — I wouldn’t hurt you for anything — yet I....” he paused again, shaking his head, his mouth clamped tightly. “I’m sorry...but I didn’t stop myself until you left the window.” It was costing him a tremendous effort to tell her.
She stared up at him, not knowing what to say. His confession didn’t bother her as much as perhaps it should. She stared hard at the telescope, turning it around on its stand.
“It didn’t hit me fully till I had rescued you from Peter this morning. I hadn’t quite realized what I’d done till then.”
“I don’t see—”
“Wait, please. Everyone has a right to privacy...and... and I violated yours. Your gown covered more than what you swam in, but even if you had been fully dressed, I had no right to look.” He took her hand in his, desperately searching her face. “Can you forgive me? It wasn’t right for me to look without your…being aware.”
He stopped, stricken, then groaned in despair. “Have I lost what I gained, Jo? Are we back to where we started? Or worse?”
Uncertain what to say, she didn’t answer.
Grasping the scope, Adam said, “Would it help if you take this thing with you? Then you’ll know I’m not up here watching.”
Jo touched it, uncertain. Should she take it with her? That windowsill was her favorite thinking place. And some nights, when it got too hot, she slept without a nightgown.
He continued, slowly. “I can promise you I’ll never look at your room again. But I’d rather you took it with you, so you’d know. I was sick when I realized what I’d done. Thoughtlessness is not an excuse.”
He shook his head in disgust at himself, then searched her face again. “Answer me, Joanna. Have I ruined everything?” He paused, his jaw firmly clenched as he awaited her answer.
Jo stared blankly beyond the valley below, its features darkened by the approaching storm, the rain already drenching the lower areas.
What should she tell Adam? If it had been anyone else, she would have been angry enough to take the scope home. So what made it different with Adam? Was it his evident sorrow at what he had done? That was partly it, but there was more.
She swung her gaze to the mountains, seeking an answer. There was a difference. It was “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” It was because sometime in the past few days she had begun to feel as one with him.
It was his having the right to look—because she loved him and wanted him to have that right—and because he loved her. Of that she was almost positive. He couldn’t be such an accomplished actor, could he?
He had never actually told her he loved her. He used terms of endearment so freely, perhaps they didn’t mean anything. Jo wished she knew for certain. Probably he’d tell her — when he was certain. She wouldn’t worry about it. She had plenty of time with this engagement to make him fall in love with her. But she knew how she felt and could act on this matter accordingly.
“Jo?” he groaned, wanting her answer.
Her decision made, she released the instrument to reach up with both hands on either side of his troubled face, responding to his need for assurance.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t know why, but somehow — if it’s possible — I trust you even more.”
“You mean that?” he asked, eyes wary, head tilted slightly away. “You aren’t just saying—”
Raising on tip-toe, she kissed him with all the love and meaning she could put into a kiss. Convinced, Adam responded with a shout of relief, catching her up in a powerful hug.
“Angel-girl, precious, wonderful love.” He kissed her again and again with delight, triumphantly claiming her lips. “Thank you.”
She noticed the similarity in the two brothers when Adam scooped her up and spun her about in celebration, a grin splitting his face from side to side as he fairly danced around the catwalk with her.
“Put me down,” she begged, laughing at his antics.
“Yes, ma’am.” With exaggerated pomp, he carried her into the room and then dropped her on his bed. It swayed under her and she patted it with her hand.
“A waterbed?” she asked, feeling the motion start and then stop beneath her. “I didn’t think anyone had these anymore. Isn’t it old fashioned?”
“Yes. But they are so warm in the winter. This one’s about shot.”
“Wait there while I put this thing away,” he said, going outside to retrieve the telescope, a new bounce to his step. Taking out a cloth, he wrapped up the delicate instrument. “You can take it with you. Just don’t give it to Grampa though. I wouldn’t want him to be watching me through my own telescope all day.”
His remark spurred Jo’s memory, and she sat upright, stricken. “Oh, no. He was watching. Just now. Coul
d he see us?”
Adam frowned. “Maybe. How strong are his field glasses?”
“I don’t know...but he must be able to see something. He keeps using them. I’d better go home, right now.”
“Nothing doing.” he grumbled. “You can’t spend your life running back to him.”
“But he’s alone,” she protested, wringing her hands.
“Your folks are due home. Let’s see if they’re anywhere near. Stay inside.” Striding out to the balcony, he set the telescope up again, and soon had it adjusted. “There’s Gramps, he looks okay, he’s using the cell phone...and your Dad is just pulling into the driveway. So you can relax.”
Jo let out her breath and sank back onto the waterbed. “Good.”
Adam secured the rest of the shutters and came inside, carrying the telescope. “I’ll box this and send it home with you. You can use it for star-gazing if you want.”
Jo knew where she’d want to look, and suddenly she realized just what he’d been doing that night...wanting one last, final glimpse of her. If she took the telescope home, she’d do the same to him.
It was any lover’s wish...to see, to hear, to touch their love just one more time. Adam had responded to that wish. And now he was putting the temptation into her hands.
“Don’t you need it to check the roads for parked trucks?” she asked as she kicked off her high heels.
“Yes, but I want you to know I’d be looking at the roads and not straying to your window.”
“I can always keep my curtains drawn. Why don’t you let me decide what I want you to see...now that I know.”
Wiggling her toes, she stretched out fully, enjoying the comfort. “Let’s strike a bargain. You feel free to look anywhere you want to with that thing — including my room — and I’ll feel free to install blinds if I want.”
“So it’s blinds now, is it? Afraid the curtains will blow in the breeze?” His eyes gleamed with mischievous humor as he reverted back to the Adam she knew best.
“Maybe I’ll put up black-out curtains,” she mused, “or maybe those one-way thingys. Or maybe,” she teased, bold now, “maybe I’ll take down what’s there and leave my windows bare.”
He glared sternly at her as she impishly provoked him. “And maybe you’d better get off that bed. You say things like that and maybe I might join you.”
The desire to lure him on was overwhelming and Jo, feeling daring, gave in. “This is a heavenly bed,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “Most people don’t have them anymore. I’d forgotten waterbeds were so comfor—- oh.”
Adam had rolled on beside her, sending early-warning waves ahead of him. She struggled to sit up but he caught her and pulled her back down.
“Feeling sassy, are you? Let’s see how you like this?” His mouth came down consuming her, kissing eyelids, lips, ears, throat...and she responded with a great need for him, clasping him to her in fiery longing, lips parted as she tried to catch his, the soft warmth of the waterbed increasing their passion. It swayed gently underneath them, the water giving a protesting swish when Adam shifted his weight.
Their great need for each other, held under such rigid check for so long — when finally set free — knocked aside all restraints, slamming into them with the force of a powerful wind and leaving them clinging shakily to each other. Jo pushed back to catch her breath, causing Adam to sit up, quickly.
“Are you all right?”
Not really. She’d just entered the tornado stage of this relationship and been swept off her feet. She was still flying through the air, far above the ground and earthly matters. “Sure I am.”
“Maybe you should be careful. Don’t you realize how tempting you are, lying on my bed, with your hair spread out like that?” He trailed his hand through her hair, lifting the strands, enticing her to respond. Without hesitation, she turned her face into it and blew on the palm.
“Oh, darling.” He breathed in hard, visibly struggling to regain control of himself. “You do like to live dangerously, sweetheart. Behave yourself.”
“Why?” she challenged, very satisfied with his response as his hands began to caress the overly sensitive skin on the nape of her neck. It wasn’t going to be hard to make him fall in love with her. He had to be halfway there already.
“Need you ask?” he said, sitting back away from her slightly. “Actually, I’m discovering...something...I should’ve realized would happen.”
“What’s that?”
“Simple. The more I’m with you.... Well, a few days ago this wouldn’t have bothered me.”
She relaxed completely, enjoying the ecstasy of his touch, thrilling to the love she felt for him, and finding that the more she relaxed and succumbed to his touch, the stronger the sensations that pulsed through her. “That’s nice.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “but you were safer up at the lake than here. You’d better get up.” It was almost a threat... as if he soon would no longer be accountable for what happened. Jo decided she’d better do as he asked.
As if to support his request, the intercom switched on and his mother called up. “Adam, we’re home. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”
With a groan he rolled off the bed and stood up, pulling her into his arms, nuzzling the sweet perfume of her hair. He kissed her once, then several times, fervently, as though she answered a deep empty hunger within him. She felt the same way and returned his kisses with such ardor that again he had to forcibly separate them.
“Darling, if we keep this up and at this rate, I don’t think we’re going to last a week, much less a summer. You ruin my self-control. It’s getting harder and harder to resist you...to keep my hands off you.”
“Yes, dear,” she murmured.
He responded by kissing her, hard. “Do you realize it’s the first time you’ve said that? Maybe we’ll be able to convince Gramps, after all.” He helped her straighten her dress and then handed her a comb, watching as she carefully straightened out the flowing mass of reddish gold. “Even when you do that, it thrills me. I think you’ve bewitched me.”
Happy to hear that she was conquering him emotionally, Jo faced him for inspection. “Will I do?”
He shook his head, amused. “Well, your dress is straight and your hair looks nice...but—”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning back to the mirror.
“You look like you’ve just won the sweepstakes.” She had — him. At least she expected to hear his declaration any time now.
“You don’t look too settled yourself,” she shot back pertly, vividly alive in her new love. He must surely be able to tell.
“Ah, yes, the price we must pay.” He sighed dramatically. “Let’s go, little one, and face Johnny’s teasing.”
He held out his hand and she placed hers into it, along with her heart, and they walked down the hallway together.
Johnny’s remarks were few, limited to a knowing glance and some double-edged statements. The look of comprehension in the eyes of the rest of Adam’s family told Jo they could read sign also.
She went immediately to Adam’s grandparents and gave them each a hug, then to Carole, knowing that a hug heals wounds faster that words. Carole embraced her with tears in her eyes, and murmured, “Please, don’t be a stranger anymore. Don’t wait for an invite to come.”
“I’ll come,” Jo promised.
“Even if Adam isn’t home.”
“Now, Mom...,” he objected.
“I will,” Jo promised, wrinkling her nose playfully at him.
He stood there looking at her, the pride and admiration he felt clearly showing in his eyes. He looked like he had just won the lottery also, and Jo thought them both a pair, to even wonder if the rest of the family would decipher what the glow of happiness on their faces meant. One would have to be blind not to see it, or deaf not to hear it in their voices.
At that moment, the house shook as a mighty gust of wind hit, followed in a few seconds by a loud clap of thunder. Murray shot through the d
oor and under Adam’s feet, almost knocking him down. The thunderstorm had struck with all its force, making the air dance with electricity.
“Get out, Murray,” Johnny ordered, but Adam stopped him.
“He’s frightened. The thunder sounds extra loud to him. Let him be.”
Nodding her approval, Jo helped Carole put the steak on the table. The phone rang, and Johnny sprang to his feet, announcing, “That’s for me.” — causing the others to exchange smiles as he ran to answer it. It would have to be Karen, no one else would dare call.
He had that silly look, too. It must be catching.
The pallor that swept across his face as he looked her way should have forewarned Jo. “It’s Karen,” he said, his voice suddenly empty of expression. “She’s at the hospital. Your grampa... he’s had a heart attack....”
Johnny held out the phone as Jo walked quickly over, her face cold with shock.
“Karen?” Adam had followed and stood behind her, his head close, one hand on her shoulder as he listened. She could hear Karen on the other end, sobbing, trying to get control to speak. A death-like calm swept over Jo.
“Can you come? We...we’re at the hospital.”
Jo lifted stricken eyes to Adam, who nodded. “I’m on my way,” she said. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Was anyone with him?”
“Yes. We’d just entered the house. Gramps was talking on the phone...to someone.” Her voice was so low and torn with crying that Jo could hardly hear.
“Go on.”
“He just collapsed.”
“Could you tell why, Karen. Any reason? Did he say anything about Adam and me?”
“He saw Dad and asked if it were true....”
“True? What?”
“About you and Adam.” She stopped to clear her throat.
“And?” Jo prompted, stunned, barely feeling the tightening of Adam’s fingers on her shoulder.
Karen burst into tears again. “And Dad said, ‘I’m afraid it is’ ...or something like that, and...and Gramps dropped to the floor.”
“Is he still alive? Karen? Karen!”