by Theresa Weir
Jessie realized that she had already decided in favor of the idea, without giving much thought to the fact it would mean spending the day in Luke’s company, in places they had been before, places where they had once been happy. She wavered, suddenly afraid.
Luke glanced up, sobering. “You don’t have to go if you’d rather hang around town or something. I can take her myself.”
Right. She trusted him with his child, but not that much. “I’ll go,” she said. “But I want to stop by the hotel and change my clothes. I know how cold it can be up there.”
Then, thinking of the sweaters and shawls she wore in place of coats, she sighed. Coats were too heavy and bulky for anything but the coldest days. She had not brought one with her. “I don’t suppose you have a spare jacket I could borrow?”
“Sure.” He shook his head, smiling at Giselle. “You can’t get her to remember her coat, either?”
Giselle rolled her eyes. “She’s stubborn.”
Luke laughed. “Yep.”
As they left the city behind, Luke found the tensions of the past twenty-four hours begin to bleed away. They rode in his truck, Giselle between them, bundled with scarves and mittens and layers until she resembled a roly-poly little bear. Tasha, the wolf mix, rode in the back of the truck, over which Luke had put a simple camper shell. A narrow road took them into the canyon, past picnic spots and hiking paths he knew intimately.
Jessie pointed. “Look—chipmunk hill! Do they still live there?”
“No. A few years ago there was some kind of fight over the water in the creek, and sometimes it was dry for long periods at a stretch. The chipmunks moved on. Some of the trees started to die, and finally the officials or whoever agreed to let a certain amount of water out of the reservoir at all times.”
“How sad,” Jessie said.
Luke gave her a smile. “People need to learn to use water like the Navajo.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
Giselle lifted her head. “Daniel says everybody needs to learn how to live with the land like Indian people do.”
“Is that right?” Luke nodded. “Does he still live on the reservation?”
Jessie chuckled. “No way. He’d be miserable.”
A minor pluck of annoyance pricked Luke’s chest at the fond intimacy of her tone. “Where does he live, then?”
“Albuquerque,” Giselle offered. “Just a little ways from us. Sometimes I walk over there after school if Mom is busy.”
Luke looked at her, wondering why he should be so bothered by that little tidbit of information. He hadn’t seen Daniel in fifteen years—why should Luke care if he lived close to Jessie? Except—
Except he did care. He tucked the knowledge away to examine later, and pulled smoothly into a leveled spot and parked. “We’re here.”
Jessie leapt out of the truck eagerly. Luke climbed out from his side and helped Giselle down. Jessie, wearing jeans and one of his heavy, sheep-lined jean jackets, waited for them at the back of the truck.
A wind swept off the mountain and tangled in Jessie’s hair, and Luke found himself mesmerized by the look of her against the trees and water. There was so much about her that hadn’t changed—her thick, long hair and the wide oval of her face—but time had made her a woman. Her hips were sturdier, her thighs and belly not so slim. As a girl, she’d been pretty, with an elusive sorrow in her eyes, but there had been a lack of definition about her then. Newly forged strength of character underlying the still-winsome features gave her a vivid, clear beauty.
He went to stand beside her. In silence, they admired the view. Helen Hunt Falls poured in a rush of noisy silver over a wide shelf of rocks. Around the pool grew pines and aspens, and above rose the mountain, its summit buried in pearl gray mist.
“What an honor to have something so beautiful named for you,” Jessie said, and he could tell by the quality of her voice that it still moved her deeply.
Luke glanced at her from the corner of his eye and saw she was close to tears. He smiled to himself. Nothing made Jessie cry—except beauty. Her acute sensitivity to it was what made her such an extraordinary painter—and one of the things he’d found irresistible, once upon a time.
To give her a chance to absorb and manage her reaction, he opened the truck bed and let Tasha out. The dog, excited beyond bearing at the plethora of new scents and the promise of adventure, moaned low in her throat and wiggled and bumped into Jessie’s leg, licked her hand, and then licked Giselle’s face.
Giselle giggled, pulling back and yet holding on to Tasha’s fur.
“Tasha!” Luke said sharply. “Settle down.” He managed to get her leash on, but again she wiggled and jumped and moaned in excitement, jumping up to put her enormous paws on Luke’s chest and lick his face.
He laughed and scrubbed her neck. “Come on. We’ll freeze if we don’t keep moving.”
At the edge of the pool, they paused to stare at the rush of water singing over the rocks. The falls moved too fast to freeze, but tiny silver icicles had grown on nearby rocks and trees.
“Wow!” Giselle cried. “It looks like a fairy place.”
Jessie laughed in delight. “It does!”
A sharp wind gusted toward them from the road, cold as knives. “Let’s get walking,” Luke urged. “There won’t be so much wind higher.”
The snow wasn’t deep, and the path was designed to accommodate the thousands of tourists who passed through the Pikes Peak Region every year. It climbed at a slow, steady rate, rising higher and higher above the creek. A streamer of cloud detached itself and dropped into the narrow valley, and Luke touched Giselle’s shoulder, pointing with his chin to the sight.
“Oh!” she said in a breathy voice, and touched her chest in wonder. “We’re above the clouds! Mom!” She grabbed Jessie’s hand. “It is magic here!”
Jessie smiled, and Luke saw the scene reflected in a pearlescent wash over her face. “It makes me think of Brigadoon,” she said to him. “As if some enchanted village will appear at any moment.”
“Maybe an enchanted Indian village,” he amended, chuckling. “Nobody else around here two hundred years ago.”
That seemed to give her pause and she looked around her, as if seeing the scene with new eyes. “I wonder what it was like then.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Luke said, and grinning. “Course, it would have been enemy territory in those days.”
Tasha tugged hard at the leash, straining to sniff some invisible marker on the trail, and Luke let himself be pulled upward. Giselle skipped ahead.
“Stay close!” Jessie called. “Don’t get out of my sight.”
“And stay off the rocks,” Luke added. They had rotted. The gift shop below had an entire bulletin board filled with newspaper clippings of unwary climbers who’d tackled the rocks in good fun, and fallen. A grim but cautionary testament to the harshness of the mountains.
Walking next to him, Jessie hummed as she looked toward the tops of trees and absorbed the scenery. It was a breathy little sound, some of the notes lost in the lower ranges of her throat, but it tugged Luke’s memory. He struggled with it for a moment, but couldn’t place the song.
They walked a ways in silence. Luke wanted to hear her talk. He cast about for a subject that would be safe. “Your work must be doing pretty well, if you can threaten gallery owners.”
“Yes.” She smiled a little shyly. “I’m still surprised every time someone buys something, isn’t that silly?”
“Understandable.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. A New York gallery called a few weeks ago—nothing’s firm or anything, but they’re exploring the possibilities.”
“That’s great,” he said with a smile. “You know, you always had what it took. You just hadn’t found your style yet.”
“There’s always a lot of luck and timing involved, though. I know artists far more talented than I am who aren’t selling much.”
“Did you stick with portraits?”
Oddly, she b
lushed, and he remembered Giselle telling him that there was a portrait of Luke in her house. “Some, but they aren’t traditional.” She blew on her fingers. “What seems to be selling are my paintings of women.”
“Like what?”
“There’s a series about a midwife that I really enjoyed doing. In fact—” she gave him an impish smile “—you know who I used as my model?”
He shook his head, pleased at the animation lighting her golden eyes. “Tell me.”
“Mrs. O’Brien. Do you remember her?” She frowned. “Giselle, not so fast! Wait for us.”
Mrs. O’Brien—an Oregon widow who lived nearby the Columbia River. They had worked for her the summer before they came to Colorado. “How could I forget? She made the best biscuits I’ve ever tasted. I’ve been trying for years to figure out how she did it.”
“I know how,” Jessie said teasingly, with a smug toss of her head.
“You cook?”
She rolled her eyes. “That or starve to death. Giselle couldn’t grow up on fast food, now, could she?”
“Well, you gotta admit it wasn’t one of your strong suits.”
She shrugged. “No one ever taught me.”
Luke inclined his head in acknowledgment of the subtle reference to her mother.
He cleared his throat, unwilling to delve into anything gloomy this afternoon, not when the ease between them was so sweet. “I like the idea of Mrs. O’Brien as a midwife.”
“She was perfect, Luke.” Unconsciously, he was sure, she touched his arm, leaning close in her eagerness. “There’s one of her in an herb garden, with those gnarled hands and cornflower eyes.” She flashed a mocking grin. “I haven’t sold it yet, even though I’ve had several offers. Can’t seem to let it go right now.”
“I remember another one you didn’t want to sell—that tiny one of the little girl we saw in Tijuana?” He eyed Giselle’s back and tipped sideways to keep her in sight as she disappeared around a curve. “Not so fast, Giselle!”
“I sold that when I went to Albuquerque. It tided me over.”
That gave him a pang. Idly, he tapped the tobacco in his jacket pocket. “So what other kind of women do you paint?”
She gave him an uncertain look. “Are you really sure you want to hear this? Most people find descriptions of paintings pretty boring.”
“You forget, Jessie, I was your number-one fan a long time before anybody else realized how good you were.”
Her gaze didn’t stray, but he saw a flicker of something oddly stricken cross her face. “I didn’t forget.” With a little shrug, not looking at him, she said quietly, “I’m pretty sure there would have been no paintings at all if it hadn’t been for you.”
He touched her hand on his arm. “So tell me about them.”
She looked at him, then back toward the up sloping path. “Well, I just sold a group called ‘Canning Time.’ It’s kind of a historical feeling, I guess—the thirties. Four women doing all kinds of things in a kitchen—getting the fruit, washing it, laughing.”
“I’d really like to see them.”
Suddenly she seemed to realize how intimate they’d become, walking close on the snowy path, enveloped by the silence of the winter day. She snatched her hand back and slipped it deep into the pocket of her coat. His coat.
Luke let her retreat. In a moment, he heard her breathy hum start up again. This time, the song clicked in. “I’m On Fire.” Evidently, he wasn’t alone in remembering how it had been between them.
Biting back a grin, he started humming along, loud enough for her to hear. A bright pink splash of color flooded her cheeks. He nudged her gently, chuckling.
She bent her head, but said nothing.
They walked for a long time in the soft gray day. Jessie finally protested that she needed to rest, and they paused at the edge of a wide, high field, blanketed with unbroken snow. Giselle and Tasha raced into the snow, kicking up sprays and tumbling each other into it.
Luke felt the cold air and the brisk walk in his blood as a tingling glow. Next to him, Jessie leaned against a pine, laughing as she watched Giselle. “I should get her a dog,” she said. “I had no idea how much she liked them.”
“Tasha’s not just any dog. She’s the greatest dog I’ve ever had.”
“Really?” Jessie grinned up at him, cocking her head. A fall of hair rippled down her arms. “What about Boris?”
“Yeah, Boris was great, too.” He rubbed his cold nose with cold fingers, thinking of the shepherd that had accompanied him on his wanderings for ten years. Every night for three weeks after Jessie left him, Boris had paced the house and howled mournfully.
“What happened to him?”
“He was so big, his hips started to go. I had to have him put to sleep. He couldn’t walk anymore—I even had to carry him outside to do his business.”
She regarded him steadily, a softness of sympathy in her eyes. It struck him all at once that it was Jessie standing here next to him. She was smiling gently, as if she wanted to tell him she knew how hard that had been for him, that she knew he’d wept privately when he buried his dog. She was the only one he’d ever let close enough to see that weakness in him. Embarrassed, he glanced away.
Overhead, an enormous blue jay—a camp robber—claimed a branch. With a flurry of wings and noisy straightening, he harangued the intruders, screeching at them like a fishwife to get out of his territory. Jessie laughed.
“You still like those evil creatures?” Luke asked.
“Yes, I do.” She grinned. “They’re sassy and strong.”
Drawn by her grin, he stepped closer and then paused. All at once, the tumult of emotions that had risen at the surprises of the past day dropped away. Left in its place was a calm, sharp desire—a hunger that had never ceased, not in eight years; a need that still thrummed through him, like the eternal sound of drums in a heartbeat. He wanted her. Plain. Simple. Clear.
He licked his lip. “You’re a blue jay,” he said, touching the array of bracelets on her wrist and then the earrings winking through her hair.
“Am I?”
Earlier, she had kept up walls of fear between them when he stood this close. Now there was nothing, only Luke and Jessie the way they’d always been. Before she could protest, he bent and brushed a kiss over her cold lips.
The contact sent a zinging rush over his nerves. In the tiny second it took, he felt the slight dryness of her chapped lips and a hint of the warm moisture beyond. Her hair brushed his cheek, and her chin jutted up a little so she could meet him halfway.
He lifted his eyes to meet her surprised gaze. A snowflake caught on her cheek and he brushed at it, feeling his heart thump and his soul swell a little from the headiness of finding something lost. In her eyes he caught a flicker of pain and fierce desire. He winked.
Before she could protest, he quickly stepped away and joined his daughter in the snow.
* * *
The walk back took much less time. Jessie felt oddly free and calm as they hiked down. She and Luke didn’t speak, but she felt his kiss lingering between them, not quite a promise, not fierce enough to be a threat. He seemed as content as she to simply be quiet.
Back at the truck, Giselle begged to be allowed to ride in the rear with Tasha. Jessie frowned, and Luke shook his head firmly. “Nope—there are tools and all kinds of other junk back there right now. Maybe another time.”
Exhausted by the long walk and her romp with Tasha, Giselle looked mutinous. Jessie recognized the expression and stepped forward to gather her into a hug before she fell to pieces. “I think,” she said to Luke over her daughter’s head, “we have one very tired young lady here.”
He returned her smile. “I’ve got some stew at the house. Some lunch and a nap and she’ll be fine.”
“I really think we need to go back to the hotel.”
“Why would you want to pay good money to eat at a bad restaurant when you can eat my home cooking for nothing?” he said lightly, opening the bed to let
Tasha into the truck. “If you want to go back to the hotel after lunch, I’ll take you.”
Holding her daughter close to her chest, Jessie looked at him. His black, glossy hair was tousled from his play in the snow, and the wind had stung dusky color into his high cheekbones. Tasha leapt into the truck and turned to give an adoring, thankful lick to her master’s chin. Luke scrubbed her ruff, smiling fondly.
It was so easy for Luke, Jessie thought. He just opened up and loved things—dogs and cats and cloudy days and little girls. So easy. And they all loved him right back.
Just as Jessie had.
Her silence stretched a long time. Luke seemed to sense her gaze and he turned. Across the snowy ground, with a child of their making and a cold wind between them, they looked at each other. His strongly chiseled face was grave. She hoped hers showed nothing, but was afraid he could still read her all too well.
“Hotel or rabbit stew?” he asked at last.
Jessie couldn’t repress the chuckle that rose in her throat. “You didn’t tell me it was rabbit.”
He slammed the doors closed on the back of the truck and winked. “Tastes just like chicken,” he said, tongue-in-cheek.
Jessie inclined her head, thinking with relish of his fragrant stews. “It’s been a long time.”
“Is that a yes?”
She nodded. “I guess it is.”
He grinned, and the expression gave his eyes a devilishly sexy tilt. “Will you show me how to make Mrs. O’Brien’s biscuits?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pretending reluctance. “Maybe her biscuits are one of those things that just needs a woman’s touch.”
“Maybe. It’s worth a try, eh?”
“Sure.”
Giselle fell asleep before they had driven out of the canyon. She slumped against Jessie’s shoulder. “I am definitely buying this child a dog,” Jessie said quietly. “Tasha wore her out—and believe me, that’s no small feat. She’s like that battery—she just keeps going and going and going…”
Luke glanced at the girl. “She’s out cold now.” He shook his head and signaled to join the main street out of the canyon. “She’s so much like Marcia, it’s almost eerie.”