“She’ll be back,” Hunter murmured in her hair, breathing in freesias and lilies. “She left her car here, right?”
Liz nodded. Another shiver ran through her.
He shifted, turning Liz by the shoulders and aiming her toward the stairwell. A warm shower might stop the shivers racking Liz’s body. “She probably needs to go cool off for a while. Did you see which way she went?”
“Downstream. Toward the river. I told her about how she was conceived on Suicide Rock, and told her how to get there, so maybe that’s where she’s headed,” Liz said, stepping carefully on the stairs in front of him.
“You’re probably right. Let’s give her a couple of hours to get her head together. In the meantime, I want to get you in the shower and warm you up. Then I want to feed you. You’re skin and bones.”
“I thought men liked skinny women.”
He snorted. “Not when you have to starve yourself to get that way. Healthy is healthy, no matter what size. But you? You look as healthy as a scarecrow.”
In front of him, he could see Liz’s shoulders shake. With her back to him, he couldn’t tell if she was crying or laughing. Overhead an air tanker droned over the house, its heavy engines drowning out the sound of Liz’s words.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I said, in that case,” she replied with a lightness in her tone that made him breathe a sigh of relief, “I’d like a cheese quesadilla and some ice cream. Never saw anything sexy about a scarecrow.”
He forced a chuckle and steered her toward the bathroom. He’d get Liz warmed up and fed, then wait an hour until Abbie decided she’d had enough of a pout and returned. If Abbie wasn’t back by then, he’d hike out to Suicide Rock and corral the girl, then figure out how he was going to get her back to her father.
And figure out what he was going to do about Liz.
* * *
Hunter had been right: the shower warmed Liz to the bones. Wrapped in a towel, she rummaged through her closet. Earlier, when the thunderheads moved directly overhead, the temperature had suddenly dropped. A harsh wind accompanied the clouds, cooling the air about Meadowview. Abbie was wearing only a thin T-shirt, she worried. At least the girl’s jeans would keep her warm. Most likely if the weather turned too bad, the girl would do an about-face and come back home.
Well, back to Meadowview, she amended. Home for Abbie was in Colorado with her father and stepmother, and soon-to-be stepsibling, too. When the girl got back, she and Hunter would make sure Abbie knew how much she was loved and adored—by everyone.
“Hey,” Hunter’s voice startled her. She turned suddenly, knocking her head against the doorjamb.
“Ow.” She rubbed her head.
“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
Liz grinned at Hunter’s cocked eyebrow. His expression reminded her of when they were kids, without a care in the world. He leaned against the wall of her bedroom, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, one foot carelessly draped over the other. Relaxed. Nonchalant. She hadn’t seen that side of Hunter since…well, years, really.
The last few days had been so filled with emotion and strife, distrust and unease, that each had worn a layer of armor. But now, perhaps because Hunter knew he’d see their daughter soon, or maybe because he’d learned how much Liz had cared for and wanted the baby and was now willing to have a relationship with their almost-grown daughter, Hunter had lightened up.
The light that had turned on in him awoke a light in her.
She stepped forward until she came to stand directly in front of him. “I have plenty other owies you could kiss when you’re done with this one,” she drawled, paraphrasing her favorite scene from the first Indiana Jones movie.
Hunter’s eyes widened, only to narrow in a flash. His grin grew broader, but thinner and curved upward at the edges. Predatory. In a second, he’d gone from flirtatious to a sensual, primal male. He took her breath away.
He reached a hand out and slowly traced a line with his finger over her earlobe, down the fluttering pulse in her neck, then over the rounded outlines of her breasts. With a flick of his finger, he undid the tucked edge of the towel and it dropped to pool at her feet, leaving her standing naked in front of him. He rasped his finger against each nipple, first one and then the other, leaving tightening buds in its wake. He traced a trail down to her belly, drawing a circle around her belly button.
She swayed, drifting away to another time, another place. Another dimension.
“Want more?” he asked.
She trembled under his touch, forcing her concentration back to the room.
“What about…?” She didn’t want to be rolling around naked if Abbie decided to return sooner than they’d expected.
He gave a short laugh and said, “I can be quick.” Not waiting for an answer, he backed her up until her calves touched the bed. She lowered herself down as Hunter quickly ripped the button fly to his jeans open, then tugged at his shirt, pulling it up and over his head rather than dealing with the buttons.
She took him in as he stood before her, his blue shirt bunched in one hand and his pants splayed wide open. A heavy, aching need settled in her belly. She smiled, her mouth trembling, and placed a hand on her beating heart.
Hunter’s expression darkened and his mouth went firm. “You,” he said slowly. “It was always you.”
She shook her head, puzzled. What had always had been her?
“Why are there pictures of me in that closet in the attic?” he asked. His mouth was set in a grim line.
Had she done something to make him angry? She thought he wanted sex. But now—she couldn’t read him.
“The closet, Liz. Why are there pictures of me, and newspaper articles? That one article is only two years old. Why did you keep pictures of us as kids, as teenagers?” His voice grew thick. “What am I doing in that room?”
What did he want from her? She pulled her arms around her middle, suddenly vulnerable. Did he want her to tell him how much she’d loved him once?
That she’d never stopped?
“I…” The words strangled themselves in her throat. Where would she start? At the beginning, at age fourteen, when she realized she’d fallen in love with the boy who’d been her best friend since they both were in diapers? Or at the pivotal point, when she lost him forever?
“You were the baby’s father, the one who helped create her. I…”She struggled for air, for the right words to say. “I can’t…” Couldn’t what? Tell Hunter she loved him? Bare her soul? Risk rejection?
“Never mind,” Hunter said, shaking his head, a sad half-smile on his lips. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”
He came down on top of her then, kicking off his boots and pants until he lay naked over her, his hands going wild—touching, caressing, penetrating.
A storm built within her, matching the storm that built outside. Flashes of lightning, roars of thunder—she didn’t know if they were real or in her head.
“I want you, Liz,” Hunter whispered. “I’ve always wanted you.”
A flurry of passion hammered in her chest, waves of desire washed over her. He wanted her. Hunter wanted her.
Underneath her fingertips, she could feel the silken sensation of Hunter’s skin as her fingers meandered down his back. In turn, his created an intricate dance down her belly, to the crease where her thigh met her pelvis.
“So soft,” he murmured.
Her mouth opened to release a shuddering sigh. “Now, Hunter. Now,” she gasped, sucking in air, craving the heady oxygen rush. Craving his body, craving the sensation of him inside her. Hunter positioned himself over her, bracing himself on his forearms.
He entered her smoothly and they fit seamlessly, so close, as if they shared the same body. And then he began to move. Slowly, one deep and penetrating beat at a time, until his hips moved in time to their heartbeats, hard and fast and pounding.
Firmly, he slid a palm beneath her and held her to him as he rutted, his movements varying betwe
en tender and loving and harsh and punishing, as if Hunter himself couldn’t figure out how he felt.
His breath hot and ragged, he groaned in her ear. She lost herself then, crying out with each powerful thrust, unaware of the words coming out of her mouth, only aware of Hunter and his body carrying her upward, of Hunter joining with her on the journey to release, of Hunter connected to her more than with his body alone.
She climaxed with a strangled cry, her hands enmeshed in the thick fullness of his hair. He thrust against her, his head buried in her neck, his breath harsh, crying out her name with the force of his own ecstasy.
Outside the window, a faint glow of lightning warmed the darkening sky; a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. The clouds they’d seen on the horizon earlier that morning had moved a little closer, bringing with them the hint of a coming storm.
Nature: profound, powerful, and real.
Like their lovemaking, she thought. There’d been no artifice in what she and Hunter had experienced out at the meadow, or here on her bed. She hadn’t pretended to be someone she wasn’t. He’d been Hunter and she’d—she’d been his Lizzie. The way they once were.
Before today, the last time she’d felt real was before she’d lost Hunter and the baby. After that—well, after that she hadn’t wanted to be Liz Pritchard anymore.
But Hunter had brought who she’d been back to life. Knowing he’d once loved her, that he’d once wanted their baby, had awakened her long dormant self. Making love to him had rekindled her fire to live. She loved him. Plain and simple, she loved him.
She’d tell him, she decided. She’d tell him tonight, after Abbie returned and they got the girl situated. She’d tell Hunter how she’d given up on life until he’d walked back in to hers.
* * *
Hunter draped an arm over Liz’s slender hip, caressing her silken skin. He brushed a faint eyelash off her cheek and let his fingers drift across her lips. Her eyes still shut, she kissed his fingertips with red and swollen lips. He felt a surge of regret. Had he kissed her that hard? A roll of thunder distracted him. The storm that threatened would break soon.
“We should get dressed,” he murmured.
Her eyelids fluttered open. Her lips parted as if to speak, but instead she only nodded in agreement. He couldn’t yet bear to move, and lay there a few minutes more, intoxicated in her scent and closeness and the brush of skin on skin. Making love with Liz had been heady stuff. But with a wayward daughter he’d never met running around in the woods, lying around naked with Liz all day didn’t seem such a bright idea.
The risk had been well worth it, though. He dropped a kiss on Liz’s smooth shoulder and grinned. He stood, stretched, and gathered their clothes up off the floor, handing Liz hers. She headed to the bathroom while he finished dressing in her room. He tugged the quilt in place on the bed and went downstairs to wait for Liz. Once Abbie came back, he’d contact the girl’s father and figure out how to get her back home. But before then, he and Liz needed to talk.
Liz hadn’t answered him fully when he’d asked her about the photographs and mementos of him in the attic room. She’d mumbled something about him being the baby’s father, but he didn’t buy that as an excuse. Those clippings and photos of him told a different story.
Liz had loved him once, and he aimed to find out if she still did.
He heard a commotion on the stairs behind him and turned in time to see Liz stumble down the remaining steps.
“Ow,” she said, swiping a hand at her knee. She’d abandoned the preppy shirt and skirt he’d seen her in earlier and had dressed in jeans, faded and threadbare from being worn for years, and an emerald green T-shirt that hugged her breasts. Her shoulder blades poked at the soft fabric. The fabric over her knee had spilt and was now tinged in red.
“Damn. I skinned the other knee on the same loose step.”
“At least you match now,” he said, chuckling, glad when she eased out a smile.
He motioned for her to sit on the couch before heading off to hunt up a bandage and spray antiseptic. He knelt before her, bandaging her up, then motioned for her to make room for him on the couch.
“Should we be worried about Abbie wandering alone out there?” she asked. Her fingers slid between his as she took his hand in hers.
The simple act of holding her hand sent a thrill down his spine. Her cheek pressed against his bicep and brought warmth to his heart.
“Yeah, probably,” he said, turning to pull her into his arms. He looked at her and smiled. Her eyes glittered, lit by an emerald fire that tore straight through his chest and into his heart.
A flash of brilliant light shot through the room and their connected gaze broke. Both Hunter and Liz held their breath, mentally counting, the way they used to as kids, trying to judge how far off the storm was. Five seconds later a booming clap of thunder sounded, rattling the house.
“Only five seconds. And loud.” Liz’s eyes held worry.
He smoothed Liz’s silken hair, steadying her. “Counting seconds isn’t exactly scientifically correct, but that storm is definitely moving in.”
Lightning sliced through the sky again, and the searing sound of thunder had Liz close to jumping in his arms. She looked at him, wide-eyed and pupils dilated. He knew her thought: Abbie needed to get inside, out of the building storm.
“I know,” he said, squeezing her forearms in reassurance. “No more waiting for her to get back. I’ll go out and look for her.”
“Thank you,” she whispered and kissed him, soft and sweet, her lips trembling under his.
He’d slanted his mouth and deepened the kiss when the doorbell sounded.
Liz tore her lips from his, exclaiming, “Abbie,” then ran to the door.
He took a moment to tuck his shirt into his jeans. No sense in having his first meeting with the girl be with him looking like he’d just crawled out of a bedroom. He heard Liz pull open the creaking door as thunder crashed again.
“Oh,” he heard her say in a voice that sounded dead and empty. “You’re the last person I thought I’d see at my door.”
Abbie cowered, covering her ears with her hands as a blast of thunder shook the earth around her. Once again, she’d made a mistake. A gigantic, colossal mistake. She hadn’t thought when she ran out of Liz Pritchard’s house. Just got all wrapped up in one of her hissy fits, like her dad accused her of always doing, and ran. Right down some stupid rocky creek, straight toward the lightning storm of the century.
The idea of going to Suicide Rock and throwing herself off the granite face had seemed so perfectly tragic. Everyone at school would cry at her funeral and would talk about how—out of despair when her birth parents had rejected her—she’d thrown herself off the very cliff where she’d been conceived.
What had been such a beautifully tragic story an hour ago now seemed incredibly stupid. Especially since there was lightning coming down all around her and she was standing in the middle of a freaking creek. She’d paid attention enough in her science classes to know that water plus electricity equaled something very, very bad.
Lightning flashed before her, snaking its way down to the earth like a freaking silver sword. The pattern, so bright, burned into her eyes. She saw an offshoot arc away from the bolt and spear a large, dead tree on the hill beside her. The lightning bolt disappeared as fast as it had arrived, but then the tree seemed to shift in her line of sight. She blinked, not sure if her eyes had been injured by the blast of white, but the tree kept shifting and shifting until she realized her eyes weren’t playing a game on her but that the tree was falling.
Straight toward her.
She screamed and stumbled backward, sloshing through the calf-high creek, not sure in which direction to run. The earth-shaking whumph the tree made as it hit the earth sent another scream through her throat, then a sob of relief when she realized the tree had landed nowhere hear her—she was safe.
At least for now.
Panic bubbled up inside, triggering tears
and sobs. “Daddy,” she cried out, not knowing she’d said the word until she heard the sound of her own voice screaming over the whipping of the dry and cracking wind.
She wanted her father—needed him. But he was all the way in Tallahassee. Too far to save her. If she died out here today it would kill him, she thought. She couldn’t do that to him—couldn’t die. She loved him too much. And he loved her.
“Dream Child,” he’d called her. After her mother died, he’d rock her to sleep in his arms every night, telling her the same story, the one about how he and her mom had woken up one morning, each having had the same dream: a dream about a little redheaded girl becoming their daughter. And as if like magic, they’d found her.
She wanted her dad. She wanted to go home.
She pulled the phone out of her back pocket to check for bars. Still no service. Duh. What had she expected out in the boonies? Hiccupy sobs started but she swallowed hard. With the world collapsing around her, she needed to focus if she was going to get back to her dad. At least she knew the way back to Liz Pritchard’s house—all she had to do was follow the creek upstream. She took a few deep breaths to calm her racing pulse, and sloshed her way to the creek bank. She crawled out and headed upstream.
Three strikes of lightning hit all around her, one after another, cracking and hissing and sending her hair snapping in the air as it filled with static electricity. She screamed, stumbling, then screamed again when she felt a mind-numbing, intense pain explode in her leg.
* * *
Hunter narrowed his eyes at the impeccably dressed man with hair gone early to pewter and matching grey eyes who stood in the doorway. His stance, arms crossed over his chest, legs planted wide, sent a charge of anger through Hunter. Arrogant bastard. Hunter crossed his arms in response.
“What are you doing here, Gerald?” Liz’s voice had lost its strength.
“I couldn’t get you on your cell,” the man answered, not moving toward Liz. “I was worried, so I flew out to get you. But I see you have company.” The man nodded to Hunter, who resisted the urge to grab him by his thousand-dollar shirt and toss him off the porch. He knew who this man was. What he couldn’t figure out was why the hell Liz would want to marry a man who didn’t even attempt a kiss, much less a hug, when he saw her.
Claiming The One (Meadowview Heat 3; The Meadowview Series 3) Page 14