by Cindy Gerard
She should have felt more panicked. But it was getting harder and harder to remind herself that she couldn’t afford to let love happen. Not after a lifetime of learning the hard way that love was nothing more than an illusion. Lasting love, at any rate. From family. Between a man and a woman. She knew firsthand that denying that belief meant losing herself in dependency, degrading herself in need. She’d never intended to let herself fall into that trap again.
Yet as she watched her lover sleep, her intentions crumbled like dust in the wind. Blue Hazzard hadn’t given a hoot about her intentions. And now she was coming close to not giving a hoot about them, either.
“How did this happen?” she murmured in weary frustration as she lay back beside him and stared toward the ceiling for answers. Instead of answers, she got memories. Memories that reminded her why she was here and why she was a fool to have let herself get so involved.
No one had ever guessed the lie she had lived with Rolfe Sebastion. No one had ever known she was little more than a prisoner of Rolfe’s making.
She’d been seventeen when she’d moved to New York. Full of high hopes but no prospects, she’d been waiting tables and scurrying from one cattle call to another with dreams of making it as an actress when Rolfe Sebastion discovered her. The most acclaimed fashion photographer in the States had taken her under his wing as his student, his protégée, his favorite model. And when she’d turned eighteen, he’d made her forget all about her dreams of Broadway when he took her as his lover.
She wiped away a tear that pooled in her eye as she thought back to how easily he’d woven her into his web. Life as she’d known it had been an unending cycle of deprivation and neglect. Except for the Snyders, Rolfe was the first person to offer her an alternative. He’d developed her; he’d nurtured her; he’d enchanted her. Enchantment had turned reluctantly to disillusion, disillusion to painful despair as Rolfe’s nurturing degenerated over the years to demands—demands that had grown ugly and manipulative and as controlling as the sex that she’d mistaken for too long as love.
A determined tear escaped, trickling down her cheek and falling to the pillow. She’d thought he loved her. She’d been wrong.
And here she was again, deeply embroiled and deeply caring for another man. She turned her head to look at Blue. He was a man who was so unlike Rolfe it gave her new hope. A man who would, nonetheless, break her heart when he found out how weak she was, then leave her, in disgust, because of it.
But not today. He was not going to leave her today. She dried her eyes, giving in to the pleasure she found in his company. She wasn’t ready to let him go. Maybe she wouldn’t even be ready next week, she admitted, shamed by her greed but too needy to let him and the joy he brought her go just yet. Not just yet.
Eight
When summer smiles in Minnesota, it’s with dazzling blue skies, crisp, clean air and a seductive heat rivaled only by the warmth J.D. felt as he watched Maggie.
He’d tied the Cessna to the dock and was standing on a float, alternately working on the engine and watching her and Hershey play on the beach. She stood knee deep in the water, wearing that neon blue swimsuit that hugged her body like he wanted to. The wind played with her shining chestnut hair; the July sun kissed the honeyed silk of her skin. And his heart melted a little more when she laughed as Hershey bounded around like a pup, begging her to throw a piece of driftwood into the water for him to fetch.
He turned back to the Cessna, knowing he was grinning like a goon and not caring a whit that he was. Just as he was loving every minute of loving Maggie.
The week since they’d first made love had been like an unending scene from every romantic movie he’d ever seen. They were Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks on the top of the Empire State Building. They were Bogey and Bacall on the edge. They’d made love by moonlight, skinny-dipping and giggling like kids, then collapsing like ancients, completely worn from the exertion.
One day he’d taken her berry picking in the hills where the wild blueberries grew in scattered foot-high clumps. They’d tiptoed around the bear signs, picked and ate their fill of the plump, juicy fruit and ended up making love there, then teasing each other mercilessly when he’d sported stained elbows and knees and she’d come away with a blotched purple bottom. Teasing had turned to loving again when they’d scrubbed each other clean in a long, steamy shower infused with hot sultry kisses.
The memory had him closing the engine cowling, taping it shut and wiping his hands on a grease rag as Maggie’s laughter bubbled on the wind again when Hershey barreled into the water after the driftwood like an out-ofcontrol torpedo.
He couldn’t remember when he’d been a happier man. Couldn’t remember a woman who had ever given him more. Except for one thing. Maggie shared her body and her spirit and her delightful sense of play without holding back. But her past, her deepest thoughts, her feelings for him, she guarded like Hershey guarded his favorite bone.
Time, he reminded himself as he hiked the distance to the beach to join her. Time and patience and someday she’ll trust you enough to share.
“You have no shame. No shame at all,” he scolded as he hit the beach and gathered her in his arms.
She laughed up into his eyes. “What?”
“You know I’m a sucker for those legs, Stretch. And here you are, parading around in that skimpy little suit, showing more legs than a turkey at Thanksgiving. It’s hard on a man, I tell you, and you ought to be ashamed.”
She draped her wrists around his neck and leaned back into the circle of his bare arms. “A turkey at Thanksgiving? You really do need to work on your lines, Hazzard.”
He shared her playful smile. “I thought that by now you’d have realized I’m a man of action not words. But,” he added, lifting her into his arms and walking into the water, “I guess maybe you need a reminder.”
She laughed. “I hate to break this to you, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one in the swimsuit here. You’re the one who’s getting your jeans wet.”
“Oh, I noticed the suit all right.” His gaze prowled the length of her bare legs and the soft swell of her breasts pressing against the deep V of fabric that dipped between them. “And unless you want me to strip it off of you in front of Hershey and any ogling fisherman who happens to troll by, I need a little cooling-off period.”
She threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape, playing with it. “You always need a cooling-off period.”
He stopped, thigh deep in the lake, and cocked a brow. “Is that a complaint?”
“Actually…no,” she said with a coy little look. “I think maybe it’s a compliment.”
He snorted. “So…already I’m reduced to a sex object.”
One delicate hand, fingers splayed wide, trailed down his bare chest and caressed. “And you love it.”
“Yeah, I love it,” he growled, lowering his mouth to hers to steal a quick, hot kiss. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to make you pay.” With an ornery grin, he dipped her bottom in the cold water.
She squirmed out of his arms with a laughing squeal and swam away from him. A half beat later, he dove in after her. Hershey joined the fun that turned into a full-fledged water battle and ended with J.D. coaxing Maggie to stand on his shoulders and dive off.
When they were pleasantly exhausted, they stretched out on the beach to dry out in the midmorning sun.
J.D. turned on his side to face her, propping his head on his palm. “It’s time, you know.”
“Time?” she murmured lazily. “Time for what?”
He ran a finger from the bottom of her chin, down her throat and stopped just short of where fabric met wet flesh between her breasts. “Time for the ultimate test of trust.”
She shaded her eyes with her hand and stole a wary glance at him. He wasn’t too thrilled about the look that darkened her face. Neither was he thrilled about having to constantly skirt the questions he wanted to ask about her past and her life and why she didn’t feel comfortable tru
sting him with it. But he’d gotten her this far. Far enough, he suspected, that she might just be falling in love with him. Far enough that he didn’t want to back her into a corner and scare her off.
“You know you can’t put it off any longer, Stretch,” he said with mock sternness. “It’s time for you to come to terms with the other love of my life. It’s time you trust me enough to come fly with me.”
A look hovering somewhere between relief and horror flitted across her face. Her gaze strayed warily to the Cessna then returned to his, full of determination and denial.
“I’m not going up in that thing.”
He only smiled.
An hour later, she had changed into pink shorts and a white T-shirt and was sitting in the shotgun seat, Hershey having good-naturedly given it over to her for a spot in the back. After sputtering about the duct tape holding the dated cloth upholstery together, she repeated her mantra for the hundredth time since he’d started his coaxing, cajoling and sweet-talking.
“I’m not going up in this thing.”
For the hundredth time, he ignored her. Very calmly he fastened her seat belt. “Now, let’s go over this again. If I thought for a moment you or I were in any danger, I’d never ask you to fly with me. The plane is old, Maggie, but she’s not inoperable. She’s a beautiful vintage piece of machinery.”
She glared at him.
“So she’s a little old. That only makes her better. They just don’t make ‘em to last like this these days. But if it will make you feel better, even though she’s a 1956 model, inside is a newer engine. In fact, FAR—Federal Aviation Regulations,” he clarified when her scowl deepened, “requires that the engine be replaced every fifteen hundred hours. This engine only has a little over a thousand hours on it.”
She gripped the door handle on one side and the armrest on the other. Focusing first on the yoke directly in front of her that was a twin to his, then on the duct tape holding a cockpit’s version of a glove compartment closed, she stared straight ahead. “I’m not going up in this thing.”
Undaunted, he kept up his babble to soothe her as he pushed the fuel mix button, turned on the key and flipped the motor switch. Watching her face, he engaged the starter, gripped the throttle and gave the plane fuel.
“We’ll taxi into the wind,” he shouted after the engine had sputtered to life. “There’ll be a nice crosswind once we get out of the bay. About fifteen knots, I’d guess. Perfect lift.”
“I’m not going up in this thing.”
He grinned over at her, noticed her white-knuckled grip and kept up his slow, soothing monologue. “We need about a thousand feet of water for a runway. There’s more than enough here, on a nice, glassy surface. Takeoff speed is only around sixty miles per hour—no sweat, right? Once we get airborne we’ll cruise at about one-twenty.”
“I’m not…Oh…my…God…” Her words drifted off on a rising note and a breathless little whoosh as the Cessna gained speed, J.D. pulled back the yoke and they took flight as gracefully as a Canadian goose set on migration.
“Open your eyes, Maggie,” he shouted with a laugh when he turned and saw she had squeezed them so tightly shut he was afraid he’d need a crowbar to open them up. “Enjoy the ride.”
“Enjoy? I am not going to enjoy this! Blue, please, I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” he insisted with a gentle smile. “I’d never let that happen. But you’re definitely going to miss the scenery if you don’t loosen up. Come on, Stretch. Where’s that brave, battling wildcat who used to always be ready to take a dare?”
He was starting to feel some real concern that she wouldn’t be able to overcome her fear enough to relax. Even more, he was beginning to feel a dark and brooding anger toward whatever—or, more precisely, whoever—had doused the fire in her soul and dampened her spirit of adventure.
Carefully holding the Cessna on a straight flight path, he throttled up to one hundred miles per hour and climbed slowly to eight hundred feet, thanking the gods for a low barometer reading, which meant fair winds and smooth flying.
“Weren’t you supposed to file a flight pattern or something?”
He angled a look her way, relieved to see she’d opened her eyes and was reluctantly braving a few darting glances out the window.
“Nah. Not up here. The air traffic is limited to float planes and an occasional small charter. At this altitude, I’d see any plane long before it got close enough to cause a problem. Besides, other than my plane, only Red Soldiers hires out, and his bird is in for repairs.”
“Why are we shaking?”
“Relax, Maggie. This is not a car. The engine sound alone—not to mention the wind—causes vibrations. All is well. I promise. Please trust me on this.”
The mention of his promise seemed to help. So did his appeal for trust. She let out a deep, if shaky breath and loosened her grip on the armrest.
“Are you cold?” he asked when he noticed she’d wrapped an arm around her waist. “I can drop a little lower. The temperature dips a little the higher we climb.”
“No, I’m fine…relatively speaking,” she added in a feeble but game attempt at a grin.
“That’s my girl. Now, please, quit worrying and enjoy the sights. Not everyone gets a chance to see the lake like this.”
Slowly, Maggie made herself relax. Slower still, she convinced herself she was being foolish. Blue’s words— Where’s that brave, battling wildcat who used to always be ready to take a dare?—had hit the mark. In truth, they’d pierced it, sunk deep and, while he hadn’t intended them to, had twisted painfully.
It was difficult to admit that somewhere along the line, in addition to being reduced to a woman whose heart occasionally stopped at shadows in daylight and whose mind sometimes twisted night sounds into night fright, she’d become afraid to live. Rolfe had done that to her.
But she wasn’t with Rolfe now. She was with Blue. In the sunlight, in the pure air. In the sweet, safe comfort of his promises.
It hit home suddenly that she was dangerously close to trusting him with her life. A life she was beginning to believe could be rich and full and safe.
Above anything else, that’s what she wanted. To feel safe. To feel anchored. That’s why she’d come here in the first place. She’d wanted to return to this northwoods setting, where she’d been truly loved; it represented the best part of her past and the only part of her present worth preserving.
And as she rode the air currents of this brilliant summer sky with Blue so dazzlingly handsome and self-assured beside her, she allowed herself to think that the very best might have just begun.
She let out a deep breath and knew that because of him, she could overcome her fear. Not just of going out on a limb and flying in his Cessna, but of living, of always expecting the worst.
Overcoming her fear felt good. But to experience that fear turning to tolerance and then, most unexpectedly, to a sizzling excitement and a warm and wondrous pleasure was something else. Blue, as usual, was right. It was wonderful up here. And she realized with elation that she was enjoying the ride.
The lake country was beautiful from any angle, but from above, it took on another dimension of vast, untamed elegance and wild, unprecedented magnitude.
“I recognize that look.”
She turned to him when his voice broke into her thoughts. “What look?”
“The one that says you’re about to eat your words for lunch.”
She fought a smile. “And what words might thosebe?”
“Oh, I think they went something like, ‘I’m not going to enjoy this.’”
She conceded with a grin even though he looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I was getting a little hungry anyway.”
He chuckled and turned his attention back to the plane.
“Thank you,” she said, placing a hand lightly on his arm.
He only smiled, looking both pleased and relieved, then turned back to the business of flying.
“Do we have a destination in mind?” she asked a few minutes later as they cruised the skies over hundreds of acres of blue-water bays that trailed like long, spidery fingers into the jagged shoreline of timber and rock.
“Since you said you were hungry, I thought I’d treat you to something special.”
When she pressed for more information, he only shook his head. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Fifteen minutes later, Blue set the Cessna gently down in a narrow inlet, then taxied to a huge dock that materialized out of the wilderness like an oasis in the desert. Several boats of various sizes and shapes were moored along the dock’s bumpered sides.
“Where are we?”
“The honest-to-goodness last frontier. Crimson Falls.”
The moment he shut down the engine she could hear the distant roar of water rushing over rock and wondered if there could actually be a waterfall nearby.
Before she could ask, Blue broke into a broad grin and waved at a pretty teenage girl who was jogging down a grassy slope.
Brown as a berry from hours spent in the sun, the petite strawberry blonde, dressed for July in a bright yellow tank top, short worn cutoffs and bare feet, ran the length of the dock, grabbed the tip of the Cessna’s wing and held her steady against the backwash of water that bumped her against the pilings.
Blue shouldered open the cockpit door. “Hey, Casey. How’s my one true love?” he teased, tossing out a rope.
Casey’s laughing brown eyes and tanned face beamed as she dropped to her knees, batted the single thick braid of red-blond hair behind her back and latched on to the rope.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Blue said when she tied a perfect sailor’s knot and made the Cessna fast. “Best dockside service on the lake.”
“About time you showed your ugly face around here again, J. D. Hazzard.”
Maggie grinned as Blue managed to look wounded. “Ugly? Is that any way to talk to your own personal heartthrob?”