“I didn’t want him to want me,” Alana said.
Her voice was strained, her eyes tightly closed, memories and nightmares turning. She shivered despite the warmth of the cabin, for she was feeling again the cold afternoon before the storm, hearing fragments of words, Jack cursing, reaching for her.
“I think—” Alana’s voice broke, then came back so harshly that it sounded like a stranger’s. “I think Jack wanted me on Broken Mountain. I think we fought about it.”
From the front porch came the sound of Stan’s laughter as he and Bob shouldered each other to see who would be first through the door.
Alana swayed alarmingly. Her eyes opened, black with memories and nightmare combined.
“No,” she whispered. “Oh, God, no.”
14
A LANA DIDN’T HEAR the clatter of plates as Rafe put them on the table and stood close to her, not touching her, prepared to catch her if she fainted.
Rafe was afraid she was going to do just that. Her skin was as pale and translucent as fine china. Her pupils were dilated to the point that only a small rim of brown remained.
“Jack was laughing,” Alana whispered.
Rafe’s eyelids flinched. He bit back the words he wanted to say, the futile cry that she shouldn’t remember. Not yet. Reality was brutal.
And Alana looked so fragile.
“The lake was ice cold and Jack was laughing at me,” she said. “All my clothes, my sleeping bag, me—soaked and so cold. He said I could sleep in his sleeping bag. For a price. He said he’d be glad to warm me up.”
Rafe’s breath came in swiftly.
Alana didn’t notice. She heard nothing but the past that haunted her.
“At first, I didn’t believe him,” she said numbly. “Then I tried to ride out. He grabbed my braids and yanked me out of the saddle and kicked Sid until she bolted down the trail. He—he hit me. I couldn’t get away. He wrapped my braids around his hand, holding me, and he hit me again and again.”
Rafe’s expression changed, pulled by hatred into savage lines of rage, the face of a man who had once gone through a jungle hell like an avenging angel.
Alana didn’t see. Her wide eyes were blinded by the past that she had hidden from herself, but not well enough.
Not quite.
“Then Stan tied me and dumped me on a rock ledge by the lake,” Alana said. “He said we wouldn’t go down the mountain until I changed my mind. When we come down off this damned mountain, you’re going to heel for me like a bird dog. And then he laughed and laughed.”
Rafe reached for Alana with hands that trembled, rage and love and helplessness combined.
He couldn’t touch her.
“But Jack didn’t want me,” Alana said in a raw voice. “He just wanted to—to break me. I think he must have hated me.”
Alana’s eyes closed slowly. She made an odd sound and covered her mouth with her hand.
“It was so cold. The lake and the rock and the night. Cold.”
The words were muffled, but Rafe heard them, felt them like blows.
Helpless.
In the silence of his mind, Rafe cursed the fact that Jack Reeves had died quickly, painlessly, a hundred feet of darkness and then the deadly impact of granite.
Alana drew a deep, shuddering breath. When her eyes opened, they were focused on the present. She ran shaking fingers through her hair. Short hair. Hair that couldn’t be used as a weapon against her, chaining her.
“That’s why I cut off my braids,” Alana said, relief and pain mixed in her voice. “I’m not crazy after all.”
“No.” Rafe’s voice was soft and yet harsh with the effort of holding his, emotions in check. “You’re not crazy.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, trying to smile. “Because I have a really crazy thing to ask you.”
“Anything. Anything at all”
“Run your fingers through my hair. Take away the feel of Jack’s hands.”
Rafe brought his hands up to Alana’s head, ready to retreat at the first sign of returning fear. Gently he eased his fingers through her soft, short hair.
Slowly closing her eyes, Alana concentrated on the sensation of Rafe’s strong fingers moving through her hair. She tilted her head against his palms, increasing the pressure of his caresses.
Chills of pleasure chased through her.
“More,” she murmured.
Rafe’s fingers slid deeper into the midnight silk of Alana’s hair, rubbing lightly over her scalp, caressing her.
“Yes,” she sighed.
Alana moved against his hands, increasing the contact, deepening the intimacy, until the heat of Rafe’s hands surrounded her, taking away memories, warming her.
When Alana opened her eyes, Rafe’s face was very close. His concentration on the intimate moment was as great as hers. So was his pleasure. By quarter inches he lowered his mouth to hers, waiting for the least sign of the fear that might come when she realized she was caught between his hands and his lips.
Alana’s answer was a smile and a sigh as her lips parted, welcoming Rafe. He kissed her very gently, not wanting to frighten her. Her arms stole around his waist, held him.
“You feel so good,” Alana whispered against Rafe’s lips. “So warm, so alive. And you want me. Not to break, but to cherish.”
She kissed him slowly, savoring the heat of him, shaping herself to him, absorbing him like a flower absorbing sunlight.
“So warm,” she murmured.
Rafe felt Alana’s breasts press against him as her arms tightened around him. Hunger swept through him, a fierce surge of fire.
“Very warm,” he agreed, smiling, nibbling on the corner of her mouth.
One of Rafe’s hands slid from Alana’s hair to her shoulder, then to her ribs. Instead of retreating, she moved closer. Her scent and sweetness made the breath stop in Rafe’s throat.
Slowly he moved his hand away from the soft temptation of Alana’s breast. With light touches he ran his right hand over her back, enjoying the rest hence of her body. His left hand rubbed through her hair, then stroked her neck.
Finally, slowly, he moved his left hand to her back until he held her loosely in his arms.
“I’m not frightening you, am I?” Rafe asked huskily.
Alana shook her head and burrowed closer to him.
“I love your warmth, Rafael. When I’m close to you like this, I can’t even imagine ever being cold again.”
The front door slammed open.
“Hey, sis, where did I put the—oops, sorry!”
Rafe glanced up over Alana’s black cap of hair.
Stan, who had followed Bob inside, gave Rafe a long, enigmatic look.
“Lose something?” asked Rafe mildly, keeping his arms around Alana.
“My net,” admitted Bob. “I had it when I came in for dinner, but I can’t find it.”
“Last time I saw your net,” Rafe said, “it was leaning against the back door of the lodge.”
“Thanks.”
Bob walked quickly around the dining room table and out the back door. When he realized Stan wasn’t following, Bob called back over his shoulder to the other man.
“Come on, Stan. Don’t you know a losing cause when you see one?”
The instant Alana realized that Bob wasn’t alone, she stiffened and turned to face the living room.
Stan was walking toward her.
Quickly Alana spun around, holding on to Rafe’s arms as though he were all that stood between her and a long, deadly fall.
“Stan,” Rafe said.
Rafe’s voice was quiet, yet commanding.
Stan paused, waiting.
“The trout are rising,” Rafe said. “Why don’t you try that dark moth I tied for you? The one we both agreed on.”
“You sure it will get the job done?” Stan asked sardonically. “You have to be real careful with trout. If they get away, they’re even harder to lure the next time.”
“What I’ve made matches
the environment almost perfectly,” Rafe said, choosing each word with care. “That, and patience, will get the job done. Ask Janice.”
Stan paused, then nodded.
“I’ll do that, Winter. I’ll do just that.”
Without another word, Stan brushed past Rafe and Alana. In a few seconds, the back door banged shut.
“Two bulls in a china shop,” Rafe muttered, resting his cheek against Alana’s hair.
Alana shifted in Rafe’s embrace. Immediately he loosened his arms. She moved closer, kissed him, and stepped back.
“I’m going to change clothes and then do the dishes,” she said. “You should get into fishing clothes and help Stan win his bet with Bob.”
“I’d rather stay here. With you.”
“I’m all right, Rafe. Really. Stan startled me. He looks so damn much like Jack.”
“Are you afraid that Stan is going to pick you up and throw you in the lake?” asked Rafe, his voice easy, casual.
Alana stood very still for an instant before she slowly shook her head.
“No. I don’t think . . .”
Her voice died and her eyes were very dark. She said nothing more.
“What is it?” asked Rafe softly, coaxingly.
“I don’t think that was the worst of it,” she said starkly.
“Alana,” he whispered.
She stepped away from Rafe.
“I need to think,” Alana said, “but when you’re near, all I can think about is how good you feel, how patient you are with me, how much I want to reach back four years and touch love again. Touch you.”
She took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll catch up with you at sunset, when it’s too dark to fish.”
“That’s two hours from now,” protested Rafe. “You won’t even know where Stan and I will be.”
“Sound carries in this country. And Stan has the kind of voice that carries, period. I’ll find you.”
“We’ll be fishing just below the cascade,” Rafe said. “If you don’t show up before sunset, I’m going to stuff Stan into his own net and come looking for you.” Then, softly, he said, “I wanted to fish with you tonight.”
“Oh, no,” Alana said, shaking her head. “I can hear your fly line whimpering for mercy right now.”
Rafe’s smile flashed, softening the hard lines of his face.
“But,” Alana added, running her fingertips across his mustache, “I’d love to watch you fish. You please me, Rafael Winter. You please me all the way to my soul.”
Then Alana turned and slipped from Rafe’s arms. Hungrily he watched her walk across the living room to the loft stairs. His skin tingled where she had touched him, her scent was still sweet in his nostrils, and he wanted her so much that he hurt.
Abruptly Rafe turned away and went to the downstairs bedroom. With quick motions he changed into his fishing clothes. Then he let himself out of the cabin quietly, knowing if he saw Alana again, he wouldn’t leave her.
Alana changed into jeans and a sweater and had the kitchen cleaned longs before sunset. Her mind was working as swiftly as her hands. She reviewed what she remembered about the six missing days, and what she didn’t.
She remembered parts of the ride up the trail with Jack Then the first night . . .
Was it the first night when Jack and I fought? Alana asked herself silently.
Frowning, she stacked wood in the stove for the morning fire.
Three days in the hospital, of which she remembered only one. That left three days unaccounted for.
No, two.
We must have spent one day traveling to Wyoming and one night at the ranch house, Alana thought. So it must have been the first night on Broken Mountain, up by the lake, when Jack threw me and my clothes and my sleeping bag into the lake.
Alana’s body tightened as she remembered what had followed. Jack had slapped her all but senseless when she had tried to run from him. That was the night she had spent curled over herself on a piece of granite, shivering.
That’s why I’m so cold in my nightmares, Alana realized. Memory and nightmare combined.
She let out a long breath, feeling better about herself. Not all of her fears were irrational.
But then, why does the sound of a storm terrify me? Alana asked herself.
The wind hadn’t been blowing that night. It hadn’t been storming. No lightning. No ground-shaking thunder. Alana was certain of it. If that night had been the ice-tipped storm of her nightmare, she would have died of exposure before morning.
Yet wind and thunder and ice were a vivid, terrifying part of Alana’s nightmares.
“The storm must have come the second night on Broken Mountain,” Alana whispered, needing more than the cabin’s silence to comfort her. “The night I fell.”
The night Jack died.
“Why did Jack untie me? Did I give in, go to him?”
The sound of her own questions made Alana shudder. She wasn’t certain she wanted to know if she had traded her self-respect for a dry sleeping bag and cold sex with Jack. Prostitution, in a word.
Alana waited, listening to her own silences, sensing her body’s response to her thoughts.
Nothing changed. No nightmare closing around. No fear. No sense of connection with hidden reality.
“All right,” Alana said tightly. “It’s probably not that. Did Jack get too drunk to be patient? Did he untie me, rape me, beat me?”
Once more, Alana waited, forgetting to breathe, anticipating the return of nightmare as her waking thoughts closed in on the truth.
Once more, nothing came.
When Alana remembered Jack hitting her, her stomach-turned over and her breath came shallowly.
When she thought of submitting to him, there was . . . nothing. When she thought of being raped, there was . . . nothing. No fear, no desire to scream, no sickness rising in her throat, no chill, no hammering heart or cold sweat. None of the physiological signals that had warned her in the past when she was approaching the truth.
If the truth could even be approached.
Abruptly Alana pulled off her apron and went to find Rafe, unable to bear any more questions, any more answers, any more fear and silence.
The path to the lake was overgrown, clearly showing the bruised grass that marked the passage of at least two people. Alana walked quickly, barely noticing the crimson cloud streamers stretched across the sky. Nor did she see the deep amethyst mountain slopes crowned by luminous ramparts of stone, nor the fragrant shadows flowing out of the forest around her.
The path approached the lake at an angle in order to avoid an area that was a bog in the early summer and an uneven, rough meadow in the fall. Winding through the trees, yielding only occasional glimpses of the water, the path kept to the forest until the last possible moment.
Alana heard Rafe and Stan before she could see them. At least, she heard Stan, his voice pitched to carry above the exuberant thunder of the cascade. She could only assume he was talking to Rafe.
Then Stan’s voice came clearly and Alana was certain. He was talking to Rafe.
“No, you listen to me for a change, Captain Winter, sir,” Stan said sardonically. “I’ve got a nasty mind for situations like this. I was trained to have a nasty mind.”
There was a pause, but whatever Rafe replied was lost in the sound of the cascade. Alana hesitated, then continued toward the lake, screened by spruce and aspen.
“Try this scenario on for size,” Stan said. “There’s a woman you’ve wanted for years. Another man’s woman. It grinds on you real hard. So the woman you want and the man you hate come up here for a little camping trip.”
Alana froze in place, suddenly cold.
She didn’t want to hear any more, but she couldn’t move.
“You wait around, see your chance, and chuck good old Jack over the nearest cliff,” continued Stan. “Then you go to collect the spoils.”
“. . . half-assed pop psychol . . .” Rafe’s voice wove in and out of the cascade’s th
roaty rumble.
Stan’s voice was as clear as thunder.
“But she’s not used to that kind of violence,” Stan said. “She runs away. She spends a night in the open, cold and exposed. And then she just shuts it all out, forgets.”
“. . . leave the thinking to people with . . .”
“Her amnesia leaves you with a real problem,” Stan said, ignoring the interruption. “If she remembers, it doesn’t matter whose friend the sheriff is. Your ass is in a sling.”
Alana took a ragged breath and continued down the trail. She stumbled like a sleepwalker, using her hands to push herself away from the rough trunks of the trees that seemed to grow perversely in front of her feet, as though to hold her back
“. . . crock of . . .” Rafe’s voice faded in and out of the cascade’s thunder.
“I’m not finished,” cut in Stan, his voice very clear, carrying like a brass bell across the evening. “You can save yourself by marrying her. She won’t go telling tales on her own husband.”
“Jesus, you’ve been reading too many tabloids.”
“Maybe. From what Bob tells me, good old Jack wasn’t much of a loss to this world, so it’s not like Alana is going to spend a year mourning the son of a bitch. Besides, it’s plain enough that she likes you.”
“You noticed,” Rafe said sarcastically.
“You’ve got a little problem, though. If she remembers before you marry her, you’re up shit creek without a paddle.”
“Then why am I helping . . .”
Alana leaned forward, straining to hear all of Rafe’s words. She couldn’t. Unlike Stan, Rafe’s voice became softer, not louder with anger.
Rafe was furious.
“Are you really helping her to remember?” retorted Stan. “Then why in hell won’t you let me off the leash?”
“. . . Janice.”
“Janice would do a marine crawl through hot coals for you, Winter, and you damn well know it!”
“I’d . . . same for . . .”
Alana left the trees behind and began walking over the rocks and logs that were between her and the lake. Each step brought her closer to the men.
Closer to their words.
“And I’m supposed to just shut up and go along with the program,” shot back Stan.
Forget Me Not Page 18
