by Diana Palmer
She started to wear sandals, but mindful of the sand, she put on some white pumps instead.
Nate was waiting outside the cabin, still wearing his gray suit. He smiled at the picture she made in her dress. He couldn’t imagine how she’d remained single so long, even if she hadn’t prettied herself up. She had a sweet, caring nature and so many good traits that her looks were just a fringe benefit—not the reason he liked her.
“Nice,” he pronounced, helping her into the car. “I hope you feel like Chinese food. I’ve got a yen for it tonight.”
“I love it,” she said. “Sweet and sour pork and egg rolls and hot mustard sauce! Yum!”
He chuckled. “My favorite, although I’m partial to pepper steak.”
“Did I even thank you for rescuing me from the snake?” she asked as they drove along. “I was so shaken up, I don’t remember.”
“You aren’t the only one. I was pretty shaken myself,” he admitted. He glanced toward her. “Rattlers can kill, even in this day and time. And even if they don’t, it’s a painful experience. I took a bite in the leg when I was in my teens. They barely got me to the doctor in time, and I spent three days in the hospital. Damned thing still swells at the same time I was bitten every year,” he chuckled. “They can’t explain that, but it happens all the same.”
“No wonder it bothered you that I almost got bitten,” she murmured, thinking the memory would have resurfaced for him.
“It bothered me because I don’t want anything to happen to you, Christy,” he said.
“Because I’m a guest on your property,” she nodded, understanding.
He scowled. “My God, do you believe that?” he asked angrily. “Hasn’t it dawned on you yet that I was worried about you? It didn’t have anything to do with your being a guest, or my old memories.”
“No, it didn’t occur to me,” she said honestly. She smiled. “I’m not much to look at, even with my glad rags on…”
He muttered something violent under his breath and pulled off the road, into the privacy of the shade of a palo verde tree and stopped the car.
“I care about you.” He said it slowly, looking straight into her eyes. He watched her blush. “That’s right. I care. I don’t want to, and it’s interfering with my life and all my notions of freedom, but there it is. I just haven’t quite decided what to do about it yet.”
Her lips parted. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her heart was beating like a tom-tom deep in her chest, and the look in his eyes made her want to climb on top of the car and dance a jig.
“I’m glad. That you…like me, I mean,” she added shyly. She looked down at his chest, noticing its heavy rise and fall. “I’m still sorry that I gave you the wrong impression at first.”
“You didn’t. I read what I wanted to read into the way you looked and acted. That was a defensive action.” He sighed and traced her cheek with a lean, strong hand. “Oh, Christy, you’re under my skin, girl. But there are so many reasons why I should let you go back to Jacksonville that I don’t have a single argument for keeping you here,” he said, and there was finality in his voice. That, and an expression that she couldn’t quite understand in his eyes—a bleak look that puzzled her.
“I know that you don’t want anything permanent,” she said gently. “It’s all right, Nate. I’m not asking for a single thing.”
“That makes it harder to let go,” he replied. He sighed softly. “Come here and kiss me, Christy.”
He unfastened her seat belt and pulled her into his arms, kissing her slowly, and with a new tenderness. He wrapped her up in his lean arms, and his mouth asked things of her that it hadn’t before. It asked for comfort, for reassurance. It asked for love.
She slid her arms around his neck and gave him back the soft, slow kiss without a thought of withdrawal. Even when his hands found her breasts and cradled them with quiet possession, she didn’t protest. She belonged to him. He had every right to touch her.
His head lifted. His arm tightened around her while his free hand loosened the buttons of her bodice and slid inside. He watched her face while he touched her. “Anything I want?” he whispered softly.
“Yes,” she confessed.
He bent and brushed his mouth lazily over hers. She felt the cool air wash over her, because the bodice had been pulled away and so had her bra. Her breasts, hard-tipped and swollen, lay open to his warm gaze in the dim light of the setting sun.
He looked down at her body with reverence, his hand going slowly to trace the exquisite curve of one firm breast. “It’s never been like this with a woman,” he said huskily. “There was never time…like this.” He tried to put it into words. His dark gray eyes slid up to hers. “There was always urgency and haste, even when I thought my emotions were involved. There wasn’t this tenderness, this need to cherish, to give.”
Her lips parted. He didn’t seem to understand what he was describing, but she did. It was what she felt for him. It was love. Perhaps he hadn’t realized it just yet. She smiled gently, her eyes so soft and caring that she heard his breath jerk when he looked into them.
“Christy, you’re exquisite,” he breathed. His eyes moved back down to the beauty his hand was exploring. His fingers trembled on her body. “Exquisite, and I want you so badly, honey…!”
She touched her lips to his throat, feeling him quiver at the contact. He caught his breath and bent to take her mouth under his. He groaned, his hand suddenly warm and insistent as he cupped her.
“Nate,” she whispered ardently.
She arched her back, pulling his mouth down to her breasts. She cried out at the pleasure his hungry touch gave her, moaning as the pressure increased and his hands contracted on her waist.
He said something violent under his breath and buried his face in her warm throat. His arms enveloped her roughly and he rocked her in the heady silence of the car, his arms faintly tremulous with the force of his passionate need. God, she was sweet to love! But she was grass green and in the throes of her first physical intimacy, and he didn’t trust her feelings enough to take a chance on them, despite the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her leave him.
Christy smoothed his dark hair, guilty that she’d let things go this far again when she hadn’t meant to. It was hurting him to hold back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered at his ear. “I seem to keep saying that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He actually laughed, deep in his throat. “You can’t imagine what a sweet hurt this is, for a man,” he whispered. “A kind of slow, throbbing ache laced with vicious pleasure.”
“I feel that way, too,” she confessed shakily. Her arms contracted and she was tempted beyond imagination. “Nate, you said that you could…keep me from getting pregnant,” she blurted.
He stiffened. She wanted him. God, he wanted her, but not like this. Not in a parked car, in desperation. No. He wanted her honorably, or not at all, and his own scruples stopped him.
His mouth brushed her ear. “No.” He kissed her closed eyes, feeling her puzzlement. “I can’t.”
“But…”
“Don’t tempt me,” he breathed. “Don’t ask me to tarnish something this beautiful by reducing it to raw sex.”
Her breath stopped in her throat. So he did feel something! He had to, or why would he have refused when she could feel his need?
His head lifted, and her eyes were full of awed adoration.
“And that’s the first time I’ve backed away from satisfaction,” he said flatly. His eyes searched hers. “There isn’t another woman on earth I wouldn’t take right here, sitting up if I had to. But it’s different with you, Christy. So different.”
She smiled, and her face radiated love. “Yes.”
He smoothed back her hair and his eyes involuntarily dropped to the open bodice of her dress. “No white lines,” he whispered, smiling at her shyness.
“It’s too hot to sunbathe,” she murmured. “And I haven’t been to the beach this
year.”
“Do you sunbathe topless?” he asked.
She laughed self-consciously. “No. I’m too inhibited.”
“I’m glad. I don’t like to think of other men seeing you this way,” he said slowly. He bent and put his lips reverently to her breasts before he rearranged her clothing to cover her.
When she’d brushed her hair with the small brush in her purse, and restored her lipstick, she had a radiance that made her beautiful enough to stop Nate’s breath in his throat.
“I’m going to have to let you go home, Christy,” he said through his teeth. “You know that.”
She looked at him. “Yes. I know.” He could have loved her, she was sure of that, but it was commitment that stopped him dead. She could understand it, too. He was thirty-seven. He’d been a bachelor too long, and now the thought of giving up his freedom was impossible. She didn’t know how she was going to manage to go on living without him, but there was no question of her staying here and they both knew it. Like an amputation, it would be better to get it over with as quickly as possible.
He looked at her long and hard, with a dark, unfathomable expression in his eyes. “We’d better get going,” he said, turning away finally to start the car again.
Christy fastened her seat belt with steady fingers. She could take it, she told herself. And at least she’d have beautiful memories of this trip, and dreams of how it might have ended. Perhaps they’d sustain her through the years ahead.
The one thing she was certain of now was that she couldn’t possibly marry Harry. Nate had been right about that. It would be cheating him as well as herself, feeling the way she did about Nate. But she needn’t go into that, she thought, glancing at Nate. Let him think she’d be married and settled and not dying of love for him. She didn’t want him to be concerned for her happiness, or guilty because she wanted more than he could give. It was better if he thought her marriage plans were final.
They ate, but without any real enthusiasm, and Nate kept the conversation on a strictly impersonal level. Inside, he was on fire. He wanted to tell her she couldn’t go home and to hell with Harry, that he’d take care of her, that he’d love her. But she had to have time to make sure that what she felt was going to last, that it wasn’t just the adventure and different environment blinding her to reality. He owed her that. He owed himself that, he added. Marriage was forever to him. He wasn’t going to risk it on a brief infatuation. She had to be sure.
* * *
Nate took Christy back to her cabin and kissed her good night, but gently and without lingering. And for the rest of the week, he was pleasant and polite and mostly too busy to spend any time with her. Christy understood that he was making the parting easier for her, so she didn’t complain. She stuck with George and did her best to blot out the memory of Nate’s lips and arms while the last few hours of her holiday ticked away with relentless speed.
Saturday came before she was ready. She was packed and dressed for travel in her jeans and a loose white sweatshirt and sneakers, because the plane was air-conditioned and frankly cold with her arms uncovered. She joined the others at the front of the house, where the van was waiting to take them to the airport.
Nate came out to say goodbye, saving Christy for last. She looked at him with pain and longing, wishing that she could hide her despair well enough to make him think she didn’t mind going. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her now, even though she’d hoped right up until the last minute that he’d change his mind, that he’d confess undying love and propose marriage. But that didn’t happen, and she knew she shouldn’t have expected it. He wanted her, but he’d get over that. Desire and a little tenderness weren’t enough to build a future on, although she’d have tried it if he’d been willing. She loved him so much that she had no pride at all.
He drew her to one side, his eyes lancing over her face like a paintbrush, memorizing every soft line of it. He was hurting, but he didn’t dare show it. She had to be free.
“Take care of yourself,” he said quietly.
“You, too.” She bit back tears and laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.”
He cupped her faced in his lean hands and his thumbs brushed away the tears. His dark eyes were soft with concern and something deeper that she was too blurry to see. She hadn’t put on her glasses this morning, because she didn’t want to see too clearly.
“Don’t fall down the steps. You should have your glasses on,” he said gently.
That concern in his deep voice almost brought the tears back. “I won’t fall.” She reached up and brushed his lean cheek with her lips. “Goodbye, Nate. Thanks for a lovely holiday. I’ll never forget it. Or you.”
He didn’t return the caress or the sentiment. He looked down at her with his heart like lead in his chest, feeling empty and alone already.
His hands fell away from her face. “You’d better get on board,” he nodded toward the van.
Her lips trembled into a smile. “Yes, I had.” She’d hoped that he might at least kiss her goodbye, but with all these other people around, he probably felt it would be too public a demonstration. He was letting her go, wasn’t he? “Well, goodbye,” she faltered. She smiled again and, dragging her eyes away from him, she shouldered her pocketbook and climbed into the van.
Nate didn’t wait to see it leave. He climbed into his car and headed for work without looking back. He couldn’t have borne seeing the van drive away, taking Christy out of his life.
Christy put on the one pair of prescription dark glasses she had, wondering why she hadn’t thought to wear them sooner. That way her fellow travelers couldn’t see the tears.
George, bless him, knew what was wrong. He sat beside her, holding her hand unobtrusively.
“I’d like to keep in touch with you,” he said. “We could write each other at Christmas, at least.”
“That would be nice,” she said, and meant it.
He smiled. “Fine. I’ll write down my address for you.”
She settled back into her seat. Only a few hours more and she’d be home in her own apartment. Then she could have a good cry and try to put the past three weeks out of her mind. She had a few souvenirs that she was going to put in a drawer until she could stand to look at them and remember. Meanwhile, it was going to be trouble enough just to walk around normally.
* * *
In the weeks that followed, she wondered how she survived the black depression that settled over her. Joyce Ann was openly concerned, and more so since Christy had said a definite and final “no” to Harry.
“It’s the Arizona caveman, isn’t it?” the older woman demanded, pushing back her gray-streaked blond hair with an angry hand as they sat in Joyce Ann’s immaculate living room drinking coffee. “You haven’t been the same since you came back. Honestly, Christy, it’s been two months, and you walk around like a zombie! You won’t go anywhere, you just sit at home and moon!”
Christy had lost weight. She knew she looked bad, but she had no interest in life anymore. Odd, that, when she’d loved the simplest things before. Things like sitting on the beach, listening to the gulls while the salt breeze whipped through her hair and the whitecaps foamed onto the damp sand. Things like going to art galleries to browse and sitting in small cafes drinking coffee and watching people. But she’d changed since her trip to Arizona. She wasn’t the same woman who’d gone on an archaeological expedition looking for lost civilizations.
“Pre-planning starts the end of the month,” she told Joyce Ann, barely listening to what her sister was saying. “School will be good for me.”
“I hope so. Darling, you’re positively skeletal, and you don’t even bother to dress up and fix up anymore. There are the most terrible dark shadows under your eyes.” She shook her head. “Christy, I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll get over him,” Christy assured her. “Really, I will.”
Joyce Ann sighed, frowning. “I’ve never had the courage to ask
, but is there any chance, well, that you might be pregnant?”
Christy smiled. “No. That would make the Guinness Book of World Records for sure. He was a perfect gentleman, even when he didn’t want to be.”
That made it all worse somehow, Joyce Ann thought. Why would a man with sex on his mind bother to hold back? On the other hand, why would a man in love be willing to let her go?
“Oh, Christy. What can I say?” she asked helplessly.
“Just that you love me,” Christy replied, and hugged the older woman tight.
Joyce Ann sighed as she returned the embrace. Somehow it seemed unfair that Christy should finally find a man to love and lose him in so short a time. But that happened sometimes. She could only hope that Christy would recover in time.
It was almost dark and Joyce Ann’s husband was due home when Christy left for her own apartment. She got in her compact car and drove home without paying any attention at all to her surroundings. If she had been, she might have noticed the vehicle sitting across the road from where she lived, and the man watching her from the driver’s seat.
But, oblivious, she parked the car, got out, and went to unlock the door. As she turned on the light inside, she heard footsteps behind her and turned.
Her heart stopped beating; at least, that was how it felt. Her heart had fed on memories for weeks. She hadn’t taken a camera to Arizona, due to an oversight in packing, so she hadn’t even a photograph of him to keep. But here he was, in the flesh, looking every bit as terrible as she did.
He came closer, and she felt her jaw drop. This wasn’t the Nate she remembered. He was wearing glasses with silver rims, sporting tan slacks with a white shirt and a conservative gray and tan sports coat. He wasn’t wearing a hat or boots, and his hair was unruly and a little long.
“Nate?” she asked hesitantly.
He was doing some staring of his own. She had her hair in a bun, no makeup on. She was wearing a green dress that did nothing for her, and with her glasses on, she could see him very clearly. He looked thinner, too, and there were dark circles under his eyes that matched those under her own.
