As he reached the last bend in the trail, he caught a faint whiff of wood smoke. His gun was in his hand before he was even fully aware of reaching for it. No one used these woods for camping. He left the path and cut through the woods to avoid making an obvious target of himself.
Someone had set up a tent right by the boulder where he and Gwen had dangled their feet in the river. Well, they wouldn’t be there for long. The last thing the Moselys needed was some squatter this close to the house. He braced himself to confront the intruder.
Then he saw a flash of red hair and his heart stopped. What was Gwen doing out here? Frozen in midstep, he drank in the sight of her.
She held a cup of something hot in her hand as she gazed at the setting sun. He wished he had a camera; the sight of her beautiful red hair against the sunset was art in its most basic form, natural and compelling.
“Are you going to stand there staring all night or come join me by the fire?” She waited a few seconds before slowly turning to face him. “I won’t bite.”
He forced his feet to move, unsure of his welcome, but needing to get close to her this one last time. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“There’s a lot about you that scares me, Jarvis Donahue, but not in the way you mean.” She sat on the boulder, leaving room for him.
He dropped his backpack next to the tent and sat on the rock, leaving a small distance between them.
He swallowed hard. “What’s up, Gwen?”
“As my brother so reminded me, it’s always been my belief that facing a problem head-on is the best course of action.” She stared into her cup as if all the answers of the universe were contained in its depths. “And you, Jarvis Donahue, are one major problem for me.”
“I didn’t mean to be.”
“I know—and I was wrong to put the entire blame on you.” She tossed the dregs of her coffee out and dropped the tin cup on the ground. “A lot of it was me.
“You’ve been good for Chase, even though I’m still trying to come to terms with him becoming a Paladin. It’s not the life I would have chosen for him. But I do understand that life takes unexpected turns, and you can either do the best with what you’ve got or waste your energy fighting an uphill battle.”
Her smile was a little sad. “I’m proud of him, though. He’s gone from being an angry kid to a young man with a future, one that he’s proud of and excited about. That’s more than most kids his age have going for them.”
“I won’t tell you that it’ll be an easy life for him, Gwen. But he’ll serve with the best group of men I’ve had the honor to know. And we won’t be rushing him to the front lines anytime soon—not until he’s fully trained and has finished whatever schooling he wants to go after.” He’d see to that personally.
“I appreciate that. So I guess we’ve got Chase all taken care of.” She shifted so that she was facing him directly, cross-legged. “That leaves us.”
“Us?” He didn’t know there even was an “us” left to discuss.
“I owe you an apology, Jarvis. I’m still not happy about your sneaking off with Chase like you did, but I figure I didn’t give you any choice.” Her fingers fiddled with the hem of her jeans.
“Gwen, I…”
She put her fingers across his lips. “Let me finish. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching since bringing Chase back home, and I haven’t liked some of what I’ve learned about myself. I allowed you to split yourself down the middle just so that I could spend time with the easy half.
“Maybe if I’d met you under different circumstances, that would have been all right. But because of that first night, I knew about the other half—the part of you who suffers so that people like me can be safe in our beds at night.”
“Gwen, don’t make me out to be some kind of hero.” A pedestal was an uncomfortable and lonely place to be.
“You and all of those other Paladins are heroes. But I’m not here to argue about that.”
Which brought them back to the real question. “So, why are you here?”
Her green eyes looked straight into his only briefly before focusing beyond his left shoulder. “I’m here to say that I don’t want to be friends with only half of you. I want the whole man. No more secrets, no more half-truths from either of us. No more pretending to be a normal guy and then going off to be someone else I don’t know.”
Friends. The word dropped like a rock in his stomach. If she wanted honesty, he’d give it to her.
“I can’t be friends with you, Gwen. It’s not enough.”
Her sweet mouth curved up in a siren’s smile. “Then I guess I’ll have to offer you more than that.”
She slipped her jacket off and let it fall to the ground. Then she reached for the top button on her blouse, then the next one. All he could do was watch and hope that he didn’t explode as each new inch of skin was revealed.
His honorable side finally kicked in. “Gwen, you don’t have to…we don’t…we’re not…Oh hell.”
She cupped the side of his face with her hand. “Jarvis, did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
That was a no-brainer. “My timing could have been better, but I was feeling pretty desperate.”
“Maybe. But the point is, I never responded. I was too upset about Chase. I’d like to respond now, if it’s not too late.” She opened another button.
His heart kicked up a ruckus and his voice cracked. “No, no, it’s not too late.”
“Before all this stuff with Chase blew up, I knew I’d fallen hard for you. But I naïvely thought you could continue to compartmentalize yourself, keeping me separate from the dangerous part of your life.”
There went another button. How did she expect him to concentrate on what she was saying?
“I didn’t want that violence to touch your life, Gwen. When I was with you, I could pretend to be a normal guy—one a woman like you might fall in love with.”
“And I love the guy who pets my dogs and makes me feel beautiful, but you’re so much more than that.”
Her blouse joined her jacket on the ground. “And I love all of you.”
She held out her hand and tugged him down off the boulder. He immediately wrapped her up tight in his arms. “You’re going to freeze out here dressed like that—or undressed like that.”
“That’s why I brought the tent and sleeping bags. It won’t be as comfortable as my bed, but it’s more private.” She pressed her lips against his. “Love me, Jarvis. Please love me.”
“Always, Gwen. Always.” Then he kissed her, hardly believing she was back in his arms where she belonged.
“It won’t be easy,” he warned. “I’ll be a Paladin until the day I die for the last time. I won’t always be able to come home at night.” He nuzzled her neck.
“As long as you come when you can, I’ll be waiting here with open arms.”
He kissed her tenderly. “Then if you’ll have me, I want the whole package: wedding bells and all.”
“It’s a deal. And the sooner, the better.” She shivered. “Let’s go inside the tent and get each other warm.”
But before they climbed inside, she handed him a flashlight. “Here, I brought this for you.”
“Uh, thanks?”
She smiled seductively. “You’ll need it, unless you can count freckles by touch alone.”
Jarvis laughed. “How about I try it both ways and see which works best?”
Somewhere along the way he lost count, but that was okay. They had the rest of their lives for him to get it right.
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Darkness Unknown Page 25
