“This the one?” he asked.
But even before he spoke, he had pried open the lid. The scent of chocolate curled against his nostrils.
“This is the one,” he said, breathing in deeply, filling his lungs. “Damn, but that smell brings back memories.”
“Good ones?”
“The best. Seth loved chocolate chip cookies. After Mom married him, the cookie jar was always full. Laughter and love and the smell of chocolate.”
The gentle, remembering kind of smile on his face slid through the defenses Shelley was trying to rebuild. She felt like putting her arms around him and holding him, telling him with her touch that she was glad to share his memories and his smile, glad just to be with him.
She didn’t realize that she had followed her impulse until she felt the warmth of his chest beneath her cheek. His arms wrapped around her, returning her hug.
“I’m glad you have some good memories of childhood along with the bad,” she whispered.
Cain kissed her hair and breathed in deeply again, but this time it was her scent he was savoring.
Gentle, generous, sexy, he thought, kissing her hair again. And scared.
I better remember that, or my gut tells me I’ll find myself out on my ear, wondering how I let the best thing I’ve ever found slip through my fingers.
After the painful lesson of his first marriage, he had learned to trust his instincts, rather than fight them. He didn’t know just why Shelley was frightened of loving him, but he had no doubt that she was. Reluctantly he released her.
“It’s your knapsack,” he said, handing her the wrapped sandwiches. “You know the best way to pack it.”
Without seeming to, he watched her work. She put the hard things on the bottom, the soft things on top, and the uneven things away from the side that would rest against her back. Then she shook the knapsack gently to see how everything would travel. She fished out a sandwich that was determined to hide beneath the heavy tin of cookies and packed it in a different place.
Every move she made was casual and skilled. Each motion revealed how many times she had loaded up this knapsack and headed for her tawny hills.
Tame homebody? he thought sardonically. Yeah. And I’m Tinkerbell.
No matter how much she protests her high state of civilization, she spends a lot of time out in those wild hills.
He started to tease her again about the difference between her words and her actions, but stopped himself just in time. The wariness had only begun to fade from her green-and-golden eyes. He would be a fool to call it back, sending her into hiding again.
Cain was a lot of things. A fool wasn’t one of them. Not since his first, disastrous marriage.
“I’ll take that,” he said, reaching for the knapsack. “I’m used to it. Anyway, it’s too small for you.”
“Let me take a look at the straps.”
He lifted the knapsack out of her hands and lengthened the straps so they would fit over his much wider back and shoulders. Then he put on the knapsack, straightened out the straps, and shrugged his shoulders to settle the weight in the center of his back. He moved with the ease of a man accustomed to carrying a much bigger, heavier pack.
“Fits fine,” he said. “Lead the way.”
She didn’t bother to argue. She simply walked out into the bronze-and-scarlet evening.
As soon as they left the landscaped walkways of the pool and garden, heat welled up from the ground as though they were walking on an oven. Cain had been in enough deserts to know that the chaparral’s thick growth was deceptive. The soil beneath the brush was dry and stony.
“A road to nowhere,” he said.
Shelley looked at the twenty-foot-wide plowed strip of ground that ran all around her property.
“Fuel break,” she said. “The hills and mountains around Los Angeles are covered with them. Fire roads, too. People use them when the fire season is closed.”
“They make good bike trails.”
“Enjoy them while you can. It’s been dry lately. The fire season could open at any time. Then the hills will be closed to bikes and hikers.”
“But not to you.”
“I don’t smoke, I don’t target-shoot, and I don’t build fires. Nobody even knows I’m out there.”
A footpath led across the fuel break. Shelley followed the dusty trail without looking. She knew every inch of it, because she had made it throughout the years of hiking from her house into the hills.”
“Does it work?” he asked.
“The fuel break?”
“Yeah.”
“So far, so good. Some of the houses have been here ten years.”
Cain looked from the brush that covered the steep hillsides to the strands of expensive houses that had been built on the highest ridgeline of each range of hills.
“Fire burns uphill,” he said.
“Not lately. The brush around here hasn’t burned for almost a hundred years.”
Frowning, he looked from her house to the wild land. The chaparral was more a low forest than tall brush. Twenty feet high, thick, tangled, desert-dry; in fire season the chaparral was a tawny threat surrounding her home.
“I’m surprised you didn’t choose a nice green valley,” he said. “Safer that way.”
“Uglier, too. The view stinks as much as the air. Up here you can breathe. At least, most of the time.”
“Don’t like being closed in, huh?”
She didn’t answer.
Mourning doves burst out of the chaparral just beyond the fuel. break. Graceful, darting, leaving a wake of liquid cries, the rosy gray birds flew off into a distant, twilight ravine that was too steep for man to disturb them.
The informal footpath ended in a wall of chaparral two stories high. Shelley eased sideways into the thick, often prickly growth.
“Watch your eyes,” she said. “There’s no real trail, just a way I’ve found to get in and out of the ravine.”
Cain waited until he was far enough behind that the branches she pushed aside wouldn’t snap back across his face. Then he followed her into the chaparral, automatically adjusting his stride to keep the knapsack from snagging on every brittle branch along the way.
Despite the rough ground and the lack of any real trail, Shelley made very little noise. Completely at ease, she moved with the smooth economy of effort that was learned only through long experience in the wild.
Smiling, watching her, Cain silently enjoyed her gift of becoming part of the land. She passed through it with little more disturbance than the flight of a bird.
Tame, is she? A homebody?
Like hell she is, he thought with cool satisfaction. She’s hiking down a steep hillside, moving as gracefully as a dove through chaparral that hasn’t been touched since white man came to California.
And she’s enjoying every step because the land is wild, untouched.
But he kept his insights to himself. He didn’t want to argue with her just now.
Give her time. She isn’t stupid. She’ll see the truth.
The ground at the bottom of the ravine was covered with rocks that had been rounded and smoothed by water. The stones told him that despite the seasonal drought, when hard rain came, the gullies filled with enough water to push boulders around.
There was no water now. There was only a slight easing of heat. Sunlight barely penetrated the chaparral. The treelike bushes surrounding Cain were at least three times his height, often more. Twilight pooled thickly in the shadows. The air was hot, pungent with the odors of resins and herbs.
Shelley turned back toward him. She spoke softly, letting her voice blend with the twilight. “In the winter, if you sit very still, you can watch the animals coming to drink at this seep.”
He looked where she was pointing. Dried moss carpeted an area not much bigger than the knapsack. The seep had no moisture now. It looked more like a small, rumpled brown throw rug than a water hole.
“This used to run year-round,” she said. “T
he winter before last was terribly dry. This one was worse. The seep stopped flowing.”
“What happened to the animals?”
“They come to my pool to drink. Even the rattlesnakes.”
“And you let them.”
“They were here long before I was.”
She crossed the ravine and began to climb quickly up the far side. Several hundred feet up the hill, where bedrock shelved to make a small clearing in the chaparral, she stopped and looked at him expectantly.
Without a word he took off the knapsack and spread the survival blanket. She watched, catching her breath from the last, steep scramble. Then she realized that his breathing wasn’t the least bit disturbed.
“You must do a lot of hiking,” she said.
He heard the wistfulness in her voice and almost mentioned it. He stopped himself just in time.
“A fair amount,” he said. “Satellite photos are good for narrowing the choices, but nothing beats walking the land.”
“Or scrambling.”
“Yeah. Mother Nature tucks the most useful minerals in the damnedest places.”
“You love them, though. The wild places.”
He glanced up from setting out the picnic. He expected to see disapproval in her eyes even though there had been none in her voice. He saw only her acceptance of him.
Traveling man.
We can’t change what we are. But we can share ourselves, can’t we? For as long as it lasts.
“Yes, I love wild places,” he said evenly. “Just as you love the bit of wildness you allow yourself.”
She looked at his eyes. They were the color of twilight now, watching her with a certainty she couldn’t deny and couldn’t share.
“Look around you,” he said, gesturing to the chaparral. “In some ways, this is as wild as any place I’ve ever been.”
“That’s ridiculous. Los Angeles is all around us.”
“Is it? Since the beginning of time, how many people do you think have stood here, right here? A thousand? A hundred? Ten?” Softly: “Two, Shelley. You. Me.”
“That’s not the same as being wild.”
She took the knapsack and began putting out food. As far as she was concerned, the topic was closed.
“How is it different?” he asked.
It was a reasonable question.
She didn’t have a reasonable answer.
“I don’t know,” she said tightly. “I just know that it is. I can have this and a home, too. But don’t worry. I don’t expect a traveling man to understand that.”
He hesitated, knowing he shouldn’t push her. Yet he couldn’t pretend that she was anything but dead wrong.
“Home isn’t a place,” he said. “It’s an emotion. Like love. Don’t hide behind the elegant walls of what you call a home. Let yourself love me. That’s the only home either one of us needs.”
Her head snapped up. “Home isn’t—”
He kissed her swiftly, stopping the words. When he lifted his head, he smoothed his thumb over her lips.
“No more, not yet,” he said. “Listen to me, love. Please. Then I won’t speak of it again, I promise you.”
Breath held, he waited for her decision, watching her face with hungry eyes. Just when he thought he had lost her, she nodded her head. He touched her lips with his thumb, wanting to kiss her, knowing he shouldn’t. Not yet.
Maybe not ever again.
“I want to laugh with you, argue with you, make love with you until there’s only one of us, not two,” Cain said quietly. “I want to marry you and spend my life with you.”
Tears magnified the hazel darkness of Shelley’s eyes.
“We belong to one another in a way that has nothing to do with when we met or how long we’ve known each other,” he said. “I’ve always known you, always loved you. It just took me years to find you. Too many years. Don’t waste any more of our lives. Be with me, marry me, love me.”
Shelley’s tears ran hotly over the fingers that were caressing her lips.
“You don’t have to give me an answer yet,” he said gently, relentlessly. “In fact, I won’t let you. Right now you think that loving a traveling man will destroy all your dreams, all that you have, even destroy you.”
She took a broken breath and went pale at hearing her worst fears spoken aloud.
“So that’s it,” he said. “That’s why you’re afraid of me and the wildness in yourself. Don’t be, mink. You won’t lose your home. You’ll find it. We’ll make a real home together, in each other’s arms.”
He kissed the hot tears gleaming on her eyelashes, her cheeks.
“Cain—”
“Let’s just be with each other for a while,” he said quickly. “You’ll gild my home and when you’re done, we’ll talk again.”
“But—”
“Say yes, my love,” he whispered.
She didn’t know whether he was asking for her agreement not to argue now or for her promise to love him in the future. She knew only that she couldn’t say no to the man whose lips were gleaming with her tears, the man who held her so gently, the man who knew her so terrifyingly well.
But she couldn’t say yes, either.
Why not? she asked herself with eerie calm. You have nothing to lose that isn’t already gone, do you?
Do you?
“Shelley?”
Slowly she nodded her head.
Chapter Sixteen
A full moon was just rising above the hills, softening their stark outlines with a pale orange glow. Stirred by a breeze, the chaparral rustled just beyond Cain and Shelley’s picnic place. All that remained of dinner was a chicken wing she was gnawing on and the taste of lemonade on his mustache.
“What happened when you took in the ore samples?” she asked.
“Guess.”
“Politics as usual.”
“Bingo.”
She worried a morsel off the bone, licked her lips, and sighed. “What was the usual kind of politics down there?”
“Corrupt. A few weeks after I left, I learned that the Minister of Development’s brother-in-law had studied geology and was certain that there were no iron deposits anywhere around. And tin or manganese? Impossible.”
“The official really believed his brother-in-law rather than the ore samples you brought?”
“He really did. So there I sat, with a sackful of ore that could have launched a decent, home-grown metal industry, and listened to an idiot tell me there was no useful ore in his country.”
“What did you do?”
Cain shrugged. “I went to the military tribunal that was running the country between elections. I dumped the ore on a colonel’s desk, told him that the Minister of Development was a horse’s ass, and left.”
She laughed and shook her head at the same time.
“I’ll bet they ran you out of town.”
“I didn’t give them the chance. I caught the next plane north.”
“And that was the end of it.”
“Not quite. Three days later, the colonel called me in L.A. Seems that the Minister of Development’s brother-in-law—who happened to be the Minister of Trade—was getting a percentage on all steel imports into the country.”
“The brother-in-law didn’t want a local steel industry, is that it?”
“Yeah. Local steel would have cut into his profits, so the trade minister did his best to sink my recommendations.”
“But didn’t you say the country had a huge trade deficit and needed to cut back on imports?”
“The country’s needs came in a bad second to the Minister of Trade’s greed,” he said flatly.
“It’s not always like that. Some governments care about the people.”
“Not if the people in question are poor or not blood relatives of the ruling class. When the needs of poor people and the greed of rulers collide, there’s a wild scramble at the money trough. Guess who wins—the needy or the greedy?”
Even the softly descending night couldn’t h
ide the weariness and disgust in Cain’s expression.
“Sometimes the good guys win,” Shelley said after a moment.
“Not very damned often. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found resources that might have taken the under out of underdeveloped country, and had my discovery ignored or bungled because a handful of highly placed people didn’t want any changes.”
“It seems that they’d figure out that if the country gets richer, the people in control get richer.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Once the tiger of change comes to a country, no one can predict who’s going to ride and who’s going to get eaten. The rulers know that better than anyone. They kill the possibility of change wherever they find it.”
“Not a happy picture.”
“The world isn’t a happy place,” he said sardonically. “Ninety percent of the population live somewhere between the Stone Age and the Dark Ages. And the children . . .”
He shrugged and made a defeated gesture with one hand.
“I know,” she said, taking his hand. “It used to tear at me, seeing the children smile despite their fevers and running sores. Simple aspirin was a miracle drug. Penicillin was the hand of God touching them.”
Long, callused fingers interlaced with hers. He held on to her like a thirsty man holding on to the hope of water. After a time he started talking again.
She listened intently, hungry to know more about him. His silences told her that he rarely spoke with anyone about what he had seen.
“There were times when I’d strike ore in a really beautiful place,” he said slowly. “After the first rush of discovery wore off, I’d be tempted to keep the find to myself.”
“Tired of fighting with corrupt governments?”
“Partly. And partly, I just didn’t want to ruin the place. Mining isn’t a pretty process.”
“Neither is starvation.”
“Yeah. That’s the hell of it. Even if I file an accurate report, there’s no guarantee that the kids will be better off. But if I don’t file a report, there’s no chance at all for most of the kids. Their lives will be short and brutal.”
“What an awful choice to make, the beauty of the land or the laughter of a child.”
His fingers tightened in hers.
“Usually there isn’t a real choice,” he said. “You go with the kids. But sometimes the country is reasonably wealthy or already has enough of whatever mineral I find.”
Where the Heart Is Page 20
