by Jan Springer
Right out here in the middle of nowhere. A place they’d thought was safe. A place to raise their children. She angrily brushed away the stray tear dribbling down her cheek. Thankfully, Tom didn’t notice.
Sara didn’t realize they’d reached the edge of the meadow until the shade, cool and delicious, trailed over her heated body. The strong scent of baking pine needles and the wind flickering restfully through the sighing branches above them began calming her rattled nerves.
Tom threw her a concerned look. “You okay?”
Sara found herself grinning. “Just tired.”
“You need food,” he chuckled as he reluctantly let go of her hand.
Spreading the homemade quilt over the grass, he plopped the basket into the middle, slipped off his shoes and sat down cross-legged.
He smiled up at her, patted the ground beside him.
“C’mon, I won’t bite.”
Sara stood at the edge of the quilt, looking down at it, suddenly unwilling to step onto her past. She noticed the blue and white dotted gingham patch of her kitchen curtains from their first apartment in New York. She recognized the ragged patch from an old pair of Jack’s trousers, the same one’s he’d worn to the doctor’s office on the day they’d been told the chances were slim she would ever get pregnant.
Life goes on. She told herself sternly. It has to.
Sara wiggled out of her shoes and stepped onto the quilt and onto her past.
She watched Tom as he gingerly removed the items from the basket. His grin was so innocent and intense. The last thing she wanted was to burst his bubble simply because she couldn’t come to grips with her past.
Sara sat down trying to avoid looking at the patchwork coverlet.
“I hope you like this stuff. I prepared a feast fit for a king, queen and their entire empire. Cooked a heap of potatoes and made a salad and more stuff. Here see for yourself.”
He handed her a foil-wrapped parcel. Gently she unwrapped it and gasped as a hefty sandwich emerged.
“You didn’t have to go through all this trouble, Tom,” she said without taking her eyes off the delicious-looking creation. Her mouth began to water. She hadn’t realized she was so hungry and without further hesitation she took a big bite.
“Mmm. Very good,” she mumbled between bites. “My compliments to the chef.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Actually, yes. Most men I know don’t like to cook. Woman’s work, they say.”
“Well then, you must not have met up with the right man yet.”
Right man? What was he insinuating?
He continued to heap a plate full of potato salad, bean salad, her homemade peppermint-pickled carrots and beets, acting as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. He’d called her pretty, and now he said she hadn’t met the right man yet? Maybe she was just reading too much into his words.
He wouldn’t be interested in her. She was a widow living alone in the middle of nowhere, dressed like a scarecrow and not even wearing a touch of makeup. It was just her overactive hormones, she reasoned to herself or merely wishful thinking.
He offered her a heaping plate of preserves and salad.
Sara shook her head, gesturing her hand at him to take it away. “Oh, no. I couldn’t eat that much.”
But her taste buds were already into overdrive. She was practically drooling.
“Come on, take it. My beautiful scarecrow needs to put some meat on her bones. Besides whatever you don’t eat, we’ll feed to the ants.”
His green eyes shone with encouragement and suddenly she began to feel better. Much better. She accepted the plate and chuckled. “We’re going to have some mighty big ants running around here then.”
He poured two glasses of ice-cold ginger ale and handed her one then held his glass up in the air. “To good food, good ale, excellent company and a fine ole day. Cheers!”
Sara couldn’t help but laugh as the glasses clinked together.
“Bon appétit!” she mumbled between hearty mouthfuls.
They ate with occasional bursts of hearty chatter. Talking of nothing in particular until almost the entire assortment of food had been devoured.
Then she remembered her phone calls last night.
“I forgot to tell you that the phone was working for awhile last night so I tried to get a hold of Garry. He doesn’t own a cell and I couldn’t get him at his place so I called a good friend of his at the New York Police Department—”
Tom’s mouth dropped open in surprise and he visibly paled. The easygoing innocent look flew from his green eyes and was replaced by a look of open distrust.
“You turned me in?”
“No! God, no!” Sara jolted with unease at the idea he’d think she’d betrayed him. “I never mentioned you. I only asked that Garry call me right away. And that it was urgent.”
“Shit! You left a message with the New York police?”
“Really, you don’t have to worry. His friend is very reliable. He used to be a lawyer, he worked with Garry and I didn’t even mention you.”
Tom shook his head and the tiniest bit of a smile flittered across his lips. “I’m sorry, I freaked. I really do trust you. Please, tell me what he said.”
“I just told him I needed to talk to Garry about some family business and if he knew where in Florida Garry and his brother had gone fishing for their vacation. Every year the two of them take a couple of weeks off and do the fishing thing. Anyway, he said Garry was working on a very important personal case that had suddenly come up and he’d forward my message to him.”
“How about your sister? Did you get a hold of her?”
“Well, actually the phone went dead again while I was dialing her number so I couldn’t talk to her. It was still dead this morning when I checked. If it’s the main line into here, it usually doesn’t get fixed unless I tell the hydro people. If it’s out on the main highway, then I’m sure they’re working on it. I guess I really should invest in a cell phone.”
“Might be a good idea.”
“In the meantime, you can stay here at Peppermint Creek and enjoy all it’s healing powers.”
“And all this healing grub,” he said, suddenly cheerful again.
She relaxed as Tom helped himself to some more of her homemade preserves. When his plate was once again full, he asked the question everyone asks of her when they come to Peppermint Creek Inn. “Tell me more about this place.”
She loved it when people asked her to talk about Peppermint Creek Inn. It was her baby, now that everything else was gone. Draining the rest of her ginger ale, she shifted some plates aside, crossed her legs Indian style and began her story all the while her heart hammered against her chest at the intense way he was looking at her again.
“We bought the property from a widow. They were rich. He was involved in the gold and lumber industry just east of here, and he built the log house for her to use as a retreat. She’d always wanted to be a writer and used the house to write many novels in this solitude, but she never got up the nerve to send her work to a publisher.”
Tom frowned. “Sounds kind of tragic.”
Sara nodded in agreement. “When her husband retired, they both moved out here. Realizing they were lonely, they decided to open up a campground and had some rustic cabins built. Her husband died shortly after, and for a few years, she tried to keep the place going by herself, but it was too much work and the winters were horribly lonely so she decided to sell. But she only wanted to sell to someone who really loved nature. A friend of ours mentioned this place to us. Jack and I fell in love with the seclusion right away, but the others—” Sara shrugged her shoulders “—they took a wee bit longer.”
“Others?”
“My partners. My father-in-law Garry and my sister Jo.”
“Jo live here, too?”
“She did. For a while. But she moved back to Maine where she takes care of my parents’ house when they are traveling. But they, as well as my brother and p
arents help out as often as they can. I usually have someone with me during the on season.”
“And the winters? Aren’t they too long for you and your husband all alone out here?”
Sara bit her lower lip and fingered her wedding band. Should she tell him? Could she trust this stranger not to harm her once he found out no one lived there with her? And could she tell him there wasn’t a husband anymore?
Before she could figure out what to say, he answered his own question.
“Your husband doesn’t live here, does he? You’re just afraid to tell me because you don’t quite trust me. Not yet anyway,” he said confidently. “That’s normal, Sara. Especially since I’ve revealed I’m a criminal.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” she said quickly, suddenly surprised at saying those words. She was beginning to wonder why the police wanted this man dead. They didn’t go around killing criminals, at least not on purpose.
He nodded thoughtfully. His eyes revealed nothing as he gazed toward the nearby diamond-studded lake, shimmering brilliantly beneath the sun’s intense rays.
He changed the subject off himself and onto her again. It was becoming an annoying habit and she wished she could break him of it.
“So what do you do out here in the long, cold winters?”
“I manage to keep myself busy. I make my peppermint products from the peppermint I pick in the creek and when the winter blues set in, I go out and deliver them. That’s where I’ve been the past few days.”
“Products? You get the peppermint from your creek?” He sounded downright impressed and Sara found herself squirming with excitement.
Clasping her hands beneath her chin she said with longing, “Oh, you should see it here in the summer. The air is just drenched with the smell of the peppermint plants. In August, I hire a small crew of students who help harvest the peppermint and we dry them from the rafters in the barn. During the winter I make everything from peppermint-scented candles, bath and massage oils, soaps, antiseptics to candies, cookies, cakes and the list is endless.”
Tom’s brows rose with amused expectation and he licked his lips. “Peppermint cheesecake?”
Sara laughed. “That could be easily arranged.”
“You really love this place. I can see it in your eyes,” Tom said softly. The scorching way he looked at her made her a wee bit self-conscious.
Fingering a square of Amish blue material, she suddenly realized she couldn’t remember what that piece represented. And at the moment she didn’t really care.
“Well, sure. It’s home. What’s not to love?”
He shifted some more dishes off the quilt and stretched out full length beside her.
She tried hard not to look at him, but she couldn’t resist glancing now and then at his long legs, his sexy hips or his thick sinewy arms as they bulged when he clasped his large hands over his flat stomach.
“Tell me more about this place,” he asked as he looked up at the sky.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why it feels so relaxing here. Almost like something magic is in the air.”
Sara laughed. “There’ll be lots of stuff in the air in a couple of weeks. Black flies, mosquitoes, horseflies, deerflies—”
“Your laugh is very nice. You should do it more often.”
Their gazes locked for a moment and her breath slammed into her lungs at the dark, lusty way he was looking at her. She could fall in love with this man. So easily. The thought shocked her senseless and Sara looked down, trying hard to concentrate on another square of material in her picnic quilt.
“The bugs don’t keep the customers away?” he asked softly.
“They complain about it,” she joked, avoiding eye contact. “But every year they come back in droves. I’ve had to cancel all the advance reservations because of the inn burning down but I’m still going ahead with the cabins and the campground on the other side of the lake. I’m going to have to get started on rehiring some of the people too for when I reopen. And I need a handyman to clear the fallen tree, repair some of the cabins.”
“Maybe I could hire on temporarily?”
Sara swallowed tightly at his comment. Oh, dear. Having this hunk hanging around for a few more days was really going to be hard on her. Every time she looked at him, she wanted to jump his bones.
“I’m sure you’re still too sore to do that sort of work.”
“Actually it doesn’t hurt too badly. I took a look at the wound in the mirror and it’s not too deep. Just a graze.”
He frowned as she shook her head. “It’s more than a graze and I think it’s still too soon.”
“I can go slow. I really don’t want to lay around another day, and I do feel a hell of a lot better. I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t think I could handle it.”
Who was she to tell him not to do something anyway? He was a grown man. He knew his limits.
“The phones are still out. What if something happens to you?” God forbid, she didn’t want a repeat performance of him lying in bed totally at her mercy…touching him intimately while he slept.
To her shock, she felt her face warm up.
“I promise I won’t overdo it.”
Tom rolled over onto his belly and awaited her answer. Excitement flashed in his eyes as he gazed up at her with anticipation, his smoldering gaze once again locked with hers and she felt momentarily breathless. “I’ve had enough rest and relaxation the last few days to do me a lifetime. Besides, I’m stuck here, right?”
Stuck? Did that mean he didn’t want to be here?
“Okay…sure. But don’t overdo it. Okay?”
“You’re the boss.”
God! Was she insane? Hiring him to do stuff around her place when he was recuperating from a bullet wound? Keeping him here at Peppermint Creek Inn, in her bedroom with her sleeping on the couch right next door?
Oh, boy! Now that he was up and about, he was going to be even harder to avoid. Besides, how was she going to get at her vibrator with him around?
He nodded toward what had once been the main attraction of her establishment, the burned-out remains of her inn.
“I’m assuming that’s what’s left of Peppermint Creek Inn.”
“I’ve got the contractors already lined up. I’ve given them the plans to the old inn so they shouldn’t have too much trouble duplicating it.”
“What happened to it?”
“Arson. This past winter.”
“Arson? Why? Who? What was the motive?”
“They don’t know. The police found empty jerry cans behind the barn.”
Sara hauled her legs up against her belly and wrapped her arms around her knees. Sadness wrenched her gut as she looked at the black charred remains of the log inn they’d built from the trees on their property. It was a horrible shame someone had torched it.
“Someone’s breaking your windows, throwing around dead carcasses, burning your buildings. You have any ideas who? Or why?”
A bite of tears touched her eyes as she remembered watching the orange flames roaring through the two-story building that awful night. “Let’s not talk about it, okay? I just want to enjoy this beautiful day. It’s been one wild and cold winter, and it just feels so good to have warm air on my face again.”
Tom didn’t reply. Instead, he plucked up a long, yellow blade of grass and plunged it between his teeth gnawing on it thoughtfully.
Closing her eyes, she relished the cheerful sounds of the chickadees singing in the nearby pine trees, the wind playing with her hat and his steady, deep breathing.
The picnic had gone quite well, Sara mused. She’d actually enjoyed herself and had forgotten how good it felt to simply relax, but Tom’s next words ruined everything.
“This quilt is something special to you, isn’t it? By the way you keep looking at it and touching it, it gives me the feeling that I shouldn’t have brought it along.”
Oh, shit!
She kept her eyes closed, trying hard not to frow
n, pretending as if the question didn’t pierce her heart.
“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business,” he said quickly.
She bit her lower lip and tried to squash the tears that suddenly bubbled up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
God, how embarrassing. How could she just lose it like this?
In a split second, he was beside her, cradling her in his strong muscular arms as if she was a sobbing, blubbering idiot.
She noted his gentle hand softly rubbing her back. Felt his other hand caress the full length of her hair.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” he soothed. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Listening to the softness of his voice and the soothing touch of his hands, she found herself melting against his hard chest. His wonderful body heat seeped through her clothing and caressed her skin, and then she felt a finger touch the underneath part of her chin and her face being tilted upwards.
His velvety breath fell delicately against the tip of her lips unleashing spirals of desire deep into her vagina.
Her eyes popped open.
His face drew closer.
Oh, my God! He was going to kiss her.
His lips danced over her wet cheeks, feathery sensual brushes against her mouth that made her heated body jump for joy. Like a hummingbird drawing nectar from a tasty flower, her lips melted and parted into his firm, moist mouth. Eagerly she accepted the gentle probing of his tongue and a few seconds later the kiss deepened, turning from a gentle invasion into an intense exploration. From somewhere deep within her throat, a low moan stirred.
He responded with a sensual growl and his arms drifted to her waist. He hauled her closer, crushing her quickly swelling breasts against his muscular chest.
Her arms automatically flew around his warm neck, and she pulled his head deeper into the searing kiss. His hat fell off and the elastic he’d used to pull his hair back into a ponytail abruptly broke free as her fingers plunged through his silky hair.
She felt as if her entire body was melding with his. Becoming one. She’d never been kissed this intensely before. Never. She could lose herself in this man’s arms forever and never return to reality.
