Return to the Black Hills

by Debra Salonen

“I don’t blame them. The water’s great. As much as it pains me to admit this, Buck did good where the pool is concerned, and your boys are welcome to use it anytime.”

  “Including this weekend?”

  Cade walked to the window and looked down at the pool, absently wondering if his renters might be interested in joining the fun. A movement—a black silhouette, really, backlit by the blue-green glow of the underwater light—caught his attention. He looked a moment longer to be sure it wasn’t Shiloh. No. It was Jessie.

  “Cade?”

  “What? Oh, sorry. I was checking my calendar,” he lied. “Completely open. What time do you want this shindig to start?”

  They discussed logistics a few minutes longer, then hung up.

  He stood at the window, debating. He didn’t need an excuse to talk to Jessie, but he also didn’t need to go outside to deliver an invitation that could be asked and answered via text.

  But texting lacked the personal warmth of a face-to-face exchange, he decided. And since when was warmth a bad thing?

  He shoved his feet into his oldest pair of boots and hurried out the door. Let her still be there, he silently wished. Let her…

  She was sitting on the side of the pool, a towel draped around her shoulders. She seemed to be having a one-sided conversation with someone.

  Sugar. The raccoon kit, he realized. The little animal had developed a real attachment to Jessie—much to Shiloh’s consternation.

  “Hey,” he called out to avoid startling her.

  She turned toward the sound of his voice. The moon was faint, but the glow from the windows where her sister apparently was watching TV and the blue-green underwater spot cast her in such a flattering light she looked like a mermaid carved from marble.

  The raccoon leaped from Jessie’s arms and went scurrying toward its remodeled dog crate, which had been moved to a spot below Jessie’s window—because that seemed to be Sugar’s favorite place in the whole world.

  Jessie stood, carefully putting her good foot under her first. She hopped a couple of steps to catch her balance, but within a second or two, she was facing him, towel tucked firmly around the tops of her breasts.

  “You’re up late.”

  He was, considering he’d started his day well before dawn. But he didn’t feel the least bit tired. Not now, anyway. “I saw you from my window. Thought you might like some help with the cover.”

  She wiggled her finger. “Nope. My finger’s in good shape. I think I can flip the switch without help.”

  He chuckled, acknowledging his extremely lame excuse.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “In that case, would you mind getting the pool cover for me? I need to get out of this wet suit. But don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  The cover completed its course with a loud thunk. Cade squatted and turned the switch to the locked position then clicked off the underwater light. With the glow from the pool extinguished, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, but the moment they did, he felt Jessie materialize beside him. Even in the dim light he could see she’d changed into baggy gray sweats. Her feet were still bare.

  “Dark, huh?”

  “That’s a serious understatement,” she said, looking skyward. “Wow. I know L.A. is famous for its star sightings, but it can’t hold a candle to this place.”

  The clever pun and honest awe made him reach for her hand. “If you think that’s something, come with me.”

  Her fingers closed around his as if they’d been holding hands all their lives. “Let me warn you, if what you’re going to show me involves etchings, I’ve seen them before and wasn’t impressed.”

  Humor. Damn, he liked a woman who could laugh at herself.

  “No etchings. I promise.”

  “Okay. Let me grab my flip-flops.” Shoes on, she was ready.

  Now that his night vision had kicked in, he could pick his way through the damp grass without worry of bumping into something painful. He grabbed two oversize towels from the clothesline as they passed. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak out of the house to come up here,” he said.

  At the edge of the lawn, he hesitated. “It’s a bit uphill but it’s not far. Can your ankle handle it?”

  “If I can use you for a crutch, it shouldn’t be a problem.” She tightened her grip in a reassuring way.

  The knoll wasn’t much to look at by day—most people probably never gave it a second glance. But at night it was like a miniature observatory. He spread out the towels, side by side, then helped her to sit.

  He quickly joined her, then dropped backward, linking his fingers behind his head. Jessie copied him, their elbows touching. She went still, her breathing barely audible. After a good minute of silence, she made a soft “Wow.”

  He stared, unblinking, trying to recall the constellations he’d memorized from a book he’d checked out of the school library. His brother once told him Buck knew the names of all the star formations, but Cade had never been able to talk his dad into joining him here. A fact that still brought a small, familiar ache to his heart. Maybe he needed to make that happen once his father returned.

  “Shiloh and I came here wearing snowmobile suits and winter boots the first week we moved in. The winter constellations are different, of course.”

  “Remy and I loved Greek and Roman mythology when we were kids. We had a homemade telescope out of soup cans. It would have been so great to have a parent who was into that, too. Mom definitely wasn’t that kind of person.”

  He shifted sideways, lifting up on one arm to rest his head in his palm. “What kind of person was she?”

  She didn’t answer right away. He sensed she was searching for a politically correct answer.

  “Busy,” she finally replied. “Keeping three beauty parlors going while raising five daughters and maintaining an active dating life was no picnic. You know?”

  Did he ever—and he was talking one kid. Five? The thought shook him to the core. Or, maybe being a widower was worse because his skill set was less hearth-and-home oriented. He’d been a complete and utter mess right after Faith died, but he’d done his best to keep his focus on Shiloh and her needs. He got the impression that wasn’t the case where Jessie’s mother was concerned. Mrs. Bouchard might have put her own needs ahead of her daughters’ welfare. But neither Jessie nor Remy seemed too screwed up—despite Jessie’s non-traditional job choice—so the woman must have done something right.

  Before he could say as much, Jessie turned on her side, too. Their faces were a foot or so apart. Close enough for him to smell the minty freshness of her toothpaste. “Can I tell you something I probably shouldn’t tell you?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re the first single dad I’ve ever…um…lusted after. Too blunt, huh?”

  Blunt, yes, but also honest, with a side of vulnerability. How could he resist that?

  “Well, this is a first for me on a number of levels, too. But I’m okay with that. Are you?”

  AM I? JESSIE asked herself. Yes, but…

  Any reservations her brain had prepared to raise disappeared the moment his hands splayed across her back and he moved an inch or two closer.

  She waited to see if his explorations faltered. True, he’d already seen her in a bikini, but this was different. This wasn’t a little friendly groping. This journey was leading somewhere. Possibly to a place where they both were naked and sweaty and exploring each other’s bodies without fear.

  His hand dipped to the base of her spine and a moment later his fingers slipped under the hem of the loose sweatshirt she’d thrown on…without a bra. When his hand settled atop the worst of her scars, she held her breath. He stopped kissing her, pulling back slightly to give her a chance to change her mind or call the whole thing off, she figured.

  She didn’t. Because she knew what would happen. He’d feel the ridges and uneven texture of her skin and remember what he’d seen ye
sterday. He’d congratulate himself on being brave then quickly move on to the normal parts. That’s how the men she’d slept with in the past handled her deformity.

  “I know this is probably a dumb question,” he said, his fingers lightly skimming her tragic skin, “but I need to know. Does it bother you when someone touches your scars?”

  No one had ever asked that before.

  “It’s not physically painful, of course. Most of the nerve endings got fried or buried under the scar tissue, but there are spots that get sensitive in certain weather or when I’ve been sitting in the wrong position too long. I’ve been told it’s like an amputee’s phantom pain.”

  He opened up a bit more space between them. “Would you let me look at you?”

  “In the dark?” She glanced around, realizing for the first time that there was more light from the stars and the sliver of a moon than she’d thought.

  He nodded.

  Oh, hell, why not get the inevitable over? The sooner he got this sympathy thing out of the way, the sooner they could fool around. If that was still on the agenda. So far, this seduction wasn’t going anything like the encounters she’d had in the past.

  She rolled to her belly, crossing her wrists on top of each other to make a resting spot for her forehead. She breathed slowly, the way she did in a yoga relaxation pose. She closed her eyes, listening to the night sounds: crickets chirping, a bullfrog in the stock pond doing his best to impress his sweetheart and the very distant hum from trucks on the highway. The only smell to reach her nose was from the fabric softener Remy had used in the wash.

  A shiver passed through her from head to toe when he pulled up her shirt. “Cold?” he asked, his voice a low, sexy rumble.

  “Not really.”

  He laid both of his hands on her. She could feel each fingertip, as if she were the piano keys and he was the player. He moved boldly, firmly—a blind student studying in Braille for an important test.

  The flesh she’d long termed dead tingled in a way that went straight to her core. His touch was intimate but not sexual. And yet, she was more turned on than she could remember being in a long, long time.

  She crossed her legs at the ankles, ignoring the twinge of complaint from beneath the tightly wrapped bandage. Her thighs squeezed against each other and her womanly core went moist and hot as she imagined those clever, sensitive hands dropping lower.

  He bent over to lay his cheek on a beribboned spot between her shoulder blades. Her doctors had tried three times to improve the grafts in this area, lifting skin from her thigh and the inside of her arms but that particular section refused to heal right.

  When he rubbed his nose against the exact place of her worst anguish—a hot spot that had taken forever to heal—she stopped breathing. A rush of emotion—something harsh and savage—tore through her, bringing back memories she’d worked hard to forget. Kindly nurses who did their best to fill in for her absent mother. Worried, serious doctors who probably thought they were talking over her head when they whispered about their young patient’s emotional disconnect.

  This spot might have been invisible to the world, and yet, somehow, Cade found it.

  “Stop.” Her cry sounded too much like a whimper in her opinion, but it worked. He moved back immediately, giving her the room she needed to flip over.

  The cool air made gooseflesh prickle across her exposed belly. She held out her arms to him. “I need you to kiss me.”

  He obliged without hesitation, placing his hands on either side of her head and lowering himself close enough for their lips to touch, but not providing the full-body contact she craved.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, wishing there was a way to crawl through him to come out whole on the other side.

  That, she realized, was the sort of power she felt within him, the magic they created together.

  She’d never felt an urgency quite this strong. Desire. Such a bland word to describe such a powerful force. She grappled with his shirt, needing to feel his skin against hers. His heat. His perfection.

  Getting out of her loose sweats was nothing, waiting for him to take off his pants, pure agony. She used the time to clear up the questions that needed to be asked. “Protection?”

  “Celibate for ten years.”

  Not me. “The blood tests I had done in Japan showed I was healthy.” Even if I wasn’t a match for Mom. “And I’ve been on the pill since I was eighteen.”

  Their green light shone brighter than any star in the sky, but apparently Cade needed more. After shedding his pants, he returned to lie beside her, naked and aroused, but he didn’t make a move to hold her. Not right away. Instead, he ran the back of his hand gently across her cheek, as if making certain she was real.

  Did he need something else from her? Words of love? Promises of a commitment of some sort?

  Don’t make me lie to you, she whispered silently.

  He must have heard because he was the one to say, “This is just tonight. Here and now. Nothing more. Right?”

  She nodded. Living in the moment was as Zen as it came with stunt people. You never knew what the next stunt might bring. Here and now was the one sure thing. She’d made that her mantra for a long time. Tonight would be enough.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CADE WASN’T WORRIED THAT HE couldn’t perform. He was a normal, healthy male. His only fear was he might hurt her—physically. The woman had been hanging upside down from a tower a few days earlier. Now, instead of making love in one of the many soft, comfortable beds in either of their two houses, he had them naked on a towel on the ground. That nearly unmanned him. He was a heartbeat away from suggesting they head inside when she took his hand and placed it on her breast. Her nipple was hard. Just like him.

  “What about your ankle?” he asked.

  He could see her mischievous grin in the starlight. “It’s not like you have to chase me. The only pain I feel at the moment is a deep ache. Here,” she answered, moving his hand to the cleft between her legs. She opened for him and he had the answer he needed. She wanted him. He wanted her. Maybe life really was that simple.

  His fingers explored her nest of curls much as they had her damaged back—testing, feeling, probing. She inched closer, her back slightly arched. He timed his entry to the second he took her nipple in his mouth. Her moan fired his need all the more.

  He made a judgment call. Now.

  Keeping his full weight on his knees and elbows, he moved to the top position. Missionary style. He’d never understood the name. Why? Because the man was praying he could satisfy his partner before he completely lost his mind and his control?

  He was pretty sure that was one battle he was destined to lose. At least where Jessie was concerned.

  Luckily, Jessie applied herself to sex the same way he’d observed her throwing herself into each stunt she performed—with her entire being. The sounds she made were his guideline, his lifeline. Together, they moved like dancers who had danced this routine a thousand times. They crested the biggest, most powerful wave at the exact same moment.

  He collapsed mindlessly, his focus—what was left of it—captivated by the delicious afterglow. An occasional high-pitched whine of a mosquito buzzed past his ear, but thankfully none landed. Or if they did, he was too blissed out to notice.

  He did, however, notice when she shifted slightly—as if realizing a rock or something was poking her. He immediately rolled to one side, pulling her with him.

  “That was incredible,” she said, snuggling closer with a small shiver that brought back his guilt about not planning this better.

  He found her sweatshirt and used it to cover her back.

  As his body returned to normal, the magnitude of what they’d just done—made love in the open—struck him. His senses went on high alert. Nobody was around to hear them, to know what they’d done, but he rarely left the house after Shiloh went to sleep. What if she woke up and he wasn’t there?

  “Are you regretting t
his already?” she asked, apparently picking up on his growing tension.

  He nuzzled her nose with his own and kissed her. “I will never regret this. But I’m not in the habit of leaving the house with Shiloh in it alone.”

  “Are you afraid she’ll wake up and come looking for you?”

  The question struck him as naive. “No. I’m afraid she’ll wake up, realize I’m gone and jump on the internet. We’ve been arguing over inappropriate social-networking behavior lately, and short of banning her from the computer completely, I’m a bit frustrated and perplexed about how to handle this issue. Any suggestions?”

  She sat up and pulled on her top. “Me? Nope. Sorry. I teach a few yoga classes at Girlz on Fire—I mean, I did—but I have absolutely no parenting skills.” She laughed—her tone strained. “And what do you expect given my role model?”

  “But your older sisters have children,” he said, a little surprised by her hands-off attitude. “Remy mentioned a niece Shiloh’s age.”

  She leaned across him for her pants. “True. But our older sisters had more of a traditional family structure than Remy and me. The Bullies knew their daddy. Mama didn’t divorce him until shortly before Remy and I were born.” She wiggled into her pants then added, “And, of course, Bossy, Bing and Rita are married.”

  He heard something uncompromising in her tone—or was it fear? “I’ve never met a single parent—by single I mean mother or father, married or not—who claimed to know everything there is to know about raising kids. Some of it you make up as you go.”

  She shrugged. “I’m in show business, remember? I do my best work from a script. When you ad lib in stunts, people get hurt.”

  She got to her knees. “I’m going to start physical therapy tomorrow after I drive Shiloh to the bus. I should really get to bed.”

  He needed to go, too, but he felt a little uneasy. He sensed some undercurrent between them that hadn’t been there before he brought up Shiloh and his worries about her current social-networking addiction.

  He scrambled to his feet and helped her up. “If you wait a second, I’ll give you a piggyback ride,” he offered.