by Diana Palmer
“I hoped you’d realize it isn’t a formal date,” he chuckled. “I should have said so.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” she assured him. “I read minds.”
His dark eyebrows arched.
“Really,” she said, green eyes sparkling.
“If you say so,” he returned. “Ready to go?”
“Oh, yes.”
Her father came out into the hall, glanced at J.C. and smiled. He had a book in his hands. “Have fun. Don’t be too late, Colie, please?”
“I won’t, Daddy.” She kissed him. He smiled, but there was concern in his whole look as he turned back to his study. He hadn’t said a word to J.C.
“Daddy’s not comfortable with people,” Colie defended him when they were settled in J.C.’s big black SUV headed for town. “It’s funny, for a minister, because he has to be available to his congregation when they need counseling or comfort.”
“I noticed.”
“It isn’t that he doesn’t like you.” She was trying valiantly to explain something that wasn’t really explainable.
He glanced at her and smiled. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “Don’t sweat it.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
“Do you like fish?”
“Oh, yes. Fried, poached, grilled, any way at all. Do you?”
He chuckled. “I grew up in the Yukon. There are lakes and rivers everywhere. My grandfather taught me to fish when I was about four years old.”
She noticed that he didn’t speak of his father, and she recalled what Rodney had told her. “My grandfathers were both dead when I was born,” she said. “I only had one grandmother living, and she died when I was in grammar school.”
“That’s sad. I had my grandfather until my mother died. He was a grand old fellow. Blackfoot,” he added with a smile. “His family came from Calgary.” He noticed her puzzlement. “It’s in British Columbia. Northwest Canada. Have you ever heard of the Calgary Stampede? It’s a rodeo they hold every year. My granddad rode in it.”
“Gosh! Yes, I’ve heard of that.”
“My father didn’t care much for rodeo, but he was bulldogging with Grandad when he saw a pretty little redheaded Irish woman in the stands, cheering him on. He found her after the event and started talking to her. He was fascinated with her coloring. She was an anthropology student, and she was fascinated with First Nation people, like my father. They dated for a week and got married.”
“You had a redheaded mother?” she asked, staring at him. His hair was coal black, his eyes that odd, beautiful shade of pale silver.
He chuckled. “I did. It doesn’t show, does it?”
“Not really.”
“I get my eyes from her. They were pale gray, like mine.”
“You loved her.”
He stared ahead at the snow-lined road. “Very much. She was always there for me. She took terrible chances to keep me safe.” He drew in a long breath. He’d never spoken of these things, even to Rodney. There was something about Colie that drew his confidence. “I lost her when I was ten. I went to live with an adoptive family.” He forced a smile. “They were good, kind people. They had no kids of their own, so I was pretty much spoiled rotten.” His face hardened. “They died in a fire. I was just getting home from school. I got there just before the ambulances and fire trucks did.” He averted his eyes. The memory still hurt. “I couldn’t get them out. The whole structure was involved by then.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said gently.
The sympathy twisted something inside him, something he’d hidden for years. “I couldn’t get past the flames at the front door,” he gritted. “I tried. A neighbor pulled me back and sat on me until the fire trucks got the hoses going. They were good people.”
Her face contorted. She could only imagine standing helplessly by while people she loved died.
He glanced at her, saw the sympathy that wasn’t feigned. “You don’t push, do you?” he asked after a few seconds, his attention turning back to the road. “You just let people talk when they want to.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m not interesting,” she said. “I listen more than I talk.”
“I noticed that about you, when I first met you. Rod used to talk about his kid sister who sat and daydreamed and played guitar. You still play?”
“Not often. I don’t practice as much as I used to. I have a full-time job and I’m taking night courses in business two days a week.”
“You work for Wentworth and Tartaglia, don’t you?” he asked, naming a well-known law firm in Catelow.
“I do. I went to work for them just out of high school.”
“That was a while back, I guess,” he chuckled.
It was six months, but he didn’t know her real age, apparently. Rod must not have mentioned it. She wasn’t going to, either. If he knew she was barely nineteen, he might not want to take her out. He was thirty-two; Rod had told her. Just as well to let him think she was more mature than she was. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might not want to keep dating her.
“I guess,” she replied with a smile.
He settled down. He’d never asked Rod how old his baby sister was. He knew there were a few years between them, but not how many. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to get serious. He just wanted someone cute and responsive to spend time with. She didn’t seem the sort of woman who’d cling, and that suited him very well.
****
The fish place was crowded, but J.C. found them a table that was just being vacated and captured it before another young couple. They laughed as he grinned at them.
“Wow,” Colie mused, letting him seat her. “That was a nice takeover.”
“Thanks. I can do it with enemy positions, too,” he chuckled.
She cocked her head and laughed. “You really do have a flair for it.”
“I’m hungry and the place is crowded. What do you see that you like?”
She wanted to say, “you,” but she was far too shy to flirt overtly. She settled down with the menu and made her choices.
****
They ate in a comfortable silence.
“Do you fish?” he asked.
She paused with her fork in midair. “Well, yes,” she said. “I used to go with Daddy. We’d sit on the river bank for hours waiting for something to bite. Not much ever did.”
“Come spring, I’ll take you fishing.”
Her heart jumped. That was a long-term invitation. She was touched. “I’d love that,” she said, with her heart in the eyes that slid over his face like exploring hands.
“Me, too,” he said softly.
He held her gaze for so long that her heart ran wild and her fingers trembled. She dropped the fork into her plate with a clatter that stunned her. She dived for it, flushing.
He chuckled. Her headlong reaction to him was delicious. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman had appealed to him so much in ways beyond the purely physical. He hated the memory of the call girl who’d shattered his pride and his ego. But that was in the days before he became experienced and sophisticated. That was before he learned to turn the tables, to make women beg for him and then walk away from them.
His pale gray eyes narrowed on Colie’s face. Could he do that to her? Make her beg, make her do anything he liked—and then just walk away? The thought of giving her up was troubling, even at this very early stage in their relationship. Better not to dwell on it. Live for the moment.
He smiled at her. “How’s the fish?” he asked, to relax the tension.
“It’s great,” she said. “I love the French fries, too. They make them fresh. No frozen stuff here.”
“I noticed. I’m partial to a good French fry.”
“I make them for Daddy sometimes. He likes fish and chips.”
“Your father doesn’t like me.”
“It’s not that.” She struggled for words. “He’s protective of me. He always has been. I go to Sunday school and church, I sing in the choir, I teach primary clas
ses in Sunday school.” She gnawed her lower lip. “I guess that sounds painfully conservative to someone like you, who’s traveled and sophisticated. But around here, it’s pretty much the normal thing. Not everyone is conservative,” she confided. “We have people in our congregation who live together and aren’t married, we have people who do drugs, we have people who have babies out of wedlock, stuff like that. Daddy never judges, he just tries to help.”
His eyes fell to his plate. He wasn’t in the market for a wife. Did she know?
“I know you’re not the settling-down kind, J.C.,” she said out of the blue. “But I like going around with you.”
His eyes lifted. He laughed shortly. “You really do read minds, don’t you?”
She grinned, green eyes twinkling. “I tell fortunes, too, but not where Daddy can hear me,” she whispered. “He thinks it’s witchcraft!”
He grinned back. “My father’s mother could see far,” he said. “She had visions. I suppose a doctor might say she had aura from migraines and was hallucinating, but her visions were pretty accurate. She saw the future.”
“Did she ever tell yours?”
He nodded. He scowled as he finished his meal and lifted the coffee cup with cooling black coffee to chiseled, sensuous lips. “Yes, but it made no real sense.”
“What did she say?”
He put the cup down. “She said that one day I’d want something out of my reach, that I’d make bad decisions and cause a tragedy that would hurt me as much as it hurt the other person. She said that a third person would suffer the most for it.” He paused and then laughed at her puzzled expression. “Sometimes she was vague. I was very young at the time, too. She said that I was too young to understand what she was telling me.” His face hardened. “I lost her at the same time I lost my mother. I lost touch with my grandfather. By the time I was old enough to search for him, he was long dead.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how it feels to lose people you love. At least, I still have Daddy and Rod.”
He understood what she wasn’t saying. She was saying that J.C. had nobody. She was right.
His big hand reached for hers and closed over it. “You have a knack for pulling painful memories out of me,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I like it.”
She felt her heart soaring at the touch of his hand on hers. It was like tiny electric shocks running through her. She loved the way it felt to hold hands. “You don’t let people get close. I’m that way,” she confessed hesitantly. “But we’re different, because I trust people and you don’t. I’m shy, so I keep to myself.”
His thumb smoothed over her soft, damp palm. He studied her quietly. “I enjoy my own company.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
“But I enjoy yours as well.”
She smiled. She beamed. “Really?”
“Really.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll have to do this again.”
“That would be nice.”
“Dessert?”
“I don’t really like sweets,” she confessed.
He chuckled. “Something else in common. Okay. Movie next.” He picked up the check, pulled out her chair, and they left.
****
The movie was funny. Colie thought she’d probably have enjoyed it, but her whole body was involved with the feel of J.C.’s arm around her in the back of the theater, in one of the couple seats. His fingers brushed lazily over her throat, her shoulder, down to her ribcage, in light, undemanding brushes that made her heart race, made her body feel swollen and hungry.
His cheek rested on her dark hair while they watched the screen. The theater wasn’t crowded, despite the great reviews the movie had gotten. There was an usher. He went up and down the aisles and left.
“Alone at last,” J.C. teased at her ear, and his lips traveled down her neck to where it joined her shoulder, under the lacy blouse.
She felt just the tip of his tongue there and she shivered. She’d never had such a headlong physical reaction to any man she’d ever known. The boys in her circle of friends were just that: boys. This was an experienced man, and she knew that if he ever turned up the heat, there would be no resisting him.
J.C. knew that, too. It should have pleased him. It didn’t. She wasn’t the sort of woman he was used to these days. She was like his grandmother. His mother. They were conservative, too. Neither of them had ever been unfaithful to their mates. His mother once spoke of being so naive that she hardly knew how to kiss when she married his father. They were women of faith, although his mother had been Catholic and his grandmother a practitioner of her native religion. They were the sort of women who loved their men and had families with them. J.C. didn’t want any part of that.
But he loved the feel of Colie’s soft body beside him. He wanted her, desperately. There were so many reasons why he should just walk away, cut this off now, while there was still time.
Her cheek moved against his hair. He could almost feel her heart beating. Her breath was shallow and quick. She was trembling.
He had to fight the surging need to push her down on the floor and have her right there. It was the first time in his life he’d ever wanted anyone that badly.
Because it shocked him, he drew away a little. He had to slow things down. He needed time to think.
She looked lost when he moved away. He caught her hand in his and held it tight, tight.
She relaxed. It was as if he was comforting her, cooling things down. She appreciated it, because she’d sensed his need. Perhaps he’d been alone too long, she thought, and he was hungry. That disturbed her. She couldn’t do what he wanted, not without some sort of commitment. She couldn’t shame her father in a town so small that gossip ran rampant.
She forced a smile and tried to concentrate on the movie.
****
J.C. drove her home, still holding her hand. He liked her a lot, but he was getting cold feet. This was going to be a mistake if he let it continue. He should have left her alone. She was getting emotionally involved and he couldn’t afford this. He liked his freedom too much.
He walked her to her door. “It was a pretty good movie.”
“Yes, it was,” she agreed, thinking privately that she couldn’t remember a single scene.
He turned her to him and he was solemn in the porch light. “It’s unwise to start things you can’t finish,” he said after a minute.
Her heart sank, but she understood. He didn’t want involvement. She’d known that. It still hurt.
She forced a smile. “Still, it was nice. Fish and a movie.”
He nodded. He looked troubled. His big hand touched her cheek, felt its warmth, its smooth contours.
“You live in a conservative household,” he began. “You work at a conventional job. I don’t. I like risk…”
She reached up and put her fingers over his mouth. “You don’t have to say it, J.C.,” she said softly. “I understand.”
He caught the fingers and kissed them hungrily. Then he put them away. “You’re a nice woman,” he said after a minute.
“Thanks.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he said sardonically.
She laughed.
He drew in a breath and shook his head. She was a puzzle.
He stuck his hands in his coat pockets, to keep from doing what he wanted to do with them. He cocked his head and studied her through narrowed eyes. “What am I thinking?”
“That you’d love to kiss me good-night, but you think I might become addictive, so you’re going to rush out to your truck and go home,” she said simply.
His eyebrows arched. It was so close to the truth that it made him uncomfortable.
She laughed. “Now you’re thinking that I’m a witch,” she mused.
His breath rushed out in a torrent.
“And now you’re shocked,” she continued. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. One of the Kirk boys married a psychic. I’m not nearly in her class, but she said people wouldn’t even
come into an office where she worked because they were afraid of her.”
“I’m not afraid of seers,” he replied.
“You’re just uneasy, because it’s one of those spooky things people keep hidden,” she said.
He burst out laughing and shook his head. “My God.”
“I don’t usually talk about it around people. I wouldn’t want my bosses to fire me because clients ran for the hills.”
“It’s a rare gift,” he said after a minute.
“It can be,” she said, but her face clouded.
His eyes narrowed. “You see things you don’t want to see.”
She nodded. “I know when bad things are going to happen to people I love,” she said sadly. “I knew when my grandmother was going to die. She had the gift, too.”
“What did she tell you?”
She shifted her purse in her hands. “She said that my life was going to be a hard one,” she replied. “That I’d make a very bad decision and I’d pay a high price for it. She said that I’d marry, but not for love, and that tragedy would stalk me like a tiger for several years. But that I’d have a happy, full life afterwards.”
He was surprised at the commonality in the predictions his grandmother and hers had given for both of them.
“It is odd, isn’t it?” she asked, as if she’d read the thought in his mind. “I mean, that your grandmother would have told you almost what mine told me.”
“Odd,” he agreed.
“On the other hand, maybe they were both just rambling,” she said, and smiled. “Predictions are just that. Predictions. I don’t read the future at all. I just get cold, hollow feelings when something bad’s going to happen. Mostly when it concerns Daddy.”
“I’ve never had that.”
“Lucky you,” she said. She searched his lean face. “You’ve had a hard life, J.C. I don’t even have to know about you. It shows. So much pain…”
“Stop right there,” he interrupted, his jaw taut.
“Overstepped the boundaries, did I?” she asked, and smiled. “Sorry. I just open my mouth and stuff my foot in, all the time.”
That amused him and he laughed.
“It was a nice night out. Thanks,” she said.
He shrugged. “It was nice,” he agreed. “But we’re not doing it again.”
