Desire by Starlight

by Radclyffe

  “I think I can get it from here.”

  “Of course.” Gard released the pants and straightened abruptly, turning her back. “I’ll get that immobilizer.”

  Before Jenna could protest, Gard disappeared. Jenna closed her eyes, the unmistakable image of desire imprinted on her mind.

  Chapter Seven

  Jenna had been quiet since they’d left the clinic, and ordinarily Gard wouldn’t mind silence. She spent so much time alone, or talking to animals who didn’t talk back, she’d pretty much lost the art of casual conversation, let alone anything more intimate. Jenna’s quiet didn’t bother her so much as it concerned her. She couldn’t tell if Jenna was in pain, or angry, or sad. She’d sat motionless, looking out the side window, since they got in the truck.

  “Are you all right?” Gard asked.

  “I’m fine,” Jenna said softly.

  “Still hungry?”

  “It’s two in the morning.” Jenna turned from where she’d been watching the night pass by in fragmented snapshots of hoary fields back-dropped by the skeletal arms of tree branches stretching into a ghostly sky. She’d cracked the window, and the tang of newly plowed fields, fresh-cut grass, and fecund life transported her back a dozen years and five hundred miles away to a place she’d thought she would never want to go again. How was it that the taste of a summer night could make her feel fifteen again, filled with promise and expectation and restless longing? But she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and all that youthful anticipation had been extinguished by the harsh hand of experience. Hopes and dreams were for those who couldn’t control their own destinies, but she could. She could. She’d had to learn to shape her own fate, and she’d gotten very good at doing that. “I imagine you’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

  “I’d say about a third of the month I’m up working all night,” Gard said. “This is as usual a time for me to have breakfast as it is to have dinner. I guess I don’t work by a normal clock.”

  Jenna shifted around on the seat, trying to get comfortable with the unfamiliar and incredibly aggravating knee immobilizer forcing her to keep her leg out straight. Putting her back against the door, she watched Gard drive. She looked relaxed, her shoulders back against the seat, her hands low on either side of the wheel, her eyes fixed straight ahead. In charge, but comfortable, in tune with her surroundings. Gard didn’t look as if she ever had to wrestle with fate to keep her life just where she wanted it. Jenna found that both admirable and annoying.

  “Are you married?” Jenna asked.

  Gard whipped her head around and hit Jenna with a hard stare, then just as quickly faced front again. “I’m trying to figure out what my discussion of mealtime has to do with that.”

  “Sorry,” Jenna said. “I have a tendency to think in chapter breaks. One of the first rules of novel writing is that every chapter should begin very close to the heart of the scene. I guess I’m not much on leading up to a topic.”

  Gard laughed. “I’m still not getting the segue.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking it must be kind of hard to be in a relationship when your schedule is so erratic. Unless of course, you have a very patient partner.”

  “Plenty of doctors have stable long-term relationships.”

  “Absolutely. And plenty don’t.” Jenna noted Gard very often redirected the conversation to avoid answering a question. She recognized the ploy because she used it herself. Gard, despite her laid-back demeanor, was very guarded. Her name suited her. “Touchy topic, Dr. Davis?”

  “Nope.” Gard’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Not attached. Never have been.”

  “And is that just because you enjoy working all the time, or you’re more of a casual dater?”

  “Neither,” Gard said, sounding a little as if her answer surprised her. “You’re right—I do like my work, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for socializing. But I’m not much for socializing anyhow.”

  “That’s a shame,” Jenna murmured.

  “Sorry?”

  “Nothing.” Jenna wondered why she’d asked Gard the question. She rarely gave much thought to the private lives of women she found attractive. The only thing she really cared about was whether they were attached or not. When she’d run away from home and was living hand to mouth in one dead-end job after the other, sex staved off loneliness. She hadn’t been above sleeping with a married woman then, but before very long, the excuse that everyone was responsible for their own relationships started to feel a little self-serving. Now she at least tried to determine if the women she bedded were single. Well, usually. Thinking back to Brin—God, had it really only been twenty-four hours since they’d been tearing each other’s clothes off?—she realized she hadn’t made any effort to find out her marital status. But nothing about Brin screamed married. As to Gard, the answer was moot. The woman was attractive—physically, at least—but she was far too controlling. Jenna liked aggressive women in bed, but just spending time in the same space as Gard was a battle and she didn’t need that in the bedroom.

  “You never answered my question about being hungry,” Gard said.

  “Actually, I’m starved.” Jenna was wide-awake with nothing to look forward to except an uncomfortable night in a strange hotel. She wouldn’t mind spending a little more time sparring with Gard. Verbally at least. “So if you really don’t mind—”

  “I was the one who offered. You can trust me to tell you what I mean. I don’t have time for games.”

  Jenna heard the word anymore hang in the air, and wondered what game Gard had played, and with whom. And if she’d won or lost.

  “I’m in then,” Jenna said.

  *

  Oscar’s Road House perched on the side of Route 7 like a wet rooster, bedraggled but feisty. Even at two in the morning, pickup trucks and eighteen-wheelers clogged the dirt and gravel parking lot around the ramshackle barn-red diner. No-frills security lights blazed from under the eaves, as bright as the noontime sun. Jenna blinked when Gard opened her door and helped her down from the truck.

  “Popular place,” Jenna said.

  “Oscar’s makes the best homemade sausage in three counties,” Gard informed her as they navigated the parking lot. “How’s the leg?”

  “It’ll get me where I need to go, as long as I don’t need to be there this week,” Jenna muttered.

  Gard laughed. “I could always carry you again.”

  Jenna shot her a look. “Oh, and wouldn’t that make a perfect entrance. We’re probably going to be the only women in this place as it is.”

  “That’s not true. All the waitresses are female.”

  “Some things never change.” Jenna rolled her eyes, wondering exactly what she was getting into. She knew what these places were like. She hadn’t been in one since she was seventeen and slinging hash on nights and weekends to buy clothes for school, but she hadn’t forgotten the come-ons disguised as teasing that were always one step away from turning ugly when she refused. As she and Gard stepped through the revolving glass door into the brightly lit long, narrow room, she saw the familiar vinyl-lined booths hugging the front windows and the topsy-turvy counter stools on the other side of the narrow, grease-splattered aisle. Men ranging from twenty to sixty hunched over coffee in all the booths, most of them wearing green work shirts and khaki pants, all with sweat-ringed caps sporting the logos of long-distance trucking companies. And every single one of them turned to watch her and Gard make their way slowly to the counter. She didn’t mind being looked at. She was on stage almost every day of her life. But for an instant, she couldn’t help remembering the girl she had been—her clothes outdated, her hair home-cut, her eyes haunted by the oppressive neglect of growing up with a woman who saw her as nothing more than a meal ticket. She was expected to accept the offers for a night of fun, no matter how crudely put, because everyone knew she could do no better. The past came rushing back so quickly she abruptly stopped.

  “Just a little farther,” Gard murmured, resting her hand at the small of
Jenna’s back. “There’re open spaces right over here.”

  “I’m fine,” Jenna said.

  “You’re ten shades of pale. This was a stupid idea. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m fine, damn it. Just give me a lift onto the stool. This brace is impossible to move in.”

  “That’s the idea.” Despite what Jenna’d said, Gard slid her arm farther around Jenna’s waist, worried she might faint. A wolf-whistle cut through the air and Gard swiveled her head, honing in on a scruffy guy with bloodshot eyes leering at them. Leering at Jenna. She wanted to smack the lascivious grin off his face, and then pulled herself up short. Hell, she bumped shoulders with good ole boys like him every day and never gave their off-color remarks and lewd looks a second thought. She blanked her expression and locked on his eyes until he slid his gaze away.

  “Here you go.” Gard guided Jenna onto a stool and took the one next to her, extending one leg a little into the aisle to protect Jenna’s injured knee from careless passersby. Leaning over the counter, she signaled to a heavyset bleached-blonde in a too-short, tight black skirt who poured coffee a few seats away. “Hey, Betty. Could you bring us an orange juice and a couple of those glazed doughnuts right away?”

  The blonde glared before spotting Gard, her iceberg expression melting into a hot pink smile. “Of course, darlin’.”

  “I’m really all right,” Jenna murmured, refusing to give in to yet another case of the swirlies.

  “You just need a little sugar to counteract all the stress. If you’re not feeling better in a few minutes, we’ll get something to go.”

  “All right. Thanks.” Jenna hated being so exposed and vulnerable. “I’m not usually such a wimp.”

  “You mentioned being in the hospital this morning,” Gard said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. It was just a…thing.”

  “Oh. The dreaded thing. They can be a nuisance.”

  Betty slid two enormous honey-colored glazed doughnuts in front of them along with glasses of orange juice. “Coffee too?”

  “Yes,” Gard said. “Thanks.”

  “None for me.” Jenna broke off a piece of the doughnut, put it in her mouth, and nearly swooned as an explosion of warm dough and sweet maple assaulted her taste buds. “Oh my God. What is this?”

  “Vermont’s own maple-glazed doughnuts. They make them here.”

  “This place is dangerous.”

  “Wait until you taste breakfast.” Gard nodded her thanks to Betty when the coffee arrived and asked for two specials. “So you were telling me about this thing.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Why don’t you anyway.”

  Jenna sighed. “You are annoyingly stubborn.”

  “You can add that to overbearingly authoritative.”

  Jenna laughed. Nothing seemed to faze this woman. “I’ve been on a really hectic book tour for almost a month. I had a signing that ran late last night, I didn’t get much sleep, and I…sort of fainted. That’s all. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Sort of fainted, or did?”

  Jenna swiped a hand through her hair. “Did.”

  “And then you flew up here, injured your knee, and haven’t had dinner or any sleep tonight either. No wonder you’re light-headed.”

  “Who said I’m light-headed.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Maybe a little.” Jenna ate some more of the doughnut, feeling her strength return as the sugar surged through her bloodstream. “I’m going straight to hell for eating this thing. How many does it take before you’re addicted?”

  Gard glanced at Jenna’s plate. “You’re about there now.”

  Jenna moaned. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “I’ll feel better if you stayed at my place for the rest of the night.”

  “Really.” Jenna pushed away the last half of the doughnut and swiveled on the seat to face Gard. “You work fast for someone who isn’t interested in dating.”

  “If I wanted to date, I’d make it more obvious and I’d suggest somewhere more exciting than my guest room. You’ve had a hard day and a harder night. I don’t know how to say this without insulting you, but you look like hell.”

  “Well, that may be the reason you don’t date very much, Dr. Davis. You’re somewhat lacking in tact.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Gard said.

  “So far tonight,” Jenna said, ticking points off on one hand, “I’ve forced you to drive for hours in the middle of the night to shuttle me from the airport, then provide emergency medical care, and now you’re ferrying me around so I can eat. I’m hardly going to add to all that by having you put me up at your house. I have a perfectly good hotel room waiting. But thank you.”

  “There’s only one place in town and it’s perfectly fine, but it’s more of a motel. There’s one night clerk who, if I’m not mistaken, is barely out of high school. If you have a problem, I don’t want you to be there alone. I have to leave at six for my calls. You’ll be able to sleep in until I get back around noon. Then I’ll take you to the motel.”

  “No. I’m not inconveniencing you any—”

  “If I have to drive you to town it’s another half an hour each way. My place is a mile off this road.”

  Jenna eyed Gard suspiciously. “And you just happened to take me to the diner that was around the corner from your house?”

  Gard grinned. “A mile is hardly around the corner.”

  “Don’t give me that. I know what things are like out in the country. This place is practically in your backyard.”

  “Not always a city girl, hmm?”

  Jenna flushed and clasped her hands in her lap before Gard could see them shaking. “You’re nefarious.”

  “Now there is a word I haven’t been called in…oh, a century or so.”

  Jenna couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “How about impossible? Does that work a little better for you?”

  “I think I prefer nefarious. More sophisticated.”

  Jenna snorted.

  “So are we agreed?”

  “You make the motel sound so appealing.” Jenna shrugged. “I’m not making you drive around an extra hour to take me to town. If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.” Gard took in the circles under Jenna’s eyes, the pallor that went deeper than the natural hue of her skin, the tightness around her eyes that spoke of pain, both physical and something beyond. For just an instant, she saw Jenna asleep in her bed, secure in the circle of her arms, and knew she’d lied.

  When it came to Jenna Hardy, she wasn’t sure of anything at all.

  Chapter Eight

  Jenna went back to watching the night as Gard turned off the serpentine country road onto a gravel lane that wound between regiments of towering oaks and lone spruce sentries. The moon flirted in and out behind smoky clouds while ahead of them an apparition rose, Brigadoon-like from the shadows, to consume the horizon. A stately white clapboard house stretched its wings from either side of the main building into darkness, its tall, narrow windows flanked by black shutters like so many thick lashes. Incandescent lanterns on either side of the double front doors cast pale yellow circles onto a columned porch. Not a mansion built to mimic the elegance and gallantry of centuries gone by, but the real thing. A country manor house preserved in all its glory.

  “And to think I passed on the Motel 6.” Jenna rapidly revised her earlier assessment of Gard as a simple country vet. Gard hadn’t earned enough tending livestock to buy a place like this. Family money, maybe, or inherited. Definitely a mystery, and when the puzzle came wrapped up in a package like Gard Davis, a fascinating one she itched to unwrap.

  Gard pulled the truck around the circular drive and stopped. “The walk is tricky. Wait for me.”

  Peering through the windshield, Jenna got the impression of another sizeable building looming behind the house—the barn, she presumed. When Gard opened the door, the night rushed in, carrying the wild scent of the surrounding farmland and woods. A gust of win
d singing with the deep rumble of bullfrogs and the high-pitched rustle of insects whipped her hair around her face, and she reached up to brush the errant strands out of her eyes. She could almost believe she’d stepped through a time warp, and Gard’s sudden appearance did nothing to dispel the illusion. Her profile etched in starlight, her dark hair blowing, and one hand held out to Jenna, she might have been the lord of the manor handing a lady down from her carriage.

  Jenna was no Cinderella, though, and she knew it only too well. Had she waited to be rescued so long ago, she would still be lugging trays at Benny’s. Ignoring Gard’s outstretched hand as agilely as she had dodged the unwanted advances of Benny’s customers, Jenna gripped Gard’s shoulder instead and stepped down onto her uninjured leg.

  “How’s the knee?” Gard asked.

  “Better.” Jenna let her hand linger on Gard’s shoulder and tested her damaged knee. Sore but serviceable. She relinquished her hold on Gard. “I think the treatment might be worse than the injury.”

  “Often the case,” Gard said, “but this walk is uneven and you won’t be able to see the flagstones in the dark.”

  “This is no little country farm.”

  When they started toward the house, Gard slipped her arm around Jenna’s waist, and Jenna didn’t protest the chivalry. She might not need rescuing, but she liked the hard heat of Gard’s body. As long as she was the one in charge of the touching.

  “Mulberry Ridge was once one of the largest farms in the state. I was lucky to get the house after the family sold off most of the land.”

  “And there’s just you here?”

  “Me, Beam, and a couple dozen horses, goats, and chickens.”

  “Beam?”

  A dark form cannonballed out of the shadows and bore down on them so quickly Jenna gasped and pressed close against Gard. “What—”

  “Beam,” Gard called sharply. “Take it easy. Walking wounded here.”