Two Alone

by Sandra Brown

  “And you do?” The glint in his eyes dimmed and the lids narrowed. Gradually she released his hands. He backed away from her suspiciously, as though he’d just learned that what was confining her to the hospital bed might be contagious.

  “I haven’t posed any questions that might have been embarrassing for you to answer, Rusty. I wanted to spare us both that. However, I’m not blind. Landry is almost a caricature of the macho male. He’s the kind of belligerent loner that women swoon over and fancy themselves able to tame.”

  He cupped her chin and tilted it up so he could read her eyes. “Surely you’re too intelligent to fall for a pair of broad shoulders and a broody disposition. I hope that you didn’t form any sort of emotional attachment to this man. That would be most unfortunate.”

  Unwittingly her father had echoed Cooper’s theory— that their feelings were due largely to their dependency on each other. “Under the circumstances, wouldn’t forming an attachment to him be natural?”

  “Yes. But the circumstances have changed. You’re no longer isolated with Landry in the wilderness; you’re home. You have a life here that mustn’t be jeopardized by a juvenile infatuation. Whatever happened up there,” he said, hitching his perfectly groomed head in the direction of the window, “is over and should be forgotten.” Cooper had said as much, too. But it wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. And it couldn’t be forgotten. What she felt for him wasn’t going to weaken and eventually die from lack of nurturing. She hadn’t formed a psychological dependency on him that would disappear as she gradually resumed her previous life.

  She’d fallen in love. Cooper was no longer her provider and protector, but something so much more. He was the man she loved. Whether they were together or apart, that would never change.

  “Don’t worry, Father. I know exactly what I feel for Mr. Landry.” That was the truth. Let her father draw his own conclusions.

  “Good girl,” Carlson said, patting her shoulder. “I knew I could count on you to come out of this stronger and smarter than ever. Just like your brother, you’ve got your head on straight.”

  She had been home for a week after spending almost a week in the hospital recovering from the first operation on her shin. The scar didn’t look much better than it had before the surgery, but the doctor had assured her that after the series of operations, it would be virtually undetectable.

  Aside from a little tenderness in her leg, she felt perfectly fine. The bandages had been removed, but the surgeon had advised her to keep clothing off the leg and to continue to use crutches for support.

  She had regained the few pounds she’d lost after the plane crash. She spent a half hour or so each day lying in the sun on the redwood deck of her pool to restore her light tan. Her friends had been true to their promise, and since she couldn’t easily get to a salon, they’d brought the salon to her. A hairdresser had trimmed and conditioned and restored her hair to its usual glossy sheen. A manicurist had resculptured her nails. She’d also massaged a pound of cream into Rusty’s dry, rough hands.

  As she watched the manicurist smoothing away the scaly redness, Rusty thought about the laundry she had washed by hand, then hung up to dry on a crude outdoor clothesline. It had always been a contest to see if the clothes would dry before they froze. It hadn’t been all that bad. Not really. Or did memory always make things seem better than they actually had been?

  That could be applied to everything. Had Cooper’s kisses really been that earth-moving? Had his arms and whispered words been that comforting in the darkest hours of the night? If not, why did she wake up frequently, yearning for his nearness, his warmth?

  She had never been so lonely.

  Not that she was ever alone—at least not for prolonged periods of time. Friends dropped in to bring trifling presents that would hopefully amuse her because she seemed so morose. Physically she was coming along nicely, but her spirits hadn’t bounced back yet.

  Friends and associates were worried about her. Since the airplane crash, she was not her usual, jovial self at all. They kept her stuffed with everything from Godiva chocolates to carry-out tacos to covered dishes from Beverly Hills’s finest restaurants, prepared especially for her by the head chefs who knew personally what her favorite foods were.

  She had lots of time on her hands, but she was never idle. Her father’s prediction had come true: she was suddenly a celebrity real-estate agent. Everybody in town who wanted to sell or buy sought her advice on the fluctuating market trends. Each day she took calls from prospective clients, including an impressive number of movie and television people. Her ear grew sore from the hours spent on the telephone. Ordinarily she would have leaped over the moon for a client list of this caliber. Instead she was plagued with an uncharacteristic ennui that she couldn’t explain or overcome.

  Her father hadn’t said any more about developing the area around Rogers Gap. She hoped that idea was officially a dead issue. He came by her house each day, ostensibly to check on her progress. But Rusty suspected, perhaps unfairly, that her father was more interested in quickly harvesting this crop of new business than in her recovery.

  The lines around his mouth became tense with impatience, and his jocular encouragement for her to get back to work was beginning to sound forced. Even though she was following doctor’s orders, she knew that she was stretching her recovery time for as long as she could. She was determined, however, not to return to her office until she felt good and ready.

  On this particular afternoon, she groaned in dread when the doorbell pealed through her house. Her father had called earlier to say that because of a business commitment he wouldn’t be able to come by that day. Rusty had been relieved. She loved her father but had welcomed the break from his daily visit, which never failed to exhaust her.

  Obviously his meeting had been canceled and she wasn’t going to get a reprieve after all.

  Hooking her arms over her crutches, she hobbled down the hallway toward her front door. She’d lived in this house for three years. It was a small, white stucco building with a red tile roof, very southern California in design, tucked into an undercliff and shrouded with vividly blooming bougainvillea. Rusty had fallen in love with it the minute she saw it.

  Propping herself up on one crutch, she unlatched and opened the door.

  Cooper said nothing. Neither did she. They just stared at each other for a long time before she silently moved aside. He stepped through the arched doorway. Rusty closed the door and turned to face him.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see about your leg.” He looked down at her shin. She stuck it out for his inspection. “It doesn’t look much better.”

  “It will.” His skeptical gaze moved up to meet hers. “The doctor has promised it will,” she said defensively.

  He still seemed doubtful, but let the subject drop. He took in his surroundings, pivoting slowly. “I like your house.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a lot like mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Mine looks sturdier, maybe. Not decorated as fancy. But they’re similar. Large rooms. Lots of windows.” She felt she had recovered enough to move. Upon seeing him, her one good knee, which she relied on for support, had threatened to buckle beneath her. Now, she felt confident enough to move forward and indicated for him to follow her. “Come on in. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Something soft.”

  “Lemonade?”

  “Fine.”

  “It’ll only take a minute to make.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “No bother. I was thirsty for some anyway.”

  She maneuvered herself through the dining room and into the kitchen at the back of the house. He followed. “Sit down.” She nodded toward the butcher-block table that formed an island in the center of the kitchen and moved toward the refrigerator.

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  “No
thanks. I’ve had practice.”

  She turned her head, ready with a smile, and caught him staring at the backs of her legs. Thinking that she was going to be alone all day, she’d dressed in a ragged pair of cutoffs and hadn’t bothered with shoes. The tails of a chambray shirt were knotted at her waist. She’d pulled her hair up into a high, scraggly ponytail. The effect was a Beverly Hills version of Daisy Mae.

  Caught staring at her smooth, bare legs, Cooper shifted guiltily in his chair. “Does it hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Your leg.”

  “Oh. No. Well, some. Off and on. I’m not supposed to walk or drive or anything like that yet.”

  “Have you gone back to work?”

  Her ponytail swished against her neck as she shook her head. “I’m conducting some business here by telephone. The messenger services love me. I’ve kept them busy. But I haven’t quite felt up to dressing and going to the office.”

  She took a can of lemonade concentrate out of the refrigerator where she’d had it thawing. “Have you been busy since you got home?”

  She poured the thick pink concentrate into a pitcher and added a bottle of chilled club soda. When some of it splashed on the back of her hand, she raised it to her mouth and sucked it off. That’s when she turned with the question still in her eyes.

  Like a hawk, Cooper was watching every move. He was staring at her mouth. Slowly, she lowered her hand and turned back to her task. Her hands were trembling as she took glasses down out of the cabinet and filled them with ice cubes.

  “Yeah, I’ve been busy.”

  “How was everything when you got back?”

  “Okay. A neighbor had been feeding my livestock. Guess he would have gone on doing that indefinitely if I’d never turned up.”

  “That’s a good neighbor.” She had wanted to inject some levity into the conversation, but her voice sounded bright and brittle. It didn’t fit the atmosphere, which was as heavy and oppressive as a New Orleans summer. The air was sultry; she couldn’t draw enough of it into her lungs.

  “Don’t you have any help running your ranch?” she asked.

  “Off and on. Temporary hands. Most of them are ski bums who only work to support their habit. When they run out of money they work a few days so they can buy lift tickets and food. The system works for both them and me.”

  “Because you don’t like a lot of people around.”

  “Right.”

  An abysmal depression came over her. She staved it off by asking, “Do you ski?”

  “Some. Do you?”

  “Yes. Or I did.” She glanced down at her leg. “I may have to sit this season out.”

  “Maybe not. Since the bone wasn’t broken.”

  “Maybe.”

  And that, it seemed, was all they had to say. By tacit agreement, they ended the inane small talk and did what they really wanted to do—look at each other.

  His hair had been cut, but was still unfashionably long. She liked the way it brushed the collar of his casual shirt. His jaw and chin were smoothly shaven, but if one single hair in his mustache had been altered, she couldn’t tell it. The lower lip beneath it was as stern and unyielding as ever. If anything, the grooves bracketing his mouth looked deeper, making his face appear more unrelievedly masculine. She couldn’t help but wonder what particular worry had carved those lines deeper.

  His clothes weren’t haute couture, but he would turn heads on Rodeo Drive and be a refreshing change from the dapper dressers. Blue jeans still did more for a male physique than any other garment ever sewn together. They did more for Cooper’s body than for most. Of course, there was more to work with—so much more that the bulging denim between his thighs made Rusty’s stomach flutter.

  His cotton shirt was stretched over a chest she still dreamed about. The sleeves had been rolled back to reveal his strong forearms. He had carried a brown leather bomber jacket in with him. It was now draped over the back of his chair, forgotten. Indeed, he seemed to have forgotten everything except the woman standing only a few feet, yet seemingly light-years, away from him.

  His eyes tracked down her body, stripping her as they went. As though he were actually peeling away layer after layer of clothing, her skin began to burn with fever. By the time his eyes paused on the uneven, stringy hems of her cutoffs, where the soft threads tickled her bare thighs, Rusty was warm and moist.

  His gaze moved back up to her face and the desire he saw registered there reflected his own. His eyes were like magnets drawing her into their field. On her crutches, she closed the distance between them, never breaking their stare. He didn’t either. As she drew nearer, he had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. It seemed to take a lifetime but was actually only a few seconds before she stood directly in front of him, leaning on her crutches for support.

  She said, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  Groaning, he lowered his head and pressed it hard against her breasts. “Rusty. Damn you. I couldn’t stay away.”

  Overwhelming emotions caused her eyes to close. Her head tipped forward in total surrender to her love for this complex man. She whispered his name.

  He folded his arms around her waist and nuzzled his face in the soft, fragrant valley between her breasts. His hands opened wide over her back, drawing her body closer even though she couldn’t move her feet.

  “I’ve missed you,” she admitted hoarsely. She didn’t expect him to make a similar confession, and he didn’t. But the ardency of his embrace was unspoken evidence of how much he’d missed her. “I’d hear your voice and turn, expecting you to be there. Or I’d start to say something to you before I realized you weren’t there.”

  “God, you smell good.” Openmouthed, he gnawed on the soft inner curves of her breasts, catching cloth and all between his strong, white teeth.

  “You smell like the mountains,” she told him, kissing his hair.

  “I’ve got to have—” he was frantically untying the knot at her waist “—just one—” it came undone and he ripped the buttons apart “—bite.” His mouth fastened on the fleshy part of her breast, which was overflowing the cup of her brassiere.

  At the first hot contact of his mouth with her skin, she arched her back and moaned. Her knuckles turned white where they gripped the handles of her crutches. She longed to drop them and plunge her fingers into his hair. She felt it dusting her skin when he turned his head and kissed her other breast. He took gentle love bites through the sheer cups of her brassiere and delicately sipped at the tips.

  She released a keening sound much like a sob. It was both frustrating and thrilling not to have the use of her hands. The sense of helplessness was titillating. “Cooper,” she gasped imploringly.

  He reached around her and unhooked her bra strap, working it down as far as it would go before the straps got caught in her sleeves. But that was sufficient. He had completely uncovered her. His eyes drank their fill before his lips surrounded one taut, pink crest and drew it into his mouth. He sucked it lovingly, then sponged the very tip of it with his tongue before drying it with his mustache. His whole face moved over her breasts, rubbing them with cheek and chin and mouth and nose and brow. Rusty, leaning precariously on her crutches, chanted his name with religious fervor.

  “Tell me what you want. Anything,” he said huskily. “Tell me.”

  “I want you.”

  “Woman, you’ve got me. What do you want?”

  “To touch. To be touched.”

  “Where?”

  “Cooper...”

  “Where?”

  “You know where,” she cried.

  He brusquely unsnapped her cutoffs and slid down the zipper. Her brief panties did little more than cover the triangle of curls. He wanted to smile, but his face was too set with passion, so he couldn’t. He merely growled his approval as he pulled down the panties along with her cutoffs. He kissed the gingery down.

  Rusty’s strength deserted her. She let go of the crutches. They clattered
to the floor. She fell forward slightly, breaking her fall by placing her hands on Cooper’s shoulders. As she did so, he slid off the seat of the chair and sank to his knees in front of her.

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep from screaming with pleasure as he parted her dewy flesh with his thumbs and buried his tongue in the softness.

  He didn’t stop there. He didn’t stop at all. Not after the first wave of ecstasy swept over her. Not even after the second had claimed her. He didn’t stop until her body was glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration, until tendrils of russet hair were clinging damply to her temples and cheeks and neck, until she was quivering with aftershocks.

  Only then did he rise to his feet and take her in his arms. “Which way?” His face was softer than she’d ever seen it as it bent over hers. The guarded chill was no longer in his eyes. In its place were sparks of some strong emotion she dared to hope was love.

  She raised her hand and pointed in the general direction of the bedroom. He found it without difficulty. Since she’d spent a great deal of time in that room recently, it had a homey, lived-in aspect that apparently appealed to him. He smiled as he carried her through the doorway. Gently he stood her on her left leg and threw back the covers on the bed. “Lie down.”

  She did, watching as he went into the bathroom. She heard water running. Moments later, he came back carrying a damp cloth. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes spoke volumes as he drew her into a sitting position and eased off her blouse. Removing her brassiere only required sliding the straps off her arms. She sat before him totally naked, and marvelously unashamed.

  He ran the cool, damp cloth over her arms and shoulders and around her neck. After he had eased her back onto the pillows, he raised her arms over her head and washed the shallow cups of her armpits. She purred in surprised satisfaction; he ducked his head and kissed her moaning mouth.

  He moved the cloth over her chest, then her breasts. Her nipples drew up again and he smiled. He touched a rosy whisker-burn on her tender flesh.