Love's Own Reward

by Dana Ransom

  “And you resented the hell out of it,” Jess supplied softly.

  She looked up at him in surprise, denial defined clearly in the set of her features. Then she blinked and that surprise turned inward. “Yes,” she confessed with an equal quiet. “Yes, I did. Not Robert, never Robert, but the disease that distorted our lives. In a way, I can understand why Dad ran. It was so frustrating at first, and later there was always the fear that something would go wrong, that we’d make some mistake and lose him. But Robert, he was the brave one. He never let it get to him. He just charged right on with whatever he wanted to do and let us worry. That’s why this place is so special, so important to us. We take kids like Robert when he was diagnosed and pull them out of the smothering family unit. For two weeks we teach them diet and exercise and the fact that they have control. That’s the key. They have control. They love Robert. He’s a living example of how to succeed and beat the odds. What he’s doing is important and worth every penny I can give him.”

  “So you’re going to give it all to him.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he’d let me do that. You don’t know him well enough to see what a proud man he is. If he knew that I was working to—”

  “To what?”

  She took a breath to slow her want to pour out the whole truth. She wasn’t quite ready for that. She didn’t want to overwhelm Jess with all her emotional baggage. Enough had been said for one day. “We’d better start back. It gets dark out here real early, and dinner is like clockwork. A minute late, and dinner’s gone.”

  As much as he wanted to detain her and demand the rest of the story, Jess let her go. He followed at a slower pace, trying to cull all the information she’d given and what he’d picked up between the lines. He had a pretty good picture of what it was like for a young Charley. Scared, isolated, her needs overlooked in favor of her brother’s. Sure she’d want to strike back. He admired her immensely for not taking her anger out on Robert. She worked through it another way, by attacking the cause, not the result. No wonder she panicked when her feelings were laid bare for the inspection of strangers. She wouldn’t know how to react as the center of attention. She’d always been the silent support behind the scenes, not the dynamic focus. That was Robert. He had enough charisma for both of them. Of course she would run back to a blazing car to save a stranger. She’d been a rescuer all her life. It was ingrained.

  Now what the hell was he going to do?

  HE WAS SPARED from finding an immediate answer. Robert swooped down upon them and sucked up all their energies with his relentless enthusiasm. When he wasn’t pushed into taking part in the camp activities, Jess was content to sit back and observe them. Especially Charley. Something happened to her around those kids. She blossomed and the beauty of the transformation was breathtaking. Thick emotions jammed up around his heart, making his chest feel so heavy he could barely breathe. There was a paralyzing ache in his throat, and by the evening’s end he was doing well to nod and force a smile. Robert and his bubbly girlfriend, Shelly, escorted them back to the cabin and refused to leave before midnight. They gathered around the fireplace, sitting cross-legged on the sheepskin rug and telling the most outrageous stories until their sides were sore from laughter. Then, without warning, Robert seized Shelly by the arm and bade them a brisk goodnight.

  Still smiling, Jess shut the door behind them, then turned to be confronted by the pulse-stopping sight of Charley before the fire. The blaze burnished her hair to a dark, molten flame, and he felt a similar heat race through him. That pagan image of her stretched out before the flames returned like a sock to the solar plexus. At that moment a sane man would have run, not walked, to spend the night in the safety of his car. But there was nothing sane about the storm of sensations gathering inside him. Nor about the pull of inevitability that drew him across the room.

  Charley’s gaze lifted to his, and she smiled, completely unaware of her allure, or of the danger she was in. She was so damn naïve that Jess hated himself even as he sank down on his knees and caught her innocently inviting face between his hands. He hauled her up against him, securing her lips before a startled squeak of sound could escape them. He drank of her sweet, unpracticed response like a man who’d thirsted long and turned down many a drink until he’d found the one that would quench him. She could. He knew it the second he reached deep to taste the inside of her mouth and she made a soft noise that spoke of surrender and simple satisfaction. God, it drove him to the limits of reason.

  Jess wasn’t sure what happened. Maybe in his eagerness his fingers clenched too tightly in her hair. Maybe in his impatience his kiss grew too rough. Or it could be she was alarmed by his body’s ready indication that he was anxious to rush more intense intimacies. Whatever it was, her willingness became reluctance. He felt it, but it took a while for the rest of him to obey the signals from his mind to let her go. The instant his grip slackened, she lunged back and scrambled to her feet. He didn’t look up. He didn’t dare, too afraid of what she’d see carved into his expression. It was bad enough to hear the frantic slap of her feet as she ran up to the negligible safety of the loft. He dropped face first onto the rug and groaned his frustration into its thick wool. For a long while he didn’t move. He was afraid if he did, he’d go up after her and that wasn’t what he wanted. At least he told himself it wasn’t. She’d made herself clear enough for an idiot to understand.

  Idiot. Jess, you’re an idiot. Spend all this time getting her to trust you, then try to jump her bones the minute she lets her guard down. Swift move. A real class act.

  He flopped onto his back and fixed an unregistering stare on the high peak overhead. His palms were damp. His pulse was going crazy. Geez, you’re in worse shape than one of those lusty adolescent boys next door. Calm down! It’s not as if you haven’t had a woman in years.

  It was then it struck him. It wasn’t just any woman he wanted. It was this woman. Maybe he’d known it all along, and that’s why he was so desperate to pursue this story. To find some flaw in her too-good-to-be-true sincerity. So he could safely push her out of his thoughts, out of his foolish heart. If she had a fault, it was that she cared too much for others and not enough for herself. Was that a flaw? He didn’t know. What he did know was that he was wrong in his harsh assumptions. There wasn’t a selfish or greedy bone in Charley’s exquisite body. That was the problem. He was scared to believe in her, in the good he saw there. Scared right down to the wary depths of his soul. He’d trusted once. He wouldn’t be twice the fool. Not over a woman.

  Only maybe, his subconscious whispered traitorously, just maybe, this one might be worth the risk.

  CHARLEY HUDDLED in her brother’s big, soft bed and struggled to slow her panting breaths. She listened. It was very quiet below. She fought against the urge to crawl to the rail and peek down. Finally she heard him get up, heard the sigh of the couch cushions and the thump of his shoes on hard wood. Then the silence lengthened into long listless minutes. And Charley wanted to die.

  Coward, coward, coward. You wanted him! You know you did. She could chide herself all she wanted, but that wouldn’t change the fact that she’d panicked when he’d pressed her. Everything had suddenly gotten so intense, so overwhelming. And she’d run. Just as she’d run from the reporters. It wasn’t Alan. She realized that with some degree of guilt. Her quasi-fiancé was no roadblock to her desire for Jess. Alan wasn’t even a speed bump. She would have shoved him aside without a thought for the sheer pleasure of ripping off Jess’s clothes and rolling on the rug with him. The only thing stopping her was Charley Carter.

  A man like Jess wouldn’t settle for a woman like her.

  He felt sorry for her. She’d touched on a protective note in him, and she was taking shameless advantage. It was worse now that he’d seen the camp. She could see it intensifying in his gaze throughout the day. She’d snagged his sympathies, and now he was flapping restlessly at the end of the line.
It wasn’t fair for her to hang on to him, to be dependent on him. He had a life to get back to, one that satisfied him, one that didn’t include her. She’d let him take care of her and had wallowed in hedonistic luxury under his pampering attentions. He’d made her breakfast. He’d even offered to brush her teeth for her! She was so desperate, so needy, she’d sucked him into her life before he’d had a chance to consider saying no. But he would. Eventually he would grow tired of playing nursemaid to helpless little Charley Carter, and then where would that leave her? With her emotions foolishly raw and exposed. Robert wasn’t the only one in her family with pride. She couldn’t let Jess see how much he’d come to mean to her. That would only force more responsibility upon him. She wouldn’t make him feel obligated anymore. She had to protect them both from that unpleasant trap—his pitying, her grasping. And that meant backing away from what she wanted most.

  But then, she was used to making sacrifices.

  “RISE AND SHINE, buddy. We don’t allow any lazybones around here.”

  Jess glared up at Robert Carter and growled a favorite expletive. Lord, he hated cheerful people before he’d had his first cup of coffee. Grumbling every inch of the way, he yawned and stretched and dragged himself off the couch, hoping a shower would resuscitate him. It was then he cast a quick, uneasy glance toward the silent loft.

  “Oh, she’s been up and about for a couple of hours now,” Robert informed him. “And if you want breakfast, you’d better get a move on.”

  Jess made a face and an anatomically impossible suggestion before shuffling off to the bathroom. Robert’s laughter didn’t make him feel any better. Neither did the savage pounding of the water. It couldn’t wash away his guilt over what had happened before the fire. He’d put a panic in Charley, and there was no excuse for it. All that was left for him to do was find her and plead temporary insanity. No woman should look that good with firelight playing through her hair. Would she believe him and forgive him? Could things go back to the relaxed, comfortable way they were before? He hoped so.

  But he was wrong.

  Charley steered a wide path away from him. It was almost funny the lengths she went to avoid being alone with him. She volunteered to teach a nutrition class in the morning and an exercise program in the afternoon. The kids adored her, Robert confided proudly. So do I, Jess confessed to his tormented soul.

  Was she being a bigger fool by hiding from him? Charley wondered, but she couldn’t bring herself to confront him. He was going to apologize for last night. She could see it in his face. She didn’t want his apology. She wanted him to tell her—oh, she didn’t know what she wanted. He certainly wasn’t going to break down and admit he just couldn’t help himself because he was so crazy in love with her. He would mumble something about hormones going out of control or some sweet insincerity about it being the magic of the moment. But he wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, so she didn’t want to listen. Did that make her scared or just plain stubborn?

  Even though she kept a careful distance, Charley was ever aware of Jess McMasters. He was one hard fellow to ignore. He’d caught the roving eyes of all the female staffers, and the camp girls melted into rapturous sighs whenever he glanced their way. He didn’t need her drooling over him, too. She kicked a chair out of her way and earned a startled look from her brother. She glared at him and stomped away to the camp kitchen.

  She’d always liked teaching. She spent her summer vacations here helping Robert. Somehow there was a greater sense of accomplishment when working with people than with lab animals and slides. Alan scoffed at that, and perhaps he was right that she could do her best work in the lab. But she did enjoy the classes, giving hope to those like Robert. It filled her heart the way nothing else could. At least that’s what she thought until she came out of the classroom cabin and bumped squarely into Jess. And her heartbeat tripled in an instant.

  “Charley—”

  She tried to wiggle from his grasp. “Please, Jess. You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Yes, I do. I wanted to explain about—”

  “No. Don’t. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  The beseeching edge of her despair must have reached him because his grip on her forearms gentled and his look lost its intensity. “All right, but let’s talk about something else, then, shall we? No more dodging me like you’ve done all day. There’s no need for that. I’ll behave.”

  I don’t want you to behave! She would have liked to scream that at him, but she didn’t. She had her emotions firmly screwed down. Instead, she gave him a narrow smile and asked, “All right, what would you like to talk about?”

  “Alan Peters.”

  “That’s—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me it’s none of my business!”

  Charley stared up at him in angry frustration. Her chin firmed belligerently. “All right, Mr. McMasters, what is it you want to know about Alan?”

  Jess backed down, bluff called. He scrambled mentally for a way to ask without sounding like a jealous fool. Which he was. “How did you get hooked up with the likes of him?”

  “For your information, Alan is a very respected researcher. I’m very fortunate to be working with him.”

  “I’m not talking about work, Charley.”

  She was afraid of that. She expelled a ragged breath. “If you’re determined to pry open my personal life, can we do it somewhere a little less conspicuous?”

  He wasn’t about to let her off that easy. Cuffing her upper arm with his hand, Jess marched her back to Robert’s cabin. She tugged loose and went to plop down on the front porch glider, purposely assuming the center of the seat so he couldn’t join her. Grinning wryly, Jess went to lean against the rail.

  “Okay. Talk to me, Charley.”

  She eyed him in irritation, the way he stood there arrogantly with arms folded patiently across his chest, one ankle crossed over the other.

  “Shall I start at the sordid beginning?”

  He waved a casual hand for her to continue.

  She sighed fiercely. “Fine. All right. I was finishing up my degree and supplementing my income by teaching diabetes education classes at the hospital. Alan heard me speak and asked if I’d consider giving up the lecturing to assist in his research. He had a fellowship at the university and a healthy grant, so he could offer more than I was getting at the hospital. But I didn’t want to give up the practical to go into the theoretical. Until the funds were cut for my program. Then I didn’t have much choice. I needed the money to—I needed the money. So I started working with Alan. Satisfied?”

  Jess scuffed his toe against the smooth porch boards, studying the grain with apparent concentration. “So when did the big romance happen?”

  Big romance? Hardly that. There’d been no explosive passion, no grand declarations, no feverish excitement. Not like with Jess. She was glad his gaze was averted at that moment. “It just sort of evolved while we were working together. There were a lot of long hours, we shared the same dedication to the study. We made a good team, and Alan suggested we continue that outside the lab. He said when he’d published enough to get a senior position, we could be married. I don’t suppose you understand that.”

  Oh yes. He understood very well. Alan Peters had himself a sweet little setup. A smart woman who would run things for him at virtually slave wages and be content with his vague notions of love and future. Charley, baby, can’t you see he’s just using you? But she wouldn’t hear that, not from him. He could tell by the defensive glint in her dark eyes.

  “Then you have everything you want, don’t you?” he said quietly.

  Everything? Charley gave him a long look. No, not quite. But enough. She wouldn’t complain. She never complained. “Yes, I do. I’m going to marry a man I respect for his views and his work, and I’m going to help my brother make a go of this place.”

&nb
sp; “And what about you, Charley? What do you get out of all of it?”

  “Me?” She stared at him rather blankly as if he’d suggested a foreign concept.

  “Yeah, you. Are you going to be happy being Mrs. Alan Peters, working for him and watching mold grow in a dish?”

  “Y-yes, of course I will be.”

  “That’s what you want, is it?”

  “What I want isn’t what’s important, Jess.” How could she explain it to him? She grew frustrated trying.

  “Yes, it is. To me it is. And it should be to you. Who told you you shouldn’t want things for yourself? Not Robert. Alan? Your mother? Charley, they were wrong. There’s nothing wrong with asking for things for yourself, for doing what you want.”

  “Some lecture from a man who’d rather teach than do,” she parried with frightening accuracy. It was a thrust right through the heart. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She’d only wanted to protect herself and her safe ideals. He’d threatened them, and she’d struck back, wounding him in the process. His expression became unreadable. She could feel the tension in him even across the distance.

  “Damn you, Charley. You hit hard.”

  The quiet anguish in his tone was too much. Without a reply, she left the swing and fled for the security of the cabin.

  Feeling utterly defeated, Jess went to sit on the front steps, letting his forehead rest upon arms folded over his knees. In trying to prove his point, she’d turned it back on him with a vengeance. And she was right. Who was he to judge her? Instead of lessening her burdens, he’d only added to them. What a thing for a nice guy to do. But no one other than Charley had ever accused him of being that. And only Charley could make him look upon the success he’d made of his life and see it as a failure because he was doing exactly the same thing she was—pretending he was happy.

  A timid shuffle of sound pulled him out of his grim musings. Jess looked up to see a boy of about 8 or 9. He offered a smile. “Hi.”