by Sylvie Kurtz
The rain had released the fragrance of nature. Chance inhaled the fresh smell of pine and hickory, enjoyed the soft padding of leaf litter under the soles of his boots. The distant crash of a dead oak limb seemed natural and right. So did the sharp disagreement between two squirrels. The white corsage of a sweet bay magnolia softened the green of the woods like a smile. Wilderness infused itself into every part of his being, tickling at his memories.
He put down the blanket he’d taken from the truck and the bag of sandwiches and fruit they’d picked up at the supermarket. Feeling lost, he stared at the river rushing by, willing it to divulge its secrets.
“What are you thinking?” Taryn asked.
She wound her arms around his waist and the intimate caress grounded him. She’d done this before. Not just last night, but a thousand times. The contentment her embrace brought seemed familiar somehow. Why could he remember nothing of something that touched him soul deep?
“I’m thinking this might not be the right spot.”
“It’s not sunny or late afternoon or as hot as it’s been the past couple of days. Give it a chance.”
He scowled at the water. Ribbons of gray wove in and out of the hurried surface, rippling a race downriver. Nothing stopped the water. Relentlessly, it pushed at whatever blocked its path. One hand over Taryn’s, he reached for a pencil-thick dead branch and broke it off the pine. He tossed it into the water and watched it being carried away and swallowed. Closing his eyes, he tried to sweep away the tide of dread punching into his gut.
Then Taryn’s hug tightened around him.
He turned in her arms, brushed a strand of hair from her temple. In her arms, he could forget everything. Her hypnotic eyes were a draw stronger than fear. He wanted to be who she thought he was. He’d reinvented himself once. Couldn’t he do it again?
He didn’t want to lose this. He didn’t want to lose her.
Looking down at her darkening eyes, at her mouth parted in invitation, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. She yielded to him as if he were water. The current of his desire surged and he lost himself in the riptide of her kiss.
After a while, her gaze met his, and her eyes brimmed with emotion. Love. Love for him. His chest tightened. In the all-encompassing embrace of her dazzling smile, suddenly nothing mattered except her and him and the magnetic pull between them.
Her willingness to trust him, to surrender her whole being to him, created a magic as primitive as the woods in which they stood.
He wanted her. He needed her.
“Taryn…”
“The first time we made love,” she said as her fingers tugged the hem of his T-shirt from his jeans, “was on a day like today.” Her hands glided over his bare skin, palms flat on his stomach, then they followed the contours of his chest. His blood rushed downward, pooled in his groin, pulsed. “Fourth of July weekend. It had rained all day and cleared up just in time for the fireworks.” Her fingertips played havoc on the sensitive nerves at his nape. She nipped at the lobe of his ear. His pulse roared like surf. “We never did quite make it to the park.” She slanted him a wicked smile. “But the fireworks were definitely explosive.”
“You’re a witch,” he said, smiling and pulling her down with him until they tumbled onto the blanket.
She laughed, a deep, sensual laugh, and the sound was delicious…a salve to his shipwrecked soul. The curve of her hip pressed against his thigh. She toed off her shoes and ran her foot along his leg, inciting a flood of need. “That’s what you said then, too.”
While she worked the buttons of his jeans, he shed his T-shirt. As he watched her unlace his boots, he licked his lips. With a provocative light gleaming in her eyes, she drew his jeans down over his legs agonizingly slowly. Nothing could look more sexy than this woman’s eyes. Nothing could possibly feel better than this woman’s hands over his skin. He was going to explode right here, right now.
He pulled her back up to him, played with a tendril of her hair as he fought for control. “What do you like about Chance?”
“I like everything. I like the way your mouth kicks up a little higher on this side when you smile…” She touched the left corner of his mouth. He drew her fingertip into his mouth and savored the warm flesh. “Ummm. I like all the little ways you take care of me. The foot rubs after a long day standing at work. The rosebush in the backyard. The swing.” Her fingers moved lovingly on his shoulder. “I like the way you listen when I talk. The way you care about everybody around you—not because it’s your job, but because it’s your pleasure.”
She pushed herself onto her elbows and looked at him deep and true. “I even like the way you try to keep everything neat and orderly, even though it drives me crazy because I can never find anything after you tidy up.” She placed a hand over his heart. “I love that groan that seems to come from the deepest part of you when you hold me. It makes me feel…” She shrugged and lowered her gaze. Her dark hair veiled her face. “Like I matter.”
He lifted her chin until their gazes met. “You matter.”
If nothing else, he was sure of that.
With precise deliberation, he set out to cherish her. He kissed her long and slow, then kissed her again. He relished the dark heat of her tongue—sin laced with sweetness. Leisurely, he unbuttoned her shirt, favoring the newly exposed skin with licks of his tongue. An intriguing mixture of clean summer rain and feminine musk wafted from her desire-heated body. Irresistible.
He unclasped her bra, grunted his appreciation as his fingers glided around her rib cage and found the erotic weight of her breast. Taking one ready peak into his mouth, then the other, he savored her moans of pleasure. He drew her shorts and underwear down her legs with one hand.
“Have I told you before that you’re beautiful?” he asked.
“A time or two.” Her voice was breathy, her smile teasing, her eyes pure sexual heat. “And I never tire of hearing it.”
He kissed the valley between her breasts. “You’re beautiful.” He kissed the crook of her elbow. “You’re beautiful.” He kissed the palm of her hand. “You’re beautiful.”
Her laughter rippled in his ear. He’d never felt so good in his life. Alive. Solid.
Then panic seized him. His heart galloped. He was drowning. He couldn’t breathe.
“Chance?”
He rolled onto his back and put his arm across his eyes. He was water flowing, ever moving, ever changing, rushing blindly to nowhere. No memories, no past, no identity grounded him.
He wanted to be somebody. Not the fame-and-glory kind of somebody, but the kind of somebody who knew who he was, what he wanted, where he belonged. He wanted goals and chores. He wanted the comfort of a routine. And Mr. Talberg was right—he wanted someone waiting for him when he got home at night.
More than anything, he wanted to deserve someone like Taryn.
HAD SHE DONE SOMETHING wrong? Had she said something to hurt him? The tortured shadows in his eyes had writhed with his pain before he covered them. “Chance—”
“Would you still want me if I was Kyle?”
“Oh, yes.” God, yes. She would want him always.
“Even if I never remember who I am?”
“Yes.” The certainty of her answer surprised her, but it felt right.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a good man.”
He shook his head and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, she put a finger on his lips. “It’s there, Chance. There’s a bone-deep goodness in you. No matter how you try to run from it, it’s there.”
“I’m not Chance.”
“Look at me.” She pried his arm from his eyes. “I don’t care what name you use. Call yourself Chance. Call yourself Kyle. Give yourself a brand-new name. It doesn’t matter. It’s you I love.”
He was the one person who made her feel whole. He was her best friend. He was the father of her child. She could not imagine a future without him.
“Always.”
She ta
ngled one leg around his, pressed her body against his and reveled in the solid masculinity of his form, in the strong, hard lines of taut muscles, in the smoky fire burning in his eyes. Even the scars on his back, shoulders and ribs could not mar her pleasure in simply looking at him. The barest touch of his fingers could arouse her beyond endurance, and it thrilled her that she, too, could make his powerful control shatter.
She slid her hand down his torso, enjoying the warmth, the silk of it. She sampled his salty skin, inhaled the seductive spicy scent of him. Then she strayed lower and wrapped her hand around the boldness of his arousal. His gasp of pleasure kicked her own into overdrive. She kissed him the way he’d kissed her—long and hard and deep.
He lifted her until she straddled him, then eased himself into her, filling her completely. The soft sound escaping her mouth seemed far away in the ripples of desire, bliss and utter rightness. He clasped her hips, silently demanding a more urgent rhythm.
“Oh, no. Not yet.” Joy rippling through her, laughter bubbling out of her, she took his hands, laced their fingers and planted their joined fists on both sides of his head. She kissed him until he groaned and squirmed pleadingly beneath her. Then letting him see through her eyes just what he could do to her, too, she let his hips meet hers once more. With excruciating slowness, she filled herself with him then withdrew. Never once did her gaze stray from his as she repeated the torture again and again. Spiraling tension built. In him. In her.
“I love you, Chance. I will always love you.”
She gave herself to him with every atom of her being until her body tightened around his, until she shuddered in wave after wave of sheer ecstasy, until she was nothing more than a pool of sated flesh.
With a warrior’s cry, he rolled her onto her back. His fierce gaze told her she was about to get retribution for her bold seduction. And as always, her body responded to his keen desire, making her ache for him all over again.
In the intensity and the complete concentration of his lovemaking, in his whispered words of need and passion and desire, she found her husband again and she was not going to let him go. She would not let him give up—on himself, on her, on their marriage.
After he was spent, she held him tightly, heart beating against heart.
“This is the way it always is between us,” she said, and hoped he understood the tie between them went deeper than memory. The solid weight of him blanketed her with warm satisfaction. Absently she stroked slow circles in the perspiration slicking his back, relaxed for the first time since Chance’s accident. “We belong together.”
Bodies tangled, they rested until the sky opened and rain started pouring down again. In the midst of squeals and laughter, they dressed. Giggling like teenagers, they raced back to the car parked by the trailhead.
Yes, she thought as she ran with her husband’s hand in hers, with his laughter in her ear, this is the way it should always be.
And soon, when they were home again, she could tell him about the baby their enduring love had created.
“I DON’T KNOW where to start,” Joely said. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs in his grandfather’s living room, her purse on her knees, both hands clutching the leather trim of the southwestern tapestry bag.
In the soft light of the hurricane lamp burning on the coffee table, her skin looked sickly yellow. Her darting eyes, her choppy movements, her hurried speech infected the atmosphere with a nervous energy he couldn’t shake off.
Rain fell with renewed vigor and sounded like a stoning from the gods against the roof. The relaxation Chance had felt alone with Taryn by the river this afternoon had completely vanished with Joely’s arrival.
“The beginning is always a good point,” he said, turning the bottle of iced tea in his hands round and round, ignoring the shiver zigzagging down his spine.
She nodded. “John Henry was heartbroken when the boys disappeared. You see, he was gone…” She played with the metal clasp on her purse. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.
“He was with you,” Taryn said gently, encouraging Joely to go on.
“No.” Joely shook her head. “He was…” She leaned forward. “He wasn’t a drunk, you have to understand that, but sometimes the pain in his knee from the sawmill accident, well, it got so he couldn’t stand it. So he’d binge. He didn’t want the boys to see him like that.”
She turned her head and her eyes became vacant as if she were viewing ghosts from the past. “He never forgave himself for not being there that day.”
“It wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
Joely looked at him. A small light of relief shone in her eyes. “I know.”
She dug into her purse and extracted a sheaf of folded papers. Smoothing them on her lap, she said, “He took the trust left to the boys by your father and set it up so that the homestead would always be taken care of and the boys would always have a house to come home to. The trust pays for the taxes and the upkeep.”
Tears brightened her eyes. “He never gave up on you boys. He kept telling everyone who’d listen that you were still alive. He never gave up looking.” The tears fell. “He died looking for his boys.”
Taryn handed Joely a tissue. Joely dabbed at her eyes. Holding one of Joely’s hands, Taryn asked, “Why couldn’t you tell us all this earlier?”
Eyebrows drawn, lips trembling, Joely lowered her gaze. “I was afraid.”
“Of what?” None of this was making any sense. How could a trust evoke fear? The slow boil of anger rumbled in his chest. He leaned back more deeply into the sofa, throwing an arm over the back. His fingers dug into the cushion. He had to hold in his temper or he’d never get the answers he needed.
“You have to understand, I never wanted the responsibility of the trust, but John Henry said he couldn’t depend on anybody else to look out for his interests.”
“Were you…” Taryn blushed. After the way she’d seduced him this afternoon, how could she act so shy?
“Lovers?” Joely held her head high. “Yes. John Henry was a good man.”
“Why did he feel he couldn’t trust anyone?” Chance asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
“Because of what happened to Ellen. Sheriff Paxton blamed the boys, and John Henry, as their guardian, became a pariah.” She licked her lips, pressed them tight, then said, “He could have left, you know. He could have avoided the daily dose of hatred he got from everybody in town.”
“I’m not faulting him. I’m not faulting you. All I want is the truth.” Chance took a swig of iced tea, wished for something stronger. “Please go on.”
“Your father donated the land for the Woodhaven Preserve. He wanted the old-growth woods preserved for his sons and their sons to enjoy. But the five acres of land this house stands on isn’t protected.”
She took in a deep breath and handed him the trust papers. Without glancing at them, Chance dropped them onto the coffee table.
“Taxes went up and I didn’t want to eat up the capital. I’d made a promise. I wanted to keep my word to John Henry. Someone made me an offer for the land.” She shrugged.
“Someone?”
“The Ramsey Lumber Company.”
It’s a matter of economics, Joely had said when he’d first met her. Did Garth Ramsey’s influence color Ashbrook’s economy?
“Why didn’t you just donate the property to the town as conservation land? Add it to the preserve?” Taryn asked. She was sipping ginger ale again.
“Because of town politics.” Joely’s gaze shifted from Taryn to him and back. “A change like that has to be approved by the town council and the council’s first concern is the economic well-being of the town.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.” Absently, he peeled the label off the empty tea bottle with his thumbnail.
“The main employer of the region is the Ramsey Lumber Company. Two out of three people work at the sawmill off Route 255.”
“And Ramsey wanted the Mak
epeace lumber, so the town council rejected the offer of conservation land.” Chance slammed down the empty iced-tea bottle on the table. It rocked before coming to a standstill.
Joely stood and her purse thumped to the floor. Ignoring it, she paced in front of the chair. “Yes. He was pushing me to sell it to him. I knew he’d raze the land, so I said no. The only way I could think to keep the land safe from Garth was to sell one acre to save the rest.”
Shaking her head, she silently implored for understanding. “I truly thought you and your brother both had died. And John Henry had expended a lot of money looking for you boys. The trust was running low, eating into the capital. I’d promised John Henry to protect the land.”
“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me all this earlier.”
She stopped, let out a long breath. “Because I thought I’d sold the acre to a man who wanted to build a weekend home, not to Garth Ramsey. When the timber turned up razed not even a month after the sale, I was horrified. I confronted Garth and he told me that the trust clearly stated the trustee wasn’t allowed to sell any part of the land for any reason.”
She crumpled into the chair. “If the trust money had run out, if it couldn’t pay the taxes, then the land would have reverted to the town and Garth could have bought it for next to nothing. I didn’t want that to happen. I’d promised.”
“Has Garth threatened you?” A man who threatens a woman is the lowest form of coward, a voice he didn’t recognize echoed in his head. Where had that come from?
Joely’s eyebrows rose. The corners of her mouth drooped. “If I was found out, he said I would spend time in jail and have to pay a heavy fine.”
Shame colored her face and her gaze fell to her lap. “You have to understand, my salary isn’t large and I just couldn’t deal with the thought of prison. Not at my age. Garth said he could buy his way out of the penalty for harvesting this old-growth timber, but I was on my own unless he chose to protect me.”
