by Janet Dailey
There was absolute silence in the shop when their kiss ended. All attention was obliquely focused on them. Reece turned, beaming proudly as he surveyed the customers. “It is all perfectly respectable,” he informed them. “The lady has just consented to marry me.”
A murmur ran through the store, rippling like a happy wave. There were smiles of understanding and silent wishes of happiness in their eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Outside the doll shop, the suspense was building. Waiting in the car with the windows rolled down, Joanna watched the store entrance. Time passed slowly, its weight heavy on her hands. Her thoughts wandered in and around the subject of love and marriage. She tried to imagine her mother’s reaction to someone like Linc without success, but it was easy to visualize her skepticism at the thought of Reece finally settling down. She wouldn’t take the news well.
With the constant flow of summer traffic on the busy street, the crunching sound of tires on the graveled parking lot attracted minimal attention from Joanna. There was vague recognition that a vehicle had driven up to park next to the car. Her glance strayed to the side when a door was opened. An electric shock tingled through her system at the sight of Linc’s rangy build filling her vision.
“Hello.” Resting a hand on top of the car, he bent to look in the opened window and treated her to one of his crooked smiles.
Her heart seemed to tumble over her ribs with reckless abandon. “Hello.” There was a slightly breathless quality to her voice.
“I was driving by and recognized the car. I thought I noticed someone sitting in it.” He looked briefly toward the shop. “I take it Reece is inside.”
“Yes.” It seemed much longer than three days since she had seen him. An inexplicable kind of hunger filled her and she feasted her eyes on his virile features carved in bronze.
His glance returned to her, his golden-brown eyes inspecting her in a way that threw her senses into chaos. “Have you managed to stay out of trouble lately? No more run-ins with any mules or ghosts?” He was mocking her, yet with a warmth and subtle humor that made it something special.
“Things like that only seem to happen to me when you’re around,” Joanna replied. “My life is relatively sane otherwise.”
“Implying that I make you a little crazy?” Linc rephrased the statement.
It did seem to explain the wild, wonderful feeling raging inside her—crazy in love. “Yes.” She agreed with him without elaborating on the source of this glorious madness.
“Is that good or bad?” His searching gaze probed her expression in an attempt to uncover the ulterior meaning he seemed to sense existed.
“I think it could be good,” Joanna admitted but it depended so much on how he felt.
A lazy gleam of satisfaction appeared in his gaze before his attention was distracted. “Here comes Reece with Rachel,” he announced as he straightened to stand erect.
One look at the beaming couple told Joanna what Rachel’s answer had been. Each had an arm around the other’s waist as they approached the parked car. As Joanna opened the door and stepped out, Linc moved to one side to give her room.
“She said ‘yes,’ didn’t she?” Joanna directed the unnecessary question to her uncle, already positive of the answer.
“She did,” Reece stated proudly, then informed Linc of their engagement. “Rachel has agreed to marry me.”
“Welcome to the family.” Joanna hugged her aunt-to-be, while Linc shook hands with Reece.
“Congratulations.”
For the next couple of minutes, it was a jumble of voices as they talked over each other until none of it made sense. They all seemed to realize it simultaneously and stopped talking. The abrupt silence brought a round of shared laughter.
“This calls for a party to celebrate the occasion,” Linc stated when it stopped.
“Linc is right,” Joanna agreed. “Dinner, champagne, everything.”
“Actually, I had in mind an old-fashioned barbeque at my place,” he corrected her with an amused glance. “I’l1 invite a bunch of friends and neighbors over Sunday afternoon.”
“There’s no need to go to such trouble,” Reece protested.
“If I thought it would be too much trouble, I wouldn’t have suggested it,” Linc replied. “I’ll arrange it for Sunday . . . unless the two of you plan to keep the engagement a secret for a while.”
“It would be extremely difficult.” A smile dimpled Rachel’s mouth. “Everyone in the store knows about it. By this afternoon, it will be all over town.”
“I wouldn’t have cared if the whole world had been there,” Reece insisted.
Linc slid a glance at his watch. “I need to be leaving,” he said indicating there was somewhere else he had to be. His glance rested on Joanna. “Would you give me a hand planning the menu for Sunday?”
“Sure,” she agreed without hesitation.
“I’ll stop by this evening sometime,” he told her and turned his attention to the engaged couple. “Congratulations again.”
“Come for dinner,” Joanna invited, betraying some of her eagerness for his company.
Linc shook his head as he opened the door to the pickup cab. “I can’t make it tonight but I’ll see you later in the evening.”
His departure signaled the close of the gathering. Rachel reluctantly heeded the silent summons of the shop, calling her back to work. All three of them were looking forward to the coming night, but not all for the same reasons.
When Linc arrived that night, Reece had already left the cabin to meet Rachel. Their initial conversation centered on the engagement of her uncle who was his best friend and their shared approval of it. It naturally led into his plans for the Sunday barbeque and a discussion of the menu. As he made notes, Joanna was beginning to think it was the sole reason he was there, that it hadn’t been an excuse to see her as she had first hoped.
She hardly paid attention when Linc read the list back to her. “If that isn’t enough variety to satisfy everyone’s likes and dislikes, they can just go hungry,” he concluded on a mock threat. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
“What?” The blankness left her expression as she remembered what he’d said. “Yes, that’s right.”
His gaze traveled over her, then he set his notes aside and combed his fingers through his hair. Flexing his shoulder muscles, he rolled leisurely to his feet and took a step away from the couch. Curled in an armchair, Joanna looked up in bewildered protest.
“Are you leaving?” she questioned.
“Why? Do you want me to go?” With an eyebrow raised he halted near her chair. The subdued glitter in his look said he already knew the answer.
She was irritated into pretending an indifference that she didn’t feel. “No, but naturally, if you have somewhere else to go, I don’t expect you to stay just to keep me company.” She shrugged and challenged him. “Do you?”
“No.” A smile showed briefly.
She never knew how to act with him. He kept changing the pace and course of their relationship until she didn’t know what to expect next. Since she wasn’t able to second-guess him, she stopped trying.
“There’s iced tea in the kitchen. Would you like some?” She’d get a crick in her neck if she had to keep looking up at him so Joanna uncrossed her legs and rose from the chair.
“I’m glad you did that,” Linc said.
His remark made no sense at all. “Did what?” she frowned, because to her knowledge, she had done nothing except offer him a cold drink.
“Stood up.” The span of a foot separated them.
“Why?” Joanna still didn’t understand. If anything, she was more confused.
“There is an old Ozark superstition,” his hands found her waist and shortened some of that distance, “—that says a man shouldn’t kiss a girl while he’s standing and she’s sitting in a chair.”
The nearness of him was starting those funny little pitter-patters of her heart. With an absent fascination, she studied the way
her hands rested on the wall of his chest.
“Why not?” The upward sweep of her glance met his steady look and all sorts of crazy sensations started leaping inside.
“According to superstition, that would cause an immediate quarrel,” Linc explained.
“Who told you that?” She laughed out the words.
“I have it on the best authority,” he assured her.
“Let me guess. Jessie Bates.” She tipped her head to one side, provocative and challenging.
“Right, and arguing is not one of the things I want to do with you tonight,” Linc stated and increased the pressure to bring her fully against him.
It was all the invitation Joanna needed as she stretched to meet him halfway. His mouth seared its claim on hers in a long, drugging kiss. Arching against him, she was aware of his hard, muscular thighs and the sinewed steel of his encircling arms molding her to him. Her hands curled themselves around his neck, her anchor in this raging storm of emotions.
When they finally came up for air, Joanna was too dazzled by the heat lightning flashing through her to move an inch away from him. The brush of his lips closed her eyes, flirting with her lashes before it ran over the rest of her face. The emotion running through her was so fierce that she trembled from it.
She wanted him so much that when she spoke, it was almost a groan. “Linc, you can’t believe any more that I’m not ready.” It was a protest at his lack of initiative to let the embrace go beyond mere kisses.
“By God, you’d better mean that,” he muttered against her throat. “I’m not interested in casual sex, Joanna. If that’s all you want, you’re picking the wrong man.”
“I think I have the right one,” she said and felt a brief stirring of surprise that she could be so positive. “I barely know you at all, yet I seem to know all that’s important.”
His hand covered her breast in a physical demonstration of the rights she was giving him. “Patience is not one of my strong suits,” Linc warned. “If you think I’m going to be like Reece and court you for nearly six years, you’re wrong. It isn’t going to be like that.”
“I don’t want it like that,” Joanna admitted huskily. “I couldn’t stand it.”
She felt she would go crazy now if he didn’t do more than hold her. Her breast seemed to swell to fill the palm of his hand, straining to achieve a greater intimacy. All of her ached with the same need.
“I’m not going to carry on any love affair long distance—with you in California and me here.” He continued to spell out his conditions, insisting that Joanna be aware of what he expected.
“What is the alternative to long distance?” She was arching against him in deliberate provocation. Her teeth teased at his earlobe, nipping at it in sexual play. “Is it this? You’re from Missouri, Linc. Show me.”
“It won’t be a temporary coupling.” Linc drew his head back to look at her while he emphasized his message. “The linkage will be a lasting one.”
Her lips lay against each other in an inviting line, sensual and full. “Ever since I arrived in the Ozarks, everyone has been telling me how instinctively intelligent you hillpeople are. But I’m beginning to think I’ll have to send you an engraved invitation to make love to me.” She didn’t try to hide any of her feelings from him, letting him see all the fires that burned inside. “I thought you were a man of action. But, maybe you act as slow as you talk.”
“Are you trying to get a rise out of me?” Linc drawled and eyed her with a complacent look.
“Now, you’re getting the idea,” she murmured.
His mouth began its movement toward her. “I’ll give you all you can handle—and more,” he taunted.
The piercing crush of his arms was sweet agony, that unique mixture of pleasure and pain. There was no holding back in this embrace. Joanna wanted to give as she got, and Linc was inflaming her with his needs.
The shrill ring of the telephone was a piercing interruption. Joanna shuddered a protest when Linc lifted his head, dragging his mouth across her temple. Leaning against him, she tried to close her hearing to the sound, but it kept repeating itself.
His arm stayed around her waist, supporting her and drawing her along with him as he turned to pick up the receiver. With her head tipped to rest against his shoulder, Joanna watched him carry the phone to his ear and answer it.
“No, it isn’t. Reece isn’t here at the moment,” Linc said in an obvious response to a question by the caller.
During the subsequent pause, Joanna was conscious of the firm possession of the arm curved around her. She liked the feel of it, the implication of belonging to him.
“Yes, Joanna is here.” Linc passed the receiver to her.
She took it with every intention of quickly getting rid of the caller. “Hello.” Her tone was aloof, designed to discourage conversation.
“Joanna, what is going on there? Who was that man who answered the phone?” her mother’s voice demanded.
She went rigid with surprise, stiffening selfconsciously in Linc’s possessive hold. “Mother! I wasn’t expecting you to call.” It had been the farthest thing from her mind when the phone had rung.
“I had that impression when the man answered the phone.” There was a quality of disdain in her voice. “You haven’t told me who he is yet?”
“That was Linc. Linc Wilder.” Joanna quickly added his full name and shifted out of the loose hold of his arm. Even though her mother couldn’t see the casually intimate embrace, she had been influenced by other times when her mother had come along on similar scenes.
“I’m sure Reece probably has mentioned him to you,” Joanna continued and felt a sudden chill in the air. Her side glance caught the coolness of Linc’s expression as he quietly studied her.
Turning aside, he wandered to the fireplace and lit a cigarette. Her glance followed him, then fell when he looked back. He was making her feel small for not claiming any personal relationship with him. It wasn’t a comfortable sensation.
“I swear I will never understand why Reece vacations in such a godforsaken spot, so removed from all the conveniences,” her mother decried her brother-in-law’s choice. “That drawling hillbilly can’t provide the kind of stimulating company Reece can find here in L. A.—or anywhere else for that matter.”
Joanna bristled in defense of the Ozarks, the cabin, and Linc. “You can’t know that. You’ve never met him, Mother. And Linc is here so we could plan the menu for Sunday’s barbeque we’re having for Reece and Rachel.”
“Who is Rachel?” The question was quick and immediate.
“Haven’t you heard?” Joanna asked with false innocence, fully aware there hadn’t been time for her mother to be informed about the engagement.
“Heard what?” There was impatience in the voice on the line.
“I think I should let Reece tell you himself,” Joanna replied.
“Tell me what? Joanna, will you please stop being so mysterious and tell me what is going on out there?” her mother demanded.
“Reece is engaged.” She knew she was dropping a bombshell so she wasn’t surprised by the explosion.
“Engaged? That’s absurd! To whom?” There was a mixture of doubt and challenge.
“To Rachel Parmelee.”
“Who is Rachel Parmelee?” It sounded like a request for her pedigree.
“She owns a retail store here in the area,” Joanna explained. “I think you’ll like her, Mother. She is a lovely, intelligent woman—a widow.” The last was added in all seriousness.
“She is from the Ozarks?”
“Yes.”
“Why on earth is Reece marrying her?” Her mother still didn’t quite believe it. “He’s been a bachelor all these years. Why should he get married now?”
“Mother, when you see them together, you won’t have to ask that question,” Joanna assured her.
“I have known Reece considerably longer than you have, Joanna,” her mother retorted dryly. “There have been countless affairs over
the years. The instant the newness wears off, Reece casts them aside. He has never been so foolish as to become engaged before.” She altered her tactic to inquire, “When is this supposed marriage to take place?”
“I don’t remember a date being mentioned.” Which was true, but something kept her from relating to her mother how soon Reece intended to marry Rachel. “You’ll have to ask Reece.”
“I will.” It was a very definite reply. “Where is he?”
“With Rachel. I’m not sure what time he’ll be back,” Joanna admitted. “Why did you call, Mother? You never have said.”
“I haven’t heard from you. You haven’t written or called. Naturally I wanted to find out what was going on there. There seems to be a great deal more than I expected,” she replied, more than a little miffed that she hadn’t been kept more closely informed.
Joanna slid a glance at Linc and watched him take a drag on the cigarette, then toss the butt in the charred-black hearth of the fireplace. As he turned his head to look at her, she dropped her gaze.
“I don’t mean to seem rude, Mother, but I can’t talk any longer. I do have company,” she reminded her. “I’m sure Reece will be calling you in the next day or two anyway.”
“Your message is very clear. I won’t keep you from entertaining your guest.” There was an acid trace of sarcasm in her reply. “Goodbye, Joanna.”
“Goodbye.” Her hand was wrapped tightly around the receiver, her knuckles showing white as she hung up the phone.
Why did she let her mother do this to her? She glanced toward the fireplace and encountered Linc’s steady gaze. Hooking her thumbs in the loops of her jeans, Joanna wandered in that direction.
“That was my mother on the phone,” she explained.
“So I gathered,” he murmured dryly. “I had the impression she wasn’t pleased to hear about the engagement.”
“Yes, well, it came as quite a surprise to her,” she admitted, a little defensive about her mother’s reaction. “Naturally she was a little stunned.”
“What’s your mother like?” Linc studied her with a vaguely absent look.
