Silver and Spice

by Jennifer Greene

  She took a breath. “Feels good,” she offered lightly, and forced her legs to stretch out under the cover of the soothing dark water.

  Jake said nothing. His face was in shadow, but he was looking at her. His arms were stretched out on the sides of the tub, and gleamed golden in the darkness. His hair had picked up the silver of the stars, and was ruffled like thick, rough fur. The eyes pinned on hers were distinctly a man’s: silvery, intense, opaque… She groped for an innocuous conversational gambit.

  None occurred to her.

  Very slowly, like a hunter being careful not to frighten a wary doe, Jake got out of the tub and reached for something to the side. She heard a click, understanding it seconds later. The concealing black waters turned iridescent turquoise, suddenly lit by three circular spotlights in the bottom of the pool. Her limbs turned to stone, locked in helpless, vulnerable display. Jake’s nudity was just as clearly revealed, as he rejoined her in the tub, yet he looked neither helpless nor vulnerable.

  Her breath seemed to have caught somewhere between her throat and her lungs, locked there. He was a beautiful man, just as he had been a beautiful lover. His body was sleek and strong and virile, with skin several shades darker than hers. She remembered too much, too fast. Still, she found herself staring. Droplets of water clung to his shoulders; the silver strands of his chest hair gleamed against his darker flesh in the water. It was so like Jake, the casual way he balanced himself lazily, one leg hooked over a step. He sat motionless, watching her face, not her body. And when she looked up, his dark eyes fastened on hers and refused to let go.

  “That wasn’t fair, was it?” he said quietly. “Turning on the lights.”

  “No.”

  His voice was low, gentle. “There were times I remembered the look of you in my dreams. They never measured up to how beautiful you really are, Anne.” He added, “Do you want me to turn off the light?”

  “What I really want…” There was something in her throat, some strange, hoarse catch that made the words come out like a whispered plea. “I can’t seem to…move.”

  His hands reached out and claimed hers, drawing her through the water toward him, cradling her instantly in his warm, slippery limbs. Anne wrapped her arms around his waist as if he were a lifeline, the blood surging through her veins, her cheek nestled against his shoulder. The water lapped and soothed, lapped and soothed, its heat forcing warmth back into her chilled limbs. Jake stroked back her hair, pressing small, firm kisses on her forehead.

  In the water, her own flesh looked strange to her, all white next to his, all translucent, a voluptuous image of curves and tucks that was so unlike the images she had of herself. Her lips searched for his, suddenly desperately hungry for the feeling of closeness his touch could give her, had always given her. She found what she was looking for; her mouth clung to his, drinking him in, invading his mouth with a liquid-soft tongue. Limbs tangled around limbs, drawn to each other in the dark solitude. It had been too long, her body told her, too long since he’d touched her and held her.

  Jake was her haven. Her mind explained patiently that that made no sense. Her heart knew different truths. His palm glided over her breast and rib, down to her hip and thigh, and her breath caught. Slowly, he loosened her arms, his lips dipping down to the warm, damp, exposed hollow of her shoulder. “Whatever you think, I didn’t intend this,” he murmured. “But then, you were so foolish, sweet. You stood there worrying about every item of clothing that had to come off, almost as if you were afraid, as if you were a virgin again…”

  “You know better,” she whispered into his throat.

  “I know better,” he agreed huskily. “I know you when a dark storm is haunting your eyes and your lips are trembling and your legs are wrapped around mine…”

  His mouth claimed hers, fierce, sweet, aching, hard. Almost roughly, his fingers combed through her hair. Hairpins went flying, and a cascade of ash-blond hair came tumbling down, crushed in his hands. Rapids rushed through her bloodstream, a violent, terrible shiver of vulnerability. She was suddenly floating free in the water, propelled by Jake’s rough stroke away from the side. There was only Jake to hold on to in a liquid world without gravity. A low, guttural cry escaped from her throat when he raised her up from the water and touched his tongue to her breast. His tongue was moving like the lash of a whip…only tenderly. Tender, sweet lashes.

  “Tell me,” he whispered.

  She shook her head helplessly. Tell him…what? About the hot water and the cold, cold air and the sky trying to light the entire world with stars…? Tell him about the fire in her soul? Air and water and fire, an elemental cry that echoed through her bloodstream until the fierce, wild yearning was out of control…? But it changed nothing. He had a power over her no other man had…but he already knew that.

  “Tell me you don’t remember,” he went on, still whispering. “Tell me you don’t feel the same anymore, that this makes no difference. Tell me what you don’t want, Anne…” His hands roamed over her water-silkened flesh, his lips pressed into her throat. Her fingers curled in the wet fur on his chest, and she could feel his heart pounding. She could feel her own heart pounding.

  So silent, the whole rest of the world. Just the rasp of his breathing and then the pressure of his mouth on hers, the smooth, warm feel of the water and the blend of limb to limb, inseparable. A sensation that she was going to fall and never stop falling… “Lord, I want you, Jake,” she whispered. “Don’t let go…”

  She was so safe. Safe and wonderfully free and alive, when he held her. Yearning ached through her in a warm, long quiver; dynamite growing desperate to explode…

  The rattle of wooden gate seemed to come from a thousand miles away. Jake’s fingers suddenly dug into her flesh, startling her. Even before the gate creaked open, he’d whirled her behind him and pinned her against the rough side of the tub.

  “Mr. Rivard?” A pair of fox eyes peered at them in the glow of the lights beneath the water. “I was mighty worried when I noticed the yard lights were out in this part of the campground. We were having trouble with the water temperature yesterday, and I-”

  “Hit the light switch,” Jake said brusquely.

  “Beg your pardon? I-”

  “Now.”

  He hit the switch. The pool lights went out instantly; the water turned black. Anne buried her face in Jake’s shoulder blades and closed her eyes.

  “I had the thermostat repaired yesterday, but nobody’s reserved the tub since then, until you did, and I thought I should check. I mean I never meant to disturb you…”

  The man was embarrassed and didn’t know how to make his escape. Jake handled him, in another world. The real world. Shame rippled painfully through Anne. She’d always known the relationship had no foundation to sustain it other than sex, yet so easily, so readily she’d just…

  Everything was suddenly violently wrong. Her head ached. Clouds had formed a cloak over the stars, and cold air dipped down inside the wooden gates and whipped at her damp hair. Her heart was still trying to beat down its disappointment at not having her sexual needs satisfied…sexual being the operative word, a voice in her head scolded. She was insane to have made this trip…

  She heard the latch of the gate and knew the man had left. Jake loosened his fiercely protective hold, and Anne was free to breathe again. And she did breathe, her eyes averted.

  “Anne…”

  A finger cocked up her chin. She batted it away, and surged past him and out of the water, her skin tightening as the cold night air raced over her dripping limbs. She reached for a towel, then rapidly changed her mind and grabbed up her robe, which she swiftly belted around her still-soaking body.

  “Take it easy, Anne,” Jake said slowly, quietly coming up behind her.

  “I’m not particularly proud of myself, Jake,” Anne shot back, “so just lay off.” Her hands were shaking as she grabbed the rest of her things and tried to tug open the gate. It wouldn’t give.

  “He relocked
it and I have the key. Just a moment.” Deftly, Jake got into his jeans and pulled a sweatshirt over his head. Anne saw the moody look in his eyes and averted her gaze. His jaw was tight, but he wasn’t angry. There was just a certain stillness about him that made her want to bite the inside of her lip; she wanted out of here. Out and completely away from him.

  He stuck the key in the lock, but claimed her arm before she could open the gate. “It doesn’t make sense,” he insisted, “to fight something we both want.”

  “We’ve been there,” Anne hissed. “Jake, you know that. I don’t know why I agreed to come. All that’s going to happen is that we’ll end up sleeping together again and building these…ties…and then I’ll go back to being Anne and you’ll go back to being Jake, and I can’t handle that again. You’ll go off to heaven knows where-”

  Jake brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek, so tenderly that she could have hit him. “With you.”

  “No! I don’t want that kind of life. I can’t handle it. I don’t need it…” She pivoted, turned the small brass key in the door and hurried down the wooden ladder into the frigid night.

  Jake didn’t catch up with her until she was in the motor home, reaching in a drawer for her hair dryer. Her hair was drenched and took a long time to dry.

  Jake took the dryer from her hand and dried her hair for her. Over the steady whine of the hair dryer, she gradually calmed down, not really from discipline but rather from exhaustion. If Jake had said one word…but he said nothing at all. Once her hair was dry, he pulled a nightgown over her head, helped her into the upper berth and tucked her into her own pink comforter. “You’re not going home,” he whispered. “I know exactly what you have in mind at the end of the two weeks, Anne-leaving. All right-if that’s how you feel then. But you’re not going home before the two weeks are up. Hear me?”

  She heard him.

  Chapter 7

  Lazily, Anne’s lashes fluttered open. A thin band of sunlight stole through the curtains surrounding her upper berth. The droning of the engine told her that the motor home was on the road. Groggily, she rolled over, tugging her comforter with her, and with a sleepy yawn parted the curtains enough to see out.

  The rich, black farmland and the cornfields had disappeared, as had the gentle, long rolls of western Iowa. Pale wheat now stretched along both sides of the serpentine road, except where a gnarled gray butte jutted up from nowhere. The arid landscape was strangely colorless, stark and bleak. Fences suggested cattle land, yet she saw no sign of life. Or houses. Or even trees… Then suddenly a clump of cottonwoods whizzed by as Jake took a curve. The trees were beaten and bent by the kind of wind Anne could only imagine might blow through here and never stop.

  She climbed down from the bunk and went to stand behind Jake. “Good Lord, where are we? How on earth long have you been driving?”

  “Since two this morning. I had in mind your seeing the Badlands by dawn, but couldn’t quite make that. On the other hand, you slept in to just about the right time.” His eyes flickered up to meet her gaze in the rearview mirror, and he immediately flashed her a crooked smile. “When you get around to it, I’d sell my soul for a cup of coffee.”

  “Would you, now?” She yawned and shook herself sleepily, still half immersed in the crazy dream she’d awakened from. She’d been standing stark-naked in a room, explaining to the silver-eyed rogue in front of her the futility of investing in high-risk, low-yield stocks, and he’d been listening, dressed in a gray flannel suit, interrupting her only to mention that he wanted to live in a two-story brick house in the country. She yawned again. The dream vaguely irritated her. She expected even her unconscious to have better sense, and Freud could take a hike.

  Her bare toes sank into the lush blue carpet as Anne rapidly disappeared into the bathroom, splashed her face with cool water and stared sleepy-eyed at the mouth that had all but begged Jake to take her the night before. She splashed more cold water on her face.

  Distress didn’t seem to wash off that easily. The lingering image of the child who had appeared toward the end of the dream was even more disturbing. A little boy with Jake’s special eyes… Anne compressed her lips. Old pains were very good erasers; so was an intense determination to make sure no child of hers would ever experience the insecurities and instabilities that had marked her own childhood. Hurriedly, she ran a brush through her hair. Last night had been a narrow escape, but she had escaped, and she doubted even Jake’s ability to conjure up a hot tub in any other campground. In the meantime, she’d seen his whiskered chin and weary eyes.

  A few moments later, she removed a steaming cup of coffee from the microwave oven, set it in the console next to Jake, then moved rapidly back to get her own cup. “I’ll drive for a while,” she called to him. “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

  “Stop worrying about your clothes and come here.”

  She brought her cup, vaguely miffed at the order, very definitely startled that the man’s attitude this morning so blatantly lacked the lover’s seductive skill of the night before, and peered out the window where he motioned. Rather abruptly, she sank down in the passenger seat. The wheat fields, just that quickly, had changed again.

  The road ran precariously along a ledge high above a bottomless gorge that yawned threateningly below them. Pink cliffs lined the lonely horizon with strange, contrasting striated lines of crimson and yellow. Pinnacles and buttes jutted up from the gorge below, some shaped like needle-slim knives aimed skyward. In places, the limestone was formed into mystical castles, complete with turrets and waterless moats. In other places, the wind had worn perfect circular holes, caves or giant mushroom-shaped ledges into the rock. The twisting gorge seemed to gnarl and turn for endless miles; the knifelike peaks stretched high, and the sun streaming onto those desolate rock formations brought out a rainbow spectrum of colors. Pink and blue and green, colors that didn’t belong in rock.

  “This is one of my favorite places on earth,” Jake murmured. He reached for his coffee, glancing only once at her. Through shuttered eyes, he took in the high-necked flannel nightgown, the fair hair loosely coiled over one shoulder, the complexion all rose and cream. Before her nerves could register that intimate perusal, he was turning away. “The Sioux called this land Mako Sica-Bad Land-but they found a harmony with it. The white settlers in such a hurry to get across to find their gold and silver must have called it hell-those that survived.”

  Anne held her cup in both hands to keep the coffee from spilling as Jake negotiated the twisting uphill road. She immediately decided that this landscape was one of her least favorite places on earth. The land was terrifying, with its gutted hollows and lonely spires. She couldn’t imagine how any living thing could survive here. No trees, no water, rock faces too steep to climb; just endless mazes of stone in shadow.

  Yet, mesmerized, she couldn’t seem to turn away from the window. The colors were incredible, strata of almost bright pink and yellow. The rock formed men and elephants and buildings, and almost any other shape the mind could imagine.

  “All kinds of dinosaurs used to romp around here,” Jake remarked. “Fox-sized horses and saber-toothed cats, too. Three thousand years ago, nomads hunted this land, finding caves where they could build their fires for the night… Would you like to get out?”

  Intrigued, she nodded, and set down her cup. When he pulled the motor home to the side of the road, she reached for the door handle.

  “Anne?”

  She glanced back.

  “There’s very little chance we’ll run into anyone, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me. But you might want to put on shoes, honey.”

  She let go of the door handle as if it were a hot potato. “I was hardly going outside in my nightgown.”

  “Of course you weren’t.”

  Six and a half minutes later, she emerged flushed and breathless from the back door, wearing a red turtleneck sweater tucked into navy wool culottes, nylons and a pair of sturdy walking shoes. She had t
wisted her hair hastily into the untidiest coil she’d ever accomplished in her life, and her makeup consisted only of blusher and lipstick. She was exceedingly pleased with what she’d achieved in six minutes; Jake’s responsive chuckle was unnerving. “Break down and tell me the truth, now, Anne. Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

  “Where I grew up, you didn’t travel in jeans,” she said flatly, thoroughly irritated that her appearance didn’t pass muster. It was useless to remember that she’d deliberately packed with the thought of playing stiff, formal lady to Jake’s devil-may-care vagabond, because at the moment she felt distinctly like a violinist at a rock concert. Truthfully, jeans wouldn’t have helped her anyway. She could never fit in here as Jake so easily did, with his hands on denim-clad hips against a backdrop of those jagged peaks, up and down, up and down, like sharp Ms across the sky. With his silvery hair and stubborn square chin and rugged profile, Jake could easily have been one of the original pioneers…the kind who made it.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a steep rock formation.

  “Look,” she started unhappily.

  “Now don’t get all touchy. I love your taste in clothes. I only make fun because you just beg to be teased. Are you wearing the camisole I gave you?”

  “I returned it,” she snapped through gritted teeth. “I told you that.”

  “Fib. I saw it buried in your bottom drawer when I was helping you pack-or trying to. You brought it along, didn’t you?”

  One of Jake’s many character flaws was that he thought he knew so much. Anne declined to answer. He started to climb, and she followed silently. The land was veined like old leather, oddly giving beneath her feet, the dusty yellow soil like hard-packed sand but without substance beneath. She reached out and clutched his hand, only because instinct kept telling her that somehow the land wouldn’t hold her. Jake moved like an animal, sure-footed and silent, leading them into a crevice between two steep rock walls. For Anne, it was a far different kind of exercise than standing in line to buy tickets to a symphony concert.