Not Even for Love

by Sandra Brown

  “Danke schön,” they chorused before starting off again.

  Helmut opened the envelope and read the brief message. He cursed under his breath. “Forgive me, both of you, but I must return to town. One of our company airplanes is missing somewhere over Canada. I must be on hand when word comes in.”

  “Of course,” Jordan said, and hastily began placing the food back into the basket.

  Helmut grabbed both her hands and stayed them. “No, Jordan. I feel badly enough as it is. I won’t spoil your day, too. You and Reeves stay and enjoy the picnic.”

  “But, Helmut—” She started to object.

  “There’s nothing either of you can do, darling. Nor can I, really. But I must be there in case the worst conjecture proves to be correct.”

  “But—”

  “I insist. Reeves, enjoy the day. I wish I didn’t have to desert you this way. Damn.”

  “Don’t apologize, Helmut. I only hope that your airplane and its crew are found to be safe.”

  “As do I,” Jordan murmured.

  Helmut kissed her softly on the mouth and said, “I’ll try to call you later this evening, darling, if I can.”

  “I’ll see that the basket is returned to the Europa and that Jordan gets home,” Reeves said.

  “Thank you, my friend.” Helmut, thinking of business now, turned and jogged down the hill, then disappeared behind some towering pines.

  Jordan stared after the retreating figure, aware that she was once again alone with Reeves on what should be an idyllic outing. Reeves was aware of their isolation, too. The tension between them was palpable. She was afraid to meet his eyes, not able to guess what his mood might be. He ended the suspense.

  “Well, get busy, woman. I’m starving,” he said, and flipped back the cover of the basket again.

  “Haven’t you heard of women’s liberation?” she snapped.

  “Yeah. Whose rotten idea was that?” he scowled.

  In the long run he helped her unload the basket. To their delight, Helmut’s idea of a picnic was ludicrous. Silver lids capped glass jars of pâté, caviar, smoked salmon, and smoked oysters. A cold baked chicken had been rid of bones and trimmed of fat. There was a selection of relishes, including pickles, olives, deviled eggs, and preserved fruit. Several loaves of bread, the crusts hard and golden, the centers soft and white, were wrapped in linen towels. Whole cheeses and a crock of butter were still cool. A box of chocolates and a selection of pastries were included for dessert. A bottle of white German wine, a bottle of cognac, and a thermos of coffee had been secured to the side of the basket so they would stand upright. China plates, linen napkins, and silver cutlery were packed into the bottom of the hamper.

  “My God,” Reeves exclaimed. “Who did he expect to feed?”

  “What I can’t figure out is how he carried it all up here. I had no idea how heavy that basket was. Did you?”

  “No. I’m only glad he didn’t ask me to help him!”

  They ate until they couldn’t hold any more. They drank most of the wine, but Jordan suggested that Reeves replace the cork rather than try to drink it all or they might have to stagger down the hill. She demolished the box of Swiss chocolates. He ate two of the pastries, licking the rich fillings off his fingers.

  They had barely made a dent in all the food, so they conscientiously repacked the remains in the hamper. When that task was done, Jordan stood up and stretched. “I’ve got to walk some of this off.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “I wanted to go a little higher anyway.”

  “Who’s going to carry the basket?” she asked.

  He frowned down at it, knowing that their lunch hadn’t appreciably lightened the basket. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he offered. “If you can get the camera case, I’ll take the basket.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Are you sure? It’s pretty heavy.”

  “Well, the backpack isn’t. I don’t think I’ll have any problem.”

  When they were loaded and their gear was adjusted comfortably, they began walking higher up the mountain. The grass gave way to rockier ground, though they were still in the timberline and the incline wasn’t steep. Other hikers were still in evidence, though most had stayed on the plateaus below.

  “Have you ever done any serious mountain climbing, Reeves?” she asked breathlessly as she clambered along beside him.

  “Are you kidding?” He shot her a dark look.

  She laughed. “Oh, yes. I forgot about your acrophobia.”

  “Anyone who hangs off the side of a mountain for no good reason is crazy.”

  “But this doesn’t bother you,” she pointed out.

  “No. This isn’t like hanging by ropes and finding footholds and…God, I get goose bumps just thinking about it.”

  “You may be getting goose bumps because it’s getting colder,” she observed. “I think I’ll put my jacket on.” She set his camera case down on a level rock and eased off her backpack. Taking her jacket out of it, she shrugged into it. “Aren’t you going to put on your windbreaker?”

  “No. This sweater is like a furnace. I’m still warm.”

  They went on, going higher and talking less to save their breath, which was becoming more labored the higher they got.

  “I… think… I’m going to have…to… rest,” she said between rapid pants.

  “Good idea,” he concurred, and virtually collapsed on the ground under a pine tree. “Actually, I was ready to stop about twenty minutes ago, but my macho image would have been irreparably damaged had I cried uncle before you.”

  “It would take more than that to jeopardize your machismo.”

  The minute the words left her lips she wished she could recall them. They were all but an admission as to how much he attracted her. She blushed furiously when he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, yeah?” he taunted. “Tell me all about it.”

  “Not on your life,” she said sourly. “You’re too conceited as it is.”

  Still grinning and not in the least affected by her acerbic tone, he got up and took the blanket out of the basket and spread it under the tree. “Let’s rest before starting back.”

  She sat down and leaned against the tree trunk, sighing tiredly but contentedly. He didn’t ask her permission before lying down on his back and settling his head on her lap. “Good night,” he said, shutting his eyes.

  She cleared her throat loudly. “Mr. Grant.” He opened one eye and looked up at her through the forest of lashes. “Who thought up the sleeping arrangements?” she asked.

  “I’m entitled to the most comfortable position. I had to carry the heaviest load,” he reasoned.

  “But you’re stronger. You’re a man and I’m a woman.”

  “I noticed that,” he said lazily as his eyes dropped significantly to her breasts.

  Hurriedly getting back on the subject, she said, “I have to take two steps to your one. Your legs are longer.”

  “Yours are smoother. And shapelier.” He reached behind his head, slid his hand under the denim, and captured her relaxed calf in his hand. Immediately the delicate muscles beneath his fingers contracted. “As a matter of fact,” he continued soothingly, “you’re smooth and shapely all over.”

  Her head began pounding with her accelerated pulse. She looked away quickly, then, unable to resist the temptation, back down at him as he grinned up at her.

  “My anatomy is not a proper subject for discussion,” she said primly.

  “I think it is. Since you opened the door to me the other night and invited me in out of the rain, your anatomy has been the only subject my mind has been capable of dwelling on.”

  “That’s unhealthy.”

  “Uh-huh. You make me feel very healthy. Very strong. Sometimes embarrassingly so.”

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked away again. Don’t let him talk to you like this, she commissioned herself. Get up. Move away. Run. But then he laughed and captured her hand, kissing the palm quickly,
then with more leisure. Thoughts of resistance or escape dissolved under the soft, moist persuasions of his mouth.

  Looking down at him as he nibbled the frail bones of her wrist, she was again suffused with love. “Reeves?” she whispered.

  The soft tone of her voice was more attention-getting than if she had shouted at him. “Yes?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “I couldn’t let you tell Helmut that I was in your room with you. You understand that, don’t you?”

  He sighed and muttered an expletive. “Yes. At the time I was furious, but …” He stared off in the distance for a long moment, then looked back up at her. “The guy just called me his friend a while ago.” It was a small concession. He was telling her that he understood the loyalty she felt. He shifted his weight and rose up on one elbow to face her. “Jordan, just for today, let’s not talk about Helmut. All right?”

  “Reeves—”

  “Please? Just for today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

  That was so easy for him to say. He was able to pack his bags and leave. No guilt, no remorse, no regrets. While she…

  It was the mute appeal in his eyes she couldn’t resist. “All right,” she heard herself say aloud while answers to the contrary paraded through her mind.

  He reached up behind her head and pulled out the barrette that held her ponytail. Released, her hair fell about her face and neck. He smiled and lay his head again in her lap. “Kiss me,” he said.

  The die was cast.

  Jordan didn’t think of refusing. Instead, she leaned over him and pressed her lips to his. He didn’t move. Neither accepting nor rejecting her kiss, he just lay there. He was issuing a challenge she wasn’t about to ignore.

  Her hand moved down the hard wall of his chest until it insinuated its way under the heavy sweater. It brushed past the waistband of his shorts to caress the warm, vibrant skin. She fanned the crinkly hair on his chest before settling her palm over the masculine contours and massaging them.

  Her lips parted slightly and treated his face to kisses so light he might well have imagined them. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t tell where the next feather-light touch would strike. She kissed him at the temple, on the eyebrows, the eyelids, the nose, the hard cheek, and the rigid line of jaw. But she moved out of order, with no sequence, so that each kiss was an unexpected gift. Eventually she worked her way back to his mouth. She saw his lips form her name.

  Her tongue, warm and wet, stroked along his bottom lip and urged the corners of his mouth to relax. At the same time, her fingertips found that hard kernel of flesh on his chest nestled in the soft mat of hair and worried it until it became distended. He groaned softly while she played with it as her tongue demanded entrance to his mouth.

  At last he relented. Violently. He crooked his outside arm around her neck and drew her closer. His head maneuvered between her breasts and his mouth allowed her tongue its sweet violation.

  “You taste like chocolate,” he breathed between kisses.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I love it. You’re delicious.”

  “So are you.”

  They kissed again while her hand traced the silky line of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his shorts. She explored his navel.

  “Do you know what that’s doing to me?” he grated.

  Suddenly she did know and was shocked at what she was doing. She yanked her hand from under his sweater and sat erect, smoothing her hair. Her breath was erratic. It matched his.

  “I wasn’t complaining, you know.” His eyes were twinkling mischievously.

  “Yes, I know. I didn’t realize…It’s…I…” She was confused by her own unstable emotions and the throbbing ache deep in her body that begged cessation.

  He caught her hand to his chest as he folded his arms across it. “Let’s take a nap. Then we can start back down.”

  “All right.”

  She sighed and leaned her head back against the rough bark of the tree, but for some reason, she wasn’t uncomfortable. Her contentment had something to do with the heavy weight of his head on her thighs and abdomen, with the warm, moist breath she could feel on her stomach through her clothes, and with the even beating of her heart that pumped strong and sure beneath her hand.

  She took one last look at Reeves, then closed her eyes. Within seconds her breath was synchronized with his and they both slept.

  It wasn’t a sound that awakened her. Rather it was the pervading silence. She opened her eyes slowly, trying to assimilate where she was. Her sleep had been deep and reviving, but it seemed that she was trapped in a wakeful dream.

  She and Reeves were under the protective branches of the pine, but the rest of the world, outside the perimeter of the wide, spreading limbs, was dusted with white talc. It looked like a fairyland of swirling white crystals.

  Even as she glanced down at Reeves, one of the crystals filtered through the pine needles and settled on his eyelashes.

  Jordan raised her head and stared out at the scene once again. Sudden clarity rang loud alarms in her head. This wasn’t a dream.

  “Reeves,” she cried, shaking him awake. “It’s snowing!”

  CHAPTER 8

  That?” He sat up so abruptly that they almost bumped heads. “My God! Will you look at that!” He came to his feet and spread his arms wide to catch the snowflakes that danced around them.

  “What are we going to do? ” Jordan asked anxiously.

  “Do? What do you mean do?”

  “Reeves, we’re up here on this mountain in a snowstorm. How will we get down?”

  He smiled and hugged her briefly. “The same way we came up. It doesn’t look too bad. If we hurry, we’ll be fine. Does it usually snow this early in the season?”

  She was looking at the snowfall, still not convinced that their trip back down the mountain wouldn’t be dangerous. “Sometimes up here in the higher elevations it does. It’s probably not even snowing in the valley.”

  “We may walk out of it in a short while then. Come on, let’s get started.” He sounded calm and assured that they really weren’t in a predicament, but Jordan saw him eyeing the snow and calculating how quickly it was coming down. The wind was blowing harder now and the temperature seemed to be dropping each minute. Already a sheet of white had coated the ground.

  Hurriedly, without speaking, they gathered up their things. Jordan hauled the camera case over her shoulder after remounting the backpack on her back. Reeves draped the blanket that had served as their picnic table over her head and shoulders. “Just in case you can’t take the cold.” He cuffed her under the chin and winked. He was trying to keep her from panicking, but she was still cautious and worried as they stepped from under the protective limbs of the tree and the full force of the storm hit them.

  She let Reeves navigate. He plunged ahead and she trailed him as closely as her stumbling footsteps would allow her to. Every few yards he would glance over his shoulder to see that she was behind him. The wind ripped attempted words from their mouths, so they communicated with an improvised sign language.

  Usually walking down the mountain trail wasn’t difficult at all. Now, however, the path was obscured by the first layer of snow. It had already frozen hard in patches and walking over them was treacherous. The wind lashed at their faces and stung their eyes, making it difficult for them to see.

  Reeves waved for her to follow him under another pine that offered a modicum of protection. “Do you think we’re going in the right direction?” he shouted.

  Jordan quaked at his question. She had been following his lead, not really paying attention to where they were going, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to fall down on the icy ground underfoot.

  “I don’t know, Reeves. I think so, but…”

  She looked up at him so fearfully that he hugged her to him and said, “Hey, now, don’t worry. I’m going to get us out of this. Are you cold?”

  “No,” she lied. She couldn’t
complain about being cold when she was wrapped in the blanket and he only had on the thin windbreaker over his sweater. Only knee socks covered the lower half of his legs.

  “Ready?” he asked. She nodded. “Tell me if you need to stop again.” She nodded again and then followed him back into the storm.

  Jordan would never remember how long they trudged through the blinding snow, battling the wind and the icy pel-lets that beat against their unprotected faces. This wasn’t a gentle snowfall. It was a full-fledged blizzard, carrying as much icy sleet as snow in its frigid winds.

  She was exhausted. Each breath became more labored and ragged. Her lungs were burning from the abuse. Her legs throbbed painfully and her muscles were cramped from the cold.

  When she was sure she was about to drop, Reeves reached for her hand and virtually dragged her along behind him. She was about to object to their rigorous pace when she realized that he had altered their direction. They were now moving laterally. She raised her head and peered out from beneath the blanket. A dark shadow against the gray-white world took form. It was a shed.

  She hastened her leaden footsteps. In a matter of moments they collapsed together against the weathered exterior wall of the small building. They gasped for air, waiting long minutes until their heartbeats had slowed considerably and their respiration was closer to normal.

  Without moving his body as he leaned against the wall, Reeves turned his head and looked at her. “How are you doing?” He smiled, and that in itself warmed Jordan.

  She rested her head on his shoulder and murmured, “I’m fine.”

  “Let’s see if we can get into this… whatever it is.”

  “It’s a tool shed. They dot the sides of the mountains,” she explained. “If a farmer has a pasture in the higher elevations, he uses these tool sheds to store equipment and supplies. That way he doesn’t have to haul it up and down the mountain.”

  “Very ingenious. I could kiss our farmer.”

  She laughed in spite of their grim circumstances.