by Janzen, Tara
She traced a weld with her fingertip, following the scorched seam into a sweeping curve and up the next arc. Her hand looked small and fragile against the blue-black luster of the steel. The metal was cold, but the sculpture itself was hot, sizzling with power, electrified in its simplicity and grace. She had no trouble comprehending his intentions when she tilted her head back to take in the whole glorious thing. An abstract phoenix rose from the ashes, renewal pulsing in the heavy mesh and tracery of metal. He was an artist, and the tools he used demanded strength of conviction. There was no turning your back on a ton of precariously balanced steel.
There was no turning her back on him. What she felt standing there in the web of shadows of his creation wasn’t something she could deny. The man who’d hidden none of his faults had suddenly revealed his innermost heart, and she saw the complexity she’d only sensed the day he’d seen Danny’s photograph of her. She saw the intensity of personality she’d felt each time he’d kissed her. She now knew where his overwhelming passion came from—it was inherent in the man, and it wasn’t purely sexual. He lived with passion inside him. He tempered it within the physical and structural constraints of building homes and gazebos that were sound and safe. Then he let it unfurl and fly when he sculpted and when he kissed, defying the laws of gravity with one and the laws of decorum with the other.
The sparks had stopped falling from above, and Lila realized the music had ended as well. She slowly lifted her gaze to meet his.
“Hi.” His voice washed over her, deep and steady.
“Hi.”
He hung in the air, bracketed by the scaffolding, the goggles pushed up on top of his cap. A smile teased the corners of his mouth, curious light gleamed in his eyes.
“Hungry?” he asked, his grin broadening a mile wide.
“Sure,” she said softly. He made breaking all the rules so easy.
With a satisfied nod, he released himself from the harness and climbed down to the floor. She watched as he shut off his equipment and shrugged out of the coverall. She had a million questions, but asked none of them. An acute attack of shyness had stolen her tongue. She wouldn’t have left for anything, but it didn’t make staying any less difficult. His assumption about why she’d showed up at his house at sunrise was probably correct, and he knew it involved more than just breakfast.
Jack was nervous, too, and higher than a kite that she’d come. As far as he was concerned, the morning couldn’t last long enough. He remembered the expression on her face in the photograph, and he wanted it for himself, for what there could be between him and the dark-eyed woman who haunted his dreams.
She’d come to him. He turned and extended his hand, his smile a permanent fixture. After a short hesitation, she gave him her hand.
He noticed the slight quaver of her mouth and her averted gaze. She looked ready to bolt. She also looked incredibly lovely. The cold had pinkened her cheeks and the tip of her nose. The wind had blown her hair into a riotous tumble of curls. The upturned collar of her mink coat framed her face, and the lush fur and silken strands of her hair contrasted sensually with the cool creaminess of her skin. She looked ready to be touched. Her mouth, full and sweet, looked ready to be kissed. But he didn’t want to make any mistakes.
He entwined his fingers with hers, taking his time and encouraging the small smile trying to form on her face. When she glanced up, he lifted their hands to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
“You picked a good time to come. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I always go all-out.”
Her smile came, brief and sweet, and shy enough to increase his confidence. “I thought you looked like a good breakfast man.”
“I could be your good anytime man,” he said, soft and low, and watched an instant flush of embarrassment spread across her face. She lowered her gaze again, and in repentance he bent down and whispered in her ear, “How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled.” Like my emotions, she added silently, and my nerves, and my senses when you’re this close.
“Scrambled it is,” he said, tucking her against his side and directing her out the door.
Her few minutes in the relative warmth of the garage made the outside air feel cold to the point of breathlessness. Or was that him stealing her breath?
Their boots crunched across the wide gravel driveway, squeaking against the frozen rocks. She began shivering. He pulled her tighter, and lengthened his stride until she had to run to keep up.
“Almost there,” he said.
“G-good,” she chattered back, and hoped it really was the cold and not her nerves making her tremble from the inside out.
When they reached the house, he swung her onto the front porch, past the half-finished parts, then jumped up beside her. Two more steps brought them to the large, carved wood door. She barely had time to register the intricate landscape cut into the heavy oak before he whisked her inside.
“I’ll have you warmed up in no time,” he assured her.
That was exactly what she was afraid of.
* * *
His house was a mess, but not in the usual sort of ways. He’d invited her to take a tour while he fixed breakfast, and she’d taken him up on his offer, with some wildly unexpected results. She was lost, and she was jealous. The first she knew she could remedy by backtracking. The second so flabbergasted her, she wasn’t sure what to think. But every time she turned back to the bathtub sunk into the terra-cotta floor and saw the voluptuous bronze mermaid wrapped around its curving sides, Lila’s mouth tightened a bit more. The mermaid’s smile was very personal, and the name Christina had been worked into the tiny scales, along with a date two years old. Jack was obviously a man of many talents. She’d never seen a sculpture so drenched in sensuality. The tail fanned out along the back of the bathtub, making what looked like a perfect place to rest a person’s head while they relaxed in the hot water. The mermaid held bluish copper conch shells in her hands, which was where the water poured forth.
No shells covered her breasts, but the wall behind the sink was inset with real seashells, hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes, framing the mirror with no discernible pattern. The wildness of the display, coupled with a free-standing metallic garden of seaweed, and aqua-tinted blown glass in the window casing, gave the room a definite watery atmosphere.
Lila stepped back out into the hall and ducked under a two-by-four propped against the wall. She knew the living room, with its panoramic view of the unfinished western deck, was somewhere behind her, past the “undersea” bathroom, a surprisingly stark room with a drafting table in it, and a kitchen where no one had skimped on the windows or the exotic tile work. She chose the uncharted territory ahead and found herself stepping over gallons of paint and tubs of plaster, until she reached the sanctuary of his bedroom.
Serenity reigned over the mellow oak floors covered with hand-braided rugs in shades of blue and white. Three of the walls were plastered. The remaining wall was paneled in whitewashed one-by-fours. Four lightly stained totem poles held up his bed.
Lila walked farther into the room. She touched the multicolored quilt spread between the totem poles and ran a fingertip over a row of hand stitching. Her gaze took in the simple furnishings: a wooden dresser against one wall, two pine bedside tables. His house was the strangest she’d ever seen, beautiful but strange. Half the rooms were chaos incarnate, like the “undersea” bathroom with its mermaid and the kitchen with its wild tile on the counters, floors, and walls; and half the rooms were functional yet warm, unadorned yet elegant. It was as if two different people lived in the house, two people incapable of compromise.
Of course, she thought with a sudden flash of memory, he was divorced. There had been two people in the house, Jack and Christina, she of the bare breasts and lovely smile.
With a sigh, Lila backed away from the bed. She had no business being there. Christmas vacation was obviously proving to be too much of a strain on her. She needed classes, lectures to prepare
and give, the immediacy of exams. Hanging around had gotten her into trouble last year, and this year was proving to be no different. She could see the essay assignment now—What I Did on My Christmas Vacation—and her answer in one page or less. “I talked myself into falling for the carpenter who was building a room onto my house. He turned out to have a lot of talents, not the least of which was his way with a kiss.” No matter how she curved the grading scale, she had to give herself an F for failure to learn from previous lessons.
There was no such thing as true love anymore, she believed, not at her age and not in the society she lived in. Once was more than most people got, and she’d had her once with Danny.
The sudden finality of her reasoning took the wind out of her sails, and a small, traitorous part of her heart wished she could have had her once with Jack Hudson instead.
She lifted a hand to her breast and inhaled sharply, the sheer sacrilege of her last thought startling her pulse into a jump. She definitely needed to get back to work, the sooner the better. Even this morning couldn’t be too quick. There was always something to do in her office at the university. Maybe Didi would be in, and they could talk about literature and things. Things like Jack Hudson.
“Lila?”
She whirled around as she heard him call her name. At the next moment he was there, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere. For reasons she didn’t want to analyze any longer and couldn’t explain, she needed him. She needed the warmth of his smile and the strength of his arms. She needed his easy laughter and his sure hands. She needed the thrill of his kisses, and she only prayed she was right to need anything at all from him.
“Breakfast is ready,” he said, offering her his hand.
She liked holding his hand. She liked that he wanted to touch her, to keep her close.
“Sorry about the construction,” he continued, helping her over the tubs of plaster and paint, “but I never seem to find time to work on my own house.”
“I know what you mean,” she said, following him down the hall. “I started to write a book once, but I found out I’m a lot better at critiquing other people’s books.”
“I guess that’s the same thing.” When they cleared the hallway, he pulled her under his arm, and she automatically slipped her hand around his waist.
“I noticed the one bathroom looks finished,” she said. The words popped out, unbidden, unwelcome. Sabotage, she thought with an internal groan. Somewhere inside her was a subconscious necessity to sabotage any possible relationship with Jack Hudson.
“Actually,” he said, “both bathrooms are finished. There’s one in the master bedroom. After Christina, my ex-wife, put the seashells and seaweed in the main bath, I needed someplace else to brush my teeth. I got too dizzy in there.” He laughed.
So she’d been right about his wife, Lila thought. That was a hollow victory at best. “She did the work herself?”
“Christina has taken the pursuit of arts and crafts to new heights and some new lows, if not quite to art itself.” A bare, almost indiscernible sarcasm colored his words, and Lila looked up at him in surprise. She hadn’t thought him capable of a discouraging word, let alone sarcasm. “She did the tile work in the kitchen,” he added. “She ordered the front door as well, and it was all I could do to keep her from roofing the house in a checkerboard pattern of purple, green, and yellow.”
“Sounds like a free spirit.”
“She was free with a lot of things she shouldn’t have been.” With that intriguing statement, they reached the kitchen and he changed the subject. “I made eggs Benedict, but I scrambled yours instead of poaching them.”
“Thanks,” she murmured. “It looks wonderful.” And it did. He’d set them up in the breakfast nook, by the bay window that looked out on the mountains to the west. Mugs of coffee steamed next to plates of hash browns, fresh fruit, and twin mounds of eggs Benedict floating in pools of hollandaise sauce.
She hesitated for a moment before sitting down, feeling compelled to add an apology for dropping in on him unannounced and receiving such royal treatment. No matter what words she came up with, though, they seemed inappropriate, even ridiculous. He’d said he was falling in love, and he hadn’t questioned her arrival with so much as a lifted eyebrow. He’d accepted her presence as part of the natural order of life. He’d opened his home as if she belonged. He’d cooked her an incredible breakfast. Cooked, not zapped in a microwave or popped out of a toaster. She was impressed and a little self-conscious. She’d never made eggs Benedict in her life, and he’d whipped a whole meal up in less than half an hour. For a man who believed in the importance of women’s traditional roles, he’d picked a poor example of womankind to be entertaining at his breakfast table.
Of course, he didn’t know she couldn’t cook. For all of her other gaffes, Lila figured she’d keep that particular fact to herself for a while—just in case he really was falling in love.
Nine
Jack smiled wryly to himself as Lila sat down, her gaze focused on her plate. If she weren’t so skittish, he’d share the reason for the grin he couldn’t seem to get off his face.
With typical brilliance, he’d gotten everything backward. Most people made love, slept, then ate breakfast. Not him though. Smooth Jack got right down to the salient point, the cardinal reason, the sum and substance for entertaining a beautiful woman—sharing breakfast. He’d inconveniently skipped all the fun parts.
All the really fun parts, he amended, like unbuttoning her shirt, starting with the pearly one at the very top, the one almost hidden by her lace collar. He’d never forgive himself for that oversight. Or sliding his hand over her breast. He’d been a fool to forget that part. No other man on the face of the earth would have forgotten to kiss her breathless before breakfast. The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to hate himself and his dyslexic ways. He should have at least kissed her. Any other man would have kissed her before breakfast.
A quick check of her plate proved it wasn’t too late.
The scraping of his chair was the only warning Lila got of the meltdown headed her way. She glanced up, and the impact of Jack’s steady gaze and the realization of his intent shot through her like the finest, headiest wine. In seconds, his mouth was upon hers, warm, insistent, demanding, and sweeter than any memories she could conjure up. His tongue stroked down the length of hers with drugging sensuality, blowing fuses in her nerve endings. Her fork clattered to her plate. He slipped his hands under her arms, pulling her out of the chair. Her napkin slid to the floor, and only the strength of his embrace kept her from doing the same.
From somewhere in the house she heard the muted strains of a golden oldie tune, something about “Rescue me,” and she prayed no one would bother. She didn’t need rescuing. She needed Jack, and she showed him the depth of her need in a hundred different ways—with the subtle pressure of her body against his, with the slow caress of her hands through his hair, with the soft sounds and softer sighs he elicited with his touch.
Every stroke of his hands left a shimmering trail of sensation across her skin and deeper, where her emotions were unraveling with unheard-of speed. He was kissing her crazy, stealing her breath and whatever sense she might have brought with her. She didn’t care, not even when she felt him tug her shirt out of the back of her pants, not even when his hand slid up her back and she felt the snap give way on her bra.
All she cared about was him pulling her toward him, slanting his mouth across hers to deepen the kiss. She cared about the heaviness of his breathing and how she wanted more. She cared about the heat of his skin and the taste of his mouth. She cared about making love now and making the loving last forever . . . forever and ever with Jack Hudson. The hardness of him, his strength and gentleness, the erotic power he wielded with his kiss, intoxicated her.
He should have known it would happen like this, Jack thought, fast and unstoppable. Breakfast had been consigned to ancient history. The only reality
was the woman in his arms, Lila, she of the dark eyes and honeyed mouth. She of the sultry curves, the full breasts, the sleek hips.
He slid his hands to the front of her pants, released the snap, and undid the zipper. He wanted to slip his hands inside, but he was no fool. He knew there were limits, and he wanted to play them right to the edge. He wanted to savor and love her. He wanted to take her clothes off and start at her toes and not stop until her mouth melted under his again. He wanted her to explore him.
He wasn’t letting her go this time. The phone was unplugged. The doors were locked, and neither his sister nor his father had a key. If he’d had time, he would have gone down to the county road and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on his mailbox. She was his. The magic of a long-ago night was coming to life in his arms.
He’d been right to kiss her under the harvest moon. The promise he’d felt hadn’t been forsaken by the months of waiting. In truth, nothing could have been sweeter or hotter than the fire she was lighting from one end of his senses to the other. She touched him, and he wanted more. She kissed him, and he felt the wild abandon of her heart match his.
She needed his loving. She pressed against him, her hands pulling his shirt from his pants, her mouth alternately teasing and aggressive. Jack knew the smartest thing he’d ever done in his whole life was to kiss her before breakfast.
He felt cotton slide from beneath denim, then her hands were on him, warm and small, flattening against the tense plane of his abdomen and making it even tenser. His breathing stopped of its own accord. His hand stilled on the nape of her neck.
With the gentlest care he rubbed his mouth over hers, dragging a deep breath into his lungs. Her response was immediate and surprising. Her fingers slowly curled around his waistband, and one by one she undid the buttons on his jeans.
“Ah, Lila,” he murmured, feeling a rush of arousal spread through his body.
They left a trail of clothes from the kitchen to his bedroom. Jack shrugged out of his shirt and spent thirty seconds fighting with the cuff button on his left wrist before he broke it off and wadded the shirt into a pile, which he inadvertently dropped into the hollandaise bowl in the sink.
