But right at this moment, she was weaker than she’d ever been, a leaf to be tossed about in the wind. Going somewhere she’d never been and no clue as to where that was.
Only that she desperately wanted to go there.
No one was more surprised than Mike when he felt himself reacting this way to this woman he hadn’t even known existed a few short weeks ago. But from the first moment he had seen her, he’d felt something, known that she was different.
He had never encountered these feelings before.
He had already admitted to himself in the privacy of his own mind that he was attracted to her, that there was something about this puzzle of a woman that called to him, but he hadn’t expected to react this strongly to her. After all, he had already kissed her before and while it had stirred him up, what he was feeling now was entirely unprecedented.
It felt, stripped down of all the bells and whistles, as if he was not able to breathe if he couldn’t have her. If he couldn’t be with her and possess her right now, body and soul.
Because she already possessed him that way.
The stillness in the house only amplified his need for this woman.
Before he knew what he was doing, Mike picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs.
If somewhere in his semi-consciousness, some small fragment of his mind expected her to pull away, to ask what he thought he was doing and call a halt to it all before it went any further, he was relieved that it didn’t happen.
Instead her arms tightened around the back of his neck, as if she was fearful of breaking contact. And her mouth eagerly moved over his, drawing his very life out and feeding him an intoxicating stimulant that he had never tasted before.
His blood surged through his veins, his need for her increasing just when he thought that wasn’t humanly possible.
Mike found himself before her bedroom door.
This was where he set her down, gave her a chance to say no. Gave himself a chance to regroup, to think clearly.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, still kissing her, he pushed the door open with his shoulder, crossed the threshold with her and then used his back to push the door back into place, closing them off from the rest of the house.
It was the “click” that did it. The lock moving into place. Almost silent, it still echoed through his head like the bells ringing in a church tower.
Mike pulled his lips away from hers.
He was breathless. They both were. He didn’t know whether to apologize to her for the liberties he’d taken, the presumption he’d displayed.
Or just leave.
He did neither.
The look of raw desire and soul-twisting innocence he saw in her eyes wouldn’t let him.
It reeled him back in.
The next moment, clothing began to fly as he pulled away her blouse, her simple skirt that had bedeviled him each time he watched her walk away, her hips moving in silent invitation.
Her bra was next to go, but not before Mike realized that she had stripped away his shirt and pulled off his jeans.
Sam tugged urgently at the latter because his muscular thighs impeded a quick removal.
As did his boots.
For a second time, his lips left hers as he pulled off first one boot, then the other, sitting on the floor as he did it so as not to lose his balance.
He lost his heart instead because from that vantage point, with Sam standing right before him, he drank in the arousing sight of her nude body and within less than a moment of his second boot hitting the floor, he’d pulled Sam back into his arms, his lips taking a second inventory of what his eyes had just seen.
Devouring her and at the same time, increasing his own hunger for her.
Mike was making her absolutely crazy. If she died right now, at this very moment, it would have been all right with her because, as near as she could calculate, she had already ascended into heaven.
She couldn’t get enough of him. Mike had single-handedly caused every single inch of her to catch on fire. Everywhere he touched, everywhere his lips passed, became his and she eagerly returned the favor, familiarizing herself with his body the way she never had in the eighteen months that she had been married to her late husband.
That fact might have made her feel guilty if she hadn’t been feeling so completely enthralled, so wondrously, utterly happy.
She had never been this happy, never felt this euphoric before.
Ever.
There’d been a section in the diaries she’d been reading where Marguerite, toward the end of her captivity, spoke of a strange longing that took hold of her, a longing she couldn’t describe and swore she had never experienced before. It had to do with the warrior who was ultimately responsible for her escape.
When she had come across the passage and read it, Sam couldn’t begin to understand the young woman’s feelings or identify with her.
She could now.
Sparks all but flew as she felt Mike ever so lightly kissing the hollow of her throat, the side of her neck, trailing his lips along the swell of her breasts, possessing every tiny section of her even before he came to take her to that ultimate consummation.
And then it was happening.
Moving so that he was positioned over her on her bed, Mike laced his fingers through hers. His eyes held her a willing prisoner as his weight shifted and then she felt him joining her.
Becoming one with her.
The sensation was exquisite.
She drew in her breath as Mike began to move, at first slowly, then faster, increasing the tempo by degrees.
Sam was quick to match it, eagerly moving her hips in time with his, anticipating that last wonderful wave that promised to sweep them both to the edge of the universe.
She was desperate to have him feel what she was feeling.
The race increased, growing in speed, in magnitude, until that was all there was. It filled all the corners of her world.
She clutched his shoulders, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be any better.
Until it was.
As a cry threatened to escape her lips, before she could press them together, Sam found Mike sealing her lips with his own.
The cry of exquisite fulfillment echoed from her mouth into his as she clung to Mike, digging her nails into his back, trying to hold on before she fell off the edge of the world, exhausted beyond words.
Chapter Sixteen
Gradually, as things like walls, the ceiling and basic surroundings began to return, defining the immediate world around them, Sam could almost feel herself falling back to earth.
When she was able to focus, she realized that she was lying beside Mike, cradled in the crook of his arm. A warm feeling continued to pervade through her.
The ordinarily solemn rancher had an unfathomable, somewhat bemused expression on his face. And he was looking directly at her.
Bracing herself for an answer she might not welcome, Sam still needed to ask what was behind his expression. “What?”
He laughed softly before answering, as if they were sharing a private joke. “I was just thinking that no one looking at you would ever guess that you could be such a tigress.”
“A tigress,” she echoed. She certainly had never been compared to that before, Sam thought. But then, she’d never felt like this before, either.
His eyes never left her face. “Uh-huh.”
“Me?” she said, still not sure she’d actually heard him correctly.
The corners of his mouth curved and the smile entered his eyes. “Most definitely you.”
“Well,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I’m willing to bet that no one suspects how very gentle a lover you can be.”
“Gentle.” He’d been called
a lot of things, some neutral, some not so neutral, but never gentle.
“That’s the word,” she replied, her own smile beginning to play on her lips.
“Don’t know if I like that getting around,” he told her. It wasn’t exactly the kind of description a man strove to attain.
“Tell you what,” she suggested, turning her body into his, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Deal.” If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that a devilish gleam had entered his eyes. “Besides, I’m more of a doer than a talker, anyway.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Sam agreed, her eyes never leaving his as she felt the excitement inside her building again, surprising her as much this time as it had the first time. “And just what is it you plan to do?” she asked innocently.
Mike shifted his weight and gathered her to him so that she was beneath him again. Every breath she took brought the contours of her body up against his, igniting a fresh flame.
“Guess,” he challenged.
“Not good at guessing,” she whispered, her heart hammering in her throat so hard she was having trouble swallowing.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to show you,” he concluded philosophically.
“Sounds good to me,” she said just before her lips were suddenly covered, making her incapable of forming any more words.
Not that she wanted to.
* * *
AND SO IT BEGAN.
Rather than having the interlude mark the end to a perfect day, the threshold that was crossed in Sam’s bedroom was the beginning of a new chapter of her life.
She knew that it would be a short one, but even so, she was going to savor every passage, every word.
To that end, during the day, fueled by a new energy, Sam worked diligently on the diaries she was transcribing and organizing into a coherent, entertaining whole. Moreover, the anticipation she experienced about the nights to come gave her a new, deeper insight into the mind and life of the woman whose words she was reading.
Sam could understand now what she’d puzzled over before. She could literally feel Marguerite’s dilemma as the woman wrote about feeling disloyal to the dead youth who had previously owned her heart and had died on the day of her abduction. Disloyal because she began to have feelings, intense feelings, for the young Navajo brave who had become part of her life.
Her nights with Mike helped her see that Marguerite, almost against her will, had struck up more than just a friendship with the brave.
Reading between the lines, Sam realized that the young captive was in love with and had slowly formed a relationship with the warrior who ultimately helped her escape and get back to her own people.
I am caught between two worlds, part of both, part of none. I know I must choose between them and yet I desperately do not want to.
The passage almost seemed to stand out and glow before her when Sam came to it.
It could have been written by her.
Sam pressed her lips together as she sighed. “I know how you feel,” she whispered to the page and to the spirit of the woman who had written it. “But at least you got to choose. I don’t have that kind of a choice.”
Everyone had been friendly and welcoming in Forever, as well as here on the ranch, but she had no illusions about her situation. No one was offering her a life here. They were just making the time that she spent here exceptionally pleasant.
But she was well aware that there was an end to her time here and it was drawing closer with each minute that passed by.
And she had somewhere else to be once she wrapped up her work here. She knew that for a fact.
Her publisher, Ethan Hawkins, had called yesterday to give her what he referred to as “the good news.” Initially, she thought he was calling just to get an update on how she was coming along, but then she discovered there was another reason for the call, as well.
“Got another project lined up for you once you put this baby to bed,” Hawkins told her. “Seems word is getting around about you, Sam.” She could literally hear the smile in his voice. Hawkins had a wide, wide smile. “People other than me think you have a nice touch, professional but still down to earth. I took the liberty of talking to your agent before I called you. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when he calls you. It’s a really good offer.”
She knew he was talking about the money, but her mind wasn’t on that.
“How soon do I have to get started?” she asked. She was having trouble breathing. Her heart felt like lead in her chest.
“The sooner you finish up on what you’re working on, the better,” Hawkins told her. “They want you on the East Coast the minute you’re done. Why?” he asked suspiciously. “You need some time off? Or is there a problem you didn’t tell me about?”
All the other times, she’d been eager to take on the details of another project on the heels of the one she was completing. It kept her busy, kept her from thinking about anything other than her work. But this time was different. But she couldn’t own up to it. Publishers didn’t relish complications, only the end results.
She forced herself to sound upbeat, even as her heart was sinking. “No, no problem, just trying to work out a schedule in my head.”
Still, Hawkins sounded unconvinced. “I thought you’d be more excited about this.”
“I am,” she was quick to assure the man. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” She grasped at the first excuse she could think of. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”
And she hadn’t, but it wasn’t for the reason she was sure the publisher assumed. It was because the nights brought her more happiness than she thought was humanly possible and she didn’t want to miss a moment of what was happening. Any time she spent sleeping was time she wasn’t spending with Mike.
“You work too hard, Sam. Don’t burn yourself out,” Hawkins warned. “There are big things on your horizon,” he promised mysteriously, then ended the conversation with, “Call me when you’re ready to leave. I’ll have Mavis make your travel arrangements,” he said, referring to his secretary.
With that, Hawkins hung up.
Sam stared at her cell phone for a long time after she’d hit End. The word, she couldn’t help thinking, was lamentably appropriate.
* * *
“WHERE ARE YOU tonight?” Mike asked her that night as they lay in her bed. As usual, the rest of the house was asleep, the way it always was before they quietly claimed their time together.
“Right here,” Sam answered, doing her best to force a lightness into her voice that she didn’t feel.
Mike propped himself up on his elbow to look down into her face. “No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“Well, for one thing,” she said in a deliberately flippant tone, “the guy I’m trying to make love with is too talk-y.”
He stopped her before she could get too carried away with the charade she was putting together. “Sam, one of the things I really like about you is that you don’t lie. I realize now it’s because you’re so lousy at it, but the bottom line is that you don’t lie. Or didn’t.” Mike looked very serious as he said, “Don’t start now.”
Sam blew out a breath. “Okay, I won’t.” She wasn’t going to say anything until tomorrow morning, thinking they could have one more night together pretending that this could go on indefinitely. But obviously she hadn’t counted on the fact that she was incredibly transparent. “My publisher called today.”
“And?”
Mike’s voice dropped down an octave, along with his heart, as he sensed that things were about to change from this moment on. He tried to tell himself that it was okay, that he’d known that what they had was just temporary and because of that, he’d been able to throw caution to the wind. He’d been able to be unrestricted in his reaction to her because th
e threat of commitment wasn’t part of the equation.
The fact that he felt as if he’d just been punched in the gut was something he wasn’t able to factor in.
Sam paused for a minute, trying to pull herself together before she continued. “And he has a new assignment for me.”
“That’s good, right?” he managed to say.
Is it? she silently demanded. Are you happy to know that I won’t be here soon? Why aren’t you upset? Didn’t any of this mean anything to you?
“Right,” she answered, her voice hollow, her mouth so dry she thought the word was going to get stuck before she could get it out.
“But we still have tonight, don’t we?” Mike asked her softly.
She should be angry, hurt. She should walk away from him now, but all she could think of was that she wanted to make love with him one more time. One last time.
“We still have tonight,” she agreed.
He took her back into his arms. “Then let’s make the most of it.”
She made love with abandon that last night, fully aware that there would be no more tomorrows, no more nights to look forward to.
Aware, too, that it didn’t seem to make a difference to Mike because he hadn’t even offered a single word in protest, hadn’t said so much as, “Can’t you stay a little longer?”
Nothing.
Was all she was to him was a warm, willing body? And who would occupy that space after she was gone? Would he even think of her once in a while after she’d left?
“Sam?” he said uncertainly, drawing back just as their lovemaking was reaching a fever pitch. He thought he’d felt something damp against his cheek. He looked at her closely. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she protested with conviction. “I’ve got allergies,” she lied. “They’re acting up.”
A hint of suspicion entered his voice. Was she crying? Was she upset because she was leaving? Had all this meant something to her, too? “I didn’t know you had allergies.”
A Small Town Thanksgiving Page 16
