by Peggy Webb
“I’m not going to New York, Julie. I’m going to New Orleans.”
“Well, I’ve always liked that city. We’ll drink lots of hurricanes and hear lots of good jazz.”
Oh, help. Now what? She didn’t want to hurt her sister’s feelings, and the Bear had said he’d get two rooms.
Still…
Sarah’s heart fell. She could hear it hit the floor and shatter like glass.
“Julie? Would you mind terribly staying here?”
That sounded awful. Julie didn’t say anything, and now Sarah knew what pregnant silence meant.
“To see about Dad,” she added, much, much too late, she feared. Sarah twisted the telephone cord until her fingers were so tangled she might never get them out. “I mean, you did offer, Julie. That’s what you said you would do.”
“Sarah, don’t get yourself in a wad. Of course, I’ll watch after Dad. Besides, I’ve been neglecting George lately. With the kiddies out of town this will give me a chance to make it up to him. Excite him a little.”
Julie laughed, adding, “I think I’ll go to town and buy that fabulous black lace nightie I’ve been drooling over. Want to come?”
“No, thanks. I have a million things to do. Bye, Julie. And thanks.”
Sarah untangled herself from the telephone cord, then raced to her closet and inspected her nightwear. An assortment of old T-shirts from places like Myrtle Beach and Yellowstone National Park. She couldn’t even call it lingerie. With the exception of a white gown that covered everything she had twice over, she didn’t have a thing in her closet that would even classify as a gown, much less an instrument of excitement.
Especially to somebody like the Bear.
“Good grief.”
What was she thinking? Certainly not of separate rooms.
Chapter Thirteen
Sarah had to keep pinching herself. Here she was riding down the highway with Jim Standing Bear, talking about everything under the sun except flying.
“Are you ready?” he asked when he picked her up at her house, and she’d said, “Yes.” That’s how simple it had been. And how lovely. How wonderfully, unbelievably lovely.
“I feel like a bird,” she said suddenly, then laughed at her own foolishness.
Jim cast a sideways glance at her and smiled.
“What kind of bird, Sarah?”
His question validated her, and she changed from feeling silly to feeling like a woman reborn, a woman with New Orleans on her horizon and a new pink silk gown in her bag—just in case.
“A crane, maybe, or a great blue heron. One of those big birds with a wingspan about ten feet wide. Big enough to fly where they want to go.”
The water birds she’d mentioned were all along the side of the road, perching in skeletal trees hung with Spanish moss and wading in the swamp, their long legs keeping them well above the waterline.
“You’ve just described freedom.”
He spoke with the nostalgia of a pilot whose wings had been clipped, and he sounded so wistful, Sarah was moved to tears. She turned her face toward the car window and blinked rapidly. Stay away from the subject of flying, she told herself.
“I’m glad I decided to come. Thank you for inviting me, Jim. I promise not to be in your way.”
“Nonsense. The graduation ceremonies will take up a couple of hours. Ben has friends here and his own agenda. I’ll be lucky to spend one evening with him.”
He swung toward her again. “He’s a great kid. I think you’re going to like him.”
Sarah’s heart did the fandango. Jim was including her in his plans. He was taking her to meet his brother. Sort of. What was the meaning of it all?
“If he’s anything like his brother, I’m sure I will.”
That took his attention off the road again. He studied her so long the car seemed to be driving itself. She felt a telltale flush creeping into her face again. A dead giveaway of her turmoil.
There was bound to be a self-help book somewhere that would tell her how to stop blushing in ten easy steps. Or maybe somebody gave seminars on the subject—seven days to sophistication.
“Your skin is beautiful when you blush, Sarah,” Jim said, and suddenly she wouldn’t trade her flushed face for all the sophistication in the world.
She murmured a thank-you, then they both pretended to watch the scenery. The swamps gave way to service stations and fast-food restaurants and car dealerships.
“We’ll soon be there,” Jim said. “I found us a great place to stay in the French Quarter. On Bourbon Street.”
Separate rooms. The thought was icy water dumped on her fire. Icy water she desperately needed. The longer she was in the car with Jim Standing Bear, the bigger her fire got.
“That’s nice,” she said.
“Have you ever been there, Sarah?”
“Not since I was a kid. Julie and I came down with Dad to a medical conference. We called our sitter Godzilla. She wouldn’t let us do anything we wanted to, which was probably a darned good thing since Julie wanted us to go into the strip joints and I wanted to dance on a riverboat all by myself.”
Her dreams spilled out like bright crystals from an overturned jar. How easy it was with Jim.
“She sounds like our house mother at the orphanage. Every time I managed to steal a cigarette when the janitor wasn’t looking, she confiscated it.”
Sarah laughed. “Oh, she sounds really mean.”
Jim’s stories of his childhood filled Sarah with such longing she could barely contain her sighs. She’d always wanted children of her own. She guessed that was one reason she was always so enamored of other people’s kids.
“She took my slingshot, too. Of course that was after she caught me on the rooftop trying to take down the man in the moon.”
“You were a handful.”
He shot her another of those oblique glances. “I still am,” he said, and for a shimmering moment, neither of them could look away.
Then suddenly, there was New Orleans, a city where great jazz poured from every open doorway and wonderful possibilities lurked on every corner. Sarah embraced the city with a smile.
Her smile dazzled Jim. As if riding in the car with her weren’t enough. She was a good traveling companion, easy to talk to, easy to laugh with.
But that smile… He couldn’t seem to look away.
It involved her whole face, not just her lips, which were delicious enough on their own. He’d spent the better part of a hundred miles wanting to kiss them.
Which was probably where that remark about being a handful came from. Way out of left field. Unexpected by both of them.
He’d better start trying to remember the purpose of this trip. Dual purposes, actually. To see Ben graduate and to give Sarah an opportunity to get away from the burdens of caretaking.
Thankfully the traffic demanded his attention, and he had no more time to consider her lush mouth nor the heady fragrance she was wearing. What was it? Something new, he thought. Not her usual light floral scent but something far more exotic, far more enticing. It was a fragrance that put him in mind of being on a beach with a full moon shining on the sand and a woman at his side.
Sarah at his side. Always Sarah.
It turned out that the rooms he’d booked had a connecting door. That was the first thing he’d noticed. The second was the shared balcony. Both rooms had French doors that led to a small balcony overlooking a secluded garden, lush and still dripping from the quick rainshower that had washed the city clean just as they’d entered the French Quarter.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked Sarah.
“I think it’s absolutely wonderful.”
She was gazing deeply into his eyes, and he was certain that she wasn’t talking about the rooms.
They had shrimp po’boys for dinner, the best she’d ever eaten, Sarah declared, then they wandered down the street to Preservation Hall where they sat cross-legged on the floor and heard jazz played the way it was meant to be, the wailing sax, the mournful trombone
and the trumpet so heavenly Sarah swore to Jim that the man playing it had to be the angel Gabriel, himself.
Jim loved Cajun food, he loved jazz, he loved the French Quarter with its darkly romantic history, but most of all he loved watching Sarah Sloan enjoy the city.
I gave her this, he thought. I gave her this happiness.
And for him, it was enough. It was enough until they said good-night in the hallway with a tender clasping of hands and a brief press of their cheeks. Then he was in bed alone and nothing in the world could make him forget that Sarah was on the other side of the wall, sweeter smelling than the jasmine abloom in New Orleans’s courtyards and twice as enticing.
Desire slammed him hard, and he groaned. Was that a sound he heard through the wall? Was she restless, too? Was she tangled in her sheets while she wanted to be tangled in his arms?
“Arrogant bastard,” he growled. Then feeling like the bear he was, he flung back the covers and stalked toward the French doors. He had to have air. He had to have relief. Now he knew why men smoked.
Even if standing on the balcony looking at the stars didn’t give him relief, at least it would give him some fresh air.
He pulled open the doors, and that’s when he knew there would be no relief for him tonight, for there was Sarah, wearing a diaphanous gown the color of sunrises and a body that drove him mad.
“Oh.” Her hand flew to her throat, and her exclamation came out as a long sigh.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I came out for some air.”
“Me, too.” His hand was still on the door handle. “I’ll just step back inside and give you some privacy.”
He meant what he said, but then his eyes got tangled up with hers and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe.
Apparently she was having the same trouble. She drew a deep shuddering breath that shifted the soft fabric over her breasts. Desire became a sledgehammer.
The only relief Jim had from passion’s powerful blows was to drink her in. His gaze roamed from the lush breasts barely contained to the slender waist to the long legs clearly defined. Her entire body beckoned him through its silken covering.
Her tongue flicked out in a provocative gesture that was almost his undoing.
Leave, he told himself. Leave before you do something you’ll both regret.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Oh, Jim, please don’t go.”
Jim swept her into his arms and honor vaporized in the sultry night, leaving behind a man and a woman—and a need so great it could not be denied.
Paradise came so quickly. Sensations bombarded Sarah—the feel of Jim’s lips on hers, the smell of jasmine wafting from the garden, the brightness of a moon made especially for lovers.
Lovers. As the word whispered through her mind, everything that was ordinary in Sarah’s life vanished, and she became a new woman. A woman made to wear silk. A woman created for heady kisses in the moonlight. A woman reborn.
She was in Jim’s arms her body pressed intimately against his, and there was not a virginal thought in her head. Every part of her bloomed. He deepened the kiss, and Sarah’s mouth flowered open for his questing tongue.
Delicious hot-sweet tastes. Rough silk texture. Desire so raw it stripped her of everything, even the will to breathe.
The earth rolled on without her, and she was left standing on a secluded balcony unaware of anything except the man who held her in his arms. Jim Standing Bear. Her hero. Her love.
When he came up for air, he looked deep into her eyes, searching for answers.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
And he picked her up and carried her into his room, straight to his bed where the sheet lay tangled and the pillows were wadded, mute evidence of his inner turmoil.
Something in Sarah exulted. The confident woman he lay down beside was not the scared woman he’d carried below deck on his boat. She stretched, langorous and sensual as a jungle cat while Jim stripped off his white T-shirt and the navy-blue pajama bottoms that made him look the ruler of a small kingdom in a country with a name nobody could pronounce.
The moon painted him a shimmering copper, and he was so wonderfully made, so completely gorgeous she wondered how this moment had ever come to pass. Then he lay down once more and began to caress her and murmur sweet endearments in a voice so tender it broke her heart, and Sarah no longer wondered. She felt beautiful. In Jim’s arms she was beautiful.
“Make love to me, Jim,” she whispered.
Lifted on one elbow, he studied her face. “Sarah? You’re sure?”
“Yes.” She wove her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her. “Don’t talk,” she whispered. “Just love me. Love me completely.”
His mouth was magic, his hands tender as he rediscovered every inch of her body. They had left the door open and from somewhere in the distance a silver horn moaned the blues.
But there were no blues in their shared bedroom that night. Only the sweet aching music of their bodies, straining toward one another.
Sarah was a piano and Jim, the virtuoso. She thrilled and hummed and vibrated to his touch, and when touch was no longer enough, when passion crashed through them insistent as cymbals, Jim rose above her, godlike, and took the thing she most wanted to give.
“Sarah?” He lifted his head and planted tender kisses all over her face. “Are you all right?”
She held him tightly to her, deep inside her body and her heart.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.” Then she smiled. “I thought I’d found paradise on your boat. I was only on the outskirts.”
His smile was a thing of glory, and what followed even more glorious. It was an unforgettable symphony, a love song that would play in her heart until the day she died.
Jim woke with a start. The French door still stood wide open. It was not quite daylight. A hushed gray mist hung over the garden, and through it he could see the silhouettes of moss-draped trees.
Sarah lay curled against him, flushed and warm, one hand resting on his chest and her leg flung carelessly across his hips. A faint smile curved her lips as she slept.
What have I done?
A pile of pink silk on the floor and the stain on the sheet gave mute evidence. Jim felt like a thief. He’d stolen a treasure he had no right to take.
Nothing had changed in his life. Nothing except an awesome night that was seared into his brain. For a few hours the rest of the world had vanished, and he’d been heroic and invincible.
Soon the sun would shed its rays on his selfish deed and Sarah would wake up with the light gone from her eyes. Then what?
Jim wanted desperately to pace, but he didn’t want to wake Sarah. Trying not to disturb her, he lay back against the sheets stiff and unyielding as a board, staring at the ceiling.
What was he going to do when she woke up?
His mind was a squirrel cage, but none of the thoughts running around seemed to be a logical solution.
Sarah stirred. First she stretched in a leisurely fashion. Then her hand started a slow, sensuous journey down his body, and suddenly desire was a thoroughbred champing at the bit, stamping to get out of the gate.
Jim bit back a groan. Or maybe he didn’t. Sarah lifted herself on one elbow and smiled down at him.
“What we did was wonderful, Jim. Do you think we could do it again?”
Pure joy flooded him and when he reached for her, he looked directly into her eyes. The light was still there. Brighter than ever.
And Jim became a hero all over again.
It was almost noon before they got out of bed.
“I feel absolutely decadent,” Sarah said, laughing. “And totally wonderful.”
Jim felt as if medals had been pinned on his chest. “I’m going to call Ben and tell him we’ll be a little late for lunch.”
“I’ll hurry.”
“No need. Take your time. And Sarah…” She was standing in the doorway, her body flushed as pink as t
he gown that dangled from her hand. “You might as well leave the connecting door open.”
“I’m so glad you said that.”
When Sarah disappeared into her room, Jim caught sight of himself in the mirror. The grin on his face looked permanent.
Sarah worried privately all the way to the restaurant about meeting Jim’s brother. What if he didn’t like her? What if she didn’t know what to say to him? What if he found her boring, or worse yet, completely wrong for his brother?
She told none of this to Jim. For one thing, her worries were the concerns of a woman in love. And Jim hadn’t said the first thing about love. Meeting the family of the man you loved was quite different from meeting the family of a good friend.
Sarah slid a glance at Jim. Only four more days and they would be back in Pensacola living in separate houses, sleeping in separate beds.
Or would they? Last night had been a miracle. What if another one occurred? What if he fell in love with her? Was there a way to make that happen?
She glanced at the St. Louis Cathedral as they passed by. While she was here she might just duck inside and light a candle to love. It couldn’t hurt, could it?
“There he is,” Jim said, and before Sarah had time to act like a scared rabbit, Ben Standing Bear was striding her way, smiling through the introductions, then hugging Sarah as if he’d known her all his life.
And that’s how she felt about him. Sometimes it happened that way with people. An instant rapport developed so that the time spent together simply flew by.
Ben was a great raconteur. He had her laughing so hard tears rolled down her face.
“Dad would love that story. He used to tell similar ones about his days in medical school.”
“Your father is a hero of mine. The medical profession has lost a great mind.” Ben covered Sarah’s hand with his. So like his brother, she thought. “I’m sorry, Sarah. For both your sakes.”
“Thank you, Ben. You’re very kind.” She smiled at both of them, lingering when her eyes met Jim’s. “And very much like your brother.”
“Another hero of mine.” Ben clapped his brother on the shoulder.
