Walk in Beauty

by Wind, Ruth

  Unwilling to think, wanting only to feel, she moved closer and pressed her mouth to the same path her fingers had taken, feeling the fragility of skin over sharp bone and the brush of his lashes and the strength of his unstubbled jaw.

  She had dreamed this so many times, dreamed of just touching his beloved face as she looked at it. He held her loosely, and she bent to kiss his shoulder and the column of his throat and the hard, flat nipples, her hands eagerly absorbing the plane of his belly and the curve of his ribs.

  He caught her arms and pulled her up the length of him. She lay on top of him, their legs tangled. With a deeply serious expression, he stroked her face. “Don’t hide, Jessie. There’s nothing we have to do or say, not about the past or the future.” His voice roughened. “I’ve been waiting too long to let you hide now.”

  He pulled her face down to his and she kissed him, her lost Luke. If she did not have to think of another time or place, she was free to love him now. Just for tonight.

  Chapter Ten

  Jessie had no idea how long they stayed there, curled together, not sleeping but speaking little. A long time. His body felt right next to hers, dipping where hers swelled, swelling where hers dipped, so no matter how they moved, their bodies settled into a comfortable fit.

  Words were too dangerous. Their hands spoke for them. Jessie wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted to explore his chest and the crook of his elbow and the edge of his ear. She touched his hair and his thighs and his mouth, sometimes using a palm, sometimes her mouth or simply her eyes.

  And he spoke in return, learning again the circumference of her wrists and the new shape of her belly, the curve of her hip and the length of her hair.

  They kissed, over and over, and Jessie wondered that she never tired of his mouth, his tongue, the click of his teeth against hers, the tickling spray of his hair as it fell forward to brush her cheek.

  And at last she again grew aware of the pointed, growing weight of him against her thigh, and his hands began to linger on her breasts. His kiss grew more urgent, and Jessie felt the answering rise of desire in her belly. She moved against him, letting her fingers walk the length of his arousal to let him know she would not mind a second round.

  This time, they made love very gently, as if it were the most sacred of rituals. Luke moved with reverence and skill, his mouth and hands plying her most secret places, all the places he had learned in his years with her.

  He moved to enter her slowly. When they were joined once again, he paused and grasped her hair in his hands. “Look at me, Jessie,” he said in a raw voice.

  She opened her eyes to find his dark gaze fixed upon her face. Slowly, he dipped to kiss her and lifted his head again, his hands almost painfully tight in her hair. As he began to move, his gaze did not waver, and Jessie trembled with the intimacy of him moving and staring together. She blinked, and he tightened his hands. “Look at me,” he said again.

  Her body quivered in warning around him, but his expression didn’t change as he paused to kiss her, drawing out the moment as long as he could. She clutched his shoulders, struggling to look at him, and then both of them were out of control, their gazes locked in fierce acknowledgment of the power this joining wrought. Jessie gripped his shoulders and cried out a little, but she rose to his challenge.

  She tumbled over the edge, coming apart in his arms. Time and breath paused as he let himself go. Sweaty and exhausted, Luke dropped his head to her shoulder. Jessie held him close, feeling his heart pound against hers, heard their breath tangling.

  He kissed her again deeply, so hungrily and desperately Jessie wanted to weep with it, weep for all the beautiful days now lost forever. She gasped, her heart breaking, and touched his hair and his face and found herself trying to draw him closer and closer.

  Abruptly, he broke away. Jessie cried out in surprise, feeling suddenly bereft as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and tugged them on in haste.

  “Luke,” she whispered.

  He didn’t look at her. “I can’t do this.”

  Jessie clutched the rough wool blanket to her breasts and sat up, shoving her tousled hair away from her face with one hand. “You said till dawn.” She gestured toward the window. “It’s a long time till then.”

  He winced, as if some insult had been uttered. “No. It’s not me you want.” He stabbed a finger toward the painting. “That’s the man you want, over there. Alessandro. Some romantic Indian to sweep you away.” He lifted a bare, brown shoulder. “You want me now, tonight, but in the morning, you’ll push me away because you can’t deal with the real McCoy. I thought I could handle it. I can’t.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t give a damn about fair, Jessie. You’ve blown a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in my life.” His eyes narrowed, his mouth set. “I can’t pretend with you. I never could.”

  “I didn’t start this tonight, Luke. You did.”

  He nodded slowly, hands on his hips, staring at the painting.

  Jessie stared at him, aching in every cell in her body. It would probably be best for both of them if this ended here and now, with no lingering tenderness tomorrow. But the truth was, she didn’t want him to go. Tugging the blanket around herself, she stood and reached out to touch his face. “Please don’t go, Luke.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. All at once, a low cry came from his throat and he grabbed her roughly. “This is gonna kill me, Jessie,” he whispered in her ear. “I can’t be in some middle place with you.”

  She embraced him. Her body trembled with the two prongs of knowledge flooding through her. No man would ever take his place. And yet, she knew she would wish in the morning that this night had never happened. “Just hold me,” she whispered, and her trembling grew. She buried her face against his neck. “Please, Luke, just hold me.”

  He swore, but she felt his resistance give way, felt his arms circle her, felt his hands pull her into the heart of him. Together they curled on the mattress. Only then, held tight against the heat and center of him, did Jessie stop trembling. Tucked into Luke’s embrace, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Dawn crept into the room, still and pale. Luke had not slept, not all night, and he felt the lack in his weary shoulders and grainy eyes.

  Against his chest was Jessie, soundly sleeping. He bent his head to the nape of her neck and pressed a kiss to a sliver of bare skin he could find through her hair. It was a light kiss, not meant to disturb, but she shifted ever so slightly, nestling closer. An ache of hunger rose in him, and he found he could not resist combing a handful of hair away from her neck to kiss the vulnerable place below her ear. Again she stirred, just a little.

  There wasn’t a woman on earth harder to awaken than Jessie. She clung to sleep in the mornings like a baby with a blanket. And he’d always loved the challenge.

  This morning, his need to touch her was more than the playful challenge of stirring her awake to her passion, to the sleepy smile she would wear when she finally realized his hands were not her dream. This morning, as dawn crept ever brighter into the room, his touching her was a prayer.

  As a child, filled with the stories told beside winter fires, Luke had been terrified of nighttime, when Sun and Changing Woman were out of touch, and the world was no longer in balance.

  And so he had welcomed dawn as harmony restored. Sun and earth joined once more, as man and woman were joined, creating balance.

  This dawn, he touched the soft breast of his woman. He kissed her shoulder and stroked her long thighs until she moved and turned toward him, open and vulnerable the way she would not be in an hour. He joined with her and felt them blend and balance as Sun crept into the embrace of Changing Woman, the mother from whom they’d all sprung.

  When they were finished, he held her close, not speaking, then slowly released her and left her in the bed alone, hoping she would feel the chill of his absence.

  * * *

  In the quiet of the flower-bright kitchen, Luke
made coffee. As it brewed, he fed Tasha, checked the fluids in the truck and examined the sky. Clouds to the west, which was the direction they were traveling. He checked the store of matches.

  By the time he went back inside, Giselle was up, making herself a bowl of cereal. “How come my mom is sleeping in her study?”

  “Maybe she wanted to.” He got a bowl out for himself and sat down. “Feeling better this morning?”

  “I was very tired last night. Sometimes it makes me grouchy.”

  He chuckled and touched her hair. “Me, too.” From the other room, Luke heard the shower rattle to life. “There’s your mom. Good. We need to leave pretty soon.”

  “Hmm.” Giselle stared at her cornflakes for a minute, then looked at Luke. “You know, my mom doesn’t usually sleep without any clothes on.”

  Luke struggled with his expression, wondering what in the world Jessie would want him to say. “Is that right?” he said at last.

  “Yeah. She likes to wear these very pretty gowns with lace all over them, which she says I can wear when I get bigger. But she doesn’t sleep without them.”

  Luke concentrated on his food, hoping this line of conversation would just burn itself out.

  “You know what I think?” Giselle asked with a coy smile playing around her mischievous mouth.

  “What do you think, my little elf?”

  “I think you and my mommy were kissing like they do on TV. Without any clothes.”

  “What are you doing watching stuff like that on TV?” She widened her eyes. “It’s not my fault. It’s on commercials all the time.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “So, were you?”

  “Was I what?”

  She sighed. “Kissing my mommy like they do on TV?”

  “Giselle,” he said, putting down his spoon. “Some things adults do are private.”

  A grin, filled with teeth of mismatched sizes, blazed across her face. “You were! I knew it.”

  Jessie came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a heavy cotton sweater. “Were what?” she asked.

  Luke gave her a warning glance and held up a hand. “Don’t ask. This child is a bit too precocious for my taste, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are you asking about kisses again?” Jessie said, sipping her coffee. “Didn’t I tell you it isn’t polite to ask people about personal things?”

  Giselle looked at her bowl. “Not even my own dad?”

  “Nope,” Jessie returned. “If people want you to know personal things, they’ll tell you.”

  “Grown-ups are so weird,” Giselle said with a sigh. She carried her bowl to the sink. “How are kids supposed to learn anything if nobody tells them anything?”

  Jessie chuckled and smacked her daughter’s rear with a playful hand. “Nobody said you can’t ask questions, just that you can’t ask people personal questions about themselves. Go brush your teeth and get ready to go.”

  Giselle tossed her head. “Okay, but I’m going to have some questions for you later.”

  “Great. If you do as you’re told, you can ask me a million questions.”

  As Giselle obeyed, Luke chuckled. “What a kid.”

  “Yeah.” Jessie shook her head, then stiffly poured another cup of coffee, her ease gone. “Luke—”

  He held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk, Jessie. It doesn’t help anything.” A stab of disappointment sliced through his chest. “Last night never was.”

  She took a deep breath. Relief, he thought. Looking at her coffee cup, she nodded. “It’s best that way.”

  He ignored that. “Come eat some breakfast. We have a long drive ahead of us.”

  “Ugh. I hate cereal.” She glared at the boxes. “I hate breakfast.”

  “You can’t get your vitamins from coffee,” he said with a grin, imitating Giselle, and kicked out a chair. “You have to eat.”

  She slumped at the table and rubbed her face. “I’m also not fond of all you cheery morning people.”

  “Poor little owl,” he said.

  With a roll of her eyes, she pulled the cereal over and poured some into a clean bowl.

  “You did pretty well with that line of questioning,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say.”

  Jessie glanced over her shoulder, lowering her voice. “I don’t know why she’s so curious lately, but every time she sees kissing on TV she wants to know how people get babies.”

  “She seems so young.”

  “No, not really. Not to start being curious.” She glanced at him. “You can smoke if you want to. There’s an ashtray in the drawer by the sink.”

  “I had one outside already.” He leaned forward. “So what do you tell her?”

  “The truth. Just depends on the day and how much she’s asking. Seems like the easiest way.”

  He nodded and watched her as she ate. With her hair braided away from her face and no makeup, Jessie looked oddly vulnerable. Her skin, so tender and easily bruised, showed tiny marks from his loving. The sight made him want her all over again. Resolutely, he looked away.

  Giselle returned carrying a brush. “I need my hair braided.”

  “I’ll do it,” Luke said. “Come here.”

  “You know how to braid hair?”

  He chuckled. “Sure. I used to braid my own all the time.”

  “I forgot. How come you don’t have long hair anymore?”

  “For a man it’s easier to get work if you don’t have long hair.” He divided Giselle’s hair. “It’s easier shorter.”

  “I like the picture of you with it long,” she said, bouncing a little.

  “Be still,” he said, tugging the hair into a tight weave. “I have to work with people who don’t like it, though. You don’t want me to starve to death, do you?”

  She giggled. “No.”

  Jessie gave him a small, creaky smile, the first of the morning. In spite of everything, they were so familiar with each other it was hard to maintain distance or walls. He was thankful for that.

  He finished Giselle’s hair. “We oughta get going.” Jessie washed the bowls and sent Giselle to get her things from her room—a stack of tapes and a radio, a box of crayons and coloring books. In a jar were the beads Marcia had given her, along with a small spool of thread and three slender beading needles. “Okay,” she chirped, donning her heavy parka. “Me and Tasha are ready.”

  In the kitchen, Jessie filled a tall thermos with coffee, bent to give the cat a quick cuddle and joined them. “Me, too.”

  ‘‘Let’s do it.’’

  * * *

  Just that quickly, they were on the road again. Jessie sipped coffee from a plastic cup and stuck her feet under the blast of heat from the vent. That was one good thing about these older trucks, she thought vaguely. Always enough heat. Almost against her will she felt a rush of anticipation—she loved to be on the road in the morning, traveling toward the unknown and unexplored. The open highway held promises of adventure and excitement.

  She glanced at Luke, so handsome and rugged in the early morning. If not for Giselle in the back, it would be all too easy to imagine nothing had ever gone wrong between them, that the past eight years had never taken place.

  As if he read her mind, he glanced over. “Just like old times, eh?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “More or less.”

  “I’d forgotten how it feels to be on the road.” He glanced at the side mirror. “I think I’ve missed it.”

  “I’ve been doing it a lot lately, with all these trips to galleries.”

  “Do you always take Giselle?”

  “No. She’d miss too much school.” Uncomfortably, she glanced toward the Zuni Mountains and the high gray clouds above them. “I took her to Colorado Springs for sentimental reasons.”

  He gave her a piercing look and reached across the space between them to brush his fingers over her cheek. “I’m glad.”

  The tender gesture and the warmth of his fingers brought last night back to her, lush and sensual an
d overpowering. Throat tight, she shifted away.

  Abruptly, he dropped his hand. Shoving the box of CDs toward her over the seat, he said, “Find some music to put on. There are some other CDs in the glove box if you don’t find anything you like in this box.”

  Thankful for the distraction, Jessie riffled through the case. No Van Morrison, thank you very much. Nor Jackson Browne, nor Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. None of this music would do. It all sounded like the past. “You’re hopeless,” she said with a sigh.

  “I told you I was. Coffee and newspaper at six, work at eight.” His smile was rueful. “I’m in a rut.”

  Shaking her head, Jessie opened the glove box. A spill of papers, tools and CDs, even a couple of paperback books, exploded out, spilling into her lap. It surprised her into laughter, for this, too, was something she’d once teased him about—his tendency to load glove boxes with all kinds of emergency paraphernalia. “Ah, I think I found the parachute, General,” she said, shaking her head.

  “At least there’s a reason for everything in there. I saw the mess in the back seat of your car.”

  “Touché,” Jessie replied without apology. “There are only so many hours in a day. If I get around to cleaning something, it seems silly to waste it on a car.”

  She dug through the pile of things in her lap, sheaving paper into a stack she slipped back into the glove box.

  “Wait,” Luke said. “There should be a bag of tobacco under all that stuff. Drag it out for me, will you?”

  She dipped her hand into the dark hole again, chuckling to herself. Her fingers encountered something heavy and cold and she drew out a man’s heavy silver cuff inlaid with turquoise and coral and abalone. Her heart pinched. Gingerly, she settled it around her wrist. “I can’t believe you still have this.”

  “Well, I do.” He pulled a package of cigarette papers from his shirt pocket. “Roll me a cigarette.”