by Fran Baker
“You were the ghost who slept between us in his bed,” Chris accused brokenly. “When he reached for me in the middle of the night, he was really reaching for you. I knew it from the beginning but…”
Bonnie held her close and let her cry, understanding completely. Chris eventually composed herself and moved out of Bonnie’s arms, putting some necessary distance between them. “He was so tender, such an incredible—” She broke off, her sigh laced with sadness. “But you already know that.” She lowered her head, her hair falling like a dark velvet curtain across her fragile face. “He hasn’t touched me since the day that Darlene announced you were coming home for the wedding.”
Bonnie swallowed the apology that had automatically come to mind. Old habits died hard. But she wasn’t sorry and damned if she’d say she was! When she finally spoke, her voice was husky with hurt. “You’ll have him back Sunday night—hopefully none the worse for the wear.”
“I’ve submitted my resignation,” Chris murmured. “It’s effective Monday morning.”
A twinge of relief sputtered through Bonnie before shame smothered it. If both of them left, Luke would be alone. “Where will you go?”
“Houston. I’ve been accepted as a junior member of a major firm there. They are setting some very exciting design trends in the industry. When I sent slides of our various projects with my letter of application, they said my work shows promise.”
“From what I saw today, they’re right,” Bonnie offered graciously.
Chris smiled wryly. “As the architect of my own disaster, the least I can do is salvage what’s left and build something decent from it.”
“Luke will miss you, I’m sure.” Bonnie was surprised to realize how sincerely she meant that
“He’s already forgotten that I exist, except in a professional sense,” Chris rebutted softly. She squared her shoulders. “Thank you—for listening and for letting me love him.”
Before Bonnie could reply, the heavy door swung open and Luke entered the office.
“If I’m interrupting an important discussion, point me in another direction.” He crossed the room and stopped beside Bonnie, waving the typewritten pages and addressed envelopes that he held. “But if this is strictly a gab session, you’re the ones who will have to relocate. These bids are begging to be signed, sealed and delivered.”
Chris gazed at him, her somber gray eyes an eloquent study in grief. “I was just leaving.”
“Good-bye, Chris.” It was the first time that Bonnie had said her name aloud. It would also be the last time. “Good luck.”
One bruised but unbeaten angel made her exit. One woman remained, standing by her man for a little while.
* * * *
“This doesn’t remotely resemble a shopping center!”
“I never said it did.”
“You promised that you’d take me to the grocery store.”
“But I never said when.”
Bonnie and Luke sat in the cab of his pickup. He’d parked atop a grassy knoll overlooking a cup-shaped hollow filled with redbuds, dogwoods and other trees in full bloom. Towering pines spired from the center of the dale while the late afternoon sun hung like a gold piece over the horizon, baking the countryside in its quiet heat
After a dozen legitimate delays, they’d finally left his office. She’d thought they were going grocery shopping, then returning to Rebel’s Ridge for dinner. Obviously a mistaken assumption on her part since, instead, he’d driven straight to this beautiful but virtually deserted area on the far eastern edge of Atlanta.
She eyed him suspiciously when he slid his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to his hard frame. “Am I being waylaid, by any chance?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” His hand grazed her breast, not entirely by accident judging from the devilish grin deepening his dimples.
“I think you just did.” Curling her slim, bare legs beneath her, Bonnie nestled contentedly against Luke, marveling anew at the exquisite physical fit that always left her feeling a little delirious. His breathing was steady, regular; he was completely relaxed and she hated to make waves.
What possible difference could a couple of stolen hours make in the scheme of an entire week? It was all they had—much more than she’d expected, yet not nearly enough. Surely, somewhere in Dixie’s sprawling, sophisticated capital there were fully stocked supermarkets that kept late hours. Weren’t there? Just to be on the safe side, she raised her head to ask him.
His eyes were closed, and she could almost count the individual dark lashes lying against his prominent, sun-bronzed cheekbones. In repose, his face lost none of its vitality but gained a slight measure of vulnerability.
She shifted her position carefully so as not to disturb him, then studied him in sleep. How and when had he gotten that tiny white scar which extended the cleft under his chin? The cab grew warmer as the day neared dusk, and she wondered who’d shaped the sideburns waving damply around his ears. Did he ever remember those horribly uneven trims she used to give him when they were too poor to pay the price of a decent haircut?
Bonnie rested her head against his chest, her sigh tinged with untold regrets. If she hadn’t become pregnant, would they have married anyway? Or would they have drifted apart and found other partners, as childhood sweethearts often do? These were questions without answers, yet she couldn’t picture herself with anyone else but Luke.
His arm tightened around her shoulder, and she knew that he’d awakened. When she reached up and touched his hand, their fingers entwined as securely as moonflower vines taking hold in spring. A woodpecker thunked on a dead elm somewhere off in the distance while, nearby, the peepers sang sharp and ceaselessly.
“It’s peaceful around here this time of day,” he said. “Why don’t we stretch our legs a bit?”
“I’d like that,” she agreed softly, tucking her purse under the seat.
They both climbed out on the driver’s side, and Luke locked the doors. As far as she could see, no power lines or billboards spoiled the natural beauty of the surroundings. Holding hands, they started down the gentle slope, leaving the sun’s last hot light as Bonnie followed his sure-footed lead along a path canopied by the trees.
She ducked under a swaying gourd, scooped out and hanging by a thin wire from a sycamore branch—home for some fortunate family of purple martins. “Do you come here often?”
“Whenever life starts going its own way instead of my way,” he admitted as they left the shelter of the woods and walked across a clearing toward a narrow creek. He crouched beside the stream, took out his pocketknife and cut a sprig of new watercress from a clump growing in the clear rill. When he stood, he put away the knife, tucked the greens into his shirt pocket, then shrugged. “Whenever my dreams start drying up.”
Bonnie went to him, alarmed by the note of defeat she heard in his normally vigorous voice. Had something bad happened at the office? There had been so many phone calls and conferences—maybe he’d lost an important bid to a competitor.
Confused, uncertain of how best to comfort him because she didn’t know the actual source of his despair, she reached out and smoothed his breeze-tousled hair off his brow.
Luke caught her wrist and brought her palm to his mouth. His tongue leisurely traced each line before boldly invading the space between her fingers. “Don’t leave me, Bonnie,” he murmured roughly against her tingling skin. “Stay and let me love you.
“I’m here,” she asserted, answering only for the moment. Her breath quickened when their bodies came together. “I’m here, Luke.”
A gentle wind whispered through the pines. They linked hands, four becoming two. They kissed, two becoming one. A division of love. Strengthening them both. Wreaking havoc with her senses.
She tasted the honeyed demand of his tongue and felt the urgent strain of his need. Yet he didn’t hurry. Lowering his head, he savored the satiny curve of her neck. First one side. Then the other. She shuddered, her knees weak with want
ing, as he fed her desire with his hungry mouth.
The cicadas chirped anxiously, echoing her heartbeat. And still, he didn’t hurry. Reclaiming her parted lips he slowly sipped of her sweetness, then gradually drew her tongue into an erotic duel. When he freed her hands, she slipped them beneath his cotton shirt and her fingers trailed along the hard length of his spine. Hooking his thumbs under the straps of her sundress he slid them off her shoulders and exposed, for his eyes only, her softly scented flesh, aching now for his soothing caress.
Scuttling pinecones seized his attention. Glancing toward the stand of trees across the gurgling brook, Luke smiled. “We have company.”
“Oh, no,” she groaned. Imagining the worst— innocent children or giggling teenagers—Bonnie huddled shamefaced against his shirt front “Do something,” she whispered frantically. “Chase them away.”
“Be still,” he warned quietly. “They’re crossing over.”
Listening to the footsteps splashing in the stream, she could hardly breathe. He chuckled and she cringed. Had he forgotten that she was standing there bare-breasted, for heaven’s sake? She squirmed, reminding him of her embarrassing predicament, and he curved her closer to his body.
“Very slowly now, turn your head,” he murmured.
Timidly, she complied and peeked sideways. A wisp of relieved laughter escaped her throat when she saw the white-tailed doe and her spotted fawn munching clover near the edge of the clearing.
“We’re trespassing,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Moving cautiously so as not to frighten the feeding deer, they backed out of the clearing. The doe raised her head once, her unblinking brown eyes watching their retreat through the twilight.
Luke kissed the tip of Bonnie’s nose, smiled and slipped the straps of her sundress up onto her shoulders. Gazing wistfully at the rugged set of his features, she felt a twinge of disappointment at the thought of returning to the real world so soon. As if he’d read her mind, he steered her away from the path leading up to the road.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Where I should have taken you in the first place.”
The cabin sat in the middle of a second, smaller clearing.
“Another monument to your edifice complex?” she teased.
“To tell the truth, I bought the hollow with the intention of clearing it for my cluster development.” He held her hand as they neared the log house. “But the abstract showed that this place was a nineteenth-century coach stop. It gave me such a sense of history, I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy it.” He grinned ruefully. “You’re not the only one with an overactive conscience.”
“It tilts!” Bonnie exclaimed, eyeing the support lintel above the front door and the sloping planked floors inside.
“There’s a list to it,” Luke agreed as he lit a candle and placed it in a brass holder. “It’s not likely to fall down around us tonight, though.”
While sparsely furnished, the one-room cabin was quite cozy. The two windows were clean, and the neatly hemmed canvas curtains he’d hung over the bottom panes insured their privacy. He had used a concrete mixture to replace the original rock and mud chinking in the dovetailed walls, which gave off a wonderful old timber aroma.
“No electricity?” Bonnie kicked off her sandals.
“Not a volt.” Luke set the candleholder on the oak chest.
“No running water?” She shrugged out of her sundress.
“Not a drop.” He pulled his shirt off over his head.
“No telephone?” Her half-slip and bikini panties fell in a satin pool around her bare feet.
“You’re the only one I’m talking to tonight.” His jeans and shorts landed in a heap atop his abandoned loafers.
“How perfectly authentic.” She folded back the bear paw patterned quilt before climbing into the four-poster rope bed. “But tell me, aren’t you violating your builders’ sacred oath, ‘the whole planet is a potential shopping center,’ by restoring this place?”
“No.” The candle flame flickered with his approach.
“Well, then,” she breathed eagerly, holding out her arms to him, “I suppose you’ll simply have to violate me instead.”
“You must have read my mind.” He paused beside the bed.
“No.” She forced herself to look him straight in the eye. “Let’s just say that your intentions are pretty conspicuous at this moment.”
“Now that we know you’ve got twenty-twenty vision,” he said huskily, “we’ll have to see how the rest of you measures up.”
Luke lay down, and the clean fragrance of fresh straw wafted up around them as they sank back together into the soft ticking. Bonnie melted like warm, wild honey under his feverish caresses and the deep, loving strokes of his tongue. Her fingers teased him and her lips tasted him as she made her own survey, memorizing each muscle.
Thighs and arms interlocked as their mouths savored what they might never sample again so completely. When he moved up over her, she cupped the solid curve of his buttocks and marveled at the smooth ripple of sinew beneath her hands. Their heartbeats set the rhythm and their bodies kept perfect pace.
Primitive shadows danced on the ancient walls while the candlelight cast a mellow glow over their entwining limbs, illuminating the physical evidence of a spiritual bond that neither time nor law had truly dissolved. The taper burned low first, and the world slumbered, unaware that the word forever could mean hours in love’s unlimited vocabulary.
* * * *
“Luke?” She shook him gently. “Luke!”
“Mmm?” His answer was muffled in the crook of her neck.
“Are you asleep?” She shifted her position slightly.
“Not anymore.”
“I’m starved!” she whispered urgently.
“You’re insatiable,” he growled dreamily.
Bonnie’s stomach rumbled. “I haven’t had a bite of food since we ate lunch with Darlene and Dave.”
He raised his head and smiled mischievously. “Oh, you mean that appetite?”
“Yes, that appetite.” She swatted his hand when it wandered with warm abandon, slower and lower over her stomach. “I’m hungry.”
“Me, too,” he murmured as his mouth made a delicious descent and nibbled ravenously from the offering of her lips.
The flavor and texture of his kiss made her forget the reason that she’d awakened. But her stomach’s second, noisy protest during the romantic delay reminded them both of her original purpose in rousing him. It took some rather ingenious untangling of legs and arms before they were free to search the single cupboard, bare but for a tin of beef stew and a bottle of lemon-lime soda.
“Tell me, Father Hubbard,” she teased, “do you entertain all of your overnight guests this lavishly, or am I one of the privileged few?”
Luke set the manual can opener aside and turned to her, tipping her chin to meet his serious expression. “I’ve never had another woman in this cabin, Bonnie. I never will.”
She knew in that moonlit moment that he spoke the truth and felt giddy with relief. He embraced her and their mouths fused, sealing off that part of their past and healing another of envy’s old wounds. She could face the future now, not having to envision him sharing this special place with a stranger.
“Sorry.” Bonnie ducked her head, embarrassed when her stomach growled impatiently again. “I’d muzzle it if I could.”
He released her and grinned. “Now that I’m up and about, food is beginning to sound like a pretty good idea to me, too.”
She took the one spoon and he used the one fork in the cabin. They sprinkled the wilting watercress that he’d cut earlier over the cold, canned stew and sipped the tepid soda straight from the bottle. She couldn’t remember a meal she’d ever enjoyed so much.
When they were finished eating, he raced her to the creek, where they washed their utensils and rinsed off their hands. She didn’t really plan on pushing him in. But he made such a nice splash when she did.
Bellowing like some crazed monster from the deep, he rose out of the stream and carried her, kicking and squealing, into the waist-high water. Sloshing and dunking each other, they excited a riot of raucous scolding from every bird guarding a nest in the trees.
As she’d saved herself for him these seven years, so had Bonnie saved her laughter. It bubbled merrily inside her now and pealed from her throat, joining Luke’s hearty roar in a jubilant chorus of midnight delight. Weak with hilarity they clung to one another as they stumbled out of the water, gasping for air.
Sprawling side by side on the mossy bank, neither of them noticed the stars winking brightly above them. Nor did they see the moonlight spilling in silvery streams from the sky. Their eyes mirrored only each other, and their silliness gave way to seriousness as their two minds knew but a single thought.
“I love you.” Their voices coupled, husky and soft.
Luke rolled onto his back and Bonnie straddled him with her knees. Slowly, thoroughly, she kissed each sinewed inch of him. His fingers toyed with her wet hair as she drove him near the exquisite edge of no return. Regaining control with a harsh growl he pulled her upward and mouthed her dusky rose nipples, which blossomed under the tender torture of his tongue.
When he finally fit her onto him, she received several strong thrusts before gentling him beneath her. Again she tested his endurance until finally he secured her hips with his hands and drove upward, leaving her breathless with ecstasy. Her body closed around him as their sighs mingled with the night mist.
* * * *
“Why did you say yesterday that you wished you’d made me pregnant again?”
Smoke spiraled from the glowing red tip of Luke’s cigarette toward the beamed ceiling of the cabin. “To make amends, I suppose.”
“Amends?” Bonnie sat up and hugged her knees, moving for the first time since he’d carried her inside and put her on the bed. “For what?”
“Hey, I thought that you’d already accepted my plea of temporary insanity on this issue.” Because his grave tone belied his teasing remark, she waited quietly until he continued. “You wanted our other baby so much…”
