by Janet Dailey
From the kitchen window, Bridget stared at the hills, not seeing their steady change to autumn's glory. She was thinking of the man who lived in the farmhouse hidden by the nearest hill. She was thinking of Jonas.
Since their conversation at the picnic almost three weeks ago, he had occupied her thoughts almost exclusively. His statement had given rise to a whole new set of questions that plagued Bridget because of her inability to find the answers. They were answers only Jonas could give.
She had seen him half a dozen times in the last three weeks, talked to him on each of the occasions, but there had always been others around. Jonas hadn't suggested, invited, nor asked to speak to her alone. And Bridget had been hesitant to take the initiative.
Until she knew the answers, she was beginning to realize that the wondering would drive her insane. She would have to forget her pride or her upbringing, whichever it was that stopped her, and make the first move.
Bridget glanced at the telephone mounted on the kitchen wall and immediately dismissed its use as the way. She wanted to see Jonas's face when he answered the questions. There was only one way to do that.
For the first time in years, she obeyed an impulse. Taking her car coat from the closet, she slipped it on as she hurried out to the car and drove out of the driveway onto the road.
The tires spun uselessly in the gravel for a second before finding traction. The small car shot forward. After three weeks of waiting, Bridget was overcome by the need for haste. Within minutes, she had covered the semicircular route to the farmhouse.
The engine had barely died when Bridget stepped out of the car and walked swiftly toward the rear entrance. Her knock on the door didn't bring any answer and she knocked louder, with the same results.
There was always the possibility that Jonas was on the telephone and couldn't come to the door, His station wagon was parked in the driveway, so he had to be here.
She tested the doorknob and found the door unlocked. She pushed it open and walked into a silent house. She hesitated in the kitchen, listening and looking at the empty rooms, empty of Jonas at any rate.
"Jonas?" she called. "Jonas?"
The rear door of the house opened behind her and Bridget turned with a jerk, her heart leaping at the sight of Jonas striding toward her. A confused frown darkened the angular planes of his face.
"Bridget," he said her name as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "When I saw you leave, I never expected you to come here. What's wrong?"
Relief washed through her at finding him. Soon all her questions would be answered and she would finally know if she had been misjudging him for ten long years.
"Oh, Jonas, I'm so glad you're here," she declared weakly.
He misinterpreted the reason for her statement. His expression became grim as he gripped her shoulders firmly, his gray green eyes boring into her, a faint professional mask stealing over his face.
"Is it Molly? Has something happened to her?" he demanded, giving Bridget a brief shake as if thinking she was giving way to panic.
"No, no, Molly's fine," she assured him with a tremulous laugh of relief.
"Then why—" A wary confusion glittered in his look.
"I had to see you," Bridget explained with an aching throb in her voice.
"Why? What about?" Jonas demanded, then groaned at the faint glow of love in her hazel eyes. "I don't give a damn why you're here!"
His fingers curled into her chestnut hair, lifting her head to meet his descending mouth. There was an explosion, flames leaping within Bridget at the searing fire in his kiss. Her hands curved inside his fleece lined Parka and around his waist, feeling his muscles straining to press her closer.
Gladly, she tried to oblige. Her toes barely touched the floor as she arched against him, his length taking her weight and the hard circle of his arms providing support. The male scent of him was an aphrodisiac to her senses, drugging them with an erotic nectar.
His driving hunger was insatiable. Sensually he devoured her lips, nibbling, tasting, exploring, never getting his fill. The furious hammering of his heart was as loud as her own, thudding in her ears with a wild tempo.
Slowly he let her feet touch the floor, bending her slightly backward over his arm. He began diversionary tactics to completely undermine her self-control, exploring the curve of her cheek, the delicate and sensitive lobe of her ear and the pulsing vein in her neck.
His searching, caressing hands pushed at her car coat, its bulk interfering with his desire to touch her. Bridget aided his attempt to remove it, letting it slip to the floor. Then her own hands tugged at his parka until Jonas discarded it.
It was done in one fluid movement that ended with Bridget being lifted off her feet into his arms. Automatically she wrapped her arms around his neck, glorying in the male strength that carried her weight so easily. His gaze burned over her love-soft face before his mouth sought her eager lips again.
The living-room sofa was his objective, sitting on it with Bridget across his lap. His hands arousingly caressed her waist and hips, gliding down her thigh and back again. Every inch of her felt on fire, a molten mass of desire, her flesh pliant to any of his demands. She wound her fingers into the luxurious thickness of his golden brown hair.
"I've waited so long for this moment," Jonas declared in a throaty murmur against her cheek, pressing hard kisses on her smooth skin. "To hold you like this again."
He lifted his head to look at her, desire blazing in his half-closed eyes. What breath she had was stolen by that searing look.
"I know," she softly echoed his sentiment.
Her fingers began a tactile exploration of the lean, ruggedly hewn features she loved. They traced the jutting curve of his cheekbone and lightly stroked the hard angle of his jawline to his claim. From there, her fingertips outlined the firm male curves of his mouth, trembling slightly as he kissed them.
Then his head was bending her toward her again, seeking the hollow of her throat. "This makes all the waiting and watching worthwhile," As he spoke, the warmth of his breath sent dancing shivers over the skin of her neck.
"Watching? You were watching me?" Bridget murmured with absent curiosity.
Her hands slid down the tanned column of his neck to the open collar of his shirt. She fingered the buttons, loosening them from the material to splay her hands over his rough-haired chest, warming them with the body heat radiating from his hard flesh.
"From the hill behind the house," Jonas admitted, nuzzling her collarbone. "Like a lovesick puppy."
His mouth trailed slowly up her neck to her soft lips, closing moistly over them, forcing them apart, although they needed little persuasion. His weight pressed her backward onto the seat cushion of the sofa. Jonas shifted so that he was half lying beside her and half above her, their legs entwining.
There was seductive mastery in his deepening kisses, yet their passion was a languourous thing as if each wanted to savor the soaring joy of the moment. Bridget trembled as he unfastened the buttons of her blouse and slid his hand inside to cup the mature fullness of her breast enclosed in a lacy bra.
Disentangling his lips from her mouth, Jonas directed their attention to the exposed swell of her breasts and the tantalizing cleft between them. Bridget shuddered at the intimate contact, her desire leaping at the dizzying caress.
"Where's Molly?" Jonas asked huskily.
"Molly?" She felt completely disorientated by his heady nearness.
"Yes. Is she home? God, I hope she doesn't expect you back soon," he groaned achingly and buried his mouth along the curve of her neck, becoming entangled in her silken chestnut hair.
"No, she's at a…party." Bridget caught at her breath as he located the sensual pleasure point near the nape or her neck. "A—a birthday party for one of her friends."
"What time do you have to pick her up?" Jonas demanded thickly.
"I don't," she answered and felt the rigidity leave his muscles.
"Is someone bringing her home?" he asked with al
most absent interest, concentrating again on arousing a sensual excitement in her.
"No, she's—" Bridget paused as he succeeded in sidetracking her thoughts.
"She's what?"
"She's spending the night with Vicki," she finally managed the answer.
"You're spending the night, too," Jonas declared huskily, "with me."
The blunt statement acted as a brake to Bridget's previously unchecked desire. When he would have again claimed possession of her lips, her fingers lightly pressed themselves against his mouth to stop him.
"Jonas, wait," she begged.
"That's all I've done since I came back." He stared darkly into her face, trying to fathom her sudden hesitancy when she had displayed such open willingness seconds before. "I love you, Bridget."
"I believe that," she said and had to swallow the catch in her voice. "I love you, too, but—" she admitted what she hadn't been able to deny to herself.
"But what?" Jonas frowned, his compellingly handsome face only inches above her own. "My God, it isn't as if it's the first time!"
"It isn't that," she insisted.
"Then what is it?"
"There are some questions I wanted to ask before—" Bridget faltered and left the rest unsaid. "That's why I came over tonight."
Jonas looked away, his eyes closing as he exhaled a long breath. With suppressed anger, her levered himself upright away from her and savagely rubbed the back of his neck.
She watched silently, knowing he was angry with her. She was upset with herself for letting his embrace make her forget the reason for her visit. Unexpectedly he rose from the sofa and started to walk from the room.
"Where are you going?" Bridget frowned in confusion.
"To get some coffee," Jonas snapped, not hiding his irritation or frustration behind any mask of calm. "If this is going to be another one of our typical word exchanges, I'll need to sober up and get my wits about me."
His disappearance into the kitchen was followed by the slamming of cupboard doors and the clanging of cups on saucers. Shakily Bridget pushed herself into a sitting position on the sofa as the impatient tread of footsteps signaled his return.
A glance at the hard set of his features, uncompromising and grim, made Bridget regret again that she had allowed his first kisses to sidetrack her from her purpose. The small tray in his hands held two cups of coffee. He set it on the low table in front of the sofa and took one of the cups.
"I poured you some coffee." With the clipped announcement, Jonas sat down in an armchair opposite the sofa as if needing distance between them.
Bridget picked up the remaining cup, hoping the black coffee would steady her nerves. She held it with both hands, trying to ward off the pervading chill that had suddenly enveloped the room.
"All right, what are your questions?" he demanded, breathing out heavily in an attempt for patience and control.
"It's about—the money." Bridget stared at her coffee, unable to meet his piercing regard.
"The money," Jonas snapped in irritation. "It always comes back to that, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she nodded, wondering why he couldn't understand the way his selling out had plagued her all these years.
"Whenever you run out of things to accuse me of, you always chase back to that." He sipped at his coffee without appearing to notice that the liquid was scalding hot.
"It should be obvious to you why I do," Bridget retorted in agitation.
"No, dammit! It isn't," Jonas retorted.
"What if the roles had been reversed?" She argued. "What if your parents had offered me money? What if I had taken it and left? What would you have thought of me for doing that? Is it something you could forget—something you would overlook and then welcome me back with open arms ten years later?"
"No, I couldn't," he answered harshly. "But then that wasn't exactly the case, was it?"
"Wasn't it?" Bridget countered. "Isn't that what you did to me?"
"You know the circumstances were entirely different." His cup was returned to its saucer with a decided clink.
"They were not!" She, too, cast her cup aside rise in agitation. "You took the money and left."
"Yes, I took the money and yes, I left." Jonas would have gone on, but Bridget interrupted him.
"How can you say it was different?" she accused.
"Because it was! I told you I loved you and was coming back." His voice was low and tightly controlled, as if he was determined not to turn it into a shouting match.
"Yes, you loved me." Bridget laughed bitterly in disbelief. "That's why I received so many letters from you, I suppose," she taunted. "I didn't get one, Jonas, in case your memory has failed you on this point, too. Not a single, solitary one! You left Randolph ten years ago, telling me you loved me and promising to come back. But you left with a lot of money in your pocket—my parents paid you to leave. Why should I have believed that you were coming back? Not when you didn't even write me!"
"You know damned well that was one of the conditions your parents attached to the money," Jonas declared savagely.
"Conditions? What conditions?" she hurled back. "They asked you to leave me and leave town!"
His gaze narrowed sharply, a sudden angry watchfulness to his expression. "There was more than that, Bridget."
"What?" she challenged with a toss of her head, clasping her arms in front of her and absently kneading her elbows in nervousness.
"Part of the agreement was that I should make no attempt to contact you for six months, neither in person, by phone, or by letter," he answered.
"No?" Bridget frowned in questioning denial.
"Oh, yes," Jonas nodded with certainty, a harsh glitter in his look. "You mother wasn't convinced that you really loved me. She believed you were too young for marriage, something that I was more than half convinced about myself. It was her decree that there be six mouths of absolutely no contact between us. Supposedly after six months if we still felt the same, she wouldn't stand in our way."
"She said that?" she breathed.
"And you didn't know about it?" An eyebrow quirked in a suggestion of mockery.
"I didn't."
"That's possible," Jonas conceded with a disgruntled sigh.
"But after the six months, why didn't you try to see me? Why did you wait for so many years?" Bridget ran a hand through her chestnut hair in confusion, believing him yet not fully understanding.
"You're forgetting something this time," he taunted cynically. "Maybe I wasn't in direct contact with you, but I did stay in touch with some of our friends. Within a couple of months after I left Vermont, you did, too. By the end of six months, there were rumors that you'd married or were marrying someone else. Which you did, didn't you, Mrs. O'Shea?"
"Jonas, I—" she began.
"So what was the point of my trying to get in touch with you? Your mother had proved that she'd been right. You couldn't have loved me or you would have waited. You were too young to make that kind of commitment," he stated in a hard, flat voice, "probably even to your late husband, but he conveniently died before that could be proved."
"That isn't true." But Bridget didn't want to explain about Brian yet. "Everything you say sounds so reasonable, but there is one thing you haven't explained to me."
Jonas leaned back in his chair in a relaxed attitude, yet his eyes were sharply alert and his mouth grim. Bridget wished there was no more to talk about. She wished she could be in his arms.
But, until these questions were out of the way, she knew that no matter how much she loved him, she would never be able to completely trust him. The doubts had to be eliminated or confirmed.
"What is that?" he asked with forced patience.
She faced him. "Why did you take the money?" He exhaled a short, silent laugh and shook his head. "The way you say the word always makes it sound like blood money!"
"That's what it feels like," Bridget replied in a low, hurt voice. "You sold me out. You sold our love out. Even if I'd waited for you
. Even if I'd known about the six-month's condition, there was still the money you took. It was a lot more than thirty pieces of silver."
"Dammit, Bridget, it wasn't a bounty!" Jonas pushed out of the chair, towering in front of her in a momentary rage that he quickly controlled, although it seethed below the surface. "Or even a gift."
"Well, what do you call it?" she breathed in painful anger. "You've obviously had time in the last ten years to come up with a pat explanation for it."
"No, I have no pat explanation for it," he declared in an ominously low tone. "Only the truth."
"Which is?"
"The money was a loan."
"A loan?" Bridget laughed bitterly, and turned away to stare at the ceiling. "Can't you come up with something better than that?"
"It's the truth." Her shoulders were seized and she was spun around to meet his piercing gaze. "You have to know how much medical school costs. I admit that when your parents offered to loan me the money, it was essentially a bribe, but as far as I was concerned it was an investment in our future, yours and mine. I never expected you to meet some man and marry him less than six months later, even though I knew it was a possibility. But the money was still a loan."
"Is that true?" Bridget frowned.
Jonas released her shoulders in a gesture of disgust. "I paid it back, Bridget."
"What?" she breathed. "I was lucky," he told her with a trace of irony. "I managed to obtain a couple of grants and didn't have to use it all. I repaid the loan in full two years ago, before I knew you were widowed."
"You paid it back?"
"Yes. Now l suppose you'll claim that I did it because I had a guilty conscience about accepting the money in the first place." Jonas turned away with a shake of his head.
For ten long years Bridget had believed she knew all the details surrounding his leaving. Now she realized that she hadn't—only what her parents had told her. There were a lot of things they had failed to tell her, it seemed.
A cold chill ran down her spine. "You are telling the truth." It was a statement.
