by Theresa Weir
“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 and 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.”
“Why is it in your glove box?”
“The tobacco? That’s where I keep it.”
“No.” She lifted her arm, feeling the cool weight of silver against her skin. “The bracelet.”
He shrugged. “I wore it one day and took it off to work. How ’bout that cigarette. Please?”
Jessie dropped the subject, but she didn’t take the bracelet off as she attempted to roll the cigarette. In her mind’s eye, she saw the Oregon meadow of her dream, the meadow she had tried to paint. It was a day torn from the past, a soft summer dawn by the Columbia River. A mist had clung to the firs and dotted Luke’s long black braid with silvery beads of moisture. In the woods, blue jays scolded, squirrels chattered and a single deer danced to the edge of the river to drink, until it caught sight of the humans and bounded away again, leaping with exquisite grace over a low fence. Jessie, taking the magical morning to be a sign, gave Luke the bracelet she had purchased at a Seattle street fair. It was a token of the vow she had given him that morning, a vow to love him always.
In her mind, it had been as binding a vow as anything uttered before a priest or clergyman in a church. In her mind, she had married Luke Bernali that day. She knew he’d viewed it the same way.
Now she rolled a cigarette for that same man, in a truck much like the one he had been driving then, the weight of his bracelet on her arm. In agitation, she rolled the paper too tightly around the tobacco and it tore. “I can’t do this.”
“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about it.’’
The gentleness in his tone unnerved her. It told her he, too, remembered that cool morning and the vow she had spoken. She took off the bracelet and threw it into the glove box. “I’ll do it.”
And, as if rolling a perfect cigarette were all that mattered, Jessie concentrated on doing just that. The paper smooth between her fingers, a pinch of moist tobacco…
“That’s right,” Luke said. “Now just shake it out so it’s even.”
She did and managed to smooth the paper around right, too. With a toss of her head, she handed it over. He grinned as he took it, then devilishly offered it back to her. “Maybe you need it worse than I do.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said darkly. “I’ll throw every scrap of tobacco you’ve got right out the window.”
He laughed and scratched a match with his thumbnail, rolling down the window so the smoke would go outside. “Now dig that bracelet out and give it to me.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I know.” His mouth was firm in profile. “But it’s mine, and I want to wear it.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Too bad.” Abruptly, he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and leaned over, snagging the bracelet from the glov
e box before she could stop him. With a lift of his chin, he cut her a glance and slapped the silver cuff on his wrist. “You’ve got your painting. I’ve got my bracelet.”
Jessie didn’t respond. The mess from the glove box still sat in her lap, and with annoyance, she grabbed a tape without checking to see what it was. She stuffed it in the tape player, then shoved everything back into the glove box the same wily-nilly way she’d found it. Just as she slammed the box closed, music poured into the cab.
“I’m on Fire,” by Bruce Springsteen.
Luke roared with laughter. Jessie slumped in her seat and glared out the window. “One of these days, I’m going to strangle you.”
“No, you won’t.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “You love me and you know it.”
Chapter 11
Luke teased her to keep from slipping away, but it was a lost cause. She curled up against the window and pretended to sleep, and he knew it was her way of escaping him. He tried not to mind, tried to tell himself he’d known it was coming and ought to have been prepared. He tried to tell himself—
Yeah, right. He’d been trying to tell himself since she dropped into his life again that it was dangerous to get close. But as usual, his heart overrode his reason. Now he would pay the consequences.
Jessie was simply incapable of letting down her guard completely, of giving her whole self to another person. The damage of her childhood made it so, and all the wishing in the world wouldn’t change it.
Irritably, he passed a slow-moving car. Once, he’d been willing to settle for that portion of her heart that she could give, but it had nearly drained him dry. No way he’d do it again.
If she wanted him this time, it had to be on his terms. All or nothing.
As she shifted back and forth, pretending to sleep, he set his jaw and focused on the dry high plains through which they passed, the jutting buttes and carved arroyos, the grayish green clumps of sage and clusters of yucca. There was no essential difference in the landscape itself; from southern Colorado onward, they had passed through the same country.
But slowly, the feeling of the land and the people changed. Not so many ranchers in hats and boots. Not so many crisp, square towns with a single stoplight at the center. More little villages centerpieced with an adobe garage and filling station, often with a rangy-looking dog guarding the step, places where the language spoken would as likely be Spanish as English.
