A Feather in the Rain (15 page)

With a click, Marcello and Sophia vanished, so did Holly's gown and the ribbon from her hair. He kissed the delicate shoulder and slipped his hand in the small of her supple bare back and lifted her hips to pull the lacey panties away.

He looked down at her face, lovely and soft, in the spun gold cushion of hair. She felt the strength of his body and the powers of his soul consume her. She turned her head toward the window and the night.

The pale angle of her jaw and neck like desert-bleached bone caused a thing in his throat. He spoke to her only with his love as their bodies came together with a fierceness, thighs pounding, her legs clenched around him, their breath chirped and moaned. He could feel her nipples against his chest. He filled his hand with the lushness of her hair and lifted her face to his mouth. She murmured a small cry and thrust her hips against him. She locked him in her arms, her body quivering, a fiery glow rising in her cheeks, she crushed the air from his lungs and drew from deep within his willing seed.

Enlaced among the twisted sheets, her head lay cradled in his shoulder, her hair along his neck. She moved her face to his and felt a drop fall to her skin. She rose up slightly and kissed the corner of his eye and thumbed away the tear-track on his cheek. She had not intended to love him. There was much about the uniqueness of him to create an interest but she had no thought that he possessed an influence that would master her and take her feelings from her own power and lock them up in his. She realized that every good, true feeling that she had was somehow joined with him.

T
he thin murmurs of ranch life began in the dark with a blast from rooster lungs. Holly gave him his first yoga lesson, with poses and stretches to ease his back. Afterwards, she sliced bananas and strawberries with orange wedges and brought them to the table. When she offered the fruit, he took her hand in his, kissed her fingers, and marveled at the perfect whiteness of the nails, almond shaped, shiny and thin at the tips. She shivered and touched his face. Then she smiled and said, “We cremated my brother. What did you do?”

It took him a minute to shift gears. She had a way of coming from unexpected places. “I'd thought about that…it met with too much resistance. He's buried not too far from here. I'm glad. It gives me a place to go.”

“Would you take me there? I'd like to see it.”

“Would you?”

“I would.”

S
he scanned Holy Rood through the open window like a searchlight at a prison break. He pulled up under a tree. She stood there and inhaled a silent, imperceptible yoga breath. “It's a beautiful place.” He took her hand and led her through the grass between a row of graves. From thirty feet away, she pointed to the place where Damien was buried and looked at Jesse. He said, “Yes.”

They stood side by side and looked at the stone. She knelt down and he walked off to sit cross-legged in the grass and watch. He felt as if she'd known him as she prayed her silent prayer. She stood and picked up the leather bag she'd unslung and took out an elk-skin pouch as Jesse came to her side. She pulled the drawstring and extracted three small stones. Putting them in his palm, she said, “I brought them from the high plains where our Native American friends live. They've been blessed. I'd like to leave them on his stone…if it's all right.”

“It's all right.”

As she moved to place them there, he said, “What made you bring them?”

“To put them here.”

She took his hand. They stood in silence. The mystery of the place sounded softly in the whistle of the wind through the tall grass and the moan of interlacing boughs. Damien's scent was there. Before he could turn to see if Holly was aware, Zack was standing there, looking at them with a twinkle in his eye. Jesse looked at Holly. She knew he was there and that Jesse was seeing him. She squeezed his hand and followed his gaze. Jesse saw him raise his hand and describe a little arc with his forefinger as a cool adios. Then he was gone.

A
Mexican guitarist strummed while they studied the menu, a huge salt-rimmed Margarita in front of Holly and a shot of Tequila and a beer at Jesse's place. He put the menu down and looked at her. “Sometimes…I see him. I mean I really see him. Not just in my mind. He's standing right there in front of me. I know it sounds loony.”

“Not to me.”

“Have you seen your brother like that?”

“I was three thousand miles away when he died. He came and stood right in front of me just before I got the phone call telling me what had happened. I've seen him several times since.”

“Damien has spoken to me. Not words from his lips…but…I don't really hear them with my ears. But they are thoughts…and they come into me somehow. Do you know what you want?”

“A burrito.”

On the way home, the warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness. He reached across and stroked her shoulder. “How do you feel about sleeping out under the stars?”

T
he moon rode the rim of distant hills. The soft swish and clomp of hooves moving through the grass and striking the earth had a rhythmic soothing pulse.

A lone cottonwood loomed at the top of a small rise. They stood down under its filigreed canopy, pinpoints of starlight blinking through the leaves. He hobbled and stripped the horses, and then rolled out their bed. She opened the saddlebag of treats while he gathered the makings for a fire. The flames sawed in the light breeze as he walked up to the tree and sat on the bedroll beside her.

In the darkness of the land, the flames dwindled to a glow, seething over the coals like some maverick force that had burst through a rupture in the shell of the earth to reveal the fire burning at its core.

His hand slipped along her neck under the soft lean jaw and turned her face to his. The sweet scent of musky perfume and her own odor of warm vanilla filled his senses. He brought his lips as
close as he could to hers and yet not touch. He held them there, exchanging their breath, feeling the tingle as his mouth filled with liquid desire. And then he kissed her. He whispered into her mouth, his lips brushing hers, “I can't believe this is really happening to me.”

Teasingly, slowly, as if to use up the night, they peeled away the coverings of their flesh. Naked among the nocturnal creatures of the hills, they coupled, beasts seeking knowledge reserved for higher beings, and howled at the stars, abandoned by the moon. Their pounding hearts pulsed as one with force enough to tilt the planet off its course. Jesse thought in that spasm of ecstasy that his life would be the price. And if so, so be it.

Her legs twitched as she lay in his arms and wiped her lips against his shoulder. A small shiver rippled through her. He turned and held her close against his chest as she wiggled into place.

He had never known such a joyous sense of being alive as this woman inspired in him.

He knew it could not last. They whispered small things in the rustle and stirrings of the night and the burble of the creek until they slept.

W
alter Nalls excused himself to answer the door, leaving Jesse and Holly with his wife Helen at the bar. Superior Court Judge Lamar McCarthy and his polished wife Leona stepped into the foyer. Lamar was big, six-three and two-twenty. He wore a white orthopedic collar Velcroed around his neck, and his right arm was in a cast and sling.

“Good Lord,” said Walter, taking Lamar's offered left hand, “What happened to you?” Then he quickly took Leona's hand and kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, Leona. Good to see you. You look lovely.”

“Thank you, Walter.” She stepped around them to enter the living room as she said over her shoulder sarcastically, “Tell him, cowboy.”

Lamar had a quick humorous wit easily replaced by a stoic, dignified demeanor. Raised in Texas, around horses and cattle, there was a rough side to him that really wanted to be a cowboy or forest ranger. He wore fine flannel slacks, alligator boots, and a silk shirt
but would have been just as happy in denim and Pendleton wool. He could trade his robes for Wranglers, get on his good sorrel head horse, and rope a steer with the best. Leona was his opposite, a parlor woman to the manor born, with a taste for fine antiques, jewelry, and designer clothes. Her face wore the placid expression that comes from the constant gratification of whims and ceaseless catering to vanity. She endorsed his hunting and fishing, the ropings and cattle gatherings that took him away with the boys. She loved him coming back and making love to her like a john with a whore. She also loved the fact that no one would ever have guessed.

As they followed Leona into the living room, Lamar said, “Pour me a Jack and water and I'll tell you the tale.” He was laughing already.

Holly had instantly captured Helen in her web of charm and with her, the all too-willing Lamar. Leona decided that this woman was far too young, too beautiful, too charming to be real and too intelligent to do anybody any good. And she, Leona, would somehow prove her case.

Walter handed a glass to Lamar. “So, tell me.”

Lamar took a hefty swallow of bourbon. “Well, I was up in Montana, fishing. The guide was a salty old son of a bitch. Had an odd assortment of critters around his place, llamas, mules, peacocks, a few cows, and some horses. We'd packed in for about three days. We're coming back, riding past a field with a bunch of cattle in it. Mommas and a few calves. We're riding along a fence. Suddenly, out of a thick patch of trees, comes a-charging this bundle of blackness. I thought it was a damn bear at first. It was a stud colt with his ears pinned and his teeth bared like a barracuda. This son of a bitch looked like he was gonna tear something up. There wasn't a white mark on him anywhere. Soot black. He dove into those cows, separated a calf and proceeded to cut that calf like nothing I've ever seen. It looked like he was gonna eat it. I just stood there and watched. It was awesome. Like he just came out of nowhere with a terrible urge.

“The packer said he was out of a mare he'd bought in a truckload of half-wild mustangs out of Nevada. He didn't know she was
pregnant. He'd turned her out for the winter and when he went to gather her up, he found the colt at her side. Said he was a damn savage from the first moment he saw him. Said he'd tried to break him but he just wasn't worth the time or the trouble. He was convinced he was possessed by Satan. ‘Even his color,' he said, ‘look at him, black as sin.' I asked him what he was gonna do with him. He said he had a rodeo stock contractor was gonna take him and make a bareback horse out of him.”

Lamar took another slug of Jack and went on. “Well, like I said, I'd never seen anything as athletic as this little bugger. There was just something about him. So I bought him and had him shipped to my place. He tore up the guy's trailer who brought him down.” Lamar was amused by the memory. “Anyway, I thought I could get something done with him. Keeping him in a stall was like trying to cage King Kong. So, the other day I had him in a pen and the son of a bitch took a run straight at me and turned me ass over head. When the dust settled, I had a busted wing, a helluva crink in my neck, and a hostile wife.” He looked at smug Leona and giggled like a boy. “Tell them what you said, sweetheart.”

“I said, Lamar, I don't give a damn what you do as long as it doesn't kill you. I like having you around, seldom as it is, and I don't want to be deprived of that pleasure by something that ought to be in an Alpo can. You get rid of that horse or I'll get rid of you. That's what I said.”

“So what did you do with him?” asked Walter.

Lamar grinned. “I've still got him.”

Leona pronounced a death sentence. “He's got three more days. If he's still there, I will take my twelve-gauge and deliver him to his maker.”

Lamar, wearing his silly grin, said, “Are you referring to me, dear, or the horse?”

“The choice is yours, cowboy.”

Walter lifted his martini, saying, “Before you can him, maybe you ought to have Jesse take a look at him.”

Lamar went from chronic big grin to dead serious magistrate. “Tell you what, Jesse, you come over and take a look at him. If you want him, you can have him. In the interest of preserving my marriage, I'll just give him to you.” He looked to his wife for approval. Leona's face creased in a wrenched grin.

Jesse thought for a moment. “I'll come take a look at him.”

Throughout the evening, he had been attentive and overtly affectionate toward Holly. She touched him in loving intimacy, and lavished him with private smiles and glowing eyes.

The real purpose of the dinner was to scrutinize, opinionate, and evaluate the new female import from Colorado. The mystery of Jesse's love life had long been the object of curiosity and speculation among the hill country women. Those interested for themselves and those with friends on the hunt. Who was this beautiful young thing staying in his house, sharing his bed? She was clearly intelligent, elegant, forthcoming, and apparently dig-proof. Leona's attempts to provoke were met with aloof serenity, self-confidence, and the dazzlingly bright smile. Helen liked her immensely.