Escape (20 page)

At the sound of a footfall I froze, held my breath, listened, but heard nothing more than my own heart. Inching around, I glanced back at the path, but if there was someone there—
something
there—I couldn’t see. The trees weren’t dense, but the darkness was, and the unease I had felt before returned, though only until I faced forward again and saw it, still as stone and oddly luminescent in the night. It sat on lean legs on the far bank, all pointy ears and muzzle, staring at me.

It was female, smaller than her mate would be but regal. This was no ghost of Jude; I had been wrong to ever think that. This creature, with her russet-and-gray coat, her lighter, cream-colored face, and gentle eyes that easily bridged the night, was here for me.

I should have been afraid, but was not. My past, my dreams—I had a connection to this wild she-dog. Maybe I had been afraid to come here because of that, as if she were the rock bottom of my life, the primal source of whatever I was now supposed to rise to be. The coyote’s story was one of survival. I could identify with that.

Soundlessly she watched, perhaps as curious of me as I was of her, but there was nothing threatening in her stare. Rather, I felt a profound peace. I wasn’t sure if it was the gurgle of the water, the womb-warmth of the night, the smell of pine and earth, or the company of this creature that had haunted my dreams. But here, now, this moment was the perfect antidote to the life I had left a week before.

Suddenly the peace was shattered by the thud of footsteps, for real this time and closing in. Whirling, I saw a tall form, as dark as the coyote was light, as human as the coyote was dog. I gave a frightened cry and would have run if he hadn’t caught my arm.

“It’s
me
, Emily,
me
!”

James? But James was in New York. James didn’t know where I was. James never had this much stubble on his face or let his hair get this messed. James never wore torn T-shirts or smelled of sweat, though this man did both. James never looked
wild
.

But even as I saw, smelled, felt all that in the darkness—even with that shot of irritation raising his voice a notch, its huskiness was too familiar to mistake.

“I called you!” I screamed, irrationally furious perhaps, but he had left me bereft back in town and had
terrified
me now. “I called, and you weren’t there! We had a date, James. You—stood—me—up,” I cried, whamming my free arm against his side with each word.

He grunted, but was otherwise unfazed. Pressing me back against the tree, where he could immobilize my body with his, he held my face with his hand and kissed me hard.
Fight
,
fight
,
fight
, a part of me wailed, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe. But the taste was James, and the way his mouth moved said his hunger was huge.

Truth was, Jude lost by
miles
in this game. My attraction to James had flared the first time we met, strangers sitting beside each other two rows from the back in Constitutional Law. We slept together that very first night. I had never done that with Jude or anyone else. But something clicked with James—something as elemental and, yes, primitive as what I felt in these woods. I had known it would work.

Did I now?

I couldn’t begin to think, not with him kissing me like he hadn’t kissed me in months. We had been making love on the clock, putting ovulation before passion, but the clock wasn’t ticking here. My heart was still pounding from fright—and shock that this was
James
—and then there was desire, which went from zero to one-twenty in the blink of an eye. My mouth had missed this. So had my body, to
judge from the frantic way I pulled at his clothes. His hands found my breasts, my belly, the spot between my legs that weeped for him. When he thrust into me, I was totally ready, pulling him in deeply and holding him there until he withdrew and thrust again.

I cried his name, convincing myself that he was really here—and he was wild—punishing me, perhaps, but what initial anger there might have been gave way to raw need. He knotted a fist in my hair to hold my mouth for his taking, but beyond that it was about friction—hands and hips grasping, rubbing, building heat. His sweat mixed with mine now, producing a muskiness as feral as anything else. Our nakedness worked in the heat, and though the pine bark scraped my back as he pounded in, the pain was erotic.

Our passion might have been driven by the fact that we had been miles and minds apart, but reason was irrelevant. James was staking his claim in the most elemental way, and though I knew this didn’t solve anything, I wanted it. Making love was the diametric opposite of the emptiness I had felt.

We climaxed within seconds of each other, me whispering his name in fragments now. I might have slid down the tree, just melted in a pool on the ground, if James hadn’t held me up. His breath was rough by my ear, his arms and legs trembling but strong. James had always had a plan, and if the plan tonight was to fill my senses with him, he succeeded.

We made love again, this time on the ground with his back to the dirt and his hands on my breasts. The ascent was slower but the peak no less mind-blowing. Our bodies were drenched when it was done.

I couldn’t speak. Even if I
could
think, which I couldn’t, there were too many questions, any one of which would fracture the night, and I clung to these last silent moments when we were totally in sync.

My coyote was gone, of course. I’m guessing she left as soon as James appeared, spooked by his less-than-subtle approach and the cries we made. I might have asked if he’d even seen her, if I hadn’t not wanted to talk.

In time, we knelt in the stream to cool ourselves and, eventually,
pulled on our clothes. Wordless still, I led him back through the woods to the Red Fox, but we didn’t make love up in that attic room. James had barely crawled into bed when, with an arm over my thigh as I sat, he was asleep.

I watched him, stunned again by how different he looked. Always heavy-bearded, he had a growth suggesting he had skipped several days, which made no sense if he was working. And though my own fingers had messed his hair, clutching handfuls when we made love, it had been messed at the start. Uncombed, it looked thicker than it did back home. And his body? I saw him naked all the time, but not smelling of sweat and lust and not sprawled on the sheets in the soft light of a place that was new and fresh. Unclothed here, he looked rugged.

How had he found me? Of all the questions I wanted to ask, that was the first. But I wasn’t doing any asking with him dead to the world, and when he finally stirred, I had been sleeping myself, and it was dark. I remember murmuring a groggy
We have to talk
, but nothing after that, and when I woke up, he was gone.

Chapter 13
 

Bolting up, I whipped around, searching, but he had left nothing to show he’d been here. I might have doubted it myself, if it hadn’t been for the ache between my legs.

My BlackBerry said it was nine. Appalled that I’d slept so late—that I’d apparently slept right through his leaving—I tried his phone.

He picked up after one ring, his “Hey” husky and deep.

My toes curled. Sitting on the bed, I tucked them under me. “Tell me you’re downstairs having coffee.”

There was a pause, then a guilty “I’m not.”

“You’re on the highway.”

“Since four. I’m almost at the Tappan Zee Bridge. I have to work.” No guilt here. Just fact. Which brought my problem home again.

“It’s Saturday.” I
hated
this about our lives. “Don’t you deserve a break?”

“I took a break. Two days to chase after my wayward wife.”

If he wanted
me
to feel guilty, I refused. “You didn’t spend two days driving here.”

“Not directly. I tried other places first.”

“What places?

“Where you had a history.”

Lake George? Acadia? Both had been the site of childhood vacations
in the days when my family was innocent and intact. James had heard many stories of those trips; we Scotts clung to happy memories. “But how did you end up here? I’ve never talked about Bell Valley.”

“No,” he said, considering. “That was telling.”

“But how did you even know the
name
of this place?”

He was slow to answer, then reluctant, as though confessing to something that did not make him proud. “You have dreams, babe. You talk in your sleep.”

I caught a breath. “About what?”

“Coyotes. And a guy named Jude.”

My silence was incriminating. Finally, I said, “You never asked me about that.”

“I figured that what you didn’t tell me, I didn’t want to know. That’s why I didn’t head there—there first. We all delude ourselves sometimes. We tell ourselves everything is great when it really isn’t.”

Here was my insightful James, apparently still alive under the raucous treadmill of our lives. That gave me hope.

“You have nothing to fear from Bell Valley,” I assured him softly.

“Not Jude?”

“Not Jude.”

I hated cell phones. If I’d been able to see his darkening face, I might have been prepared for his anger. Instead, his lower, sharper voice hit me flat out.

“I found letters, Emily. They were under the bed, where I wouldn’t have looked unless I was desperate. I’d already searched your drawers, feeling like a total scumbag, thank you. JBB.” Jude’s typical sign-off. “He must have been pretty important if you kept his letters. But the postmarks weren’t old. Like the dreams.”

“If you read the letters, you know he was in Alaska,” I reasoned. The only mention of his return had been in the letter I’d taken with me. “I did not come here for him.”

“So what was he to you?”

“He’s the brother of my college roommate. I’ve mentioned Vicki Bell.”

“You never mentioned a brother.”

“Because it ended badly. Jude cheated on me, so I left. End of story.”

“Not end of story if you’re dreaming about him.”

“It’s not him, it’s the
coyote
. Jude was just the one who introduced me to it.”

“My rival is a coyote? Come on, Em.”

“The coyote isn’t about you. It’s a she, and she’s about me—about being wild and free. I mean,” I tried to soften it, “think about last night. Was that incredible or what?”

He wasn’t being sidetracked. “You still don’t want to talk about Jude.”

“He doesn’t
matter
, James. What I had with him was over before you and I met.”

“Like, days before? How many—two? Three? You were on the rebound.”

“Excuse me. Did you ever sense anything—even the slightest instant in those first days after we met when I wasn’t obsessed with
you
?”

“On the rebound,” he repeated. “I’ve known you almost ten years—been married to you for seven—and still here’s a big part of you that you never shared.”

“When do we
talk
?” I cried.

“We used to. You had opportunity. Hell, Emily, I knew you weren’t a virgin. Neither was I. Sure, there was a guy before me, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t learned about it this way.” He swore, annoyed. “I sat there yesterday in my car, waiting to see you with him. I followed you into the woods, thinking you were meeting him there.”

I was chastened, but only to a point. Something was missing. Come to think of it, it was a pretty important piece. I didn’t dream about Jude. Coyotes, yes. But not Jude, and I don’t recall Jude’s name or the name of Bell Valley appearing in any of those letters.

“Did you hire a detective?” I asked. Though the guy in the charcoal
SUV was legit, he might have distracted me from seeing someone else.

“No.” His anger faded then, the spine in his voice dissolved. “Christ, Em,” he said with a frustrated sigh, “I’m too tired to argue. It doesn’t matter how—how I found you, only that I did. Did you not enjoy last night?”

“I
loved
last night, but it was only half right. We didn’t talk.”

“We connected.”

“We didn’t
talk
. We need to talk, James.”

“No phone date,” he warned, but when he went on, his husky voice held an element of pleading. “Come back. I need you here.”

The pleading nearly did it. I remembered his mussed hair and stubbled face. I pictured him driving those two days, searching, worrying, imagining me with a man I had never told him about, and feeling alone. And now, exhausted, he was heading back to work.

I cared what he felt—cared more than I wanted to. But I couldn’t live my life for James. I couldn’t return because he wanted me to. I had to want it myself, and I didn’t. Not yet.

My silence must have told him that, because he said a defeated “Well, at least I know where you are. Take care, sweetie,” and ended the call.

At the “sweetie,” my pulse skittered. Without breathing, I pressed redial.

He didn’t pick up. Which was probably a good thing. Because I might have given in. Which would have been bad. Despite what Vicki had said about my being the bolder of us two, I had spent ten years following the party line. If there had been any point to my rebellion, it would be mocked if I returned now.