Nan Ryan (39 page)

Purposely he prolonged the bliss, knowing that when it was over, reality would have to be faced. More than an hour went by from the time they awakened until the last little shudders of their loving had passed.

Dressing quickly then, they first checked on the Russian Blue. Feeling guilty for ignoring Dom for so long, Helen found the cat curled up on the blue velvet chaise where he had ridden out the storm. Cuddling him close, she apologized for her neglect.

She fed the hungry cat. Then she and Kurt ate a quick meal, ravenous after their night of highly physical lovemaking.

Finally Kurt said, “Sweetheart, stay here. I’ll go out and have a look around, assess the storm’s damage.”

“I’m coming with you.”

A heartbreaking sight awaited them.

Helen couldn’t believe her eyes. Everywhere she looked was total destruction. All the outbuildings gone! Not so much as a single wall left standing or a plank of the corral fence in place.

Hand in hand, Helen and Kurt cautiously crossed the debris-covered backyard. Grandpa Burke’s white settee was gone, as was Charlie’s swing. But Helen was grateful the big oak tree had survived. Stripped clean of leaves, many of its limbs broken, it still stood.

Impulsively, Helen broke away from Kurt, went over and touched the tree’s rough bark as if it were an old, dear friend whom she was delighted to see.

Bracing herself for what they might yet find, Helen squared her slender shoulders, again took Kurt’s hand, and together they made a walking tour of the storm-punished farm. Helen could barely hold back her tears when she saw the destruction of all the farm’s crops.

Gone.

All was gone.

What the demonic downpour and raging winds hadn’t destroyed, the hail had.

Helen stood at the edge of the southern cornfield, staring sickly, shaking her head and biting her lip. The devastation was total.

There was nothing left. Nothing. All their hard backbreaking work had been wiped out in one single night. All those hours of plowing and planting and cultivating and hoeing under a broiling summer sun. After all that effort and struggle, there was to be no harvest this year. No ripe crops to take to market.

No money to save the farm.

Standing quietly at her side, Kurt saw the look on Helen’s face and his heart ached for her. He knew what was going through her mind.

He moved closer, wrapped a long arm around Helen’s narrow waist, and drew her to his side. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, so sorry.” He kissed her temple. “We’ll figure out something, some way to …” He sighed, shrugged, and said, “Everything will be all right.”

Smiling bravely, Helen nodded. “I know it will.”

But how?
she asked herself, her worried blue eyes lingering on the desolation before her. Splintered wood and rubble littered every square inch of the farm. Uprooted oaks, pines, and smaller trees lay on the ground. Not a single shrub or flower bush had survived.

Standing amid the ruin, both Helen and Kurt were already considering—separately—what could be done. What had to be done. It was then that both began to silently entertain a plan. A strategy to be kept from the other. A course of action that had to be taken as soon as possible.

In stunned silence they walked back toward the house. In the storm-ravaged front yard, Helen abruptly broke away from Kurt. She picked her way through the strewn rubble to the very edge of the cliff. She stopped, looked down, and the faintest of smiles touched her lips.

The new wooden stairway had miraculously withstood the storm!

“Kurt, come here,” she called to him. He was at her side in a second. “Look,” she said, marveling, “the steps are still there. Every single one!”

“Why, sure they are, honey,” Kurt said evenly, although he was really as surprised as she. “I built them to last. Just like your grandfather built the house to last.”

“I’m grateful for that,” said Helen, smiling.

“Sweetheart, there’s a lot to be grateful for,” Kurt said thoughtfully. “Jolly and Charlie are safe and on high ground. You and I came through the storm untouched and the house still stands.”

Helen turned to face him. Wearily she leaned her forehead against his chest. Placing her hands on his upper arms, she said, “I am grateful. Most of all I’m grateful you’re here with me.” She lifted her head to look up at him.

Kurt drew her closer. “Know what I’m most grateful for?”

“Tell me.”

“For this sweet precious time you belong solely to me. No one can reach the farm for a while.”

“No. No, they can’t. All roads are surely flooded,” Helen said. “It will take at least a couple of days for the high water to recede enough for anyone to come. Or for us to leave.”

“No one can get here. No one can intrude.” Kurt added, “We’re alone. All alone.”

Helen slid her arms up around his neck. “I hadn’t thought about that.” She tried to smile, but her blue eyes were filled with sorrow.

Softly, Kurt said, “Don’t be so sad, my love. For the next couple of days, let’s try and forget what the storm has done.” He gently drew her closer, held her in his protective embrace. “We may never again be alone like this. Let’s make the most of it.”

He kissed her.

For the next forty-eight hours the pair did their best to shut out the harsh reality of the disaster. They were not entirely successful. Everywhere they looked were heartbreaking reminders of the near-total devastation.

But when they were in each other’s arms the world with its worries faded away. Troubles were forgotten. The storm had never happened. There was only the two of them and the total bliss that comes from sweet love-making.

Forty-eight hours after the hurricane had come ashore, Raider showed up.

Late in the afternoon the big sorrel trotted out of the tree-bordered lane as the sun began to set, nickering and neighing loudly.

Kurt and Helen, rocking quietly on the front gallery, heard a noise, looked up, and saw the sleek thoroughbred heading determinedly toward the house.

“Raider.” Kurt’s tone was low, level, but his dark green eyes shone with relief.

“Yes! You were right,” Helen said, leaping out of her rocker, “he’s come home!”

It was a demonstrative reunion between horse and man. Smiling, watching the two, Helen realized anew just how much the sorrel thoroughbred meant to Kurt. He dearly loved the big stallion who’d been with him for so long. And he made no attempt to hide that affection.

Neither did Raider. While Kurt patted and hugged and spoke warmly to the horse, Raider nuzzled and whinnied and playfully nipped him.

Kurt explained to Raider, as if he were speaking to a person, that the corral had been blown away in the hurricane.

“But that’s all right, old friend”—Kurt stroked Raider’s face—“we stored some oats and corn inside the house before the storm hit. You won’t go hungry. Come with us.” Kurt turned and reached for Helen’s hand.

Raider followed Kurt and Helen up to the back porch, where they fed and watered him. While he feasted, they sat on the porch steps in the fading sunlight.

Thoughtfully, Kurt said to Helen, “The floodwaters are receding. The road will open soon. Charlie and Jolly will be coming back.” He paused, looked at her, and added, “They could be back by tomorrow.”

Nodding, Helen said, “Yes, I look for them. I know Jolly Grubbs. He’d never say anything to Charlie, but he’s worried about us. He’ll get here as soon as he can.”

“I guess we’d better be watching for them,” Kurt said.

“Yes, we’d better,” Helen agreed. Her face flushed and she said, “No more going about naked or making love in the middle of the day.” She hugged Kurt’s arm.

“Damn,” he said with a frown. “I like seeing you float about naked, looking like a naughty wood nymph. I’m going to miss our freedom.”

“Mmmm, me too,” Helen said, her smile fading.

A mischievous twinkle appeared in Kurt’s green eyes and he said, “But it hasn’t ended yet, has it?”

“No. We’re perfectly safe until at least tomorrow afternoon.” Helen smiled again, knowing what he was thinking.

Kurt looked into her eyes, captivated by her beauty and allure. “Why, then,” he asked, lifting a hand to touch her hair, “don’t you make me a happy man while there’s still time?”

Charmed by his disarming smile, Helen said, “Gladly, my love. What would you have me do?”

“Undress, sweetheart. Here. Now.”

Helen promptly released his arm, shot to her feet, and stripped off all her clothes while Kurt sat on the steps below, watching, enjoying. When she was naked, she unpinned her hair and let it spill down around her shoulders.

“Happy now?” she asked.

The fiery setting sun was kissing her pale golden hair and long smooth legs. She was any red-blooded man’s dream of perfection. She was beautiful, she was sensual, she was uninhibited. And she was his.

At least for one more night.

Kurt allowed his gaze to take a slow, leisurely tour of the exquisite naked woman standing before him.

“I may never let you dress again,” he said with quiet authority. “Just keep you as you are now and feast my eyes to my heart’s content.”

“What about me?” she said. “Gazing at your manly physique sans clothes is something I thoroughly enjoy.”

Kurt came to his feet, began unbuttoning his shirt. In seconds he too was naked, his clothes lying discarded on the porch. He stood outlined against the blood-red sky, tall, dark, commanding.

“Examine me all you will,” he said, grinning. “And since your behavior has been exemplary, you may even touch me—if you so desire.”

Her gaze sweeping the length of his lean tanned body, Helen said approvingly, “My beautiful brown satyr. Come here.”

Kurt moved toward her. He reached her, lifted his hands, and gently clasped her bare shoulders. “We have until noon tomorrow,” he said. “Anything in particular you’d like to do before then?” His lids lowered over his eyes and a muscle danced in his jaw.

Helen surprised him when she asked, “Do you suppose Raider is terribly tired?”

Kurt’s dark brows lifted in puzzlement. He glance at the stallion, contentedly eating oats from a bucket of the bottom porch step.

“He’s neither lathered or winded,” Kurt said. “No No, I don’t think he’s particularly tired. Why?”

“Remember the morning last spring when you took me for a wild ride on Raider?”

“I’ll never forget.”

“Could you take me for a ride on him again?” She lifted a hand to Kurt’s chest, raked her fingers through the crisp dark hair. “Right now. Before the sun is gone?”

Kurt tilted his head to one side. “I thought you were going to stay naked until—”

“I am,” she interrupted, smiling wickedly.

Without another word Kurt yanked his discarded shirt off the porch and whirled it up over Raider’s back. Lithely he swung up astride the big beast and inclined his dark head for Helen to come to him. She hurried down the steps and squealed with delight when Kurt leaned down and easily plucked her from the ground. He sat her across the horse before him, enclosing her in his arms. He wrapped a portion of Raider’ long mane around his hand, gave a gentle tug, and the responsive thoroughbred left his oats, turned in a semi circle, and took the two naked lovers on a wild romp in the dying sun.

Kurt purposely urged the stallion to run as fast as
he
could. Raider raced around the big northern field so swiftly the ground flashed dizzily by—making it nearly impossible to see the destruction and ruin left by the storm.

After the exhilarating ride, the lovers bathed, ate a late supper, and again sat out on the front gallery. This time without their clothes. In Helen’s favorite armies rocker, they made love while a billion stars came out in the heavens.

Seated in the rocker with Helen draped astride, Kurt rocked them to and fro, controlling the motion of the rocker as well as the motion of their bodies. Murmuring endearments, making shocking proposals, whispering graphic words of love and lust, they made the most of the total privacy they would soon lose.

A privacy that would end sooner than expected.

So soon they very nearly got caught in a most compromising position.

Chapter Forty-three

T
hey stayed awake until the wee small hours, reluctant to see this final night of sweet seclusion come to an end. It was well past three in the morning before the pair finally fell into exhausted slumber in the guest room’s rumpled four-poster.

There they lay, their naked bodies entwined in peaceful sleep, when a wagon emerged from the treebordered lane at shortly after ten
A.M.
Helen remained dead to the world as the wagon rumbled up the narrow road, but Kurt came awake with a start.

His dark head shot up off the pillow; he listened keenly and heard the wheels bumping over the road.

“Wake up!” He shook Helen. “Helen, wake up! Somebody’s coming!”

“Dear God, no!” she choked, horrified, her eyes round. She quickly leaped off the bed and began frantically looking about for her clothes. “Where are my—”

Kurt had snatched a clean pair of trousers from the tall armoire and was hunching into them. “You have no clothes in here. Remember, we shed our things last night on the back porch.” He buttoned his pants. “Jesus, we left them out there! I’d better go get them.”

Her face a study in shame and misery, Helen shoved her hair behind her ears and dashed across the room after Kurt. In the hall he turned and paused for only a second.

“I’ll gather the clothes from the back porch and hide them. I’ll try and stall whoever is here while you get dressed.”

“Oh, Lord, I’ll just die if—”

“Don’t worry!” he shouted as he raced down the long hall to the back door.

Fully dressed and looking totally at ease, Kurt was outside waiting to meet the approaching wagon.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Charlie called excitedly, his short arms outstretched well before the wagon reached the house. “It’s me, Daddy! I’m home!”

“Charlie!” Kurt shouted, and his dark face broke into a wide grin. Walking fast, he hurried out to meet his son and Jolly Grubbs. “Am I glad to see you two,” he said, nodding to Jolly and plucking Charlie from the high seat as soon as the wagon creaked to a stop.