Nancy Herkness (8 page)

“So every year, you go somewhere to watch the Lyrids?” Charlie prompted.

He shrugged. “I do my best. It’s my offering to the gods of outer space.”

She let him lapse into the silence he obviously preferred. It was soothing to sit next to him in the soft glow of the dashboard instruments. He drove the way he did everything else: with effortless competence. She tilted her seat back slightly as she watched his long fingers flex and relax on the steering wheel. Her eyelids drifted closed as she thought what a marvelous opening his story would make for the book she wouldn’t get to write.

Jack glanced over at the woman beside him. Her breathing was deep and even, her legs sprawled in the relaxation of sleep. Wearing worn jeans and a simple turtleneck she still managed to look like an advertisement for Ralph Lauren. He contemplated brushing his fingers up the inside of one of those deliriously long thighs…. It was a funny thing about lust. You had no control over it. One minute the woman was a major thorn in his side. Then a gust of sea wind blew off the channel, pressing the thin silk of her wedding dress tightly against her breasts, hips and legs, and he wanted nothing more than to be between those thighs.

The cake cutting ceremony had been a particular pleasure. Standing with his arms around her waist and his hands holding hers on the knife handle, he’d been able to pull her against him from shoulder to ankle. He tightened his grasp on the steering wheel to counteract the stirring in his crotch. Why shouldn’t he take his hand off the wheel and see what happened, he thought irritably. There was no real reason not to…

Except his gut was sending danger signals to his brain.

He started to reach across the space between them. Then he remembered her friends. At the phony reception, every one of them had cornered him and sung Charlie’s praises while probing his character and background. He had circumvented their questions without a twinge of conscience. All three of them had ended with a warning—some more direct than others—not to hurt her.

He frowned.

Why were they so damned protective?

He looked over at his new wife. Even asleep, she radiated strength and independence. She obviously could take care of herself. He shook his head again.

Maybe her friends sensed something in him that worried them.

Charlie’s head banged against the car window.

“Ouch!” she said groggily, as she straightened up and rubbed the sore spot.

“Sorry. Miguel discourages visitors by leaving the road unpaved,” Jack said, shifting into a lower gear.

“You mean I slept the whole way?” she asked in dismay.

“I understand wedding days are exhausting for the bride.”

“And wedding nights are exhausting for the groom,” Charlie quipped without thinking. She regretted it when he took his eyes off the road and gave her a look that—even in the dim glow of the dashboard lights—seared deep into the inner space low in her belly. “Oof!” she grunted as the big Land Rover bounced over a frost heave.

She used the rough road as an excuse to turn and grab a handhold on the door.

The skittering headlights suddenly flashed on the windows of a building. Jack pulled up beside it, and Charlie slid out of the car and stretched as she examined Miguel’s country home. It was a handsome wooden cabin. A long porch well-stocked with rocking chairs stretched across the front. The windows were tall and multi-paned. The porch itself was built of stone, as were the chimneys at each end of the house. Charlie walked back around the Land Rover to help Jack unload. He had pulled a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and stood weighing them in his hand.

“You know, sugar,” he said with a deep drawl, “talk about mirrors on the ceiling and white fur bedspreads can put ideas into a man’s head. Ideas which have nothing to do with a business partnership.”

Charlie discovered she had to clear her constricted throat. Before she could get a word out, Jack continued.

“So let’s get back on the proper footing.” The drawl had all but disappeared. “You need me to adopt a baby. I need you to stay out of my private affairs. That’s why we’re here.”

“My footing is perfectly stable,” Charlie said. “I’m here to make up some stories to tell Rhonda Brown, and to watch rocks fall out of the sky.”

He handed her the keys; this time she was prepared for the heat they emitted.

“Good. Then we’re straight. The big silver key opens the front door. I’ll bring in the gear,” he said, hefting two duffle bags out of the car.

“I can help carry,” she said.

He laughed. “You could probably carry the whole load, but I’ll handle it.”

Charlie led the way up the steps and onto the porch. The key turned easily in the lock. She heard the click of switches behind her as she walked inside and blinked in the flood of light.

She stood in a large room that was open all the way up to the rafters. To her right, stairs led up to a sort of gallery offering access to several doors. To her left, she looked over a high eating bar into the kitchen. In front of her was a male fantasy of a hunting lodge. Big overstuffed chairs and sofas in subdued plaids crouched around the two fireplaces and an enormous television set. A locked gun rack stood against one wall. The chandelier was made of antlers.

“This is real guy territory,” Charlie chuckled.

“Paradise,” Jack agreed, dropping the duffels by a table made of tree branches with the bark still on them. He checked his watch and headed for the kitchen. “Ten o’clock. We have time. Let’s see what supplies the caretaker laid in for us.”

Charlie volunteered to make sandwiches while Jack went in search of the equipment they would need for a night of meteor-watching. As she slathered Dijon mustard on whole wheat bread, she contemplated Jack’s statement about being on the “proper footing.” He started this little flirtation, and now he claims he wants to end it. The more she considered it, the more she thought he found her a bit harder to handle than he expected. A smug smile curved her lips; there was something very satisfying about rattling a man like Jack Lanett.

Appearing totally unruffled at the moment, he walked into the kitchen with two loaded backpacks and an insulated bag for the food. He was also wearing a shoulder harness with a pistol in it. Charlie felt a twinge of unease as Isabelle’s speculation about Jack’s secret flitted across her mind.

“Is it that dangerous up here?”

He shrugged. “Just an occasional garbage-raiding bear.”

“I don’t see any bearskin rugs scattered around.”

“The only animals I’ve ever actually aimed at were two drunken hunters who wouldn’t get off the front porch.”

“Did you shoot them?” she asked hopefully.

“Bloodthirsty, aren’t you? No, but I was tempted.” He made a long slow survey of her from head to toe but this time his gaze was flatly analytical. “The sneakers and jeans are good. Do you have a warm jacket, gloves and a hat?”

“The jacket, yes. Gloves and hat, no.”

A trip to the coat closet unearthed a plaid hunting cap and a pair of too-large ski mittens that engulfed Charlie’s hands.

“You won’t need your hands except to eat so they’ll do,” Jack assured her.

He, of course, looked every inch the fashionable explorer with a black leather jacket and gloves, and a gray fedora.

She caught the grin he couldn’t quite repress when she fitted the ridiculous hat on over her elegant chignon. “Don’t say a word,” she warned.

He appeared to debate a moment before saying, “Let’s go.”

“Wise man.”

He helped her on with her backpack and handed her a flashlight. Turning off all the cabin’s lights and locking the door, they set off into the woods on a path that Jack followed with the silent surefootedness of a deer. About fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the trees. Charlie swept the area with her flashlight, discovering a large field where flat expanses of stone alternated with dried brown meadow grass. Her companion headed for the center of the open space and swung his backpack onto the ground. Charlie helped him unroll thick egg-crate foam pads over the grass and cover them with insulated blankets and sleeping bags; then he raided her backpack for pillows and binoculars, and positioned a thermos of coffee within easy reach.

“No counters and no logbook,” he said almost to himself.

Charlie assumed he was referring to the usual practice of counting the rate of meteors observed and recording them for scientific purposes. “This is a sacred, not a scientific vigil?” she asked.

“You got it.” He flipped a corner of a sleeping bag back. “Your observation lounge awaits you.”

Charlie smiled and slid into the makeshift bed. Jack switched off his flashlight so Charlie heard rather than saw him settle into his cocoon. She lay back on her pillow, and all thought of the man lying so close beside her flew out of her head. With no artificial lights and no moon to overpower them, the stars powdered the sky like sparkling grains of sand. Actually, she thought, it was more as though a safe filled with the most brilliant diamonds of all sizes had spilled its contents across incomprehensible miles of deep blue velvet.

“Wow!” she breathed.

Jack’s chuckle was pure satisfaction. He began pointing out constellations, and for the first time, Charlie could really trace the outlines of the mythical creatures they were named for.

“Almost straight up is the Great Bear, Ursa Major, which is most famous for the seven stars that form the Big Dipper.”

“I see the Big Dipper.”

“All right. Follow the line of the two stars which make the end of the dipper and you’ll see the North Star which is part of Ursa Minor.”

“I just hope all those bears stay up there.”

“Once the ancient gods put them in the sky, they aren’t inclined to come back to earth,” her companion said with surprising whimsy. “Curling around the Little Bear is Draco, the dragon guarding the North Star. One of its stars was actually the North Star about 5,000 years ago. See that bright star near the Dragon’s head? That’s Vega, the alpha star of Lyra, our meteor shower’s radiant constellation. Vega is one of three bright stars that make up the Summer Triangle. The other two are still too low to see but they’re Deneb in Cygnus and Altair in Aquila.”

“The swan and the eagle. Birds of a feather. How did a lyre get mixed in?”

“Pure magnitude. Vega’s the fifth brightest star in the sky, partly because it’s only about 27 light-years away and partly because it’s fifty times as bright as our sun.”

“It’s sort of bluish though.”

“You have good eyes.”

“Not good enough to find Orion,” she said, tilting her head to search the sky. “He’s the only constellation I can usually recognize.”

“Orion set about an hour ago.”

“He should be your patron saint.”

Jack was silent.

“He’s a hunter, just like you,” Charlie persisted.

“His methods were more violent than mine. And I try not to anger the gods.”

“That’s right, they sent a scorpion to kill him, didn’t they?”

“And there he crouches on the horizon, waiting to strike.”

Her eyes were accustomed to the dark so Charlie turned her head to follow the dim line of Jack’s arm toward the constellation Scorpius. “Yeow!” she yelped. The hairpins in her wedding day hairdo had shifted and were jabbing into her scalp. She sat up and took off the hunting cap, fumbling around to find the small implements of torture.

“Let me do that,” Jack offered, although he sounded as if he were doing it against his better judgment.

This is a dumb idea, Charlie agreed mentally, but she swiveled to present her back to him. She felt his fingers in her hair, then heard a rustle of blankets and a soft grunt. Suddenly, his hiking boots were planted on either side of her thighs while his knees almost brushed her shoulders. This is a really dumb idea, she thought again. But her eyes drifted closed as pins were pulled adroitly from her hair. Her chignon loosened under Jack’s onslaught. She shook her head to release the last of the pressure, and then barely stifled a moan as he raked his fingers through her hair, spreading it over her back and shoulders. The exquisite tingling of her scalp radiated downward and across every inch of her skin. She luxuriated in it until the sensation focused between her thighs. When she began to picture his hands skimming around her ribs to cup her breasts, Charlie gave herself a hard mental shake and reached back to braid her hair.

He brushed her hands aside. “I’ll braid it.”

“Did you learn by making camel bridles?” Charlie was trying to distract herself from the new ripple of pleasure his division of her hair into three strands was creating.

“No. I learned from making lariats out West.”

He was taking his time.

“Do you find a lot of meteorites there?”

“Some. I have a cabin out in Wyoming. Sort of like Miguel’s here. Do you have something to tie this with?”

Charlie fished in her pocket for an elastic band. His fingers brushed hers as he took it, and she almost winced at the shock the contact gave her.

“All neatly tamed and tied up.” He flipped the braid over her shoulder and shifted back onto his own side. “Just the way you like it.”

Charlie was annoyed by the mockery in his voice. “You seem to take an inordinate amount of interest in my hairstyle.”