That Summer Place (23 page)

By the time the record ended, Mitch had danced her into the far corner of the attic where shadows hung and the ancient bedstead stood. She felt one of the posts of the bed pressing into her back and suddenly it wasn’t so much fun anymore. It was like last night, when desire had started raging through her and she’d felt herself falling, tumbling headlong in love with Mitch Rutherford. She told herself to duck beneath his arms, to make some excuse, but instead, she just stood and felt his hands slide up her arms to cup her shoulders, then slide down slowly, evocatively, massaging the back of her neck and then her shoulder blades and then lower.

“Why, Professor,” he said in a voice that was rough with teasing and desire, “I believe you’re naked under this dress.”

“I believe,” she whispered, falling and falling and now not caring, “you’re absolutely right.”

After the initial exchange, he was quite deliberate and matter-of-fact in his seduction. With focused and unhurried movements, he pulled out the hat pin and let the broad-brimmed hat drift to the floor. Next he took first one hand and then the other, removing each glove with almost clinical precision. Finally he cradled her face with his fingertips, lifting it up so that she looked him in the eye.

“I want you,” he said, his tone neutral but his gaze intent.

“I know. I want you, too.”

“That’s what I hoped.” His mouth quirked in the briefest of smiles, and then, still so slowly she nearly screamed, he bent and kissed her.

It was everything she had imagined his kiss would be. No, it was more than that. Her appetite whetted by days of unrequited attraction, she was so ready for this kiss that she moaned into his mouth and pressed forward, feeling the hardness of his chest even as she savored the softness of his mouth. She skimmed her hands over his arms and shoulders, then down his back. The fabric of his shirt was warm and taut over his muscular frame.

He ended the kiss when she wanted it to go on forever. He lifted his mouth from hers, and she made a small sound of protest, but he only laughed, so softly. It was the sexiest sound she’d ever heard. Then he amazed her by going down on one knee in front of her. Perhaps what amazed her most was the slowness of his movements. He was controlled, yet at the same time sexy and compelling. He took one of her shoes, cradling the heel in his hand while he unlaced it, then slid it off, setting her bare foot on the plank floor. He did the same for the other foot, but instead of setting it down, he held it in the palm of his hand and bent his head, kissing the sensitive bare inner arch.

Rosie steadied herself by holding the bedpost. Mitch’s hand slid up her leg, smoothing along, up under the hem of her dress, higher and higher, and then his lips followed, tongue flicking, touching her ankle and calf, the back of her knee, and then when he straightened up, she nearly implored him not to stop.

Shouldn’t they talk about this? she wondered wildly. Shouldn’t they debate? Plan? Come to a conscious decision like the adults they were?

It didn’t help matters that his hand was buried under the gossamer hem of the dress. It didn’t help that suddenly her legs felt as if they were made of butter. When she sank helplessly back onto the bed, she clutched at him so hard that they both wound up reclining, speechless with wanting.

And she knew then, as his hand slipped down her back undoing the buttons one by one, that they
had
considered this. They
had
made this decision. They had decided to be lovers yesterday, though neither had acknowledged it. They’d landed their kayak at a remote cove and she’d wept in his arms.

Later that night they’d underscored the decision by sharing. She had given him her finances—a gesture of deep trust by any definition—and he, who never danced, had danced with her.

And at the moment, any conversation or debate would be superfluous, so she didn’t even try. She wound her arms around his neck, studied the dreamy glow of diffuse lamplight on his face, looked deep into his eyes and said, “Now.”

He had an endearingly awkward moment of befuddlement, as if he’d been braced for rejection, but the hesitation ended quickly and he stood, drawing her to her feet and removing the dustcover from the bed to reveal yellowed linens and embroidered pillows redolent of ancient lavender sachets. He parted the shivery-light fabric of the dress, watching as it slipped down and pooled around her bare feet. He tugged at the ribbon of the camisole, inching it down her body.

The look on his face—his controlled, disciplined, businessman’s face—told her everything she needed to know. The small nonverbal sound that came from somewhere in the depths of his throat paid her a higher compliment than any pretty flattery she’d heard too often from gaping undergrads.

He shed his clothes and took her in his arms, and she burned up with awareness of him. He had a body that was naturally athletic. She’d never been an admirer of the pumped-up look; it only meant a man spent too long sculpting his own body. A shallow pursuit and one practiced by too many of her students.

Mitch was simply a creature smiled upon by fortune—good bones and good genes. The passion that had been building in her for so many days made him look like a god to her.

They fell back on the bed again, and the old perfume of antique fabric and dried flowers surrounded them. She found it heady and erotic—the brush of old bed linen against her bare skin, the slow drag of his fingers down the length of her, then up again, circling and brushing over her breasts, then reaching around to skim her back, starting at the nape of her neck. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered a suggestion that made her dizzy, and he kissed her neck where his hand had been and then traveled lower, his moth-wing kisses, his feathering touch chilling her with an eroticism that took her breath away.

He was as inventive with his foreplay as he was conventional in the rest of his life. She felt stunned, and maybe even a smidgen betrayed, because nothing about him had prepared her for this. How could she have known he would turn out to be the Sheik in bed? The Sheik in pinstripes. But he was, in the way he touched and stroked and coaxed her, and she was possessed by the urge to explore him, to know him. She caressed and kissed him everywhere, filling her senses with him and feeling so warm and connected and aroused that her senses whirled in wonder.

The endless minutes spun out into honeyed strands of desire, and when finally they joined, she felt the silky-moist fit of their bodies, and everything came bubbling up to the surface, rising, roaring, and she clutched his shoulders and cried out his name and felt her own spasms trigger his. There was a moment, a breath, a heartbeat of complete and utter mutual shock, and then he poured into her, holding and cherishing her and then kissing her long and languidly while their bodies kissed, too, sweetly, but with an edge of pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain.

Rosie couldn’t move, and with Mitch lying atop her, even breathing was an effort. This was usually the awkward moment, the oh-God-what-have-I-done moment, but the regrets didn’t come. Instead, she savored the heavy warmth of his body collapsed on hers.

After a time he cradled her in his arms. She studied the antique pillows, perfumed and tied with ribbon, one of them embroidered with the woman’s words to her bridegroom:
For you, for always.
The beautifully embroidered pillow, redolent of ancient roses and filled with the promise of a magnificent love, brought tears, foolish tears, to her eyes.

She blinked them away quickly, and at the same time Mitch braced himself on his arms to kiss her, long and deeply. It was that particular kiss that undid her, because it was so heartfelt and so unexpected.

When he moved away she saw him discard the condom and she was confused. She hadn’t even remembered him pausing to take precautions. But she was grateful he had; it was typical of him to be discreet. Considerate. And always prepared.

He slipped on his boxers and twill slacks, then, with a gentle smile playing about his lips, he sat on the side of the bed. “You look incredibly beautiful,” he said softly.

Suddenly too conscious of her nakedness, she pulled an old quilt over her. The delicate fabric released a wafting of cedar and lavender.

“So,” he continued, stroking his finger down a lock of her hair, “is this the start of the painfully awkward stage?”

“That was way too wonderful for me to have regrets so soon.”

“My thoughts exactly, Professor.”

L
ate that afternoon the rain stopped, leaving a clear wash of light and fresh shining green everywhere. Rosie, who had been reading
The Sheik
by the fire, looked out the window and smiled. “Sun’s out again.”

Mitch took a blueprint pencil from behind his ear. “I forgot to call the deli for dinner.”

She set aside her book and stretched luxuriously. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. All day she’d had a tousle-haired, full-lipped, well-loved air about her. She made it hard to concentrate, but somehow, he got a lot of work done. Amazing.

“We’ll make dinner,” she said. “Remember, we’ve got a great bottle of wine to drink with it.”

“We don’t even have anything to cook.”

“So we’ll go to town and get something.”

“It’s a long walk.”

“No need to walk.” She took his hand and led him to the old carriage house that served as a garage. “I found this while I was poking around.”

It was a tandem bicycle, slightly rusted around the rims but otherwise in working condition. “I haven’t ridden a bike in twenty years,” Mitch confessed.

“I’m so surprised,” she said wryly, wheeling the tandem out onto the gravel drive. “Get on. They say you never forget how.”

She took the front position. “Ready?” she said over her shoulder.

“I suppose.”

They took off, wobbling at first but then finding their rhythm and gliding out onto the smooth asphalt road. The deep old-growth forest gleamed with moisture, filling the air with the fecund aroma of evergreen. Sunlight, filtering down through the massive Sitka spruce and cedars, took on a misty greenish glow.

“It’s beautiful,” Rosie called over her shoulder. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

He looked up from his contemplation of her derriere and studied the forest. She made him see the wild splendor as if for the first time. The glitter of raindrops on lush ferns. The rich red of madrona blossoms. The rise of a pheasant from a grassy field, and patches of sky through the forest canopy. She made him think about it. Cherish it.

“Yeah,” he said at last, watching the way the wind lifted her hair. “Yeah, it is.”

The sleepy island village consisted of a chandlery and delicatessen, a tourist shop and clothing boutique, and a small but well-supplied grocery and farmers’ market. Rosie insisted on buying things he had never bought in his life—a bunch of cilantro, local prawns, a sack of masa harina, some homegrown tomatoes and onions, a lime, a pound of butter. She selected Rainier cherries for dessert and a stack of postcards to mail to her family.

An hour later she was in the kitchen, salsa music blaring, a bossy air surrounding her as she chopped and sautéed, making a huge mess and creating the most mouth-watering aromas. Mitch was relegated to chief gofer, setting the table and hanging around the stove. At eight o’clock she came into the dining room looking adorably disheveled and a little smug. “How about you open that wine,
jefe?
”

She laid the table with a stack of homemade tortillas, the grilled prawns and vegetables, and sour cream and salsa. Mitch opened the wine, a little concerned when the cork broke in two.

“The moment of truth,” he said, pouring some into a glass. He took a sniff, then a sip. Surprised, he handed the glass to Rosie.

She tasted it, a ruby droplet adorning her lip. “It’s delicious.”

“That’s what I thought.” He filled his own glass and then his plate, his palate ecstatic over the spicy prawns and nutty-warm tortillas. “My teeth are singing.”

“Oh, please. Now you’re a poet.”

“You’re a woman of many talents, Dr. Galvez,” he said, tilting his glass in her direction.

She laughed. “While everyone else was learning money management, I was learning to cook.”

There was something simple and pleasant about sharing a meal they had shopped for and prepared together. They lingered at the table, savoring the food and the wine and each other’s company. Even doing the dishes had a comfortable domestic feel to it, and when they were done, Rosie took the bowl of yellow blushing Rainiers from the refrigerator.

“Ready for dessert?” she asked.

She was doing it again, looking unbearably adorable.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready for something sweet.”

“It’s nice out tonight. We could have them on the front porch.”

He took the bowl from her and pressed her up against the edge of the counter. “We could have them in bed,” he said just before he kissed her.

“Your bed or mine?” she asked.

Rosie had never had such an interesting time with a bowl of cherries in her life.

Mitch conceded, in the days that followed, that Rosie had a lot to teach him. He’d never seen the point of lying in the grass and watching the clouds go by—until Rosie. He’d never flown a kite—until Rosie. He’d never watched a spider spin a web—until Rosie.

She showed him how to thaw out and enjoy the moment. She convinced him to walk barefoot on the beach, to listen to crickets at twilight, to take a nap in the hammock in the middle of the day. From Rosie he learned to roll a kayak and spot a school of fish, how to make tortillas and a chain of daisies.

Until Rosie, he hadn’t known the meaning of free spirited.

She wasn’t an employee, Mitch rationalized as he made love to her in the days that followed. He had always honored a personal policy of not getting involved with employees.

Rosie was someone with whom he’d contracted. For professional services.

He clung to that distinction because he wanted this affair with her, wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything.

After the day in the attic, an idyllic time began. They did their work, yes, but it was different. A magical glow seemed to gild each moment, and a sense of euphoria filled him when he was with Rosie.

He explained to her how he worked, and she showed him how to play. Seated at the scrubbed maple table, he helped her put her curriculum vitae on-line so she could start looking for another job. In turn, she took him swimming, fishing, cloud watching, beachcombing. They took long meandering cruises in the Bayliner and anchored in secluded coves where they could make love on the open deck.

He gave up trying to understand his need for her, his hunger. He’d always had a healthy libido, had always had an eye for a beautiful woman, but it was different with Rosie. She touched him on a level no one had ever reached before. She made him laugh. Made him angry sometimes. Filled him with passion—always. And he realized one day, when she came out of the bathhouse wearing a neon orange bikini and holding a box of snorkeling gear, that she was the first woman he’d ever met who had the power to break his heart.

The days all slid together into golden ribbons of sensual moments, aglow with the secret laughter only lovers share. The nights were woven of soft black velvet, when all the world seemed to sleep except two restless lovers, who stayed wakeful deep into the heart of the night.

They talked of everything: her unwieldy raucous family and the scarcity of sandhill cranes. His lonely childhood and her love of romance novels, his dislike of Barbra Streisand movies. Everything seemed important and relevant, everything from the proper amount of foam on a latte to the brand of the Chihuahuas’ favorite dog biscuit.

In the middle of the third week on the island, as they sat together on the porch swing, the cellular phone rang. Mitch was startled by the sound; almost no one on the island returned calls. Leaving Rosie rocking dreamily on the swing, he answered the phone and was a little disconcerted when the caller asked to speak to Dr. Galvez.

Mitch brought the phone out to Rosie, then went inside to get some brandy for an after-dinner drink. As he heard the low murmur of her voice through the screen door, he frowned. He was starting to like this far too much—watching sunsets, sleeping late, hearing her voice as she sat on the front porch. The thought of Seattle—the bustling downtown that used to give him such a shot of energy—now seemed bleak and gray. He couldn’t believe he’d spent so many years in a high-rise. If someone were to hold a gun to his head, he could not have said what color the walls of his condo were painted.

Strange. He could recite from memory the color of every room in this house, and he’d been here less than a month.

He poured the brandy and brought it out in two snifters. Rosie still sat on the porch swing, talking on the phone. She wore her red dress, and had one foot tucked up underneath her, the other trailing over the planks of the porch floor, causing the swing to rock.

“Thank you, Dr. Olsen,” she was saying, a slightly thunderstruck expression on her face. “I’ll have my decision for you by the end of the month.” She listened a moment longer, then said goodbye and turned off the phone.

Mitch handed her the brandy. “News?”

She took a gulp, then another. “That was a job offer.”

Something sank inside him. He had an instant flash of disappointment—she’d just received a dream job offer in the Florida Keys or off the Great Barrier Reef. He took a gulp of his own brandy.

“And?” he prompted.

She smiled broadly. “And you’re a genius, Mr. Rutherford. Dr. Olsen saw my credentials on the Internet. He wants me to work for the Puget Sound Underwater Biosphere. Huge corporate funding. I’m dazzled.”

He went down on one knee in front of the swing. “That’s in Seattle, right?”

“Yes. Near Pier Seventy-one.”

He set down his brandy glass and picked up her bare foot in both hands. Bending, he kissed her smooth tanned knee.

“So are you going to take it?” He pushed up the hem of her dress and nipped at her inner thigh.

She gasped. “It sounds like…a great position.”

“Mmm.” He pushed the hem higher. Since they’d become lovers, she’d developed the delightful habit of not wearing any underwear, and tonight was no exception. He teased and then tasted her, coaxing an involuntary cry from her, and he realized that he loved her like this, helpless and open to him while at the same time completely in command of him. The swing made for an unorthodox but fascinating position, one he found wildly exciting. When he could no longer wait, he reversed their positions, sitting on the swing and lifting her up to straddle him. He entered her recklessly, swiftly. She put back her head and he kissed her throat and the valley between her breasts, and the surge of movement created by the swing brought him to a swift searing climax.

She touched her damp forehead to his and then kissed him. She tasted of brandy and the faint salt of sweat, and he wanted to hold her like this forever, wanted to forget that their time here was coming to an end, that she had to find a job and he had to move on to other projects.

“So,” she said with a shaky laugh, “do you want to hear more about this job offer or not?”

He stood, reaching around behind her to unzip her dress. “Later, okay?”

She sighed. Helpless. Spellbindingly sexy. “Later.”

Mitch had never considered sleeping with someone a treat before. But with Rosie, it was a sweetness beyond description. He didn’t even mind the Chihuahuas, who showed him scant respect, though they slept curled in balls at the foot of the bed. Rosie was the essence of comfort, soft and warm and sleep-tousled, sighing lightly as she fitted herself against him with a natural ease. When he held her in his arms, breathed in the scent of her and felt the cool whisper of the bedsheets swirl around him, his spirit seemed to uncoil, to relax. He’d never experienced that before—that utter calmness, that perfect contentment to be in the middle of the moment.

He kept telling himself not to get used to this, not to expect this, not to want this to last forever, but his soul wouldn’t listen.

Neither mentioned the fact that it was their last week at the summer place, but the reality bronzed every moment with the gleam of desperation. They made love more frequently than ever, sometimes not even getting through breakfast without tackling each other on the window seat or on the old-fashioned fainting couch in the parlor.

A hot afternoon might be interrupted with a languorous session in broad daylight when the warmth of the sun and the isolation of the place made them aroused and pleasantly drowsy afterward.

By the time their last day of fieldwork arrived, Mitch had come to a decision. He had only known Rosie Galvez for a month, but he knew her better than anyone else on the planet. And he knew he needed her in his life.

Since the phone call from the biosphere facility, she’d gotten two other interesting offers—one in Alaska and one in San Diego. Since Mitch got a sick feeling inside each time he imagined life without Rosie, he planned to ask her to accept the Seattle offer.

It was the only way he could stand to think of the future.

Rosie had long since stopped trying not to fall in love with Mitch. As she loaded the kayak with gear for the final study of the area, she hummed a tune and let herself savor the heady joy of losing her heart.

Yes, he was a no-nonsense businessman like the other men who’d disappointed her.

Yes, it would probably end once they returned to the real world. She’d fallen in love with the Mitch of Rainshadow Lodge, the Mitch who danced to old Victrola records and made love to her on the porch swing and let her dogs sleep on the bed with them.

The Seattle Mitch was bound to be a different creature altogether. He ran a multimillion-dollar enterprise and worked eighteen-hour days. His secretary kept up with his mother’s birthday.

She resigned herself to letting this Mitch go, because being with him in Seattle would never work out. The San Diego job offer was too good to pass up, anyway.

But when Mitch came out of the house, tanned and smiling and ready to launch the kayak, she decided the news could wait. He looked different these past couple of weeks. He’d taken to wearing shorts, instead of creased slacks; T-shirts, instead of golf polos. He looked relaxed, happy.

The summer place had worked real magic on him.

“Where to, skipper?” he asked good-humoredly as they paddled out into the main channel.