“Trisha, you must be curious after all this time,” Julia said. “Don’t tell me the situation is the same as it was before.
Trisha’s jaw dropped. There had been no hint in five years that Julia had ever wished the two of them back together. Julia was the one who had coddled her Grosse Pointe style, decrying everything about the mountain life her son had chosen. “Exactly
Julia’s eyes shuttered, and she fussed with the blanket pulled to her chest. “You could do it now, Patricia. Convince him to come back home. You could have persuaded him before, but now… You’re a much more beautiful woman. You’ve got grace and style and confidence. I don’t blame you for hating all this-this primitive country-but if you were both back home…”
“Lord, I don’t believe this!”
Julia regarded her with utter calm. For a moment Trisha even wondered if Julia had arranged for the bluish tinge on her lips, the odd little half breaths, the physical weakness. And then she felt horribly guilty for the thought. “Oh, Julia,” she scolded wearily. “That really isn’t why you insisted on making this trip, is it?”
“I wanted to know how Kern was, of course. But Roberts could have driven me. There must be some reason I have a chauffeur,” Julia said reasonably.
“You told me his family was ill.”
“Hmm.”
Trisha rolled her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “Neither of us has been carrying a torch all this time. How could you even think it!”
“You’ve never gotten a divorce.”
“That’s just a piece of paper!”
“So’s a marriage certificate. But you kept that,” Julia said pleasantly.
“That’s completely different. I knew I never wanted to marry again; there just wasn’t any point…”
“All right,” Julia said calmly, her eyes so shrewdly assessing that Trisha had the urge to shake her. “Whatever you say, darling. But all I want to do is spend a couple of days. You can’t desert me when we’ve come this far. At least wait until I feel a little better.”
“Wrong, Julia. That’s just what you have a son for. I’m leaving in the morning.”
Trisha refused to listen any further. Julia was tucked in, the curtains pulled closed, her case unpacked for her and the tray taken care of. By the time Trisha finally left the room, Julia’s eyes were closing.
Wearily Trisha wandered outside, her hands dug in the pockets of her cream silk slacks. For a few minutes she simply refused to think about Kern or Julia, or Rhea. She was exhausted, disturbed and unsettled inside.
The peace of the evening reached out to her like a gift. The peaks were silhouetted in the brilliant flame colors of the falling sun. The pine trees studding the mountains took on burnished hues…she had expected no peace, but it was there suddenly, and her rapid stride slowed.
Her feet automatically took a certain trail. There was a waterfall she remembered, a secret place, too far to reach this night, but the direction was instinctive. She took her hands from her pockets and hugged her arms against the evening chill. The trees cradled her in shade, rustling whispers just above her. Just once she wanted to remember this country without anguish, without memories, just to savor the old dreams…
The night sounds began suddenly-the eager restless rustlings of animals who preferred the darkness to do their living. The Smokies were a protected area, for fauna and for animals. Possum, raccoon, white-tailed deer, wild turkey and fox frequently ventured onto Kern’s land. The animals and particularly the snakes that she had once been afraid of didn’t affect her this night.
She walked an hour or more. It was a tar-black sky when she ventured back to Kern’s, guided by patches of moonlight between the trees. Her sandals were soaked with dew by the time she returned. The breeze had tugged loose her chignon and gold strands of hair ribboned across her cheeks. She was chilled, bone weary, but more at peace from her solitary hour in the mountain night than she could ever remember. There was just something about the air. Light-headed, strangely euphoric, she plucked a white blossom as she crossed the clearing behind Kern’s house, lifting it to smell the heavy sweet fragrance.
He was there, in the shadow of the doorway, perhaps a hundred yards away. All in black, the sling gone. She couldn’t see his face or any of him clearly. But she knew it was Kern. She dropped the blossom, instinctively digging her hands in her pockets again. It was an effort to switch off that deliciously sensual mood and convert it to a cool, polite smile. “Kern?”
He started walking toward her, his eyes meeting hers in the darkness. A knot tightened in her chest. He looked so damned primitive, black on black, his eyes glinting silver. As he came closer, she was desperately trying to come up with some polite, safe conversation.
But he didn’t talk. He just kept coming. Like the night closing in and an illusion of slow-motion time, he walked right up to her. The fingers of his left hand threaded through her hair and gently tugged. Her face was raised to moonlight, her lips already parted in shock.
He blocked out the stars, moon and sky when his head bent to hers. His arms cloaked her chilled skin in vibrant warmth. His lips were soft, tantalizingly sensual next to the bristling texture of the beard. Her neck arched back, cradled in his left hand, her breast pressed against his chest.
It was so completely unexpected. She was still trying to think of polite things to say, still trying to pretend that the mountain night hadn’t touched her with the promise of old dreams. His lips brushed hers, over and over, and then sank in thirstily. Her mouth was the vessel, open to the erotic exploration of his tongue, the sensual touch firing a strange ache and longing inside. For just a moment she was someone else, not the painfully inhibited Trisha who had fled from Kern’s bed. She was just a woman, lost in the chilled night air, reaching out from loneliness to the one person who knew all about loneliness.
“Tish…”
The soft lips left hers, trailed to the sensitive skin of her neck. His fingers roamed slowly from the nape of her neck to her shoulder, gradually seeking the silky skin of her throat beneath the blouse’s fabric. She heard a murmur escape from her lips and felt a frightening weakness as if she needed to hold on. Her hands found his waist, pressed into his flesh, and suddenly her heart was beating rapidly. He smelled so warm. None of it made sense. Confused, she tried to draw back.
“No, no. Not yet, Tish,” he murmured. His mouth covered hers just as his palm covered her heartbeat, then edged just inches over to claim the uptilted orb of her breast. Voltage shocked through her at his touch. Her breasts were small; suddenly they felt huge, almost painfully swelling in response. Her fingers dug into his skin and suddenly his head lifted from hers. Silvery dark eyes studied her.
She shivered, heard a low moan in the distant trees that reminded her of old fears…of failing him. Of a hundred embraces that had ended in disaster, even if they had not been quite like this one. But to put herself in that place again… She jerked back, clutching the collar of her blouse together.
Her voice quavered. “I don’t believe you did that.”
“And I don’t believe how much you’ve changed.”
She bit her lip as he followed her back into the house. Only in the dimly lit kitchen did she glance back at him. He just stood in the doorway, his one hand loosely massaging the back of his neck as if he were tired. But the look in his eyes wasn’t at all tired. The look in his eyes frightened her. He knew she had responded; he knew it wasn’t the same.
She pushed her hair back from her face and turned from him. If she were home, she would have had a cup of tea. After what just happened, she wondered shakily if he stocked any of the mountain-made whiskey.
She had had no dinner, but lunch had been eaten late on the road, and she knew she couldn’t handle food right now anyway. She just needed something to put her to sleep, to settle her nerves. Grateful for his Lowery upbringing, Trisha found not whiskey in the cupboard but the finest Cognac. “Do you want a glass?”
He nodded silently. She poured for both of them, handed him his glass and then backed deliberately to the counter by the door. There was less than an inch of fluid in her glass. She gulped half of it, staring out the dark window, and then moved resolutely toward the door.
“We’re going to talk about it, Tish.” His voice was low, as gentle as it was unmistakably a warning.
“No. Please, no.”
She took two more steps toward the door but his rapid pace beat hers. It was Kern who pushed the swinging door so she could pass through. A halo of light from the living room lit the hall. “I’ll get your suitcase.”
“I can get it.” The green bag was still by the front door, carted in when Trisha had brought Julia’s things.
