The Return of Cord Navarro

She thought she caught a warning note in his voice, but before she could question it, he explained that her father had sounded deeply tired himself, and when he suggested he get some rest, her father had agreed. “If your folks and you start talking about Matt, they might not be able to sleep.”

That made sense, enough that she dismissed her nagging sense that Cord had left certain words and emotions untouched. He was trying to shelter her from the world; she’d be a fool not to, at least briefly, accept the gift.

“I must have fallen asleep down there.” Her legs began to tremble and she lowered herself, less than gracefully, near him. She’d been right; his warmth was enough to reach her. Ah, Cord, you are beautiful, beautiful and competent and primitively sexy. “Then-I don’t know what was going through me, something unsettling. It woke me.”

“You were thinking about Matt.”

Of course she was, but enough pieces of her dream remained that she had to admit it was more than that- something to do with Cord, his body, whispered words, coming together. Unsettling didn’t say the half of it.

“I hope he’s asleep.”

“I’m sure he is.”

He was saying that for her sake; she was unbelievably grateful to him for that. “He always sleeps curled up on his right side,” she began. “Do you remember when he couldn’t go to bed without that teddy bear my mother bought him cuddled in his arms?”

“He still has it, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. In a dresser drawer. He doesn’t want his friends to see it, and I don’t think he looks at it very much, but…he’s growing up so fast.”

“Too fast. I miss-How many times did you sit with him in that rocker your folks gave you, trying to get him to fall back asleep? I’d get up in the middle of the night and find you and Matt rocking in the dark. You humming. Him playing with your chin.”

“You remember that?”

“You looked so content, tired but content. And beautiful. The chair always groaned a little. I asked if you wanted me to fix it, but you said the sound lulled Matt.”

Momentarily stripped of words, she rested her head on his shoulder. When he wrapped his arm around her, she struggled to keep the sound inside her confined to a sigh. He called her beautiful? What he’d just told her was exquisite. “It was good then, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I want… I want-I have this unbearable need to send him some kind of message,” she tried around what boiled inside her. “Tell him we’re getting closer, and if he’d stop moving, it won’t take nearly as long for us to find him.”

“He wants to do this on his own.”

“I know he does. He’s made that clear, hasn’t he?” She shouldn’t run her hand inside his shirt and spread her palm over his chest, but the gesture seemed so natural. So right and necessary. Yes. It had been good between them, once. “He-am I a terrible person for saying this? All I’ve thought about for days now is Matt. I’m tired of it. Tired of being scared and upset, my stomach in a knot. I just want to go back to what it was before.”

“No. You aren’t crazy.”

Before she could think what, if anything, she needed to say in response to his incredible wisdom, he cupped his hand over hers and pulled it off his chest. With her fingers still cradled inside his, he held her palm close to his face and covered it with light kisses.

“Every emotion you have, no matter what it is, is all right.”

What about what I’m feeling now, Cord? How are you going to deal with it? How am I?

“I don’t know what my emotions are, not really.” She tried the words, but they didn’t feel right. Maybe nothing she said would. After a minute, during which he touched his lips to the back of her hand, she forced herself to straighten.

Never in her life had she felt more isolated. It wasn’t just the surroundings and the reason they were here. But over the past seven years, there’d always been something to keep her from concentrating totally on Cord and that hollow place deep inside her that refused to heal. She wanted it that way, fought to keep him locked away where he couldn’t reach her. When they talked about such things as shared custody and the particular stage Matt was going through and where Cord had just been, she hadn’t let herself think about him and her. About what remained of her love for him.

Tonight she couldn’t tap into the world beyond Copper Mountain, and she didn’t dare let her thoughts go to Matt. That left only Cord and stars and the moon, trees that had been growing for hundreds of years, memories of ancient Indian tribes, Mother earth, Father sun; breathing with everything that made up the incredible wilderness.

Cord.

She’d never told him this, but she followed his career with the devotion of a loyal fan. She didn’t cut out newspaper clippings or keep the article in People magazine because…

Maybe because that would mean acknowledging something she didn’t want to. But she’d committed those accounts to memory. Because, if he possibly could, he always called Matt before leaving on a rescue, and she’d know when to start listening to the news for word of him, when to worry about his safety.

This time she didn’t have to listen and read and wait for a phone call. She had Cord next to her.

“I love the night sky.” She’d said that last night; she was sure of it. But she needed to hear the sound of her voice and learn how Cord might respond to it. Forget danger. Forget everything except need and hunger and the two of us alone, together. “Those city lights we used to look out at when we were in that stupid, cramped little apartment? How could I think they were exciting?”

“They are to some people.”

“But not to us.” Us. “Cord?” She heard her voice speaking his name but couldn’t think what she’d been about to say, if anything. “Cord?” she tried again. “I am so glad you’re here.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

She expected him to assume that she needed his expertise to locate Matt and that’s why she wanted him on the mountain with her. If he’d said that, would she have let it go at that?

But he didn’t speak. Instead, he freed her hand and with weathered fingers and palm began an exploration of her throat. She sat as motionless as his caress would allow. Her mind drifted, briefly, flitting into the past, touching on a thousand restless nights when she slept alone. There’d been two men she’d thought she’d begun to care for, but they hadn’t touched her soul in that way only Cord had.

She should have put him behind her. They were divorced, finished.

But they weren’t.

There was no need to ask permission. His touch had already told her everything she needed to know about his reaction to tonight and them. When she bracketed his face with her hands and pulled herself close to kiss him, she felt a deep shudder that might have come from either or both of them.

He met her open-mouthed; his breath rushed against her.

Her body came alive.

Bold, so bold that there was no questioning the move, she slid her hands down him, unbuttoning and pulling at the same time until she’d laid his chest bare. Although he tried to continue their kiss, she pulled free so she could run her mouth over his chin, down his throat, to the soft mat of hair that covered his chest. With her tongue she worked her way through the slight barrier until she could take his taste, his essence even, deep into her.

She felt his body tense.

She still needed words and emotions from him. She would always need those things. But tonight she could forget what had torn them apart and lose herself in what was both achingly familiar and so new that her heart sang with discovery.

He’d caught a few strands of hair that dropped along the side of her neck and was letting them slide lazily through his fingers. She concentrated on the slight tugging followed by a sensation of release. He held her hair in the shelter of his hand. Played with her. Promised.