Man From Tennessee (17 page)

“I never wanted you different and I never blamed you, Kern…” Like the waste of the fire, she felt the waste of so many years without him, so many years she could have loved him, been loved. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. Fiercely their lips met, an odd trembling in his body that communicated to her own, was matched in her own. If she had finally lost inhibitions with him at the waterfall, it was still nothing like now.

She reached for him in joy, caressing his neck and chest and back. It was all such riches—the way his heartbeat surged beneath her fingertips, the way his body was so beautifully male, his hard-muscled thighs no less arousing than the grainy skin of his tanned neck. A new rhythm kept beating inside, building; she didn’t want to give in to it yet. She wanted to savor the sensual sweetness of just freely loving him, and there was no part of him she didn’t want to touch, to learn all over again in loving…

He understood so well, loving her body with the same wonder that she loved his. But it was not the same. She could touch so easily, but not be touched so easily—there was a spot in the V of her throat where she could not bear the stroking caress of his lips. Her breasts had swelled before he touched them, but the languid lick of his tongue made her senses feel like velvet. Her back arched for closeness, rhythm inside beginning to sound in her ears, blocking out day and place and sunlight. The brush of his beard in the hollow of her stomach, and—

“No more, Kern, please…”

Sensations swarmed her senses. His lips covered the pleading in her throat, but he would not give in yet. His palm smoothed its way down her throat and breast and navel, to the silky down between her thighs until the rhythm was the only thing in her bloodstream, a surging love that craved completion.

“I love you, Tish, I love you, I love you…”

Her voice echoed the chorus, the song in her heart, the rhythm of passion rich in her blood and in her skin. When he moved over her, she felt his love, his cherishing in every motion he made. He took her with such sweet fierceness that she lost Tish completely, became part of Kern, their limbs and minds inseparable.

“Kern?”

Lazily Kern opened his eyes, inches from her own. They shared the same pillow, lying face-to-face, and Kern’s arm was draped over her shoulder. “I keep thinking about the fire,” she murmured. “I keep thinking of you close to it, if it had been our land, if…”

Gently she was tugged closer, sheltered next to his chest. “It started high, that was the problem,” he said quietly. “The sparks shot down, starting dozens of little fires. Anyone who could run, walk or crawl came to help, Tish, but not to play hero or try to do the firemen’s job. The area’s been so dry, and more sparks could have fallen. People were working as lookouts, to make sure that when one fire was out it stayed out.”

“And that was what you were doing? You weren’t any closer than that?”

“Mmm.” His eyes closed again, and Trisha rose up on one elbow, tugging at his beard. His lashes shuttered open again in response, but there was a deliberate effort not to meet her eyes. His gaze fell instead on the bare flesh in front of him. “The beard has to go,” he murmured as he rose up to kiss the tender hollow between her breasts. And it was tender, roughed from his love-play. “We can’t have you bruised, bright eyes…”

“You
were
in the thick of it, weren’t you?” she asked suspiciously.

“No one was hurt beyond the two in the beginning. Oh, cuts and scrapes, of course. The destruction could have been much worse.” He sounded as interested in talking fires as he would have about shuttling to the moon. She shivered all over when one finger stroked the hollow in her throat, and he looked up at her with a wicked smile. “You just can’t stand that, can you?” He leaned up to kiss the spot, one, two, three soft kisses, and then arched back, watching the goose bumps with satisfaction. “You’ve got one or two other little spots that seem to make you forget all about…”

“Kern!” Her flush made him chuckle, and she curled closer to him, slowly stroking the flat of his stomach that was just as susceptible to her touch. “I’ll find out,” she promised, as she nipped tiny bites into his shoulder. “Maybe not from you, Kern. Sooner or later you’ll have to unlock that door…”

“But not now.” He leaned over her, pinning her gently to the pillow, his eyes glinting devil-fire mischief on hers. “We need
rest.
We’ve both been up for more than two days straight with only a few hours’ sleep in between.”

“Rest,” she repeated innocently. “And that’s why you insisted on a day in bed, Kern?”

“It certainly is.”

“For another minute and a half,” she suggested as she ran her fingers gently down the slope of his back, urging him to her with the promise in her eyes.

“For thirty seconds,” he amended as his lips came down on hers.

Five women were gathered in the living room: Trisha and Rhea, a woman named Lotto, who was one of the ranger’s wives, and two local women with the soft twang of Tennessee in their speech. The quilting frame had all but temporarily destroyed the living room’s decor, but the pattern was nearly done. It was Trisha’s design and she called it “night song.” The colors in the quilt were the colors of the mountains—vibrant greens and dark browns, the lemon of sun and the clear blue of a summer sky.

The shop Trisha had wanted was more than a possibility. The shop space she’d found to rent was ideal in location, and she’d spent weeks searching out local women who might be interested in selling their wonderful quilts and rugs and needlework. But this one quilt was hers, and the laughter and joy that had already gone into it was reflected in the clear sapphire brightness of her eyes, in the smile that never seemed to leave her these days.

“Patricia!”

Her head jerked up from the needle at the surprising virulence in Kern’s tone. Her giant stood in the doorway with the flap of an envelope in his hand, glowering directly at her.

“Would you mind coming here for a moment?”

“Whoops. I’d tread lightly,” Rhea whispered teasingly next to her.

Trisha chuckled, divesting herself of threads and needles and patches and chair legs. The smock she wore was pale pink, loose and cool for the late August day, and open to show the creamy smoothness of her throat. Kern was already stalking back to his office, expecting her to follow, which she did, curious, more alert than annoyed at his unusually domineering attitude.

When she entered his quiet study, he pushed at the door behind her, all but slamming it closed. “I got a letter from my mother today,” he started out heavily. “Enclosed was a letter for you, which I mistook as a letter for me—” It was all very confusing, until he handed her the sheets of paper. “It evidently followed you all over the city. First to your apartment, then to where you were working, back to your apartment, and finally to my mother’s…”

She glanced up with a worried frown at the first line of the letter, studying Kern carefully. Her frown lifted, just a little. It had started out to be a very good act of vibrating anger, but his mouth was twitching. He was not as upset as he was trying to make her believe he was. She scanned the contents of the letter quickly:

There was a postscript referring to a potential dinner invitation.

Trisha refolded the papers from Cal Whitaker, slipped them neatly back in the envelope and tore them in half. The memory of that afternoon in his office whipped through her mind, an agony she thought she’d forgotten, and she looked up at Kern again with troubled eyes.

Kern took the two parts of the envelope from her hands and ripped the rest over and over into little pieces, glaring at her one minute, and the next tossing the whole mess in the air so that it floated down like snow. Her eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing. “So he had a hard time convincing you to go after what was ‘rightfully yours,’ did he? Tell me about it, Tish,” Kern suggested dangerously.

“Kern!” she sidestepped, wanting to laugh with him, as his hand reached for her but grabbed at air. She retreated two more steps as he advanced one more. “I want to tell you,” she tried to say gravely. “The day I left here I went to see him and walked out, Kern, I couldn’t…and then there was the fire. I heard about it the same night. I would have made sure he understood I didn’t want—but I forgot him, Kern, I…”

His damned arms were so long. Behind the desk was no shield. She was caught, and before she could maneuver he had lifted her up and over and they were both sitting in his overstuffed chair in the corner. “I thought you wanted to be free,” she said simply, kissing his cheek, his forehead, his eyelids to close down that glowering expression in his eyes. “It wasn’t something I ever wanted, Kern. I was trying to do what I thought you—”

“To hell with that. I want to know what he thinks he’s doing inviting you out for dinner!”

She chuckled, her fingers reaching teasingly for the buttons on his shirt, her lips brushing apologies on his throat. “Well, he’s just got that kind of ego, Kern; that’s his problem. You wouldn’t have cared anyway, would you have? I mean, you could have written him a legal brief yourself on what a frigid little wife you used to have…”

His mouth pressed on hers, shutting off her teasing, invoking all the promises of loving they knew in each other. “You’ve burst like a flower, Tish,” he murmured softly. “So much love in you—I can’t get enough…”

“And I’ve decided he’s right,” she murmured back, hiding her face in his neck when his fingers reached beneath the soft pink fabric to play against her skin. His fingers stilled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He’s right,” she repeated teasingly, her eyes wide open and innocent on his as she escaped from his lap before he could catch her again. “I have every intention of ‘taking you for all I can get,’ Kern. Although I certainly don’t have money in mind!”

“You come back here!”

She shook her head with a radiant smile. “I’ve got a houseful of people,” she said, scolding. “But Kern…when I went into town this morning…” She hesitated and then opened the door. “You know that little creek,
 
about twenty-minute walk from the camp? I think we should do the next one there. And for the third baby, we could go back to the waterfall again…”

“Trisha!”

She closed the door, singing with mischief and laughter and love inside. The four women were waiting with raised heads, demanding to know what Kern had wanted, teasing her for the flush of pink on her cheeks as she settled down to work again. The quilt was within an hour of being done. The women would go then. She could wait, to really savor the news with Kern. The look on his face had told her all she needed to know, that first startled expression rapidly changing to elation. He wanted children. Her children. And she felt absolutely exhilarated.

Kern was suddenly a giant in the doorway again, silent this time, his eyes strictly on his wife. The four other women glanced up at him and then at each other.

“It’s not as though we can’t finish this another time,” Rhea said as she moved toward the door.

“Yes,” Trisha said helplessly.

In five minutes they were alone in the room. “You didn’t really expect to just drop fireworks like that—” Kern started vibrantly.

“No.” She shook her head, laughing as she crossed the room to him. “I meant to tell you after a terrific dinner with chilled champagne. But I couldn’t wait, Kern.” She wound her arms around his neck, looking up at him with love-filled eyes. “I love you so!”

“And I love you,” he murmured deeply, and dipped his head to kiss her. “How soon?” he whispered.

“March,” she whispered back.

“You need
rest,
”
 
he scolded, as his lips gently claimed hers over and over.

“Rest?” she reminded him teasingly as she felt his fingers unsnapping the back of her dress. His hand faltered.

“Tish, if you actually need—”

She shook her head. “What I need, Kern, is you.” Fleetingly she thought how good and easy it was to say those words. And as Kern removed the last of their clothing, a look of happiness and love on his face, Trisha welcomed him with open arms, certain they shared the joy of knowing they were building a rich, new life—together.

Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA—a Silver Medallion in l984—followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.

She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.

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