Banish Misfortune (33 page)

"Know what?"

"Matthew has a twelve-year-old sister."

She just stared at him, unsure of her reactions. A part of her wanted to rage at him—the depth of her envy was an overwhelming surprise. She also felt an inexplicable longing for a solemn-eyed older sister for her baby.

"Where is she now?" She kept her voice deceptively level as she toyed with her coffee mug.

"With her mother. Maureen has her during the summer; I have her the rest of the time."

"Isn't that a little unusual?" There was no doubt as to her feelings now. They were sheer panic. If he'd already managed to get custody of one child, the second one should prove a piece of cake.

"We didn't fight over it," Springer said after a moment, his observant eyes recognizing her fear and doing his best to assuage it. "Maureen didn't want to be tied down."

"And you did? I thought you'd spent your entire adult life avoiding commitments."

"Just commitments I knew I could never keep. You haven't been going out of your way looking for any sort of commitment, either, as far as I can see."

"Matthew's enough for me," she said staunchly.

"And Katherine was enough for me," he shot back. "Until Matthew was born."

"Katherine?" Jessica echoed softly.

"Katherine," he verified. "Are you sure you never heard her name mentioned? I could have sworn—"

"Oh, her name was mentioned, all right," Jessica said lightly. "But there was never any mention that she was your twelve-year-old daughter. I only knew she was someone important to you."

"And you didn't bother to ask?"

She was too open and vulnerable to lie to him anymore. "I was afraid to."

That stopped him cold for a moment, and she waited to see how he'd respond. "She was in a car accident last summer," he said slowly. "My ex-wife was driving. Katherine's right leg was crushed—she's been through a lot this year." He seemed to hesitate. "She had the accident the night I spent with you at your apartment. That was why I left town without a word."

It was an apology, an explanation, however tentative. One that Jessica wasn't sure she deserved.

"Is she all right now?" she asked delicately.

Springer shrugged. "She's still in a brace. I'll find out when I get back to Seattle."

Jessica didn't even flinch at the reminder. "I'd better get to work," she said distantly.

Springer took the hint. "I'll leave you, then. I'm going to do something about the dock. Part of it's rotten—I'd hate to think of you going through it during one of your midnight swims."

The screen door had slammed shut behind his tall figure, and she found her eyes following him down the wide expanse of lawn to the lake. It took her a long time to turn back to Matt Decker.

The shadows came
over the house swiftly. Jessica looked up from Matt Decker's exploits to a gray, windy day, the not-so-distant crack of thunder finally penetrating her abstraction. The hot, sullen, muggy day had turned bad, and it was going to be a hell of a storm.

She flicked off the Selectric with only a small pang. She hated to stop when things were moving along so well, but she also didn't fancy electrocuting herself for the sake of Matt Decker. Another crack of thunder shook the house, and the lights flickered and went off.

Jessica was struck with a strange sense of d
éjŕ
vu. The power went off often enough around here, once every month or so. But it could never happen without bringing back to her memory the stormy night when Matthew was born by candlelight. And for the first

time she found herself wishing that Springer had been with her.

Another crack of thunder, this one close enough to rattle the windows, pulled her out of her reverie, and she raced upstairs to close the windows left open in the early-morning heat.

There was still no rain when she finished with Matthew's downstairs bedroom, and she paused long enough to wonder where Springer was. He must have enough sense to know the lake was dangerous in a thunderstorm. She couldn't allow herself to worry about him—he was old enough to take care of himself.

Stepping out onto the porch, she peered toward the lake. There was no sign of Springer down there, and she perched on the edge of the railing, content to watch the violence of nature from her safe haven. The lake was an angry black, the foam of the whitecaps a delicate lace trimming. The lightning split the roiling dark sky with malevolent regularity, and the pine trees by the shore bent with the wind. It was awesome and frightening in its elemental majesty, and the longer Jessica watched the more peaceful she felt in comparison. The storm outside was storm enough for her—inside, all was still and calm and very clear.

She could see her vegetable garden in the distance, its neat weedless rows a tribute to her compulsiveness if nothing else. The old red barn, all that was left of the farm that had preceded the MacDowell summer house, stood tall and proud against the blackening sky. The Gebbies used it for haying—bales and bales of hay were stored there right now. The door flapped open in the wind, and Jessica

watched it in dismay. It would have to be the door on the west side, she thought dismally, wincing as the thunder crashed again. The rain always came from that direction, and the bulk of the hay was stored directly in the line of the weather.

In the short time Jessica had lived in Vermont, she'd been inundated with stories of barn fires, usually caused by improperly dried hay. The Gebbies were far too industrious to ever risk storing wet hay, but would baled hay be just as dangerous if it got soaked by the rain?

She could telelphone the Gebbies and warn them. But she had always been warned to stay away from television sets, the telephone and running water during a thunderstorm. Of course she could close the door herself, race across the narrow field before the rain hit. Did cows ever get hit by lightning? Would a hapless human being?

She was barefoot, dressed in a loose cotton sundress that enveloped her slender body. She could always go up and find her shoes and a rain poncho, but that would take more time. She could ignore the noisy, flapping door and spend the rest of the summer worrying that the barn on her doorstep would burst into flames. Or she could bite the bullet, light out across the field immediately, and if the rain hit, she could always wait out the storm in the cavernous old barn.

It wasn't rain. It was hail, the size of acorns, and it started when she was halfway across the field, bounding off the grass, tapping against the wooden sides of the barn that loomed ahead of her, pelting her with tiny, stinging pellets that made her gasp with pain and temper. The rain came with it, a solid, drenching sheet of it, so that by the time she stumbled into the old barn she was soaked to the skin and feeling very much like an abused pincushion.

The wind was strong enough to fight her for possession of the door, and it took all her strength to pull it shut after her. She was panting from her headlong dash across the field, and her feet hurt from the stubbled grass. But the cavernous old barn with its insulation of hay muffled the fury of the storm, and in the dim light from the octagonal window up by the roofline the place looked surprisingly peaceful. The sweet-smelling hay tickled her as she plopped down on a loose pile of broken bales, and she surveyed her surroundings with, if not outright enthusiasm, at least a sense of safe harbour.
A port in a storm,
she thought, leaning back against the hay and listening with distant satisfaction to the steady thrum of the rain on the tin roof, punctuated by staccato bursts of hail. The thunder was an occasional fanfare in the distance, and Jessica lay there in the soft hay and listened to the symphony, wriggling her bare toes in the misty darkness.

A murky light washed across her as the side door was thrust open. She sat up quickly, and the door slammed shut again, plunging them both back into the shadows.

He moved slowly across the uneven floorboards of the old bam. She should get up and face him, she knew she should, not just lie there in the hay, her eyes wide, waiting, waiting.

The rain had plastered the thin white shirt to his strong torso, and the smell of the storm hung heavy in the air, mixing with the sweet scent of the hay. Someone had once told her that hay was an aphrodisiac. Watching Springer as he moved toward her in the darkness, she could well believe it.

He stopped within a foot of her, his dark eyes black, the raindrops clinging to the smooth planes of his face. She waited for him to say something, knew she should break the silence, but neither of them spoke. Slowly he raised one strong well-shaped hand and undid the first button of his drenched shirt. His eyes never leaving hers, his hand went to the second button, then the third. And then the shirt was loose around him, and he'd pulled it off and sent it sailing into the bed of hay beside her.

Her breath suddenly felt tight in her lungs, and her heart was hammering at a rapid pace. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again.

"How scratchy is the hay?" His voice was a low-pitched drawl as he kicked off his Nikes.

Somewhere she found her voice. "It's pretty soft. It's from an early June cutting, and the hay—" her voice choked for a second "—doesn't get coarse until July."

"Good," he said, kneeling down in the hay beside her. He checked the grass with his hands. "Not too bad. We can always put your dress under you."

"Springer..." The beseeching sound of his name was all that came out, and she kept her large, worried blue eyes trained on his face. He looked gentle, amused and very determined.

"Yes?" he said softly, waiting.

She sat there in the sweet-smelling hay with the storm all around her and the man she was afraid she loved kneeling in front of her. "Just Springer," she said on a sigh, reaching her arms up to twine them around his neck and pull him towards her. His mouth met hers, the impetus of his body continuing to push them down into the hay. His mouth was wet and strong on hers, his tongue searching and tasting her, meeting her response with obvious pleasure. His broad, strong hands ran along her sides, up under her dress, pulling it up over her head and tossing it to join his shirt. She lay there in the hay, wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of panties, smiling up at him with unhidden warmth in her blue, blue eyes.

"Some Ice Princess," he murmured, his mouth tasting the corner of hers. "Are you all right? Do you want something underneath you?"

She pulled him down on top of her with a sudden exuberant strength, kissing him deeply. "Just you," she growled sexily.

He laughed then, the sound of his pleasure echoing and wonderful in the empty barn. "That's very easily arranged," he said, rolling on his back and taking her with him. "But you have to do all the work."

She cradled his head in her hands, letting her gently questing mouth trail over his face. "All right," she murmured against his damp, parted lips. "But you'll have to help me. I've only done this once before."

"You were very good at it, as I remember," he said against her lips, and the tingling vibration tickled her. "Use your imagination."

His skin was warm and sleek beneath her hands, and she slid her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans to unsnap the snap. She pulled the jeans off him, wilh his help, and stripped off her panties, and then there were just the two of them, lying naked in the soft hay, relearning each other's bodies with slow, delicious fervor; all the while the storm raged outside.

In the end he did have to help her. With his willing cooperation she brought them both to the very pinnacle of desire, with her hands and her mouth and her body telling him how much she loved him while the words stayed unspoken. But at the last moment she hesitated, suddenly unsure, and his strong hands took over, pulling her willing body over his, arching up to fill her before those last-minute doubts could take hold.

They remained very still for a moment, not moving, and Jessica looked down with wonder at the face of the man beneath her and within her, the man who filled her body and her life, and she wanted to weep with the frightening wonder of it.

Springer's eyelids fluttered open, as if aware of her regard, and he smiled up at her, his expression slightly dazed, his breath shuddering in his chest as he tried to control the passion that raged through his body. "We should do this more often," he said in a husky whisper. "It sure beats the hell out of fighting."

She deliberately tightened around him, and was rewarded with a groan of pure delight. She felt deliciously powerful, and yet completely helpless in the face of this wondrous, frightening thing they shared. "I don't know," she said in a tiny, breathless whisper. "We always seem to end up like this before long."

"Thank heaven for that," he breathed fervently. His hands slid up her torso to cup her full breasts, his long fingers wickedly clever. "I like what our son did to your body. Remind me to thank him when he's older." Reaching up, he captured one nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue over the turgid peak, and this time her reaction was involuntary delight.

His strong, warm hands slid back down to capture her hips, pulling her forward, then rocking her back again. She caught the rhythm, a smile on her face.

"You're in such a hurry," she chided, keeping her voice level with an effort. "What's the rush? We have all afternoon."

He arched up against her, and a slow, unexpected moan of pure pleasure escaped her lips. Her tenuous feeling of control was slipping away, replaced by the sweet-smelling barn and the surging, thrusting passion that threatened to split her body. She should try to slow the pace, she thought dazedly, try to prolong the pleasure.

But there was no staying the inevitable. She could feel her body tremble, feel him tense beneath her, and then all conscious thought left her as wave after wave washed over her, and she could feel him join her, flooding her with love and delight.

She collapsed against him, and his strong arms came around her, cradling her tenderly. She was vaguely aware of his racing heart beneath hers, the tortured rasp of his breathing. Jessica wanted the moment to last forever, the sweet, savoring aftermath of passion strangely precious to her. She wanted to press her mouth against his sweat-damp chest and tell him that she loved him, she loved him.

She bit her lip, stilling the words that threatened to spill over. She was so very tired. Her body felt drained. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, her ears filled with the steady beat of the rain on the tin roof. There was no telltale click-click—the hail must have passed. The thunder rumbled in the distance, and Springer's heart slowed its tumultuous pounding beneath hers.

She should feel panic, she should try to move away. But she couldn't. Just for now she was going to ignore the danger signals, just for now she was going to rest in the comfort of his big strong body. Later she could run.